Diablero: mystical Mexican thriller launches worldwide Friday on Netflix

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December 17, 2018

This year has been an interesting and fruitful one for Mexican shows and movies on Netflix. Most notable is the release of Alfonso Cuarón’s latest masterpiece, Roma, that was produced for Netflix and released last Friday.

There have also been hit shows like Casa de las Flores and Narcos Mexico as well as the polemic reality drama, Made in Mexico, documenting the life of Mexico City’s elite.

Now comes the first global premiere of a Mexican series. Called Diablero, it is an interesting move for Netflix, moving away from the grittier series that speak of real life in Mexico or comedy shows that create comedic spoofs on traditional telenovelas.

Diablero is an adventurous science fiction series that calls on special effects to create a Mexico City which has been abandoned by the angels and in which demons exist. It is based on the book El Diablo Me Obliga (The Devil Made Me) by Mexican writer Francisco Gerardo Haghenbeck and was made into this series by Morena Films.

Mexico News Daily caught up with the protagonist, Horacio García Rojas, who plays Elvis Infante, el Diablero, or devil hunter, to find out more about the series. We met in a café in the south of Mexico City on a street lined with billboards of Garcia’s face advertising Friday’s launch.

Horacio is a laid-back, handsome actor originally from Veracruz who now lives in Mexico City with his family. Readers may have seen him in Narcos Mexico or as a Mexica in the 2017 film La Carga. When talking about Diablero, he is animated and passionate, excited for the show to air and for something new and different to hit our screens.

Could you tell me a little bit about what Diablero is all about?

Diablero is a science fiction series that combines fantasy, horror and adventure with a touch of black comedy. It is a series set in a world where angels no longer exist, they left, they abandoned humanity. The demons are hidden and the Diableros are in charge of trying to create balance. They are charged with capturing the demons and sending them back to their place of origin.

Everything starts when a priest [played by Christopher von Uckermann] realizes that in the past he was a father, something he was unaware of, and that his daughter disappeared, and the kidnapper of the daughter appears to be something supernatural. So he calls upon Elvis Infante [Garcia’s character] who is a demon hunter, and this is where the adventure starts.

And your character works alongside a woman too, is that right?

There are two women. One is my sister. Elvis and Keta [played by Fátima Molina] are brother and sister, two people who have grown up together and alone. Elvis is volatile, ethereal and rarely serious, while she is more grounded. They complement each other.

Then there comes another woman who is Elvis’ student Nancy [played by Giselle Kuri]. She is the only person that they know up to that point who can call on demons and remove them at will . . . and the only person who understands her is Elvis.

What for you is the most interesting or intriguing thing about the series?

It is the first series that reflects this universe. The universe of the mystical and magical. The relationship with death, color . . . and mystical things that happen in Mexico and we think that the public is going to really appreciate it.

Foreigners like this part of Mexico, the relationship that Mexico has with the mystical that no other country has, I think. Mexico has the fortune to have so many indigenous cultures and each one has their magic, and Diablero works with that.

Diablero | Tráiler oficial | Netflix

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So does the series talk about the indigenous cultures of Mexico?

It’s something intrinsic. For example, the calls that Elvis recites to draw out a demon are written in Latin and Náhuatl, understanding the two roots that form Mexican Spanish. So, in that way, it is present. Elvis’ sister is a Santería priest for example. She is an expert in Santería and herbology. She can make potions that help people remember or forget. Elvis and Keta don’t have a particular religion, but they are aware of all religions.

Our conversation veers off to the mystical and magical in Mexico. García talks of growing up in the Huasteca area of Veracruz and all of the supernatural stories that circulated in his town about duendes (goblins) and chaneques (sprite-like beings from Mexica folklore) and seeing things that can’t easily be explained. He is sure that Diablero is going to make the Mexican audience think about their own stories of the supernatural and unexplained. Moving back to the bricks and mortar of the streets, we talk about the depiction of Mexico’s capital in the show.

Are we going to see the streets of Mexico City in the series?

Yes, it is a series with a backdrop that reflects the richness of Mexico City, from streets filled with graffiti to beautiful historical buildings.

This is clearly new ground for a Mexican series. How do you feel about that?

I am really excited. I think it is necessary for us to identify and appreciate the country that we have that is so rich and so vast and at the same time the audience is going to be able to understand themselves further as Mexicans and maybe recognize the cultural richness that exists in Mexico City and in the country.

I am the first protagonist in a series on Netflix [Mexico] who is a mestizo who is more indigenous than European looking, and this also makes me really proud. I hope it will open the door to telling more stories where the cast is more diverse. Mexico is a country with lots of diversity and for many years the television only paid attention to the more white, European actors . . . relegating actors with darker skin to roles as servants or narcotraffickers or villains. In Diablero, there is a mixed cast and I think that is important. At the end of the day, the television has to represent who we are. I think Diablero will leave us with a pride in what it means to be Mexican.

Elvis is a hero, well maybe more of an antihero. He is someone who is prepared to give his life for an ideal. This is cool too, to see Mexican heroes and for us to identify again with that.

It is a peculiar series in the best meaning of the word. It’s really different and we are so excited about it.

Was there a good connection among the cast and crew?

Yes, there was a great chemistry. It was a shoot that really needed this positive chemistry because of the dark tone of the series and we were working really long hours and working a lot during the night, so it was so important to get on well, not just the cast but the crew too.

Diablero, which runs over eight episodes will take to Netflix screens worldwide beginning Friday, December 21. It promises to bring something new and exciting and important into the realm of Mexican series, celebrating the uniquely mystical nature of Mexico to captivate audiences worldwide.

Susannah Rigg is a freelance writer and Mexico specialist based in Mexico City. Her work has been published by BBC Travel, Condé Nast Traveler, CNN Travel and The Independent UK among others. Find out more about Susannah on her website.

Travel magazine readers name Riviera Maya Mexico’s top destination

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César Hernández

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December 17, 2018

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The Riviera Maya has been recognized as the best destination in Mexico by Travel Weekly‘s 16th annual Readers Choice Awards.

The Quintana Roo destination saw four other strong contenders in the best destination in Mexico category: Cancún, Cozumel, Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta.

Travel Weekly described the winner as “home to sprawling all-inclusive resorts. Playa del Carmen serves as the starting point for tours, trips to the Mayan ruins at Chichén Itzá and Tulum and visits to Mexico’s [cenotes] underground rivers and springs.”

The director of the Quintana Roo Tourist Promotion Council, Darío Flota Ocampo, attended the black-tie gala dinner and award ceremony held in New York.

The win, said Flota, “belongs to all the entrepreneurs, workers and service providers who with their daily effort make the Riviera Maya the best destination in Mexico . . . ”

The destination’s success, he continued, is also the result of the collaboration between the members of the industry and the state government in promoting it in tourist forums, fairs and other events, as well as in containing the effects of negative travel warnings.

The council says the Mexican Caribbean as a whole received more than 1.6 million visitors — and over US $1.7 billion — during the last summer vacation period.

Source: 20 minutos (sp), Travel Weekly (en)

Mother Earth asked to get on board the Maya Train

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César Hernández

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December 17, 2018

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Yesterday's ceremony in Chiapas to seek permission to build train. — Yesterday's ceremony in Palenque, Chiapas.

The federal government and representatives of 12 Maya communities attended a ceremony in Palenque, Chiapas, yesterday to ask for Mother Earth’s permission to build the Maya Train.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Chiapas Governor Rutilio Escandón Cadenas attended the event at the old Palenque airport, where the two were also given a special cleansing, or limpia, to rid them of “bad vibes.”

The ceremony also included the placing of offerings in a hole in the ground. Among there were a chicken, a bottle of pozol (a fermented corn dough and cacao drink) and 12 bottles of a local aguardiente, a distilled alcoholic beverage.

The ceremony was intended to ensure that the president’s first big infrastructure project is finished without incident.

“We have to ask for permission to the earth, because we eat from her and we walk on her,” said the state Secretary for the Sustainable Development of Indigenous Peoples.

In a speech after the ceremony, López Obrador recalled that former president Porfirio Díaz had been able to lay 20,000 kilometers of track during his decades-long dictatorship, suggesting he ought to be able to lay the 1,500 kilometers of track required for the Maya Train.

Source: El Universal (sp)

2019 budget reaction: fiscally prudent and ‘no crazy stuff’

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MND Staff

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December 17, 2018

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Saturday's budget has given the peso a boost.

The federal government’s first budget has been described as fiscally prudent and realistic by many financial analysts although with reservations in some cases, while others have been less enthusiastic in their assessment.

Finance Secretary Carlos Urzúa presented the 5.8-trillion peso (US $288-billion) 2019 Economic Package on Saturday, pledging to deliver a surplus of 1% of GDP next year while increasing spending on welfare and infrastructure projects and not introducing any new taxes.

“There was a general feeling that it was very difficult to balance spending on social programs without a deficit increase but with this economic package proposal, [President] López Obrador fulfills his promise to be fiscally responsible,” Banorte chief economist Gabriel Casillas told the newspaper El Financiero.

He said that market reaction to the budget would be positive within a context of investor uncertainty following the government’s decision to cancel the US $13-billion Mexico City airport project.

Héctor Villareal, general director of economic think tank Ciep, said the budget was realistic and that the 2019 revenue forecast – 5.3 trillion pesos, mainly from taxes and oil income – was in line with that seen this year.

However, he added that that the government’s planned expenditure would result in a significant decrease in fiscal space.

“Between increases to debt service payments . . . an increase in pensions and the commitment of a primary surplus of 1% of GDP along with not raising taxes . . . the reduction to fiscal space was very radical,” Villareal said.

BBVA Bancomer chief economist Carlos Serrano described the budget as “a responsible package that should result in debt, as a percentage of GDP, staying stable in 2019,” adding “it should be well-received by markets.”

Gabriela Siller, chief economist at Banco Base, noted that the government had acted realistically by reducing its growth forecast to 2%, which is close to market outlooks.

“We expect growth of 1.8% . . . due to a slowing down of investment and probably consumption,” she said.

López Obrador had said previously that his government would target 4% growth.

Another chief economist, Mario Correa of Scotiabank, said the budget “looks reasonable with respect to its macroeconomic assumptions and it seems effectively oriented towards fiscal discipline and macro-stability.”

Raúl Feliz, an economist at CIDE, a Mexico City university, said that markets should be buoyed because “there’s no really crazy stuff” in the government’s spending plans.

Credit Suisse economist Alonso Cervera said that “Urzúa stuck to his 1% primary surplus target even though the context kept on changing with a worsening economic outlook, higher rates and a weaker peso.”

He added that “markets would have been very disappointed had he lowered it.”

However, Cervera said the money set aside for “priority projects” such as the Maya Train and the youth apprenticeship scheme appeared to be too low.

“The question is, in future years, how will they fund them? Will they have enough money without increasing or introducing new taxes?” he pondered.

He also said that he anticipated economic growth of 1.2% in 2019, compared to the budget’s forecast of 2%, and questioned whether investment in state oil company Pemex would be enough to increase oil production by 600,000 barrels a day as López Obrador has pledged to do by the end of his six-year term.

Benito Berber of investment bank Natixis said that after the public consultation on the airport, which resulted in its cancellation, Urzúa slightly increased the surplus estimate to 1% from a previously anticipated 0.8%.

“They wanted to do something about their lack of credibility in the market, the peso depreciation and [bond] yields going up . . . it was very important that they delivered on that,” he said.

However, Berber added that “the main thing to watch in the coming months is: are the numbers right? Were the calculations on the revenue side OK?”

A former senior government official said “it looks that there is a reasonable hand making the budget – very different from the guys pushing to cancel the airport.”

Among analysts who were less glowing in their appraisal was Marco Oviedo, chief economist for Barclays in Latin America. He said the projections in the budget were “realistic up to a certain point,” specifically questioning whether oil revenue would be as high as the government expected.

Luis Foncerrada, president of the forum True Economic Talks, said the 2019 exchange rate forecast of 20 pesos to the US dollar and the crude price of US $55 per barrel were too confident, while Gustavo de Hoyos, president of the Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex), also said that some of the government’s projections were overly optimistic.

An economist who asked not to be identified shared the same sentiment, telling the Financial Times that he didn’t like the budget.

“It’s too optimistic on many fronts . . . they will have at least one full point of GDP fiscal hole,” he said.

The peso increased by 0.7% and Mexican bonds rallied this morning in response to the budget, news agency Bloomberg reported. However, the benchmark index on the Mexican Stock Exchange failed to follow suit, slipping by 0.8%.

“The budget was well received but the market will continue reacting to other types of not-so-positive news, such as the [canceled] airport project,” said Banco Base strategist Jesús López.

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

Secretary calls 250 abandoned health care facilities ‘monuments to corruption’

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César Hernández

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December 17, 2018

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Health Secretary Alcocer speaks on Saturday in Mérida.

The federal health secretary says there are 250 abandoned health facilities around the country, and described them as “scandalous monuments to incompetence, corruption and influence peddling.”

Speaking in Mérida, Yucatán, Jorge Alcocer Varela said the clinics, health centers and hospitals were built to offer medical care to citizens who are not part of a social security program. Some are unfinished, others operate without the basic required equipment.

Alcocer charged that the investment of resources in the health sector has not been transparent nor has it led to an improvement in public health.

“Corruption is everywhere. This is a somber picture, that’s true, but it reveals a problem in health services that has become a national emergency. Investment in infrastructure has stopped and what has been built has been left without adequate maintenance.

The current state of the fragmented health sector leads to inequality, and the government of Mexico has failed to guarantee the public’s fundamental right to health, continued Alcocer.

He said the new unified health system announced last week by President López Obrador will guarantee that right by providing free health care and medications to the population that is outside of the scope of current social security programs, gradually leading to the implementation of a universal health care system.

This first stage of the program will pay special attention to the population living in marginalized regions.

“Free and universal health care will be a reality for all of us, propelled by primary health care that will look after the individual to heal society,” he said.

Source: Reforma (sp)

AMLO government pledges ‘fiscal, financial discipline,’ targets budget surplus

By

MND Staff

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December 17, 2018

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Urzúa, second from left, presents his budget on Saturday.

The new federal government presented its first budget Saturday, pledging “absolute commitment to fiscal and financial discipline” and a surplus of 1% of GDP in 2019 without introducing any new taxes.

Presentation of the 2019 Economic Package came just two weeks after leftist political veteran Andrés Manuel López Obrador was sworn in as president.

His party, the National Regeneration Movement, or Morena, leads a coalition that has a majority in both houses of federal Congress.

Finance Secretary Carlos Urzúa outlined details of the 5.8 trillion-peso (US $288 billion) budget to the lower house, including spending of 252 billion pesos (US $12.5 billion) on “priority projects.”

One hundred billion pesos will be allocated to doubling old-age pensions, 44 billion pesos will go to a youth apprenticeship program, 18 billion to upgrading airport infrastructure, 15 billion to a reforestation program and 6 billion to construction of the Maya Train project on the Yucatán peninsula.

The budget earmarked 15 billion pesos to convert the Santa Lucía Air Force Base in México state for commercial aviation use.

López Obrador confirmed in late October that the partially-built US $13-billion airport project at Texcoco would be scrapped, triggering concern about the economic impact of the move.

Urzúa said the budget didn’t include funds to repay investors who purchased US $6 billion in bonds to help fund the cancelled project. Bondholders have so far rejected a buyback offer even though the government sweetened the deal last week.

The overall expenditure projected for 2019 is 6.1% higher in real terms than that outlined in the 2018 budget but was expected to be 0.2% lower than actual spending this year.

“Prudence, responsibility and objectivity are the premises under which the budget was constructed,” the Secretariat of Finance (SHCP) said in a statement.

The Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare, which will implement the apprenticeship scheme, gets a whopping 932% increase to its 2018 budget, while spending on energy will go up by an even higher 961%.

State oil company Pemex will be among the beneficiaries of the latter increase.

The army will get just under 93.7 billion pesos, an 11.3% increase on this year, while public education spending will increase 2.9% to just over 300 billion pesos.

Almost 2 billion pesos will be allocated to state governments and 8 billion will go to communities affected by last year’s earthquakes.

The secretariats of the Interior, Foreign Relations, Finance, Agriculture, Communications and Transportation, Economy, Health, the Navy, Culture and the Environment were among 15 secretariats that saw their funding reduced as the government seeks to cut government costs in line with its austerity program.

The budget predicted GDP growth of 2% next year, which is slightly above market forecasts of 1.8% to 1.9%. Urzúa said the government expected growth to actually be above 2% in 2019 but that he wanted to be “conservative.”

The budget forecast revenue of almost 5.3 trillion pesos next year, of which taxes and oil income are estimated to contribute 62.3% and 19.8% respectively.

Implementation of a free zone in the northern border area, which will see both value-added tax and income tax levels reduced, will cost the government around 40 billion pesos next year, Urzúa said, a figure that is less than half of some market estimates.

The government forecasts inflation of 3.4% in 2019, which is around 0.5% below the market outlook, and expects the exchange rate to remain near its current level of 20 pesos to the US dollar.

The budget forecasts that Mexican crude prices will drop to an average of US $55 per barrel next year, down from US $62.70 currently, and that oil production will be just over 1.8 million barrels a day, which is close to current levels.

López Obrador has pledged to increase oil production during his administration in order to reduce dependency on imports. The tendering process to build a US $8-billion refinery at Dos Bocas, Tabasco, is expected to start early next year.

Urzúa told reporters after his budget presentation that Mexico would continue with an oil hedging program in 2019 in order to protect government revenues but declined to give details apart from saying “it’s very reasonable, very well done and gives us lots of security.”

He said the conflict with the Supreme Court over the government’s plan to slash the wages of high-ranking public officials including judges was “irrelevant” in the calculation of the budget.

The finance secretary contended that the budget was reflective of the new government’s stringent austerity plan.

In his inauguration speech on December 1, López Obrador pledged to put an end to corruption and impunity and to begin a “profound and radical transformation” of Mexico.

The new president has adopted a range of personal austerity measures, including traveling on commercial flights and largely eschewing security.

Source: Financial Times (en), Milenio (sp), El Economista (sp)

How Mexico and the U.S. quietly defused the caravan crisis

By

Raoul Lowery Contreras

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December 17, 2018

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The San Ysidro border crossing was shut down after a rush on the border last month.

When 5,000 Central Americans in a “caravan” arrived in Tijuana, it seemed every television camera in the civilized world arrived to show us the ongoing “invasion.”

Describing what the cameras saw were legions of reporters, mostly men, some of whom actually spoke Spanish. I watched them all while changing channels profusely during those hectic days last month.

They all missed a very important fact: the main encampment of Central American refugees was not just in Tijuana, it was less than 50 feet from the United States.

Whenever one of those international cameras faced north I could see something I see almost daily — the traffic on National Highway 1D that turns inland at Playas de Tijuana and then travels along the border with the United States. I live just south of Tijuana, so this highway is my 18-kilometer drive back to San Diego.

The now empty camp (the refugees have been moved several miles away to better circumstances) is covered in trash, empty of people. That is what I see from my car. The distance between the former camp and the U.S. border is exactly 42 feet. It consists of four eight-foot-wide traffic lanes, two chain link fences and a 15-foot-high barrier built by the United States several years ago to replace the Clinton-era military surplus steel panels.

On November 28, during a heavy downpour, I drove by the camp for the first time. Small dome tents covered the entire Benito Juárez soccer park. There were thousands of men, women and children who had walked and ridden over 2,000 kilometers from Honduras and Guatemala. When I drove by again on December 2, the tents and people had vanished.

The border crisis with televised tear gas billowing among men, women and children was for all intents and purposes over. Or was it just out of sight?

Most television reports concentrated on the caravan, its people and the border kerfuffle that ended in a cloud of tear gas. But that event was not the only thing going on, especially on the Mexican front.

What was Mexico to do? Act like a brutal dictatorship and tear gas and billy club the refugees, or shoot and kill them as unlawful people on Mexican territory? No.

What was the United States to do? Act like a brutal dictatorship and tear gas and billy club the refugees, or shoot and kill them as unlawful people on American territory? No.

Instead, both countries assembled ad hoc forces and set up new physical barriers to deal with refugees who tried to illegally cross the border.

The U.S. mobilized troops, laid concertina wire on top of all the fencing along the border between Tijuana and San Diego, and shut several normal crossing lanes through the San Ysidro port of entry.

The Mexicans brought more Federal Police to the border and lined up 10-foot-tall steel barriers at potential crossing points that weren’t fenced.

Luckily, the only mob action that occurred was on November 25 when a few hundred of the thousands tried running into the United States.

They were held off by uniformed Customs and Border Protection officers backed up by California Highway Patrol officers. The busiest border crossing the world was then shut for more than five hours. No one was seriously injured. Not a single Trump-ordered soldier or Marine was on the border.

Meanwhile, the intelligent business people of Tijuana, a world center for flat-screen television and medical-device manufacturing, joined with the Mexican government to organize something no one expected.

Tijuana businesses began interviewing the Central American refugees for over 5,000 jobs in the gigantic Tijuana industrial community. They interviewed and hired on the spot. The newly hired refugees then took their job paperwork over to a Mexican immigration table for a renewable “humanitarian work permit” that is good for a year.

Some refugees have registered to get into the proverbial “line” U.S. authorities have created. From that list, some 100 people a day are interviewed to start the asylum process. And some refugees decided to return home.

As I drive by the trash-covered former refugee camp, I thank the Mexican government, American border personnel and the bright people among them who ignored hysterical national media and a few local Mexicans who demonstrated against the refugees when they arrived.

The two governments quickly mobilized to defuse what could have been a serious episode resulting in injury and death that would certainly harm the reputation of the United States.

Raoul Lowery Contreras is a political consultant and author of the new book White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPS) & Mexicans. His work has appeared in the New American News Service of the New York Times Syndicate.

New migrant shelter in Tijuana can house up to 600

By

MND Staff

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December 15, 2018

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Migrants camping outside the Tijuana sports complex.

A second new shelter has opened in Tijuana to house migrants who camped out in the street after the sports complex where they had been staying was shut down due to overcrowding and sanitary concerns.

Authorities opened a new shelter on the outskirts of the northern border city at the end of last month but fewer than half of the more than 6,000 migrants who were living at the original shelter took up the relocation offer.

A large group of Central American migrant caravan members decided to stay outside the Benito Juárez sports center, which is located in the center of the city, arguing that the new shelter was too far from the El Chaparral port of entry to the United States.

But around 300 migrants yesterday moved into a 3,800-square-meter warehouse located just 150 meters from the sports complex, and there is space for another 300.

Celeo Archaga, a Honduran pastor who arrived in Tijuana with the first migrant caravan, said that all those who wish to enter the new shelter are checked to ensure that they are not carrying drugs, weapons or any other undesirable items.

Archaga, who will be one of six coordinators at the new shelter, said that federal Morena party Senator Jaime Bonilla had secured the use of the warehouse and explained that it has been equipped with the basic services migrants require.

He added that those who are granted permission to stay will have to agree to abide by rules such as an 11:00pm curfew and noise restrictions.

“. . . The truth is we’re migrants, we’re not here to party. We’re in a fight [to seek asylum] and I believe that we have to respect others,” Archaga said.

The Central Americans currently in Tijuana, many of whom left San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on October 13 as part of the first and largest migrant caravan, face a long wait to file asylum requests with United States authorities due to a “metering” system that limits the number of claims heard each day.

Frustrated with being stranded on the Mexico-United States border after a journey of more than 4,000 kilometers, a group of around 500 migrants rushed the border on November 25 and were met with tear gas and rubber bullets fired by U.S. border agents.

An increasing number of migrants are crossing or attempting to cross the border fence illegally to hand themselves in to border patrol agents in order to circumvent the lengthy wait to apply for asylum from Mexico.

On Thursday, three Honduran families broke into the backyard of a Tijuana home that adjoins the border fence to try to cross into the United States, the newspaper Milenio reported.

The migrants then climbed on to the house’s roof to scale the fence. However, only two of the migrant families – a total of 10 people – managed to get to the other side, where they were arrested, Milenio said, while one girl fell to the ground on the Mexican side while trying to cross.

The owner of the property filmed the migrants as they attempted to breach the border and called municipal police but ultimately decided not to press trespassing charges against those who were unsuccessful in their attempt to cross.

Further east, a seven-year-old Guatemalan girl died earlier this month after crossing illegally into a remote span of the New Mexico desert with her father and other migrants, United States Customs and Border Protection said Thursday.

Migration continues to be at the center of the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States.

President López Obrador spoke by telephone to his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump Wednesday about migration and job creation in Mexico and Central America.

Earlier in the week, Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said that the federal government will invest US $30 billion over five years on a development plan with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador aimed at curing migration to the United States.

Source: El Sol de Tijuana (sp), Milenio (sp)

Police seize 200,000 liters of stolen propane in Tlaxcala

By

César Hernández

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December 15, 2018

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Nine tanker trucks were seized in the operation. — Some of the tanker trucks that were seized in the operation.

The Federal Police and the National Intelligence Center recovered over 200,000 liters of stolen propane yesterday and arrested 16 people implicated in the theft and distribution of the fuel.

Police said in a statement that intelligence work led to the discovery of a dirt road in the Puebla municipality of San Miguel Xotla, from which several tanker trucks were constantly coming and going.

The National Gendarmerie was deployed to the neighboring municipality of Zacatelco, Tlaxcala, and located an illegal pipeline tap.

The seizure of nine tanker trucks carrying 202,000 liters of propane followed, along with the arrests.

A propane gas industry association says Pemex and private businesses are losing about 13 billion pesos a year (US $642 million to propane theft. The theft is widespread, said Amexgas, but is seen principally in Puebla, Tlaxcala and Veracruz.

Source: Milenio (sp)

AMLO proposes including assisted dying in new federal health plan

By

César Hernández

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December 15, 2018

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The president with state governors yesterday in Mérida.

President López Obrador has announced more details about a new integrated federal health system, including the news that he favours allowing voluntary assisted dying.

When someone is declared terminally ill and there are no options or alternatives, he said yesterday in Mérida, Yucatán, “it’s not enough to say, ‘OK, take the patient home.'”

“Why don’t we implement a program for dignified death? Why not assisted [dying]?”

It is not currently considered in health care in Mexico, he observed, adding “these are very important questions we have to solve together.”

Another element of the government’s new health plan is to make available the medications required by patients, a move that will entail the elimination of what is known as the basic list of medications.

Medications cannot be prescribed if they are not on the list. Instead, patients must purchase them themselves, sometimes at great cost.

The main focus of the new health program is those who have no health insurance. The two systems now in place — IMSS and ISSSTE — are for workers in the private and public sectors.

“More than half the population has no health insurance,” the president told an audience in Mérida. “So this program is for them. It is for everybody, but the emphasis is to care for those with no insurance, the poorest people.”

The uninsured will be able to obtain emergency treatment at hospitals in the two health systems, where funding and staffing will be improved, López Obrador said.

The president also intends to put all health workers on the payroll.

“This means regularizing thousands of workers who are on temporary contracts,” he said, observing that some workers have been employed on a contract basis for two decades.

“We are talking about some 80,000 workers . . . this can’t be done overnight, but we must commit to formally hiring them . . . .”

Another element of the plan is to standardize salaries and benefits.

Federal and state health workers doing the same job earn different salaries, he said.

The president announced on Friday morning that the delivery of health care services will become the responsibility of the federal government. The new integrated health system, which will cost 90 billion pesos (US $4.5 billion) to create, is to be fully implemented within two years.

Yesterday, he signed an agreement with the governors of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Campeche, the first eight states in which the new plan will be launched.

Source: Sin Embargo (sp), Milenio (sp), Associated Press (en)