Hallie Ephron, author of 11 suspense novels, will be interviewed by the San Miguel Literary Sala in a live web conferencing format on June 20.
The San Miguel Literary Sala continues its June online series with an interview with New York Times bestselling author Hallie Ephron on June 20 in a live streaming format during which viewers will get a chance to “come up on stage” and talk briefly with the author.
Ephron, who has written 11 suspense novels, has literary genes: her parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, were screenwriters who moved to Beverly Hills from the east coast, and her three sisters, Nora, Delia and Amy, have all had prolific careers as screenwriters, novelists, journalists and film producers.
Ephron started writing novels later in life. Her last five books have all been finalists for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Her book Never Tell a Lie was made into a movie for the Lifetime network in 2011. Her latest work, Careful What You Wish For, was described by the New York Journal of Books as “expertly crafted …”
It tells the story of a professional organizer married to a hoarder. Emily, the protagonist, discovers some surprising secrets in a storage unit that belonged to the deceased husband of one of her clients, which starts her on a hunt to discover the perpetrator of a crime.
Ephron will be interviewed for the Literary Sala by literary agent April Eberhardt. They will discuss Ephron’s writing career, her novels and her experiences growing up in a family of writers.
Replicating a Literary Sala in-person tradition, viewers will be encouraged at the interview’s end to interact individually with Ephron via the online conferencing format.
Eberhardt, a reader for The Best American Short Stories series published annually by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, founded her own literary agency in 2011 after spending 25 years as a corporate strategist and management consultant. She is a frequent presenter at writers’ conferences and serves on the advisory council of The American Library in Paris.
Tickets for the online interview, which takes place at 6 p.m. CDT, cost US $5–$50, with viewers encouraged to pay what they wish. To purchase tickets, visit the San Miguel Literary Sala website.
A Center for Chinampa Education employee checks the center's compost aerating equipment.
It’s an overcast day in the heart of San Gregorio, one of 14 towns that make up the Xochimilco borough in southern Mexico City, and a small canal that ends in a cement landing is surrounded by piles of manure waiting to be used in the cultivation of the area’s vegetable farms.
San Gregorio is the area’s largest producer, cultivating tons of yearly vegetables that go on to be sold in the city’s massive central de abastos (produce market) and other local markets. The water in the canal is an electric green, choked by tiny algae called lenteja de agua (water lentils, also known as Lemna minor L.).
“It’s caused by an overwhelming amount of phosphorus and nitrogen in the water,” explains Refugio Rodríguez, a biotechnology scientist at Mexico’s National Polytechnic Institute. “It’s from the runoff when it rains that filters through fields laden with pesticides and untreated manure.”
Because of the plant cover, the water below doesn’t get sufficient oxygen, and little sun filters through it. This causes what little flora and fauna that exist to be stunted and creates a toxic environment for those that live near here.
Rodríguez is working to change this. After spending years working for monster polluters like Pemex and the Mexican National Railroad, Rodríguez’s life was changed five years ago on a single trip out to the canals in Xochimilco. It was a place that she, like many city residents, only thought of as a place for tourist boat cruises.
In just 60 minutes, Refugio Rodríguez’s filtering equipment can make 240 liters of water safe for washing, cooking and even drinking.
“I saw the problems that they had, how they were farming, and started thinking about the quality of food we were eating, and it affected me deeply. To see them water their crops with greywater, to see them unprotected like that, I just thought I could do something,” she says.
Rodríguez purchased a small plot of land two years ago and started to build the Center for Chinampa Education (CEDUCHI), a place that would offer workshops to farmers from the area and beyond, teaching methods to clean the immediate environment where they cultivate and improve the overall quality of the canals’ water and soil.
A simply built pump and filtration system sits enthroned in the center’s main workshop area. Made from high-impact PVC pipe and ultraviolet lamps, this machine can be built for around 40,000 pesos, or US $2,000, and will last about 20 years.
Its purpose is to gather both rainwater and canal water and send that collected water through a series of tubes where high-pressure nanobubbles and UV light rays destroy the water’s harmful microbes. The microbes have built up from years of runoff and illegal dumping in canals. In the case of rainwater, pollution has been drawn from the air as rain falls to the city’s surface.
In just 60 minutes, this pump can clean 240 liters of water, making it safe for washing, cooking and even drinking in certain circumstances.
Five pumps are already functioning in various places throughout the canals with several on individual chinampa island farms to help producers create clean sources of water for their crops and their families.
The pumps connect to simple rainwater catchment systems that can be mounted on the roofs of homes to capture some of the average 700 millimeters of water that fall during the city’s annual rainy season.
In the canals, the pumps work in conjunction with biofilters built right into them, which allow the water to first pass through various gravel layers and aquatic plants that reduce solids in the water and absorb some of the harmful microorganisms.
On the CEDUCHI patio, a mound of vegetable debris is being rotated by Refugio’s assistant to turn it into compost. Large PVC pipes stick out of the pile’s bottom to allow oxygen to enter and gases to release while it transforms.
This mound will be covered with plastic and left to sit for the next two months until it decomposes down to look like the finished product Rodríguez holds in her hand — a rich earthy compost, free of harmful microbes and rich in nutrients.
This compost model is already being used on Señor Pompilio Guerra’s farm a few miles away. One of the crops, radishes, is extremely sensitive to the high salinity in the area’s soil, and so they are incorporating Rodríguez’s compost into beds and using it to revitalize the soil and reduce salt levels.
Guerra has a large bunch of magenta radishes that he is picking under today’s cloudy sky. Just a month into production, they are already in shape to be sold.
Xochimilco farmer Pompilio Guerra holds a bunch of radishes grown using Refugio Rodríguez’s compost, filtered of pollutants.
The compost is made up of elements that are easily found in this watery landscape — lirio (a type of local water lily), orange rinds, dried leaves and grass and, in Rodríguez’s most recent version, used toilet paper.
The fungi produced on the skin of the oranges are sufficient enough to kill any harmful microorganisms in the mix, and they also help to reduce the area’s naturally high salinity.
Once the elements have time to decompose, the compost is safe enough to use on vegetables for human consumption.
Rodríguez has one more homespun invention up her sleeve. Similar to her stationery filtration pump, she has attached a nanobubble pump to several local trajineras (flat bottom boats used for pleasure cruises around the canals). The pumps run on solar power from panels strapped to the boats’ rooftops, and they push high-pressure nanobubbles deep into the canals’ water.
The size and force of the nanobubbles cause them to remain underwater and provide oxygen to areas that are in desperate need of it, as well as destroy harmful microbes and bust open the particles of greenhouse gases, eliminating them from the water’s chemical makeup.
This is what she is planning for the San Gregorio canal.
“[The nanobubbles] could reduce the growth of the lenteja de agua by getting rid of the pollution in the water. We have a plan,” she says.
CEDUCHI will allow Rodríguez that opportunity to share all the technologies she has painstakingly developed with all the farmers in the area, with the idea that these small models can be replicated and used throughout the country on similar problems. She hopes they will have a long-reaching effect on the larger conversation about water scarcity and water conservation in Mexico.
Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
The financial service sector attracted 24% of FDI in the first quarter of the year, as funds flowed into foreign-owned banks like BBVA and HSBC. (File photo)
A Romanian man accused of running a massive bank card skimming operation in Mexico has been ordered to stand trial on charges he stole 70 million pesos (US $3.4 million) from ATMs.
Florian Tudor, who was arrested in Mexico City late last month after an extradition request from Romania for organized crime, extortion and attempted murder, and two other alleged members of the Romanian criminal group were ordered to stand trial for crimes under the Credit Institutions Law as well as criminal association, the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) said Tuesday.
The FGR said it presented evidence against the suspects during a marathon 18-hour hearing in a Quintana Roo court. The judge remanded them in preventative custody and granted authorities a period of four months to complete their investigation.
“These people are likely responsible for illegally carrying out … operations at automated teller machines in the states of Quintana Roo, Yucatán, Hidalgo, México state and Mexico City,” the FGR said.
Tudor, known as “The Shark,” is currently being held at the Altiplano federal prison in México state, having been transferred there from a Mexico City prison on June 5.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said May 28 that he would be extradited to Romania “very quickly” but the alleged mafia leader has a court order that prevents his extradition, the newspaper Milenio reported.
According to authorities, Tudor and criminals he worked with – among whom were allegedly other Romanians, Mexican hackers, Venezuelan cyber crime experts and the Quintana Roo cartel boss Leticia Rodríguez Lara — scammed hundreds if not thousands of people who used Cancún, Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos ATMs in which bluetooth devices, or “skimmers,” had been placed to steal card details.
The criminals then used cloned cards to withdraw cash from their victims’ accounts. In one 24-hour period in March 2017, the group withdrew 150 million pesos (US $7.3 million) from BBVA ATMs in Quintana Roo, Mexico City and México state, according to a report by Milenio based on Mexican and United States intelligence.
However, authorities only have evidence showing that 70 million pesos was stolen from BBVA machines, the newspaper reported today.
A federal security cabinet document obtained by Milenio indicates that the Romanian mafia also stole similarly large amounts from ATMs at Citibanamex, Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America and TD Bank. It is unclear where those heists occurred.
A burned truck at a home where residents fled Santa Isabel Las Delicias, Chiapas, to escape a violent attack.
The homes of 35 families in Venustiano Carranza, Chiapas, were destroyed by armed men last weekend, and three men were murdered in the same municipality.
The violence is linked to a long-running land dispute between one agricultural group called the San Bartolomé de los Llanos Alliance (ASB) and another called the Emiliano Zapata Farmers Organization (OCEZ), also known as Casa del Pueblo.
According to a report by the newspaper El Universal, armed men from the former group arrived in the community of Santa Isabel Las Delicias last Saturday, forcing families to flee to the municipal seat, located about 90 kilometers southeast of state capital Tuxtla Gutiérrez.
Two years ago, the now-displaced families bought 32 hectares of land on which they built homes and planted corn, El Universal said, adding that they didn’t take sides with either of the feuding groups.
Nevertheless, ASB gunmen toppled the walls of their homes, stole domestic appliances, money, tools and farm animals and set several vehicles on fire.
The remains of a destroyed home of one of the families that fled.
One Santa Isabel Las Delicias resident said the aggressors also used chainsaws to topple trees so they would fall onto the roofs of people’s humble homes.
Ricardo Guillermo Gómez Montoya, a spokesman for the 35 displaced families, said the people who fled Santa Isabel left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. “That’s how we left in order to be able to survive,” he said.
The families are asking for clothing, footwear, medicine and food donations to help them survive while they take refuge in a shelter.
In addition to destroying homes, members of the ASB killed three members of the OCEZ on Saturday and abducted two others, the news magazine Proceso reported.
It said that the five OCEZ members entered a farm that has been controlled by the ASB for several years after it allegedly seized it from its adversary. Three men were shot dead on the property and two others were abducted and taken to an unknown location. The fate of the two kidnapped men is unclear.
The OCEZ said that 21 of its members have been killed over a period of many years but the authorities haven’t captured and punished the murderers.
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“On the contrary, the government sends the Red Cross, police, the National Guard and the military to protect and provide support to these murderers,” the group said.
The ASB is also accused of destroying and/or burning some 80 homes in Yaschen de los Pobres, another community in Venustiano Carranza, in April last year.
Violence has also affected Paraíso del Grijalva, a Venustiano Carranza town near the Angostura dam on the Grijalva river.
Local middle school and high school students sent a video message to the newspaper El Heraldo de Chiapas in which they called for the intervention of state and federal authorities to help bring peace to the municipality, where this month’s elections were suspended due to security concerns.
“We’re frightened about what’s happening; we don’t want so much violence. We’re told we’re outsiders, invaders, but it’s not true. Our fathers and grandparents have agricultural certificates from 1965 and 1993 [that prove land ownership]. We also have the right to live and work here,” said a statement read aloud by one of the students.
“… We want the attacks to stop. The intervention of the government with the National Guard is urgent because the Casa del Pueblo [the OCEZ] continues to threaten to come and kill us in our homes,” the teenage girl said.
Puerto Vallarta and the Riviera Nayarit are looking forward to the Canadians coming back.
Canadian airlines are reactivating flights to Puerto Vallarta after a four-month suspension.
Westjet reinitiated its flights to the Jalisco beach destination on June 5, and Air Canada will be next with the reopening of its Vancouver route on August 1.
Low cost airline Swoop plans to restart its Hamilton and Edmonton flights October 5, and its Abbotsford and Toronto routes on November 3. It will also inaugurate a new route from Winnipeg on November 4.
Transat will relaunch flights from Toronto and Montreal in November.
Sunwing is still yet to inform clients of its plans to reopen, but has previously announced it hopes to reestablish its Mexico routes in December.
Marc Murphy, lead of the Riviera Nayarit Visitors and Conventions Office, said Canadians would be happy for the change of climate. “Each year, thousands of Canadians travel to this region to escape the intense winter cold and find an enviable climate, the most beautiful beaches … and a great quality hotel offering,” he said.
The Guelaguetza festival in Oaxaca will be canceled for a second consecutive year due to ongoing concerns about the spread of coronavirus.
The festival, which normally takes place in July each year, brings the indigenous peoples of Oaxaca together to showcase their heritage and traditions in the form of intricate traditional garments, dances, music and food. It has been described as the largest ethnic festival in Latin America, and draws domestic and international tourists.
Oaxaca first went green on the Covid-19 stoplight map in April, and cases have been on the decrease. In total, 47,780 people in Oaxaca have been affected by the disease, resulting in 3,825 deaths. The state currently has 223 confirmed cases.
Governor Alejandro Murat confirmed at a press conference that the event would not go ahead. “The priority of my government is the lives of the citizens of Oaxaca,” he said.
The word Guelaguetza is of Zapotec origin, and has been interpreted to mean the “reciprocal exchanges of gifts and services.” The festivity is also known as Lunes del Cerro (Mondays on the Hill).
Guardsmen are the responsibility of the Public Security Ministry, but in its first five years the civilian security force is being overseen by the army and navy. File photo
A proposal by President López Obrador that the National Guard be incorporated into the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) appears doomed after the Labor Party (PT), an ally of the ruling Morena party, indicated that it doesn’t support the plan.
López Obrador said Tuesday that he intends to propose a constitutional amendment in 2023 so that the National Guard, a two-year-old civilian security force, can become a branch of the army.
López Obrador justified his plan by saying that he doesn’t want the National Guard to suffer the same fate as the Federal Police force, which he charged was left to rot after it was established during former president Felipe Calderón’s 2006–2012 government.
“It was spoiled to such an extent that he who was public security minister in the government of Felipe Calderón is in prison,” he said, referring to Genaro García Luna, who was arrested in the United States in 2019 on charges that he colluded with the Sinaloa Cartel in a drug trafficking conspiracy.
The president said he will propose a constitutional amendment in 2023 to allow the Guard to become part of the army. File photo
“In addition, that police [force] didn’t do its duty and didn’t act with professionalism,” López Obrador said.
The president wanted the National Guard to be part of Sedena and to have a military commander from the beginning but changed tack amid pressure from a range of non-government organizations, which argued that incorporating the new security force into the military would perpetuate the failed militarized public security model introduced by Calderón in 2006.
The National Guard is officially the responsibility of the civilian Public Security Ministry, but during the first five years of its existence, its operation is overseen by the army and navy in order to instill military-style discipline in the new force and ensure that it meets the same standards as those required of the armed forces.
López Obrador said Tuesday that his administration doesn’t want responsibility for the National Guard to be transferred to “the Interior Ministry or another institution” and for it to be “spoiled” six years after it was established.
He added that he doesn’t want to leave office without having proposed “the things I believe the country needs.”
However, getting the Congress to approve a constitutional reform that incorporates the National Guard into the army will require the support not only of lawmakers affiliated with Morena but also many of those from opposition parties, especially if the ruling party’s allies — the Green Party and the PT — don’t vote in favor of the initiative.
Labor Party (PT) lawmaker Gerardo Fernández Noroña.
PT lawmakers indicated Wednesday that they don’t support the president’s plan, although they reaffirmed their commitment to continue backing López Obrador in a general sense until the final day of his presidency.
Speaking after a meeting with his fellow deputies, Gerardo Fernández Noroña said the government has a commitment to withdraw the army from the streets in March 2024 and López Obrador’s proposal would contravene that promise.
“We share the concern about [the need] to combat insecurity and to keep the National Guard out of corruption but I believe that there is a way to achieve that without incorporating it in the Ministry of Defense,” he said.
The coalition made up of the National Action Party (PAN), the PRI and the Democratic Revolution Party also rejected the president’s proposal.
PAN Senator Julen Rementería described the plan as “madness,” asserting that the president is attempting to “completely militarize” public security.
López Obrador has also indicated that he intends to propose constitutional amendments to reform the energy sector and to get rid of the election of lawmakers via proportional representation.
Federal police officer with former president Felipe Calderón during his administration.
The PT said that it would support an energy sector overhaul – the president is aiming to wind back the previous government’s reform that allowed private and foreign companies into the Mexican oil and electricity market – but was not enthusiastic about the latter proposal.
Supporters of the same-sex marriage bill outside the Baja California state Congress.
Same-sex marriage was approved in Baja California and Sinaloa this week after being rejected previously in both states.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, and the same year the National Commission of Human Rights advised that laws should be adapted at the state level to widen the definition of marriage.
In Sinaloa, where a proposal was rejected in 2019, supporters celebrated outside the state Congress as the law passed with 18 votes in favor and 17 abstentions.
Solidary Encounter Party (PES) Deputy Karla de Lourdes Montero Alatorre addressed legislators who opposed the bill, and chastised comments they had made: “No rights are being taken away from you,” she said.
“I have heard comments like: ‘My religion does not allow me,’ ‘I am not homophobic, but that doesn’t sit with me,’ ‘After a while they will want to marry a dog,’ and the stupidest of all: ‘God created Adam and Eve; not Adam and Steve,’” she added.
Party of Sinaloa (PAS) Deputy Angélica Díaz Quiñonez said that although she believes in a traditional definition of marriage, she voted in favor of the law out of respect for the constitution.
In Baja California the law passed with 18 votes in favor, four against and one abstention, and now requires approval in three of the state’s five local governments.
The adjustment eliminates the specification of marriage as “… aimed at guaranteeing and safeguarding the perpetuation of the species () through the union of a man with a woman.”
There have been previous attempts to change the law in Baja California: a bishop led a protest outside of the State Congress when a deputy tried to present a proposal in 2019, and proposals were twice rejected in 2020.
Morena Deputy Juan Manuel Molina said he was convinced that the move had public support. “There were positions against and for, but the citizens had been informed by several deputies and on June 6 they overwhelmingly voted for us … that for me was a clear sign that citizens are not against the issue,” he said.
“Human rights are not up for discussion,” he added.
Reality TV meets Mexico. From left, Gator Boy Jimmy Riffle, aquarium director Jorge del Rincón Jarero and Gator Boy Paul Bedard with a 12-foot croc.
In Part 4 of “The Crocodile Chronicles,” the cast and crew of The Gator Boys reality TV show had arrived in Mazatlán for their first day of on-camera croc wrangling in Mexico, and the writer learned the art of wrangling local officials who craved their moment in the spotlight. Now, in the final installment, it’s finally time for the cast and crew to film “captures” of the reptiles they’d rented to make on-screen debuts in various amenable Mazatlán urban locations.
The days were long during our first week of production of The Gator Boys episodes in Mexico. The crocodile captures were going smoothly enough that confidence levels were high as we rolled into the very upmarket Estrella Del Mar golf resort.
We had previously scouted a couple of water features there (or water traps if you are a golfer) and had Gator Boys Jimmy Riffle and Paul Bedard pick the one they preferred. Since the temperature was hovering in the low 90s, there were no golfers to contend with.
The croc box was unloaded, and the 10-foot snapper went for the water with lightning speed.
After a long silence, several members of the group said in close unison, “Wow, where did it go?”
The Captured Tourist Woman and a probably sleeping specimen.
The chosen water feature was about 700 square meters, about chest-deep in the center, and not very clear. The program’s two stars had several hundred or more gator captures under their belt, so when they looked a bit nervous, we all took notice.
Given the size of this croc, neither Paul nor Jimmy really wanted to wade through the water while poking around with the capture pole. They muttered accordingly. But there was a job to be done, and the wading and poking method would be the only way to locate the now well-hidden animal.
It was a tense time. The cameras were ready when the angry crocodile broke the surface with jaws open wide. After 20 minutes of thrashing and snapping, the beast was subdued and the golf course was once again safe.
In between the captures, the cast was being followed around by the cameras while enjoying Mazatlán’s many amenities. Eric the director let us know that he wanted to shoot a romantic dinner scene with Jimmy and his partner Ashley, also a sometime-gator catcher.
The scenario they planned was to have Jimmy surprise Ashley with a special and romantic dinner at an outdoor venue in the Plazuela Machado, the cultural center of the historic district.
Although expressly instructed not to let the secret out, my partner, The Captured Tourist Woman (TCTW), however, felt it would be only fair to inform Ashley of the plan because she should be able to properly dress for the special occasion and have the chance to make sure her hair looked good, plus other reasons that TCTW said made her unwilling to play a part in potentially embarrassing the woman.
Ashley’s job was appearing on TV, so she could act as surprised as she needed to surely? Both the TCTW and myself deemed this a minor contravention to the edict of secrecy assumed by the term “surprise.”
After all, TCTW and I discussed, if Ashley was not informed of the romantic dinner at the very nice outdoor eatery with a liveried waitstaff, a wine list with selections costing several thousand pesos, a menu containing excellent examples of several regional specialties highlighting the great culinary art of Mexico, live but not loud background music, linen napkins and tablecloths, she might show up in a sweatshirt and sweatpants. How embarrassing would that be for her? And it would all be on camera.
So TCTW had a quiet chat with Ashley during lunch break and let her know that the evening would be spent at one of Mazatlán’s better restaurants.
The crew had spent about an hour there to set up the scene. They provided attractive ambient soft lighting cast upon the 160-year-old adobe wall with arched windows. The camera angle was slightly above the plane of the table to showcase the two gourmet meals soon to grace the linen tablecloth.
When the romantic couple arrived, Jimmy looked like he was wearing the same clothes he had worn during the day’s two captures. I learned later that Jimmy’s wardrobe consisted of numerous changes of the same clothing so that he was never out of character. And, of course, Ashley was in a sweatshirt.
They were both drinking Pacíficos while perusing the multi-page menu. When the waiter came to take their order, they each ordered hamburgers. These folks were fearless when it came to facing several hundred pounds of dangerous reptile, but the culinary adventure of something new and different was significantly outside their box. When I glanced at TCTW’s horrified face and wide eyes, she gave me the hand sign that meant do not say anything.
The cast and crew of The Gator Boys episodes in Mazatlán.
The days whizzed along. We were fast coming up on the scheduled encounter with the humongous crocodile out at the estuary. Two days in advance, I contacted the shrimp farmers there to reconfirm our date with Godzilla the giant crocodile, now known as El Diablo, that they had promised me existed.
They were very excited! They were ready and would fire up the old Ford V8, which ran the lights and pump, to see if the giant croc would show up for a test run. Apparently, the crocodile sensed the vibrations of the running engine, which signaled chow time.
I was still concerned about any direct contact with a 16-foot, 800-pound predator that had lost its fear of people. Although I made no mention of it, I was glad that most of the show was already in the can prior to this confrontation.
On the scheduled day for the estuary, I called the shrimp farmers again and was told the Ford had developed a serious rod knock. One of the shrimp farmers had been dispatched to Culiacán for parts. The El Diablo encounter would need to be rescheduled.
I gave Eric the bad news. He said depending on a few shrimp farmers to reassemble a 50-year-old engine in a timely manner was too great of a risk. We needed another El Diablo — fast.
Jorge, our always helpful and supportive Mazatlán aquarium contact, suggested using one of his crocodiles for the El Diablo scene. Since he had a croc over 12 feet long and 600 pounds, it would not be as dramatic as Godzilla, but then again, no one would be facing certain death or disfigurement.
So we took the 12-footer and staged the scene at the edge of an estuary abutting the aquarium site. The camera angles had to be perfect so that no condo towers or hotels would show in the finished product. The croc was so docile, it needed to be poked with a stick several times just to animate the lethargic reptile. I don’t think anyone in the cast realized how serious a bullet they had dodged.
When the two-part Mazatlán episode was aired, we were told the ratings had been unprecedented. Myself and all the locals involved with the making of the two episodes had a great time with no severe injuries except for a stinky crocodile transport van.
The writer describes himself as a very middle-aged man who lives full-time in Mazatlán with a captured tourist woman and the ghost of a half-wild dog. He can be reached at [email protected].
Schools such as this one in Guanajuato have lost US $29.3 million to robberies during the pandemic, says Mexicanos Primero.
More than 6,000 schools have been targets of robbery during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an education advocacy organization.
Mexicanos Primero said in a new report that 6,008 schools have been burglarized since schools shut in March last year.
Their combined losses total 600 million pesos (US $29.3 million), the group said, explaining that items such as computers, musical instruments, speakers, laboratory equipment, air conditioners, chairs, desks, water pumps, copper pipes and security cameras have been stolen.
Jalisco has recorded the highest number of such robberies with a total of 643 cases followed by Guanajuato with 581 and Aguascalientes with 514. Coahuila and Sonora round out the top five with 500 and 446 cases, respectively.
Mexicanos Primero research director Fernando Ruiz told the newspaper Reforma that the figures were compiled from media reports and from information provided by state governments and schools.
Despite it being located 300 meters from a National Guard base in Tlajomulco, Jalisco, thieves stole this school’s doors, pipes, electrical equipment and even flags.
He said the high number of robberies is one factor that explains low attendance at schools since many of them reopened at the beginning of last week.
“What we’re seeing is that the reopening [of schools] is a failure, at least in the terms that the federal government sought,” Ruiz said.
The facilities at many schools are in poor condition due to being abandoned during the pandemic, he added, citing those in Mexico City as an example. Nine out of 10 schools in the capital didn’t open because of the condition they were in.
He said that a lack of resources and bureaucratic obstacles will make replacing stolen items and carrying out repairs difficult.
In Aguascalientes, for example, some 30% of schools have sustained robberies or vandalism during the pandemic but state education authorities don’t have the money to remedy the situation at all of them, Ruiz said.
He said the federal Ministry of Public Education (SEP) needs to outline what it will do to help schools that don’t have the resources to carry out repairs and replace stolen items.
With the aim of preventing additional robberies and acts of vandalism, Morena party Senator Cecilia Sánchez tabled a document this week that calls on the SEP and the federal Security Ministry to work with their state counterparts to implement or strengthen operations against such crimes.
“With school activities suspended, various media outlets reported a range of illegal acts at educational facilities in all states, proof of that is the report by the organization Mexicanos Primero,” Sánchez said.
“… In the same vein, SNTE [teachers union] secretary-general Alfonso Cepeda Salas announced that 40% to 50% of schools have been vandalized or have recorded thefts during the current health emergency. … [Those figures] represent between 86,000 and 108,000 public schools,” the senator said.
