Storm damage halts Copper Canyon train service till October 12

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September 27, 2018

The Copper Canyon tourist train known as El Chepe will not resume normal services until October 12 due to cleanup and repair work of the track following recent storm damage, the company that operates the train said today.

Grupo México Transportes said in a statement that the railroad is impassable between the stations of Temoris in Chihuahua and Los Mochis in Sinaloa.

The Chepe Express has been suspended completely while the Chepe Regional is only operating between Chihuahua city and San Rafael in the same state.

Anyone with upcoming reservations on the train is advised to speak to their travel agent or the company.

Tropical Depression 19-E caused widespread damage in Sinaloa, especially in Los Mochis and the state capital Culiacán. Up to 300,000 homes were affected by flooding. Heavy rains also affected the neighboring states of Chihuahua and Sonora.

Sinaloa Governor Quirino Ordaz Coppel has asked the federal government to provide extra resources through the Natural Disaster Fund (Fonden) to assist victims.

Residents of some affected municipalities, especially Ahome, Navolato and parts of Culiacán, lost everything in the flooding, he said.

The governor also announced today the creation of an 18-million-peso (US $957,300) fund to support small and medium businesses that sustained flood damage in the 11 municipalities where a state of emergency was declared.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Zacatecas archaeological site was inhabited for 18 centuries

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MND Staff

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September 27, 2018

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The Teúl archaeological site in Zacatecas. — Cerro del Teúl archaeological site.

After years of restoration work an archeological site in Zacatecas is expected to open to the public before the end of the year.

Cerro del Teúl (Hill of Teúl) was a ceremonial center for the Caxcan people and was occupied for 18 centuries, much longer than other pre-Hispanic sites such as Teotihuacán in the state of México and Monte Albán in Oaxaca.

Located in the southern municipality of Teúl near the state’s border with Jalisco, the site features pyramids, a circular altar, two plazas and a ball court.

The Zacatecas delegate for the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) told the newspaper Milenio that Cerro del Teúl will be the third archaeological site to open in the state.

“It’s very important to appreciate the archaeological heritage . . .” Carlos Augusto Torres Pérez said. “We have two archaeological zones open to the public: La Quemada and Altavista . . . we believe the opening of this site will complement the cultural offering,” he said.

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“In addition to research and the restoration of the pyramids, we’re also working on the presentation of the site with the aim of providing safe conditions so that people can walk through without any problems,” Torres explained.

He added that municipal and state authorities have contributed resources for the construction of a visitors’ center, the creation of rest areas and to improve access to the site.

“We want to have the infrastructure and the basic spaces necessary to attend to the public” so as to open soon, Torres said.

In pre-Hispanic times, the main activity of the Caxcan people is believed to have been agriculture but there is also evidence that the Cerro del Teúl site was an industrial center, where copper was smelted and ceramics were made.

Excavations have uncovered bells, rings, ceramic artifacts and jewelry made out of shells and green stone.

Some of the relics show influences of cultures from other parts of the country, Torres said.

Peter Jiménez Betts, an archaeologist contributing to the restoration project, said that Cerro del Teúl is one of very few pre-Hispanic sites in the Americas with such a long uninterrupted period of occupation, one that went right up to contact with the colonizing Spanish.

The site was inhabited between 200 B.C. and 1531, he said.

It is located about 215 kilometers southwest of Zacatecas city and 130 kilometers north of Guadalajara.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Right-wing party loses culture, health committees after outcry

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César Hernández

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September 27, 2018

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Members of the arts and culture community protest this morning in Mexico City.

The Morena party has reversed its decision on who will be in charge of the culture and health committees in the lower house of Congress.

An outcry among artists, activists and intellectuals followed the decision to put both committees in the hands of its ally, the right-wing Social Encounter Party (PES).

Social organizations and representatives of the arts community showed up at the Chamber of Deputies this morning to express opposition to the assignments, claiming that the Social Encounter Party was “ultra conservative” and represented a threat to civil rights and freedoms.

In response, Morena and the PES issued a joint statement in which they announced a switch: Morena would take charge of the culture and cinematography committee and that of health while the PES would get the sports and labor committees.

Writers and artists applauded the decision, commending Morena for “listening to the people.”

Source: Milenio

Duarte probe continues; Veracruz governor calls sentence a pardon

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MND Staff

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September 27, 2018

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Veracruz Governor Yunes: not happy with Duarte's sentence.

The nine-year prison sentence handed down to the former governor of Veracruz yesterday does not spell the end of the federal investigation into corruption in the Gulf coast state.

Federal prosecutor Felipe de Jesús Muñoz Vázquez told a press conference today that the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) continues to seek to execute arrest warrants against former state government officials who served during the administration of Javier Duarte and allegedly participated in the ex-governor’s embezzlement scheme.

One of the persons sought has a “biblical name,” Muñoz said, referring to Moisés Mansur, who is believed to have been Duarte’s main front man.

“We have several files and preliminary investigations open . . . against officials who worked in Javier’s administration . . . and I must point out that we even have arrest warrants against them. The investigation continues,” he said.

The ex-governor’s wife, Karime Macías, who is believed to be living in London, England, is also under investigation although the PGR prosecutor didn’t offer details about the case against her.

With regard to Duarte’s sentence, which could see the ex-governor leave prison on parole in just over three years, Muñoz said “when we come across cases like this . . . we’re never satisfied” but added “the law mandates benefits and we have to follow what the law says.”

Before yesterday’s hearing, Duarte negotiated an abbreviated criminal procedure with the PGR which allowed him to avoid an oral trial by pleading guilty to the charges against him in advance.

In exchange, the PGR agreed to seek minimum sentences for each crime he was accused of — both money laundering and organized crime charges have five-year minimums — and cut one year from his sentence.

The one year and five months Duarte has already spent in custody were deducted from his sentence, meaning that he could seek supervised release as soon as October 2021.

The PGR didn’t seek reparations from Duarte for the billions of pesos in state money he is estimated to have embezzled but Muñoz said the 41 properties seized added up to an almost equivalent amount.

“. . . It’s a significant amount, to give an example, we seized . . . three apartments in Santa Fe [Mexico City], each with an approximate value of 45 million pesos . . . also last year an amount of approximately 440 million pesos was returned to the government of Veracruz . . .” he said.

However, the Federal Auditor’s Office has estimated that Duarte could have embezzled more than 61 billion pesos between 2011 and 2016.

Veracruz Governor Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares said in a radio interview this morning that “nobody can be satisfied” with the penalty Duarte received considering the damage he did to the state but added “he pleaded guilty, that’s the important thing.”

Yunes, who has made pursuing Duarte and other allegedly corrupt ex-officials central to his administration, added that he understood the PGR had accepted Duarte’s abbreviated procedure proposal because “it didn’t have sufficient evidence to support the organized crime accusation.”

But in a press conference later the governor took a harder stand, declaring the sentence was more like a pardon. He described it as an outrage to all the citizens of Veracruz.

He estimated the value of the seized properties at 800 million pesos and issued a demand that they be turned over to his state.

In the earlier interview the governor said his administration is hopeful that the government of Guatemala — where Duarte was arrested in April 2017 — will allow the ex-governor to be tried for the crime of enforced disappearance, for which Veracruz authorities have an outstanding arrest warrant.

Veracruz state police, including four high-ranking former security officials, have already been accused of using death squad tactics to forcibly disappear at least 15 people during the ex-governor’s rule.

Authorities in Veracruz are also pursuing Duarte on charges of embezzlement and misuse of powers and Yunes said that he hoped more years would be added to the former governor’s sentence.

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

Cops without guns patrol Acapulco; disarming operation called ‘publicity stunt’

By

MND Staff

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September 27, 2018

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A soldier, a federal police officer and a police dog on patrol in Acapulco.

More than 90% of Acapulco’s municipal police returned to work yesterday just one day after federal and state forces took over policing duties in the resort city, disarming local police due to suspected infiltration by criminal gangs.

But the municipal police remain unarmed as army personnel and state authorities continue to review the 1,500 weapons they seized.

Officers were held for more than eight hours following the navy-led disarmament operation but after 10:00 pm Tuesday, those found to have no links to crime groups began to filter out of the Acapulco police (SSP) headquarters.

The newspaper Milenio reported that officers were patrolling the streets yesterday as normal, albeit unarmed, while administrative officials carried on with their usual work at SSP offices.

The city’s police chief, Max Sedano Román, who was also detained Tuesday, has also been released as has the city’s transit police director.

The other four commanders who were detained, including two for “probable responsibility in the crime of homicide,” remain in custody in a prison in Iguala and 18 officers are still under investigation.

The SSP headquarters were still surrounded by military personnel yesterday evening, Milenio said.

Acapulco Mayor Evodio Velázquez Aguirre yesterday reiterated that the municipal government would cooperate with investigations and support the military’s actions.

In contrast, Alejandro Martínez Sidney, president of the Confederation of Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Concanaco) in Guerrero, described the operation to take control of security in Acapulco as a publicity stunt that would have little impact on reducing crime.

“We are certain that it’s just a show for the media that won’t help at all to reduce the crime rates being recorded in the port [city], because with this measure the criminals just change their operational strategy and continue offending,” he told the newspaper El Financiero.

Martínez also said it was “suspicious” that the operation took place just four days before the mayor will leave office.

He said it was regrettable that due to this “dramatic” measure the United States government via its embassy in Mexico City issued an updated travel warning to remind U.S. citizens against traveling to Guerrero due to high crime levels.

Cruise ship companies will also remove Acapulco from their itineraries, Martínez added.

“If they really want to attack the infiltration of criminal groups, this operation should extend to the state Attorney General’s office, [other] prosecutors’ offices, the state [Secretariat of] Public Security, ministerial investigative police, the [National] Gendarmerie, the Federal Police and even the army and navy because they are also infiltrated and nobody is investigating them,” he declared.

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

Vanity Fair magazine recognizes Salma Hayek

By

César Hernández

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September 27, 2018

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Salma Hayek at the Vanity Fair presentation in Madrid.

Mexican actress Salma Hayek has been named Personality of the Year by the magazine Vanity Fair Spain.

A gala hosted by the Teatro Real opera house of Madrid was the setting for Hayek’s acknowledgement, a ceremony that also celebrated Vanity Fair Spain’s 10th anniversary.

“Thank you very much, I am honored by this acknowledgement and by sharing this night with all of you,” she told the audience as she stood on the stage with friend and Spanish actress Penélope Cruz, who presented the award.

“Penélope and I had a different type of ambition, we both wanted to be good actresses, and it was important for both of us to also be good people. It was important to not lose our roots, our values, on the way,” said Hayek, 52, adding that in Cruz she found a companion with whom she “navigated the turbid waters of Hollywood.”

“It is very special for me to receive this award from someone who has been a pillar in my life,” she continued.

A prominent voice in the international #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault, Hayek emphasized the importance of empowering women, something she considers “important for the well-being of humanity.”

“It is tragic, unfair and stupid to strip us of the right to be respected as human beings. We are human beings and should at least be respected as one. And in many places and in many ways, we are not given even that minimal respect,” she said.

Hayek was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, in 1966. Her career started in 1988 and has led her to conquer Mexican TV screens and the international silver screen.

Source: Milenio (sp), Revista Vanity Fair (sp)

12 hospitalized after ‘moderate’ turbulence on Guadalajara-Tijuana flight

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September 27, 2018

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Twelve people aboard a Volaris flight from Guadalajara to Tijuana yesterday had to be hospitalized for minor injuries suffered when the plane hit a pocket of turbulence.

The airline said today it transferred eight passengers and four flight crew to hospitals in Tijuana, but all were released this morning.

The Airbus A320 encountered “clear air turbulence” about half-way into the flight at an altitude of 34,000 feet.

Aviation authorities said 29 people were hurt but only 12 required hospitalization. They described the turbulence as “moderate.”

Source: AP (en), Milenio (sp)

Citizens of Acatlán, Guerrero, tell Coca-Cola to get out of town

By

César Hernández

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September 27, 2018

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coca-cola truck — No longer welcome in Acatlán.

A Coca-Cola bottler and distributor has pulled out of some communities due to high levels of violence, but it’s no longer doing business in Acatlán, Guerrero, because the town gave it the boot.

The town in Chilapa de Álvarez has banned Coca-Cola products after the company refused to repair damage allegedly caused by its trucks and support development initiatives.

Coca-Cola bottler FEMSA met with local authorities in Acatlán earlier this month to hear a request that it repair damage caused by its delivery trucks to several buildings and roads and to contribute to the town’s development.

According to a statement released yesterday and signed by communal council members, the Coca-Cola FEMSA representative refused the petition. In response, communal authorities ordered the suspension of sales of Coca-Cola products “for an indefinite period of time.”

The FEMSA representative had agreed to stop taking orders from Acatlán establishments and to suspend distribution, the statement said.

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Coca-Cola FEMSA was also given eight days to remove all of its refrigerators and promotional material from the town. Since September 11, Acatlán has been Coke-free.

“The company Coca-Cola FEMSA will no longer be able to enter our community, except through the authorization of communal authorities,” the council said.

On September 13, a community assembly ratified the decision taken by the town’s leaders, asserting that Coca-Cola was no longer welcome.

Acatlán is an indigenous community with a population of about 3,500.

Source: Milenio (sp), Periódico Mundo (sp)

Workaway volunteers come from around the world to work at Jalisco ranch

By

John Pint

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September 27, 2018

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Salvador Mayorga, right, with Workaway volunteers from Italy and Germany.

“I have four volunteers from a program called Workaway living at my rancho,” my friend Salvador told me. “They’ve come from all over Europe. Why don’t you drop by and talk to them?”

I checked out Workaway on the web and found it’s an organization that was started in 2002 by a young man who thought that exchanging a few hours of work for accommodations and food could open new horizons for youth — or retirees, for that matter — yearning for an in-depth experience abroad. The website simply matches up volunteers and hosts, Uber-style.

I decided a good way to meet Salvador’s volunteer guests and learn about their program would be to camp out at his place, which is called Rancho El Mexicano, located on a high plateau overlooking Guadalajara.

Although it is only eight kilometers north of the city, getting there requires taking a 62-kilometer circuitous route to cross the humongous Santiago River Canyon. After a two-hour drive, country roads brought me to Salvador Mayorga’s adobe ranch house where I enjoyed cool drinks while chatting with two of his work-exchange volunteers, Ludivine Delesque and Adenäis Milizia, two French girls.

Ludivine told me her first Workaway experience had been in Ireland. “I loved it,” she said. “I loved getting to know new people from around the world. In Ireland, I worked at a youth hostel. I helped take care of the dormitory and bathroom in the morning and in the afternoon I took care of the reception desk. Now this hostel is located in a national park so we volunteers had time to go exploring every inch of the place. It was awesome!”

After spending two months in Ireland, Ludevine went to work in the United States as an au pair with her friend Adenäis. From the U.S. the girls wanted to travel to Mexico.

Says Ludevine, “We particularly decided on Guadalajara because everybody is talking about this city on the internet. So we had planned to stay in Guadalajara for four months, but then we spotted Salvador’s Workaway page, which talked about a ranch in the middle of nowhere with no electricity, no internet, with solar panels . . . and we found all that very attractive, so we wrote to him and he answered us almost instantly.”

“What kind of work are you two doing here?” I asked Adenäis Milizia.

“In the morning, we feed the horses and dogs and sometimes we go to the lemon orchard either to pick lemons or to gather branches that have been pruned. Or we water and weed the plants in the spice garden. These are pleasant jobs and meanwhile we are learning a lot of Spanish, interacting with Pablo, the ranch foreman. Both of us think Workaway is a great way to learn new things, improve our Spanish and meet lots of new people. And what they said about Guadalajara is true: we really like it!”

Next I turned to the owner of the ranch, Salvador Mayorga. For over a decade he was director of the huge Bosque la Primavera forest west of Guadalajara.

Said Mayorga, “I first heard about Workaway a year ago from my friend, Eduardo Castañeda. Together we uploaded my information to the website. We described the rancho here and its remote location and made it clear that we have no electricity. Well, would you believe it, in less than two years we’ve had over 80 volunteers come to stay here and they have really transformed my rancho!

“We’re in a lonely place but with a smartphone and Google Maps it’s easy to reach us and to communicate so, thanks to new technology, this kind of interaction works smoothly. For example, an Englishman named Andrew arrived here a while ago from Oaxaca on a little delivery-style motorbike with a 150-cc engine and after three weeks he continued on his way to Baja California. De veras, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the next volunteer arriving by hang glider!”

Rancher Mayorga says he’s so impressed by the mobility of the millennials that he himself plans to sign up on Workaway as a volunteer so he can go touring France on a motorbike to visit some of the people who stayed with him in Mexico.

“They came here not only from France, but from Argentina, Canada, Italy, Germany, Scotland . . . so many places! Some are open to everything, take notes and learn a lot, while others do the work assigned and then withdraw and follow their own program of yoga or whatever, but I think everybody gets a lot from this. One proof is that many of them come back just to visit, and many keep in contact via Facebook or Instagram. They ask how the trees they planted are doing. Those trees are like their children!”

Curious to know what experiences other work-exchange volunteers have had in other parts of Mexico, I visited Workaway’s web page, which features lots of feedback from both the hosts and the volunteers.

Kyung taught Korean at a school in Toluca and says “I swear this is one of the best places in the world! I just spent two weeks here. I should have stayed for more than one month.”

Kyela volunteered at an organic farm in Lo de Marcos:

“My hosts are really wonderful people. As their first Workawayer I was so humbled to get to know them! My time here was amazing, working in the mountains on weekday mornings, coming back to a delicious home-cooked meal, and having every afternoon to spend on the beach (and barely anyone there!)”

Helping out on an ecofarm in the Sierra de Amula, Dominic comments: “While working we would cover the whole spectrum of conversation topics, from the simplest and sometimes stupid plays on words to politics and societal issues. Be it with our hands buried in mud or at a candlelight dinner (one of the perks of not having electricity!), we would have a great time practicing Spanish, planning future projects or listening to music. I am very glad I got to contribute a little bit and I will definitely come back to visit.”

After assisting at a hostel in Mazatlán, Workawayer Xuan said, “This hostel is dangerous! Once you stepped into this place, it is really hard to leave. It is not a hostel, it is a home away from home for every traveler. Everything is so cozy, comfortable and clean. I had great time as a housekeeping gal.”

At Workaway, hosts can sign up and describe their locations free of charge. Potential volunteers pay a low yearly fee for access to the contact information of all the hosts. Workaway currently offers over 30,000 site choices in 170 countries.

Other organizations which offer somewhat similar arrangements are Wwoof, Hippohelp, Volunteers Base and HelpX. Never before have so many low-cost choices been available for those bitten by the travel bug.

Ándale, go for it!

The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.

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Duarte gets 9 years after pleading guilty to money laundering, organized crime

By

MND Staff

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September 27, 2018

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The former governor of Veracruz was sentenced in a federal court yesterday to nine years in prison for money laundering and links to organized crime.

Javier Duarte, who governed the Gulf coast state between 2010 and 2016 for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), pleaded guilty to the charges against him.

The judge also imposed a fine of 58,890 pesos (US $3,125) and ordered the seizure of 41 properties in Veracruz, Campeche, Guerrero and Mexico City.

None of the properties was listed in Duarte’s name but prosecutors contended that they belonged to him and had been acquired with state resources through prestanombres, or front men.

Prosecutors argued that the 45-year-old ex-governor headed a criminal group which conspired to divert funds from the Veracruz government and launder the money through at least 23 shell companies.

According to media reports, the former governor negotiated with the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) for an abbreviated criminal procedure which allowed him to avoid an oral trial by pleading guilty to the charges against him in advance.

In exchange, the PGR agreed to seek minimum sentences for each crime — both money laundering and organized crime charges have five-year minimums — and cut one year from his sentence.

Duarte appeared in court dressed in a khaki-color prison uniform, sporting a closely-cropped haircut and a long beard, the newspaper Reforma reported.

When asked whether he accepted responsibility for the crimes he was accused of, Duarte responded, “Yes, your honor.”

PGR prosecutors presented 47 pieces of evidence against Duarte including testimonies from former state treasurer Antonio Tarek Abdalá, former state security chief Arturo Bermúdez Zurita, former education official Xóchitl Tress, presumed front men Rafael Gerardo Rosas and Antonio Bandin Ruiz and imprisoned accountant Rafael Nava Soria.

In the testimonies, the aforementioned admitted they had collaborated with Duarte in illicit activities, benefited from them or witnessed some of his crimes.

In accordance with federal law, the ex-governor will be eligible to apply for supervised release once he has served half of his nine-year sentence, Reforma said.

The one year and five months Duarte has already spent in custody — both in Guatemala where he was arrested in April 2017 and Mexico since his extradition in July 2017 — were deducted from his sentence, meaning that he could seek supervised release as soon as October 2021.

The full nine-year sentence will end on April 15, 2026.

The Veracruz Attorney General’s office is also pursuing charges against Duarte, meaning that the ex-governor could face further prison time.

Following his sentencing, Duarte’s lawyer issued a statement saying that his client had pleaded guilty to the charges against him only because it was a requirement of the abbreviated procedure he had negotiated.

Ricardo Antonio Sánchez Reyes Retana also said there is no proof that Duarte committed the crimes he was charged with, adding that he would seek a reduction in the sentence of up to 50%.

Lawlessness spiked in Veracruz during Duarte’s administration and the Federal Auditor’s Office (ASF) said in 2016 that the irregularities in the use of public funds during his governorship were the highest amount it had even seen.

Veracruz state police, including four high-ranking former security officials, have been accused of using death squad tactics to forcibly disappear at least 15 people during the ex-governor’s rule.

Hundreds of bodies have also been recovered from mass hidden graves in the state over the past two years, including more than 170 skulls earlier this month.

Duarte, who had been held up by President Peña Nieto as an exemplar of the new generation of the PRI, took a leave of absence two months before his six-year term was due to end and fled the country.

He was arrested in Panajachel, Guatemala, six months later. His wife, Karime Macías, is believed to be living in London, England.

A report published by Reforma this month said that Duarte and Macías built a multi-million-dollar real estate empire made up of more than 90 properties in Mexico, the United States and Spain.

Source: Reforma (sp), Animal Político (sp), El País (sp)