2 die in car trapped by floodwaters in Aguascalientes

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June 19, 2018

Ex-attorney general Bravo will remain behind bars.

A judge in Veracruz ruled yesterday that the state’s former attorney general must remain in preventative custody while he awaits trial on charges related to the enforced disappearance of 13 people.

Luis Ángel Bravo Contreras, who served in the role during the administration of Javier Duarte, was arrested in Mexico City Sunday and transferred to a prison in the Gulf coast state.

He is accused of ordering the disappearance of 13 of the 19 bodies that were found in a ravine in the municipality of Emiliano Zapata in January 2016. He is also charged with obstructing the investigation into the case so that former state police officials and officers who were previously under his control and allegedly perpetrated the crimes would evade justice.

At a five-hour-long hearing at the Pacho Viejo penitentiary near the state capital Xalapa, the former attorney general’s defense team argued that his arrest violated a provisional injunction he obtained from a district court judge in Mexico City on May 24.

The accused’s legal representation also contended that because he is accused of “ordering the manipulation of a [crime] scene” and not actually committing the crime itself, the offense couldn’t be considered serious and therefore did not warrant preventative detention.

But presiding Judge Alma Aleida Sosa Jiménez countered that the actions of which Bravo Contreras are accused constitute a crime against humanity and do indeed justify pre-trial detention.

Meanwhile, Veracruz Governor Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares said the arrest of the former attorney general opened the way to investigate the cases of hundreds of other people who also disappeared at the hands of state authorities during Duarte’s administration.

A five-million-peso (US $243,500) reward that had been offered for information leading to the arrest of Bravo Contreras will now be allocated to the state’s missing persons search commission, Yunes said.

“The people of Veracruz were in the hands of criminals that dared to do everything from stealing money from the people of Veracruz to forming alliances with organized crime and putting Veracruz on the republic’s red map [of violence],” the governor charged.

Javier Duarte, who was in office between 2010 and 2016, took a leave of absence in October of the final year and fled the country, but was arrested in Guatemala in April 2017.

He was extradited to Mexico last July and is currently in prison awaiting trial on charges of embezzlement and links to organized crime.

In addition, a judge last week issued new charges against the ex-governor which also accused him of the enforced disappearance of at least 13 people in the state.

In February, the Veracruz government formally accused four high-ranking former security officials and 15 police officers of the forced disappearances of 15 people during Duarte’s administration. One of the accused is the state’s former secretary of public security, or police chief, Arturo Bermúdez Zurita.

Police allegedly used death squad tactics to abduct, torture, kill and dispose of the bodies of their victims.

Outside yesterday’s hearing, family members of disappearance victims held a protest at which they accused the former attorney general of pretending to work to help locate their loved ones when in fact he was complicit with the people who committed the crimes.

“. . . He sat down with us at the working table and that was a mockery towards us,” said Aracely Salcedo, spokeswoman for a group of victims’ family members from Orizaba and Córdoba.

“That’s what angers us the most, what hurts the most, that a person who was supposed to guarantee us justice clearly and simply deceived us.”

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

Another 1.5 million seats on direct flights expected this year

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June 19, 2018

There ought to be 30 million of these by the end of the year.

There could be another 1.5 million airline seats added on direct flights to Mexico this year, bringing the total to nearly 30 million.

The Mexico Tourism Board (CPTM) said the country’s air connectivity has been steadily growing: 2.6 million seats were added over the course of 2017, bringing the total to 28 million.

The growth ought to allow Mexico to keep up with strong demand: a record-breaking 10.6 million tourists visited during the first quarter of 2018, representing an increase of more than 12% compared to the same period last year.

Nearly half (18.6 million) of the 39.3 million international visitors to Mexico last year traveled by air.

“Increasing air connectivity is a critical component of our tourism growth strategy,” said Tourism Secretary Enrique de la Madrid in a statement.

“The expansion of air routes not only offers visitors from all corners of the globe better access to all that Mexico has to offer, it also solidifies Mexico’s appeal to the business sector. Mexico is a world of its own, and the demand for access to its beaches, vibrant cities and magical towns is a winning proposition for the airline industry,” he said.

The connectivity strategy seeks to increase tourist arrivals from markets such as China, Japan, South Korea, the Middle East and India.

New routes include Hainan Airlines’ first-ever service from Beijing to Mexico City via Tijuana, and Emirates Airlines’ service between Dubai and Mexico City via Barcelona.

While air routes in North America are already consolidated, notable new air routes continue to be added, including Boston-Mexico City, Chicago-Guadalajara, New York-Mexico City, Philadelphia-Mexico City, Sacramento-Los Cabos, San Diego-Puerto Vallarta, San Francisco-Cancun, San Jose-Los Cabos and Vancouver-Mexico City.

More domestic routes are coming on stream too this year. Volaris announced 14 last week.

Source: TravelPulse (sp)

Synchronized swimming team wins seven gold medals in Greece

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June 19, 2018

The medal-winning swimmers at one of their events in Greece.

Mexico’s synchronized swimming team won the seven gold medals that were at stake on the weekend in an event that was part of the FINA Artistic Swimming World Series 2018, held on the island of Syros, Greece.

The team stood out in the solo technical and solo free events, the duet technical and free events and the team technical, free and combination.

Soloists Joana Jiménez and Nuria Lidon Diosdado García claimed gold in their events, while Diosdado, together with partner Karem Achach Ramírez, repeated her success in both duet events.

The team’s wins in the technical, free, and combination added more golds to their tally.

Team leaders Diosdado and Achach led the team that participated in the Summer Olympics two years ago in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Mexico's synchronized swimming team. — Mexico’s synchronized swimming team.

The last of 10 dates in the FINA series will take the team to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, later this month.

The Mexican swimmers are also preparing for the 23rd Central American and Caribbean Games, to be held from July 19 to August 3 in Barranquilla, Colombia.

President Enrique Peña Nieto and Alfredo Castillo Cervantes, the head of the National Commission for Physical Culture and Sport (Conade), wrote congratulatory messages on Twitter, commending the swimmers for their achievement.

Source: Noticieros Televisa (sp), SwimSwam (en)

Separating migrant parents, children ‘cruel and inhumane’

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June 19, 2018

Videgaray: objections expressed through diplomatic note.

Mexico’s secretary of foreign affairs today condemned the United States’ policy of separating migrant children from their parents at its southern border, describing the practice as “cruel and inhumane.”

Luis Videgaray told a press conference this morning that “on behalf of the government and the people of Mexico, I want to express our most categorical condemnation of a cruel and inhumane policy.”

The foreign secretary said 21 Mexican minors had been affected by it and at least seven children remain separated from their parents, but he rejected any suggestion that the federal government had been indifferent to their plight.

“We acted immediately from the moment the zero-tolerance policy was announced . . . Our consulates acted quickly by visiting detention centers as well as [migrant] shelters, where they have identified cases of Mexican children who have been separated from their parents,” Videgaray said.

“Of the 1,995 cases that have been reported by the [United States] Department of Homeland Security [between April 19 and May 31] . . . 1% of the cases are of Mexican children. That figure is consistent with the cases that our consulates have identified. Our consular network has identified a total of 21 cases, of which the majority have been repatriated to Mexico . . .” he said.

Videgaray said Mexico has already taken diplomatic actions aimed at putting an end to the zero-tolerance policy, which was announced by United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions on May 7.

Sessions said the goal of the policy was to prosecute 100% of all adults who enter the U.S. illegally and send them immediately to a federal court, leaving their children in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Sessions said “if you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” adding that “if you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over the border.”

When the policy announcement was made, 700 children had already been separated from their parents since last October, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Videgaray explained that Mexico has tabled its opposition to the policy with the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Organization of American States and other international organizations.

He also said the Mexican government had formally expressed its position to the United States government through a diplomatic note and telephone calls to the Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Videgaray explained that Mexico recognizes the United States’ sovereignty and right to implement its own migratory policies but added that “according to our convictions we cannot be indifferent to these incidents that place children in situations of vulnerability.”

He added: “We call on the highest levels of the United States government to reconsider this policy and to give priority to the welfare and the respect for the rights of children regardless of their nationality and immigration status.”

Mexican authorities will meet with their counterparts from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — all large migrant source countries — in Mexico City next week to discuss joint actions to protect migrants’ rights in the United States, Videgaray said.

The foreign secretary’s public condemnation of the child separation policy comes a day after U.S. Customs and Border Protection released footage that showed dozens of children standing or sitting in cages inside a detention center in McAllen, Texas.

Almost 200 unaccompanied children were being held in the facility while a further 500 people were “family units” made up of children and parents who could be later separated from their sons and daughters, according to CBS News.

Investigative news website ProPublica released a recording yesterday in which children can be heard desperately calling out for their parents after being separated from them by U.S. authorities, triggering further condemnation of the policy.

U.S. President Donald Trump, however, has blamed the Democratic Party for its implementation, writing on Twitter Friday that “the Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda.”

Trump tweeted again on the policy yesterday and in the process seemingly insinuated that he wasn’t about to back down.

“Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth as a means to enter our country. Has anyone been looking at the Crime taking place south of the border. It is historic, with some countries the most dangerous places in the world. Not going to happen in the U.S.”

Source: Milenio (sp), Economía Hoy (sp), Time (en) The Hill (en)

Protesting teachers withdraw protests, announce return to work

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June 19, 2018

With only a few days remaining in the school year, teachers in Oaxaca and Chiapas have decided to return to their classrooms and end a month-long strike.

Members of the CNTE teachers’ union decided to abandon their protest camps in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, and in the streets of Oaxaca city. An encampment will remain, however, in the latter city’s central square, the zócalo.

Oaxaca teachers said they will return to work tomorrow while those in Chiapas have not indicated when they will go back.

A vote taken among some 20,000 of the union’s Oaxaca members revealed that 2,255 wished to continue the strike, 8,084 wanted to maintain a representative protest in which 20% of the membership would participate and 7,828 wished to withdraw the protests and end the strike.

This morning, teachers withdrew from the streets in the city center after a 17-day occupation, leaving only the camp in the main square.

Although according to education officials fewer than 5% of Oaxaca teachers actually participated in the strike, the protest camp caused significant economic damage to the city, a business leader said yesterday.

Carlos Guzmán Gardeazabal, head of the Oaxaca chapter of Canacintra, the National Chamber for Industrial Transformation, estimated losses of 100 million pesos (US $4.88 million) and that some businesses were forced to close.

Guzmán said the willingness shown by Governor Alejandro Murat Hinojosa to encourage economic development is lost through the destabilizing actions carried out by the CNTE.

“We’ve made many calls, and we’re fed up. There’s no will among the teachers to modify their conduct and protest methods,” he said, adding that teachers should consider the fact that they’re affecting the city’s business sector, whose taxes are needed to pay teachers their salaries.

The governor said the state had met all the union’s demand that fell within its jurisdiction.

The union agreed that the state had provided answers to the demands but observed that 62% of them fall within the responsibility of the federal government.

Source: NVI Noticias (sp), Milenio (sp)

Weather service forecasts severe storms in six states

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June 19, 2018

Flooding yesterday in Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo.

A trough of low pressure extending over the northeast of Mexico and tropical waves in the west and south of the country will bring severe storms to six states today, according to the National Meteorological Service (SNM).

Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Veracruz, Guanajuato and Chiapas are forecast to be affected by the severe storm activity while a further 12 states are predicted to be in the path of strong storms.

They are Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Michoacán, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Querétaro, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, México state, Mexico City and Morelos.

Heavy rainfall is also forecast in parts of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Colima, Campeche and Quintana Roo while isolated showers are predicted for Tabasco and Yucatán.

Tropical wave No. 4 already delivered heavy rain to Quintana Roo yesterday with more than 225 millimeters falling in the municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto.

The municipalities of Bacalar in the south of the state and Lázaro Cárdenas in the north also received heavy rainfall, leading state authorities and the navy to intensify their relief efforts in all three municipalities.

The Mayan community of Chumpón, located in Felipe Carrillo Puerto about 50 kilometers southwest of Tulum, was left without electricity and the residents of 300 homes were forced to evacuate due to flood waters that rose as high as three meters.

In Bacalar, where floodwaters reached depths of 1.2 meters, 400 homes were inundated and residents were also forced to evacuate and take refuge in shelters. Flooding also affected homes and roads in Lázaro Cárdenas.

In Michoacán, heavy rain and strong winds brought by Tropical Storm Carlotta caused flooding and toppled trees in the port city of Lázaro Cárdenas and the surrounding municipality.

Carlotta also generated heavy rainfall in Guerrero and Oaxaca over the weekend but the storm weakened into a remnant low off the southwest Pacific coast last night although forecasters said it could still deliver rain that causes more flooding on shore.

Flooded highway between Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Tulum.

In Zacatecas, the state’s Civil Protection director said a variety of weather systems had delivered rain that caused flooding due to rivers and reservoirs overflowing their banks in the municipalities of Villa González Ortega, Río Grande and Pánfilo Natera.

In the municipalities of Tepoztlán and Tlayacapan in Morelos, authorities are alert to the possibility of rocks falling from mountain ridges that were destabilized by last September’s earthquake. Recent rains have softened the earth and made rocks more susceptible to detachment, a state Civil Protection official said.

Authorities in Hidalgo are also monitoring mountainous areas of the state due to the risk of landslides. The state’s Civil Protection director said there are hazards in 22 of Hidalgo’s 84 municipalities.

Although rain is expected in much of the country today, the SNM also predicts temperatures between 40 and 45 C in parts of Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Michoacán, Chihuahua and Coahuila.

Temperatures ranging between 35 and 40 C are predicted for parts of several other states including Baja California, Baja California Sur, Nayarit, Jalisco and Oaxaca.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Students’ wastewater purification system also generates electricity

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June 18, 2018

Three engineering students from Monterrey, Nuevo León, will head to the United Kingdom next month to further develop their water purification system, a project for which they won a prestigious international social entrepreneurship prize.

Joel Garzafox, Rodrigo Chinchilla and Jaime García, who are in their final semester of a chemical engineering degree at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, made a prototype of a system that not only purifies wastewater but also generates electricity during the process.

Their invention, which they called “Harvest,” was awarded the national edition of the Hult Prize, an annual competition established in 2010 by Swedish businessman Bertil Hult to reward innovative projects related to food security, water access, energy and education.

Along with a US $50,000 prize to dedicate towards the advancement of their project, the three young men were invited to participate in a business accelerator program at the Hult International Business School in the British capital.

On July 21 they will join the members of other 39 winning teams from around the world to continue working on their purification system and compete to become one of six teams that will enter the global Hult Prize final at United Nations headquarters in New York.

The winning team will receive US $1 million in seed capital to help launch its social enterprise project.

While the original idea for “Harvest” was born out of the research the students completed as part of their degree, the work of Indian biotechnology researcher Rashmi Chandra was vital for its development.

Chandra, who is conducting research at Tec. de Monterrey as a visiting professor, became the students’ mentor and allowed the students to base their work on technology she developed as part of her postdoctoral thesis.

“We’ve had a lot of support from our mentor, from the people at Tec. de Monterrey and from family, friends and professors,” García told the newspaper El Financiero.

“If you see that people believe in your project . . . and if little by little you see results, that’s something valuable,” he added.

The “Harvest” purification system works by passing water through three filtration tanks that are aided by sub-aquatic plants that release water-cleaning microorganisms when they come into contact with rays of sunlight.

“Water that was used in the kitchen or the shower or contaminated water from rivers goes into the system and is treated by the first tank. During the process, the water is purified by the plants together with the filters and other materials that work as purifiers,” Garzafox said.

He explained that the final part of the purification process is carried out using filters made out of charcoal, clay or gravel, adding that while “the process is happening, enough electricity is generated to light up a room.”

García said that they have experimented with seaweed but “any sub-aquatic plant works,” although the team has specifically studied aquatic monocots and determined that they have an energy-producing capacity that could have a positive “impact on people’s lives in marginalized areas.”

With the US $50,000 they received from winning the Mexican prize, the three students plan to build a more advanced version of their prototype that provides more compelling evidence that their system is functional.

The students estimate that their system will initially sell for between US $120 and US $150 but expect that as their business grows, they will be able to reduce the price. They also hope to collaborate with microfinance companies to make their product more accessible.

While in London, Garzafox, Chinchilla and García plan to fine-tune their business model and if everything goes to plan, their “Harvest” system is expected to hit the market at the end of 2019.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

AMLO says new airport might go ahead but people will decide

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June 18, 2018

López Obrador: relaxes stand on new airport.

Leading presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador yesterday left open the possibility that the new Mexico City airport project might carry on but said it would ultimately be up to the people to decide its fate.

Speaking at a rally in Texcoco, México state — the municipality where the new airport is being built — López Obrador said that by September at the latest he will conduct a public consultation in which citizens will be presented with three different proposals: two that will see the project continue and one that will scrap it.

The frontrunner in the July 1 election, who said Friday that it will take a miracle to stop him from winning, has previously pledged to cancel the new airport, charging that it is corrupt, too expensive and not needed.

Confronted with chants of “yes to land, no to planes,” the candidate known widely by his initials AMLO said that “everything has to be considered, thought over very carefully [and] analyzed” before a final decision is made.

“We’re talking about the national interest, they’re not personal interests or group interests. If there is already investment in the airport . . . we have to see what’s going to be done with that investment. That’s why I don’t rule out that the project will continue,” he said.

When that statement was met with booing and hissing from some of his supporters, López Obrador sought to placate them by saying, “calm down, in the end you’re going to decide, just let me give you the options.”

One of the three alternatives AMLO floated is for the project to continue as a public-private joint venture, although the Morena party candidate said that option depended on how much money the government has already invested and how much more it will need to contribute.

“. . . I need to have all the information,” he told reporters, adding “that will involve reviewing the project and seeing how much the total cost will be.” The projected cost is US $13 billion.

According to López Obrador, the government has already contributed 40 billion pesos (US $1.95 billion) and set aside another 40 billion pesos that is sitting in an airport trust.

The second option would see the project survive but as a private-sector concession, which López Obrador said he favored over the first option.

“I hope the government doesn’t [have to] invest, that it can be a concession to private Mexican companies. In other words, that a tendering process is held so that a concession is awarded to a consortium of national companies that are already working [on the project],” he said.

According to Mexico’s richest man, Carlos Slim — whose companies have an 8% stake in the new airport, the whole project should have been contracted out to the private sector from the beginning.

Speaking out in its defense in April, Slim warned that suspending the project would halt economic growth and said López Obrador — and other presidential candidates — had “no reason to interfere.”

He also charged that it is inevitable that a public infrastructure project will take longer and cost more than a private one.

The third option that López Obrador said he will present to the citizens of Mexico would involve scrapping the project and using the land for real estate development, including the construction of buildings to house government offices.

In that scenario, pressure on Mexico City’s overburdened Benito Juárez airport would be relieved by building two new runways at the existing Santa Lucía air force base in México state.

However, some aviation experts have warned that the plan is not feasible due to its proximity to the existing airport.

To address all the pros and cons, López Obrador said, there will be a comprehensive debate before his proposed public consultation, which could take the form of a referendum conducted by the National Electoral Institute (INE).

The Together We Will Make History coalition candidate also told supporters that he has asked to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto on July 3 to discuss the project, explaining that he didn’t request the meeting for the first day after the election because he won’t have slept the night before.

“We could resolve [the airport issue] in two months, July and August, and in September we’ll conduct the consultation . . . because it can’t wait any longer,” López Obrador said.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Macaw reintroduction program sees 27 birds released in Veracruz

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June 18, 2018