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April 26, 2002
BC Business Leaders Meet with Mexican Interior Minister
On Thursday, April 25, 2002, Baja California business leaders
met in a private session with Mexican Interior Minister Santiago
Creel Miranda and other officials. The meeting's purpose was
to discuss faster movement across the US-Mexico border for commercial,
touristic and social reasons. Creel is on a three-state tour
of Northern Mexico.
Ernesto Ruffo Appel, the Mexican Commissioner for Northern
Border Affairs, said after the meeting that Mexico and the US
should look into speeding up activities at their border crossings.
According to Ruffo, border crossings deserve special attention
so that economic activity is not slowed down and the region's
residents can save time when going from country to country.
The BC Secretary of Tourism, Alejandro Moreno Medina, said
that some of the great challenges of the border are scheduling
adequate personnel to work there at the right time and the adoption
of technology that is demanded by the realities of the border
after the events of September 11.
Moreno said that while he did not have statistics showing the
losses brought on by waits at the border, it has been hard to
promote BC tourism. He also stated that BC should look at devoting
more resources for a faster border, something that the US has
already done.
April 19, 2002
Colef Tijuana Announces Graduate School Scholarships
The Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Colef) has announced that
it will award scholarships for graduate work to be done at its
main campus in Tijuana. The scholarships will cover the cost
of the program plus living expenses in Tijuana.
Available degrees include a masters in Applied Economics (Economía
Aplicada), Integrated Environmental Administration (Administración
Integral del Ambiente), or Demography and Regional Development
(Demografía y Desarrollo Regional). Scholarships will
also support a PhD in Social Sciences (Ciencias Sociales), said
Martha Patricia Mendoza, Colef secretary.
María Socorro Tabuenca Córdoba, regional general
director of Colef's northwest zone, said that the object of the
scholarship program is to give new professional people better
work opportunities through education.
May 15, 2002 is the cut-off date to apply for the scholarship.
An admission exam is scheduled for June 3, 2002 and admission
results will be given out on July 5, 2002.
Tamaulipas University Academic-Excellence Scholarships
An article in the Reynosa newspaper El Mañana states
that 75 students of the Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas
(UAT) in Reynosa received scholarships of an unspecified amount
for excellence in academics.
Humberto Filizola Haces, rector of the UAT, said that he came
up with idea of scholarships based on grade point averages after
he had traveled around the state and saw that students were being
given prizes for artistic and sports success but not for academic
achievements.
Filizola said that it took eleven years work to be able to
make the financial awards to students.
The Reynosa ceremony took place on Wednesday, April 17, 2002.
The previous day, Filizola gave out 70 awards to students in
Nuevo Laredo. He also said that he still had ceremonies to attend
to in Tampico y Ciudad Victoria.
Sources: El Diario, April 19, 2002. Article by Guadalupe Félix.
El Mañana (Reynosa), April 18, 2002.
April 16, 2002
BC Police Forces Cleaned Out
As a follow-up to the April 10, 2002 arrest of 41 local and
state police agents in Baja California, Mexican President Vicente
Fox traveled today to Tijuana where he said that the combined
state and federal effort to clean up law enforcement throughout
Baja California and Tijuana "will continue until the state
is totally clean."
Of the 41 police agents that were arrested last Wednesday, only
ten remain in custody and have been charged with crimes. The
rest have been set free but are still under investigation and
may not leave Mexico.
More arrests could take place, according to Fox. No group
is free of corruption, he said, and there are on-going investigations
of the Mexican Army and the Federal Attorney General's Office.
Last week's arrests were carried out primarily by the Policía
Federal Preventiva, who arrived by the thousands in Baja California
near Easter. Their presence has produced a drop in crime, according
to Fox.
The governor of Baja California, Eugenio Elorduy, said that
it is easy to root out corruption in BC law enforcement because
there is so much of it.
Elorduy also stated that all of the thirty-one agents that
were released from custody will remain suspended from duty until
they are fully investigated.
The ten police agents that remain in custody are being held
in Mexico City.
An April 12, 2002 article in the Méxicali newspaper
La Crónica quoted a Federal Attorney General's Office
official as saying that the arrested agents allegedly had ties
to the Arellano Felix (Tijuana) cartel and had allegedly committed
federal drug offenses.
Source: La Crónica (Méxicali), April 16, 2002.
Article by José Santiago Healy & Daniel Salinas.
April 9, 2002
Director of Tijuana House for Stranded Migrants Says Emigration
is Reviving
Luis Kandersky, the director of Tijuana's Casa del Migrante,
said that the number of men arriving daily at the migrant-support
center has nearly come back to pre-September 11 levels.
Prior to September 11, 2001, the Casa would help approximately
100 men per day that had run out of food and/or funds while seeking
to cross to the US. In the two months following 9-11, the number
of people trying to enter the US dropped and Casa del Migrante
saw only about 30 people per day, according to Kandersky.
Kandersky also stated that 40% of people that arrive to Casa
del Migrante are men that had been deported from the US, some
after years of working there. "These cases are very sad
because families are divided," he said.
Other people that arrive at Casa del Migrante are going to
try and enter the US for the first time, while others have tried
several times to cross to the US but have never made it, says
Kandersky.
Casa registries show that most of the people that arrive at the
facility are from Guerrero, Chiapas, Jalisco, Oaxaca and Michoacán
which are all central or southern Mexican states.
Casa del Migrante is open to men, eighteen years of age or
older, who can sleep and eat there for up to fifteen days.
March 28, 2002
BC Support for Organizations that Assist Minors, Women and Migrants
On Monday, March 25, Jorge Alberto González Arenas,
the head of Desarrollo Social (Social Development) in Tijuana,
and Gabriela Navarro Peraza, the director of the Instituto Estatal
de la Mujer (State Institute for Women) presented support checks
to Tijuana NGOs.
The groups, which receive monthly support from the two organizations,
are: Instituto Madre Asunta, 17,300 pesos; Escuela Eugenio Pacelli,
10,000 pesos; Casa del Migrante, 20,493 pesos; Sinfónica
Juvenil de Tijuana (Tijuana Youth Symphony), 15,000 pesos; Hogar
de los Niños Desamparados (Home for Abandoned Children),
18,007 pesos; and the Centro de Ayuda para la Mujer (Women's
Assistance Center), 18,000 pesos. The exchange rate is currently
near 9 pesos to the dollar.
González said that the NGOs will continue to receive
support over the course of the year. There are currently 2,200,000
pesos (approximately US$243,000) that can be used to support
the groups, he said.
González also told the assembled NGOs that business start-up
loans are available from his organization. Individuals can obtain
loans from between 1,500 and 15,000 pesos. Groups can get loans
for between 15,000 and 40,000 pesos. Other sorts of larger loans
are also available.
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