People who kept working essential jobs were more likely to catch Covid-19 due to close contact with the public and other workers, the study found.
Mexicans who had no option but to keep going out to work during the coronavirus pandemic died in much greater numbers than people who were able to work from home, a new study has found.
Conducted by public health researchers at the National Autonomous University (UNAM), the study found that 94% of the more than 200,000 people who lost their lives to Covid-19 in Mexico were manual and operational workers, housewives, retirees and pensioners.
Only 6% were professionals, executives and art and performance workers, the study said.
Among the large numbers of manual and operational workers who died after contracting Covid-19 were drivers, street vendors, medical personnel, agricultural workers and factory employees. People in such jobs — with the exception of healthcare — generally have lower levels of education than citizens who are able to work from home.
“There is no doubt that Covid-19 has greatly affected the population with lower levels of education; practically half the deaths occurred among people whose highest level of education was primary school,” said the UNAM study, written by Alejandro Cortés-Meda and Guadalupe Ponciano-Rodríguez.
The study said that people who continued to work at factories, farms and essential businesses and on public transit had a greater possibility of exposure to the coronavirus due to factors such as close contact with the public and other workers.
It also noted that it was impossible for such workers to work from home. Many are not entitled to sick leave and have poor access to healthcare, the study added. Those same workers often work long shifts in order to cover their expenses and are at high risk of spreading the coronavirus to members of their family.
The study also found that 92% of Covid-19 deaths occurred in public healthcare facilities during the first year of the pandemic. More than half — 52% — occurred in Mexican Social Security Institute hospitals, 32% occurred in facilities operated by the federal Health Ministry and 8% occurred in hospitals run by the State Workers Social Security Institute.
Only 2% of deaths occurred at private hospitals, the report said. Many other people whose deaths were attributed to Covid-19 died at home, often without ever being tested for the infectious disease.
As of Sunday, Mexico had officially recorded 221,647 Covid-19 fatalities, but the government has acknowledged that the real death toll is much higher. An analysis published earlier this month by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine showed that more than 617,000 people had died from Covid-19 in Mexico.
Electric vehicles need lithium for their batteries.
A decision by Mexico to search for advice from the Bolivian government on lithium extraction for reserves in Sonora has been ridiculed by lithium experts from the South America country.
Juan Carlos Zulueta, a consultant with 25 years with the metal, said Bolivia is the last place the Mexican government should look for expertise and pointed to nationalization as evidence of its misguided approach.
Despite boasting one of the world’s biggest lithium reserves — 20 million tonnes which are needed to satisfy growing battery demand from electric carmakers worldwide — Bolivia has yet to exploit its opportunity.
President López Obrador announced last week that Mexico has an agreement for consultation with the Bolivian government. “… we are going to have a diagnosis and a proposal soon. With the visit [last March] of the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, it was agreed that due to the experience they have in the exploitation of this mineral that they would help us to analyze what is the best way forward …” he said.
Zulueta said the technical challenge of extraction in the two countries is incompatible. “How can Bolivia advise Mexico on something that it has done so badly? It seems a total absurdity. Bolivia lacks experience: one thing is what is required in the Bolivian deposits in the Potosí salt flats and another is what is needed in the Mexican clays in Sonora,” he said.
“Exploiting lithium from clays is something absolutely new. How could Bolivia advise on such a complex matter on which it lacks expertise and it has been shown that everything it has done so far still does not work, with 10 years that have been wasted? The same could happen in Mexico,” he added.
Zulueta said the consultation had more to do with politics than business pragmatism. “Mexico should stay away from nationalist and populist adventures and anxieties … It is wasting time with this kind of nonsense of political cronyism …” he said.
Oscar Ballivian, a Bolivian engineer with more than 40 years of experience with lithium, also attested to the technical difference of extraction in Bolivia compared to Mexico. “It is strange to read that Bolivia is going to advise Mexico … It cannot technically … because Mexico’s clays are totally different from Bolivia’s brines,” he said.
He also laid out the numbers which prove Bolivia’s poor showing in extraction. “With an investment by the Bolivian government of about US $1 billion in 10 years, the accumulated production of lithium carbonate in that period is barely close to 500 tonnes, which becomes only 100 tonnes of metal for batteries and electric cars,” he said.
Ballivian’s advice was to focus on the production chain rather than the raw mineral. “Lithium is good business when you participate in the entire chain, from production with raw materials to batteries and electric cars. They move billions of dollars … Production alone is simply a business inferior to silver, gold and other minerals. It moves very little: the business is in the chain,” he said.
Zulueta said Bolivia’s advice to Mexico should be clear: “don’t nationalize … don’t make the mistake of exploiting lithium on its own.”
Paola Delfín's mural "Juntos" (Together), painted on a building in the Paulino Navarro neighborhood of Mexico City. Photos by Matt Reichel
It is 4:30 p.m., and the scene in the neighborhood of Tlatelolco, Mexico City, is vibrant and chaotic. Endless traffic lines the streets. Honks and sirens fill the air as locals bustle about, running daily errands.
Overlooking this disarray 20 stories up is a striking, vivid and lifelike portrait of two women surrounded by cornfields and magnificent, long-tailed quetzals. Their facial expressions, posture and stances evoke power, resilience and strength as they stare off into the distance.
About halfway up, right in the middle of the portrait, stands their creator, filling in the remaining strokes and shades of their color and essence. She does this fearlessly from a lift in mid-air, stroking paint and filling in gaps even as the wind shakes the lift a bit violently.
Paola Delfín is not afraid of heights, having worked on multiple large-scale pieces throughout her career as a renowned large-scale muralist and visual artist. She’s on a mission to complete the first of 17 murals for a project run by Colectivo ADN, an art collective in Mexico City.
The project looks at resurrecting the history of the archaeological site Tlatelolco as one of the largest markets in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán. It also sends an environmental message: all the artists are working with an ecological paint, Airlite, which actively purifies the surrounding air.
Artist and muralist Paola Delfín.
“It’s like you are planting trees at the same time as painting,” says Delfín.
Born in Mexico City, Delfín has been drawing and painting from a young age, when she could already see the potential of art as a form of communication.
“It’s always been easier for me to express myself through my work, through painting,” she explains.
She mostly worked on small illustrations and paintings during her early years, but nine years ago, she transitioned into muralism. She found using large wall spaces to be a perfect way to express herself.
“I try to push myself to really look at magical moments in my work because that’s why I do this in public. My work in the studio is different; I am just thinking about myself.”
In Mexico, murals have been used traditionally to spread visual messages to the illiterate population, allowing for greater community inclusion and cohesiveness. These messages promoted cultural identity, history and sometimes political or socially driven messages.
Delfín’s work draws on these same messages, focusing on unity and community. She believes broadly in the idea of using art, specifically large-scale public murals, to spark conversations and create reflection within her audience about their environment. Every one of her pieces looks over its respective neighborhood with a sense of protectiveness.
“My works talks about the connection between people, land, nature and their roots,” she says. Building cultural identity and protecting the environment are two themes she believes are essential to Mexican heritage but are sometimes forgotten.
At home, her urban murals communicate, express and create awareness and reflection for some of Mexico’s most challenging issues: loss of identity, poverty and the femicide crisis. She has designed art symbolic of Mexico’s feminist movement, specifically around the strength and power of women to build community.
Her murals also look at mechanisms that human beings can use to better humanity, such as empathy and bonding. She paints people primarily, so she has developed an innate ability to observe them and capture differences in thinking. Her murals can be seen in Latin America, Europe, Asia and North America.
Her largest piece so far, Shelter, covers a 40-meter-high building in Kiev, Ukraine. This piece was part of a wide-scale international project — Art United Us — which brought 200 muralists from around the world to work on messages of hope against war, aggression and violence.
Delfín finds knowledge and discovery in travel.
“I have encountered different ways of looking at life and how people think in other countries. That’s been really powerful for me because I have learned that there is way more than I can imagine in this world.”
In every country she visits, Delfín connects with locals who eventually become subjects or serve as inspiration for her pieces. She studies and talks to people from the area before painting.
“It is really important for me to make a proper story for each place I go to and paint. I have to connect with people because in the end, I am painting for them more than for me,” she says. “When I finish here, I might not come back for a while, but people are going to look at the painting every day.”
Through her public art, she hopes to reach a broad range of people, believing in making her work accessible without exclusiveness. She has joined efforts with other artists worldwide to educate youth on using art and painting to build community.
Delfín encourages the next generation to do things out of happiness and passion. “Break out of fear and find ways to do it,” she says.
Her earlier pieces explore inner and outer feminine beauty, strength and vulnerability, focusing on the female figure and facial features. She is shifting her work, however, toward inclusivity.
Delfín’s murals tend to be of figures whose stances evoke power, resilience and strength as they overlook the city streets.
“With time, I understood that I need to say things universally. I need to include everyone,” she says. “If I am talking about equality, it cannot just be about women.”
Delfín is a person who thrives on change and doesn’t like staying in the same area, mentally and physically.
“It’s scary, but I like to experiment,” she says.
She is continuously experimenting with different techniques and formats. Her work is mainly influenced by illustrations, organic shapes and a mix of unconventional materials. She credits her inspiration to artists such as Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington.
Recently, she’s made the move toward using monochrome to explore the absence of color, a shift in hue. She sees this change as “almost a kind of social experiment.” Painting with monochromatic tones has been interesting for her, to learn that “people are sometimes married to certain ideas of what murals should be, or what art should look like.”
The move away from color was influenced by her childhood work and the simple act of drawing in black-and-white pencil or charcoal for studio illustrations.
Delfín speaks openly about her challenges as an artist. “There’s this way of looking at artists that it is still not like a serious job,” she says.
She describes times when she has only been offered a beverage as payment. She wants the world to know that being a muralist is “a real job and a risky job” and that “it is not as easy as it looks.”
When she gets into a lift that climbs up a high building, she faces many challenges with wind, rain and heat.
She is otherwise grateful for her supporters — her family and friends, her artist networks and all the people she has worked with worldwide. She feels fortunate to have her work exposed for the world to see.
If people can understand what the message is about, [if they can] make their own conclusion about a painting, she feels grateful. In the meantime, she is learning to go with the flow.
“Sometimes projects just come from nothing, and they surprise you. So I am open to whatever happens next,” she says.
The immunity against Covid-19 provided by China’s single-shot CanSino vaccine — which has been used in Mexico to inoculate millions of seniors and teachers — declines significantly after six months, according to the results of a clinical trial.
People inoculated with the vaccine should therefore be given a booster shot, the study concluded.
According to a report by the newspaper El Universal, the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition, one of the Mexican institutions involved in the trial that began late last year, wrote to participants earlier this month to advise them that immunity against Covid-19 generated by the CanSino shot had been found to wane “significantly” after six months. It didn’t specify what it meant by significantly.
The CanSino vaccine had been found to be about 75% effective against the coronavirus and 100% effective against serious disease.
The medical institute’s email message to trial participants said they would be given a second CanSino dose if they had already received a first shot. Those who received a placebo will be given a first shot of the CanSino vaccine and a second shot six months later, the email said.
El Universal asked the federal Health Ministry what the study’s finding would mean for the government’s national vaccination program but the ministry didn’t respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.
As of Sunday night, Mexico had received 4.6 million doses of CanSino, a figure that accounts for about 14% of all shots delivered. The government last year signed an agreement to purchase 35 million doses of the shot, one of two Chinese-made vaccines that have been used in Mexico.
If the government follows the advice based on the findings of the clinical trial, all people who have already had a CanSino shot will have to get another one before the end of the year. The number of people who can be inoculated with the CanSino shots Mexico has agreed to buy would be halved from 35 million to 17.5.
The CanSino vaccine is not the only Covid-19 vaccine for which a booster shot is likely to be required. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said last month that people inoculated with that company’s product would likely need a third booster dose.
“A likely scenario is that there will be likely a need for a third dose, somewhere between six and 12 months and then from there, there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that needs to be confirmed. And again, the variants will play a key role,” he said April 1.
Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky told CNBC in February that annual vaccination against Covid-19 might be necessary, as is the case with the seasonal flu.
Mexico has received almost 33.5 million doses of five different vaccines, according to data presented at the Health Ministry’s Sunday night coronavirus press briefing. The government has received 13.4 million Pfizer shots, 6 million doses of AstraZeneca, 7 million SinoVac vaccines, 2.4 Sputnik V shots and 4.6 million doses of CanSino.
Just under 26.5 million of the doses, or about 80% of those received, had been administered by Sunday night.
Mexico’s coronavirus situation has improved significantly since the country went through its second and worst wave of the pandemic, which began late last year and extended into early 2021. Half of Mexico’s 32 states are now low-risk green on the federal stoplight map, 15 are medium risk yellow and just one — Quintana Roo — is high-risk orange.
Mexico’s accumulated case tally is currently 2.39 million, while the official Covid-19 death toll is 221,647, a figure considered a vast undercount.
A downgrade would prohibit Aeroméxico and Delta Airlines from selling seats on each other's flights via codesharing agreements.
The United States government will soon announce a downgrade to Mexico’s aviation safety rating, according to a report by Reuters.
Four airline industry sources with knowledge of the matter told the news agency that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is expected to announce the downgrade imminently following a lengthy review of aviation oversight in Mexico.
A demotion from category 1 to category 2 would prevent Mexican airlines from launching new services to the United States, according to the sources. Existing services would not be affected. A downgrade would also restrict airline-to-airline marketing practices such as selling seats on each other’s services via code-sharing arrangements between Mexican and U.S. carriers.
Carlos Ozores, an aviation consultant at the global advisory and digital services provider ICF, said the downgrade could also upset the United States expansion plans of Volaris, a growth-driven Mexican budget carrier.
Sources who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity said the FAA has spoken at length with aviation regulators in Mexico, which had not addressed all of its concerns following an in-country assessment. Mexican officials have been informed about the downgrade and raised concerns about the action, the sources said.
One source said that the FAA’s concerns were about Mexico’s oversight of airlines rather than safety issues.
But Reuters said the downgrade would mean that the FAA has determined that safety standards in Mexico don’t comply with those of the International Civil Aviation Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations. According to the FAA, a downgrade means that an aviation authority has shortcomings in areas such as technical expertise, trained personnel, record-keeping and inspection procedures.
President López Obrador said Monday that Mexico is complying with all the requirements, and hinted that U.S. airlines were behind the move. “… they are the ones who will benefit.”
He urged the U.S. not to go ahead with it. “We feel that this decision should not be made.”
The president also said Mexican airlines would not be affected “because they are mostly dedicated to transporting passengers domestically.”
The expected downgrade would come at a time when air travel between the United States and Mexico is recovering strongly from the pandemic-induced tourism downturn. Mexico was easily the most popular international destination for United States travelers in April, with almost 2.3 million passengers on U.S.-Mexico flights. The figure is more than triple the number of people on flights from the U.S. to the Dominican Republic, which was the second most popular international destination, according to industry data.
As a result of the downgrade, Delta Air Lines, which has a codeshare agreement with Aeroméxico and owns 49% of the airline, will have to issue new tickets to some passengers booked on Mexico’s flag carrier, sources told Reuters. Both airlines declined to comment.
It is unclear how many passengers might need new tickets, but there is potential for the number to be large. Delta and Aeroméxico, which have been codeshare partners since 2017, are offering a combined total of approximately 3,900 flights between the United States and Mexico and vice versa in June, according to the aviation analytics company Cirium.
The FAA previously downgraded Mexico’s air safety rating to category 2 in 2010 due to suspected deficiencies in its civil aviation authority. But its category 1 rating was reinstated just four months later.
The Mexican government said in 2010 that aviation safety had not deteriorated and attributed the rating downgrade to a shortage of flight inspectors.
Guadalajara is among the top destinations of choice during sales events.
An online shopping event is expected to drive an increase in travel bookings as hotels and holiday package vendors join airlines to offer knock down prices, with discounts of up to 60%.
The Hot Sale, which began on Sunday and ends on May 31, should provide a shot in the arm to the travel industry, which has been one of the worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Twenty-four percent of consumers who intend to buy something during the Hot Sale will look to buy a trip while 16% will reserve accommodation, according to a study by the Mexican Association of Online Sales (AMVO).
The promotional event began as a weekend sale in 2014, and has now grown to a whole week. It has been compared to Black Friday in the U.S. and the Mexican Buen Fin, the difference being that Hot Sale includes only online retailers.
Alejandro Calligaris of online booking company Despegar said travel reservations will increase between 50 and 80%, adding that consumer confidence in travel has grown. “There are more and more Mexican travelers who are determined to have a vacation in summer, or at the end of the year, so undoubtedly events like the Hot Sale allow them to plan and reserve their trip … all of this undoubtedly boosts tourism and helps to reactivate the sector,” he said.
Despegar says the most requested national destinations at sales events are Cancún, Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara and Tijuana, while New York, Las Vegas, Orlando, Los Angeles and Madrid top the list for international destinations.
Viva Aerobus director Juan Carlos Zuazua predicted a 20% rise in sales during the Hot Sale compared to its weekly average so far this year.
Volaris is offering up to 60% discounts for travel next year, opting for a long term strategy. “Lately we have seen an increase in the demand for travel and with strategies such as the Hot Sale we want to promote long-term trips,” a company representative said.
Aeroméxico plans to operate more than 12,500 flights in May, an increase of 11% against April. That means annual growth of 500% owing to an implosion in demand last year, amid pandemic travel restrictions.
A representative of the airline spoke confidently about its remodeled offering: “With the gradual recovery in operations, our clients have a greater offering to choose a trip, not only in terms of schedules and number of flights, but also in terms of destinations,” they said.
A Canadian National train in Jasper, Alberta. TamasV / Shutterstock.com
Railway company Canadian National (CN) agreed to a US $33.6-billion deal to take over Kansas City Southern (KCS) on Friday, which will connect ports between Mexico, the United States and Canada with 42,000 kilometers of track.
KCS transports freight from the ports of Tampico and Altamira in Tamaulipas, the port of Veracruz, and from the Pacific port of Lázaro Cárdenas in Michoacán. It takes automobiles and industrial products into the United States, and hauls farm goods to south of the border.
Clearance will be subject to a thumbs up by KCS shareholders and regulatory approval from the the Federal Economic Competition Commission and the Federal Telecommunications Institute in Mexico, and the Surface Transportation Board (STB) in the United States.
Another Canadian railroad, Canadian Pacific, had agreed to take over KCS in a $29-billion deal in March, only for rival CN to come in with an improved offer. In its sweetened proposal, CN agreed to add more stock and cover the $700-million breakup fee Kansas City Southern would owe Canadian Pacific for walking away from their existing agreement. If the deal fails to get approval from regulators, CN would also owe KCS a $1-billion reverse breakup fee.
Canadian Pacific’s deal had already received preliminary regulatory approval from the STB, but the regulator might be more cautious about giving CN the go ahead: the company is larger and has more overlap with KCS, which could put it at a disadvantage in winning antitrust approval. Railroad takeovers have to be in the public interest and enhance competition to gain approval.
Kansas City Southern and Canadian National’s combined network of tracks. el economista
Logistics and transport professor at the Tec de Monterrey university, Sergio García, said he expects Canadian Pacific will strike a deal with a different U.S. railroad. “I think that at this moment Canadian Pacific is looking for another alliance with another U.S. operator. We will probably see in the coming months the announcement of another unexpected merger because the conditions will require it. It’s one thing to compete with a company, and another to compete with a large company with a presence in three countries,” he said.
Canadian National CEO JJ Ruest said the deal would “meaningfully connect the continent,” while chairman Robert Pace said he was confident the deal would be given the green light. “KCS is the ideal partner for CN to connect the continent, helping to drive North American trade and economic prosperity. We are confident in our ability to gain the necessary regulatory approvals and complete the combination with KCS, and we look forward to combining with KCS to create new opportunities, more choice and a stronger company,” he said.
KCS CEO Patrick J. Ottensmeyer said the takeover will drive prices down for customers. “As North America’s most customer-focused transportation provider, we are excited about this combination with CN, which will provide customers access to new single-line transportation services at the best value for their transportation dollar, and increase competition,” he said.
CN is Canada’s largest railway company, spanning 32,831 kilometers of track. It gained control of the U.S. Illinois Central railroad in 1998, and Bill Gates is its biggest shareholder.
KCS is the smallest of the major freight railroads in the U.S, covering 10,800 kilometers of track in the U.S. and Mexico. Its routes cross through Mexico City, various cities of El Bajío and Monterrey, meeting the U.S. border at Texas, and it also runs a rail link along the Panama Canal.
Smokestack from an old silver smelter at the San Antonio Dam in Hidalgo. Noé Martínez
It is a spooky sight: a crumbling bell tower poking up from under the waters of a reservoir.
The ruins of underwater towns can be found in various parts of Mexico, sometimes partly visible year-round, sometimes only when water levels drop sufficiently. This year, the water in the reservoir in San Miguel Allende, Guanajuato, dropped enough that it was possible to walk up to the old parish church of Agustín González.
You might think that the destruction of centuries-old buildings would be rare in Mexico, but not so. Frantic dam-building began in the early 20th century, starting with La Boquilla in Chihuahua in 1910.
The pace peaked in the 1970s and 1980s, when 45% of Mexico’s dams were built. The drive behind them was the modernization of Mexico, demanding more agriculture, more electricity and more water for thirsty cities.
No solid, up-to-date data exists on the number, types or conditions of Mexico’s dams. The National Water Commission last put the number at 4,449 in 2008, but a 2019 study estimates there are 5,163.
Image of the town and people of San Luis de las Peras before it was flooded in 1943 for the Taxhimay Dam in México state.
Fifty of them control 80% of the country’s surface water. The most important are in the Balsas River basin, the northwest of the country, the Grijalva River basin and the Río Bravo (Rio Grande).
Dams and reservoirs have ecological and social costs, many of which are borne by people who do not see the benefits. In Mexico, these people have been disproportionately indigenous.
The main issue around these bodies of water is the forced displacement of entire communities, with the construction of reservoirs drowning homes, farmland and even historical and archaeological sites.
Some examples include El Temascal Dam, built in 1949, displacing 22,000 people in Oaxaca; El Infiernill in 1961 in Michoacán, which displaced 5,500; and La Angostura in 1972, which displaced 15,483 in Chiapas.
Dam building has since continued, although more slowly and with more attention to their creation’s effect on local populations.
The 1996 construction of the Luis Donaldo Colosio Dam in Sinaloa led to the Huites Declaration, a document outlining the grievances of indigenous people displaced by dam building. One of the most recent cases is the El Zapotillo Dam in northeastern Jalisco. It was halted in 2019 because of a lawsuit filed by towns slated to be flooded, although the federal government wants to revive it.
While the towns die underwater, they do not disappear. Where the ruins can be seen, they have become tourist attractions; locals with boats take people out to the sites.
The most notable submerged community is Quechula, home to a 16th-century church and monastery. It’s located in the Malpaso (also known as Nezahualcóyotl) Reservoir in Chiapas, one of the largest and most important reservoirs in Mexico.
Since the dam was built in 1966, the monastery has been seen only twice, once in 2002 and again in 2015. Despite its age and role in early evangelization efforts in the region, it was never declared a historical site.
México state has a number of waterlogged ghost towns. The best-known is San Luis de la Pera in the Taxhimay Reservoir. Since 1943, only the tower of the old parish church has been visible above the waters. The artificial lake is one reason why the area is now an important regional recreational area.
Near the popular weekend getaway of Valle de Bravo is the town of Santo Tomás de los Plátanos, under the Santa Bárbara Reservoir. It and the surrounding 145 hectares were declared a state ecological reserve in 1993.
In Guanajuato, the La Purísima Reservoir covers the ruins of Zangarro, a community flooded in 1979. Its church and other buildings can be seen only in times of severe drought.
The ruins of the 16th-century monastery of Quechula in the Malpaso Dam in Chiapas.
The old church remains standing, but it is not in good condition. For years after the church was flooded, there were stories of people diving and finding gold in the submerged ruins.
One of the most important reservoirs in Oaxaca is the Benito Juárez, built in 1961. At the height of the dry season, it is possible to see the old town of Jalapa del Marqués (or Yudxi in Zapotec). It is home to the ruins of an old Dominican monastery as well as a primary school and cemetery. How much is visible each year depends on the level of drought.
Michoacán is home to a structure called the “drowned church (iglesia hundida) of Churumuco.” The town of Churumuco was emptied and flooded with the construction of the El Infiernillo Dam in 1965.
The church was built in 1800 and is noted for being one of the places where Independence War hero José María Morelos y Pavón worked as a priest. Much of the building has collapsed, but what is left is visible for much of the year.
Most of the drowned towns are in the center and south of the country. That is because there are more and larger rivers there, as well as more and larger population centers. But there are also examples of underwater ghost towns in the north.
In Sonora, San Pedro de la Cueva was a town founded by Jesuit missionaries in 1614. It disappeared under the waters of the Plutarco Elías Calles dam in 1962. Today, the reservoir is a popular recreational area for hiking, camping and fishing.
In almost all cases, the flooded communities are small towns, with their parish churches being the main building of note. But other communities such as haciendas have been flooded as well.
San Antonio was one of three haciendas near Pachuca owned by silver magnate Pedro Romero de Terreros. The old hacienda house, chapel and smelting facilities were covered by water with only a smelter smokestack visible year-round.
A similar fate fell upon the El Palote Hacienda in León, Guanajuato. During droughts, it is possible to walk to the ruins of the old chapel and hacienda house.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
Candidate Abel Murrieta said he was serious about taking on crime. Hours later he was dead.
It was a sunny afternoon in Ciudad Obregón, a town in northwestern Mexico. Abel Murrieta, running for mayor of the municipality of Cajeme, where the town is located, stood on a busy intersection by a shopping centre, clutching leaflets to canvas for votes in June 6 elections.
A man in a gray shirt and jeans walked up, took out a gun and pumped 10 bullets into the former state attorney general, including two to his head, before crossing the street again and escaping in a waiting car as Murrieta lay on the pavement. Footage from official security cameras aired on television showed leaflets scattered and blood soaking his white shirt.
Murrieta was the 32nd candidate murdered in the run-up to election day, when Mexicans nationwide will elect 500 federal lawmakers, 15 state governors and thousands of mayors and local officials.
Since the election process began last September, 85 politicians have been murdered, including the 32 who had been running for office, according to Etellekt Consultores, which tracks campaign violence. That makes it the second bloodiest election on record, after the presidential vote in 2018.
According to Etellekt, most of the victims were candidates for mayor from parties in opposition to the incumbents in those states. Their deaths have laid bare the deep-rooted ties between organized crime groups and the local officials who protect them.
“If you confront them, you get harassed or killed,” said Rubén Salazar, Etellekt director. “This is Mexican democracy at the local level … No one can run for office without the permission of the mayor and the local crime boss.”
Murrieta appears to have been no exception. In a posthumously released election spot, he proclaimed he was “serious about taking on crime … I’m not afraid.” Hours later he had been shot dead, the apparent aggressor captured on an official street security camera in the state where López Obrador’s former security minister is running for governor.
The political murders have underlined the challenges facing President López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy against organized crime, his new militarized federal police force and his repeated promises to deliver peace in a country where violence has been soaring for 15 years and there are nearly 100 murders a day.
Violence, which has been spiraling since former president Felipe Calderón launched a catastrophic war on drugs in 2006, is Mexicans’ top electoral concern, dominating many races. A survey by El Financiero newspaper this month found two-thirds of people disagreed with López Obrador’s handling of the problem, with just 18% approving.
Since 2006, the number of homicides has more than tripled. The government claims it has now contained the rise, reporting a 4% drop in murders the first four months of this year compared with the same period last year.
But in April, there were 2,857 murders, 4% higher than in April 2020, as well as 77 femicides — the murder of women because of their gender — a 13% leap from the same month last year.
Homicides per month since 2015. financial times
Mexico’s murders hit an all-time high in 2019 with 34,682 homicides and 970 femicides. Last year was little better: 34,554 homicides and 977 femicides. So far this year, there have been 11,277 homicides and 318 femicides.
Ricardo Márquez Blas, a former security official, said that on a dozen occasions since López Obrador’s term began the number of homicides had surpassed 3,000 a month, including femicides, compared with just three in the previous 2012-2018 administration.
López Obrador, who took office in 2018, says he has taken a different tack by addressing the root causes of crime, offering young people jobs and scholarships instead of confronting cartels directly.
But critics say he, like past governments, has relied on the military instead of reforming state and local police forces in a country where officers earn around US $600 a month, and have to buy their own boots.
In a pointed criticism of Mexico’s strategy, former U.S. ambassador Christopher Landau said López Obrador had adopted a “pretty laissez-faire attitude” towards drug cartels despite estimates that they controlled “anywhere from 35 to 40% of the country.”
“He sees the cartels … as his Vietnam, which it has been for some of his predecessors, and so I think … he sees that as a distraction from focusing on his agenda,” he told an online seminar.
That recalled the “pax narca” — a tolerance for cartel activities provided they remained contained — that reigned while the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ruled Mexico in most of the 20th century.
“The president doesn’t want to take on El Narco,” said Salazar, using the Mexican term for drug cartels.
He said López Obrador, who is widely considered to be seeking to replicate the PRI’s centralized power, “doesn’t understand” that the old cohabitation had been shattered as new parties disrupt cosy criminal partnerships and spark new ones.
“The president doesn’t want to recognize that there’s a very big problem of narco politics in the country that is advancing with gigantic steps,” Salazar said, as politics and crime mix at the local level.
Analysts say the climate of polarization is further inflamed by the president’s daily news conferences, where he delivers a barrage of criticisms against his political opponents and electoral authorities that he claims are biased.
“With all this polarization, far from delivering on his promises of peace, he is giving us a more convulsed country,” said Gema Kloppe-Santamaría, an expert on crime and violence at Loyola University in Chicago.
“López Obrador has polarized this election to the point of virtually declaring war on electoral institutions. My big worry is that what we’re seeing now won’t stop after June 6,” she said.
Fly Business has tripled its flights to Texas, a state known for its bountiful vaccine supply and a place where foreigners can get the jab. The airline has increased its schedule from three to nine flights weekly.
“There are many people who have asked for flights to Texas specifically. We have provided these flights… because we want people to get vaccinated and we have also offered a discount,” said Fly Business president Elliot Ross in an interview with the newspaper Milenio. “The priority for businessmen is to get their families vaccinated. … in Mexico that is not so easy, and with a short, two-hour flight, people prefer to get the injection in Texas.”
He added that vaccine tourism currently accounts for 20% of the company’s flights.
Another airline, Aeromar, said its flights to Texas have 80% seat occupancy, a rate that is even higher than it was before the pandemic. Airline director Juan Rosello said that many of those clients are traveling to get their vaccine in Texas.
The Mexican Association of Travel Agencies (AMAV) has also seen a spike in business from vaccine tourism. In the past two weeks, it has sold 120,000 travel packages for Mexicans seeking to be vaccinated, Milenio reported.
At 20,000 pesos (US $1,000), the packages are not within the reach of every Mexican but for those who can afford it, it has proved to be an attractive option. The packages include flights, hotels, transportation and vaccine registration, mainly for destinations in Texas, Arizona or Miami, Florida.
