Baja News

Baja California & Baja California Sur News - The Baja Peninsula's Digital News-Stand! We publish with the public interest in mind to compensate the limited availability in English language reporting on current local affairs. Fair use is a doctrine in the law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests of copyright holders with the public interest in the wider distribution.

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Thunderstorms and heavy rainfall during afternoon and into the evening have impacted traffic, interrupted electric services in some areas and created flooding prohibiting the crossing of several arroyos across La Paz, Baja California Sur

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AMLO must be losing his cookies!! He is going full #AgentOrange blaming #FakeNews for factual reporting!! Mexico’s president claimed Monday that his country is safer than the United States, a week after two U.S. citizens were killed and two kidnapped and later rescued in the border city of Matamoros. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said U.S. travel warnings and reports of violence in Mexico were the result of a conspiracy by conservative politicians and U.S. media outlets to smear his administration.

"Mexico is safer than the United States," López Obrador said during a news conference Monday, per multiple reports.

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The United States is resuming its avocado inspection program in Mexico's Michoacán state a week after imposing a temporary ban in response to a US inspector receiving a death threat. The Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said Friday that it was working closely with Mexican authorities to enact enhanced safety measures for inspectors working in the fields. Michoacán is the only state in Mexico authorized to export avocados to the United States, and approximately 80% of its avocados go to US markets.

The state's governor, Alfredo Ramirez Bedolla, said Friday he was pleased with the US government's decision to resume its avocado inspection program.

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The new name in all news globally: Omicron! What we know so far: Early studies show that it has a reproduction rate of 2 — meaning that every person infected by it is likely to spread it to two other people. The new variant has a high number of mutations that appear to make it more transmissible and help it evade immune responses. The World Health Organization looked at the data on Friday and named the variant omicron, under its system of using Greek letters, calling it a highly transmissible variant of concern.

“It’s a huge concern. We all are terribly concerned about this virus,” Professor Willem Hanekom, director of the Africa Health Research Institute.

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Mexicans have voted to curb President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s power in elections initial forecast of results showed, delivering his Morena party and allies a reduced majority that will make it more difficult to push through substantial reforms. The opposition alliance made up of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, National Action Party and Party of the Democratic Revolution was projected to win between 181 and 213 seats. On Monday, the president, often referred to by his initials AMLO, acknowledged the results and praised the election as “free, clean”.

Find more about the elections here at our homepage.

Credits: The content of this post consists of excerpts from AJ, Reuters and AP.

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COVID-19 vaccines are effective at protecting you from getting sick. Based on what the CDC knows about COVID-19 vaccines, people who have been fully vaccinated can start to do some things that they had stopped doing because of the pandemic.

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Mexico has recorded nearly 150,000 deaths in the pandemic, and Lopez Obrador's crisis management has drawn sustained criticism from political adversaries and medical experts. On Monday, a senior World Health Organization official said the high rate of positive COVID-19 tests in Mexico likely meant the country has been screening too few people.

Nevertheless, polls have shown Lopez Obrador’s popularity rising in the pandemic, despite accusations he has too often downplayed it and put himself unnecessarily at risk.

Roy Campos, head of polling firm Consulta Mitofsky, said the public reaction to the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis test would likely split along partisan lines, with supporters rallying behind Lopez Obrador and critics going after him.

But, with many Mexicans struggling to get medical care due to hospitals being stretched, it could become more of a problem if there were awkward revelations about when the president felt unwell and how he acted thereafter, Campos said.

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A Mexican judge has sentenced the man convicted of ordering the 2017 murder of prominent journalist Miroslava Breach to 50 years' imprisonment, a singular judgement in one of the deadliest countries globally for media. The sentence of Juan Carlos Moreno, also known as "El Larry," was announced by the state prosecutor's office on Saturday. He had been convicted of being the "intellectual author" of Breach's murder, one of the few such media killings to be solved in the country.

Mexico is regularly rated by journalism watchdog Reporters Without Borders as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. Breach, who covered the country's drug war, was one of 11 journalists murdered in 2017. More than 100 have been killed since 2000, but 90 percent of the murders remain unresolved.

Find the whole report here on ALJ

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Mexican shoppers will soon see large black labels on their food and beverages warning if they contained “too much sugar”, “too much fat” or “too many calories”. Some foods, such as crisps and biscuits, would carry all three labels. Mexico is following Chile whose black labels seem to have delivered results, including a 25 per cent fall in sugary drinks sales over the past year.

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Some 63% of journalists killed worldwide were murdered or deliberately targeted, Reporters Without Borders added. In Mexico, 10 journalists were killed in 2019 - the same as in 2018. With at least 14 journalists killed in Latin America overall this year, the group noted that the region was now as deadly for reporters as the Middle East. In its report, Reporters Without Borders noted that a further eight journalists had been murdered in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Honduras, Colombia and Haiti, but they had yet to be added to the annual roundup pending verification.

"The frontier between countries at war and countries at peace is in the process of disappearing for journalists,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

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Mexico is closing in on a deal to repeal U.S. President Donald Trump’s punitive tariffs on steel and aluminum, a senior Mexican official said on Tuesday. “We are, I think, close to negotiating the lifting of the tariffs,” Mexican Economy Minister Graciela Marquez told Canadian broadcaster CBC after meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in Toronto.

Earlier, Marquez said a new target list of U.S. products had been completed, and only needed approval from other officials, including President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. That process would likely take at least two to three weeks, she said. Her remarks, and those of a business leader involved in efforts to lift the tariffs and secure passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), suggested there may be scope to resolve the spat before fresh tariffs are imposed.

Source: Reuters

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Leaders of the incoming Mexican government are in talks with American officials to allow migrants applying for asylum in the United States to remain in Mexico while they await a decision. While Mexican officials said no decision has been made, leaders of the incoming government are under immense pressure to deal with thousands of migrants lined up along the border between the two countries.

The top officials of the incoming administration plan to meet as early as Sunday to discuss the proposal, according to the new foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, who will take office on Dec. 1.

Excerpt syndicated from report at NYT here

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Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday his government would ditch a partially-built $13 billion new airport for Mexico City, sending Mexican financial markets into a nosedive. The move raised concerns that the leftist Lopez Obrador could shake up economic policy more than had been expected and put his government in confrontation with the country’s business elite. Mexico’s peso tumbled around 3.5 percent, blowing past the key 20 per dollar level after Lopez Obrador’s announcement.

The peso’s losses were the most of any major currency on Monday, and it was heading for its worst daily loss since the aftermath of the election of U.S. President Donald Trump in November 2016. The country’s benchmark stock index fell more than 4 percent to its lowest level since early 2016.

The yield on Mexico’s benchmark 10-year peso bond bid 37 basis points higher to 8.74 percent, driving the price sharply lower, in its biggest one-day jump since Trump’s election raised worries he would rip up a free trade deal with Mexico.

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The Congress of the State of Baja California Sur, unanimously approved the reforms to the law of ecological balance and protection to the environment which establishes the elimination of the use of plastic bags and containers of expanded polystyrene, as well as plastic straws in self-service shops, restaurants and others.

More information here (Google translated)

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Last year, Andrés Manuel López Obrador published a book that criticized the United States’ influence in Mexico. He named it “Oye, Trump,” Spanish for “Listen Up, Trump.” Now he’s going to be Mexico's next president. AMLO, has repeatedly made clear how he differs with the U.S. president. He has compared President Trump and his inner circle’s comments about Mexicans to the way Nazis talked about Jews.

He has called Trump “erratic and arrogant.” He said building a wall and using language to “insult, denigrate and discriminate” against certain populations “goes against humanity, it goes against intelligence and against history.”

Trump said that Mexico would pay for it. “They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for the wall,” he said. Current president Peña Nieto has insisted Mexico will do no such thing. López Obrador doesn’t seem any more likely than Peña Nieto to accede to that demand. At a rally in Los Angeles last year, he said he thinks “the wall and the demagoguery of patriotism are no match for the dignity and humanity of the American people.”

You can find the book here as ebook or hardcopy

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Another disease to blame on mosquito's, in addition to Zika, dengue, chikungunya? The list of viruses infecting humans through pesky mosquito bites continues to increase: Keystone virus has joined the ranks. The Keystone virus belongs to a family of viruses known as the Bunyaviridae group. These viruses have been associated with encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain that can be fatal.

A 16-year-old boy, the first confirmed case of the Keystone virus in humans, is leading researchers to believe the virus could be widespread in North Florida.

Our research did not reveal any other locations/reports so far but as with the other viruses - Zika, dengue, Chikungunya - it might be spreading in the future and we had plenty of dengue and Chikungunya after heavy rains and hurricanes. Enough to spray large parts of La Paz with crop-duster airplanes.

“Although the virus has never previously been found in humans, the infection may actually be fairly common in North Florida,” J. Glenn Morris, research author and director of the university's Emerging Pathogens Institute, said in a statement. Morris suggests doctors might not have known to look for the virus in patients, which is why more cases might not have been identified.

If you do your preventive homework on the other known viruses you do cover the keystone virus as well: Fight the bite! Especially in summer, to prevent mosquito bites use insect repellent, stay in air-conditioned areas, wear long-sleeved, loose-fitting clothes when outside, and use insect screens in windows, dormers, and vents.

There is also a DIY instruction with video on the La-Paz-BCS.com website on how to build a budget mosquito trap.

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Mexico - Since 2000, more than eighty media workers have been murdered in Mexico. Others were kidnapped or disappeared. Many reported on drug trafficking, corruption and the amalgamation of politics and organized crime. Hardly any of the perpetrators will be punished.

Therefore, many media avoid sensitive topics, self-censorship is commonplace. Violence against reporters also occurs in political unrest and protests.

The concentration of ownership, especially the television and radio stations is high. Many journalists are poorly paid and vulnerable to corruption.

Source: Reporters without Borders