50% of Mexicans believe security situation will improve in 2020: poll

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January 2, 2020

Half of those polled predicted AMLO's popularity would increase and 26% said Donald Trump would be ousted before this year's election.

Fifty percent of Mexicans believe that Mexico’s security situation will improve this year, according to a poll conducted by the newspaper El Financiero, while just over half think the economy will pick up after stagnating in 2019.

In contrast, 30% of 800 Mexican adults polled last month predicted that the security situation would deteriorate this year, while 17% said it would stay the same.

The optimism of half of the those polled came despite homicide numbers reaching record levels in 2019.

With regard to the economy, 54% of respondents said they believed it would improve in 2020, while 27% predicted it would get worse and 17% said it would remain the same.

Revised data published by the national statistics agency Inegi in November showed that the economy contracted 0.09% in the first quarter of 2019 and 0.06% in the second, and grew by just 0.1% in the third. Figures for the fourth quarter of last year have not yet been released.

Reasons for the optimism on the economy from more than half of those polled including the signing of a revised version of the new North American free trade agreement last month and the announcement in November of a US $42.95-billion national infrastructure plan that the government said would stimulate growth.

Asked to offer an opinion on the outlook for President López Obrador’s popularity in 2020, 49% of respondents said it would increase, 29% said it would decrease and 18% said it would stay the same.

The result could be explained by the optimism of half of the poll respondents with regard to security and the economy.

However, to increase his popularity, López Obrador will have to reverse a downward trend in his approval rating revealed by polls published in the latter half of last year.

The poll also touched on the 2020 presidential election in the United States, asking what was most likely to happen to President Donald Trump. Twenty-three percent said he would win the election, 42% said he would lose and 26% predicted he would be ousted before they were held.

The El Financiero poll also found that 49% of Mexicans believe that women’s protests against violence and femicide will increase in 2020, while 30% think that their frequency will decrease.

Several such protests were held in Mexico last year, including a performance in Mexico City in November of “Un violador en tu camino” (A rapist in your way), a choreographed feminist chant that originated in Chile and spread to cities around the world.

In addition, the poll revealed division among Mexicans about whether López Obrador should travel overseas in 2020 to represent Mexico on the world stage: 49% of respondents said the president should travel abroad, while 48% said he should stay at home to concentrate on domestic issues.

López Obrador didn’t leave the country in 2019, choosing instead to send Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard to represent Mexico at international meetings such as the G20 leaders’ summit and the United Nations General Assembly.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Happy new year’s shooters kill one, wound 19

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Cody Copeland

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January 2, 2020

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Firing weapons in the air can be fun at any time. This Mexico City cop was in a festive mood when he fired 15 shots into the air last March. — Firing weapons into the air can be fun at any time. This Mexico City cop was in a festive mood when he fired off 15 shots last March.

Despite awareness campaigns aimed at preventing people from firing guns into the air to ring in the new year, at least one person was killed and 19 were wounded by stray bullets during this year’s celebrations.

Gabriela Zavaleta Fermín, 30, died in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, when a stray bullet struck her in the head at 12:13am on January 1.

Also in Oaxaca, at least two people were reported wounded by stray bullets in Pinotepa Nacional.

A man from Irapuato, Guanajuato, posted on Facebook that his family’s New Year’s festivities were ruined when a stray bullet struck his wife in the hand.

“Your bullet didn’t go to the stars, your bullet fell on my wife’s finger, you ruined our New Year, while you continue to have fun and feel like hotshot and a thug for firing bullets into the air. May God forgive you,” he said.

“Help me share this so that the idiot can see where his bullet fell,” he added.

A teenage girl in Allende, Nuevo León, was injured while lying in bed when a stray bullet pierced her home’s sheetmetal roofing and struck her in the right shoulder. Since the bullet lost velocity when it hit the roof her injury was not severe and she did not require hospitalization, but received medical attention at a municipal clinic.

Six people were hit by falling bullets in Sinaloa where authorities said it was the worst year for such incidents. Last year there were three such injuries in the state.

A woman and seven men were injured in Tijuana just after midnight, and in Acapulco, a minor was struck by a stray bullet near the Plaza Marbella beach during the city’s fireworks show.

Each year authorities ask the public to refrain from celebrating the start of a new year by firing their weapons but the warnings goe unheeded by some.

Depending on the caliber of the gun and angle at which it is fired, a bullet shot into the air can reach an altitude of up to 1.6 kilometers, a height from which it can gather enough velocity to pierce a human skull by the time it returns to the ground.

Sources: Milenio (sp), El Imparcial (sp), 24 Horas (sp)

Chichén Itzá breaks attendance record with 18,000 visitors

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Cody Copeland

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January 2, 2020

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Chichén Itzá: 18,000 visitors in one day.

The Chichén Itzá archaeological site in Yucatán broke its one-day attendance record on December 29 with 18,696 visitors.

The day’s attendance was over 25% more than the 14,000 who visited on the equinox in March and 58% more than the 7,728 on the fall equinox in September.

The head of Yucatán’s Culture and Tourism Services Agency (Cultur), Mauricio Díaz Montalvo, said the famous Mayan pyramids weren’t the only tourist sites in Yucatán that were packed during the busy holiday season.

Although it didn’t see the spectacular numbers that Chichén Itzá saw, the Uxmal archaeological zone was also popular among tourists during the holiday break. On December 22, it welcomed 2,552 visitors, while the Dzibilchaltún site saw 1,239.

Other popular sites included the ecotourism destination Celestún, which received 1,054 tourists on December 23. The X’Kekén and Samulá cenotes (sinkholes with underground rivers) in Dzitnup, near Valladolid, saw 1,131 visitors between the two on that day.

Mérida’s Pasaje Picheta, a shopping center in one of the city’s oldest buildings, recently reopened after being closed for two years from renovations, saw 3,630 visitors on Saturday, December 21.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Durazo’s new year’s resolutions: Guard deployments in 200 locations

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MND Staff

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January 2, 2020

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The deployment of the National Guard to 200 regions across the country is one of several new year’s resolutions outlined by Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo in a series of Twitter posts.

The federal government is beginning 2020 with “things to do and challenges,” Durazo wrote in the first of five New Year’s Day posts.

“We will continue combating corruption in the security forces and will not give any concession to uniformed crime that protects organized crime,” he said.

The security secretary asserted in his second post that the government’s welfare programs will continue to create opportunities this year, particularly for the nation’s youth and poorest people.

“We will continue moving forward to eliminate all activities and conditions that are generators of violence,” Durazo wrote in reference to the government’s so-called abrazos no balazos (hugs not bullets) security strategy that favors addressing the root causes of crime over combating it with force.

In his third post, the secretary said the government will deploy the National Guard to 50 new regions in 2020 to bring the total number of regions covered by the new security force to 200.

Durazo said that 21,170 new guardsmen will be recruited in order to bolster the National Guard’s presence in the entire country.

“The organizational and administrative maturing” of the force will continue to be a priority for the government, he added.

The National Guard, which has drawn most of its approximately 90,000 members from the Federal Police and armed forces, was formally inaugurated on June 30, 2019 and deployed to 150 regions the next day.

However, it failed to make any significant progress in reducing violence in the second half of last year, which is almost certain to go down as the most murderous in recent history.

In his fourth Twitter post, Durazo said the government will continue moving ahead with a “reorganization” process in the nation’s prisons in order to combat the criminal activity that is organized within them.

“We will especially work on the implementation of the new national policing model and coordination for the strengthening of state and municipal police,” he added.

The security secretary wrote in his fifth and final January 1 Twitter post that the government expects that “with these measures, and the will, unity and participation of everyone, 2020 will be a year of very good results for the recovery of peace” in Mexico.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Clashes between gangsters and police in Tamaulipas leave at least 17 dead

By

Cody Copeland

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January 2, 2020

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Police at the scene of one of several shootings this week in Tamaulipas.

Instead of celebration, the new year was rung in with widespread violence in two border towns in Tamaulipas as gunfights between members of the Northeast Cartel and security forces left at least 17 dead and many others wounded.

National Defense Secretariat (Sedena) troops were attacked by armed civilians in Miguel Alemán on Tuesday but at least six of the attackers were shot and killed by soldiers.

Soldiers also dismantled a criminal cell’s compound and seized guns, magazines and around 1,000 cartridges.

Nuevo Laredo saw at least five violent confrontations between criminal groups and security forces on New Year’s Eve. One of the attacks left three gunmen dead and a police officer wounded. Two gunmen were shot dead in another clash.

Armed men later attacked a hotel in which state police officers were staying, and another confrontation outside a hospital left two people dead and a civilian seriously wounded.

The violence continued into the new year, as clashes between cartel members and police forces created chaos in the city on Wednesday. At least four criminal suspects were killed and two officers were wounded in the confrontations.

Tamaulipas Governor Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca responded on Wednesday evening to what he called the “cowardly attacks by the Northeast Cartel.”

“The [government of Tamaulipas] will not let its guard down and will keep acting with strength against the criminals,” he said in a tweet.

He went on to recognize “the good state police who have acted with strength and bravery facing the criminals in #NuevoLaredo.”

Source: Hoy Tamaulipas (sp), La Razón de México (sp)

17 inmates dead after two riots at Zacatecas prison

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Cody Copeland

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January 2, 2020

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A helicopter flies over the Zacatecas prison where two riots have occurred this week. — A helicopter flies over the Zacatecas prison.

Two riots at the Cieneguillas prison in Zacatecas this week have left 17 inmates dead.

At least 60 guards and staff were being investigated after a first clash left 16 dead and five wounded on New Year’s Eve when a second riot occurred Thursday morning, killing another inmate.

Authorities believe that the inmates may have had help from prison staff in smuggling weapons into the facility during family visits on Tuesday.

“The state Attorney General’s Office began an investigation into the 60 guards and the staff working that day with the objective of determining their probable collusion in allowing the entry of weapons,” said Zacatecas Public Security Secretary Ismael Camberos Hernández.

Initial media reports stated that the riot broke out due to a dispute during a friendly soccer game between inmates, but Camberos denied the rumors, stating that the fight was planned by prisoners affiliated with criminal organizations.

At a press conference on Wednesday he said there are inmates affiliated with the Sinaloa, Gulf, Zetas and Talibanes cartels.

He said that preliminary investigations indicate that the violence was begun by members of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Prison staff were alerted to the fight by the sounds of alarms and gunshots during a special New Year’s Eve meal for inmates. It took three hours to get the situation under control.

Four firearms found in the prison after the fight led officials to believe that they were smuggled in on the day of the violence. Prison staff had also confiscated cellular telephones, knives, hammers and drugs on Sunday.

Camberos said the wounded inmates were in stable condition and that others have since been relocated in order to avoid further confrontations.

However, that did not prevent renewed violence on Tuesday when another inmate was killed.

Sources: El Diario MX (sp), Milenio (sp), El Universal (sp)

World Bank to provide US $100 million in financing for Valley of México water

By

MND Staff

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January 2, 2020

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The World Bank will provide more than US $100 million in financing for two water projects in the Valley of México.

A project to replenish the depleted water resources of the Valley of México aquifer will receive US $54 million, while another to modernize the infrastructure of the Cutzamala system will get US $60 million.

The funds in both cases will be managed by the Valley of México Basin Organization, a dependency of the National Water Commission (Conagua).

The federal government submitted a proposal to the World Bank for the first project, highlighting that the Valley of México aquifer is deteriorating due to the high demand for water in the Mexico City metropolitan area.

The aquifer supplies water to a permanent population of almost nine million people as well as a floating population estimated to be approximately five million.

The government proposed the use of treated wastewater to refill the aquifer via existing infrastructure such as the Cerro de la Estrella treatment plant, located in the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa.

A World Bank document seen by the newspaper Milenio says there are plans to rehabilitate wells and build an advanced water treatment system, among other measures. The development of two pilot projects to test ways in which the Valley of México aquifer can be replenished are under consideration.

The bank noted that the depletion of water in the aquifer due to excessive pumping has caused fracturing that has led to contaminants such as nitrates, chromates, iron and magnesium entering the water table and wells in different parts of the Valley of México.

The second project will seek to improve the energy efficiency and resilience of the massive Cutzamala water system as well as strengthen its information, monitoring and control systems. It also intends to improve the safety and reliability of the system and make changes that will prepare it to confront challenges posed by climate change.

The World Bank’s commitment to provide resources for the project comes in response to a funding application submitted by the National Water Commission (Conagua) for US $119.7 million.

Maintenance work on the Cutzamala system, which supplies water to 24% of the population in the Valley of México, left millions of people without water for almost a week in late 2018.

Conagua said in October 2019 that water supply to Mexico City had been reduced from 10,000 liters per second to 9,000 liters because the reservoirs that feed the Cutzamala system were only at 75% capacity.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Sinaloa finishes the year with 934 homicides, down 17% from 2018

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MND Staff

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January 1, 2020

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Cartel gangsters control a street corner in Culiacán in October.

The number of homicides in Sinaloa is on the decline: they were down 17% last year compared to 2018 and by 58% compared to 2010, the state public security secretary said on Tuesday.

Cristóbal Castañeda Camarillo told a press conference that preliminary statistics show there were 934 intentional homicide cases in Sinaloa in 2019 whereas in the first year of the decade there were 2,250.

The security secretary said the efforts of all three levels of government contributed to the “historic decrease” in homicide numbers over the past decade.

Greater coordination between state and municipal police forces in Sinaloa and the armed forces helped to achieve a reduction not only in homicides but in a range of other crimes, Castañeda said.

Vehicle theft declined 55% to 4,222 cases in 2019 compared to 9,401 cases in 2010, the secretary said before highlighting reductions in the incidence of several crimes between 2018 and last year.

Vehicle theft declined 28%, business robberies fell 7% to 986 cases and kidnappings decreased by 25% to nine cases.

Although crime statistics support the secretary’s assertion of an improved security situation in the northern state, the events of October 17, 2019, when the Sinaloa Cartel responded violently to an operation to capture a son of jailed drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, paint a very different picture.

Cartel gunmen took effective control of Culiacán for several hours in an unprecedented show of strength, which led the federal government to take the decision to release Ovidio Guzmán to avoid a bloodbath in the city.

The decision was heavily criticized in Mexico and abroad. A United States Secretary of State official said the events in Culiacán were “very concerning” for the U.S. government.

Many critics said the government had effectively given in to organized crime by releasing Ovidio Guzmán in the face of the threat posed by the Sinaloa Cartel.

However, President López Obrador defended the “very difficult” but “very humane” decision, asserting that the government took the view that that “the life of human beings comes first, not violence.”

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Arrests in LeBarón massacre now total 7

By

Cody Copeland

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January 1, 2020

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Members of the LeBarón family mourn victims of November massacre.

Three men detained last week in connection with the massacre of nine members of the LeBarón family on November 4 bring the number of arrests in the case to seven.

Agents from the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR), the National Guard, the army and the navy arrested the three men in Janos, Chihuahua, on December 26. One of the men was Fidel Alejandro Villegas Villegas, Janos chief of police.

Investigations have led authorities to believe that Villegas could be an active element in the La Línea gang and that through his influence and staff he procured protection for members of the organization. He is also under investigation by federal authorities in the United States.

The FGR said that joint investigations by various federal security forces led to the district court judge at the Altiplano federal prison in México state to issue arrest warrants for Villegas and two others for their involvement in the massacre and other gang-related crimes.

The three were put into preventative custody for the duration of their trial, which is expected to take four months.

The FGR added that for the purpose of secrecy, the legal status of the other four detainees also in preventative custody will be released at another time.

Despite the arrests, the LeBarón family continues to dispute the government’s claim that the attack was related to the conflict between the La Línea and Los Salazar criminal organizations.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Youngsters dress up as seniors to say farewell to the old year

By

Cody Copeland

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January 1, 2020

0

The holiday season is time for young people in towns across Veracruz to dress up as senior citizens and take to the streets to celebrate a tradition called El Viejo (The Old Man), which is believed to date back to 1875.

In the state capital, the youngsters parade through the streets to the sound of drums and trumpets to ask for money from drivers and pedestrians they pass along the way.

In the state’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec region, young men are the ones who don the costumes of both men and women to dance in the streets for a few coins.

In Xalapa, young people are joined by dozens of others from the nearby town of Teocelo to dance around in the dress of their grandparents. They return home around 11:00pm and use the money they earned dancing to buy soft drinks or alcoholic beverages.

In some towns, such as those in the Sierra Altotonga region of the state, the tradition is called Güegües (Old Men in the Náhuatl language), and the youngsters hit the streets at midnight on Christmas Eve and again on Three Kings Day on January 6. They also dance and take along the mandinga, a man dressed as a woman.

Tradición de “El viejo”, vigente entre la población conurbada Veracruz-Boca del Río-Medellín

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As opposed to the El Viejo celebrations elsewhere in the state, these kids don’t ask for coins. They give candy to children and adults that come to admire them and receive traditional punch and sweet fritters called buñuelos from women in the neighborhood.

Each municipality and village in the state has its own way of celebrating this nearly 150-year-old tradition, using trumpets, drums, violins or simply whatever they find along the way that will make noise to say farewell to the old year and ring in the new.

Source: Al Calor Político (sp)