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Refinery moving forward
TAMIU faces drastic budget cut
Scope of project grows, to be ‘cleanest in the world’ By Rye Druzin SA N A NT ONI O E XPRE SS-NEWS
What has been called the largest new refinery in the U.S. in 40 years has gotten bigger and more ambitious as the Houston-based developer of Raven Petroleum in Southwest Texas seeks to also make it the cleanest refinery in the world.
“Once people learn how clean or green this refinery is going to be, I think it will address a lot of the concerns,” said Raven Petroleum’s head Christopher Moore. “This is going to be a near-net zero emission, and we will not be burning any dry gas for our energy. We will be pulling that completely from the geother-
mal.” Moore signed a deal Feb. 1 with Houston-based BASIC Equipment and Austin-based Thermal Energy Partners to build a $500 million, 55,000barrel-per-day crude oil refinery to Duval County east of Laredo. The refinery would export diesel, jet fuel, naphtha, gasoline and liquified petroleum gas products to Mexico’s recently opened energy market. The original size of the refinery was to be 50,000-barrels-aday, but Moore said the scope of the project had grown some-
what. Raven Petroleum bout an 832-acre tract of land on the southwest corner of Duval County bordering Jim Hogg and Webb counties. Thermal Energy Partners will build a geothermal power station on-site that will provide upwards of 20 megawatts of power using heat drawn from wells up to 12,000 feet deep, according to chief business development officer James Jackson. “We’re calling this the cleanest refinery model in the world Refinery continues on A11
MEXICO
By Judith Rayo THE ZAPATA TIME S
A proposed budget for the state’s higher education institutions would cut TAMIU’s budget by about 40 percent, or a $20 million decrease in special item funding. Texas A&M International University President Pablo Arenaz said the cuts could lead to Arenaz slashing 117 faculty positions and cancel nearly 800 courses, which would affect about 50 percent of TAMIU students. He said the $700 million in cuts proposed in Senate Bill 1 would be devastating to students. “Last week, I testified before the Senate Finance Committee, as did all the presidents of the A&M System,” Arenaz said in an email to the TAMIU community late Wednesday afternoon. “Our messages were similar and shared: that eliminating base funding special items would have a disproportional impact on border institutions and our students, TAMIU continues on A11
SOUTH PADRE Jerry Lara / San Antonio Express-News
Tomas Guadalupe Salas Castillo, 15, helps his father, Juan Salas (right), load corn husks for livestock feed in Ciudad General Escobedo, Mexico, which is near Monterrey.
MONTERREY ON EDGE Trump’s economic ramblings make U.S. an unfamiliar neighbor
Nature center seeks butterfly photos By Raul Garcia VALLEY MORNING STAR
By Silvia Foster-Frau SAN ANT ONIO EXPRE SS-NEWS
M
ONTERREY, Mexico — Along the winding, craggy roads of the industrial park in this city, workers walk from their bright colonias to the gray, concrete slabs of manufacturing plants, many of them American, where they work. Later in the day, plant managers retire to their gated homes — a community of people who were lifted into wealth through the city’s industrial growth aided in part by American exports. All eyes today, from the workers to the owners, the local vendors selling cups of elote on the street to the venture capitalists in their high-rise firms, are watching each tweet, comment and executive order signed by President Donald Trump. Monterrey is known as the NAFTA capital, and many of the 4.5 million people here wonder how a country so familiar to them — just three hours away by car — could take them for such an unexpected ride. Trump’s proposals to eliminate or renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, assign a 20 percent or higher “border adjustment tax” on Mexican imports and construct a border wall have left many Mexican companies strugMexico continues on A11
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Express-News
A vendor carries his wares in the Macroplaza of downtown Monterrey, Mexico, Friday. U.S. President Donald Trump's views on the National Free Trade Agreement has many sectors of the public worried about the future.
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — Dennis and Mary Frahm were taking photos of nature and the butterflies at the birding center. “We are having a blast out here taking pictures of the butterflies,” he said. “And it was nice seeing the alligator and the turtles.” The Valley Morning Star reports the two travel the country and enjoy taking pictures of nature. “We have a lot of visitors and tourists on the Island that like to take photos,” said Javier Gonzalez, South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center naturalist and educator. “We’re trying to engage the public help record monarch butterflies that come to the Island.” The city of South Padre Island along with the Birding and Nature Center invite residents and visitors to contribute their observations of monarch butterflies and native Photos continues on A12
Zin brief A2 | Wednesday, February 8, 2017 | THE ZAPATA TIMES
CALENDAR
AROUND THE NATION
TODAY IN HISTORY
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8
ASSOCIATED PRE SS
Book Room open. 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Widener Book Room, First United Methodist Church. Public invited, no admission fee.
Today is Wednesday, Feb. 8, the 39th day of 2017. There are 326 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History: On Feb. 8, 1942, during World War II, Japanese forces began invading Singapore, which fell a week later.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9 Laredo Area Retired School Employees Association meeting. 11 a.m. Blessed Sacrament Catholic Churhc Parish Hall, 2219 Galveston St. Women’s City Club’s February luncheon. 11:30 a.m. Laredo Country Club. The speaker this month will be Dr. Luis Pellicia-Ramos and the topic will be CPR. Call Nancy de Anda for reservations at 956-763-9960.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13 Chess Club. Every Monday, 4-6 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Compete with other players in this cherished game played internationally. Free instruction for all ages and skill levels. Chess books and training materials are available.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15 Book Room open. 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Widener Book Room, First United Methodist Church. Public invited, no admission fee.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18 Harry Potter Book Club. 3-4:30 p.m. McKendrick Ochoa Salinas Branch Library, 1920 Palo Blanco. Free and family-friendly. Children and adults are welcome. We will discuss “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20 Chess Club. Every Monday, 4-6 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Compete with other players in this cherished game played internationally. Free instruction for all ages and skill levels. Chess books and training materials are available.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22 Book Room open. 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Widener Book Room, First United Methodist Church. Public invited, no admission fee. International Bank of Commerce Keynote Speaker Series. 7:30 p.m. TAMIU Student Center Ballroom, 5201 University Blvd. The presentation is called Economic Crisis: The Hit Men Strike Home ... What Wrecked our Economy and How to Fix It, by John Perkins, New York Times bestselling author. Free and open to the public.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23 Villa San Agustin de Laredo Genealogical Society. 3-5 p.m. Joe A. Guerra Public Library, second floor. Meeting and speaker: Ricardo Palacios “The Green Street Kid.” Members free; guests: $5. For more information call Sylvia Reash 763-1810. Spanish Book Club. 6-8 p.m. Joe A. Guerra Public Library. For more information call Sylvia Reash 763-1810.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27 Chess Club. Every Monday, 4-6 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Compete with other players in this cherished game played internationally. Free instruction for all ages and skill levels. Chess books and training materials are available.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28 Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper. 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Fellowship Hall, First United Methodist Church. Public invited, no admission fee, but freewill donations accepted.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1 Book Room open. 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Widener Book Room, First United Methodist Church. Public invited, no admission fee.
SATURDAY, MARCH 4 Book sale. 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Widener Book Room, First United Methodist Church. Public invited, no admission fee.
MONDAY, MARCH 6 Chess Club. Every Monday, 4-6 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Compete with other players in this cherished game played internationally. Free instruction for all ages and skill levels. Chess books and training materials are available. Ray of Light anxiety and depression support group meeting. 6:30—7:30 p.m. Area Health Education Center, 1505 Calle del Norte, Suite 430. Every first Monday of the month. People suffering from anxiety and depression are invited to attend this free, confidential and anonymous support group meeting. While a support group does not replace an individual’s medical care, it can be a valuable resource to gain insight, strength and hope.
MONDAY, MARCH 13 Chess Club. Every Monday, 4-6 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Compete with other players in this cherished game played internationally. Free instruction for all ages and skill levels. Chess books and training materials are available.
MONDAY, MARCH 20 Chess Club. Every Monday, 4-6 p.m. LBV-Inner City Branch Library, 202 W. Plum St. Compete with other players in this cherished game played internationally. Free instruction for all ages and skill levels.
Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, left, gestures toward attendees after swearing-in Betsy DeVos, U.S. secretary of education, inside the Vice President's Ceremonial Office on Tuesday.
DEVOS EKES OUT CONFIRMATION By Maria Danilova ASSOCIATED PRE SS
WASHINGTON — Charter school advocate Betsy DeVos won confirmation as education secretary Tuesday by the slimmest of margins, pushed to approval only by the historic tie-breaking vote of Vice President Mike Pence. Two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Democrats in a marathon effort to derail the nomination of the wealthy Republican donor. The Senate historian said Pence’s vote was the first by a vice presi-
Tornadoes touch down, wreak havoc in Louisiana NEW ORLEANS — The tornadoes that struck southeastern Louisiana on Tuesday injured about 20 people, destroyed homes and businesses, flipped cars and trucks, and left about 10,000 customers without power, but no deaths were reported, the governor said. Gov. John Bel Edwards took an aerial tour and made a disaster declaration before meet-
dent to break a 50-50 tie on a Cabinet nomination. Despite the win, DeVos emerged bruised from the highly divisive nomination fight. Opposed by half the Senate, she faced criticism, even ridicule for lack of experience and confusion during her confirmation hearing. At one point, she said some schools should have guns because of the threat of grizzly bears. And there has been scathing opposition from teachers unions and civil rights activists over her support of charter schools and her conservative religious ideology.
ing with officials in New Orleans. The worst damage was in the same 9th Ward that was so heavily flooded in Hurricane Katrina. Edwards, a Democrat, said he was heartbroken to see some of the same people suffering again, and promised that the state will provide the affected citizens with the resources they need as quickly as possible. He said seven parishes were hit by tornadoes in an afternoon of tumultuous weather across southeastern Louisiana.
Hatchet-wielding firefighters walked up and down the debris-strewn Chef Menteur Highway after the storm, looking for anyone missing or trapped. Their primary search came up empty, and a secondary search was planned to make sure and to better assess the damage. Edwards said he called in the Louisiana National Guard to police and secure the area, and urged people to stay away. “This is not a time to sightsee,” he said. — Compiled from AP reports
AROUND THE WORLD 17 charged after violent protest rages in Paris suburb AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France — Protesters burned cars and menaced security forces in an eruption of violence in a Paris suburb early Tuesday over a young black man allegedly being raped by a police baton, and authorities said 17 people were being charged. Six adults would be tried in immediate hearings in a suburb court Wednesday under charges of “ambush” or “acts of violence and gathering with weapons,” while 11 minors were to be presented to a juvenile court judge for alleged ambush, the prosecutor’s office in Bobigny said Tuesday night. Police initially detained 26 people during the pre-dawn outburst in which a police car and other vehicles were set afire in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a working class suburb northeast
Milos Krivokapic / AP
People march in the streets of Aulnay-sous-Bois, north of Paris, France, holding a sign reading “Justice for Theo.”
of Paris. At one point, police encircled by an angry crowd fired warning shots into the air using real bullets, according to French press reports. No injuries were reported. Firefighters raced to restore order after several shops were reported damaged and garbage bins burned in Aulnay-sousBois, which has a large minor-
ity population. Authorities are wary of unrest in France’s poor towns, remembering the fiery 2005 riots that spread through France — beginning in the Paris suburb of Clichy-SousBois and hopscotching through social housing around the country. — Compiled from AP reports
AROUND TEXAS Argument preceded college student’s disappearance ALPINE — What a man says was supposed to be a romantic dinner and back massage with his girlfriend ended with the woman missing and later found dead, according to police affidavits released Tuesday. Those actions included the purchase of three large plastic sheets usually used by painters as drop cloths. Sheets similar to
On this date: In 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. In 1862, the Civil War Battle of Roanoke Island, North Carolina, ended in victory for Union forces led by Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside. In 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated. In 1915, D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking as well as controversial silent movie epic about the Civil War, “The Birth of a Nation,” premiered in Los Angeles under its original title, “The Clansman.” In 1922, President Warren G. Harding had a radio installed in the White House. In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, Malaga fell to Nationalist and Italian forces. In 1952, Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed her accession to the British throne following the death of her father, King George VI. In 1968, three college students were killed in a confrontation with highway patrolmen in Orangeburg, South Carolina, during a civil rights protest against a whites-only bowling alley. In 1973, Senate leaders named seven members of a select committee to investigate the Watergate scandal, including its chairman, Sen. Sam J. Ervin, D-N.C. In 1989, 144 people were killed when an American-chartered Boeing 707 filled with Italian tourists slammed into a fog-covered mountain in the Azores. In 1992, the XVI Olympic Winter Games opened in Albertville, France. In 1996, in a ceremony at the Library of Congress, President Bill Clinton signed legislation revamping the telecommunications industry, saying it would “bring the future to our doorstep.” Ten years ago: Model, actress and tabloid sensation Anna Nicole Smith died in Hollywood, Florida, at age 39 of an accidental drug overdose. A federal judge in Fargo, North Dakota, sentenced Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. to death for the slaying of college student Dru Sjodin. (Rodriguez remains in prison as his case is appealed.) Rival Palestinian leaders signed an agreement on a power-sharing government at Saudi-brokered talks in Mecca. Five years ago: Washington state lawmakers voted to approve samesex marriage. Kyle Dyer, an anchor for Denver station KUSA-TV, was seriously injured when she was bitten in the face by an 85-pound Argentine mastiff while conducting a live studio interview on the dog’s rescue from an icy pond. One year ago: President Barack Obama asked Congress for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding to fight the Zika virus and the mosquitoes that were spreading it in the United States and abroad, but said “there shouldn’t be a panic on this.” Villanova was No. 1 in The Associated Press men’s college basketball poll for the first time. (The 20-3 Wildcats made the jump from third following then-No. 1 Oklahoma’s loss to Kansas State and then-No. 2 North Carolina’s losses to Louisville and Notre Dame.) Today’s Birthdays: Composerconductor John Williams is 85. Newscaster Ted Koppel is 77. Actor Nick Nolte is 76. Comedian Robert Klein is 75. Actor-rock musician Creed Bratton is 74. Author John Grisham is 62. Retired NBA All-Star and College Basketball Hall of Famer Marques Johnson is 61. Actor Henry Czerny is 58. The former president of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino III, is 57. Rock singer Vince Neil (Motley Crue) is 56. Former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa P. Jackson is 55. Movie producer Toby Emmerich is 54. Actress Missy Yager (Film: “Manchester by the Sea”) is 49. Actress Mary McCormack is 48. Rock musician Keith Nelson (Buckcherry) is 48. Basketball Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning is 47. Actor Seth Green is 43. Actor Josh Morrow is 43. Rock musician Phoenix (Linkin Park) is 40. Actress-comedian Cecily Strong is 33. Rock musician Jeremy Davis is 32. Hip-hop artist Anderson.Paak is 31. Professional surfer Bethany Hamilton is 27. Actress Karle Warren is 25. Thought for Today: “Children see things very well sometimes — and idealists even better.” — Lorraine Hansberry, American author and dramatist (1930-1965).
CONTACT US those bought at an Alpine variety store were found with human remains found scattered around a shallow grave in the wilderness outside Alpine in West Texas. Analysis of dental records confirmed that the remains were those of Zuzu Verk, a 21-year-old Sul Ross State University Student from the Fort Worth, Texas, suburb of Keller. Charged with second-degree felony evidence tampering by concealment of a corpse are Verk’s 22-year-old boyfriend
Robert Fabian and Fabian’s 28-year-old friend Chris Estrada. Fabian remained in Brewster County’s jail in Alpine on Tuesday with bond set at $500,000. Estrada, who was arrested in Arizona on a similar corpse concealment charge, waived extradition Tuesday and is being returned to Texas. Fabian told investigators that he had invited Verk to his Alpine apartment the night of Oct. 11 for a romantic dinner and a back rub. — Compiled from AP reports
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THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, February 8, 2017 |
A3
STATE
Citizens United lawyer targets Texas campaign finance laws By David Saleh Rauf A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
AUSTIN, Texas — A case involving political “dark money” and the founder of an organization tied to President Donald Trump’s accusations of voter fraud could lead to a crush of anonymous cash infiltrating elections in the country’s second-largest state, a Democratic lawyer warned the Texas Supreme Court on Tuesday. The nine Republican justices on Texas’ highest civil court heard arguments involving the legality of the state’s ban on corporate contributions, disclosure requirements for political action committees and the question of when a politically active nonprofit should have to disclose its donors like a traditional PAC. Some believe that the case ultimately could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court and potentially reshape campaign finance regulations nationwide. Houston tea party group King Street Patriots, started by Catherine Engelbrecht, has been the focus of a longstanding lawsuit by the Texas Democratic Party accusing the organization of violating state campaign finance laws by engaging in political behavior when it dispatched poll watchers on behalf of the Texas Republican Party during the 2010 election. But the nonprofit, represented by Indiana attorney James Bopp Jr. — architect of the landmark Citizens United case that
opened the door for corporations and unions to make unlimited independent expenditures in U.S. elections — has fired back with a counterclaim challenging numerous provisions of Texas campaign finance law. Twenty-two states currently prohibit corporations from contributing money to campaigns and candidates, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Texas has no limit on what individuals or political committees can donate to candidates. Corporations statewide, however, are barred from giving money directly to a campaign, though they are allowed to contribute to a political committee set up for a ballot measure or to a state-level Super PAC, which is only allowed to make expenditures independent of candidates. Two state courts so far have upheld the Texas campaign finance laws at issue. But if the Texas Supreme Court decides to toss those laws, the public will be hard pressed to know who is funding campaigns, said Chad Dunn, a lawyer for the Texas Democratic Party. “What’s at stake today is opening the floodgates to secret funding of elections,” Dunn said. The court isn’t expected to rule for months. Engelbrecht’s King Street Patriots drew national attention in 2010 for sending hundreds of observers to assist the state Republican party with poll watching efforts. She
said the group exists only on paper now and an offshoot called True the Vote has taken the lead on looking into voter rolls in numerous states. Trump has made widely debunked claims that the presidential election was marred by 3 million illegal voters. He has also encouraged the work of True the Vote, which says it is conducting a state-bystate voter roll analysis that Engelbrecht says could substantiate Trump’s accusations. Tuesday’s hearing comes amid debate in Texas and elsewhere over so-called “dark money.” The term arose from nonprofit advocacy groups that spend on political purposes but are not subject to campaign finance disclosures. Its rise is one of the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling. Democrats have alleged in their lawsuit that the King Street Patriots, which is not required to disclose donors under federal and state campaign finance laws, made unlawful political contributions to the Texas GOP and have used the case to press for disclosure of the group’s donors, arguing the nonprofit is a “sham corporation” that has acted more like a PAC. Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller argued Tuesday that the group doesn’t qualify as a PAC under state law. Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht seemed to agree, saying: “It’s hard to see how training poll watch-
ers expressly advocates for the outcome in an election.” Bopp said current Texas campaign finance laws infringe on the Houston group’s free speech. He said the state’s PAC provisions are vague and overbearing. Asked by Hecht if he thinks the group is a PAC, Bopp said he wasn’t sure because the law is so muddy. “This is critical,” he said. “Advocacy groups need to know and understand when it is they are going to bump up against a campaign finance law.”
Trump offers to ‘destroy’ state senator but name left unsaid ASSOCIATED PRE SS
AUSTIN, Texas — President Donald Trump told a Texas sheriff they could “destroy” the career of a state lawmaker trying to reform asset forfeiture laws that critics say police abuse as a funding source. Trump’s comment Tuesday drew laughs during a meeting with sheriffs in the White House while reporters were present. The remark followed Rockwall County Sheriff Harold Eavenson criticizing an unnamed
state senator who believes police shouldn’t receive forfeiture money unless a case ends in conviction. Trump responded: “Who is the state senator? Do you want to give his name? We’ll destroy his career.” The sheriff wouldn’t say and it was unclear to whom Eavenson was referring. Republican state Sen. Konni Burton has proposed the most sweeping forfeiture reforms but wouldn’t stop to answer questions outside the Senate on Tuesday.
Zopinion
Letters to the editor Send your signed letter to editorial@lmtonline.com
A4 | Wednesday, February 8, 2017 | THE ZAPATA TIMES
COLUMN
OTHER VIEWS
Where history is being made James and Deborah Fallows have always moved to where history is being made. In the 1980s, when the Japanese economic model seemed like the wave of the future, the husband and wife team moved to Japan with their school-age children. Then, after 9/11, they were back in Washington, with James writing a series of essays for The Atlantic about what might go wrong if the U.S. invaded Iraq. In 2006, they moved to China and both wrote books about China’s reemergence. Over the past few years they have been flying around the U.S. (James is a pilot), writing about the American social fabric — where it’s in tatters and where it’s in renewal. That was pretty prescient in the lead-up to the age of Trump. James and Deb have an excellent sense of where world-shaping events are taking place at any moment — and a fervent commitment to be there to see it happen. Their example has prompted what I call the Fallows Question, which I unfurl at dinner parties: If you could move to the place on earth where history is most importantly being made right now, where would you go? Let’s start with a little historical perspective. If you had responded to the Fallows Question in 1968 you would have moved to California, both to the Bay Area and to Orange County. That would have put you at the epicenter of the ‘60s counterculture, and also at the center of the Reaganite conservatism that arose in response. By 1974, the most important place to be was the offices of the magazine Ms. For all its excesses, feminism has been the most important and the most salutary change of our lifetimes. By the 1980s, the big historical changes had to do with capitalism and finance, so either Japan or Wall Street was the place to be. In the early 1990s, Europe was the place to witness the end of communism and the false dawn of global peace. By ‘90s, Silicon Valley was the most important driver of world historical change. The Fallows were clearly right to go witness the rise of China, but by 2006 I could also argue that equally important events were happening in Baghdad, Tehran and Damascus, with the crumbling of the modern Middle East. By 2010, the Fallows Question would have taken you to the neuroscience departments at universities like NYU, Harvard and USC, where cognitive scientists were rewriting our understanding of the human mind. By 2015, it would have taken you to working-
“
DAVID BROOKS
class Ohio to witness the populist upheaval that is driving current global politics. Today, I’d say the most pivotal spot on earth is Washington, D.C. The crucial questions will be settled there: Can Donald Trump be induced to govern in some rational manner or will he blow up the world? Does he represent a populist tide that will only grow or is some other set of ideas building for his overthrow? Are the leading institutions — everything from the Civil Service to the news media to the political parties — resilient enough to correct for the Trumpian chaos? Washington will either preserve the world order or destroy it. I sent the Fallows Question to the Fallows themselves, and they agreed in part with my Washington answer. But they also said that the most important place to be now might be places like Erie, Pennsylvania; Fresno, California; and Columbus, Ohio. Trump’s presence in the White House may push change to the local levels. In these cities, the Fallows argue, citizen participants are coping with declining industries, creating new civic cultures, assimilating waves of immigration, collaborating across party lines to revive everything from arts programs to tech seedbeds. If you want to “observe” history, the Fallows say, go to Washington. If you want to “participate,” go elsewhere. That’s a good argument, but I suppose I should close by widening the possibilities. After all, few knew about Martin Luther in 1517 or what Deng Xiaoping would unleash in 1977. So maybe the most important spot on earth right now is to be found at: An evangelical church in Brooklyn that has come up with a style of faith that satisfies the spiritual needs of blue America. A National Front office in Paris where a French Stephen Bannon is plotting the final destruction of the European Union. A bio lab somewhere where researchers are finding ways to tailor cancer treatment to each patient’s particular genetic makeup, thus lengthening lives and restructuring the phases of the typical human life. Most people can’t up and move in search of history. They’re tied down by work, family and spiritual commitments. But you only go around once in life, so if you can swing it, you might as well be where the action is. David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times.
OP-ED
Defunding Planned Parenthood was a disaster in Texas. Congress shouldn’t do it nationally. Joseph E. Potter and Kari White WASHINGTON P O ST
The Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress are pushing to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds to pay for contraception and cervical and breast cancer screenings. Funding for the federal Title X program, which provides infrastructure support to a network of nearly 4,000 clinics across the country, could also be in jeopardy. Five years ago, we learned in Texas what can happen when efforts to defund Planned Parenthood are carried out: The network of healthcare providers falls apart and women lose access to essential preventive services. Now Trump and his allies are poised to wreak the same havoc on the country that the 2011 Republican state legislature imposed on Texas. The motivation for the Texas action was the same as the motivation for what Congress plans to do: appeasing groups opposed to legal abortion. But none of these family planning programs pay for abortion care, which the law already prohibits spending federal money on. Defunding Planned Parenthood only reduces access to contraception and other necessary health care. Indeed, by reducing unintended pregnancies, the programs Republicans want to cut Planned Parenthood out of actually reduce the number of abortions. Our study of what happened in Texas provides some warnings of
what to expect if the GOP carries out its plan. In 2011, the Texas legislature cut the two-year budget for funding family planning from $111 million to $38 million in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood. After these cuts, 82 Texas family planning clinics — one out of every four in the state — closed or stopped providing family planning services. An unintended consequence of the law was that two-thirds of the clinics that closed were not even Planned Parenthood clinics. Organizations that remained open, many with reduced hours, were often unable to offer the most effective methods of contraception, such as IUDs and contraceptive implants, to women who wanted them. The closings and reduced hours also eliminated or cut back access to primary care providers for a significant number of women. The leaders of family planning clinics who we interviewed felt devastated by the choices they had to make, and some ended their interview sessions in tears. Organizations also were forced to begin charging uninsured women fees for birth control and other health services that had previously been free or lower cost. In focus groups with low-income Texas women, we heard again and again that it was more difficult for them to obtain birth control. Some said they did not seek care at all because they were unable to pay the new fees. Another component of the 2011 legislation prohibited any doctor or clinic associated with abortion care from par-
ticipating in the Women’s Health Program, the state’s Medicaid fee-forservice family planning program. This effectively excluded Planned Parenthood, which until then had cared for more than 40 percent of the program’s clients. Over the two-year period following the funding cuts and exclusion from the Women’s Health Program, 31 of Planned Parenthood’s 74 Texas family planning clinics closed. (The others were able to stay open through payments from private insurance plans, out-ofpocket payments for other care, grants and donations.) Removing Planned Parenthood from the Women’s Health Program reduced access to IUDs and implants at a time when use of these methods was increasing in the rest of the country. Comparing counties with and without a Planned Parenthood clinic, our research found that in counties with no clinic, there was a reduction of 36 percent in the provision of IUDs and implants and a reduction of 31 percent in the provision of injectable contraceptives. In a survey we conducted among former Planned Parenthood clients who used injectable contraception in Houston and Midland, many reported difficulties finding a new provider, having to repeat exams or make multiple appointments before getting a method and being charged unauthorized co-payments. Several years later, many were using less-effective methods, and some had become pregnant. These findings represent a stark rebuttal to the repeated assurances
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letter. Laredo Morning Times does not allow the use of pseudonyms. This space allows for public debate of the issues of the day. Letters are edited for style, grammar, length and civility. No name-calling or gratuitous abuse is allowed. Also, letters longer than 500 words will not be accepted. Via email, send letters to editorial@lmtonline.com or mail them to Letters to the Editor, 111 Esperanza Drive, Laredo, TX 78041.
DOONESBURY | GARRY TRUDEAU
made by state leaders then — and Republicans in Congress now — that the gap left by Planned Parenthood would be easily filled by community health centers or women switching their care to private physicians. In interviews with other health-care providers that have not been working in family planning, we learned that many lack the training to provide IUDs and implants. Some also lack the commitment to integrate family planning into their current services, because they are struggling to meet the demand for primary care in their communities. Perhaps voters are already aware that defunding Planned Parenthood brings a lot of unintended consequences. In an October 2016 poll conducted by Politico and the Harvard School of Public Health, 58 percent of likely voters supported federal funding for Planned Parenthood, including almost half of Trump voters. As shown in a Quinnipiac poll last month, the proportion is even higher — 8 in 10 — when respondents are told that the money will be used for non-abortion services. Rather than repeat the Texas experience, the new administration could be inspired by another era in Republican history. With the 1970 bipartisan passage of the Title X program, President Richard Nixon stated “no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition.” This national commitment to women should not be abandoned now.
THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, February 8, 2017 |
ENTERTAINMENT
Keke Palmer writes about a life unfiltered in her new book By Alicia Rancilio A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
NEW YORK — If you’ve seen images of Keke Palmer on the red carpet in recent years, it’s clear the performer who charmed audiences as a child in “Akeelah and the Bee” and Nickelodeon’s “True Jackson, VP” has grown into a sultry star who knows who she is. “People don’t understand. Nickelodeon, Disney Channel — those are corporations. That is a machine and it’s a welloiled machine. ... Not only when you work with them are you working on their show, but you’re working with their brand so you become that identity in which they want you to be,” the actress said in a recent interview. “There’s rules and regulations and so they pigeonhole you when the reality is, ain’t nobody that PG!” Palmer says after she made peace with the fact that she was growing up, she felt free to express herself. “Once I finally let go of the fear of moving past Keke Palmer ‘True Jackson, VP,’ I was able to become Keke Palmer the woman. And so when I get on those carpets, that’s who you get to see.” It’s that kind of real talk that Palmer shares in her new book, “I Don’t Belong to You: Quiet the Noise and Find Your Voice.” She says one goal was to let readers know that just because she’s in the public eye doesn’t mean she’s perfect. Associated Press: Why
Chris Pizzello / AP file
This Aug. 8, 2016 file photo shows Keke Palmer, who wrote the book, “I Don’t Belong to You: Quiet the Noise and Find Your Voice.” It was released in January.
did you decide to be so honest in the book? Palmer: I was like, ‘I don’t want to hold back,’ and not even so much because of my story but more so because I wanted people to know the truth so they could apply it to their lives. I didn’t want to gloss anything over. I wanted them to know the truth about me, you know, so they could put themselves in my shoes and realize that just because they know me or recognized me or that I’m a celebrity to them, doesn’t mean that we’re not the same. AP: Who has inspired you? Palmer: Rihanna. She’s a pop icon saying how she feels. We would always see and hear people not really saying how they felt, saying what I feel like they wanted us to hear them say and I really loved her courage, her courage to say how she felt. And I remember writing that to her in her
DM’s (direct message), I was like, ‘Rihanna, you know, you inspire me so much with your ability to just have courage in who you are and speak your truth like, I want to be like that, you know what I mean? I want to be able to say how I feel and I love that you do that,’ you know? And she wrote me back and I actually say that in the book. She’s like, ‘Keke, you are a light. Continue to embrace God’s anointing and you will be all that you want to be.’ AP: Season two of your show “Scream Queens” recently wrapped airing. What’s next? Palmer: I’m also getting more into production, producing and hopefully directing. I wrote my first script two years ago. I’m working to get that done. I’m hoping to also be a conduit for others. Queen Latifah has done so much for me. I want to be in the position of someone like her giving opportunities to other people.
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Zfrontera A6 | Wednesday, February 8, 2017 | THE ZAPATA TIMES
TEXAS 359
TRATADO DEL LIBRE COMERCIO
Mueren cuatro en colisión
Persiste incertidumbre
Por César G. Rodriguez TIEM P O DE ZAPATA
Cuatro personas fallecieron en un accidente que involucró tres vehículos el martes alrededor de 7 millas al este de Laredo en la carretera Texas 359, de acuerdo con el Departamento de Seguridad Pública de Texas. Las autoridades identificaron a los fallecidos como Maria Buentello Cremar de 93 años de edad, de Hebbronville, Máximo Cremar Jr., de 74 y Oralia Morín Cemar de 66, de San Antonio y Norberto Torres Sánchez, de 46, de Laredo. Los Cremars iban a bordo de un auto Chevrolet mientras que Torres manejaba una camioneta pickup modelo 2013. DPS no identificó al conductor del semi tráiler 2000 Freightlines involucrado en la colisión pero dijeron que era un hombre de 46 años de edad de Laredo. El accidente fue reportado a las 7 a.m. DPS dijo que los Cremars y Torres Sánchez fallecieron en la escena. Los paramédicos se llevaron al conductor del trailer a LMC.
RIBEREÑA EN BREVE PESCA La cámara de comercio de Zapata presenta el torneo de pesca Texas B.A.S.S. Nation, el cual será llevado a cabo del 16 al 19 de febrero de 7 a.m. a 4 p.m. Registro en línea en www.basschamps.com TRÁMITES CONSULARES El Consulado de México estará en la Ciudad de Roma, el sábado 4 de marzo, donde los residentes podrán realizar los trámites de expedición de matrícula consular y pasaporte, en el Centro Mundial de las Aves, Plaza Histórica frente a la Iglesia Católica Nuestra Señora del Refugio, esquina de Portscheller y avenida Convento. Mayores informes en el Consulado de México en McAllen al teléfono 956-686-0243. LABORATORIO COMPUTACIONAL La Ciudad de Roma pone a disposición de la comunidad el Laboratorio Computacional que abre de lunes a viernes en horario de 1 p.m. a 5 p.m. en Historical Plaza, a un lado del City Hall. Informes en el 956849-1411. MUSEO EN ZAPATA A los interesados en realizar una investigación sobre genealogía de la región, se sugiere visitar el Museo del Condado de Zapata ubicado en 805 N US-Hwy 83. Opera de 10 a.m. a 4 p.m. Existen visitas guiadas. Personal está capacitado y puede orientar acerca de la historia del Sur de Texas y sus fundadores. Pida informes en el 956-765-8983.
Foto por Jerry Lara | San Antonio Express-News
Olivia Guerrero González, de 63 años, ensambla gafas de protección en una planta que fabrica equipo de seguridad en Monterrey, México. Los dueños de la planta pidieron que el nombre de la compañia fuera omitido por temor a represalias.
Empresarios mexicanos toman precauciones ante Trump Por Silvia Foster-Frau SAN ANTONIO EXPRE SS-NEWS
Nota del editor: Esta es la primera parte de dos sobre los posibles efectos de la eliminación del TLCAN en México. MONTERREY, México — Entre las peñascosas y sinuosas calles del parque industrial de esta ciudad, los trabajadores caminan desde sus coloridas colonias hasta los grises bloques de concreto de las plantas manufactureras donde trabajan, entre ellos, muchos estadounidenses. Más tarde, los gerentes de planta se retiran a sus casas bardeadas— una comunidad de gente que se elevó su riqueza a través del crecimiento industrial de la ciudad ayudado en parte por las exportaciones americanas. Hoy todos los ojos, desde los trabajadores hasta los patrones, desde los vendedores ambulantes vendiendo elote en las calles hasta los capitalistas de riesgo en sus firmas de alto prestigio, están viendo cada tuit, cada comentario y cada orden ejecutiva firmada por el Presidente Donald Trump. Monterrey es conocido como la capital del TLCAN, muchos de los 4,5 millones de habitantes aquí se preguntan como un país tan familiar para ellos— a tan solo tres horas en auto— pudiera llevarlos en un viaje tan inesperado. La propuesta de Trump para eliminar o renegociar el Tratado de Libre Comercio de Amér-
Foto por Jerry Lara | San Antonio Express-News
Maria Leticia González Puente, de 36 años, trabaja en la fabricación de arneses en una planta de Monterrey. La ciudad es conocida por ser capital del TLCAN.
ica del Norte, asignar un “impuesto de ajuste fronterizo” a las importaciones mexicanas o construir un muro ha dejado a muchas compañías mexicanas batallando con futuras incertidumbres. Como el centro líder industrial del país, Monterrey va camino a convertirse en un punto álgido en el debate binacional. “Hablamos con compañías todos los días y es una historia cambiante, pero hay mucha preocupación especialmente en México en estos momentos”, dijo Joseph Chapa, vicepresidente de la Cámara de Comercio de Estados Unidos-México. La ansiedad social y la falta de confianza ya han generado impacto con muchos negocios en Monterrey. Algunos miembros de la Asociación de Emprendedores
Mexicanos en Monterrey dijeron que líderes de negocios comunitarios temían represalias si hablaban con un reportero al respecto. A nivel nacional, la gente de México se encuentra tomando medidas preventivas para protegerse contra posibles políticas estadounidenses agresivas. El Presidente de México, Enrique Peña Nieto, ha programado un periodo de conferencia de 90 días con el senado y el sector privado para discutir un plan para el TLCAN. Él también relanzó la iniciativa “Hecho en México” para alentar la compra de productos mexicanos, los ciudadanos comunes han estado boicoteando compañías estadounidenses como Walmart a favor de tiendas nacionales como Soriana.
Creando más tensión en los mexicanos es la caída del valor del peso, el cual ha reflejado la espiral cuesta debajo de las relaciones entre México y Estados Unidos desde la elección de Trump el 8 de noviembre. Las restricciones fronterizas de Trump han dejado a varias personas con visa preocupados sobre su libertad de viajar dentro y fuera de los Estados Unidos. Otro miedo es que el populismo de Trump gane tracción en la próxima elección presidencial. La política por ahora, parece estar poniendo a vecinos en contra de ellos mismos. Peña Nieto canceló un viaje para verse con Trump, tras que este tuiteara sobre hacer que México pagará por el muro. Trump supuestamente dijo a Peña Nieto
en una llamada el fin de semana pasado que él mandaría tropas estadounidenses para deshacerse de los “bad hombres” en México, aunque algunos dicen que los comentarios eran una broma. Para ciudades en el sur de Texas como San Antonio, cuyas raíces están intrincadamente entrelazadas con las de México y, en particular, su ciudad hermana, Monterrey, las tensiones culturales contrastan con sus profundos lazos culturales y comerciales. “Es una situación extraña”, dijo Rubén Linder, presidente de la Asociación de Emprendedores Mexicanos en San Antonio. San Antonio y Monterrey solían estar conectados por un tren de pasajeros y mientras que ya no es así, permanecen conectados con una historia cultural similar. Linder se mudó a San Antonio de Monterrey hace seis años para establecer otra base para su compañía OpCom Media Group porque sabía que la transición sería un “aterrizaje suave”. Él dijo que las ramificaciones sociales de algunas de las políticas de Trump están afectando la economía del país y viceversa. “Está mandando un mensaje— no es el muro, los bloques, es el mensaje”, dijo Linder. “Es, ‘no confío en ti’. Es, ‘somos vecinos pero no quiero que veas mi casa’. Y por eso, las cosas ya están sucediendo en todo el ecosistema económico”.
MÉXICO
Facilitan trámites para estudiantes E SPECIAL PARA TIEMP O DE ZAPATA
En medio de la problemática y los debates de migración recientes en los Estados Unidos, se han establecido medidas para facilitar la transición de la comunidad mexicana procedente de Estados Unidos que regrese a México, de acuerdo con un comunicado de prensa del Consulado General de México en Laredo. Por instrucción del Presidente de la República Mexicana, Enrique Peña Nieto, la Secretaria
de Educación Pública (SEP) ha simplificado algunos trámites para que estudiantes mexicanos puedan regresar al sistema educativo en México sin mayor incidente. Estas medidas se implementarán para simplificar los procedimientos, eliminando así los trámites innecesarios y costosos, con el apoyo coordinado de las autoridades educativas locales, así como de las instituciones públicas y privadas que conforman el Sistema Educativo Na-
cional (SEN). Algunas de las medidas para el ingreso o reingreso de los estudiantes mexicanos, sin importar su condición migratoria o los documentos con los que cuenten, son las siguientes: Se eliminó la apostilla de documentos de identidad y escolares; Ya no será necesario presentar planes y programas de estudio cursados en el extranjero, ni su traducción por perito autorizado; Se aceptará la validación electrónica de
todos tus documentos escolares; Se aceptará el certificado de GED (General Education Development) como revalidación total del nivel bachillerato. Además, existe una amplia oferta para apoyar a los adultos a obtener su certificado de Primaria o Secundaria a través de la red de Plazas Comunitarias del Instituto Nacional para la Educación de los Adultos (INEA), ya sea en México o en Estados Unidos. Para dudas o consultas, la Secretaría de Edu-
cación Pública (SEP) estableció una oficina de apoyo y orientación que cuenta con una línea telefónica, MEXTERIOR 1-866-572-98-36 y TELSEP 01-800-288-6688, con atención en inglés y español respectivamente Asimismo, podrán solicitar mayores informes al Consulado Mexicano en Laredo, comunicándose al 956723-0990 ext. 14 o enviando un correo a informacionlar@sre.gob.mx. Se sugiere visitar las redes sociales del Consulado General.
Sports&Outdoors THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, February 8, 2017 |
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NCAA FOOTBALL: BAYLOR BEARS
Baylor incoming assistant fired Washington charged with soliciting prostitute A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
WACO — Baylor University fired a newly hired assistant strength and conditioning coach after he was arrested on a prostitution solicitation charge, the latest legal development at a school wracked a by a sexual assault scandal. Brandon Washington was fired Saturday after school officials learned he had been arrested earlier in the day on a misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in a jail and a $2,000 fine. Deputies arrested the 33-year-old coach at a Waco-area hotel, McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said. “When we arrived at Baylor, we made a commitment to character and
integrity in our program,” new football coach Matt Rhule said. “Brandon’s actions are completely unacceptable. We will not tolerate conduct that is contradictory to these values.” Rhule was hired from Temple, where Washington was on his staff. Baylor officials said the school conducted a full background check before hiring Washington. Jason Cook declined to comment on the specifics of the check or how the private school handles them in general, calling it a personnel issue. The nation’s largest Baptist university faces multiple federal lawsuits as well as a civil rights investigation into claims the school and football
program ignored, mishandled or tried to cover up reports of sexual or physical abuse and other criminal misdeeds across campus for years. The scandal led to the firing of football coach Art Briles in 2016 and the demotion and eventual resignation for former president and chancellor Ken Starr. Former athletic director Ian McCaw also resigned. McCaw is now at Liberty University in Virginia. Multiple women have alleged the school or ignored their complaints of sexual or physical assault by football players. An investigation for the school by the law firm Pepper Hamilton determined the football program operated as if were "above the rules" by
interfering with investigations or protecting players from discipline. School regents have acknowledged the investigation found 17 women who were sexually assaulted, including four cases of gang rape. A lawsuit filed last month puts the number much higher, with a former student identified only as “Elizabeth Doe” alleging knowledge of at least 52 acts of rape by 31 players over a four-year period. Baylor officials have publicly apologized to victims and said they are improving how the campus responds to assault reports. The school also has reached at least two settlements with women who said they were attacked.
Rod Aydelotte / Associated Press file
New Baylor head coach Matt Rhule, pictured, fired incoming assistant strength and conditioning coach Brandon Washington after school officials learned that he had been arrested Saturday on a prostitution solicitation charge.
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL: TEXAS RANGERS
RANGERS, NAPOLI HEADING TOWARD ONE-YEAR DEAL By Jeff Wilson FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
Charlie Riedel / Associated Press file
Coming off a career year with the Indians, Mike Napoli is expected to sign with Texas this offseason on a one-year deal.
All signs are pointing to Mike Napoli making a return to the Texas Rangers, according to multiple baseball sources, but it could be a week until the deal is made official. Napoli is expected to rejoin the Rangers on a one-year contract as soon as the Rangers are able to free up a 40-man roster spot. That will come Feb. 14, the day pitchers and catchers report to spring training and the first day the Rangers can move Prince Fielder or Jake Diekman to the 60-day disabled list and create an opening on the 40-man roster. Two sources said that the Rangers and Napoli have agreed to a deal that would mark his third go-round with the team. Two other sources said that talks are progressing, but that it’s too early to say that an agreement is
in place. The club has not made the signing official and likely won’t until a roster spot becomes available. The Rangers are required to carry Fielder on the 40-man roster during offseasons, even though he can no longer play baseball, in order to collect insurance money on the remainder of his contract. Diekman is expected to miss at least the first half of the season after undergoing surgery last month to remove his colon in the hopes of alleviating ulcerative colitis. Napoli hit a career-high 34 home runs last season as he helped lead the Cleveland Indians to the American League pennant and the World Series, where the Chicago Cubs prevailed in seven games. Napoli would fill a hole at first base and add a big right-handed bat to the
lineup. Noted for his prowess against lefthanded pitching, Napoli would give the Rangers another weapon against AL West lefties Dallas Keuchel, James Paxton, Drew Smyly, Tyler Skaggs and Sean Manaea, among others. The Rangers were planning to go with internal candidates to fill the void created at first base when Mitch Moreland left for the Boston Red Sox. Ryan Rua, Jurickson Profar and Joey Gallo were among the candidates. Moreland won a Gold Glove in 2016. While Napoli’s defense isn’t as good, he was a Gold Glove finalist in 2015. He spent the final two months that season with the Rangers, who acquired him for the stretch run. Napoli was also with the Rangers in 2011 and 2012, when he was voted as an All-Star starter at catcher.
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE: NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS
Patriots take victory lap with Boston parade By Philip Marcelo A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
BOSTON — Snow, rain and chilly temperatures didn’t dampen the joy of New England Patriots fans exulting in their team’s latest championship Tuesday. The five-time Super Bowl winners received a hero’s welcome as they paraded through downtown Boston aboard World War II-era duck boats that have become a staple of the city’s recent title celebrations. Sounds of “Brady! Brady!” “TB12!” and “MVP” rang out throughout the procession as fans proudly wore No. 12 jerseys over thick parkas and sweaters, holding signs declaring
star quarterback Tom Brady the G.O.A.T. — the greatest of all time. Brady grinned and just took it all in, at one point tossing footballs back and forth with fans on the route as the duck boats rumbled along. “We’re going to remember this one for the rest of our lives and we know you will too,” he shouted from a stage at the parade’s end at City Hall. “I told you we were going to bring this sucker home and we brought it home!” Cannons shot out red, white and blue confetti along the route, which started near the Boston Marathon finish line, where three spectators were killed and 260 others wounded in bombing
Billie Weiss / Getty Images
Fans celebrate as the Patriots pass by on their Super Bowl victory parade on Tuesday. New England defeated Atlanta 34-28 in overtime in Super Bowl LI in Houston, erasing a 25-point deficit for the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.
attacks in April 2013. The route wound past famous city landmarks such as historic Faneuil Hall and the Boston Common. Fans were still in disbelief over New England’s
stunning 34-28 comeback win in overtime against the Atlanta Falcons. “We were all sweating bullets the whole time, and then we saw the best comeback in the world
and the greatest thing we’ve ever seen,” said James Mastrangelo, a Quincy, Massachusetts, resident decked out Mardi Gras-style, with a red, white and blue mask and Patriots sneakers, sweater, gloves and hat. Phyllis Barone, of Saugus, Massachusetts, held up a large cardboard cutout of Brady and did her best to join the boisterous crowd in rowdy chants of “Go Pats.” But her raspy, weakened voice betrayed her. “Three days of cheering. I’m surprised I still have anything left,” she said. “I’m a true die-hard fan.” Stephen Skobeleff, of Winthrop, Massachusetts, said he’s tried to bring his two teenage children to as
many championship parades as he can. “For years and years and years we really didn’t have anything but the Celtics,” he said of the city’s NBA team. “Every parade I get nervous that it will be the last one.” Along the route, Patriots players held up some of the team’s five Lombardi trophies. Fan favorite Rob Gronkowski, who went down with an injury before the team’s playoff run, energized the crowd with his typical Gronk antics. The tight end took off his shirt and chugged beers tossed up to the duck boats by fans, while other players held a wrestling championship-style belt over his head.
A8 | Wednesday, February 8, 2017 | THE ZAPATA TIMES
INTERNATIONAL
Up to 13,000 hanged in Syria’s ‘slaughterhouse’ By Sarah El Deeb A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
BEIRUT — The Syrian prison was known to detainees as “the slaughterhouse.” Behind its closed doors, the military police hanged as many of 13,000 people over the course of four years before carting out their bodies by the truckload for burial in mass graves, according to a new report issued by Amnesty International. The report, issued on Tuesday, said that 20-50 people were hanged each week, sometimes twice a week, at the Saydnaya prison in what the organization called a “calculated campaign of extrajudicial execution.” The report covers the period from the start of the March 2011 uprising to December 2015, when Amnesty says between 5,000 and 13,000 people were hanged. Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty’s regional office in Beirut, said there is no reason to believe the practice has stopped since then, with thousands more probably killed. Amnesty said the killings were authorized by senior Syrian officials, including deputies of President Bashar Assad. “The horrors depicted in this report reveal a hidden, monstrous campaign, authorized at the highest levels of the Syrian government, aimed at crushing any form of dissent within the Syrian population,” Maalouf said. “These executions take place after a sham trial that lasts over a minute or two minutes, but they are authorized by the highest levels of authority,” including the Grand Mufti, a top religious authority in Syria, and the defense minister. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government on Tuesday, and Amnesty said Damascus didn’t respond to its own letter seeking comment. Syrian government officials rarely comment on allegations of torture and mass killings. In the past, they have denied reports of massacres documented by international human rights groups, describing them as propaganda. The Amnesty report prompted a strong reaction from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who, “was horrified about what was in the report,” according to U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. “We have repeatedly raised serious concerns about the grave violations of international human rights and international
humanitarian law in Syria, including in detention centers and governmentrun prisons,” Dujarric told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York. “What is important is that there needs to be accountability for all the victims in this conflict.” Amnesty had recorded at least 35 different methods of torture in Syria since the late 1980s, practices that only increased since 2011, Maalouf said. Other rights groups have found evidence of widespread torture leading to death in Syrian detention facilities. In a report last year, Amnesty found that more than 17,000 people have died of torture and ill-treatment in custody across Syria since 2011, an average rate of more than 300 a month. Those figures are comparable to battlefield deaths in Aleppo, one of the fiercest war zones in Syria, where 21,000 were killed across the province since 2011. Saydnaya has become the main political prison in Syria since 2011, according to a former official interviewed by Amnesty. A former guard said it held “the detainees of the revolution,” and a former judge said they were seen as “posing a real risk to the regime.” The chilling accounts in Tuesday’s report came from interviews with 31 former detainees and over 50 other officials and experts, including former guards and judges. Detainees were told they would be transferred to civilian detention centers but were taken in-
Suicide bomber strikes Afghan Supreme Court Bilal Hussein / AP
Lynn Maalouf, deputy director of research at Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday.
stead to another building in the facility and hanged. “They walked in the ‘train,’ so they had their heads down and were trying to catch the shirt of the person in front of them. The first time I saw them, I was horrified. They were being taken to the slaughterhouse,” Hamid, a former detainee, told Amnesty. Another former detainee, Omar Alshogre, told The Associated Press the guards would come to his cell, sometimes three times a week, and call out detainees by name. Alshogre, 21, who spent nine months in Saydnaya and now lives in Sweden, said he would hear detainees being tortured. “Then the sound would stop,” he said. He described how at times he was forced to keep his eyes closed and his back to the guards while they abused or suffocated a cellmate. The body often would be left behind, or there would be a pool of blood in the cell for other prisoners to clean up. The Amnesty report contains similar accounts of abuse. “We already know they will die anyway, so we do whatever we want with them,” Amnesty quoted a former guard as saying. The detainees were transported to trials in vans known as “meat fridges,” and would not be informed of their fate
until just before they were hanged, officials who witnessed the executions told Amnesty. Medics would usually list the cause of death as “heart stopped,” or “breathing stopped,” before the bodies were taken to mass graves near Damascus. Alshogre, who was arrested at the age of 17, spent time in several detention centers before being taken to Saydnaya. Two cousins detained with him in western Syria didn’t survive, dying a year apart in a military intelligence detention facility. The younger one died in Alshogre’s arms, deprived of food and so weak he was unable to walk to the bathroom on his own. Still, Alshogre said nothing could have prepared him for Saydnaya. At one point, he was summoned by guards “for execution,” he said. He was brought before a military tribunal and told not to raise his eyes to the judge, who asked him how many soldiers he had killed. When he said none, the judge spared him. Alshogre survived nine months in Saydnaya before eventually paying his way out in 2015 — a common practice. He suffered from tuberculosis and his weight fell to 77 pounds. Death in Saydnaya was always present, “like the air,” he said.
By Rahim Faiez ASSOCIATED PRE SS
KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber struck an entrance to Afghanistan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, killing at least 19 people in the latest in a series of attacks on the country’s judiciary. The attacker was on foot, and targeted a side door as court employees and other people were exiting the building in downtown Kabul, the Interior Ministry said. Public Health Minister Ferozuddin Feroz said 41 people were wounded, including 10 in critical condition. No one immediately claimed the attack, which bore the hallmarks of the Taliban. The insurgents have been at war with the U.S.-backed government for 15 years and have increasingly targeted the judiciary since the execution of six convicted insurgents last May. Shortly after the executions, a suicide bomber
targeted a minibus carrying court employees in Kabul during the morning rush hour, killing 11 people in an attack claimed by the Taliban, which called it an act of revenge. In June, three Taliban fighters stormed a court building in the eastern Logar province, killing seven people, including a newly appointed chief prosecutor, before being shot dead by police. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the Supreme Court attack, which he blamed on the “enemies of our people.” The U.S. Embassy in Kabul called it “an attack on the very foundation of Afghan democracy and rule of law.” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the suicide attack. “Those behind today’s bombing and other such despicable acts must face justice,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at U.N. headquarters in New York.
THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, February 8, 2017 |
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BUSINESS
Voters await economic revival in a part of pro-Trump America
Twitter broadens its campaign against hate and abuse
By Claire Galofaro A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
By Barbara Ortutay and Michael Kunzelman
PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, Wis. — She tugged 13 envelopes from a cabinet above the stove, each one labeled with a different debt: the house payment, the student loans, the vacuum cleaner she bought on credit. Lydia Holt and her husband tuck money into these envelopes with each paycheck to whittle away at what they owe. They both earn about $10 an hour and, with two kids, there are usually some they can’t fill. She did the math; at this rate, they’ll be paying these same bills for 87 years. In 2012, Holt voted for Barack Obama because he promised her change, but she feels that change hasn’t reached her here. So last year she chose a presidential candidate unlike any she’d ever seen, the billionaire businessman who promised to help America, and people like her, win again. Many of her neighbors did, too — so many that for the first time in more than 30 years, Crawford County, Wisconsin, a sturdy brick in the oncemighty Big Blue Wall, abandoned the Democratic Party and that wall crumbled. The rural county lent Donald Trump 3,844 votes toward his win. More came from formerly blue counties to the north and to the south, and on and on. Some 50 counties stretching 300 miles down the Mississippi River — through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois — transformed in one election season into Trump Country. They voted for Trump for an array of reasons, and the list of grievances they hope he now corrects is long and exacting: stagnant wages, the cost of health care, a hard-todefine feeling that things are not getting better, at least not for people like them. Here in Crawford County, residents often recite two facts about their hometown, the first one proudly: It is the second-oldest community in the state. The next is that it’s also one of the poorest. There are no rusted-out factories to embody this discontent. The main street of Prairie du Chien butts up to the Mississippi River and bustles with tourists come summer. Pickup trucks crowd
ASSOCIATED PRE SS
David Goldman / AP
A customer crosses the street while leaving a shop along the main business district in Prairie du Chien, Wis., in Crawford County, Jan. 19.
parking lots at the 3M plant and Cabela’s distribution center where hundreds work. Just a few vacant storefronts hint at the seething resentment that life still seems harder here than it should. In this place that astonished America when it helped hand Trump the White House, many of those who chose him greeted the frenetic opening acts of his presidency with a shrug. Immigration is not their top concern, and so they watched with some trepidation as Trump signed orders to build a wall on the Mexican border and bar immigrants from seven Muslim countries, sowing chaos around the world. Among them is a woman who works for $10.50 an hour in a sewing factory, who still admires Obama, bristles at Trump’s bluster, but can’t afford health insurance. And the dairy farmer who thinks Trump is a jerk — “somebody needs to get some Gorilla Glue and glue his lips shut” — but has watched his profits plummet and was willing to take the risk. There’s a man who owns an engine repair shop and struggles to keep the lights on, and a bartender who cringes when he sees “Made in China” printed on American goods. There’s also Holt, who makes $400 a week as a lawyer’s assistant and whose husband doesn’t do much better at a car parts store. She is enthusiastic that Trump started quickly doing the things he said he would, because she worries that by the time their sons grow up there will be nothing left for them here. In this corner of middle America, in this one, small slice of the nation that sent Trump to Washington, they are watching and they are waiting, their
hopes pinned on his promised economic renaissance. And if four years from now the change he pledged hasn’t found them here, the people of Crawford County said they might change again to someone else. —————————— Katherine Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, coined a name for what’s happened in her state’s rural pockets: the politics of resentment. She spent years traveling to small towns and talking to people at diners and gas stations. And when she asked which political party best represented them, their answers almost always sounded something like, “Are you crazy lady? Neither party is representing people around here.” “People have been looking for a politician who is going to change that, going to listen to them, do it differently,” she said. “People a lot of times don’t have specifics about what that means. They just know that however government is operating currently is not working for them.” In Crawford County, with just 16,000 residents, that dissatisfaction stems from feeling left behind as other places prospered. There are plenty of jobs in retail or on factory floors, but it’s hard to find one that pays more than $12 an hour. Ambitious young people leave and don’t come back. Rural schools are dwindling, and with them a sense of pride and purpose. Still, much of the economic anxiety is based not on measurable decay, but rather a perception that life is decaying, said Jim Bowman, director of the county’s Economic Development Corporation. There are higher-paying jobs — in welding, for
example — but companies can’t find enough workers with the right training, Bowman said. The county’s $44,000-a-year median household income is $9,000 less than the state’s, but the cost of living is lower, too. Just 15 percent of adults have college degrees, half the national average, and yet the ratio of people living in poverty is below the country as a whole. Crawford County and all the other places in the county cluster along the Mississippi River that switched from Obama to Trump rank roughly in the middle on a scale of American comfort in one economic think tank’s county-by-county appraisal of community distress. Yet for many here, it doesn’t feel that way. “If you ask anybody here, we’ll all tell you the same thing: We’re tired of living like this. We’ve been railroaded, run over by the politicians and run over by laws,” said Mark Berns, leaning through the service window in the small-engine repair shop downtown that he can barely keep open anymore. He drives a 14-yearold truck with 207,000 miles on it because he doesn’t make enough profit to buy a new one. Berns watched Trump’s first days in office halfhopeful, half-frightened. “He jumps on every bandwagon there is. It’s a mess,” he said, bemoaning what he described as a quantity-over-quality, “sign, sign, sign” approach to governing. “I just hope we get the jobs back and the economy on its feet, so everybody can get a decent job and make a decent living, and have that chance at the American dream that’s gone away over the past eight or 10 years. “I’m still optimistic,” he said, sighing. “I hope I’m not wrong.”
NEW YORK — Twitter announced Tuesday that it is expanding efforts to protect its users from abuse and harassment, the latest milestone in a broader, growing corporate campaign to crack down on online hate. The social media giant said it has begun identifying people who have been banned for abusive behavior and it will stop them from creating new accounts. The company said its changes, which also include a new “safe search” feature, will be implemented in the coming weeks. In July, Twitter banned conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor of the right-wing news site Breitbart News, for “participating in or inciting targeted abuse of individuals.” Twitter subsequently suspended the accounts of other prominent figureheads of the “alt-right” fringe movement, an amorphous mix of racism, white nationalism, xenophobia and anti-feminism. Twitter has been under fire for failing to address hate and abuse on the site since its founding a decade ago. Balancing its reputation as a free speech haven has come into conflict with efforts to protect users. Other internet companies have taken recent steps to curb abusive behavior and ban users who violate rules against promoting hate. Reddit banned a forum for white nationalists from its social news website last Wednesday. A message at the link for the “r/altright” subreddit attributed its ban to an impermissible “proliferation of personal and confidential information.” Also last week, the crowdfunding website GoFundMe removed a campaign for a conservative author and self-described “researcher” on the internet conspiracy theory known as “pizzagate,” which alleged with no evidence that Democrats were running a child sex ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizza shop. Brittany Pettibone had launched her GoFundMe campaign for a video podcast about “traditional values that once made Western Civilization great,” including
“love of one’s own culture, race and country.” GoFundMe spokesman Bobby Whithorne said in an email that Pettibone’s campaign was removed because it violated the company’s terms of service, which include rules against promoting hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, terrorism or “intolerance of any kind.” Pettibone, who declined to be interviewed, tweeted that GoFundMe didn’t specify how her campaign violated its terms of service. Hate speech and promoting violence have long been barred under the terms of service of internet and social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook. But in the months leading up to the contentious presidential election, the emergence of the “alt-right” and high-profile trolling campaigns like one targeting “Ghostbusters” star Leslie Jones thrust the issue to the forefront. In November, for instance, AppNexus announced that it removed Breitbart News from its online advertising network because it said the news outlet had violated its policy against hate speech. AppNexus, which connects buyers and sellers of online ad space,” determined that Breitbart “deployed crude racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual slurs in a way that could incite violence or discrimination against minority groups,” a spokesman said at the time. The crackdown isn’t limited to far-right extremists. In August, Twitter said it had suspended some 360,000 accounts over the previous year for violating its policies banning the promotion of terrorism and violent extremism. But the company says the changes announced Tuesday are “unrelated to that and focused on abuse and harassment.” Also on Tuesday, Twitter said it’s creating a “safe search” feature that removes tweets with potentially sensitive content and tweets from blocked and muted accounts from search results. The tweets will still exist on Twitter if people look for them, but won’t appear in general search results. Twitter is also making some replies less visible so only the most relevant conversations surface.
A10 | Wednesday, February 8, 2017 | THE ZAPATA TIMES
NATIONAL
Trump paints dark picture in defense of travel ban By Julie Pace A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
WASHINGTON — The more Donald Trump tries to build support for his refugee and immigration ban, the darker the world seems to get. In defending his policies barring refugees and curbing immigration, the president is painting an increasingly ominous picture of the danger posed by Islamic extremists. In his speeches, tweets and an imposing new tally of what Trump calls an unreported “genocide” by the Islamic State group, he has raised the prospect of imminent attacks on the United States and cast the debate over safety as a clash between radical Islam and the West. To Trump’s supporters, the president’s dark warnings show that he has a clear-eyed view of the terror threat facing the U.S. — a threat they believe Barack Obama downplayed. Trump’s critics fear he is hyping one threat at the expense of others. Islamic extremism is “an enemy that celebrates death and totally worships destruction,” Trump said Monday while visiting the headquarters of the military’s Central Command. The list his administration is circulating highlights the debate. The White House points to the
78 incidents as evidence that the news media are intentionally downplaying the dangers of the Islamic State group. “Most” incidents on the list haven’t received sufficient attention, the White house says. Trump’s terror list, however, focuses only on attacks the White House says were “executed or inspired by” the Islamic State. Terrorism carried out in the name of other causes didn’t make the list. For example, Trump’s list does not include violence by Boko Haram, an Islamist insurgent group operating in West Africa that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2015. It is responsible for far more deaths than ISIS, including suicide bombings, mass shootings and massacres of civilians in Nigeria and neighboring countries. The White House list also leaves off last month’s attack on a mosque in Quebec where six Muslim men were shot and killed. A French Canadian man known for far-right, nationalist views has been charged and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called it an act of terrorism against Muslims. The White House says Trump did call Trudeau to express condolences. But his failing to mention it now appears to reflect his narrow focus on the Islamic State.
Judge says Dakota pipeline protest suit unlikely to succeed By Blake Nicholson ASSOCIATED PRE SS
Bebeto Matthews / AP
Students from high schools and colleges throughout New York city protest with clenched fists, during a rally against President Donald Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority nations, Tuesday, in New York’s Foley Square.
Although he has been vague about his plans for countering the Islamic State in its strongholds in Iraq and Syria, he has moved swiftly to try to keep the group’s followers out of the United States, signing an executive order in his first week in office that banned all entries from seven Muslim-majority countries with terror ties. Trump’s directive also halted the entire U.S. refugee program for four months and banned Syrians from the U.S. indefinitely. The ban is now held up in the courts, prompting a fierce response from the president. In a strikingly personal attack on the judiciary, Trump said the judge should bear the blame if an attack occurs while his ban is paused. He’s warned that the court order has allowed people to start “pouring in” to the United States, despite the fact that those who do not currently hold legal visas must go through lengthy vetting procedures before entering the country. “ISIS said we are going
to infiltrate the United States and other countries through the migration,” Trump said during a White House meeting with sheriffs on Tuesday. “And then we’re not allowed to be tough on the people coming in? Explain that one.” Evelyn Farkas, who served as deputy defense secretary during the Obama administration, argues that the president’s warnings are creating “a level of concern that probably isn’t warranted by the threats assessment.” In recent years, federal law enforcement agencies have focused more on the threat posed by homegrown extremists — people, usually men, who are already in the U.S. and who find themselves attracted to Islamic State propaganda of violence and mayhem. Still, officials concede that it’s impossible to guarantee a mistake-free screening process for people seeking to come to the U.S., particularly given the paucity of information sometimes available on people entering from Syria.
BISMARCK, N.D. — Dakota Access pipeline opponents involved in a violent clash with police in North Dakota in November are unlikely to succeed in a lawsuit alleging excessive force and civil rights violations, a federal judge said Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland didn’t immediately rule on a motion filed Monday by law enforcement to dismiss the lawsuit, but he did deny an earlier request by pipeline opponents to bar police from using such things as chemical agents and water sprays as a means of dispersing crowds of protesters. Hovland said protesters “are unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims,” which include that police used inappropriate force, injuring more than 200 protesters, and violated their civil rights. The judge said protesters were trespassing during the confrontation and that “no reasonable juror could conclude” that officers acted unreasonably. “The rights of free speech and assembly do not mean, and have never meant, that everyone who chooses to protest against the Dakota Access pipeline may do so at any time, any place, and under any set of conditions they choose in total disregard of the law,” Hovland said. “To allow that to occur would result in anarchy and an end to the rule of law in civilized
society.” Rachel Lederman, lead attorney for the protesters, called Hovland’s ruling “disturbing” and said she’ll appeal. “The judge indicates that he’s formed opinions based on television and newspapers and pretty much disregards the large volume of evidence that the plaintiffs have presented,” she said. The Nov. 20-21 confrontation occurred at a blockaded bridge near the encampment where pipeline opponents have gathered in the hundreds and sometimes thousands since last summer, fighting a $3.8 billion project they believe could harm drinking water and Native American cultural sites. That’s disputed by Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based developer of the fourstate pipeline to move North Dakota oil 1,200 miles through South Dakota and Iowa to Illinois. Law enforcement acknowledges using tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, bean bag rounds and water sprays against protesters they say assaulted officers with rocks, burning logs, lug nuts, padlocks and frozen water bottles. Officers say they were heavily outnumbered by protesters and were being marked by lasers and spotlights, leading to fears they were being targeted by snipers. One officer was struck in the head by a thrown object and dazed. Protesters are seeking unspecified money damages. They allege a wide range of injuries, including burns and broken bones.
THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, February 8, 2017 |
A11
FROM THE COVER REFINERY From page A1 – we already have requests to replicate the same thing,” Jackson said. “We’re all environmental proponents and everything, so the only way that we want to do it is make it a clean and green refinery.” Jackson said typically refineries and other petrochemical plants would use natural gas systems to produce power, and that while some of the initial cost of building geothermal can be higher, in the long-run the costs are on par with natural gas because the fuel is essentially free. Geothermal uses heat from thousands of feet underground to heat fluids that spin turbines and create electricity. Moore and Jackson said the refinery will capture carbon emissions from the refinery and use them in the geothermal power plant, eliminating many of the emissions coming off of the site. Moore said a permit with the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality has not been filed yet, but that he hopes to have one filed by the beginning of the second quarter. At a community forum held in the small town of Bruni February 1, over
MEXICO From page A1 gling with the uncertainties of the future. As the leading industrial hub of the country, Monterrey is on its way to becoming a flash point in the binational debate. “We talk to companies every day and it’s a changing story, but there is a lot of concern especially in Mexico right now,” said Joseph Chapa, vice president of the United StatesMexico Chamber of Commerce. Already, the social anxiety and mistrust has struck a nerve with many Monterrey businesses. Some members of the Mexican Entrepreneur Association in Monterrey said community business leaders feared retribution if they spoke with a reporter on the issue. Nationwide, the people of Mexico are taking preventive measures to protect against potentially aggressive U.S. policies. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has scheduled a 90-day conference period with the country’s Senate and private sector to discuss a plan for NAFTA. He also re-launched the “Hecho en Mexico” initiative to encourage the purchase of Mexican-made products, and everyday people have been boycotting American companies like Walmart in favor of homegrown grocery stores like Soriana. Weighing heavily on Mexicans is the plunge of the value of the peso, which has mirrored the downward spiral of U.S.Mexico relations since Trump’s election Nov. 8. Trump’s border restrictions leave some visaholders worried about their freedom to travel in and out of the United States. Another concern is a fear that Trumplike populism could gain traction in next year’s presidential election. Politics for now seems to be pitting the neighbors against each other. Peña Nieto canceled a trip to meet with Trump, after Trump tweeted about making Mexico pay for a wall. Trump reportedly told Peña Nieto in a call last weekend that he’d send U.S. troops to knock out the “bad hombres” in Mexico, though some say the remarks were in jest. For South Texas cities like San Antonio, whose roots are intricately intertwined with that of Mexico and, in particular, its
100 people gathered to voice their concerns regarding the potential environmental impacts of the refinery and lack of information. Tricia Cortez, a spokeswoman for the grassroots organization South Texans Against the Refinery or STAR, said in a text message that she was skeptical about Moore’s statements. “He can sign memorandums of understanding all day long, but without having even submitted a permit application, there’s not much to discuss,” Cortez said. “Despite Raven’s claims that local residents will build the refinery, Moore is already looking to line up firms from Houston and Austin instead. This doesn’t bode well for the local jobs Moore is claiming Raven will create.” Moore said “there’s a fear of the unknown” and that he was unable to discuss specifics of the project as he worked with BASIC and Thermal Energy Partners to finalize the designs. “We are in a position now to communicate more of those details into the community,” Moore said, though he did not specify if that meant he would be holding meetings with the community. Duval County judge Ricardo “Rocky” Carrillo
expressed his support for the project in November, saying it could bring up to 1,800 jobs and add tens of millions to the county’s tax base. Those jobs and investment would be a boon to an area hit hard from the oil downturn in the Eagle Ford Shale of the last two years, which cost thousands of people their jobs as oil companies slashed budgets and payrolls. Marathon Petroleum Corp. built the last major U.S. refinery in Garyville, Louisiana in 1977. It could process 200,000 barrels of oil a day when it first opened. The facility since has been upgraded to process 539,000 barrels of oil a day. Moore hopes to break ground on the project in the next three months, and to have the refinery operational in 2018. “We’re trying to not impact the environment, the livestock, the wildlife or the people. The technology allows us to do that, and we’re willing to use it,” Moore said. “We feel that in the long run the efficiency of the geothermal, it‘s good business but it’s also the right way to do it. Why other refineries haven’t done it is they’re not required to. We’re not required to, but we still want to do it. We just think it’s the responsible way to go.”
TAMIU From page A1
sister city Monterrey, the political tension contrasts with their deep-seated cultural and commercial ties. “It’s an awkward situation,” said Ruben Linder, president of the Mexican Entrepreneur Association San Antonio. San Antonio and Monterrey used to be connected by a passenger train and while that is no longer, they remain connected through a similar cultural history. Linder moved to San Antonio from Monterrey six years ago to establish another base for his company OpCom Media Group because he knew the transition would be a “soft landing.” He said the social ramifications of some of Trump’s policies are affecting the country’s economics, and vice versa. “It’s sending a message — it’s not the wall, the bricks, it’s about the message,” Linder said. “It’s, ‘I don’t trust you.’ It’s, ‘We are neighbors but I don’t want you to look at my home.’ And because of that, things are already happening with the whole economic ecosystem.”
where it largely was regarded as a net gain. While Cardenas might see the United States as a friend, he said he’s concerned the feeling isn’t mutual. “Mexico has taken advantage of the U.S. for long enough. Massive trade deficits & little help on the very weak border must change, NOW!” Trump tweeted Jan. 28. Trump calls NAFTA “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere.” U.S. imports today outweigh exports to Mexico, contributing to a deficit of $58.8 billion in 2016. It’s not the highest it’s been — in 2007 the deficit reached $74.8 billion — and experts say it wasn’t the movement of companies but technological advancements that caused a lot of manufacturing jobs to close. As North American trade swelled after NAFTA, so did business ties between Texas and the Mexican border state of Nuevo León and its capital of Monterrey. Now, produce and automobile parts are exported to the U.S. while Texas-based companies like H-E-B have expanded to Nuevo León. Mexico is the United States’ second-largest export market and in 2015 Texas imported more than $84 billion worth of goods from Mexico, making up 33 percent of the U.S.’ total imports from Mexico. About 80 percent of Mexico’s exports are U.S.bound. The possibility of gutting that expansive, intricate trade relationship has shaken business leaders on both sides of the border. “The biggest issue is that there’s an absolute uncertainty about what will happen. I think this is the most dangerous,” said Zita Horvath, an associate professor at the EGADE business school and corporate lawyer for private equity and wealth companies. She said investors have approached her “very concerned” over the United States’ new protectionist direction. Trump has been adamant about companies staying domestic. Carrier, an American air conditioning company, and Ford Motor Co. both reversed plans after Trump derided their intents to move to Mexico. One businessman who’s in charge of international exports for a company that sells the majority of its products to
the United States said he’s halted all exports until he gets more clarity of the future of U.S and Mexico trade relations. He did not want to publish his name for fear of retribution from U.S. officials. “Officially, we’ve stopped everything. It’s like when you’re in a recession — everybody’s stopped their decision until things clarify,” he said. “We’re on standby.” He wanted to put his firm’s first office in San Antonio. But once Trump was elected and then inaugurated, he decided it would be too risky to deal with the United States. He said he picked Texas because he used to think that it had a lot in common with Nuevo León. “Until a couple months ago, I thought we had very similar cultures. Our culture here looks more like Texas than California or any other state in the United States,” he said. But now, he questions if they’re as similar as he once thought. Earlier this year, the export director drove to Austin to attend a business conference. For the first time, even with his SENTRI expedited pass for low-risk travelers, he was held up at the border. He said he’s had multiple friends tell the same kind of story in recent weeks. And he said a friend’s visa was revoked because he made negative comments about Trump. These kinds of stories lead to national paranoia. “Culturally they’re changing the rules to everyone. On this side, we’re just waiting to see how the rules are going to change and hoping they change the quickest possible,” the businessman said. “But really, it’s shocking.” To balance things out, he said his company is now switching gears to look at Central and South America for potential buyers. Cardenas and Horvath also mentioned that maybe it was time for Mexico to start looking for other treaties, other solutions, should it get shut out of U.S. commerce. But maybe it’s still too soon — they couldn’t say for sure. “We can’t plan out from here to two or three years ahead, like we did before, well now we can’t. We’re planning no more than 6 months ahead, and most of the time, not even that far,” said Alberto Leal, who works at the Vivati finance firm.
‘On standby’ A painting of George Washington kneeling by a horse in prayer hangs on the wall of Felix Cardenas’ office. The venture capitalist has been an ardent fan of the United States and its first president for years, having obtained much of his education there. “We’ve been friends for so many years, good neighbors. In 1994, when NAFTA was finally executed, it wasn’t just to be good neighbors, but Canada and Mexico were pulling our destiny together. We were forming an economic block,” Cardenas said. “So that’s what we encourage our American friends and business associates to do — see us as partners. A symbiotic, mutual relationship.” And those kinds of relationships—and the jobs they fostered—are what’s at stake, he said. When NAFTA began and tariffs essentially were eliminated between Canada, Mexico and the U.S., small businesses shuttered doors in Mexico, unable to keep up with the larger companies — many American — that moved in and made products for less cost. Thousands of jobs were lost, but thousands more were created in manufacturing plants, to the point
increasing time to degree. Although containing a decrease, the House budget is much kinder to us, leaving special items intact. “Those of you familiar with the funding process in Texas will affirm that this is not the time to panic. We are in the very early days of the Legislature and the budgeting process. The Senate and the House each have budgets that predictably differ in allocations. There will be plenty of back and forth between the Houses before a final budget is presented to the Legislature for approval.” Arenaz said the construction of the $70 million academic building that will house engineering and science programs won’t be affected and will continue to be on schedule. However, he said programs that were in the planning phase, such as an undergraduate engineering program, will be on hold. The Senate presented public university leaders a starting-point budget for the 2018-19 biennium that reduces the “special items” category. Meanwhile, senators
“... Eliminating base funding special items would have a disproportional impact on border institutions and our students, increasing time to degree. Although containing a decrease, the House budget is much kinder to us ...” Pablo Arenaz, TAMIU president
stressed that though the budgets may look grim now, there’s still wiggle room. “I keep saying it is a starting point,” Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, said during the Senate finance committee hearings for higher education last week. She emphasized much could change in the months to come. The House bill calls for much less drastic measures, allocating about $1 billion to special items funding — only $99.7 million less compared to the current budget. The House and Senate must agree on a budget before the bill is sent to the governor. With lawmakers facing a reduced state budget — because of declining oil revenues and past decisions to cut taxes and dedicate billions to transportation — senators were put in a tough position, said Sen. Kel
Historically, the United States has been known as a global leader in free trade. For Monterrey, the free trade capital of Mexico, talks of restrictive trade measures are a stunning role reversal. “It’s such an irony that because of the United States and the push it had in that era — it opened up countries and the market. It’s incredible that today it’s heading in the reverse. It’s shocking,” said Pedro David Martinez, the founder of Regius Capital in Monterrey. “We have a person who wants to reverse more than 50 years of global integration in one week,” Martinez said. “This is the problem.” ‘Stronger this way’ Out in the northern colonias of Monterrey, a group of men shook their heads in conversation, white corn residue on their hands like chalk. Eduardo Lopez sat on a pail and scraped kernels from a corn husk. His brother, Margarito Lopez Marin, stood nearby watching as Lucas Cristobal, a local vendor, stuffed corn into a produce bag. Businessmen of a different stock than the venture capitalists and finance men from downtown, they too were talking about Trump, and what their futures will look like if his promises continue to unravel into reality. Will the value of the peso, which has been declining since Trump’s election, continue its downward trajectory? Will the inflation of gasoline prices — caused in part by the weakening of Mexican currency — bring up the cost of other consumer goods too? And can Lopez still count on being able to visit his family members who live in Dallas? “Why does he have to treat us like this?” Lopez said. These are the questions that plague them. A conversation of sentences ending in question marks brought on by the quickly changing politics of the United States. “I don’t know what thoughts he has, or where this is going,” Cristobal said, shrugging. “But we are Mexicans and we should all be like brothers. We don’t like it that another person and country comes here to hurt us.” “He’s not thinking of others like us. He’s thinking of himself and what he
Seliger, R-Amarillo, who’s also chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee. Arenaz was one of many college presidents that spoke before the Senate Finance Committee last week. Texas A&M University-Kingsville President Steven Tallant said the university will suffer a cut of $26 million. During his presentation, he said the cuts will result in putting $10 million of research funds at risk, a loss of 63 positions and a cut to 14 student graduate assistantships. Others who expressed concern to the cuts were Kelly Quintanilla, interim president for Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, George Wright, president of Prairie View A&M University, and other high-ranking university officials. The San Antonio Express-News contributed to this report.
wants to do,” Lopez said. The workers have seen the news—they know Mexico relations became a cornerstone of Trump’s presidential campaign. They remember what he said in 2015: “They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” And so they, like many Mexicans across the country and across economic divides, have decided to come together in the face of a common opponent. “We’re united because we don’t want to let him to dominate us here. We have our country and we’re going to defend our country and countrymen. And if he messes with them over there, he’s messing with us, too,” Lopez Marin said. “A lot of us have family there and we don’t want them to get hurt there either.” Later in the day, Cristobal will sell his corn as elote, with cheese, chili and lime in a cup. And the Lopez brothers will drop off the rest with a distributor, who will take some of that corn up to cities and towns across the U.S. Cristobal said his friends on Facebook have been sharing Mexican flags in solidarity for their country. “We just want to work and take care of our family. But unfortunately they think we’re thieves,” Lopez Marin said. Miles away, women in a manufacturing plant toil to create protective gear that would get shipped across Mexico. Working inside, Olivia Guerrero Gonzalez performs the same task over and over — smoothing out perfectly round shapes of dark glass with an old piece of machinery. Just thinking about her country fighting for itself makes her smile. “We’re uniting more and we are stronger this way,” she said. But then her face tightens. She recalled Trump’s book, “The Art of the Deal,” when he spoke about crushing the adversaries who are weak and negotiating with those who are strong. “This is what he’s doing — he’s crushing Mexico,” Gonzalez said. “He thinks we’re weak. He thinks we’re weak because he doesn’t know us.” “I want this man to study the history of Mexico. So that he can see everything we’ve done. So he can value us as people.”
A12 | Wednesday, February 8, 2017 | THE ZAPATA TIMES
INTERNATIONAL
Peru’s attorney general seeks to arrest ex-President Toledo By Andrea Zarate N EW YORK T I ME S
LIMA, Peru — Peru’s attorney general said on Tuesday that he would issue an arrest warrant for former President Alejandro Toledo, the latest Latin American leader laid low by a corruption scandal spreading across the region. Peruvian prosecutors accuse the former president of receiving $20 million in bribes from Brazilian construction
PHOTOS From page A1 milkweed species on SPI to the newly created “Monarchs and Native Milkweeds of South Padre Island” iNaturalist project. Gonzalez said the photos can become valuable data for conservation research through the iNaturalist website, an online citizen science platform. “This project has been established to gain a better understanding of monarch ecology and habitat on SPI that will in turn help toward conservation actions on the Island,” Gonzalez said. The monarch butterfly is an iconic species known worldwide. Monarchs migrating through the “Texas Funnel” on the coastal flyway come straight through South Padre Island and the surrounding landscapes, making this area a critical stretch in their yearly migration.
According to prosecutors, $11 million has been tracked to offshore accounts owned by Josef Maiman, a close friend and associate of the former president. Odebrecht is the focus of an ever widening international corruption scandal that has also embarrassed members of the administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former president of Brazil. According to the U.S. Department of Justice,
Odebrecht operated a department dedicated solely to bribing government officials around the world. Toledo’s home in eastern Lima was searched Saturday, reportedly without his lawyer present. Documents were seized, as well as other evidence including a safe deposit box. “It’s approximately 3:30 a.m., and they went as thieves to steal from us without anyone’s presence; the house is empty,
there’s no attorneys or any witnesses to what they are taking or planting,” Toledo’s wife, Eliane Karp, wrote in a Facebook post. Toledo, who earned a reputation for fighting his way out of poverty, served as Peru’s president from 2001 to 2006. After his presidency, he left Peru and was invited by Stanford University to be a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
firm Odebrecht, in exchange for infrastructure contracts including the rights to build a transcontinental highway connecting Peru to Brazil. The accusations threaten to put Toledo behind bars, a twist for a leader who rose to power by heading up the street protests that toppled the government of his now imprisoned predecessor, Alberto Fujimori. Pablo Sanchez, the attorney general, said
Hamilton Castro, the prosecutor leading the investigation, “will request the precautionary imprisonment” of Toledo. Prosecutors called on Toledo, who is believed to be in Paris, to return to Peru and surrender to authorities. Toledo has previously denied any wrongdoing. “Say when, how and where and in what bank they’ve given me $20 million,” Toledo said in a radio interview over the weekend.
“Unfortunately, this beautiful butterfly has suffered alarming population declines in recent years for a variety of reasons,” Gonzalez said. “The observations will give us the data of where the monarch is migrating and feeding on the Island.” Gonzalez said contributing to the project is an easy and fun way to get involved in the conservation of this special butterfly. Island Mayor Barry Patel signed the National Wildlife Federation’s Mayors’ Monarch Pledge in October 2016. The pledge identifies key strategies cities can take to help the plight of the monarchs. The citizen’s photography initiative is the citizen’s science campaign and one of more than 50 monarch pledges the city can choose from. “We are pleased to be working with the Birding and Nature Center to help protect Monarchs,” Patel said.
Colombia begins formal peace talks with No. 2 rebel group By Dolores Ochoa and Alba Tobella ASSOCIATED PRE SS
QUITO, Ecuador — Colombia’s government and the nation’s secondlargest rebel group formally started peace talks Tuesday in neighboring Ecuador, seeking to follow up on the peace accord already reached with the biggest rebel movement. The National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, and government had held exploratory talks for more than three years before getting the formal negotiations started in Quito. The start of talks originally was announced last March as the government’s accord with the much-larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to end a half century of hostilities was nearing completion. But
Dolores Ochoa / AP
National Liberation Army representative Pablo Beltran, center, walks with Ecuador's Foreign Minister Guillaume Longand, right, and Colombian government representative Juan Camilo Restrepo, left, Tuesday.
negotiations with the ELN stalled as the rebels refused to meet President Juan Manuel Santos’ demand that it free a prominent politician from captivity. The release last week of former congressman Odin Sanchez removed that final obstacle to the start of negotiations, which are
not expected to produce immediate results. The government’s talks with the FARC stretched from November 2012 to September 2016. “The time of politics with weapons must end in Colombia,” the government’s chief negotiator, Juan Camilo Restrepo, said at the inauguration
ceremony for the talks with the ELN. “Every unnecessary delay in the search for peace means the sacrifice of lives and it is time lost to lay the foundations of reconciliation.” The rebel group’s chief negotiator, Pablo Beltran, said that “we all have to change.” “We are willing to take responsibility for the events that occurred during the conflict, and we expect the other side to do the same,” Beltran said in a tough speech that referred to Colombia’s government as a “regime.” The ELN has about 1,500 active fighters, according to official figures. More than five decades of conflict in Colombia involving the two rebel movements, the army and right-wing paramilitary groups have resulted in more than 260,000 deaths.