A government-owned power plant on the Pacific coast will soon generate electricity with fuel oil rather than coal even though the former contaminates more than the latter and generation costs will increase.
Electricity generation at the Plutarco Elías Calles plant in Petacalco, Guerrero, was suspended two weeks ago after the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) decided that it would no longer use imported coal to fire it.
The decision came after CFE chief Manuel Bartlett said on October 27 that the coal used at the plant, supplied by the Swiss company Glencore, is “imported and extremely expensive.”
The CFE now intends to fire the plant, located just south of Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, with surplus fuel oil produced by the state oil company Pemex during the oil refining process.
While purchasing the fuel from its petroleum sector counterpart will no doubt be cheaper for the CFE than buying imported coal, the cost of generating electricity with the former will be considerably higher.
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According to Energy Regulatory Commission data, generating one megawatt-hour of electricity at CFE plants with coal costs 1,678 pesos. But generating the same quantity of power with fuel oil costs 2,627 pesos, 56.5% more.
Another downside to using fuel oil is that it is a lot more contaminating than coal, which is hardly a poster child for environmentalism itself.
Energy sector expert Rosanety Barrios told the newspaper Reforma that getting fuel oil from Pemex refineries to the Petacalco plant will also be difficult, explaining that there is no established route between the facilities.
“This is a strategy to offload large quantities of fuel oil that Pemex generates … but almost no one in the world uses fuel oil to generate electricity,” she added.
Elie Villeda, another energy sector expert, said the situation at the Petacalco plant is “very concerning,” noting that it has been operating since 1993, already has high generation costs and is harmful to the environment.
Now the costs are set to increase further and the impact on the environment will potentially be greater.
Villeda suggested that the government should be looking to generate electricity in the region with other more environmentally-friendly sources.
Fishermen in La Unión de Isidoro Montes de Oca, the municipality where the plant is located, told Reforma that they are concerned about the contamination the use of fuel oil will generate.
Gilberto Barrera Reyes, representative of an umbrella group of fishing cooperatives, said that fuel oil leaked into the ocean from the Petacalco plant last Friday, causing a “pool” of contamination in a local bay.
“Coal and fuel oil are both contaminants but fuel oil contaminates a lot more,” he said.
Jesús Campos Albarrán, leader of the La Boba fishing cooperative, claimed that contamination from the power plant has caused dozens of cases of cancer over the past 27 years.
As of last year the plant produced 7% of Mexico’s electrical energy.
Activist Leydy Pech, leader of a coalition opposed to the use of genetically modified seeds, has been recognized for her work in stopping the agrochemical company Monsanto from growing genetically modified soybeans in seven states.
The head of Sin Transgénicos (Without Transgenics) has been awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for North America.
A beekeeper by trade, a Mayan by identity, Pech, 55, united farmers, beekeepers and nongovernmental organizations in a fight to get the government to revoke permits granted to the company in southern Mexico, saying its seeds were contaminating crops and the nation’s honey supplies with genetically modified material.
Mexico is the sixth-highest producer of honey worldwide.
The Goldman Prize, awarded by the Goldman Environmental Foundation, annually recognizes environmentalists from each of the world’s six inhabited continents, honoring environmental activism and leadership. Pech and this year’s other winners were honored on Monday in a virtual ceremony hosted by actress Sigourney Weaver.
“Even in the face of the unending onslaught and destruction upon our natural world, there are countless individuals and communities fighting every day to protect our planet. These are six of those environmental heroes, and they deserve the honor and recognition the prize offers them — for taking a stand, risking their lives and livelihoods, and inspiring us with real, lasting environmental progress,” said foundation president John Goldman.
Pech founded Sin Transgénicos after Monsanto began planting Roundup Ready GMO soybeans in her home state of Campeche. Mexico had given Monsanto permits to grow the GMO beans in Campeche, Yucatán — which produces 40% of Mexico’s honey — and five other states without consulting local communities, an omission that Sin Transgénicos successfully argued before the Supreme Court, claiming it violated the Constitution and Mexico’s obligations with the United Nations International Labour Organization.
In 2015 the court ruled in their favor. Two years later, in 2017, the government revoked Monsanto’s permits to grow the crops in all seven states.
Roundup Ready crops are controversial because they are genetically modified to withstand spraying with Roundup, a herbicide developed by Monsanto that contains glyphosate, identified as a probable carcinogen that has been linked to birth defects and miscarriages. The crops have also been shown to contaminate seeds of crops planted nearby with their genetic material.
The first 250,000 doses are expected to be delivered this month.
The federal government has struck a deal with the United States pharmaceutical company Pfizer to buy more than 34 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine, the first 250,000 of which are expected to arrive in Mexico this month.
The Health Ministry announced on Twitter that Health Minister Jorge Alcocer signed an agreement with Pfizer on Wednesday for the manufacture and supply of 34.4 million doses of the vaccine it developed with Germany’s BioNTech. The vaccine was 95% effective in phase 3 trials and caused no serious safety concerns, Pfizer said in November.
“The expectation is to receive 250,000 doses this month to protect Mexicans,” the Health Ministry said, adding that the inoculation of health workers will be a priority.
President López Obrador said earlier on Wednesday that the government had allocated 20 billion pesos (just under US $1 billion) for an initial purchase of Covid-19 vaccines, adding that Mexico has purchase agreements with companies other than Pfizer.
“The authorization process at [health regulator] Cofepris is being simplified,” he said.
Health Minister Jorge Alcocer signs agreement to purchase the coronavirus vaccine.
Mexico’s agreement with Pfizer comes the same day as regulators in the United Kingdom granted emergency authorization for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The rollout in the U.K, the first western nation to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, is scheduled to begin next week, with priority given to the elderly and their caregivers.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard acknowledged the U.K. approval in a Twitter post and said that Cofepris has already received an application for authorization here.
“The United Kingdom has authorized the vaccine developed by Pfizer. In Mexico the regulatory authority (Health Ministry-Cofepris) already has the corresponding application. What many people imagined was impossible is now a reality: vaccination is about to begin in December 2020,” he wrote.
Ebrard said last week that Pfizer would be responsible for transporting the vaccines – which have to be kept at -70 C – to the point at which they will be administered while the Health Ministry will be responsible for inoculation.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, the government’s coronavirus point man, said Tuesday that the military will assist in the vaccination process.
The vaccines ordered will be enough to inoculate 17.2 million people as each person must be given two shots 21 days apart. With only 250,000 doses expected to arrive this month, just 125,000 Mexicans – about 0.1% of the population – will be able to be vaccinated by the end of the year.
Nevertheless, the news that a vaccine is on the way is undoubtedly good news for Mexico, which has been hit harder by the pandemic than most other countries around the world.
The accumulated case tally rose to 1,122,362 on Tuesday with 8,819 new cases reported by the Health Ministry. The total is the 11th highest in the world, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
An additional 825 Covid-19 fatalities registered by health authorities lifted Mexico’s official pandemic death toll to 106,765, the fourth highest in the world after the United States, Brazil and India.
The case tally and death toll are widely believed to be much higher because Mexico has not tested widely for Covid-19.
This shopper was determined to get her purchase at the advertised price.
A Walmart customer trying to take advantage of a pricing error went to unusual extremes to make her case during last week’s Buen Fin shopping event: she chained herself to a scooter being advertised for 14 pesos, refusing to leave until the store in San Luis Potosí honored the price.
Although the annual sale event ended on November 20, the images of the woman chained inside the store next to the Italika brand bike recently went viral on social media.
The woman and six other customers had all tried to claim the scooter at the heavily discounted price, which was displayed in the store at 14.999 pesos instead of the intended 14,999 pesos. An agent of the consumer protection agency Profeco was called in to mediate the dispute and negotiated an agreement to honor the price only for the first customer who had tried to buy the bike. As a result, the unidentified woman chained herself to it.
To date, it is unknown whether the woman was successful in buying the vehicle at the discounted price or if she gave up her protest.
The Walmart Mexico and Elektra department store chains were highlighted in a November 23 report by Profeco in which agency chief Ricardo Sheffield said there had been a higher than usual number of consumer complaints about the two companies during this year’s Buen Fin.
Price of the scooter was advertised at 13.990 pesos.
However, Sheffield also said his agency received more complaints overall this year than last — 1,056, compared to last year’s 661.
The amount of money involved nearly doubled as well, from 4.2 billion pesos recouped for consumers this year versus last year’s figure of 2.3 billion. Televisions were the most common item at the center of Profeco disputes, Sheffield said.
“The chief reasons for the customer complaints were refusals by a business to sell to a customer or refusals to honor an advertised price,” he said.
The federal government is expected to receive a payout of about US $2.5 billion from its 2020 sovereign oil hedge, according to people with knowledge of the transaction who spoke to the Bloomberg news agency.
It will be just the fourth time in the past 20 years that Mexico gets a payout from the oil insurance policy it has taken out annually since the turn of the century.
The Mexican government protects its oil revenue by purchasing options contracts from a select group of investment banks and oil companies. The hedging program runs annually from December 1 to November 30 and the 2020 hedge expired Monday.
World oil prices plummeted earlier this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and associated economic restrictions, with Mexican crude selling well below the hedged price. Hence the lucrative estimated payout.
Bloomberg noted that the government hasn’t yet publicly announced the size of its hedge profit but said it released some financial data earlier in 2020 that make approximate calculations possible.
The government told lawmakers that via the oil hedge and a budget revenue stabilization fund, it had locked in a $49 per barrel price for 2020. That price was what it assumed in formulating the federal budget.
Only a couple of dollars of the insured price are normally covered by the stabilization fund, meaning that it is relatively safe to assume that Mexico has a massive $45-$47 per barrel hedging deal with a group of Wall Street banks and oil companies.
Based on such a deal, the government will receive a payout in excess of $2 billion. The people who told Bloomberg that they estimated a $2.5 billion payout spoke on the condition of anonymity because details about the hedging deal are not public.
While a payout of that size is significant – and much needed by the government amid the coronavirus-induced economic crisis that has caused tax revenue to fall – it could have been even bigger if oil prices didn’t recover as strongly as they have.
President López Obrador said in April that the government could receive a $6 billion payout if prices remained as low as they were then due to the pandemic. During that month, Mexican oil sold for just $12 per barrel on average. At one stage in April the price of Mexico’s export crude fell into negative territory for the first time ever due to extremely low demand among other factors.
However, the price recovered and a barrel of Mexican oil was trading above $40 last week.
Bloomberg reported that the government’s oil hedge has protected Mexico in every oil price downturn of the past 20 years. It received a $5.1-billion payout in 2009 after prices plummeted during the global financial crisis and it got $6.4 billion in 2015 and $2.7 billion in 2016 after Saudi Arabia waged a price war.
The government used to reveal details about its hedging arrangements but has kept the most sensitive data under wraps since 2018. The program is run by the Finance Ministry (SHCP) and executed by Mexico’s central bank.
Pemex, the state oil company, also hedges against the possibility of low petroleum prices but its program is dwarfed by that of the SHCP.
Demonstrators at a Mexico City march on International Women's Day.
Go to a virtual women’s conference, get masturbated to. I guess this is where we’re at now. Are we serious, Universe? Are the pandemic, the forest fires, the floods not enough?
Y’all, I am so tired of writing about this issue. I don’t want to anymore, and I’ve discovered the hard way that I can’t simply force people to believe that women truly deserve equality and respect. Besides that, my articles about women’s issues are total downers and don’t get read or shared by that many people anyway.
I’m an optimist at heart, my complaining is really just a plea: now that we know what’s wrong, can we please work to make it better?
I’m disappointed over and over again.
How many men, both in the public and private sphere, have we felt certain were on the side of justice and equality only to find out that they too harbored a not-so-well-hidden contempt for women as a group? How many times, women, have you felt that you’ve had a positive, polite interaction with men only to hear (or hear about) them snickering and making sexual jokes about you as you walk away? Not being taken seriously because of your gender is as tiring and depressing as it is humiliating.
I felt that deflation again last week after reading about the death of José Manuel Mireles. Here’s a guy who, by most counts, was a modern-day hero, organizing communities to retake control from the cartels. Wow! Then I get further down in the article and read about his derogatory public remarks toward women and accusations of domestic abuse from his first wife and children. Come on, man. What is it with all these ironically placed blind spots?
And what is it about women struggling to have their (literally) life-and-death issues taken seriously that triggers the contempt of some men to such a high degree? I’ve spent my adult life trying to figure it out and keep coming up empty. Are they incels (self-identified “involuntary celibates”) who are mad that they’re not getting laid as much as they think they should? Is it mommy issues? Are they feeling angry and neutered when they see women — whom they consider to be below them — even seeming like they might have more power? Or a more terrifying prospect: is it just a nearly worldwide cultural habit?
I’d love to say that this behavior is getting better, that newer generations are more self-aware with a higher sense of justice and a greater sense of what’s right. It’s a hope I’ve lived on for years, e.g. “my impossibly racist grandmother will die someday, and that will be one less racist in the world.” Nope. If there’s one thing that the Trump era has taught us, it’s this: the hate is reproducing. These persons’ ideas aren’t dying with them, they’re getting passed on.
So, what if the state leads? Will culture follow? So far, the state is most certainly not leading. While it sometimes manages collectively fantastic PR, the reality is that such campaigns have barely made a dent in the on-the-ground practices that affect everyday people.
One gruesome example: an acquaintance of mine used to have a job psychologically evaluating potential new hires for the local police department. My friend told me about plenty of recruits who would brag about committing petty crimes, rape, sometimes even murder. This person would vigorously and categorically recommend that such candidates not be hired. I’ll let you guess how many of them got hired anyway.
Okay, no need: all of them, of course. By the time these candidates got to that stage, they’d basically already been hired; the psychological evaluation was a simple formality. Can you imagine being Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs interviewing people who would pretty much be guaranteed never to land behind bars — and, indeed, hold positions of power?
Another acquaintance told me once of a woman married to a police officer who came home, fought with her in front of their three children, and put a gun to her head, in front of the kids, of course; I suppose this is how it’s passed on? The wife initially pressed charges against him but the next day was “convinced” to drop them. What a surprise.
The problem, of course, is not only with police: misogyny exists at all levels of society.
As Olga Sánchez Cordero noted, we have a “historic debt” to women in this country. Violence against women in Mexico has gone up by 9.2% since the pandemic began; I snorted a little at the headline when I read the article about this issue: “Not even Covid crisis has detained violence against women …”
“Not even”? Well, of course not. Now men who have always wanted to control the comings and goings of their female partners have a “valid” excuse; under the guise of concern, interest and protection, control and abuse are validated. Add to the mix a hopelessly Norman Rockwell version of families that President López Obrador seems to insist is our current reality and it becomes even more difficult to address the problem.
Much like this country’s labor laws, laws for gender equality in Mexico are generally excellent. It’s the lack of enforcement that leaves a gigantic chasm between intention and reality. What can we do?
I can already hear the arguments: “What about violence against men? We suffer it too…” Yes. Yes, you do. But while many women suffer because they’re women, men do not suffer because they’re men. There’s a special type of disdain reserved for girls and women, a special type of gender-based contempt.
Eight out of 10 women fear being harassed in the street, said Sánchez in her speech on the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women last week. Why do women have this fear? Because it happens all the time; and that’s actually one of the least serious examples of misogyny we face. Honestly, that’s nothing compared to the 32 girls a day aged 10–14 who become mothers.
I have a daughter. What will she face? My biggest fear is that by the time she’s visibly a woman, things will be worse, not better. Come on, people. We can do better than this.
Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com.
The president delivered a report Tuesday at the National Palace.
Things aren’t perfect but the foundations for the transformation of Mexico have been laid, President López Obrador declared Tuesday in a speech to mark his second anniversary in office.
Before a small audience of government officials and special guests in the central courtyard of the National Palace in Mexico City, López Obrador enumerated a laundry list of achievements since he was sworn in as president on December 1, 2018 but conceded that “not everything is perfect.”
In a 40-minute address that was strikingly similar in content and tone to his second annual report speech on September 1, the president admitted that homicides, femicides and extortion have all increased on his watch – although the incidence of most other crimes has decreased – and acknowledged that the coronavirus pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to the nation in both economic and health terms.
“When the novel coronavirus pandemic arrived in the country in March we, like almost all other countries, were forced to implement mitigation measures that paralyzed the economy,” López Obrador said, noting that GDP declined and unemployment increased in both the formal and informal sectors.
However, the economy is growing again and more than 550,000 of 1.1 million formal sector jobs that were lost have since been recovered, he asserted, emphasizing that the government concentrated its economic response to the crisis on helping the nation’s poorest and most marginalized rather than large companies and the wealthy.
The president acknowledged that more than 100,000 people have lost their lives to Covid-19 but said that thousands of others have been saved, highlighting that the government “reconverted” 971 hospitals to attend to coronavirus patients.
“We have ensured that no patient has missed out on medical and hospital care,” López Obrador said.
While he recognized some of the challenges the government has faced and a few of its shortcomings, the president said that “the most important thing is that the foundations for the transformation [of Mexico] have been laid.”
Explaining what the foundations consist of, López Obrador said the constitution is now respected, people’s freedoms and the right to dissent are guaranteed, there is “full transparency” in the operation of the government, human rights are not violated, the government no longer represents a minority but rather “Mexicans of all classes, cultures and beliefs,” the country is governed with austerity and “moral authority,” corruption is not tolerated, impunity is not permitted and everyone is respected but the poor come first.
He claimed that the government has fulfilled 97 of 100 commitments he made in a speech on the day of his inauguration in the zócalo, Mexico City’s central square.
The only three commitments that have not yet been fulfilled, López Obrador said, are decentralization of the federal government (the government plans to move some departments from Mexico City to regional cities), development of renewable energy through the rehabilitation of hydroelectric plants, and discovery of the truth about what happened to the 43 teaching students who disappeared and were presumably murdered in Guerrero in 2014.
The president speaks before a small audience Tuesday in the National Palace.
“But we have also done many other things that are not on the list of commitments,” he said, citing public transit projects, airport upgrades and highway improvements among other accomplishments.
The vast majority of the president’s speech was self-congratulatory and designed to emphasize the differences between the current government and those that preceded it, which López Obrador regularly claims were corrupt and served the nation’s wealthy elite to the detriment of the masses.
He focused heavily on the government’s efforts to combat corruption – which he described as a “plague” – and its implementation of austerity measures, declaring that 1.3 trillion pesos (US $65 billion) was saved over the past two years in “purchases and contracts” alone.
Among a long list of others achievements outlined by the president were the creation of the National Guard; not increasing public debt, taxes or fuel prices; the delivery of welfare programs that benefit 70% of Mexican families; increasing the minimum wage; the construction of new public universities; canceling the previous government’s Mexico City airport project; beginning construction of the Santa Lucía airport, the Maya Train and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec trade corridor; and establishing a free zone in the northern border region.
He also highlighted that on his watch no new mining concessions have been granted; the peso hasn’t depreciated; a new program to search for missing persons was introduced; victims of flooding were assisted; a government department to auction off goods seized from organized crime was created; the new North American free trade agreement, the USMCA, took effect; the federal Attorney General’s Office became fully independent; and a virtual eduction system was developed so that students could continue studying amid the pandemic.
López Obrador claimed that his government has made progress on the goal to “rescue” Pemex, the state oil company, and the Federal Electricity Commission, which he claimed were on the verge of disappearing due to corruption and a “privatization onslaught.”
Mexico will be self-sufficient in fuel by 2023 due to the construction of the new refinery on the Tabasco coast and upgrades to the six existing refineries, he said.
Turning to public security – Mexico’s most pressing problem, at least outside pandemic times – López Obrador asserted that human rights are now respected in the fight against organized crime.
“Federal forces don’t commit massacres or finish off the wounded,” he said.
The president said that in the final two years of the presidency of Felipe Calderón, 2011 and 2012 – “in the middle of the war against drug trafficking” – almost 2,500 people were killed in clashes between the military and criminal groups and 1,750 civilians were wounded and/or detained.
In the two years since the current government took office, only 507 people were killed in such confrontations and 631 civilians were wounded and/or detained, he said.
“Unlike before, the number of deaths is lower than the number of people wounded and arrested,” López Obrador said. “That shows that we are moved by a conviction for justice, not extermination, and that in the reestablishment of security we prioritize respect for life.”
López Obrador said the foundations for the transformation of Mexico have been laid.
The president thanked the military – whose integrity has been under the microscope recently due to the arrest in the United States of former army chief Salvador Cienfuegos – for its “unconditional support,” noting that in addition to public security work it is carrying out a range of other non-traditional tasks including infrastructure construction and management of the nation’s ports.
“The armed forces are beginning a new stage in their service to Mexico,” López Obrador said.
He noted that half of his cabinet are women and highlighted that for the first time ever women occupy the positions of interior minister and security minister.
Since taking office, López Obrador said, he has visited all 32 states of the country and insisted that he retains the strong support of the Mexican people.
Two recent polls showed that the president has an approval rating of about 60% but López Obrador wryly told those listening to his address that he had “otros datos,” or other information – a term he frequently uses when confronted with information he doesn’t agree with or which portrays his administration in a negative light.
He claimed that 71% of Mexicans support the government and want it to continue governing.
“The support of the majority of the people is fundamental. As president [Benito] Juárez said, ‘with the people everything, without the people nothing,’” López Obrador said.
“Friends, thank you for your confidence. … Love is repaid with love. I haven’t failed you and I won’t fail you. Let’s all continue promoting what is good, uplifting the homeland and making history. ¡Viva México!”
The island town of Mexcaltitan, a new Pueblo Mágico.
The lakeside community of Ajijic, Jalisco, and the small port of Sisal, Yucatán, are among 11 new “Magical Towns” announced Tuesday by the federal Tourism Ministry.
The other nine new Pueblos Mágicos are Isla Aguada, Campeche; Maní, Yucatán; Mexcaltitán, Nayarit; Paracho, Michoacán; Santa Catarina Juquila, Oaxaca; Santa María del Río, San Luis Potosí; Tetela de Ocampo, Puebla; Tonatico, México state; and Zempoala, Hidalgo.
The 11 destinations join 121 existing Magical Towns that are part of a tourism promotion program that began in 2001 as a way to diversify marketing efforts that had long focused on Mexico’s coastal resort cities.
• Located south of Guadalajara on the banks of Lake Chapala, Ajijic has a population of around 10,000 people, a large number of whom are retired expats from the United States and Canada. The town has a lakeside malecón, or promenade, a well-maintained central square, cobblestone streets and several art galleries among other attractions.
• Sisal is located about 70 kilometers northwest of Mérida on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Formerly Yucatán’s main port, it is now a sleepy beach town with fewer than 2,000 residents. The town’s name comes from the Sisal plant, a species of agave that yields a sturdy fiber that was once shipped abroad from the Yucatán port. Sisal, the town, has a fort, pier and an abundance of mangroves that can be visited on a tour with a local guide.
Ajijic is located on the shores of Lake Chapala.
• Part of an archipelago of islands in the neighboring state of Campeche, Isla Aguada is located 40 kilometers northeast of Ciudad del Carmen between the Laguna de Términos tidal lagoon and the Gulf of Mexico. Best known for its unspoiled beaches, Isla Aguada has abundant birdlife and a century-old lighthouse that has been converted into a museum.
• Back in Yucatán, Maní is a small city about 90 kilometers south of Mérida. Inhabited by the indigenous Mayan people for thousands of years, the newly-minted Pueblo Mágico has a 16th-century church and convent. Uxmal, one of the Yucatán Peninsula’s most impressive archaeological sites, is located less than a hour’s drive to the west.
• Mexcaltitán, which was named a Pueblo Mágico in the first year of the program but lost the designation in 2009, is magical once again. Located on an oval-shaped manmade island on the Laguna Grande de Mexcaltitán, the town is visually striking, especially when seen in photographs taken from a bird eye’s view.
Richard Zarkin, public relations manager for the Riviera Nayarit Convention and Visitors Bureau, recently said of Mexcaltitán: “This beautiful island is known for its charming calmness, its preserved architecture made up of a mosaic of picturesque houses with tile roofs, and its preserved regional culture, ethnic customs, and its unique Nayarit dishes, all of which are a true representation of the cultural wealth in its home state.”
• The guitar making hub of Paracho, located about 120 kilometers west of Michoacán capital Morelia, is the sixth new town on the Pueblos Mágicos list. Full of shops that sell handmade guitars and other stringed instruments, Paracho’s fame as a hub of talented luthiers was enhanced by the animated Day of the Dead-inspired Disney-Pixar film Coco because an artisan who trained there was responsible for the design of the main characters’s white guitar.
• Inland from the Oaxaca resort town of Puerto Escondido is Santa Catarina Juquila, a town of about 6,000 people best known for its church. The Santuario de Nuestra Señora Imaculada de Juquila (Shrine of Our Immaculate Lady of Juquila) houses a small statue of the Juquila virgin, which has been venerated for hundreds of years. As a result, the church is a popular destination for Catholic pilgrims.
The 16th-century church and convent in Maní, Yucatán.
• Situated south of San Luis Potosís city, Santa María del Río is famous for its silk rebozos, scarf-like garments commonly worn by Mexican women on Independence Day. Apart from plenty of places to purchase rebozos, Santa María is popular with visitors for its typical cuisine and pretty historical center.
• In the northern Sierra mountains of Puebla is Tetela de Ocampo, another new inclusion on the Magical Towns list. Ringed by verdant mountains, Tetela was founded by the Chichimeca people about 300 years before the arrival of the Spanish in the land now known as Mexico. The town preserves many of its indigenous traditions and has an attractive colonial core with a brightly-painted yellow church. There are waterfalls and caves not far outside Tetela, which is about 65 kilometers from Zacatlán de las Manzanas, another Pueblo Mágico.
Of the 11 new magical towns, Tonatico and Zempoala are the easiest to get to from Mexico City. The former is about a two-hour drive southwest of the capital while the latter is located about 1 1/2 hours to the northeast.
• Tonatico, which means “where the sun is born” in Náhuatl, is a small but beautiful colonial city just a few kilometers south of Ixtapan de la Sal, which is famous for its natural hot water springs. Just 10 kilometers south of Tonatico are Las Grutas de la Estrella (the Star Caves), where visitors can admire the many stalactites and stalagmites including ones that, according to the locals, resemble a palace, an eagle and a human hand among other things.
• The most famous attraction of Zempoala is the Aqueduct of Padre Tembleque, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2015. There is also a 16th-century convent in the town, which is well known for its haciendas that produced pulque, a viscous mildly alcoholic drink made from the sap of the maguey plant. Plenty of pulque is still on offer in Zempoala today.
Announcing the new Magical Towns at a virtual press conference, Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco said that they and the existing ones will become “pillars of the regional and national economy” under the current federal government.
He also said that domestic tourism – many of the Pueblos Mágicos rely heavily on local visitors – will be “the driving force” of the tourism recovery amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Photographer Miguel Tovar recently won recognition from Harvard University for his images of Mexico City shut down in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
When the Covid-19 pandemic shut down Mexico City, photographer Miguel Tovar witnessed its unprecedented effects on the metropolis.
Tovar, a capital native, saw its buildings, parks and playgrounds empty out while cars vanished from its streets. He decided to capture the unfolding moment with his camera, and his resulting imagery has won recognition from Harvard University.
Tovar’s photo of a sprawling twilight cityscape featuring the hashtag #QuedateEnCasa has received second-place honors in the exhibition Documenting the Impact of Covid-19 through Photography: Collective Isolation in Latin America, sponsored by Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.
“I feel very honored to receive this award,” Tovar wrote in an email interview. He only learned about the open call for entries from a friend.
In his work as a photojournalist, Tovar has captured gripping images of people, from bone searchers — day laborers who search for human remains of the disappeared — to Central American migrants in Tijuana looking to cross the border wall into the United States. Yet the photo that caught Harvard’s attention is part of a series notable for its absence of people.
Mexico City’s skyscape at dusk with the Covid slogan, “Quédate en Casa.”
This is a departure from the way Tovar began covering the pandemic when it first reached Mexico. Working in another field of expertise, video, he visited locations where people were working on the pandemic response, from hospitals to crematoriums to cemeteries, shooting footage for media companies.
“I had the opportunity to accompany the paramedics who were transporting people with severe [Covid-19] symptoms from their homes to public hospitals, and I saw their family members wait in deep anguish and sadness,” he wrote in an artist statement on the competition website.
As might be expected, this collective experience wore away at him. He felt physically and mentally exhausted after several weeks, and highly aware that he ran the risk of contracting Covid-19 himself.
He decided that he would record the impact of the pandemic in a different way. Traversing his home city by bicycle, he used a drone to take photos from afar. It was both the ultimate way to socially distance and an evocation of the larger number of birds that seemed to flock to the city’s cleaner air following the disappearance of humans.
“I did it as an escape, as a break from the scenes of illness and death, and looking for another way to show the effects of the pandemic where I live,” he explained.
He shot at dusk and in black and white, both of which were conscious decisions.
Tovar used black and white to emphasize the stress and despair of the pandemic.
“I use black-and-white photography because it makes it harder to distinguish parts of the city once you cannot see even the colors of the facades of homes,” he said in his artist statement. “While color images of sundown usually depict warmth, black-and-white accentuates the strain and despair that fill our minds during days of quarantine.”
He found plenty of despair in the aerial images. He regrets seeing empty public spaces in a once vibrant city.
“Sidewalks, parks, and other spaces seemed abandoned in the photographs, without any figures, not even passing shadows,” he said. “This was once unimaginable. Mexico City changed. A children’s park was a synonym for danger.”
Yet he also found hope after seeing that life goes on for the capital’s 20 million inhabitants.
“[Large] buildings that look like honeycombs give signs of life, one light at a time,” he wrote. “Every window was a universe: the world of a person or a family that is locked in.”
Tovar has extensive experience in using a photograph or a video to express a larger meaning. As a cinematographer, he was part of a New York Times team that won a World Press Photo award earlier this year in the documentary short category for their film It’s Mutilation: The Police in Chile are Blinding Protesters.
Tovar’s drone photos are a symbolic nod to the need for social distancing.
“I feel great satisfaction because the story in Chile reached many people in many countries, and our work showed, with great impact, the brutal repression of the government of Sebastian Piñera against protest and social discontent, for which it was harshly criticized,” Tovar said. “This makes me think that our work as journalists serves society.”
He’s also proud of his contributions in photo and video to the 2019 Netflix documentary The 43, whose title refers to the number of disappeared students at the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College of Ayotzinapa.
“The story of the 43 disappeared students from Ayotzinapa was something that I followed from the beginning,” Tovar said.
He covered the story as a photojournalist for three years for various media organizations after the disappearance was reported in 2014, making key contacts at the college. He thinks his work might have resulted in Anima Films’ interest in bringing him onto the documentary project, which was produced by Sebastian Gamba and directed by Matias Gueilburt.
“I went in to photograph and film interviews to complete the project,” Tovar said. “In fact, I made some trips alone to Iguala and Tixtla and other places, accompanied by a great friend and local journalist from Guerrero, Sergio Ocampo, to recreate part of what happened the night of the disappearance.”
Tovar’s initiative has helped him rebound from a difficult moment about a decade ago when the Associated Press stated that he had altered a photo that he submitted to them.
Tovar began photographing Covid-related news for the media but shifted to aerial images as a needed break from such intimate scenes of illness and death.
“About this, I can only say that it was a mistake, a bad decision,” he said. “At that time, many people spoke about the incident as if it had been the worst thing they had ever seen in their life, and it affected me a lot. But I learned a lot from this situation, and now it is completely in the past.”
As for the present, he’s going to reflect on his latest award, from Harvard.
“[In] these strange days, we have to take advantage of the good news and turn them into special moments to give us an opportunity to feel happiness and share it with the people we love,” Tovar said.
Even so, he’s aware that there seems to be no end to the “strange days” of Covid-19 — as his photos suggest.
“We’re told that the city will open gradually, but what will that normal life look like?” he asked in his artist statement. “Will our spaces remain as empty as they are now? We’re uncertain if this sense of enclosure, and this sense of dread, will be our new future.”
Rich Tenorio is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily.
Pátzcuaro is one of 15 municipalities where Covid cases have been rising.
Tighter restrictions will be implemented in 15 Michoacán municipalities if their worsening coronavirus outbreaks don’t abate, Governor Silvano Aureoles said Monday.
The governor said case numbers are on the rise in Morelia, La Piedad, Lázaro Cárdenas, Zitácuaro, Uruapan, Zamora, Pátzcuaro, Ciudad Hidalgo, Maravatío, Apatzingán, Zacapu, Tarímbaro, Tacámbaro, Sahuayo and Los Reyes.
“A lot of people are still dying in these 15 municipalities,” he added. “Even though the number of deaths in the rest of the state is lower, it doesn’t mean there are none.”
According to state government data updated Monday night, 28,524 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in Michoacán and 2,288 have lost their lives. The federal government estimates that there are currently just over 900 active cases in the state.
Almost a quarter of the confirmed cases – 6,833 – were detected in the state capital Morelia while the port city of Lázaro Cárdenas has recorded more than 5,000. Uruapan has recorded more than 2,500 cases, Pátzcuaro more than 1,000 and La Piedad just under 1,000.
The risk of coronavirus infection in Michoacán is currently yellow light “medium,” according to the federal government’s stoplight system.
While announcing the possibility of tighter restrictions in the 15 hotspot municipalities, Aureoles noted that a majority of Mexico’s 32 states have seen an increase in case numbers and that some have regressed to the red light risk level.
Some states have run out of space in their hospitals and are unable to treat new coronavirus patients, he said.
“I’m not going to allow Michoacán to reach those levels,”Aureoloes said.
The governor said that authorities will increase vigilance of bars, restaurants and other commercial establishments to ensure that they are complying with health protocols and respecting operating hours. If they are not they will face fines, he said.
Aureoles added that all Christmas events where large numbers of people gather, such as posadas – traditional house-to-house processions intended to represent Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter as they awaited the birth of Jesus, must be canceled.
His warning that stricter restrictions will be implemented if case numbers don’t fall in the hotspot municipalities came after several states introduced tighter rules in response to worsening Covid-19 outbreaks.
Meanwhile, the national coronavirus case tally increased to 1,113,543 on Monday with 6,472 new cases reported. An additional 285 deaths lifted the official death toll to 105,940.
