City of León, Guanajuato, gets a new look with 25 murals

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July 19, 2019

Murals have added new color to the city.

A mural initiative in León, Guanajuato, has filled the city’s streets with color this year: visitors and residents alike might round a corner to find themselves thrust into a duel between samurai cats or dodging oncoming vehicles and banana peels as Mario and Luigi — of Super Mario fame — race to the finish line.

The Municipal Youth Institute has invested 330,000 pesos (US $17,000) this year to bring to life the walls along the city’s main boulevards with thought-provoking images.

Since January, 25 new murals have gone up throughout the city, including works dedicated to the Simpsons, Mario Kart and samurai cats, as well as other paintings that entreat passersby to engage in socially-conscious action, such as one dedicated to water use and another that aims to raise awareness about autism.

Institute director Misraím Macías said that an equal amount of work or more went into researching the subject of each mural as went into painting it.

“What you see that looks like a week of work actually has at least two or three weeks of research behind it. You might ask if they seriously researched The Simpsons for a mural. Yes, because [faithfully rendering] the most iconic scenes, the characters from the show and the way they interact all requires background knowledge.”

But Macías said the initiative was about more than just a beautification campaign.

“We have two principal objectives in doing this: the first is to stimulate the creative economy. What does that mean? It means giving young people a chance to generate income and a way of life. Our second objective is to recover safe spaces. It’s about how we can create safe spaces and environments.”

Lupita Anaya, an academic specialist in art history, agreed that art can be a vehicle for social transformation, especially in León, which has experienced rising levels of violence in recent months.

“Just to pass by and see these works can distract you for a moment, and without shrinking from it, they can inspire a spark of peace and harmony. Art is not just decorative; it feeds the soul.”

She suggested that the murals could be included in youth programs to prevent young people’s involvement in crime and gangs. She also said the murals were an important way to bring art closer to people who might not otherwise have contact with it in their lives.

“Many people do not have the time, culture, intention or desire to go to galleries or museums, and so they have altered the urban environment so that people have the opportunity to see art in their everyday lives. And all types of art sensitize people.”

Macías said that in the coming months four more murals will go up in Guanajuato’s largest city: two for youth month and two more for the Day of the Dead.

Source: Milenio (sp), Periódico Correo (sp)

News agency chief accuses union leader of running ‘mafia of corruption’

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MND Staff

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July 19, 2019

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Martínez leveled her accusations of corruption this morning at the presidential press conference.

The head of Mexico’s state news agency today accused its union leader of corruption and nepotism, charging that he embezzled government funds and placed family members on the agency’s payroll.

Speaking at the presidential press conference, Notimex director Sanjuana Martínez said the union led by Conrado García Velasco was like a “brotherhood” or “mafia.”

The whereabouts of more than 4 million pesos the union received from the government between 2015 and 2017 and which should have been distributed among Notimex employees is unknown, she said.

Martínez said that a review of Notimex’s payroll detected the presence of 330 people who don’t actually work at the agency.

She also said that García’s wife, three children, two brothers, a nephew, an uncle and two alleged lovers of the union leader were on the payroll.

“Only the union leader hired and fired personnel, which diminished the quality of the news,” she said.

Martínez also accused García of using government or union funds to pay for 28 national and international trips on which he was accompanied by family members.

In addition, she claimed that in the past Notimex was prohibited from publishing content that was critical of the government and its members or which reported on the discovery of hidden graves or missing people.

Presenting publicity as news was “normalized” at the agency and its employees received payments in exchange, Martínez said.

A report published by the newspaper El Universal before this morning’s news conference said that García is under investigation by the Secretariat of Public Administration (SFP) for improper use of public resources, conflict of interest and influence peddling.

SFP sources told El Universal that the investigations started months ago.

García presented his resignation as a Notimex reporter at the start of the new government’s administration but it wasn’t accepted to ensure that he will face the accusations against him, the newspaper said.

The report said that García’s wife, Irene Rodríguez, is employed as a correspondent in Chicago, while his daughter, Angélica Atzin García, works as a reporter and was granted a Notimex scholarship to live in China.

The latter’s previous experience was in visual arts rather than journalism.

Before Martínez’s appearance at this morning’s press conference, recently fired Notimex journalists protested outside the National Palace against what they say were unfair dismissals.

They also said they haven’t received full severance pay and called for the resignation of the Notimex chief.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Youths go to work cleaning up Tula Chico archaeological site in Hidalgo

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Simon Schatzberg

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July 19, 2019

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Youths are cleaning things up at Tula Chico.

A group of 36 young people are performing clean-up work at the Tula Chico archaeological site in Hidalgo as part of the “Youths Building the Future” program.

Each of the workers, who started the job last month, receives a monthly salary of 3,600 pesos (US $190) from the program, which is managed by the federal Labor and Social Welfare Secretariat.

The program is currently employing 800,000 youths at a variety of jobs across the country; 333 are working for the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) at archaeological sites and museums.

Women account for 58% of those enrolled in the program while men account for 42%. The term of employment is one year.

INAH director Diego Prieto told the newspaper El Universal that the institute hopes to employ 800 youths through the program by September.

“This program is making it possible for us to expand our base of employees, while at the same time train people who can later join the institute,” he said. “These young people aren’t putting INAH personnel out of work, because these are new jobs.”

Prieto said that when the brigade of young people started working at Tula Chico, the site was in bad shape. The perimeter fence was broken allowing visitors to enter freely, there were backlogs in maintenance and the museums were out of date.

According to Hidalgo Governor Omar Fayad, the state will invest 19 million pesos (US $1 million) in improvements at Tula Chico, while INAH will invest 2 million.

Source: El Universal (sp), Unión Guanajuato (sp)

Canadian development agency has jobs for 50 Mexican nurses

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Simon Schatzberg

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July 19, 2019

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Nursing jobs are available for Mexicans in Quebec.

Help wanted: 50 Mexican nurses sought to work in Canada for 46,900 pesos a month.

A Canadian social development agency is working with Mexico’s Labor and Social Welfare Secretariat (STPS) to match Mexican professionals with temporary jobs in the province of Quebec.

As part of its 2019 recruitment, Quebec International published 400 job openings for foreign workers in a variety of different industries. Many of the jobs have also been posted on the STPS website.

Among the postings is that of a company looking for 50 nurses to work with elderly patients. The company requests that applicants have a high level of English or French and a diploma in geriatric nursing or five years of experience in patient care.

The successful candidates will work 36 hours a week and will be paid 46,900 pesos (US $2,465) a month. The term of the contract is indefinite.

There are also jobs available in the information technology and manufacturing sectors and last week, job postings appeared for welders and grocery store workers on the STPS website.

Sara Tapia, international mobility director for Quebec International, told the newspaper El Pulso Laboral that foreign workers hired through the agency will receive the necessary permits to work legally in Canada.

“All of our initiatives are supported by Quebec’s Ministry of Immigration, Diversity and Inclusion,” she said. “The working conditions are exactly the same as those of Canadian workers, as the law requires.”

Tapia added that Canadian companies are enthusiastic about hiring Mexican workers.

“Mexicans distinguish themselves as good workers, as high-level professionals with education, and also very interesting human qualities,” she said. “Their capacity to adapt is outstanding.”

The agency hopes to receive more applications from Mexicans this year than it has in the past. In 2018, only 300 of the 30,000 applications were from Mexico.

Tapia added that in addition to jobs, Quebec International is offering scholarships to foreign students to do postgraduate work in fields related to medicine or environmental science at Laval University or the University of Quebec in Rimouski.

Source: El Pulso Laboral (sp), Vive USA (sp)

8-year-old will represent Mexico thanks to Chinese airline

By

Madison Koen

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July 19, 2019

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Samantha receives her ticket to China from airline representatives.

An 8-year old mathematician from Mexico City will represent Mexico at the Aloha International Mental Arithmetic Competition in Guangzhou, China, with the help of a Chinese airline.

Identified only as Samantha, the young girl will have only a few minutes to complete dozens of complicated math problems using only her own mental abilities and a soroban, a small Japanese abacus developed over 500 years ago.

Samantha, who lives in the capital’s Iztacalco borough, had been featured on social media outlets for selling homemade cookies to raise the large amount of money she needed to purchase her airfare to China.

But then China Southern Airlines stepped in. General manager Wu Yingjun gave Samantha a round-trip ticket to the competition, saying,“The happiness I feel in being able to help Samantha comes straight from my heart; she is the future of Mexico as she represents this nation in China.”

To express their gratitude, Samantha and her family in turn gave Wu Yingjun and several other airline representatives several boxes of her homemade cookies.

Seven hundred children from 40 countries will compete at this year’s edition of the competition. Ninety-one Mexicans will participate.

Source: W Radio (sp), El Mañana (sp)

Army general believed to have been No. 2 at Pemex fuel theft ring

By

Simon Schatzberg

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July 19, 2019

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Fuel theft suspect Herrera. — Fuel theft suspect and army General Herrera.

A fuel theft ring involving high-ranking officers of the Mexican army is coming apart after the arrest of a general who was a subdirector of operations at Pemex.

Agents the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) arrested General Sócrates Alfredo Herrera Pegueros in Guerrero on Thursday after he failed to show up for court hearings in May and June to respond to criminal allegations against him and other officers.

Herrera is described as the “second in command” to General León Trauwitz, former head of security at Pemex, who is accused of leading the fuel theft operation. He faces charges of organized crime and fuel theft.

The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has arrested five people in relation to the case. On June 22, a judge threw out an injunction protecting Trauwitz from arrest, but he has not been located and is believed to have left the country.

In June, Sergeants Ramón Márquez Ledezma and José Carlos Sánchez Echavarría and Lieutenant Oziel Aldana Portugal were indicted for allegedly working under General Trauwitz in the fuel theft scheme.

The case first came to the attention of federal prosecutors in March 2017 when three former soldiers reported having witnessed official complicity in fuel theft. However, the case was not pursued until President López Obrador took office in December 2018.

In addition to the five soldiers, 16 government officials have been arrested for crimes related to fuel theft.

Source: Milenio (sp), Excélsior (sp), Infobae (sp)

Flight school begins operating at Cuernavaca, Morelos, airport

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Simon Schatzberg

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July 19, 2019

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Yesterday's ceremony to open the new flight school in Morelos.

A new pilot training program at the Aviation School of Mexico at the Cuernavaca, Morelos, airport will raise the state’s profile in national and international aviation, predicts Morelos Governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco.

Speaking at the new program’s inauguration on Thursday, Blanco said the Cuernavaca airport has become an important center for pilot training in Mexico and around the world.

“This is allowing Morelos to truly become a host to the world, as students from around the country and other countries will be able to study aviation here,” he said.

The French aircraft manufacturer Airbus is also a participant in the program.

Aviation School director Alfredo Velázquez Maciel said the airport has the best hangar for pilot training in the country.

He said the school will offer 30,000 flight instruction hours in 2019, of which 40% will take place in Morelos.

Airport manager Federico Misael Álvarez Dávila said the investment in Cuernavaca shows that the city’s airport could be an alternative to the over-saturated Benito Juárez Airport in Mexico City.

State officials said they will meet with the federal Communications and Transportation Secretariat to discuss the possibility of including Cuernavaca in a Mexico City airport system.

Source: Milenio (sp), La Unión de Morelos (sp)

Security survey: 74% feel unsafe; Acapulco worst city for corruption

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MND Staff

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July 19, 2019

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Los Mochis, Sinaloa, is the second-worst city in the country for police corruption.

Almost three-quarters of Mexicans feel unsafe in the city in which they live, according to a new survey that also found that Acapulco is the worst city for police corruption.

Carried out by national statistics agency Inegi in the first half of June, the National Survey on Urban Public Security found that 73.9% of respondents consider their city unsafe.

The figure is slightly below those recorded by the same poll in March and June last year, when 74.6% and 75.9% of respondents said their city was unsafe.

Ecatepec, a México state municipality that is part of greater Mexico City, recorded the highest perception of insecurity among residents followed by Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz; Naucalpan, México state; Villahermosa, Tabasco; Tapachula, Chiapas; and Uruapan, Michoacán.

The percentage of residents who said they felt unsafe in those cities ranged between 97.4% and 88.9%.

In contrast, the cities where the lowest perceptions of insecurity were recorded were, in order: San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León – an affluent municipality in the Monterrey metropolitan area; Mérida, Yucatán; San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León; Los Cabos, Baja California Sur; Durango, Durango; and Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco.

The percentage of residents who said they felt unsafe in those cities ranged between 18.9% and 43.1%.

The survey also determined the percentages of people who were recent victims of crime and acts of police corruption.

At a national level, Inegi said that at least one person in 34.9% of households was a victim of robbery or extortion during the first half of 2019.

Atizapán fared worst and three other México state municipalities in the metropolitan area of Mexico City – Chimalhuacán, Cuatitlán and Ecatepec – were also among the five worst cities in the country in terms of victim rates for those two crimes. León, Guanajuato, ranked second worst.

Tampico, Tamaulipas; Los Mochis, Sinaloa; Campeche, Campeche; San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León; and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, recorded the lowest rates of victims of robbery and extortion.

The survey determined that 15.5% of respondents came into contact with public security authorities during the first half of the year and of those, 47.3% were victims of an act of corruption.

Just under 74% of poll respondents who had an encounter with police in Acapulco, Guerrero, reported being forced to pay a bribe or suffering from some other act of corruption, making the Pacific coast resort city the worst in the country in that respect.

Los Mochis, Sinaloa, recorded the second highest police corruption rate, with 71.9% of polled residents reporting that they were victims.

Next worse were the México state municipalities of Naucalpan, Tlalnepantla and Atizapán followed by Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, and Ecatepec.

Source: El Universal (sp), Debate (sp)

Nervous foreign investors are pulling back, see higher risk in Mexico

By

MND Staff

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July 19, 2019

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Canadian investors have been turned off by the electricity commission's wish to renegotiate contracts.

Foreign holders of government securities have begun withdrawing their investments due to declining confidence in the federal government and the Mexican economy, and the expectation that the Bank of México will cut interest rates.

Statistics from the central bank show that the value of government bonds and federal treasury certificates in the hands of foreign investors was 2.11 trillion pesos (US $111 billion) on July 9, the lowest amount since December 14.

Since February 8 – when the value of government debt in foreign hands hit a record high – investors have offloaded securities worth 162 billion pesos (US $8.5 billion), the newspaper El Universal reported.

Foreign investment in treasury certificates, which are easier to cash in, has declined to its lowest level since March 2018.

“Investors are already starting to get nervous and while they perceive greater risk, we may see more sales of government securities and the interest rate for bonds may go up,” said Ernesto O’Farrill, general manager of Bursamétrica, a Mexico City brokerage firm.

Despite decisions such as the cancelation of the new Mexico City airport, the federal government generated confidence among investors during its first months in office after presenting a 2019 budget that was described as fiscally prudent and realistic by many analysts.

The first sell-off of government issued securities by the López Obrador administration in the middle of January garnered strong interest from investors.

More than 300 institutional investors from the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East participated in the auction and demand to purchase securities exceeded supply fourfold.

But investor confidence has waned on the back of downgrades to Mexico’s sovereign rating and that of Pemex, and the possibility that more ratings cuts are still to come.

“Investors are anticipating rating agencies’ adjustments and they deduce that Moody’s will strip Pemex’s investment grade in coming months like Fitch did at the start of last month,” O’Farrill said.

He predicted that agencies will also downgrade Mexico’s sovereign rating but not below investment grade. Fitch cut its sovereign rating for Mexico to one notch above junk status last month but if it, and other rating agencies went lower, a huge sell-off of government bonds would occur.

“Ninety-five per cent of investors are in government securities because Mexico has investment grade,” O’Farrill said.

Other factors that have made investors nervous are the widespread cuts to growth forecasts for the Mexican economy and Carlos Urzúa’s resignation last week as finance secretary.

El Universal reported that investors now see instability in the implementation of public policy and have responded by withdrawing their investments in government securities. The pullback could hasten as the Bank of México draws closer to cutting interest rates, which many analysts believe will happen in August or September.

Yet another factor weighing on some investors’ minds is the decision by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) to seek international arbitration aimed at annulling clauses in seven pipeline contracts.

One of the contracts the utility is seeking to renegotiate is for the Texas-Tuxpan gas pipeline, which was jointly built by the Canadian company TC Energy (formerly TransCanada).

Canadian ambassador Pierre Alarie spoke out against the CFE’s move, while the embassy’s deputy head of mission said that the legal action has triggered concern among Canadian investors.

“The truth is that since the actions of the CFE, I receive calls every day with regard to the signal that Mexico is sending to Canadian investors. They ask for our advice in order to know if Mexico still wants more investment and what to do with their current and upcoming investment. Yes, they’re actions that cause concern,” Jean-Dominique Leraci said.

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

Subsidiary of electricity commission will provide internet to rural areas

By

Madison Koen

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July 19, 2019

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President López Obrador announced today that the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will provide internet service throughout Mexico through the creation of a new subsidiary.

“We have just created the company that will connect the entire country to the internet,” the president said at his morning press conference. “Today we will give you the name: it’s a subsidiary of the CFE. Why was this company placed under the CFE? Because this way, it will be able to use all of the CFE’s infrastructure, all of its lines. It will have all of the lines and fiber optic cables needed to get the entire country online.”

The president said the subsidiary has been approved as a non-profit service by the CFE board of directors.

Internet service will be delivered through the government’s new Integration Centers, federal facilities intended to deliver services such as social, health and education programs in rural areas. The government announced last week that 10,000 such centers would be installed throughout the country in an effort to provide services to the 200,000 communities in which fewer than 500 people live.

The centers will also house branches of the new Bank of Well-Being, a new institution that replaces Bansefi, the federal government savings bank.

The president said this morning that internet service will be delivered to the centers by the CFE through fiber optic cables and then on to residents through a wireless connection.

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