Government denounces predecessor’s purchase of fertilizer plant

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March 7, 2019

The fertilizer plant in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz.

The federal government has filed a complaint with the attorney general’s office (FGR) against its predecessor’s purchase of a disused fertilizer plant in Veracruz, President López Obrador said today.

The president said that the previous federal government paid US $500 million for the Coatzacoalcos plant when its value is estimated to be just one-tenth that amount.

López Obrador added that his government won’t take possession of the plant until the FGR has conducted an investigation.

After the probe, public opinion will be sought to determine whether the plant will be rehabilitated or sold, the president said.

“What are we going to do with the plant? . . . There are those who tell me, people who know about these things, that even if you keep putting money into it, it’s not going to work . . . Others tell me that we have to finish it because we can use it to produce fertilizers and because we’re buying the fertilizer we use,” López Obrador said.

Former President Peña Nieto declared in 2014 that his government’s fertilizer strategy would produce enough to replace 70% of what Mexico imports. But Pemex Fertilizers, a subsidiary of the state company that operated the plant, reported only losses and national fertilizer production actually declined.

The Federal Auditor’s Office revealed that the government — through Pemex — had paid $93 million too much, and the facility was little more than scrap metal.

López Obrador claimed that the purchase of the plant is another example of the corruption of past governments.

The president also took aim at the government of Felipe Calderón, who narrowly beat López Obrador in the 2006 presidential election.

During the National Action Party (PAN) administration, López Obrador said, the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) purchased a ranch in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, from a former state governor for US $120 million. However, nothing was ever done with the land.

“. . . It turns out that it’s practically abandoned . . . It doesn’t have much viability for tourism development but they didn’t care about that, what they cared about was buying the land because if [their aim] was to boost tourism, they would have developed the Mazatlán airport and Nuevo Mazatlán, which is what we’re thinking could be done if we manage to recover resources from this abandoned plot of land they bought,” he said.

Accusing past governments of corruption has become a popular pastime for the president, especially at his daily morning press conferences.

Last month, López Obrador delivered a scathing attack on five former presidents, accusing them of “pillage” during the “neoliberal period” of the past 30 years.

Source: El Economista (sp)

CFE cuts Acapulco power for unpaid bills; 600,000 without water

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Madison Koen

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March 7, 2019

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Pumping stations in Acapulco have been idled by a power cut.

For the second time this year the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) cut electricity service to the Acapulco water and sewer system, a move described by the water utility as “terrorism.”

The electricity was cut off yesterday leaving 600,000 residents without water, according to the municipal water utility, known as Capama.

Officials said cutting off the electricity was a measure intended to put pressure on the agency to pay money it owes but finance director Raúl Isidro Juárez Ponce said the agency had been making daily payments.

Capama chief Leonel Galindo González called the cuts “terrorism” and said the CFE had not considered the basic needs of residents and tourists.

“They cut our lights yesterday without prior notice, when that same day we had already deposited 800,000 pesos, and today we deposited 146,000 pesos. That shows that we’re trying to pay.”

Galindo said that in October the agency’s debt with the CFE soared to 70 million pesos (US $3.5 million), an amount it cannot pay because of what he called illegal and corrupt spending by the previous administration.

He called on the CFE to restore electricity service as soon as possible in order to reestablish water and sewer service and minimize the impact on the public.

The electricity cut follows a previous attempt in January to put pressure on the agency to pay its debt to the CFE.

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

Trade surplus with US hit a record high US $347 billion in 2018

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MND Staff

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March 7, 2019

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mexico-us trade — Mexico's exports are indicated in gray, imports in blue. The US trade deficit is shown in black. el economista

Mexico recorded its highest ever annual trade surplus with the United States last year amid uncertainty surrounding the new North American trade agreement and tariff tensions.

Data published yesterday by the United States Department of Commerce shows that Mexican exports to the U.S. increased by 10.3% in 2018 to reach just over US $346.5 billion while Mexico paid $265 billion for imports from north of the border, 8.9% more than in 2017.

The net result: a surplus for Mexico of just over $81.5 billion, 15% higher than the $71 billion surplus of 2017.

It was the fifth consecutive annual surplus increase for Mexico with its northern neighbor, while the United States’ global deficit hit a record $891.3 billion even though U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged to reduce it.

Almost half of the United States’ deficit was generated via a trade imbalance with China while just over 9% is a result of the surplus achieved by Mexico.

The positive result for Mexico came despite the United States government’s tariffs on Mexican steel and aluminum, which were imposed on June 1 last year.

Mexico responded swiftly with a range of “equivalent measures” on some U.S. imports including pork, apples and a range of cheeses.

During most of 2018, there was also uncertainty about whether Mexico, the United States and Canada would reach an updated trade deal to replace the quarter-century-old NAFTA.

Trump repeatedly threatened to pull out of the three-way accord and raised the possibility that the United States would enter into separate bilateral deals with its neighbors.

However, a new deal – the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) – was eventually signed on November 30, Enrique Peña Nieto’s last day as president.

The agreement, which sets stricter rules of origin for the automotive sector among other modifications to NAFTA, must be ratified by the legislatures of the respective countries before it takes effect.

But trade officials in Mexico have indicated it will not ratify the deal unless the U.S. withdraws the metal tariffs.

Source: El Economista (sp)

Government cancels plan for luxury real estate project on former base

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César Hernández

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March 7, 2019

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Former military base will become a park.

The federal government’s plan to build a luxury real estate development on a former military base in Santa Fe, Mexico City, was cancelled by the president today.

During his daily press conference, Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the land will become a park rather than luxury department buildings. He said a few apartments will be built on the western Mexico City site to serve as housing for National Defense personnel.

Most of the grounds of the former military base will be parkland, forming a fourth section of the Chapultepec park, the president said. “The land will no longer be sold, there will no real estate development, the environment will be given priority.”

The new park will be managed by the city government “for the enjoyment of the people of Santa Fe,” López Obrador said, remarking that the building that housed a military weapons factory, erected in the 1800s, will be preserved due to its historic value.

The plan to develop the former military base first emerged during the previous federal administration, when it was expected that the 125-hectare site could sell for as much as US $1 billion. But the Enrique Peña Nieto government dropped the plan last July.

The López Obrador government announced it would build luxury apartment buildings on the site, whose sale would finance the federal government’s new national guard.

Source: Milenio (sp)

1 person dead after armed civilians attack Colima politician’s home

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MND Staff

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March 7, 2019

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Colima's former tourism secretary addresses a press conference yesterday.

The tourism secretary of Colima resigned yesterday two days after a man was killed in his home during an attack perpetrated by armed civilians.

Efraín Angulo Rodríguez appeared at a press conference with a badly bruised face and said he was leaving his position to concentrate on initiating legal action against those responsible for the crime, and didn’t want the case to be used against the state government.

Angulo said that at about 7:00pm Monday a dozen armed men “looking for money and drugs” entered his Manzanillo home where he was hosting a party for 10 male guests.

“A large number of unknown individuals burst into [my home] with an astonishing quantity of weapons. They tied us up, undressed us, beat us and took multiple photographs and videos of us,” he said.

Angulo added that he and the other guests were tortured for at least three hours and that one of them was taken to a room and strangled to death.

He said he didn’t personally know the man who was killed, explaining that he was a friend of a friend.

“While they were murdering him, two of the guests at my home managed to untie themselves and confront the criminals . . .” the former official said.

One of the armed men shot at the guests, wounding one, before fleeing in a state government vehicle with money and objects of value they removed from Angulo’s home.

Naked photos of the former secretary and his house guests appeared on social media yesterday after which some people claimed that the men were participating in a gay orgy.

Angulo described the “lies” and “homophobic comments” that have surfaced on social media as “regrettable.”

He said that people who made such comments and “insensitive taunts” don’t have any idea of the stress of being a victim of a violent and serious crime.

Angulo also said that he and the other guests had been revictimized by people who said that the crimes committed against them were the result of “their habits, their sexual preferences, their way of dressing and even, now, their friendships.”

He added that it was “categorically false” that the party had been “out of control” because “there was no party.”

Angulo said all of the guests have filed criminal complaints and demanded that the state attorney general’s office locate and arrest those responsible for the attack.

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

López Obrador rejects senators’ initiative to control ratings agencies

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Madison Koen

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March 7, 2019

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President López Obrador and the Morena party’s leader in the Senate said today there will be no attempt by the government to control the operations of ratings agencies in Mexico.

“We are open to international scrutiny in our politics and our economy. Mexico is a free country and we do not have anything to hide; we are in favor of transparency. What the ratings agencies do is their job and we respect that — we are not going to limit their ability to function.”

Senator Ricardo Monreal also told reporters that the measure would not be presented and that fellow Morena Senator Salomón Jara, who argued in its favor yesterday, had accepted the decision.

However, Jara told reporters later that he was going ahead with it. “We have rights as senators to present our own initiatives, our proposals.”

The initiative would give the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) authority to revoke ratings agencies’ permission to operate “when evaluations or qualifications do not adhere to the principles of independence, objectivity, rigor, authenticity, truth, integrity and transparency or attack in a deliberate manner the financial stability of the markets or a business . . . .”

It was triggered by Standard & Poor’s credit rating outlook downgrade on Monday for Pemex, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and many businesses and financial institutions, and another downgrade of Mexico’s credit outlook last Friday.

The president suggested that the agencies take corruption into account as an important factor in the their ratings.

“I believe it would be a good idea for the ratings to include the corruption levels of governments around the world in their evaluations because it’s a variable that distorts everything. A country could have the best economic model comparatively, but if corruption is allowed to reign unchecked in a country, when everything is said and done the economy will not grow and it will trigger a financial crisis.”

He said he believed that his administration’s anti-corruption measures would generate large savings in the economy over the long term as well as restore confidence for investors, regardless of ratings agencies’ scores.

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

Search for Santa Rosa cartel boss goes underground; luxury home seized

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MND Staff

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March 7, 2019

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The property believed to be the home of the Guanajuato cartel leader.

The search for the suspected leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel has gone underground: authorities in Guanajuato have discovered escape tunnels allegedly used by the fuel theft capo known as “El Marro.”

Guanajuato Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa Aguirre told a press conference last night that the tunnels were found during searches of properties in Villagrán, the municipality where the cartel is based and José Antonio Yépez Ortiz was thought to be in hiding.

Zamarripa said the tunnels may be connected to other properties in the community of Santa Rosa de Lima where cartel members are known to have met, including one believed to be owned by “El Marro” Yépez.

Asked whether the criminal boss was in the town located east of Salamanca, the attorney general didn’t rule it out.

However, this morning Federal Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo said that Yépez and other cartel leaders had left Villagrán. He added that authorities know where they are and that they would be captured soon.

El Marro: officials predict he will be captured soon.

Since early Monday morning, federal and state security forces have been carrying out an operation against the Santa Rosa Cartel, a gang of fuel thieves believed to be behind much of the violence that made Guanajuato Mexico’s most violent state last year.

Residents have responded to the operation by setting up fiery blockades on highways to repel the state and Federal Police and the military.

Zamarripa said that seven people have been arrested during the operation including one who is believed to have participated in the execution of five people in a tire shop in the municipality of Valle de Santiago. A video of the multi-homicide was posted online, allegedly by the Santa Rosa Cartel.

Yépez’s sister-in-law and her husband, a Federal Police officer, were also among those arrested.

The attorney general said that 31 vehicles have been seized and that authorities have collected a range of evidence that will assist them in their investigations.

Federal Police also searched and secured a large and luxurious property in Santa Rosa de Lima which allegedly belongs to Yépez.

Aquí vivía “El Marro”, líder del huachicol

Watch this video on YouTube

The approximately 1,000-square-meter property features extensive gardens, a large swimming pool and two stone lion statues. The home is protected by high walls topped with barbed wire.

A video published by the newspaper Milenio shows clothes strewn in the house’s four bedrooms and open drawers, seemingly indicating that the property was abandoned suddenly.

A tanker truck and a dump truck were also found and Milenio said there is a tapped petroleum pipeline that runs through the property.

Many if not most residents of Santa Rosa de Lima, a town with a population of just over 1,000, are believed to be complicit with El Marro’s fuel theft gang.

Attorney General Zamarripa reiterated yesterday that the mayor and municipal police force of Villagrán are also under investigation for failing to support the operation against the cartel.

Mayor Juan Lara Mendoza rejects allegations that he is in cahoots with the Santa Lima criminal organization and denies knowing El Marro.

However, a Federal Police report seen by the newspaper El Universal says that Lara’s brother and three of his nephews are part of Yépez’s inner circle.

According to the report, the four men are among the chief operators of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, which extracts fuel from Pemex pipelines that run through the municipalities of León, Irapuato, Salamanca, Celaya, Apaseo el Grande and Apaseo el Alto.

Guanajuato security official Sophia Huett López said that the state attorney general’s office is investigating whether the Villagrán municipal police force failed to respond to a call for backup on Monday because of negligence, fear or criminal complicity.

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

64% of Mexico City subway system’s surveillance cameras don’t work

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César Hernández

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March 7, 2019

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“Looting” by previous Mexico City governments in the management of the Metro subway system has been blamed for a number of deficiencies, including surveillance cameras that don’t work.

The director general of the system said yesterday a whopping 64% of the cameras are not functional on a transit system with a worsening reputation for insecurity.

Florencia Serranía Soto said Metro staff have found camera control centers that are simply empty shells.

While there are 3,365 cameras installed throughout the subway, only 1,208 are actually functional.

In most cases, the cameras are damaged and are so old that no spare parts are available and must be replaced.

Serranía said 509 new cameras will be purchased this year and installed in 22 subway stations identified as critical.

Three months after taking office, the subway system’s chief explained that several other problems have been identified, most of them caused by a lack of maintenance, omissions and looting.

“We are not going after [former government] officials, we are going after more trains. We don’t have time for a witch hunt,” said Serranía, adding that her main goal is to put more cars on the rails, make the whole system more efficient and work toward its modernization.

“Improvised and unsupervised suppliers were sent here for years; today, those interested in joining the modernization process will be held accountable, and technical capacity, quality and prices will be demanded from them.”

She said the subway system’s budget “has always been there,” and that past administrations could have done much more. Serranía sees her mission as eliminating corruption in order to have a system that operates under optimal conditions.

“We are finishing a 50-year program for the Metro. The system hit rock bottom in terms of abandonment, so we’re going to kickstart a true modernization program that will benefit users,” she said.

This is not the first time Serranía has been at the helm of the subway. She held the same position from 2000 to 2005 when President López Obrador was mayor.

A survey last month found 37% of Metro users had been victims of theft, while 60% said insecurity has increased. Dozens of accounts by women who were victims of kidnapping attempts earlier this year triggered the announcement of a new security strategy.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Just 22 vaquita porpoises remain and illegal gillnets could soon wipe them out

By

MND Staff

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March 7, 2019

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A vaquita porpoise: time is running out.

Only 22 vaquita marina porpoises remain in the Gulf of California, a biology professor said yesterday, warning that the species could become extinct within months.

Jorge Urbán Ramírez, a professor at the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur, said that scientists from the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA) will release an official report this weekend about the vaquita population.

The 22 vaquitas were heard over a network of acoustic monitors at the end of the summer, he said.

The remaining population of the species, which is endemic to the northern part of the gulf, is higher than many expected but Urbán warned on Twitter that the vaquita is still highly vulnerable to extinction.

“. . . Unless actions are taken the vaquita could be lost in the coming months or years . . .” he wrote.

The primary threat to the vaquita population are gillnets that are used to catch totoaba, a protected fish whose swim bladders are considered a delicacy in China and yield high prices.

The world’s smallest porpoises often become entangled in the nets and drown.

Although gillnets are banned in the upper gulf, fishermen continue to use them and with the peak of the totoaba season still to come in May, there are fears that the vaquita could be wiped out this spring.

However, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says it is doing all it can to prevent that from happening.

Every night, volunteer crew members go out on ships operated by the environmental group to search for and remove hidden gillnets.

But fishermen, for obvious reasons, haven’t welcomed their presence and twice in the last month the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat has been attacked with rocks and firebombs.

“If we stop operations, the vaquita will go extinct,” Sea Shepherd first mate Jack Hutton told the Associated Press.

“. . . If we stop removing them [the gillnets] then there is no hope for the vaquita . . . We know we are going to keep getting attacked. We know we are risking out lives, but if we don’t the vaquita has no chance,” he said.

Marines and Federal Police are also contributing to the efforts to protect the vaquita and fired rubber bullets from the Farley Mowat during the recent attacks.

But according to Richard Ladkani, a filmmaker who made a documentary about the plight of the vaquitas, the marines have been intimidated by fishermen.

While shooting his film – Sea of Shadows – Ladkani accompanied the navy on nighttime patrols that included high-speed chases in which fishermen succeeded on occasions in ramming into naval boats and disabling their engines.

“Why is the navy not using force?” he questioned. “We were on 10 chases and every time the pangas [fishing boats] got away.

Ladkani also offered a theory about why fishermen are becoming so violent and desperate.

He said that because the Sea Shepherd has been successful in removing gillnets, fishermen are going into debt borrowing money from Chinese and Mexican totoaba traffickers to buy new ones at around US $3,000 each.

“This is a vicious circle where people get more indebted,” Ladkani said.

“This one fisherman wound up owing the cartels $54,000 for 18 nets. He tried to get out, he finally came out and said there is no way I can repay the cartel. He was murdered.”

Sunshine Rodríguez, a leader of fishermen in the Baja California town of San Felipe, said that it is a myth that fishermen are getting rich selling totoaba swim bladders.

“I know people who are dedicated 100% to that [totoaba] business and don’t even have $10 to put gas in the tank of their panga,” he said. The Chinese are making the profit, that I can tell you.”

Rodríguez said a fisherman can currently sell a half-kilogram totoaba swim bladder for about US $400 but traffickers are cutting the prices they pay and will continue to do so because they know that the fishermen have no other options to make a living.

Government payments meant to compensate fishermen for lost income as a result of the ban on gillnets haven’t been made in three months, he said.

In compensation payments that the government has made as part of the Endangered Species Conservation Program (Procer), the Federal Auditor’s Office (ASF) has detected a range of irregularities.

The ASF said in a report that 220,000 pesos (US $11,300) had gone to deceased persons and 96,000 pesos to fishermen who don’t live in the upper Gulf of California area.

More than 2.4 million pesos (US $123,000) went to people who don’t have valid fishing licenses and 744,000 pesos was paid to fishermen who didn’t provide documentation that proved their address. A further 3.7 million pesos was spent on duplicate payments, the ASF found.

“This multi-million-peso support has been misused through non-transparent welfare policies,” said Alejandro Olivera, Mexico representative for the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Those who really go out to fish” have received little or no financial support, he added.

With time seemingly running out for the vaquita marina, more than 50 environmental and conservation groups wrote to federal Environment Secretary Josefa González Blanco and Agriculture Secretary Víctor Villalobos last month to urge them to strengthen government programs to protect the species.

“. . . If conservation measures aren’t taken, the law isn’t applied and the decline [in vaquita numbers] continues at its current pace, it’s probable that the vaquita will become extinct during your [six-year] administration,” the groups said.

Ladkani, the filmmaker, was even more pessimistic.

“When it’s totoaba season at the end of May, they may have killed everything by then.”

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

Puebla mine dispute goes to court; decision could make legal history

By

MND Staff

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March 6, 2019

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The Puebla mine at the center of a court case.

Indigenous residents of a town in Puebla hope to make legal history this month in a court case against the federal government that involves a Canadian mining company.

A non-governmental organization has filed a complaint on behalf of some residents of Tecoltemi, a Nahua community located in Puebla’s sierra region, against the Secretariat of the Economy (SE), arguing that local water sources have been contaminated by exploration activity on gold and silver deposits.

The case is related to concessions held by Minera Gorrión, a Mexican subsidiary of Canada’s Almaden Minerals.

A lawyer for the complainants told the news agency Reuters that for the first time in Mexico a court will rule whether the federal Mining Law – which prioritizes mining over other kinds of land use – is constitutional.

Itzel Silva of the Fundar Center for Analysis and Research said that previous cases have only recognized indigenous people’s right to consultation before a mining project begins.

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“That’s why this case is so important,” she said. Silva added that a ruling in favor of the residents could set a legal precedent for other cases in which complainants are attempting to overturn the law prioritizing mining activities over other land use.

The case will be heard at a federal court in Puebla.

Federal officials didn’t respond to requests for comment on the case while a spokesman for Minera Gorrión told Reuters that the company has abided by all the rules set by environmental regulators.

The dispute dates back to 2003 when Minera Gavilan, another Mexican subsidiary of Almaden Minerals, was awarded a 27,000-acre parcel of land in Puebla. In 2009, the company was granted a concession for another site of about 7,400 acres.

Both sites, which encroach on land claimed by the Tecoltemi residents, were later transferred to Minera Gorrión.

Víctor Martínez Lobato, an indigenous leader, said that residents were not consulted about the two concessions.

A protest against the mine two years ago.

“The effects [of mining] on the air, on the water, worry us,” he said.

The Fundar Center sued the Economy Secretariat in 2015 on behalf of the residents and the following year, Minera Gorrión decided to return about 17,000 acres of land to the Mexican government.

The current case has divided Tecoltemi because some residents work for the mining company.

“Employment . . . dictates who is in favor or against the mine,” said Diana Pérez, a lawyer at the Mexican Institute for Community Development.

Those fighting against Minera Gorrión have a 2016 report by PODER, a citizens’ group, to support their claim that water has been contaminated.

“The company carried out water monitoring without due authorizations and made drill holes deeper than allowed, affecting the water table,” said PODER researcher Isabel Clavijo.

Minera Gorrión rejected the reports’ findings and has emphasized the economic benefits that its activities bring to Ixtacamaxtitlan, the municipality in which Tecoltemi is located.

Source: Reuters (en)