School Year is On / US$40 Billion in Remittances

2020-21 school year is on. Alongside Minister of Public Education (SEP) Esteban Moctezuma, President López Obrador started the 2020-2021 school year  with a brief ceremony at his daily briefing. “Mexico didn’t give up. The school year concluded successfully and today we are starting the remote 2020-2021 school year. We never put our children at risk,” Moctezuma said. López Obrador stressed that the return to school, based on the “Learn from Home” (Aprende en Casa) program, will rely on radio and television broadcasts, supported by free SEP textbooks. It is expected to reach almost 30 million students across the country.

US$40 billion in remittances this year. Remittances will reach US$40 billion after increasing 12 percent compared to 2019 figures, President López Obrador said. “This year, we will have record remittances. I estimate around US$40 billion will be sent to over 10 million families, to the poor. This will allow a further reactivation (of the economy),” he said.  The president highlighted Mexico is already on the way out of the COVID-19 pandemic recovery effort. “We had over 68,000 new jobs registered with social security for the first time after the pandemic. People are being rehired. We are moving out of it,” he said.

Nothing concealed on COVID-19. President López Obrador said the COVID-19 pandemic strategy has been successful and said his administration is not hiding anything. He was speaking after Mexico’s death toll passed the 60,000 mark during the weekend. López Obrador lamented that “our adversaries, the conservative media” reported on the “catastrophic scenario” of reaching 60,000 deaths. On June 4, Deputy Minister of Health Hugo Lopez-Gatell said it would be a “catastrophic scenario” if Mexico surpassed that figure. President López Obrador noted that while comparisons are regrettable, Mexico has had better results handling the pandemic than several countries such as the US, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Spain, England and Italy.

New weekly report on Mayan Train. Tourism Promotion Fund (FONATUR) head Rogelio Jiménez presented the first of 157 weekly planned reports on the progress of the Mayan Train construction. In a video message, Jiménez said that old tracks are being replaced and that most of the awarded companies for the project are carrying out detailed geophysics, anthropological and archaeological studies.

UN can intervene in forced disappearances. President López Obrador said that today he would send an executive approval to the Senate that would allow the UN to intervene in investigating cases of forced disappearances in Mexico. “The UN can intervene in cases involving everything that is related to disappearances and human rights,” he said.

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Click HERE for full transcript in Spanish