Querétaro Magical Town charms with its quiet delights

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June 9, 2021

Woman make gorditas in Bernal's historic center. All photos by Joseph Sorrentino

Bernal, a small pueblo in Querétaro, has a lot going for it. It’s designated as a Pueblo Mágico, or Magical Town, and it’s easy to see why when you walk down its cobblestone streets lined with colorfully painted buildings and past shops and carts featuring local foods and crafts.

Bernal features a museum with 300 masks from all over Mexico and the Museo de Dulces (Sweets Museum), which highlights the locally made cajeta (caramel). Looming over it all is Peña de Bernal, the huge monolith.

It’s an easy 40-minute ride from the capital city of Querétaro and is located along the wine and cheese route.

Bernal’s a very walkable pueblo, and there are lots of places to stop for food, drinks or shopping. It wasn’t overly crowded on the Friday in May that I was there, but I’m told it does get packed on most weekends.

Unfortunately, the Museo de la Mascara, the mask museum, was still closed in May, and the Museo de Dulces didn’t open until 1 p.m., and I had to leave Bernal before then. But the first-floor store was open and selling all sorts of locally-made cajeta treats.

Bernal historic center — Bernal’s historic center is full of tourist oriented stores and vendors.

“Don Julio Rodríguez Velázquez started making cajeta and traditional sweets in 1961,” said Maricela Luna, who was running the store’s counter. “We have the only factory making cajeta in the pueblo.”

She said the most popular treats are the natillas, little squares of cajeta with toppings like sesame, nuts or amaranth. “Our products are artisanal,” she added.

There are too many other sweets to name. If you visit, just know that it can be difficult to show any type of restraint; I wasn’t able to.

There’s been some confusion as to the correct height of Peña de Bernal, the monolith. Some reports list it as 288 meters (945 feet) while others claim it’s 360 meters (1,181 feet). Either of these would make it the third tallest monolith in the world, behind the Rock of Gibraltar and Brazil’s Sugarloaf Mountain.

But according to an article in the journal Geosphere, more accurate measurements found that at its highest point, Peña de Bernal is 433 meters (1,421 feet) tall, making it the tallest monolith in the world. I’m sure there will continue to be debate but there’s one thing that’s certain: that thing is big.

There’s a trail leading up on one side of the rock and, although not dangerous, it isn’t for the faint of heart, either. There are some fairly steep — but thankfully short — climbs along its length, and footing is dicey in some spots.

One hiking website said it’s a Class II trail, one that requires walking over loose stones or sometimes needing to use your hands for balance in spots, something I found to be true. Further on, it turns into a Class III trail, requiring a lot more skill and even further, Class IV, which requires a guide and special hiking gear.

Tiffany Pence, my hiking partner, suggested we stop before reaching the more challenging sections, and believing that discretion is the better part of valor, I agreed.

On the way down, we passed Peter Rochac, a 23-year-old Texan, and a couple of other people who were climbing up the sheer face of the monolith that, to me, looked like the Dawn Wall at Yosemite.

“This is a moderate climb,” said Rochac, smiling when I must have looked incredulous. “It’s called sport climbing.” He pointed to a small ledge above us. “The anchors are pre-set, and it won’t take more than five minutes to get to that.”

There’s also a more difficult section he planned on tackling with Alfredo Pérez, his guide from Aventuras Denali. Pérez handed me his business card, and printed on it was the question, “When was the last time you did something for the first time?”

The card advertised rappelling, bungee-jumping and some other rather extreme sports I’m thankfully too old to try for the first time. But I’ve kept his card in case I get that promised second childhood.

Pena de Bernal — The monolith Peña de Bernal towers over a vineyard.

Tiffany told me that it’s a tradition to drink a michelada, beer mixed with — at least — lime and hot sauce (the recipe varies widely) and served in a glass whose rim is dipped in salt. It was early in the day, so we skipped that, but we did feast on another local tradition: blue corn gorditas at El Negrito Gorditas y Micheladas.

Gorditas are made from masa (corn meal) and are large, thick, round and stuffed with any number of tasty foods. I’m planning on a return trip to Bernal and will hike Peña de Bernal later in the day just so I can have a michelada and two gorditas.

Querétaro is considered to be the Americas’ first winemaking region, with the first vines planted by the Spanish in 1531. Bernal’s located at the upper edge of the region, and it’s definitely worth taking the time to visit some of the nearby vineyards and artisanal cheese makers, several of which are located just south of the pueblo.

More information and locations can be found at the website for the Asociación de Vitivinicultores de Querétaro.

And no trip to Bernal is complete without sampling some famed Nun Farts.

There were signs in front of a number of stores in the pueblo advertising the Pedos de Monja. I’d never heard of them before and didn’t even know what the phrase meant, so I asked Tiffany what they were. She explained that they are a candy famous throughout Querétaro. My curiosity piqued, we entered Mercadito Las Bugambilias.

“Pedos de Monja is originally an Italian recipe,” explained Mauricio Ramos, the store’s owner. “In Italy, it is a small cookie, and it is called Petto di monca, which means ‘Nun’s Chest.’”

Apparently, an Italian chef in Barcelona came up with the recipe and name sometime in the 19th century. I couldn’t find any information about why he decided to call them “Nun’s Chest.”

“The Spanish, they could not pronounce the Italian word petto, so they changed it to pedo,” Ramos said. “In Querétaro, we have our own recipe.”

The ones I ate in Bernal were delicious chocolate candies filled with almond paste. The slogan on the package was, “Más vale adentro que afuera” — better in than out. I agree.

Joseph Sorrentino, a writer, photographer and author of the book San Gregorio Atlapulco: Cosmvisiones and of Stinky Island Tales: Some Stories from an Italian-American Childhood, is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily. More examples of his photographs and links to other articles may be found at www.sorrentinophotography.com He currently lives in Chipilo, Puebla.

Social media influencer represents a new way of doing politics in Mexico

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MND Staff

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June 9, 2021

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Governor-elect of Nuevo León Samuel García with wife Mariana Rodríguez — Samuel García is believed to have won in large part due to the efforts of his online influencer wife Mariana Rodríguez.

Millennial-style politics have well and truly arrived in Mexico: the victory of a baby-faced 33-year-old candidate in the Nuevo León gubernatorial election has been largely attributed to the online campaigning of his 25-year-old social media influencer wife.

Samuel García, a former state and federal lawmaker, won handsomely in the race for the prized governorship of the northern border state – an economic powerhouse – attracting about 37% of the vote in Sunday’s election.

It was a phenomenal result for the Citizens Movement (MC) party candidate given that polls showed that he had just 13% support early in the campaign.

He was certainly helped by the emergence of a video in which the Morena party’s candidate, Clara Luz Flores, appeared alongside NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere.

But the main reason for the sharp increase in García’s popularity was undoubtedly his wife’s indefatigable promotion of him – mainly on the photo and video social networking service Instagram, on which Mariana Rodríguez currently boasts 1.7 million followers.

Governor elect Nuevo Leon Samuel Garcia — García’s victory will likely change the way politicians think about campaigning in the 2024 elections.

García is no social media slouch himself – he has about 2.5 million followers across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – but his wife’s somewhat offbeat, sometimes humorous and less-political Instagram posts and stories were credited as having greater “cut-through” with voters.

“It has been Rodríguez, not García, who has arrived to revolutionize the way of doing politics, and winning, in Mexico,” the newspaper El País said in a report published Tuesday.

Rodríguez’s frequent posts, which gave countless people a candid insight into the couple’s life and relationship, also served to humanize García and apparently endear him to voters, which ultimately translated into his comfortable victory on Sunday.

(Institutional Revolutionary Party-Democratic Revolution Party candidate Adrián de la Garza was nine points behind in second place).

According to a report by the Associated Press, the couple “rocketed to fame” after Rodríguez posted a video to social media in which she panned her phone away from García as he rattled off the names of towns they had visited during a campaign trip.

“Do you want to see my sneakers?” she says before showing off her bright orange, phosphorescent, shoes. “Fosfo, fosfo,” she says, referring to the sneakers, which just so happen to be the same color as the MC’s branding.

“Fosfo, fosfo” quickly became part of the colloquial lexicon of northeast Mexico, which served to raise García’s profile.

According to El País, which describes Rodríguez as a “mega-influencer,” García’s attractive, blonde wife “has achieved what no other institutional or political apparatus has achieved in the history of Mexico: develop a leader by the force of [social media] likes.”

Like a “fish in water” in the world of social media, Rodríguez was able to “mobilize thousands of followers who would be transformed into voters” for García, the newspaper said.

With slogans such as the oft-repeated “hay que tumbar la vieja política” (we have to tear down old politics) and a range of nimble social media strategies, Rodríguez, who has ample experience promoting countless products on social media, including her own makeup brand, effectively sold her husband to voters through her social media accounts.

She brought strangers into their home through social media, the couple danced virtually with followers and Rodríguez even made García the subject of good-natured ridicule in some of her posts, laughing and teasing her husband — the couple wed at the start of the coronavirus pandemic — and inviting her large legion of followers to follow suit.

Rodríguez’s posts also likely distracted some voters from a federal investigation into García for allegedly receiving resources of illicit origin and using them for electoral gain.

Mariana Rodriguez — Mariana Rodríguez is known as an online influencer who has promoted her own makeup brand. YouTube

It is not the first time that an attractive woman has helped her husband obtain power — Angélica Rivera, a telenovela star, certainly played a role in broadening the appeal of her ex-husband, former president Enrique Peña Nieto, in the 2012 presidential election — but the way in which Rodríguez did it is revolutionary, at least in Mexico.

Through social media promotion, Rodríguez and García became an “irresistible product,” El País said — “so white, so rich and so authentic, even virtually.”

“… The Mariana formula to win elections has arrived in Mexico to transform traditional politics,” the newspaper said. “And everything points to the effective use of social media being a powerful weapon for those who manage to master it in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential elections.”

President López Obrador — who has 8.8 million followers on Facebook alone — could claim that he has mastered the medium, but the constitution bars him from seeking a second term.

While Rodríguez is undoubtedly the bigger, brighter social media star in the Nuevo León power couple, García’s online politicking had an impact as well.

“Yes, he’s an influencer. I follow him on Facebook, and that’s how I found out about his campaign,” Monterrey resident Fernando Gutiérrez told the Associated Press. “I like his platform, and what’s more, he opposes the traditional politicians who have governed here before.”

“I voted for Samuel because he’s young, and he has offered [public] safety,” Yesenia Aguilar, also of the Nuevo León capital, said. “I also wanted to send a message to the president — that I think he has done everything wrong, the way he handled the pandemic. I am not happy with him because of so many deaths, women’s killings, so much crime.”

Denise Dresser, a Mexican academic and political columnist, was less enthused about the governor-elect, his wife and their very 21st-century campaigning style.

“Now people are coming into politics who have an entertainment factor, those who dance and sing. It’s not just a Mexican phenomenon, it’s worldwide,” she said. “It is a degradation in which politics is becoming something else, a show.”

With reports by El País (sp) and the Associated Press (en)

Peña Nieto cabinet minister banned from holding public office for 10 years

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MND Staff

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June 9, 2021

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The federal government has banned former cabinet minister Luis Videgaray from holding public office for 10 years for failing to disclose all his assets when he was a member of the 2012–2018 administration led by ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto.

The Ministry of Public Administration (SFP) announced Tuesday that it had applied the maximum possible punishment against the former finance and foreign affairs minister for making incorrect asset declarations during three consecutive years between 2015 and 2017.

Videgaray, a highly influential member of the Peña Nieto government who also faces allegations of corruption, rejected the SFP’s finding and said he would challenge its decision “without litigating the matter in the media or on social networks.”

In a statement posted to Twitter, the former minister, now working as an academic in the United States, said the SFP considers him “administratively responsible” for omitting details about bank accounts in his 2015–2017 assets declarations.

“The ‘bank accounts’ to which the SFP refers are in fact credit cards, which didn’t have a debit balance at the reporting date for each declaration,” Videgaray said.

He added that he did in fact mention them, writing that the cards were not included in the liabilities section of his declarations because there was no debt on them but were included in the “observations and clarifications” section.

“The declarations are correct, and there was no intention to hide information about assets from the SFP,” Videgaray wrote.

“Finally, it’s important to highlight that in the letter through which I was notified of the resolution, the SFP itself expressly acknowledges that I didn’t obtain any benefit or profit derived from the supposed lack of veracity in the declarations,” he said.

“… It’s the duty of all Mexicans to support the fight against corruption led by President López Obrador. In my case, I will do it contesting the resolution institutionally, with full respect to the Ministry of Public Administration.”

The SFP countered Videgaray’s statement, asserting that the former minister had indeed failed to report bank accounts, in which it said there was money that the minister had an obligation to declare.

“The failure to report balances in accounts constitutes a serious administrative offense,” the government’s internal corruption watchdog said, adding that the decision to ban the former official from holding office had gone through an administrative process and didn’t amount to a “mere accusation.”

“We welcome the [legal] challenge announced, where we’ll defend the legality … of our penalty,” it said.

The SFP notified Videgaray of his sanction on May 11, but the decision was not made public at the time because Mexico was in the official campaign period leading up to Sunday’s elections, during which the government is obliged by electoral rules to refrain from acts that might be viewed as propaganda that favors the ruling party.

Videgaray is also under investigation for his possible involvement in a case in which the state oil company Pemex bought a fertilizer plant at an allegedly vastly inflated price during Peña Nieto’s government. He is also linked to a bribery case involving Pemex and Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht.

Videgaray last August rejected accusations made against him by former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya, who is awaiting trial on corruption charges.

The accusations are “false, absurd, inconsistent and reckless,” he said. “Lozoya’s accusations are invented lies to try to get out of the consequences of his own actions.”

With reports from Reuters (en) and Milenio (sp)

I wouldn’t vote for AMLO again, but I can’t blame those who would

By

Sarah DeVries

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June 9, 2021

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AMLO with supporters in El Fuerte, Sinaloa in 2019.

As I was scrolling through the New York Times last night, I found an editorial by Mexican economist and sociologist Jorge Zepeda Patterson titled, “Despite it all López Obrador has my vote.”

Obviously, I had to read it. While Mexico’s president is someone I would have voted for all three times (when he ran for president in 2006, 2012 and won in 2018), though not a fourth, his behavior since becoming president is something that’s had me completely bewildered more than a few times.

But Zepeda made a great point: there are essentially “two Mexicos,” and the side that AMLO has made it clear that he’s on — despite the fact that many of the “have-nots” are not actually currently being helped by him — makes up a significantly larger population. Numerous social programs plus rhetoric aimed at reminding the underprivileged that he’s on their side maintain the popularity of both the man and the party that he leads.

The “two Mexicos” Zepeda referenced made me think back to the several years I spent teaching at an American high school in the city of Querétaro. It was my first exposure to “the other Mexico,” as before then, I’d only really hung around with what could best be described as middle-class Mexicans.

The campus itself was beautiful and well-kept, the students well-dressed and mostly light-skinned. It was regarded as one of the top schools in the state, and teachers were recruited both nationally and internationally to ensure the students’ consistent exposure to both languages.

This was my first exposure in Mexico — ever, really — to kids who had grown up having everything they needed and wanted. Most were the children of the city’s elites: business owners and politicians. Tuition for just one child was quite a bit more than would be affordable under Mexico’s minimum wage, and all the students’ families had servants employed in their homes.

Many students there also had their own (new) car as soon as they turned 16, and a few had bodyguards waiting for them right outside the school parking lot to escort them home. Some of them were “poor” by comparison to their more extremely wealthy classmates: maybe they drove an older car or went on less-elaborate vacations.

I was certainly poor compared to even the poorest ones — and I was not poor (not for Mexico, anyway).

The year I started teaching, 2006, was the year that López Obrador ran for president against Felipe Calderón. Those of you who were here, or who followed the news during that time, will remember that AMLO set up his “legitimate government” in Mexico City’s zócalo for several months, insisting that he had actually won the presidential election.

My students were mad about it. They weren’t so mad about the ideological issues but rather about the increased traffic problems from the ongoing protest that they encountered on their regular trips to Mexico City.

While there were a few sympathetic students (“To what length would you go if you believed that I had unfairly failed you and the administration refused to do anything about it,” I asked them), most made clear that they were not happy with the situation. Still, they were teenagers, a group in any social class not known for thinking of the greater good over their own convenience.

I taught mostly social science classes, so social class and stratification were topics we discussed quite a bit. To my surprise, many students told me that they considered themselves “middle class” when asked.

They were young, of course, and I suppose that if you were just basing it off American TV, then maybe they could see themselves living like some of those upper-middle-class families popular in sitcoms who are somehow always magically rich. They’d squint in puzzlement at charts that showed them to be in the top 5% richest families in Mexico.

Though the students were, for the most part, polite, intelligent and very decent people, teaching there was hard for me. In addition to realizing that I was simply too sensitive to be a teacher in the first place (one kid saying “this is boring” could ruin my day and send me home in tears), it was hard to see a kid who was rude and disrespectful in class and could barely write his own name drive up to school in a Jaguar day after day.

If that was rough for me, what might it have been like for the janitorial staff, the guards, the food service workers — who all got up extra early to catch the bus for their long shifts at the school?

It’s no surprise to me that AMLO and his party have become, and stayed, so popular as the distance between the types of incomes my students’ families were used to and those that the workers who served them earned have expanded even more in recent years.

And the president constantly saying things like “No, we’re not going to help them; they don’t need any help, they’re the exploiters!” has yet to get old for most of his followers. While AMLO’s appeal isn’t just about “sticking it” to the rich guys, I do think that’s part of it.

The president speaks to the disconnect between the economic expectations and the realities of the majority of Mexicans.

Do you easily pay a 300-peso cover to go into a bar and then run an open tab — or do you know exactly the price of a kilo of tomatoes, of rice and of tortillas because every peso counts? For most Mexicans, the latter is the reality, and those are “his people.”

So whether the increasing number of poor are prospering under AMLO or not is almost irrelevant. The coronavirus has caused many formerly lower-middle-class Mexicans to fall downward into their ranks, but that is not part of the divisive conversation — you know, the one that the president controls via his “good vs. bad” rosters presented in his mañaneras (morning press conferences) every day.

For those struggling, it must just feel good to have someone say, “I’m not on the side of the people that you have to watch win over and over and over again; I’m on your side.”

So, while Morena lost its supermajority in Congress, which would have allowed López Obrador to change the constitution without consulting the opposition (thank goodness), the party’s popularity on the more local level has increased. Morena’s candidates won the majority of governorships up for grabs this election.

“The other Mexico” can certainly continue to ignore the plight of the increasing number of those left behind as inequality grows here, but unless they offer an alternative, they will do so at their own peril.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com and her Patreon page.

UNAM ranked No. 2 in Latin America, 105th worldwide

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MND Staff

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June 9, 2021

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The National Autonomous University in Mexico City.

Academics consider the Autonomous University of México (UNAM) to be the best university in Latin America, giving it a score of 94.6% on the QS World University Rankings. On the final multivariate list it held its place as the second best institution in the region.

Employers also gave UNAM a positive review, putting it in the world’s top 50 with a 93.2% score.

The final list placed the Mexico City university as the 105th best globally; a five place drop after entering the top 100 last year.

The second-highest Mexican university to rank was the private university Tec de Monterrey, at 161st; the fifth highest in Latin America.

In total, 24 Mexican universities appear on the rankings. In Latin America only Brazil has a greater number of universities within the ranking.

QS’s list ranks the top universities in the world based on criteria such as academic reputation, reputation among employers, citations from research papers, the professor-student ratio and the ratios of international students and professors.

Ben Sowter, director of research at QS, confirmed UNAM’s strong reputation. “The latest edition of QS World University Rankings shows us that UNAM is comfortably among the Latin American elite. In an increasingly competitive graduate labor market, employers who respond to our surveys continue to express their confidence in UNAM graduates, while the global academic community rates them increasingly highly,” he said.

Sowter also offered a recommendation to move Mexican academic institutions further up the ranking. “Once again, we continue to see that Mexican performance is hampered by low scores on research impact … data from our research partners … suggest[s] a strong correlation between international collaboration and the impact … it is essential that Mexican political institutions find ways to intensify commitment to the global academic community,” he said.

Globally, the top placed university on the list was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which broke a record by coming first place for the 10th consecutive year. The University of Oxford climbed to second place for the first time since 2006, while Stanford University and University of Cambridge shared third place.

Regionally, the highest ranked university was the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Mexico News Daily

Finance minister and AMLO ally named to head Bank of México

By

Jude Webber

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June 9, 2021

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The president with Herrera, left, and Ramírez at the National Palace on Wednesday. office of the president

President López Obrador has named Rogelio Ramírez de la O, a consultant who lacks public-sector experience, as a replacement for Finance Minister Arturo Herrera, who is being moved to run the country’s central bank.

Flanked by the two officials, López Obrador in a video on Wednesday hailed Ramírez as a “master of the economy . . . experienced, serious.”

Ramírez, 72, is director-general of Ecanal, a private Mexican consultancy, and holds a doctorate from Cambridge. He is a longtime ally of the president and had been earmarked to become finance minister if López Obrador had won elections in 2006 and 2012.

He had, however, turned down invitations to take the portfolio after López Obrador became president in 2018.

The peso eased fractionally after the announcement. Mexico’s financial markets have been buoyed this week following midterm elections on Sunday, in which López Obrador failed to hold on to his two-thirds majority in the lower house of Congress, denying him the ability to change the constitution at will.

Some analysts were sceptical of the choice. “He has literally zero practical experience,” said Eduaro Suárez, vice-president for Latin America economics at Scotiabank.

Ramírez is not expected to oppose López Obrador’s economic vision, especially in energy, where he favours state-run oil and utility companies over private investment.

The president reiterated there would be no change to his priorities: no debt, tax or energy price increases, and “the poor come first.”

That meant “he’s going to have to continue juggling,” said Gabriela Siller, head of economic analysis at Banco Base. López Obrador has slashed spending to the bone and spent rainy-day savings to pour resources into pensions, scholarships and pet infrastructure projects.

However, Mexico’s economy is rebounding from Covid-19 and is expected to grow as much as 6.5% this year, after falling 8.5% in 2020.

“If he’s taking over 2 1/2 years into the president’s administration, Rogelio must know the game plan for public spending very well,” said Alonso Cervera, chief economist for Latin America at Credit Suisse. “He will very likely enable the president’s ideas regarding the energy sector.”

He said Ramírez was likely to draw up the budget, which must be presented by September. Also pending is a tax reform which top government sources said would not contain wealth or inheritance taxes.

Alejandro Díaz de León, current central bank governor, is scheduled to leave his post in December. López Obrador said he had announced his replacement now to avoid market jitters.

If confirmed by the Senate, Herrera — who counts former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke among key influences — would complete a line-up of non-Banxico insiders on the central bank board. López Obrador had stressed the need for a “moral economist” at the helm.

Herrera is well-known to investors, but his closeness to the president makes his ability to uphold the central bank’s autonomy less clear.

Díaz de León mounted a stern defence last year when legislators had pushed a bill that would have forced the central bank to absorb dollars that banks were unable to repatriate.

“I think Herrera has proven to be prudent, and has earned markets’ trust,” Suárez said. But he added: “He will have to work hard to signal strong independence from the government.”

AMLO dissects election results; considers PRI support for achieving legislative agenda

By

MND Staff

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June 9, 2021

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Mexico President López Obrador — President López Obrador suggested that Morena might approach Institutional Revolutionary Party legislators in pursuit of a supermajority in Congress.

A new, highly pragmatic yet unlikely political pact appears to be brewing in Mexico.

In remarks that indicate he is prepared to dance with those he regards as one of the devils of Mexican politics, President López Obrador on Tuesday floated the possibility that the ruling Morena party, which he founded, could forge an alliance with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Mexico’s once omnipotent party whose name became a byword for corruption.

López Obrador, who says he is in the process of transforming Mexico and curing it of ills that have plagued it for decades, is talking up the possibility of striking a deal with the PRI — a party he has blamed for all manner of problems in Mexico — so that Morena can reach a supermajority in the Congress. The move would allow him to enact constitutional changes, among which, critics say, could even be a bid to extend his rule beyond the single-term limit of six years.

“With Morena, the Labor Party and part of the Green Party, not all [deputies], there is a majority of 50% plus one, what I call a simple majority,” said AMLO, as the president is best known, referring to the results of Sunday’s congressional elections, which showed that the ruling party and its allies would maintain its majority in the Chamber of Deputies but lose the two-thirds control it currently enjoys.

“If you wanted to have a supermajority, which is two-thirds, an agreement could be reached with some of the PRI legislators or those of any other party, … not many are needed for constitutional reform,” the president told reporters at his morning news conference.

PRI head Alejandro Moreno — PRI leader Alejandro Moreno said his party has its own agenda but that it was willing to “sit down to talk with the president,” about some kind of alliance.

But it takes two to tango, and surely the PRI wouldn’t enter into an uneasy alliance with the party that unceremoniously stripped it of power in 2018 and blames it frequently for Mexico’s persistent problems, such as corruption, insecurity and economic inequality.

But it’s apparently not as simple as that.

The national leader of the PRI, which entered into a coalition with the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) to contest the June 6 elections in many districts and states, indicated that the party is at least willing to discuss the president’s proposition.

“An opposition bloc was built in order to have a joint agenda. [But] that doesn’t set aside the fact that the PRI has its own agenda and will sit down to talk with the president,” PRI leader Alejandro Moreno said Tuesday, adding that he wouldn’t allow himself to be influenced in such discussions by the federal government’s persecution of his party.

However, not all priístas, as PRI politicians, members and supporters are known, were as open as Moreno to the party discussing a pact with Morena.

“The dialogue [with the president and Morena] must be with the opposition front, not with him [Moreno] nor with the PRI,” said Coahuila Governor Miguel Riquelme.

Any talks aimed at reaching a supermajority in Congress must be governed by the national interest, not the interest of the 4T (the fourth transformation), the governor said, referring to the federal government by its self-anointed nickname.

In addition to musing about how his government could reach a coveted supermajority, AMLO has used this week’s morning press conferences to talk up Morena’s election performance and offer an assessment as to why it didn’t fare better, especially in Mexico City, where the party lost considerable ground.

The president declared Monday that he was “happy, happy, happy” with the results of the lower house election, asserting that they favor the ongoing “transformation of Mexico,” even though the number of seats held by the Morena-led coalition in the Chamber of Deputies will fall from 334 to below 300.

The opposition parties couldn’t wrest control of the lower house despite warning Mexicans that “either we leave [the government] without the chamber or it will leave us without a country,” AMLO boasted. “Well, they couldn’t [do it]. And there is a country for everyone, and a preference for the poor,” he said.

The president also emphasized that with a simple majority in Congress, his government wouldn’t have any problem getting its annual budget approved.

Although his remarks suggest otherwise, López Obrador has, at best, muted cause for celebration vis-à-vis the federal election results, given that the ruling party lost both its own majority and the supermajority it shares with its allies.

meme comparing Soviet-era Berlin to Mexico City — One of many post-election internet memes comparing a now politically divided Mexico City to Soviet-era Berlin, with the phrase “Wall of Pejín” a play on AMLO’s nickname, “El Peje” and the Berlin Wall. Twitter

Nevertheless, Morena clearly demonstrated that it remains Mexico’s most potent political force, winning almost double the vote of its clearest rival, the PAN, in the federal poll and triumphing in 10 or 11 of the 15 state gubernatorial elections, a result that will allow it to govern about half of Mexico’s states.

The party, however, lost its tight grip on the capital, winning only six or seven of the 16 boroughs, at least four fewer than it currently governs.

López Obrador identified negative media coverage of the government and a tragic subway accident that claimed the lives of 26 people last month as among the reasons why Morena didn’t fare better in the capital.

“… We have to take into account that here [in Mexico City] there is more media bombardment; here is where the dirty war is felt more. Here is where you can read that magazine from the United Kingdom, The Economist,” he said Monday.

The Economist published an editorial late last month that was highly critical of the president and urged Mexicans to vote against Morena.

“Everything is here [in Mexico City]. I’ve always said you put the radio on, and it’s against, against, against, against [the government]. You change the station and it’s the same. So, it bewilders and confuses [people]. It’s propaganda, day and night, against [us],” López Obrador said, characterizing the media’s coverage of politics as “perverse, biased, slanderous and toxic.”

On Tuesday, the president said that some Mexico City residents punished Morena for the subway crash, which occurred on a new line that was mainly built when Marcelo Ebrard, the federal foreign minister, was mayor, and appeared to be caused by structural faults in an overpass.

The people most affected by the accident, such as residents of the southeastern boroughs of Iztapalapa and Tláhuac, which are served by Line 12, didn’t vote in large numbers against Morena, but those in more affluent parts of the city did, López Obrador said.

“The most affected people, those in Iztapalapa and Tláhuac — humble, hard-working, good people — understand that these things unfortunately happen, and it doesn’t have a political, electoral impact … [in those boroughs]; However, in the middle class, upper-middle-class neighborhoods, it does,” AMLO said.

Indeed, Morena won most of Mexico City’s poorer boroughs, many of which are located on the capital’s eastern side, while the PAN-PRI-PRD coalition took the more affluent ones, situated on the western side.

That result spawned countless memes, including maps that showed a West Berlin/East Berlin type scenario in which Mexico City was split down the middle with residents in eastern boroughs living in the “communist” east controlled by Morena and those in western boroughs residing in the “capitalist” west governed by the PAN-PRI-PRD alliance.

With reports from El País (sp), Milenio (sp) and Reforma (sp)

Rescue workers continue search for 3 missing miners in Coahuila

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MND Staff

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June 9, 2021

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Bodies of trapped miners are removed from the mine in Múzquiz.

Three miners are still missing after an accident Friday at a Coahuila coal mine, where 150 people are involved in the search.

The bodies of four miners have been recovered since the accident, which followed heavy rainfall at the Micarán mine in Múzquiz. All four drowned in the flooded mine.

Landslides blocking access to part of the mine have so far jeopardized efforts to reach the final three.

Most of the water has been extracted from the mine, but the rescue workers have been impeded by mud and rocks blocking their path.

Some of those involved in the operation said they are still a long distance from the part of the mine where the missing miners are believed to be located. The small-scale mine is about 800 meters long and 100 meters deep; a deep and narrow open coal pit with steep sides, according to the Associated Press.

Governor Miguel Ángel Riquelme confirmed the unlikelihood of finding survivors on Sunday. “Oxygen is an issue due to the time that has already passed,” he said.

Coahuila Attorney General Gerardo Márquez said the miners are probably in the most flooded part where one of the walls is also damaged.

He added that an investigation into the accident would be conducted by the federal Attorney General.

Rescue experts, technicians from the mining company, public safety officers and National Guard sniffer dogs are all involved in the rescue effort.

With reports from El Universal

Avocado exports soared 26% in first 4 months

By

MND Staff

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June 9, 2021

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Avocado exports rocketed 26.1% in the first four months of the year in annual terms, totalling 565,000 tonnes and bringing in about US $1.25 billion.

The increase has been attributed to a 15.1% reduction in the export price. The price also fell by 20% in the domestic market.

Last year, 1.36 million tonnes were sold and a 1.5% increase is predicted for 2021.

The avocado has radically grown to become a major Mexican export. In 1999 only 41,118 tonnes of avocado went abroad.

The land used to cultivate avocados is also on the increase, going from 187,000 hectares in 2019 to 190,000 in 2020. The fruit is is largely grown by small scale producers, 64% of whom cultivate it on an area of less than 10 hectares.

Mexico exports avocados to 34 countries; principally to the United States, but also to Japan, France, Honduras and China.

The industry generates 400,000 jobs in Mexico.

With reports from Reforma

New volcano in Michoacán? Scientists watchful as micro-quakes increase in number

By

MND Staff

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June 9, 2021

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Paricutín volcano erupting 1943 — The last major volcano in the area being monitored by UNAM researchers was Paricutín, seen here erupting in 1943.

For the second time in less than two years, scientists are considering the possibility that increased seismic activity in Michoacán could be the precursor to the birth of a new volcano.

There were 236 low magnitude micro-earthquakes and six tremors of a magnitude above 4 in the area surrounding Uruapan between May 1 and June 8. There were also more than 300 micro-quakes in the same area in the first four months of the year.

Carlos Valdés González, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics at the National Autonomous University (UNAM) and a former National Disaster Prevention Center chief, said it’s essential to monitor such earthquake swarms — the name for sequences of similar magnitude seismic events occurring in a local area in a relatively short period of time — because they could indeed foretell the creation of a new volcano.

He told the newspaper Milenio that for a volcanic eruption to occur and for a new volcano to form, there must be seismic activity.

“… Mexico is a volcanically active country, especially in that region [near Uruapan], where there are more than 1,200 small volcanoes in the so-called Michoacán-Guanajuato volcanic field,” Valdés said.

Uruapan, site of a possible volcano birth.

The researcher recalled that the Paricutín volcano, located about 50 kilometers northwest of Uruapan, suddenly emerged in 1943 following a series of earthquakes.

A team of experts carried out studies early last year after more than 3,000 low magnitude earthquakes were recorded in January and February, but it was ultimately determined that the increased seismic activity would not lead to the birth of a new volcano. Scientists concluded that most of the magma movements detected were horizontal rather than vertical and for that reason, the molten material would not ascend to the surface.

The question that researchers are entertaining is if the earthquake swarms being observed more recently mean that anything has changed.

Valdés and two other UNAM researchers have said that there is no current conclusive evidence that a new volcano will appear, but all emphasized the need for ongoing scientific monitoring and advised people in the area to follow all recommendations issued by Civil Protection authorities in order to ensure their safety.

Denis Xavier Francois Legrand, another UNAM researcher, told Milenio that while an earthquake swarm is an important pre-condition for the formation of a new volcano, it is not the only one. Among the others are a deformation in the Earth’s crust that allows a volcano to pierce through from below and the upward, rather than sideways, movement of magma. When Institute of Geophysics researchers investigated the earthquake swarm last year, they noted that such deformations were minimal.

“We assume that these [earthquake] swarms are associated with the movement of magma, but it doesn’t always reach the surface. These swarms [also] occurred in 1997, 1999 and 2006, but magma didn’t reach the surface [of the Earth]. Perhaps the same thing is happening now, but it’s very important to keep monitoring [the magma movements],” Francois told a virtual press conference Tuesday.

Luis Antonio Domínguez Ramírez, a Morelia-based UNAM seismologist, said that people who live in the area where the micro-quakes have been occurring should be alert to any gas odors that could indicate the forthcoming appearance of a volcano.

“The emission of gases is to some extent easy to detect due to the smell of sulfur as well as hydrothermal manifestations and impacts on vegetation, which dries out when it … [is exposed to] higher temperatures than usual from the soil,” he said.

With reports from Milenio (sp)