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U.S. Consulate Design in Progress
Already the busiest worldwide, the U.S. Consulate, now located on Ave. López Mateos, will be moving to a new site located between Prolongación Ramón Rivera Lara and Paseo de la Victoria, in northeast Juárez, by July 2008. Right now architectural and zoning issues are being ironed out, with concerns about urban planning and development regulations in the municipal code being discussed. Estimated costs for the construction of the new consulate are $66 million dollars. When finished, officials said, it will be one of the largest and most modern U.S. consulates in the world.
Sources: El Diario [link]
La Jornada [link]
Weighing in on San Jerónimo
Interviewed by several new staffers from Juárez afternoon paper “El Mexicano,” Congressional Representative, and current PAN candidate for Senator --and former Juárez Mayor-- Ramón Galindo Noriega, said that the San Jerónimo Project (a highway, and a maquiladora-plant-warehouse-hub-and-intermodal-transport hub that would bypass Juárez/El Paso, and connect Chihuahua and New Mexico commercially), was “a stupidity,… a vampire-like project that will bleed the resources out of this city (Juárez),… since it will not improve the quality of life for people in Juárez, since not even one cent of the taxes generated by all the commercial activity there would end up in Juárez municipal coffers; and, on the contrary, it will bring more expenses for the Juárez municipal government, because it will increase the demand for infrastructure, services and utilities.” The proposed creation of this new desert city of up to 100,000 people, across the border from Santa Teresa, New Mexico, has been met with widespread opposition in Juarez.
Source: El Mexicano
PEMEX to Donate Gas, Asphalt and Diesel to Juárez
In response to the Juárez municipal government’s plea for donations of gasoline for its fleet of official vehicles, and materials for pavement projects, PEMEX, Mexico’s state-owned petroleum conglomerate, is donating 2,500 gallons of gasoline, 2,500 gallons of diesel and 200 tons of asphalt to the Juárez government so that it can pave over more than 100 dirt roads in the residential neighborhoods of west Juárez. After thanking Pemex, Juárez Mayor Héctor Murguía added that the donated materials would start to be used by the city government “within a month to a month and a half”, after fulfilling all the required protocols and signing all the donation forms brought by Pemex officials from Mexico City, and that one of the first projects would be to pave six dirt streets in the westside neighborhood known as Colonia Azteca. Juárez officials also said that Pemex will donate an additional 400 tons of asphalt to the municipal government.
Source: La Polaka [link]
Juárez and the Presidential Election
According to opinion polls and telephone samplings done by several media outlets, including “La Polaka.com Periodismo en Caliente!” as well as the informed opinion of several Juárez newspaper editors, the current electoral preferences for president in Juárez point to a virtual tie between PAN presidential candidate Felipe Calderón and PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo, both at around 30%, and the PRD candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, coming in at around 20%. Another 12 % expressed “no preference at all,” while the remaining 8% percent they would vote for “none of the above.”
At the national level, Calderón and López Obrador are virtually tied in the polls, while Madrazo lags far behind in third place. Suffice it to say that López Obrador’s party, the PRD, is not very strong in northern Mexico in general, and particularly weak in Chihuahua State, where its presence is modest at best. Nevertheless, in his visit to Juárez several months ago, López Obrador was able to fill the central Juárez plaza or town square with a crowd estimated at about 5,000 people, far more than Madrazo or Calderón. In fact, Calderón and his local coordinators were only able to gather about 500 people (!) on his visit to Juárez.
Source: La Polaka [link]
Juárez and the National Guard
Carlos Luarca, director of the “Casa del Migrante” in Juárez, said that the combination of the start of the high-temperatures season with the deployment of the National Guard on the border “will be a formula that will greatly increase the risk of death for undocumented migrants that cross into the U.S. through the Juárez/El Paso region.” Fifteen people have died trying to cross illegally into the U.S. through this area (west Texas and southern New Mexico), and just last week two migrant women were found dead of dehydration after trying to cross into the U.S through the southern New Mexico desert. “The heat and the deployment of the National Guard will expose migrants to greater dangers and difficulties in their attempted treks into the U.S. The high heat will increase the danger of possible infections and diseases already present, and thirst and the lack of water will make the migrants vulnerable to ‘coyotes’ and other unscrupulous individuals who sell them water at exorbitant prices
Source: El Diario [link]
Train Derailment leads to Environmental Questions
On May 17, at approximately 5:20 a.m., a train near downtown Juárez from El Paso to Mexico City derailed, disrupting traffic for nearly a day. The trains were empty but raised questions about other hazardous material that is transported on rail through the city centers. Newspaper Tree previously reported on Norfluor, the hydrofluoric acid plant in Juárez, whose shipments routinely pass through Downtown El Paso. [link]
Source: El Diario de El Paso; El Paso Times [link]
Beware of Getting Horse Meat instead of Beef at Butcher Shops
Inspectors from the Chihuahua State Commission for Protection Against Sanitary Risks (Coespris) and the Mexican Federal Consumer Protection Agency (Profeco) took samples of meat from 15 Juárez butcher shops and/or meat markets to find out if these commercial establishments are selling horse meat to unsuspecting consumers. Roberto Pérez, owner of “Procarnes de Montes Urales,” a meat market located in the neighborhood Colonia La Cuesta, said that the authorities are not accusing him of selling horse meat, “…or anything like that; on the contrary, they came to take samples of the meat we sell and they’re going to send it to the Coespris labs in Chihuahua City so it can be properly analyzed.”
The results of these 15 samples for analysis will be ready in two weeks, and will be published in the media. Profeco officials said that another one of the objectives of these inspections is to require butcher shops that are in fact selling horse meat, to prominently display signs specifically stipulating that fact, as well as the price, so that customers will be aware of exactly what type of meat they’re buying. These inspections were done in response to a petition by the Chihuahua State government, which said the goal was “for consumers not to be fooled, but also so that not all the butcher shops would be unduly affected, nor the owners of the establishments that sell horse meat need to feel bad, since the sale of said food product is not illegal; it is only asked that the public be informed that that business sells that type of meat, and that it be in good hygienic conditions and that the prices of the meat be displayed.”
Source: El Mexicano
Car Thieves Not Yet Affected by Rising Gas Costs
Chevrolet Silverado and Tahoe, as well as the F-150 pick-up, are still among the most popular cars stolen from El Paso. A recent article shows that there are smaller gangs which operate independently from one another, making it hard to alter the pattern through individual arrests. Up to 37 different car robbery gangs could be operating at any given time. Also, an estimated 20% of car thefts in El Paso are staged so as to perpetrate insurance fraud.
Source: El Diario
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