Rosa now a tropical storm, will make landfall in Baja Monday night

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October 1, 2018

Hidalgo Governor Fayad, left, and López Obrador.

President-elect López Obrador said during a visit to Hidalgo yesterday that rail cars for the new Maya train will be manufactured in the state.

López Obrador said Canadian manufacturer Bombardier will make the cars in Ciudad Sahagún, making the announcement after meeting with Governor Omar Fayad Meneses.

He told a press conference that the manufacture of the rail cars in Hidalgo will be one of his administration’s main commitments with the state, along with a 5-billion-peso (US $267.8-million) investment in the rehabilitation of the oil refinery in Tula.

The investment, López Obrador said, is part of a rehabilitation program for six refineries that will cost 50 billion pesos ($2.7 billion) between 2019 and 2020, and a similar figure the following year.

Plans for Hidalgo also include finishing the Pachuca-Huasteca highway.

At a public meeting later the governor was greeted by shouts of “Fuera!“, or “get out,” but the incoming president said his Morena party would work in a coordinated manner with the governments of the state and the municipalities.

He told the crowd he was not “a dictator” and did not have the power to remove governors from power or vice versa. “I don’t fire anyone; it’s the people who fire their rulers . . . .”

“We are building an authentic democracy,” he said, “not a dictatorship; I am not a cacique, let’s make that clear.” A cacique is a powerful regional chieftain.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Acapulco police missing 342 guns and 200 traffic cops

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October 1, 2018

Counting guns in Acapulco: some are missing.

Missing guns and AWOL traffic cops are among the concerns identified by the army after its inspection of Acapulco’s municipal police force.

The National Defense Secretariat (Sedena) discovered that police are short 342 of 1,771 assigned firearms after federal and state security forces disarmed the police last week because of suspected infiltration by organized crime.

The spokesman for the state security agency Guerrero Coordination Group told a press conference that Sedena had given Acapulco Mayor Evodio Velázquez Aguirre a Monday deadline to explain the absence of the firearms.

However, as of today Velázquez is no longer mayor: his three-year term ended yesterday when he was replaced by Adela Román Ocampo.

The investigation into the Acapulco police department also found that close to half the port city’s traffic police never show up for work despite receiving a paycheck every two weeks.

The state Attorney General’s office is now attempting to locate the 202 missing officers.

Other irregularities that only 674 of the municipality’s 1,309 police officers have been certified and evaluated despite claims to the contrary by outgoing mayor Velázquez.

The police chief himself was not certified. The Guerrero Coordination Group said it had advised the mayor twice that Max Lorenzo Sedano had failed the evaluation test, but nothing came of it. Sedano resigned his post last week.

Acapulco has long held the title of the most violent city in Mexico as organized crime gangs fight over control of the city, causing some 700 homicides per year.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Canada is in: new 3-way trade agreement described as win-win-win

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October 1, 2018

The United States and Canada reached a last-minute deal yesterday to maintain a trilateral trade accord in North America, ending negotiations that dragged on for over a year.

Under the updated pact, the United States will have greater access to Canada’s dairy market and both Mexico and Canada will be protected from any future auto tariffs that their neighbor imposes on imports up to a quota of 2.6 million passenger vehicles annually.

To be known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) instead of NAFTA, the new accord will preserve a dispute resolution system that Canada fought to maintain to protect its lumber industry and other sectors from United States anti-dumping tariffs, Canadian and U.S. sources told the news agency Reuters.

However, United States tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum were not lifted as part of the agreement.

The deal also requires a higher proportion of auto content to be made in high-wage areas where workers are paid at least US $16 per hour, in order for vehicles to qualify for tariff-free status.

The rule is designed to bring more auto sector jobs to the United States as it will make it harder for large manufacturers to operate cheaply in Mexico.

Its inclusion in the revised pact is seen as a big win for United States President Donald Trump, who called NAFTA “one of the worst trade deals ever made” and has pledged to return auto sector jobs to the U.S.

In a joint statement, the United States and Canada said the updated pact, which will govern more than US $1.2 trillion worth of trade between the three countries, would “result in freer markets, fairer trade and robust economic growth in our region.”

Most of its provisions, however, won’t start until 2020 after legislatures in Mexico, Canada and the United States have approved the new deal.

The announcement of the new agreement ends more than a month of uncertainty about whether Canada would join the pact that Mexico and the United States reached on August 27.

Leaders of all three countries were upbeat about the new trilateral treaty.

“The modernization of the trade agreement between Mexico, Canada and the United States ends 13 months of negotiations and achieves what we proposed in the beginning: a win-win-win agreement,” Mexican President Peña Nieto wrote on Twitter.

After a late-night cabinet meeting in Ottawa to discuss the new deal, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters “it’s a good day for Canada.”

Trump, who repeatedly threatened to terminate the 24-year-old pact, posted a glowing two-part assessment of the updated agreement to his Twitter account early this morning.

“Late last night, our deadline, we reached a wonderful new Trade Deal with Canada, to be added into the deal already reached with Mexico. The new name will be The United States Mexico Canada Agreement, or USMCA. It is a great deal for all three countries, solves the many . . . deficiencies and mistakes in NAFTA, greatly opens markets to our Farmers and Manufacturers, reduces Trade Barriers to the U.S. and will bring all three Great Nations together in competition with the rest of the world. The USMCA is a historic transaction!”

At a later press conference, Trump said that “this landmark agreement will send cash and jobs pouring into the United States and into North America.”

It’s “good for Canada, good for Mexico,” he added, praising both Trudeau and Peña Nieto who he called a “terrific person.”

Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo, Mexico’s chief negotiator in the drawn-out and often-contentious talks, also took to Twitter to praise the new deal.

“The new trilateral trade agreement in North America is a state-of-the-art instrument that will bring great economic benefits to Mexico, Canada and the U.S.,” he wrote.

Jesús Seade, who participated in recent negotiations as the trade representative for president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, added his support for the new deal.

“We celebrate the trilateral agreement. It closes the door on trade fragmentation in the region. NAFTA 2 will provide certainty and stability to Mexico’s trade with its partners in North America . . .” he wrote on Twitter.

Speaking in Madrid, Spain, Foreign Affairs Secretary Luis Videgaray said the inclusion of Canada in the agreement was “fundamental” in order to maintain the advantages of having a common North American market.

“It’s important for the economic relationship and competitiveness to have the same rules, in that sense it’s something we’re delighted with, we’re excited,” he said.

Videgaray also said that it was pleasing that a so-called sunset clause was not included in the new agreement.

The proposal was pushed by the United States and would have seen a modernized pact automatically expire after five years if it wasn’t renegotiated.

“This five-year idea eliminated certainty but now this [six-year] revision mechanism is good because it eliminates uncertainty,” Videgaray said.

The foreign secretary said that a deal had been reached in time for the current government to sign it but added that the ratification process would take place in the Senate next year.

He also said he was proud of having worked with Mexico’s negotiating team, including López Obrador’s representatives.

“It’s remarkable how Mexico closed ranks [to achieve] something good for the region and particularly for Mexico,” Videgaray said.

Both the Mexican peso and the Canadian dollar made small gains against the U.S. dollar on news of the updated agreement.

Source: Reuters (sp), El Economista (sp)

Guanajuato cartel leader caught—for speeding

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October 1, 2018

cartel gangster arrested — Busted for speeding.

A speeding ticket turned into a rather worse infraction for a driver in Hidalgo on Friday when he was identified as a regional leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

The man, identified by the authorities by his first names, Francisco Javier, was traveling between the towns of Tulancingo and Tejocotal when he was stopped for speeding.

Police discovered he had an outstanding arrest warrant for homicide in the state of Guanajuato and was a priority target for officials in that state.

The suspect, also known as “H1,” has been linked to kidnapping, drug trafficking and extortion among other criminal activities and identified as the CJNG leader in southern Guanajuato.

Police described his behavior on Friday as “strange and aggressive” and said he could not produce identification. They said he offered the officers a bribe to allow him to continue on his way before becoming violent, at which point he was arrested.

Guanajuato and Veracruz led in homicide numbers in September, according to a tally kept buy the newspaper Milenio. In the former, a territorial feud over drug trafficking and petroleum theft between the CJNG and the Santa Rosa de Lima gang is blamed for the violence.

There were 251 assassinations in each state during September.

One of those was the murder yesterday of a hotel owner in San Miguel de Allende. Businessman Isaías Gómez was shot five times by a man on a motorcycle, and died at the scene.

Gómez officially opened a new hotel called Tierra y Plata in the city yesterday, as well as a restaurant called Miguelina.

Source: Periódico Correo (sp), Milenio (sp)

CORRECTION: The story has been edited to correct a geographical error. Hidalgo and Guanajuato are not neighboring states, as previously reported.

Volcano rabbit declared extinct due to lost habitat

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September 29, 2018

Volcano rabbit, world's second smallest rabbit.

A species of rabbit endemic to Mexico has been declared extinct in the vicinity of the Nevado de Toluca, a volcano in México state.

Researchers from the Center for Biological Sciences at the Autonomous University of the State of México (UAEM) concluded that the volcano rabbit is extinct after carrying out an exhaustive study in 2017.

The disappearance of the species, also known as teporingo or zacatuche, serves as a wake-up call to humanity about the failure to conserve the volcano rabbit’s habitat, the researchers said in an article published by the National Autonomous University news portal UNAM Global.

A lot of the species’ habitat has been lost due to the clearing of forest for agricultural purposes, especially the cultivation of potatoes, but increasing urbanization has also played a role in the rabbit’s decline.

The teporingo, the world’s second smallest rabbit after the pygmy rabbit, has been considered endangered since 1966 and several studies carried out in the 1980s, ‘90s and the first decade of this century warned of its likely extinction.

It was officially listed as an at-risk species in 1994, said Esther Quintero Rivero, an official at the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (Conabio).

The same year, Alejandro Velázquez and Francisco J. Romero published a book entitled El Conejo Zacatuche, tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de la Ciudad de México (The Zacatuche Rabbit, so far from God and so close to Mexico City) that outlined an ambitious management plan for the species but almost a quarter of a century later it hasn’t been adopted in México state, said UAEM biologist Alma Abigail Luna Gil.

The last confirmed sighting of the species at Nevado de Toluca occurred in August 2003 when just a single volcano rabbit was observed.

Quintero said that the loss of the teporingo rabbit would cause a range of problems in the ecosystem, while UAEM researcher Octavio Monroy Vilchis said that studies have already confirmed that the presence of other vertebrates in the Nevado de Toluca area is declining.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

A lot of activity recorded at El Popo and it’s on the increase

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September 29, 2018

Volcanic activity at El Popo. — Volcanic activity today at El Popo. webcams de méxico

Activity at El Popo is continuing to increase as a result of the September 19, 2017 earthquake, whose epicenter was close to the active volcano located in central Mexico.

Ana Lillian Martín del Pozzo, an academic at the National Autonomous University’s Institute of Geophysics, said in a press release that the activity currently being recorded is the greatest since Don Goyo, as the volcano is known colloquially, “woke up” in 1994 after remaining dormant for 70 years.

“The Popocatépetl Volcano is showing a lot of activity and it’s on the rise. A sign of that is the increase in exhalations and volcano tectonic earthquakes, the latter in an order of magnitude greater than that seen in the last 24 years,” she said.

Ramón Espinasa Pereña, a deputy director of volcanic risks at the National Disaster Prevention Center (Cenapred), said that “within months, a year, or the day after tomorrow” there could be even greater activity than that observed to date.

Martín said that a spike in activity at El Popo has been recorded over the past month and reached a peak on September 20 although there was another significant emission yesterday.

The volcanologist said that a group of geologists collected ash samples last Sunday that will be analyzed to help determine exactly what is happening inside Don Goyo.

“. . . This volcanic activity is different from that presented in other periods. These explosions indicate that the volcano is changing, magma is adjusting, and now we know that due to these small explosions, magma has risen . . .” Martín said.

Espinasa said the increased activity at El Popo was inevitable but added that last September’s earthquake had probably caused it to come on more quickly.

The day after the 7.1-magnitude quake there were 286 volcanic exhalations from Popocatépetl, the highest number ever recorded in a single day, although daily emissions had begun increasing long before the temblor struck.

The good news is that it is possible to predict an imminent large eruption of El Popo via a monitoring network consisting of six stations located within the volcano. The Institute of Geophysics will place a further four stations deeper inside its crater in the coming weeks.

Nevertheless, Martín warned people living within the vicinity of El Popo to be alert to the dangers posed by increased volcanic activity and to act in accordance with instructions from specialized authorities such as Cenapred.

A yellow, phase 2 alert is currently in place for the volcano, meaning that the release of water vapor and gas plumes is to be expected.

Source: El Universal (sp)

10 universities on verge of financial collapse need 4 billion pesos

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September 29, 2018

The Autonomous University of Morelos is close to bankruptcy.

Ten of Mexico’s public universities are on the brink of collapse, staff and government officials have warned, a situation that can only be resolved with emergency funding of 4 billion pesos (US $213.7 million).

The institution at most imminent risk is the Autonomous University of Morelos, which could collapse financially as soon as next week. Rectors at San Nicolás Hidalgo, Michoacán, and Tabasco have warned that their institutions could follow suit “in a matter of days.”

By November, the schools will be falling like dominoes: the universities of Zacatecas, Nayarit and Sinaloa will find themselves in a similar situation, said Antonio Guzmán Fernández, rector of the Zacatecas Autonomous University (UAZ), and Zacatecas congressman Alfredo Femat Bañuelos.

UAZ needs 200 million pesos ($10.7 million) to pay salaries and year-end bonuses for the remainder of 2018, and a similar amount to pay taxes and social security.

The 4 billion pesos required to stave off the financial collapse can only be allocated by the federal Finance Secretariat whose chief, José Antonio González Anaya, has been summoned by a congressional committee to discuss the situation on Wednesday.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Inadequate medical attention led to amputation of baby’s arm

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September 29, 2018

Inadequate attention was provided at IMSS hospital in Puerto Vallarta. — IMSS hospital in Puerto Vallarta failed to provide adequate attention.

Inadequate medical attention at a Puerto Vallarta IMSS hospital led to the amputation of a newborn baby’s arm, the National Human rights Commission (CNDH) has found.

In a recommendation letter addressed to IMSS chief Tuffic Miguel Ortega, the commission charged that the patient’s right to health protection had been violated through a series of actions and omissions by the medical and nursing staff at the Zone 42 General Hospital.

The baby girl’s mother filed a formal complaint before the CNDH, explaining that she arrived at the hospital during her 38th week of pregnancy. A C-section was ordered and her child was born but doctors ordered that the child be kept in the nursery because she had difficulty breathing.

“The mother noticed that the child had a black spot surrounded by red on her left hand,” said the CNDH in a statement. The mother was given restricted access to the child even after several medications and treatments were administered to the infant. A round of antibiotics was ordered, but the medications had to be shipped from Guadalajara.

Then “the mother noticed that the black spot was tough to the touch, after which she was not allowed to have physical contact with her child.”

The commission investigation found that the lesion turned into a serious infection, but medical staff never ordered special care or treatment. The infant was later transported to the Western National Medical Center in Guadalajara where several studies and procedures were ordered, but to no avail.

“On the contrary, the fingers of her hand turned black because the tissue was dead.” At this point, doctors in Guadalajara decided to amputate the baby’s left arm above the elbow.

The CNDH stated that “the lesion was caused by a lack of the required medical instruments.”

The agency issued 12 recommendations, including inscribing the girl and her parents in the national victims’ registry, which would grant all three access to an assistance and damage reparation fund that will provide the child with medical care for life.

The IMSS must also establish a trust fund through which the child’s access to rehabilitation would be guaranteed.

The health institute must also guarantee the best possible personal and social development of the girl and access to education up to and including university.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Mexico made pact with BP for reduced fine after 2010 oil spill

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September 29, 2018