Medical services suspended in Tabasco after 12,000 workers strike

By

-

September 5, 2018

All but the most essential medical services have been suspended in Tabasco after at least 12,000 health workers went on strike Monday.

The unionized workers, employed by the federal and state governments, began job action after payments to reimburse the workers for the cost of their uniforms were not made last Thursday as scheduled. The amount to be paid is about 50 million pesos (US $2.58 million).

The workers are also protesting a shortage of medications and other supplies and poor infrastructure.

Workers at specialized clinics and hospitals throughout the state joined the strike, leaving only skeleton crews to continue working.

Doctor’s consultations, general medical care and scheduled surgeries have been suspended.

Many patients went home due to the lack of care available. Typical was the case of a patient who appeared in a video on local media: the woman was transferred from the hospital on a gurney while connected to a ventilator. Her family was taking her home to care for her.

Health workers met with representatives of the federal Health Secretariat but no agreement was reached.

The state government issued a statement to inform workers that the monies owed would be paid and that the delays were not due to “disinterest” or “negligence, but due to the budgetary limitations of state finances.”

Source: El Universal (sp)

New austerity measures win unanimous support in Senate

By

César Hernández

-

September 5, 2018

0

Morena party senators introduced spending cuts.

Under the slogan “no more rich parliament and poor people,” the Senate is undergoing a downsizing following the introduction of the government austerity policy by president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Senators gave unanimous approval to the plan presented by the Morena party majority, which represents a 30% reduction in the Senate’s budget.

No longer will the taxpayers pay for senators’ fuel expenses, mobile phone bills, food vouchers, major medical expenses, toll booth fees, the maintenance of their personal vehicles or individualized end-of-employment insurance, among other perks.

The lawmakers will also have to work with less: the political parties represented in the upper chamber will no longer be allocated budgetary funds. Of the existing 64 legislative commissions, only 42 will continue to operate and 16 will be completely eliminated.

The new Senate, sworn in a week ago, also put a cap on professional fee expenses and food costs.

Durango Senator Alejandro González Yáñez said the austerity measures are expected to save 599 million pesos (US $30.9 million) this year, and 1.4 billion ($72 million) in 2019.

The measures, which are intended reduce expenditures to those that are “strictly necessary,” were passed unanimously.

Senators are also considering a pay cut of 13,300 pesos, reducing their monthly salary to 105,000. This would mean that senators no longer earn more than the president.

The president of the house’s political coordination council, Senator Ricardo Monreal Ávila, said the Senate could not “live within a sphere of privilege in front of a world of inequality [and] by no means can it continue to maintain a status quo that is far removed from that which exists outside its precincts.”

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

4 out of 10 earthquake-damaged schools still await repairs in Oaxaca

By

MND Staff

-

September 5, 2018

0

Four out of 10 schools in Oaxaca that were damaged in last September’s first devastating earthquake still haven’t been repaired almost a year after the disaster hit, statistics show.

According to data from Iocifed, a state government institute which oversees the construction of education infrastructure, 2,952 schools in Oaxaca — primarily in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region — sustained some degree of damage in the powerful 8.2-magnitude earthquake that struck just before midnight on September 7, 2017.

Of those, 1,952 have been rebuilt or repaired but the remaining 1,000 are either still under repair or awaiting attention.

In the latter category is the Number 50 Technical Secondary School in Juchitán, where around 800 students attend classes outside under trees, in classrooms that were badly damaged but still haven’t been demolished or in makeshift, partitioned learning spaces built on the basketball court with sheet metal purchased by parents.

The conditions are far from optimal for learning.

In addition to being highly susceptible to seismic activity, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is one of Mexico’s windiest regions and the capital of the country’s growing wind energy sector.

But while gales are good for making wind turbine blades spin, they are not helpful for middle school students trying to concentrate on the educational task at hand.

Reporters from the newspaper Milenio observed students from one class struggling to keep control of the pages of their notebooks as wind blew while they took dictation in the open air, while swirls of dust and an errant soccer ball from a physical education class created further problems.

“It’s not his fault,” said typing teacher Claudia Torija when a student was struck in the head with the wayward ball.

“It’s the fault of the education authorities that haven’t followed up as they should have. In the news, they said that 100% of schools were ready [for the new school year] but we’ve found out that’s a lie,” she said.

“What you can see over there was the base of a two-meter by five-meter building that housed my workshop and the cafeteria. Today, it’s just dirt where rainwater stagnates. Do you think that a young person is going to learn in these conditions? We get distracted, they get hit by balls . . . .”

Héctor Pineda, the school’s academic coordinator, told Milenio that authorities promised to completely rebuild or repair schools in less than six months after the quake.

But six months passed before rubble was even cleared and any new construction work began, he explained.

“Attention was only given to one school [in Juchitán], the Centro Escolar Juchitán, which is already finished. The rest, well they’re under construction that is a little slow, as you can see. In our case only the foundations of four classrooms have been laid but we need at least 18,” Pineda said.

“They [the students] say themselves, ‘Teacher, our notebooks are all battered, when are we going to have a classroom? It’s cold, it’s too hot, what are we going to do when it starts to rain?’”

Iocifed official Mario Bustillos said the state government has been allocated 1.6 billion pesos (US $82.1 million) to carry out repair work but added that a shortage of construction workers had made the rebuilding process “a little slow.”

José Juan Carrasco, principal of the Number 50 school, said that as in other schools still awaiting repairs, students and teachers have grown desperate for adequate learning conditions.

If the problems continue, the CNTE teachers’ union will start to take extreme measures, he warned.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Economic zones sign up energy projects worth US $2.5 billion

By

MND Staff

-

September 4, 2018

0

Coatzacoalcos, energy capital of Mexico.

Mexico’s special economic zones (SEZs) have signed agreements for energy projects worth US $2.5 billion, the executive secretary of the federal initiative has announced.

In an interview with the newspaper Milenio, Enrique Huesca said the Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz; Salina Cruz, Oaxaca; Dos Bocas, Tabasco; and Campeche SEZs will take the lion’s share of investment in the sector because they already boast energy infrastructure that was built by Pemex but is no longer used by the state oil company.

The ability to use existing infrastructure in those zones reduces costs for private companies and makes investment more attractive, he explained.

“Pemex left a quantity of infrastructure that can be reconfigured, which is very valuable . . .” Huesca said.

Coatzacoalcos, a port on the northern coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, has the “undoubted” capacity to become “the natural energy capital of Mexico” because of the number of projects planned for the city, he added.

Investment of $2.2 billion has been committed towards 21 projects in the Gulf Coast port, which in turn is expected to generate 10,000 jobs.

All told, the investment pledged for energy projects in the seven SEZs, which President Enrique Peña Nieto created by decree, account for 36% of all investment attracted so far.

Across all sectors, Huesca said, agreements representing more than $7.1 billion in investment have now been signed, and that Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, is leading the way with almost $3.2 billion committed to 12 projects, which are also expected to create 10,000 jobs.

Other investment secured so far includes $218 million for Progreso, Yucatán, creating 550 jobs; $200 million for Puerto Chiapas, creating 4,200 jobs; $550 million for Salina Cruz, creating 600 jobs; $100 million for Campeche, creating 500 jobs; and $120 million for Tabasco, creating 1,000 jobs.

Huesca highlighted that a lot of the SEZ cities haven’t received investment of such a large scale for many years.

The SEZ executive secretary also said he has kept the incoming federal government up to date about the progress of the planned projects, and informed future officials of the Secretariat of Finance about the rules and regulations of the special zones.

Earlier this year, Peña Nieto announced a 50-billion-peso government stimulus package to attract investment to the SEZs, which offers companies a zero tax rate for 10 years as well as other financial benefits.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Mexico, Canada must work together to tame ‘beast’ in White House: Fox

By

MND Staff

-

September 4, 2018

0

Vicente Fox holds a sign bearing a message for Trump regarding the border wall.

Former president Vicente Fox has urged Canada to join Mexico in the trade deal already reached with the United States so the two countries can work together to confront the “wild beast” in the White House.

In an interview on the Canadian radio show The Current punctuated by his trademark blunt language and provocative humor, Fox also described United States President Donald Trump as “the elephant in between” Mexico and Canada and said that Mexico City and Ottawa need to help each other when dealing with him.

“We must stick together, because the challenges are in the East, [they] are in other economies, and we have to remain strong, remain successful, remain competitive, remain productive,” he told host Anna Maria Tremonti.

“Now we know Trump much better than before and he’s not a good dealer,” added the former National Action Party (PAN) president, who held office from 2000 to 2006.

“It’s clear his game. He attacks first, he tries to reduce the capacities of the opponent, and then he takes all the marbles, and like a good kid, he runs away with the marbles.”

Trump announced last Monday that the United States and Mexican had reached a bilateral deal that could exclude Canada and after four days of negotiations failed to yield a trilateral pact, he reiterated that possibility via Twitter Saturday.

“There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal. If we don’t make a fair deal after decades of abuse, Canada will be out . . .” he wrote.

Like Trump, Fox also has a predilection for making provocative comments on social media, especially when aimed at the U.S. president.

“Mexico is not going to pay for that fucking wall” and “your mouth is the foulest shithole in the world” are among the goading Twitter posts he has directed at the 45th U.S. president.

But in his Canadian radio interview, Fox charged that “you cannot be provocative when you’re in the public arena, when you’re the president of a nation, when you represent 300 million Americans, when you have the power to destroy with atomic bombs or with an army.”

He added that the “presidency deserves a much better leader, a compassionate leader with a human attitude” and that he hoped that the Democratic Party would win control of the U.S. Congress in November midterm elections so that “this wild beast will be domesticated.”

Turning to the topic of drugs, Fox said that Mexico was caught in the middle in the illegal drug trade, sandwiched between drug producing countries such as Colombia and Bolivia to the south and large drug-consuming markets to the north.

The marijuana legalization advocate, who was in Toronto in his capacity as one of the newest members of the board of Canadian medical cannabis company Khiron Life Sciences Corp, said that Mexico itself is not a big drug-consuming nation.

“The big, the huge consumer markets of drugs are the United States, and secondarily Canada,” he said.

In a separate interview with Bloomberg last week, Fox said that marijuana trade should be included in an updated NAFTA deal.

“We can change criminals for businessmen, we can change underground, illegal non-taxpayers into an industry, a sector of the economy.”

Source: CBC (en)

Farm-to-table restaurants give an earthy feel to luxurious Los Cabos

By

Susannah Rigg

-

September 4, 2018

0

When many people think of Los Cabos in Baja California Sur what generally comes to mind is glitz, glamour and all-inclusive hotel options accompanied by luxury excursions.

However, away from the opulence of the tourist corridor is a farm-to-table movement that is focused on organic farming and living a little closer to nature.

The movement is based on four tenets: food security, the proximity of food sourced, self-reliance and sustainability. The three major players in the movement in Los Cabos are from Mexico, Canada and the United States, making a North American union of farms just four miles or so from the pretty town of San José del Cabo.

While it’s hard to fathom how this rocky desert landscape that boasts 300 days of sunshine a year and little rain can have well-functioning farmland, the mixture of mineral-rich soil and intelligent irrigation systems has allowed for lush farms to flourish with abundant crops.

The last 10 years have seen these farms grow, develop restaurants, spas, cooking classes and even offer accommodation options that range from luxurious country cottages to eco-treehouses, providing an entirely different Los Cabos experience.

And unlike many so-called farm-to-table restaurants that end up sourcing organic food from rather far away, these restaurants at the tip of the Baja California peninsula sit upon the very farms that produce their food.

Los Tamarindos

Agricultural engineer-cum-chef Enrique Silva moved to Los Cabos from Sonora to work in the tourist industry in the 1990s. Starting his own restaurant in San José del Cabo (the first organic restaurant in the area), he wanted to source good-quality organic ingredients locally.

However, when he couldn’t find the quality he was looking for he used his background in agricultural engineering to start a small farm. Set on 19 acres of land of an old sugar cane hacienda from the late 1800s is Los Tamarindos, a farm-to-table restaurant that has been open for seven years.

The restaurant, which has the rustic feel of a Tuscan countryside eatery, overlooks the lush farm that produces organic produce all year round. The menu is limited to 14 items that change according to the season and to the produce ready to harvest.

All the fruit and vegetables served at the restaurant are grown on the land, as well as the chicken, quail and duck, the eggs and even the honey. Everything else, like seafood, cheeses and red meats, when used, are locally sourced from other nearby farms or ranges. Among their abundant crops they cultivate 30 different types of tomatoes.

The restaurant offers Mexican and Mediterranean-style cooking classes al fresco. There is also a small outdoor bar, which overlooks the farmland and surrounding mountains and serves cocktails infused with organic, farm-grown herbs.

In keeping with the ideas of “clean living” that go hand in hand with the farm-to-table movement, Los Tamarindos is in the process of building a wellness center for retreats or detox vacations that is scheduled to open in late 2019.

• Visit the website

Acre

Acre (pronounced ack-ray) is a lush oasis in Baja California Sur. Set on 25 acres of land, Acre was created by two Canadians, Cameron Watt and Stuart McPherson, who bought the land because of the mango orchard that was there.

Hurricane Odile flattened the original orchard in 2014 but undeterred, the two men started to replant the area and four years later it is lush, green and blooming with native plants. The open-kitchen concept restaurant, now popular with tourists and locals, offers an innovative and constantly changing menu of fresh farm-to-table cuisine created by chef Kevin Luzande.

The imaginative cocktail menu, inspired by the herbs found on the farm, was created by mixologist Dani Tatarin.

Acre also offers lodgings in the form of private eco-treehouses set in the tropical greenery. There is a pool decorated with hand-painted tiles, a movie theater, a small three-hole golf course and a mile-long track to run on when weather permits.

In addition, they have an animal sanctuary complete with a friendly donkey called Burrito, and they work on adopting out puppies born to street dogs. They also have their own apothecary label using active plant and herb ingredients grown on the farm.

In keeping with the sustainability tenet of the farm-to-table movement, when there is an abundance of food that cannot all be used in the restaurant the staff and local residents are offered food boxes so that they can enjoy the freshly grown produce with their families.

Acre’s down-to-earth feel offers an alternative option for those looking to holiday in Los Cabos. Its location just 10 minutes from a swimmable beach means you can have earthy luxury in the mountains and still get to enjoy a dip in the ocean.

• Visit the website

Flora Farms

Flora Farms is probably the most well known of the Los Cabos farm-to-table options since Adam Levine of Maroon 5 got married there in 2014. Gloria Greene, who grew up on a farm in northern California, started Flora Farms with her husband Patrick in 1996 and it has since grown to include a 125-acre ranch in nearby Santa Anita, where they raise animals such pigs, goats, chickens and rabbits.

In 2010 they opened a restaurant on the farm and all the food served in Flora’s Field Kitchen, a picturesque open-air restaurant, is either grown or reared on the farmland rich with heirloom vegetables and organic herbs or on the nearby ranch.

There is also a wood-fire oven that is used to bake all the bread fresh each day. There are onsite cottages that can be rented for laid-back vacations on the organic farm, just a mile from the sea but far away from it all.

With a spa, art classes, cooking classes and farm tours as well as freshly prepared organic meals, it might also be enough to tempt vacationers away from their beachfront hotels for a day in the mountains.

• Visit the website

Susannah Rigg is a freelance writer and Mexico specialist based in Mexico City. Her work has been published by BBC Travel, Condé Nast Traveler, CNN Travel and The Independent UK among others. Find out more about Susannah on her website.

Dogs get their own park in León, Guanajuato

By

César Hernández

-

September 4, 2018

0

New park for dogs in León, Guanajuato. — New park created especially for dogs.

The country’s largest dog park was dedicated yesterday in León, Guanajuato, providing facilities such as a jogging track, wading pool, green space, an artificial lake, veterinary services and training areas.

Perro Parque is located on 2.5 hectares of land next to the León zoo and was created with a 2.5-million-peso investment (US $129,000) by the zoo and private contributions.

León Mayor Héctor López Santillana said the park is evidence of a society that “doesn’t discriminate.”

“An event like this leads us to recover respect and the integration of society, of our community . . . allowing us to develop in harmony,” said the mayor during the dedication ceremony.

The president of the León Zoological Park council, Francisco Muñoz López, said the goal of the dog park is to “promote contact with nature and respect for all living beings.”

Mexican-American dog behaviorist Cesar Millan was also in attendance, and said the new facility was an example of the way Mexicans open their hearts to animals.

He said he was moved to see the creation of such a park, as his experience growing up in Culiacán, Sinaloa, is one repeated throughout the country: dogs living on rooftops or wandering loose in the streets, “or with lemon necklaces to cure their distemper.”

The dog park will officially open its doors to the canine and human public tomorrow. Admittance is 10 pesos, and the only requirement is that dogs be fully vaccinated.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Number of vehicles in 12 CDMX municipalities has soared 600% since 2000

By

MND Staff

-

September 4, 2018

0

vehicle numbers mexico city — In green are figures from 2000 and in red those from 2017.

The number of vehicles in 12 densely populated México state municipalities that form part of the greater Mexico City metropolitan area has increased on average by 600% since the year 2000, statistics show.

The surge in numbers far outpaces population growth, according to census results, which show that the number of people living in the same 12 municipalities increased from 7.23 million in 2000 to 8.37 million in 2015, a much more modest increase of 15.5%.

The municipalities where the 600% increase occurred are, in order of population, Ecatepec, Nezahualcóyotl, Naucalpan, Chimalhuacán, Tlalnepantla, Tultitlán, Cuatitlán Izcalli, Atizapán de Zaragoza, Ixtapaluca, Chalco, Coacalco and Huixquilucan.

Data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) showed that in 2017 there were 4.6 million cars in those 12 Valley of Mexico municipalities, the most populous in the Mexico City/México state conurbation, compared to just 663,000 in the year 2000.

Added to those in the 16 boroughs of Mexico City proper — where the number of vehicles has increased by a more moderate 100% from 2.5 million in 2000 to 5 million in 2017 — there are at least 9.6 million cars in the immense sprawl of the megalopolis, whose total population is estimated at around 21 million.

It’s no wonder that the TomTom Traffic Index ranks the Mexican capital as the world’s most traffic congested city, one in which motorists can expect to spend an additional 227 hours a year — nine and a half full days — in traffic on top of their regular travel time.

In terms of sheer numbers, the municipality that recorded the biggest increase in vehicles was Ecatepec, where the number went from 147,000 in 2000 to just over one million in 2017, or 600% more.

However, in Chimalhuacán — voted the worst city in Mexico in which to live in a recent survey — the number of cars multiplied by a factor of 17, while in Nezahualcóyotl, located to the immediate east of Mexico City, the number climbed 11-fold from 70,000 at the start of the century to 776,000 in the most recent count.

Ixtapaluca and Huixquilucan also recorded increases of above 1,000%.

There are now more cars in the 12 crowded México state municipalities than in all of the state’s 113 other municipalities combined, Inegi data shows.

Bernardo Baranda, Latin America director at the global nonprofit The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), says the exponential increase in the number of vehicles in greater Mexico City is the result of federal and state government policies that have favored road building over investment in public transit infrastructure.

Another factor has been the construction of large-scale residential developments in outlying metropolitan areas.

“This motorization is the result of a development model from the last century. The use of cars has to be discouraged by promoting public transit and improving [infrastructure] for journeys on foot or by bicycle . . . Traffic congestion brings about high economic and health costs,” he said.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Police arrest two suspected instigators of Puebla lynching

By

César Hernández

-

September 4, 2018

0

Two men have been arrested on suspicion of being the main instigators of the August 29 lynching of two innocent men in San Vicente Boquerón, Acatlán de Osorio.

One of the two, identified as Manuel N., died a few hours after being detained. An official explained that the man succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver.

The other, Petronilo Raymundo N., was charged yesterday with homicide, property damage and injuring public officials and is being held in preventative custody.

Wednesday’s lynching was recorded on video and posted online by several witnesses, giving authorities the opportunity to identify the two men as the instigators of the lynch mob.

The victims, a 56-year-old man and his 21-year-old nephew, were accused of being child kidnappers. The two were detained by local police but local citizens took them by force , tied them up, doused them with gasoline and set them on fire in front of the police station.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Mayor-elect assassinated in Puebla; criminal links suspected

By

Tony Richards

-

September 4, 2018

0

Victim's car was covered in a tarp to prevent photos.

The assassination late yesterday of a mayor-elect in the state of Puebla could have been to settle scores, said the state’s Public Security Secretariat.

Félix Aguilar Caballero, who won the July 1 election for mayor of Nopalucan, was traveling on the Nopalucan-Soltepec highway when he was intercepted by two vehicles, whose occupants shot and killed him in the community of Santa María Ixtiyucan.

A state security official said there were suspicions that the Green Party mayor-elect was involved in petroleum theft and train robberies.

After the shooting, paramedics confirmed Aguilar’s death but about 100 people gathered at the scene and initially refused to allow either state or municipal police to approach Aguilar’s vehicle, which they covered with a tarp to prevent photographs being taken of the victim.

The newspaper Página Negra reported last month that six Puebla mayors have been assassinated in the last five years. Although arrests have been made in two of the cases, none of the six has been solved.

Aguilar, 60, was scheduled to take office October 15.

Source: e-consulta (sp)