Man with record of sexual assault arrested in murder of eight-year-old

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July 19, 2018

The suspect and Ana Lizbeth, whose body was found Tuesday.

A 37-year-old man arrested yesterday in Nuevo León is the principal suspect in the abduction and murder of an eight-year-old girl on Sunday.

Juan Fernando N was taken into custody in the city of Juárez after a tip from a private citizen. The state Attorney General had offered a reward of 500,000 pesos (US $26,000) for information leading to the arrest of the killer.

Ana Lizbeth Polina Ramírez was taken in Juárez’s Vistas del Río neighborhood near an office where her mother worked. Surveillance video captured an adult male approach the girl and talk to her outside the building.

Her body was found on Tuesday on a vacant lot in the same neighborhood.

The suspect in the video was identified as a man with a criminal record for sexual assault against minors and had served seven years in jail.

The Attorney General’s office said Ana Lizbeth died of asphyxiation on Sunday night. No further details were released “to preserve the dignity of the victim and her family.”

Today, members of Ana Lizbeth’s family were demanding the death penalty, a punishment prohibited under Mexican law.

Also today, state officials said the suspect had been sought since 2014 for violating a young girl, and had served as a police officer in Monterrey 18 years ago.

Meanwhile, the state is investigating why it took the Juárez municipal police 12 hours to report the child’s disappearance.

Her parents reported she was missing at about 11:00pm Sunday but it wasn’t until 7:00am Monday that state authorities were notified, triggering an Amber Alert.

Residents of Vistas del Río protested today against insecurity and the absence of a police presence in the area. Poor street lighting and many abandoned houses are also causes for concern, they said.

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

UPDATED: This story was updated with new information at 4:45pm Thursday, July 19.

No damage reported after 5.9 earthquake in Oaxaca

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Tony Richards

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July 19, 2018

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The quake's epicenter is marked in orange. national seismological service

The epicenter of an earthquake measuring 5.9 this morning was in Oaxaca but it was felt as far as Mexico City.

The quake was recorded at 8:31 near Huajuapan de León, 230 kilometers southeast of the capital, the National Seismological Service reported.

There have been no reports of damage.

“As of this moment at the locations where the seismic alert sounded and the earthquake was felt Civil Protection units have not reported any damage,” said national Civil Protection chief Luis Felipe Puente.

In Mexico City, security officials said the flyover protocol had been activated to conduct an aerial inspection to identify damage. Metrobús service was suspended to allow for evacuation of buildings near the system’s routes.

The quake’s epicenter was nine kilometers northwest of Huajuapan, a city of about 45,000 in the north of Oaxaca’s Mixteca region.

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

Court dismisses case against self-defense force founder Mireles

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MND Staff

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July 18, 2018

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A federal court yesterday dismissed the case against Michoacán self-defense force founder José Manuel Mireles, who was arrested and imprisoned in 2014 for possession of unauthorized weapons.

Mireles was released in May last year following the introduction of the new criminal justice system because it doesn’t classify his crime as serious but yesterday’s ruling marks a definitive end to the proceedings against him, meaning that his freedom is absolute.

Federal authorities arrested Mireles, a medical doctor, in June 2014 on charges of crimes against public health and possession of restricted weapons and he spent almost three years in jails in Sonora and Nayarit.

The latest ruling is the second legal victory for Mireles since he was released after a judge ruled in November last year that he was not guilty of inciting violence.

The federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) accused Mireles of the crime because on July 11, 2017, via a post on his Twitter account, he called on members of self-defense groups in Michoacán to take up arms and defend the municipality of Tepalcatepec against an army deployment.

The PGR said that Mireles’ actions violated his bail conditions, which stipulated that he could not have any contact with self-defense group members or reoffend in any way.

It considered his conduct as grounds for him to be returned to prison.

Although the judge said that Mireles’ actions were regrettable, she charged that he was not guilty of inciting violence because he had not specified what kind of weapons should be used by the recipients of his message.

Mireles took up arms and encouraged others to do so in 2013 in an effort to bring safety and security to his home state of Michoacán, which had been victimized by several criminal organizations, the most notorious being the Knights Templar Cartel, or Caballeros Templarios.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Analyst who predicted stronger peso is still bullish on the currency

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Tony Richards

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July 18, 2018

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The peso has strengthened since the election. bloomberg

One of just two analysts who predicted the peso would strengthen after the July 1 election is still bullish, Bloomberg reported today.

Ilya Gofshteyn at Standard Chartered Bank in New York forecast the currency would strengthen past 19 to the dollar during this quarter.

It has gained more than 5% since the election to about 18.85 per dollar, the best performance among more than 40 currencies tracked by Bloomberg.

Now it will reach 18 to the dollar by the end of the year, predicts Gofshteyn, who expects a new NAFTA agreement by early next year.

A United States trade war with China would be good for Mexico as companies move their purchases to Mexico to avoid tariffs on Chinese goods. Barriers for Chinese goods mean an advantage for Mexican producers, the analyst said.

Source: Bloomberg (en)

Legalizing drugs is on the table in AMLO’s quest for peace

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MND Staff

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July 18, 2018

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Sánchez: do whatever is necessary for peace.

Mexico’s next interior secretary says president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has given her a “blank check” to explore the possibility of legalizing drugs as well as any other measures that could help restore peace to the country.

Olga Sánchez Cordero, a former Supreme Court judge, said López Obrador is familiar with her writings and public comments about drug legalization and told her at a meeting Saturday that she had “a blank check, whatever is necessary to pacify this country, let’s open the debate.”

Speaking at a university seminar about violence and peace, Sánchez said that over the past 10 years successive federal governments have been incapable of putting an end to violence and have claimed that the insecurity problem isn’t as bad as it really is.

“We’re not going to pretend that nothing’s happening in Mexico . . . Mexico is immersed in violence. We’re a country with tens of thousands of missing people. We have to transcend the legal truth, go further . . .” she said.

Sánchez said it’s crucial to start talking about a “transitional justice system” that would include a reduction in prison sentences for criminals that shed light on unsolved cases, reparations for victims of crime, an amnesty program and the establishment of truth and investigative commissions.

The last proposal is consistent with a federal court order last month that a truth and justice commission be created to undertake a new investigation into the case of the 43 students who disappeared in Guerrero in 2014 after it ruled that the original probe was flawed.

López Obrador, who won the July 1 presidential election in a landslide, was heavily criticized for his amnesty proposal during the presidential campaign, especially by his main rivals who charged that it was evidence that he would be soft on crime.

But the prospective interior secretary said yesterday that those who reject the president-elect’s proposals to combat violence deny that there is a problem in the first place.

“Those who question the possibility of starting to talk about another way of combating violence, not with more violence, question whether we are in a conflict and whether we need new institutions and systems to confront this reality,” Sánchez said.

Earlier this month, she and prospective public security secretary Alfonso Durazo told a press conference that women, children and youth forcibly recruited by organized crime would be the main focus of an amnesty law.

The López Obrador-led administration also plans to gradually withdraw the military from public security duties on the nation’s streets and instead focus on improving training, pay and conditions for the nation’s police.

The military-based war on drugs was introduced by former president Felipe Calderón in 2006 and continued under the current administration led by President Enrique Peña Nieto.

However, despite the increased military presence, homicide rates have continued to rise, leading many analysts to conclude that the strategy has failed.

More than 200,000 homicides have been recorded since the war on drugs started and 2017 was the most violent year in Mexico in at least two decades.

“A transitional justice system for Mexico is possible and urgent, not just for the victims of the violence but for all of Mexican society,” Sánchez said.

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

VivaAerobus orders 25 new aircraft from Airbus

By

César Hernández

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July 18, 2018

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An illustration of Viva's new Airbus A321neo.

VivaAerobus has announced the purchase of 25 new Airbus A321neo aircraft, rounding up its fleet to 80 airplanes.

The ultra-low-cost airline first ordered 52 A320 aircraft in 2013, and ordered three more in the last two years.

The A321neo aircraft has a 240-seat configuration, 54 more than the A320.

Price tag on the 25 planes is US $3.5 billion.

VivaAerobus CEO Gian Carlo Nucci said “this investment reflects the confidence shareholders, workers and passengers have in Viva’s business model, and represents a step forward in the consolidation of VivaAerobus’ ongoing and disciplined expansion.”

The airline described the purchase as historic. It is also the second largest after the 2013 purchase, which amounted to more than $5 billion.

Chief commercial officer Eric Schulz said VivaAerobus will benefit from the additional capacity of the A321neo, its superior performance and lower operational costs, meeting the increasing demand for low-cost air travel in Mexico.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Chef at world’s best restaurant to offer charity dinners in Cancún

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César Hernández

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July 18, 2018

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Chef Bottura: charity dinners in Cancún. — Chef Bottura: proceeds will go to his charitable organization.

The owner of the world’s best restaurant is preparing to offer two charity meals in Cancún next month.

Massimo Bottura’s Osteria Francescana located in Modena, Italy, was ranked No. 1 this year on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. It became the first Italian restaurant to earn the award in 2016 and ranked second in 2015 and third in 2013 and 2014.

Bottura will travel to Mexico next month to prepare two dinners on August 17 and 18 at the Moon Palace Hotel.

Tickets will cost US $600 but the proceeds will go to Bottura’s non-profit organization, Food for Soul. Founded in 2016, its goal is to encourage public, private and non-profit organizations to create and sustain community kitchens around the world, as well as to engage professionals from different fields, including chefs, artists, designers, and food suppliers, to promote an alternative approach to building community projects.

The Italian chef’s altruism took him to Brazil in 2016 for the Rio Olympic Games, where he set up a kitchen in a city slum for 60 days.

Bottura is driven not by money but transformation. Interviewed after this year’s win, the chef told Forbes Life that “Cooking is a poetic act that promotes social transformation. The interest I have in this business goes as far as it allows me to live my dream. But I’m not interested in money; if that were the case, I would be an oil dealer like my father, or a Ferrari engineer. Happiness is not that, it’s something else.”

Source: El Universal (sp)

Communal landowners in Coahuila take their fight to Mexico City

By

MND Staff

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July 18, 2018

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Communal landowners block a road during a protest over the land issue last year.

A group of communal landowners from Coahuila has pledged to take the fight to defend their land to Mexico City, charging that municipal authorities in their home state have acted corruptly and allowed impunity to prosper.

The landowners, or comuneros, from Cerro de la Gloria in the municipality of Monclova charge that local authorities have allowed the dispossession of their lands even though they have title deeds and a 1923 presidential resolution that prove they are the rightful owners.

The group said it has filed 10 criminal complaints against the brothers Arturo and Alfredo González Palma, who they claim have illegally entered their property and removed their livestock.

The complaints relate to assault, property damage, dispossession of land and falsification of documents among other crimes, but none has been acted upon.

The comuneros said they will seek an audience with the transition team of president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the capital and also take their case to the central offices of the Secretariat of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning (Sedatu) in order to show that they are the legitimate owners of the land.

If necessary, the landowners said, they would stage a protest or go on a hunger strike in order to be heard.

The comuneros claim that the former mayor of Monclova, Gerardo García, and the ex-director of the city’s land registry office colluded with the González Palma brothers by providing them with local government plans and authorizations that allowed them to falsify ownership documents that supposedly superseded their titles.

However, when they asked for access to the same plans at municipal offices, the landowners said that their requests were denied.

They also said that García is the owner of a water park located between their land and a property owned by the González Palma brothers, adding that they would like to know how he acquired the property, what price he paid for it, what commitments he made and what his future plans for the land are.

Source: Noticias del Sol de la Laguna (sp)

Indigenous leader kidnapped, assassinated in Oaxaca

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César Hernández

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July 18, 2018

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Salchi, Oaxaca, where an indigenous leader was killed yesterday.

The regional coordinator of an indigenous rights association was kidnapped and murdered yesterday in Oaxaca.

Abraham Hernández González of the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights (Codedi) was kidnapped in the town of Salchi in the coastal municipality of San Pedro Pochutla.

Witnesses said masked men carrying arms and wearing military-like uniforms abducted the human rights activist at around 11:30 yesterday morning at a hotel where he worked as manager.

Codedi leader Abraham Ramírez Vázquez said a body that was later found on a vacant lot in the neighboring town of Cuatunalco had been positively identified as González by his daughter.

Ramírez suggested that the incident might have been linked to a dispute between the hotel and a group of people that claim ownership of the property.

It was the second attack against Codedi members this year. In February, three members of the non-governmental organization were traveling from the city of Oaxaca to the town of Santiago Xanica, in Miahuatlán, when they were ambushed by armed civilians.

The crime remains unsolved but Codedi has claimed that the state government of Alejandro Murat Hinojosa was behind it.

Codedi member Cristóbal Ramírez said at the time that the government of Oaxaca was targeting social leaders who oppose the extraction of the state’s natural resources, development projects and the creation of special economic zones.

The rights activist also said it was “no coincidence” that the three men were murdered after leaving a meeting with state officials.

Source: NVI Noticias (sp), Despertar de Oaxaca (sp)

Disposable plastic bags, utensils will be banned in Ensenada

By

César Hernández

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July 18, 2018

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Volunteers clean up litter from a beach in Manzanillo, Colima.

Disposable plastic bags and utensils will be banned at commercial establishments in the municipality of Ensenada, Baja California, starting next year.

The new environmental policy will be implemented in tandem with an awareness campaign to inform the public about its benefits.

Its purpose is to help address the problem of plastics accumulating in the world’s oceans, and to promote the creation of more public policies aimed at the reduction and elimination of the use of plastic.

Mayor Marco Novelo commended council member Jorge Emilio Martínez for coming up with the environmentally-friendly policy, adding that it will contribute to improving the environment and the wellbeing of Ensenada.

The ban of single-use plastic items is part of a broader array of environmental actions undertaken by the municipal council.

In May, it joined the global Clean Seas campaign, launched in February 2017 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to engage governments, the general public, civil society and the private sector in the fight against plastic marine litter.

Source: Reforma (sp)