Texas freeze heats up López Obrador’s energy self-sufficiency plans

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February 26, 2021

cfe and pemex — AMLO's instruments of energy self-sufficiency.

Crazy as it sounds, the Texas freeze — which earlier this month stopped gas exports to Mexico, shutting off power to 4 million consumers and bringing car factories and manufacturing plants to a halt — was manna from heaven for President López Obrador’s nationalistic energy ambitions.

Because Mexico imports 65% of its petrol and 86% of its natural gas from the U.S., López Obrador was able to use the days-long supply shock to illustrate the perils of over-reliance on a foreign supplier and provide it as proof that Mexico needed to be self-sufficient in energy.

As is often the case with López Obrador, it was the right diagnosis but the wrong remedy.

“Unfortunately, he’s doubled down on his diagnosis as a result of Texas. He thinks in electricity, as in oil, Mexico should be self-sufficient and has resources and that by changing the structure of the market, he’s trying to secure that,” said Graham Stock, emerging markets sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management.

This week, legislators heeded the president’s call not to change a comma of a sweeping electricity reform bill that would dramatically alter the electricity market in favour of state utility CFE. The bill still has to pass the Senate in the coming month, but the market expects approval will be a done deal.

Self-sufficiency in natural gas? Not without fracking, says analyst.

If so, out goes the principle of dispatch into the national grid based on cost, and in comes priority for CFE.

Under current rules, renewable energy is dispatched first. The law would promote CFE’s hydropower plants to the front of the queue, followed by all of CFE’s thermal generation (including coal and fuel oil) followed only then by renewables and finally by all other private generation.

Julio Valle, spokesman for the Mexican Association of Wind Power, said the average cost last year for generation contracted under wind auctions, which López Obrador has halted, was 650 pesos/MWh (US $32/MWh) compared with $69/MWh on average for CFE.

Ana Laura Magaloni, a lawyer and one-time Supreme Court judge candidate, said the bill was “blatantly unconstitutional” since it echoed parts of a previous initiative that the Supreme Court struck down this month.

If passed by the Senate, it is certain to trigger injunctions and constitutional challenges.

However, López Obrador has made clear he will not give up on an issue he considers central to his vision of Mexico — even if it does face legal challenges. Meanwhile, analysts say it would deal the biggest blow yet to investor confidence in the government.

It would also put Mexico on a collision course with Joe Biden’s clean energy plans. The U.S. has long complained of Mexico’s attempts to change the rules in the electricity market.

For all its trouble, will López Obrador’s plan ease Mexico’s dependence on Texas? No, said Stock.

Mexico has vast shale gas reserves but López Obrador has ruled out fracking and “without fracking, there’s no gas,” Stock said. Ironically, the Mexican president’s plans overlook one peril of self-sufficiency, he added: “Texas’ problem was that it wasn’t connected to the U.S. grid.”

Monarch butterfly numbers down 26%; climate change, logging blamed

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MND Staff

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February 26, 2021

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Illegal logging and climate change contributed to a 26% reduction in the number of monarch butterflies overwintering in Mexico in 2020-2021, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (Conanp).

Monarchs, which migrate to Mexican annually from Canada and the United States, covered an area of 2.1 hectares in the pine and fir forests of México state and Michoacán in December, a reduction of 0.73 hectares compared to the same month of 2020.

Conanp regional director Gloria Tavera Alonso told a press conference Thursday that nine butterfly colonies were identified – seven in México state and two in Michoacán. That’s a reduction of two compared to last winter when Conanp counted 11 colonies.

WWF México said in a statement that joint studies it carried out with Conanp and the National Autonomous University found that almost 20.3 hectares of forest in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve were cleared between March 2019 and March 2020. The quantity of deforested land was four times higher than the previous year when five hectares of forest were cleared.

WWF México director Jorge Rickards said the main cause of deforestation in the reserve was illegal logging. The most affected areas were the Cresencio Morales ejido (cooperative) in Michoacán, the area surrounding the community of San Felipe de los Alzati in the same state and indigenous-owned land in the municipality of Nicolás Romero, México state.

Wind and drought were also cited as factors in the degradation of forests.

The WWF statement also said that climate change had a “considerable impact” on the monarch butterfly’s migration process.

“During the spring and summer of 2020 the climatic variations in the south of the United States were not favorable to the flowering of milkweed and the development of eggs and larvae. This limited the reproduction of the population of monarchs, with an impact on the migrant generation, which caused a reduction in the population of this insect in all of North America and as a consequence lower occupation in Mexican forests during their hibernation,” the organization said.

Rickards called on authorities in Mexico, the United States and Canada to work together to seek solutions to the problems monarch butterflies face. He said the insect itself is not at risk of extinction but its migration process is under threat.

Two years ago, monarch butterflies clustered in pine and fir trees covering 6.05 hectares, almost triple the area they covered this year, and in the late 1990s they spread across areas as great as 19 hectares.

However, the area covered by the black and gold-winged insects declined 53% last year and an additional 26% this year. The reduction compared to the winter of 2018-2019 is 65%.

Source: Infobae (sp)

At least 8 dead, 2 missing after community attempts to repel armed attack

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MND Staff

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February 26, 2021

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Soldiers arrived in Hacienda de Dolores after residents issued pleas for help.

At least eight men were killed and two women were abducted during clashes on Thursday between residents of a Tierra Caliente municipality in Guerrero and members of a criminal gang.

A resident of Hacienda de Dolores, a community in the municipality of Coyuca de Catalán, told the newspaper Reforma via the messaging service WhatsApp that townsfolk repelled an armed attack by a cell of the Familia Michoacana drug cartel and killed five of its members.

During the incursion, cartel members kidnapped two women who were still missing on Thursday afternoon, he said.

The resident told Reforma that there were other confrontations on a local highway and in the mountains and that Familia Michoacana members killed at least three men.

The bodies of the slain cartel members remained in the streets of Hacienda de Dolores late on Thursday, Reforma reported. Residents have requested that state and federal security forces be deployed to the town to ward off a return by the attackers.

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An official from Los Guajes de Ayala, another small town in Coyuca de Catalán, said the Familia Michoacana wants to seize control of local communities because they want to log forests in the area. Javier Hernández said residents of Los Guajes had prevented an attempted incursion into their town and he has been calling for state and federal security support since last Sunday.

Women from the community of El Pescado posted a video to social media on Thursday in which they pleaded for government help in the face of a potential armed attack.

“We’re children and women here, … [the gang] took control of Hacienda de Dolores, kidnapped women and they’re threatening us that there will be gunshots today, tomorrow, every day,” one woman said.

She said that the approximately 40 men who live in the community had deployed to its outskirts to protect it from a possible attack. “We’re very afraid and we hope you help us,” the woman said.

After her appeal, soldiers arrived in El Pescado in an army helicopter on Thursday afternoon, Reforma reported.

Guerrero Governor Héctor Astudillo met virtually with state and federal security officials on Friday and said on Twitter that a joint strategy to attend to the problems in communities adjoining Michoacán – Coyuca de Catalán borders that state – had been established.

The Tierra Caliente region of Guerrero is notorious for opium poppy production, drug trafficking and cartel-related violence.

Source: Reforma (sp)

US urges Mexico to heed private sector concerns over electricity market overhaul

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MND Staff

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February 26, 2021

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Secretary of State Blinken, Economy Minister Clouthier and Foreign Minister Ebrard have virtual meetings scheduled for Friday.

The United States has urged Mexico to listen to the concerns of the private sector with regard to the proposed overhaul of the electricity market to favor the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) over private companies, many of which have invested in renewable energy.

During a call with reporters on Thursday to outline United States Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s “virtual travel” to Mexico and Canada on Friday, acting assistant secretary Julie J. Chung of the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs was asked whether she expected Blinken to address the proposed changes.

“Yeah, there are a whole host of issues related to USMCA implementation that’s ongoing,” Chung responded.

“In terms of the electricity and energy issues, that’s another area that we’ll be discussing in the medium term and long term because there are many aspects that we’re hearing from the private sector about their concerns. But this is where we encourage Mexico to listen to the stakeholders, to listen to the private sector companies and really provide that culture, the atmosphere of free investment and transparency so that companies will continue to invest in Mexico.”

Several analysts said this week that the proposed reform to the Electricity Industry Law would scare off foreign and domestic investment in the energy sector, especially renewables. The United States Chamber of Commerce warned earlier this month that the bill, which passed the lower house of Congress on Tuesday, contravenes Mexico’s commitments under the USMCA.

The electricity bill appears set to be one of several issues to be examined during bilateral talks on Friday.

Chung indicated that there will be a broad range of topics up for discussion at separate virtual meetings Blinken will attend with Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier.

After “traveling” virtually to the border crossing between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Blinken will speak with Ebrard, Chung said, adding that it will be the third time the two men have spoken since the new United States government took office in January.

“They’re expected to speak about continued collaboration on shared concerns such as migration issues, including the winding down of the MPP, the migration protection protocols,” she said, referring to the the United States policy introduced by the Trump administration that forces migrants to remain in Mexico as they await the outcome of their asylum claims in the U.S.

Chung said that Binken and Ebrard are also expected to discuss “Covid-19 security, regional economic competitiveness, climate change, and other issues of mutual interest.”

She said that the secretary of state and Clouthier “are expected to discuss various economic topics, including how to strengthen even further our deep and dynamic trade and investment relationship.”

The State Department said in a statement that the United States and Mexico “enjoy a strong partnership, and this trip reinforces the importance of that relationship under the Biden administration.”

It said the bilateral trade relationship, shared security challenges, regional migration, climate change, and other issues of mutual interest will be on the agenda at Blinken’s meetings.

But the statement made it clear that the United States’ relationship with Canada is the closer one.

It observed that the United States and Canada are “neighbors, friends, and allies” but didn’t refer to Mexico in such glowing terms. Blinken will also meet virtually with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau but President López Obrador, who has a clear preference for domestic issues over international ones, will not be involved in Friday’s talks.

The Mexican president did, however, weigh in on the electricity bill issue on Friday, calling on the United States to respect Mexico’s energy sovereignty.

“They believe that we should act in a certain way, that’s OK because freedom has to be guaranteed not just in one country but as a universal principle. But we must respect each other in … the management of electricity policy,” López Obrador told reporters at his regular news conference.

He emphasized that Mexico is a free and sovereign nation and doesn’t get involved in the affairs of other countries. Mexico follows a policy of non-intervention in order to avoid foreign countries meddling in its affairs, López Obrador said.

In a letter sent to Biden in December, the president issued what could be construed as a subtle warning to the United States.

“We are certain that with you as president of the United States it will be possible to continue applying the basic principles of foreign policy established in our constitution, especially that of non-intervention and [the right] to people’s self-determination,” López Obrador wrote.

Miguel Ángel Mateo, partner at the international law firm Hogan Lovells, predicted that Friday’s meetings won’t have any bearing on the Senate’s vote on the electricity bill – the ruling Morena party leads a coalition with a majority in the upper house – but they will provide a forum for the United States to air its grievances.

He told the newspaper El Financiero that investors who will be affected by the expected approval of the bill will take legal action in an attempt to nullify or blunt its effect.

“The investors who feel affected by the law will seek injunctions and suspensions,” Mateo said.

Jeremy Martin, energy vice president at the Institute of the Americas, said the United States’ appeal to Mexico to listen to private sector concerns marks the beginning of a difficult bilateral relationship with regard to commercial issues.

“In my opinion, it is dangerous terrain in terms of commercial relations,” he said. The approval of the electricity reform will have serious consequences for private energy firms, Martin added

“There will be damage to the energy sector and private companies, … as a reference we only have to look at the cost of canceling the [previous government’s] airport,” he said, apparently referring to a retracted Federal Auditor’s Office finding that scrapping the partially built facility will cost more than three times what the government said it would.

Meanwhile, the rating agency Moody’s has warned that the CFE’s credit rating could be downgraded due to investment uncertainty and other impacts related to the expected approval of the electricity market reform.

Roxana Muñoz, assistant vice president-analyst at Moody’s, noted that the utility’s current rating, and Mexico’s sovereign rating, is Baa1, the agency’s third lowest investment grade rating.

“There is a probability that CFE’s rating will go down in the next 12 to 18 months,” she said.

Among the challenges the state-owned company faces, Muñoz said, are a lack of storage capacity for natural gas and other energy-generation sources, a lack of diversity in power generation sources and a lack of investment in the electricity grid that hinders the incorporation of renewables.

The analyst also noted that the CFE’s operating costs have increased 4%.

“While this can be compensated through [electricity] rates or with increases to the subsidy the CFE receives from the federal government, these mechanisms are not immediate so the CFE will have to finance this increase by depleting its capital,… which could have a negative credit impact,” Muñoz said.

However, she expressed doubt that the company will be able to find the resources to fund its increased operational costs.

“We believe that the company’s own resources are insufficient for the additional funding as the same levels of private investment are not expected given the uncertainty in the sector…” Muñoz said.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Reforma (sp)

Music and dancing turn vaccination into a lively affair in Mexico City

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MND Staff

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February 25, 2021

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Health promotion workers get the crowd warmed up during vaccinations in Iztacalco. — Health promotion workers got the crowd warmed up during vaccinations in Iztacalco.

Seniors lining up to get vaccinated against Covid-19 in Mexico City on Thursday morning shook off the cold with a spot of dancing to tunes such as disco classic I Will Survive.

Health promotion workers stationed outside a vaccination center in the borough of Iztacalco got the festivities started by encouraging those waiting for a Sputnik V shot to cut a rug in the street as music played over a sound system.

One of the workers even belted out a few songs over karaoke backing tracks to entertain the seniors, some of whom had begun lining up on Wednesday night.

Some hummed or singed along to the music as they danced, the newspaper Reforma reported.

With tears in his eyes, 67-year-old Juan Mario Cárdenas told Reforma that he has lost friends to Covid-19 and that getting vaccinated was a matter of life and death for him.

He is one of almost 200,000 people in the Mexico City boroughs of Iztacalco, Xochimilco and Tláhuac who are expected to receive a first shot of the Sputnik V vaccine by the end of next week.

Inoculation with the Russian vaccine began in the capital – the country’s coronavirus epicenter – on Wednesday 1 1/2 weeks after the first AstraZeneca shots were given to people aged 60 and over in the boroughs of Milpa Alta, Cuajimalpa and Magdalena Contreras.

About 1.9 million vaccine doses had been administered in Mexico as of Wednesday night, mainly to health workers and seniors. The government expects to receive more than 100 million doses from several companies by the end of May.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Travel YouTuber looks off the beaten path for his Mexican adventures

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David Webb

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February 25, 2021

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Blake Wilkinson came to Mexico to visit Guadalajara and never left.

The idea of “a little bird that goes from place to place” inspired video creator and world traveler Blake Wilkinson to name his Mexican YouTube channel Colibri Travel, after the Spanish word for hummingbird.

“It’s a bird that is only found in the Americas, and given that I’ve traveled so much of North, Central and South America, I thought it was appropriate,” Wilkinson said.

A Texas native and temporary Mexican resident, Wilkinson arrived in Guadalajara two years ago from Portland, Oregon, where he met many residents who maintain winter homes in Mexico to escape the cold weather. The YouTuber is currently in Mérida, where he is staying with his dog Binks in an Airbnb until he moves on to his next shooting location.

Mexico was not his first venture outside of the U.S. At 39, the videographer has visited 39 countries and has lived in three. His love of travel began at age 13 when he went to England on a school trip, and then when his aunt, who travels frequently, started taking him along with her.

“It’s that somewhere over the rainbow thing,” he said. “It’s always looking for that magical place over the horizon.”

Wilkinson hasn't made a fortune with his YouTube channel, Colibri Travel, but he's “not in it for the money” or fame. — Wilkinson hasn’t made a fortune with his YouTube channel, Colibri Travel, but he’s “not in it for the money” or fame.

Mexico was a predictable choice because he speaks Spanish after having lived in Spain for more than two years teaching English as a second language after he graduated from De Paul University in Chicago with a degree in anthropology.

He originally thought he was going to spend winters in Mexico and summers in the northwestern United States. However, he eventually realized that life full-time across the border suited him even better.

“I had heard about Guadalajara, and I wanted to see it,” he said. “I thought it would be a cool place.”

After a year in Mexico, he started making videos with his GoPro sport camera in January 2020, venturing about Guadalajara and nearby towns. He focused on the area’s everyday life — the streets, mercados and celebrations.

By the end of the year, his YouTube channel had more than 3,000 viewers and had produced 75 videos about Mexico and its culture.

“I thought I had something to contribute with travel and travel in general, especially for Mexico,” he said. “I know how to travel, and I travel well.”

Wilkinson supports himself with online work in the stock market when he is not recording and editing videos or playing the piano to relax. He has earned only a three-digit income for his last year of work, but he is “not in it for the money” or any sort of fame, he said.

His viewers support him through Patreon, an online fundraising platform for artists and other creators.

“If you enjoyed it all please contribute a coffee to me,” he tells people at the conclusion of his videos.

Many of Wilkinson’s videos are aimed at those who want to make the same choice he did — to live in Mexico. In one, he interviewed his immigration lawyer, who explained how U.S. residents can obtain temporary and permanent resident status here. In another, he gave a tour of his apartment and a glimpse of the neighborhood he was staying in. Still another outlined reasons why foreigners should move to Mexico.

“I had a good time while I was [in Guadalajara],” Wilkinson said. “It’s fun to have fun with the camera.”

When he started visiting other locales, he shot videos where he went, places like Guachimontones, Tapalpa, Cascado el Salto del Nogal, Puerto Vallarta and Zapotlanejo. He also made several videos discussing the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico.

His favorite spots to make videos are random and off-the-beaten tourist paths. In Puerto Vallarta, he took viewers on a hike in the jungle above the beach and in remote neighborhoods rather than through the many shops, bars and restaurants catering to tourists.

A favorite theme is his search for the best tamales in each city.

Although Wilkinson says that for most of the first year of his YouTube channel he revealed nothing about himself, he is now opening up more.

“I can be myself in the world wherever I may be,” he said. “I’m not ashamed of having a foreign accent when I speak Spanish.”

At the start of 2021, after visiting his family in Dallas for the holidays, Wilkinson realized he’d tired of Guadalajara and decided to go “on the open road to enjoy total freedom.” He documented driving his Jeep from Guadalajara to Pachuca on the first leg of his trip to Mérida.

“No plans to go back to Guadalajara, no plans not to go back,” he said. “The plans now are just to travel and explore Mexico.”

He plans to visit Oaxaca and other places as he finds them, he said. And in addition to covering all the ground he can in Mexico, he will most likely visit Nicaragua or Honduras, the only two countries he has not seen in Central America.

He will turn 40 in August, he said, referring to it as the “oh my God” age.

“I’m trying to keep up with my age,” he said. “I need another country before my birthday, or I will be indebted.”

Currently, his family has some concern about his wandering around Mexico alone because of the reports of violence in the country, he said, but they are supportive of his project. Nevertheless, he is careful, seldom washing his Jeep to make it less attractive to thieves.

“They haven’t said much about it,” Wilkinson said of his family’s concerns. “They probably think it’s just me and what I do.”

His long-range goals are “pretty open,” but they no doubt will involve more travel, he said.

“The journey continues,” Wilkinson said. “That’s how I like to have it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

David Webb is freelance journalist based in Texas.

Details of December’s massive power outage to be kept secret for 2 years

By

MND Staff

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February 25, 2021

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Despite President López Obrador promising that his government won’t suppress public information, the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will keep details of a massive blackout in December under wraps for two years.

In response to a freedom of information request by the newspaper El Universal for access to a public version of the file on the December 28 power outage that affected some 10.3 million customers, the CFE refused to release it.

The utility justified keeping the file under wraps until February 2023 on the grounds that a final ruling about the causes of the blackout has not yet been made. Making the file public now would be to hand over details that are not yet official, the CFE said.

The company also said that releasing the file could have an impact on process to determine the causes of the outage and cause social unrest.

“Providing the information or documentation that is sought would imply providing details and information that is still in a period of deliberation,” the CFE told El Universal.

The applicant for the file – the newspaper – could publish its contents and by doing so “generate a social movement or revolt that places both order and social safety at risk,” it said.

In addition, the CFE said that disseminating information that doesn’t constitute final, definitive findings could affect potential investment in the company and cause people to lose confidence in it. The supply of electricity could be affected as a result, it said.

The CFE’s refusal to release details about the blackout comes just over a week after Mexico suffered another major outage due to an interruption to the natural gas supply caused by freezing weather in Texas.

The cause of the December blackout was less clear, with the CFE variously blaming the shutdown of 16 power stations due to transmission line irregularities, a high concentration of renewable energy in the electricity system, court rulings and a wildfire in Tamaulipas.

Although there was apparently a fire in Tamaulipas, that explanation lost credibility after it came to light that the CFE had falsified a document supposedly issued by Civil Protection authorities in the northern state.

Civil Protection authorities in Tamaulipas said they had no knowledge of a fire or the “official statement” exhibited by the CFE. State Civil Protection director Pedro Granados Ramírez declared that the document was false, explaining that the logo it bore was not that of his office, the folio number did not coincide with those in use and the signature was not that of the official named.

The CFE later admitted to the forgery but CFE chief Manuel Bartlett dismissed the issue as a minor one.

“There was a fire, that’s proven,” Bartlett said January 5. “… The [false] document is not the explanation of the [electricity] system failure,” he said.

Almost two months later, the exact cause of the blackout remains unclear and the general public looks set to be kept in the dark for another two years.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Southern Mixtecs find challenges and successes in the northwest

By

Leigh Thelmadatter

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February 25, 2021

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Distributing blankets for the frigid winter nights in Baja California. — Distributing blankets for the frigid Baja California winter nights. Asociación de Mediadores Bilingües Interculturales

The arrival of Europeans decimated the already sparse native population of the Baja Peninsula, yet today the area is home to tens of thousands of people classified by Mexico’s census as indigenous.

Their numbers here did not come from the repopulation of local tribes but rather the voluntary migration of Mexican indigenous people, attracted by the region’s industrialized farms and border factories, as well as the lure of crossing into the United States.

The largest of these groups is the Mixtecs, who have a significant presence in various parts of the Baja peninsula. According to Mexico’s 2020 census, Mixtec speakers account for 21,239 out of 49,130 indigenous language speakers in Baja California and 2,907 out of 12,581 in Baja Calfornia Sur.

The Mixtec homeland (La Mixteca) is located over a large portion of the state of Oaxaca, extending into parts of Guerrero and Puebla. These people are the third-largest indigenous ethnicity in Mexico, but La Mixteca is extremely poor, with rugged terrain and sporadic rain making even subsistence agriculture precarious.

Mixtec modern history is marked by migration, both cyclical and permanent, starting in the fields of Oaxaca and Chiapas in the 1920s and Mexico City by the 1940s. They continued north and west, attracted by farm work on both sides of the border, leading to a nomadic lifestyle.

An altar opens a meeting of the Association of Intercultural Bilingual Mediators. Asociación de Mediadores Bilingües Interculturales.

“It’s like a spinning carousel,” Eleuterio Suárez of the Oaxaca Binational Indigenous Front in Tijuana said. “One season you are in Culiacán, the next in Mexicali, another in the States and yet another in San Quintín. [Then] you can start all over again, depending on where there is work.”

Massive migration began in the 1970s, and today it is estimated that 90,000 Mixtecs work fields in northwestern Mexico during the high season. Counting migratory farm populations by locality is difficult at best. According to Martina Rojas of Radio XEQIN in San Quintín, the population varies greatly, with local authorities estimating as many as 22,000 indigenous people just in San Quintín during the high season, enough of an audience for the radio station to broadcast programming in Mixtec and other languages.

At the end of the 1950s, some Mixtecs began settling in border cities such as Tijuana and Mexicali, either unable to cross the border or coming to work in factories. Exact numbers are not available, but it is estimated that about 25,000 ethnic Mixtecs live in these cities today. Those that arrive in urban environments generally work selling on the street but can also be found in construction or gardening. For younger generations with access to education, factory work and professions become possible.

About 15,000–20,000 Mixtecs and other southern indigenous peoples migrate yearly to the northwest, using networking systems that have been developed over decades. These families can now have up to four generations living in the Baja Peninsula.

Suárez’s family story is typical. His parents migrated north from Silacayoapan, Oaxaca, in the 1960s, moving up the Pacific coast into Sonora, where he was born. The family moved around between Sonora and Baja California, especially on the Pacific coast after his father’s failed attempt to cross into the United States. The family’s second attempt succeeded, and one of his brothers was born in the U.S.

Today, the Suárez family has branches on both sides of the border, especially Tijuana and Southern California. Suárez worked the fields like his parents, but his children have had access to education. One son has served in the U.S. military.

Dolls made by a cooperative of Mixtec women living in Ensenada at the Expo de los Pueblos Indígenos in Mexico City. Alejandro Linares Garcia

In Baja California today, most Mixtecs are found in the municipalities of Ensenada, Tijuana and Mexicali, especially in the San Quintín Valley, the town of Maneadero (in Ensenada) and Colonia Obrera (in Tijuana), where they can account for 80% or more of the population. In Baja California Sur, the largest communities are in Vizcaíno and La Paz.

Living in the north means a shift in identity. Confronted with a vastly different, and often discriminatory, social environment, the Mixtecs have actively banded together to defend their rights and obtain social services, with some pushing for a “pan-Mixtec” identity. Binationality figures into northern Mixtec identity as most have family members “on the other side,” but Mixtecs are still strongly tied socially to their southern hometowns, most migrating to where family and neighbors went.

For example, in the tiny community of Camalú, one-quarter of 9,000 residents are Mixtec, all from Juxtlahuaca, San Juan Mixtepec and San Juan Copala, according to Isabel Antonina de Jesús Ramón, the municipal delegate for the community. The patron saints for these communities are celebrated here, and multi-day bus trips back south are not uncommon.

Most Mixtecs experience a better life in the north, but as many as 25% live in extreme poverty here. There is still some discrimination, enough that many young people hide or deny their Mixtec heritage. Women can have it particularly tough. They can face abuse for wearing traditional clothes, stereotyped as poor street vendors with lazy husbands and lots of kids. Within their communities, according to Cristina Solano Díaz of the Ñuu Savi Gro Community of Settlers of Cañón Buena Vista, they confront the machismo brought from traditional life in the south.

However, over the decades, the Mixtecs have developed a measure of social and political clout in the north due to their numbers and their organizing. There are always challenges, Suárez says, but “things are very slowly getting better.”

Suárez also notes, “I am grateful to Baja California and its people because we have been able to live and work and get ahead … more than what we could have had in Oaxaca.”

Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 17 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture. She publishes a blog called Creative Hands of Mexico and her first book, Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta , was published last year. Her culture blog appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.

More than 100mn doses of vaccine expected by end of May; 1.9mn have been given

By

MND Staff

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February 25, 2021

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A dose of Covid vaccine is prepared at a vaccination center in Ecatepec, México state.

The federal government expects to receive more than 100 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines by the end of May, a senior health official said Wednesday.

Mexico has received about 2.5 million doses of four vaccines to date and administered 1.9 million as of Wednesday night, according to Health Ministry data.

Health Promotion chief Ricardo Cortés presented a graph at Wednesday night’s coronavirus press briefing that showed that 106.1 million vaccine doses are expected to arrive between February and May.

A total of 3.3 million doses are expected this month, 23.6 million are slated to arrive in March, 33.2 million in April and 46 million in May.

Mexico has already received shipments of Pfizer/BioNTech, Sputnik V and Sinovac vaccines as well as AstraZeneca/Oxford University shots manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

By the end of May, the government expects to have received 10.9 million doses from Pfizer, 24 million Sputnik shots, 10 million Sinovac doses and just over 2 million AstraZeneca shots from India.

It also expects to receive 41.4 million AstraZeneca doses to be manufactured in Argentina and 12.9 million doses of the single-shot CanSino Biologics vaccine. Those deliveries are slated to begin in March.

In addition, Mexico is to receive 4.8 million doses by the end of May via the intergovernmental Covax intiative, which aims to ensure rapid and equitable access to vaccines for all countries.

Cortés noted that there could be changes but expressed confidence that the companies will deliver the doses according to the agreed schedule.

He also presented data on Wednesday that showed that more than 1.1 million vaccine doses have been administered to health workers, almost 740,000 to seniors and about 17,000 to teachers.

Mexico is administering vaccines according to a five-stage national vaccination plan and is aiming to inoculate about 75% of the total adult population by the end of the year.

The vaccine delivery calendar for February through May.

Mexico has been hit harder than most countries by the pandemic, ranking third for Covid-19 deaths with 181,815 including 1,006 reported on Wednesday. It ranks 13th for total cases, according to Johns Hopkins University, with 2.06 million as of Wednesday, a figure considered a vast undercount due to the low testing rate here.

In other Covid news:

• Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro predicted that the state will switch to medium risk yellow on the updated federal government stoplight map to be published on Friday.

“For the first time … [since the introduction of the stoplight system], Jalisco is already yellow according to the evaluation that the federal government does,” Alfaro said on Tuesday.

Jalisco, currently high risk orange on the stoplight map, has “turned the corner” after going through an “extremely difficult” phase of the pandemic in January, the governor said. Alfaro said that restrictions in Jalisco will be eased if the federal government downgrades the risk level in the state as he predicted it will.

“We can’t continue thinking that people will stay at home. People have to work, people have to fight to get ahead with their families,” he said.

Jalisco has recorded just over 77,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to federal data, although the state government, which counts results from rapid tests and private labs, says that almost 220,000 people have tested positive.

More than 10,000 people have lost their lives to Covid-19 in the state but hospitalizations have recently trended downwards.

About 24% of general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are currently occupied while almost 31% of those with ventilators are in use. There are about 1,300 active cases in the state, according to federal Health Ministry estimates.

Alfaro attributed the recent improvement in the state’s coronavirus situation to a range of factors.

“It’s not just the government strategies, it’s [also] the discipline and commitment of citizens. It’s related to the weather as well, of course, the departure of the cold season …”

• México state is also close to switching to medium risk yellow from high risk orange, local authorities believe. Health Minister Gabriel O’Shea Cuevas said Wednesday that the occupancy rate for general care beds has declined to 51% while only 44% of beds with ventilators are occupied.

He described the reductions as a great achievement and noted that the occupancy rate for general care and critical care beds is among 10 indicators used by the federal government to determine the risk level in each of the country’s 32 states.

The health minister said that México state, which ranks second behind Mexico City for both accumulated cases and Covid-19 deaths and only switched from red to orange at the start of last week, could soon transition to yellow.

“If we continue with the distancing measures, the correct use of face masks and the washing of hands, we certainly could move to yellow in these coming weeks,” O’Shea said.

México state has recorded more than 214,000 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic and 20,819 Covid-19 deaths. There are currently an estimated 5,004 active cases in the state, Mexico’s most populous.

• The government of Puebla announced this week that most coronavirus restrictions currently in place will remain in effect until March 8. All nonessential businesses must continue to close on Sundays and Mondays, strict capacity limits remain in effect, the prohibition on alcohol sales between Friday and Sunday continues and public transit services cannot operate after 10:00 p.m.

One change to the restrictions is that restaurants can welcome back in-house diners but they mustn’t exceed 20% of their normal capacity. Another change is that churches and other places of worship can now hold services with a 30% capacity limit.

Puebla, currently high risk orange on the stoplight map, has recorded almost 70,000 coronavirus cases and 8,632 Covid-19 deaths. New case numbers and deaths are trending downward but slowly. Puebla city, which has recorded more than 44,000 cases, ranks fifth for case numbers among Mexico’s more than 2,400 municipalities.

The only municipalities with higher case numbers are Iztapalapa, Álvaro Obregón, Gustavo A. Madero and Tlalpan, all of which are located in Mexico City, the country’s coronavirus epicenter.

Source: Forbes México (sp), Expansión Política (sp), El Financiero (sp), Milenio (sp)

Amazon to build new distribution center in México state

By

Michelle Aguilar

-

February 25, 2021

0

The existing center in Tepotzotlán covers more than 100,000 square meters.

Amazon plans to expand its operations in Mexico with a new distribution center in Tepotzotlán, México state.

“The expansion of Amazon reflects our commitment to Mexico and our obsession with improving the buying experience of customers at all times,” said Diego Méndez de la Luz, Amazon’s director of operations in Mexico.

This will be the second Amazon distribution center in the México state city. The first, currently Amazon’s largest such center in the country, began operations in May 2018 and employs over 1,500 people.

The announcement is a continuation of the rapid expansion that the online retail giant began announcing in Mexico throughout the last half of 2020, spending US $100 million in extending its logistics reach outside of the Mexico City/México state area. Late last year, Amazon announced it would open centers in Umán, Yucatán; Apodaca, Nuevo León; and Tlajomulco, Jalisco.

Amazon opened its online retail store in Mexico in 2015.

Its main online retail competitor in Mexico, Mercado Libre, has also been expanding. In December, it revealed that it had spent US $50.5 million on a new fleet of four cargo planes operating out of the Querétaro international airport to speed up deliveries.

In September Walmart spent 140 million pesos to open its first logistics center in the country in Mérida, Yucatán.

The new distribution center in México state will also mean more local jobs, Amazon said, ranging from floor positions to a variety of administrative jobs. It did not specify how many jobs the new location would provide.

Nevertheless, México state Governor Alfredo Del Mazo Maza said the center will help his state recover from the economic effects of the pandemic.

“Amazon has become one of the principal allies and a strategic partner in the economic recovery and the fulfillment of objectives that have been laid out by the current administration to improve the level of well-being of Mexican families,” he said.

Sources: El Financiero (sp), La Prensa (sp)