10-year manhunt ends with arrest of Guerrero gang leader

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August 2, 2019

The leader of Los Rojos is blamed for much of the violence in Guerrero and Morelos.

A 10-year manhunt came to an end yesterday with the arrest in Guerrero of the suspected leader of the Los Rojos crime gang.

Santiago “El Carrete” Mazari Hernández, identified as one of the principal instigators of violence in both Guerrero and Morelos, was detained in the Sierra region municipality of Leonardo Bravo in a joint operation by Federal Police, the army and the navy.

The federal Security Secretariat (SSPC) said that Mazari was arrested on charges of organized crime, drug trafficking and kidnapping. The 43-year-old is the subject of more than 15 criminal investigations at the state and federal levels.

Security forces also took into custody a suspect identified as Marco “N,” who was with “El Carrete” when he was captured. The SSPC said that he could be Mazari’s principal criminal operator.

Los Rojos have been involved in turf wars in Morelos with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and cells of the Beltrán Leyva organization and the Guerreros Unidos gang, while in Guerrero it has clashed frequently with Los Ardillos.

With the arrest of Mazari, the gang has been “practically dismantled” in the former state, the newspaper El Universal said, explaining that 90% of its criminal structure was taken apart when Alberto Capella Ibarra was Morelos security commissioner.

Mazari was previously arrested on trafficking charges in 2008 but released in early 2009. At least three of his family members have also been arrested.

Gabriela Mazari Hernández, sister of the detained capo and a logistics chief for Los Rojos, was arrested in March last year, while his son, Alexis Oswaldo Mazari, was detained in August.

Alfonso Miranda Gallegos, Mazari’s uncle and a former mayor of the Morelos municipality of Amacuzac, was arrested in May 2018 on charges of organized crime and kidnapping his political rivals.

He also allegedly provided protection to Los Rojos. In 2017, Capella said that there was evidence that 13 Morelos mayors were paying extortion fees to Mazari’s gang.

Morelos Governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco yesterday praised the work of security authorities and described the arrest of “El Carrete” as a “strong blow against organized crime.”

The governor’s chief of staff, José Manuel Sanz Rivera, called on residents of Morelos to remain calm, explaining that intelligence reports indicated that there was no imminent risk of revenge attacks.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Interjet to compensate 21,000 passengers affected by cancellations, delays

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Simon Schatzberg

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August 2, 2019

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interjet aircraft — Interjet has promised full compensation to travelers for cancellations and delays.

Budget airline Interjet said on Thursday that service was getting back to normal after three days of delays and cancellations affecting thousands of passengers.

According to Profeco, the consumer protection agency, 133 flights were cancelled between Monday and Wednesday of this week, affecting 18,247 passengers. Another 22 flights were delayed, affecting 2,998 more.

The airline said it will offer extra flights to the destinations where there were more disruptions, and compensation packages to affected passengers that go beyond the legal requirements.

In a tweet, Interjet CEO William Shaw offered his apologies to inconvenienced passengers.

“On behalf of Interjet, and for myself, I apologize to the customers who have been affected over the last 72 hours,” he wrote. “We are working on a protection plan to compensate everyone.”

He said the airline is working with Profeco and the Communications and Transportation Secretariat to create the compensation packages.

Profeco said in a press release that it had reached an agreement with Interjet to refund passengers the costs of their tickets.

To receive a refund, passengers must write to [email protected] or call customer service at 11 02 55 11 from Mexico City or 01 800 322 5050 from other states, and provide the operator with the flight’s reservation number.

The airline also agreed to hire 63 pilots and flight attendants to prevent similar disruptions in the future.

Source: El Financiero (sp), El Economista (sp)

Students learn civil disobedience, ‘social struggle’ in union’s plan

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MND Staff

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August 1, 2019

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CNTE representatives at the National Palace in Mexico City.

The CNTE teachers’ union will present an alternative education plan to President López Obrador that includes instruction on civil disobedience and social resistance and struggle.

Under the plan, students are taught from a “humanist” and “emancipatory” perspective using a curriculum that, according to the CNTE, breaks the model of traditional education.

It will be submitted to the president during a meeting scheduled for September 10.

The plan also says that parents need to form an “important part of the social, political, educational and cultural struggle against the imperatives that the system tries to impose.”

Learning is divided into five broad areas – territory and mother nature, language of the people, society and critical history of Mexico and the world, economy and productive work and popular culture.

Students evaluate their own educational progress and that of their peers.

The CNTE union, which organized countless protests against the former government’s educational reform, has also developed ideologically loaded “alternative” textbooks that have been distributed in Michoacán and Oaxaca.

Juan Melchor, a member of Section 18 of the CNTE, said the union has been working on an alternative education plan since 2015 and hopes that it will be disseminated nationally.

“The education we propose is an alternative to the privatization model of [former president] Enrique Peña Nieto’s educational reform . . .” he said.

Source: El Universal (sp)

President not getting factual advice on science issues: scientist

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MND Staff

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August 1, 2019

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José Franco defends scientific agency that faces government's axe.

President López Obrador is not getting factual advice on science issues, according to the former chief of an autonomous government scientific agency that is about to be disbanded.

Describing it as “another sticky mess” in the president’s office, López Obrador confirmed yesterday that the Scientific and Technological Advisory Forum (FCCyT) will disappear.

The president said the forum was a waste of money and unnecessary because he receives his advice on science issues from the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt).

In response to the announcement, José Franco, general coordinator of FCCyT between 2014 and 2018 and current head researcher at the National Autonomous University’s Institute of Astronomy, charged that the president is receiving scientific advice based on lies.

In an interview with the newspaper El Economista, the scientist said that López Obrador doesn’t have a clear idea of what the FCCyT is and the work it does.

Álvarez-Buylla of Conacyt and López Obrador.

“By saying that the forum is an irrelevant actor, he’s saying that a large number of institutions are unimportant. The forum isn’t a person but rather 17 institutions that work to build the country; that’s not a minor thing,” Franco said.

He claimed that Conacyt is behind the decision to dissolve the FCCyT, which was established during the Vicente Fox presidency in 2002.

Franco said the forum opposed a proposal presented by Morena party Senator Ana Lilia Rivera for a new federal science and technology law, explaining that its opposition riled Conacyt.

“As they have already cooked up their science and technology law, which is surely going to be an authoritarian thing like the previous one, that annoyed them immensely . . .” he said.

Nevertheless, Franco said the reasons why the president and Conacyt want to get rid of the FCCyT were not entirely clear.

He explained that when he was forum chief, current Conacyt director Elena Álvarez-Buylla visited FCCyT offices and was shown the projects the organization was working on.

“. . . She thought they were marvelous; I told her that they were very much in line with the mission of the new government,” Franco said, explaining that they included social innovation programs for disadvantaged communities.

“After that the curtain came down without us knowing why . . . The forum is accused of wasting money when there is complete evidence of the projects it carries out,” he said.

Citing budget cuts to federally-funded laboratories and scientific institutes, Franco said the move to dissolve the FCCyT fits within the context of a wider effort by the government to dismantle the public scientific sector.

“. . . They’re trying to strangle all the organizations that are representative of the community and the forum is part of all that,” he said.

“Thousands of people are protesting but unfortunately the government isn’t listening . . . and wants to destroy science. The construction of the science system, [which is] still very modest, has taken us more than 50 years and in [just] a few months they want to dismantle it, causing frustration everywhere.”

Source: El Economista (sp)

Fracking prohibition would cost $45 billion over 20 years: energy consultant

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MND Staff

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August 1, 2019

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An NGO sees fracking as essential for the viability of Pemex.

A ban on hydraulic fracturing would cost the Mexican economy US $45 billion over the next two decades, according to oil and gas consultancy Welligence Energy Analytics.

Senators with the ruling Morena party last month presented a bill to prohibit the controversial gas and oil extraction technique commonly known as fracking.

President López Obrador is also opposed to the practice due to environmental and water supply concerns and in June vetoed fracking operations that Pemex planned to carry out in the Huampa oil field in Tamaulipas.

If the bill becomes law – which would appear likely considering a Morena-led coalition has majorities in both houses of Congress – the fracking prohibition “would cancel investments of US $1.3 billion in 2020 and $45 billion to 2040,” Welligence said in a report.

The company said that potential fracking investments in states such as Veracruz, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Puebla, Coahuila and Nuevo León would be lost.

Welligence estimated that a fracking ban would result in a loss of 140,000 barrels per day of oil and 1.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

It would cost the government US $7 billion in tax revenue next year and 20,000 direct jobs would be lost.

Outlawing fracking would also be a big blow to the embattled state oil company.

Welligence said Pemex would be unable to exploit 30% of its 3P (proven, probable and possible) reserves and some 8,000 wells would be shut down.

According to the National Hydrocarbon Commission, about one in four natural gas and oil wells drilled in Mexico since 1996 has used fracking to extract the fuels.

In light of Welligence’s forecasts, the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) said that it was concerned about the economic impact of a fracking ban.

“Fracking is essential for the viability of Pemex,” the public policy research organization said in a statement.

IMCO also said that fracking is “essential to democratize the petroleum industry,” explaining that a lot of shale gas reserves are not economically viable for large companies such as Pemex but can be profitable for smaller ones that are more flexible.

The organization said that fracking has contributed to economic development in marginalized areas of the United States, citing North Dakota as an example, adding that the U.S. “put an end to its energy dependence on the Middle East thanks to these technologies.”

“. . . Mexico has to find its way in the use of fracking technology, adequately managing the associated risks. All technologies imply some kind of risk. The role of public policy is to evaluate what risks are manageable and able to be mitigated. Other countries have done it successfully. Why not Mexico?”

Source: Forbes México (sp)

Suspected car thief becomes cop’s piñata in Jalisco city

By

Madison Koen

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August 1, 2019

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Officer strikes suspected thief with a stick while a crowd below chants the piñata song.

Authorities in Tonalá, Jalisco, have begun internal proceedings against a police officer who used a suspected thief as a piñata.

Police had responded to reports of a vehicle that had been stolen while a 5-year-old girl slept in the back seat. They located the vehicle but the thief abandoned it and fled on foot.

Officers chased the suspect to the roof of a nearby church, where he threatened to jump to his death. For the next two hours, police officers and firefighters attempted to dissuade the man, slowly drawing closer to him, while a crowd of onlookers gathered below.

Finally, police were able to lasso the man by his ankle, and when he leapt from the roof he was left hanging upside down from a rope tied between the church and another building.

That was when a police officer climbed far enough to hit the man with a stick, which he began to do as if the suspect were a piñata. Shouts of encouragement came from the large group of spectators below.

Policías de Tonalá agarran a palazos a ladrón de autos como si fuera piñata pic.twitter.com/yimUmaXuOZ

— jorge mtz (@jorge2702) July 31, 2019

Eventually, police arrested the man and handed him over to the public prosecutor’s office after he was given medical attention.

In the meantime, municipal authorities issued a statement saying that internal affairs had opened an investigation into the incident, which was captured on video and has been widely shared on social media.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Medical interns call national strike over scholarships, insecurity

By

MND Staff

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August 1, 2019

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Medical interns are striking across the nation today to protest against any reduction of scholarship payments and to express their concern over working conditions and insecurity even as the government says there will be no cuts to training stipends.

In Mexico City, interns marched from the central square to the Health Secretariat while chanting “there is no austerity in health,” the newspaper Reforma reported.

Graduate doctors, nurses and other medical professionals claim that the government is planning to reduce the number of scholarships for interns and cut the amount they are paid even though the health department said in a statement yesterday that is not the case.

“No student that is fulfilling their social service will be left unprotected as there will be no reduction or suspension of the resource allocated to that end,” the statement said.

“The Secretariat of Health has a sufficient budget to pay 52,250 scholarships in 2019, an amount that is the same as . . . in 2018 and 2017.”

However, a member of the Mexican Assembly of Social Service Medical Interns told the newspaper El Universal that the payment of scholarships is not the only cause of concern.

“Today 54,000 medicine graduates should be starting their social service but that won’t be the case because positions were not assigned well in all states,” Roberto Gallardo said.

“The [protest] movement goes beyond scholarships, it’s not just about money but also so they [the government] see and know the conditions in which we work. There are very serious security issues,” Gallardo added.

Protesters in Mexico City demanded that the government provide security guarantees for interns posted to positions in isolated and marginalized communities and establish a national plan to improve conditions in rural healthcare centers.

Gallardo said that interns need certainty that they won’t be assaulted while working in a marginalized area but added that if it does happen, they need to have support.

He also said that interns are often “responsible for healthcare centers that don’t have equipment and supplies.”

Gallardo told El Universal that no member of the government has spoken with the disgruntled interns, adding that while President López Obrador says that sufficient resources have been allocated to pay scholarships and cover healthcare expenses in general, state health services say otherwise.

Nursing intern Luisa Fernanda Segura told Reforma that the government’s austerity measures have left hospitals and clinics without the materials they need to operate effectively.

“There is a shortage of medications and materials that we need in day-to-day life in the hospital.”

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

Record remittances in first 6 months, though numbers declined in June

By

Simon Schatzberg

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August 1, 2019

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dollars to pesos — Remittances declined in June. concanaco servytur

Mexicans living outside the country sent a record amount of money home in the first six months of this year, compared with the same period in other years.

According to Mexico’s central bank, remittances reached US $16.882 billion between January and June.

Within that period, however, remittance numbers have been evening out. In June, Mexicans abroad sent back $3.118 billion, 1.4% less than in May, and less than in June 2018, when the number was US $3.14 billion.

The number of transactions grew by 1.6% compared with June 2018, but the average amount per transaction fell by 2%.

Goldman Sachs economist Alberto Ramos told the newspaper El Economista that the slowdown should be carefully monitored.

“Remittances are important on the macroeconomic level, for financing, and for private consumption, especially for low-income families, which also tend to be the principal receivers,” he said.

Ramos added that in June, the average remittance received per household hit its 2019 high, as 1.8 million Mexican households received an average of US $336 from family members working in other countries. Based on that metric, June was the best month for remittances since November 2018, when the figure was US $342.

Remittances represent Mexico’s second most important source of foreign currency. Automotive exports are No. 1.

Most of the money is sent from Mexicans working in the United States.

Source: El Economista (sp)

Thinking he was a bad guy, police open fire on mayor’s truck

By

Simon Schatzberg

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August 1, 2019

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The mayor was unhurt after police opened fire on him.

Police in Hidalgo are in hot water after they fired their weapons at a vehicle that turned out to be that of the mayor.

Acatlán Mayor Benito Olvera Muñoz said that shortly after noon on Wednesday he was driving in his truck when armed men got out of a parked vehicle and order him to stop.

Not knowing who they were and fearing a kidnapping attempt, Olvera sped up. The men shot at his vehicle several times, attempting to puncture his tires. Olvera was not injured, but the vehicle was damaged by the gunfire.

Olvera reported the incident to the municipality’s police chief, who discovered that the shooters were ministerial police employed by the Hidalgo Attorney General’s Office.

“ I found out they were police officers who were looking for someone for whom they had an arrest warrant, and they had been circulating pictures of a pickup truck similar to the one I was driving,” said Olvera.

Olvera added that he has already reported the incident to Governor Omar Fayad and Government Secretary Simón Vargas, who confirmed that the shooters were police officers and said they will face consequences because they did not follow protocol.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Independiente de Hidalgo (sp)

National Guard on patrol join the party, have a few too many

By

Madison Koen

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August 1, 2019

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A guardsman struggles to remain standing while on patrol in Veracruz.

Everyone had a good time at the annual patron saint festival in Xico, Veracruz, even National Guardsmen who were on hand to provide security.

One member of the National Guard was caught on video stumbling around drunk and authorities revealed later that at least two more guardsmen had abandoned their posts to participate in the festivities.

In the video, the guardsman is seen being propped up by a colleague and a civilian as he struggles hard not to fall. The two talk with the inebriated soldier for a minute before ushering him away from the small crowd of onlookers.

In a statement yesterday afternoon, police said that members of the Guard and regional security forces were deployed in Xico on July 22 to deter crime and keep the peace during the town’s patron saint celebrations.

But the absence of three guardsmen was noted during a roll call. A search was ordered and the three were later found in an apparent state of intoxication.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Elemento de la Guardia Nacional fue captado en estado de ebriedad

Watch this video on YouTube