Communal landowners want Quintana Roo archaeological site opened

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February 6, 2019

The Ichkabal archaeological site in Quintana Roo.

Communal landowners in Quintana Roo will make a direct appeal to President López Obrador to open an archeological site in the south of the state.

Luis Chimal Balam, head of the Bacalar ejido, or community land, said the landowners haven’t been able to reach an agreement with either the state government or the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) to have Ichkabal opened to the public.

The request to the president will be made during his scheduled visit to state capital Chetumal on February 24, he said.

In addition to asking for his intervention to open the Mayan site, the landowners, or ejidatarios, will also ask López Obrador and the federal government to stop the expropriation of their land.

Chimal Balam said that INAH has proposed paying 400,000 pesos (US $21,000) for each of the 121 hectares covered by Ichkabal and the surrounding area that needs to be developed to access the site.

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But the 165 ejidatarios have collectively decided that they don’t want to give up ownership of the land. Instead, they wish to be partners in the development of the archaeological site and direct beneficiaries of the tourism it attracts.

However, the former head of INAH in Quintana Roo ruled out that possibility in December.

“Current INAH regulations do not provide for any scheme of association such as the one ejidatarios are asking for . . . legally it’s not viable,” Adriana Velázquez Morlet said.

The Quintana Roo government has said that the recovery of Ichkabal could attract investment in hotels and real estate to the tune of US $1 billion over the next 15 years.

Located around 60 kilometers west of Laguna de Bacalar, Ichkabal is one of the most important Mayan cities of the pre-classical era. Some of its structures are taller than the pyramids at Chichén Itzá in Yucatán.

The state secretary of tourism believes that the opening of Ichkabal will be a major economic, social and tourism boost for the entire southern region of Quintana Roo.

Source: El Economista (sp)

Jalisco money woes: cancer budget slashed; no money to finish hospital

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Madison Koen

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February 6, 2019

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The Jalisco Cancer Institute had its budget cut this year.

Jalisco is struggling to treat cancer patients due to insufficient funding.

Not only has the Jalisco Cancer Institute seen its 2019 budget cut by 42%, the new Jalisco Cancer Hospital is only about 40% complete and the funds needed to finish it are not available.

Health Secretary Fernando Petersen Aranguren told reporters last month he didn’t know if the state would be able to obtain the funding necessary to continue the project, let alone furnish the new facility.

“No, right now there are no earmarked funds — neither state nor federal. We are investigating the project’s history to find out what happened . . . .”

Compounding the problem, the Jalisco Cancer Institute saw its budget slashed from 105 million pesos (US $5.5 million) to 61 million. The budget had been increased in 2018 to meet the hospital’s needs, but this year it is the same as the average allocation of previous years.

The hospital treated over 67,000 patients in 2018 and treats cancer cases from all over the state. To make matters worse it owes nearly 200 million pesos (US $10.5 million) to suppliers.

The new hospital would have 100 beds, while the institute only has 45. Because of the high demand and limited resources, the hospital has had to begin charging patients.

Aranguren explained that testicular, prostate, breast, cervical and colon cancers, along with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, are all covered by social security. However, since last year patients suffering from other forms of the disease, such as lung cancer, have had to pay for consultations and undergo a socioeconomic study to determine their ability to pay and how much they are charged.

“Unfortunately the institute no longer has the financial means of continuing to treat patients with other forms of cancer, and we have had to start asking them for payment.”

According to the World Health Organization, lung and skin cancer, both of which are not covered, are the most common types of the disease.

Source: Reforma (sp), UDGTV (sp)

Secretary faults bureaucrat for omitting penthouse on assets declaration

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MND Staff

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February 6, 2019

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The federal interior secretary today blamed a high-ranking bureaucrat and the department he heads for failing to include a penthouse she owns in Houston, Texas, on her personal assets declaration.

Speaking at the presidential press conference this morning, Olga Sánchez Cordero said that on January 30 she asked Fernando Martínez, head of the Public Administration Secretariat (SFP) department responsible for compiling such declarations, to publish all her assets.

Sánchez said that she has since asked the SFP department to explain why it omitted the property from her declaration.

The newspaper Reforma brought the omission to light earlier today in a report that said the 270-square-meter penthouse, owned by the former Supreme Court judge and her husband, is on the 22nd floor of a luxury building in an exclusive residential area of Houston and valued at more than US $583,000.

According to the public deed, Sánchez and her husband purchased the property on December 28, 2009, Reforma said.

The interior secretary said the newspaper should ask the SFP why it didn’t include the penthouse on her assets declaration, reiterating “I gave the instruction for it to be published.”

Sánchez also criticized the Reforma journalist who wrote the story for failing to ask for her version of events.

The publication last week of Sánchez’s other assets, which include a “rustic plot of land” valued at 90,000 pesos (US $4,700) and a 2.7-million-peso (US $141,000) apartment, came after President López Obrador issued an ultimatum declaring that “he who doesn’t make [their declaration] public, cannot work in the government.”

López Obrador, who took office on December 1, has pledged to lead a transparent government as part of his crusade to combat corruption.

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

More workers go on strike in Tamaulipas; experts warn of more job action

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MND Staff

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February 6, 2019

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Employees at Avant were among those who walked off the job yesterday.

Yet more workers have walked off the job in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, to demand better pay and conditions, while experts warn that strike action will spread to other parts of the country.

Employees of supermarket chains S-Mart, Chedraui and Walmart were among workers at more than 27 businesses in the northern border city who went on strike yesterday.

Their demands are similar to those made by workers at 48 Matamoros factories who have started job action during the past two weeks.

Last month, more than 30,000 workers at 45 factories stopped work to demand a 20% pay raise and an annual bonus of 32,000 pesos (US $1,700). Now, the spreading job action has been dubbed Movimiento 20/30 for the fact that more workers want the same increase and bonus.

The demands, presented by the Union of Laborers and Industrial Workers of the Maquiladora Industry (SJOIIM), were met by most companies, spurring employees of dairy distributor Liderlac, water purification company Blanquita and Arca Continental, a large Coca-Cola bottler, to take job action as well.

Two labor market experts agree that workers in other states will follow suit to demand higher pay and better conditions.

Luis Aguirre Lang, president of the National Council of the Maquiladora Industry (Index Nacional), said that “these kinds of situations are going to happen with greater frequency.”

He contended that power struggles between different unions that represent workers at the same factories will be the main cause of future strike action. In the middle of their fight, Aguirre added, they’ll take the companies “as hostages.”

The business leader reiterated that the Matamoros workers’ demands for higher pay, which he said were triggered by the doubling of the minimum salary in the northern border region, will cause companies to leave the northern border city and the country.

Aguirre said that some factory workers might have expected their salaries to double even though they earn more than minimum wage.

Meanwhile, Enrique Larios Díaz, president of the College of Labor Law Professors at the National Autonomous University (UNAM), said that workers are “waking up” to their working conditions and, in turn, taking action against the abuses of both their employers and their unions.

He said that salaries in Mexico are the lowest in the western world, arguing that creates a situation that can’t be ignored.

Larios added that the antiquated structures of many trade unions “are cracking” and that Juan Villafuerte, president of the SJOIIM, is representative of those structures, which keep “workers practically enslaved.”

The lawyer and academic also said that union leaders like Villafuerte “live like princes due to workers’ extremely high union dues.”

Larios said that while strikes have always been demonized, they have a valid purpose because they can help to bring balance to the relationship between employers and a work force.

Aguirre, on the other hand, said that strikes only generate a bad image of Mexico and will lead to a loss of investment. He pointed out that the manufacturing sector generates more than three million direct jobs and generates income of more than US $270 billion a year.

Tamaulipas Labor Secretary María Estela Chavira said that as many as 20,000 jobs could be lost in Matamoros if companies leave or cut their work forces because they can’t afford to continue paying the higher wages to which they have committed.

“The forecast is above 5,000 [job losses] and up to 20,000, companies predict [staffing cuts] within six months,” she said.

Chavira said that similar situations could occur in other states if there are conflicts between workers and employers.

With that in mind, Aguirre said that the federal government must establish clear rules with regard to arbitration between employers and employees.

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

New security plan will send 10,200 federal forces to 17 high-crime locations

By

Tony Richards

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February 6, 2019

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Durazo announces details of new security operation before a backdrop of monthly homicide numbers.

The federal government will send 10,200 police and military personnel to 17 high-crime locations in a new security operation that was first announced earlier this week by President López Obrador.

Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo told a press conference today that each of the 17 areas, which have been identified as having the highest number of homicides, will receive 600 personnel.

He said the deployments would be permanent, a fact that makes the new operation distinct.

“That is the difference with this strategy: it is one thing to carry out operations by sending forces from Mexico City to Tijuana and then having them return . . . and a very different one to have a permanent force responsible in a permanent manner for problems of insecurity,” Durazo said.

He also indicated it was a de-facto initiation of the proposed new national guard, which is awaiting congressional approval.

Instead of high-caliber firearms, the security forces will carry only those approved by security protocols.

The program began on Monday when forces were sent to strengthen security efforts in Tijuana, Baja California.

The other 16 locations are Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; Acapulco and Chilpancingo, Guerrero; Atlacomulco and Ecatepec, México state; Benito Juárez (Cancún), Quintana Roo; Guadalajara, Jalisco; Salamanca, Uriangato, Irapuato and Celaya, Guanajuato; Culiacán, Sinaloa; Manzanillo, Colima; Monterrey, Nuevo León; and Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa, Tamaulipas.

Homicide numbers last year were the highest ever recorded at 33,341, up 15% over 2017.

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

Marines find half a tonne of cocaine aboard boats traveling off Oaxaca

By

Tony Richards

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February 6, 2019

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Smugglers' boats found off coast of Oaxaca.

Navy marines seized half a tonne of what is believed to be cocaine after detecting two small boats traveling off the coast of Oaxaca.

Aircraft patrols, which have caught several such drug smuggling boats over the past year, located the vessels. Navy boats then forced the smugglers to the beach at Cerro Hermoso, near Huatulco.

Marines found 11 sacks of white powder that appeared to be cocaine and 66 containers holding some 350 liters of fuel.

Each of the two go-fast boats was powered by two outboard engines.

One of the boats’ crew members was detained; the others escaped arrest.

Mexico News Daily

Residents block highway: quake-damaged school still not replaced

By

Madison Koen

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February 6, 2019

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Parents and teachers block the Oaxaca highway yesterday.

Parents and teachers blocked Federal Highway 200 yesterday to demand that the Oaxaca state government finish repairs to an earthquake-damaged elementary school in San Andrés Huaxpaltepec in the state’s coastal region.

Benito Juárez Elementary School principal Guadalupe Cruz Vásquez accused the state and federal governments of abandoning the work to replace five classrooms that were damaged in the September 2017 and February 2018 quakes.

“It is unacceptable for them [the government] not to reply to this petition. We demand the work’s completion and a decent space for our students’ education. They cannot just abandon us.”

Of the four damaged classrooms the government was going to replace, only one was completed, the principal said. Such repairs fall under the jurisdiction of the Oaxaca Institute for Educational Infrastructure Construction (Iocifed).

Teachers at the school, whose enrollment is 170, complained that the institute abandoned the construction and repair work in December after completing only about 50%.

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For more than a year and a half, fourth and fifth-grade students have had to study in temporary and improvised structures made of materials such as metal sheeting and tarps.

Vehicles traveling on the federal highway linking Pinotepa Nacional and Puerto Escondido were impeded by the roadblock, which was lifted intermittently to allow a few drivers at a time to pass.

A spokesman for the CNTE teachers’ union said the blockade would continue Wednesday to pressure authorities into resuming work. “If there is no pressure, the work will not proceed.”

Source: El Universal (sp), NVI Noticias (sp)

‘No more migrants:’ Coahuila at maximum capacity, governor says

By

MND Staff

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February 6, 2019

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The governor of Coahuila has declared that no more migrants will be allowed into the state as thousands of Central Americans continue their journey through Mexico to the United States.

“We’re at maximum capacity,” Miguel Ángel Riquelme Solís said yesterday, referring to migrant shelters in the northern border city of Piedras Negras.

“We will not allow more migrants to travel through Coahuila because the border is overwhelmed, but neither will we invite chaos and therefore they should go to other states,” he said

The governor said that providing accommodation, food and services to more than 1,600 migrants who arrived in Piedras Negras yesterday had stretched the capacity of authorities, explaining that as a consequence, “we’ll block the entry to Coahuila.”

The Central Americans, mainly from Honduras but also Guatemala and El Salvador, entered Mexico in the middle of last month as part of a larger caravan of around 2,200. Authorities in Piedras Negras converted several old factories into shelters to house them.

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State news agency Notimex said that 51 other migrants had gone to Monterrey, Nuevo León, where authorities provided them with shelter in a gymnasium and humanitarian aid.

Manuel González Flores, general secretary for the state government, said that 35 of the migrants have family members in Nuevo León and intend to remain there, while the others are expected to continue their journey to the United States’ southern border.

At the other end of the country, around 3,800 migrants are currently traveling through Chiapas and yesterday reached Mapastepec, a municipality about 140 kilometers north of the Mexico-Guatemala border.

Hondurans also make up the bulk of that group but are joined by 500 Guatemalans, 300 Salvadorans and 50 Nicaraguans, caravan organizers told the news agency AFP.

The migrants plan to travel to Mexico City, where local authorities are preparing to receive them at the same sports stadium-cum-shelter that has housed previous groups.

From there, they will decide which section of the northern border they will travel to in the hope of claiming asylum in the United States, although U.S. President Donald Trump continues to maintain a hard line on immigration.

In his State of the Union address last night, Trump described the approach of migrants to the border as a “tremendous onslaught” of “large, organized caravans” and continued to press for funding for his long-promised wall.

“The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security, and financial well-being of all Americans,” he said.

“We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens . . . In the past, most of us, the people in this room, voted for a wall. But the proper wall never got built. I will get it built.”

In a Twitter post earlier in the day, Trump wrote: “Tremendous numbers of people are coming up through Mexico in the hopes of flooding our southern border. We have sent additional military. We will build a human wall if necessary. If we had a real wall, this would be a non-event!”

As has become his trademark in assessing the U.S. president’s comments about Mexico and border security, President López Obrador said Trump’s address last night was respectful.

“. . . There were some remarks [I didn’t agree with] but that’s his right, that’s his vision . . . He was very respectful of our government and we thank him,” he said.

Asked specifically about Trump’s claim that Mexico allows migrant caravans to freely travel through the country, López Obrador simply responded: “We very much respect the point of view of the president, Donald Trump.”

Source: El Universal (sp), Animal Político (sp), Excelsiór (sp), Noticieros Televisa (sp)

11 hidden graves in Colima yield 19 bodies, and there may be more

By

Madison Koen

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February 6, 2019

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Nineteen bodies have been discovered in 11 hidden graves in the high-crime municipality of Tecomán, Colima.

The state attorney general’s office (FGE) announced on Twitter that the bodies were found after police obtained a search warrant for a property in the community of Santa Rosa.

The investigation has been under way for several weeks.

The FGE said the bodies had been transferred to the coroner’s office for autopsies and to begin the process of comparing the victims’ DNA with national banks and registries to determine if any of those found have been reported as missing.

Governor Ignacio Peralta Sánchez said that although the investigation has only discovered 19 bodies so far, the state would not rule out the possibility that there could be many more.

On Monday, federal undersecretary for human rights Alejandro Encinas declared that Mexico is an “enormous hidden grave” during a press conference in which he presented a 400-million-peso (US $21-million) initiative to fund searches for missing persons — at least 40,000 people, according to the government’s own estimate — and to combat forced disappearances.

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According to statistics from the National Public Security System, Colima was one of the most violent states in 2018 with 81 homicides per 100,000 residents.

In March, Tecomán was the most violent municipality in Mexico, with a violence index of 103.83. The national average was 23.4.

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

Button up: cold front No. 35 is on the way, bringing snow to some areas

By

César Hernández

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February 6, 2019

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Snow can be expected at higher altitudes in some northern states.

Cold front No. 35 will bring a drop in temperatures in some states and rainfall in others starting today.

The National Meteorological Service (SMN) warned that snow and sleet are expected in the mountains of Sonora, Chihuahua and Durango, with extremely cold weather, rain and the possibility of tornadoes expected in those states and in Baja California, Zacatecas and Coahuila.

The thermometer is expected to drop below -5 C in the mountains of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua and Durango, while temperatures as low as -5 C can be expected in the mountains of the states of Coahuila, Nuevo León, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, Tlaxcala and México.

A slightly more bearable range of temperatures, between 0 and 5 C, has been forecast for mountain regions in the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Querétaro, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Hidalgo and Puebla.

Rain and intervals of light showers are forecast in parts of Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango and Sinaloa, while isolated rainfall has been forecast for Baja California, Baja California Sur, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas and Quintana Roo.

The rest of the country can expect stable and dry weather due to an anticyclonic circulation in the Gulf of Mexico coupled with gusts of southerly winds of 50 kilometers per hour or more on the coasts of Veracruz and Tamaulipas.

Source: Milenio (sp)