After admitting to having displayed a false tweet on Monday, President López Obrador dismissed the misrepresented journalist’s objections, declaring that while the message may not have been written by him, it still represented what he believed.
López Obrador showed the tweet at his morning news conference, alleging that it was written by journalist Carlos Loret de Mola, with whom he has had a long running dispute.
The false tweet, dated June 17, 2018, predicted the devaluation of the peso under President López Obrador.
Loret quickly called out López Obrador, accusing him of slander and of “lying again” by exhibiting the tweet, which he has repeatedly denied was written by him.
The president conceded his error on Tuesday. “Yesterday I was talking about Loret de Mola predicting that the dollar would be at 35 pesos. He clarified that [the tweet] is fictitious,” he said.
However, he then insisted that while the words weren’t written by Loret, they still represented his beliefs. “It may be fictitious but it’s the closest thing to his way of thinking,” he said.
The president added that showing the tweet was justified because he’d previously heard Loret say something similar. “I was there to hear him, and I have the recording … his comment implied that the dollar was going to go through the clouds,” he said.
The tweet is the latest confrontation between the two. The spat intensified in January after Loret collaborated in an investigation into the president’s son, José Ramón López Beltrán, which alleged that there was an element of corruption in his U.S. property arrangements.
Since the report appeared, the president has directed a barrage of criticism at Loret, including near daily demands that he reveal his wealth and salary. In February, the president exposed what he claimed to be Loret’s hefty salary while a March report by news site Contralínea detailed a large property portfolio held by Loret’s family.
A file photo of Mexico City air pollution.lidia lopez
Due to high levels of air pollution, some 1.7 million vehicles are prohibited from using roads in the Mexico City metropolitan area on Wednesday.
The restriction applies between 5:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. to a large number of vehicles whose license plates end with 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 0 as well as vehicles whose plates only consist of letters.
New cars – which have previously been exempt from no-drive orders – with plates that end with 3 and 4 are among the vehicles that are banned. Electric and hybrid vehicles are exempt.
The 1.7 million vehicles that authorities estimate to be affected by the restriction represent almost one-third of the 5.3 million vehicles that use Mexico City roads on a daily basis.
A phase 1 environmental contingency alert was activated by the Environmental Commission of the Megalopolis after high levels of ozone pollution were recorded in Mexico City on Tuesday. The commission announced at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday that the alert would remain in place.
At 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, ozone levels of 162 parts per billion (ppb) were recorded in the western district of Santa Fe, while levels of 156 ppb were recorded in La Merced, part of the capital’s historic center. The pollution was exacerbated by intense solar radiation and a lack of wind.
The Mexico City government considers concentrations of ground-level ozone over 70 ppb (averaged over eight hours) are unhealthy.
The general director of the air quality unit at the Mexico City Environment Ministry told the newspaper El Universal that March, April and May are typically the worst months for air pollution due to high temperatures, a lack of cloud cover and scant wind.
Sergio Zirath said the last environmental alert for high ozone levels was in June 2021. He noted that it’s the first time that some new cars as well as some older models certified as having low emissions levels will be among the vehicles prohibited from circulating on Wednesday. Mexico City factories that emit ozone precursors must reduce their emissions by 40%, El Universal reported.
Residents of the Valley of México metropolitan area are advised to avoid outdoor activities including exercise between 1:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Wednesday.
Excessive ozone in the air can have a marked effect on human health, according to the World Health Organization. “It can cause breathing problems, trigger asthma, reduce lung function and cause lung diseases.”
The United Nations declared Mexico City to be the most polluted city on the planet in 1992. While air pollution is still a problem at times, the situation in the capital and surrounding areas has improved significantly over the past three decades.
Rumors of Frida's death have been greatly exaggerated.
Amid fears that she’d died, accusations of sabotage and demands for the flag to be flown at half-mast, Frida the famous rescue dog appeared before cameras on Monday to prove she’s alive and well, living out a gratifying retirement, albeit with eyes drooping and moving at a slower pace.
The 12-year-old yellow Labrador is best known for her participation in search efforts following the powerful September 19, 2017, earthquake that devastated Mexico City and other parts of central Mexico.
In her distinguished career of public service, she was also involved in the search for earthquake victims in Haiti in 2010, in Ecuador in 2016 and in Juchitán, Oaxaca, in September 2017.
In addition, she searched for landslide victims in Guatemala in 2012 and looked for people buried under rubble after an explosion at the Pemex tower in Mexico City in early 2013.
The statue in Puebla to Frida.
All told, Frida is credited with finding 12 people alive – all of whom were victims of the Haiti quake – and 41 bodies.
However, fears that Frida had died were not completely unfounded. Her search partner Nalah, a 10-year-old Golden Retriever, died on March 24 and was confused for Frida by some social media users. Nalah also helped in search operations after the 2013 Pemex explosion and in the 2017 earthquake, locating at least 17 people.
The veterinary specialist who looks after Frida, Miguel Ángel Huerta Miranda, said health problems meant the Labrador has had to face the troubles of old age. “Frida is a geriatric animal. Next month, she will hopefully be 13 years old. She already has the ailments of her age, like joint problems, which are degenerative,” he said.
Nevertheless, Huerta added that the pup was enjoying a well-earned rest. “She’s in retirement and no longer performs any operational work. She no longer trains, she just relaxes and takes a routine that doesn’t involve stress,” he said.
Frida was honored with a statue in her likeness in Puebla in 2018 and there is a mural dedicated to her in Roma, a Mexico City neighborhood that was hit hard by the 2017 earthquake, depicting the beloved Labrador as a saint-like figure.
Michoacan farmer checks his crops. It's believed that avocado production in Mexico has decreased 8%. USDA
Mexico, the world’s biggest exporter of avocados, is currently seeing the highest prices for the fruit since 1998.
A price index of avocados in Michoacán, Mexico’s biggest avocado-producing state, shows that the cost of the fruit has surged 81% this year to 760 pesos (almost US $38) for a 9-kilogram crate.
David Magaña, an analyst at financial services company Rabobank International, said two factors had caused the price jump: fewer avocados and inflation.
It’s believed that Mexican avocado production declined 8% in the 2021–22 agricultural year, following record harvests in 2020–2021 recorded by the United States Department of Agriculture.
Mexico’s farmers account for more than 80% of the avocado consumed in the United States. Such huge demand has made the fruit’s production here so valuable that it is often termed “green gold.” Per capita consumption of avocados in the U.S. has more than doubled since 2010 to more than 4 kilos, according to Rabobank.
Mexico outstrips other countries worldwide in avocado exports and accounts for more than 80% of U.S. consumption.
The other half of the higher price equation is inflation: Mexico’s rate hit 7.29% in the first half of March, while U.S. inflation hit 7.9% in February, a 40-year high.
The largest U.S. avocado distributor, Mission Produce, has raised its prices by 50%. The company’s executive director, Steve Barnard, said international competition for the highly prized fruit had kept its cost high.
“Partially offsetting price gains was an 18% decrease in avocado volume sold, which was primarily driven by lower supply, but [it was] exacerbated by price sensitivity in select international markets that competed for lower-cost sources of fruit,” he said in Mission Produce’s first-quarter earnings report.
In California, which supplies about 15% of U.S. demand, production is forecast to increase this year. However, Magaña said that California’s production levels were “clearly not enough to meet the growing demand for avocado in the United States.”
The shortfall in avocado production is more bad news for Mexican producers and U.S. distributors: the U.S. government suspended imports of avocados for a week in February in light of a threatening phone call received by a Michoacán-based U.S. inspector. Citibanamex estimated the suspension cost avocado producers US $7.7 million per day.
An international non-governmental organization has warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could make fuel theft more lucrative and prevalent in Mexico.
Colloquially known as huachicoleo, stealing fuel is mainly accomplished with illegal taps on pipelines owned and operated by the state oil company Pemex, although thieves have also robbed refineries, hijacked tanker trucks and diverted fuel to secret tunnels.
Theft has cost Pemex billions of pesos in lost revenue, but the current federal government cracked down on the crime and has succeeded in reducing the quantity of fuel stolen, although 2021 was the third worst year ever in terms of the number of number of pipeline taps detected with over 11,000.
In a comprehensive report entitled Keeping Oil from the Fire: Tackling Mexico’s Fuel Theft Racket, the International Crisis Group (ICG) acknowledged that the government has managed to reduce the volume of stolen fuel, but asserted that “its claims of swift success seem premature.”
“Areas traversed by pipelines still have a higher average homicide rate than those that are not. Fuel theft was reportedly on the rise once again in 2021, and sanctions linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could make the racket still more lucrative by ratcheting up fuel prices again,” the report said.
“… Recent spikes in fuel prices, the result of sanctions targeting Russian oil and gas in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, will in all likelihood make fuel theft increasingly profitable for criminal groups and more damaging to state coffers,” the ICG said.
In addition, the pressure on security forces tasked with combatting huachicoleo will increase, the report said.
The war in Ukraine has not caused fuel prices in Mexico to increase as much as in some other countries, partially because the government has recently lifted the excise tax on gasoline and diesel.
The ICG – which describes itself as an organization working to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world – said that tackling collusion between state officials and organized crime, and supporting legal alternatives to crime through region-specific development plans, are the best ways to make lasting progress toward stopping huachicoleo.
The report noted that Mexico’s notorious criminal groups have diversified their interests to include the fuel theft racket.
“The specific allure of huachicoleo for criminal groups can be traced in part to a set of fiscal and energy reforms aimed at redressing losses incurred by the state-owned oil company, Pemex. These measures caused fuel prices to rise, creating higher profit margins for stolen petrol,” it said.
Pemex pipelines in Mexico.
“New criminal groups branching into huachicoleo clashed as they sought to expand across Mexico, driving up homicide rates sharply in municipalities with pipelines running through them.”
Among the criminal groups that are or have been involved in fuel theft are the Zetas, the Gulf Cartel, the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, as well as numerous smaller bands of huachicoleros (fuel thieves).
Puebla, especially an area known as the Red Triangle, and Guanajuato are among Mexico’s hotspots for huachicoleo, a crime that, like drug trafficking, has spawned its own culture, replete with a saint and huachicorridos – ballads that tell the stories of the thieves.
The ICG report noted that Georgina Trujillo Zentella, former chair of the energy committee in the lower house of Congress, said in 2011 that there is less risk in fuel theft than in the drug trade.
“You don’t have to risk crossing the border to look for a market. We all consume gasoline. We don’t all consume drugs,” she said.
The ICG also noted that President López Obrador suggested in late 2018 that as much as 80% of fuel theft is “orchestrated by elements of the state.”
The report cited one huachicolero who told the newspaper Milenio that fuel theft collusion “runs from MPs to municipal authorities to state secretaries to whatever you can imagine.”
“The police, municipal and state, are the ones you align with or you die,” the thief said.
The military, which has been used to guard pipelines, is also reportedly colluding with thieves, ICG said.
“Complicit officers reportedly coerce others into turning a blind eye or accepting kickbacks through violence or threats. One white-collar operator working with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel stated that he had continued to profit from huachicoleo during López Obrador’s tenure thanks to ‘conversations [and] personal relationships’ with federal security forces, including military officers seconded to Pemex,” the report said.
The ICG added that approximately 90% of fuel theft cases go unpunished, despite the federal government’s crackdown.
The children of Alejandra Cuevas, whom the Supreme Court ordered released from prison on Monday.
The Supreme Court (SCJN) on Monday ordered the immediate release of the stepdaughter of the federal attorney general’s brother, who was imprisoned for over 500 days on charges of “homicide by omission” for allegedly failing to provide adequate medical care to her stepfather.
The court also dropped the case against Alejandra Cuevas’ nonagenarian mother, Laura Morán, who was also accused of contributing to the death of Federico Gertz Manero, her husband of over 50 years who died in 2015 at the age of 82.
Cuevas, who’s in her late 60s, was immediately released from the Santa Martha Acatitla women’s prison in Mexico City where she spent 528 days after being jailed in October 2020 by a Mexico City court.
The absolution of Cuevas and Morán – the latter avoided imprisonment due to her age – is a “severe blow” for Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero, the newspaper Reforma reported, because “for seven years, he used all the resources at his disposal to pursue them for the death of his brother.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldivar during deliberations on Monday.
She and Morán denied any wrongdoing, and their appeals eventually reached the nation’s highest court. In its ruling, the Supreme Court said the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (FGJ) accused Cuevas of being a garante accesoria (accessory guarantor) to Federico Gertz Manero’s death — but that legal term doesn’t exist in the capital’s criminal code.
José Luis González Alcántar contended that Cuevas’ treatment by authorities was unjustified and violated her right to personal freedom. He said she would be eligible for compensation in accordance with the General Victims Law.
The FGJ said it respected the SCJN’s decision to release Cuevas and absolve Morán and asserted that it had acted autonomously in the case.
“[The FGJ] does not obey personal interests, doesn’t fabricate culprits or crimes and doesn’t create agreements on the margin of the law,” it said.
This isn’t the first time Gertz has been accused of abusing his authority. In 2021, he was criticized for using the Attorney General’s Office to attempt to arrest 31 members of the Scientific and Technological Advisory Forum (CCCyT), who were all formerly employed by the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt). Gertz accused the members of embezzlement of public funds, carrying out operations with resources of illicit origin, engaging in organized crime and making illicit use of their positions.
However, the FGR’s three attempts to obtain warrants for the forum members’ arrest were rejected by the courts and widely seen as without merit and part of a federal government campaign to discredit and silence academics critical of Conacyt’s management. The federal government has cut funding for science and other academic endeavors. President López Obrador has generally charged that corruption was allowed to flourish in academia during previous administrations.
Alejandra Cuevas, right, with her children, who fought for her release. File photo
Speaking to reporters outside the Santa Martha Acatitla jail Monday, Cuevas asserted that the attorney general falsely accused her of the crime of “homicide by omission” and charged that his aim was to have her spend the rest of her life behind bars.
“I am certain that without [the media] Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero would have buried me in jail forever for a crime that he fabricated, causing irreparable damage to my family and to my life.”
She said her life changed 528 days ago, noting that she heard an “endless number” of cases of injustice while living with other incarcerated women.
“… Since I entered, I realized that all women are invisible. Together with you, we will achieve their freedom,” she said.
“If you allow me, I’ll get into the car because I want to hug my mother — I haven’t seen her for 528 days — and my children, to whom I pay great tribute because what they have done for me is unprecedented.”
The president displays a tweet that had previously been debunked.
President López Obrador was accused of “lying again” after he presented a tweet Monday that was supposedly written by journalist Carlos Loret de Mola.
The president referred to the tweet to promote his government’s fiscal prudence, which he said was evidenced by the valuation of the peso against the U.S. dollar.
López Obrador mockingly called Loret an economist before reading a tweet he’d allegedly written in 2018, which predicted the devaluation of the peso. “Take note. Today, June 17, 2018, the dollar is at 22 pesos. In December when López Obrador enters the presidency, it will be at 25 and most likely by 2021, it will be at 35. I’m already buying my dollars,” AMLO read from a large screen.
“He didn’t buy dollars, he bought apartments,” the president added, alluding to a report by news site Contralínea which detailed the large property portfolio of Loret’s family.
The president added that due to his government’s policy the peso was “one of the most stable currencies in the world.” One dollar was worth 19.96 pesos at the time of writing.
Loret quickly called out the president, accusing him of dishonesty.
“He’s lying again. This supposed tweet of mine is false. It has been debunked a hundred times. But he cited it today in the morning news conference to slander me because he hasn’t been able to explain how his son became a millionaire,” Loret wrote.
The spat between the two intensified in January after Loret collaborated in an investigation into the president’s son, José Ramón López Beltrán, which alleged that there was an element of corruption in his U.S. property arrangements. The report was published by media company Latinus and Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI).
However, Loret had already pointed out that the tweet was false. “This tweet that is circulating on social media is false. Some creative person used my photo and verification to share a message that I didn’t write,” he wrote at the time.
Associated Press reported in May that it found no record of the tweet on Loret’s social media accounts, even after consulting the internet archive system WayBack Machine.
Since the report into López Beltrán’s living arrangements was published, the president has directed a barrage of criticism at Loret, including near daily demands for him reveal his wealth and salary. In February, the president exposed what he claimed to be Loret’s hefty salary.
More than 60,000 Twitter users joined a virtual protest in support of Loret earlier in February and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz accused López Obrador of intimidating Loret, which led to a statement by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for better protection of journalists.
Greenpeace protesters at the train's construction site on Monday.
An organization founded by French ocean explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau has added its voice to the condemnation of the construction of the Maya Train railroad section between Cancún and Tulum in Quintana Roo.
In an open letter, Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society (OFS) said it fully supports the “honest petitions” made by organized groups in Mexico against section 5 of the US $8 billion rail project, whose route was recently modified by the federal government.
“In this message they list the problems that the construction of the Mayan Train has caused and continues to cause in the Yucatán Peninsula and invite him to accompany them on a tour of Route 5, where the construction of the project is deforesting and seriously endangering the source of vital water, in a territory that lacks surface rivers,” it said.
“It is important to highlight that during the tour, the experts will provide … [the] president with the technical information that justifies the reason why the construction of the Mayan Train is not viable in the way it is being executed, due to the fact that the works have been carried out without the necessary environmental impact study.”
The OFS advised López Obrador that he can “rest assured” that its position “takes into account the conservation and integrity of the ecosystems” and asserted that “we can guarantee that we are not paid by anyone to make this public statement.”
The letter said the Cousteau group has been involved in exploration, filming and research in Mexico for more than four decades and has contributed to numerous ecological studies in the country.
“We extend a cordial greeting to all those who have raised their voices in defense of Mother Nature and we hope that harmony and reason will win this battle. We must not forget that no one owns a country and that each generation must strive to leave it in a better state than it received it,” the OFS concluded.
In addition to the #SelvameDelTren social media campaign to which the letter alluded, the decision to reroute section 5 of the railroad has triggered protests at the site of deforestation near Playa del Carmen, including one on Monday in which Greenpeace activists tied themselves to heavy machinery, and led to the creation of online petitions calling for an end to construction work that threatens the Mayan jungle and the Yucatán Peninsula’s subterranean water network.
A house fire in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca killed six children including a six-month-old baby girl while they were sleeping on Monday morning and burned their house to the ground.
Made of wood, laminate and tiles, the house was located in Santiago Tilapa, a village of 828 people in Coicoyán de las Flores, one of the poorest municipalities in the country.
According to initial reports, the fire was accidental.
The children’s mother lit a fire in the kitchen at around 5 a.m., as was her morning routine, and left the house to grind corn in the communal mill while the six children were still sleeping. When she returned, the fire had consumed the entire house and reduced it to ashes.
The children were all under 12 years old.
The state Attorney General’s Office (FGEO) confirmed on Twitter that personnel from the state investigation agency were investigating.
Poverty is ubiquitous in the area: the most recent report by the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval) from 2020 details that Coicoyán de las Flores is one of the five poorest municipalities in the country, and 99% of the municipality’s population lives in poverty.
Wreckage of the plane inside a Bodega Aurrera store.
A light aircraft crashed into a supermarket in Morelos on Monday killing two men and one woman and injuring at least five more.
The twin-engine King Air aircraft demolished a wall and scattered the signage of a Bodega Aurrera store at around 1 p.m. in Temixco, on the outskirts of Cuernavaca near Cuernavaca International Airport.
The head of Civil Protection for Cuernavaca, Enrique Clement Gallardo, confirmed that the three victims had been flying in the airplane. The pilot and co-pilot were among them.
One passenger who was traveling in the plane survived and was taken to hospital. The news site MSN reported that the other four injured people were customers and workers at the supermarket.
Gallardo said the plane was embedded directly in the structure of the store.
The airplane took off from Puebla International Airport at 10 a.m. destined for Acapulco, Guerrero. It was on its way back to Puebla when the pilot requested a runway to land at the Cuernavaca airport, but crashed two kilometers from the runway, MSN reported.
A Temixco official concluded that the plane had run low on fuel. “The problem was a lack of fuel because spillage was not observed at the scene of the accident,” he said.
The plane is an air taxi operated by EagleMed, a U.S. air medical transport service.
