Crime still up in Tijuana
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Wednesday, November 30th.
Mexico's effort to fight crime with the military is failing. More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….
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There’s a tentative deal for thousands of academic workers in the U-C system… but the strike isn’t over yet.
The agreement covers post-doctoral scholars and academic researchers… but they say they are staying on strike in solidarity with 36-thousand graduate student workers who don’t have a deal yet.
UC San Diego student researcher Donghyung Lee is one of those graduate students.
“The grades are due soon. Professors can’t do all the grading for all 400 students in their lecture class they’re going to need the TAs to get back to work.”
Negotiations will continue as the fall quarter ends this week.
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A federal grant will help ensure the county’s health department has the staffing and technology to continue combating the pandemic and other infectious diseases.
Yesterday, the C-D-C announced three-billion-dollars in funding to bolster the nation’s public health infrastructure.
San Diego County will receive 33-million over the next five years..
The money will be used to keep 60 positions added during the pandemic.
It will also help pay for technology upgrades including those inside the public health laboratory.
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San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria signed an executive order yesterday to address the fentanyl crisis in the city.
It directs the police department to strengthen and prioritize enforcement for crimes related to the sale of fentanyl.
More than 800 San Diegans died from Fentanyl overdoses last year.
The order also says that the city plans to pursue legislation at the state and federal level to address the increase in overdoses.
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From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now. Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
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Mexico deployed hundreds of National Guard troops in Tijuana to combat violent crime.
But data shows that crime hasn’t decreased.
KPBS border reporter Gustavo Solis looked at the impact of Tijuana’s growing militarization.
You’ve probably seen this meme before … or at least a variation of it. A man and a woman are walking down the street holding hands. The man gawks at another woman passing by … and his partner just stares at him - mouth wide open in utter shock. There is a version of the meme circulating on social media in Tijuana. In it, the man is represented by thousands of National Guard troops who’ve been deployed in Baja California to tackle a spiking homicide rate. His girlfriend? Tijuana residents, who are supposed to be protected by the National Guard. And the other woman? Tijuana flea markets. Maria Cortes makes her living in the city’s flea markets. She sells second-hand clothes. She laughed when I asked her to explain the meme to me. “hahah , esque vienen de …” Cortes says that National Guard troops come from parts of Mexico where American goods like Nikes and Levis are hard to come by. So they flock to the flea markets while they are in Tijuana. “Y cuando vienen a Tijuana entran a sobreruedas ven los tenis Nike, ropa de marca. Ven cosas que aya donde vienen no hay. Pues boltean y handan viendo que compran.” And while the troops shop, Cortez and others say neighborhoods in Tijuana remain besieged by violence. There were more than 1,900 homicides last year in Tijuana. At first, residents were happy that the federal government was taking action. “Cuando los veo. Cuando resien llegaron si entimidaban no. Habia esa presencia. Decias tu ahi que padre ya nos senimos mas protegidos. But there’ve been more than 1,700 murders in Tijuana so far this year … on track to surpass last year’s total. The National Guard troops stationed in Tijuana did not respond to a request for comment. This is not the first time Mexico has turned to the military to fight crime. Cecilia Farfan Mendez is a researcher at UC San Diego. She traces today’s effort back to 2006. “So the argument that was made in 2006 was that because there was corruption in civilian law enforcement institutions we needed to deploy the armed forces in a way they had no been deployed before until these institutions were developing up and corruption was rooted out of them. It was always meant to be a temporary solution.” Nearly two decades later, city and state police forces are still considered corrupt and ill-equipped to tackle cartel-level violence. In September, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador doubled down on the militarization strategy. He passed a law that formally made the federal police force part of the military. So far, the data show it hasn’t worked. “Despite these deployments, we don’t see security conditions improving in Mexico.” Maria Cortes doesn’t need data to know that her neighborhood is still a dangerous place. The criminal element is not clandestine here. They operate in the open. And Cortez says the National Guard still does nothing to stop them. “Claro que no. Nada. Ellos no. Tienen miedo yo creo.” Cortes says the soldiers are either scared or they just don’t want to bother. Making matters worse is evidence that the soldiers have been accused of human rights violations. Farfan Mendez says this is also something that is not new. “What has been documented over the years, especially by human rights activists is that unfortunately these deployments usually tend to really erode human rights .” Teresa Matrinez is a researcher for the think tank Mexico Evalua. She has spent years conducting field work in neighborhoods like the one where Maria Cortes lives. She says the current conditions are so bad that people are willing to sacrifice some of their civil rights for more protection. “My rights, like for citizens, my rights have been violated every single minute of every single day by the organized crime or any other criminal. So I don’t care about the human rights … But she says it’s only acceptable if the armed forces brought in to protect them actually accomplish their mission. Gustavo Solis, KPBS News
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UC-SD’s School of Global Policy and Strategy is hosting a free webinar today to assess the results of the latest international climate summit- COP 27.
Emily Carlton, is a university research assistant who attended the summit.
She remains skeptical of the current global goal to limit warming to 1-point-5 degrees Celsius.
“While there’s definitely truth to warming is happening, it’s probably going to be more than 1.5 (degrees celsius) and that has big, scary implications. I also think that it’s not all doom and gloom. Progress is being made in a lot of niche markets around the world. Things are changing. Momentum is building.”
Carlton will be co-moderating the event at 3-30 this afternoon.
You can register at the UC-SD School of Global Policy and Strategy’s website, g-p-s dot u-c-s-d dot e-d-u.
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San Diego Health officials are bracing for a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations this holiday season.
KPBS Health reporter Matt Hoffman says officials encourage the public to get their updated vaccines.
This September updated COVID vaccines were made available in San Diego County.. Called bivalent boosters, they were designed to better protect against the virus’ latest variants. Dr. Seema Shah with San Diego County’s epidemiology and immunizations services says just 16% of eligible residents have gotten them so far. “We have a lot of room to go and we know that the bivalent works we’re seeing that it actually decreases hospitalizations and death so we want to encourage people to get their booster. And of course the flu vaccine Just over 10,000 flu cases have been reported this season.. It takes two weeks for both the flu and COVID boosters to take full effect. MH KPBS News.
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It’s a long-term problem that has defied solutions.
A conference to identify ways to address San Diego’s homelessness crisis starts today and runs through tomorrow.
KPBS reporter John Carroll says the event is bringing in experts from around the country.
The name of the two-day conference portends something big… “Solutions For San Diego.” It’s being hosted by the Regional Task Force on Homelessness… the first time they’ve ever hosted such a meeting. More than 600-people will come together for the two-day event… as the task force describes it… they’ll collaborate, learn and build on best practices. The conference has major support from more than 30-organizations working to solve homelessness. Part of the conference will honor frontline workers that see the problem up close, every day. The Regional Task Force on Homelessness grew out of a mayoral task force nearly 40-years ago. The problem is worse in 2022 than ever before… so there are high hopes this conference will produce solutions that will move San Diego closer to finally solving a problem that has so far proven unsolvable. JC, KPBS News.
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Coming up.... A new study finds Americans would rather hurt the political cause they believe in than support the one they don’t. We’ll have that story and more, next, just after the break.
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A new study from the Rady School of Management finds that when it comes to politics…. Americans would rather hurt the cause they believe in – than support the one they don’t.
Ariel Fridman,co-authored the study.
He’s a PhD candidate in Behavioral marketing at the Rady School of Management.
He spoke with KPBS’s Jade Hindmon about the study’s findings.
For this study you looked at three contentious issues… gun rights, reproductive rights and funding for political parties. What did you find there and what were your big takeaways?
What reasons do people offer in terms of why they are willing to harm their own party and even self interests to avoid support of their opposing party?
So, it sounds like compromise and cooperation are difficult for Americans these days. What are the psychological barriers to that?
How did you survey people?
What did you find is key to bringing Americans together?
When it comes to these political ideologies, I know you’ve said you want to expand your research to study people in other countries and cultures. Can you talk about why that’s important?
What’s the consequence of the U.S. being so divided?
TAG: That was the study’s co author Ariel Fridman, speaking with KPBS Midday Edition host Jade Hindmon.
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U-S-A soccer fans are celebrating after yesterday’s World Cup win over Iran, but the bigger problem of Iran’s treatment of women is on the mind of an Iranian-born activist from San Diego.
KPBS reporter Claire Strong went to meet her.
Parisa - who asked us not to use her last name to protect her safety - knows just what it’s like to be a girl in Iran. She was forced to disguise herself as a boy so she could play soccer, and wasn’t allowed into stadiums to watch her brother play when he turned professional. “ It was awful. I felt like I was in a jail in my own body. My brother was my hero and I loved soccer and we played together. I thought I had an equal chance, but being in Iran I couldn’t play”. Parisa believes FIFA should have banned Iran from taking part in the World Cup. She’s now urging the US government not to make any deals with the country, until Iranian women are treated as human. Claire Strong, KPBS News.
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That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
