Don’t pack that trunk for Mexico just yet….
One hundred protesters in Dallas waved signs reading “No to Mexico!” and demanaded sanctuary in the United States for… Jenny, a 22-year old African elephant now housed at the Dallas Zoo. The protesters are demanding Jenny be sent to a private “Elephant Rehabilitation Center” in Tennessee, while Zoo (and municipal officals) want her sent to the Africam Safari Park in Puebla. Africam is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
The protesters are complaining that Mexico is too noisy for elephants (uh… are elephants known to be quiet?) and that African elephants need African elephant friends. Africam has Asian elephants, but one reason it has agreed to take the aging Jenny is to provide companionship for another aging female African elephant it plans to acquire.
The “Concerned Citizens for Jenny” website seems most concerned that Jenny won’t be inspected by the United States Department of Agriculture. You know, the guys who don’t inspect meat. And, as far as I can tell, there are no plans to eat Jenny.
My only worry is that THIS Jenny might follow in the very large footsteps of the legendary rebel elephant Jenny, the Sparticus of the circus world, who (it is said… I’ve never been able to track the story down completely) masterminded a breakout from the Barnum and Bailey circus train when it was at Buenavista Station in Mexico City in July 1954. Tired of working for peanuts, the elephants ran amok through Santa Maria de la Ribera, making it the only urban neighborhood to be attacked by rampaging elephants in North American history.
The PRI had their headquarters in Santa Maria at the time, and the party press secretary also became a first (and only) in all the Americas… the only political press hack ever stomped to death by an elephant.
Most of the elephants surrendered after trashing the PRI parking lot, stomping a few police cars and eating a city park, but their ring-leader, Jenny, wouldn’t go without a fight. She was eventually machine-gunned and carted away by tow truck to the Mexico City zoo, where she was used to supplement the lion’s diet for the next several days. I used to have a photo of Jenny I being dragged down Calzado San Cosme by that tow truck, but I’ve never found it on-line. Anyone having access to the 1954 la Prensa archives could do a favor to Mexican history by downloading the story and photos.
By the way, this is the second Jenny the Elephant story I know from Mexico. The first was from 1952, when a Barnum and Bailey train unloaded the elphants at the Buenvista Station and the elephants — tired of working for peanuts (and spooked by lightening) stampeded through Santa Maria de la Ribera.
The other famous African-American elephant in Mexico was Benny, smuggled INTO Mexico in January 2001, who took up a new career playing the harmonica in a circus.
Raj “elephant boy” Bhaktra, a hapless Republican Party congressional candidate from Pennsylvania tried to make some point about elephants crossing the Rio Grande, but he was going the wrong way… or was drunk… or just a Republican.
A (bad) day without aliens…
Cute (sombrero tip to
We’re the bottom of the list! Whoo-hooo!
I expect some conservative’s heads will explode when they read this — especially those that always complain that socialist countries (i.e., those with normal things like public hospitals and health insurance and free university tuition) have to soak the corporations. Uh… maybe Mexico SHOULD raise its tax rates, if for no other reason than to free up PEMEX funds for more income generating ventures, but still…
A study by the global auditing company KPMG LLP said Mexico has the lowest corporate tax burden among 10 Western nations.
Mexico was followed by the Netherlands. Canada, Australia and the U.S.
The audit firm computed the total tax index using the U.S. as the benchmark with a score of 100. Canada’s total tax index was 78.8, the Netherlands had 78.3 and Mexico scored 70.2.
Aside from corporate income tax rates, the study also included levies on goods, property, capital, labor and local taxes. On the bottom five after the U.S. were Japan, Germany, Britain, Italy and France.
Staying alive at what cost?
Lower cost HIV/AIDS medication is certainly on the agenda for the 20,000 scientists, researchers and treatment specialists expected in Mexico City next week for the International AIDS Conference. Business Wire explains the economic issue:
Certain world bodies classify Mexico as a middle-income country using Gross National Income (GNI) as its measure. The country has a per capita income of roughly US $7,310; however, AIDS drug treatments that can cost as little as US$150 in what are designated least-developed or low-income countries in Africa and elsewhere (e.g. Uganda, Malawi) can cost as much as US$8,000 in Mexico–or about 9.5% more than and average person’s income, making these lifesaving AIDS regimens all but unaffordable to the majority in need there.This is in part because middle-income countries are usually not offered the same drug price reductions as low-income countries. However, when it comes to country classification, higher overall average income–middle-income versus low-income–does not necessarily indicate less poverty, and GNI, which divides a country’s total income by its total population to arrive at an estimate of average individual incomes, often obscures the fact that the majority of a country’s citizens may live in poverty.
BUSTED!
How serious is that Salmonella outbreak anyway?
Have the Sinaloa, Baja California, Florida, etc. farmers been ruined … think this guy’s ego might be the real toxin?
Maybe Wal-Mart done it?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Colorado health officials said they had found a Salmonella-tainted jalapeno in the home of someone sickened in a recent outbreak of the food poisoning — a vital clue in tracking down the source of the illness.
The pepper carried bacteria with the same unusual strain of Salmonella saintpaul that has made 1,307 people sick in the United States, the state health department said.
“The pepper was purchased at a local Wal-Mart, likely on June 24, and the individual became ill on July 4. This is the first pepper linked directly to an ill person in this outbreak,” the health department said in a statement posted on its Web site this week.
So… one of the 400,000 people in the U.S. who have salmonella infections every year in the United States (apparently not one of the 400 who die from it) bought a jalepeno at Wal-Mart. Let’s see. Assuming the offending jalepeno did come from Mexico, and the infection was missed by one of the fidosanitario checks within Mexico, and not caught by the United States Department of Agriculture when it crossed the border, and then got to a warehouse and sat around, then was loaded on a truck and shipped to Colorado, where it also sat around for a time… then went into a bin at Walmart where it sat for who knows how long, before it was bought by a consumer who waited two weeks to eat the thing… it was the dirty mescans done the deed!
Um, no… Hugo got the tee-shirt (King Juan-Carlos has a sense of humor). I got the royal brush-off.
HIV confererence may improve treatment access
From 3 to 8 August, Mexico City will host the 17th Annual International AIDS Conference. One issue certainly to be discussed is the high price of treatment. From The (Mexico City) News:
Congress’ Permanent Commission urged the Health Secretariat on Friday to reform laws to allow the purchase of generic anti-HIV medicine.
Congress called on Health Secretary José Angel Córdova to guarantee universal access to antiretroviral drugs. Although Mexico claims to offer coverage for all, overpriced medication is one impediment to sustained treatment for people living with the virus, the non-binding congressional resolution said. Pharmaceutical companies currently charge Mexico up to 30 times more for medication than countries with similar GDPs, the resolution said.
“We are far from reaching universal coverage in diagnosing and treating the 182,000 people who are estimated to be living with HIV in Mexico,” said the resolution from the Permanent Commission, which meets while Congress is officially out of session.
Two things worth noting. The HIV rate in Mexico is relatively low, thanks to widespread acceptance of sexual education, and former Heath Secretary Julio Frenk Mora’s corageous stand in tackling the religious and social taboos within his own department and political party, allowing Mexican health workers to treat HIV as a public health problem. The infection rate, however, has been creeping up — in part because of continued reluctance of people at risk to be tested, and lack of health care among Mexicans working abroad.
The other thing is the high cost of treatment. The government keeps pharmaceutical costs low (there is a price ceiling on medication printed right on the package of any drugs you buy at the pharamacy, and most pharmacies advertise at least 60% off on common prescriptions, largely though buying directly from the manufacturers, or — for pharmaceuticals not manufactured in Mexico — through Mexican bulk distributors like NADRO (which provides PEMEX health care facilities).
Mexico has a robust pharaceutical manufacturing industry, but generics have been somewhat neglected for political reasons (the largest generic drug manufacturer, Labratorios Best, is part of the Farmacias Similares chain, which finances a number of political and social movements. Because of the Torres family (which control the Similares group) ties to the Green Party (founded by one member of the family, and chaired for a time by his son) previous attempts in Congress to pass legislation that would allow the government health services to buy generics were beaten back as “special interest” legislation.
At the time, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate had a PAN majority. The party’s social conservatives — who were uncomfortable dealing with HIV issues in any form (and created problems for Dr. Frenk Mora) — and the free marketers — who didn’t see a need for creating a government program for a small number of individuals — both made it impossible to take the Brazilian or Indian approach. Both those countries broke foreign patents, and began manufacturing their own generic HIV medication, as a national security measure. The latest Permanent Committee recommendation does not go that far, which might make it easier to sell to the conservative Calderon Administration.
Act locally, think globally… again
Augusta Dwyer, in listing five good recent Mexican innovations, mentions one that I always said would do more for improving air quality in Mexico City than anything else — more plants:
Mexico City’s Environment Secretariat is doing something remarkable this year, offering residents a 25 percent discount on their property tax if they put a garden on their roof. Now, we’re not taking a few geraniums in old paint cans, but a garden covering at least 80 percent of the surface and qualifying for a “certificate of environmental excellence.”
These will not only hopefully replace the ubiquitous roof dog with a supply of healthy vegetables, but reduce noise, keep the temperate inside more stable, and cut rain-proofing and maintenance costs. I don’t know of any other city government in the world that has come up with such a great idea.
Nica Rosenburg (The News, Australia) has more:
…The smog-choked metropolis plans to replace gas tanks, clothes lines and asphalt on 100,000 square feet (9300 square metres) of publicly owned roof space each year with grass and bushes that will absorb carbon dioxide.
The city also plans to offer tax breaks for businesses or individuals who put gardens on top of their offices and apartment buildings.
The vast majority of buildings and homes in Mexico City have flat roofs, making the city an ideal candidate for the roof garden plan.
Left-wing Mayor Marcelo Ebrard has pledged $US5.5 billion ($5.7 billion) over five years to reduce greenhouse gases in Mexico City, home to some 20 million people and 4 million cars.
“These are not generic objectives or wishes – we have a clear goal,” Mr Ebrard said at an event to inaugurate the environmental plan….
I’m not sure why, but I could find nothing in the U.S. press about this… a lot on drugs and salmonella, but something positive from Mexico? Is that asking too much?
Resource-full
I’m trying to update the Recursos/Resources page, and it looks like I’ll have to break out the Mexican news media section into a full page of its own. Plantea.com has an excellent listing of regional newspapers, which I’m stealing from.
My collection of miscellenous blogs and foreign commentatary sites is way out of date. Let me know of any I should be adding.
Walls in Juarez… but not what you think
Notimex (via Jornada) reports that 100 municipal police officers in Juarez were busily building a wall last night, as 40 officers roused 350 people from their homes. Crime? Gringo invasion? Nah…
Even in Juarez, the police do normal police stuff. There is severe flooding along the Rio Grande. The officers were re-enforcing a dike and moving people to shelters. Incidentally, last December, No Border Wall wrote about the possiblity that the Great Wall of Texas would make flooding worse along the river.
Photo from Diario de Juarez:
Well, well…
Whatever else happens, PEMEX will continue to use some foreign service contracts, or so it appears. I don’t know any more about this than what’s in this short item from Friday’s Houston Chronicle:
Petróleos Mexicanos will pay $484,000 a day to Noble Corp. for an oil rig that will allow the company to drill in waters up to 7,000 feet deep for the first time.
Pemex, as Mexico’s state oil company is known, will take delivery of the Noble Max Smith rig in August under a three-year contract, Noble Corp. said in a statement.
The rig is being moved to Mexico from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico following upgrades and maintenance.
Nobel Corp. doesn’t have, as far as I can tell, any connection to Alfred Nobel, though there company does have a Norwegian affiliate, as well as in other major oil producing companies. Apparently, it’s a Houston based supplier, owned by a Swiss holding company. I suppose, if they had to, Nobel could open a Mexican office to own the rig that’s being rented out to PEMEX.
mexfiles.net 