The president's office must reveal travel expenses.
The National Transparency Institute (Inai) has ordered the president’s office to release details pertaining to President López Obrador’s land travel expenses.
The directive comes after the office refused to provide information to an individual who requested details about the vehicle fleet at López Obrador’s disposal as well as the costs to maintain the fleet and to purchase fuel for the cars in which the president travels.
Inai commissioner Óscar Guerra Ford ordered the president’s office to carry out an exhaustive search of its files in order to provide a response to the applicant.
“The individual requested to know which vehicles and how many vehicles the president of the republic uses for his commutes between his home and the National Palace and vice versa, as well as for his various tours within the country,” he said.
Guerra said that the refusal to supply the information requested was improper considering that the president’s office previously did provide a response to a person who requested details about López Obrador’s travel between Aguascalientes and Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, on January 18, the date on which a petroleum pipeline exploded in the latter town, killing or injuring more than 100 people.
In that case, the official said that the president’s office provided information about the make and model of the vehicle in which López Obrador traveled as well as the details of its license plate.
To find the information requested by the more recent applicant, Guerra ordered the president’s office to carry out a search of all files in its logistics-related departments.
Since taking office last December, López Obrador has sometimes continued to travel in his own Volkswagen Jetta and has adopted a range of other personal austerity measures to help cut government costs.
(He announced last week that he and his wife and son would move into the National Palace following the end of the school year. He will be the first president to live in the palace since Porfirio Díaz in 1911.)
López Obrador has also put the presidential plane and other government-owned aircraft up for sale and said earlier this month that the proceeds will help fund efforts to curb migration.
The National Guard will be deployed throughout Mexico City to combat insecurity, President López Obrador announced today.
The deployment responds to rising rates of crime in the capital over the last 10 years.
“It’s clear that crime is on the rise, especially homicide, which has risen from two to six a day,” said López Obrador.
The president blamed increased crime on former Mexico City administrations, who he says tolerated organized crime.
“Gangs that once didn’t exist in the city were allowed to put down roots, and so-called organized crime groups started coming in,” he said. “I think that’s become more visible since last year, in certain parts of the city, and it’s what’s causing the problem.”
The decision to deploy troops to the capital was made after conversations between the federal government and Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum.
“The mayor is doing a great job, she’s working on the problem every day,” said López Obrador. “At first, we thought that sending the National Guard wouldn’t be necessary, but because of the situation, the mayor agreed that the National Guard will be deployed to all of Mexico City.”
The president did not say how many guardsmen will be sent but noted that when the Guard starts operating on Sunday, there will be a total of 70,000 troops across the country, and that the government plans to expand the ranks of the Guard to between 130,000 and 140,000.
He added that training classes for guardsmen will end on Friday.
According to a document leaked to the news agency EFE, the National Guard will number 82,747 troops by the end of 2019. About three-quarters of the Guard’s numbers will come from army and navy troops passing directly to the new security force.
Calling doctors and legislators “drunks and drug addicts” didn’t go over well for Colima Health Secretary Miguel Becerra Hernández, who presented his resignation just hours after a rambling speech that also targeted overweight women.
The official story was that he resigned “for personal reasons.”
Becerra made his remarks during the swearing-in of a municipal addictions council in Villa de Álvarez.
After observing that “all women are beautiful, but if they feel fat, then they go and do stupid things like taking drugs to lose weight,” he said “the professionals who have the most problems with alcohol, tobacco and drug addictions are legislators and doctors.”
The secretary paused, perhaps realizing that some of those present were legislators.
“I screwed up — I meant lawyers. Anyway, you know what I mean. A high percentage of doctors smoke, and that’s an addiction. They throw parties and every once in a while one starts taking drugs. And among lawyers, there’s always at least one who takes them when they have their meetings.”
Concluding, he worried aloud, “My boss is going to reprimand me, but oh well, it’s very important to talk about these issues. Thank you for listening, and I hope that you are able to take away something from this. If not, it won’t have been worth the scolding he’s going to give me.”
Becerra got more than a scolding.
Hours later, Colima Governor Ignacio Peralta Sánchez published a press release that explained that Becerra had resigned from his post for “personal reasons.” The governor wrote that he had accepted the secretary’s resignation and thanked him for his time in office.
“Miguel Becerra has distinguished himself for his honesty and, as well as having used his medical knowledge in the service of the [Secretariat of Health], he always carried out his duties with loyalty to the state government.”
The number of Federal Police officers who failed to meet weight requirements to join the National Guard is as high as 1,300, according to audio files leaked to the newspaper Reforma.
The new federal security force, which is in the process of absorbing the Federal Police, requires its officers to have a body mass index between 18.5 and 27.9. People with a BMI above 25 are considered overweight.
In the leaked audio, an unnamed Federal Police commander tells a group officers who failed the requirements that they will be able to keep their Federal Police positions for two months, giving them time to slim down and take another shot at joining the new security force.
“It’s not mandatory, of course not, it’s a very respectable personal issue,” the commander said.
But at least 650 overweight officers who chose to be temporarily commissioned by the National Immigration Institute (INM) will need to complete the commission before they can apply again to join the National Guard. The INM commissions are expected to last between five and six months.
The commander also said that if more Federal Police officers are found to be too heavy for the Guard, they may not get the second opportunity that is being given to the first 1,300.
“You are the few personnel who are going to have this chance,” he said. “People from the next division that moves over to the National Guard who don’t meet the requirements, they aren’t going to get another chance.”
The overweight officers also have the opportunity of being commissioned by the Federal Protection Service, which provides security services to federal agencies and institutions.
To join the National Guard, officers must be directly incorporated from another security force, or apply as a civilian. The Guard does not accept applications from former members of police or military forces.
On Monday, a group of family members of the overweight Federal Police officers who were commissioned by the INM protested in front of the National Palace in Mexico City, complaining about poor working conditions for the officers.
Mexico was the world’s second largest illicit opium producer in 2017 behind Afghanistan, according to a new United Nations report.
An estimated 586 tonnes of opium were produced in Mexico between July 2016 and June 2017, an increase of 100 tonnes compared to the same period a year earlier.
The figure accounted for 5.6% of global production of the drug, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in the publication World Drug Report 2019.
However, Mexico’s production was dwarfed by that of Afghanistan, which produced 86% of the world’s illicit opium in 2017. Myanmar was the third largest producer, providing 5.3% of global supply.
Mexico’s increased opium production was driven by an expansion of the area of land on which illegal poppy crops are grown, the UNODC said.
According to the report, opium poppy cultivation increased by 21% in 2017 to 30,600 hectares.
However, the latter figure falls well short of the estimate made by the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy, which said that poppies were grown on 44,100 hectares of land in Mexico in 2017.
Even though the area of land on which poppies are cultivated and opium production both went up in 2017, the UN report shows that Mexico did have some success in its fight against the drug.
The government eradicated opium poppy crops on more than 29,000 hectares of land in 2017, more than any other country.
However, that statistic reveals that farmers are expanding the area on which they grow poppies at a considerably greater rate than that at which authorities are eradicating them.
Mexico’s largest opium poppy producing region extends across the Sierra Madre Occidental in the states of Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango, an area known as the Golden Triangle.
Large poppy crops are also grown in the north of Nayarit and in the Sierra Madre del Sur in Oaxaca and Guerrero.
While poppy and opium production in Mexico remains high, a study published by the Network of Researchers in International Affairs (Noria) earlier this year said that prices for Mexican opium gum plummeted by as much as 80% last year due to the rise in demand for the synthetic opioid fentanyl among United States drug users.
Noria said the decline in opium income “is causing a series of very serious secondary economic effects” in communities that are dependent on the cash crop and that “the Mexican opium crisis looks like it might ruin the poorest areas of rural Mexico for good.”
New supplies may take longer to arrive, warns logistics operator.
The federal government’s plan to assume responsibility for the distribution of medications to public health facilities will cause delivery times to double in most states, the head of a logistics firm has warned.
As part of a new model for purchasing and distributing medications, the government announced last month that the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) will take over responsibility for getting drugs to the nation’s public hospitals and health clinics. Private logistics firms currently carry out that task.
José Ambe, general director of Logística de México, believes that the government doesn’t have the logistical know-how to ensure that medications reach their intended destinations in a timely fashion.
“Specialized personnel with knowledge of technological advances is required in order to establish highly efficient distribution chains,” he said, explaining that if such chains are in place, delivery costs come down and medication and medical supplies reach the places where they are needed “in the shortest possible time.”
Even though the government has said that its new centralized and consolidated purchasing model will allow medicines to be obtained at cheaper prices, Ambe predicted that it will end up paying about 10% more if it goes ahead with the plan to distribute medications itself.
“The private sector dedicated to the distribution of medicines absorbs all operational costs, including the modernization of infrastructure,” he said.
Rafael Gual Cosío, head of the National Chamber of the Pharmaceutical Industry, has already warned that the government hasn’t properly considered the logistics and costs of distributing medications, stating that neither IMSS nor any other government department, including the army, has the capacity to adequately store and transport the massive quantities of drugs required by patients in the public health system.
Other members of the sector told federal officials last week that the pharmaceutical industry won’t take responsibility for problems created by its new model for purchasing and distributing medications, including medicine shortages.
The México state highway at the center of dispute by indigenous communities.
Residents of two indigenous communities in México state obtained an injunction last December that halted construction of the Toluca-Naucalpan highway, an 8-billion-peso (US $418-million) project that encroached on their land.
But despite the legal victory, work has continued on the road, leading residents of Huitzizilapan, one of the two Otomí communities that filed last year’s injunction request, to take a different approach to stop the project: they’re asking for the return of their land.
Although the highway is almost 80% complete, one key factor is on their side: a decree issued by former president Enrique Peña Nieto in 2014 that expropriated their forest land for the project expired on May 29.
In that context, communal landowners, local authorities and other community groups from Huitzizilapan on June 17 filed an unprecedented legal document with Fifonafe, an agency of the Secretariat of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning that deals with communal land matters.
The document entitled “request for the return of territory” states that there is currently no procedure within Mexico’s legal framework that allows the recovery of indigenous land after an expropriation decree has expired.
It is being argued that a new, unique process must be created in order to return the land to its owners, most of whom say they were not consulted before the expropriation occurred.
The contract to build the Toluca-Naucalpan highway was awarded by the México state government to Grupo Higa in 2007, the second full year of Peña Nieto’s six-year term as governor.
The company was a favored contractor of Peña Nieto, winning lucrative contracts from both his México state and federal governments.
According to Abundio Rivera, a representative for the Otomí community, México state authorities approved the highway project despite only a small minority of landowners granting their consent.
That consent, he argued, was obtained at meetings that didn’t comply with legal requirements and at which landowners were only informed about the supposed benefits of the project and not the drawbacks.
“It was an imposition with rigged meetings. They did it by dividing us, saying that it was going to bring progress and development,” Rivera said.
Hugo Hernández, a lawyer for the disgruntled Huitzizilapan residents, said his clients’ rights, both as landowners and indigenous people, have been violated.
Peña Nieto’s state and federal governments didn’t consult with the affected population in good faith or in a culturally sensitive way as stipulated in international agreements that Mexico has signed, he said.
The lawyer added that the demand goes beyond the return of the land, explaining that they also want compensation for the violation of their rights as well as for the negative impacts that the project has had on their physical, psychological and emotional health and well-being over the past 12 years.
To garner support for their cause, Hernández said the community of Huitzizilapan has launched an online campaign using the hashtag #ElBosquedeVuelta (The Forest Returned).
Asked about the claim for the return of land at his daily press conference this morning, President López Obrador responded, “we’re going to review the case . . . in order to know the legal situation . . .”
“La industrialización del campo” by Marion Greenwood, 1935, on the stairway at Mercado Abelardo Rodríguez.
One of Mexico City’s best mural collections by students of Diego Rivera can be viewed in mellow market serenity away from the tourist crowds.
In the northeast corner of the historic center of Mexico City sits a far too rarely visited gem of classic 1930s mural work by acolytes and students of famous muralist.
These enormous and astonishingly gorgeous works of Mexican and American masters remain absurdly neglected, especially given that their value is ranked fourth after the murals of the Bellas Artes palace, the Secretariat of Education and the National Palace.
However, wandering inside the spacious, easy-going Abelardo Rodríguez Market affords a chance to view some world-class artworks, set apart from the tourist throngs behind everyday juice counters, through tiny vestibules, spread across ceilings and winding up massive staircases.
The market includes works by lauded artists, many of them students of Rivera at the Academy of San Carlos: Ramón Alva, Pablo O’Higgins, Antonio Pujol, Ángel Bracho, Pedro Rendón, Raúl Gamboa, Miguel Tzab, Isamu Noguchi, and sisters Marion and Grace Greenwood.
“La minería” by Grace Greenwood, 1935, at the market entrance at Calle Rodríguez Puebla and Callejón Girón.
Work on the murals began in earnest in June of 1934, with the market opening its doors on November 29 of the same year. The project ran under the supervision of Rivera, with sketches requiring his approval, and the artist adding 2,000 pesos of his own money as a work guarantee.
Each artist was paid 13.50 pesos per square meter, not including the cost of materials – right down to the rented scaffolding. The paintings were originally intended to cover 2,733 square meters, but this was reduced to 1,500 after disputes with supervisors at the Departmento Central. Under contract, mural work was to be completed by December 1, 1935, but wasn’t finished until May of 1937.
Most of the artworks cover themes common in the days after the Revolution: food production, exploitation of the poor, industrialization, the lives and working conditions of factory workers and miners and the rise of fascism around the world.
Among the most well-known works at Abelardo Rodríguez are at the market entrance on the corner of Calle Rodríguez Puebla and Girón: La minería by Grace Greenwood and La industrialización del campo by her sister, Marion, running up the stairway to the Cuauhtémoc Community Center and on to the second floor.
Marion Greenwood’s vast, striking piece shows workers transitioning from farming to industrial manufacturing, pulled by the strings of capitalism. On the second floor, at the top of another, roped-off staircase, Marion’s The Industrialization of the Countryside and Grace’s Mining join together, where an industrial worker and a farmer each hang one end of the communist flag.
After studying at the Art Students League in Manhattan and the Académie Colarossi in Paris, Marion was the first of the sisters to come to Mexico in 1932, when she hitched a ride to Taxco. There she met up with American artist and assistant to Diego Rivera, Pablo O’Higgins, who taught her the basic fresco technique – simply applying pigment to wet plaster.
“Influencia de las vitaminas” by Ángel Bracho, 1934, is one of the most deteriorated of the market’s murals, though still quite striking.
She quickly talked her way into a commission to paint Mercado en Taxco along the stairway of the Hotel Taxqueño. In a letter to her mother she called herself “the first woman who has ever done a fresco in Mexico.” Her sister Grace joined soon after, and the two Greenwoods would go on to paint a number of large works throughout the country.
Along the stairway Marion’s signature is visible, but there’s not really any onsite information to be found.
An employee of the community center, delighted that someone had ventured up to enjoy the piece, told me that he’s seen the murals cleaned once or twice but didn’t know much about them, other than what was written on a nearby informational poster – mainly concerning the history of the neighborhood and market. He said there used to be a metal placard on the wall, but it had since been stolen.
In this same room along the opposite wall is Historia de México, the first public work by United States artist Isamu Noguchi, a politically charged piece in copper and cement featuring a Nazi swastika, a hammer and sickle, a clenched and extended fist and Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Noguchi had a short-lived affair with Frida Kahlo on his visit to Mexico, and they remained friends until her death. At two meters high and 22 meters long, History as Seen from Mexico makes for an impressive view with the sun blazing in through surrounding windows.
It’s a joy to walk through the friendly market stalls with art popping up around every corner and stairwell, or above the Coca-Cola refrigerator in a tiny restaurant nook. I’m told that certain vendors or organizations within the market may deny access to individual works, but I simply asked politely and everyone seemed happy to accommodate.
The high ceilings and uncrowded passageways of Mercado Abelardo Rodríguez.
There’s plenty of good food to be found, with cold mayonnaise salads of cooked veggies and meats among the specialties. Despite the mural decline, the interior market is bright and appears well-maintained, the huge domed ceiling keeping it cool and airy.
Over coffee at a lunch counter, I chatted with a hospitable woman who’s been at the market for 20 years. I asked if she’d seen anyone come to maintain the murals. “No,” she said. “I don’t think they do anything. They painted the cupola and redid the floors a couple of years ago. But the floors are worse than they were before. And it still rains in the corners in some parts.”
In the market’s southwest corner, up the stairs that formerly led to the Teatro Cívico but now end at the entrance to Cendi Pingui school for children, the ceiling is covered with a massive mural by Mexican artist Ángel Bracho.
Best known for his socially conscious work with Taller de Gráfica Popular (“The People’s Graphic Workshop”), Bracho’s piece at Abelardo L. Rodríguez is one of the most vibrant, despite its unfortunate decline.
Influencia de las vitaminas shows the actual physical effects of vitamins on the human body and encourages their use with the phrase, “No hay vida sin vitamina” (“There’s no life without vitamins”) painted below it.
Unfortunately, much of the mural has fallen victim to years of water damage, with large portions sealed and plastered over. The plaster covers the subjects’ bodies and internal organs in a white cancer, as if they’d disobeyed the artist and suffered damage from vitamin neglect.
• Mercado Abelardo L. Rodríguez runs along República de Venezuela and Callejón Girón between Calle Rodríguez Puebla and Calle del Carmen in Centro Histórico, Mexico City, and is open daily from 7:00am to 6:00pm.
This is the 16th in a series on the bazaars, flea markets and markets of Mexico City:
Nearly a year after its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, Roma continues to triumph.
This time, Alfonso Cuarón’s acclaimed film raked in 10 of the 15 awards for which it was nominated at the Ariel Awards, Mexico’s version of the Oscars.
Cuarón was unable to attend for personal reasons, but most of the cast and crew of the multi-Oscar-winning film were present to collect their awards, which included best picture, director, supporting actress for Marina de Tavira’s role in the film, photography, original screenplay, editing, sound, art design, visual effects and special effects.
In a video message, Cuarón apologized for his absence at the ceremony and highlighted Roma’s distribution in Mexico.
“The release of Roma in Mexico was unparalleled. It was my priority to ensure that a large number of independent movie theaters and large open-air events could screen the picture to reach the largest number of people.
“That is why I am very sad that I was not able to be with you tonight. I feel deeply honored and would like to congratulate all the other movies and friends who received nominations. I am deeply grateful to be a part of a community that is known for its fraternity, solidarity and generosity.”
Roma is only the second of Cuarón’s films to win an Ariel Award; the first was his 1992 picture Sólo con tu pareja, which received an award for best original story. However, in 2001 he chose not to submit Y tu mamá también in protest against the academy’s voting practices.
Ilse Salas, who won an Ariel for best actress by edging out Roma’s Yalitza Aparicio, used her acceptance speech to declare “Ya es hora” (time’s up) in solidarity with a crowd of protesters who gathered at the ceremony to demand equal pay, increased representation and measures to address sexual harassment and gender violence in the film industry.
“As women, we have many stories to tell, and we want to tell them now because you, gentlemen, have already had your chance. Time’s up!”
Several actors and directors also took advantage of the event to criticize the federal government’s budget cuts to cultural spending, which included moving this year’s awards ceremony from the Bellas Artes palace in downtown Mexico City to the Cineteca Nacional.
“[Culture] is not an expenditure; it is vital. It is not just an adornment; it is a long-term investment. Those of us who are creators are not the enemy; we are committed to the reality of this country,” said Academy president Ernesto Contreras.
Carlos Morales, who won an Ariel for best short documentary for his picture Sinfonía de un mar triste, said that his project had been made possible by a Fonca scholarship, a program that has been criticized by lawmakers.
Decomposition of sargassum is the bigger problem, marine scientist says.
The effect of sargassum on tourism and the economy is “very serious” but what should be of greater concern is the impact of the decomposition of the seaweed on the environment, according to a marine scientist.
Joel González Chiña, an oceanographer and member of the Quintana Roo sargassum advisory council, told the newspaper El Universal that the massive arrival of seaweed on Caribbean coast beaches affects the entire coastal ecosystem.
However, the scientist added: “we have to understand that sargassum is not the enemy – the problem is that it’s arriving in large quantities and that it accumulates on the beach and exceeds the capacity to collect it.”
“The problem is the decomposition of this macroalgae, that it generates foul odors, that it produces sulfuric acid that kills sea grasses,” González said.
Its decomposition is a serious environmental concern, says marine scientist.
Sea grasses are a food source for turtles and provide a variety of “environmental services” including keeping sand in place, he said.
If it is killed off, “the beach erodes,” González explained, adding that the sulfuric acid generated by decomposing sargassum also has a negative impact on coral reefs that need clean water to survive.
“It’s a chain of impacts,” he said.
The oceanographer was reluctant to endorse the strategy of collecting sargassum before it washes up on beaches, explaining that while it is still in the sea, the seaweed is a living organism that is a food source for fish and other marine creatures.
González explained that the presence of sargassum is a natural response to contamination and excessive nutrients in the ocean – “the seaweed cleans those nutrients, it absorbs them . . .”
Consequently, the strategy of removing sargassum from the sea – Navy Secretary Rafael Ojeda announced this week that a new fleet of sargassum-collecting vessels will be built – “requires more studies and scientific research,” the scientist said.
Susana Enríquez, a researcher at the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology at the National Autonomous University, said there is currently “an abnormal enrichment of nutrients in the sea,” and that “it’s been a party for this seaweed.”
She explained that the large quantities of sargassum in the Caribbean Sea have been feeding on nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous that have flowed into the Atlantic Ocean from rivers such as the Amazon and Orinoco in South America.
Rising sea temperatures as a result of climate change can help sargassum to grow, Enríquez said, but “the blossoming of seaweed only comes from the increase of nutrients in the sea – that’s the ABC of oceanography.”
The researcher blamed “extremely poor environmental management” for the increasing quantity of nutrients in the ocean, explaining that deforestation for the creation of farm land has led to a greater use of agrochemicals.
“Of course, the problem is serious,” Enríquez said. “It’s regional.”
