Cancún remains popular with tourists but residents worry about insecurity

By

-

December 6, 2018

The city continues to be attractive among tourists.

Cancún remains one of the world’s top tourism destinations, a new report shows, although there are growing local concerns about insecurity.

The Quintana Roo resort city was ranked 35th in the report Top 100 City Destinations 2018 completed by the market research company Euromonitor International.

While Cancún’s position on the list – which is based on 2017 arrivals – slid two places compared to last year’s report, the number of arrivals in 2017 still increased by 3.6% compared to the year before. And visitor numbers are forecast to grow again this year by 3.8% to a total of almost 6.3 million.

Cancún is the fifth most visited city destination in the Americas behind four United States cities, and No. 1 in Latin America.

The only other Mexican city in the top 100 is Mexico City, which ranked 88th with just over 2.4 million visitors last year. Hong Kong, Bangkok and London took the top three places.

“One factor in Cancún’s slight decline in the rankings is due to the fact that nearby destinations such as Cozumel and Playa del Carmen performed excellently . . . recording double-digit [percentage] increases in the number of arrivals,” Euromonitor analyst Amanda Bourlier told the newspaper El Financiero.

She added that insecurity in the Caribbean coast city had not appeared to deter many tourists.

“It’s possible that security problems could be detrimental to the growth in arrivals in Cancún but so far we have seen a very limited impact. If the security situation were to worsen, a corresponding decrease . . . would be expected,” Bourlier said.

While tourists continue to arrive in Cancún in greater numbers, residents’ perception of insecurity is also on the rise.

The most recent National Survey on Urban Public Security, released by statistics institute Inegi in October, shows that 92.8% of Cancún residents consider their city an unsafe place to live.

Higher percentages were only recorded among residents of Ecatepec, México state; Villahermosa, Tabasco; and Reynosa, Tamaulipas.

A year ago, results of the same Inegi survey showed that 81% of Cancún residents said they felt unsafe.

The United States Department of State issued a travel warning for Cancún in August 2017 but lifted its restriction on the tourism hotspot in January.

In October, former president Enrique Peña Nieto inaugurated a new military police base just north of the city in which around 3,000 police and their families will be based.

At the time, Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquín González said he hoped the new base would help authorities to get on top of the violent crime that has plagued Cancún in recent years.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

‘We are not going to fail:’ Mayor Sheinbaum takes office in Mexico City

By

MND Staff

-

December 6, 2018

0

AMLO and Sheinbaum at the mayor's swearing-in ceremony.

Mexico City’s first elected female mayor was sworn in yesterday and immediately announced that her government would dissolve the riot police.

Claudia Sheinbaum, a political ally of President López Obrador, said that starting January 1 the 4,000 officers in the force would be assigned to civil protection duties.

Speaking before lawmakers in the Mexico City Congress building, Sheinbaum said that disbanding the riot police fulfilled the third of six demands of the 1968 students’ movement that were formulated two months before the Tlatelolco student massacre.

“The police are there to protect the people and we don’t need a force to repress them,” she said.

“We agree with conviction with what our president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has expressed on several occasions: do not use the armed forces to repress the people . . . I have asked the Secretary of Public Security Jesús Orta to definitively abolish the riot police,” Sheinbaum added.

The new mayor, who won the July 1 election with 47% of the vote, pledged that she would fulfill all her campaign promises and echoed the words of López Obrador by saying, “we are not going to fail.”

Security meetings will start today, Sheinbaum said, as will the process to purchase 800 new buses and 100 new trolley buses.

The Morena party mayor renewed her pledge to invest more than 5 billion pesos (US $245.2 million) in the capital’s subway and light rail systems and said the tendering process to build cable car systems in impoverished city outskirts would begin in January.

Sheinbaum also committed to building new road infrastructure and housing for people who lost their homes in last year’s September 19 earthquake.

Eliminating gender violence and ensuring that justice is served in femicide cases will also be priorities of the new Mexico City government, she said.

López Obrador was the first sitting president to attend the swearing-in ceremony of a Mexico City mayor and raised Sheinbaum’s arm in triumph shortly after she took the oath of office.

“She’s going to govern very well because she has three virtues: she’s intelligent, she has convictions and, the most important thing, she’s honest,” he said.

Sheinbaum, an environmental engineer, previously served as chief of the southern Mexico City borough of Tlalpan and secretary of the environment during López Obrador’s administration of the capital between 2000 and 2005.

Her popularity among Mexico City residents was on show as she walked through the historic center of the capital shortly after being sworn in.

En route to the zócalo, the city’s central square, dozens of people approached the new mayor to greet her, request a photograph, ask for help or even offer her a blessing.

In the mayor’s office later in the day, Sheinbaum discovered that the windows are protected by armored doors but declared that they would be removed because “the mayor is not afraid.”

The only other female mayor who has governed Mexico City is Rosario Robles, who also served as a cabinet secretary in the previous federal government.

However, Robles only served as mayor for just over a year after being appointed as the replacement for Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who unsuccessfully contested the 2000 presidential election.

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

Court rules domestic workers must have access to IMSS social security

By

MND Staff

-

December 6, 2018

0

Supreme Court justices ruled in favor of social security for domestic workers.

The Supreme Court (SCJN) ruled yesterday that domestic workers must have access to Mexico’s IMSS social security scheme like any other worker.

Judges of the court’s second chamber unanimously approved the proposal presented by Justice Alberto Pérez Dayán, which sought to rule against an article in the federal Social Security Law that states that paying benefits to domestic employees is voluntary.

The judges determined that there is no constitutionally valid reason to exclude domestic workers from the mandatory social security scheme and that the law that allowed it is discriminatory.

They also said that women were disproportionately affected by the law because statistics show that they make up the vast majority of domestic workers, who are commonly known as muchachas or maids.

In addition, the judges said that domestic workers have traditionally been subjected to inadequate conditions, long working days and low salaries while not having access to benefits that would protect them from unforeseen events that could affect their ability to support themselves.

The court’s ruling came in response to a complaint filed by an 80-year-old woman who was employed as a domestic worker for 50 years without receiving social security benefits.

In an amparo, or injunction, the SCJN ordered the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) to implement a pilot program in the first half of next year that will ensure that domestic workers have access to the benefits they will be legally entitled to.

They include sickness, maternity, health care, disability and retirement benefits as well as life insurance.

The program must take into account the particularities of domestic work, the court said, such as that some workers have more than one employer and that in many cases the relationship is not spelled out in a formal contract.

It must also be easy to implement for employers, who in most cases are private homeowners.

The final aim of the SCJN injunction is for IMSS to be in a position, after a period of no longer than 18 months, to propose to Congress the necessary legislative reforms to ensure that domestic workers’ right to access social security benefits is enshrined in law.

Within a period of no longer than three years, the intention is for all domestic workers in Mexico to be enrolled in a robust and effective social security scheme.

In response to the court order, IMSS director Germán Martínez Cazares instructed officials to start work immediately on the design of the pilot program.

In a short video posted to social media, Martínez also said that he directed IMSS officials to hold talks with civil society organizations to inform them of their work.

“The Mexican Social Security Institute is committed to opening the doors to all Mexicans without distinction,” he said.

Federal Labor Secretary Luisa Alcalde described the Supreme Court’s ruling as a “watershed,” adding that the secretariat she heads is committed to ensuring that domestic workers are treated fairly.

“. . . We are confident that we can advance in the protection of their rights and without a doubt include them in the social security [scheme],” she said.

Source: Notimex (sp), Milenio (sp)

Archaeological inspection of site for solar park turned up 2,300-year-old cave

By

MND Staff

-

December 5, 2018

0

A 2,300-year-old ceremonial cave has been discovered between two ancient Mayan cities in Yucatán, an expert from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced this week.

Víctor Castillo Borges, leader of the exploration project, said the Múusench’een Cave is part of a Pre-Columbian settlement hidden between the cities of Ebtún and Cuncunul.

Speaking at a Mayan culture forum at the INAH Yucatán Center in the state capital Mérida, Castillo said the cave and settlement were discovered in 2017 during an archaeological inspection of a site for a solar park.

The settlement, located in the east of the state, consists of three intact pre-Hispanic structures, two of which adjoin the cave.

The third is located directly above the cave, within which there is a cenote, or sinkhole, where five graves were found.

INAH experts believe that important pre-Hispanic personages were probably buried there.

Castillo explained that “virgin water” used by Mayan priests during ceremonial rituals is still present within the cave, which he said “is still considered a sacred place.”

Before exploration of the cave could take place, the INAH expert said that “the people in charge . . . had to take part in two [Mayan] ceremonies,” adding that “workers carried out a ritual every day before starting work inside the cave.”

Ceramic evidence found inside indicated that it was used for ceremonial purposes as early as the middle pre-classic period, which dates back to 300 BC, Castillo said.

He added that “the site turned out to be more important than was [originally] thought because it represents a living expression of the beliefs of indigenous peoples, in this case the Mayas.”

As the cave and settlement site are located on the grounds of what will be a solar plant, they won’t be open to the public but they will be conserved in the state in which they were found.

Castillo explained that the cave’s name, Múusench’een, means “lack of oxygen in the cenote,” an “original name that has been preserved for many years.”

Source: Notimex (sp), Yucatán Ahora (sp)

Cuaron’s film Roma to be screened at former presidential home, Los Pinos

By

César Hernández

-

December 5, 2018

0

Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón’s latest movie, Roma, will be screened this week at the former presidential residence, Los Pinos.

Cuarón announced on Twitter that the film, which has earned international acclaim, will be shown in what was the home until last week of ex-president Peña Nieto, which is now a cultural center open to the general public.

Roma will be shown twice a day for five days, starting Friday.

Cuarón also wrote that 97 locations around the country will be screening his film starting tomorrow. A complete list of locations can be found on the website cinesroma.mx.

The film’s distributor, the streaming platform Netflix, will make Roma available to its subscribers on December 14.

The film, meanwhile, continues to receive accolades and awards. The American Film Institute announced yesterday that it has recognized the film with a special award “for a work of excellence outside the institute’s criteria for American film.”

And the New York Film Critics Circle announced its picks for the best of the year late last month, and Roma came out on top.

The movie picked up three awards, including best film, best director and best cinematography. The latter two awards both honor Cuarón, who shot Roma himself.

It has been described as Cuarón’s most personal project yet. The film follows the story of Cleo (played by first-time actress Yalitza Aparicio Martínez), a young domestic worker for a middle-class family in the Roma district of the Cuahutémoc borough of Mexico City.

Cuarón draws from his own childhood, writing a loveletter to the women who raised him and depicting a touching and vivid portrait of domestic conflict and social hierarchy, all with the backdrop of the political crisis in which the country was immersed in the 1970s.

Source: Milenio (sp), American Film Magazine (en), The New York Times (en)

Puebla police officer arrested in 13-year-old case of journalist’s torture

By

MND Staff

-

December 5, 2018

0

Cacho and the officer arrested in connection with torturing her.

A police officer accused of torturing a journalist after she was detained in Cancún in 2005 was arrested in Puebla yesterday.

The federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) said in a statement that Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC) officers had executed an arrest warrant against 53-year-old Alejandro R. “for his probable responsibility in the crime of torture.”

The suspect is actively employed in the state prosecutor’s office.

Lydia Cacho, one of Mexico’s best known investigative journalists, was arrested by Puebla state police in Cancún 13 years ago on defamation charges.

The police, operating 1,500 kilometers beyond their jurisdiction, were allegedly acting on the orders of then-Puebla governor Mario Marín and businessman Kamel Nacif, known as “El rey de la mezclilla” (the denim king).

Cacho’s arrest followed the publication of her 2005 book The Demons of Eden, in which she exposed a pedophile ring in Cancún that she alleged was run by businessman Jean Succar Kuri. He was later convicted of the crime.

Cacho also mentioned that Nacif was a friend of Succar and wrote about parties that he hosted at which she alleged children were sexually abused. Nacif subsequently filed a defamation complaint against her.

After Cacho was detained, police drove her 20 hours to Puebla, during which time they taunted her, threatened her with rape, forced a gun into her mouth and debated drowning her in the Gulf of Mexico’s Campeche Bay.

The journalist was later released from police custody on bail and the defamation charges against her were eventually dropped.

A recording of a telephone conversation was later leaked in which Nacif is heard congratulating governor Marín for arresting Cacho, ensuring that the case became a national scandal.

In August this year, the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council rebuked Mexico over the case, stating that Cacho was arbitrarily detained, subjected to torture and gender violence and had her right to free speech violated.

The Human Rights Council ordered that reparation be paid to Cacho, that those responsible be held accountable and that measures be taken to avoid any repeat of a similar incident.

Cacho responded to news of yesterday’s arrest on Twitter.

“I’ve been defending myself from my torturers and the masterminds for 13 years; all of them accomplices of a child pornography and child-trafficking ring. For the past five days, I’ve had armed bodyguards and worn a bulletproof vest again. Today the third of 17 fell.”

Former Puebla police commander José Montaño Quiroz was sentenced last year to more than five years in jail for his role in the case.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. At least 10 reporters have been killed in the country this year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The most recent murder was that of Nayarit reporter Alejandro Márquez Jiménez, whose body was found on December 1 near the state capital Tepic.

Source: Animal Político (sp), ADN Político (sp)

With highway robbery up 90%, truckers call for tougher penalties

By

MND Staff

-

December 5, 2018

0

Highway robbery is up 90% this year compared to 2017, according to the president of the National Chamber of Trucking (Canacar), who is calling for tougher penalties for offenders.

Speaking at a transportation industry event, Enrique González Muñoz said “there is no similar precedent” for the year-on-year increase in the crime.

According to National Public Security System (SNSP) statistics, there were 11,382 truck robberies last year, meaning that with a 90% surge, 2018 will end with 21,625 robberies.

The increase in the number of robberies between 2016 and 2017 was a more modest 32%.

González said that since 2012, the year former president Enrique Peña Nieto took office, highway robbery has increased by an alarming 168%.

He added that Canacar is pushing for highway and railroad robbery to be classified as serious crimes in order to deter would-be offenders.

González also said that due to rising insecurity on the nation’s roads, the cost of operating cargo transport services has increased. Insurance costs, he explained, have increased by around 130% in the space of a single year.

The Canacar chief said he had met with new federal Public Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo, to whom he suggested that the government implement preventative measures against highway robbery, especially in parts of the country where the incidence of the crime is high.

Statistics from security consultancy SensiGuard show that 28% of all truck robberies this year occurred in México state, followed by Puebla with 25%; Michoacán with 10%; Tlaxcala with 9%; and Nuevo León with 6%.

Highway theft is one of several security challenges faced by the new government, which took office on December 1.

Others include a soaring homicide rate and high levels of pipeline petroleum theft.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Alternative new year’s festival comes to Oaxaca

By

César Hernández

-

December 5, 2018

0

Restival Oaxaca accommodation is billed as either boutique (pictured) or nomadic.

The debut edition of Restival Oaxaca will bring a unique and alternative festival-meets-destination-spa-experience, all revolving around the new year’s celebration to the valley outside Oaxaca city.

Restival is described by organizers as an intimate retreat for only 70 people with a celebration that combines “the best of fest & rest to create a New Year’s experience which (until now) only existed in your dreams.”

The event offers to take people away from crowded parties and exorbitant bar tabs, to stars and mountains, luxury bungalows, a spa, wisdom teachers, a traditional Zapotec sweat lodge and a sensory buffet of creative workshops.

The six-day event takes place on a new “eco-luxe ranch beside a modernist mezcal distillery in the middle of an agave field” outside the city.

Along with internationally acclaimed musicians and DJs the festival also includes four days of “workshops, fire ceremonies and intention setting to get you ready for 2019.”

Other activities will include meeting a family of Zapotec weavers and learning about their indigenous traditions, a visit to the nearby petrified waterfalls of Hierve El Agua, yoga and meditation classes at an ancient temple, cacao ceremonies, mezcal tastings, art exhibitions and a chance to relax in Restival’s spa.

Restival Oaxaca kicks off on December 29 and will conclude on January 3. Tickets for the New Year’s Eve celebration are US $195 per person, while the entire experience ranges in price from $950 to $2,650 per person.

According to information on the Restival website, the event “is a cultural retreat like no other. We bring together world-class wisdom and yoga teachers with indigenous cultures in off-grid eco-luxe properties and cities around the world.”

Mexico News Daily

US offers $20,000 reward in Guadalajara consulate grenade attack

By

MND Staff

-

December 5, 2018

0

The US Consulate in Guadalajara. — The US consulate in Guadalajara.

The United States government is offering a US $20,000 reward for information leading to the identification and arrest of the person or group responsible for a grenade attack on the U.S. consulate in Guadalajara the night before the inauguration of President López Obrador.

A statement issued yesterday by the United States Embassy in Mexico said that “on November 30, 2018 at 10:48pm, an unidentified individual threw two grenades, which exploded on the United States Consulate compound in Guadalajara, Jalisco.”

The person who threw the grenades was caught on film by surveillance cameras.

A separate statement issued the day after the attack said that “no one was injured and there was minimal damage to the structure.”

It added: “Mexican and U.S. authorities are investigating and strengthening the security posture around the Consulate facility. U.S. government personnel are advised to review personal security measures.”

The consulate resumed normal business yesterday after limiting its operations on Monday.

The Jalisco Attorney General’s office said “the investigation has been handed over to federal authorities, who will give information on developments in due time.”

The timing of the attack, just 12 hours before Andrés Manuel López Obrador was sworn in as president, has caused alarm among officials and security experts who are questioning whether it was meant as a test for the new federal government, to provoke the United States administration, or both.

United States Vice-President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka were among a delegation of U.S. dignitaries who attended López Obrador’s inauguration.

“The situation in Mexico is a powder keg,” Arturo Fontes, a security consultant and former FBI agent who was once stationed in Guadalajara, told The Dallas Morning News.

“The timing and target are key: a presidential inauguration. Political transition. The Chapo trial, which threatens to expose names of corrupt officials, and the migrant caravan.”

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), considered Mexico’s most powerful criminal organization, is suspected of being responsible for the attack and two weeks ago allegedly posted a video online in which it threatened to attack the consulate.

However, The Dallas Morning News, which reported the contents of the video, said it couldn’t independently confirm its authenticity.

The recording shows a man with part of his face bandaged who appears to be under interrogation. He says he was ordered to attack the consulate and, with the help of municipal and state police, to kidnap Central American migrants and hold them for ransom to generate income to pay corrupt authorities to overlook criminal activity.

The planned attack on the Guadalajara consulate was designed to send a message to the United States to leave “Mencho alone,” the man said, referring to CJNG leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes.

In October, the United States government doubled the reward being offered for information leading to Oseguera’s arrest to US $10 million.

Attacks on United States facilities and personnel in Mexico are rare but not unprecedented.

A U.S. consular official was shot in a Guadalajara shopping center in January 2017 , U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata was killed in San Luis Potosí in 2011 and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena was kidnapped, tortured and killed in 1985 on the orders of Guadalajara Cartel founder Miguel Ángel Felix Gallardo.

Gunmen also shot at the United States consulate in Monterrey, Nuevo León, in 2008 and threw a grenade at the building although it didn’t explode.

The attack on the Guadalajara consulate Friday serves as yet another reminder of the security crisis López Obrador inherits 12 years after the military was deployed to combat the nation’s notorious drug cartels.

There were more than 31,000 homicides last year, according to statistics institute Inegi, and 2018 could go down in history as an even bloodier year.

López Obrador, who made no mention of the consulate attack at his first daily press briefing Monday, announced last month that his administration intends to create a National Guard under the control of the army to combat high levels of violence.

The idea to create the new security force, a central element of a new national security plan, was criticized by a range of non-governmental organizations who said that it only perpetuates the unsuccessful militarization model.

Source: The Dallas Morning News (en), Business Insider (en), Infobae (sp)

Police commander ambushed and killed in Jalisco

By

Tony Richards

-

December 5, 2018

0

Scene of this morning's ambush in Jalisco. — Scene of this morning's ambush in El Salto.

Armed civilians killed a police officer in Jalisco today, the second such attack in two days.

Municipal police commander José Manuel de Anda Tapia was killed in an ambush while driving home in the company of another officer, who was wounded in the shooting.

The attack followed the release of a warning video earlier this week by a suspected local gang leader who demanded police return firearms and drugs seized in a confrontation on November 28. He gave them three hours to respond.

The attackers fired on the police officers from two vehicles in the Alcantarilla neighborhood of El Salto, which is within the metropolitan area of Guadalajara.

On Monday, six state police officers were killed in the southern coast town of La Huerta by gunmen believed to be part of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. They were attempting to free a man who was in the custody of police.

The gunmen fled towards Autlán in three vehicles, leaving two burning vehicles in their wake in the nearby municipality of Tomatlán in an attempt to hinder pursuit.

Source: Diario de México (sp), El Financiero (sp)