$100 Mn Allocated to Poor Municipalities in Southern Mexico

Fox News Latino, 1/19/2015

The Mexican government allocated 1.5 billion pesos (about $102.5 million) to support marginal municipalities in the poor southern states of Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca, the Finance and Public Credit Secretariat announced Monday.

In all, some 508 municipalities will benefit under the plan, the deadline for requesting funds from which is March 15, the institution said in a communique.

The terms and requirements to gain access to the resources contained in the Infrastructure and Productivity Support Fund, or FAIP, will be published by the secretariat in the country’s Official Gazette in the coming days.

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Mexico detects first case of mosquito-borne chikungunya virus

11/15/14 Reuters

Mexico has detected its first domestic case of the painful mosquito-borne viral disease chikungunya in the southwest of the country, the state government of Chiapas said on Saturday. Chikungunya is spread by two mosquito species, and is typically not fatal. But it can cause debilitating symptoms including fever, headache and severe joint pain lasting months. The government of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala, said an 8 year old girl became the first person to contract the disease in Mexico, and that she was treated in hospital in the town of Arriaga. The girl has since been released.

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What Should Investors Know About Security Issues On Mexico’s Other Border?

Forbes, 3/31/14

The triangle of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras is now considered to be the most violent non-war zone on the planet. San Pedro Sula, Honduras, was the most violent city in the world in 2012, recording more than three murders a day.

Guatemala City has also emerged as one of the region’s most violent. Between 2008 and 2012, more than 24,000 murders took place there. A similar dynamic of street violence and homicides has taken root in El Salvador, the home base of the Maras.

By contrast, in Chiapas during 2010 and 2011 fewer than 200 murders a year were reported. The number nearly doubled in 2012 to 392, but that’s still much lower per capita than the number reported in Mexican cities such as Ciudad Juarez and Acapulco, or even U.S. cities such as Chicago and New York.

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A young Mexican governor takes heat over nationwide publicity campaign

The Christian Science Monitor, 01/20/2014

It’s become known as the Peña Nieto model of political ascent, after the current Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto: Drape a comely television star on the arm of a telegenic governor. Get attention from a major television network. Then turn on a spigot of cash for publicity.

Many say the tactic helped President Peña Nieto, who is married to a former television actress, triumph in 2012. Now, other governors are trying to do the same – with mixed results.

Gov. Manuel Velasco Coello of Chiapas state is one of them. Like Peña Nieto, his smile lights up his surroundings.

For the past year, Mr. Velasco, Mexico’s youngest governor at 33, has been a staple in society magazines, partly because of his romance with Anahi Giovanna Puente Portilla, a soap opera star and singer who is universally known by just one name: Anahi (pronounced ah-nah-EE). Her tweets from her @anahi account constantly proclaim her love for the governor.

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Trickle Down Economics: Can Fair Trade Coffee Save Mexico’s Poorest State?

Fox News Latino, 01/22/2014

Standing alongside a dirt road in the steep hills outside of Ocosingo, a town in Chiapas, in southern Mexico, Diego Méndez Gómez, a skinny 13-year-old coffee farmer pointed down at the colonial town center, a bumpy 40-minute truck ride away. “I used to go to school there,” he explained. Now he helps his father tend livestock, grow vegetables, and cultivate coffee. He left school a year ago, at age 12. On the hillside above, a man walked a donkey up the incline, past a patch of corn plants and a few small wooden houses with corrugated steel roofs. It’s Manuel Gómez Guzmán, a 35-year-old butcher who works in the colonial city of San Cristobal but travels to visit his parents outside Ocosingo. “We live from coffee,” he explained. Every year Gomez’s parents grow about 450 pounds of coffee, a yield that earns them a few hundred dollars of cash income. “I come to help them harvest and then go back [to San Cristobal],” Gomez explained. Behind him, an array of light tan beans sat under the hot sun on a tarp on the dusty road. “The beans take about four days to dry out,” Gómez explained.

Chiapas, Mexico, is coffee country, supplier of premium beans to boutique coffee brands and major international companies such as Starbucks and Nestle. But Chiapas is, too, home to many of the poorest towns in Mexico, despite concentrated efforts to invest following fair trade and sustainable production guidelines.

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Mexican president to pardon Chiapas teacher convicted of murder

The Los Angeles Times, 10/31/2013

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced Wednesday that he would pardon an indigenous teacher who has spent 13 years in prison after being convicted of participating in the murder of seven police officers.

The case of Alberto Patishtan has been a cause celebre for many human rights activists who maintained that he did not receive a fair hearing in the courts and was denied due process. He was serving a 60-year sentence.

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Mexico to pardon indigenous teacher Alberto #Patishtan

BBC News, 10/30/2013

Alberto Patishtan, 41, was convicted in 2002 for the murder of seven policemen in southern Chiapas state during the Zapatista rebel uprising. President Pena Nieto said he would pardon him under a new law which widens the scope of executive reprieves. Human rights groups have argued that Patishtan’s trial was flawed and beset by irregularities.

President Pena Nieto said on his Twitter account that the pardon would come into effect on Thursday, when the new law comes into force. The law, which allows for leniency in cases in which the convict’s human rights are considered to have been violated, was passed on Tuesday.

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