Science council wants to suspend scholarships to pregnant women

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January 26, 2022

Headquarters of the national science agency Conacyt.

Having a baby while studying abroad is apparently frowned upon by the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt).

The public agency is planning to suspend scholarship payments to Mexican women who become pregnant while studying overseas.

Mexican men who father a child while studying in a foreign country would also be liable to having their Conacyt scholarships suspended.

In addition, foreign students studying in Mexico would lose any financial support they receive from the science council if they are expecting a child.

Conacyt has submitted an updated version of its scholarship rules to the National Commission for Regulatory Improvement (Conamer). The commission is currently reviewing the document.

“A female scholarship holder who is pregnant, in labor or in puerperium” is subject to the suspension of her scholarship or support payment, the document says, adding that male scholarship holders who become fathers can also temporarily lose their payments.

Payment would resume once affected students can show Conacyt they are no longer in violation of its scholarship rules. Presumably that could only occur after the puerperium period – usually considered to be about six weeks – has ended and students have returned to their studies.

Conacyt is also seeking to extend the validity of a rule that allows it to suspend the scholarship payments of Mexicans students studying abroad and foreign students studying here if they participate in political protests. That rule was published by Conacyt in a 2018 document that sets out its scholarship do’s and don’ts.

“A [Mexican] scholarship holder who is carrying out his or her studies … outside the country as well as a foreign scholarship holder who is carrying out his or her studies in Mexico must respect the legislation and regulations of the host country as well as abstain from participating in any kind of political event or protest,” says the updated rules document submitted to Conamer.

With reports from El Universal

Electrical reform will trigger exit of manufacturers from Mexico: industry group

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MND Staff

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January 26, 2022

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A beverage can manufacturing plant in Monterrey, Nuevo León. LukeandKarla.Travel / Shutterstock.com

Approval of the federal government’s proposed electricity reform will result in manufacturing companies leaving the country, according to the head of a national industry group.

Luis Hernández, president of the National Council of the Maquiladora Industry (INDEX), predicted that companies will depart Mexico if the constitutional bill passes Congress because the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) won’t have the capacity to provide them with sufficient clean energy.

The controversial, widely criticized reform – which is expected to be put to a vote in April – would guarantee 54% of the electricity market to the state-owned CFE and thus limit the participation of private companies that generate renewable energy.

“Companies will start to leave because the CFE doesn’t have a way to provide renewable or clean energy in accordance with what the USMCA suggests,” Hernández told a press conference, referring to the North American free trade agreement that took effect in 2020.

“We have a lot at stake,” he said, citing the risk of capital flight as well as likely difficulties in attracting new investment if the proposed electricity reform becomes law.

The INDEX chief said that approval of the bill would also have a negative impact on employment.

“If a reform is passed you can’t go against [it] … we’re going to have a limitation – investment will no longer be encouraged and employment growth will no longer be encouraged,” Hernández said.

He said the negative impact of the reform would be felt most in Chihuahua, Querétaro, Baja California and Tamaulipas, where many manufacturers have factories.

With reports from Reforma

Sinaloa Congress overturns veto that permitted bullfighting

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MND Staff

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January 26, 2022

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Lawmakers in the state Congress have put a stop to bullfighting.

A veto that permitted bullfighting in Sinaloa was thrown out on Tuesday in a unanimous vote in the state Congress.

Reforms to the state’s animal rights bill were first passed in January 2021, which outlawed bullfighting and defined the spectacle as an act of animal cruelty.

However, in April former governor Quirino Ordaz Coppel vetoed the part of the bill that banned bullfighting.

Ordaz finished his term on October 31 and now his amendments have now been repealed, meaning those found guilty of animal cruelty — including bullfighting — could face six years in prison or fines.

The bill’s approval will also see new animal welfare centers created in the state.

The reforms do not cover the sacrificial killings of slaughter animals, controversial equestrian sports or cockfighting, as the state legislature said they were federal matters.

Ordaz had argued that the reforms were ambiguous, given that bullfighting was to be banned, but other violent animal sports would remain legal.

A deputy who promoted the bill, Pedro Villegas Lobo, said it was necessary to give prison sentences for animal abuse rather than fines.

But Ordaz might not have to wait long to see another bullfight: his name was put forward as ambassador to Spain by President López Obrador in September.

With reports from El Sol de Sinaloa

8 inmates dead in Colima prison riot

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MND Staff

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January 26, 2022

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National Guardsmen at Colima prison riot — National Guardsmen and state police outside the prison facility.

A prison riot in Colima city on Tuesday morning left at least eight inmates dead and seven wounded.

The riot started at about 9 a.m. in cells at the Social Readaptation Center (Cereso), located near the Colima-Guadalajara highway, and was brought under control about an hour later, the state government said.

Police found sharp weapons, a firearm and telephones during a search, the state Attorney General’s Office said.

The state government said in a statement that the wounded men were given medical attention. “Inside two of the dormitories, seven people were found dead and eight people were injured, who were transferred to various hospital units,” it said.

One of the victims died later in hospital, the newspaper El País reported.

state human rights commission in Colima prison — The state Human Rights Commission visited the prison in October. Earlier this month, it issued a report recommending improvements in prisoner treatment.

Colima Governor Indira Vizcaíno offered only scant details when she addressed the incident. “At 10 a.m. the state authority had total control of the situation in this penitentiary center … From the first moment, the Public Security Ministry and I have personally addressed this situation. I have asked the Attorney General’s Office to carry out the pertinent investigations …” she said.

This was the fifth such incident at a facility in Colima in the last two years, the newspaper La Jornada reported.

Earlier this month, the head of the state Human Rights Commission, Roberto Ramírez, said it was necessary to make improvements to the prison. He recommended that inmates’ food be improved and called for a review on how punishments were handled. Both recommendations remain pending.

There has already been a string of violent incidents so far this year in Mexican prisons: a fight in Tulancingo, Hidalgo, on Tuesday left at least two inmates injured, and 56 people were injured in a riot at a prison in Nuevo León earlier in January.

Meanwhile, on January 10, a baby’s body was discovered in a dumpster at a prison in Puebla.

With reports from El País, La Jornada and Infobae

Supreme Court sides with actors in dispute with whisky maker Diageo

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MND Staff

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January 26, 2022

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Supreme Court of Mexico building — The Supreme Court sided with actors Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna against Johnnie Walker. (Wikimedia Commons)

Two Mexican actors have won a decade-long legal dispute with a whisky maker over image rights.

Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna were featured in caminando con gigantes (walking with giants) advertising campaign for its whisky brand Johnnie Walker in 2011.

Under federal copyright law, the use of a person’s image in an advertising campaign without his or her permission is illegal. The value of the compensation owed to the actors is yet to be determined.

García won a separate victory against Johnnie Walker owner Diageo in the Supreme Court in November. That ruling earned him 40% of the revenue from sales of Johnnie Walker during the period of the campaign. The actor’s lawyers said the commercial was played at least 22 times from September 3-October 6.

In early hearings, Diageo argued that the campaign was not intended as publicity for the company but a means of featuring “great personalities” to encourage Johnnie Walker consumers to strive to reach their goals. A press release issued by Diageo in 2011 said the campaign, introduced in 1999, was intended to “showcase a series of pioneering ideas which could help the world take a step forward.” It won several international awards.

The two actors starred together en Alfonso Cuarón’s 2001 film Y tu mamá también (And Your Mom Too). Since it was released, they have been known collectively by their fictional shared nickname in the movie: Los Charolastras (space cowboys).

With reports from El Financiero

Demonstrators in 35 cities march to demand justice for murdered journalists

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MND Staff

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January 26, 2022

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Journalists and supporters protest Tuesday in Michoacán.

Protests were held across Mexico on Tuesday to demand justice for three journalists murdered this year.

Journalists, members of civil society organizations and other citizens took to the streets in at least 35 cities including Tijuana, Mexico City, Ciudad Juárez and Acapulco, according to a report by the newspaper Reforma.

The protests came after the murders of news website director José Luis Gamboa in Veracruz city on January 10, photojournalist Margarito Martínez in Tijuana on January 17 and reporter Lourdes Maldonado in Tijuana last Sunday.

Dozens of journalists, photographers and supporters participated in a protest march in Tijuana, while demonstrators gathered in front of the federal Interior Ministry in Mexico City.

“We are emotionally devastated” by the murders, Sonia de Anda, a member of a journalists’ group in Tijuana told the Associated Press. “We go out and work, because we have to” but there is “a lot of fear,” she said.

Photos of murdered journalists on display at the National Palace in Mexico City.

AP reported that approximately 200 journalists attended the Mexico City protest. Some held candles in silent vigil while others held signs demanding an end to the murders of journalists, the news agency said.

Images of slain journalists were projected onto the facade of the Interior Ministry and protesters chanted “Justice!” and “You are not alone!”

Laura Sánchez, a journalist from Baja California who now lives in Mexico City, was critical of the federal program designed to protect journalists at risk of becoming victims of violence.

“What they give us is a damned panic button, and you know what that button is? It is the number of the municipal police supervisor who is corrupt and sold out,” she told AP.

In Chilpancingo, Guerrero, journalist Alina Fernández told Reforma that reporters are not only under siege by criminal groups but also the government.

The federal government, and President López Obrador in particular, make frequent attacks on the media, generating what the Mexico representative for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has described as “a climate of significant polarization” and “a division between good press and bad press.”

Jan-Albert Hootsen said in late 2020 that attacks on the media can have serious repercussions for journalists, explaining that reporters who have been criticized by the president at his weekday news conferences have received thousands of adverse and hostile messages on social media and even death threats.

Press freedom advocacy group Article 19 said in 2019 that López Obrador’s “stigmatizing discourse” against the media “has a direct impact in terms of the … risk it can generate for the work of the press because [his remarks] permeate in the discourse of the rest of society and can even generate attacks.”

Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world to practice journalism, according to Reporters Without Borders. Almost 50 journalists have been killed since López Obrador took office in December 2018.

Resolution for the murder of any journalist or activist in Mexico remains unlikely: impunity reigns in more than 90% of such murder cases, Deputy Human Rights Minister Alejandro Encinas said in December. The impunity rate is in fact 95%, according to the CPJ.

With reports from Reforma and AP

Mordidas without end: Mexicans hand over bribes 18,500 times a day to cops, public servants

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MND Staff

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January 26, 2022

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bribery in Mexico — According to the national statistics agency INEGI, Mexicans on average paid 13 bribes per minute in the second half of last year. deposit photos

Mexicans pay almost 18,500 bribes per day to police officers and public servants, a new survey suggests.

Based on the results of the most recent National Survey on Urban Public Security, the national statistics agency INEGI estimates that 2.9 million people paid some 3.4 million bribes in the second half of last year.

The estimate equates to the payment of 771 bribes per hour or 13 per minute.

Known in Mexico as mordidas, bribes are frequently sought by employees at government offices who deal with members of the public seeking to complete bureaucratic procedures and by police officers who have stopped people for offenses such as running a red light or drinking in the street.

The INEGI data shows that the payment and receipt of mordidas continues to be the most ubiquitous form of corruption in Mexico.

transit cop in puebla city — Last March, a phone video captured a Puebla city transit cop allegedly soliciting a bribe from a citizen, apparently a common occurrence in the city. Twitter

At the municipal level, the payment of bribes was most prevalent in Puebla city, INEGI determined, while at the state level, the practice was most frequent in Mexico City.

The statistics agency estimates that over 145,000 bribes were paid to police and public servants in the Puebla capital in the second half of 2021. INEGI believes that more than 100,000 bribes were also paid between July and December in Tijuana, Baja California, and the La Laguna metropolitan area, which includes Torreón in Coahuila and Gómez Palacio in Durango.

Among the other bribery hotspots identified were Ecatepec and Toluca in México state; Gustavo A. Madero and Iztapalapa in Mexico City; Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; Mexicali, Baja California; and León, Guanajuato.

More than half a million people are estimated to have paid bribes in Mexico City in the second half of last year, while approximately 445,000 México state residents are believed to have handed over mordidas to police and bureaucrats.

Other states with high numbers of victims included Jalisco, Chihuahua and Nuevo León.

While individual bribes are usually small — perhaps 50 to 200 pesos — the prevalence of their payment means huge quantities of money change hands.

transit cop Mexico City — According to Transparency International Mexico, transit cops are often required to hand over a percentage of the bribes they collect from motorists to their superiors. Andrea Quintero Olivas/Shutterstock

“There is the idea that administrative corruption is a small form of corruption, but there’s nothing more fallacious than that,” said Eduardo Bohórquez, head of the international nonprofit organization Transparency International in Mexico.

“Transit police operate in networks, … it’s a pyramid structure,” he said, meaning that officers have to hand over at least part of what they collect to their superiors.

“It’s … large-scale corruption, it’s just structured on small bribes,” Bohórquez told the newspaper Milenio.

“The corruption that affects homes is measured in millions of cases, … it’s not a minor issue. In fact, … administrative corruption is connected to the large wheels of corruption in many cases,” he said.

Marco Fernández, a researcher with think tank México Evalúa and an academic in the school of government at the university Tec de Monterrey, asserted that official data underestimates Mexico’s bribery problem because many people are wary of revealing that they have been victims.

“A lot of the time it’s politically or socially difficult to publicly accept that you gave a mordida, so a lot of the time these numbers are underestimated,” he said.

Mexican senate official Guillermo Gutierrez — In 2020, corruption made national news when a video emerged showing two former Mexican Senate officials allegedly receiving cash for influencing lawmakers’ votes.

Both Fernández and Bohórquez told Milenio that governments need to focus on eradicating corruption networks within public agencies in order to combat the bribery problem.

“In general, corruption networks that operated in the past and that operate in the present haven’t been broken up,” the former said.

“… We [Mexican authorities] are bad [at implementing] the different aspects that an anti-corruption policy should have,” Fernández said.

“We’re bad at detecting, investigating and punishing [corruption]; we’re terrible at recovering diverted funds, we practically don’t compensate victims and we don’t break up corruption networks.

“With that, the possibility of dissuading swindlers [from asking for bribes], getting them to think twice and not commit crimes of this nature is practically nonexistent.”

With reports from Milenio

Omicron exposes fragile state of health system in Mexico

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Christine Murray

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January 26, 2022

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There have been long lineups for COVID tests as the omicron variant has spread.

By early Wednesday morning, more than 200 people had lined up outside a Mexico City Metro station. Many were double masked, some had bloodshot, tired eyes, others came prepared for a long wait with stools and hot drinks. They all wanted a COVID test, and there were not enough to go around.

“There’s a lot of people that look pretty bad that I think definitely shouldn’t be here . . . it’s pretty worrying,” said César Becerril, a 44-year-old chauffeur who arrived at 5.30 a.m.

From workers off sick to long lines for tests and more patients in hospital, a new wave of COVID-19 in Mexico is showing what happens when the highly contagious omicron variant hits a country with low booster rates and a fragile, underfunded public health system.

Positive tests are at new daily records in the last week, with official numbers — which are believed to dramatically undercount the true figure — reaching 60,000 cases. In the capital, the number of COVID -19 patients in hospital has more than tripled in two weeks.

Several Latin American countries have had devastatingly high death tolls during the pandemic, and Mexico has had the fifth-highest excess deaths per capita in the world, according to a Financial Times analysis.

“The pandemic has punished Mexico hard, more than other countries,” said Alejandro Macías, an infectious disease doctor who helped lead Mexico’s response to the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009. “Right now, I think we’re a little overconfident that omicron will be milder.”

The country’s poor performance was because of a multitude of factors from a historically underfunded, unprepared public health system to a lack of clear, scientifically sound messaging from government, experts said.

Mexico has taken an unorthodox approach to the pandemic. It is one of few countries that never closed its borders, it does not require a COVID -19 test for entry and has performed so few tests that it has the highest cumulative positivity rate in the world, according to Our World in Data.

President López Obrador this month caught COVID -19 for the second time. Hours before his test he gave a press conference with symptoms of a cold and said that for most vaccinated people omicron was like a “little COVID.” During his time in isolation, he posted a video of himself maskless in his office with two cabinet members, who sat at a distance.

“It’s a terrible message for everyone,” Francisco Moreno Sánchez, an infectious disease specialist and head of internal medicine at the private ABC Hospital in Mexico City said. “[Health workers] give everything to try to save patients and the message from the government is ‘this is a little cold.’”

However, unlike other world leaders who have played down the disease, Mexico’s government has promoted vaccination as a way out of the pandemic.

Mexico has at least partially vaccinated the population, the level of 63% lagging behind regional peers but slightly above the world average of 60%, according to Our World in Data. It has given out a little under 11 million boosters, equivalent to about 8% of the population.

It has used a wide range of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna to Russia’s Sputnik and China’s Sinovac.

There have been long lines for tests in the capital in recent weeks, and in the industrial city of Monterrey some even queued overnight to guarantee one. Official advice in Mexico City is now to isolate if you have symptoms and not seek out a test.

Despite the issues, the president’s popularity remains among the highest in the world.

“The authorities aren’t the problem, it’s the people who don’t look after themselves,” 27-year-old Andrés García, who was too far back in the line to get a test Wednesday morning, said. “Now we’re seeing the consequences.”

Among those consequences is an economic contraction in the third quarter. Supply chain bottlenecks and a local labour reform had probably pushed Mexico into a recession, analysts at BBVA said this week, with the latest wave of COVID -19 cases an additional growth risk.

Across the country workers are having to take time off work, said Ricardo Barbosa Ascencio, president of the labor commission at business lobby Coparmex.

On average, Coparmex’s figures showed around 10-13% of companies’ workforces had been off with COVID -19 in this wave, he said. At some factories, up to 20% of the workforce is sick, with autos and electronics particularly hard hit.

“All the big cities in Mexico . . . have the same problem,” he said, adding that restaurants in some beach destinations did not have enough wait staff.

In Mexico, formal workers get their sick pay from social security body IMSS, which also runs a large health system. In the second week of January, IMSS had more than 90,000 people on temporary sick leave, higher than at any other point in the pandemic, Mauricio Hernández, the institution’s head of economic and social benefits wrote on Twitter.

IMSS, the president’s office and the health ministry did not respond to requests for comment. In his morning news conference on Monday, López Obrador said that while other countries had opted for curfews, fines and arrests to contain the pandemic, he had trusted people to be responsible, and that it had “worked well for us.”

The lack of clear guidelines has been a criticism of the government all through the pandemic in Mexico. In recommendations on its coronavirus website, the government says people should keep their houses clean and ventilated but does not mention masks.

In a recent government video posted on social media, a man dressed as a giant coronavirus is beaten by a man dressed as a giant corn with the message that healthy eating is the best way to fend off the virus. Authorities are still often seen spraying disinfectant on people queueing for tests.

Even with clearer, scientifically sound messaging, though, the country’s deeper structural problems will take longer to fix.

“One of the lessons we should have learned from the last pandemic is that our intensive care wasn’t going to be enough and that the health system wasn’t prepared,” Macías said. “None of what’s happening is a surprise . . . we already knew all this.”

Beach club manager murdered in Playa del Carmen

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MND Staff

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January 26, 2022

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A beach club manager was shot dead in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, on Tuesday just hours after the U.S. government issued a security alert for the state.

Federico Mazzoni’s body was discovered at around 6 p.m. inside Mamita’s Beach Club, where he was the manager, in an area surrounded by luxurious hotels.

Two men entered the establishment and spoke with Mazzoni before they killed him in a bathroom and fled on a personal watercraft, the news website Infobae reported.

Quintana Roo Attorney General Óscar Montes de Oca said there was no sign that the killing was due to extortion and that it was unlikely to be linked to the murder of two Canadians with criminal histories on Friday at Xcaret Hotel, 11 kilometers away.

Colleagues and friends praised Mazzoni for his dedication to his work.

The owners of Mamita’s Beach Club said they didn’t want to jump to conclusions about what happened. “We are waiting for the result of the investigations and collaborating with the corresponding authorities for total clarification,” they said in a statement.

The beach club advertises itself as upmarket venue with a restaurant, family area, pool, VIP area, resident DJ and a spa and fitness center.

The travel alert by the U.S. Consulate General in Mérida, released hours before the killing, highlighted tourist hotspots for their criminal activity. “In light of recent security incidents and criminal activity in popular tourist destinations including Cancún, Playa Del Carmen, and Tulum, U.S. citizens are reminded to exercise increased caution when traveling to the state of Quintana Roo. Criminal activity and violence may occur throughout the state, including areas frequented by U.S. citizen visitors,” it read.

However, the governor, Carlos Joaquín, said crime in the state has fallen.

The incident was the fifth beachfront shooting in Quintana Roo since last October. The uptick in violence triggered the deployment in December of a new tourism security battalion of the National Guard.

With reports from El Universal, Infobae and Milenio

AMLO faults former Fonatur chief for Maya Train delay

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MND Staff

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January 25, 2022

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AMLO — The president said the previous Fonatur director didn't have the necessary enthusiasm for the US $8 billion project.

President López Obrador admitted Tuesday that the Maya Train railroad project is behind schedule and blamed the former head of the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) for the delays.

Speaking at his regular news conference, López Obrador asserted that Rogelio Jiménez Pons, who as Fonatur director had responsibility for the US $8 billion railway, had not sufficiently applied himself to the project.

The president removed Jiménez from the position earlier this month and replaced him with Javier May, the former welfare minister.

“We need to finish these [government infrastructure] projects and we need responsible people who are completely committed, who don’t stop for anything and who fully apply themselves,” López Obrador said.

“In order to carry out a project, a manager and permanent, constant supervision is needed,” he said.

Rogelio Jimenez Pons — The president removed Jiménez from the position earlier this month and replaced him with Javier May, the former welfare minister.

“… We have a commitment to the transformation of the country. … We can be really fond of a person, but if that person, this person [Jiménez], doesn’t apply himself, isn’t enthusiastic, doesn’t have sufficient convictions, doesn’t internalize that we’re living in a historic time, a stellar moment in the public life of Mexico, an interesting time, and he’s thinking that it’s the same routine life of government, that everything is orthodox, … that the passage of time doesn’t matter, then he’s not understanding that a transformation is a profound change,” the president said.

He went on to praise army General Gustavo Vallejo and Energy Minister Rocío Nahle for their commitment to the new Mexico City airport, currently under construction north of the capital, and the Dos Bocas refinery, which is being built on the Tabasco coast.

Vallejo is at the Felipe Ángeles Airport “day and night” while Nahle “isn’t wasting time” at the refinery, López Obrador said. The airport will be finished on time in March, and the refinery will be completed as scheduled in July, he declared.

With May now overseeing the Maya Train railroad – which will run through Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Chiapas – the project will be inaugurated in December 2023 even if obstacles emerge, AMLO pledged.

“… We’re grateful for what Rogelio did,” he said, despite his earlier rebuke. “He left the route open, cleared the path, but what we need now is more action.”

With reports from Reforma