Used tires are loaded on a truck in San Pedro Mixtepec.
An initiative to collect used tires in three Oaxaca municipalities has turned into a win-win for the environment and locals’ health.
Residents of San Pedro Mixtepec, Pochutla and Huatulco responded to a call by local officials and the state Ministry of the Environment to turn in used and discarded tires.
It was the first campaign of its kind in the region.
The collected tires will serve as fuel for a Cruz Azul cement manufacturing plant, said María Jessica Santos Reyes, a biologist and ecology coordinator in San Pedro Mixtepec, where five tonnes of tires were collected.
Eliminating the discarded tires will have widespread benefits in the community, Santos told the newspaper NVI Noticias, including the elimination of breeding grounds for aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread dengue, zika and chikungunya.
Tires, she said, take half a century to biodegrade and even then don’t truly degrade but decompose into microplastics, which can contaminate local bodies of water and thus be introduced into the food chain.
To round up the tires in San Pedro Mixtepec, where the tourist destination of Puerto Escondido is located, officials established a central collection point but also did visits by appointment to take tires from people’s homes, with help from the community’s Clean Beaches office.
The community has also conducted a collection of used cooking oil.
The campaign, which ended Saturday, expected to collect 2,000 liters of oil to be turned into biodiesel fuel and kept out of the community’s water supply.
The number of northbound migrants soared in February.
Mexico has ramped up enforcement against Central American migrants traveling through the country to apply for asylum in the United States.
The number of migrants fleeing countries such as Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to head north has risen dramatically since United States President Joe Biden took office on January 20.
Between January 25 and February 16, immigration agents supported by the military and police detained about 1,200 migrants – including more than 300 children – who were traveling on trains in six southern and central states as well as Mexico City, according to the National Immigration Institute (INM). Migrants who enter Mexico irregularly are subject to detention and deportation even if their intention is to travel to the northern border to seek asylum in the U.S.
Government data compiled by the Reuters news agency shows that more than 800 migrants were also detained in recent weeks while traveling north through Mexico in buses and tractor-trailers.
The wave of arrests represents an escalation of the federal government’s efforts to control migration. Almost two years ago, Mexico deployed the National Guard to detain migrants after former U.S. president Donald Trump threatened to impose blanket tariffs on Mexican goods if more wasn’t done to stem the flow. However, enforcement against migrants was less strict in the final months of the Trump administration.
Migrants aboard the freight train nicknamed ‘The Beast’ in a photo from 2018. AP/Eduardo Verdugo
The federal government is now concerned that moves by the Biden administration to make it easier for migrants to apply for asylum are encouraging the flow of Central Americans through Mexico.
Violent crime and severe economic problems continue to afflict Northern Triangle Central American nations – Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador – and now migrants from those countries can realistically believe that they have a better chance of entering the United States, if they make it to the border, due to the change in the U.S. government.
The Biden administration has begun allowing unaccompanied minors to enter the United States to lodge asylum claims whereas they had previously been promptly deported, and rolled back the so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy that forced migrants to wait in dangerous border cities while their asylum cases were processed.
Unlike the 2019 National Guard deployment, the recent train raids were not carried out at the behest of the United States, according to the INM. The institute told Reuters that it had not made a large number of detentions in recent years because fewer migrants were using trains – known collectively as La Bestia, or The Beast – to travel to the Mexico-U.S. border.
Tonatiuh Guillén, a former INM chief who quit in 2019 after Mexico struck an agreement with the United States to increase enforcement against undocumented migrants, told the news agency that the frequency and scale of the recent arrests were unprecedented. While raids were previously occasional they are now commonplace, he said.
For its part, the Biden administration has said that it hasn’t held discussions with Mexico about how the government deploys security forces within its own territory.
Whatever the motive of the crackdown, “Mexico is playing the role of stopping immigration to the United States,” said Sergio Martín, head of operations in Mexico for the humanitarian/medical NGO Doctors Without Borders.
That remark echoes observations during the Trump administration when many people opined that Mexico had turned itself into the former president’s long-promised border wall by stepping up enforcement against migrants.
Human rights groups have voiced concerns about increased enforcement in Mexico and Central American countries, saying that security forces often violate migrants’ right to apply for asylum.
Although data shows that arrests of migrants in Mexico have risen since Biden took office, many have made it to the U.S. border. United States border agents conducted 100,441 apprehensions or expulsions of migrants at the border in February, Reuters reported, noting that it was the highest monthly total since a 2019 border crisis precipitated by the arrival of several large migrant caravans.
The number represents a 28% increase over January and 37,000 more than in February of last year.
Now, with a U.S. president with more sympathetic views toward migrants, there is a real possibility that there will be large, ongoing arrivals at Mexico’s southern and northern borders, a situation that would pose significant challenges to authorities on both sides of the Rio Grande.
New coronavirus cases have declined significantly since Mexico went through its worst month of the pandemic in January but a resurgence of the national outbreak is not out of the question after people flooded streets and flocked to beaches over the weekend.
Average daily case numbers declined 28% to 5,668 during the first 14 days of March compared to February and were 60% below the average in January, a month in which Mexico recorded more than 438,000 confirmed cases and almost 33,000 Covid-19 deaths.
Perhaps believing that the worst of the pandemic is over and that the risk of infection is now substantially reduced, hordes of people descended on Mexico City’s historic center over the long weekend (Monday is a public holiday for the anniversary of former president Benito Juárez’s birthday) while thousands headed for the beach in states such as Guerrero, Veracruz, Yucatán and Sinaloa.
In the capital, where the coronavirus risk level remains at orange light high on the federal government stoplight map, residents and visitors were out in force on Sunday, many strolling carefree down Calle Madero, a pedestrian street that runs between the Palace of Fine Arts and the zócalo, Mexico City’s central square.
Restaurants and shops downtown were also busy in stark contrast to the long red light maximum risk period the capital endured from the middle of December to the middle of February.
“There are more people, it must be because of the long weekend,” a policewoman told the newspaper El Universal. “… I think they don’t care about the pandemic or they think that it will be over in a few months.”
The city’s stoplight color and authorities’ warnings about the ongoing risk of infection mean nothing to many people, she added.
Also taking advantage of the long weekend despite the pandemic were throngs of beachgoers in destinations such as Acapulco and Zihuatanejo in Guerrero, the port city of Veracruz, Progreso and Celestún in Yucatán and Mazatlán in Sinaloa.
The newspaper Reforma reported that many people failed to observe social distancing recommendations while enjoying the sand and sea.
Guerrero Governor Héctor Astudillo said in a video message that there was a “notable” number of visitors in the state’s two main coastal destinations – where hospital occupancy was around 50% – and warned tourism sector businesses to remember that the risk of infection remains “very real.”
He also said he was lobbying the federal government to ramp up vaccination efforts in Guerrero before the upcoming Easter vacation period.
Crowds of pedestrians on Calle Madero in Mexico City.
In Mazatlán, hotel occupancy over the weekend was 75% to 80%, according to local hotel association representative José Gámez Valle.
“There were beach hotels with 90% occupancy,” he said, explaining that many people took a last-minute decision to have a short break on the Sinaloa coast.
“Mazatlán was packed yesterday [Saturday] and today [Sunday] as well,” Gámez told the newspaper Noroeste.
“… Next weekend is also looking good,” he said, adding that the influx of visitors is “good practice for Holy Week.”
Indeed, some businesses in Mazatlán need to improve their observance of health protocols as a number of them, including restaurants, were observed in violation of basic measures designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus, which has sickened at least 2.1 million Mexicans and officially claimed the lives of about 195,000, figures widely considered to be vast undercounts.
With the start of Holy Week just two weeks away, Health Ministry official José Alomía took the opportunity at Sunday night’s coronavirus press briefing to warn that Mexico could see a new, large coronavirus outbreak if mobility increases and people don’t follow measures to stop the virus’s spread.
“While there are people who haven’t gotten sick, in other words people susceptible to infection, … we can have new outbreaks,” Alomía said.
“… And if there are new outbreaks … we’re going to have seriously ill people who require a general hospital bed or a bed with a ventilator and unfortunately we’re going to have people who die due to [Covid-19] complications,” he said.
Alomía urged people not to drop their guard and recommended that people stay at home over Easter and not attend extended family gatherings.
“We want to invite the public to have a calm Holy Week, … celebrate [only] with close family and avoid infections in that way,” he said.
Covid-19 vaccines continue to be rolled out across many parts of the country but based on current indications it will at least be several months, if not longer, before Mexico reaches the level of immunity in the population required to bring the pandemic to an end.
About 4.3 million vaccine doses had been administered as of Sunday night, according to Health Ministry data, mainly to health workers and seniors.
Mexico has only given 3.4 vaccine doses per 100 people and only 0.5% of the population is fully vaccinated, meaning that they have had both of the required shots of one of the four vaccines that have been used here since inoculation began on December 24.
Some health experts estimate that 70% to 90% of the population needs to be inoculated or infected with the virus to reach herd immunity. For that to occur, a minimum of around 90 million Mexicans – the country’s population is just over 126 million – would need to have Covid-19 antibodies generated either by infection or inoculation.
Veggies are the main event in Gen. Tso's Cauliflower dish.
Cauliflower is one of those vegetables that’s usually served as a simple side dish, steamed and buttered, sometimes mixed with carrots or broccoli. But lately it’s become the darling of foodies everywhere because of its versatility, mild flavor and ability to replace high-carb ingredients — think rice, pasta and potatoes — in many recipes. And in many cases, it’s also a pretty good substitute for chicken.
It’s also considered a superfood because of its high levels of antioxidants, fiber and nutrients like vitamins B and C.
Although some folks have digestive issues with eating cauliflower (it can cause bloating and gas), nutritionists suggest drinking plenty of water to dilute that effect and also say cooked cauliflower has less of a tendency to make that happen.
Cauliflower, like broccoli, is a member of the cabbage family, and its name reflects that: the original Italian word, cavolfiore, means “cabbage flower.” In Spanish, it’s coliflor.
In Mexico, one mostly finds the typical white cauliflower, but other varieties are purple, orange and the bright-green, oddly shaped Romanesco. And while Mexico is one of the top five cauliflower producers in the world, I haven’t seen it anywhere on menus other than as a side dish or in soup; have you?
Eating less meat? How about a nice cauliflower steak?
Cauliflower Rice
You may have oohed and ahhed over this in restaurants, but there’s no reason why you can’t make it yourself.
1 head cauliflower, separated into 1-inch florets
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
Salt
2 Tbsp. fresh parsley or cilantro leaves, minced
Juice of ½ lemon
Trim florets, cutting away as much stem as possible. In a food processor or blender, pulse in batches until mixture resembles couscous.
Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Once hot, stir in onions. Cook, stirring, until golden brown and softened, about 8 minutes.
Add cauliflower and 1 tsp. salt. Cook, stirring, until cauliflower softens 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat. Garnish with herbs and lemon juice, and season to taste with salt.
Riced cauliflower is easier to make than you might think.
Garlic Mashed Cauliflower
1 medium head cauliflower, chopped
Salt and pepper
¼ cup vegetable or chicken stock
2 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese, grated
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. nonfat Greek yogurt
1 clove garlic, minced
Fresh rosemary, chopped
Steam or boil cauliflower until very tender. Drain and dry with paper towels. Place hot cauliflower in a food processor with stock, cheese, oil, yogurt and garlic; process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper, garnish with rosemary.
General Tso’s Cauliflower
2 Tbsp. peanut or vegetable oil, plus more for frying
3 whole dried red chiles
1 clove garlic, minced
1 strip orange zest, thinly sliced
¼ cup sugar
3 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar
2 tsp. sesame oil
¼ tsp. ground ginger
¾ cup + 2 tsp. cornstarch
2 eggs
Salt and pepper
1 lb. cauliflower, cut into large florets or wedges (about 4 cups)
For serving: steamed rice, orange slices, sliced scallions
Heat 2 Tbsp. oil in a medium saucepan over high heat. Stir in chiles, garlic and orange zest. Cook, stirring, until chiles brighten, about 1 minute. Add sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, ginger and 3 Tbsp. water; bring to boil and cook, stirring, until sugar dissolves, 2-3 minutes.
Mix 2 tsp. cornstarch into ¼ cup cold water, then whisk into boiling sauce until thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from heat, cover to keep warm.
Fill a deep skillet or pan halfway with oil and heat over medium-high heat to 350 F. In a large bowl, beat eggs with ½ tsp. each salt and pepper. Toss cauliflower florets in egg mixture. Sprinkle in ¾ cup cornstarch a little at a time until the cauliflower is well coated. Fry cauliflower in 3 batches until light brown and crisp, about 6 minutes. Remove and drain. Transfer to serving bowl; toss with sauce. Serve with rice, topped with scallions and orange slices.
Roasted Cauliflower Steaks
Picture-perfect and delicious to boot! These can also be done on a grill.
2 heads cauliflower
Olive oil, for drizzling
Salt and pepper
2 Tbsp. pine nuts
¼ cup golden raisins
1 Tbsp. butter
¼ cup fresh parsley or cilantro, chopped
Optional: ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 425 F. With the heads whole, cut off cauliflower stems. Place heads cut-side down; slice into ½ -inch-thick steaks. Arrange single layer on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper on both sides. Bake until golden brown, 20-25 minutes, flipping after the first 10 minutes. Toast pine nuts in a dry sauté pan over medium heat until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Add raisins and butter; season with salt. Cook, tossing, until butter coats pine nuts and raisins. Off the heat, stir in herbs. Transfer cauliflower to a serving platter, pour raisin mixture over top. Sprinkle with Parmesan if using.
Go lighter than a standard chicken parm without sacrificing any flavor.
Cauliflower Parmesan
½ cup flour
4 eggs, whisked
3 cups panko or plain bread crumbs
Salt and pepper
1 medium head cauliflower, cut into 2-inch florets
½ cup olive oil, for frying (more as needed)
5 cups tomato sauce
1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
½ lb. mozzarella, torn into bite-size pieces
Heat oven to 400 F. Place flour, eggs and panko into three wide, shallow bowls. Season each with salt and pepper.
Fill a large skillet with ½ -inch oil over medium-high heat. Dip cauliflower pieces first in flour, then eggs, then coat with panko. When oil is hot, fry cauliflower in batches, turning halfway through, until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
Spoon thin layer of sauce in bottom of a 9×13-inch baking pan. Sprinkle one-third of the Parmesan over sauce, scatter half cauliflower mixture over the Parmesan and top with half the mozzarella pieces. Top with half the remaining sauce, sprinkle with another third of Parmesan and repeat layering, ending with final layer of sauce and Parmesan.
Bake until cheese is golden and casserole is bubbling, about 40 minutes. Let cool a few minutes before serving. – nytimes.com
Javier, left, with his great-grandfather and younger brother.
A 10-year-old boy has been hailed for pushing his 76-year-old great-grandfather to a Covid-19 vaccination center in Oaxaca in a makeshift wheelchair.
Javier Alejandro García Aquino won praise on social media over the weekend after Oaxaca journalist Paulina Ríos published a photo of him, accompanied by his 7-year-old brother, wheeling his great-grandfather in a converted stroller to a vaccination center in Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán, a municipality just south of Oaxaca city.
Ríos estimated that the boy was 11 and wrote in her Twitter post that he was pushing his grandfather. However, she clarified on Monday that Javier is in fact 10 and the man, Victorio García, is not his grandfather but rather his great-grandfather.
In an article published by the news website Página 3, Ríos wrote that Javier pushed his great-grandfather along 10 streets for almost one kilometer to reach the vaccination center.
“The hardest part was the topes [speed bumps] because my [great] grandfather almost fell on one. I lifted up the stroller, I lifted it with all my strength, I didn’t care if I started to bleed because I love my grandfather very much,” he told the website during an interview at his family’s home.
Javier’s feat in getting his great-grandfather to the vaccination center was not only remarkable due to his young age: it was also extraordinary because he suffers from a condition called immune thrombocytopenic purpura, a blood disorder that makes him susceptible to bruise-like rashes and bleeding.
Upon arrival at the vaccination center, a municipal police officer asked Javier who was responsible for the septuagenarian, according to Ríos’ original Twitter post.
“’Me,’ he answered firmly and proudly. ‘Don’t you have a brother?’ ‘Yes, him,’ he said and pointed at a boy of about 7 who was at his side,” the journalist wrote.
Even though Victorio’s scheduled vaccination day was actually Friday rather than Saturday, he was promptly taken in for inoculation. Having witnessed his arrival in the wheelchair pushed by his great-grandson no one lining up for their turn complained, Página 3 said.
After the story of Victorio’s vaccination “journey” went viral on social media, he was promptly gifted a real wheelchair, and received offers for eight more, the news site reported. Javier’s family also received offers of groceries, children’s clothes, mattresses and even cash.
There is little doubt that they need the help. Javier turned 10 in early February but didn’t get a present, Página 3 said, adding that he hasn’t received gifts on previous birthdays either.
In fact, the 10-year-old’s family is in such a precarious financial position that Javier himself joined the workforce at the tender age of 7.
“When my mom doesn’t have money to give us a taco, I help her getting a chambita [little job]. I started when I was 7, I’ve been working for three years. … I’m a taxi and urban transport checker now, one of the shouters,” he said, referring to people who call out the bus routes to inform passengers.
“I go with my mom to work [in the center of Oaxaca],” Javier said, adding that he has also washed cars to help support his family.
The 10-year-old said he doesn’t know how to read or write and hasn’t gone to school because of “my disease that is almost similar to cancer but my hair doesn’t fall out.”
“I have a low platelet count and a lot of nose bleeds,” Javier added. Despite his health problems and lack of formal education, the youngster hasn’t had trouble learning the ropes of his transportation job, boasting that he knows all the bus routes by heart.
As for helping out his great-grandfather, Javier admitted that he owed him because he sometimes takes him out to eat or gives him 50 pesos after receiving his pension.
“It’s not so much for the money,” he clarified. “… He’s my [great] grandfather and I’m happy [to help] even if I don’t earn anything.”
As Mexico City progresses borough by borough with its vaccination of residents 60 and over against Covid-19, it’s Venustiano Carranza’s turn starting Wednesday.
Officials announced that they hope to immunize 91,241 people aged 60 and over in the borough between March 17 and 23.
A total of 53 immunization crews working eight hours a day are planning to administer an average of 9,000 doses per day at each of two vaccination sites. Residents can report to either:
The former regional military base (Primera Región Militar) in the Aviación Civil neighborhood on Alberto Santos Dumont Street; or
Internado No. 17 of the Ministry of Public Education (SEP). This is a school building located in the Morelos neighborhood at 87 Circunvalación Avenue.
There will also be brigades available that can immunize in their homes any older adults from the borough with limited mobility. Call Mexico City’s social services hotline LOCATEL at 55 56 58 1111 for more information.
Brigades at the vaccination sites will be using the CoronaVac vaccine, made by Sinovac Life Sciences. It requires two doses, the second occurring between 28 and 35 days of the first.
Currently, the city has given at least one dose of some kind of Covid-19 vaccine to 420,925 residents over 60 years of age in eight boroughs.
Officials at the two Venustiano Carranza vaccination sites will be checking for documents to prove eligibility, which does not require citizenship. Foreign residents in Mexico are eligible if they can prove their age and their residency in the borough. Residents who have registered with the vaccination signup website should receive a text or email notification with information about where and when to report for vaccination.
To prove eligibility, it’s suggested that resident have their CURP number (a national identification number given to citizens and temporary and permanent residents) to expedite the process, although a CURP is not necessary.
Some form of government identification indicating one’s age (for foreigners, a passport or driver’s license is sufficient) and address.
The vaccinations are being prioritized by paternal surname, following the schedule below.
Victims of crime are more likely to buy a gun, survey finds.
Gun ownership is on the rise in Mexico as more and more people buy firearms to protect themselves amid the high levels of violent crime that plague much of the country.
The number of guns purchased legally and illegally by citizens with no links to drug trafficking or organized crime rose 33% in 2018 to 352,000, according to a study by Carlos Pérez Ricart, a researcher at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico City.
(Guns can only be purchased legally in Mexico at one store operated by the army in Mexico City but are widely available on the black market.)
Entitled Acquisition of Weapons in Mexico 2012-18: Findings of the National Survey on Crime Victims in Mexico, the study also found that there were firearms in at least 1.89 million Mexican homes, a figure that represents 5.5% of all households in the country.
“If we assume that the average number of people living in a house is 3.6, … we can infer that at least 6.8 million people had access to firearms from the comfort of their homes,” Pérez told the newspaper Milenio.
The academic said that the number of Mexicans with access to guns is probably higher because many survey respondents “don’t acknowledge having guns even though they have them.”
Pérez’s study found that the most typical gun owners in Mexico are young men who live in rural areas with high levels of crime.
“The majority of people who buy guns are young men. That’s the opposite to what happens in the United States where it’s old people who buy guns more. In Mexico it’s young men who live in rural places, … areas where there are shootouts or criminal activity,” he said.
Pérez explained that victims of crime, especially those who have lost confidence in the police, are more likely to buy a weapon to protect themselves in the event they are targeted in a future criminal attack.
“We saw that people who have been victims [of crime] tend to be the people who buy weapons. We call this a contagion effect, … if you were already a victim, you’re more inclined to buy guns,” he said.
Pérez also found that many buyers of guns are people with high levels of education and high incomes.
Shoppers browse the selection of weapons at Mexico’s only gun shop.
“That’s a little bit counterintuitive. We had thought that it was people with lower incomes and less education buying guns …”
The academic added that people who already have a gun or guns in their home are likely to add to their collection.
“There is a phenomenon like that in the United States, where a large percentage of guns in private hands are concentrated in [the hands of] few people. … We think that the same thing happens in Mexico,” Pérez said.
However, having guns at home doesn’t make people safer, the researcher said, explaining that confronting an intruder with a firearm significantly increases the probability of a person who lives in the home being wounded or killed.
Despite that finding, a 62-year-old resident of Ecatepec, México state – a municipality that is notorious for crime – told Milenio that having access to two guns at his home gives him confidence that he can protect his family in the event of a home invasion.
Marcos (not his real name) bought two hand guns in 2017 after his home was burgled while he and his family were on vacation.
“We live in a neighborhood where the police are conspicuous by their absence. Luckily the burglary occurred when we weren’t at home but if we had been what would I have defended my family with? That’s why I bought two pistols and taught my daughters to shoot,” he said.
Marcos said that he bought the two guns for 9,500 pesos (US $460) from a colleague at work, meaning that they were illegally acquired. Neither weapon is registered with the Ministry of National Defense, as occurs when guns are bought at the army gun store.
The increase in the purchase of weapons, especially illegally, is “very dangerous,” Pérez said, adding that authorities need to do a better job at regulating gun ownership.
Making that job difficult is the steady stream of weapons that flow illegally into Mexico from the United States, many of which go to drug cartels or are sold on the black market.
The illegal cross border arms trade has long been a contentious issue between Mexico and the United States, and each country claims to have recently offered the other advice about how to combat it only to be ignored.
Fabián Medina, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard’s chief of staff, refuted that claim in early February and portrayed the United States, not Mexico, as being uncooperative on the arms trafficking issue.
He accused Landua of being a liar and asserted that the United States didn’t respond to a request for it to carry out operations on its side of the border to inspect vehicles coming to Mexico.
Electrical upgrades, new cars and improvements to stations are planned for the transit system.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced Sunday that the city will invest over 41 billion pesos (US $2.09 billion) in an overhaul of the Metro that she said will breathe another 50 years of life into the city’s infamously aging subway system.
A January 9 fire, which occurred in an electrical substation inside the control center for subway lines 1-6 and put those lines out of commission for weeks, called new attention to the state of the Metro’s equipment, which is subject to frequent failures.
“Since the accident in January 2021, we decided we could not return to what we had,” Sheinbaum said. “The objective is to deliver something much better than what we currently find ourselves with. We will not only improve the aged conditions and the electrical installations, but we also have to renovate [the Metro] completely.”
Sheinbaum said a Metro overhaul had been planned since before the January fire, but the incident triggered an expansion of the project.
“From the adversity that the Metro experienced in January 2021, we are keeping the best, and giving citizens a much better Metro than we could have ever imagined in 2019,” Sheinbaum said.
Currently planned is the construction of a new electrical substation to replace the one destroyed in the fire; building a new train control center to manage lines 1–6 “to be the command and control center of the Metro;” the building of four new electrical transformers; modernization of the system’s electrical network, particularly that of lines 1 and 3; and other modernizations of line 1, including the addition of new train cars and repairs to station infrastructure such as escalators.
Modernization of line 1 is expected to be finished by the end of this year, although Metro director Florencia Serranía said the electrical improvements would take until sometime in 2022.
Those improvements will allow the system to run on 230 kilovolts instead of the current 85, Serranía said.
The electrical improvements to line 3 will take place in 2022 and 2023. There is also a future project being developed to modernize line 2’s electrical network.
The president officiates at the opening of new National Guard barracks in Jalisco with Governor Alfaro and Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez.
President López Obrador is confident that the United States will supply Covid-19 vaccines to Mexico as three other countries have already done.
Speaking at the inauguration of National Guard barracks in Tequila, Jalisco, on Sunday, López Obrador thanked India, Russia and China for sending vaccines and predicted that he will soon be expressing the same gratitude to Mexico’s northern neighbor.
“I hope to be saying soon that I also thank the United States government because I’m sure that they’re going to help – they just haven’t done so yet. … I always say what I think and feel and I’m sure they will help,” he said.
After speaking to United States President Joe Biden earlier this month, López Obrador said his counterpart demonstrated “great understanding” of Mexico’s request for the U.S. to supply vaccines to its southern neighbor.
The Biden administration has said that it is willing to send vaccines abroad but only after it inoculates its own adult population, which is expected to occur in May.
López Obrador reiterated Sunday that the government will vaccinate all Mexicans free of charge and predicted that all seniors in Jalisco will be inoculated by the end of April. He has said previously that all of Mexico’s approximately 15 million seniors will have received at least one vaccine shot by the middle of April.
Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro, who also attended the inauguration, called on the president to review the national vaccination strategy, pointing out that no shots have been administered in Guadalajara and Zapopan, the two municipalities with the highest number of coronavirus cases in the state.
López Obrador responded that the program will reach the Jalisco capital and neighboring Zapopan soon.
He also said his government intends to offer teachers early access to the vaccine so that the nation’s students, who haven’t attended face-to-face classes for almost a year, can return to school.
Online classes are just not the same, López Obrador said before asserting that schools are students’ second home. “We need them to return to the classroom,” he said.
Mexico’s vaccination program began on December 24 but almost three months later only 4.34 million doses have been administered, according to Health Ministry data presented Sunday night. In contrast, the United States has administered more than 107 million doses since its vaccination program began on December 14.
Mexico’s vaccination efforts virtually stalled last month due to a lack of supply but the pace has quickened considerably after additional shipments arrived in the country.
Municipalities where the vaccination of seniors is under way can be tracked on the federal Health Ministry’s vaccination progress map on Mexico News Daily’s coronavirus page, although it appears the information is not being updated regularly.
As of Sunday night, Mexico had received just under 6.5 million vaccine doses – just over 3.2 million Pfizer/BioNTech shots; 870,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India; 2 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine; and 400,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V shot.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s accumulated coronavirus case tally rose by 2,415 on Sunday to almost 2.17 million while the official Covid-19 death toll increased by 220 to 194,710.
Average daily case numbers declined 28% to 5,668 during the first 14 days of March compared to February while reported fatalities decreased 34% to 642.
A protester takes a hammer to barricades at the National Palace last week.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a man born before women in Mexico were able to vote, spent International Women’s Day barricaded in the National Palace behind a wall guarded by riot police. For a president who promised respect, tolerance and peace, it looked as if he was at war with half his country — women.
Feminists were incensed with López Obrador even before he erected 3-meter-high metal barriers that his spokesman insisted were a “wall of peace” ahead of an International Women’s Day march.
Not only has he failed to make inroads on femicide — a shocking 11 women are killed every day — but he has refused to condemn the candidacy of a member of his Morena party, who is accused of being a serial rapist and is standing for governor in midterm elections in June. When women — including Citlalli Hernández, Morena secretary-general — protested at Félix Salgado Macedonio’s candidacy and urged a break with the “pact” of patriarchy in macho Mexico, López Obrador said he had to ask his wife what they were talking about.
Until then, it might have looked as if López Obrador was “just” out-of-touch or had a tin ear — neither something a politician in the 21st century ought to be advertising, especially one who congratulates himself on leading a gender-parity government. But on International Women’s Day, he smilingly cut off a female journalist’s question in a news conference saying “you’ll have to wait, corazón [darling].” The apparently deliberate choice of words failed to make it into the official transcript but it was not the first time the president had addressed a female reporter in this way.
For women clamouring for their grievances to be heard — like the groups who transformed the barriers around the national palace into a moving memorial with the names of victims of femicide adorned with flowers, and who then projected feminist slogans on to the building’s facade — the message was crystal clear: women’s rights are not a priority for this president. “López Obrador, corazón: women’s votes for your party in the next elections will surely have to wait,” tweeted Ximena Medellín, a professor at CIDE university.
López Obrador: women’s rights are not a priority.
But gender violence is not an issue that resonates strongly for López Obrador’s base — Mexico’s poor — who are more concerned about receiving state handouts. He won by a landslide in 2018. Middle-class women incensed by his attitude are likely to have turned their backs on him already, pollsters and analysts say.
The president insists the barricades around his palace were vital to prevent vandalism. Seemingly unable to comprehend the women’s fury, he called their attempts to break them down with hammers and petrol a “shameless provocation” and said that instead they should have held a demonstration “asking for respect.”
“We’ve tried a lot of things, this is the only way we have left,” said one protester, who asked not to be named, a baseball bat in her hand. Other women carried signs saying: “If only they protected us like they protect their monuments.”
López Obrador is often accused of trying to turn back the clock with his nationalistic economic policies, especially his attempts to make state energy companies great again. He appears to have equally deep-rooted and old-fashioned views about women, and says it is traditional for daughters in Mexico to look after their parents.
And while he admires his wife, Beatriz Gutiérrez, as an intellectual, he seems to delegate care of their 13-year-old son to her while he travels the country every weekend — not unlike the majority of Mexican men, who dump most household chores on their partners.
Although López Obrador’s supporters say he is Mexico’s most feminist president, he shuns the label, calling himself a “humanist.” He maintains his political enemies have jumped on the feminist bandwagon and “infiltrated” the women’s movement in order to attack him.
López Obrador claims to be on a quest to transform Mexico. Transforming his own world view may be harder. As Hernández acknowledged, he “doesn’t seek to be politically correct and won’t force his discourse to ‘make nice’ with us women.”
