Thousands of students march to protest unpaid scholarship funds

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June 27, 2019

Students demonstrate outside Education Secretariat offices in Mexico City.

Thousands of students are protesting in Mexico City and other parts of the country today to demand the payment of scholarships promised by the federal government.

Under the Benito Juárez scholarship scheme, the government pledged to provide financial support to students from low-income families who attend public schools.

But thousands of students say their applications for the scholarship have been ignored, while those who have been enrolled in the scheme claim they have only received one payment since the government took office almost seven months ago.

Isaías Chanona Hernández, leader of the Rafael Ramírez National Federation of Revolutionary Students, accused the government of providing false information about how many students are receiving the scholarships.

Students protest outside the National Palace today.

“In the face of thousands of students in precarious situations, the federal government has shown itself to be insensitive because it hasn’t provided real solutions to the education problem. On the contrary, it falsifies data and declares that more than 80% of students who asked for a scholarship have been granted one,” he said.

The federation’s spokesperson, Betsy Bravo, blamed the government’s budget cuts and said that a lot of students have indicated they probably won’t continue studying in the next school year due to the financial difficulties they face.

Protests were held this morning in the zócalo, Mexico City’s central square located in front of the National Palace, and at 1:00pm today an estimated 15,000 students demonstrated outside the Secretariat of Public Education, which is also located in the capital’s historic center.

Earlier today, a group of students marched down Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City’ most emblematic boulevard.

In addition to demanding the unpaid scholarship funds, students are appealing to the government to complete repair work at schools damaged in the two powerful earthquakes that hit central and southern Mexico in September 2017.

Teachers taking part in today’s protests claimed that some of their colleagues have been unfairly dismissed and that cuts to their salaries have affected their ability to support themselves and their families.

Other cities where students are protesting to demand the payment of the Benito Juárez scholarship include Mérida, Oaxaca and Durango.

Source: Milenio (sp), Unión Guanajuato (sp)

National disaster fund: bottomless barrrel of money, charges AMLO

By

César Hernández

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June 27, 2019

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López Obrador charged that the sargassum invasion has been a fabricated emergency.

President López Obrador charged today that the national disaster fund, Fonden, has been a “bottomless barrel of money” for which emergencies were invented in order to tap into the funds.

He explained that under a state of emergency purchases made by the government forego the usual bidding process, creating “a constellation of firms around Fonden that sold everything . . . all managed by the Interior Secretariat, billions of pesos . . . ”

López Obrador included sargassum invasions among the phony emergencies, an issue he believes is not “very serious.”

The government of Quintana Roo and the opposition National Action Party have demanded funds from Fonden be used for a program to combat the sargassum.

” . . . I did not like the program because it was more of the same. Don’t we have a very professional organization like the navy to perform professional studies? Why shouldn’t it be in charge of this program?”

He offered no evidence to demonstrate corruption at Fonden and no other examples of fabricated emergencies.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Pacific coast’s first tropical storm has formed off Colima

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César Hernández

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June 27, 2019

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Over one month into the hurricane season, the Pacific coast has its first named tropical storm, Alvin.

A tropical depression gained strength off the coast of Colima Wednesday night, and although it is moving away from the coast, it is expected to bring some rain to western states.

The United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported that Alvin was located 855 kilometers south-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California Sur at 10:00am CDT and moving west-northwest.

It is expected to deliver strong and intense isolated storms to parts of the states of Jalisco, Colima and Michoacán.

There are no further hazards affecting land, the NHC said.

Mexico News Daily

President’s office ordered to release AMLO’s travel expenses

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MND Staff

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June 27, 2019

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The president's office must release travel expenses. — The president's office must reveal travel expenses.

The National Transparency Institute (Inai) has ordered the president’s office to release details pertaining to President López Obrador’s land travel expenses.

The directive comes after the office refused to provide information to an individual who requested details about the vehicle fleet at López Obrador’s disposal as well as the costs to maintain the fleet and to purchase fuel for the cars in which the president travels.

Inai commissioner Óscar Guerra Ford ordered the president’s office to carry out an exhaustive search of its files in order to provide a response to the applicant.

“The individual requested to know which vehicles and how many vehicles the president of the republic uses for his commutes between his home and the National Palace and vice versa, as well as for his various tours within the country,” he said.

Guerra said that the refusal to supply the information requested was improper considering that the president’s office previously did provide a response to a person who requested details about López Obrador’s travel between Aguascalientes and Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, on January 18, the date on which a petroleum pipeline exploded in the latter town, killing or injuring more than 100 people.

In that case, the official said that the president’s office provided information about the make and model of the vehicle in which López Obrador traveled as well as the details of its license plate.

To find the information requested by the more recent applicant, Guerra ordered the president’s office to carry out a search of all files in its logistics-related departments.

Since taking office last December, López Obrador has sometimes continued to travel in his own Volkswagen Jetta and has adopted a range of other personal austerity measures to help cut government costs.

He only travels on commercial flights, largely eschews personal security, lives in a private home rather than what was the official presidential residence and earns less than half the salary paid to his predecessor.

(He announced last week that he and his wife and son would move into the National Palace following the end of the school year. He will be the first president to live in the palace since Porfirio Díaz in 1911.)

López Obrador has also put the presidential plane and other government-owned aircraft up for sale and said earlier this month that the proceeds will help fund efforts to curb migration.

Source: El Universal (sp)

National Guard will be deployed throughout Mexico City to counter rising crime

By

Simon Schatzberg

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June 27, 2019

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national guardsmen — Next stop, Mexico City.

The National Guard will be deployed throughout Mexico City to combat insecurity, President López Obrador announced today.

The deployment responds to rising rates of crime in the capital over the last 10 years.

“It’s clear that crime is on the rise, especially homicide, which has risen from two to six a day,” said López Obrador.

The president blamed increased crime on former Mexico City administrations, who he says tolerated organized crime.

“Gangs that once didn’t exist in the city were allowed to put down roots, and so-called organized crime groups started coming in,” he said. “I think that’s become more visible since last year, in certain parts of the city, and it’s what’s causing the problem.”

The decision to deploy troops to the capital was made after conversations between the federal government and Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum.

“The mayor is doing a great job, she’s working on the problem every day,” said López Obrador. “At first, we thought that sending the National Guard wouldn’t be necessary, but because of the situation, the mayor agreed that the National Guard will be deployed to all of Mexico City.”

The president did not say how many guardsmen will be sent but noted that when the Guard starts operating on Sunday, there will be a total of 70,000 troops across the country, and that the government plans to expand the ranks of the Guard to between 130,000 and 140,000.

He added that training classes for guardsmen will end on Friday.

According to a document leaked to the news agency EFE, the National Guard will number 82,747 troops by the end of 2019. About three-quarters of the Guard’s numbers will come from army and navy troops passing directly to the new security force.

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

Boozing, drug-taking doctors and deputies remark costs health chief his job

By

Madison Koen

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June 27, 2019

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Calling doctors and legislators “drunks and drug addicts” didn’t go over well for Colima Health Secretary Miguel Becerra Hernández, who presented his resignation just hours after a rambling speech that also targeted overweight women.

The official story was that he resigned “for personal reasons.”

Becerra made his remarks during the swearing-in of a municipal addictions council in Villa de Álvarez.

After observing that “all women are beautiful, but if they feel fat, then they go and do stupid things like taking drugs to lose weight,” he said “the professionals who have the most problems with alcohol, tobacco and drug addictions are legislators and doctors.”

The secretary paused, perhaps realizing that some of those present were legislators.

“I screwed up — I meant lawyers. Anyway, you know what I mean. A high percentage of doctors smoke, and that’s an addiction. They throw parties and every once in a while one starts taking drugs. And among lawyers, there’s always at least one who takes them when they have their meetings.”

Concluding, he worried aloud, “My boss is going to reprimand me, but oh well, it’s very important to talk about these issues. Thank you for listening, and I hope that you are able to take away something from this. If not, it won’t have been worth the scolding he’s going to give me.”

Becerra got more than a scolding.

Hours later, Colima Governor Ignacio Peralta Sánchez published a press release that explained that Becerra had resigned from his post for “personal reasons.” The governor wrote that he had accepted the secretary’s resignation and thanked him for his time in office.

“Miguel Becerra has distinguished himself for his honesty and, as well as having used his medical knowledge in the service of the [Secretariat of Health], he always carried out his duties with loyalty to the state government.”

Source: Milenio (sp), La Jornada (sp)

Number of overweight federal cops now up to 1,300

By

Simon Schatzberg

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June 27, 2019

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The number of Federal Police officers who failed to meet weight requirements to join the National Guard is as high as 1,300, according to audio files leaked to the newspaper Reforma.

The new federal security force, which is in the process of absorbing the Federal Police, requires its officers to have a body mass index between 18.5 and 27.9. People with a BMI above 25 are considered overweight.

In the leaked audio, an unnamed Federal Police commander tells a group officers who failed the requirements that they will be able to keep their Federal Police positions for two months, giving them time to slim down and take another shot at joining the new security force.

“It’s not mandatory, of course not, it’s a very respectable personal issue,” the commander said.

But at least 650 overweight officers who chose to be temporarily commissioned by the National Immigration Institute (INM) will need to complete the commission before they can apply again to join the National Guard. The INM commissions are expected to last between five and six months.

The commander also said that if more Federal Police officers are found to be too heavy for the Guard, they may not get the second opportunity that is being given to the first 1,300.

“You are the few personnel who are going to have this chance,” he said. “People from the next division that moves over to the National Guard who don’t meet the requirements, they aren’t going to get another chance.”

The overweight officers also have the opportunity of being commissioned by the Federal Protection Service, which provides security services to federal agencies and institutions.

To join the National Guard, officers must be directly incorporated from another security force, or apply as a civilian. The Guard does not accept applications from former members of police or military forces.

On Monday, a group of family members of the overweight Federal Police officers who were commissioned by the INM protested in front of the National Palace in Mexico City, complaining about poor working conditions for the officers.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Mexico is world’s No. 2 opium producer with 5.6% of production: UN

By

MND Staff

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June 27, 2019

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Opium poppy cultivation was up 20% in 2017. — Opium poppy cultivation was up 21% in 2017.

Mexico was the world’s second largest illicit opium producer in 2017 behind Afghanistan, according to a new United Nations report.

An estimated 586 tonnes of opium were produced in Mexico between July 2016 and June 2017, an increase of 100 tonnes compared to the same period a year earlier.

The figure accounted for 5.6% of global production of the drug, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in the publication World Drug Report 2019.

However, Mexico’s production was dwarfed by that of Afghanistan, which produced 86% of the world’s illicit opium in 2017. Myanmar was the third largest producer, providing 5.3% of global supply.

Mexico’s increased opium production was driven by an expansion of the area of land on which illegal poppy crops are grown, the UNODC said.

According to the report, opium poppy cultivation increased by 21% in 2017 to 30,600 hectares.

However, the latter figure falls well short of the estimate made by the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy, which said that poppies were grown on 44,100 hectares of land in Mexico in 2017.

Even though the area of land on which poppies are cultivated and opium production both went up in 2017, the UN report shows that Mexico did have some success in its fight against the drug.

The government eradicated opium poppy crops on more than 29,000 hectares of land in 2017, more than any other country.

However, that statistic reveals that farmers are expanding the area on which they grow poppies at a considerably greater rate than that at which authorities are eradicating them.

Mexico’s largest opium poppy producing region extends across the Sierra Madre Occidental in the states of Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango, an area known as the Golden Triangle.

Large poppy crops are also grown in the north of Nayarit and in the Sierra Madre del Sur in Oaxaca and Guerrero.

While poppy and opium production in Mexico remains high, a study published by the Network of Researchers in International Affairs (Noria) earlier this year said that prices for Mexican opium gum plummeted by as much as 80% last year due to the rise in demand for the synthetic opioid fentanyl among United States drug users.

Noria said the decline in opium income “is causing a series of very serious secondary economic effects” in communities that are dependent on the cash crop and that “the Mexican opium crisis looks like it might ruin the poorest areas of rural Mexico for good.”

Source: EFE (sp)

Logistics firm warns medications delivery time will double under new plan

By

MND Staff

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June 26, 2019

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New supplies may take longer to arrive, warns logistics operator.

The federal government’s plan to assume responsibility for the distribution of medications to public health facilities will cause delivery times to double in most states, the head of a logistics firm has warned.

As part of a new model for purchasing and distributing medications, the government announced last month that the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) will take over responsibility for getting drugs to the nation’s public hospitals and health clinics. Private logistics firms currently carry out that task.

José Ambe, general director of Logística de México, believes that the government doesn’t have the logistical know-how to ensure that medications reach their intended destinations in a timely fashion.

“Specialized personnel with knowledge of technological advances is required in order to establish highly efficient distribution chains,” he said, explaining that if such chains are in place, delivery costs come down and medication and medical supplies reach the places where they are needed “in the shortest possible time.”

Even though the government has said that its new centralized and consolidated purchasing model will allow medicines to be obtained at cheaper prices, Ambe predicted that it will end up paying about 10% more if it goes ahead with the plan to distribute medications itself.

“The private sector dedicated to the distribution of medicines absorbs all operational costs, including the modernization of infrastructure,” he said.

Rafael Gual Cosío, head of the National Chamber of the Pharmaceutical Industry, has already warned that the government hasn’t properly considered the logistics and costs of distributing medications, stating that neither IMSS nor any other government department, including the army, has the capacity to adequately store and transport the massive quantities of drugs required by patients in the public health system.

Other members of the sector told federal officials last week that the pharmaceutical industry won’t take responsibility for problems created by its new model for purchasing and distributing medications, including medicine shortages.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Communities that obtained order to stop 8bn-peso highway want the land back

By

MND Staff

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June 26, 2019

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The México state highway at the center of dispute by indigenous communities.

Residents of two indigenous communities in México state obtained an injunction last December that halted construction of the Toluca-Naucalpan highway, an 8-billion-peso (US $418-million) project that encroached on their land.

But despite the legal victory, work has continued on the road, leading residents of Huitzizilapan, one of the two Otomí communities that filed last year’s injunction request, to take a different approach to stop the project: they’re asking for the return of their land.

Although the highway is almost 80% complete, one key factor is on their side: a decree issued by former president Enrique Peña Nieto in 2014 that expropriated their forest land for the project expired on May 29.

In that context, communal landowners, local authorities and other community groups from Huitzizilapan on June 17 filed an unprecedented legal document with Fifonafe, an agency of the Secretariat of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning that deals with communal land matters.

The document entitled “request for the return of territory” states that there is currently no procedure within Mexico’s legal framework that allows the recovery of indigenous land after an expropriation decree has expired.

It is being argued that a new, unique process must be created in order to return the land to its owners, most of whom say they were not consulted before the expropriation occurred.

The contract to build the Toluca-Naucalpan highway was awarded by the México state government to Grupo Higa in 2007, the second full year of Peña Nieto’s six-year term as governor.

The company was a favored contractor of Peña Nieto, winning lucrative contracts from both his México state and federal governments.

According to Abundio Rivera, a representative for the Otomí community, México state authorities approved the highway project despite only a small minority of landowners granting their consent.

That consent, he argued, was obtained at meetings that didn’t comply with legal requirements and at which landowners were only informed about the supposed benefits of the project and not the drawbacks.

“It was an imposition with rigged meetings. They did it by dividing us, saying that it was going to bring progress and development,” Rivera said.

Hugo Hernández, a lawyer for the disgruntled Huitzizilapan residents, said his clients’ rights, both as landowners and indigenous people, have been violated.

Peña Nieto’s state and federal governments didn’t consult with the affected population in good faith or in a culturally sensitive way as stipulated in international agreements that Mexico has signed, he said.

The lawyer added that the demand goes beyond the return of the land, explaining that they also want compensation for the violation of their rights as well as for the negative impacts that the project has had on their physical, psychological and emotional health and well-being over the past 12 years.

To garner support for their cause, Hernández said the community of Huitzizilapan has launched an online campaign using the hashtag #ElBosquedeVuelta (The Forest Returned).

Asked about the claim for the return of land at his daily press conference this morning, President López Obrador responded, “we’re going to review the case . . . in order to know the legal situation . . .”

Source: El Universal (sp)