In Oaxaca, 400 territorial disputes have cost 78 lives in 3 years

By

-

October 1, 2019

A dispute between Santiago Juxtlahuaca and San Martín Peras in the Mixteca region has been going on for years.

Territorial disputes in Oaxaca have cost the lives of at least 78 people since 2017, according to the state government.

Another 68 people have suffered injuries during heated conflicts over land ownership, while the disappearance of 12 people is believed to be connected to the same issue.

The Secretariat General of the Oaxaca government says there are currently more than 400 unresolved territorial disputes in the state, mainly in the Central Valleys, Mixteca and Sierra Sur regions.

The main reason for the high number is that 81.3% of all land in Oaxaca belongs to ejidos, or agrarian communities, and is therefore owned communally. Complicating the issue further is that half of the 394,000 registered ejidatarios, or community landowners, in the state, are deceased.

Efraín Solano Alinarez, head of the organization Unidad, Identidad y Raices de Oaxaca (Unity, Identity and Roots of Oaxaca, or Unir), told the newspaper El Universal that the figures explain why there is a state of permanent conflict in Oaxaca.

He said the first step in resolving the disputes, particularly in indigenous communities, is to fix the flaws in the collective land ownership system.

Solano said that it is often unclear who owns a parcel of land, explaining that the disorderly growth of towns has in some cases made historical boundaries difficult to identify.

The most serious conflicts occur when private property owners clash with ejidatarios, he added.

To solve the conflicts, the Unir chief said, the records of state and federal authorities need to be consulted to determine the rightful owners of disputed land.

Solano also said that more resources need to be allocated to mediating disputes. To oversee that process, he recommended the establishment of a dedicated government group.

The Unir chief also said that the presence of foreign companies in parts of Oaxaca, especially the Isthmus of Tehuantepec where several wind farms have been developed, has also raised the ire of landowners and led to conflicts.

Solano added that the federal government’s isthmus trade corridor project, which includes the modernization of the railway between Salina Cruz, Oaxaca and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, and new mining developments could make existing land conflicts worse or create new ones.

President López Obrador says the trade corridor and other projects such as the Maya Train will bring significant economic and social benefits to the south and southeast.

But Solano warned that “in Oaxaca, the triumph or failure of the president’s social goals will depend on the response he provides to agrarian conflicts.”

Source: El Universal (sp)

Entrepreneurs in Querétaro looking at China for suppliers

By

Simon Schatzberg

-

October 1, 2019

0

The Canton Fair complex, where Querétaro entrepreneurs will be looking for new Chinese partners.

A group of Querétaro businesses is planning a tour of China to look for new partnership opportunities in that country.

Lorena Jiménez Salcedo, Querétaro president of the Mexican Employers’ Federation (Coparmex), said the tour will seek to find new suppliers for Querétaro businesses, as well as other partnerships.

“In China, specifically, we’re mostly looking at suppliers, but we don’t have a specific focus on one area,” she said. “We’re going to look at different contacts that could work as suppliers both for medium and large businesses, or suppliers who can provide specific parts that are necessary for the production chain.”

The delegation will attend the China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair, which will take place from October 15 to November 4, and will be attended by around 20,000 businesses.

Jiménez said it is important for Querétaro business to look for alternative partners outside North America. The organization is also looking to build commercial relationships in Brazil.

Coparmex Querétero is also working with Querétaro’s World Trade Center on planning trade missions to other countries. The first will be a visit to Washington between October 1 and 4 to meet with personnel from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Mexican Embassy.

The announcement comes at a time when Chinese businesses are showing more interest in investing in Querétaro because of the trade war between China and the United States, according to Querétaro Sustainable Development Secretary Antonio del Prete Tercero.

Source: El Economista (sp)

Firm plans 7-billion-peso industrial park in Querétaro

By

Cody Copeland

-

October 1, 2019

0

Artist's rendering of new industrial park in Querétaro. — Artist's rendering of new industrial park in Colón.

The Mexican construction firm Construye Industrial announced that it will build a 7-billion-peso (US $354-million) industrial park in Querétaro, its third in the state.

To be located in the municipality of Colón, just 4.5 kilometers from the Querétaro Intercontinental Airport, the Kaizen industrial park will house both industrial and commercial facilities, as well as services such as a gas station and a 150-room hotel.

The investment includes 3 billion pesos for industrial logistics and manufacturing facilities and build-to-suit lots. Another 2.5 billion will go to data and call center offices, general offices and the hotel. And 2 billion pesos will be dedicated to commercial investments.

The Kaizen project will be LEED-certified, making it a green facility through the use of a sustainable transportation network, 100% renewable energy and the inclusion of green spaces.

The gas station will be the first in Mexico to offer not only gasoline and diesel but natural gas and electrical charges.

Construye Industrial says the project will generate around 1,500 jobs both directly and indirectly through the establishment of 150 businesses. It said it hopes to establish better salaries in the area due to the growth and development of different types of commercial services available to local residents.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Youths’ made-in-Mexico nanosatellite launches in December

By

Cody Copeland

-

October 1, 2019

0

The satellite will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket.

The first nanosatellite to be completely designed and made in Mexico will be launched from Cape Canaveral in December on a mission operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Approved by NASA last year, the AztecSat-1 was designed by students at the Popular Autonomous University of Puebla (UPAEP), together with the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) and the private space initiative MX Space.

“It is now ready to be launched into space,” said Andrés Martínez, director of special programs in NASA’s Advanced Systems Division. “It will be a historic day.”

The launch will take place on December 4 on Mission SpaceX-19, the Mexican Space Agency (AEM) reported.

“Our youth are making history,” said AEM director Javier Mendieta Jiménez. “It will be the first satellite to be launched during the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. It represents an achievement of young Mexican talent in the Fourth Transformation.”

The nanosatellite will be put into orbit by SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket, on which the Mexican development team worked.

“Their performance is now comparable to many NASA engineers,” said Mendieta.

Once in orbit, the AztecSat-1 will be allowed to interconnect and transmit data to the Globalstar satellite constellation.

AEM’s head of the AztecSat-1 project, Carlos Duarte Muñoz, praised the young people’s achievement.

“This launch will demonstrate that the talent of our young people can make history and is literally infinite,” Duarte said.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Taxes no deterrent to junk food consumption: AMLO

By

Simon Schatzberg

-

October 1, 2019

0

junk food — Taxes haven't stopped consumers from choosing less than healthy options.

President López Obrador acknowledged that taxes on unhealthy food and cigarettes have not been successful in discouraging their consumption, but the government plans on raising them anyway.

“It can’t only be about paying more taxes, there needs to be more information for the people,” he told his morning press conference on Monday.

The president also announced that his government will launch an awareness campaign to promote healthy diets.

“We’re going to carry out a media campaign,” he said. “It will be about how to eat well, eat healthy, and not be influenced by advertising that pushes you to eat junk food that not only affects your health, but also your wallet.”

He added that he hopes to promote traditional Mexican beverages as alternatives to soda, like pinole, pozol and chilate.

The government’s 2020 budget includes a new increase on cigarettes and junk food, which is expected to bring in an additional 62 billion pesos (US $3.12 billion).

Source: El Universal (sp)

7 days of Narda leaves a trail of damage on Pacific coast, killing at least 2

By

MND Staff

-

October 1, 2019

0

Washed-out bridges and mudslides cut off many communities in Guerrero.

Tropical storm Narda left a trail of damage along Mexico’s Pacific coast as it moved northward during the past seven days, hitting the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero particularly hard.

The storm claimed the lives of two people in Oaxaca: a 23-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy who were swept away by floodwaters while trying to cross rivers in the municipalities of San Pedro Mixtepec and San Jerónimo Coatlán respectively.

About 300 homes and at least 11 schools were damaged in the southern state as was the hospital in Tutupec, a municipality halfway between Puerto Escondido and Pinotepa Nacional.

At least nine rivers broke their banks, scores of trees fell, access to 47 Oaxaca municipalities was cut off and more than 800 people took refuge in shelters.

Federal transportation official Jaime López Carillo said that sections of three federal highways in Oaxaca collapsed due to heavy rain brought by Narda.

A National Guardsmen provides aid to flood victims.

Federal Highway 200 was closed on Monday from the Guerrero border to Puerto Escondido due to landslides and flooding, while sections of the Oaxaca-Miahuatlán-Puerto Ángel highway and the road between Pinotepa Nacional and Putla de Guerrero were also impassable.

Oaxaca transportation official David Mayrén Carrasco said that 23 rural roads in the state had also closed.

In Guerrero, Narda caused the collapse of sections of several roads and highways, triggered landslides, damaged schools, felled hundreds of trees, cut power in parts of the state and flooded about 800 homes.

Acapulco Mayor Adela Román Ocampo said the city’s three water supply systems sustained rain damage and that residents could be without running water for two to three weeks.

The newspaper Milenio reported that at least eight towns in the municipalities of Juan R. Escudero and Tecoanapa remained cut off on Monday after the Omitlán river broke its banks and caused a 100-meter-long section of road leading to a bridge to collapse.

In Tixtla, a municipality just east of the state capital Chilpancingo, the entire drainage system collapsed after Narda dumped torrential rain. One person was reported missing in the area.

Damaged bridge leaves Guerrero residents stranded.

Guerrero Governor Héctor Astudillo asked federal authorities on Monday to declare a state of emergency in 28 municipalities in order to access funds to purchase food, water and other essential supplies.

Narda also caused damage in Michoacán, Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit.

The Colima-Manzanillo and Manzanillo-Barra de Navidad highways closed on Monday due to landslides, while at least 120 homes were damaged in Jalisco. Three people were rescued from a flooded creek in Nayarit while activities in the port of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, were temporarily suspended.

National Civil Protection authorities said that rain brought by Narda forced the closure on Monday of schools in 138 municipalities in six states: Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Jalisco, Colima and Sinaloa.

The United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the remnants of Narda were located 210 kilometers northwest of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, at 10:00am on Tuesday.

Maximum sustained winds had decreased to about 45 kilometers per hour and no coastal watches or warnings were in effect but rainfall is still likely across portions of northwestern Mexico, the NHC said.

Source: Expansión Política (sp), El Universal (sp), El Imparcial (sp), Informador (sp), Milenio (sp)

AMLO favors university admission without entrance exams

By

Simon Schatzberg

-

October 1, 2019

0

Students line up for a university entrance exam in Guadalajara.

President López Obrador said Tuesday he would support ending admission exams for public universities.

“I don’t support admissions tests,” he told reporters at his morning press conference. “I think everyone should have the chance to study. If they are behind there should be a catch-up period so that they can study, but we shouldn’t reject people.”

He noted that 60% of students at the National Autonomous University (UNAM) are from poor families because UNAM automatically admits students who come from UNAM high schools, while only 35% of students at other public universities come from poor families.

“In the neoliberal period, they used the excuse that young people hadn’t passed the test to reject them,” he said. “But it was a lie. It’s not that they didn’t pass the test, it’s that there were no spaces, because there was no budget for the universities; it was a pretext to privatize education.”

The president added that a central part of his political project is improving access to higher education, and that his government is working on opening 100 public universities around the country.

“Everyone needs to have the opportunity to study,” he said. “I don’t believe in the policy of rejection, it’s a thousand times better for a young person to study than to have them on the street.”

Source: El Financiero (sp), Forbes México (sp)

Over-exploitation of water is drying up Chihuahua oasis of Cuatro Ciénegas

By

MND Staff

-

October 1, 2019

0

In Cuatro Ciénegas, there is far less water than there used to be.

Over-exploitation of water has dried up more than 90% of the Cuatro Ciénagas marshland in Coahuila’s Chihuahua Desert.

One hundred years ago, natural springs and waterways covered 2,500 hectares of land in the Cuatro Ciénagas reserve, a unique biosphere located about 80 kilometers east of Monclova.

Today, water extends over an area of less than 250 hectares, mainly due to the diversion of the natural resource for use in alfalfa farming during the past 20 years.

To begin to remedy the situation, federal authorities and the Coahuila government intend to lobby President López Obrador to support a restoration plan for the wetlands.

They also plan to hold a series of public meetings so that local residents, alfalfa farmers, researchers and government representatives have the opportunity to analyze and discuss how to restore Cuatro Ciénagas to its former glory.

Diversion of water for irrigation is blamed for the depletion of the marshlands.

“The Cuatro Ciénagas valley is in a situation of extreme stress because its [water] area has been reduced by more than 90%,” said National Water Commission (Conagua) chief Blanca Jiménez Cisneros.

“It’s an issue of concern because it’s on the verge of disappearing, the problem is very complex. It’s not just [a matter of] Conagua holding back the water . . . biological recovery has to be achieved in a comprehensive way [with the participation of several] government departments, we can’t do it on our own,” she said.

Valeria Souza, a researcher at the Institute of Ecology at the National Autonomous University who has studied the drying of Cuatro Ciénagas for the past 20 years, told the newspaper Milenio that canals that carry water away from the natural pools and waterways for agricultural purposes are to blame. She called for the immediate closure of all irrigation canals that deplete the area of its water.

One canal, known as Saca Salada, which was built in 1900 and diverts up to 2,000 liters of water per second, is one of the main culprits.

Souza said that due to the poor planning of the uncovered canal and evaporation, only 10% of the water it carries reaches its final destination: agricultural lands 80 kilometers away in the municipality of Frontera.

“It’s pure stupidity, [the canal] was thought up a hundred years ago when they started to establish agricultural lands and the wetlands were in a good state . . . This is the bleeding of Cuatro Ciénegas,” she said.

Cuatro Ciénegas biosphere reserve in Coahuila.

Since the 1960s, increasingly greater quantities of water have been diverted for agricultural purposes and in the 1980s, the Cañón river, which for years was the main source of drinking water in the area, ran dry.

In 2000, a project that diverted water to the south of the municipality of Valle del Hundido began placing even greater pressure on Cuatro Ciénegas’ water resources and eventually caused both the Nuevo Atayala spring and the Churince lagoon to dry up, the latter in 2016.

Patricia Olmedo, head of the genetic engineering department at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Irapuato, Guanajuato, said that the damage to the lagoon is “irreversible,” explaining that fish and endemic turtles were victims of the project.

“If we close the sluices, it will take us five years to restore the site. It’s possible to recover it but we have to do everything very quickly. What we can’t allow is for the spring to dry out because then there would be nothing we could do,” she said.

Over time, environmental authorities hope to convince local farmers to transition away from the cultivation of alfalfa to crops that don’t require such large amounts of water, such as the nopal, or prickly pear cactus.

To begin to restore the area in the short term, Conagua and the Natural Protected Areas Commission have designed a project that diverts water from one irrigation canal back to dried-up marshland.

However, Coahuila Environment Secretary Eglantina Canales acknowledged that it will only restore a very small area of the bacteria-rich Cuatro Ciénegas reserve and that a lot more needs to be done.

“Of course, it’s not enough . . . We hope . . . to do a longer-term project that allow us to flood a much larger area and which avoids unnecessary losses [of water] . . .” she said.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Morena lawmakers launch initiative for nationwide decriminalization of abortion

By

MND Staff

-

October 1, 2019

0

Morena deputies announce their decriminalization plans.

The abortion debate is shifting from the state to the federal level with the announcement by lawmakers with the ruling Morena party that they will seek to decriminalize the practice in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Female deputies told a press conference at the lower house of Congress on Monday that if the modifications to the federal criminal code are approved, they will ask state legislatures to change their laws to make them consistent with federal legislation.

But the states have the last word on the issue.

Paola González Castañeda said Morena will propose changes to four articles of the criminal code.

One change would stipulate that the termination of a pregnancy is only considered an abortion if it occurs more than 12 weeks after a woman conceives, she said.

The deputy explained that another article would be modified to establish a penalty of between three and six months’ imprisonment or 100 to 300 days of community work for women who have an abortion after the first 12 weeks.

González also said that Morena is seeking to modify the General Health Law so that access to the legal termination of a pregnancy is a sexual and reproductive right.

She said Morena’s proposal recognizes the right of medical personnel to refuse to perform an abortion on moral or religious grounds but also establishes the obligation for healthcare providers to have staff who are willing to carry out the procedure to ensure that women can access the service.

Wendy Briceño, a Sonora deputy and president of the gender equality commission, said that guaranteeing access to safe abortion services is a federal government responsibility.

“The main focus [of the proposal] is the guarantee that the Mexican state has to provide,” she said, adding that lawmakers from Morena, which leads a coalition with majorities in both houses of Congress, are committed to ensuring that the decriminalization of abortion becomes a reality.

“There are no taboo issues and we believe that [the decriminalization of abortion] would be real substantive representation [of women] . . .” Briceño added.

If Morena succeeds in changing the federal criminal code but a state doesn’t change its laws to reflect the modifications, women could still access legal abortion services in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy at IMSS and ISSSTE hospitals, which are run by the federal government.

Morena’s announcement that it will seek to decriminalize abortion comes just days after lawmakers in Oaxaca approved removing criminal penalties for abortion in the first 12 weeks.

Oaxaca became the second state to decriminalize abortion for any reason after Mexico City. Some other states allow abortion in cases of rape or to protect the life of the mother.

An amnesty law proposal sent to Congress by President López Obrador last month would exonerate women imprisoned for having an abortion as well as medical personnel convicted of illegally carrying out the procedure.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Will Pemex take control of US firm’s huge oil find in Gulf of Mexico?

By

MND Staff

-

September 30, 2019

0

The Zama discovery in the Gulf of Mexico.

Pemex wants to take over a lucrative private company oil project in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a report by the news agency Reuters.

Two company executives with knowledge of discussions at the state oil company and two former federal energy officials told Reuters that Pemex has its eyes on an oil field where the United States oil firm Talos Energy found a reserve of almost a billion barrels two years ago.

Talos – which has a 35% stake in the field – was the first private company to find oil after the government of former president Enrique Peña Nieto opened up the sector to private and foreign companies after an almost 80-year state monopoly.

However, the new government has indefinitely suspended further auctions of oil blocks in favor of offering restrictive partnerships to private oilfield services firms that allow Pemex to have greater control.

Reuters’ sources said that taking over Talos’ shallow water field, named Zama after the Mayan word for dawn, would be a symbolic blow to the previous government’s energy reform. They also said that it could act as a further deterrent for investment from the world’s largest oil companies.

However, Pemex does have a potential claim to Zama because it holds the drilling rights for an adjacent field.

An unpublished draft report by the consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie seen by Reuters said that about a third of the reserve discovered by Talos likely extends into Pemex’s field although that hasn’t been confirmed because the state-run company hasn’t yet drilled there.

The two companies began talks last year about carrying out a joint project and agreed to discuss later how revenue would be divided and who would ultimately have operational control. The Secretariat of Energy would settle disputes and designate which company would take control if the talks break down.

Energy Secretary Rocío Nahle, who is also the chair of the Pemex board, hinted in August that control of the project could go to Pemex.

“We definitely have to talk to Pemex, to Talos — another company that’s there — to see who will be in charge of the operations, because Pemex has a big part of it,” she said.

If Pemex takes control, Talos would retain its stake but have to rely on Pemex to drill efficiently and profitably. There is no certainty that would occur considering that Pemex is the world’s most indebted oil company and has seen a decline in oil production for 15 consecutive years.

“If Pemex does end up operating it, that would not send a good signal to private investors,” the executive of a major oil company that has several projects in Mexico told Reuters.

In the latter years of Peña Nieto’s presidency, oil executives said that investing in oil projects in Mexico was as attractive as drilling off Brazil’s coast or in the shale fields of Texas.

But with President López Obrador determined to wrest back at least some of the control ceded to private companies, Mexico is not nearly as attractive as it was.

George Baker, a Houston-based energy analyst and publisher of the newsletter Mexico Energy Intelligence, said “the door is closed on newcomers in Mexico right now while it’s wide open in places like Brazil and Guyana.”

Some firms that entered the market during Peña Nieto’s presidency have now decided to get out. One such company is Sierra Oil & Gas, which sold its 40% stake in Zama and all of its other Mexico assets to Wintershall DEA. Premier Oil said last month that its 25% stake in Zama was for sale although it plans to continue with three other energy projects in Mexico.

Talos CEO Tim Duncan declined to comment directly on a Pemex takeover of Zama but asserted that his company was the best qualified to manage the project.

“We’re fully prepared to go execute this project, finish it, wrap it up and get it into production,” he said.

Even though the federal government would get almost 70% of net profits from Zama under the terms of Talos’ contract, one of Reuters’ industry sources said that Pemex is resolute in its desire to seize control, claiming “for them, there is no other scenario.”

Source: Reuters (en)