Colima Congress fines former governor 515 million pesos

By

-

September 28, 2018

Another ex-governor has been sanctioned by a state Congress after presenting false information regarding borrowed funds that were used to pay for operating expenses.

Mario Anguiano Moreno, governor of Colima from 2009 to 2015, was fined 515.2 million pesos (US $27.5 million) and banned from holding public office for 14 years.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party governor acquired debts of 515 million pesos to pay various operating costs, which is prohibited under the constitution. Money can only be borrowed by states and municipalities to invest in public infrastructure.

Congress also imposed sanctions on Anguiano’s interior secretary and finance secretary, who will be unable to hold public office for five and four years respectively.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Agent of prosecutor’s office dies in lynching incident in Hidalgo

By

César Hernández

-

September 28, 2018

0

Yesterday's lynching in Hidalgo. — One of the child snatching suspects at yesterday's lynching.

More unfounded accusations of child snatching resulted in the death yesterday of an agent of the Hidalgo prosecutor’s office in the municipality of Metepec.

Rumors about people taking photographs of children led to the arrest of four men yesterday morning, but soon after a crowd of about 100 people gathered at municipal police headquarters where they were able to take custody of the four alleged kidnappers.

The men were beaten and one was set on fire.

They were subsequently rescued by state police and transported to the Red Cross at Tulancingo but it was too late for the burn victim, who was declared dead.

The state Attorney General’s office later confirmed the dead man was an agent of the Tulancingo public prosecutor’s office.

A similar accusation cost the lives of a couple in the same state on August 31.

The man and woman were attacked and then set on fire by a mob in Tula de Allende. Authorities confirmed later that the accusations against the couple had been false. The lynching orphaned three children.

There have been at least nine lynching attempts in Hidalgo so far this year.

In response, the state government created a response team led by a state police coordinator and tasked with rescuing people at risk of being lynched.

The state Public Security Secretariat issued a report last week asserting that no gangs of child snatchers had been detected operating in Hidalgo.

The department also said “false red alerts” were issued online by unknown individuals, who grab publicly published photographs of local children and then post false missing children notices.

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

López Obrador labels Javier Duarte corruption case a circus and a sham

By

MND Staff

-

September 28, 2018

0

President-elect López Obrador has labelled the criminal case against former Veracruz governor Javier Duarte a circus and a sham and declared that the punishment he received — widely considered as overly lenient — is indicative of entrenched corruption in the political system.

Duarte, who is estimated to have embezzled billions of pesos in state money while in office between 2010 and 2016, was sentenced in a federal court Wednesday to nine years in prison for money laundering and criminal association but will be eligible to seek parole in just over three years.

The court ordered a fine of just 58,890 pesos (US $3,140) and the seizure of 41 properties the ex-governor owned.

However, the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) didn’t seek monetary reparations for the state funds he illegally diverted.

López Obrador told a press conference in Mexico City yesterday that the PGR, which agreed to Duarte’s request for an abbreviated procedure that allowed him to avoid an oral trial, had failed in its investigation and that prosecutors didn’t present all the evidence against the former governor.

“It’s nothing but a circus . . . How many lines [were written about it], how much ink, how many words, how many images . . . how much show was there about these matters for it to end in a sentence like the one that was handed down?” López Obrador asked.

“The prosecutors didn’t present all the evidence, more than anything what they were looking for was scandal, a spectacle, a show . . . in a corrupt system, there’s no way that they’re going to take punishing the corrupt seriously,” he said.

The president-elect also took aim at lawmakers for not passing laws that stipulate harsher penalties for corruption.

“Don’t you think that’s strange, odd, inconceivable? How many deputies and senators have passed [through the system] and not made a reform so that robbery, embezzlement and corruption are considered serious crimes?”

To remedy the situation, López Obrador said that the party he leads — Morena — has already presented a bill in Congress to make penalties for corruption tougher.

“. . . We’re proposing now that corruption be considered a serious crime and that he who commits the crime be punished severely. If there is not the political will, which there hasn’t been, it’s nothing but a circus,” he said.

During his government, López Obrador added, “this [impunity] is going to end.”

Veracruz Governor Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares was one of many others who were also highly critical of the leniency of the nine-year sentence Duarte received.

The National Action Party (PAN) governor yesterday declared that the sentence was more like a pardon, describing it as an outrage to all the citizens of Veracruz.

Authorities in that state are also pursuing Duarte on charges of enforced disappearance, embezzlement and misuse of powers and Yunes said that he hoped more years would be added to the ex-governor’s sentence.

Omar Miranda Romero, leader of the PAN in Veracruz, demanded that the actions of the PGR in relation to the case be reviewed.

He said it was clear that a pact had been made between the federal government led by President Peña Nieto and former governor Duarte that resulted in the lenient sentence.

“. . . We’re not judges but we know that Javier Duarte’s time in Veracruz was devastating, it destroyed families, it ruined the future of millions of veracruzanos, it closed the doors to the present and future for thousands of children in our state,” Miranda said.

The president of Veracruz’s top court said that he was surprised by the short length of the sentence although he added that he respected the judges’ ruling and the criteria under which it was made.

“As a veracruzano, logically it seems very little [time] to me [but] more than anything I don’t agree with the [absence of] reparations for damages,” Edel Álvarez Peña said.

Anaís Palacios Pérez, an official at the Mexican Institute of Human Rights and Democracy, said the PGR must act immediately against Duarte to seek justice for the cases of enforced disappearances of which he is accused.

The president of the Veracruz Congress, María Elisa Manterola Sáinz, said Duarte deserved a sentence of 90 years rather than nine.

Federal prosecutor Felipe de Jesús Muñoz Vázquez said yesterday that the PGR continues to seek to execute arrest warrants against former state government officials who served during the administration of Javier Duarte and allegedly participated in the ex-governor’s embezzlement scheme.

López Obrador’s nominee for secretary of public security, Alfonso Durazo, said last night that an extradition request could be made for Duarte’s wife Karime Macías, who is believed to be living a life of luxury in London, England.

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

Hurricane Rosa heading for Baja but will weaken before making landfall

By

Tony Richards

-

September 28, 2018

0

Hurricane Rosa's forecast track. us national hurricane center

A category 4 hurricane in the eastern Pacific Ocean is forecast to make landfall as a tropical storm next week on the Baja peninsula.

The United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) said at 10:00am CDT that Hurricane Rosa was located about 1,105 kilometers southwest of the southern tip of the peninsula. Maximum sustained winds were 220 kilometers per hour.

The NHC forecasts that Rosa, which is currently moving northwest, will make a swing to the north by Saturday night followed by a turn to the north-northeast early next week.

The storm has already weakened and a steady weakening trend is expected to begin Saturday night.

There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect, but Mexico’s National Meteorological Service forecasts intense rain for Baja California and Sonora after the storm crosses the peninsula into the Gulf of California.

It said Rosa is forecast to make landfall as a tropical storm on the west coast of Baja California on Monday.

Because the soil is already saturated with water due to recent heavy rains, the weather office warned of the danger of rivers overflowing their banks, landslides and flooding.

Large swells are also predicted on some portions of the coast of southwestern Mexico and the southern Baja peninsula.

Mexico News Daily

Storm damage halts Copper Canyon train service till October 12

By

MND Staff

-

September 27, 2018

0

The Copper Canyon tourist train known as El Chepe will not resume normal services until October 12 due to cleanup and repair work of the track following recent storm damage, the company that operates the train said today.

Grupo México Transportes said in a statement that the railroad is impassable between the stations of Temoris in Chihuahua and Los Mochis in Sinaloa.

The Chepe Express has been suspended completely while the Chepe Regional is only operating between Chihuahua city and San Rafael in the same state.

Anyone with upcoming reservations on the train is advised to speak to their travel agent or the company.

Tropical Depression 19-E caused widespread damage in Sinaloa, especially in Los Mochis and the state capital Culiacán. Up to 300,000 homes were affected by flooding. Heavy rains also affected the neighboring states of Chihuahua and Sonora.

Sinaloa Governor Quirino Ordaz Coppel has asked the federal government to provide extra resources through the Natural Disaster Fund (Fonden) to assist victims.

Residents of some affected municipalities, especially Ahome, Navolato and parts of Culiacán, lost everything in the flooding, he said.

The governor also announced today the creation of an 18-million-peso (US $957,300) fund to support small and medium businesses that sustained flood damage in the 11 municipalities where a state of emergency was declared.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Zacatecas archaeological site was inhabited for 18 centuries

By

MND Staff

-

September 27, 2018

0

The Teúl archaeological site in Zacatecas. — Cerro del Teúl archaeological site.

After years of restoration work an archeological site in Zacatecas is expected to open to the public before the end of the year.

Cerro del Teúl (Hill of Teúl) was a ceremonial center for the Caxcan people and was occupied for 18 centuries, much longer than other pre-Hispanic sites such as Teotihuacán in the state of México and Monte Albán in Oaxaca.

Located in the southern municipality of Teúl near the state’s border with Jalisco, the site features pyramids, a circular altar, two plazas and a ball court.

The Zacatecas delegate for the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) told the newspaper Milenio that Cerro del Teúl will be the third archaeological site to open in the state.

“It’s very important to appreciate the archaeological heritage . . .” Carlos Augusto Torres Pérez said. “We have two archaeological zones open to the public: La Quemada and Altavista . . . we believe the opening of this site will complement the cultural offering,” he said.

[wpgmza id=”84″]

“In addition to research and the restoration of the pyramids, we’re also working on the presentation of the site with the aim of providing safe conditions so that people can walk through without any problems,” Torres explained.

He added that municipal and state authorities have contributed resources for the construction of a visitors’ center, the creation of rest areas and to improve access to the site.

“We want to have the infrastructure and the basic spaces necessary to attend to the public” so as to open soon, Torres said.

In pre-Hispanic times, the main activity of the Caxcan people is believed to have been agriculture but there is also evidence that the Cerro del Teúl site was an industrial center, where copper was smelted and ceramics were made.

Excavations have uncovered bells, rings, ceramic artifacts and jewelry made out of shells and green stone.

Some of the relics show influences of cultures from other parts of the country, Torres said.

Peter Jiménez Betts, an archaeologist contributing to the restoration project, said that Cerro del Teúl is one of very few pre-Hispanic sites in the Americas with such a long uninterrupted period of occupation, one that went right up to contact with the colonizing Spanish.

The site was inhabited between 200 B.C. and 1531, he said.

It is located about 215 kilometers southwest of Zacatecas city and 130 kilometers north of Guadalajara.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Right-wing party loses culture, health committees after outcry

By

César Hernández

-

September 27, 2018

0

Members of the arts and culture community protest this morning in Mexico City.

The Morena party has reversed its decision on who will be in charge of the culture and health committees in the lower house of Congress.

An outcry among artists, activists and intellectuals followed the decision to put both committees in the hands of its ally, the right-wing Social Encounter Party (PES).

Social organizations and representatives of the arts community showed up at the Chamber of Deputies this morning to express opposition to the assignments, claiming that the Social Encounter Party was “ultra conservative” and represented a threat to civil rights and freedoms.

In response, Morena and the PES issued a joint statement in which they announced a switch: Morena would take charge of the culture and cinematography committee and that of health while the PES would get the sports and labor committees.

Writers and artists applauded the decision, commending Morena for “listening to the people.”

Source: Milenio

Duarte probe continues; Veracruz governor calls sentence a pardon

By

MND Staff

-

September 27, 2018

0

Veracruz Governor Yunes: not happy with Duarte's sentence.

The nine-year prison sentence handed down to the former governor of Veracruz yesterday does not spell the end of the federal investigation into corruption in the Gulf coast state.

Federal prosecutor Felipe de Jesús Muñoz Vázquez told a press conference today that the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) continues to seek to execute arrest warrants against former state government officials who served during the administration of Javier Duarte and allegedly participated in the ex-governor’s embezzlement scheme.

One of the persons sought has a “biblical name,” Muñoz said, referring to Moisés Mansur, who is believed to have been Duarte’s main front man.

“We have several files and preliminary investigations open . . . against officials who worked in Javier’s administration . . . and I must point out that we even have arrest warrants against them. The investigation continues,” he said.

The ex-governor’s wife, Karime Macías, who is believed to be living in London, England, is also under investigation although the PGR prosecutor didn’t offer details about the case against her.

With regard to Duarte’s sentence, which could see the ex-governor leave prison on parole in just over three years, Muñoz said “when we come across cases like this . . . we’re never satisfied” but added “the law mandates benefits and we have to follow what the law says.”

Before yesterday’s hearing, Duarte negotiated an abbreviated criminal procedure with the PGR which allowed him to avoid an oral trial by pleading guilty to the charges against him in advance.

In exchange, the PGR agreed to seek minimum sentences for each crime he was accused of — both money laundering and organized crime charges have five-year minimums — and cut one year from his sentence.

The one year and five months Duarte has already spent in custody were deducted from his sentence, meaning that he could seek supervised release as soon as October 2021.

The PGR didn’t seek reparations from Duarte for the billions of pesos in state money he is estimated to have embezzled but Muñoz said the 41 properties seized added up to an almost equivalent amount.

“. . . It’s a significant amount, to give an example, we seized . . . three apartments in Santa Fe [Mexico City], each with an approximate value of 45 million pesos . . . also last year an amount of approximately 440 million pesos was returned to the government of Veracruz . . .” he said.

However, the Federal Auditor’s Office has estimated that Duarte could have embezzled more than 61 billion pesos between 2011 and 2016.

Veracruz Governor Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares said in a radio interview this morning that “nobody can be satisfied” with the penalty Duarte received considering the damage he did to the state but added “he pleaded guilty, that’s the important thing.”

Yunes, who has made pursuing Duarte and other allegedly corrupt ex-officials central to his administration, added that he understood the PGR had accepted Duarte’s abbreviated procedure proposal because “it didn’t have sufficient evidence to support the organized crime accusation.”

But in a press conference later the governor took a harder stand, declaring the sentence was more like a pardon. He described it as an outrage to all the citizens of Veracruz.

He estimated the value of the seized properties at 800 million pesos and issued a demand that they be turned over to his state.

In the earlier interview the governor said his administration is hopeful that the government of Guatemala — where Duarte was arrested in April 2017 — will allow the ex-governor to be tried for the crime of enforced disappearance, for which Veracruz authorities have an outstanding arrest warrant.

Veracruz state police, including four high-ranking former security officials, have already been accused of using death squad tactics to forcibly disappear at least 15 people during the ex-governor’s rule.

Authorities in Veracruz are also pursuing Duarte on charges of embezzlement and misuse of powers and Yunes said that he hoped more years would be added to the former governor’s sentence.

Source: Reforma (sp), Milenio (sp), El Financiero (sp)

Cops without guns patrol Acapulco; disarming operation called ‘publicity stunt’

By

MND Staff

-

September 27, 2018

0

A soldier, a federal police officer and a police dog on patrol in Acapulco.

More than 90% of Acapulco’s municipal police returned to work yesterday just one day after federal and state forces took over policing duties in the resort city, disarming local police due to suspected infiltration by criminal gangs.

But the municipal police remain unarmed as army personnel and state authorities continue to review the 1,500 weapons they seized.

Officers were held for more than eight hours following the navy-led disarmament operation but after 10:00 pm Tuesday, those found to have no links to crime groups began to filter out of the Acapulco police (SSP) headquarters.

The newspaper Milenio reported that officers were patrolling the streets yesterday as normal, albeit unarmed, while administrative officials carried on with their usual work at SSP offices.

The city’s police chief, Max Sedano Román, who was also detained Tuesday, has also been released as has the city’s transit police director.

The other four commanders who were detained, including two for “probable responsibility in the crime of homicide,” remain in custody in a prison in Iguala and 18 officers are still under investigation.

The SSP headquarters were still surrounded by military personnel yesterday evening, Milenio said.

Acapulco Mayor Evodio Velázquez Aguirre yesterday reiterated that the municipal government would cooperate with investigations and support the military’s actions.

In contrast, Alejandro Martínez Sidney, president of the Confederation of Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Concanaco) in Guerrero, described the operation to take control of security in Acapulco as a publicity stunt that would have little impact on reducing crime.

“We are certain that it’s just a show for the media that won’t help at all to reduce the crime rates being recorded in the port [city], because with this measure the criminals just change their operational strategy and continue offending,” he told the newspaper El Financiero.

Martínez also said it was “suspicious” that the operation took place just four days before the mayor will leave office.

He said it was regrettable that due to this “dramatic” measure the United States government via its embassy in Mexico City issued an updated travel warning to remind U.S. citizens against traveling to Guerrero due to high crime levels.

Cruise ship companies will also remove Acapulco from their itineraries, Martínez added.

“If they really want to attack the infiltration of criminal groups, this operation should extend to the state Attorney General’s office, [other] prosecutors’ offices, the state [Secretariat of] Public Security, ministerial investigative police, the [National] Gendarmerie, the Federal Police and even the army and navy because they are also infiltrated and nobody is investigating them,” he declared.

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

Vanity Fair magazine recognizes Salma Hayek

By

César Hernández

-

September 27, 2018

0

Salma Hayek at the Vanity Fair presentation in Madrid.

Mexican actress Salma Hayek has been named Personality of the Year by the magazine Vanity Fair Spain.

A gala hosted by the Teatro Real opera house of Madrid was the setting for Hayek’s acknowledgement, a ceremony that also celebrated Vanity Fair Spain’s 10th anniversary.

“Thank you very much, I am honored by this acknowledgement and by sharing this night with all of you,” she told the audience as she stood on the stage with friend and Spanish actress Penélope Cruz, who presented the award.

“Penélope and I had a different type of ambition, we both wanted to be good actresses, and it was important for both of us to also be good people. It was important to not lose our roots, our values, on the way,” said Hayek, 52, adding that in Cruz she found a companion with whom she “navigated the turbid waters of Hollywood.”

“It is very special for me to receive this award from someone who has been a pillar in my life,” she continued.

A prominent voice in the international #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault, Hayek emphasized the importance of empowering women, something she considers “important for the well-being of humanity.”

“It is tragic, unfair and stupid to strip us of the right to be respected as human beings. We are human beings and should at least be respected as one. And in many places and in many ways, we are not given even that minimal respect,” she said.

Hayek was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, in 1966. Her career started in 1988 and has led her to conquer Mexican TV screens and the international silver screen.

Source: Milenio (sp), Revista Vanity Fair (sp)