Frontera
NorteSur
September-October 2004
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Frontera
NorteSur |
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October
26, 2004 Baja
California is the state with the second highest number of obese citizens
in Mexico, behind only Coahuila. The
third through sixth place positions are held by Tamaulipas, Colima, the
Federal District and Sonora respectively. The findings
come from a study done by Mexico’s Secretaría de Salud (Secretary of
Health) and were examined at an
international health conference on sugar. Of
note is that four of the six Mexican northern border states are among the
fattest in Mexico. Currently,
Mexico has 32 million obese adult citizens and 62% of Mexicans older than
20 years of age are overweight. Of
the 32 million obese adults, some five million are at risk of developing
diabetes by 2008. Mexico’s
population is approximately 105 million. Adam Drewnowski, a professor in the University of Washington’s Department of Epidemiology, said at the conference that Mexico’s obesity problem is not as severe as that threatening the United States. Drewnowski called on Mexican health authorities to implement a public awareness campaign that would call attention to the risks of obesity. He also said that if Mexico does not teach its citizens about the dangers of being overweight, the country will confront an epidemic like the one facing the US. Source:
Frontera (Tijuana), October 24, 2004.
Article by Sergio Fimbres. October 11,
2004 The number of registered and unregistered non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Tijuana has grown from 250 to 400 over the past three years, according to Luz Elena Picos Aguirre, the director of the Programa Red Social de Tijuana (Tijuana Social Network Program). Picos also states that NGOs directly assist 100,000 people per month in Tijuana. This is based on preliminary results of a study currently underway about the work of NGOs in the city. Picos puts the value of the NGOs’ work at 10 million pesos (approximately US$885,000) per month. Half of the city’s NGOs are affiliated with religious groups, says Picos. The majority of NGOs provide social assistance that includes aid to women and children, people with terminal illnesses, alcoholics, and drug addicts. Picos recognizes that substance-abuse rehabilitation centers have their critics. However, she notes that addicts would be on the streets causing greater problems if they did not have the centers and NGOs to turn to in times of need. Picos estimates that as many as 6,000 addicts receive help from NGOs every day. According to an article in the Tijuana newspaper Frontera (no relation to FNS), the state of Baja California has 251 registered NGOs. Of these, 241 belong to the following categories: Children and youth:
65 NGOs Source: Frontera (Tijuana), October 11, 2004. Article by Manuel Villegas. September 28, 2004Tijuana Recyclers Fight to Keep Jobs at New Facilities Just as Mexicali is about to open a new solid-waste compaction and transfer station in November 2004, similar changes in Tijuana are threatening the livelihoods of 900 people that pick through garbage looking for recyclables and other goods of value that they can resell. Tijuana is currently using both its new and old solid-waste disposal facilities. In the coming months, new waste transfer stations will come into use. Waste will be dropped at these stations and then sent on to the new dump. As a result of changes that have already taken place, recyclers that look for material of value in Tijuana's solid-waste stream feel economically pressured as only 30% to 40% of the city's garbage is still going to the old facility. This lack of valuable material led to a meeting of the recyclers' union on Tuesday, September 21 in which members and leaders decided to pressure the city government and the waste facility managers to allow them access to the new disposal facility and transfer stations. The September 21 meeting led to a group of representatives from the union going to the offices of GEN, the company that has Tijuana's solid-waste disposal concession, on September 28. At GEN, the delegation met with Francisco Encinas, the general director of the company, who said he is open to having the the recyclers at the new landfill until the transfer stations open. At that point the recyclers, known in Spanish as "pepenadores", will work at the transfer stations, he stated. In February of this year, according to the Tijuana newspaper Frontera, the city had signed an agreement with the union in which members would be allowed to continue with their activities at new waste sites and the city would help them to permanently relocate in the future. The document also included promises by the union to the effect that no one under age 14 would work at waste facilities and that pepenadores would abide by the rules of the company that manages the landfill. Source: Frontera (Tijuana),
September 29, 2004. Article by Juan Carlos Ortiz.
Hugo Buenrostro Ramírez, who was 15 years old when he allegedly confessed to being Román's partner in the car-jacking, was said by police to have confessed to the murder of Sasayama shortly after the killing. However, court documents show that on May 10, 1999 Buenrostro said in front of a judge that he had never read the confession he signed for police. On that same occasion he stated that he had never known Román before the killing and had never accused him of the crime. In the case against Román, the Baja California attorney general's office only presented one witness. This was Karla Edith Gamiño de la O. However, Gamiño told Frontera in an interview that she had never pointed out a suspect to police from photos they gave her to look at or from two line ups of men that they had arranged for her. "They stuck me in a room and showed me thousands of photos," Gamiño said. "The family members of those arrested were outside. I told them [the police] that I didn't know who it was and could not tell them who it had been. They pressured me to tell them [and] one of them took me by the arm. They put five suspects in front of me and then five more. I never pointed even one of them because I couldn't, I couldn't remember." Finally, Frontera noted that a test for gunpowder on Román's right hand came back positive meaning that he had fired a gun near the time of Sasayama's death. However, according to the papers in Román's case notes, he is left handed. The gun powder test on his left hand came back negative. Source: Frontera (Tijuana), September 20, 2004. Article by Omar Millán González.
September 3, 2004 Jorge Alberto Briceño López had already been mentioned as a suspect in the case but SUN now names three other suspects, Hernando Villegas Delgado, Jesús Manuel Molina Hernández, and Arturo Villareal Heredía. All three men are said to have been Baja California ministerial police agents. The three men are allegedly in charge of the operations of the Arellano Félix cartel in Mexicali. Molina is also suspected of being in charge of recruiting former police officers to the cartel. Ministerial police in Mexico are in part responsible for bringing together evidence in crimes and deciding if cases will go in front of judges. Because of their critical position in the prosecution of crimes, they are often targeted for corruption by drug cartels. Law enforcement officials believe that Ortiz was targeted by the men because of Zeta's publication of photos of 76 members of the cartel. The FBI later republished these photos. Ortiz, who was the editor of the Tijuana weekly newspaper Zeta, was was shot to death in Tijuana on Tuesday, June 22, 2004 in the presence of his children. Zeta is known for its in depth coverage of Mexican drug trafficking, a trait that it has paid for in blood. In 1988, Hector Félix Miranda, the newspaper's cofounder, was ambushed and murdered. One of his killers was a bodyguard at a racetrack owned by Tijuana mayor-elect Jorge Hank Rohn. Indeed, one of the theories put forth about Ortiz's murder by Zeta was that Hank Rohn or his associates may have targeted Ortiz because of Zeta's constant election-time attention to the 1988 murder. In 1997, a team of killers attempted to murder Zeta owner Jesús Blancornelas. Blancornelas' bodyguard and driver, Luis Lauro Valero Elizalde, was killed in that attack which has been attributed to the Arellano Félix Organization. Source: Frontera (Tijuana), September 3, 2004. Article by SUN news agency. August 26, 2004 With a use it or lose it deadline approaching and nearly 50% more money to spend on civic projects than last year, employees at the Comisión Estatal de Servicios Públicos de Tijuana (State Public Services Commission of Tijuana, CESPT) are asking for patience and understanding from city residents who are inconvenienced by CESPT's construction projects. According to Manuel Ocejo Miramontes, the assistant director of construction at CESPT, there may be more projects underway in Tijuana at the present time than there ever have been in the past. Ocejo told the Tijuana newspaper Frontera (no relation to FNS) that there are 1,500 people working on 150 projects in the city. Of these projects, CESPT is running 40 of them and 110 have contracted out to companies. Last year Tijuana spent 450 million pesos on water projects. This year the city has 637 million pesos to spend. The money comes from the state and federal governments as well as "Japanese credit." However, if some of the money is not spent before a certain time CESPT will lose unspent funds. Among the plans CESPT has for bettering the city is the installation of 200 kilometers of pipes of various widths. Although streets throughout Tijuana occasionally have to be closed, Ocejo says CESPT attempts to disrupt city life as little as possible. Source: Frontera (Tijuana), August 26, 2004. Article by Agustín Pérez Aguilar. |