López Obrador announces Investment Council before business leaders

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February 18, 2019

AMLO announces new council before business leaders. — AMLO announces new council.

President López Obrador announced today the creation of a new government investment council before a gathering of business leaders in Mexico City which included the nation’s richest man, Carlos Slim.

The new entity, the Council for Investment Promotion, Employment and Economic Growth, will be headed up by the president’s chief of staff, Alfonso Romo.

He said the council’s objective will be to stimulate economic growth with the private, public and social sectors working together.

The secretariats of Agriculture (Sader), Communications and Transportation (SCT), Economy (SE), Energy (Sener), Finance (SHCP), Environment (Semarnat), Foreign Affairs (SRE), Labor (STPS) and Tourism (Sectur) will all be represented on the council, he explained.

Representatives from academia, business, technology, labor and civil society will also join the council through positions on different committees.

“It will be a forum for discussion and analysis that will be supported by specific committees in the mentioned sectors. All of you are involved,” Romo said.

“They entrusted me, and I quote the president verbatim, ‘to promote the convergence of the public, private and social sectors to get out of the economic stagnation that has meant growing at a rate of barely 2% for more than 30 years,’” Romo added.

The chief of staff, a former Olympic equestrian show-jumper and business tycoon, said the council will prioritize innovation, the adoption of new technologies and providing support for small and medium-sized businesses.

“If we want to offer opportunities to young people we must accelerate the focus on innovative technologies, industries of the future, information technology, biotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence, genomics and renewable energy. We must transition to this new reality,” Romo said.

He acknowledged that a lot of challenges must be overcome to achieve greater economic growth and development, specifically citing protectionism, trade wars and regional geopolitical tensions, but stressed that Mexico could “turn those threats into opportunities.”

Romo added: “[We can] turn Mexico into an investment paradise and a competitive country. To do that, it’s necessary to bring the public, private and social sectors together for national economic development . . .”

López Obrador said his goal is economic growth of 4% annually, a figure almost double the 2019 and 2020 projections by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“Public, private and foreign investment is required. We need investment to take growth from 2% to 4% . . . that’s the goal, that’s the task of Poncho [Romo]. It’s what we have to achieve between all of us with the coordination of Alfonso Romo . . .” he said.

López Obrador thanked the business leaders present for their support. In addition to Slim were Miguel Alemán Magnani, executive president of the airline Interjet, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, founder and chairman of Grupo Salinas, a conglomerate that includes Banco Azteca, TV Azteca and Elektra, and Business Coordinating Council (CCE) president Juan Pablo Castañón.

“. . . We’re going to work together, we’re always going to put the general interest first, the national interest. I know that you love Mexico very much,” the president said.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Displaced families from Guerrero, oil workers from Veracruz among protesters

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MND Staff

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February 18, 2019

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Displaced by violence, citizens from Guerrero camp outside the National Palace.

Displaced families from Guerrero and oil workers from Gulf of Mexico states are among hundreds of people protesting in front of the National Palace in Mexico City today.

More than 400 people displaced by violence in the Guerrero municipalities of Leonardo Bravo and Zitlala traveled to the capital yesterday in buses and pickup trucks and camped out in front of the seat of executive power, located in Mexico City’s downtown.

The residents are demanding a meeting with President López Obrador to seek his assistance to return home or to be relocated elsewhere.

Cresencio Pacheco González, spokesman for the displaced people, told the newspaper El Universal that Guerrero Governor Héctor Astudillo Flores hasn’t shown any interest in resolving their problem.

Those displaced from Leonardo Bravo, an opium-poppy growing municipality in the state’s sierra region, left their homes on November 11 after around 2,000 armed men – self-declared community police members – took control of 10 communities.

More than 1,600 people have since stayed in crowded conditions in an auditorium in the municipal seat of Chichihualco.

The other group of displaced persons currently in the capital left their homes in Tlatempana, Zitlala, on November 8 after receiving threats from self-defense force members who have controlled the town for four years.

The same self-defense force has been engaged in a dispute with another vigilante group from the municipality of Chilapa. The dispute left 12 people dead last month.

The Zitlala residents say it is impossible for them to return home while the violence continues.

Joining the Guerrero residents in central Mexico City are Pemex employees from the states of Veracruz, Tabasco and Campeche.

The members of Section 47 of the Petroleum Workers’ Union are protesting at the entrance of the National Palace to denounce the sale of positions within the state oil company and to demand the full payment of their salaries.

In addition, members of the indigenous Triqui community, a group originally from Oaxaca, are staging a sit-in to demand they be given a space in the capital to sell their arts and crafts.

Shortly after López Obrador took office on December 1, metal barricades that prevented citizens from getting close to the National Palace were removed.

In the ensuing two and a half months, scores of different groups, organizations and individuals with a range of different complaints and petitions have staged protests within what they hope is the president’s earshot.

Before he took power, hundreds of people arrived daily at López Obrador’s transitional headquarters in the Mexico City neighborhood of Roma to ask for the then president-elect’s assistance to cure all manner of ills and wrongdoings, underscoring the staunch faith many Mexicans have in the political veteran.

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

2 dead after train collides with tanker truck carrying gasoline

By

Tony Richards

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February 18, 2019

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Firefighters at the scene of the tanker truck-train crash.

At least two people are dead and four injured after a tanker truck carrying gasoline was struck by a freight train in Aguascalientes this morning.

According to initial reports, the truck was attempting to beat the train to a crossing in the community of Coyotes, to the south of the city of Aguascalientes.

The driver of the tanker and a passenger died trapped in the truck’s cab after the vehicle exploded and caught fire.

Source: Reforma (sp)

AMLO says autonomous agencies ‘a farce’; conflict identified at energy regulator

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MND Staff

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February 18, 2019

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Public Administration Secretary Sandoval.

President López Obrador launched another attack on autonomous government agencies today, describing them as “a great farce,” while a cabinet secretary offered details about a conflict of interest accusation leveled at the head of Mexico’s energy sector regulator.

Speaking at his morning press conference, López Obrador accused the autonomous regulators of the energy sector – namely the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) and the National Hydrocarbons Commission – of being complicit with the corrupt management by past governments of state-owned companies such as Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

“They maintained relationships with private companies that benefited from contracts both with the CFE and Pemex,” he said.

López Obrador was also critical of the conduct of the regulators of the banking and telecommunications sectors, among others.

The rebuke follows a claim from the president last week that autonomous public organizations have been guilty of “facilitating theft” by corrupt officials.

On Friday, López Obrador also leveled a conflict of interest accusation at CRE chief Guillermo García Alcocer, although he didn’t present any evidence to support it.

Public Administration Secretary Irma Sandoval elaborated on the allegation today, saying that a contract had been found for the transportation of natural gas that was awarded to a company at which a family member of García works.

The contract, awarded in June 2017 to the energy company Fermaca – whose director, Santiago García Castellanos, is the first cousin of García’s wife – was not declared by the CRE chief, Sandoval said.

The cabinet secretary said that a probe into the awarding of the contract is taking place, adding that the government is also investigating whether there are any other agreements approved by the CRE which have benefited García or his relatives.

Sandoval pointed out that Alcocer himself admitted in 2016 that his wife’s brother, Mario Barreido, works for the Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas.

Alcocer argued at the time that his brother-in-law’s employment at the company didn’t represent a conflict of interest because Vestas is not regulated by the CRE.

But Sandoval said today that Barreido actually works for Vestas’ Mexican subsidiary, which is regulated by the CRE.

She also said that Barreido is the legal representative of three other companies which have interests in Mexico’s energy sector.

“He [García] shouldn’t be there [at the head of the CRE],” López Obrador declared.

The president’s initial unsubstantiated accusation against the official came after the latter criticized the president’s choice of candidates to fill four positions on the CRE’s governing body.

García subsequently said he had “nothing to hide” and was waiting for the government to present its evidence against him.

López Obrador said today that his view that García should not be CRE chief is “not because he questioned us,” stating that “the issue is deeper than that” and that “he deceived the people of Mexico.”

He also pledged to “purify” autonomous government agencies “because they were completely at the service of private interests.”

The organizations’ budgets have already been cut, a move that the government has explained is in accordance with its policy of austerity.

The National Electoral Institute (INE), the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) and the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) are among the autonomous agencies that have seen their 2019 funding slashed to the tune of hundreds of millions of pesos.

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

Explosions, two-kilometer ash plumes at El Popo volcano

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César Hernández

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February 18, 2019

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There has been greater activity at El Popo since Sunday morning.

The restless Popocatépetl volcano had a very active 24 hours starting yesterday morning, with several explosions and ash plumes that rose as high as two kilometers above the mountain.

The National Disaster Prevention Center (Cenapred) said this morning it had identified 20 gas and water vapor exhalations at El Popo, with the first three recorded yesterday at 9:56am. The most recent was recorded this morning at 7:04.

Wind sent the ash in a north-northeast direction away from the crater.

There were also two recorded episodes of harmonic tremors — a sustained release of seismic and infrasonic energy typically associated with the underground movement of magma — lasting five and 10 hours respectively.

There was a slight ash fall in the Tlaxcala towns of Tlaxco, Xalostoc, Nativitas, Hueyotlipan, Amaxac de Guerrero, Tepetitlá de Lardizábal and Texoloc.

Cenapred said the activity was expected to continue, as will the wind direction.

The agency advises the public to stay away from the volcano, especially from its crater, due to the release of water vapor and gas plumes and a light fall of ash in nearby areas, along with incandescent fragments.

The alert level also warns of the possibility of eruptions causing pyroclastic flows and mudslides carrying debris, although at such a small scale that evacuation of neighboring inhabited areas is not required.

A security perimeter is in place in a 12-kilometer radius of the crater, and traffic is controlled at Paso de Cortés between the towns of Santiago Xalitzintla and San Pedro Nexapa.

In case of rain, people should avoid deep ravines due to the slide hazard.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Looking for craft beer in Mexico City? Here are some options

By

Lydia Carey

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February 18, 2019

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Cervecería Reforma makes a gose, a porter and an Irish red ale.

Mexican craft beer may still only have 3% of the national market, but it is crushing it in Mexico City.

Folks are clamoring for local beer, and while there has always been an abundance of breweries in cities like Guadalajara and Tijuana, until recently not many breweries were actually located in the heart of CDMX.

These breweries have braved the traffic and chaos to bring capitalinos beer right down the street and around the corner and here is where you can find them.

Cerveza Cru Cru

Callejón de Romita #8, Colonia Roma

Making beer was just the hobby of a few of the Cru Cru partners until they banded together to open their microbrewery in the Colonia Roma. They now have a production area and a small taproom in a 19-century mansion in La Romita (with lots of intrigue sprinkled throughout the house’s pre-brewery history).

Cru Cru always has four of their standard beers on tap as well a few innovations or collaborations behind the bar if you ask nicely (the gose made with worm salt is fantastic). Their most popular beer is the pale ale (it makes up a whopping 70% of their production), but founder Luis de la Reguera says his current favorite is the Cru Cru porter.

While they don’t have a full-service taproom and bar just yet, which is what they are working towards, for the time being if you want to visit you can join my craft beer and taco tour (MexicoCityStreets.com), or join the twice weekly Craft Beer Turibus tour on Fridays and Saturdays, or come by the brewery on Thursday at 7:00pm for salsa class (no, you don’t have to dance in order to try the beer, it’s just when the brewery is guaranteed to be open).

Falling Piano Brewing

Coahuila 99, Colonia Roma

Started as a crowd-funding project, Falling Piano Brewery in the heart of Colonia Roma has 45 investors and two founding partners. In March of this year their set-up will be complete and downstairs will be the production area where you can get a tour and some beer-making 101.

One of Falling Piano's beers is called 'your dog is barking.' — One of Falling Piano’s beers is called ‘your dog is barking.’

For now, upstairs is a warehouse-style taproom with space for about 100 people. The kitchen is a rotating pop-up — each month a new chef or restaurant is invited to create the menu. They have 15 beers on tap, all the Falling Piano brand, with classic Mexico City names like tu perro está ladrando (your dog is barking), an IPA, or the tusci pop, a fruit beer inspired by a traditional Mexican candy.

These are some of the same folks that brought you HOP: The Beer Experience (see below), dedicated to bringing delicious beer to the masses of Mexico City. As founder Diego Lara likes to say, beer makes good moments better and bad moments bearable.

Cervecería Reforma

Calle Laura Mendez de Cuenca 21 A, Colonia Obrera

Officially opened in 2015 and selling beer since 2016 the Cervecería Reforma is a high-tech set-up where you can get a hyper-detailed tour of the processing room and learn how they make their three styles: a gose, a porter and an Irish red ale.

They are currently working on a fourth style so stay tuned. The name Reforma obviously refers to the city’s grand avenue but also, according to the brewery’s founders, the union of Mexico’s two strongest cultural influences – Europe, represented by Chapultepec castle at one end, and its indigenous roots, represented by the Templo Mayor at the other.

These two sides of the Mexican psyche are represented in their beer as well. This cervecería doesn’t have its doors thrown open wide to the public (that is their next step), but is part of the city’s Craft Beer Turibus tour on Fridays and Saturdays and offers its space for group tastings and tours with advance notice.

HOP: The Beer Experience

Avenida Cuauhtémoc 870, Colonia Narvarte Poniente

Ok so HOP is not a brewery, but the three city locations are great places to get craft beer. HOP 2 in Colonia Narvarte has 52 beers on tap, more than anywhere else in the country! They started out as a craft beer store and then slowly evolved into craft beer bars and beer gardens that import hard-to-find-in-Mexico craft beer from around the world.

HOP 1 in Juárez is a cozy little beer cave, HOP 2 in Narvarte is a massive rollicking beer garden and the new HOP in Polanco is somewhere in the middle and a little more fancy, as you would imagine.

One more round

A couple more spots for tasting craft beer: the relatively new Principia brewing from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, in Colonia Del Valle (Magdalena 311) currently has 12 beers on their menu, with a little over half the bar’s own brand.

The Tasting Room (Chiapas 73) has also become a cult classic, their brand is Morenos and in addition to that they have a lot of United States craft beers on their menu.

The tiny Beer Bros in Narvarte (corner of Luz Saviñon and Juan Sánchez Azcona) also has a wide range of craft beer from Mexico and around the world.

Lydia Carey is a freelance writer based in Mexico City.

Cocaine smuggling by sea triples in four years; boats run from Colombia to Mexico

By

MND Staff

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February 18, 2019

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A soldier stands guard over cocaine seized off the coast of Guerrero.

The amount of cocaine shipped northbound by sea through Mexican waters almost tripled between 2014 and 2017, according to estimates by the United States Coast Guard.

In the former year, an estimated 945 tonnes of the drug left South America on boats, many of which are destined for the Mexican coast to offload their cargo to crime gangs that move it onwards to the lucrative United States market by land.

The U.S. Coast Guard estimates that the figure grew to 2,738 tonnes in 2017, an increase of 190%.

A bumper 2017 crop of the coca plant in Colombia is one factor believed to be behind the upsurge in smuggling attempts, most of which are made via a well-traveled Pacific Ocean route.

Cocaine seizures are also up, especially off the Pacific Coast of southern Mexico, where authorities have intercepted several go-fast boats during the past year.

Between January 2018 and February 2019, the Mexican navy seized 10.7 tonnes of cocaine, an amount that accounts for just under two-thirds of the total quantity of the drug confiscated at sea during the six-year presidency of Felipe Calderón, who waged a war against Mexico’s drug cartels on land.

To detect drug-smuggling vessels, the navy has adopted a three-pronged strategy that involves the use of its own fast boats in addition to frigates and surveillance aircraft including King Air planes and helicopters.

Authorities also receive intelligence from South American and Central American countries about the departure and location of suspicious vessels, which allows them to better prepare for their arrival in Mexican waters.

In January 2018, a tip-off from the Guatemalan navy helped its Mexican counterpart to detect a boat carrying more than 900 kilograms of cocaine off the coast of Chiapas.

The smugglers threw the drugs overboard when a surveillance aircraft approached and the navy later collected the jettisoned cargo.

There were at least seven large cocaine seizures off the coast of Guerrero last year, including one of almost two tonnes in which an Ecuadorian citizen was arrested.

There were also two one-tonne confiscations off the coast of Guerrero, another of just under a tonne and three others ranging between 250 kilograms and 800 kilograms.

However, the largest 2018 cocaine bust at sea was the August seizure of 2.2 tonnes of the drug in the Pacific Ocean 278 kilometers southwest of Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. Four Mexicans, three Colombians and a Canadian who were onboard the drug-carrying vessel were taken into custody.

Just over half a tonne of cocaine was retrieved off the coast of Chiapas in September after smugglers threw 17 packages of the drug overboard, while earlier this month a similar amount was confiscated from two vessels located near Huatulco, Oaxaca.

One crew member was detained during the latter seizure but the others escaped arrest as did those who jettisoned their cargo off the coast of Chiapas.

In addition to the maritime cocaine seizures, the Mexican navy has also confiscated other drugs at sea.

Last week, nine tonnes of marijuana, methamphetamines and fentanyl were seized off the coast of Sonora after three suspicious vessels were detected by the fourth naval regional force, which is based in the port city of Guaymas.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Attack on journalists in Sonora leaves one dead

By

Madison Koen

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February 18, 2019

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One journalist was murdered and another wounded Saturday in Sonora.

Radio announcer Reynaldo López and reporter Carlos Cota were shot in Hermosillo in an attack that left López dead and Cota in critical condition.

According to authorities, the two journalists were driving on Francisco Reynaldo Serna boulevard when several men armed with automatic weapons opened fire on them from another vehicle, killing López and seriously wounding Cota before fleeing the scene.

Paramedics arriving on the scene rushed Cota to a local hospital, where he underwent surgery.

Sonora Governor Claudia Pavlovich expressed solidarity with the families of the victims and said that she would personally supervise the state attorney general’s investigation.

Presidential spokesman Jesús Ramírez also lamented the attacks, saying “all aggression against the freedom of speech constitutes a condemnable act . . . . We anxiously await action from the corresponding authorities to investigate these acts.”

Cota was a popular sports reporter for Televisa Sonora for many years.

The attorney general’s office said on Monday it appeared the attack was not connected with the victims’ work. Investigators believe it was related to illegal activities by someone close to one of the two reporters.

Reynaldo López is the third journalist to be murdered in Mexico this year, following the killing of radio host Jesús Ramos Rodríguez in Tabasco a little over a week ago and the assassination of community radio director Rafael Murúa in Baja California in January.

According to the National Human Rights Commission, 144 journalists have been slain in Mexico since 2000, a situation which prompted the Committee to Protect Journalists to classify Mexico as the most dangerous country in the Western Hemisphere for media workers.

Source: Animal Político (sp)

Islas Marías prison, ‘symbol of oppression,’ to become arts center

By

Madison Koen

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February 18, 2019

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Islas Marías, home to a penal colony since 1905.

“We should have more schools and fewer prisons,” President López Obrador said today while announcing that the Islas Marías prison will become an arts center.

A federal prison has operated on one of the four islands in the Islas Marías archipelago, located about 100 kilometers off the coast of Nayarit, since 1905 when dictator Porfirio Díaz sent political prisoners to work in the islands’ salt mines.

Over the years, the prison population has fluctuated from 300 to 3,000.

The president said the island prison has been a symbol of oppression and the site of human rights violations.

He said it currently houses 600 low-risk inmates, 200 of whom will be released. The other 400 will be transferred to prisons closer to their home states. Prison employees will also be transferred.

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“The island will be transformed into a center for the arts, for culture, and to learn about the environment and nature, and the flora and fauna of these and other islands,” López Obrador said.

The Islas Marías were declared a biosphere reserve in 2000 and designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2005.

The president recalled that former South African leader Nelson Mandela spent most of his 27-year imprisonment on an island penal colony not unlike the Islas Marías. He told reporters that the islands would present an opportunity to learn from the past.

“This will become an island for children and young people, with camps for them to learn about how these models of punishment must disappear.”

Environment Secretary Josefa González Blanco Ortíz explained that activities will include hiking, wildlife watching, sports, theater, writing classes and literature workshops. One particular work to be studied will be Walls of Water by José Revueltas, who was once imprisoned at Islas Marías.

Source: Reforma (sp), Animal Político (sp), ADN Político (sp)

CORRECTION: The photo that initially appeared with this story was not Islas Marías, but Alcatraz. We regret the error.

9 tonnes of drugs seized off coast of Sonora

By

Madison Koen

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February 16, 2019

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Military personnel seize drugs on Sonora beach.

The Mexican navy seized nine tonnes of marijuana, methamphetamines and fentanyl off the coast of Sonora after a chase on the high seas earlier this week.

According to a military report, an air and water patrol from the fourth naval regional force based in Guaymas, Sonora, spotted three vessels at sea with suspicious cargo.

During the subsequent pursuit, one of the boats dumped its load overboard in an attempt to avoid prosecution for drug trafficking.

Air, water and infantry naval forces cornered and forced the suspected traffickers to make landfall near Puerto Libertad. Navy personnel found 8,842 kilograms of marijuana, 12 kilos of marijuana seed, 292 kilos of a white powder assumed to be methamphetamine and 200 grams of fentanyl.

In addition to the drugs, the navy also recovered stolen fuel and arms and munitions designated for the exclusive use of the Mexican armed forces.

The navy reported that the vessels, fuel and drugs were all sent to the federal prosecutor’s office in Hermosillo, where they will be tested, weighed and filed as evidence in the criminal investigation.

Source: Reforma (sp)