Pemex says pipeline theft, hurricane cause of fuel shortages in Guanajuato

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November 1, 2018

Repairing pipeline taps takes time, leading to supply shortages.

Illegal taps on petroleum pipelines coupled with supply chain disruptions caused by Hurricane Willa have resulted in fuel shortages in Guanajuato.

Officials from the state oil company Pemex told the newspaper Milenio that due to a high number of illegal perforations, pipelines between Tula, Hidalgo, and Salamanca, Guanajuato, have been shut off.

“. . . There are supply delays because we have to close the ducts in order to repair them and that to a large extent delays supply to the state,” they said.

Pemex operates refineries in both Salamanca and Tula.

Authorities detected 1,852 illegal taps on pipelines in Guanajuato last year, more than any other state in the country.

The crime, perpetrated by gangs of thieves known as huachicoleros, is considered the main reason behind rising levels of violent crime in Guanajuato, especially in the state’s industrial corridor which includes the municipalities of Celaya, Salamanca and Irapuato.

The Pemex officials also said that poor weather conditions brought by Willa last week made it impossible to unload fuel from ships at some ports, further limiting supply.

The fuel shortage is being acutely felt in León, where at least 20 gas stations out of a total of 183 have reported running out of gasoline over the past two weeks. It’s not just Pemex stations that are affected but those operated by BP and Shell as well.

Pemex is working to reestablish adequate fuel supply to affected municipalities, the company’s officials said.

The shortages apply mainly to the Magna brand of gasoline which, being the more economical, sees the greatest demand. Pemex said in September that nearly 85% of gasoline purchased in the first seven months was Magna. In 2016, Magna represented 78% of the total sold.

The increase has been attributed to fuel price increases.

Source: Milenio (sp), am (sp)

AMLO accuses private sector of big plans to develop existing airport land

By

MND Staff

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October 31, 2018

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AMLO, also known as the 'Tropical Messiah,' defends airport decision. — AMLO, sometimes known as the 'Tropical Messiah,' defends airport decision.

The private sector is upset with the decision to cancel the new Mexico City International Airport project because it had big plans to develop the site of the existing airport, charges president-elect López Obrador.

In a video posted to social media yesterday, López Obrador said the business sector had reached an agreement that would allow it to eventually take possession of the Benito Juárez International Airport, located just seven kilometers east of Mexico City’s downtown.

“Now I can say it. During the consultation, I couldn’t speak because I had to act with impartiality but . . . part of the construction [plan] for the airport at Texcoco was for [the private sector] to keep the land of the current airport,” he said.

“I even saw the blueprint. They had already planned to build a kind of Santa Fe on the 600 hectares of the current airport,” López Obrador continued, referring to the Mexico City business and shopping district.

“I understand that they are upset because they won’t be able to do that business.”

Influential private sector leaders slammed the decision to cancel the 285-billion-peso (US $14 billion) airport announced Monday by López Obrador, a day after the public consultation on the project’s future concluded.

Instead, the incoming government plans to build two new runways at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base in México state and upgrade the existing airport and that in Toluca, a proposal that about 70% of people supported in the consultation.

Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex) president Gustavo de Hoyos said killing the airport project would be “the biggest waste of public resources in the history of the country.”

The vote on the future of the project was a “Mickey Mouse consultation” and a “flagrant violation of the law,” he charged.

Economist Enrique Cardenas of the Iberoamerican University expressed a similar sentiment to de Hoyos, writing on Twitter that scrapping the airport project “will be remembered as one of the worst stupidities from a president in contemporary economic history.”

In yesterday’s video, López Obrador sought to reassure investors and disgruntled business leaders about his decision to respect the will of the approximately 1.1 million people, or just over 1% of the electoral roll, who voted in the consultation.

“We’re not going to commit any injustice with the investors and contractors . . . They will be assured that their work can be carried out, only now they won’t be in Texcoco but in Santa Lucía. We’re going to reach an agreement. Settle down, calm down — a change is taking place in the country,” he said.

“There is nothing to fear. We have said 1,001 times that we will guarantee the investments, the contracts.”

After his landslide victory in the July 1 election, López Obrador also sought to calm fears surrounding the next government’s economic plans, a move which analysts believed initially reassured investors and contributed to a strengthening of the peso.

However, following confirmation of the decision to scrap the new airport, which was considered President Peña Nieto’s signature infrastructure project, the peso lost 3.6% of its value in 24 hours to slump to its lowest level since the election of United States President Trump.

According to the currency exchange website xe.com, one US dollar bought 20.3 Mexican pesos at 5:00pm today. In recent years, exceeding the 20-peso-to-the-dollar threshold has set off alarm bells in Mexico.

López Obrador addressed the decline in his video message, declaring that “there was a slide in the peso, not a devaluation, but it will recover.”

However, it’s not just a weaker peso that is causing concern.

Mexico’s benchmark stock index was down 4.2% at the close yesterday while some analysts believe that projected 2019 growth of 2% may have to be downgraded and foreign capital may flee the country.

Critics of the president-elect’s decision and the way it was made said that cancelation of the airport could diminish investor trust in Mexico during the new government’s six-year term, as Mexico’s two largest banks also warned.

“A lot of foreign investors were looking at this airport issue as a litmus test of [López Obrador’s] pragmatism, or of his radicalism,” said Daniel Kerner, managing director for Latin America with the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

“I think this showed the reality that López Obrador will go ahead and do whatever he wants.”

Banks JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Itau Unibanco Holding SA both said that due to the decline in the peso they expect the Bank of México (Banxico) to lift interest rates by a quarter point when it makes its next scheduled rates decision on November 15.

“Were the peso to remain under pressure, we’d expect Banxico to acknowledge that upside inflation risks have materialized and convergence to target is at risk, and therefore that a policy response is required,” JPMorgan economists wrote in a report Monday.

There is a significant possibility of a further quarter point or half point hike in December, the economists said.

Kathryn Rooney Vera, head of global research at Bulltick Capital Markets in Miami, made an even more ominous warning about the potential consequences that cancelation of the airport might bring.

“[The decision] could start a vicious cycle, smashing any incipient investor confidence, sending the peso plummeting, inflation rising, Banxico forced to hike and slowing an already slow economy that needs foreign portfolio flows,” she said.

Source: El Financiero (sp), The Los Angeles Times (en), Bloomberg (en)

Mexico City restaurant Pujol one of top 3 in Latin America, best in MX

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César Hernández

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October 31, 2018

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Corn tortilla with hoja santa, lobster, chorizo, beans and chile verde at Pujol.

Mexico City restaurant Pujol has been named the best in the country and No. 3 in Latin America on the 2018 list of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants.

Pujol was one of 11 Mexican restaurants to make the list this year.

Also from Mexico City were Quintonil in ninth place, Sud 777 in 14th, Máximo Bistrot 20th, Nicos 37th, La Docena 40th and Rosetta 41st.

In Monterrey, Nuevo León, Pangea placed 30th while Alcalde, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, followed in 31st place.

Cancún’s Le Chique, the only new Mexican entry on the top-50 list, ranked 34th and Corazón de Tierra in the Guadalupe Valley, Baja California, 35th.

The best restaurant in Latin America was Maido, in Lima, Peru, for the second year in a row. Another Peruvian restaurant, Central, placed second.

The competition results said Pujol’s Enrique Olvera has proved that rustic Mexican flavors deserve as much attention as any other haute cuisine in the world. “. . . refined and elegant plates built from indigenous ingredients” pay tribute to Mexico’s rich culinary history.

Mexico was also on the list of special awards. Jesús Escalera of La Postrería in Guadalajara won the best pastry chef award.

Judges in the competition are critics, connoisseurs, chefs and experts in hospitality and customer service who look for exceptional dishes and effective use of haute cuisine techniques.

Mexico News Daily

‘Michael Myers’ gives Mérida a scare and almost gets arrested

By

César Hernández

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October 31, 2018

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A Hallowe’en costume in Mérida, Yucatán, yesterday was so successful it almost landed a local man in jail after he gave citizens a serious scare.

When staff at a hair salon at a shopping mall in the Yucalpetén neighborhood spotted a very white-faced man with a large kitchen knife and dressed as Michael Myers — of the Halloween series of slasher films — they were alarmed.

One went out to investigate but returned to the salon terrified when “Myers” remained motionless. So they called the cops to report “a serial assassin.”

Then a pedestrian was equally startled by the apparition and flagged down a police patrol vehicle.

Before long, there were three police patrols at the scene. When the officers approached the man from either side, hands on their weapons, he realized that his arrest was imminent and revealed himself.

He dropped the knife and took off the mask, at which point the hair salon staff recognized him as the owner of another nearby business.

Alejandro Moya explained his Halloween costume and expressed surprise that no one recognized the Halloween character, suggesting that in Yucatán it’s more common to celebrate Hanal Pixán — a Mayan name for Day of the Dead — than Halloween.

Moya handed out candy to his neighbors and the police, who filed their report and went back on patrol.

Source: Milenio (sp), Diario de Yucatán (sp)

Qué? Study finds Mexicans’ English is getting worse

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MND Staff

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October 31, 2018

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english proficiency map — Green indicates states with the highest proficiency in English and red the worst.

Mexicans’ command of English is on the decline, a new study shows.

Mexico dropped 13 places to 57th out of 88 countries on the 2018 EF English Proficiency Index (EPI).

Education First (EF) determined that English proficiency is such that an average Mexican citizen can only hold a basic conversation or write a simple email in the world’s most widely spoken second language.

In Latin America, Mexico ranks ninth out of 17 countries behind Argentina, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Guatemala and Panama.

The EPI is based on scores from the EF Standard English Test, the world’s first free standardized English test.

In Mexico, men were found to have slightly better English proficiency than women, achieving average scores on the test of 50.28 and 49.25 respectively.

That result bucks the overall trend but is consistent with the gender-based results in Latin America.

Mexico City residents fared best followed by those in Jalisco, Nuevo León, Chihuahua and Querétaro.

Residents of Guerrero, Zacatecas, Hidalgo and Campeche had the lowest English proficiency.

EF said that “in the past decades, Latin America has made enormous progress in ensuring that all children have access to education, but the region still suffers from high levels of economic inequality, fragile democracies, and unacceptable levels of violence, all of which undermine the development of a skilled workforce.”

It also said that “overcrowded schools, low teacher wages, and inadequate teacher training are all contributing factors” to low English proficiency in the region.

Latin America is the only region of the world to show a slight overall decline in English proficiency.

Europe remains the global leader, with Sweden and the Netherlands taking the top two spots. Singapore ranked third followed by Norway and Denmark.

Libya, Iraq and Uzbekistan were at the bottom.

Mexico News Daily

Doctoral student wins UK award for best thesis of the year

By

César Hernández

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October 31, 2018

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Researcher Jiménez at the cancer research institute.

A Mexican student has won a prize for the best doctoral thesis of the year, awarded by the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.

Alejandro Jiménez Sánchez has researched how the human body recognizes cancer cells as a threat, revealing information for the advancement of immunotherapy, a treatment intended to activate the immune system of cancer patients and enable their bodies to halt the condition’s progress.

His research focused on a single patient suffering ovarian cancer. The condition was detected at an advanced stage, but the tumor was removed surgically.

The cancer was back after seven months of chemotherapy, at which point he began his research.

He used computational tools to analyze all biological data, studying the genetic and molecular information obtained from the original tumor and the four that followed it.

This led him to discover properties that hinted at the patient’s immune system contributing to the reduction of two of the four new tumors.

In collaboration with New York researcher Alexandra Snyder, Jiménez validated the results obtained via his computational analysis.

His research was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Cell, leading to the publication of a series of scientific papers based on his work.

Jiménez said he was proud to have been chosen among many other high-level research papers in the field, a honor he never dreamed he would be awarded when he started his doctorate three years ago.

The Mexican student’s research is moving forward, as he is currently collaborating on two projects in Israel, evaluating a model that will detect tumoral cells in mice and studying unique ovarian cancer cells.

He is studying in the U.K. with the help of a scholarship from Conacyt, the National Council for Science and Technology.

The Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute brings together close to 250 scientists from around the globe, all focused on diagnosing, treating and preventing cancer.

Mexico News Daily

Caravan No. 1 waits in Juchitán hoping for transportation to Mexico City

By

MND Staff

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October 31, 2018

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Migrants marching to Juchitán yesterday.

Around 4,000 Central American migrants will remain in Juchitán, Oaxaca today as they attempt to organize mass transportation to Mexico City.

At a meeting last night, members of the first and largest of the three migrant caravans now in Mexico formed a committee to negotiate with authorities to try to secure buses to take the weary migrants to the capital.

The mainly Honduran migrants, including many women and children, are currently camped out at a disused bus station in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec city that last year was ravaged by a powerful 8.2-magnitude earthquake.

Water tanks were set up at the site to allow the travelers to bathe and a giant screen projected soccer matches, children’s shows and the movie Coco.

Most members of the caravan slept on the ground on blankets or cardboard with tarps tied to foliage providing only rudimentary protection.

“We are waiting to see if they are going to help us out with buses to continue the trip,” 27-year-old Honduran farmer Omar López told the Associated Press.

Red Cross personnel today bandaged López’s feet, left badly-swollen after walking on highways through Guatemala and Mexico every day for the past two weeks and sleeping exposed to the elements with nothing more than a thin sheet of plastic for cover.

If Mexican authorities do provide transportation — as yet they have provided no indication that they will — caravan representatives said they will travel to Mexico City to meet with federal lawmakers.

Most migrants intend to continue their journey towards the United States border after stopping in the capital despite threats from U.S. President Trump that they won’t be welcome when they arrive.

Trump continued his hardline rhetoric against the Central American migrants today, writing on Twitter:

“Our military is being mobilized at the Southern Border. Many more troops coming. We will NOT let these caravans, which are also made up of some very bad thugs and gang members, into the U.S. Our Border is sacred, must come in legally. TURN AROUND!”

Mexican authorities are treading a fine line between trying to avoid upsetting the United States government and treating the migrants in accordance with international humanitarian obligations.

During the caravan’s first week in Mexico, Federal Police sometimes forced migrants off paid minibuses, citing insurance regulations, and stopped trucks from giving the Central Americans rides.

However, in recent days officials have helped organize transportation for straggling women and children and police have stood by as migrants clambered onto passing trucks.

The Secretariat of the Interior (Segob) said in a statement yesterday that two Honduran men who requested entry to Mexico were found to have arrest warrants against them in their country of origin, one for suspected homicide, the other for drug offenses.

The two, who were arrested in Chiapas, were deported to Honduras. Segob said the men were part of the migrant caravan but didn’t specify which.

A second caravan of as many as 2,000 migrants is still in Chiapas after entering Mexico Monday while a third contingent of Salvadoran migrants legally crossed into the country yesterday.

Despite Trump’s repeated claims that criminals are part of the migrant caravans, reporters traveling with the Central Americans and migrant advocates have denied that to be the case.

Asked about the U.S. president’s hardline stance on immigration, Honduran migrant Levin Guillén said “according to what they say, we are not going to be very welcome at the border” before adding “but we are going to try.”

The 23-year-old farmer from Corinto, Honduras, said that he had received threats in his homeland from the same people who killed his father 18 years ago.

Guillén hopes to find an aunt who lives in Los Angeles, where he hopes he will have the opportunity to live and work in peace.

“We just want a way to get to our final goal, which is the border,” he said.

Carlos Enrique Carcamo, a 50-year-old boat mechanic who is part of the second migrant caravan, echoed that sentiment although he added that if it doesn’t work out, there is also a Plan B.

“Continue on to the United States, that is the first objective,” he said. “But if that’s not possible, well, permission here in Mexico to work or stay here.”

Source: Associated Press (sp)

Security forces arrest suspected boss of Tepito crime gang

By

MND Staff

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October 31, 2018

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Alleged Mexico City gang boss El Pistache.

The suspected leader of the violent Mexico City criminal organization La Unión de Tepito and seven other presumed gang members were arrested yesterday.

The alleged capo, identified only as David N., was apprehended at an address in the Mexico City borough of Álvaro Obregón during an operation carried out by Federal Police, marines, agents from the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) and Mexico City police.

Omar García Harfuch, chief of the federal Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC), said that the alleged criminal, also known as “El Pistache,” is suspected of distributing illegal drugs in the capital and extorting restaurants and nightclubs.

He is also linked to the murder of members of rival gangs as well as that of the founder of La Unión de Tepito in September last year.

More recently, gunmen dressed as mariachi musicians — believed to be members of La Unión de Tepito — last month killed five people and wounded six more in Plaza Garibaldi, a square popular with tourists in downtown Mexico City.

One target of the attack is believed to have been Sergio Flores Concha, the suspected leader of a rival criminal group known as La Fuerza Anti-Unión.

In addition, David N. is “possibly” involved in human trafficking and sexual exploitation carried out in the Mexico City neighborhoods of Polanco, Condesa, Roma and Juárez as well as Ciudad Satélite in the México state municipality of Naucalpan, García said.

El Pistache’s “main collaborator,” Daniel Eduardo N., was also arrested alongside his presumed boss while a further six suspected gang members were detained in the middle-class neighborhood of Navarte, located around six kilometers south of downtown Mexico City.

García said the six gang members were meeting at the time of their arrest at three different addresses to “carry out the financial administration of resources obtained from different, possibly illicit activities.”

The detained men fired at the law enforcement officials when they became aware of their presence, the AIC chief said.

The latter shot back and wounded one suspected gang member who was taken to hospital and is in stable condition, García added.

In addition to making the eight arrests, the security forces seized more than 30 firearms, ammunition, packages of drugs and tactical and communication equipment.

“With the capture of these individuals, a strong blow was dealt to this criminal group that is responsible for several acts of violence in Mexico City and the metropolitan area,” García said.

David N. is believed to have succeeded a man known as “El Betito” at the head of La Unión de Tepito, which is based in the notoriously dangerous Mexico City neighborhood of the same name.

Roberto Moyado Esparza or Roberto Fabián Miranda, who investigations linked to a number of executions and beheadings in Mexico City and neighboring México state, was arrested in August.

A report published in the newspaper El Universal today said that El Pistache traveled in luxury cars, dressed in designer clothes, vacationed in Caribbean coast resort cities, cultivated friendships with television personalities and dated celebrities.

The 32-year-old suspected criminal leader owns houses in affluent areas of Mexico City and México state, where he introduced himself to neighbors as a businessman and television producer, El Universal said.

In March last year, David N. was imprisoned on homicide charges but despite three people testifying against him, a judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him and he was released six months later.

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

Federal Police officer killed in Petatlán, Guerrero, ambush

By

Tony Richards

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October 31, 2018

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A patrol car after this morning's ambush.

Armed civilians ambushed three Federal Police patrol vehicles early this morning in Guerrero, killing one officer.

The attack occurred at about 2:00am on the Acapulco-Zihuatanejo highway in San Jeronimito, Petatlán, in the Costa Grande region.

Guerrero security spokesman Roberto Álvarez said the officer was wounded during the ambush, and died later in a Zihuatanejo hospital.

The shooting followed a violent day in the state. Eleven people were killed, six of them in Acapulco.

A special state police squad was patrolling in the city’s La Sabana neighborhood when it was attacked by gunfire. A vehicle chase followed, ending in a confrontation on the Acapulco-Pinotepa highway in El Cayaco where the attackers were killed and one officer wounded.

Four of the men were aged between 20 and 25; the fifth was just 13.

Meanwhile, bodies were found in Acapulco and Taxco and assassinations took place in Chilapa and Chilpancingo.

In the former, police chased two young men on a motorcycle after they shot and killed a man. One of them escaped but the other was killed by police. He was 16 years old.

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

Third caravan enters Mexico but does so legally, registers asylum requests

By

MND Staff

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October 31, 2018

0

migrants — Only the cattle are documented.

A third migrant caravan made up of 450 men, women and children from El Salvador entered Mexico yesterday at the same southern border crossing where two other contingents of migrants recently arrived.

The group crossed the border bridge between Tecún Umán, Guatemala, and Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas, legally and registered asylum requests with Mexican immigration authorities.

Caravan spokesman Juan Bonilla said the migrants left El Salvador on October 28 to escape poverty and violence.

Some members are aiming to reach the United States while others wish to remain in Mexico, he said.

Unlike most members of the two other migrant caravans, the Salvadorans agreed to register for the Estás en tu Casa (You are at Home) program announced last week by President Peña Nieto.

The scheme offers shelter, medical attention, schooling and jobs to the Central American migrants on the condition that they formally apply for refugee status with the National Immigration Institute (INM) and remain in either Chiapas or Oaxaca.

Bonilla said authorities told the migrants that they would check to see if they had criminal records in their country of origin and if not they would be taken to a shelter.

Meanwhile, the second caravan of migrants — who clashed with Federal Police at the border Sunday — reached Tapachula after a six-hour walk from Ciudad Hidalgo.

During the journey, a five-month-old baby was treated by paramedics for fever, the newspaper El Universal reported.

Farther north, members of the first and largest migrant caravan continued their journey through Oaxaca yesterday to reach the city of Juchitán.

The migrants traveled to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec city from Santiago Niltepec in a variety of ways: on board buses, hanging off the back of passing trucks and fuel tankers, walking, in taxis and even riding on mototaxis.

They joined more than 500 migrants who had already arrived and were staying in a shelter set up by municipal authorities at an abandoned bus station.

Juchitán Civil Protection services said that there were 3,600 migrants at the shelter including 900 children and at least 20 pregnant women.

The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) is urging migrants and authorities to pay close attention to the well-being of children and especially babies.

“. . . A child can become dehydrated quickly, placing their life in danger,” said CNDH official Édgar Corzo.

Source: El Universal (sp)