ETSÁKUPANIINTERNACIONAL

N A F T AImagen: Nafta-Sec-Alena.org

directorioMtro. Luis Roberto Mantilla SahagúnRector Dr. Ernesto Rodríguez Moncada Vicerrector académico M.A. Marcela Genel ValenciaVicerrectora Administrativa M.I.D. Viviana Itzel Espinosa EstradaDirectora de Mercadotecnia y Comunicación Institucional

Mtro. Víctor Fortino Vargas AnguianoDirector Divisional

Lic. Leopoldo Callejas FonsecaDirector de la Licenciatura en Relaciones Comerciales Internacionales

ColaboradoresLic. Patricia Pérez SistosMa.Fernanda Arroyo NavarroAntonio Asís A.Areli Guido RojasDiana Hernández Selvera

Comité EditorialJimena Isabel Nocetti GarcíaDayana Génesis Sosa FreyrePablo G. Reyes CenicerosMaría Gabriela Espinoza ArredondoIsabel Gpe. Ibarez FloresCoral Álvrez LomberaIrvin Gilberto Paz Sigifredo Estrada ArgüelloMaría de la Salud Alejandra Sosa MedinaJosé Alfredo Tapia NavarreteLeopoldo Callejas Fonseca

Asesor CreativoDaniel Tinoco Torres

E D I T O R I A LCONTENIDO

ETSÁKUPANI INTERNACIONAL, Año 5 No. 46, noviembre 2015, editada por la Universidad Latina de América, a través de la Licenciatura en Relaciones Comerciales Internacionales. Calle Manantial Contzio Norte No. 355, Fraccionamiento Los Manantiales, C.P. 58170, Morelia, Michoacán, Tel: (443) 3 22 15 00 / 01 800 700 UNLA (8652) www.unla.edu.mx etsakupani_internacional@unla.edu.mx, Editor responsable: Leopoldo Callejas Fonseca. Reservas de Derechos al Uso Exclusivo No. 04-2011-110412382200-203, ISSN en trámite, ambos otorgados por el Instituto Nacional del Derecho de Autor. Las opiniones expresadas por los autores no necesariamente reflejan la postura del editor de la publicación.

Queda estrictamente prohibida la reproducción total o parcial de los contenidos e imágenes de la publicación sin previa autorización del titular del los derechos y/o de la Universidad Latina de América.

4

In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect, creating one of the world’s largest free trade zones and laying the foundations for strong economic growth and rising prosperity for Canada, the United States, and Mexico. 20 years after NAFTA was enacted, the trade agreement’s legacy remains enshrouded in controversy, not only in Mexico, but in the United States and Canada as well.

In the framework of the Mexico’s Foreign Policy course, the good, the bad, and the ugly of NAFTA was discussed, and so the cons and pros of it were explored. The objective was to determine if 20 years later, do the benefits outweigh the costs? As a result, a very interesting and enriching discussion took place. NAFTA is a subject with many supporters and opponents, each group with its own views, especially when speaking about its effects on Mexico.Before even trying to make an assessment of NATFA’S impact on Mexico, it’s important to review the following:What is NAFTA? It is a comprehensive trade agreement that sets the rules of trade and investment between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Since the agreement entered into force on January 1, 1994, NAFTA has systematically eliminated most tariff and non-tariff barriers to free trade and investment between the three NAFTA countries. The original purpose was to help the United States, Canada and Mexico compete with the European Union. Nowadays, it has tripled trade, but also been criticized for outsourcing U.S. jobs and exploiting Mexico’s farmers.How does NAFTA work? NAFTA is a formal agreement that establishes clear rules for commercial activity between its members. NAFTA is overseen by a number of institutions that ensure the proper interpretation and smooth implementation of the Agreement’s provisions.What is its purpose? Among its purposes, NAFTA aims to eliminate the tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade and investment between the three nations; promote the trilateral and multilateral cooperation; eliminate trade barriers; facilitate-border circulation of goods and services; and increase investment opportunities.Now, the real question is: after 20 years, how has NAFTA truly impacted Mexico? NAFTA has certainly provided benefits and advantages to the Mexican economy. In the first two decades, trade between the three members quadrupled, from $297 billion to $1.2 trillion. This boosts economic growth, profits, and jobs for all three countries. As for Mexico, it emerged as a forward-looking country with expanding global reach. On the other hand, among its negative effects, widely speaking, we can point out that Mexican workers have benefited less than expected; the trade agreement lifted tariffs but not regulations; and it hasn’t eliminated all the problems associated with international trade between the three countries.In this edition, we have the valuable collaboration of four outstanding IR students. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Diana María Hernández Selvera, Antonio Asís Álvarez, Areli Guido Rojas, and María Fernanda Arroyo Navarro for their time, efforts, work and contribution. They all did an amazing job!

NAFTA: 20 years

15Breves Informativas

/etsakupani.internacional

@etsakupani

Etsákupani Internacional

Contáctanos

Licenciada en Relaciones Internacionales y estudiante de la Maestría en Gestión Pública de la Sustentabilidad.

Lic. Patricia Pérez Sistos

6NAFTA’S impact on México: after 20 years.

8NAFTA’S impact on México.

15Would México be better without the United States?

The North America Free Trade Agreement, celebrated 21 years ago, was the promise of growth, fair competitiveness, and fair exchange and in another way more recognition. To the current Mexican situation it seemed to be the perfect solution for the social, political and economical problems that the country faced. In Mexico at that time there was a crisis, the Zapatista movement was all over the south, it promised a revolution. The favorite president candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated in Tijuana and there was a lot of secrecy going on and people were more skeptical of the government than ever.

Mexico in that same year asked the IMF aid, and the IMF had promised that it would help Mexico in exchange of accomplishing some conditions. Mexico had to calm the boiling revolution that the Zapatista movement was encouraging and become stable socially. We have to recall that the economic crisis of 1994 was just about to start, Mexico needed an easy way out and the NAFTA was the best option. Promising economic growth, fighting the upcoming crisis, creating jobs, raising wages; all this entire would end in social stability.

More than 20 years later the results are… not

NAFTA: 20 years

4 5

autores

satisfying. There were American manufacturers that were moved to the North of the country mainly, creating cities in Mexico based in that economy. With the “great low” tariffs, there was a lot of FDI, even if it was to a very expensive price. Mexico got lower tariffs with Canada and the U.S.. However, Mexico proved with this agreement that it was a country capable of opening its doors; Mexico changed regulations and its rates, making them lose for everyone to adapt to them. These regulations were mainly changed for workers and the environment, meaning the true profit was for FDI and the government.

Through encouraging the new companies placed in Mexico, competitiveness became impossible for Mexicans, especially farmers, whose business went down. This was very noticeable in the raise of the price of the tortilla and the raise it has had each year. The GDP per capita raisedby 22% in Mexico but the real wages lowered. The poor regulation for workers and the environment only made the country perfect for exploitation.

Mexico, after adapting its regulations to be able to form part of this agreement, became perfect for the bilateral agreement, which is an agreement between

companies and countries, and this of course provokes the investor-state dispute settlements. This happens when the country changes regulations and “damages” the company. The company then sues the state and this dispute is taken into arbitration. This is solved by three lawyers, one chosen by the state, the other one by the company and the third is the one to decide what proceeds. With this, Mexico and Canada have each paid over 350 million dollars and the U.S. NOTHING.

It is also important to underline that since the establishment of NAFTA, Mexico has become very dependent on the U.S. economy, 72% to be exact. The real interaction with Canada is only 5%.

In conclusion I do not agree with this agreement. I do however recognize that in a way, it was truly the easy way out. I think Mexico was able to open its door to international markets losing up in tariffs and regulations for the best interest of bothsides, meaning, dignifying regulations for workers and the environment but also for companies. Being protectionist is also important, it helps internal market to grow and be competitive with the international ones and of course, we wouldn’t depend so much on one single economy. I believe

Mexico should look for other ways to have FAIR FREE TRADE without being attached to one single economy.

Bibliography: • http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/u-s-economy-since-nafta-18-charts/• h t t p : / / w w w . i n v e s t o p e d i a . c o m /financial-edge/1212/pros-and-cons-of-nafta.aspx• h t t p : / / w w w . b l o o m e r g . c o m / b w /articles/2013-12-30/nafta-20-years-after-neither-miracle-nor-disaster• h t t p s : / / t h e g u a r d i a n . c o m /commentisfree/2014/jan/04/nafta-20-years-mexi-co-regret• h t t p : / / w w w . c f r . o r g / t r a d e /naftas-economic-impact/p15790

Fotografía : ustr.gov

Fotografía: ArenaPública.com

es estudiante de la Licenciatura en Relaciones

Internacionales en la Universidad Autónoma de

Guadalajara.

María Fernanda Arroyo Navarro

autores

6 7Fotografía: NAPS

NAFTA’S impact on México: after 20 years

es estudiante de la Licenciatura en Relaciones

Internacionales en la Universidad Autónoma de

Guadalajara.

Antonio Asís A.In 1994, NAFTA entered into action will the eyes of the world upon it, as a pact which would help the development of the countries of North America This agreement promised that each economy would become established in the sectors that they found interesting, mainly promising that this agreement would help boost and develop the country which was at that point emerging: Mexico.

However the result that NAFTA has demonstrated since has had its advantages but also some weaker points on the Mexican economy, because the Mexi-can government has failed at strengthening the do-mestic market, and has been affected by the entry of foreign products because they have a lower cost and on some occasions, the Mexican market cannot be competitive through the opportunity costs for the merchant or Mexican producer.

Nowadays, there is a comparison of how NAFTA has worked in Mexico for 20 years until today. It designa-tes first of all that in the position of Latin American countries, Mexico gets the position number 18 out of 20 regarding its GDP per capita, and as discussed, this it is not a good result as in 20 years, growth in GDP per person has got to more than double and the rate of GDP that is currently added to Mexico is half the growth of the countries of Latin America.

Moreover, standards of poverty data reveal that re-cent studies comparing rates of survival in Mexico is estimated that the population living in poverty is assimilated with the index population which gave a result of extreme poverty in 1994, that designates about 14.5 million Mexicans living in low indices of poverty in the country. However, it has not only been a similar poverty rate, but in relation to the minimum wage, it has suffered the same growth as 20 years ago, and that simply there has been an in-flation adjusted economy of the country.

Finally, the current unemployment in the country is set to 5.1%, whereas 20 years ago, it was 3%; this denotes not only the decrease we have had in the labor sectors, but the lack of regularization to the same, because analyzing the data according to NAF-TA itself has made, the deterioration in the labor

market is significant.

As the last point to my idea, NAFTA was a pact with unsupported foundations sought fit to ideals of politi-cal economic for a unification without trade borders in the North. Through this idea, Mexico was believed to progress and its economic efficiency would be possible as Mexico was considered an emerging country. It is true that some parameters in the NAFTA have been positive in the early days, but nevertheless making a quantum analysis until today, this treaty is an economic failure.

Bibliography:

http://eleconomista.com.mx/columnas/columna-especial-valores/2014/02/06/tlcan-veinte-anos-su-en-trada-vigor

http://www.americaeconomia.com/economia-mercados/finanzas/analisis-20-anos-del-tlcan-fue-una-ayuda-para-mexico

Dibujo: Dave Simond

autores

8 9

NAFTA’S impact on MéxicoTrade relations have broadened substantially, and U.S. manufacturers created supply chains across North America that has made companies more glo-bally competitive. These factors may have stimula-ted economic growth; Canada has expanded at the fastest average rate and Mexico at the slowest. In-traregional trade flows have increased significantly over the treaty’s first two decades, from roughly $290 billion in 1993 to more than $1.1 trillion in 2012. Cross-border investment and travel have also surged. The United States trades more in goods and services with Mexico and Canada than it does with Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Russia, India and Chi-na combined. There was a considerable increase in exports as well as in the field of employment in Mexico. U.S. trade with Mexico was growing befo-re NAFTA’S implementation, and would likely have continued to grow with or without the deal on a scale that “dwarfs the effects” of NAFTA itself; the direct effect of NAFTA on U.S.- Mexico trade is fairly small, and thus the direct impact on the U.S. labor market is also small; and overall, the NAFTA deal has only expanded U.S. gross domestic product “very slightly”, with a similarly small and positive effect on the Canadian and Mexican economies. The third most important market in terms of exports to Mexi-co is Canada.

In effect the agreement helped receive the eco-nomy in the country due to the crisis that occurred in 1982. The benefits of this agreement only got re-flected until 2004 in Mexico, although it had already done so in 1996 in Canada. For Mexico, NAFTA was a tool that helped increase the economy, especially since there were short-term investments. Economic integration was starting between these countries. One of NAFTA’s unrealized promise was that the treaty would narrow the gap between the per capi-ta incomes of Mexico, the United States, and Cana-da. Per capita income in Mexico rose at an annual average of 1.2 percent over the past two decades, until 2012, far slower than Latin American coun-tries such as Brazil, Chile and Peru. NAFTA was also expected to discourage Mexican emigration to the United States, yet despite the 2007-2009 recession and increased deportations; Mexican-born people living in the United States have doubled since 1994

es estudiante de la Licenciatura en Relaciones

Internacionales en la Universidad Autónoma de

Guadalajara

Areli Guido Rojas

to 12 million in 2013. Industries excluded from NAFTA – such as telecommunications, television, and transportation- allowed Mexico’s wealthiest to become even richer. NAFTA has crippled Mexican farming prospects by opening competition to the heavily sub sized U.S. farm industry. The economist notes that despite increased competition, Mexican farm exports to the United States have tripled since NAFTA’S implementation, in part because of redu-ced tariffs on maize.

Experts say trade liberalization between Mexico and the United States has had positive consequen-ces for Mexicans generally, not just Mexican busi-ness interests. For instance, the deal has lead to dramatic reduction in Mexican prices for clothes, televisions, food, which helps offset slow income growth. Mexican workers in the car manufacturing and aeronautics sectors of northern Mexico have benefited from the treaty and helped expand the country’s manufacturing base. And Mexico has en-joyed and intangible benefit of NAFTA: The coun-try has adopted orthodox economic management practices and is no longer prone to crisis.

NAFTA like every other treaty had a purpose and I think that it really achieved some of the goals the treaty said it would accomplish. When Mexico en-tered the treaty, it wasn’t prepared as a country be-cause it was barely recovering from the economic crisis that was dragging from the 80’s but forMexi-co, entering this treaty was a very good long term decision because the country grew in its technolo-gy, its recovered economy, its political stability, its foreign investments, its environmental care, its new democracy project, its foreign relations with other countries, and its internal social situation. I didn’t know a lot of things and it is obvious that some as-pects of NAFTA’S don’t spark good results, but what I believe is that it was very good to our country be-cause Mexico developed and it has got a position in the global framework nowadays. United States and Canada are more developed countries, but the fact that we are having multilateral relation with the-se countries will help us improve our international commerce, foreign relations, and position ourselves better. I also think it was a good decision at a very

good time and year, because before, it would have been a catastrophe because of the instability of the po-licy and the economy in Mexico and after it would have been very late with the relations between Mexico, U.S., and Canada.

In 1994, Mexico was not a very structured country but Salinas de Gortari made Mexico more participative internationally yet Mexico had been very damaged because of the internal situation. Mexico, its economy and its internal policy were going through tough times. Nowadays Mexico’s economy is growing in a very good path; its exportations and importations are directed around the world, the market is expanding and the economy is more stabilized. The political situation is getting better, although the freedom of speech is almost non-existent and the insecurity is growing and expanding. We need to fix the internal situation of the country but we are positioning ourselves in an international framework.

Imagen: US Chamber

10

autores

11Imagen : University of New Hampshire

Imagen : Ambassade du Mexique en France

es estudiante de la Licenciatura en Relaciones

Internacionales en la Universidad Autónoma de

Guadalajara

Diana Hernández Selvera

Would México be better witouth the United States?

Short Mexico’s History:Mexico’s dependent tendency developed a long time ago, specifically back when Spain colonized it, due the fact that Spain treated Mexicans like they were not important in the decisions of their own country, to participate in the important decisions you had to be either from Spain or a mix from Spa-nish and Mexican people and even they were re-jected in some fields. They were used to receiving orders from the king or queen, they did not know how to make wise decisions or how to run a coun-try; with its independence, Mexico suffered from a lot of instability. The domestic situation was not in the best terms; there were a lot of internal fights for power and when they finally agreed on someo-ne taking the power, the conspirators started ac-ting against the one who took it until they finally put someone else. That is why the presidents could not stay long enough to really make a change in the country and as a result, it could not make bonds with other countries. In spite of the fact that Mexico had had its indepen-dency since 1810, it could not stand by its own feet; as a matter of fact, it needed the United States’ help right away because they were more organized than Mexico.

Short United States’ History:As its known, the United States became one of the most powerful countries by the end of the First World War (WWI) and its moves has affected the

rest of the world since then, but even before then, this country had shown a lot of domestic stability and it’s because of the fact that when England came to colonize them, they had a different vision from Spain. The first difference is that they tried to kill all the Native American people, even though they let few communities alive, they killed most of them, and sent people from their own to live there. The other difference is that their monarchy let each American state take their own decisions. They did participate but each state had much more indepen-dence from the monarchy than Mexicans had. That is how they learned how to develop their economy by their own needs, the differences between North and South America are still there and we can easily detect them. Another important thing is they have been voting their representatives since they were colonized, but of course in that time England colla-borated with those representatives as a team but as we can see they have more experience in every single field than Mexicans do.

What does NAFTA mean to both countries?Since the beginning of times, Mexican representati-ves had searched for the United Sates help, either for their approval of their governments or their eco-nomic help. That is why the presidents in Mexico have developed laws or treaties that the United Sta-tes obtained benefits from; they all wanted to be “friends” with the ‘gringos’. Because being honest, who would want to be against them and their world

power?One clear and current example of this kind of tra-des, that benefits more the United States, could be the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, United States and Mexico. This treaty has indeed helped to grow each economy but that does not mean the United States are not obtaining more benefits from it. In the positive as-pects, it could be said that exports and foreign in-vestments have grown but in the negative aspects. Mexico has also grown its dependency from the United States and with it its vulnerability . The Uni-ted States is the biggest trading partner so its in-fluence is also bigger but its demanding more than offering (products) ; this means that the Americans are importing more (raw material) from Mexico and Canada. More than 80 percent of Mexico’s exports are to the United States even though Mexico is the country with more world trade treaties, it only focu-ses on the ones with its’ north neighbor and this is because it is easier to maintain what it has had for so long. Mexico’s trade with Latin America is decre-asing and the ones with Europe and Asia are under its’ capability because Mexico is not giving them the necessary importance .“All trade has winners and losers and NAFTA is not the exception” Joy Olson (executive director of the Washington Office on Latin America”. Not only Mexico wants to be in good terms with them but Americans also wants to be “friends” (more like “frenemies”) with Mexico because that means security for them, and because they have so much more world power that Mexico has, they have shown a lot of interest on having a certain control on Mexico. As John Foster Dulles said: “The United States of America does not have friends; it has inter-ests.” The United States sells more to Mexico than to China, India, Brazil and Russia together, 6 million jobs in the United States depend from its trades with Mexico .“The trade has grown in an exceptional way. It did not end the poverty in Mexico but that was not its’ intention” Michael Shifter (Think Tank president) Now the three trading partners are searching new possible partners: now that China has been growing, it has become the main trade target. Now everybody is talking about the need of a new

autores

12 13Imagen : Wikipedia

type of NAFTA, “The NAFTA 2.0”, adapted to the new needs and reality covering topics such as trade facilitation, electronic trades, intellectual property but most of all to make the region more competitive so it can conquer other markets.

Mexico searching for new possibilities:There was a certain point when Mexico seemed to have the opportunity to be less dependent from United States but at the end of the Cold War, Mexico’s foreign policy lost its capability of inde-pendence from its powerful neighbor. In the case of Mexico, its strong dependency to the United States has made it vulnerable of its ups and downs Despite the fact that Mexico signed 11 trade trea-ties since 1994 with Canada, United States, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Chile, the European Union, Is-rael, Japan and the European Free Trade Associa-tion (EFTA), the main Mexican trade is still with the United States; only 20 percent of its exports are for 200 countries (the other 80 percent, as it was said before, is designated to the United States)These days, there is this current tendency to be into a multipolar world, but the lack of a defined trade politic by Mexico is what stops it from being part of that multipolar world. Tourism has been an extremely important element in Mexican politics; and in Mexico, tourism means American tourism since this makes up more than 90 percent of the total. Tourism has created employ-ment for many of those who cannot be absorbed by Mexico’s growing industrial sector. Alfredo Millán (the principal of the Asia Pacific Uni-versity) thinks that Mexico should pay more atten-tion to the Asia Pacific area because it is increasing 7 or 8 percent per year. Mexico should not only pro-mote the tourism with North America but also to China because this country had 8.9 of Gross Natio-nal Product in the second trimester of 2009. A treaty of free trade with China would give a positive twist to the Mexican economy and will open the door to new trades with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Approximately three fourths of all foreign inves-tments in recent years have come from the United States, while approximately 60 percent Mexican

imports and exports come from or go to the Ame-rican market. Tourism, essentially from the United States has grown constantly and currently contri-butes more than 500 million dollars to the Mexican economy.

Few Mexico’s Issues:Most of Mexican problems are domestic issues and because the government only focuses on them, the foreign issues are not been attended in the wisest way.The fact that the Mexican government does not have a very defined trade politic besides the one that it already has with the United States is what stops it from a very fluent growth but that is also because the Mexican people do not have as a prio-rity the foreign area, the ones who care about it are the ones that know what is really happening in that field and those are very few people, they only care about the domestic situation so the government just takes care of keeping Mexican relations with the United States while keeping Mexican people “happy” with the “fixed”.domestic issues The stimuli of the United States are too attractive to dismiss, though some diversification of supplies and markets is desirable and will probably occur. The distrust by the Mexican people on their govern-ment affects also their capability of doing more for the foreign policy because when they try to do so-mething with the other world leaders, the people will automatically judge their clothes, pronuncia-tion, etc. and think that it is reason enough to think they are not capable of making it right on the inter-national arena.There is also the fact that the rest of the world dis-trusts Mexico because of its high levels of corruption and crime. They do not want to make investments in here or come and visit the country because they are afraid.

Conclusion:Most of the people will agree that Mexico should stop its relations with the United States and make more relations with other countries that are growing fast but I think that Mexico should not just cut its re-lations with the United States because this country (the United States) is giving its protection, for some

reason, to Mexico and because of the fact that Mexico is so close to the United States and because of its world power, it should not make that move, and there is also the fact that Mexico does have relations with more countries, like mentioned before, it is the country with more trades in the world, but Mexico’s pre-sidents have not given enough importance to them and that is not the United States’ fault.Do I think Mexico should have more economic and exports options than just United States? Yes, I do. I do think that Mexico is giving a lot of attention to its northern neighbor but that is because Mexico is not thinking clear and not producing more for the rest of the world; Mexico could easily make more compa-nies and administrate more its products to send them to China, Europe Union, Japan, etc. and to indus-trialize itself more.Why not growing more but keeping United States close? Who said it was impossible?To be completely honest, I blame Mexico’s last presidents (except Felipe Calderon) for their inability to take Mexico forward. Mexico does not run itself; it needs its government to grow and to be attractive to the rest of the world and maybe six years are not long enough but even if they leave it incomplete, that is an advance and most of them have not even done half of the things.

Bibliography-http://www.uia.mx/departamentos/dpt_estudinterna/dialogo/economia/ralacion%20comecial.html-http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/ladependenciademexicoalaeconomiadeestadosunidoshavulneradoal-pais-1912409.html-http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_united_states_of_america_does_not_have_friends_it_has_interests-http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/ladependenciademexicoalaeconomiadeestadosunidoshavulneradoal-pais-1912409.html-http://contralinea.info/archivo-revista/index.php/2009/11/08/mexico-el-mas-pobre-y-dependiente-en-la-region-asia-pacifico/-http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/ladependenciademexicoalaeconomiadeestadosunidoshavulneradoal-pais-1912409.html-http://contralinea.info/archivo-revista/index.php/2009/11/08/mexico-el-mas-pobre-y-dependiente-en-la-region-asia-pacifico/-Mexico’s Foreign Policy: Disguised Dependency

14

breves informativas

Adiós al Kirchenismo

Al menos 104 cadáveres han sido recuperados entre los escombros provocados por la avalancha de tierra en una mina de jade en el estado Kachin, noreste de Birmania. En la madrugada del sábado 21 de noviembre, una aluvión de tierra y desechos de al menos 80 metros sepultó unas 70 chozas de la población de Hpakant donde viven los trabajadores de la mina. Según testigos, algunos locales escarbaban en el momento de la avalancha en las montañas de piedras desechadas por las compañías mineras con la esperanza de encontrar una pieza de jade desapercibida por los operarios. Hpakant, situado a más de 1.100 kilómetros al norte de Rangún, es un remoto distrito situado en una zona montañosa donde proliferan las minas de jade. La ONG Global Witness denunció el mes pasado las situaciones precarias en las que trabajan los buscadores de jade en las minas, propiedad en ocasiones de señores de la guerra, narcotraficantes o generales de la antigua junta militar. En un informe, aseveró que el comercio de estas gemas está valorado en unos 31.000 millones de dólares (unos 27.800 millones de euros), la mitad del PIB birmano.

El antiperonista Mauricio Macri pide las llaves de la Casa Rosada tras ganar las elecciones presidenciales argentinas con un 51,42% de los votos, frente al 48,58% de su rival, el oficialista Daniel Scioli, el domingo 22 de Noviembre.

El nuevo presidente argentino es un tecnócrata, que no forma parte de los partidos tradicionales que monopolizan el país desde 1983.

Con información de Infobae

Con información de EFE

Suman 104 los muertos por avalancha en Birmania

Fotografía: EFE

Salah Abdeslam, el terrorista buscado tras los atentados de París (acontecidos el pasado 13 de Noviembre) no está entre los arrestados. Medios locales señalan que habría escapado cerca de Lieja y que iría en un BMW con dirección a Alemania. Se han hecho 19 registros y la investigación sigue en mar-cha mientras el país sigue en alerta máxima. El lunes 23 de Noviembre no abrieron ni el metro ni los los centros educativos por miedo a un atentado terroris-ta, la Policía lanzaba varias redadas simultáneas en al me-nos seis distritos de Bruselas, además de en el centro de la ciudad. Durante varias horas, los medios han dejado de informar del operativo a petición de la Policía federal, que ha lanzado un llamamiento a los periodistas y vecinos para que no narraran en directo en redes sociales los movimien-tos de las fuerzas del orden.

Dieciséis detenidos en Bélgica, que sigue en aleta.

Con información de ABC

Fotografía: Prensa Cambiemos

Fotografía: AP