Foreign tourism up 7.3% in first half of year; revenues rose 4.3%

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August 20, 2018

Searchers on the weekend in the Juárez valley. — Searchers on the weekend in Chihuahua.

Searchers in the Juárez valley turned up human remains in 26 locations during a massive search operation on the weekend.

Some 250 police and other state officials, relatives of missing persons and others combed an area of five square kilometers near the community of El Millón, in the municipality of Guadalupe.

State authorities said investigations had revealed that bodies could have been buried in hidden narco-graves in the area. The bodies of dozens of murder victims have been found there in the past.

“During the first stage of the search this morning,” said district attorney Jorge Arnaldo Nava López on Saturday, “human remains including skulls, jaws, clavicles, and femurs were found in about 26 places.”

By Sunday afternoon, after a second day of searching, about 200 bone fragments had been found.

Specialists from the state Attorney General’s office will conduct DNA tests on the remains to identify them.

Due to the remains’ advanced state of decomposition it wasn’t possible to determine how many bodies they might represent, officials said.

But Nava said today the victims could have been killed between 2009 and 2011.

The bodies of many women believed to have been kidnapped had previously been discovered in the region. At least 17 have been identified by their families.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Robotics team awarded silver medal for excellence at international event

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August 20, 2018

The Mexican robotics team: silver medal for excellence. — The Mexican robotics team: Einstein medal winners.

Mexico’s robotics team placed 12th overall at the second edition of the FIRST Global Challenge international competition but didn’t go home empty-handed, claiming the silver medal in one of the event’s most prestigious categories.

In recognition of its performance throughout the three-day event held in Mexico City from August 16 to 18, the Mexican team made up of five teenagers and their robot Mu’k’a’an — which means “strong” in the Maya language — placed second in the Albert Einstein Award for Excellence.

The prize is awarded to the teams whose robots performed the best during the competition and exemplified all the tenets of the FIRST Global community, according to the competition website.

The recognition was a source of pride for Ángel Berdeja, Frida Sosa, Herman Sánchez, Jorge García and Santiago García, who thanked the large contingent of enthusiastic supporters who attended the event at the capital’s Arena Ciudad de México.

The theme for this year’s competition was “energy impact,” with each team competing to solve energy efficiency problems using robots that they created.

Over 1,000 students aged between 14 and 18 and representing teams from 175 nations took part in the event.

An alliance consisting of the teams from Germany, Romania and Singapore was the overall winner while a partnership between Colombia, Iceland and the Maldives placed second.

President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador presented the medals to the winning teams before the American band the Black Eyed Peas closed the event with a rousing performance.

The members of the Mexican team told the newspaper El Universal that the competition had taught them that a range of problems that arise in daily life can be solved by working collaboratively in a team.

Sosa, an engineering student at the Tec. de Monterrey university in Mexico City, added that she hoped her team’s strong performance would encourage other young people to try their hand at robotics.

“I hope that our participation in the worldwide robotics competition can inspire many people . . . because apart from being fun and interesting, with robotics you can create new devices that can help the population of the world,” she said.

The inaugural FIRST Global Challenge was held in Washington D.C. in July last year, where the Mexican team won a bronze medal for best engineering design.

Source: El Universal (sp)

8 million liters of stolen fuel seized in Puebla yet pipeline taps continue

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August 20, 2018

A fire at the site of a pipeline tap last year in Puebla.

The government of Puebla has recovered 8 million liters of stolen fuel since January 2017, the state governor said yesterday.

The Safe Puebla security coordination group — a joint state and federal task force — has also seized 3,818 vehicles used to transport the stolen product in the same period, Governor José Antonio Gali reported yesterday.

In addition, security forces have arrested 881 people in connection with fuel theft, seized 32 properties and secured more than 2,300 illegal taps on state-owned petroleum pipelines in Puebla, Gali said.

Yet despite the statistics suggesting that authorities are getting on top of the fuel theft problem, other data paints a different picture.

Puebla recorded more illegal taps on its fuel pipelines than any other state in the first four months of 2018, while its homicide rate also increased in the same period compared to 2017 figures.

Feuds between rival gangs of fuel thieves known as huachicoleros have been blamed for increasing levels of violence in Puebla and other states, most notably Guanajuato, which has become one of the country’s most violent.

Fuel theft also takes a heavy toll on the federal government’s coffers. Pemex CEO Carlos Treviño said in April that the illicit practice costs the state oil company 30 billion pesos (US $1.6 billion) a year in lost revenue.

Gali recognized the damage the crime inflicts on the nation and stressed that he and his government would continue to act with a “firm hand” against the crime, adding that “nobody is above the law.”

A statement issued by the Puebla government following Gali’s remarks noted that the Minatitlán-Mexico City pipeline passes through the state, transporting regular and premium fuel as well as diesel between the Pemex refinery in the Veracruz city and the capital.

The different types of fuel that flow through the pipeline, coupled with the fact that it is one of Mexico’s most important, make it particularly profitable for thieves, the government said.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Guerrero Congress approves decriminalization of poppy cultivation

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August 18, 2018

Guerrero is the biggest producer of opium poppies in Mexico.

The Guerrero Congress has approved — almost unanimously — a legislative proposal to decriminalize the cultivation of opium poppies for medicinal purposes.

The proposal, which passed by 43 votes to one, will now go to the Senate, which must also approve the bill in order for it to become law.

Guerrero Governor Héctor Astudillo first raised the idea of legalizing opium poppy cultivation for medical use in early 2016, just months after he took office. Later that year a proposal to do so was taken to the state Congress but rejected.

Now, just two weeks before the current legislature finishes its term, lawmakers have reached consensus on the issue.

The bill was presented by Citizens’ Movement party Deputy Magdalena Camacho Díaz, who contended that prohibition of the cultivation of the plant had only served to generate a crisis of severe violence both in Guerrero and other parts of the country.

She said many opium poppy farmers had shown interest in ceasing to grow the illicit crop and transitioning into other lines of work but most were unable to do so out of economic necessity.

Lower demand for opium paste, largely due to the increasing use of the synthetic opioid fentanyl in heroin production, has led to a drastic price slump, which in turn has had a devastating impact on parts of the southern state, especially the Sierra region.

With profits plunging, criminal organizations in Guerrero have become even more determined to control larger swathes of poppy-growing territory, which has led to bloody turf wars.

The plant is grown on 60% of the state’s entire territory, according to a report published today by the newspaper El Financiero, making it the largest poppy-producing state in Mexico.

Only Afghanistan and Myanmar produce more opium poppies than Mexico, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Last month, a group of community leaders from the state’s Sierra region appealed to president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador to legalize poppy production for use in the manufacture of legal pharmaceuticals.

Olga Sánchez Cordero, tapped to be interior secretary in the incoming government, has said that legalizing drugs is a possibility as part of the quest to bring peace to the country.

The new federal Congress, in which the López Obrador-led government will have majorities in both houses, will first sit next month.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Insecticide blamed for killing thousands of bees

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August 18, 2018

Some Quintana Roo beekeepers are counting their losses after thousands of bees have died. — Quintana Roo beekeepers are counting their losses.

The use of insecticide on habanero chile fields has caused the deaths of thousands of bees in Quintana Roo since August 8, beekeepers say.

They claim that bees from 19 apiaries located on the Candelaria ejido (community land) in the municipality of José María Morelos have been affected by the spraying of fipronil on a nearby farm.

The use of the offending insecticide, sold under the brand name Regent 4 SC, is legal in Mexico but has been banned in European Union countries since 2013.

The Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry estimated that beekeepers would sustain financial damage of more than 2 million pesos (US $105,000) due to the insecticide’s use and said that areas within a four-kilometer radius of where it was sprayed have been affected.

Wilson Ayala Mex, one of the affected beekeepers, told the newspaper El Universal that the number of bees dying had increased since the first deaths were detected in the middle of last week, adding that they “continue to fall.”

Ayala said that last Saturday he and other angry apiarists went to the local prosecutor’s office to file a criminal complaint but were initially told that the death of the bees didn’t constitute a crime and that in any case the matter was not within its jurisdiction.

However, after arguing their case the beekeepers persuaded authorities to accept the complaint and an investigation is now under way.

Under state law, the destruction of bee hives and bees is considered a crime.

Aurora Xolalpa, a researcher at the Maya Intercultural University of Quintana Roo, said she worked with the beekeepers to collect samples of bees, other pollinators and plants in order to analyze the effects of the insecticide on living organisms including humans.

Results of the tests will be ready Monday.

“It’s very worrying . . . the time in which the product will continue to be released could be up to 18 weeks,” Xolalpa said.

The use of insecticides has previously been blamed for the death of bees in other parts of Mexico, including Ciénega de Chapala, Michoacán and the Comarca Lagunera region of Coahuila and Durango.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Fishermen’s houses burned to make way for wind farm

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August 18, 2018

Fishermen's huts blaze in San Francisco del Mar.

Twenty houses were set on fire Wednesday as a dispute flared up over a proposed wind farm in the Oaxaca coastal municipality of San Francisco del Mar.

Municipal authorities and a community of fishermen are at odds over the Boca Barra wind farm, which was first proposed three years ago. The indigenous fishermen of Pueblo Viejo have strongly opposed it, refusing to give up 15,000 hectares of coastal land.

Yesterday, the municipal representative in Pueblo Viejo, Francisco Álvarez, led a group of supporters to the beach where they set fire to some 20 palapa-roofed houses belonging to the fishermen.

The latter filed a formal complaint and then proceeded to block access to Pueblo Viejo and cut off the town’s electrical power.

The fishermen claim that Álvarez wants to force them to leave the land so the municipality can grant it to the wind farm project. They also charged that Mayor Froylan Gaspar Pedro was behind the arson attack.

The municipality has claimed that the wind farm will be “for the benefit of all.”

The state deputy secretary for political development, Carlos Ramos, said his staff have traveled to the coastal municipality to arrange negotiations between both parties. Two previous attempts to negotiate a solution have failed.

No arrests were reported after the arson attack or the suspension of the town’s power supply.

Source: Milenio (sp)

‘Perfectly built’ Sonora-Arizona narco-tunnel discovered

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August 18, 2018

The tunnel found between Sonora and Arizona.

The Mexican army located a 230-meter narco-tunnel running under the United States border between San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora, and San Luis, Arizona, yesterday thanks to an anonymous tip.

On the Mexican side the tunnel was found inside a building under construction and was described by a military source as being “perfectly built,” equipped with ventilation and lighting systems, and its walls and ceiling covered with wood.

Army General Raúl Guereca said today the tunnel was 1.3 meters high and nearly 18 meters below the surface of the ground. It was equipped with electricity, ventilation and small cars to transport drugs.

Inside the house in Mexico images of the Holy Death and Jesús Malverde, the “narco-saint,” were hanging on a wall. Narcos look to both figures for protection.

At the other end, the tunnel terminates inside an abandoned fast food restaurant.

No drugs were found on either side of the border or inside the tunnel, nor was anyone apprehended.

Source: MVS Noticias (sp), Associated Press (en)

Cancelling airport project would cost 170 billion pesos; binding vote planned

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August 18, 2018

Canceling the new Mexico City International Airport (NAICM) project and adapting an existing air force base for commercial aviation instead would cost 170 billion pesos (US $9 billion), the prospective transportation secretary said yesterday.

Javier Jiménez Espriú explained that 100 billion pesos would be lost due to the cancellation of the airport currently under construction at Texcoco, México state, and that a 70-billion-peso investment would be needed to build two additional runways and other new infrastructure at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base in the same state.

The two options — continuing with the current project or scrapping it and converting the air force base — will be put up for public consultation in the last week of October, president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced yesterday.

Speaking at a press conference following the delivery of an expert report on the multi-billion-dollar project, members of a technical team including Jiménez, incoming finance secretary Carlos Urzúa and López Obrador’s prospective chief of staff Alfonso Romo said the former option would lead to a drop in financial markets and impact the 2019 budget.

Abandoning already completed work would result in a 60-billion-peso loss and another 40 billion pesos would be lost in non-recoverable expenses relating to contracts that have already been signed.

The second option would entail spending an additional 200 million pesos to carry out a feasibility study, while if the project goes ahead, having two commercial airports would create logistical challenges, generate additional costs for airlines and possibly inconvenience air passengers, the team said.

Bernardo Lisker, an official at Mitre Corp.’s Center for Advanced Aviation System Development, said in May that having the Santa Lucía base and the current airport operating simultaneously would not be feasible because the two facilities are too close together, meaning that aircrafts would be dangerously close to each other in the same limited airspace as they descend to land.

However, a group of Chilean aviation experts cited in the expert report believe the two airports could coexist, although they stressed “the urgent need” to carry out a thorough analysis to assess the feasibility of the plan.

One advantage of the air force base option is that it could be in operation much sooner than the NAICM but downsides include having to reach new agreements with creditors and contractors for the construction work to be completed, which could also negatively affect financial markets.

The new airport’s location is closer to central Mexico City than Santa Lucía, making it more convenient for most travelers, but the suitability of the land it is being built on— an ancient lakebed — has been questioned.

Other downsides to the NAICM include the total cost of the project blowing out to 300 billion pesos (US $15.8 billion) from 169 billion pesos and high ongoing maintenance costs once it is in operation.

The expert report delivered to López Obrador’s transition team will be submitted to President Enrique Peña Nieto for consideration this week while the president-elect has declared a September 5 deadline for any new opinions from engineers, the business sector or civil society.

Later in September and in October, a series of forums will be held to discuss and debate the two options before the public consultation, which could take the form of a national survey or referendum.

A vote on the issue would be unprecedented because referendums aren’t described in Mexico’s constitution.

However, because it would be exercised in “good faith,” López Obrador’s transition team argued that the result would be binding.

“López Obrador has painted himself into a corner with this project and the consultation is the staircase that will pull him out,” said Carlos Bravo, a political scientist at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE) in Mexico City.

“It’s his way out so he can change his mind without really saying so. It’s likely the consultation is going to be planned in a way where it would be absurd to vote against the construction,” he added.

In the lead-up to the July 1 election, López Obrador repeatedly railed against the project, charging that it was corrupt, too expensive and not needed.

However, he subsequently softened his stance while maintaining that the people will ultimately decide the project’s fate.

According to the official timeline, the NAICM is scheduled to start operations in October 2020 but in a document posted to López Obrador’s website, Parsons Consultants said that date has been shifted to the second half of 2022.

Jiménez said yesterday that construction of the project is about 31% complete.

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

Kidnappers were making a successful getaway—until they made illegal turn

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August 18, 2018