'We're going to win,' says AMLO of his economic growth forecast.
The number of jobs created in the first quarter of this year was the highest in 10 years, President López Obrador said today.
“According to IMSS [the Mexican Social Security Institute], the number of insured workers grew in the January-March quarter – 269,143 jobs were created. The figure represents an increase not seen for 10 years in a similar period,” the president told reporters at his morning press conference.
López Obrador said the job numbers are indicative of a growing economy, adding that the government remains confident that economic growth will exceed the figures forecast by analysts for 2019.
“The bet is on with the experts, the banks, the financiers, who have forecast that we’re going to have lower growth than what we’re estimating,” he said.
“We accept the challenge and we’ll be here watching [the economic data] . . . We’re going to win.”
The Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP) said earlier this month that it expected the economy will grow between 1.1% and 2.1% this year but López Obrador quickly rejected his own government’s figures, stating that they were too low.
The federal government says that it is targeting average 4% growth during its six-year term, a figure considered fanciful by most analysts.
Sandoval presents government's new salaries portal.
The salaries of around 3.4 million civil servants are now publicly accessible on a government website, the secretary of public administration announced today.
Irma Sandoval Ballesteros said that the earnings of 1.4 million employees of 290 federal departments as well as those of almost two million teachers can be consulted on the Portal Nómina Transparente (Transparent Payroll Portal).
The secretary explained that information on the site will be updated after each bimonthly pay cycle to ensure that the salaries of new appointments to government positions are available.
People curious to see how much a friend, family member, colleague or indeed anyone in the public service makes can simply enter their name into a search engine on the portal to find out.
Sandoval said that the site contains 10 or 11 times more information than that available on the portal of the National Institute for Transparency and Access to Information (Inai).
Although she is no longer employed by the government, the salary earned by Yalitza Aparicio – star of the Oscar-winning film Roma – when she was a teacher in Oaxaca was revealed on the government portal, the newspaper El Financiero reported, although it now appears to have been removed.
The indigenous actress earned a monthly salary of 10,481 pesos (US $555) as a preschool teacher in the town of Tlaxiaco, around one-tenth of President López Obrador’s net salary of 108,305 pesos (US $5,735).
Anyone interested in finding out how much the foreign secretary, the Pemex chief, or their child’s teacher earns can consult the payroll portal by clicking here.
The president in Campeche, where he threatened to repeal education reforms by decree.
Complete abrogation of the education reforms implemented by the previous federal government would be a backward step for Mexico, experts said after the president threatened Saturday to do just that.
President López Obrador said he will issue a decree to repeal the reforms if his own education plan is held up in Congress by opposition lawmakers and the CNTE teachers’ union, which argues that it doesn’t go far enough.
The president conceded that there are groups who don’t view his education laws favorably, adding “we’re going to be talking with everyone until there’s an agreement but if it takes too long, I will bring out a decree to abrogate the badly named education reform while the new proposal is approved.”
López Obrador said that his government won’t persecute teachers “as the past administration tried to do” but made it clear that he intends to put an end to the practice of selling positions.
He also said that teachers’ salaries will be paid directly by the federal government to avoid “diversions of funds” to state governments and union leaders, adding that teachers won’t be subjected to compulsory evaluations as was the case under the Enrique Peña Nieto administration.
If a teacher has completed studies in education, he or she has sufficient training to teach, López Obrador charged.
Roberto Rodríguez Gómez, an education researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences at the National Autonomous University (UNAM), was among several experts who warned that if the president follows through with his repeal-by-decree plan, the consequences will be dire as Mexico would effectively return to the legal framework for education that existed before 2013.
“With this decision, the education sector would return to the hands of the union. [They would control] everything that has to do with the allocation of positions, the promotion of teachers . . . and transfers. It would also eliminate the possibility of having the best teachers, which is assured through evaluations,” he said.
Rodríguez also said the president doesn’t have the power to unilaterally cancel the past government’s education laws.
“To repeal the reform, the constitution needs to be modified but that cannot be carried out at the president’s will but rather it has to go through the legislative bodies – the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate and the state legislatures,” he said.
Marco Fernández, a researcher at public policy think tank México Evalúa, said that repealing the reform would amount to “a contradiction with what the president has said in disagreement with the practices of the inheritance and sale of [teaching] positions.”
He added that it was the “very legal framework” that existed before 2013 that “allowed these bad practices” to happen.
Carlos Arnelas, another UNAM researcher, said “the most negative part of the president’s proposal is that once again the union would colonize basic [pre-school to middle school] education,” explaining that “in other words it would have a very strong capacity for negotiation at a state level and no governor would have the power to confront them.”
Alma Maldonado, an education researcher at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) Center for Investigation and Advanced Study (Cinvestav), said the most worrying aspect of the repeal plan is the elimination of the National Education Evaluation Institute (INEE), “because it generates vital information about the education sector.”
Teacher evaluation as set out in the former government’s education reform was vehemently opposed by the CNTE union, which protested frequently throughout Peña Nieto’s presidency.
The investigation into a Querétaro businessman accused of money laundering came to an end last September when the federal Attorney General’s Office decided not to proceed.
The case involved 2018 presidential candidate Ricardo Anaya, who denied involvement at the time.
He claimed that the Institutional Revolutionary Party was behind the accusation that Manuel Barreiro Castañeda headed an elaborate money laundering ring that benefited Anaya.
The Attorney General’s Office said in February it had opened an investigation into the case after it received a report in October 2017 about the use of funds from illegal sources.
In September, it decided no criminal charges would be filed against Barreiro.
Ricardo Pico uses two horn-shaped vessels to estimate the alcohol content of the sotol he makes at his Chihuahua distillery.
The pickup truck rambles down a long rocky road. On both sides, a barren landscape stretches out as far as the eye can see, punctuated by the occasional yucca tree.
After seemingly forever, I arrive at a small outpost, the aroma of smoked wood thick in the air from pit ovens nearby. The intense desert sun beats down on Ricardo Pico and me as we hop out of the truck at the viñata, or sotol distillery, deep in the Chihuahuan desert.
Pico is the man behind Sotol Clande, one of the latest artisanal brands of sotol to emerge from Mexico. Born from deserts and dry forests of northern Mexico, the spirit brings smooth yet earthy flavours and a fascinating history to the table and bar.
While sotol has been around for more than 300 years, it has long been overshadowed by the more popular Mexican drinks tequila and mezcal. Why? Up until approximately 30 years ago, sotol production was prohibited, and the culture behind it nearly lost.
Today, a small group of enterprises, like Sotol Clande, are reviving sotol’s production and heritage and reintroducing it to the world.
A desert spoon plant, source of sotol, at the top of a ridge overlooking the vast desert.
Sotol was born during Mexico’s colonial era when the Spanish settlers used distillation techniques to get the “spirit” out of plants the indigenous people had already fermented. In the northern dry-lands and sierras of Chihuahua, this included the sotol or desert spoon plant.
Thus, sotol, like tequila and mezcal, embodies the mestizaje (mixing) process that gave birth to almost everything in Mexican culture. But interesting enough, this northern beverage’s fate was considerably marked by Mexico’s northern neighbour.
Sotol’s heyday likely came in the early 1930s when over 300,000 liters per year were made, most of it destined for the United States to quench the thirst of Americans parched by prohibition. Rumor has it that even the legendary gangster Al Capone smuggled sotol from Mexican border areas into the U.S.
The sotol boom didn’t last long as the Mexican government began a crackdown on artisan alcohol producers. At the time, the Mexican elites favoured European liquors such as whisky and brandy, eschewing locally-made beverages for alcohol they perceived as higher class.
Sotol got a reputation as a drink for peasants and drunks, and producers were persecuted, their stills often riddled by bullets. Occasionally they were even thrown in jail.
This persecution took its toll on the industry, and generations of knowledge and tradition were nearly wiped out. Only a few sotoleros, or sotol producers, persisted, moving around the countryside with their copper stills and donkeys, packing up their clandestine mobile operations and moving on when the government closed in.
Workers move the roasted desert spoon hearts from the underground pit.
However, with the lifting of prohibition in the early 1990s, sotoleros slowly started coming, quite literally, out of the desert. This has led to a renewed interest in the beverage, with both artisanal and industrial brands resurrecting the spirit and bringing it to the public.
***
“When we first started the Clande project, we wanted to rebuild the story of sotol,” Pico says. That story, forgotten by many urban residents of Chihuahua, lived on through the knowledge of just a handful of producers in rural communities around the state.
Pico estimates there are fewer than 30 sotoleros in all of Chihuahua and fewer than 10 in the neighbouring states of Durango and Coahuila.
These producers traditionally made sotol just for their local communities, where consumers are very knowledgeable about the final product. They can taste subtleties in the production process such as premature harvesting, overcooking, over-fermenting and adulteration with agaves and sugar cane.
The communities, along with the master sotoleros’ knowledge, are vital components in the final product of a well-crafted sotol, argues Faridy Bujaidar Ávila. “It’s very important to highlight that artisanal sotol and industrial sotol are vastly different.”
According to Bujaidar, “[Artisanal producers] can’t adulterate it in any way because they have a direct relationship with their clients. However, when you try some industrial sotols, and you have an educated palate, you notice that they include sugar cane, which totally alters the flavour and greatly lowers the quality of the product.”
A worker fills the still with water to cool the liquid.
Bujaidar, who holds a masters in anthropology and researched sotol culture, stressed the importance of keeping the traditional methods alive. Although some producers have wanted to replicate the success of the more industrially produced tequilas, she feels that they lack the nuances and cultural richness that artisanally made liquors possess.
“It’s not just about the quality of the final product, but the traditional knowledge of the person who produced it, and of the communities that consume it.”
Pico seems to agree. His brand has a more anthropological vision, relying heavily on the expertise of the sotoleros he works with, most of whom have learned their craft from the generations before them.
***
At the viñata, I come to learn that this region was chosen for the distillery due to the abundance of the sotol plant nearby. We take a quick drive up to a viewpoint overlooking the desert. Off in the distance, mountains loom over the landscape, and to the northeast, the border with Texas. In front of us, hundreds, if not thousands of desert spoon plants are rooted to the ground, growing freely.
Although similar in appearance to an agave plant, the desert spoon is actually a member of the asparagus family. Its mute green leaves contain sharp teeth, which protect it from predators.
To make sotol, the hearts of the desert spoon are separated from the rest of the plant and roasted in an underground wood-fired pit for up to three days before being milled by hand and left to ferment in open-air vats. Following fermentation, the liquid is transferred to stills for distillation.
Pico pulls a small amount of the distilled liquid from a bucket made by master sotolero Don Eduardo Arrieta and his son, Eduardo. Passing the liquid rapidly between two horn-shaped vessels, he watches for how the liquid bubbles, an indication of the alcohol content of the first distillation. By distilling the sotol two or three times, they can achieve the desired alcohol content, usually around 50%.
While the roasting and knowledge of the sotoleros play a significant role in the taste of sotol, perhaps nothing is more important than the environment the plant grew in. “Terroir is very important to sotol,” Pico mentions. “Different experiences the plant has over 15 years, going through droughts, floods and other natural events, gives the final product a lot of its flavour.”
Many sotoleros prefer to produce blancos, as an unaged spirit retains more of the earthiness of the plant than their aged brothers reposados and añejos. Some craft distillers, such as master sotolero Geraldo Ruelas of Oro de Coyame, take their products a step further. Ruelas infuses some of his offerings with everything from almonds and pineapples to marijuana and rattlesnake meat.
I sample some of the varieties at Ruelas’ distillery in Aldama, just outside Chihuahua. Instead of the smokiness of mezcal or the bite of tequila, I find a smooth, easy-drinking liquor, with little alcohol aftertaste despite the 48% alcohol level. Each of the infusions adds a subtle touch of flavor to the sotol without distracting from the earthiness.
Long confined to being discretely sold directly from sotoleros such as Ruelas, sotol is now making its way into the tasting rooms of Chihuahua and cocktail bars around North America as an alternative to tequila and mezcal.
At the same time, the traditions and culture of a region are being renewed, and the story of sotol is being rebuilt.
The federal energy secretary today named the gas station chains which sold the cheapest and most expensive fuel in Mexico last week.
Speaking at President López Obrador’s morning press conference, Rocío Nahle also revealed the states in which the filling stations with the lowest and highest gasoline prices were located.
For regular fuel – known in Mexico as magna – PetroSeven was the cheapest chain between April 6 and 12, with an average price of 18.74 pesos per liter (US $0.99, or $3.76 a gallon).
Arco was the next cheapest, selling magna for 18.91 pesos per liter on average, while Pemex affiliate Rendichicas was third, with a price of 19.18 pesos.
Shell sold the most expensive regular fuel last week, averaging 20.23 pesos per liter, followed by G500 and Full Gas, both of which had an average price of 19.89 pesos.
For premium fuel, PetroSeven was again the cheapest followed by Arco and Gulf, with prices ranging between 20.35 pesos and 20.54 pesos.
Shell also had the most expensive premium fuel last week, averaging 21.61 pesos per liter, followed by Walmart and Oxxo Gas, with prices of 21.24 and 21.2 pesos respectively.
Nahle said the 10 gas stations with the lowest prices for regular fuel were in México state, Tamaulipas, Campeche, Veracruz and Puebla. The lowest price seen was 14.28 pesos per liter, 24% less than PetroSeven’s average.
The 10 filling stations with the highest magna prices were in Nayarit, Durango, Sonora, Michoacán and Chihuahua. The highest price charged for a liter of fuel was 22.99 pesos.
The cheapest premium fuel was found at stations in Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Puebla, Chihuahua and Guerrero (the lowest price seen was 16.56 pesos per liter), while the most expensive premium gasoline was sold in Guanajuato, Sinaloa and Chiapas (the highest price was 23.76 pesos).
López Obrador, who last week said the federal government could go into retail fuel sales if gas station owners don’t charge “fair prices,” reiterated yesterday that some of them are “taking advantage” of their customers.
“We’re ensuring that the [gasoline] price doesn’t increase but the distributors, not all of them, are taking advantage. It’s given to them at 16 pesos and they’re selling it at 19 or 20 pesos. They’re left with a profit margin that is higher than before,” he said.
The government has pledged that fuel prices will not increase beyond the annual inflation rate and last month increased a stimulus scheme for gasoline that is designed to alleviate the burden of the IEPS excise tax.
However, it appears that not all gas stations have passed on the savings to their customers.
"Voting is free, direct and secret," Sheinbaum reminded the audience, echoing a common Mexican voting slogan. (File photo)
It’s election season in six states, whose citizens are preparing to elect state legislators, mayors and governors on June 2.
The election will mark the first time that deputies and mayors will be able to run for a second term in Durango, Quintana Roo and Tamaulipas.
Voters in Quintana Roo will elect the 25 deputies to the state Congress while in Tamaulipas they will elect 36.
In Aguascalientes, candidates for mayor in municipalities with more than 30,000 inhabitants started today. Campaigns in the smaller municipalities will start on April 30. Voters will be electing a total of 109 municipal representatives, including 11 mayors.
Campaigns in Baja California started on March 30 where voters will elect the governor, five mayors and renew their 25-seat Congress.
In Durango, voters in its 39 municipalities will elect new mayors.
An extraordinary election started on March 31 in Puebla to elect a new governor after the death of Governor Martha Érika Alonso Hidalgo on Christmas Eve last year. Citizens of five municipalities will also be voting for a new mayor.
The National Electoral Institute said campaigns are scheduled to conclude on May 29, and that a total of 14,770 polling booths will be set up on Sunday, June 2.
A team of Mexican students took home a gold medal and two silvers in the European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO) in Kiev, Ukraine, on Saturday.
Mexico City native Ana Paula Jiménez, 17, won the gold medal for the team in what was her third year at the competition after winning two silver medals in 2017 and 2018.
Third-time competitor Nuria Sydykova Méndez, also from Mexico City, and newcomer Karla Rebeca Munguía Romero from Sinaloa won two silver medals. First-timer Nathalia del Carmen Jasso Vera won an honorable mention for her performance.
Overall, the Mexican team won 10th place out of a total of 200 girls from 49 countries. According to the Autonomous University of Mexico’s news agency, the win constitutes Mexico’s second gold medal in the history of the competition; the first was won by Jalisco native Olga Medrano in 2016.
Both Jiménez, who is in her second year of studies at a private high school, and Sydykova Méndez, who studies at the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico, have been a part of the Mexican Math Olympics’ academic program at UNAM’s Institute of Mathematics for several years.
It was Mexico’s fifth year in the competition, which was created in 2014 to encourage interest in mathematics among girls and young women, a field that has traditionally been dominated by men.
Red Cross volunteers face security risks in Guanajuato.
Nobody is immune from the wave of violence engulfing Salamanca, Guanajuato: Red Cross ambulances will now be accompanied by police on high-risk emergency calls after paramedics were threatened by armed men.
A Red Cross ambulance responded to a call for assistance late Saturday afternoon in the neighborhood of San Roque, where a man had been shot.
On its way to a hospital, the ambulance was halted by a group of men who forced the paramedics at gunpoint to hand over their patient. The whereabouts of the wounded man are unknown, the newspaper El Universal reported.
In light of the incident, the Salamanca Red Cross announced yesterday morning that it was suspending all of its medical services in the city and appealed for people’s understanding.
“All of us who are volunteers in this noble institution believe in its mission . . . but at this time we must take care of our safety. We are also parents, children and siblings,” the organization said in a message posted to social media.
However, after a meeting between the Red Cross and authorities yesterday afternoon, Salamanca Mayor María Beatriz Hernández Cruz announced that the organization would resume its ambulance services immediately and that its other medical services would recommence today.
In a statement, Guanajuato Public Security Secretary Alvar Cabeza de Vaca Appendini said that an agreement had been reached for police to “accompany Red Cross ambulances in high-risk and high-impact call-outs” in Salamanca.
The city is home to one of Mexico’s six oil refineries and borders Villagrán, the municipality where the powerful Santa Rosa de Lima fuel theft cartel is believed to be based.
Last month, 16 people were killed in a night club in the same neighborhood where the man was shot Saturday. Members of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel were allegedly behind the attack.
The humpback whale and rescue workers off the Baja California Sur coast.
A humpback whale found tangled in fishing gear off the coast of Loreto, Baja California Sur, was rescued yesterday after its plight was reported on social media.
Staff from the environmental protection agency Profepa and Loreto bay national park freed the animal of fishing buoys and ropes off Nopoló beach.
They said the whale was noticeably lean and was suffering from injuries caused by the gear, which it appeared to have been dragging for some time.
The gear in which the whale became entangled.
It took two hours to untangle the mess and free the animal, park personnel said.
The gear contained a tag bearing the name of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Reports of the successful efforts were posted on the park’s social media page, earning the congratulations of locals and praise for those who reported the incident.
