Explosion at El Popo sends plume four kilometers high

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June 17, 2019

Popocatépetl lets off some steam Monday morning.

The restless Popocatépetl volcano kicked off the week with an explosion and a plume of ash that rose between four and five kilometers above its crater.

The explosion was recorded Monday at 6:44am, after which the federal Civil Protection office warned the public to stay away from the volcano.

Winds at the time of the explosion blew the towering plume of ash toward the east.

In its latest update, posted on Twitter at noon, the agency reported that some ash fall was reported in Tetela del Volcán, Ocuituco and Hueyapan in Morelos; in San Pedro Benito Juárez and Atlixco, Puebla; and in Ozumba and Ecatzingo, México state.

Citizens in those areas are advised to use face masks to cover their mouths and noses and keep pets indoors. In case of exposure to the ash, clean water should be used to rinse eyes and throats. Water deposits should remain covered and ash on the ground should be swept and not washed away with water.

The volcano alert level for El Popo remains at yellow Phase 2.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

US-Mexico investigation leads to synthetic drug lab in Nuevo León

By

César Hernández

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June 17, 2019

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Equipment found in the Nuevo León laboratory.

A joint investigation by federal authorities and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) resulted in the arrest of the owner of a chemical company and the seizure of a Nuevo León laboratory believed to be manufacturing fentanyl.

Guadalupe Almaguer was arrested in García, Nuevo León, after a search of two facilities owned by the chemist’s firm, Ampex Chemicals.

Federal agents found a laboratory equipped with instruments, machinery, chemical substances, notebooks filled with handwritten notes and a refrigerator in one of the buildings, located in the Ciudad Mitras industrial park.

Officials also found barrels, boxes, jars and storage racks, all of which led authorities to believe that fentanyl was being produced in the laboratory.

The Attorney General’s Office described it as the biggest seizure in Mexican history due to the lab’s production capacity.

Fentanyl is considered to be up to 50 times more potent than heroin and its use has led to the deaths of thousands of people in Mexico and the United States.

Source: Milenio (sp), La Jornada (sp)

Police stop four semi-trailers carrying 782 migrants in Veracruz

By

Simon Schatzberg

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June 17, 2019

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The trailers in which over 700 migrants were traveling to the northern border.

Police stopped four semi-trailers carrying 782 undocumented migrants in Veracruz on Saturday, the first major action in a new immigration strategy that will be overseen by the former commissioner of prisons.

The trucks were stopped in the southern part of the state on the Acayucan-Isla highway. The migrants, who were turned over to the Acayucan immigration center, were from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, government sources told the news agency AFP.

Six people, including the four drivers, were arrested for human smuggling.

The migrants told authorities they had paid smugglers US $3,500 each to be transported to Mexico’s northern border.

Of the 782, 368 were under the age of 18, while 98 were under the age of 5.

New immigration chief Garduño. — New immigration chief Garduño, formerly commissioner of prisons.

According to a press release from the National Immigration Institute (INM), the Veracruz detentions were the first actions in a new migration strategy favored by President López Obrador and new INM Commissioner Francisco Garduño.

As part of that strategy, the INM has deployed 1,000 agents in northern and southern Mexico to verify travelers’ immigration status.

“The objective is to maintain regular, orderly and safe migration and to ensure respect for the human rights of people who travel through the country,” read the INM statement.

The detentions come only days after López Obrador appointed Garduño to replace Tonatiuh Guillén as INM commissioner. Guillén had taken the reins of the INM promising a less enforcement-focused approach to migration with “protective, caring” policies.

But he turned in his resignation Friday after Mexico and the United States reached an agreement in which Mexico would do more to stop the northward movement of migrants. López Obrador said later he had asked for Guillén’s resignation.

Garduño, meanwhile, had previously served as a commissioner of federal prisons, and is part of a team led by Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard tasked with ensuring enforcement of the U.S.-Mexico migration deal.

A lawyer by profession, he has filled various positions in the Mexico City government, including chief of police.

Source: El Universal (sp), Animal Político (sp), El Economista (sp), La Jornada (sp)

With consultation by a show of hands, AMLO cancels Durango transit project

By

Simon Schatzberg

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June 17, 2019

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López Obrador at yesterday's rally in Durango.

An impromptu show of hands at a rally to distribute social program funds has cancelled a multi-million-peso transportation project in Durango.

President López Obrador announced the cancellation Sunday in Gómez Palacio, Durango, after most of those present — many of them transportation workers opposed to the Metrobús project — voted against it.

The president expressed his own personal support for the project but asked the crowd to vote.

“Nothing will be imposed on you,” he said. “The budget for the Metrobús is already approved but . . . if you decide you don’t want it, we’ll use the budget for something else.”

After the vote, López Obrador said the 450 million pesos (US $23.4 million) freed by the project’s cancellation will be used for improvements to a local hospital and the water system in Gómez Palacio.

“We’re going to work with the governor so that this money will be used for the hospital, or for water,” he said.

In a second show-of-hands vote, the crowd decided that the first priority should be improvements to the water system, while the second priority will be the Gómez Palacio General Hospital.

The Metrobús would have connected Gómez Palacio and Lerdo to another system in neighboring Torreón, Coahuila. It had been approved by the previous federal government, which promised 150 million pesos to support its construction.

But the López Obrador government had never embraced the proposal, and had been delaying the release of federal resources. It was also opposed by Durango bus drivers’ unions, who feared they would not be included in the new system.

López Obrador was introduced at yesterday’s rally by National Action Party Governor José Rosas Aispuro Torres, whose 20-minute speech drew catcalls from the crowd.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Economista (sp), El Siglo de Torreón (sp)

US updates security alert, relaxes some Michoacán travel restrictions

By

Madison Koen

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June 15, 2019

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The United States Embassy in Mexico updated its travel restrictions for U.S. government employees travelling to Michoacán.

On April 9, the Overseas Advisory Council (OSAC) listed Michoacán as one of five states that U.S. citizens were advised to avoid visiting, and prohibited government workers from traveling to the state due to the risks of cartel violence and roadblocks.

Yesterday, the embassy published a short list of exceptions, allowing limited travel within the state for government officials on business:

Government employees can now:

• Use federal toll Highway 15D to transit the state between Mexico City and Guadalajara.

• Travel to Morelia, the state capital, by air or by land using highways 43 or 48D from Highway 15D.

• Travel to the city of Lázaro Cárdenas by air, with the condition that employees stay within the city center and port areas.

The State Department warned that travel to “high-risk areas” implies increased risk for kidnapping, hostage-taking, theft and serious injury and that the U.S. government is limited in its ability to aid citizens in dangerous situations due to reliance on local authorities and resources.

It recommended that any citizens who decide to visit high-risk areas, including Michoacán, should enroll in the department’s travel safety plan, identify potential sources of possible assistance, establish a personal security plan, discuss travel plans with loved ones and draft a will, among other measures.

Michoacán has long been one of the most violent states in Mexico due to conflicts involving drug cartels.

According to the National Security Council, Michoacán has already seen 600 murders this year.

Mexico News Daily

6-year-old orchestra conductor has rhythm and ‘natural talent’

By

Madison Koen

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June 15, 2019

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The high-energy young director of a children's orchestra in Tamaulipas.

A 6-year-old from Tamaulipas is stealing the hearts of thousands in viral videos on social media that demonstrate the youngster’s talent for conducting an orchestra.

Dubbed “Alondrita de la Parra” by admirers after the famous Mexican director of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, Oxana Thaili Morales Esquivel has won over an adoring online following for conducting fellow students at a school orchestra in Ciudad Victoria.

She employs an energetic style to lead the musicians through typical northern Mexican tunes.

The girl’s passion has drawn praise from top film and music personalities, including actor Gael García Bernal and celebrated writer-composer for the Broadway hit Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Oxana’s music teacher, Abraham Gómez Quintana, told the newspaper El Universal that the children’s orchestra has a long history in the state capital and has inspired a love of music in several generations over the course of two decades.

Amo con locura todo lo que pasa en este video 💖 pic.twitter.com/RfeSZOSaK5

— Marbe (@Marbe) June 10, 2019

“When I arrived here 24 years ago, [my fellow teacher] Blanca Obregón Fuentes supported me. I gave music classes for four years, and then she suggested that we form an orchestra. This group was founded 20 years ago. She chose students that already had some familiarity with music.

“Since then, I have formed an orchestra every year, and I teach them while they pass on their passion to the rest [of the students].”

Gómez said Oxana was chosen to conduct the group after he observed the budding musicians’ behavior and abilities over the course of two months.

“She gets the rest of them moving. She shows them what I tell her to; she just waits for my instructions and then she communicates them. She’s very smart, she has natural talent.”

The music teacher explained that the orchestra is made up of 43 children who play wooden blocks, tambourines, rain sticks, drums and chimes. Most of the children are in either second or third grade, and two are in first.

The clear star of the ensemble said in the same interview that in addition to conducting, she also likes to drum and play the maracas and cymbals. She added that she has been playing music for two years.

El manicero - jardín de niños Horacio Terán / Homero Emiliano

Watch this video on YouTube

When asked about her high-energy motions in front of the orchestra, she explained that they meant that “everyone has to do them.”

As a result of the video’s success, the state director of family development awarded Gómez a full scholarship to study a special degree program in choral music for young children.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Young Jalisco entrepreneurs invent bio-oven that runs on water

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MND Staff

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June 15, 2019

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A group of young entrepreneurs from Guadalajara, Jalisco, has created a prototype of an oven that runs purely on water.

Developed over the past year, the eco-friendly device was made by a social enterprise called Peiskos, which means “warmth by a fire” in Norwegian.

The oven doesn’t use any combustible fuels but instead heats up after water is poured into an electrical input. The current of the water acts as a conduit, which causes it to undergo electrolysis, a process that separates the hydrogen and oxygen atoms and generates energy.

“We wanted to create a machine that allows users to create their own fuel,” said Davide Pallotta, one of the startup’s founders.

“The burning of this kind of fuel doesn’t create any kind of emissions. It is not bad for humans or humanity.”

The Peiskos founders told the tech website Contxto that the idea for the oven was inspired by the needs of society, especially families in Mexico who struggle with “energy poverty.”

They said many people can’t access or afford the energy necessary to cook, light and heat their homes or for entertainment purposes, and are forced instead to burn firewood, which not only contaminates and presents health risks but also contributes to deforestation.

“There are many communities that have difficulties getting services like gas, light or water,” said Edith Ibarra.

“Those distinctive factors shine a light on the type of vulnerable communities we want to work with.”

The six entrepreneurs have already taken their prototype to a squatters’ settlement on the outskirts of Zapopan for testing and to receive feedback from people who could benefit from it.

“There’s no better way to validate your business idea than directly validating it with the user,” Peiskos said in a recent post on Instagram.

The next step for the fledgling company is to secure venture capital that will allow it to expand.

“We’re looking to raise 1 million pesos [US $52,000] to establish ourselves and give us an important push into research,” said Ibarra. “Research and continued experimentation are very important so we can launch our product with the biggest force.”

The Peiskos founders won a startup competition at technology expo Talent Land in April and this month competed in an accelerator event in Mexico City sponsored by the free enterprise organization Enactus.

While the company didn’t come out on top in the latter competition, the young entrepreneurs remain determined to keep moving ahead with the development of their startup.

Eventually, Peiskos hopes to be able to donate ovens to underprivileged communities or sell them at a very low cost so they are accessible to the people who need them most.

Source: Contxto (en)

Head of Veracruz anti-corruption council accused — of corruption

By

Simon Schatzberg

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June 15, 2019

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Corruption fighter Vazquez. — Corruption fighter Vázquez.

After resisting calls for his resignation throughout his entire one-year term, the head of a Veracruz anti-corruption council left office on Thursday after completing his mandate — and triggering several corruption investigations against himself.

Sergio Vázquez Jiménez had served as head of the Citizen Participation Council (CPC) of the state Anti-corruption System (SAE) but is now facing investigations for irregularities during his term.

He is also accused of using an accounting firm he owns to obtain phony government contracts during the administrations of former governors Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares, Flavino Ríos Alvarado and Javier Duarte. The latter is currently serving a nine-year prison term for corruption.

The accounting firm allegedly received directly awarded contracts to audit several government agencies, including the Xalapa water commission. According to an accusation by Xalapa Mayor Hipólito Rodríguez Herrero, the city paid 935,000 pesos to the firm in 2017 for auditing services that were never carried out.

The firm also used false addresses for its offices on official government documents, according to an investigation by the digital publication La Silla Rota. The addresses were registered by the notary Dulce María Ríos Guerrero, daughter of former interim governor Flavino Ríos. The use of false addresses is similar to schemes used by Javier Duarte to misdirect public funds.

The corruption accusations had been following Vázquez since he began his one-year term. In July 2018, he rejected calls for his resignation and insisted that his firm had received the contracts legally, and had carried out the audits.

Vázquez was replaced by Emilio Cárdenas Escobosa, who said he hopes to turn the SAE into an agency that will prevent the acts of corruption that characterized the last three administrations in Veracruz.

Source: e-consulta (sp), La Silla Rota (sp) El Universal (sp), Diario de Xalapa (sp)

Chapala development plan’s main focus is transportation, including a train

By

MND Staff

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June 15, 2019

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Jalisco Governor Alfaro prepares to release young fish into Lake Chapala.

The governor of Jalisco has presented a 533-million-peso (US $27.8-million) development plan for the Lake Chapala region, one of whose priorities is the study of a train service between Guadalajara and Chapala.

Enrique Alfaro said yesterday the plan is intended to provide social justice, economic development, improved security and more effective government for the more than 300,000 people who call the region home.

He also said that natural resources and the environment will be protected and that the different municipal governments in the region will work together to implement the plan.

More than half the funds – just under 303 million pesos – will go to upgrading highways and roads in the area, which includes the municipalities of Jocotepec, Chapala, Poncitlán, Tuxcueca, Tizapán el Alto, Ocotlán and Jamay.

Rehabilitation of the Jocotepec-Chapala is considered a priority project.

More than 26 million pesos will be allocated for the improvement of the region’s healthcare clinics, while funds have also been set aside to undertake a clean-up of Lake Chapala, which is polluted by a range of contaminants including arsenic and ammonia.

The lake will also be restocked with carp and tilapia. The plan’s goal is to release one million hatchery fish into the lake next year.

During a tour of the region yesterday, Alfaro went for a cruise on the lake and bumped its fish population by 250,000 with the release of young fish.

José Luis Valencia, chief of the state government’s strategic projects agency, said the development plan will also provide funding for Isla de Mezcala, a small island in Lake Chapala, and the Chapala Media Park, a technology precinct.

Financial support for companies will be made available via the Jalisco Business Promotion Fund, he said.

Alfaro said another priority project will be a train running between Chapala and Agua Azul in Guadalajara. He said the state is working with the railway company Ferromex to develop the project.

“. . .We’re doing the topographic surveys, they’re progressing and very soon we’re going to have a project ready. . .” and know how much money will be required, he said.

In addition, money could also go to sporting, tourism, education, agricultural, fishing and sewer projects as well as the establishment of new military facilities.

The launch of new transportation services on Lake Chapala and gastronomic corridors are under consideration as are the establishment of new markets, makeovers for lakefront promenades, a new bicycle path and a clean-up of the Santiago river.

However, Alfaro said that all potential projects must first be approved by committees that will be made up of government officials, members of the business sector, civil society organizations and citizens.

The governor added that he will personally supervise the progress of the plan.

Both state and federal governments provided funds for it.

Source: Milenio (sp), Informador (sp)

Reshuffling at Attorney General’s Office but mayor denies there’s a crisis

By

Simon Schatzberg

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June 15, 2019

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sheinbaum and godoy — Sheinbaum, left, says there is no crisis. Godoy says there is.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is doing some reshuffling in the Attorney General’s Office to improve security in the face of continuing violent crime.

In an interview with the newspaper El Universal, Sheinbaum denied that there is a crisis of insecurity in the city, contradicting her attorney general, but said she is taking actions to reinforce law enforcement, especially in the areas of intelligence and training.

“There is not a crisis situation although it’s evident we need to reinforce security in the city,” she said. “The citizens are demanding it, and we are going to respond.”

Attorney General Ernestina Godoy said May 20 that violence in the city had reached “crisis” levels. “. . . we have a crisis situation in the city in terms of violence that is reflected in the number of intentional homicides” being recorded daily.

Sheinbaum said today the National Guard will begin working in the city in July, concentrating on Tláhuac, Iztapalapa-Nezahualcóyotl and Gustavo A. Madero-Naucalpan. Iztapalapa has been identified as the city’s most dangerous borough due to the high rate of intentional homicides.

Sheinbaum made no specific statements about her plans to reorganize law enforcement, but a Whatsapp message that was leaked on Friday indicates that Bernardo Gómez del Campo, head of the Mexico City police intelligence unit, will resign his post to take a job as security undersecretary.

Gómez’s departure comes at a time when his office is involved in three high-profile criminal investigations, including the kidnapping and murder of college student Norberto Ronquillo.

City police sources told the newspaper Milenio that Gómez will be replaced by Omar Hamid García Harfuch, who had previously served as head of the federal investigative police (AIC) before resigning earlier this month.

Sheinbaum said Mexico City will be a safe city, “that is what we are going to guarantee to citizens.”

Source: Milenio (sp), El Universal (sp), Sopitas (sp), El Heraldo de México (sp)