Two construction workers in Nuevo León narrowly escaped a 24-story fall when a cable snapped, upending the platform on which they were working.
The workers were replacing a broken window on the 24th floor of the Real Inn hotel in San Pedro Garza García when the cable broke, leaving the scaffold hanging almost vertically.
Other workers called the Civil Protection agency but when agents arrived, the two men had already been rescued by the hotel’s security and maintenance teams, who helped them climb through the window they were going to replace.
Joint ventures by Pemex would focus on deepwater reserves.
President López Obrador is poised to reverse his position and allow Pemex to resume joint ventures with the private sector in 2020, according to a report in the Financial Times.
The report cites an unnamed senior government official who said the president is set to reopen private exploration in deepwater oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We are working with the president so farm-outs [joint ventures] can start up in 2020,” the official told the Times.
“For deep water, it would all be for the private sector,” he added, explaining that included the Trion project, for which Pemex has a partnership with the multinational company BHP.
The president’s aim, the Times said, is to kick-start investment and production in the oil sector and prevent the possibility of another credit rating downgrade for the beleaguered state oil company, which has debt in excess of US $100 billion. Fitch downgraded Pemex to junk status in June and if Moody’s follows suit, a huge sell-off of the company’s bonds would ensue.
“If he makes this [joint venture] announcement soon, it could be like a one-two punch in boxing after the approval of the pipeline deal,” said Mario López, an analyst at the consultancy Empra, referring to an agreement the government struck with three pipeline companies this week that settled a dispute between the parties.
“It would be the perfect combination, sending the right signals to the world that he is more open to the private sector. It could clearly reduce the risk of a downgrade if he manages to announce it before the end of the year.”
If would also be a major reversal in policy direction for the López Obrador administration.
The president was a staunch opponent of the previous government’s energy reform, which opened up the oil sector to foreign and private companies after almost 80 years of state control.
It was also intended to bring in expertise that Pemex did not have, particularly in deepwater drilling.
But upon taking office López Obrador put an end to joint ventures with Pemex and postponed oil block auctions.
Now, with economic growth slowing and investment stagnating, he is facing pressure to pacify investors.
López Obrador met on Wednesday with Claudio Descalzi, head of the Italian gas and oil company Eni, providing a sign that his attitude towards private investors could be less fierce than it once was.
Petroleum production in Mexico has been on the wane for a decade and a half and Pemex is continuing to struggle to boost production.
The government announced a US $5.5-billion rescue plan for the state-run company in February that was aimed at reducing the oil company’s financial burden and strengthening its capacity to invest in exploration and production.
In July, the government presented a new business plan but many analysts said that it ignored the concerns of rating agencies and experts.
“It’s a very ideologically loaded business plan, it limits the participation of private companies in a big way and forces Pemex to do everything itself,” said Pablo Medina, vice president of Welligence Energy Analytics, adding that the state oil company needs “to take advantage of what the energy reform allows, leverage capital and stop trying to do it all by themselves.”
It appears that the president may have come around to that view.
A spy camera was found in a meeting room in the National Palace, President López Obrador revealed Thursday morning.
“A few days ago, in one of the rooms in our offices, a sophisticated camera was found, one of those little-bitty ones, they were recording us,” he said in his morning address. “In a room here in the palace, not in my office, but one of the rooms where we have meetings.”
“And what do they accomplish with it? If what we talk about is totally legal, transparent, then there’s nothing they can use against us,” he added.
The president was questioned about longtime employees of Nacional Financiera (Nafin), a federal development bank, who allegedly inform adversaries of the government. He said he did not believe they were a problem, reiterating that they would not have anything to inform about.
“I don’t view it as a sensitive situation, because he who owes nothing fears nothing. There are times when we have meetings and we take care that we’re not being recorded, but the truth is that it shouldn’t matter to us, because everything we say should be in the public domain. Public life must be more and more public,” he said.
With respect to the camera, López Obrador said that his administration has not filed complaints about such matters, and it will not start now.
“Why get involved in this? You get rid of the camera and that’s it, move forward. These are practices of the old regime. Imagine investigating where it came from. I mean, I’m now working on a report, I don’t have time to busy myself with this.
“No, get rid of it and move forward. We’re going to keep working on what’s in front of us,” he concluded.
The federal government paid out more than 71 billion pesos (US $3.5 billion) to settle contracts for the canceled Mexico City airport project.
Communications and Transportation Secretary Javier Jiménez Espriú told a press conference yesterday that an analysis determined that 692 contracts had to be settled.
For work already completed at the abandoned airport site in Texcoco, México state, the government paid contractors 60.29 billion pesos, Jiménez said.
An additional 14.93 billion pesos in compensation was paid to contractors to cover the non-recoverable costs they incurred, meaning that the government forked out a total of 75.22 billion pesos to the builders of what was to be the previous government’s signature infrastructure project.
The payout represents 26% of the 285 billion pesos (US $14 billion) that had been allocated to build the airport.
“When we began this analysis, we calculated that the commitments would be about 100 billion pesos. Today we see that it turned out to be 25 billion pesos cheaper, which is good news,” Jiménez said.
He explained that because all the contracts have now been settled, the concession for the construction of the airport has been terminated.
The return of materials purchased – including huge quantities of basalt, tezontle and steel – allows the government to reduce its net loss by 4 billion pesos.
The materials could be used in the construction of the government’s priority infrastructure projects such as the Maya Train, the Dos Bocas oil refinery and the Santa Lucía airport, Jiménez said.
He said the canceled airport site can be converted into an ecological park once the government has resolved 60 injunctions filed against the government’s decision to scrap the project.
To terminate the concession for the Texcoco airport, the government also had to reach a deal with private investors.
A police officer stands watch over the Coatzacoalcos crime scene.
The deadly attack on a Veracruz bar Tuesday has revived the animosity between Veracruz Governor Cuitláhuac García and Attorney General Jorge Winckler.
Winckler has denied a claim repeated by García and President López Obrador that one of those responsible for the attack in Coatzcacoalcos had previously been arrested and released by the Veracruz Attorney General’s Office (FGE).
García said that Veracruz police freed Ricardo “La Loca” N., presumed to be a low-level hitman for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) who is a suspect in several arsons, before he went on to carry out the Coatzacoalcos attack.
According to Winckler, Ricardo N. was arrested and released twice by the Veracruz delegation of the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR), not by state authorities, once in July and once in August.
Friends and relatives of victims share their grief after Tuesday’s assault on Veracruz bar.
Winckler also questioned whether Ricardo N. was involved in the attack at all.
The attorney general was appointed by García’s predecessor, Miguel Ángel Yunes, a member of the National Action Party (PAN). The two officials have had a troubled relationship since García, a member of the president’s Morena party, took office.
Winckler has also been a target for criticism by President López Obrador, who called Wednesday for the Veracruz attorney general to be investigated, questioning his honesty.
He suggested that part of the country’s insecurity problem is dishonest authorities.
The bar attack was bad enough, López Obrador said, but another factor is that “there exists conspiracy [by organized crime] with authorities.”
The federal FGR began its own investigation of the Coatzacoalcos incident on Wednesday. In a statement on Wednesday night, the FGR conceded that it does not have conclusive proof that Ricardo N. was responsible for the attack, but it has connected him to at least five other similar arsons.
Winckler said Thursday that lines of investigation include a fight between rival gangs, extortion and revenge. Four people are believed to have been responsible.
Twenty-three people died at the scene and five more in hospital yesterday. Another eight victims remain in hospital.
The attackers threw gasoline and molotov cocktails inside the bar and sealed the exits before fleeing.
The president's performance rating on a scale of one to 10 from August 2018 to August 2019. el universal
Almost three-quarters of respondents to a new poll said they would vote in favor of President López Obrador completing his six-year term, while just under seven in 10 approve of his performance.
If a revocation of mandate vote was held today – as the president has pledged to hold three years into his administration – 74.1% of those polled by the newspaper El Universal said that would support the continuation of López Obrador’s term, while 19.3% indicated they would not.
The other 6.6% of respondents said they didn’t know which way they would vote.
The president’s approval rating remains strong at 69% although it has declined almost four points compared to El Universal’s June poll and 10 points since March.
López Obrador’s performance rating on a scale of one to 10 also slipped to an average of 7.22 compared to 7.33 in June and 7.72 in March.
Nevertheless, only 9.5% of respondents to the August survey said that they “totally disapprove” of López Obrador’s performance.
Seven in 10 said the president has demonstrated the capacity to solve the country’s problems even though 54% asserted that Mexico’s troubles have exceeded the government’s capacity to deal with them.
Six in 10 said they are optimistic that Mexico will continue to improve under López Obrador’s leadership, while one in five said that things will stay the same and 13% said that the country will get worse.
Just under two-thirds of those polled said they didn’t regret voting for López Obrador in the 2018 election, while just 5.9% of respondents said they did rue their decision.
Just under 22% of respondents said they didn’t vote for López Obrador in the presidential election, while 6.5% said that they didn’t vote at all.
Those numbers indicate that just over 70% of poll respondents voted for the president last year, 17% higher than the 53% support he garnered among all voters on polling day.
The AMLOve endures.
The survey also shows that the president scores much better than state governors and mayors in terms of rapport with the citizens they represent.
Just under 47% of respondents said they believed that López Obrador would take their petitions and proposals into account were they to meet with him face to face, while just 23% and 27% respectively said the same about their governors and mayors.
The poll also indicates that people believe that quality of life has improved under the current government.
Asked for an evaluation on a scale of one to 10, in which one is “very unsatisfied” and 10 is “very satisfied,” the average was 7.74 compared to 7.48 in June and 7.38 in March.
More than four in 10 respondents said their quality of life was much better or better than in recent months whereas only 16.5% said it was worse.
However, almost three-quarters of those polled said their family’s income had not increased in recent months, while just over one-quarter said it had. López Obrador stresses regularly that providing income support payments and welfare programs to the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable is a priority for his government.
Asked to name the government’s greatest achievement in its almost nine months in office, 25% cited social programs, 16% mentioned the crackdown on fuel theft and 8% referred to the fight against corruption.
Almost 10% more cited either the response to violence, or to drug trafficking, as the López Obrador administration’s No. 1 error, meaning that almost a quarter of poll respondents are unhappy about how the government is dealing with the security situation.
Despite increasing violence and a slowing economy, almost 12% of those polled said that the government hasn’t put a foot wrong.
On a personal level, López Obrador was rated highly for his management of public education, his governance skills and his efforts to combat poverty and corruption.
In contrast, his response to protests, the migration issue and the security situation found the highest disapproval ratings among poll respondents.
Almost six in 10 people said they didn’t agree with the government allowing migrants without documents to enter the country and seek asylum. Six in 10 said the government should block their entry to Mexico.
The international power tool company Milwaukee Tool will build a factory in Torreón, Coahuila, that will bring 2,600 jobs to the city when it starts operating in April 2020.
At a ceremony on Wednesday, Governor Miguel Riquelme welcomed the company to Torreón and said that construction will start on the US $86-million factory in September.
“Today, the city receives a message that will give us strength,” he said. “The company is going to do well, they will have qualified workers. I’m very happy that they chose Torreón. Here they will find stable labor relations, safety and qualified workers. We’re going to make sure they stay here.”
Riquelme added that the new factory will have a technological innovation center that will elevate the quality of the tools produced there.
Torreón Mayor Jorge Zermeño Infante thanked the the state government for its efforts to attract investment.
“Investments don’t happen by chance, they happen when there’s certainty, when there are elements that allow a business to have what it needs to open up shop,” he said. “I see the work the state government is doing to bring investment to Coahuila.”
Zermeño added that the company visited 15 cities around Mexico and the world before deciding on Torreón.
“I am thankful to the businesses who have been involved in this,” he said. “It is good for the Laguna region and good for Coahuila.”
Carlos Braña Muñoz, the president of a Torreón chamber of commerce, said the plans for the new plant are the result of an investment tour organized by the state government in China.
Founded in 1924, Milwaukee Tool became a subsidiary of the Hong Kong company Techtronic Industries in 2005.
One of the most-wanted criminals in México state was caught red-handed doing a low-level drug deal in Mexico City on Tuesday.
According to the city’s Public Security Secretariat (SSC), Israel “El Bucanas” Molina Monroy was spotted by police while exchanging drugs for cash with another man in the borough of Miguel Hidalgo.
“. . . two men were observed leaning against a blue Nissan Sentra that was the object of an investigation exchanging several bags . . . with green vegetable material inside for cash,” said the SSC in a statement.
When the officers approached the men and identified themselves they attempted unsuccessfully to flee in the vehicle.
The seller, who was found to be in possession of 39 plastic bags of what police suspect to be marijuana, was later identified as 39-year-old Molina, a former police officer in the México state municipality of Tultitlán.
He was wanted for the April 2018 murders of state homicide chief José Luis Mendoza Espinoza and his partner Orlando López Arrendondo. He was also wanted in connection with an incident where a body was abandoned near the Barrientos Jail in Tlanepantla last Thursday, with a message signed by the organized crime group La Unión de Tepito.
In December, the state attorney general published a most-wanted list of 47 people, which included Molina, offering a reward of 300,000 pesos (US $15,000) for information leading to his arrest.
His nickname is more than likely derived from a fondness for Buchanan’s whisky, but lost a couple of letters in translation.
Molina is not to be confused with Roberto de los Santos de Jesús, a suspected gangster in Puebla who shares the same nickname.
Supporters of the bill celebrate in Oaxaca yesterday.
The Oaxaca Congress approved same-sex marriage after a heated debate on Wednesday.
The final vote was 25 in favor and 10 against, which came amid protests for and against by the LGBT community and evangelical Christians.
The bill removes the definition of marriage as a union exclusively between a man and a woman from the state’s Civil Code.
“Marriage is a civil contract celebrated between two people who unite in order to celebrate a life in common, and to provide each other with respect, equality and mutual help,” the Civil Code now reads.
Evangelical pastors and like-minded citizens gathered Wednesday morning to protest the amendment, showing their support for the “original design” of the family, composed of a man and a woman.
Opponents of same-sex marriage demonstrate in the Oaxaca capital.
The Brotherhood of Evangelical Pastors of the State of Oaxaca (Copaceo) accused the Chamber of Deputies of imposition for promoting and authorizing a law that was not put to public vote, in spite of the fact that they had requested such a vote as early as April 2.
Members of the LGBT community condemned the protest, considering it a type of hate speech. When the law was approved, however, they were jubilant, celebrating in the esplanade of the legislature in San Raymundo Jalpan, south of Oaxaca City.
A long-running dispute over compensation for expropriated land will not prevent expansion at Guadalajara International Airport, the facility’s operator said, announcing that a second terminal and a new runway will go ahead.
Both will be built on land for which the airport operator already has a concession, circumventing the need to purchase it from community landowners engaged in the compensation dispute.
The Pacific Airport Group (GAP) presented a plan for the project to the federal Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT) and pending approval, construction will begin in January. The project will be completed by 2025 at the latest.
Airport director Martín Pablo Zazueta Chávez said that the terminal and runway will be built on land included in a concession acquired by GAP 20 years ago.
“. . . We’re going to maximize the use of our lands and our concession,” he said.
“[The terminal] will have all the elements of modernity and cutting-edge technology. It will be a very functional building and will have the capacity to serve both national and international passengers,” Zazueta told the newspaper El Economista.
He explained that the second terminal will be accessed via a new, separate entrance. Having two terminals and a second runway will enable the airport to meet passenger demand for the next 25 years, Zazueta said.
He said construction will take place while the airport continues to operate but stressed that the builders and airport management will aim to minimize the impact of the work on passengers. However, Zazueta conceded that there are “complicated years” ahead.
The airport chief didn’t reveal how much the new terminal will cost, explaining that the price tag will be disclosed once the SCT gives the green light.
Construction of the new airport infrastructure was planned for a 137-hectare parcel of land owned by the community landowners of the El Zapote ejido (cooperative).
However, the landowners have refused to sell the land until they are paid compensation for 307 hectares of land that the federal government expropriated for the airport in 1951.
Their refusal to cede the land has held up plans to expand the airport in Mexico’s second largest city, where demand for airline services has more than tripled over the past two decades.
Zazueta said that when GAP began operating the airport 20 years ago, it handled about 4.3 million passengers annually.
Last year, 14.35 million people used the airport while in 2019 the number of passengers is expected to exceed 15 million for the first time.
