Mexico News Roundup
By RICARDO CASTILLO
An Irate Response
After Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) asked Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldivar to order an investigation into Judge Juan Pablo Gómez Fierro (who indefinitely suspended the president’s controversial new electricity bill), Zaldivar complied and requested the officer in charge of the Council of the Judiciary, Carlos Alpízar, to pay a visit to Gómez Fierro.
Alpízar did as told and asked Gómez Fierro about AMLO’s accusations of his links to entrepreneur Claudio X. González and several former Supreme Court judges.
The visitation included also a warning to Gómez Fierro that the judiciary might begin an investigation on his granting habeas corpus protection writs (amparos) to several private-sector electricity companies.
Reportedly, Gómez Fierro was furious over “the threat” of an investigation and told Alpízar: “Don’t come here threatening me an tell Zaldívar to go to hell (although in Spanish, the actual wording was a bit stronger).”
Alpízar, according to the website La Política Online, questioned Gómez Fierro’s angry response and the judge once again told him to send Zaldívar to Hades.
Apparently, a brief but irritate exchange of words ensued, and that was the end of this episode.
Meanwhile, at least seven other federal judges have issued orders to suspend AMLO’s electricity reform bill on grounds that it violates the Mexican Constitution and/or existing treaties and contracts.
The next question will be whether }Gómez Fierro will be “investigated” for granting the amparos.
SMA Retirees Get Shot
Several thousand American and other foreign expat residents of San Miguel de Allende stood in line over the weekend of March 19 through March 21, along with their fellow Mexicans, to get their first shot of the Pfizer covid vaccine.
The news of the shots’ administration came as a surprise to most of the city’s residents since it was not until late Thursday , March 18, that the municipal press office made public the vaccination locations with an 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. schedule.
The vaccines were distributed in nine different sites throughout the city by National Guard agents, who supervised the mass injection proceedings.
Some one thousand personnel from the Guanajuato State Health Secretariat, as well as from municipal health agencies, participated in the proceedings, which went on in an orderly fashion for San Miguel residents age 60 and over.
The second and final shot will ensue “on a short notice” around a month from now, organizers told Pulse News Mexico.
(PS: Woohoo! After a nightmarish year of lockdown, this reporter got the first anti-covid shot too. And it was a Pfizer!)
New Giant Oil Field
State-run oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) Director General Octavio Romero Oropeza revealed during the 83rd anniversary of the March 18, 1938, oil expropriation by the Mexican government, that a massive new field had been discovered, located in Dzimpona, Tabasco, near the Dos Bocas refinery construction site.
The field is believed to potentially contain about 500 million barrels of crude oil and gas.
The new field lies next to two other fields, Ixachi and Keski, with a combine potential of 1.5 billion barrels of oil.
During the commemoration ceremony of the new field, AMLO said that all oil extraction contracts negotiated by the previous administration of Enrique Peña Nieto “will be respected, but Pemex will not issue any more extraction contract ever again.”
Preliminary Hearings
The head of the Treasury’s Financial Investigation Unit (UIF) Santiago Nieto Castillo formally accused Tamaulipas Governor Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca of illegally purchasing properties in Mexico and the United States through accounts allegedly traced to money laundering by the Sinaloa Drug Cartel.
A legal hearing was ordered on the matter by the Chamber of Deputies.
García Cabeza de Vaca, who was “virtually” present at the preliminary hearing, remained silent during Nieto Castillo’s speech.
Nieto Castillo also accused the governor’s brothers of fronting apparent ownership of several of the aforementioned properties, some luxurious residences and haciendas.
The hearing was carried out in the opposition of defense lawyer Alfonso Aguilar Zinzer, who claimed that that public accusations against his client were against the law and should have been conducted behind closed doors, rather than as a public spectacle.
In his exposé, the UIF director presented alleged details of a network of properties purportedly owned by the which Nieto Castillo said allows for a thorough official investigation of the Tamaulipas governor while in office.
García Cabeza de Vaca has been in the crosshairs of AMLO on several occasions, and the president has accused him — without any formal conviction — of having sold his for the 2014 Peña Nieto Energy Reform.
“Blondie” Arrested
Mexico City police Friday, March 19, arrested Vanessa Ballar Fallas, nicknamed in the underworld as “La Wera” (The Blonde), for masterminding the assassination on July 2019 of former Mossad agents and Israeli nationals Azulay Alon and Sion Jony Ben Sion.
The execution was carried out at a Chinese restaurant at Artz Pedregal shopping mall in southern Mexico City.
Ballar Fallas was sitting at the table with the two Israelis, when two shooters (a man and a woman) gunned the twosome down at point blank.
Details of an alleged deal released by police state that La Wera received 20 million euros from Israel and was to hand them over to Alon and Ben Sion.
She is accused of being a financial engineer for gang leader Ruben Oceguera, aka “El Mencho,” leader of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel.
Shootout in Nueva Vallarta
A fiery shootout between Mexican Army soldiers and armed civilians broke out Saturday, March 20, around 8 a.m., at the Pacific Ocean beach resort of Rincón de Guayabitos in Nayarit, in an area known as New Vallarta.
The shootout lasted for about 20 minutes and ended when four civilians surrendered.
Among those arrested was Erik del Toro López, who confessed to being a hitman for the New Generation Jalisco Cartel.
Del Toro is known within the organization as the M-3.
The Army footmen received helicopter support from the Mexican Navy.
The soldiers seized several 5.56 machine guns, RPG-7 .85 caliber rocket launchers and M67 hand grenades.
The shootout began after the soldiers pulled over a pickup truck, whose passengers began shooting.
A road chase ensued all the way to the Rincón de Guayabitos resort area, where tourists reported “the ground was shaking” due to hand grenade explosions.
The tourists, rightly so, ran scared away from the battle zone.
Top Mexican MLB Pitchers
Houston Astros opening roster pitcher José Luis Urquidy has great expectations to have a star performance during the Major League Baseball season that opens up on April 1.
Urquidy said that he, along with Los Angeles Dodgers Julio Urías, are the only Mexicans slated for opening pitching rosters.
Urías crowned his career last season pitching as a reliever the last three innings of the last game of the World Series against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Urquidy said he hopes for a similar fate as that of Urías this coming season and wants more Mexican pitchers to join them in the majors.
Zverev Wins Mexican Tennis Open
Had the Mexican Tennis Open on Saturday, March 20, been a sympathy competition contest, surely the number 5 in the world Professional Tennis Association ranking Stefanos Tsisipas would have won hands .down as the thousands filling up the Mextenis stadium at the Acapulco Princess Hotel chanted “Tsisipas, Tsisipas.”
But it was German star Alex Zverev who lifted the pear-shaped Silver Gourd Trophy issued by the organization after beating favorite Tsisipas and a thrilling closing of a tiebreak which ended 7-3.
For Zverev, it was his first championship at the Mexican Tennis Open.
He has participated inGue the last four competitions.
…March 22, 2021