Mathematician warns of coronavirus flare-up as positivity rate stops declining

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September 30, 2020

A National Autonomous University (UNAM) mathematician has warned that the national coronavirus positivity rate is no longer declining and that the outbreak could soon worsen.

“At a national level, the positivity rate [the percentage of Covid-19 tests that come back positive] was coming down but now the trend is changing. It went from going down, which is desirable, to stagnating at … 40%. … To consider that the epidemic is controlled, the positivity rate needs to reach 5%,” Arturo Erdely told the newspaper Milenio.

Mexico’s positivity rate is very high compared to most other countries because testing is mainly targeted at people with serious, coronavirus-like symptoms.

Only about 13,000 people per 1 million residents have been tested for Covid-19 in Mexico compared to about 315,000 in the United States, 84,000 in Brazil and 52,000 in India. Mexico has the fourth highest Covid-19 death toll in the world behind those three countries.

Erdely said the positivity rate in Mexico City, the country’s coronavirus epicenter, has increased from 30% to 34.5% over the past two weeks, an uptick he described as “worrying.”

The positivity rate in Mexico City, April 18 to September 28.

“The positivity rate was coming down but now it’s changed and it’s trending upwards. There is variability from one day to the next and from one week to the next but … when the average has been increasing for more than a week you can say that the trend is changing and [the positivity rate] is increasing. While in the case of Mexico City it’s increasing below the national average of 40.3%, it’s been rising and it’s about 34.5%, … which I think is concerning,” he said.

The UNAM academic said the positivity rate is the most important statistic to understand how the pandemic is evolving and the one that the World Health Organization watches most closely. But the federal government has never attributed sufficient importance to it, Erdely claimed.

While the national positivity rate is currently below the level seen in April and May – when it exceeded 50% – it shows that the pandemic has not significantly decreased, he said.

There are signs that new case numbers – which have been on the wane for about two months, according to the federal Health Ministry – could soon begin to rise, Erdely said.

He said that an uptick in case numbers could become even worse if the federal government doesn’t send clear messages about coronavirus mitigation measures such as the use of face masks.

“It’s very complicated. If [economic and social] activity increases, it’s impossible that infections won’t increase. So that [the outbreak] doesn’t get out of control, it’s essential to continue … taking care; social distancing, not going out if you don’t need to, the use of face masks, everything,” Erdely said.

Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico reported by day. milenio

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry reported Tuesday that Mexico’s accumulated case tally had increased to 738,163 with 4,446 new cases registered.

A total of 138,603 cases were reported in the first 29 days of September, 21% fewer than the number registered in the 31 days of August. New case numbers in August declined 12% compared to July, which was the pandemic’s worst month with almost 200,000 cases reported.

But while new case numbers have trended downwards this month and last, several thousand continue to be reported on a daily basis.

Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, Mexico’s coronavirus czar, has frequently asserted that the pandemic will be long and warned last week that a new wave of infections could begin in the middle of October, coinciding with the beginning of the flu season.

Mexico also continues to record hundreds of Covid-19 fatalities every day. The Health Ministry reported an additional 560 on Tuesday, lifting the official death toll to 77,163.

The real number of people who have succumbed to the infectious disease in Mexico is almost certainly much higher.

In Mexico City alone, which has officially recorded 12,051 Covid-19 fatalities, deaths from the disease were underreported by more than 10,000 in a six-month period to the end of August, according to a government excess mortality report.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Coppel to invest 6 billion pesos in 400 new stores

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MND Staff

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September 29, 2020

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The department store chain Coppel will invest 6.3 billion pesos (US $191.7 million) to open 423 new stores over the next four years, according to the company’s director of real estate.

Domingo Soto said in an interview that Grupo Coppel eventually plans to have more than 2,000 stores.

Founded in Sinaloa in the early 1940s, the chain currently has 1,561 stores. Once the 423 new ones have opened, it will be just 16 short of the 2,000 mark.

Soto said that Coppel has the capacity to meet a wide range of consumers’ needs because “we have 30 different businesses” within a single store.

The chain sells products ranging from motorcycles to baby clothes, offers banking services and is a travel agency as well as a department store. It also operates nine clothing stores under the Fashion Market brand.

Coppel’s stores were able to remain open during the suspension of nonessential business activities in April and May due to the coronavirus precisely because it offers banking services through its BanCoppel division.

As a result, the company was able to continue selling goods to in-store customers at a time when other department stores were limited to online sales.

With people spending more time at home due to the pandemic, online shopping is growing quickly in Mexico and Coppel hasn’t missed out on its share of the increasingly lucrative market.

CEO Agustín Coppel said recently that online sales now make up for more than 10% of total sales whereas before the pandemic they only accounted for 2%.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Anaya is back: ex-political leader declares president is a megalomaniac

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MND Staff

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September 29, 2020

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The man who ran for president under a right-left coalition against Andrés Manuel López Obrador has ended more than two years of silence with a scathing rebuke of the election winner’s performance.

Ricardo Anaya, a former leader of the National Action Party (PAN), also labeled López Obrador a megalomaniac in a video message posted to social media on Monday, a week after announcing that he had decided to return to public life.

Anaya began by taking aim at the president’s use of the term “fourth transformation” to describe the change he says his administration is bringing to Mexico.

He charged that López Obrador has no right to say that his government is carrying out a transformation that is just as momentous as Mexico’s independence from Spain, the 19th century liberal reform known as La Reforma and the Mexican Revolution.

“The first thing that has to be pointed out is that no political movement can claim a place in history it hasn’t won,” Anaya said.

“Not even [former president] Benito Juárez dared to assert that he was the protagonist of the second transformation. He won that place in history with his actions,” he added.

Anaya asserted that “the most concerning feature” of the way in which López Obrador interprets the history of Mexico is his “megalomania – his delusions of grandeur in other words.”

He went on to claim that “history teaches us that extreme vanity and pretensions of greatness lead to large errors that turn into catastrophes and disasters.”

“History teaches us that a megalomanic leader doesn’t listen, doesn’t change his opinion. He always thinks he is right and even in the face of contrary evidence he always has other ‘other information,’” Anaya said, using one of López Obrador’s favorite terms when confronted with information he doesn’t agree with or which portrays his administration in a negative light.

“The most dangerous thing,” he added, is that a megalomaniac never corrects his course because “he believes his strategy is the correct one even when everything indicates the ship is sinking.”

Anaya insinuated that the president is like a “madman” driving down a busy highway in the wrong direction while thinking that everyone else is going the wrong way.

“We all know how that ends,” he said before footage shows a car traveling in the wrong direction colliding head on with another vehicle.

Anaya, who was runner-up in the 2018 election with just over 22% of the vote (López Obrador garnered 53% support), asserted that his motivation for speaking out against the president was “profound concern” for “the damage” he is doing to Mexico.

“It’s you who is going to pay dearly for all his follies,” he warned.

The former federal deputy urged López Obrador’s collaborators to stop maintaining a “complicit silence” and “brown-nosing” the president.

Government officials close to the president have a responsibility to make him see his errors and the negative impact they are having on people’s lives, Anaya said.

“On the life of he who has no job, on the life of he who has no income, on the life of he who today has a member of his family who is sick or has already lost a loved one.”

Anaya appears to be positioning himself as a leading voice of the conservative National Action Party.

Anaya slammed López Obrador for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, which he said many experts have described as the biggest global crisis since World War II.

“At the beginning of the worst crisis of the century he addressed the nation to say this,” he said before the video cut to footage of López Obrador urging people to continue hugging each other because “nothing will happen.”

Anaya also criticized the president for not setting an example by wearing a face mask and practicing social distancing.

(López Obrador has seldom been seen wearing a face mask and continued to hold rallies and get up close and personal with his supporters in the early days of the pandemic).

Anaya, who appears to be positioning himself as a leading voice of the conservative party at a time when López Obrador and the ruling Morena party are dominating Mexico’s political landscape, also took aim at the decision to build a new state-owned oil refinery on the Tabasco coast, a move that has been criticized by many experts who say that the project diverts funds from Pemex’s more profitable exploration business.

“Let’s remember that he [López Obrador] insisted on the whim of spending money on a refinery instead of helping you when you most needed help,” Anaya said, taking a swipe at the government’s scant financial support for individuals and businesses amid the coronavirus-induced economic downturn.

“We’ll sadly remember that he didn’t live up to expectations in these historic times,” he said before concluding that despite what he sees as López Obrador’s poor leadership and bad government Mexico will overcome the adversity it faces.

Anaya’s return to the national political scene comes eight months before elections in June 2021 at which the lower house of federal Congress will be renewed and voters will elect municipal and state representatives.

The 41-year-old, who has just written a book called The Past, Present and Future of Mexico, has not publicly declared any intention to stand as a candidate at next year’s elections but his renewed enthusiasm for discussing national politics publicly might be a sign that he has one eye on putting his hand up to run for president again in 2024.

Mexico News Daily

AMLO vows to quit if 100,000 protest and polls go against him

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MND Staff

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September 29, 2020

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López Obrador will withdraw to his ranch in Palenque if he loses support.

President López Obrador issued a challenge to his detractors Tuesday: he will resign if 100,000 people attend a protest against him and opinion polls show that he has lost support.

“How are authoritarian governments overthrown? With the people, with large protests; people go out to the street – hundreds, thousands, millions. In my case, at the first protest of 100,000 and when I see that I don’t have support in the polls, [I’ll go] to Palenque, Chiapas. I won’t even wait for the revocation of mandate [vote],” the president told reporters at his morning news conference.

“I’ll see you there [in Palenque] because I have principles, I have ideals.”

López Obrador has a ranch in Palenque, a town in the northeast of Chiapas well known for its archaeological site of the same name, and has said previously that he would retire there if people come to the view that they don’t want him as president anymore.

“I’m not going to be like some presidents who have 10%, 15%, 20% approval in their countries and they’re still [in power],” he said in March. “How can one govern without the support of the citizens?”

The 2004 march for peace drew as many as 350,000 people to the zócalo.

To formally test his support, AMLO, as López Obrador is best known, intends to hold a referendum in 2022 to ask citizens if they want him to continue as president until the end of his six-year term in 2024.

A recent poll of polls collated by the website Oraculus shows that AMLO has an approval rating of 57% but the president has rejected polls that indicate his support is below 60%, describing them as biased.

An organization known as the National Anti-AMLO Front has held numerous protests in recent months and some of its members are currently camping out in Mexico City’s central square, the zócalo.

The group has denounced the federal government’s management of the coronavirus pandemic and its economic response to the crisis, and claim that López Obrador is installing a regime of 21st century socialism.

But the president appears unperturbed by the people currently protesting against him in the zócalo – their numbers are only in the hundreds, less than 1% of the 100,000 threshold AMLO set in order for him to resign.

However, should there be a demonstration by 100,000 people or more it would not be the first time in Mexico City’s active history of protests and demonstrations.

A march in 1968 over the Tlatelolco massacre attracted an estimated 250,000 people.
A march for peace in 2004 was attended by 200,000, according to conservative estimates, and 350,000 by others.
Another march calling for a stop to violence was held in 2008 and drew 200,000, according to estimates by police.
More recently, official figures put the attendance at a March 8 march against gender violence at 80.000.

Mexico News Daily

New security force will safeguard mines against cartels

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Susy Buchanan

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September 29, 2020

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Thieves stole US $8.5 million worth of gold from the Gallo mine in Sinaloa in 2015.

Mexico has a new security force to protect the nation’s mines from drug cartels, the government announced Monday.

The first 118 mine guards, who will be equipped with assault rifles, graduated from a special training course and will be tasked with “solving the attacks by organized crime in this economic sector,” Security Minister Security Alfonso Durazo said.

“Today concludes a pioneering and highly relevant course in the increasingly broad profile in the training of the members of the federal protection service,” Durazo said at the officers’ graduation ceremony. “We know that the security of these facilities is delicate and requires high specialization. In coordination with the Ministry of the Economy and the industrial chambers, specialized strategies have been created for the mining regions.”

Foreign-run gold and silver mines have long been subject to extortion by drug cartels, and in recent years criminal organizations have also stolen minerals or semi-refined metals from the mines.

In 2015, a drug cartel stole around 4.5 kilograms of gold and silver from a mine in northern Mexico. The British-owned Fresnillo mining company, which operates three mines in Mexico including the largest silver mine in the world, reported that the theft occurred near its Herradura mine in Sonora when armed men carrying high-caliber weapons stopped a company vehicle and stole the ore.

That same year, thieves stole 7,000 ounces of gold worth US $8.5 million from the Canadian-owned El Gallo 1 mine in Mocorito, Sinaloa.

In 2018, the Canadian company Pan American Silver temporarily reduced some operations at its mine in northern Mexico due to safety concerns.

The company noted that its employees had experienced safety problems on the roads leading to the mine in a remote part of Chihuahua, a region plagued by criminal groups. At one point, employees hid in the mine, fearful to leave due to threats from armed groups, and some employees were evacuated in private planes.

And in April 2020, Minas de Oro Nacional, a subsidiary of the Canadian firm Alamos Gold, was the victim of a daring theft of 1,000 ounces of silver and gold when five armed men subdued security guards and loaded their booty into a waiting small plane in an attack that took less than 10 minutes.

The decision to form a special squad of mine police was made at a summit on mining security held in May.

Some 2.6 million Mexicans are employed in the mining industry. In 2019, Mexican mines produced 244 billion pesos (US $11.25 billion) worth of ore.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Jobs recovery continues but pace slowed in August

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MND Staff

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September 29, 2020

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jobs lost and gained — Informal sector jobs regained in the table at left; formal sector jobs at right. The first column in each indicates total jobs lost. In green are jobs recovered by month. Numbers represent millions of jobs. el economista

Mexico’s jobs recovery continued in August but fewer people returned to work than in previous months, data shows.

According to a survey conducted by the national statistics agency Inegi, 653,000 people returned to work last month. Many of those who re-entered the workforce had been laid off due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The number of people who re-entered the workforce in August is less than half the number who went back to work in July and just over one-tenth the number who regained employment in June.

Of those who went back to work last month, 71% had informal sector jobs without access to benefits and 29% were in the formal sector.

According to Inegi, a total of 14.1 million people lost their jobs in the formal and informal sectors between March and May due to the suspension of nonessential business activities and the government’s advice for people to stay at home.

About 10.4 million of those jobs were in the informal sector and 3.7 million were formal.

Approximately 7.2 million informal sector workers have returned to their jobs since June, a figure that accounts for about 69% of those who found themselves unemployed due to the pandemic.

The jobs recovery has been slower in the formal sector. About 1.6 million of those workers have returned to their jobs since June, 43.5% of those who were laid off.

Counting both informal and formal sector workers, 8.8 million people – 62% of those who lost their positions earlier this year – are now back at work.

The unemployment rate, according to Inegi, is 5.2%, slightly lower than the 5.4% rate in July but 1.9% above the March level.

Employment in the agricultural and industrial sectors increased by 2.3% and 1.4%, respectively, in August but commercial sector jobs including retail declined by 3.9%.

Overall, the labor market is improving albeit slowly, said Jonathan Heath, deputy governor of the Bank of México.

David Kaplan, a senior labor market specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank, said the recent job numbers – despite the improvement – “have been disappointing.”

According to Gabriela Siller, head of economic and financial research at Banco Base, there is a risk of a second round of job losses even though most sectors of the economy have now reopened.

Another concern is that many of the jobs that have been recovered pay low salaries, which doesn’t bode well for the increase in consumer spending the economy needs to bounce back from a near 20% decline in the second quarter of the year.

The prevalence of low salaries together with an employment rate still below pre-pandemic levels “represent a significant challenge for a recovery in private consumption,” said Juan Carlos Alderete, director of economic analysis at Banorte.

“It seems that the recovered jobs have been [those] with lower remuneration, which might be explained by companies’ necessity to control costs,” he said.

Based on the Inegi numbers for August as well as those for the same month published by the Mexican Social Security Institute in mid-September, job growth will be weak in the final months of 2020, according to the deputy director of economic studies at Scotiabank.

“[There is] a weak expectation for the creation of jobs in what’s left of the current year,” said Carlos González Martínez.

Source: El Economista (sp)

1,000 women march in Mexico City for Safe Abortion Day

By

Susy Buchanan

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September 29, 2020

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The Abortion Day march turned violent when protesters were denied access to the zócalo.

An estimated 1,000 women took to the streets of Mexico City Monday to mark International Safe Abortion Day and lobby for reproductive rights, some clashing with police as they attempted to march to the zócalo, the capital city’s central square.

Abortion rights activists began assembling around 2 p.m., chanting slogans such as “Abortion yes or abortion no, that’s for me to decide,” as they marched along Avenida de la República accompanied by Grupo Atenea, a women’s police brigade charged with keeping order during protests, marches and other public events.

But when the protesters reached Alameda Central park, police blocked their access to the zócalo.

The protesters responded by shoving at police shields, hitting them with hammers and metal pipes and throwing fireworks as they demanded to be allowed to proceed.

Police reportedly launched tear gas in order to retain order, triggering claims of police violence.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum defended the police’s actions, observing that the protesters were invited to continue their march peacefully if they handed over objects that could be used as weapons, but they refused to do so.

One of the reasons they were not permitted to proceed to the zócalo and protest in front of the National Palace, she explained, was that another group of protesters — supporters of Frenaaa, an organization calling for President López Obrador’s resignation — has been camping out there since last week.

The mayor also denounced yesterday’s violence. “The feminist movement deserves all our respect and sympathy, what we do not agree with is violence. We cannot accept violence of any kind. It is the obligation of every government to protect people, regardless of their beliefs,” Sheinbaum said, noting that 44 people were injured during the protest.

Less volatile demonstrations also occurred yesterday in at least 23 states.

In Pachuca, Hidalgo, pro-choice activists held informational sessions, staged a performance and broadcast the events live from the Plaza Independencia before setting off on a march.

Women in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, held a rally on the beach and placed a purple bandana on a statue of former president Lázaro Cárdenas.

In San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur, women decorated statues of the city’s founding fathers in the town square with green sashes and signs reading “Only I decide for my body” and “Take your rosaries out of our ovaries.”

More than 200,000 abortions have been performed in Mexico City since it became legal in 2007. Since September 2019, when abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy was legalized in Oaxaca, the states of Puebla, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí and Guanajuato have tried and failed to pass bills decriminalizing abortion.

Around 47,000 women die annually after undergoing unsafe abortions, Amnesty International says.

Source: Reforma (sp), Milenio (sp)

As feds free highway toll plazas in Nayarit, 18 more occupied in just one day

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MND Staff

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September 29, 2020

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Farmers took over this toll plaza in the state of México.

Hijacking highway toll plazas continues to be a lucrative activity in many parts of Mexico even as the federal government takes action to address the problem.

Protesters, the unemployed and even mayors took over at least 18 toll plazas across the country on Monday just one day after the National Guard cleared eight in Nayarit.

Plazas in Mexico City, Morelos, Baja California, Guerrero, México state, Oaxaca, Querétaro, Guanajuato, Sonora, Puebla and Hidalgo were occupied, according to a report by the newspaper Reforma.

In Mexico City, protesters took over toll plazas at the entrance to the highways to Querétaro; Texcoco, México state; and Cuernavaca, Morelos.

Those occupying the toll plaza on the route to the Morelos capital have set up camp, seemingly indicating that they plan to settle in for the long haul and collect “voluntary contributions” from motorists around the clock.

In México state, many of the people occupying toll plazas are unemployed and looking for a way to get by at a time when jobs are scarce due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the newspaper El Universal, the toll plaza on the Mexico City-Querétaro highway at Tepotzotlán and that on the Circuito Exterior Mexiquense (México State Outer Loop Road) at Tultitlán are regularly occupied by groups of unemployed people who ask motorists for contributions lower than the regular toll.

A toll booth worker at Tultitlán said that groups of unemployed people take over one, two or all of the lanes at the toll plaza every day of the week. She said that they justify their actions by saying that they lost their jobs due to the coronavirus.

Out of work ride operators, waiters and drivers who work in the tourism sector are among those who regularly show up at the toll plaza in Tultitlán, located about 70 kilometers north of Mexico City.

A violent group known as “Revolutionary Movement of Ecatepec” and another called “Pacific Civil Disobedience” have also taken over the toll plaza, El Universal said, explaining that up to 70 people arrive there in pickup trucks before getting to work collecting tolls. Groups normally only stay for 20 to 30 minutes and flee when they catch wind that the National Guard is on its way.

Jobless people have also occupied toll plazas in Morelos. Unemployed people and students took over a toll plaza on the Mexico City-Acapulco highway, the Autopista del Sol, over the weekend and charged motorists a “voluntary contribution” of 50 pesos.

Oaxaca mayors commandeered the plaza at Huitzo, outside Oaxaca city.

According to the newspaper El Sol de Cuernavaca, the occupiers of the Ahuehuetzingo toll plaza didn’t hold up any signs to explain the motivation for their actions. When one motorist refused to pay, the toll plaza hijackers surrounded his car and aggressively demanded that he cooperate.

One motorist told El Sol that the toll plaza occupiers are sent there by a group intent on cashing in on prevailing lawlessness.

Community landowners in Morelos have occupied another toll plaza on the Autopista del Sol in recent days to demand that the federal government and a highway concessionaire comply with commitments to clean up a waterway near the highway and complete the construction of a community building on their property.

Toll plazas in other parts of the country, including Nayarit, have been occupied by farmers who say that they and/or their land have been adversely affected by the construction and operation of highways.

In Oaxaca on Monday, officials from municipalities in the state’s Mixteca region decided that taking over a toll plaza would be a good strategy to pressure the state government to deliver resources to them.

Led by mayors, Mixteca region officials occupied a plaza on the Oaxaca-Puebla highway in the municipality of San Pueblo Huitzo, located about 40 kilometers north of Oaxaca city. The officials demanded that the state government release resources earmarked for spending on security, including the purchase of police vehicles.

They held up a large sign demanding that the Oaxaca Ministry of Finance comply with its funding commitments and treat the Mixteca region people fairly. Unlike other toll plaza occupiers, the officials weren’t collecting contributions from motorists before letting them pass.

Instead they simply blocked the toll plaza, causing long lines of traffic to accumulate. Motorists were eventually able to pass when the mayors and other officials took their protest to government offices in the state capital.

In addition to the takeover of at least 18 toll plazas on Monday, protesters blocked highways in Sonora, México state, Guerrero and Oaxaca for a range of reasons.

Enrique González, president of the National Chamber of Trucking, said that highway blockades and toll plaza takeovers cause significant losses for the industry.

He explained that truck drivers are charged twice at occupied toll plazas because they are forced to pay tolls to the hijackers after which their electronic toll tags are detected.

If the drivers refuse to pay the occupiers, their trucks are scratched or otherwise damaged, González said.

The occupation of toll plazas has caused the loss of more than 3 billion pesos (US $134.1 million) in toll revenue this year, according to Marco Antonio Frías Galván, head of the Association of Road Infrastructure Concessionaires.

He said last week that the association he leads is working with the federal Security Ministry to develop a plan to prevent the takeover of plazas. President López Obrador has claimed that the federal government is putting an end to the practice and that it has avoided losses of up to 7 billion pesos.

But Frías contended that impunity remains a significant incentive for would-be occupiers, who can reportedly collect up to 1 million pesos (about US $45,000) per day at a single toll plaza.

“While there’s no punishment for those who take over toll booths, … the incentive will remain. It’s also clear that this very impunity has led to the creation of groups that exclusively dedicate themselves to blocking [toll plazas]. They’ve found a significant source of illegal revenue,” he said.

Source: Reforma (sp), El Universal (sp), El Sol de Cuernavaca (sp)

Mexican tennis player makes history with quick victory in France

By

Susy Buchanan

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September 29, 2020

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Zarazúa celebrates her win in Paris on Monday.

An easy win for Renata Zarazúa on Monday made her the first female tennis player from Mexico to advance to the second round at the Roland Garros French Open in 20 years.

The 22-year-old from Mexico City beat French wildcard player Elsa Jacquemot 6-1 and 6-2 in the first round of the tournament, claiming victory in just 64 minutes.

“It means a lot, I think it’s not only a win, I think it means more than that,” Zarazúa told reporters after the match. “I’m living a dream here in Paris and I just want to enjoy every match and every opportunity of being here this week.”

On Wednesday, Zarazúa’s 23rd birthday, she will take on 26-year-old Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, the No. 3 seed in the tournament. She moved to the second round after beating Russian Varvara Gracheva. Svitolina has made it into the final eight in Paris twice before.

Zarazúa is the first Mexican tennis player, male or female, to advance to the final draw of a Grand Slam tournament since Bruno Echegaray played at the United States Open in 2007, and only the fourth Mexican woman to do so, following in the historic footprints of Elena Subirats, Patricia Montaño and Angélica Gavaldón.

“I feel very happy to be part of history. I play to improve myself, not to make history, but this comes as a plus,” she said. “I love Mexico and I love that the people of Mexico support me. … Soccer is very big and I hope that tennis is also big now,” she said.

Zarazúa hopes her success will motivate young Mexican tennis players to train hard as she has over the years. She began competing at the age of 13. The following year she was the highest-ranked Mexican youth tennis player in the International Tennis Federation and among the 30 best in the world.

She now lives in Tampa, Florida, and has trained with France’s Patrick Mouratoglou, who has been recognized for his work with Serena Williams, one of the biggest stars in women’s tennis.

The young tennis player is coming into her own as she prepares for one of the biggest matches of her career thus far. Zarazúa came close to winning the Mexican Open in Acapulco earlier this year when she beat favorite and first seed Sloane Stephens but ended up losing to Canadian Leylah Fernández in the semi-finals.

With a record of 201 wins and 150 losses in singles matches, Zarazúa is currently ranked 178th in the world.

Source: Baseline Tennis (en), Milenio (sp)

Mexico City’s seven ‘anti-monuments:’ reminders of injustice

By

MND Staff

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September 29, 2020

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No more femicides is the message of the anti-monument opposite the Palace of Fine Arts.

Mexico City is filled with famous monuments – the Angel of Independence, the Monument to the Revolution and the Benito Júarez Hemicycle to name just a few.

Less known is that there are also seven recently erected “anti-monuments” in the capital that serve as a reminder of a range of injustices that have occurred in Mexico.

The purpose of the first “anti-monument” that appeared in Mexico City was to call for justice for the 43 Ayotzinapa teachers college students who were abducted and presumably killed in Guerrero in 2014.

Erected on Reforma Avenue in 2015 by the missing students’ parents, the anti-monument consists of a large plus sign in red next to the numerals 43 in the same color.

Beneath the “+43” monument is a message that reads, “Because they were taken alive, we want them back alive,” a slogan that has been chanted at countless protests across the country.

The Ayotzinapa anti-monument on Reforma.

In June 2017, parents of 49 children that died in a fire at an ABC Daycare center in Hermosillo, Sonora, in 2009 followed suit and erected an anti-monument outside the Mexican Social Security Institute offices on Reforma.

It consists of the number 49 above the letters ABC, a sign that reads, “Never again!” and bronzed children’s shoes, some of which were stolen last year.

Another anti-monument popped up at the junction of Reforma and Bucareli Avenue in January 2018. The pale and dark blue structure, whose two halves together look like a person, was erected to denounce the disappearance of two young men who were kidnapped in Guerrero as they traveled to the coast for a holiday.

It also serves as a monument to the thousands of other people who have disappeared in Mexico.

In February 2018, a fourth anti-monument appeared on Reforma Avenue outside the Mexican Stock Exchange. The “+65” structure calls for the immediate rescue of the bodies of 63 of 65 miners who died in a methane explosion at the Pasta de Conchos coal mine in Coahuila in 2009.

The anti-monument was erected on the 12th anniversary of the miners’ deaths. More than two years later, the bodies of the 63 miners remain underground but the government has announced plans to recover them.

Anti-monument in front of the IMSS offices on Reforma remembers the 49 children who died in a daycare center fire in Sonora.

The three most-recently erected anti-monuments recognize injustices against women, migrants and students.

On Juárez Avenue opposite the Palace of Fine Arts in downtown Mexico City is a pink and purple anti-monument that demands a national gender alert due to the high levels of violence against women.

Featuring a raised fist and ringed by pink crosses, a message on the structure reads, “NO + FEMINICIDIOS,” or no more femicides.

Just over a kilometer away in a small garden next to the zócalo, Mexico City’s central square, is an anti-monument to commemorate the students who were killed by government forces while protesting in Tlatelolco in 1968.

The memorial features a dove and a message that reads, “October 2 is not forgotten. It was the army, it was the state.”

The seventh Mexico City anti-monument, like five others, is on Reforma, the capital’s most emblematic boulevard.

A memorial to the students killed by government forces in Tlatelolco in 1968.

The “+72” memorial remembers the 72 undocumented migrants who were killed in a massacre in Tamaulipas in 2010 that was allegedly perpetrated by the the Zetas drug cartel.

Erected last month, the anti-monument includes the message,“To migrate is a human right.”

Source: El Universal (sp)