Teachers agree to lift Michoacán rail blockades but other protests to continue

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January 31, 2019

Michoacán teachers enjoy a game of dominoes on the railroad tracks.

Teachers in Michoacán have agreed to remove rail blockades that stranded trains for more than two weeks and cost the economy billions of pesos.

Representatives of the CNTE teachers’ union reached the decision at 2:00am today after a marathon 17-hour meeting.

Yesterday, the Michoacán government paid teachers more than 1.2 billion pesos (US $62.7 million) in salaries for the second half of January.

The CNTE said the rail blockades, which have been in place at seven locations since January 14, would be lifted beginning at 9:00am.

However, the union said that other protests, including barricades at government offices, would continue until all of its demands have been met and all outstanding payments have been made.

“The labor stoppage continues . . . The only variation is the call to the members of section 18 to leave the tracks,” CNTE Section 18 leader Víctor Zavala told a press conference this morning.

More than 94% of schools in Michoacán are affected by the strike action, he said.

Zavala explained that the decision to lift the rail blockades was to enter into talks with both Michoacán and federal authorities. A meeting was expected to take place in Mexico City this afternoon.

Teachers previously said that they wanted 5 billion pesos before they would end the rail blockade and return to the classroom.

President López Obrador this morning praised the decision to remove the blockades and said it was a “sin” that the state government hadn’t paid the teachers.

Michoacán Governor Silvano Aureoles said on Twitter that his government was willing to work with its federal counterpart and teachers to reach a “comprehensive solution.”

A report today by the newspaper El Universal said CNTE-affiliated teachers in Michoacán receive as many as 22 bonuses or additional payments on top of their regular salaries.

Family support payments and productivity, Teachers’ Day and Christmas bonuses are among the additional compensation teachers receive, the report said. They also receive annual bonuses equivalent to 65 days of salary whereas the legal minimum is 15 days.

All told, the additional payments, most of which were approved by two former Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) state governments, add up to more than 1.4 billion pesos (US $73.2 million).

Source: Reforma (sp), El Universal (sp), El Sol de México (sp)

‘Ruthless’ ride-sharing app to take on Uber in Mexico City

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Madison Koen

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January 31, 2019

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'Your Beat is arriving:' new ride-hailing service prepares to open.

A ride-sharing app owned by German auto maker Daimler is preparing for its launch in Mexico City.

Beat, which leads the market in other Latin American countries such as Peru, Chile and Colombia, will take on market leader Uber and relative newcomer Didi.

On Wednesday, Beat announced plans to hire 10 times more drivers in Mexico City than in other Latin American cities in which it operates, effectively converting the capital into its biggest and most important market.

It also plans to pay them well.

The first drivers to sign on will receive a guaranteed weekly salary of 30,000 pesos (US $1,500). Company spokesman Sanja Ilic said Beat will also invest heavily in attracting new customers to its platform.

The Greece-based company announced in November it would set up in Mexico City this year.
“We want to be ruthless,” Nikos Drandakis, the company’s 55-year-old co-founder and chief executive, said in a phone interview with Bloomberg at the time. “We’ve got what it takes to carve out a sizable piece of the Mexico City market.’’

Drandakis and three friends started the company in Athens in 2011 as a taxi-finding app during Greece’s debt crisis. Now, about a third of the city’s 3.1 million people use the service, according to Drandakis.

It opened in Lima in 2014 where it has become the market leader, out-competing Uber, which opened there at about the same time.

Beat plans to open in Guadalajara and Monterrey next.

Drandakis told Bloomberg he hoped to recruit thousands of drivers before launching in Mexico City, and become the No. 1 ride-sharing app within three years.

“We’re smaller, but we’re more agile and capable of innovating faster than our larger global competitors,” Drandakis said.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Bloomberg (en)

Narco-banner’s message to AMLO: remove forces or innocent people will die

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MND Staff

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January 31, 2019

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The truck found near the Salamanca refinery.

A gang of fuel thieves is believed responsible for threatening violence if federal security forces remain in the state of Guanajuato.

A narco-banner appeared in Salamanca this morning, warning President López Obrador to remove security forces from the state or innocent people will die.

The narcomanta was found hanging from a bridge a few kilometers from the Antonio M. Amor refinery and was allegedly signed by José Antonio “El Marro” Yepez, the suspected leader of the gang of fuel thieves known as the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel.

“Andrés Manuel López Obrador, I demand that you remove the navy, army and federal forces from the state. If not, I’m going to start killing innocent people so that you see that this is not a game and that in Guanajuato we don’t need them,” the banner reportedly read.

“I’ve left you a little gift in my refinery so that you see how things are going to get if you don’t release my people who have been taken . . . Face up to the consequences. Yours sincerely, El Señor Marro.”

Shortly after the narco-banner was located, a pickup truck was found near the Salamanca refinery inside which was an object thought to be an explosive device.

Federal Police and the army cordoned off the area but presidential spokesman Jesús Ramírez Cuevas said later this morning that there was no explosive in the abandoned truck.

He acknowledged that the narco-banner was “directed at the president,” adding that “it’s a banner directed at he who is carrying out the fight against fuel theft.”

Ramírez said the Attorney General’s office has opened an investigation to determine who is responsible for both the banner and the pickup.

“[It’s] a matter that has to do with the [anti-fuel theft] operations . . . and also the dispute that there is between different cartels,” he said.

The federal government has deployed the military and Federal Police to protect petroleum infrastructure as part of the strategy to combat fuel theft, a crime that costs the state oil company billions of pesos a year.

Two days ago, residents of Villagrán, a municipality just east of Salamanca, responded to an anti-fuel theft operation by setting up fiery blockades to repel security forces.

Authorities believe that Yepez’s Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel was behind the hostile response.

Guanajuato has one of the highest incidences of fuel theft in Mexico and last year was the country’s most violent state, with 3,290 homicides.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Economista (sp), Radio Fórmula (sp)

Roma actress generates criticism after appearing in photo with lighter skin

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MND Staff

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January 30, 2019

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The indigenous Mixtec actress nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Roma has set tongues wagging after she appeared in a photograph with a lighter than usual skin tone.

Yalitza Aparicio posted a photo to her social media accounts Monday in which she is holding a white Lenovo laptop as part of a campaign to promote the Chinese technology company.

But it was Aparicio’s pale skin rather than the laptop that grabbed the attention of many social media users.

Some said the lighting used for the photo had made her complexion appear much lighter than usual, while others argued that, in an act of blatant racism, her skin had been whitened digitally, with makeup, or by both.

“. . . They bleached Yalitza in this photo for Lenovo, the only things we should bleach are clothes and sheets,” one Twitter user wrote.

Nigorette, a fashion photographer and photography teacher, also said the image of Aparicio had been digitally manipulated to make her appear whiter, an act she said “breaks all professional ethics of [image] retouchers.”

The photographer told the newspaper Milenio that it was evident that a front light had been used for the photo but added that it was equally obvious that it had been digitally altered, pointing out that the skin tone on Aparicio’s hand didn’t match that of her face and that her hair had turned “almost gray.”

Nigorette explained: “It’s necessary to understand that skin is a reflective surface, and in that sense, if we want to represent a person as he or she is, we have to manipulate . . . the brightness in a way that [the person’s skin] recovers a little bit of its natural luminosity, tone and texture . . . The last thing we expect is for the media to fall into the typical error of racist ‘beautification.’”

At a Lenovo event yesterday, Aparicio admitted that her image had been retouched but said she wasn’t bothered by her skin tone being altered.

The 25-year-old actress, who before being cast in Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma was a teacher in her home town of Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, has broken new ground for indigenous women by appearing on the cover of Vogue México and being only the second Mexican actress after Salma Hayek to earn a best-actress nomination at the Academy Awards.

In an interview with Milenio, Aparicio described her excitement and disbelief when she found out about the nomination.

“I couldn’t believe it, I simply let myself cry with emotion . . . Thanks to all the critics who considered me to compete in this category because I, at least, hadn’t expected it,” she said.

Aparicio also said that her role as Cleo, a domestic worker, in Roma had helped to highlight that such workers deserve the same labor rights as anyone else.

“I ask for them [to be given] the respect that they deserve, that their work be recognized with dignity because it’s a job that is very important within [people’s] homes,” she said.

Asked whether she would ever go back to being a teacher, Aparicio responded:

“I don’t know what the future has in store, I only know that everything I’m doing now is going to be reflected in that future. If I get the opportunity to make another movie, great. If not, I’ll have the opportunity to return to the classroom and . . . pursue my career [as a teacher], which is something that I’ve always loved.”

Source: Milenio (sp)

Spider-Man animator from Guerrero is another Mexican Oscar nominee

By

Madison Koen

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January 30, 2019

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Contreras, film animator from Iguala, Guerrero.

A young animator from Iguala, Guerrero, stands to take home an Oscar for his work on the animation team for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which has been nominated for best animated feature.

Cruz Antonio Contreras Mastache, 28, studied studio animation and digital arts at Monterrey Tech in Cuernavaca and continued his studies in dynamic simulation in Argentina before moving to Vancouver, Canada, where he now works for Sony Pictures Animation.

He said that although winning an Academy Award would be “the icing on the cake,” he was most proud that his friends and family in Iguala are able to see his work on the big screen.

“One of things I like best is being able to go to see movies I have been a part of in Iguala with my family. I love that people in Iguala are seeing something I’ve been a part of and I feel proud to be able to represent the people of Iguala from here.”

As part of the film’s animation team Contreras’s job was to animate the motion of characters’ clothes and hair.

“I oversaw the visual effects involving the characters’ physical bodies: the dynamic simulation of hair and clothes. If a character is running against the wind, I had to make his hair and clothes react accordingly. I was in charge of [making it look realistic] if a character’s clothes are wet or burning, if he’s wearing a cape, or if the clothes are light or heavy.”

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has been nominated at 20 film festivals, including the Golden Globe Awards, Critics’ Choice, BAFTA, Anni and the Visual Effects Society. The film has also done well at the box office, despite competition in its opening week with feature films like Aquaman and Mary Poppins.

Of the 40-person animation team, Contreras was one of only four Mexican crew members. He said that during his job interview with Sony the project was kept a secret. The film’s name was only revealed to him after he was hired. He remembered being skeptical upon learning the movie’s title: “Another Spider-Man movie? Really?”

However, Contreras, who had previously worked on animated movies like The Justice League, said that he fell in love with the project upon seeing the film’s preliminary shots and the style the directors had in mind.

“I said that this movie was going to change how we see animation — and that’s how it’s been.”

In Mexico, most of the attention for the Oscars has been directed at Roma, the Alfonso Cuarón film that has been nominated in 10 categories, including best picture.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

At 7.84 million, cruise ship passenger numbers highest in a decade

By

MND Staff

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January 30, 2019

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Cruise ships moored at Cozumel, Mexico's most popular destination.

The number of visitors who arrived in Mexico on cruise ships hit a 10-year high in 2018, the majority of them stopping at Cozumel in Quintana Roo.

Data from the General Coordination of Ports and the Merchant Marine showed that more than 7.84 million passengers arrived at Mexican ports on 2,603 cruise ships last year.

Cozumel was the most popular destination, with more than 4.2 million cruise ship passengers – 54% of the total – disembarking on the island, located off the coast of Playa del Carmen.

“With these results, the leadership of Cozumel in the cruise ship industry in Mexico and Latin America is once again confirmed,” Alicia Ricalde, head of the Quintana Roo Port Administration authority, told the newspaper El Financiero.

“[As a result] the residents of Quintana Roo have more and better opportunities for economic development,” she added.

Mahahual, Quintana Roo, and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, joined Cozumel to make up the top three most visited destinations by cruise ship passengers. Together they account for 79.1% of all tourists in the sector.

Data from the federal Secretary of Tourism (Sectur) shows that up to November last year, passengers arriving on cruise ships made up 19% of all visitors to Mexico.

While in the country, they spent US $498.5 million, or an average of US $67 per passenger, a figure well below the US $909 spent by tourists who arrive by air.

Francisco Ceballos, a manager at the travel website Despegar, attributed the strong cruise ship arrival numbers to lower prices and the ease with which cruises can be booked online.

“This way of traveling is no longer seen as something exclusive for a high socio-economic segment [of the market], now it’s an accessible option for travel . . .” he said.

“Cozumel has positioned itself at a worldwide level as one of the most important ports for cruise ship tourism ahead of international destinations like Nassau [Bahamas] and San Juan [Puerto Rico],” Ceballos added.

While the sector recorded its best figures in a decade, growth in the number of cruise ship visitors actually declined compared to 2017 from 13% to 8%.

Tour operators attributed the weaker growth to insecurity, saying that it continues to dissuade people from visiting Mexico and that United States government travel warnings are particularly harmful to the tourism industry.

But Pablo Azcárraga, president of the National Tourism Business Council (CNET), said that efforts are being made to change perceptions.

“Insecurity is an issue that continues to concern us, but we’re working with tour operators and the United States government so that they realize that [the violence] is focused [on certain parts of the country],” he said.

Nevertheless, overall international tourism numbers are expected to remain strong in 2019, with the federal government predicting that almost 45 million visitors will arrive.

Tourism contributes to 8.7% of GDP, Tourism Secretary Miguel Torruco Marqués said last month, and Mexico is the sixth most visited country in the world.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

AMLO slams Fitch ratings agency ‘hypocrisy’ for Pemex downgrade

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MND Staff

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January 30, 2019

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Fitch downgrade gets a reaction from AMLO.

President López Obrador has slammed the Fitch ratings agency after it downgraded the credit rating of the state oil company yesterday to just above junk status.

Fitch cut Pemex’s Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) for foreign and local currencies to BBB- from BBB+ and national long-term ratings to AA (mex) from AAA (mex), stating that the “downgrades reflect the continued deterioration of Pemex’s standalone credit profile” and that the company “has been technically insolvent since 2009.”

Fitch also changed its outlook for the company to negative from stable.

Pemex has US $106 billion in debt, more than any other state oil company in Latin America, which both Fitch and Moody’s have said is a concern for the company’s investment grade rating.

Fitch said in a statement that its new “ratings are constrained by Pemex’s substantial tax burden, high leverage, significant unfunded pension liabilities, large capital investment requirements, negative equity and exposure to political interference risk.”

At his morning press conference today, López Obrador lambasted Fitch, without citing its name, and other credit ratings for their assessment of the state oil company.

“What these organizations do is very hypocritical . . . They allowed the looting [of Pemex], they endorsed the so-called energy reform, they knew that foreign investment didn’t arrive and investment in Pemex didn’t increase and that was what caused the decline in petroleum production. And they never said anything,” he said.

“They maintained a complicit silence and now that we’re rescuing Pemex, they come out with their recommendations and . . . ratings of the performance of Pemex,” López Obrador added.

Asked a specific question about Fitch’s ratings cuts, the president responded: “Investors with ethics know very well that Pemex is a solid company because now it’s being managed with honesty.”

López Obrador questioned whether Fitch had considered the government’s crackdown on fuel theft before it released its new assessment.

“Did the ratings agency take into account, as the technocrats say, this variable? . . . We’re going to strengthen Pemex; public finances are going to be strengthened. Of course, they don’t like it!” López Obrador said.

The veteran leftist, who took office on December 1, charged that the corruption that has plagued Pemex for more than 30 years has now come to an end.

“It was a company that was looted in the neoliberal period, it was among the most looted, most corrupt companies in the world, and these corrupt technocrats took great pains to destroy Pemex but fortunately . . . the people of Mexico decided to implement a change, to remove the country from crisis and corruption and to rescue Pemex,” López Obrador said.

“And we’re going to achieve it . . . Those greedy people didn’t manage to completely destroy Pemex . . . It’s like when a band of criminals goes into a bank and starts to steal the money from the vaults and an alarm goes off – that was the July 1 election. They take what they can but they flee. But they didn’t manage to take everything. What they left is enough to take Pemex and the country forward.”

But investors are worried that the federal government won’t provide suppor to Pemex through the injection of fresh funds, Bloomberg reported.

“Investors have AMLO’s policy process under a microscope,” said Michael Roche, a strategist at Seaport Global Holdings in New York. “If the expected capital injection is not forthcoming then the market will build a higher political risk premium into the Mexico sovereign spread.”

The downgrade was not unexpected by finance department officials. An undersecretary at the Finance Secretariat said it was worrying but came as no surprise.

Source: El Economista (sp), Reuters (en), Bloomberg (en)

Shuttered tourism marketing agency has debt of 70 million pesos

By

César Hernández

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January 30, 2019

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The tourism council promoted Mexico at international tourism fairs.

The disbandment of the Tourism Promotion Council (CPTM), a move that was severely criticized by the tourist industry, has revealed that the agency owed 70.6 million pesos (US $3.7 million) when it was shut down.

The council’s latest financial statements, updated with August 2018, figures, indicate that there are several legal proceedings against it.

The biggest single debt owed by the organization that was responsible for international tourism marketing is 27.4 million pesos in salaries and bonuses to employees.

A data storage and computer systems maintenance firm, Compliance Officers, has sued for breach of contract, demanding the payment of 1.5 million pesos owed for services provided.

The CPTM and its 21 offices abroad were liquidated last month by the federal government.

Tourism promotion will now fall under the jurisdiction of Mexico’s embassies around the world.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Monarch butterfly numbers best in 12 years but they’re not out of the woods

By

Tony Richards

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January 30, 2019

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Monarch butterflies in their Mexican winter habitat.

A huge increase in the number of monarch butterflies overwintering in Mexican forests this year is a welcome event but not likely to happen again next year, some scientists warn.

The Natural Protected Areas Commission announced today that the area occupied by the butterflies is up 144% to 6.05 hectares. Last year the area was just 2.48 hectares.

Commission head Andrew Rhodes told a press conference that it was the largest area since 2006-2007, when it measured 6.87 hectares. The smallest area recorded was 0.67 hectares in 2013-2014.

But scientists say that six hectares should be seen as the minimum necessary for the viability of the insect, which migrates annually to Mexico in the fall from the United States and Canada. A Canadian ecology professor said the butterflies are not out of the woods yet, according to a report by The Associated Press.

“It buys us time, but that’s the best it does,” said Ryan Norris of the University of Guelph in Ontario, who sees little connection between the increase and conservation efforts along the butterflies’ route.

Faros de Esperanza: ANP Mariposa Monarca

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It is more about weather, he said. “It was a Goldilocks year this year,” he said. “Not too hot, not too cold, it was perfect.”

An ecology professor at the University of Kansas agreed. Chip Taylor said it won’t happen again next year, “not even close,” because above-average temperatures in Texas next year will cause problems for monarch production.

He said cold temperatures in the north of Texas kept the insects there to lay their eggs last spring. When it is warmer they go farther north too soon and the population does not grow as well.

The butterflies in this season’s migration have been found in 14 colonies in the forests of Michoacán and México state. One is a new colony, located in the Nevado de Toluca.

The largest, at 2.46 hectares, is in the Sierra Campanario sanctuary in the ejido El Rosario in Michoacán.

Source: The Associated Press (en), Milenio (sp)

95 water treatment plants have been abandoned in Oaxaca

By

Madison Koen

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January 30, 2019

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An abandoned treatment plant in San Francisco Telixtlahuaca.

Of 150 wastewater treatment plants constructed in Oaxaca by previous state governments, only 25 function properly, 30 function but with deficiencies and 95 have been completely abandoned, the State Water Commission (CEA) said.

According to government records, between 2011 and 2015 the administration of former governor Gabino Cué invested 215.4 million pesos (US $11 million) in the construction of 23 treatment plants. Despite the investment, 68% of the state’s plants were not operating by the end of the project.

CEA director Benjamín Fernando Hernández Ramírez told reporters that the massive dysfunction was due to previous administrations’ lack of planning and foresight.

He explained that in many cases the state built the plants but left the administrative responsibilities in the hands of local entities that often did not have the financial resources to properly manage them.

Hernández added that many of the communities in Oaxaca that received treatment plants do not have sewer systems or infrastructure essential for transporting wastewater to the plants.

Another major problem was that the previous administration simply did not finish building some of them. In several cases, the current administration has had to begin unfinished projects anew due to the theft of wiring, pipes and copper from the abandoned sites.

The Oaxaca government’s legal department is in the process of creating a decentralized agency to get 100% of the treatment plants running and to relieve local entities of administrative responsibilities.

Benjamín said that in order to lower costs and be more environmentally friendly, the administration plans to use solar energy in any new construction.

Source: El Universal (sp)