A fashion designer who was employed as a deputy director of the federal government’s GM biosecurity unit has been replaced, the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) said.
Edith Arrieta Meza, a fashion design graduate of a Mexico City university, left her position yesterday, Conacyt said in a statement, explaining that she was invited to collaborate with CIBIOGEM – a federal government agency that develops policies for the safe use of genetically modified organisms – on a study about agriculture and agrobiodiversity in the capital.
“. . . The employment relationship between Ms. Arrieta and CIBIOGEM has concluded,” the statement said, explaining that Eva Bermúdez García, a biochemist, will take up the role of deputy director of development, scientific innovation and technology due to “the technical requirements that will be needed in the future.”
Conacyt clarified that since February 1, the chief of CIBIOGEM has been Dr. Emmanuel González Ortega, who has a PhD in biotechnology from the University of Barcelona, among other scientific qualifications.
News of Arrieta’s employment at CIBIOGEM triggered a backlash on social media because of her seemingly incongruent academic background as well as her membership in the ruling Morena party.
But Conacyt defended her appointment, stating that she has “extensive experience in organizational work” and had developed her knowledge of traditional agriculture while growing up in Milpa Alta, a largely rural southern borough of Mexico City.
“We want to emphasize that Ms. Arrieta possesses profound traditional knowledge about native Mexican corn acquired throughout her life as she comes from a farming family in Milpa Alta. Although unfortunately we’re still not capable as a society to recognize the immense value of this kind of knowledge, it was fundamental in order to adequately carry out the task entrusted to Ms. Arrieta,” the statement said.
“In addition to her knowledge and experience, Ms. Arrieta has held public positions in the Tlalpan government in areas related to the conservation of agrobiodiversity, her overall profile justified the assignment she was given in CIBIOGEM.”
Massive debt at Pemex is pushing Mexican bonds towards junk status as doubts grow over whether the government’s rescue plan for the state oil company will work.
Pemex is the most indebted oil company in the world, owing US $107 billion. But its output is declining.
As a result, Mexico’s government-debt spreads are now higher than those paid by emerging market nations that are rated two notches below Mexico’s BBB+, Bloomberg said.
A pertinent example is that of Brazil, which has a junk level credit rating because of its high level of indebtedness, yet Mexico’s average debt spread is wider than that of its Latin American peer.
After Fitch Ratings last month cut Pemex’s credit rating to one level above junk, sovereign bonds deteriorated further and there is now increasing speculation that Mexico’s credit rating could also be downgraded.
Just under 70% of respondents to a Bank of America client survey said that they expect Mexico’s credit rating to drop below investment grade in “coming years.”
President López Obrador has pledged to rescue Pemex but it is unclear where he will get the money to do so while maintaining his pledge of economic austerity.
“We have the resources . . . We’re going to lighten Pemex’s tax burden like never before,” the president said, explaining that “savings” – from where he didn’t specify – would fund US $3.5 billion in tax breaks.
However, Graham Stock, senior emerging markets strategist at asset manager BlueBay, believes that “Pemex needs $10 billion to $15 billion of relief per year but that is a significant tax cut — around 1% of GDP.”
Thwarting that possibility is that Mexico’s economy is slowing and many analysts believe that growth will be under 2% this year.
López Obrador has also pledged to inject US $1.25 billion into Pemex to boost crude production but analysts say that the target of 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2024, compared to 1.73 million bpd in December, is unrealistic.
They have also questioned the government’s decision to build a new oil refinery on the Gulf of Mexico coast in Tabasco in order to reduce reliance on United States imports because refining is less profitable than exporting crude.
“I don’t think Pemex can cling to investment grade much longer unless the government takes drastic action — and the government thinks it is taking drastic action, that is what is concerning,” said Shamaila Khan, head of emerging market debt at investment manager AllianceBernstein.
However, she also said that pumping more money into Pemex could damage Mexico’s fiscal position.
“To the extent Pemex support comes at the expense of fiscal performance, that is going to impact sovereign ratings,” Khan said.
Charles Seville, a senior director at Fitch, told Bloomberg that “to provide the scale of support that would be needed to really give Pemex more room to invest and turn around its business, it might require foregoing significant amounts of revenue from the government.”
Roger Horn, a senior emerging-markets strategist at SMBC Nikko Securities America in New York, said that Pemex isn’t Mexico’s only problem with regard to attracting investment, contending that it’s also the “erosion of the institutional framework that had underpinned investor confidence in the Mexico story over the past three decades.”
The government’s decision to cancel the partially built US $13-billion Mexico City airport project, taken before it assumed office, is one example of an action that has eroded investors’ confidence in the country.
Bracho: government opening the door to selling teaching positions.
The practice of teachers selling their positions will be encouraged if the federal government goes ahead with a plan to eliminate evaluations for new teachers and those seeking promotion, the National Institute for Educational Evaluation (INEE) has warned.
Teresa Bracho, president of the autonomous public organization, said the crusade against corruption should also focus on education, pointing out that its new educational reform proposes eliminating processes for teacher recruitment and promotion that “combat the corrupt practice of the sale and inheritance of positions.”
“By eliminating from the constitution that entry into a teaching career and promotion is by merit . . . transparency in the processes to allocate positions is placed at great risk,” she said.
With evaluations carried out by the INEE, Bracho said, teachers are appointed to positions based on their knowledge and vocation for the profession. Without them, “the allocation of teaching positions would be unfair because they would be given to those who can buy them, inherit them or provide favors.”
Bracho acknowledged that the practice of selling positions has not been eliminated completely but charged that it is less commonplace than it once was and as a result more properly qualified teachers are in the nation’s classrooms.
“It’s not something that has been eliminated, it’s a practice in the education system that couldn’t be eliminated in one year or six, but progress was made and there was a clear operation against corruption and the illegitimate allocation of positions,” she said.
The official also defended the work of the organization after an attack on autonomous public organizations by President López Obrador, who yesterday accused them of “facilitating theft” by corrupt officials.
“Educational evaluation provides information about how education is progressing or moving backwards in our country and in each state. Without evaluation, there will be no information about the good things and bad things of our education system,” Bracho said.
In December, López Obrador and Education Secretary Esteban Moctezuma presented the government’s new educational reform, which among other points, proposed the elimination of the INEE and the establishment of a similar organization that is under the control of the government.
Bracho countered that without an autonomous INEE, educational results would be subordinated to political interests.
When the government first floated the idea, Bracho said the disappearance of the INEE would be akin to allowing the Secretariat of the Interior count the votes in a presidential election.
“The proposal of the president to eliminate an autonomous organization such as this represents an attack by the new government against the system of checks and balances of our democracy,” she said.
The INEE is “an essential autonomous organization,” Bracho added, and one that “generates objective, trustworthy and pertinent information.”
Governor Joaquín addresses the state over security situation.
The governor of Quintana Roo has announced a new 10-point strategy to combat insecurity in the state, where the homicide rate more than doubled last year.
In a televised address, Carlos Joaquín González said the strategy will include the statewide implementation of the single-command policing system, the establishment of a technologically-advanced security complex, the provision of new equipment and improved training for officers and the presentation of a weekly report about the security situation.
The governor said that while Quintana Roo ranks highly among Mexican states for its levels of tourism, employment, economic development, infrastructure and investment, residents continue to face a situation of insecurity generated by criminal gangs who “think they can prosper here.”
“I’m not going to lie to you. We’ve been confronted with a complicated situation for several years – the product of the damage [caused] by several [past] governments, of negligence and corruption,” Joaquín said.
“We received a state in crisis, a crisis in almost all respects, but mainly an emergency situation with regard to corruption and security, to such an extent that the former governor [Roberto Borge] and some of his associates are today in jail,” he added.
With regard to the mando único, or single command, policing system, Joaquín said “we’ll achieve it through a political agreement between the state government and the 11 municipal governments” and that it will ensure that all police are “aligned in a single scheme for training, operations [and] evaluation” while maintaining “uniformity in their image.”
Quintana Roo will have a new police force, the governor declared, that will be “closer to you, efficient, responsible and honest” while working under better conditions and receiving greater recognition for their efforts.
The new security complex will house the C5 command center and be equipped with screens to monitor more than 2,000 security cameras, the governor said, pledging that it will become one of the most important of its kind in Latin America.
A new police academy will also be established, Joaquín said, explaining that it will be supported by the federal government, the national police forces of Colombia and Chile and authorities in the United States.
Joaquín added that every Wednesday, after he has met with his state security cabinet, he will announce details about current security challenges and the measures the government is taking to combat crime and violence.
“With this message we’re starting a period of permanent communication between the government and citizens, or rather between the governor and you, during which we will constantly announce, in a timely manner, all the [security] actions that are carried out, always telling the truth no matter how difficult or painful it is,” he said.
The governor stressed that in the two and half years since he took office, he has invested in new infrastructure, technology and equipment to enhance the capacity of the state’s police, adding that his government has also carried out confidence tests, dismissed corrupt officers and recruited and trained new ones.
However, Joaquín also called for the residents of Quintana Roo to do what they could to help improve the security situation.
“. . . Only with the participation of everyone will we be able to get through this state of underlying vulnerability in which we were placed by several years of looting and corruption,” he said.
Other aspects of the government’s plan include the installation of “technological security arches” at the entry and exit points to the state as well as in some municipalities, the implementation of a new government social policy aimed at preventing violence and the establishment of neighborhood security groups with direct lines of communication to police and the C5 center.
In addition, the state will be divided into different regions where police “will have the responsibility to attend to . . . the needs of the community in their jurisdiction,” Joaquín said.
Violence has increased in recent years in Quintana Roo, including in Cancún, the state’s main tourism draw.
The state’s homicide rate shot up from 21.57 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017 to 44.63 last year, an increase of 106%.
Just hours before Joaquín addressed the state from the government palace in Chetumal, businessman Roberto Bowden Alonzo was shot and killed moments after he had withdrawn money from a bank in Cancún.
State politicians and business leaders are warning that an unprecedented public consultation on the construction of a brewery in Baja California could threaten investment.
Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex) president Gustavo de Hoyos said the $1.5-billion Constellation Brands factory in Mexicali represents one of the most significant investments in the history of the state, if not the country.
He cautioned that many jobs could be lost if the project is not allowed to continue. According to Constellation Brands, the factory is expected to create about 5,000 jobs.
“If it [construction] is blocked . . . it would be an irreversible blow to the reputation of Mexico’s production sector. You can be sure that the company will quickly head over to Sonora or Coahuila where they can use the investment and where they will be well received. Baja California will lose out.”
Baja California Governor Francisco Vega de Lamadrid added that the public referendum sends the wrong message to potential investors and worried that it might halt the government’s social and economic agenda.
Constellation Brands vice-president Julio Portales said that subjecting private investments to public vote generates uncertainty for investors and reflects badly on a region.
“The direct impact is that not only would the money put into the construction be lost, but also a 489-million-peso [US $25-million] contribution to the state’s economy.”
The state electoral institute (IEEBC) approved the consultation last week over the protests of politicians and business people after the civil association Plebiscito Colectivo submitted the signatures of 20,000 residents to the institute requesting the public vote on the brewery’s construction.
Some Mexicali residents have expressed concern that the brewery’s expected use of 1.8 million cubic liters of water every year could significantly exacerbate problems in a growing city that already does not have adequate access to water.
The company claims that its operations will not affect citizens’ access to water and will only use 0.05% of the valley’s water resources.
The referendum is historical: it would be the first public vote on a private project in the region.
Last week, 19 bodies were discovered in 11 hidden graves on private land in the crime-plagued municipality of Tecomán, Colima.
Yesterday, the state attorney general’s office (FGE) announced that 50 more bodies had been found in another 38 hidden graves on an adjacent plot, bringing the body count to 69.
The FGE said the second discovery was made after state police carried out an operation in Tecomán that resulted in the arrest of two men and the liberation of two people they had kidnapped.
An investigation of the property where the victims had been held revealed 38 more clandestine burial sites. The bodies were transferred to the coroner’s office for autopsies and DNA testing to discover the identities of the victims.
Authorities said they had met with family members of missing persons to collect DNA samples to be compared with the biological data obtained from the victims.
The FGE specified that of the bodies unearthed in the most recent find, all were adults and some showed signs of having been dead for at least five years.
The attorney general’s office said it would not rule out the possibility of finding more hidden graves and that it would continue the investigation to identify the culprits and their motive for the murders.
The Pacific coast state of Colima has been one of Mexico’s most violent for several consecutive years. Authorities have said that one reason is that drug gangs, principally the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, are fighting over the port of Manzanillo.
According to the National Human Rights Commission, in the last 11 years 1,300 hidden graves have been discovered throughout Mexico, at least 200 of them in the states of Chihuahua, Durango and Veracruz.
Cold front No. 36 and a low-pressure system struck parts of the Yucatán peninsula with intense rainfall yesterday, conditions that were not expected to improve much today.
Rain started to fall yesterday around noon, causing flooding in parts of Cancún, triggering the deployment of emergency services. There was also flooding in Playa del Carmen.
Emergency responders in both cities helped motorists stranded by flash flooding during the course of the nine-hour storm.
Government employees were also kept busy clearing storm drains.
The conditions were caused by a low-pressure system extending between the peninsula and the island of Cuba, whose effects continued to be felt in Quintana Roo and Yucatán overnight.
'Chapo, give me a child,' reads a sign in Sinaloa after Guzmán was captured in 2014.
News of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s conviction yesterday on drug trafficking charges traveled quickly to his home state of Sinaloa, where some residents lamented the downfall of the man who has been likened to Robin Hood.
The former leader of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel was found guilty in a New York federal court of smuggling tonnes of drugs into the United States during a decades-long career that was based on intimidation of rivals and bloody turf wars.
Even though 56 witnesses and hundreds of pieces of evidence were presented by the prosecution to demonstrate that the former drug lord was guilty of smuggling drugs, bribing officials, laundering money and murdering rivals, many Sinaloa locals continued to describe Guzmán as a modern-day Robin Hood.
“As a Sinaloa native, the truth is this hurts,” a gray-haired man told the news agency Reuters in the state capital, Culiacán.
The man, who declined to give his name but said he was a native of Guzmán’s home town of Badiraguato, added: “We know that near Badiraguato, he’s helped a lot of people, building roads, schools, churches. People here will suffer now due to lack of support.”
Guzmán fans in Sinaloa in a file photo.
Other sinaloenses, such as Gildardo Velázquez, said that little will change in the state despite Guzmán’s conviction and the probability that he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
“Trafficking drugs will continue,” he said. “Nobody can stop it. Even now that they’ll give him the life sentence they think he deserves, it’s not going to change anything here.”
Yet more local residents expressed fear that Guzmán’s conviction would trigger more violence across the country as cartel members fight for control of territory he once dominated, although authorities in Sinaloa said that homicide numbers in the state had fallen by 30% during his three-month trial.
“I think it might be counterproductive,” said a young man identified only as Carlos. “There’s more people that want everything that El Chapo controlled.”
Although news of the 61-year-old’s conviction spread quickly, the security team for Guzmán’s mother, María Consuelo Loera Pérez, didn’t immediately notify her about her son’s fate, media group Univision reported.
However, Alejandrina Guzmán, eldest daughter of El Chapo, said in San Diego that her stomach was in knots and her legs shook when she heard the jury’s verdict. She later went to a church to pray for her father.
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Beyond Sinaloa, the reaction to Guzmán’s conviction was more muted, and his trial didn’t attract great interest.
“The reaction, of rather lack of it, is just a clear reflection of who we are as a country,” Jacobo Dayán, a human rights specialist and professor at Mexico City’s Iberoamerican University, told The New York Times.
“Where we have more capacity for outrage is when it comes to corruption, but not so much left for violence.”
A fashion designer and member of Mexico’s ruling party who has no scientific background is the new chief of the federal government’s GM biosecurity unit, raising questions about her appointment to the role.
Edith Arrieta Meza, a fashion design graduate of the Jannette Klein University in Mexico City, became head of CIBIOGEM – a federal government agency that develops policies for the safe use of genetically modified organisms – on December 10.
The role also makes Arrieta a deputy director at the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt), of which CONABIO is part.
According to her public declaration on the government transparency platform declaraNet, Arrieta’s only previous work experience is as head of “Department B” between 2015 and 2018 in the Tlalpan government that was led by current Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum.
The newspaper El Universal said that Arrieta has been a member of the Morena party since at least 2014 and became the general secretary of its executive committee in the southern Mexico City borough of Milpa Alta, which borders Tlalpan.
In 2015, she ran as a candidate for Morena in the federal election and during her campaign appeared alongside now-President López Obrador and Martí Batres, the party’s leader in the Senate.
In photos posted to her Facebook account, Arrieta also appears with current Secretary of Public Administration Irma Sandoval and Morena Senator Citlalli Hernández, among other government figures.
Asked about the appointment, López Obrador said this morning he had been advised the information published was incorrect. If true, Arrieta will not remain in the post, he said, explaining that the head of Conacyt is looking into the matter.
Arrieta’s designation at the helm of CONABIO is not the only Conacyt appointment that has raised eyebrows.
Another new deputy director of the organization is David Alexir Ledesma, who was named head of communication and strategic information although he is only in the third semester of an undergraduate communication degree.
His appointment and 44,000-peso (US $2,300) monthly salary triggered a backlash on social media, with one Twitter user charging that it was proof of the new government’s lack of professionalism.
Another said that it a was a “shame” that people who have completed communication degrees and have ample experience in the field “have to give up opportunities like this” to people who are less qualified.
Montgomery Knott's film, Leyenda de mi Sobrina, from inside the cube.
Step into the 27-foot multimedia cube at Colegio Dante Alighieri Catholic school in Mexico City for a sensory experience unlike anything else – a five-course custom culinary creation from one of Mexico’s most beloved chefs, Jaír Téllez of MeroToro and AMAYA, and a two-hour program of film and performance from the legendary experimental cinema project, Monkey Town.
Comfy benches line the gymnasium at the school, located in Colonia Escandón, each situated under one of the four projection screens. Diners sit at small tables for two, literally surrounded by cinema, featuring works by 18 filmmakers and artists from Mexico, Latin America, Europe, Russia, and the United States.
The subject matter runs from straightforward narrative to contemplative visual poetry and sharp political commentary.
The vastly different films become bound together by the experience that’s like watching from inside the film, inducing a sort of mild psychedelia that’s only intensified by the warm belly glow of wine and tequila. The four screens and multi-speaker surround sound hold the viewer, as if in a closed chamber, while from above:
A post-apocalyptic neon wolfman speeds along on a glowing motor scooter, smoking mechanical amphetamine, out to settle a score.
The view from outside the Monkey Town cube.
A stampede of rolling mangos leaps from tin roof to tin roof, echoing like an off-kilter drum corps, building in speed and sound.
A woman searches for enlightenment on a web browser and enters a dream world of New Age product placement spirituality.
Cruise ship passengers are injured by games of leisure. A snorkeler is sucked into ocean oblivion, and a single golf ball prevails.
This marks the 16th year and eighth edition of Monkey Town, which originally began in New York City and has run in Denver, Barcelona, Austin and Los Angeles.
Monkey Town founder and director Montgomery Knott first conceived of the program after seeing a four-channel Christian Marklay video work and sketched a crude drawing of the idea on a cocktail napkin. Eight months later Monkey Town was born and other artists soon began making works for the program.
Of the Mexico City version Knott explains, “About half of the artists made or adapted pieces specifically for the cube. I normally try to have a mix where we switch between single, two-channel and four-channel pieces. I asked friends, curators and artists from Mexico City. And they asked two friends and they asked two friends and so on and so on. Mostly a game of phone, linking up with people and trying to curate a diverse program, with a variety of aesthetics. It’s a survey of contemporary video art, without trying to be thematic or zeitgeisty.”
Monkey Town diners watch Greta Alfaro’s film, In ictu oculi.
On the food side of the program, the menu is quintessential Chef Téllez – classic Mexican ingredients with masterful French training and Mediterranean aesthetics: sea scallop with parsnip, xoconostle cactus fruit and lime; fresh corn tamal with roasted hen broth and quail egg; and grilled sea bass in escabeche with salt-cured nopales.
The minimal service allows for little distraction from food and film. Talking is certainly allowed but appreciated in hushed tones – the dining experience heightened as ingredients obscure and then materialize into view under the shimmer and glow of projected movement.
Both Chef Téllez’s restaurants MeroToro and Laja have appeared on Latin America’s best 50 restaurants list. His third restaurant, AMAYA, has become a Mexico City institution in recent years for its world-class, fresh and rustic, Baja-Mediterranean plates and one of the best natural wine lists in the country.
Téllez admits that he’d never heard of Monkey Town before his introduction to Knott but immediately liked the idea, and says, “it was quite easy to decide and collaborate with him.” While envisioning a menu for Monkey Town, Téllez says he sought to create “food that is expressive and delicious, yet a meal that flows with the experience and doesn’t protagonize.”
Knott continues, “We were talking to a few chefs, but once we met with Chef Téllez we knew we’d found our compatriot. His cuisine manages to be both exquisite and unpretentious. There’s so much thought behind each dish, but it’s not trying to be showy. I think there’s an affinity with our program in this process and effect.”
In addition to the film schedule, which will be consistent throughout the four-month run, each night will feature a changing catalog of live performers, including dance, opera, chamber music and a variety of experimental music and performance art.
The Monkey Town cube.
A recent performance from multi-instrumentalist Paz Lenchantin of The Pixies, accompanied by Tennessee Thomas on drums, had the two performers “on stage” surrounded by the screens, as Lenchantin’s film The Spider Lady – a black and white, stop motion ode to 40s-era horror and avant-garde – danced images across them.
Lenchantin’s live-looped droning tones and Thomas’s slow gallop of drums induced a trance, echoing throughout the concrete and formica gymnasium, as the spider woman stalked her prey, the theremin’s hypnotic wail providing the perfect creepy backdrop to the film.
Monkey Town runs Mondays through Saturdays until May 31 at Cda. La Paz 15, Colonia Escandón. Purchase tickets in advance from Monkey Town’s website: 800-1,200 pesos for four to five-course meals, with two nightly seatings.
