CFE operations director Carlos Andrés Morales Mar announced the plan at an event with Governor Carlos Mendoza Davis.
Morales said that electricity distribution problems in Baja California Sur have been caused by poor maintenance of the state’s generation plants. By October, the CFE will restore 42 megawatts of generation capacity that are currently out of service.
Morales also said that a natural gas power plant being built in Pichilingue will be equipped with energy-saving technology including heat recuperators, and will have a capacity of 170 megawatts when it goes into operation.
By the summer of 2021, another four new generators will be operating, he said. “That will mean the production of 170 megawatts, which will relieve the pressure on the electricity system.”
In total, Morales said that Baja California Sur will have an additional 472 megawatts of generation capacity by the end of 2022.
Governor Mendoza said that Baja California Sur’s current generation capacity should be close to 750 megawatts, while peak consumption is around 550 megawatts. However, due to poor maintenance of generating facilities, capacity is sometimes actually closer to 550 megawatts, forcing the CFE to cut service at peak consumption times.
“In 2020, we will have an additional 280 megawatts, which will make it less likely for us to face this kind of circumstance,” said Mendoza.
The lights went out in Baja California Sur cities at least three times over the summer.
Beresford shot footage from his Cancún prison cell for a television feature.
A former reality TV producer who was convicted of murdering his wife in Cancún has been released and is now back home in southern California.
Bruce Beresford-Redman, 47, was released from prison on June 20 after serving a little over half of his 12-year sentence.
Beresford-Redman reported his wife Monica missing during a family vacation to Cancún with their two children in April 2010. Her body was found three days later in a sewer.
The trip was meant to celebrate the woman’s 42nd birthday and mend the couple’s relationship after her husband had an extramarital affair.
Hotel guests told police at the time that they had heard screams in Beresford-Redmans’ hotel room, and investigators found blood on the scene.
The former Survivor and Pimp My Ride producer became the star of his own television show in 2014 when CBS News’ 48 Hours aired Bruce Beresford-Redman’s Prison Diaries, featuring footage he took of his time awaiting trial in Cancún’s Benito Juárez prison.
The state prosecutor had sought the maximum sentence of 50 years in prison, but Beresford-Redman was sentenced to 12, and only served about seven and a half, including four years of time served.
Prisoners in Mexico are eligible for release after serving 60% of their sentence.
Beresford-Redman’s children were 5 and 7 at the time of their mother’s murder and his parents looked after them during his time in prison.
The television producer has always maintained his innocence.
His wife was a well-known restaurant owner in Los Angeles.
Calling beneficiaries' wives whores didn't go over well for Mireles.
President López Obrador said on Tuesday that he will ask self-defense force founder José Manuel Mireles to publicly apologize for a slur he made against women and to commit to avoid making a similar indiscretion in the future.
Mireles, now a subdelegate of the State Workers’ Social Security Institute (ISSTE) in Michoacán, referred to the female partners of ISSSTE beneficiaries as “whores” in a video that circulated on social media last week.
The federal official justified his use of the word because he is a native of the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán.
Mireles subsequently offered a “sincere apology” on Twitter but the president contended that it fell short of what was required, stating that the ISSTE subdelegate needed to make a “sincere commitment to act with respect towards women and all people.”
López Obrador also said that Mireles, a medical doctor by profession, should make a commitment to educate himself about respectful conduct towards women and pledge “never again” to use sexually disparaging language.
The president said he wouldn’t ask the official to resign at this stage because everyone should have a chance to repent and show a willingness to make amends for their mistakes.
Asked whether Mireles might travel to the National Palace to make the apology, López Obrador told reporters that “wasn’t necessary.”
The remarks by the official, who spent almost three years in jail on charges of possession of unauthorized weapons, was condemned by politicians and women’s groups in Michoacán.
“. . . The language of the official . . . is very serious and an attack [on women],” said Lucila Martínez Manríquez, a state deputy who called on the federal government to sanction Mireles.
“They’ll never find them, we turned them into dust and threw them into the water.”
According to federal authorities, that was a cell phone message referring to the 43 students who disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014, and was sent by Gildardo “El Gil” López Astudillo, a suspected plaza chief for the Guerreros Unidos gang, to his superior, Sidronio “El Chino” Casarrubias Salgado, days after the young men went missing.
The incriminating text is congruent with the past government’s “historical truth.” In that version of events, the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College were intercepted on September 26, 2014 by municipal police and handed over to gang members, who killed them, burned their bodies in a municipal dump and scattered their ashes in a nearby river.
The message, one of several pieces of damning evidence discovered by authorities on López Astudillo’s mobile telephone after his arrest in 2015, clearly implicates the alleged gangster in the disappearance and presumed death of the students, who were allegedly mistaken for members of a rival gang.
‘El Gil’ was a key suspect in the disappearance of 43 students in Guerrero in 2014.
A report published on Tuesday by the newspaper Milenio said that authorities also found photos on López Astudillo’s phone that show victims of both torture – including people with serious wounds whose limbs had been amputated – and murder.
Other images show weapons, burned-out vehicles and crime scenes where Guerreros Unidos members clashed with gangsters from criminal organizations such as Los Rojos and La Familia Michoacana.
Among other incriminating evidence found on the phone were messages he sent to a contact identified only as Tintán.
On October 5, 2014 – nine days after the mass kidnapping – “El Gil” asked Tintán to send him his personal telephone number. The latter responded that he didn’t have one.
López Astudillo subsequently sent Tintán an extract of a newspaper article that said that authorities in Guerrero had discovered hidden graves that they believed contained the remains of the missing students.
“What do you think about this pedo [problem]?” the alleged gangster asked.
The evidence – as damning as it is – couldn’t be used to keep López Astudillo in prison, a Tamaulipas-based judge ruled, because it, or other proof, was obtained illegally, most likely through the use of torture.
The United Nations said in a 2018 report that 34 people were tortured in connection with the investigation into the disappearance of the 43 students, while a video showing the torture of a suspect was published on YouTube in June.
Human rights undersecretary Alejandro Encinas said last week that the acquittal and release of López Astudillo set “a very grave precedent” that could be used to release more than 50 other people who are in custody as a result of their alleged involvement in the students’ disappearance.
Several suspected Guerreros Unidos members, including the recipient of the “we turned them into dust” message, Sidronio Casarrubias, as well as Felipe Rodríguez Salgado and Erick Sandoval Rodríguez have already been released from prison after they were acquitted of involvement in the students’ disappearance.
The “historical truth” presented by the government of former president Enrique Peña Nieto was widely questioned both within Mexico and internationally and authorities were heavily criticized for their handling of the case. Many people suspect that the army played a role in the students’ disappearance and presumed deaths.
The federal government will cede the business of exploration and oil production in deepwater reserves to the private sector, presidential chief of staff Alfonso Romo said on Monday.
Romo’s remark, made at a business summit in Mexico City, confirms a report published in the Financial Times in late August that said that President López Obrador was poised to reopen private exploration in deepwater oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.
Romo also said the government will cede gas production to private companies.
The decision to allow private companies to resume deepwater exploration and production is a major reversal in policy direction for the government of López Obrador.
The president has been a staunch opponent of the previous government’s energy reform, which opened up the oil sector to foreign and private companies after almost 80 years of state control.
It was also intended to bring in expertise that state oil company Pemex did not have, particularly in deepwater drilling.
Pemex officials have said in recent months that the state-owned company would no longer invest in deepwater projects in order to focus on the development of onshore and shallow water reserves.
For private companies to resume deepwater exploration and production, the government will either have to hold new oil block auctions or enter into farm-out agreements. Pemex has already signed one deepwater farm-out agreement with the Australia-based mining multinational BHP.
The government’s apparent willingness to reverse its position and allow greater private participation in the oil and gas sector is welcome news for investors concerned about the slowing Mexican economy and stagnating investment.
According to the Financial Times report, López Obrador’s intention is to kick-start investment and production in the oil sector and prevent the possibility of another credit rating downgrade for the beleaguered state oil company, which has debt in excess of US $100 billion.
New oil and gas block auctions certainly could bring in significant investment to Mexico: one auction held in early 2018 attracted potential investment of almost US $100 billion.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has turned up the heat again in Michoacán with the release of a new video on social media appealing to the citizens of Tepalcatepec to send a crime gang suspect packing.
The video shows a man sitting at a table addressing the camera and flanked by at least 20 masked men, most of them armed with Barrett .50-caliber rifles and wearing military-style uniforms bearing the letters CJNG.
The speaker urges citizens of Tepalcatepec to run Juan José “El Abuelo” Farías out of town. The cartel alleges that he leads a local crime gang.
“We want to make clear . . . that our conflict isn’t against the citizens of Tepalcatepec, but against ‘El Abuelo’ and his cartel. Open your eyes, he is using you to carry out his criminal activities for his own benefit and behind your back.”
The speaker said Farías is believed to be part of the Caballeros Templarios cartel or the Viagras gang.
“He’s started to levy protection fees against businesses in the town, while he and his children spend all the money buying new luxury cars,” he said. “If you get rid of ‘El Abuelo’ and his cartel your town will become calm again. The town belongs to the good citizens, which we know are all of you.”
Fighting in the municipality started on August 30 when CJNG gunmen crossed the border from Jalisco to try to take control. Nine people were killed in ensuing clashes and all of the dead were later identified as members of the CJNG.
On Monday, classes resumed at Tepalcatepec schools after the deployment of 200 army troops Friday.
Optimists President López Obrador and Finance Secretary Herrera.
The macroeconomic assumptions and revenue estimates in the federal government’s 2020 budget are overly optimistic, analysts warn.
Financial experts consulted by the newspaper El Economista said the government is overestimating both its capacity to increase tax revenue and the petroleum production potential of the state oil company.
The budget estimates growth of 1.5% to 2.5% in 2020 and oil output of 1.95 million barrels per day by the end of next year.
To achieve the latter, Pemex will have to increase production by about 17%, the news agency Bloomberg said, something that hasn’t been achieved for almost four decades.
Ariane Ortiz of the ratings agency Moody’s said that the “optimistic” economic growth and oil production forecasts will lead to an “overestimate of government revenue for next year.”
She contended that the government has underestimated the financial support needed by Pemex, which has debt in excess of US $100 billion, and claimed that achieving the primary fiscal surplus target of 0.7% of GDP in 2020 will require austere policies that will make it difficult for the government to stimulate economic growth.
Alberto Ramos, chief Latin American economist at Goldman Sachs in New York, agreed that “the assumptions on growth and oil production are definitely on the optimistic side.”
He said the key question for investors is whether the government will be prepared to cut spending if necessary in order to meet its economic objectives, such as the 0.7% primary surplus.
Marco Oviedo, chief economist for Barclays in Latin America, agreed with Ramos but warned that the government has left itself little room to adjust spending.
Carlos Petersen and Daniel Kerner of the research and consulting firm Eurasia Group said the government’s macroeconomic and revenue estimates are “unrealistic” and should be modified before the budget is approved by Congress.
The 2020 Economic Package, which prioritizes spending on social welfare programs, security and Pemex, was delivered to the lower house of Congress on Sunday by Finance Secretary Arturo Herrera.
Businesses contracted to repair schools have abandoned the projects and in some cases have disappeared.
Only 80 of 5,000 Oaxaca schools that were damaged by the powerful earthquakes of September 2017 have been fully repaired, according to state lawmakers.
Pavel Meléndez Cruz, president of the Oaxaca Congress special reconstruction committee, said that work is currently being carried out at just 400 of the schools that still require repairs.
Projects at other schools have been abandoned because the builders weren’t paid, he said.
Meléndez said the committee he leads will ask authorities to carry out an investigation to determine what happened to the funds allocated for the rebuilding and repair of damaged schools.
The local branch of the SNTE teachers’ union has also denounced the lack of progress in repairing damaged education infrastructure, pointing out that thousands of students have been unable to return to their schools and have been forced to find alternative arrangements.
Teachers participated in a protest march in Oaxaca city on Friday to demand reconstruction be expedited, the newspaper El Universal reported.
According to a letter sent to the SNTE union on August 29, the federal government is committed to rebuilding and repairing Oaxaca schools damaged by the September 2017 quakes, the first of which caused extensive damage in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region.
Signed by Agrarian Development and Urban Planning Secretary Román Meyer Falcón, the letter states that reconstruction projects in schools where no work has yet been completed will start either today or in the first week of October.
Projects in schools where work has been suspended will resume on Tuesday, the letter said.
The government also committed to the resumption of payments for the builders undertaking the work but the letter didn’t indicate when the projects will be completed.
However, an undersecretary at the Secretariat of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning indicated that 90% of school repairs are expected to be completed by 2020. David Cervantes also said that the government allocated 2.5 billion pesos (US $127.7 million) for school repairs this year.
About 20,000 schools in several states were damaged in the September 7 and 19 earthquakes that shook southern and central Mexico
President López Obrador announced on July 1 that funds for the construction, maintenance and repair of school buildings will be allocated directly to committees made up of teachers, parents and students after an earlier announcement that the National Institute of Physical Infrastructure for Education would be dissolved.
Pablo Iván Ángeles Guzmán, a structural engineer and academic at the National Autonomous University, warned against the plan because “there is a high risk that the rebuilding of schools will be at the discretion of people who are not professionals in construction and restoration.”
Fuel theft and smuggling has been a major issue in Mexico for years. (File photo)
Despite claims by the federal government that petroleum theft has declined 95%, state oil company data shows that the number of pipeline taps in the first seven months of the year was virtually unchanged compared to the same period of 2018.
Pemex detected 8,655 taps between January and July, just 51 – or 0.5% – fewer than the number recorded in the first seven months of 2018.
While the number of taps on petroleum pipelines remained steady, those on LP gas lines more than tripled to 623 compared to 206 between January and July last year.
Pemex data published on the National Transparency Platform also shows that fuel carried by 32 tanker trucks has been stolen this year whereas just 14 trucks were held up during all of 2018.
Another statistic that debunks President López Obrador’s claim that fuel theft has “almost come to an end” is that the number of reports of the crime filed by Pemex lawyers in the first seven months of the year – 11,907 – is 60% higher than that recorded in all of 2018.
One figure that has declined significantly is the quantity of stolen fuel recovered by authorities.
The government seized just under 8 million liters of stolen fuel between January and July whereas it secured just under 25.2 million liters last year.
However, there is no data showing the quantity of stolen fuel that wasn’t recovered, the newspaper El Universal said. Therefore, lower confiscation levels don’t necessarily mean that less petroleum is being stolen.
The government has made combating fuel theft a priority, implementing a plan in which 15 government departments and organizations, including the army, navy and National Guard, are participating.
As a result, 50 billion pesos (US $2.6 billion) that would have been lost had theft levels remained the same will flow into government coffers, he said.
The Pemex figures, however, raise significant questions about the reliability of the claims made by the president, who on occasions has dismissed official statistics by asserting that he has “other data.”
A record number of counterfeit 500-peso banknotes was detected in the first half of the year despite the release in 2018 of a new bill with enhanced security features.
The central bank reported that 80,891 fake 500-peso notes were removed from circulation between January and June.
It is the highest number of counterfeit notes of any denomination that have been detected in a six-month period since 2015. The figure exceeds the total number of fake 500-peso notes that were withdrawn from circulation in the entirety of each of the past four years.
According to the Bank of México, 156,278 bogus banknotes were removed from circulation in the first half of 2019. The total value of the phony bills was 54 million pesos (US $2.8 million).
The fake 500-peso bills had a face value of 40.4 million pesos, or 75% of the total, and accounted for 52% of all notes withdrawn from circulation.
Among the counterfeit cash detected were fake versions of all three 500-peso notes: the inaugural bill featuring army general Ignacio Zaragoza, that with the countenances of renowned Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera – which first appeared in 2010 – and the new blue-colored note featuring former president Benito Juárez on one side and a gray whale on the other.
Released on August 27, 2018, the most recent 500-peso banknote features a range of security features including fluorescent ink, a dynamic thread, embossing perceptible by touch, a watermark and a multicolor denomination.
However, it wasn’t long before the first counterfeit versions of the note were detected.
The newspaper Milenio reported that a man was arrested in Monterrey, Nuevo León, in September 2018 after trying to pay a hotel bill with nine forged 500-peso notes.
In the first half of 2019, almost 57,000 counterfeit bills that were removed from circulation – 35% of the total – were detected in Mexico City.
Almost 17,000 fake notes were detected in México state, 9,442 were discovered in Jalisco and more than 7,000 were found in each of Puebla and Nuevo León.
Bank of México reports indicate that forged banknotes are most commonly produced using inkjet or laser printers.
