Supply chains won’t function well under bilateral pact: trade negotiator

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September 3, 2018

Aerospace is an important beneficiary of NAFTA production chains.

Failure to reach a trilateral trade agreement in North America would make the region less attractive to foreign investors, drive up production costs and have a negative impact on consumers, according to a former Mexican trade official.

Antonio Ortiz Mena, a member of the Mexican team that negotiated the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), told the newspaper Milenio that if Canada isn’t brought into the deal already reached by Mexico and the United States, production chains will face higher costs and lose efficiency.

“Production chains that have been established in North America have operated for a quarter of a century with regional rules in the automotive sector but also in the aerospace sector and the manufacturing sector in general. If you change the trilateral rules for a collection of bilateral ones, that will bring problems,” he said.

Ortiz, now a senior vice-president at the business strategy firm Albright Stonebridge Group, explained that reduced efficiency and higher costs would result in a loss of export markets for North American-made products due to strong competition from other regions of the world, especially Asia and Europe.

“One additional negative consequence is that North America would be less attractive for foreign investment from outside the region,” he added, explaining that foreign companies that make products in one of the three NAFTA countries operate under the same regional trade rules as a Mexican, American or Canadian company.

United States President Donald Trump notified the U.S. Congress Friday that his administration intends to sign a revised trade agreement in 90 days with Mexico — and Canada, if the latter “is willing” — after talks aimed at including Canada in the pact failed to meet the Friday deadline he set.

Talks are set to continue this week but Trump has signaled that if Canada wants to be part of a new trilateral pact, it will have to accept U.S. terms that appear non-negotiable.

The U.S. president said on Twitter Saturday that “there is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal.”

In the same tweet, Trump added: “If we don’t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out. Congress should not interfere w/ these negotiations or I will simply terminate NAFTA entirely & we will be far better off . . .”

In a second continuing tweet, he reiterated his view that “NAFTA was one of the WORST trade deals ever made” and charged “we make new deal or we go back to pre-NAFTA!”

Unnamed Canadian officials told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that they wouldn’t respond to Trump’s Twitter tirade, adding that it wasn’t the first time he has used intimidatory tactics during trade talks.

The comments are “designed to pressure us and it’s not going to work,” they said.

A spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, asked to comment on Trump’s threats, declined to address them directly.

“As we’ve said all week, we’re working toward a modernized NAFTA, a modernized NAFTA that will be good for Canada and the middle class,” Cameron Ahmad said. “We will only sign a good deal and we will not negotiate in public.”

Canada’s opposition Conservative Party was critical of the absence of a new trade deal with the United States, charging that the Canadian government’s negotiation was “botched” and that Canada had been left on the sidelines in talks between Mexico and the U.S.

“The Mexicans simply outhustled us,” said Lisa Raitt, the party’s deputy leader.

“They knew they needed to get a deal, how important it was to their country. And when they had the opportunity to move their auto talks on bilateral standards — or auto tariffs — to the next level of talking about everything else, including intellectual property and sunset clauses, they took the opportunity.”

However, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president Perrin Beatty took a different view, stressing that Mexico had negotiated with the United States for five weeks whereas Canada only had four days last week to try to resolve the differences with its neighbor. He added that Canada should continue to work towards reaching a successful deal.

Mexican officials, and president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador and members of his team, have said consistently that Canada should be included in an updated NAFTA.

The Secretariat of Foreign Affairs and the Secretariat of Economy said in a joint statement Friday that the “government of Mexico will continue to closely monitor” the negotiations between the United States and Canada and “it would continue promoting an agreement of which Canada is part.”

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

Veracruz police avert lynching of suspected child snatchers

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Tony Richards

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September 3, 2018

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Police at the scene of last night's confrontation.

Police stepped in and prevented the lynching of two people last night in Papantla, Veraruz.

Local citizens apprehended two people traveling in a taxi from nearby Poza Rica and accused them of being child snatchers.

The driver of the taxi explained that his passenger was his wife and an eye doctor and had been called by some local residents to conduct vision tests.

But the story didn’t wash with the presumed leader of the group of residents, an older man wearing a mask, according to a report by the digital newspaper e-consulta. The taxi was set on fire and the couple were beaten, tied up and threatened with being set on fire as well.

Police arrived at that point and attempted to negotiate the release of the two captives, but the lynch mob declined. Police called in reinforcements and rescued the couple.

It was the 41^st time this year that would-be lynching victims were rescued by authorities, and the third lynching incident in the past week. In the other two cases, four people were burned alive in Puebla and Hidalgo.

Following those incidents, the National Human Rights Commission issued a call on Saturday for authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and punish the instigators.

Commission chief Luis Raúl González Pérez warned that as long as the state does not fulfil its obligations to prevent impunity and provide the minimal conditions for security there will be distrust of institutions and desperation among citizens to see justice served.

The situation, he said, leaves the door open for more lynchings.

The commission said there have been 25 deaths from lynching so far this year.

Source: e-consulta (sp), Milenio (sp)

Seatbelt infraction leads to synthetic drug bust

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César Hernández

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September 3, 2018

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Drums of suspected synthetic drug precursor discovered after seatbelt infraction. — Drums of suspected synthetic drug precursor.

A driver who neglected to fasten his seatbelt was busted yesterday with 8.4 tonnes of synthetic drug ingredients in Nayarit.

The National Security Commission said Federal Police halted a cargo truck on the Tepic-Mazatlán highway when they observed the driver was not wearing a seatbelt.

A routine inspection of the truck’s cargo and its documentation followed but the information provided by the driver did not withstand close scrutiny: police found inconsistencies in the return address and destination data, as well as in the cargo’s total weight.

An inspection of the shipment revealed 40 blue plastic drums containing 8.4 tonnes of a chemical substance believed to be a crystal methamphetamine precursor.

The driver, the truck and the cargo were placed in the custody of a prosecutor’s office.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Dark days in Yucatán municipality due to unpaid CFE account

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César Hernández

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September 3, 2018

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All is dark at the municipal offices after the electricity was cut off last April.

These are dark times for Motul, Yucatán, particularly at municipal headquarters.

The new mayor was sworn in Saturday, but the ceremony would have been conducted in the dark were it not for rented portable generators: the electricity was cut off Thursday due to an overdue account.

Mayor Roger Aguilar Arroyo claimed during the swearing-in ceremony that his predecessor, Vicente Euán Andueza, had left the municipality in arrears with the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). So municipal headquarters, several adjacent streets and the main square of Motul have no power.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party mayor said the National Action Party’s Euán left outstanding debt of 3 million pesos (US $156,000), 2 million of which is owed to the CFE.

The new mayor pledged to negotiate a payment plan with the federal utility to have the administration’s power reconnected.

The electricity was cut off four times during Euán’s three-year term. He has blamed his own predecessor for the unpaid debt.

Source: El Universal (sp)

1,000 homes flooded in México state after Lerma river bursts its banks

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MND Staff

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September 3, 2018

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Flood victims move their belongings to higher ground.

Around 1,000 homes were flooded in México state Saturday after the Lerma river burst its banks following heavy rains, state authorities said.

The river, Mexico’s second longest, overflowed in the municipality of San Mateo Atenco, about 15 kilometers east of the state capital Toluca.

Homes and agricultural fields in the neighborhood of San Pedro were directly affected by the river runoff, which overwhelmed drainage systems and caused more flooding of houses in the neighborhoods of San Juan, San Nicolás, San Francisco, Santiago and Guadalupe.

Personnel from the army, the state Secretariat of Security, the municipal police and Civil Protection services carried out an operation to assist affected residents.

Staff from the México state Water Commission (Caem) and the National Water Commission (Conagua) placed thousands of sandbags and rocks along the river bank to prevent further flooding while municipal authorities set up four shelters for affected residents.

“It was about three o’clock in the morning [Saturday] when we heard a lot of voices and went outside to find that there was already drainage water approaching so we started to raise the things in our home on breeze blocks,” said Francisco Valencia, a resident of San Juan.

“It’s been about 12 or 13 years since the last flood as big as this one, we hadn’t suffered since then with wastewater [flooding] but unfortunately it’s happened to us again . . .”

Virginia Maldonado, a resident of the San Francisco neighborhood, told the newspaper Reforma that she was concerned about health problems that the flooding could cause.

“The bad thing for us is that blood from the municipal abattoir came in [to our home], all the water that came in is from the drains. The smell and the risk of infections and diseases is what is affecting us,” she said.

Officials from the Secretariat of Health were deployed to evaluate health risks in the flood-affected areas.

State Civil Protection services said this morning that joint efforts to “restore normality” to the lives of San Mateo Atenco residents are continuing but are expected to conclude shortly.

More heavy rain, possibly accompanied by an electrical storm and hail, is forecast for México state later today, the National Meteorological Service said, while the state government warned residents via Twitter to take precautions.

Source: Reforma (sp), Capital (sp)

New Congress, old president: Peña Nieto delivers his final report

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MND Staff

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September 1, 2018

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Peña Nieto and Trump in Mexico City in 2016: the latter's visit was not well received by Mexicans.

President Enrique Peña Nieto today submitted his sixth and final government report to the new federal Congress but it won’t be until Monday that the details will be made public.

Peña Nieto, whose six-year term will conclude on November 30, said in a statement that on Monday, “in an act of accountability for all Mexicans, I will address the nation from the National Palace.”

The statement, based on remarks the president made at a business event this week, also outlined a range of achievements of his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) administration.

They include “14 structural reforms” that “pursued three main objectives: to strengthen and expand the rights of Mexicans, strengthen the democratic regime and freedoms and increase the productivity and competitiveness of the economy.

Peña Nieto said that “the implementation of these reforms is already under way, and some of their benefits are already being felt in the everyday lives of Mexicans, although their full scope will be seen in the medium term.”

Among the most prominent were the energy reform, which opened up the oil and retail petroleum sectors to foreign and private companies after a 75-year state monopoly, and the educational reform, which made teacher evaluations compulsory but faced vehement opposition from the powerful CNTE teachers’ union.

The president also highlighted the successful resolution of differences with the United States “within the framework of the North American Free Trade Agreement“ (NAFTA) following the announcement Monday that a bilateral deal had been reached.

“We established, by mutual agreement, new rules and procedures that provide certainty for investments,” Peña Nieto said.

Talks in Washington D.C. this week aimed but ultimately failed to bring Canada into the deal. However, negotiations will continue next week.

The statement also cited the new Mexico City International Airport project and the Mexico City-Toluca train project as significant achievements, although neither has yet been completed and both are behind schedule.

“Both of these public works, which will extend beyond this administration, will facilitate the everyday life of the inhabitants of Mexico City and make it even more attractive for national and international tourists,” Peña Nieto said.

In the lead-up to his address Monday, Peña Nieto has also posted a series of videos to his social media accounts in which he talks up the government’s achievements and also addresses some of the most contentious and controversial events that occurred during his administration.

Speaking about the disappearance of 43 teacher-training students in Iguala, Guerrero, in September 2014, the president said he stands by the “historical truth” declared by investigators that the students were killed by a crime gang which then burned their bodies.

On the visit of United States President Donald Trump to Mexico while he was a candidate in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Peña Nieto said he “underestimated the great social resentment there was for President Trump.”

However, he also defended the meeting, stating that “it left the door open for dialogue and a closer relationship with the new government of the United States.”

In another video, Peña Nieto said he regretted the so-called “casa blanca” (white house) scandal, in which a favored government contractor built a mansion for his family.

However, the president added that the arrangement was “strictly legal” although he conceded that it “impacted negatively on the credibility of the government, the credibility of the institution of the presidency and the credibility of the administration.

Those negative impacts, along with widespread dissatisfaction with the absence of any measurable economic improvement due to the reforms, a security situation that has steadily worsened and indications that corruption is seemingly as bad as it ever was have left Peña Nieto extremely unpopular and his party standing in third place after the July 1 elections.

At 5:00pm today, Interior Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida handed over the report to the president of the Chamber of Deputies, who will make it available to all deputies and senators for review.

Everyone else will see the details on Monday.

Mexico News Daily

IPN students develop robot to rescue disaster victims

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MND Staff

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September 1, 2018

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A group of students from the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) has developed a rescue robot capable of detecting the presence of earthquake survivors trapped under rubble.

Called Heiland, which means savior in German, the robot was designed to aid human and canine rescue workers when carrying out rescue missions in the aftermath of quakes or other natural disasters.

The robot prototype consists of two fiberglass boxes joined at the center in a form similar to the body of an ant, four wheels, an FPV (first-person view) camera that sends images in real time and a passive infrared sensor, which can detect body heat from the bodies of people or animals even if they are not visible to the camera.

It also uses a Hall effect sensor and a magnetic pick-up sensor to help it navigate amid rubble and regain its balance in the case of sustaining a fall and flipping over.

The sensors are programmed by an Arduino Mega micro-controller board and the robot is manipulated by a joystick remote control, with which forward, reverse and turn commands can be made within a radius of 100 meters.

The remote control has a built-in LCD screen to which the camera images are transmitted.

Heiland is the brainchild of Itzeli Camacho Vargas, Abril Suárez López, Gerardo Huerta Pérez, Eduardo Salmerón Sánchez and José Sánchez Ramírez, all of whom are studying for IPN’s Technical Studies in Digital Systems degree.

They said they also plan to develop an interface that will enable information such as the number of people the robot detects to be sent back to the person controlling the device.

Other possible future improvements include adding a sensor to the robot that can detect gas leaks and the development of a mobile application that will allow Heiland to be operated via a cellphone or tablet.

“What we are planning is for the robot to be able to support rescue groups and reduce the risk of losing human and canine lives in the search for people trapped by the collapse of homes or buildings because of a natural disaster, like the earthquake that occurred on September 19 last year,” the students said.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Over 2 tonnes of cocaine seized aboard small boat off Oaxaca

By

Tony Richards

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September 1, 2018

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Suspicions over a small boat traveling offshore near the coast of Oaxaca led to the seizure this week of more than two tonnes of cocaine.

An armed forces aircraft detected the boat 150 nautical miles (278 kilometers) southwest of the tourist destination of Puerto Escondido. Using another aircraft, a helicopter and four vessels the boat was intercepted and its cargo seized.

The eight people aboard — four Mexicans, three Colombians and a Canadian — were taken into custody.

The boat was carrying 2.25 tonnes of the drug in 66 packages.

Another, similar seizure was made three weeks ago when security forces intercepted a small boat off Guerrero. It was carrying nearly two tonnes of cocaine.

Federal forces have seized a record amount of cocaine from smugglers off the Pacific coast this year.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Fake social media messages create fear that feeds lynch mobs

By

MND Staff

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September 1, 2018

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Relatives in the funeral procession for lynching victims.

Rumors fanned by social media had fatal consequences in two Mexican states this week.

Four apparently innocent people were beaten and burned alive in two separate incidents in Puebla and Hidalgo after residents accused them of being child snatchers.

Behind both lynchings was hysteria whipped up by fake messages circulating on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and the messaging service WhatsApp, which supposedly served to alert citizens in several states that a wave of kidnappings was taking place.

The gist of many messages was “don’t leave your kids alone, there’s a band of child snatchers within our midst.”

Some messages claimed that children are being abducted by organ-trafficking rings while others called for vigilante justice for anyone believed guilty of the crime.

That’s exactly what happened in San Vicente Boquerón, Puebla, and Santa Ana Ahuehuepan, Hidalgo, on consecutive days this week.

First an uncle and his nephew were killed by an angry mob in the first town Wednesday before history quickly repeated itself when a man and a woman were lynched in the same way in the latter location Thursday.

In both cases, the Puebla and Hidalgo prosecutor’s offices said that there was no evidence that the victims had committed the crime of which they were accused.

Both authorities also issued statements declaring that claims that child abduction rings were operating in each state are false, and urged citizens not to spread such information.

“There is no record of child abductions to date,” authorities in Puebla said, adding that there is a national “misinformation phenomenon” occurring.

“Do not be alarmed, inform yourself!” their counterparts in Hidalgo said.

Authorities in other states where the same falsehoods have flourished — Yucatán, Durango, Jalisco and Sinaloa — have issued similar statements of their own.

“. . . The [Yucatán] state Attorney General’s office calls on the public not to spread or share information of dubious origin disseminated via these means [social media], whose objective is to undermine the peace and quiet and [sense of] security of Yucatán residents.”

In Hidalgo, Interior Secretary Simón Vargas Aguilar said that once those responsible for the lynching have been identified and arrested, they will face prosecution with the full weight of the law in order to “preserve the rule of law, governability and peace in the state.”

In Puebla, a joint funeral service for the two deceased men — punctuated by cries of “we want justice” from the parents of the younger man — has already been held.

The mother of 21-year-old Ricardo Flores Rodríguez, who was a farmworker and a law student at a university in Veracruz, blamed the mayor of Acatlán de Osorio, presumably because the two men were taken by force from municipal police before they were tied up, doused with gasoline and set on fire.

“I want the head of the mayor because he is responsible for the death of my son and my brother-in-law,” Rosario Rodríguez said. “Why did they kill them? Why did they [local authorities] let them?”

The young man’s father and brother of the older man said a little girl had lost her dad through an act of barbarism.

The president of the National Human Rights Commission used the same word when he spoke out about the case this week.

Raúl González Pérez said the acts of mob justice must be punished but also recognized shortcomings in Mexico’s justice and legal systems that result in high levels of impunity.

“We reproach and condemn [the serving of] justice by one’s own hands. We cannot prosecute presumably illegal behavior . . . by seeking to serve justice with our own hands. We have to recognize that there is an institutional weakness in the procurement of justice but that must not be substituted by . . . justice by one’s own hands,” he said.

The governor said today that two people are now in custody in connection with the incident and that more arrests would follow. He criticized municipal police for not following protocols and allowing “a horde of savages” to commit “an atrocious crime.”

Source: Diario de Yucatán (sp)

Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia opens in Guadalajara

By

César Hernández

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September 1, 2018

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A scene from Luzia, now running in Guadalajara.

Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia, A Waking Dream of Mexico, opened this week in Guadalajara with a carefully crafted display of lights, music and acrobatics.

The Canadian troupe’s show, which opened in Canada in May 2016, has arrived in the land from which its inspiration was drawn, after successful runs in both Canada and the United States.

Singer Majo Cornejo told the news agency EFE that the show’s goal is to win the heart of the Mexican public and remind them why the country is unique.

The show “is a homage” to Mexico’s history, culture and traditions that, while written from a foreigner’s point of view, will make Mexicans shout with pride “Viva México!” she said.

Many features of the culture of Mexico are captured in Luzia: majestic birds, monarch butterflies, jaguars, lucha libre fighters, soccer players and mambo dancers share a landscape of deserts, seas and rivers. The show offers an artistic rendition of the country’s natural and cultural riches.

Cirque du Soleil’s circus skills — acrobatics, aerial arts, object manipulation and other specialized physical skills — are all evident on the stage.

A unique element of the show is a curtain of water constantly flowing and sharing the stage with the acrobats.

Cornejo explained that creating the show’s acrobatics took between eight and 10 months, after which musicians joined the creative process. “It was a tough job . . .” she said.

Music composer Simon Carpentier drew his inspiration from a musical landscape that includes mariachi, banda, bolero, huapango and cumbia.

Luzia has a cast of 43 artists from 25 different nations, accompanied by the music of seven musicians from Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and the United States.

It opened on Thursday in Guadalajara, where it will remain until September 23. It will then travel to Monterrey before closing its Mexico tour in Mexico City later this year.

Source: Vanguardia (sp)