Self-defense leader released after evidence disputes navy report

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May 31, 2018

Farías received a celebrity's welcome after his return to Tepalcatepec yesterday.

A federal judge ordered the release of a former self-defense leader yesterday just three days after he was arrested due to inconsistencies in the navy report on his capture.

José Farías Álvarez, known as El Abuelo (The Grandfather), was detained Sunday by marines in the municipality of Tepalcatepec, Michoacán, for alleged links to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

Michoacán Governor Silvano Aureoles praised the capture and said Farías was a priority target in the state government’s security strategy.

According to the Navy Secretariat (Semar) report, Farías had been placed in a navy pickup truck after his arrest when a single Semar helicopter arrived to provide back-up. Armed civilians had begun firing at the navy vehicle in an attempt to free the man many consider to be a community leader rather than a criminal.

The helicopter returned fire to deter the attack, the navy said in its report, which was presented to the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) as evidence.

But witness testimonies and video evidence presented during a hearing indicated that two helicopters — rather than one — participated in the capture operation and that they fired directly at the pick-up in which Farías had been traveling.

Following his detention, navy personnel set the vehicle alight.

Based on the evidence presented, the judge determined that Farías’ arrest did not occur in the manner the navy said it did and denied an application from the PGR for the case to proceed to trial.

El Abuelo returned to Tepalcatepec just before midday yesterday to a boisterous reception from local residents who days earlier had pressed for his release by erecting roadblocks.

In a later television interview with Imagen Noticias, Farías charged that there were further inaccuracies in the Semar report including the stated time at which he was arrested and an accusation that he had weapons and drugs in his possession.

He also claimed that he had been tortured by marines but said he would not take legal action against the navy.

While he was being tortured inside the navy vehicle, Farías said, personnel attempted to extract a confession from him about the whereabouts of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, Mexico’s most wanted drug lord and the boss of the cartel El Abuelo allegedly has links to.

Farías said he replied that he knew nothing about the capo because he hasn’t lived in Michoacán for several years.

The founder of the Tepalcatepec self-defense group also confirmed that two Semar helicopters had fired at the pickup truck he was traveling in with family members including his grandson, adding that the impact of the bullets caused his vehicle to break down.

Farías asserted he is not a criminal and called on the navy to concentrate its efforts on apprehending real criminals and not innocent people like him.

The navy has also come under suspicion in Tamaulipas, where relatives of at least 40 missing persons claim the navy was involved in their disappearance. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has echoed that suspicion.

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

Events intended to position Mexico as surf capital of Latin America

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César Hernández

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May 31, 2018

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Acapulco surfer Rey Hernández: eye on the Olympics.

A schedule of summer surf events is designed to position Mexico as the surf capital of Latin America, among other goals.

The Surf Open League, the sport’s governing body in Mexico, announced that the Pacific resort towns of Puerto Escondido, Acapulco and Ixtapa will each host a surfing event this summer.

It wants to promote Mexico’s surfing beaches internationally and encourage the sport in Mexico while at the same time help Mexican athletes, reactivate tourism and raise awareness about ocean conservation.

The surf season begins tomorrow in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, where the best 24 tube riders in the world, including seven Mexicans, will compete.

The Puerto Escondido Cup competition will run throughout June at Zicatela beach, where surfers will await the call of organizers who will monitor the wave heights and determine the moment when the competitions should take place.

The Surf Open Acapulco follows from July 20 to 22, an event sanctioned by the World Surf League, in which more than 100 athletes from 15 countries will be able to earn points toward their world ranking.

The third event will also be hosted in Guerrero: from August 31 to September 2, more than 80 professional surfers from around the country will meet for the third edition of the Loot Surf Open Ixtapa.

The decision to choose the three locations was “based on the waves,” said Gary Linden of the Open Surf League. “Zicatela beach is one of the best places for big-wave matches . . . Acapulco has good and smaller waves all year long.”

He also praised the people of the host towns, who have always shown their support for these types of events.

“We want to help the youth, they are our future, and we want Mexico to be the surf capital of Latin America,” he added. Linden also lamented the absence of surfer Óscar Moncada, killed last year in a traffic accident.

Rey Hernández, born and raised in Acapulco, will be one of the seven Mexican participants at the three events. His goal is high: he wants to earn the most points during the Surf Open League competitions because he wants to represent Mexico at the Olympic Games.

Surfing will make its Olympic debut during the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Source: Milenio (sp), AM (sp)

Homicides surge in Mexico City: worst four-month period in 20 years

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MND Staff

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May 31, 2018

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Mexico City homicides, first four-month period of each year since 1998.

Mexico City has recorded its most violent first four-month period of any year of the past two decades with 382 intentional homicides between January 1 and the end of April.

The figure is 14% higher than the 335 recorded in the same period last year and 24% higher than the murder rate registered in the first four months of 1998, when there were 309 homicides.

There have not been more than 300 murders in Mexico City in the January-April period of any other year in the past 20.

Based on National Public Security System (SNSP) statistics, the average daily homicide rate in the capital to April 30 was 3.1.

The SNSP data, which compiles statistics provided by the Mexico City Attorney General’s office (PGJ), shows that the number of murders has increased in the first four months of every year since 2015.

Compared to 2014 — when homicides fell to 241 in the first four-month period from 256 the previous year — the crime has increased by 58%.

In the past 20 years, the lowest number of homicides recorded in a first four-month period was in 2006, with 207.

According to Mexico City authorities, most of the murders committed this year were not linked to organized crime and are not indicative of an outbreak of violence on the streets of the capital.

PGJ statistics reveal that eight out of every 10 homicides were the result of personal fights or attacks in revenge, in which alcohol consumption and/or firearms were involved.

However, a report published today in the newspaper Milenio said that homicides have increased since authorities began security operations against criminal organizations dedicated to narcomenudeo, or retail drug dealing.

Milenio cited the Tláhuac Cartel in the southern borough of the same name, Los Rodolfos in Xochimilco and La Unión de Tepito and La Fuerza Anti-Unión in the central borough of Cuauhtémoc among the organizations authorities have targeted.

The marines, backed up by police, carried out an operation in July last year that resulted in the death of the boss of the Tláhuac Cartel, known by the alias “El Ojos.”

Narco-blockades made an unprecedented appearance in Mexico City following the death of the gang leader and seven of his sicarios, or hitmen.

Mexico City Mayor José Ramón Amieva admitted yesterday that criminal gangs with “links all over the country” use locations in the capital to store and sell drugs but rejected any suggestion that drugs are grown or processed the city.

A joint 2017 report by the city’s Public Security Secretariat and the PGJ identified 20,000 places where drugs were being bought and sold at the start of last year.

Another report by the National and Mexico City Citizens’ Observatories published last month showed that retail drug trafficking soared by 113% in the first quarter of 2018.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Students’ smartphone application provides basic Spanish-Mixtec translation

By

César Hernández

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May 31, 2018

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The IPN students and their smartphone app.

Anyone at a loss for a word in the Mixtec language can now turn to a smartphone app for help.

MixtecApp caters to an estimated 660,000 Mexicans who speak Mixtec, which sits in fourth place among the most widely used indigenous languages, behind Náhuatl, Mayan and Zapotec.

Two computer engineering students at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) in Mexico City created the simple smartphone application that teaches the user a basic vocabulary of Mixtec words.

The intention of Ernesto Hernández Bernal and Leo Zuriel Hernández Castillo was to contribute to the conservation of the Mixtec language. The former grew up on a ranch near Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, where it was the first language of his parents’ generation.

But few people of his age can speak it fluently.

It took the duo over a year to fully research the Tlaxiaco variant of the language. Once a complete vocabulary was compiled, the development stage of the app took another six months.

In its current version, MixtecApp offers the user a basic vocabulary divided into four categories: animals and insects; fruits, vegetables and seeds; numbers; and colors.

Upon accessing a category, the phone displays a picture of the word in question, as well as its spelling in Spanish and Mixtec. After pressing a play button, the correct Mixtec pronunciation can be heard.

The students plan to further develop their Android-based mobile app, which doesn’t need an internet connection to function, by offering a true translation option, in which the user will be able to type a word in Spanish and obtain its Mixtec translation and pronunciation.

Mixtec is one of 68 native languages spoken in Mexico. Fourteen of those are considered at risk of being lost due to declining numbers of speakers.

Mixtec is spoken mostly in the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, where linguists have counted more than 40 regional variations of the language.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Mexico strikes back after US announces tariffs on steel, aluminum

By

MND Staff

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May 31, 2018

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The US announced steel and aluminum tariffs this morning.

Mexico struck back swiftly after the United States announced today that it would impose tariffs on Mexican metal imports.

The government said it would “impose equivalent measures” in response to the announcement by United States Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross that duties of 25% on Mexican steel and 10% on aluminum would take effect at midnight tonight.

The metal tariffs will also apply to Canada and the European Union.

The government said that Mexico’s reciprocal tariffs would apply to steel flats, light bulbs, pork legs and shoulders, cold meats and prepared foods, apples, grapes, blueberries and a range of cheeses, among other products.

The duties could be as high as those imposed on Mexico and will remain in place while the United States protectionist measures continue, the Secretariat of Economy (SE) said in a statement.

“Mexico deeply regrets and condemns the decision of the United States to impose these tariffs on steel and aluminum imports . . . under the criterion of national security,” the government said.

The statement added that Mexico has repeatedly indicated that these types of measures taken on national security grounds “are not appropriate or justified” and underscored that it is the biggest importer of United States aluminum and the second biggest purchaser of U.S. steel.

The two metals are “inputs that contribute to the competitiveness of several strategic sectors that are highly integrated in North America, such as automotive, aerospace, electrical and electronics,” the government said.

The statement reiterated Mexico’s openness to constructive dialogue with the United States, its support of international trade and its disapproval of unilateral protectionist measures.

The United States’ tariff announcement ends a two-month exemption for its southern neighbor and comes amid continued uncertainty about the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Before the exemption was granted in March, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Mexico and Canada could be spared from the measure “if a new and fair NAFTA agreement is signed.”

In the intervening period, Trump has been hot and cold on the future of the trilateral agreement, saying last month that a deal could be reached “fairly soon” while at times threatening to terminate the 24-year-old treaty. This month he called it a “horrible” disaster for the U.S. economy.”

In addition to using his metal tariffs as a NAFTA negotiation ploy, he has also threatened to make a new agreement conditional on immigration policy but Mexico quickly rebuffed the idea.

The United States’ launch of a tariff probe into vehicle imports last week was also seen as a move designed to pressure its NAFTA partners in negotiations that have been contentious on issues including rules of origin and wages as they apply to the automotive sector.

Before receiving today’s unwelcome news, the top international trade official for Mexico’s influential Business Coordinating Council (CCE) said that the organization had asked the Mexican government to respond to tariffs from the United States “with the same force” by imposing tariffs of its own on U.S. products.

Speaking during a television interview, Moises Kalach also said that Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo has managed to pass a motion in the Senate stipulating that any unilateral protectionist measures imposed would be met with proportionate, reciprocal measures from Mexico.

The trade official said that the tariff issue brought additional “noise” to NAFTA negotiations but added that it was significant that Mexico isn’t alone in facing increased protectionism from its northern neighbor.

Source: El Economista (sp), Noticieros Televisa (sp), La Silla Rota (sp)

One dead in Chihuahua train crash; human error blamed

By

César Hernández

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May 31, 2018

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Human error caused a head-on collision by two trains in Chihuahua yesterday that killed a conductor and injured five other crew members, Ferromex officials said.

The trains collided about 1:30am on a stretch of track between the cities of Chihuahua and Ciudad Juárez. The conductor of the northbound train died, while five crew members from both trains were injured.

The collision sparked a fire that could be seen for several kilometers.

Investigations by the rail consortium indicated that the conductor of the southbound train erred by exceeding the authorized indicated speed limit and was running ahead of time.

Ferromex, with its subsidiary Ferrosur, is a private rail consortium that operates the largest railway network in Mexico with combined length of 12,070 kilometers.

Source: El Financiero (sp)