Mexico City Grand Prix wins international sports award

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October 10, 2019

Water customers line up to pay their bills in Morelia, but many don't bother.

Arrears on unpaid water bills have reached hundreds of millions of pesos in Morelia, Michoacán, where state and local governments, as well as a university, have failed to keep their accounts up to date.

The general manager of the local water utility said the 500-million-peso (US $25.6-million) debt “has created financial problems.”

“The average rate of nonpayment is 10%,” said Julio César Orantes Ávalos. “Some of the users who account for unpaid bills are the largest users, to the tune of 500 million pesos. We have payment plans to allow them to get their accounts current. They are making weekly payments, like in the case of the state government.”

Orantes said the biggest debtor is the University of San Nicolás de Hidalgo, which owes 53 million pesos. The next largest are the state government at 16 million pesos, the Morelia municipal government at 11.5 million, and the Secretariat of Education, 11 million.

It’s not just large consumers who are behind, but small users too. Just half keep their accounts current.

The Morelia municipal council has suggested raising water rates in order to make up for the unpaid bills. The rates are already among the highest in the country.

Orantes said that although the water utility is currently functioning with a deficit of 150 million pesos (US $7.7 million), it has enough to pay its 700 employees for the rest of the year. He is hoping payment plans will help reduce the staggering debt.

“The state government, the university [and] the municipal government are getting their accounts current during this administration, [and] they are reducing their debts.”

Sources: Milenio (sp), La Voz de Michoacán (sp)

Results of National Guard deployment will be seen ‘very soon:’ interior secretary

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October 10, 2019

Interior Secretary Sánchez in the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday.

Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero has expressed confidence that the National Guard will achieve positive results in the fight against violence and insecurity “very soon,” but not by itself.

Addressing lawmakers in the lower house of Congress on Wednesday, Sánchez said the new security force “is taking the essential steps for its integration and deployment” and has a “solid legal framework” within which to operate.

“Results will be seen very soon,” she said.

Formally inaugurated at the end of June, about 70,000 National Guard members have already been deployed to 150 regions across the country but the government has said that its ranks will swell to 150,000 by 2021.

National homicide numbers remained unchanged between July and August – the first two full months of the National Guard’s nationwide deployment – but Guanajuato and Michoacán both saw significant increases in violence, and Mexico is still on track to record its most violent year in recent history.

State and municipal police part of the security plan, interior secretary reminds senators.

While expressing optimism that the National Guard will be successful in reducing violence, Sánchez stressed that it will not be able to achieve peace across Mexico on its own.

“. . . Without the purification, restructuring and strengthening of the state and municipal police,” it will be impossible to meet citizens’ demands for security in the nation’s “streets and squares, roads and highways, cities and the countryside,” she said.

Sánchez emphasized the importance of state governments’ “on-time” compliance with Article 7 of the reform decree that created the National Guard, “so that state and municipal police have the essential resources for their strengthening.”

Article 7 stipulates that state governments must present an assessment of the capacity of state and municipal police forces and a plan to strengthen them. They must do so by the end of November.

The federal government has allocated funds in the 2020 budget so that states can execute police reinforcement plans.

Asked by opposition lawmakers about the high levels of violence in the 10 months since the government took office, the interior secretary stressed that the situation isn’t new but one that has been inherited from past federal administrations.

“We have this problem [because] young people weren’t looked after, victims of violence, which mainly comes from organized crime, weren’t attended to,” Sánchez said.

Inaugurating the National Guard on June 30, President López Obrador acknowledged that his government has not yet made progress in combating the high levels of insecurity.

“Solving the serious problem of insecurity and violence is something we still have to do . . . We can’t say that we’ve advanced. Unfortunately, in that area the same conditions that we inherited from previous governments prevail,” he said.

In August, López Obrador took specific aim at former president Felipe Calderón, who launched the so-called war on drugs by deploying the military to fight cartels shortly after he took office in 2006.

“Calderón stirred up a hornet’s nest and we inherited all this that we suffer today,” he said.

“He didn’t even have a plan, and instead of attending to the causes, he wanted to solve the problem in a spectacular fashion, using only force.”

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Asylum-seeking migrants’ blockade closes Matamoros crossing

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October 10, 2019

Thursday's blockade at the Matamoros border crossing.

The Gateway International Bridge between Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and Brownsville, Texas, was blocked on Thursday by as many as 400 migrants waiting for asylum hearings in the United States.

The occupation, which began about 1:30am, affected drivers and pedestrians who cross the bridge on a daily basis for work or school.

Federal forces were sent to the Mexico side of the border crossing and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents were posted on the north side of the bridge.

Activist Gladys Cañas of the migrants’ support organization Ayudándoles a Triunfar (Helping them Triumph) attempted to convince the migrants, most of whom are from Central America, to leave the bridge on Thursday morning.

“You are affecting the economy of us Mexicans and also of those in the United States. This is not worth it, guys. I’m asking you to reconsider; this is not the way to find a solution,” she said.

“You are affecting many people who work, and many people who study. We aren’t the ones responsible for the situation you are in,” she added.

The bridge is used primarily by local traffic, factory workers, tourists and pedestrians.

In July, the Associated Press found about 19,000 names on lists of asylum-seekers in four Mexican border cities.

The mayor of Matamoros told the migrants Thursday morning that he sympathized with their plight. “I understand how you feel, you’ve been here for months and we are doing everything we can but you have to understand that we are limited, as Mexican officials, because the ones who authorize political asylum are the American authorities,” Mario López said.

By mid-afternoon on Thursday, the crossing remained closed.

Source: Hoy Tamaulipas (sp), Brownsville Herald (en)

Oaxaca lagoon turns pink but not thought to be toxic: biologist

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Simon Schatzberg

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October 10, 2019

Pink-colored water of Oaxaca's Manialtepec lagoon.

The water in a Oaxaca lagoon that is famous for its bioluminescence started changing color on Tuesday and is now a deep shade of pink.

Scientists are not sure about the cause of the color change at Manialtepec lagoon, which is located about 15 minutes away from the coastal city of Puerto Escondido, but suspect it is related to a change in the microorganism population in the water.

The lagoon is known for its glowing bioluminescence, which is caused by the decomposition of certain algae. According to biologist Alejandra Torres Ariño, the color change is probably related to a change in the composition of organisms present in the lagoon, which itself could be caused by a change in salinity or fertilizer runoff from recent rains in the state.

Torres, who teaches at the Universidad del Mar, said she is waiting for results to come back on tests to determine what organisms are present.

“At first glance, it doesn’t seem toxic, but we need to make sure . . .” she said.

Studies are under way to determine why the lagoon's water has turned pink. — Studies are under way to determine why the lagoon’s water has turned pink.

However, Torres noted that although the phenomenon is probably not a threat to human health, it is destructive to the ecosystem because it means the lagoon is being invaded by organisms that are not native to the region. The high nutrient load makes it hospitable to invasive species, she said.

The phenomenon is similar to another event that occurred in Bajos de Coyula, Oaxaca, in 2016, when a biological reaction caused lagoons to turn red and purple. Torres said that the cases appear similar, but could be caused by totally different phenomena.

Source: NVI Noticias (sp), El Sol de Puebla (sp)

Agroforestry employment program will encourage planting trees in narco land

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October 10, 2019

Chapo country, where agroforestry may replace narco crops.

The federal government will extend its agroforestry employment program to parts of the country where illicit crops are grown, such as Badiraguato, Sinaloa, the birthplace of convicted drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

President López Obrador said on Wednesday that the decision to expand the Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life) tree-planting program to such areas was made because the government has seen that farmers are willing to give up growing illicit crops and cultivate legal ones, such as corn and beans, instead.

The president also highlighted the success of the program to date, stating that timber-yielding and fruit trees have already been planted across more than 500,000 hectares by over 200,000 people.

“It’s the largest job creation program in the country, possibly in the history of Mexico, not just in the countryside . . . never were 200,000 workers hired in one program in one year . . . It’s definitely the best [program] of its kind in the world,” López Obrador said.

He said the program’s budget will increase to just over 25.1 billion pesos (US $1.3 billion) in 2020 from 23 billion this year, and that the aim is to provide employment for 400,000 people and plant trees on one million hectares.

Welfare Secretary Albores presents a report at Wednesday's presidential press conference. — Welfare Secretary Albores presents a report at Wednesday’s presidential press conference.

“Why abandon the countryside?” López Obrador asked.

“Why do the campesinos have to go to try to make a living elsewhere . . . on the other side of the border, if they can do it in their communities? It’s a paradox, it’s a contradiction to have natural resources, wealth, with people who are poor due to abandonment, due to a lack of attention to the countryside. So, we’re going back to the countryside, that’s helping a lot,” he said.

People employed by the Sembrando Vida program are paid 5,000 pesos (US $255) per month.

López Obrador highlighted that the government is also supporting similar tree-planting programs in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador as part of a strategy to reduce migration.

Welfare Secretary María Luisa Albores, who has responsibility for Sembrando Vida, said the program will be extended to municipalities in the Golden Triangle, a notorious drug producing region that extends across parts of Durango, Sinaloa and Chihuahua.

She said the program has already had success in the Durango municipality of Topia.

“We were at an ejido [agricultural cooperative] in the Topia valley, where all the land was covered with drugs,” Albores said.

“Today the people tell us that it has decreased, that 90% of people are working on the Sembrando Vida agroforestry system. Between 5% and 10% are still sowing illicit crops, I’m talking about [opium] poppies and marijuana, but that’s going down . . .” she said.

Albores said that 229,091 people are registered in Sembrando Vida, a figure that represents 99.6% of the government’s target to create 230,000 jobs through the program this year.

She explained that it is operating in 362 municipalities in eight states, and that one in three people planting trees are women.

The Welfare Secretariat has an agreement with the Secretariat of National Defense to supply it with 100 million saplings that are grown at 12 army-run nurseries, Albores said.

Mahogany, cedar, cacao, rubber, cinnamon and soursop are among the trees currently being planted.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Financiero (sp)

Business sector issues warning over kidnappings in Tamaulipas

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October 10, 2019

Liana Jara is one of the people recently reported missing. She was last scene October 5.

A federation of business groups in Tamaulipas has issued an alert in response to a big increase in kidnappings in border cities, calling for urgent intervention by the government.

Federation president Julio César Almanza Armas described the border city of Matamoros as a “red zone,” as kidnappings there have risen sharply in the last two weeks.

“The Matamoros Chamber of Commerce is aware of actions against some businesspeople, professionals, who have been kidnapped in the last two or three months, and that is worrying,” said Almanza.

He also implored businesspeople in the most affected cities to take additional precautions and be more careful with their routines and schedules as much as possible, emphasizing that criminal groups no longer make distinctions between economic classes, putting all of society at risk.

Among the kidnapping victims are a well-known local doctor, manufacturing plant supervisors, business owners and female students who have disappeared during daylight hours in busy areas. In some cases, victims have been released following several days of captivity but relatives did not wish to reveal ransom terms, if any, reported Breitbart Texas.

Almanza mentioned a rumor about a possible criminal gang-imposed curfew that recently made the rounds on social media in Matamoros.

“There is a difficult situation, such as the one on social media last night, when people talked about a curfew at 8:00pm,” he said, although the claim was refuted by the local government.

Citizens in Matamoros have called for a demonstration on Saturday in the town’s main square to raise awareness of the kidnappings and overall insecurity in the city.

Sources: Milenio (sp), Posta (sp), El Mañana (sp), Breitbart (en)

Santa Lucía airport will be ‘white elephant,’ warns business group

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October 9, 2019

One of the designs that have surfaced of the new airport.

The Santa Lucía airport will become a “white elephant” in just “a few years,” according to the leader of a business group who claims that President López Obrador’s decision to build it was made on a “whim.”

Speaking out after a federal judge overturned one of eight suspension orders against the US $4.8-billion project, the president of the National Chamber for Industrial Transformation (Canacintra), José Enoch Castellanos, declared at a press conference on Tuesday that “we disagree” with the construction of the airport.

He called for “common sense” to prevail before public money is spent on the project, claiming that the airport won’t generate any “added value” for Mexico.

“There’s no point having strict austerity and even cutting jobs if the money [saved] is going to be invested in a black hole that will have no use,” Castellanos said.

The Canacintra chief claimed that the project is based on “fantasies” and “good wishes” rather than good planning as occurs for infrastructure projects in countries such as Singapore and China.

Canacintra chief Castellano: 'investing money in a black hole.' — Canacintra chief Castellano: ‘investing money in a black hole.’

“I have no doubt that projects like the [Isthmus of Tehuantepec] interoceanic corridor, which has been analyzed for years, can represent opportunity for Mexico,” Castellano asserted, adding that the same can’t be said about the Santa Lucía airport.

López Obrador made the decision to build the airport at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base in México state after canceling the previous government’s partially-built airport project at Texcoco.

The cancelation came after a controversial and legally-questionable public consultation last October that found almost 70% support to terminate construction of the new Mexico City International Airport.

Gustavo de Hoyos, president of the Mexican Employers Federation, said at the time that killing the airport project would be “the biggest waste of public resources in the history of the country.”

But López Obrador claimed that the project was corrupt, too expensive and being built on land that was sinking.

It is expected that around 18 million passengers will use the Santa Lucía airport in its first year of operations but its planned capacity is for 100 million passengers annually, although little detail has been provided to show how that will be achieved.

An official report released in April said the facility could reach saturation just 10 years after starting operations.

López Obrador announced the same month that construction would begin on April 29 but commencement has been delayed due to legal action filed against it by a collective that believes that reviving the Texcoco project is “legally possible.”

Source: El Economista (sp)

University workers go on strike but AMLO insists there’s no more cash

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October 9, 2019

Striking workers at the University of Guanajuato.

Employees of at least 30 public universities stopped work on Wednesday to demand additional funding from the federal government. But President López Obrador is adamant that no further money will be provided.

Among the workers who confirmed their participation in the strike were professors and administrative staff at the autonomous universities of Nayarit, Zacatecas, Morelos, Tabasco, Oaxaca, Michoacán, México state, Sinaloa and Chiapas, said Enrique Levet Gorzope, secretary general of the National Confederation of University Workers.

Most of the universities say they have insufficient funds to pay their employees’ salaries and/or benefits.

The Autonomous University of Nayarit has had a 1.8-billion-peso (US $92-million) budget deficit since 2017, the newspaper Milenio reported.

If the government doesn’t provide additional support to cover the wages of 4,700 teaching and administrative staff members, the workers have threatened to continue their work stoppage indefinitely, leaving 25,000 students without classes.

The autonomous universities of Zacatecas and Morelos say they lack funds to pay the salaries of 3,000 and 6,000 employees, respectively.

José Carlos Aceves, a union leader at the Sinaloa Autonomous University, said there is no money to pay end-of-year bonuses to staff.

About 167,000 students at the university, which has campuses in Culiacán, Mazatlán, Los Mochis and Guamúchil, will be affected by today’s strike.

The rector of the Guerrero Autonomous University, Javier Saldaña Almazán, said he currently has enough funds to cover salaries but two unions that represent more than 5,000 workers at the university decided to join the job action anyway.

University employees plan to converge on the lower house of Congress in Mexico City on Friday to stage a protest aimed at placing pressure on lawmakers to increase tertiary education funding.

However, López Obrador told reporters at his regular news conference on Wednesday that his government won’t give in to “blackmail” even if the whole country is shut down by strikes.

University funding can’t be increased above the inflation rate, the president said, because the government has a policy of austerity that must be respected.

“. . . There has to be order in budget management . . . We have to behave responsibly because if money is given away willy-nilly, we’d have to go into deficit, [raise] taxes, borrow money, increase the debt like it was before, and we’re not doing that now,” López Obrador said.

The president claimed that a lot of public universities have mismanaged their budgets and distributed funding irresponsibly.

Source: Milenio (sp)

CORRECTION: The previous version of the story mistakenly identified the school in the photo as the University of Guadalajara.

Grandmother becomes a star with her YouTube cooking channel

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October 9, 2019