Veracruz leads as at least 16,000 cases of dengue reported in 16 states

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September 23, 2019

Spraying against dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

There were more than 16,000 confirmed cases of dengue fever in 16 states during the first eight and a half months of the year, more than triple the number reported in the same period of 2018.

The epidemiology department of the federal Health Secretariat said there were 100,510 probable cases of the mosquito-borne tropical disease to September 15, of which 16,410 cases are confirmed.

To the same date last year, there were 4,578 confirmed cases of dengue.

With 4,845 cases, Veracruz has seen the biggest outbreak of the disease that is also known as breakbone fever. Only 807 cases were reported between January and September last year.

Higher numbers have also been seen in Jalisco, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Puebla.

ACAPS, a Switzerland-based independent information provider that carried out an analysis of the disease in Mexico this year, said in a September 16 briefing note that “the ongoing rainy season, which lasts until October, could continue to increase caseloads of dengue both within Veracruz and across the country.”

In Veracruz, all four serotypes of dengue have been detected, ACAPS said, adding that “the deadliest strain of dengue, serotype-2 . . . could lead to more severe reactions to the disease.”

There have been more than 900 confirmed cases of “severe” dengue this year and deaths have been reported in both Veracruz and Oaxaca.

In the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region of the latter state, a five-year-old boy died of dengue in late July while his sister is believed to have succumbed to the same disease in June although her death was officially attributed to appendicitis.

The federal health secretary said earlier this month that 120 people have died from dengue this year, but the Directorate General of Epidemiology says only 43 have been confirmed.

ACAPS cited a range of factors that could affect the capacity of Mexico, and Veracruz in particular, to respond to the high number of dengue cases.

It noted that 20% of people in Veracruz don’t have either public or private health insurance, adding that “the gap in health care coverage may lead to difficulty in accessing necessary treatment for some of the population.”

The NGO also said that gang violence may pose security risks in that it could prevent access to healthcare.

ACAPS also cited three “aggravating factors” that could make the dengue situation worse in Veracruz: climate, lack of insecticides and other diseases.

Heavy rains could increase the presence of standing water and thus facilitate the breeding of mosquitoes, ACAPS said.

It also said that the lack of insecticides available in Veracruz has been cited as one of the reasons for the higher than average level of cases so far in 2019 and that other viruses and diseases currently present could impact the ability of healthcare facilities to respond to the dengue outbreak.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that federal health authorities didn’t spend a single peso on insecticides until early August.

However, Dr. Ruy López Ridaura, director of the National Center for Disease Prevention and Control Programs, said that mosquito spraying had occurred throughout the whole year in parts of the country susceptible to dengue outbreaks, explaining that state authorities used their own funds to purchase insecticides.

He also said that spike in the number of cases this year was not abnormal or alarming.

On September 5, health undersecretary Hugo López-Gatell accused insecticide vendors of conducting a disinformation campaign that links this year’s outbreak of dengue fever to the federal government’s later than usual purchase of the product.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Oaxaca lawmakers prepare to vote to decriminalize abortion

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Simon Schatzberg

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September 23, 2019

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Women march in favor of new abortion law.

The Oaxaca Congress will vote Wednesday on a bill to change the state’s constitution and remove criminal penalties for abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

A woman who procures an abortion can currently be imprisoned for between six months and two years, provided three circumstances are met: the woman does not have a “bad reputation,” that she has been able to hide her pregnancy and that the pregnancy was the fruit of an illegitimate relationship. If one of those circumstances does not apply, a woman can be jailed for between one and five years.

Providing an abortion with a woman’s consent is punishable with one to six years in prison. The only exceptions are in cases of rape, risk to the health or life of the mother and serious genetic disorders.

According to the organization Marie Stopes México, there are around 9,200 abortions in Oaxaca every year, of which only 2,300 are registered.

Between 2013 and 2016, at least 20 women are were sentenced to prison in Oaxaca for procuring abortions, according to the national statistics agency Inegi. Since 2016, Oaxaca prosecutors have opened 56 investigations for abortion.

According to Morena lawmaker Elisa Zepeda, decriminalizing abortion is not only an issue of public health but also of social justice, because it is mostly poor and indigenous women who do not have access to abortion services under good conditions.

Source: El Universal (sp)

CFE identifies 69,000 cases of tampered or bypassed electrical meters

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MND Staff

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September 23, 2019

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Electricity stolen by tampering with or bypassing meters.

The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) detected almost 70,000 cases of power theft between January and May, a crime that is forecast to cost the state-owned company almost 8.8 billion pesos this year.

In the first five months of 2019, the CFE identified 69,515 cases in which electrical meters at homes and businesses had been tampered with to reduce power costs or bypassed altogether through the use of illegal hook-ups.

Electricity theft cost the CFE 3.65 billion pesos (US $187.6 million) between January and May, an amount that equates to a loss of approximately 16,690 pesos (US $860) per minute.

If the rate of electricity theft continues unabated between June and December, the company will suffer losses of 8.77 billion (US $450.7 million) pesos this year.

That would be more than double the amount the crime cost the CFE in 2018 and a 678% increase compared to 2013. Financial losses caused by electricity theft have increased every year since 2013, CFE statistics show.

Cost to the CFE could reach over 8 billion pesos this year.

In 2019, the electricity commission’s biggest losses have occurred in Tabasco, where illegal hook-ups and meter tampering cost 519 million pesos between January and May.

Almost 11,600 cases of electricity theft were detected in México state, over 2,000 more than in Tabasco. However, CFE’s losses, at 375 million pesos, were considerably lower than in the Gulf coast state.

The next highest losses were recorded in Jalisco, Chiapas and Mexico City.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Leading business group will continue to fight against Santa Lucía airport

By

Simon Schatzberg

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September 23, 2019

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De Hoyos: president lied about investor interest in the Texcoco project.

The Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex) will continue its legal battle against the construction of a new airport at the Santa Lucía Air Force base, a project that was launched after what it calls one of the worst presidential decisions ever made.

Speaking on Saturday to an assembly of youth supporters of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), Coparmex president Gustavo de Hoyos called the decision by President López Obrador to cancel the Texcoco airport one of the worst actions taken by a Mexican executive in history.

“No president has deliberately taken an action with this level of cost, not one, not even the worst president we’ve had in the past,” he said. “So even if they don’t like it, even if they get angry, even if they call us conservatives or legal saboteurs, we’ll continue filing injunctions so this project won’t be abandoned. That’s what we’re fighting for.”

De Hoyos also claimed that President López Obrador lied to the business community when he said there was no interest from private investors in completing the project.

“The president lied to us repeatedly, because there have been or are dozens of offers to finish this great project.”

The decision also did severe damage to Mexico’s reputation as a place in which to invest, he said.

“No government in the modern era of our country has received a country with better growth opportunities . . .” but those conditions do not exist today.

De Hoyos was responding to accusations by the president that injunctions against the Santa Lucía airport were politically motivated.

President-elect López Obrador decided to abandon the Texcoco airport after a controversial referendum last October, in which voters in an essentially ad-hoc public consultation chose to build an airport outside of Mexico City in Santa Lucía and upgrade the existing one.

But construction at Santa Lucía has been held up by legal challenges led by a group called #NoMásDerroches (No More Waste), a coalition of civil society organizations that includes Coparmex.

In June, a lawyer for #NoMásDerroches told reporters that preventing the construction of the Santa Lucía airport is part of a strategy to revive the Texcoco project, which they believe is still possible.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Disease triggers closure of access to Cozumel reefs

By

Cody Copeland

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September 23, 2019

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An estimated 42% of coral reefs have been affected.

Some of the most popular reefs around the island of Cozumel will be closed to the public due to white band disease, which is killing the coral.

The Natural Protected Areas Commission (Conanp) will restrict access to much of the Cozumel Reefs National Marine Park beginning in October.

The disease was first detected in Florida in 2014. In Mexico, it was first seen at Puerto Morelos, 45 kilometers south of Cancún, and it made its way to the reefs off Cozumel in October 2018.

In May of this year, Conanp calculated that 30% of the Mexican Caribbean’s reefs had been affected by white band disease. By August, that number had risen to 42%.

On Monday, Conanp announced a series of steps it will take in coordination with tourism service providers and researchers to confront the problem by reducing pollution generated by gasoline from boats and sunscreen.

“It makes me very sad to know that I’m of the last generation that will see healthy reefs,” said park deputy director Brenda Hernández. “Our kids aren’t going to see them.”

A researcher at the Institute of Ocean Sciences at the Autonomous University (UNAM), Lorenzo Álvarez, said that around 30 of the park’s 50 species of coral have been affected.

“Of those that have been affected, more than half have already died,” he said.

The phenomenon occurs as a result of pollutants and rising water temperatures, which cause the coral polyps to expel the algae on which they feed, and that live in their tissues. The tissues then disconnect from the coral skeleton, and the reef loses its color and dies.

“It’s like suffering a wound that exposes the bone,” said Maricarmen García Rivas, director of the Punto Morelos National Park. Along with Álvarez, she was one of the scientists to discover the disease in the Caribbean.

Researchers are still without solutions to the problem, although the state is replenishing damaged reefs with laboratory-grown coral. The goal of the project, which began in 2017, is to plant 265,000 coral reef colonies by 2022.

Conanp will hold its first meeting in Cozumel today to explain the next course of action to tourism providers affected by the reef closures.

Source: Milenio (sp)

CORRECTION: White band disease was incorrectly identified as “coral bleaching” in the earlier version of this story.

National Action Party calls for united front against AMLO and Morena party

By

MND Staff

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September 23, 2019

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Fox, left, and Cortés at the National Action Party assembly.

Members of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) have called for the formation of a united front against President López Obrador and the ruling Morena party.

Former president Vicente Fox, who led the PAN to federal power for the first time ever in 2000, was among the panistas, as members and supporters of the party are known, who urged the joining of forces in order to defeat Morena at the 2021 mid-term elections.

Speaking at the party’s 24th national assembly on Sunday, Fox called on all opposition political parties and citizens’ groups to come together in a national front against the president.

“Mexico is above any one political party, color, ideology, doctrine; it’s more than all that,” he said.

“. . . We have to unite and . . . we have to defeat this fourth transformation,” the ex-president said, using López Obrador’s catch-phrase for his administration and the change he says it is bringing to Mexico.

Fox said he has met with members of the PAN – including his successor Felipe Calderón, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and the Citizens’ Movement party to build support for a united opposition.

“We’re going to get on the horse again, we’re going to repeat the triumph of 2000 by exposing the lies of this character [López Obrador],” he said.

For his part, PAN national president Marko Cortés called on panistas and all “Mexicans of good will” to come together so that the party can become “Mexico’s alternative.”

He said that Mexico’s future is at risk, that the fight ahead will require greater effort and that the PAN therefore needs to bolster its ranks.

The party has the responsibility to lead the fight against López Obrador’s “populist threat,” Cortés said.

He invited party members to hit the streets of the nation’s cities and to travel to its most remote communities to seek support for the party’s cause. The PAN has to consult with the nation’s young people, students, women, working-class people, farmers and senior citizens, Cortés urged.

Also offering advice was Diego Fernández Cevallos, an elder statesman of the PAN and the party’s presidential candidate in the 1994 election.

In a video message broadcast at Sunday’s meeting, he said that panistas must maintain unity and put their egos and personal ambitions to one side in order for the party to be a credible political option and to attract society’s leaders to the conservative cause.

Fernández charged that López Obrador has brought back a system of “caudillismo,” or autocracy, to Mexico and that his government is “attempting to destroy the institutions of the country.”

In April the president was accused by his former party, the PRD, of pushing the country towards authoritarianism, while Latin America expert Shannon K. O’Neil contended in March that López Obrador was dismantling democracy by “systematically concentrating power in an already strong executive.”

Fernández said the PAN must strengthen itself as a political force so that it has the capacity to effectively stand up to the president and the Morena party.

“Today we, the panistas of the country, must understand that our historical and political responsibility . . . is to be an opposition capable of defeating all arbitrary and caudillo-like exercises of power,” he said. “That and nothing else is our task and responsibility.”

Source: El Universal (sp)

Video reveals moments of panic during 2017 earthquake

By

Simon Schatzberg

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September 23, 2019

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Office workers attempting to flee were thrown to the floor by the force of the earthquake. — Office workers attempting to flee were thrown to the floor.

A new video has appeared showing the moment inside an office building when Mexico City was hit by a 7.1-magnitude earthquake two years ago.

Facebook user Alejandro Vargas uploaded the video, which was captured by a security camera in the building in central Mexico City.

“After keeping this video for two years, I can share it,” Vargas wrote. “it was a moment that changed my life, and I think a lot of other people’s lives too, from the 15^th floor.”

The video shows the inside of an office at 1:17 p.m. on September 19, 2017, when people start to realize that an earthquake is taking place.

“In those seconds, I asked God to take care of my loved ones, and if it was my time to go, I didn’t have a problem with that,” Vargas wrote. “I understood how small we are when facing something like this.”

En su sección “#SantoCristoQueMiedo” 😱

A dos años del #Sismo19S, Alejandro Vargas compartió en su cuenta de #Facebook un video inédito de cómo vivió el sismo, en el que incluso le pidió a Dios cuidar de los suyos en caso de lo peor…

Aquí el video 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/5LvmG1XrNg

— Azucena Uresti (@azucenau) September 20, 2019

In the video, employees start to evacuate the office, but as the earthquake continues, some are unable to walk straight and are thrown onto the floor and others onto a desk, which collapses. Other people hold onto the wall as they struggle to stay upright, while others crawl out of the office.

The building is located at Izazaga 89 and houses government offices. Shortly after the earthquake, there were reports that the building’s owners were hiding structural damage to prevent it being closed by authorities.

“I try to joke when I talk about earthquakes, but inside, I still have that feeling of fear and nostalgia,” Vargas wrote. “For months, especially in the shower, I thought I was hearing the earthquake alarm, when it was impossible that the sound would reach the room. I try to enjoy every day, with my manias and everything, but I value every day.”

The September 19 quake was one of two during the month that killed more than 500 people and injured thousands more.

The federal government reported last week that 30% of the buildings damaged have been repaired.

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

500-passenger cruise ship to offer Gulf of California voyages

By

Cody Copeland

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September 23, 2019

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The Astoria will make its first cruise out of Puerto Peñasco on December 7.

Visitors to the Gulf of California will have a new, luxurious way of exploring this megadiverse region of Mexico later this year.

The 500-passenger boutique cruise ship Astoria, operated by Cruise & Maritime Voyages, will begin offering cruises in the area this December.

Six different voyages will begin and end in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, sailing to eight ports on both the Baja California peninsula and the Mexican mainland on 11-day cruises highlighting the natural and cultural sights and experiences that the region has to offer.

Home to almost a third of the planet’s marine mammal species, over 900 fish species — including great white and whale sharks — and over 170 species of sea birds, the Gulf of California is one of the richest and biodiverse bodies of water in the world.

It is so rich in marine life that Jacques Cousteau called it a “living aquarium,” and its natural beauty and cultural heritage inspired John Steinbeck to write the books The Log from the Sea of Cortez and The Pearl.

The British cruise company says the Astoria provides an intimate cruise experience, with a traditional walk-around promenade deck and classic profile. The maiden voyage takes place December 7.

The travel industry has been hoping for several years to see more cruise opportunities in the Gulf of California through the construction of a home port in Puerto Peñasco. But that project, now several years old, has been stalled by lack of funding.

Passengers will board the Astoria via tenders rather than the dock that is part of the home port plan.

Mexico News Daily

Building that housed first print shop in Americas to reopen in Mexico City

By

Cody Copeland

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September 21, 2019

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Mexico City building that was home to the first printer in the Americas.

The Mexico City building that housed the first printing press in the Americas will reopen its doors to the public, the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) announced last week.

The First Print Shop in the Americas Cultural Center will be inaugurated on Wednesday with an exhibition of objects belonging to English-born artist and nationalized Mexican citizen Leonora Carrington.

The exhibition will display over 200 photographs, letters and other objects belonging to the artist, which were acquired by the university when it purchased her studio and house in 2017. Located in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, the studio will be opened as a museum in 2020.

The building that housed the first printer in the Americas had served as a cultural and continuing education center since 1994, but was closed last year for restoration work totaling 20 million pesos (US $1.03 million).

Center director Ivette Gómez Carrión explained in a press release that the work included restoring the facade, building an auditorium, installing an elevator, fitting out a rooftop terrace and improving the rooms for exhibitions and workshops.

“[The building] has the obligation to grow and get closer to the public, and we will work intensely to make that happen,” she said.

Gómez expressed gratitude for the collaboration of the federal and city governments in the restoration process of the colonial structure located next to the National Palace in Mexico City’s historic center.

Metropolitan Autonomous University media director Francisco Mata added that thanks to the rehabilitation of the building, the university can now “increase its cultural offerings and its presence in the cultural corridor of the historic center.”

The building was constructed in 1539 atop what was previously the Aztec temple to Tezcatlipoca, the god of darkness. The print shop was established by Juan Cromberger, a publisher based in Seville, and run by Italian printer Juan Pablos.

The building is also called the Casa de las Campanas (House of the Bells), for it was here that the bells in the nearby Mexico City cathedral were cast.

Source: El Sol de México (sp)

Federal official praises courage of 1973 murderers of Nuevo León businessman

By

MND Staff

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September 21, 2019

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A federal official has come under fire after praising the courage of members of an urban guerrilla movement that murdered a Nuevo León businessman in 1973.

Pedro Agustín Salmerón Sanginés, general director of the National Institute of Historical Studies on the Mexican Revolution (INEHRM), described the “young people” who attempted to kidnap Eugenio Garza Sada but ended up killing him and his two bodyguards as “brave.”

The killers were members of the Liga Comunista 23 de Septiembre (September 23 Communist League).

In a post on the institute’s Facebook page, Salmerón said the attempted abduction of the 81-year-old Garza, the founder of the Tec. de Monterrey university and son of the founder of the Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma brewery, was “the result of the profound division that Mexican society experienced from the 1960s.”

The September 23 communist league emerged in the early 1970s and remained active until 1981. The radical left-wing group carried out a number of violent attacks and was labeled a terrorist organization by the Mexican government.

Monterrey Tec. founder and murder victim Garza.

Salmerón published his Facebook post on Tuesday but it wasn’t until Friday that it gained widespread notoriety.

The INEHRM director subsequently deleted his Facebook and Twitter accounts after a final post in which he said he rejected violence.

However, Salmerón added that the young people who killed Garza were led to violence because of their “condemnation and exclusion” by Mexican society.

Among those who condemned the original post were federal senators, the Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex) and the Business Coordinating Council (CCE), which called for Salmerón to make a public apology.

The CCE said in a statement that anyone who seeks to deprive a person of his freedom, plans a kidnapping in order to finance the purchase of weapons for illegal activities, “murders a good man” and seeks change through violence cannot be considered brave.

It is “incomprehensible that a public official, a representative of the Mexican government, praises violence as a form of expression,” the council said.

“It’s incomprehensible that an official, who is also a historian by profession, has become an apologist of violence, a defender of crime. Society today is very hurt and these expressions only deepen the wounds . . . An episode like this doesn’t just diminish the public image of a government committed to the pacification of the country but also fuels the climate of social violence that we’re living today.”

Coparmex chief Gustavo de Hoyos called on President López Obrador to fire the INEHRM director, stating it was “unacceptable” for him to describe Garza’s murderers as brave.

National Action Party (PAN) Senator Víctor Fuentes Solís also called for Salmerón’s dismissal, describing his comment as representative of an “ideology of hate” and an “insult” to a “hero of Nuevo León and his family.”

The Nuevo León lawmaker also said that the Facebook post was an “affront” to the residents of the northern state and that the PAN won’t accept it “under any circumstances.”

For her part, Lilly Téllez of the ruling Morena party called on Salmerón to resign.

She said the guerrillas of the September 23 Communist League were not brave but “cowards” and that the attempted kidnapping and murder of Garza was a “vile act of cowardice.”

Source: Notimex (sp), El Sol de México (sp), Milenio (sp)