05122014Mon
Last updateFri, 09 May 2014 2pm

Regional/national news briefs

World Cup bid?

Arturo Sarukhan, former Mexican ambassador to the United States, has revealed that a proposal is being worked up for Mexico and the United States to co-host the 2026 World Soccer Cup. Sarukhan said a joint bid would send a message about “the kind of relationship Mexico and the United States have been developing in recent years.”

We love ya Mexico

Tourists from the United States are still enamored with Mexico! Just over two million U.S. citizens visited Mexico during January – an increase of 16.2 percent compared with 2013. Travelers with U.S. passports comprised 44.6 percent of the 4.5 million foreign visitors to Mexico in the first month of the year. Europeans counted for 12.8 percent.

Social media pitfalls

Gilberto Sanchez lasted a mere 22 hours in his new job as director of the Oaxaca Public Education Institute. No sooner was the 66-year-old installed in his post than newspapers published images of nude or partially-clothed women in suggestive poses that Sanchez had previously posted on his Facebook page. Called into the office of Oaxaca Governor Gabino Cue, Sanchez was fired for exhibiting “a lack of ethics.” Sanchez, who has occupied many educational positions in his career, defended his tastes, saying such “interests” were normal for someone of his age. He denied the images were pornographic.

Pan Am Village plan

The latest proposal over the future of the polemic Pan American Games athletes village in Guadalajara is to convert it into a nutrition center – the second of its kind in Mexico. “The hospital would primarily attend to people with diabetes, hypertension and obesity,” said representative Elias Iñiguez Mejia, president of the Health and Hygiene Committee in the Jalisco State Legislature, who put the idea on the table. Mexico has one of the highest rates of child obesity in the world and is now close to the United States in adult obesity, he noted. Experts agree that diabetes will become Mexico’s most urgent health challenge in the next two decades.