by the El Reportero’s wire services
Politicians representative of different trends rejected President Enrique Peña Nieto’s statements and said Mexico has enough reasons for social anger.
Yesterday, La Jornada journal published a long interview with the President, who said there is no reason for what he called “social bad mood”.
Leader of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) Agustín Basave told the same journal that Peña Nieto “fails to understand that the issue of social mood is not a collective hormonal problem, but a discomfort due to corruption and authoritarianism.”
Federal deputy for the National Action Party Cecilia Romero, said the President lives in another reality. What he does not see is the anger generated by the persisting inequality in the country and essential issues like the fight against corruption are still pending, she said.
The same unrest, she said, is reflected in electoral processes, and especially in the states in which they use the government structure to benefit the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), she added.
Javier Oliva, a political scientist from the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM), said there are reasons for social discontent. He agreed with Peña Nieto on the fact that the country has positive economic indicators in comparison to other Latin American nations, but he stressed that there are significant losses in salaries and the Mexican peso, as well as serious corruption and insecurity problems.
The President also told the journal he did not understand the reason why the federal government is being held responsible of the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students.
In this sense, Oliva said that the mere participation of municipal police officers make the State responsible, in addition, it took the federal administration 10 to look into the case and the official investigation has been deficient, slow and unsuccessful.
Politicians say there are reasons for social anger in Mexico
Latin America and the Caribbean is the region with the greatest biological diversity on the planet, holding 60 to 70 percent of all known life on Earth, according to a report issued by UN Environment Program (UNEP) today.
The document, entitled State of Biodiversity in Latin America and the Caribbean, is a mid-term evaluation of the region’s progress in the implementation of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, to care and conserve the world’s flora and fauna.
Presented at the second session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-2), the report explains that the region shows progress in 13 of the 20 Aichi Targets, while it shows no progress in six of them.
The report highlights that there are many examples of progress and innovation in the field of biodiversity conservation in the region.
However, the region also experiences high rates of urbanization, along with industrial and agricultural development, which represent huge challenges to achieve the conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources.
Honduran Millionaire Police Officers under Investigation
Honduran authorities are investigating the files of 27 millionaire police officers for supposed illegal enrichment, the newspaper La Prensa published today.
Amid that process, the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH) requested that the Higher Court of Accounts (TSC) presented those documents for the Justice Ministry to look through them, the source said.
We are requesting that the court concludes the audits, because they are important for police purge and to end impunity in this country, said MACCIH spokesman Jimenez Mayor.
According to the Justice Ministry, of the total number of rich agents, 23 are police officers, one of them with a sum of money that exceeds 138 million Lempiras (the equivalent to more than $6 million USD).
Those under investigation by the TSC with the highest rankings include National Police ex-Director Ricardo Ramírez del Cid, who has more than eight million Lempiras (more than $362,000 USD), the source said.
Currently, the Commission for Police Purge and Reorganization in Honduras, approved by the Congress at the request of the Government, is carrying out a police purge process, including high-ranking officers.
