Turn down the volume: Jalisco municipality works on noise bylaw

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September 15, 2018

Turn it down: businesses will be required to monitor noise levels.

Ocotlán is aiming to be one of the first municipalities in Jalisco to implement anti-noise regulations in line with statewide legislation that went into force last month.

On August 24, the so-called Ley Anti-Ruido (Anti-Noise Law) took effect in Jalisco although municipalities were given a period of 180 days within which they must modify their local bylaws to meet its requirements.

They include establishing a service to which residents can anonymously report excessive noise at any time of day and night and having the capacity to measure the levels of noise that have been complained about.

Noise restrictions apply to the hours between 9:00pm and 8:00am and those who don’t comply with the law — and didn’t obtain prior approval to exceed the permitted decibel levels — will have to reduce the volume within 30 minutes of being notified of the complaint or risk a fine of up to 50,000 pesos (US $2,640) and/or up to 36 hours detention.

Businesses which violate the law more than twice in the same year will face permanent closures.

The mayor of Ocotlán, a municipality around 80 kilometers southeast of Guadalajara near Lake Chapala, said this week that local authorities are already working on draft regulations that comply with the Anti-Noise Law, which was first proposed by state deputy Augusto Valencia, a member of the Citizens’ Movement (MC) party.

“In the coming days, we will be approaching the advisors of the deputy Augusto [Valencia] so that they review the draft and offer their opinion about it,” Paulo Gabriel Hernández said.

The mayor added that the aim is to have local regulations in place by December at the latest.

To inform the municipal bylaws, the council held a series of roundtable discussions Wednesday under the banner of “Turn down the volume, anti-noise Ocotlán.”

Municipal authorities will also seek input from residents and to set a positive example, fireworks will not be set off outside the hours established by the anti-noise law at official celebrations for Independence Day this weekend.

“With that, we will send the message that we’re the first to be complying with the law,” Hernández said.

Elsewhere in Jalisco, reaction to the new law has been mixed.

However, for some who are fed up with the cacophony of sounds that are a constant soundtrack to life in many parts of Mexico, extending into the late hours of night and wee hours of the morning, the law is a godsend.

“It’s perfect for me because I live in a neighborhood where the residents have parties every week but unfortunately we have to work, we get up early and [the constant noise] makes us very tired when we go to work,” said Guadalajara resident Miriam Vargas.

“For me, [the law] is perfect because now all the residents will be able to go to sleep early and we’ll perform much better in our jobs . . .”

Source: Decisiones (sp) W Radio (sp), Informador (sp), El Diario NTR (sp)

Gunmen dressed as mariachis kill four, wound six in Mexico City

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MND Staff

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September 15, 2018

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Strong police presence followed last night's shooting in Plaza Garibaldi.

Three gunmen dressed as mariachi musicians killed four people and wounded six more last night at a square popular with tourists in downtown Mexico City.

The attack occurred just before 10:00pm at a small bar in a corner of Plaza Garibaldi, a square known as the capital’s home of mariachi music.

Three men died at the scene of the crime while one more died after being taken to hospital, according to city government officials who spoke to the newspaper Milenio.

The gunmen arrived and fled on motorcycles.

The sicarios, or hitmen, are believed to be members of La Unión de Tepito, a criminal gang based in the notoriously dangerous neighborhood of Tepito, located just over a kilometer northeast of Plaza Garibaldi.

Gun violence has increased in the area since the arrest last month of Roberto Moyado Esparza, the suspected leader of the same gang

According to preliminary police reports, the victims are members of a rival criminal gang known as the Anti-Unión, which is involved in a turf war with La Unión de Tepito over drug dealing in the central Mexico City borough of Cuauhtémoc.

Police found more than 50 spent bullet casings at the business where the crime occurred, which according to the Mexico City Attorney General’s office has been used by the Anti-Unión to sell and store drugs.

“There were people apparently socializing in a business . . . [where the aggressors] arrived. There were three deaths there and people wounded, among those the woman who was running the business where the victims were found. In their escape, [the gunmen] wounded four more people and fled on three motorcycles,” said Mexico City police chief Raymundo Collins.

A man who has worked around Plaza Garibaldi for 30 years said that “nothing like this has ever happened before.”

A disabled woman who sells cigarettes in the square said that “people were screaming and running” as the gunshots rang out, which she initially thought were fireworks.

“You come completely relaxed and to have a good time and then suddenly there are gunshots. You don’t know if you’re going to get back home,” a tourist told the news agency Reuters.

“Now, you’re not going to trust mariachis because the gunmen were dressed as mariachis.”

Until 2014, Mexico City was largely spared the high levels of violent crime that have plagued other parts of Mexico.

But since then the number of homicides has surged and between January and April, the capital recorded its most violent first four-month period of any year of the past two decades.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Universal (sp), DW (en)

UPDATE: Six people are confirmed to have been killed, and seven wounded.

Cuernavaca firm produces Mexico’s first robotic bar

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MND Staff

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September 14, 2018

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Mexico's first robotic bar. — It makes drinks but not small talk.

Fancy being served a shot of tequila or a margarita without having to make small talk with a bartender? A Mexican company has the solution.

Cuernavaca-based MiniFab has designed and produced a robotic bartender called Barbot, which is capable of serving shots of any liquor as well as making more elaborate mixed drinks and cocktails.

In fact, the robot can be programmed to serve whatever a customer wants, meaning that it’s not limited to alcoholic beverages.

MiniFab, whose core business is making 3-D printers and selling 3-D printing filament, is now selling its drink-serving robot, the first ever made by a Mexican company. The price: 38,000 pesos (US $2,000).

“There are machines that do the same thing in other countries but not with the same cost efficiency. There is a robotic bar on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship that does exactly the same thing but that machine costs US $2 million,” MiniFab founder Fabien Legay told the newspaper El Economista.

Barbot doesn’t completely replace the need for human bartenders, however.

While the robot can make and serve drinks with precision, it needs someone to change the bottles it uses. It is also incapable of garnishing drinks with the same intricacy as a human.

MiniFab has already sold 12 robotic bars and Legay is now considering making a few tweaks to his creation that will enable it to serve beer and accept electronic payments.

Source: El Economista (sp)

Excluding Ensenada from border-zone tax breaks would be ‘catastrophe’

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MND Staff

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September 14, 2018

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Port of Ensenada: exclusion from border zone could be costly.

Excluding Ensenada from the northern border free zone proposed by the incoming federal government will be an economic catastrophe for the city, says the head of a local business group.

President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said that his government will establish a zone extending 30 kilometers south of the Mexico-United States border in which the value-added tax (IVA) rate will be cut by half from 16% to 8%, the maximum income tax (ISR) rate will be reduced from 30% to 20% and the minimum wage will be doubled.

Under the plan, border cities such as Tijuana, Mexicali, Ciudad Juárez and Reynosa will get the benefits but cities in border states located further to the south, including Ensenada and San Felipe in Baja California, will not.

Ensenada is about 100 kilometers south of the border.

Alejandro Jara Soria, president of the Ensenada branch of the National Chamber for Industrial Transformation (Canacintra), charges that the plan proposed by López Obrador will effectively cut Ensenada off from the broader economic region and make attracting new investment nearly impossible.

“It would be catastrophic for Ensenada; since 1933 until today Ensenada has always been part of the border region. Ensenada doesn’t see itself not being part of it, it’s surrounded by sea and desert. There is no other city with which it can trade apart from the state of California and with Tijuana and Tecate,” he said.

“From the beginning, the tax benefits that Tijuana or Tecate will have, Ensenada won’t have. Therefore, we won’t be able to attract more investment, all the shoppers who come to Ensenada will buy in Tijuana, the businesses [here] can practically close [now],” Jara added.

The chamber leader charged that a 10% income tax saving and 8% saving on inputs would be too attractive for industry in Ensenada not to take up and they would consequently move their operations closer to the border, adding that there are 450 Canacintra-affiliated factories in Ensenada, generating 25,000 jobs.

“There’s no plan B in this, Ensenada is in a unique situation in the country. That’s why since 1933 the whole [Baja California] peninsula has been considered [part of the border region]. We are isolated . . .” Jara said.

He also pointed out that there are high levels of poverty in the municipality of Ensenada and that low-income workers such as jornaleros, or day laborers, will become even more marginalized.

Baja California Governor Francisco Vega told a press conference Wednesday that he had asked López Obrador to include Ensenada in the free zone plans.

But later the same day, López Obrador confirmed via Twitter that the zone would be limited to 30 kilometers south of the border.

The aim of the plan is to boost investment in 44 border municipalities in six states, he said.

Governor Vega said today it might be possible to include both Ensenada and San Felipe at a later date.

Source: Reforma (sp), Uniradio Informa (sp)

Mexico’s oldest woman — and perhaps oldest in the world — dies at 124

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César Hernández

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September 14, 2018

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Doña Soccoro might have been world's oldest woman.

Mexico’s oldest woman, Socorro Medrano Guevara, died yesterday at the ripe old age of 124 in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. She might also have been the world’s oldest woman and the oldest person ever.

Born in San Luis Potosí on June 17, 1894, Doña Socorrito, as her relatives and friends affectionately called her, had 21 children, including sets of twins and triplets. The word among her family members is that Medrano had approximately 90 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Only four of her children are still alive; her husband died in 1975.

Medrano’s health started to deteriorate over the last few weeks. One of her daughters told the newspaper El Universal that when the elderly woman started to refuse meals, medical intervention was requested.

Another woman from Tamaulipas, Leandra Becerra Lumbreras, was Mexico’s oldest woman until she died in 2015 at the age of 127. She, too, might have been not only the oldest woman in the world but the oldest person in recorded history.

But neither is on the list of verified oldest women on Wikipedia. The oldest woman ever whose age has been verified was Jeanne Calment of France, who died in 1997 at 122. She has also been verified as the oldest person ever.

The oldest of the six living women on the list is Kane Tanaka of Japan, aged 115.

Source: El Universal (sp)

56 police assassinated in Guanajuato this year but arrests in just 7 cases

By

MND Staff

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September 14, 2018

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Scene of one of this week's police shootings in Guanajuato.

Fifty-six police officers have been murdered in the line of duty in Guanajuato this year but only 12 arrests have been made in connection with just seven of the homicides.

The impunity rate for police assassinations in 2018 consequently stands at 87.5%, meaning the alleged perpetrators have only been apprehended in one of every eight slayings.

None of the 12 detained suspects has been convicted or sentenced.

This year is the most violent on record for police murders in Guanajuato, where the total number of homicides has also spiked sharply to make the central Mexican state one of the most violent in the country this year.

There were 1,847 homicides in the first seven months of 2018, according to statistics from the National Public Security System (SNSP), more than double the 831 murders recorded in the same period last year.

Many of the killings are believed to be connected to the crime of petroleum theft perpetrated by gangs of thieves known as huachicoleros who, like drug cartels, engage in turf wars and also sometimes clash with authorities.

“We know that [the attacks on police] are due to the fight against fuel theft. That’s the heart [of the problem] and . . . obviously, it has an impact on life in our society,” said Guanajuato Governor Miguel Márquez Márquez.

The worst month for police homicides was January with 10, followed by May, June and August, all of which saw seven police slayings.

There have already been a further six murders of police this month and only March, with two homicides, has recorded fewer than five police deaths in a single month.

Among the locations where the homicides have occurred are Salamanca, Salvatierra, León, Irapuato, Celaya, Apaseo el Alto and San Miguel de Allende.

On June 1, six unarmed traffic police were shot and killed in Salamanca in the single biggest multi-homicide of police. No one has been arrested for the crime.

In Apaseo el Alto and neighboring Apaseo el Grande, state police officers deployed to the region fear for their lives following the double-murder Wednesday of a single-command state police chief who was stationed in the area. An officer who was with him was also killed in the the attack in the municipality of Villagrán.

“He [the police chief] had reported that he had received threats and asked for a transfer but as always happens, they didn’t give it to him. They told him that the only option was to leave [the force],” a state police officer told the newspaper Periódico Correo.

“What do the rest of us think? Well, in any moment they could kill us as well and there is no support from . . . the bosses.”

Source: Periódico Correo (sp)

Nayarit Congress sanctions ex-governor Sandoval

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César Hernández

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September 14, 2018

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Sandoval, left, and President Enrique Peña Nieto in an undated photo.

The former governor of Nayarit faces accusations of misuse and diversion of public funds, violating fairness and impartiality in an election and violating the state constitution.

If found guilty, Roberto Sandoval Castañeda could be deemed unfit to hold public office in the state for close to 13 years.

Accusations against the former governor arose after the 2017 gubernatorial election, when a group of citizens found that funds from the state food security program were being offered in exchange for votes for Manuel Cota Jiménez, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate.

Cota lost to the National Action Party candidate, current governor Antonio Echevarría García.

A formal complaint against Sandoval was filed before Congress in October and a hearing followed, culminating in a majority vote.

Sandoval will have the opportunity to present a defense before a special commission, which will determine whether the proposed sanctions should be imposed.

The state Congress will then vote a second time to approve or reject the decision.

The process represents a political judgement against the former governor rather than a criminal one.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Bridge damaged by heavy rain, cutting off 2,000 people

By

César Hernández

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September 14, 2018

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Oaxaca bridge washed out by heavy rains.

Access to four Oaxaca towns has been cut off after a bridge was severely damaged by a river that overflowed its banks.

More than 2,000 residents of the towns, all of which are located in the municipality of Huajuapan de León in the northwestern part of the state, have been affected by the washout.

The state Civil Protection office has reported that 11 other municipalities were affected by the heavy rainfall seen in large parts of the Mixteca and Valles Centrales regions of the state.

Personnel equipped with heavy machinery are setting up a provisional crossing where the bridge was washed out and supplies are being delivered to the communities.

Civil Protection authorities have also set up shelters throughout the affected area.

Elsewhere in the state, the Civil Protection office has issued a swell warning. Big waves caused by the mar de fondo have already caused damage in at least 15 coastal communities, including the resort destinations of Huatulco, Zipolite and Puerto Escondido.

The warning remains in force until further notice. Authorities have restricted beach and fishing activities, setting up red flags to warn beach-goers.

Source: Milenio (sp)

New government won’t police migrants on behalf of US: Sánchez

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MND Staff

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September 14, 2018

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The incoming federal government will not accept funding from the United States to “police” and deport migrants, the prospective interior secretary said.

Asked about a September 12 report in The New York Times, which said that the administration of United States President Donald Trump intends to offer Mexico US $20 million to help pay for plane and bus fares to deport as many as 17,000 Central American migrants before they reach the U.S., Olga Sánchez Cordero said that no such proposal had been made.

“Mexico would never lend itself to being police for the United States?” a reporter asked the former Supreme Court judge.

“That has not been put on the table in any way,” Sánchez Cordero said.

“And you wouldn’t do it?”

“No, definitely not,” the future interior secretary responded.

However, the current government, which has less than three months left in office, said in a statement issued by the Secretariats of the Interior and Foreign Affairs that it is “continuing to evaluate the proposal” from the Trump administration, which The Times said was outlined in a note sent to the U.S. Congress.

But the statement stressed that “the government of Mexico has not accepted verbally or in written form said proposal, nor has it signed any document in this respect.”

It added that the government will continue to cooperate with the United States on migration, “seeking at all times . . . to promote orderly, legal and safe migration with full respect to human rights and the international legal framework.”

Sánchez Cordero said that president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s proposal for migration is clear and involves collaborating with Central American countries to stimulate economic and social development.

Under the plan, the necessity for citizens of countries such as Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to make the often-perilous journey through Mexico to the United States would be reduced.

“What Andrés Manuel wants is for people to emigrate to the United States out of preference not necessity,” Sánchez Cordero said.

In a letter sent to Trump in July, the president-elect proposed that Mexico, the United States and each Central American nation 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.

The revelation that the Trump administration is proposing to pay its southern neighbor to help curtail migration flows contrasts sharply with the U.S. president’s repeated promises that Mexico will pay for his proposed border wall.

Although Mexico detains thousands of migrants every year, Trump has repeatedly portrayed the Mexican government as a poor ally on migration issues.

“Mexico does nothing for us,” he said in May.

“Mexico talks but they do nothing for us, especially at the border. They certainly don’t help us much on trade, but especially at the border they do nothing for us,” Trump declared.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the government’s funding proposal, which would redirect foreign aid money, was aimed at relieving immigration flows across the Mexico-United States border.

“We are working closely with our Mexican counterparts to confront rising border apprehension numbers — specifically, a 38% increase in families this month alone — directly and to ensure that those with legitimate claims have access to appropriate protections,” Katie Waldman said.

While the relationship between Trump and López Obrador appears to have got off to a good start, getting the latter to agree to the former’s deportation plan would require a significant turnaround.

On the campaign trail leading up to the July 1 election, the then-candidate pledged that Mexico “wouldn’t do the dirty work” of foreign governments, referring specifically to the deportations of Central Americans.

Source: Milenio (sp), Dinero en Imagen (sp), El Universal (sp)

Court’s spending cuts not enough for Morena, called ‘minimal gesture’

By

MND Staff

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September 13, 2018

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Senator Monreal to court: cut some more.

The Supreme Court’s (SCJN) plan to cut its spending by 15% next year doesn’t go far enough, according to lawmakers from Mexico’s soon-to-be ruling party.

Morena Party senators have rejected the court’s proposal to reduce its 2019 budget by 852.8 million pesos (US $45.3 million) and today were going to present a motion that asks the court and other federal judicial bodies to make further cuts, including judges’ salaries.

The 11 Supreme Court judges currently earn 266,841 pesos (US $14,175) per month or about two-thirds the amount their counterparts in the United States make.

The motion, seen by the newspaper El Universal, states that the 852.8-million-peso proposed cut only represents 1.1% of the total funding allocated to the federal judiciary in 2018, which totaled 71 billion pesos (US $3.77 billion).

“We cannot continue to have people [living] in poverty while judges, magistrates, justices, leaders and politicians [live with] excess, opulence and privileges,” the motion says.

Morena is proposing that allowances, bonuses and a range of other benefits afforded to more than 1,400 federal judges as well as court and Federal Judiciary Council officials should be reduced or eliminated completely.

The motion says that salaries paid to members of the judiciary are the highest in the public service and notes that the incoming government has announced salary cuts for members of the other two branches of government, the executive and the legislative.

Morena Senate leader Ricardo Monreal described the SCJN’s proposed budget cut as a “minimal gesture” and said that it must do more to save public money.

Morena party lawmakers in the lower house this week presented an austerity bill that will reduce the remuneration of the 500 deputies by 28% from 128,230 pesos (US $6,720) to 91,507 pesos (US $4,795) as well as the salaries and benefits of other government officials.

Party leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who will be sworn in as president on December 1, said in July he will be paid a salary of 108,000 pesos (US $5,735), 60% less than the 270,000 pesos current President Enrique Peña Nieto earns.

Source: El Universal (sp)