MEXICO CITY - A gunfight between security forces and armed civilians in Mexico's southwestern state of Guerrero killed 15 people on Tuesday, authorities said, the second mass killing to shake the country in as many days.
Guerrero state public security spokesman Roberto Alvarez said 14 civilians and one soldier died in the shootout in the municipality of Tepochica, near Iguala, a city notorious for the 2014 disappearances of 43 student teachers.
A photograph of the aftermath seen by Reuters showed two slain civilians, one of them hanging limply off the side of a battered pick-up truck that had been riddled with bullets as security forces patrolled the area.
Defending his security strategy after suspected cartel gunmen killed 13 police a day earlier in the neighboring western state of Michoacan, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blamed past administrations for Mexico's chronic violence.
However, the latest carnage is likely to increase pressure on Lopez Obrador to get a grip on a problem he pledged to tackle when he took office last December.
Guerrero and Michoacan are two of Mexico's most violent and lawless states, where rival drug gangs have battled to control smuggling routes to the Pacific and interior of the country.
The leftist Lopez Obrador told a news conference the ambush in Michoacan was "very regrettable" but reiterated that his commitment to greater spending on security and fighting the root causes of violence would eventually pay dividends.
"I'm optimistic we'll secure peace ... we're completely dedicated to this issue, but (past governments) allowed it to grow," said Lopez Obrador, who has criticized past efforts for taking a confrontational approach to battling crime.
Homicides in Mexico this year are on track to surpass last year's record.
Photos of the Michoacan crime scene on social media showed bullet-riddled police vehicles set on fire, as well as bodies of dead officers on the ground.
After taking office, Lopez Obrador created a militarized National Guard police force to contain the violence.
But many of the National Guard have instead been deployed to police Mexico's borders to placate U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened to impose tariffs if Lopez Obrador does not reduce the flow of U.S.-bound migrants from Central America.
The city of Iguala pitched Mexico's chronic security problems into the glare of international media after the 43 trainee teachers were abducted by a drug gang in cahoots with corrupt local police on the night of Sept. 26, 2014.
The resulting scandal battered the reputation of Mexico's former president and helped propel Lopez Obrador into office.
The last government said the drug gang killed and incinerated the youths, although investigators only ever definitively identified the remains of one of them.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MEXICO CITY - Five suspects have been arrested in the kidnapping of more than two dozen call center workers who were likely caught in a business dispute in the Mexican tourist city of Cancun, a state official said on Wednesday.
Quintana Roo Attorney General Oscar Montes de Oca said the call center employees and the business owner were freed by law enforcement officers on Wednesday morning several hours after Tuesday night's kidnapping.
"Our investigation has led us to the preliminary conclusion that this was a dispute between owners of the business, and in fact one of the owners was among the 27 captives," Montes de Oca said.
The conflict may have arisen from an argument over withheld payment and employee mistreatment at the call center that sells vacation packages, the official said.
Montes de Oca also said he would investigate whether the suspects were drug cartel members.
The rescue was carried out by forces including the National Guard, a military police created this year by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to tackle entrenched violence across the country.
About eight armed people stormed the call center on Tuesday evening, taking 30 hostages into two vans without signs of struggle and driving them to a house on the outskirts of Cancun, Montes de Oca said, citing witness accounts.
When police entered the house, they found five heavily armed men standing guard over 27 of the call center employees, who were blindfolded. Montes de Oca said three captives had already been released.
The police detained three of the kidnappers immediately and captured the remaining two after a short chase, he said.
Officers also recovered five AR-15 style rifles and two 9-calibre guns from the house.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador got 2 troubling pieces of news Tuesday as the economy registered a surprise contraction in his first quarter in office and state oil company Pemex posted a steep loss.
The anti-establishment leftist won a landslide victory in Mexico's 2018 elections, and is promising to deliver "radical transformation" -- plus economic growth of four percent per year during his six-year term.
But his policies have unsettled the business world, and although polls indicate he remains popular, the health of Latin America's second-largest economy has emerged as a potential Achilles' heel.
Mexico registered a surprise 0.2-percent drop in GDP in the quarter from January to March, according to preliminary data.
It was the first full quarter under Lopez Obrador, who took office on December 1, and who got off to a rocky start on the economic front.
His year began with a series of strikes that affected railroads and factories, plus gasoline shortages caused by his government's decision to shut down fuel pipelines in response to rampant theft.
More broadly, the politician known as AMLO has alarmed investors by vowing to overhaul Mexico's "neoliberal" economic model and cancelling a new $13-billion airport for Mexico City that was already one-third complete.
The airport's top backer was Mexican telecoms billionaire Carlos Slim, the world's fifth-richest person, who warned that canceling the project would amount to "canceling the economic growth of the country."
'DIRE DATA'
Economic analysts had predicted Mexico would post weak growth for the first quarter, but not a contraction.
The economy grew 1.7 percent last year, and 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter.
It was dragged down by the industrial sector, which registered a 0.6-percent contraction in the first quarter, and the services sector, which shrank by 0.2 percent, said national statistics institute INEGI.
Together, the two sectors represent around 90 percent of the Mexican economy.
The report "made for ugly reading," said London-based consultancy Capital Economics, calling the data "dire."
The services sector was previously "the one bright spot in an otherwise moribund economy over the past 12 to 18 months," it said in a note.
PEMEX BACK IN RED
Lopez Obrador's beloved Pemex meanwhile added to his headaches by posting a loss of 35.7 billion pesos ($1.88 billion) for the quarter.
The troubled oil company -- Mexico's biggest -- said the loss was mainly due to financial costs caused by the depreciation of the peso against the dollar.
It was the latest bad news for both Pemex, whose $106.5-billion debt makes it one of the world's most indebted companies, and for Lopez Obrador, an energy nationalist who wants to restore the firm to its glory days.
With such massive debts, Pemex is struggling to make the investments it needs to reverse plummeting production, which has fallen from a peak of 3.4 million barrels per day in 2004 to less than half that today.
Lopez Obrador is trying to help the firm regain its footing with a series of cash injections, tax benefits and other rescue measures worth $5.5 billion.
But ratings agency Fitch, which downgraded Pemex in January, says the firm needs far more than that: $9 billion to $14 billion annually.
Lopez Obrador did have one piece of good economic news to celebrate: the Senate passed labor reforms Monday night that are seen as crucial to getting Mexico's new trade deal with the United States and Canada ratified in all three countries' legislatures.
The reforms aim to boost Mexican workers' collective-bargaining power and increase their wages -- something the US and Canada demanded in updating the countries' 1994 trade deal, NAFTA, a cornerstone of the Mexican economy.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MEXICO CITY - Accompanied only by 5 unarmed aides and a small collection of amulets, Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador makes police and flight attendants alike tremble when he embarks on air travel, always in economy class.
Lopez Obrador, known by his initials AMLO, stops for photos with everyone, allowing them to kiss, hug or even grab him by the waist.
"Of course, whatever photos you like," said the smiling president to a woman trying to snatch a photo with her smart phone as he walked to the plane ahead of a trip to Sinaloa, the dangerous drug-trafficking state made famous by narcotics kingpin Joaquim "El Chapo" Guzman.
AMLO's acquiescence sparked a near stampede as others swirled around the president looking for their own memento.
All the while, there was no security to push back the throngs.
Mexico's leftist leader has done away with the thousands of military escorts looking after the president and sent them to work "for the benefit of the people."
The presidential jet, a Boeing Dreamliner 787-8 bought for $218 million is now on sale in California. AMLO traveled to Sinaloa on a cramped Embraer Jet.
"How can I board this plane when there's so much poverty in Mexico," AMLO had said about the Boeing Dreamliner.
Now he travels with a small retinue of aides headed by Daniel Asaf, a restauranter of Lebanese origin and former candidate for Mexico City's legislature.
'THE WORST'
In fact, none of AMLO's aides are security specialists, instead they are defined by their "loyalty."
Three women and 2 men spent most of the trip to Sinaloa shoving back reporters and asking travelers to move away after taking a selfie.
The security services may be in a fluster but AMLO is the most popular president in the country's history with an 80 percent approval rating, according to the last Mitofsky poll.
Part of that popularity came from his campaign promises to reduce his own salary and those of the government's top officials.
However, Mexico City's airport police are less impressed with AMLO's humble availability.
"When he has to cross the entire airport, it's the worst," said an airport police officer who wished to remain anonymous.
"People pounce on him. If one day someone wants to do something to him we won't be able to stop them because he doesn't like being guarded.
"He can't continue like this, he has to use the VIP room."
On this journey, AMLO was heading to one of a part of Mexico infested with drug traffickers and violent gangs. But he has no fear of being attacked, believing himself protected by an assortment of talismans.
"I have a lot of protection, this is a shield," he told AFP, holding up an image of the "Sacred Heart" of Jesus.
Among his other protective amulets, AMLO carries a 4 leaf clover and a dollar given to him by a Mexican migrant.
'IT'S AWFUL'
For some passengers, having the president on their flight gives them a feeling of security.
Carmen Diaz, a 52-year-old housewife traveling to Sinaloa for a party, said she would have "never expected" to find herself on a flight with the president.
Although she worried it would be unsafe due to the number of people aboard, "it's the opposite because they're watching the flight closer."
But for air stewardess Alejandra Martinez, the flight is a headache.
"It's awful that he's come on my flight. People are ignoring the (safety) instructions, they're leaving their seats even during turbulence and the press don't understand that their cameras could become projectiles if something unexpected happens," she said.
"I hope he never travels with my family."
Upon landing at the Culiacan airport in Sinaloa, AMLO was met by throngs of supporters and angry widows of police officers killed in the fight against drug traffickers.
After all the commotion of his humble journey, AMLO had no time for the waiting masses, and was whisked away by the local governor's security detail.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
