One of the trucks set on fire by an organized crime group in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, near the Reynosa-Pharr, Texas, border crossing.
Members of an organized crime group set at least four trucks on fire on Wednesday to pressure truckers to end their blockade of the international crossing between Reynosa, Tamaulipas, and Pharr, Texas.
After being threatened by presumed members of the Gulf Cartel, the truckers terminated their protest, which began Monday in response to a more stringent vehicle inspection program implemented last week by the government of Texas. The new policy caused lengthy delays at the border and threatened billions of dollars in international trade.
The trucks set alight by gangsters were located near the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge and in at least one other part of the Tamaulipas border city. One truck on Avenida Puente Pharr was set on fire at approximately 11:00 a.m. by four men who first doused the vehicle with gasoline, the newspaper El Universal reported.
Another truck was set on fire near Parque Colonial, about seven kilometers from the border crossing. The gangsters also set a vacant lot on fire, the newspaper Excélsior reported.
As Civil Protection personnel extinguished the blazes there was a gunfight between the presumed cartel members and the National Guard, El Universal said. No casualties were reported.
State police arrested three presumed members of the Gulf Cartel and seized two vehicles used by the criminal gang.
Edgar Zambrano Quintallan, Reynosa president of the National Chamber of Trucking, said that protesting truckers were advised to end their blockade due to safety concerns. “We explained to the drivers that the best thing was to move,” he said.
Blockades at border crossings began after truckers faced delays of up to 30 hours due to Texas’ stricter vehicle inspection program, introduced by Governor Greg Abbott to detect migrants and drugs and increase vehicle safety. It was suspended Wednesday at the border crossing between Colombia, Nuevo León, and Laredo, Texas, but remained in place at other border crossings between Mexico and the Lone Star state.
Abbott and Nuevo León Governor Samuel García signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday that ensured the stricter program would be suspended at the Colombia-Laredo crossing.
It said the two states would cooperate to ensure that vehicles crossing the border meet safety standards and to reduce human trafficking and the smuggling of fentanyl and other drugs.
The memorandum also said the neighboring states would collaborate to stem the flow of migrants into Texas and that Nuevo León has begun and will continue enhanced border security enforcement measures.
In addition, it said the two states would work cooperatively to restore the border-crossing inspections process to allow crossings at a faster pace.
At a press conference with García, Abbott criticized U.S. President Biden for failing to secure the border with Mexico and said he was open to negotiating with the governors of other states that share a border with Texas.
“President Biden must assert the national security priority that comes with being the commander in chief of the United States,” the Texas governor said.
“Until then, Texas will use its own strategies to secure the border and continue to negotiate with Mexico to seek solutions.”
On Wednesday morning, 26 grow permits were presented to indigenous communities. Twitter @cesarmateos_oax
Federal permits allowing the cultivation of marijuana for medicinal purposes have been assigned to 26 indigenous communities in Oaxaca.
Issued by health regulator Cofepris, the permits also allow the communities to process the plant into different medicinal forms.
The Oaxaca Association of Indigenous Cannabis Producers (AIPCO) presented the permits at an event in Oaxaca city on Wednesday morning.
Among the recipients were the towns of Santa Cruz Papalutla, San Juan Chilateca, San Pablo Huixtepec, San Dionisio Ocotepec, San Nicolás Yaxe, El Tepehuaje and Coatecas Altas.
The use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has been legal in Mexico since 2017. The Supreme Court has directed Congress to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes, but it has repeatedly missed deadlines to do so.
Horacio Sosa Villavicencio, a Morena party state representative in Oaxaca, shared the news about the permits and video from the event on his TikTok account.
AIPCO president Roberto Carlos Cruz Gómez described the issuing of the permits as an historical event. They were issued after an arduous process that lasted for years, he said.
Cruz said that the 26 communities will grow plants that have a high cannabidiol, or CBD content. Unlike tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, CBD is not psychoactive. Among a wide range of CBD products are oils and gummies.
Cruz said that cannabis derivatives could be made available via the Oaxaca Health Ministry if a production and commercialization bill becomes a state law.
Daniel Ramírez López of agri-food consultancy firm COAGRO said that the issuing of permits to the Oaxaca communities will allow the cannabis industry to begin to develop in Mexico.
Cannabis has always been vilified in Mexico, he said before noting that the marijuana industry is very lucrative in U.S. states where use of the plant is legal.
Once recreational use is approved, Mexico will become the world’s largest legal marijuana market. One person already cashing in on the CBD and marijuana paraphernalia market is former president Vicente Fox, who is a part owner of a chain of cannabis stores.
Puebla Food Bank staffer Rodrigo Bravo Morales confers with client Margarita Aguilar about her hearing problems after a making a food delivery to her home. Photos by David Kirby unless otherwise noted
Margarita Aguilar Bonilla sat alone in her modest home in Lomas de San Miguel, a largely working-class district on the eastern edge of Puebla city, when two staffers from the Puebla Food Bank appeared at her door, bearing smiles, hugs and enough food for the elderly woman and her disabled son to last a week.
The delivery was spread out over the kitchen table and onto surrounding chairs: items ranging from a large bag of red, yellow and green bell peppers, a ripe pineapple, fresh apples, carrots and chayotes to fruit juice, milk, rice and beans, pasta, bread and even pastries and cupcakes.
“This is so important to us; it’s a huge help,” Aguilar said. “And it’s a blessing because it also delivers the people who deliver the food. The attention they give to elderly people — they take care of us.”
The bounty will not only save Aguilar and her son, it will save the food itself.
All of it was “rescued” from local companies, farms, restaurants and greenhouses. Without the Puebla Food Bank, most of it would have been tossed into a landfill.
The Puebla Food Bank’s constantly busy receiving, weighing and dispatching food. An upcoming expansion will allow it to process more food and also give classes to recipients about food self-sufficiency.
The twin plagues of food waste and starvation are of epidemic proportions in Mexico, where a staggering amount of nutritious, fresh food is thrown away each day even as millions of people go to bed hungry.
Enter the National Network of Food Banks, with 54 chapters throughout Mexico. These nonprofits, including the large, active one in Puebla, act as a bridge between food waste and feeding people in dire need.
“Every day, 50,000 tonnes of food are lost in Mexico; nearly 40% of the food produced is thrown away,” said Puebla Food Bank Director José Miguel Rojas Vértiz Bermúdez. “But even worse, on that same day, 50 million people endure hunger and malnutrition.”
Each year, some 8,000 Mexicans die of hunger, nearly one every hour.
And there’s more. The annual pollution and wasted resources from producing, processing and transporting all that food, which will never be eaten, takes a huge toll.
“It equals the amount of vehicle pollution created in Guadalajara, Monterrey and Mexico City combined,” Rojas said.
Producing the throwaway surplus also consumes 40 billion liters of water annually, “or enough to provide Mexicans potable water for nearly two and a half years,” he said.
COVID-19 has made these two problems worse, as people lost jobs and other resources. According to the National Network of Food Banks, the number of Mexicans suffering from hunger increased by 9% since the pandemic, as did the total amount of wasted food.
A recent visit to the Puebla Food Bank revealed a massive, clean, modern facility bustling with staff and volunteers who were receiving, sorting and dispatching food — not only dry and canned goods but also fresh produce that might not be ready for prime time but was still eminently edible, including slightly bruised tomatoes and carrots that were small, broken, or looked like the face of Lyndon Johnson.
The loading dock was beeping with forklifts, busy receiving, weighing and then dispatching food.
“The difference between what we take in and what we deliver in kilos is minimal,” said Procurement Coordinator Guadalupe Carmona Calva. “We try to be as efficient and transparent as possible. We get it out almost as quickly as we receive it,” she said, explaining that the shelf life was so limited.
Food rejects appropriate for animals are carefully excised from human deliveries and dispatched to the Africam safari park just outside Puebla. “Those animals need to eat too, and this way, nothing is wasted,” Carmona said.
Some of the people they serve, Puebla Food Bank staffer Rodrigo Bravo said, “live in one-room homes without furniture and sleep on cardboard on the floor.” UN
Unspoiled food is delivered to people in the states of Puebla and neighboring Tlaxcala via climate-controlled trucks that transport them to dozens of distribution centers throughout the region or to some 120 institutions, including hospitals and orphanages.
The food bank sends 14,000 hot meals a month to eight comedores (dining rooms), runs a cafeteria for its own volunteers and staff and operates the “Ruta de Caridad” (Route of Charity), which offers food, companionship and other services to people who cannot leave their homes.
All told, that’s 1,400 tonnes of rescued food a month distributed to 150,000 people via 45,000 deliveries in 250 communities.
Alexandra Ladrón de Guevara, director of institutional outreach, is pleased with the bank’s progress but given that 1.5 million people in the State of Puebla still face food insecurity, she admits that there is a long way to go.
Still, support for the project comes from an impressive list of places — from the state and city governments (although the foundation is strictly nonpolitical); from foundations; from large companies based in Puebla, including Volkswagen and Audi; from universities and students; and from individual donors. “There are many ways to help,” she said. “Some people donate 300 pesos a month to sponsor a family, and some literally drop off rice and beans at the bank.”
Back in Lomas de San Miguel, Food Bank Route of Charity Coordinator Rodrigo Bravo Morales was chatting with Aguilar. She is frail and facing almost complete hearing loss, while her adult son has debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. Neither can work, and they depend on the weekly deliveries for survival.
Bravo is trying to find a better hearing aid for Aguilar, who worked for nine years on a noisy auto-parts assembly line before being forced to retire. Her paperwork fell through some corporate cracks, and she never collected a pension.
He has managed to procure a new toilet and bathroom sink for her home. “We have an alliance with Walmart, which donates household appliances,” he said. “They are slightly damaged, maybe a dent, but still perfectly good. So, we don’t just rescue food. We let nothing go to waste for people who need it.”
The largely homebound food bank clients on the Route of Charity receive more than just physical sustenance.
“We visit each of them once a week to check on their well-being and to see if they need anything, and we arrange for a doctor through our alliance with the (nonprofit) Dr. Simi Foundation to visit them twice a month,” Bravo said.
For some of the food bank’s clients, those who bring the weekly food deliveries are the only visitors they see. “We have become like family,” he said, adding that he sometimes arrives with flowers and a guitar to serenade Señora Aguilar.
“I always try to make them a little coffee or dessert,” Aguilar said. “They are out there running around all the time, and they deserve it.”
Each month, the Puebla Food Bank rescues 1,400 tonnes of food that would otherwise be thrown away from sites ranging from companies and farms to restaurants and greenhouses. Puebla Food Bank
While Aguilar’s situation is difficult, other food bank clients have even greater challenges.
“Some people have nothing at all,” Bravo said. “They live in one-room homes without furniture and sleep on cardboard on the floor. We try to get them clothing, beds, sofas, stoves and fridges, all donated.”
In poorer communities, health problems complicate hunger exponentially. One family nearby is an older woman with an adult daughter with severe epilepsy and constant seizures.
“About two years ago, she had a seizure and fell onto a hot barbeque, burning about half of her body,” Bravo said. “The mother had to quit work to care for her daughter and then she herself fell and broke her ankle. It’s a very difficult situation. We managed to get her a wheelchair.”
Many client families have members with intellectual disabilities, paralysis, brain disease, or illnesses such as autoimmune disorders or severe GI problems.
“In many, but not all cases, they are going to need our help forever,” Carmona said. “Other clients who lost their jobs or had pay cuts will eventually be able to buy their own food again.”
And that, she said, is the overriding goal.
The food bank is currently building a large extension onto its facility, using donated sheetrock from a United States-based company. It will not only expand their capabilities for food storage, processing and delivery, it will also have dedicated spaces for training clients in food self-sufficiency and economic independence.
“Our goal is that [one day] the Food Bank will no longer exist,” Carmona said, “because people are no longer hungry.”
If you are interested in supporting the Puebla Food Bank with a donation, you can reach them via their Spanish-language website. If you don’t understand Spanish, you can make a donation online at the website Global Giving.
A three-month-old baby jaguar was seized at Mérida airport, the environmental protection agency Profepa said on Monday.
The male cub was discovered during a National Guard operation to combat the illegal trafficking of animals.
The feline was found thanks to the detection of a microchip that it was wearing, aided by the discovery of irregularities in documents that were presented.
Profepa wrote on Twitter to confirm the seizure and said the jaguar would be handed over to a Wildlife Management Unit (UMA).
Jaguars are listed as near threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List as the population has probably declined by 20–25% since the 1990s. In Mexico, the jaguar is primarily threatened by poaching. Its habitat, in the north, the Gulf of Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula, is threatened by changes in land use, construction of roads and the construction of tourism infrastructure.
Bengal tigers have also become a challenge for authorities.
Three Bengal tigers under the responsibility of federal and state authorities died of starvation in a cage in Guerrero in February. In March, a Bengal tiger was captured in a house in Chimalhuacán, México state, and a cub was rescued in Celaya, Guanajuato. A large white tiger was killed by authorities in Querétaro later that month and a tiger has been on the loose in Guanajuato, killing livestock, since December.
Meanwhile, tropical birds have also been appearing outside of their habitat.
A pelican whose wings had been hurt was seized by authorities in the center of the borough of Tláhuac in Mexico City. Officials said it would be taken to a reserve belonging to the National Autonomous University (UNAM) for observation, to be freed later by Profepa.
Governors García, left, and Abbott at Wednesday's meeting over vehicle inspections.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott backed down on extra inspections for vehicles from one part of Mexico on Wednesday as a domestic U.S. clash over immigration policy created delays threatening billions of dollars in international trade.
The additional checks introduced by Abbott last week — which he said were meant to reduce crime and increase vehicle safety — added hours to usual crossing times and led to long backlogs at important ports of entry along Texas’ nearly 2,000-kilometer border with Mexico.
Truck drivers south of the border had blockaded some of the entry points in protest over the onerous measures, adding to the chaos and further imperiling supply chains already under strain.
At a news conference with Samuel García, governor of Nuevo León, on Wednesday, Abbott said Texas would return to the previous practice of random inspections at the shared ports of entry. García said he had agreed that the portion of the border would be continuously patrolled by state police.
“The bridge from Nuevo León and Texas will return to normal effectively immediately, right now,” Abbott said.
However, the move will only ease congestion at one crossing for now.
Most of Texas’ southern border is shared with Coahuila, Tamaulipas and Chihuahua states. Abbott said he had been contacted by those governors and would hold talks starting as soon as Thursday, signaling his intent to resolve the trade dispute in piecemeal deals at the state level.
“I look forward to working with all of them toward achieving results similar to what we are achieving today with Governor García,” he said, adding that in the meantime the additional checks would be in place.
Abbott, who is up for reelection in November, introduced the additional checks amid a domestic battle with the Democratic Biden administration over federal immigration policy. The border check measures, however, drew the ire of local Republican business leaders.
Mexico, which is the United States’ biggest trading partner, also protested that the more than US $440 billion in annual trade flows that crossed through Texas entry points were at risk.
Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, said on Wednesday that Abbott’s measures were unnecessary, hurt jobs and raised prices.
As the leaders were speaking, trucks were still facing long delays in crossing the border. Blockades at two important crossings in Ciudad Juárez had been lifted on Wednesday, local media reported.
Industries from carmakers to agriculture have been affected by the delays. Daniel Gudiño, chief executive of Mexican lime exporter SiCar Farms, said his company had citrus stuck at crossings that was at risk of spoiling.
“If this is prolonged it’ll break the supply chain and inventories,” he said. “The consumer at the end of the day will always be the most affected because the prices will stay high or rise again.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022. All rights reserved.
Electric vehicles need lithium for their batteries.
President López Obrador has a plan B to nationalize lithium in case his proposed electricity reform doesn’t pass Congress: send lawmakers a different nationalization bill.
The president’s electricity bill, which would change the constitution to guarantee the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission 54% of the market and ensure that no new lithium concessions are granted to private companies, faces a vote in the lower house of Congress this Sunday.
It requires support from two-thirds of lawmakers to pass, but the ruling Morena party and its allies don’t have a supermajority in either the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate.
Morena has attempted to persuade Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) deputies to break ranks with their party, whose official stand is in opposition to the bill. But the government needs another 57 votes to get that supermajority.
It came one closer on Wednesday when a PRI legislator from Chiapas announced he would vote in favor, but getting another 56 seems an unlikely prospect.
Meanwhile, López Obrador said Wednesday that future exploration of lithium – a key component of lithium-ion batteries used in electronic devices and for green energy storage – will be nationalized via a reform to the mining law if his electricity bill isn’t approved.
“If there isn’t two thirds [support] on Sunday, because the lobbyists, the influence peddlers and foreign interests dominate – if there is treason by the lawmakers, we already have the mining law reform initiative, [which] I just signed this morning,” he told reporters at his regular news conference.
López Obrador said the bill, which would ensure that lithium is designated as “property of the nation,” only needs support from a simple majority of lawmakers to become law. If the electricity bill doesn’t pass the lower house this Sunday, the proposed mining law reform will immediately be submitted to Congress, he said.
“They’re not going to put us up against the wall. Lithium, which both foreign corporations and governments lust after, will belong to Mexico,” López Obrador declared.
Firms with active lithium mining permits, such as China’s Ganfeng Lithium, will not be affected by the nationalization plans, the government has said while pledging not to issue any new concessions.
AMLO announced in February that a new state company will be created to exploit lithium deposits for which no permits have been issued.
Mexico has large potential reserves in Sonora and smaller potential deposits in states such as Baja California, San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas. However, most of Mexico’s potential reserves are in clay deposits that are technically difficult and expensive to mine, leading to doubts about the state’s capacity to exploit them.
Such concerns haven’t diminished Lopez Obrador’s enthusiasm for nationalizing what he describes as a “strategic mineral.”
“There couldn’t be electric cars without lithium … and it turns out that we have lithium, which is like having oil … or gold in earlier times,” he said Wednesday.
“Lithium is white gold and … [foreign companies and governments] covet it, that’s why they’re against the constitution being changed. … They’re very opportunist, … they don’t even have an ideology, they have interests, their god is money,” López Obrador said.
He issued a new call for opposition lawmakers to go against their parties and support the electricity reform, advising them to rebel and ignore the foreign lobbyists. He said last week he had information that some opposition lawmakers would support the bill, which he refused to alter despite intense pressure from the United States.
Legislators should tell the lobbyists they have a responsibility to defend the people and the nation and let them know that they “won’t fold even with their filthy money,” AMLO said before changing his tone and wishing everyone a peaceful Holy Week with their families.
Cruise ships berthed at the port of Mazatlán. government of sinaloa
Three cruise ships arrived in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Wednesday with more than 15,000 people on board, helping to recover the city’s tourism industry over the Easter break.
Almost eight months since cruise tourism was reactivated in Mexico, the largest of the arrivals is at close to 100% capacity.
The Carnival Panorama arrived from Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, at 9 a.m. carrying 4,616 of the possible 4,716 passengers and 1,304 of a maximum 1,450 crew. The ship will head to Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, at 6 p.m.
The near-full ship is a positive sign for the industry: when cruise tourism returned in August, the Carnival Panorama was only operating at around 60% capacity.
Another ship, Discovery Princess, arrived in Mazatlán at around 7:30 a.m. from Cabo San Lucas carrying 3,264 passengers and 1,334 crew. It will continue its journey towards Puerto Vallarta at 6 p.m.
Norwegian Bliss is sailing the reserve route with 3,195 passengers and 1,588 crew. It arrived from Puerto Vallarta in the morning and will set sail for Cabo San Lucas at 6 p.m.
The general director of port administration, Mariel Aquileo Ancona Infazón, said that the number of cruise tourists had doubled since August. “It started with 1,500 [passengers] and now the majority have more than 3,000. It’s been remarkable,” he said.
Aquileo added that almost triple the number of cruise ships are likely to arrive to Mazatlán in 2022 compared to last year. He expects the first four months of the year to bring 65 ships, a rate which is likely to dip slightly to finish the year with 145 arrivals. In 2021, 52 cruise ships visited Mazatlán.
In May arrivals are likely to decrease until October when the high season begins.
The arrivals will provide a welcome bump in commercial activity in the city known as the Pearl of the Pacific, after its normally thriving tourist industry was heavily affected by travel restrictions introduced in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Longer crossing times are affecting supply chains that were already under pressure.
The governor of Texas is facing growing calls to abandon a vehicle inspection program that has led to blockades and long queues at Mexico border crossings, threatening billions of dollars in trade at a time when supply chains are already under strain.
Mexican truck drivers have blockaded border crossings since Monday in protest against the additional security checks, which were announced by Governor Greg Abbott in a two-paragraph letter last week. Crossing times for commercial freight have slowed to 10, 20 or even 30 hours in some cases, Mexican industry bodies said.
The dispute has imperiled billions of dollars’ worth of goods moving between the countries. In total, more than US $440 billion in trade flows through Texas-Mexico border crossings each year, according to the Texas Center for Border Economic and Enterprise Development at the Texas A&M International University.
The commercial disruption comes amid a broader dispute over immigration between Abbott, a Republican, and the Democratic Biden administration.
Abbott said the additional inspections were aimed at stopping migrant smuggling and drug trafficking across the border, as well as increasing vehicle safety. He also framed the measures as a response to U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to end pandemic-related migrant expulsions.
“This is going to dramatically slow traffic from Mexico into Texas. It is a byproduct of cartels crossing the border,” Abbott said in a news conference last week.
Texas’s Department of Public Safety said that within five days of Abbott’s order, it had inspected 3,443 commercial vehicles and put 807 of them out of service for safety violations.
Trade traffic at four critical ports of entry has been reduced to about one-third of the typical level, costing both countries income and competitiveness, Mexico’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday, adding that it rejected the inspection program.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Tuesday called Texas’ new measures “unnecessary” and said protests in Mexico had stopped all commercial traffic at the Pharr International Bridge. Northbound cargo traffic was also interrupted at Ysleta and New Mexico’s Santa Teresa crossing, it said.
The increased safety inspections piled further disruption on supply chains in industries from agriculture to automobiles that were already under stress because of the pandemic.
“The execution of this order has wreaked havoc up and down our supply chain,” the Texas International Produce Association said in a letter this week. “This is destroying our business and the reputation of Texas.”
Several Mexican industry groups said the checks had caused hours-long delays in crossing in some cases, with drivers often having to wait without food, water or bathrooms.
Mexico’s National Freight Transport Chamber on Tuesday called on Abbott to end the inspections to avoid a “collapse in international cross-border trade,” estimating that the delays at the Pharr bridge were costing $8 million a day.
Mexico’s National Agricultural Council said drivers would previously take about four hours to go through all the necessary border checks in Texas. Since the new measures came into effect, that has risen to as much as 30 hours.
The measures were designed to focus the federal government’s attention on immigration issues, said Raymond Robertson, director of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics and Public Policy at Texas A&M University. Even many conservatives in the state’s business community were pushing back against them, he added.
“There’s already been a lot of conservative people who are life-long Republicans who are really uncomfortable with what’s going on and I think they’re going to put pressure on the governor,” he said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022. All rights reserved.
In Chiapas, two women died in transit to vote in the referendum. They only went to vote because they feared their federal benefits were at stake, residents said. Twitter
Two women in Chiapas died on their way to vote in President López Obrador’s recall vote on Sunday, and citizens from their town accuse municipal authorities of pressuring people to travel to polling stations to vote in the president’s favor.
Citizens from Nueva Victoria, in the San Fernando municipality, said municipal worker Iván López Aquino arrived in town at 7 a.m. on Sunday to warn residents to vote to ensure they maintain their social program payments from pensions and from the Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life) tree-planting program.
“A lot of people were afraid because they depend on the support,” one local man said.
The citizens said the municipal government brought a pickup truck to take some local people to vote and that López kept a list of those who went. On the way to San Fernando, two hours down a dirt road from Nueva Victoria, the vehicle transporting 35 people fell some 100 meters into a ravine, killing the two women and injuring 13 other people, including a one-year-old baby who went into a coma.
One local woman, Odilia Girón López, said that some of the injured people weren’t provided with medicine or medical attention.
Hundreds of residents attended the funeral of Petrona Vázquez González and Lesbia Hernández Pérez, who died in the vehicle accident. Twitter
Angry people from the community took a San Fernando municipal official hostage, demanding to see San Fernando Mayor Antonio Castillejos. The mayor is a member of the Ecologist Green Party (PVEM), an ally of the Morena party. He is also being investigated by the Chiapas state auditor’s office for the suspected embezzlement of 17 million pesos in municipal funds, the newspaper Diario de Chiapas reported in February.
“If it was all right for them to come for people at 7 a.m., it’s also fine for him to come and show his face,” a local man said.
Relatives of the women were angered further by Castillejos’ attempts at compensation. They were given 15 chickens, three kilograms of rice and a few kilograms of corn dough, they said.
A total of 7,455 votes were cast in the seven polling stations in San Fernando on Sunday, and 95% of those were in favor of López Obrador remaining president. The seven stations had an average turnout of 29.7%, higher than the national average of 17.8%.
Meanwhile, another pickup truck crashed on the way to voting booths in Chiapas on Sunday. Three people from the town of Cruz de Piedra died on the way to Siltepec, but there have been no claims that they were pressured to vote by authorities.
The president called the democratic exercise a “complete success” after more than 90% voted in his favor, despite turnout falling far below the 40% needed to make the result legally binding.
López Obrador said he was considering a proposal to lower the minimum threshold required in such votes to 20%.
The Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) is an austere facility in the boondocks whereas the previous government’s canceled airport project would have been a “state-of-the-art” hub, according to an Australia-based aviation analysis and research company.
Centre for Aviation (CAPA) said in a report that the canceled US $13-billion Texcoco airport project would have replaced the busiest airport in Latin America – the saturated Mexico City International Airport – with a “new, single-site and state-of-the-art facility.”
The airport would have been open by now except it was “abruptly abandoned, partly completed and at huge cost, by the incoming president in 2018,” CAPA said, referring to Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s decision to cancel the project following a legally questionable referendum held a month before he took office.
López Obrador repeatedly claimed that the previous government’s project was plagued by corruption, too expensive and being built on land that was sinking, but CAPA posited that he held a spurious referendum on the airport and then canceled it for political reasons.
In its report, entitled Mexico City’s new airport opens – ‘mission accomplished,’ or is it?, the research firm noted that the replacement is “a converted military base out in the boondocks beyond city limits, where the military remains.”
The airport, which opened March 21, was built by the army on the Santa Lucía Air Force base, located about 50 kilometers north of downtown Mexico City in México state. The site of the canceled airport is about half that distance northeast of the historic center.
CAPA acknowledged that the AIFA – part of a three-pronged plan to meet air travel needs in the greater Mexico City area – at least opened on time, but observed that it has few air services and scant interest from international airlines.
“One of the issues facing the airport as it attempts to attract new airlines is its distance from downtown, the central business district and the southern suburbs,” the report said.
CAPA raised concerns about the lack of transport connections to the AIFA given that a new highway connection and rail link have not yet been completed.
Centre for Aviation said that it is probable that the AIFA will be compared to the Montréal–Mirabel International Airport, located 40 kilometers northwest of the Canadian city.
That airport, it said, failed to attract sufficient passenger flights due to its location and for that reason became a cargo-only airport in 2004.
CAPA said the AIFA will be able to handle 20 million passengers annually in its first phase of operations and 40 million per year in its second phase, although only 2,000 passengers per day, or fewer than 1 million per year, are currently using it due to the low number of flights.
“In 2052 it is expected to serve approximately 90 million passengers a year,” the company added, citing a figure that would be well above the record 50.3 million passengers who used the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) in 2019.
CAPA acknowledged that the success or otherwise of the new airport will contribute to the overall perception of the performance of AMLO, who has unsurprisingly championed the AIFA – one of his pet projects.
“Halfway through the president’s six-year term of office, the success or failure of the Felipe Ángeles International Airport may well turn out to be President [López] Obrador’s ultimate legacy,” CAPA said.
The federal government also intends to upgrade the AICM and the Toluca airport in order to increase their capacity and meet what was growing demand for air travel before the coronavirus pandemic began.
