Pemex triples estimate of Veracruz oil field’s reserves

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November 27, 2018

Pemex has nearly tripled its estimate of the reserves in a recently discovered onshore oil field in Veracruz, making it the biggest discovery in 25 years, a Pemex official said.

The Ixachi field, located 72 kilometers south of the city of Veracruz, was discovered in November last year, when its 3P reserves (proved, probable and possible) were estimated at 366 million boe (barrels of oil equivalent).

But the state oil company said at the time of its discovery that reserves could be larger. Today it revised the figure to more than one billion boe after drilling two new wells.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Funding shortfalls, residents’ opposition leave CDMX megaprojects unfinished

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MND Staff

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November 27, 2018

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Extending Line 12 of the Metro is one of the unfinished projects.

The Mexico City government will leave five large infrastructure projects unfinished when its six-year term ends next week.

The Secretariat of Public Works and Services (Sobse) cited a shortfall in federal funding and opposition from residents as the main reasons for the failure to complete the projects, in which a total investment of 29.5 billion pesos (US $1.4 billion) was anticipated.

The incomplete works, which will be inherited by incoming mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, are extensions to line 12 of the subway system and line 5 of the Metrobús network, construction of section III of the Mexico City-Toluca passenger train, a new hospital in the western borough of Cuajimalpa and a children’s museum in the eastern borough of Iztapalapa.

According to Sobse data, the projected cost of extending line 12 of the Metro so that it links to Line 1 at the Observatorio station was just under 9.5 billion pesos (US $462.9 million) with full funding supposed to come from the federal government.

However, city authorities have so far only received just over 5.5 billion pesos.

In addition to the lack of funding, Public Works Secretary Gerardo Báez told the newspaper El Universal that the project had been held up because authorities in Álvaro Obregón refused to grant permission for a tunnel to run beneath their borough headquarters.

Nevertheless, almost 2,000 meters of the 3,000 meters of tunnel required to connect the two subway lines has been built, he explained.

“Why didn’t we make more progress? Firstly, [a lack of] resources from the federal government and another factor was the release of the right of way. There are 54 buildings that have to be purchased but there are no resources . . . obviously that doesn’t allow us to advance,” Báez said.

He added that the project was also delayed due to the time and money spent on repairing an existing section of the so-called golden line which was found to have construction problems and consequently closed soon after opening in late 2012.

“. . . If that 1.1 billion pesos [US $53.6 million] and the time the redevelopment took had been allocated to the extension, [the project] wouldn’t have stopped,” Báez said.

With regard to section III of the Mexico City-Toluca train project, whose terminus in the capital will also link with the Observatorio subway station, the Sobse chief said that constant changes to the railroad’s route was one of the main reasons why it hadn’t met the scheduled timeframe.

Landowners in Cuajimalpa obtained court orders that prevented the seizure of 1,111 square meters of land on which the elevated line was intended to run while protests against the logging of trees in the same borough also forced a modification to the route.

Federal funding for section III has fallen almost 4 billion pesos short of the 16.8 billion pesos the Mexico City government was expecting.

A 20-kilometer extension to line 5 of the Metrobús system was delayed, Báez said, because state-owned petroleum pipelines had to be rerouted on a three-kilometer stretch of the extended line and residents in the borough of Coyoacán have opposed the route.

Despite the delays, the new government will be in a position to open the line extension, which includes 35 new stations and was funded by the World Bank, within its first 100 days in office, the outgoing secretary said.

The fourth project facing delays is the Cuajimalpa Hospital.

After a gas explosion at the Cuajimalpa Maternity Hospital in January 2015, which killed five people and left at least 72 injured, the city government announced that a new general hospital would be built at the site with an expected opening date of mid-2017.

However, the project has been opposed by community groups who have filed six amparos, or injunctions, against it, the most recent of which resulted in an indefinite suspension of work.

“We don’t know the reason why there is amparo after amparo,” Báez said. “It’s illogical, it’s a hospital that [already] existed. From my point of view, there are vested interests.”

Finally, the secretary said that the Iztapalapa Interactive Children’s Museum is around 40% complete and is expected to be finished by the end of next year. Construction delays were related to problems with the museum’s design, Báez said.

Sheinbaum, who will be sworn in as mayor on December 5, has committed to investing 10.2 billion pesos (US $498.3 million) next year to improve and expand public transportation in the capital.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Growers will have 466,000 natural Christmas trees available

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César Hernández

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November 27, 2018

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Looking for a natural Christmas tree? Growers who are part of a federal forestry program will have more than 466,000 available this season.

The National Forestry Commission (Conafor) said in a statement that the top producing states are México and Mexico City, which will see a yield this season of 200,000 and 160,884 trees respectively.

There are 431 producers in 19 states who receive federal support to grow the trees on a total of 5,172 hectares.

The federal program promotes the use of non-forest land and land that has not been used for agricultural purposes. It also intended to help discourage the poaching of wild trees.

The production of the pine trees is a sustainable activity: the number of trees planted every season equals the number harvested. It also offers year-round employment.

Conafor said the trees are harvested at five to eight years, and plantations have a yield of 2,000 to 4,000 trees per hectare.

Source: Informador (sp)

Judge okays release of ex-governor on bail of 140 million pesos

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César Hernández

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November 27, 2018

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Sonora ex-governor Guillermo Padrés Elías could soon be released from prison after spending two years awaiting trial on corruption charges.

A federal judge ruled in Padrés’s favor yesterday after he requested a revision of the preventive imprisonment ordered after his arrest in November 2016.

Bail was ordered at 140 million pesos (US $6.8 million).

Upon release Padrés’ whereabouts will be tracked with an electronic bracelet, and he will have to report to the court every 15 days. He is also forbidden to leave the country.

The ex-governor faces federal charges of money laundering and state charges of torture, abuse of power and influence peddling among others.

Padrés was governor from 2009 until 2015.

Source: Infobae (sp)

Supreme Court to examine obligatory benefits for domestic workers

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MND Staff

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November 27, 2018

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Benefits for domestic workers eyed by Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court (SCJN) will examine a proposal next week that would make it mandatory to pay social security benefits to domestic workers.

Justice Alberto Pérez Dayán has recommended that the second chamber of the court rule against an article in the federal Social Security Law that states that paying benefits to housekeepers is voluntary.

The law as it stands has resulted in most domestic workers not receiving benefits that other employees are legally entitled to.

Pérez’s proposal argues that there is no constitutional justification to exclude the mostly female workers, commonly known as muchachas or maids, from the social security system.

“[It’s not just] a discriminatory action that perpetuates and reinforces the social marginalization of women who work in homes but also a violation [of their rights] that cannot be overcome simply because said workers can access the voluntary regime,” the proposal states.

The initiative recommends that the government and the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) introduce a pilot program over a period of 18 months that is easy for employers to implement and that Congress make the necessary legislative reforms to ensure that domestic workers’ right to access benefits is enshrined in the law.

The newspaper Reforma said today that it is unclear if a majority of judges will support the proposal because some have shown that they are not inclined to support court rulings that include recommendations or suggestions to other authorities.

The December 5 session will be the last time the second chamber of the SCJN sits in 2018, meaning that if the proposal is rejected, an examination of an amended version would not happen before the middle of January.

According to a 2016 employment poll conducted by the National Statistics Agency, 95% of domestic workers are women and only 4% of those workers are employed under the terms of a contract in which their rights and obligations are clearly stated.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Mexico asks US for investigation into using tear gas against migrants

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MND Staff

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November 27, 2018

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Migrants in Tijuana are in for a long wait.

The Mexican government has made a formal request to United States authorities to conduct a full investigation into the use of tear gas on Sunday against Central American migrants at the border between Tijuana and San Diego.

The Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE) presented a diplomatic note to the United States embassy in Mexico to request the probe into what it described as non-lethal weapons.

In a statement, the SRE said that Mexico also “reiterated its commitment to continue protecting the human rights and safety of migrants at all times.”

Around 500 migrants rushed the border Sunday morning after bypassing a Federal Police blockade and crossing the dried-up Tijuana River.

United States authorities said that tear gas was only used after the group began throwing rocks at border agents.

Women and children were among those affected by the tear gas. British aid organization Oxfam described its use as shameful.

“Images of barefoot children choking on tear gas thrown by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol should shock us to our core,” said Vicki Gass, Oxfam America senior policy advisor for Central America.

The U.S. shut the border at San Ysidro, the busiest crossing in the world, for several hours following the incident.

The Mexican government said in a statement that it would “immediately deport” those who “in a violent manner tried to cross Mexico’s border with the United States.” The National Immigration Institute (INM) said yesterday that 98 people had been arrested and deported.

The INM said that more deportations will follow if investigations identify more migrants who participated in the attempted border breach.

United States Customs and Border Protection commissioner Kevin McAleenan said that 69 migrants were arrested on the California side of the border after crossing illegally.

He also said that the border patrol’s use of force policy allows the use of tear gas and that there were no serious injuries, but added that the incident would be reviewed.

“As the events unfolded yesterday, quick, decisive, and effective action to close San Ysidro and – on the Mexican side, El Chaparral [border bridge] – prevented an extremely dangerous situation of hundreds and potentially over a thousand migrants seeking to rush the border through vehicle lanes,” McAleenan said.

On Twitter yesterday, United States President Trump urged Mexican authorities to deport “the flag waving migrants, many of whom are stone-cold criminals,” adding that the border could be closed permanently “if need be.”

Later yesterday, Trump defended the actions of border agents, describing the tear gas used as “very safe” and “a minor form” and declaring: “Here’s the bottom line. Nobody’s coming into our country unless they come in legally.”

More than 7,000 mainly Honduran migrants fleeing violence and poverty are currently in Tijuana or other parts of Baja California, according to Mexican authorities, and thousands more are farther south in the country.

They could face waits of several months or more to lodge asylum requests with U.S. authorities due to an existing backlog of claimants.

The migrants, most of whom are staying in a Tijuana sports complex, have overwhelmed local authorities, prompting Mayor Juan Gastélum to declare a humanitarian crisis last week.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Vuhl, the luxury sports car that’s made in Mexico

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MND Staff

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November 26, 2018

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In the market for a high-performance, luxury sports car? There’s no reason to look beyond Mexico.

Vuhl, a company created by the brothers Iker and Guillermo Echeverría, is designing and making ultra-light sports cars at a plant in Querétaro.

“Vuhl is a Mexican company formed by Mexican partners with Mexican capital and we make very high-performance cars,” Guillermo told broadcaster CNN.

The design of each car is personalized with an average weight of just 600 kilograms and a top speed of 245-255 kilometers per hour.

“The speed is achieved [by using] very light materials, carbon fiber, titanium, aluminum and high alloy steel with a highly optimized structural design,” Guillermo explained.

Although some parts are imported from Europe, Vuhl cars are made completely in Mexico by a 100% Mexican workforce.

“They’re not assemblers, these are people with a much higher level [of knowledge], even a different level of enthusiasm. The people at Vuhl are trained for years,” Guillermo said.

Currently, the company is making just one or two cars a month although it has the capacity to make around 60 vehicles annually.

However, Guillermo said that there were no plans to significantly increase production of the vehicles, which sell for between 1.6 and 2.2 million pesos (US $77,000 – $105,000).

Vuhl has sold vehicles in the United Kingdom and the Middle East but the Echevarría brothers hope to find new customers closer to home in Mexico and the United States.

In 2016, the company opened its own boutique dealership in Mexico City and the same year its Vuhl 05 model featured in the Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex, England.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Campaign has failed to end food poverty; 20mn don’t get enough food

By

MND Staff

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November 26, 2018

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Volunteers hand out food as part of federal anti-hunger program.

An anti-hunger initiative implemented by the current federal government failed to meet its key objective of ending food poverty, studies show.

President Peña Nieto announced the National Crusade Against Hunger (CNCH) in December 2012 as the main anti-poverty strategy of his administration.

The program, which had five main objectives including the total elimination of hunger through adequate food availability, was officially launched the following month at an event in Chiapas.

But almost six years later, there are still more than 20 million Mexicans who don’t have access to enough food, statistics show.

Several audits and assessments conducted during Peña Nieto’s six-year term revealed a range of problems in the design and implementation of the CNCH but the problems were not corrected, the newspaper Reforma reported today, and so the crusade failed to achieve its goals.

In addition to eradicating hunger, they included eliminating childhood malnutrition and increasing food production and income of small farmers.

Two years after the initiative was implemented, the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval), a government agency, warned that the CNCH was not making progress on its key objective of eliminating hunger.

“In terms of . . . the impact of the crusade, a two-percentage-point reduction in extreme poverty is observed but no effect is observed in the indicator regarding a lack of access to food,” a Coneval 2015 report said.

Later in 2015, the Federal Auditor’s Office (ASF) said that there were problems in the design of the crusade, which was implemented by the Secretariat of Social Development (Sedesol), and that there was no clear information about how its budget was being used.

The ASF also warned that the crusade’s coverage was limited to less than 60% of the population it targeted and that 50 programs participating in it weren’t supplying any data that allowed the impact on people’s lives to be measured.

In its 2016 public accounts report, the ASF said that Sedesol failed to adequately follow up on the implementation of its CNCH programs and that it had again failed to report the total budget that had been allocated to the crusade.

Late last month, the auditor’s office advised Sedesol to modify or terminate the program because more than five years after it started it was still plagued by the same problems in its design and implementation that undermined its effectiveness.

Alejandro Gómez, an expert in social development policy, said the crusade could only be described as a failure.

“. . . The ultimate indicator of success of the crusade, precisely [levels of] food poverty and access to food, did not improve substantially . . .” he said.

Source: Reforma (sp)

AMLO launches process to create moral constitution

By

MND Staff

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November 26, 2018

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Ramírez, Velasco and López Obrador announce new moral constitution.

President-elect López Obrador and members of his transition team today issued a call to all Mexicans to contribute to the creation of a so-called moral constitution.

The incoming government’s intention is to establish a document which sets out ethical and moral codes for all citizens.

It argues that the moral constitution is needed because decadent practices such as corruption have become engrained and normalized in Mexican society.

“We call on all Mexicans to contribute individually or collectively to the development of this code which will contribute to the transformation of public life in Mexico,” said Jesús Ramírez, spokesman for the new government, which will receive submissions from the public via e-mail between December 3 and April 30 before unveiling the definitive document next July.

Verónica Velasco, a member of the team charged with managing the initiative, said the moral constitution would seek to guide citizens in their personal conduct but stressed that it would not be legally binding.

“The moral constitution is not [a] legal [document], it’s not an attempt to regulate private life, it’s not a pretext to build an authoritarian model of government, it will not force or impose anything on anyone, it’s not catechism, there are no citizens’ commandments. We live in a secular state,” she said.

Velasco argued that burdens on society such as “dishonesty, corruption and violence” are responsible for Mexico’s underdevelopment, adding that while government officials have a particular responsibility to set an example, “the practice of ethical principles and values also applies to the private sector, trade unions and society in general.”

The moral constitution seeks, she said, to create “a catalog of principles and moral values that guide and inspire us to develop the respect in society that corrupt politicians have sullied.”

For his part, López Obrador defended the government’s right to create the moral constitution, asserting that it would not be a religious document nor would it encroach on people’s privacy.

“It’s thought that we shouldn’t get involved in these matters, that it’s not our place. There are those who think it’s a religious thing, a personal thing, an invasion of our privacy. But as has been evident for a long time, since the Greeks, morality is very important. Politics is an ethical imperative and the need to strengthen values must be considered,” he said.

“We believe that transformation requires advancing materially and advancing in our moral and spiritual values. There is a great richness of values in our people. In the face of epidemics, floods, earthquakes, corruption [and] bad governments, what has always saved us has been our culture or cultures . . .” the president-elect added.

Source: Sin Embargo (sp), Milenio (sp)

At 50 meters, Mexico sets new record for world’s longest tamal

By

César Hernández

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November 26, 2018

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Tamales are big in Tabasco — big enough to earn a world record.

Yesterday, the city of Villahermosa recaptured the Guinness World Record for the world’s longest tamal.

Making the tamal began on Friday when a section of Francisco I. Madero street in the historic center was closed off to traffic to allow the cooks to set up a custom oven.

The list of ingredients gives an idea of the magnitude of the chipilín tamal: 350 kilograms of corn dough, 100 kg of pork, 35 kg of chipilín — a native legume, 25 kg of chiles, 15 kg of coriander, 800 kg of lard and 200 kg of green peppers.

Chipilín tamales are served with a special salsa, which required 60 kg of tomatoes, 20 of onions and 30 of garlic.

The tamal itself was wrapped first with 1,000 banana leaves and then with five 400-meter rolls of aluminum foil.

No expense was spared: it was estimated that preparing this monster tamal cost between 58,000 and 60,000 pesos (between US $2,800 and 2,900).

The cooks were local gastronomy students led by chef Fabían Romero, and their efforts produced the longest single-piece tamal ever recorded, measuring 50.05 meters long.

The official measurement was taken by the Guinness World Records representative in Mexico, Carlos Tapia Rojas.

Organizers expected to share the longest tamal with 2,500 people.

Villahermosa first took the record in 2016 with a 31-meter tamal. Peru snatched it away with one that was 39.5-meters.

Source: El Universal (sp)