Home Blog Page 2019

50 people have been murdered in Jalisco since the weekend

By
MND Staff
-
0
A peace march in Guadalajara in 2015.
A peace march in Guadalajara in 2015.

The new Jalisco government has been given a bloody welcome to office: more than 50 people have been murdered in the state since the weekend.

In the early hours of yesterday morning, 10 people were murdered, the newspaper El Financiero reported.

Eight of them were shot dead, including four individuals aged between 25 and 30 who were attacked inside a home in the Guadalajara neighborhood of Vicente Guerrero. A fifth person also suffered gunshot wounds at the same address and was reported to be in serious condition.

Yesterday’s homicides followed three days of violence, with at least one multiple homicide on each of Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Jalisco was identified as one of six insecurity hot spots by new federal Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo last week, underscoring the challenges faced by the new state government led by Enrique Alfaro Ramírez.

The new governor said this week that a new security strategy will be announced on January 1 with particular focus on the Guadalajara metropolitan area, where murder rates have increased significantly.

Data on the state government platform Seguridad Mapa shows that the number of annual homicides in Guadalajara has increased by 240% since former governor Aristóteles Sandoval took office in 2013, while there has been a 200% spike in the murder rate in the neighboring municipality of Tlaquepaque.

There have been around 1,800 homicides in Jalisco this year, a statistic which new security cabinet chief Macedonio Tamez said was cause for concern. However, he deflected responsibility for the current wave of violence.

“The red [warning] light welcomed us when we assumed office, it was already on . . . This dynamic of violence we’re experiencing is the same one that was there before we entered [government]. With this I want to explain that the situation in the state is alarming, it’s worrying and it’s forcing us to take decisions such as getting together daily to work on the issue of security,” Tamez said.

Governor Alfaro said Monday that agreements that had created the regional and metropolitan single-command police forces have expired, meaning that the state police are back on the beat.

His government plans to strengthen the Metropolitan Security Agency in order to facilitate the establishment of coordinated actions between state and federal security forces.

It will also review the management of the C5 security monitoring system that started operations two months ago, although more than 2,000 surveillance cameras are still to be installed.

Jalisco is home to Mexico’s most powerful and dangerous criminal organization – the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) – which is accused of torturing and murdering three students in Guadalajara this year and carrying out an attack on the state’s former labor secretary, among other high profile crimes.

Source: El Financiero (sp) 

Education plan developed in consultation with teachers, parents: AMLO

By
MND Staff
-
0
One of many marches held to protest the 2012 education reform.
One of many marches held to protest the 2012 education reform.

President López Obrador presented his new education plan to the media this morning and will send it to the lower house of Congress today.

“Commitment fulfilled, teachers,” the new president declared after signing the plan at his daily 7:00am press conference at the National Palace.

“We’re going to present the general education plan, starting with the reform initiative to cancel the badly named education reform, repeal it and substitute the current legal framework with a new one,” López Obrador said.

The 2012 education reform implemented by the previous federal government was vehemently opposed by the dissident CNTE teachers’ union, which took particular umbrage at subjecting teachers to compulsory evaluations.

The union staged countless protest marches and strikes, primarily in Chiapas and Oaxaca where the union is strongest.

López Obrador pledged both during his election campaign and after his victory on July 1 that he would abolish the reform.

Today he said that his government’s plan would allocate more resources to the education sector and ensure that youth have the opportunity to continue their studies.

The president also said that teachers and parents had been consulted about the plan and that the government had entered into an agreement with them.

“. . . This is an important change, a difference with the way in which they acted when they implemented the badly named education reform against the will of the teachers,” López Obrador said.

Alongside the president at today’s press conference, Education Secretary Esteban Moctezuma Barragán methodically listed what he said were the inconsistencies and weaknesses in the previous reform.

Among them: the main stakeholders in the education sector were not consulted; the reform conditioned teachers’ ongoing employment on evaluations without providing them with prior training; excessive funds were spent on promoting the reform; students’ results in standardized testing deteriorated; and it was punitive and impacted negatively on workers’ rights.

Moctezuma told reporters last week that evaluation will continue under the new government’s education plan but that it will “only be used to offer information and training” to teachers.

“It won’t be punitive and linked to labor issues but linked rather to continuous training that the teachers of Mexico must have,” he said.

Other proposals include the recognition of teachers as fundamental agents of social transformation and that they will have the right to permanently access training and development programs.

It also stipulates that education be not only free, secular and mandatory – as currently specified – but also universal, equitable and excellent and that educational content and policies can be differentiated depending on the region of the country they apply to.

The government plans to make 10 million scholarships available to students from families with limited economic means. There will also be an increased focus on teaching indigenous languages.

The plan was developed after a national consultation that was conducted both online and in face-to-face forums.

Mario Delgado, the leader of López Obrador’s Morena party in the lower house of Congress, expressed his support for the new education plan and pledged that “not even a comma” from the past government’s reform would remain.

Source: Milenio (sp) 

Michelin-star restaurant sees Mexican avocados as ‘blood diamonds’

By
MND Staff
-
0
Green gold or 'Mexican blood diamonds?'
Green gold or 'Mexican blood diamonds?'

An Irish chef and owner of two Michelin star restaurants has dubbed avocados “the blood diamonds of Mexico” and taken them off his menus.

“I don’t use them because of the impact they have on the countries that they are coming from: deforestation in Chile, violence in Mexico,” said JP McMahon, owner of Aniar and Tartare, both located in Galway.

“For me, they are akin to battery chickens. I think Irish restaurants should make a conscious effort to not use avocados or at least reduce the amount they use. You can get Fair Trade avocados but most are not produced this way,” he told the newspaper the Irish Independent.

McMahon added that “change won’t happen unless consumers avoid them.”

Michoacán is the largest producer of avocados in the world but it’s not just farmers who are cashing in on crops of the fruit dubbed Mexico’s “green gold.”

Avocado growers from the municipality of Tancítaro calculated that from 2009 to 2013 organized crime made around US $770 million from the region’s avocado business, or $154 million annually, according to a report in the newspaper El Universal.

A 2017 report by the federal Attorney General’s office said that throughout the 1990s the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and Los Cuinis criminal gang pioneered the extortion and kidnapping of wealthy avocado farmers to fund their expansion.

A report published by the New York Times Magazine in March this year said that “under the volcanos in Mexico’s Michoacán state, violent cartels are fighting to dominate a shadowy and lucrative market.”

The Times report said that La Familia Michoacana, the Caballeros Templarios and Los Viagras have all muscled in on the lucrative avocado trade in Michoacán over the past decade.

The Caballeros Templarios, known in English as the Knights Templar, “taxed, extorted and kidnapped [avocado] farmers and usurped their land,” the Times said.

La Familia Michoacana started extorting local avocado growers in 2009, killing farm hands and displacing farmers, and appropriating their property, according to InSight Crime, a foundation dedicated to the study of organized crime in Latin America.

In response to threats and violence, avocado farmers in some parts of the state have formed their own self-defense groups.

All the while Mexico has continued to export millions upon millions of avocados, mainly to the United States but also to Europe and new markets such as China, meaning that a veritable army of restaurateurs – and everyday consumers – would have to stop eating the fruit for any effect to be truly felt.

Nevertheless, McMahon’s two acclaimed Irish restaurants are not the only eateries that have taken the decision to remove avocados from their menus for ethical reasons.

The Wild Strawberry Café in the English county of Buckinghamshire announced on Instagram late last month that it would no longer be serving avocado.

The café cited “seasonality,” “food miles” and “sustainability” as the three reasons why it made the decision to remove avocado from its menu.

“The western world’s obsession with avocado has been placing unprecedented demand on avocado farmers, pushing up prices to the point that there are even reports of Mexican drug cartels controlling lucrative exports,” the café’s Instagram post said in explanation of the last reason.

“Forests are being thinned out to make way for avocado plantations. Intensive farming on this scale contributes to greenhouse emissions by its very nature and places pressure on local water supplies.”

Other establishments including Frank’s Canteen in London and Tincan Coffee Co in Bristol have also stopped serving the fruit, also known as the alligator pear.

“Serving avocados, knowing the huge socio-economic impact that avocado farming is having in Mexico and California just didn’t feel right,” said Tincan cofounder Adam White.

Source: La Vanguardia (sp)  The Irish Independent (en), The New York Times (en) 

Baja California Sur led in economic growth in 2017

By
MND Staff
-
0
Campeche was one of nine states whose economies went backwards last year.
Campeche was one of nine states whose economies went backwards last year.

Baja California Sur led Mexico in economic growth in 2017 and was the only state that achieved a double-digit expansion of its economy, statistics show.

The National Statistics Institute (Inegi) reported that the state experienced 11.43% annual growth last year, a rate almost four times greater than its 3.18% economic expansion in 2016.

José Luis de la Cruz, director of the Institute for Industrial Development and Economic Growth (IDIC), said that a construction boom was responsible for Baja California Sur’s fast-growing economy last year, pointing out that the housing and infrastructure sectors both recorded significant growth.

Puebla was the second fastest-growing state economy in 2017 but its upturn, at 6.15%, was only just over half that recorded in Baja California Sur.

The eight other states that made up the “top 10” economic winners of 2017 were Morelos, with 5.05% growth; Coahuila with 5.03%; Guanajuato, 4.87%; México state, 4.57%; Colima, 4.53%; Quintana Roo, 4.44%; San Luis Potosí, 4.39%; and Querétaro, 3.92%.

At the other end of the scale, nine states recorded negative growth in 2017.

Campeche was the worst-performing state economy, contracting by 10.45%. It was the fourth consecutive year that the Gulf Coast state’s economy went backwards.

The southern states of Tabasco, Oaxaca and Chiapas also recorded negative growth of between 3% and 5%.

Mexico City’s economy grew 2.83%, a slowing of just over 1.5% compared to the 4.39% growth it recorded in 2016.

The capital led Mexico in terms of economic activity in the service sector – considered the main engine of the national economy – followed by México state and Nuevo León.

Jalisco, Michoacán and Veracruz made the biggest contributions to the agricultural sector while Nuevo León, México state and Jalisco led the way in manufacturing.

The Mexican economy as a whole grew by 2% last year, a figure that was just below market forecasts and the lowest growth rate of the last four years.

President López Obrador has said that his government will target 4% annual growth but economic forecasts from several analysts predict growth in 2019 to remain at around 2% or lower.

The Bank of México (Banxico) last month lowered its growth expectations for both 2018 and 2019.

The central bank is predicting GDP growth of between 2% and 2.4% for 2018 and 1.7% and 2.7% for next year.

Source: El Financiero (sp) 

Guanajuato homeowners can get help to upgrade historic buildings

By
César Hernández
-
0
There is help available for owners of historic buildings that need some work.
There is help available for owners of historic buildings that need some work.

According to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), there are at least 30 historic buildings that have been abandoned in the city of Guanajuato, but a new program for their owners might provide incentive to preserve them and improve the image of the city’s historic center.

Many of the buildings, explained INAH representative David Jiménez Guillén, are abandoned while others are in use, but have deteriorated over the years.

INAH is now offering incentives such as a building permit and technical advice at no charge.

” . . . What we want is that the owners take action . . .” Jiménez said, promising that anyone who approaches INAH with a plan to preserve a historic building will always get a positive response.

He said there are even more such buildings in need of repair located in towns outside the city limits.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Infuriated by accident, woman lays a beating on the other vehicle . . .

By
MND Staff
-
0
This driver was clearly unhappy after a collision on Mexico City.
This driver was clearly unhappy after a collision in Mexico City.

A woman took road rage to an extreme level in Mexico City yesterday, using a metal bar to damage a car with which she was involved in an accident before repeatedly ramming it with her own vehicle.

The incident, captured on video by a bystander and posted to social media, occurred in the northern borough of Azcapotzalco.

According to a witness’ account of the events on Twitter, the woman’s outbreak of aggression followed a crash between her vehicle and one in which two young people were traveling.

“I went inside my house when I saw that everyone was okay, that they weren’t injured but then I started hearing blows. I went outside and saw the woman hitting the car with an iron bar,” the witness wrote.

In the video, the woman is seen hitting the hood and windscreen of a red Volkswagen – with the occupants still inside – before breaking off a side mirror with three quick blows.

Enfurece tras choque... destroza auto

She then gets back into her own vehicle, turns around and rams into the smaller car four times while bystanders urge her to calm down. The woman then drives off.

During the recording of the video, a man reads out the letters and numbers of the vehicle’s license plate, remarks incredulously as she crashes into the other car that “she doesn’t give a damn” and repeatedly calls her “fucking crazy.”

Another witness wrote on social media that the woman had asked the occupants of the other car to get out of their vehicle and speak to her insurance company but they refused.

The Mexico City Attorney General’s office said it has opened an investigation into the incident but didn’t offer any further details.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Mexico will invest US $30 billion in development plan to curb migration

By
MND Staff
-
0
Ebrard speaks at conference in Morocco.
Ebrard speaks at the conference in Morocco.

The federal government will invest more than US $30 billion over the next five years on a Comprehensive Development Plan with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador aimed at curbing migration to the United States, the foreign secretary said yesterday.

Speaking at a United Nations (UN) migration conference in Marrakech, Morocco, Marcelo Ebrard said that Mexico has made a commitment to cooperate closely with Central American countries and expressed confidence that the plan would be feasible and effective.

Ebrard said he expected that the plan, which will seek to develop Mexico’s poor southern states, would curb migration better than “containment measures.”

However, he didn’t explain exactly how the US $30 billion investment will be used or where the money would come from.

Thousands of Central American migrants have traveled through Mexico as part of several caravans during the past two months, leaving the authorities of the past and current federal government to grapple with finding a way to stem migration under increasing pressure to do so from the United States government.

Accompanied by his counterparts from the three “northern triangle” Central American countries, Ebrard said that “what happens to a migrant today in our country is a disgrace” and stressed that the new government would change Mexico’s approach to dealing with them.

“Mexico is going to change its migration policy, Mexico is going to make you feel proud about the pact we’ve adopted for safe, orderly and regular migration. We’re going to change things and it will be our actions that speak for us,” he said.

The foreign secretary said the aim of the development plan was to reduce poverty and thus address one of the key factors behind migration.

But Ebrard didn’t offer specific details about how money spent in southern Mexico would contribute to development in Central America. Mexican authorities said that specific details would be available in the coming weeks.

President López Obrador has said that Central Americans will be offered Mexican work visas and has also vowed to respect the human rights of migrants.

But he has also pushed for the United States to contribute to a plan to develop Central America that would reduce the root causes of migration.

In a letter to United States President Donald Trump shortly after his victory in the July 1 election, López Obrador proposed that Mexico, the U.S. and each Central American country contribute resources according to the size of its economy and that 75% of the collective funds be allocated to finance projects that create jobs and combat poverty, while the other 25% would go to border control and security.

“At the same time, every government, from Panama to the Rio Grande, would work to make the migration of its citizens economically unnecessary and take care of their borders to avoid the illegal transit of merchandise, weapons and drug trafficking which, we believe, would be the most humane and effective way to guarantee peace, tranquility, and security for our peoples and nations,” he wrote.

On the day of his inauguration, the new president agreed with his Honduran and Guatemalan counterparts as well as the vice-president of El Salvador to create a fund to stem the flow of migrants bound for the United States.

That country’s use of tear gas against a group of around 500 migrants who rushed the Mexico-United States border last month prompted a formal request from the former Mexican government for U.S. authorities to conduct a full investigation into the use of what it described as non-lethal weapons.

Trump threatened to close the United States southern border permanently in response to the attempted encroachment and is also reportedly pushing for a plan for migrants to stay in Mexico while their asylum requests are processed.

Ebrard met United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in Washington earlier this month but no agreement on the so-called “Remain in Mexico” plan has been announced.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of the thousands of migrants stranded in Tijuana are crossing or attempting to cross the border fence illegally to hand themselves into United States border patrol agents in order to circumvent a lengthy wait to apply for asylum from Mexico.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Reuters (en), The Los Angeles Times (en) 

Jalisco security strategy coming in January

By
César Hernández
-
0
Governor Alfaro, left, and federal Security Secretary Durazo at a meeting today.
Governor Alfaro, left, and federal Security Secretary Durazo at a meeting today.

The state of Jalisco, identified as one of six Mexican hot spots for violence, will announce a new security strategy on January 1, the governor said yesterday.

Enrique Alfaro Ramírez, who took office last week, told a press conference that agreements that had created the regional and metropolitan single-command police forces have expired, meaning that the state police are back on the beat.

He said on Sunday that a new security strategy would be announced this week, but the timetable has now changed.

” . . . We cannot implement a [new] security strategy in Jalisco until all elements are put on the table.”

But he did say that state police would be deployed to municipalities outside the Guadalajara metropolitan area, while a metropolitan police force will maintain security in Guadalajara and neighboring areas.

Alfaro also said salaries of police officers around the state are being reviewed.

The governor was to meet with federal Security and Citizen Protection Secretary Alfonso Durazo yesterday to discuss proposals by President López Obrador, the new National Guard being one of them

“. . . as long as the subject of the National Guard is not resolved, how are we going to coordinate [security tasks]?” Alfaro asked.

Jalisco’s single-command police force began operating in Guadalajara in 2014 and elsewhere in the state in late 2013.

Security expert Lucía Alamarz of the University of the Valley of Atemajac in Zapopan described Alfaro’s decision to discontinue single-command was appropriate.

“If we look at the results . . . the truth is it had no impact in reducing crime rates,” she said.

Source: El Occidental (sp), Informador (sp)

Fireworks explosion kills 5 in Querétaro

By
César Hernández
-
0
Emergency personnel at the scene of the fireworks explosion in Querétaro.
Emergency personnel at the scene of the explosion.

A fireworks explosion yesterday in Querétaro killed five people and injured 55 others, while a 10-meter castillo in México state fell and injured four spectators at a festival on Sunday.

Early yesterday in Fuentezuelas, Tequisquiapan, residents had gathered in the town’s church to celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe when 11 kilograms of fireworks exploded.

Panicked citizens ran from the scene to escape the exploding rockets but many were unable to get away and suffered burns of varying degrees.

Two of those killed were children.

Municipal authorities conducted an operation in September to crack down on the illegal sale of fireworks. After yesterday’s explosion, they seized more than 4,600 rockets that were being stored in Fuentezuelas.

Late Sunday, meanwhile, a castillo, or castle, a common element of a fireworks display, fell just after it was lit on the esplanade across from Zumpango municipal headquarters.

The structure had been tied to a pole for support but fell regardless into a crowd of hundreds of people who had gathered for Immaculate Conception festivities.

Of the four people hurt, two were reported in serious condition.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Diario de Querétaro (sp)

Judges stage unprecedented protest, accuse government of interference

By
MND Staff
-
0
Judges around the country protested yesterday.
Judges around the country protested yesterday.

Federal judges demonstrated publicly for the first time ever yesterday to accuse President López Obrador of attempting to interfere in the judiciary and to reject his claim that they earn up to 600,000 pesos a month (US $29,500).

More than 1,400 judges at 30 locations in 25 states participated in the protest to defend the independence of the judiciary.

Luis Vega Ramírez, president of the National Association of Federal Magistrates and Judges, said in Mexico City that the government has presented a “false discourse” that judges are “privileged” and live off an “abuse of public funds.”

The 600,000-peso figure cited by López Obrador is “not even close to reality,” he added.

At a press conference yesterday morning, the president described salaries earned by judges and other high-ranking officials as “exaggerated and offensive.”

López Obrador has long pledged to slash the salaries of public officials, declaring often that “there can’t be a rich government with a poor people.”

Lawmakers from the president’s Morena party presented a bill that was approved by Congress last month that decreed that no public official should earn more than the president, who has set his monthly salary at 108,000 pesos (US $5,300) – 60% less than the former president’s wage.

But the Supreme Court (SCJN) ruled Friday that the Federal Public Servants Remuneration Law must be suspended, stating that it would cause “irreparable damage.”

Vega told reporters gathered on the steps of the Federal Palace of Justice that López Obrador and his allies in Congress have presented their salary proposal and a plan to rotate judges to different courts around the country to avoid corruption as “modernizing exercises” that will save citizens money and make the provision of justice more efficient.

However, he charged that the real intention is to “weaken the system of checks and balances in our democracy and to violate the rule of law.”

He declared: “In an authentic regime with a division of powers, in a strengthened democracy, such as the one that allowed this change of course, docile judges don’t fit. [We’re not at] the service of anyone.  Wage irreducibility is not a privilege but rather one of the various guarantees of independence of the judiciary.”

Vega argued that the attack on judges didn’t just harm them but society and its institutions.

“The risk of maintaining smear campaigns against judges, making them appear as opportunists only looking for personal gain, [results in] a weakening of citizens’ confidence in their own institutions,” he said.

“What we propose is dialogue, coordination and understanding between powers within the framework of exclusive, autonomous and independent powers created by the constitution for each of the organs of public power. The people deserve and demand that [the executive and legislative powers] act within the rule of law,” Vega said.

“We can’t call a country democratic where there is no counterweight of powers . . . A judge must be silent and prudent in his public life. However, we are here in an unprecedented way today, confirming our commitment to the law and the constitution . . .” he added.

On Twitter, the Supreme Court also rejected the president’s salary claim and linked to a publication in the government’s official gazette, which outlines judges’ pay structure.

“We reiterate that it is false that anyone in the PJF [federal judicial power] earns [a salary] even remotely close to 600,000 pesos a month,” the court said.

A table in the gazette publication shows that the 11 Supreme Court judges earn a monthly salary of 269,215 pesos (US $13,265), or 3.23 million pesos (US $159,000) a year.

However, they also receive bonuses and danger money that increase their annual salary to just under 4.23 million pesos. Other federal court judges receive lower salaries.

But López Obrador has said that many public officials, including judges, receive bonuses and other benefits that are hidden from the public.

Implementing a range of austerity measures and eliminating corruption are central to the president’s agenda and are needed to free up resources to pay for the government programs and projects he has announced.

At today’s morning press conference, López Obrador once again criticized the high salaries of judges, declaring that “only Donald Trump earns more than the president of the Supreme Court.”

He said that he would respect the court’s ruling to suspend the remuneration law but characterized it as unfair.

“. . . It’s a matter of principle, that’s why there was a change [in government]. It’s not like I arrived [to power] and it [suddenly] occurred to me to reduce the salaries of high-ranking officials, people knew it, I said it in all the squares.”

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

1...2,0182,0192,020...2,166Page 2,019 of 2,166