A show of force by police at a rail blockade in Michoacán.
Teachers and teachers in training protesting in Michoacán lifted their rail blockades on Tuesday after state police allegedly threatened to remove them using force.
Benjamín Hernández Gutiérrez, secretary general of Section 18 of the dissident CNTE teachers union, said that protesters in Maravatío, Pátzcuaro, Múgica and Uruapan freed the tracks they were blocking when confronted by police.
Teachers and teaching students known as normalistas have blocked railroads in Michoacán in recent weeks to demand the payment of bonuses and scholarships and the automatic allocation of jobs to graduates.
Hernández told the newspaper Reforma that he and other CNTE members were told at a meeting with officials of all three levels of government that the Michoacán state police operation to free the tracks was ordered by the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR)
The Michoacán Security Ministry also said on Twitter that police had acted on the orders of the FGR.
Hernández claimed that police who confronted protesters in Maravatío, a municipality northeast of the state capital Morelia, were prepared to use violence to remove them from the train tracks they were blocking.
“Colleagues in Maravatío told us that police arrived not with an attitude of peace but with … batons in their hands, … aggression was imminent,” he said.
The union leader said that the actions of the police contradicted the declarations of President López Obrador, who said there would be no aggression toward teachers and that a solution to their demands would be sought via dialogue.
“One thing is what is said … but another is what they [the government] are doing. In the media, they say that there is dialogue but in the [government] actions there is repression,” Hernández said.
He added that the CNTE in Michoacán will continue to pressure authorities to meet their demands but indicated that they would do so through dialogue, not violence.
Teachers tried again Wednesday morning to erect a blockade at the tracks in Múgica but withdrew after state police and National Guardsmen appeared almost as soon as the protesters arrived.
The state police operation to remove the teachers from train tracks came after the National Guard attended all four blockades on Monday but took no action against the protesters.
It also came after the president of the Michoacán Industry Association (AIEMAC) urged the federal government to intervene to end the rail blockades. Carlos Alberto Enríquez Barajas said the rail blockades scare off investors and drive up logistical costs that reduce Michoacán’s competitiveness.
According to AIEMAC, each day of blockades costs industry up to 50 million pesos (US $2.3 million).
Wreckage of the jet that was stolen Tuesday in Cuernavaca.
A Hawker 800 jet reported stolen from the Cuernavaca, Morelos, airport crashed Tuesday night in a Guatemala cornfield while trying to land on a clandestine runway, the Guatemalan army reported.
Packages of cocaine, cell phones and firearms were found among what was left of the charred plane in Santa Marta Salinas, Guatemalan authorities said, along with bodies of two people who had been aboard. Their nationality is pending confirmation.
The plane took off from the Mariano Matamoros International Airport Tuesday morning without authorization or filing a flight plan.
Officials in Morelos say three men wearing commercial pilot uniforms passed through security around 8:20 a.m. and entered the hangar in Cuernavaca where they fueled up the private jet, paying with a credit card, and one of the three left.
The two other men turned off the plane’s radios and took off, nearly crashing into another plane in the process.
It landed at 4 p.m. at the international airport in Zulia, Venezuela, before taking off again at 5:50 p.m. and heading north with a load of cocaine, Guatemalan officials said.
Guatemalan military authorities tracked the plane’s route and military forces in different parts of the country were put on alert.
Radar showed the plane entering Guatemalan airspace at 8 p.m. It reached the intended landing strip about 30 minutes later where it crashed.
In July, a plane traveling from Venezuela carrying 390 kilos of cocaine valued at 109 million pesos (US $4.89 million) crashed on a Quintana Roo highway. Its occupants escaped into the nearby forest.
According to official data, so far this year Guatemalan security forces have located 26 planes used in drug trafficking in rural areas in the north and south of the country.
In 2019, Guatemala confiscated 54 aircraft on suspicion of having been used to transport drugs.
International cartels use Guatemala and the rest of Central America to traffic drug shipments headed north. According to the United States, 90% of the cocaine smuggled into that country arrives by airplane, boat and submarine from Mexico and Central America.
A judge has ruled that the federal government must suspend its 2020-24 energy program because of its negative impact on the renewable energy sector.
The Mexico City-based federal administrative court judge issued a suspension order against the program while an injunction request filed by Greenpeace is considered. A final decision on the injunction request is not expected for months.
Greenpeace and the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA) have launched legal action against federal measures designed to limit the participation of renewable energy companies in the domestic market. They have previously been granted injunctions against some of the measures in the energy program but not against the program as a whole.
In his ruling, the judge said the government must suspend all aspects of the program because it is not conducive to the creation of jobs in the renewable sector and the reduction of emissions.
“The Energy Ministry … must abstain from continuing to comply with the objectives and strategies … of the program,” the judge said.
He stressed that his ruling doesn’t nullify the energy program but rather halts it for the time being.
To avoid a “regulatory vacuum” while the Greenpeace injunction request is considered, the government must apply energy rules that were in place before the new program took effect, the judge’s ruling says.
Earlier this year, the federal government suspended national grid trials for renewable energy projects under the pretext that the reliability of supply had to be guaranteed during the coronavirus crisis and published a new energy policy that imposes restrictive measures on the renewable energy sector that could effectively prevent its expansion in Mexico.
A key aim of the new policy is to consolidate control of the energy sector in the hands of the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission.
The Ministry of Energy has previously indicated that it would challenge court rulings against the government’s policies in the sector.
Armando is standing outside my hotel room in Las Margaritas, a pueblo in Chiapas, looking unconvinced. He had asked if I could hike the 1 1/2 hours to Benito Juárez the next day.
“Yes,” I tell him.
“Well,” he says, “we will see.” He’s not instilling confidence.
The next day, he shows up with Fredy, my guide. Fredy doesn’t seem real happy to meet me, barely acknowledging my presence. In silence, we walk to where a camioneta waits, climb in and head out.
After a four-hour drive, we get out and begin the hike. I ask Fredy how long we have to walk. “Una hora,” he says: one hour.
We begin walking on a hard-packed dirt road and I begin to relax — the hike is more like an easy stroll. I’m in such a good mood that I try to engage Fredy in conversation.
“Are you married, Fredy?”
“Sí.”
“Do you have children?”
“Sí.”
“How many?”
The bridge didn’t just look unsafe, it looked terrifyingly dangerous.
“Tres.”
“How much longer do we have to walk?”
“Una hora más.”
We’d already been walking close to an hour but whenever I ask how much longer, he says una hora más. I nickname him, Señor Una Hora Más.
After another hour, we stop at a small store, have a couple of Cokes and are met by Isaías, who insists on carrying my backpack. I grab my camera bag and we’re off.
We leave the hard-packed dirt road and begin walking on a hilly trail that’s often ankle-deep mud. Now, my idea of climbing a hill is to go at it as hard as I can for as long as I can so I can put it behind me. It’s painful but quick.
As I’m slipping and sliding my way uphill, Isaís calls out, “Despacio, señor, despacio.” Slowly, sir, slowly. At the top of one climb I stop, bent over and panting. “Señor,” says Isaías, “en el campo, lento es mejor.” In the country, slow is better. I gotta admit he was right but I keep pushing.
At some point, we come across a bridge. And I use the word “bridge” in the broadest possible sense. Let’s just say it’s a loosely constructed thing spanning a river. It doesn’t look very safe. In fact, it looks terrifyingly dangerous. I take one look at this thing and have two thoughts: one is that I’m very glad Benito Juárez is on this side of the river so we don’t have to cross it.
I think this even though I haven’t a clue where Benito Juárez is. The second thought is that if I keep walking and ignore it, they’ll also ignore it. My strategy doesn’t work. Isaías calls to me from the foot of the bridge. He signals me to return. I do and he simply gestures toward the bridge, indicating we have to cross it. I look and the only word that comes to mind is, “Fuck.”
This “bridge” is 20 or 25 feet above a river that’s about 50 feet wide. I can’t tell how deep the water is but it’s moving rapidly. The bridge is held together by barbed wire. You walk on thin boards and narrow tree limbs which, in spots, are separated by a couple of feet. I figure I’m going to die but I will my legs to begin walking. My jaw is clenched and my throat is parched.
I’m so terrified that I can’t bend my legs, so I’m doing a Frankenstein imitation. I cling tightly to the guide wires as I walk, the barbs digging into my hands. As I cross, I no longer think I’m going to die; I’m certain I’m going to die. I keep my eyes peeled to the boards and command my legs to keep moving. If I stop, I’ll never be able to start again. Below, I can see the river rushing by. That increases my fear, so I look up only notice that the bridge is twisted at an uncomfortable angle. I decide not to look up again.
A family gathers at nightfall in a village with no electricity.
I somehow make it across. My hands are covered with blood, pierced by the barbed wire. I swab alcohol and antibiotic on the cuts and hope my tetanus shot is up to date. As I kneel on the ground, Isaís comes over. “Debe agarrar suave, señor, suave.” You must hold on gently. I nod but think, “Right. One of those boards breaks, hanging onto that barbed wire is the only thing that will save me.”
I want to take a photo of the bridge but am still so scared that I can’t make myself get close enough but I do get a couple of shots of Isaís and Fredy standing beside it. They’re smiling.
They insist I ride the rest of the way to Benito Juárez on a horse. I somehow manage not to fall off.
I was only allowed to stay there two days. It’s a Zapatista autonomous area and a dicey place for me to be. Once I’d settled in, everyone — including Fredy — turned out to be friendly. The village has no electricity and at night families gather by flashlight or candlelight to talk and laugh.
On the second day, I mention to Isaías that I was afraid to cross that bridge again. I didn’t know if my luck would hold out for a second crossing.
“I weigh much more than you do,” I said. “With my equipment, it’s probably close to 90 kilos.”
“I understand,” he replied. “Some time ago, my cousin was crossing that bridge, carrying corn. A board broke. He died.”
I thanked him for telling me that story but I don’t think my sarcasm translated well.
“There is another way to go,” he continued. “It’s much farther and it will cost about 1,000 pesos. I can make a phone call.”
I tell him I’ll think about it. It only cost 120 pesos for Fredy and me on the way in but then I realize that my life’s certainly worth 1,000 pesos — about US $85 at the time. I tell him I’ll take the alternative route out.
When we leave, they put me on a mule for the entire trek with Daniel carrying my cameras, Isaías my backpack. I feel guilty but they won’t let me walk or carry anything. As we make our way, I notice places we’d passed on the way in. It appears to be the same route. Then I see the bridge. I think about taking a photo but decide if we stop they may make me cross it again.
We cross the river a couple hundred feet from the bridge and the water is never more than a couple of feet deep. I’m completely stunned. The only thing I can think is that the hike in was a test, which has happened to me before. If I had refused to walk over that bridge, we probably would have crossed downstream but my stay would have been completely different. But later I tell Isaías that when I return, there’s no way in hell I’ll cross “El Puente de la Muerte,” the bridge of death.
And the return trip only cost me 120 pesos, not the 1,000 I was told.
Joseph Sorrentino lives in San Gregorio Atlapulco, Mexico City, and is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
Only a week has passed since the “presidential plane” raffle was drawn but President López Obrador is already thinking about holding another lottery.
At his regular news conference on Tuesday, AMLO, as the president is commonly known, floated the idea of raffling off 5,000 lots in Sinaloa, land that was purchased by the government of former president Felipe Calderón in 2009.
López Obrador said the Calderón administration bought a large parcel of land at Playa Espirítu in the municipality of Escuinapa for US $100 million. He characterized the purchase as an act of squandering, asserting that it damaged the public coffers and benefited only a few, select people.
The plan for the 2,381-hectare property, which runs 12 kilometers along the Sinaloa coast, was to develop it as a resort town with a beachfront malecón, or promenade, and holiday homes.
But the project never got off the ground even though the governments of both Calderón and his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, dedicated significant resources to it.
The Playa Espírtu project as presented by the national tourism fund Fonatur in 2018.
According to López Obrador, no companies are interested in investing in the project even though all the required permits have been issued because it’s located about 80 kilometers south of Mazatlán airport.
“Since [the land] was bought nothing has been done and of course no one wants to buy it because it was purchased at an extremely high price. It’s on the border between Sinaloa and Nayarit, it’s very far from the Mazatlán airport,” he said.
AMLO charged that a tourism development between the airport and the city of Mazatlán, located about 20 kilometers north, would have been a better idea. “There’s no infrastructure” in the Playa Espíritu area, he said.
With no one apparently interested in purchasing the beachfront land – a problem the government also faces in its endeavor to offload the unwanted presidential plane – López Obrador, who ruled out any possibility of investing further public funds in the failed tourism project, sees a raffle as a means to recoup at least some of the money spent on it.
“The intention was to sell it in order to allocate the resources to the Santa María dam, which is in Sinaloa and is needed for irrigation. But if we can’t, we’re thinking about raffling it off given that we did so well with the plane raffle. There are 5,000 lots, there would be 5,000 prizes and [each winner] would have their lot. … It wouldn’t be bad, we’ll wait and see.”
That the plane raffle was successful is debatable. Only 64% of the tickets were actually sold; the remainder were donated to the national health service Insabi. Therefore the proceeds from ticket sales, net of the 10% commission paid on sales, were not enough to pay out the 2 billion pesos in prizes.
Not that it matters, however. The government said the prize payouts were guaranteed, regardless of how many tickets sold, because the prize money would come from funds recovered by the Institute to Return Stolen Goods to the People (now the focus of internal corruption).
The huge rodent is washed down after it was retrieved from the drainage system.
A giant rat has emerged from Mexico City’s storm drains, providing a very large body of evidence that garbage is a big problem when it comes to flooding during the rainy season.
The rat, originally a Halloween prop, was among the items that have been retrieved by city workers cleaning out the drains — 20 tonnes in total.
The unusual and somewhat startling discovery was made by workers in Magdalena Contreras on Friday.
Photos of the seated rat, which is as tall as the workers who found it, have gone viral on social media generating no end of memes.
Heavy rains in Mexico City have triggered flooding in the area due to garbage that has accumulated in the drainage channels. According to some accounts, the rat was a Halloween prop that washed away during a storm years ago and ended up in the city’s drains.
In light of last week’s record-setting rains, Magdalena Contreras Mayor Patricia Ortiz made a public appeal for residents to dump their garbage responsibly. In addition to the rat, workers have found armchairs and other furniture, including a bathtub, that people simply dumped in a ravine. The garbage was then washed into the drainage system by flooding. Some areas saw 1.5 meters of standing water.
“We are never going to beat nature and therefore I want to call on people to stop littering because the drain was filled with garbage and an armchair,” the mayor said.
“It has been five hard days of teamwork to help the families who were affected [by flooding],” the mayor wrote on her Twitter page. “In the days of cleaning the river and ravine we have found tonnes of garbage. We cannot allow the accumulation of waste that puts many families at risk.”
Ivana Bueno, a 21-year-old Mexican ballet dancer, is steadily carving out a career in the United Kingdom.
On Tuesday it was announced that Bueno, who studied dance in Córdoba, Veracruz, was the recipient of the annual Emerging Dancer Award presented by the English National Ballet, the company to which she belongs.
For the first time, the 11th annual competition was held online as six finalists performed a classic pas de deux and contemporary duets for socially distanced judges, while the English National Ballet Philharmonic accompanied them from a studio elsewhere in the company’s East London headquarters.
“Congratulations to Ivana Bueno for winning the Emerging Dancer Award,” renowned choreographer Graham Watts tweeted upon learning of the announcement.
“It is an indescribable emotion because it is the culmination of her efforts and sacrifices that this beautiful ballet career requires, which leads to growing fast, to being self-sufficient, to putting up with being away from home,” Bueno’s mother, Lorena Garcés said upon learning her daughter had won. “She has been away since last summer but from here we share her achievements and joy.”
Bueno joined the English National Ballet in 2018.
Bueno, who was born in McAllen, Texas, in 1999, began studying dance at Córdoba’s Fomento Artístico Cordobés dance studio, a small academy owned by her aunt, Martha Sahagún. She was offered a dance scholarship and moved to Monaco in 2014 where she graduated from the Princess Grace Academy, joining the English National Ballet in 2018 where her first appearance was in Wayne Eagling’s The Nutcracker.
Ivana’s sister, Anais Bueno who is 11 years her senior, is also a ballet dancer. She won the Youth American Grand Prix, the largest student competition in the world, at age 13, and spent a decade in Germany before joining the Boston Ballet in 2012, and then the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago in 2013.
Also dancing for the English National Ballet in London is fellow Mexican Isaac Hernández of Guadalajara. The 30-year-old joined the company in 2015 and is lead dancer, the first Mexican to be awarded that honor.
Students protest against teacher who was accused of bullying.
A middle school teacher found guilty of discriminating against a student in Cuautla, Morelos, in August 2017 has been sentenced to three years in prison for inflicting moral and psychological damage on the child.
The state Attorney General’s Office said that from day one of classes at a middle school located in the Otilio Montaño neighborhood, the teacher, identified as Harlem, yelled at the 14-year-old girl in front of classmates and repeatedly humiliated her, resulting in her rejection by fellow students. The bullying continued throughout the school year.
The stress of ostracization by her peers and the constant berating on the part of her teacher caused the girl to suffer from facial paralysis, prosecutors said.
The student needed therapy to recover from the emotional and physical damage caused by the teacher’s actions, and her family spent more than 30,000 pesos (US $1,363) in medical costs to help the girl heal from the abuse.
Last week the teacher was found to have discriminated against the student, and she was sentenced on Monday. In addition to the three-year prison term, she was ordered to pay the child’s family 60,000 pesos (US $2,727) in damages, 30,000 for psychological damages and 30,000 for moral damages.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that Mexico ranks first internationally in cases of bullying, which affects more than 18 million children in both private and public schools.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has revealed that 92% of children surveyed in Mexico in 2009 reported having suffered some type of school violence by one of their classmates.
During a forum on the issue entitled Mental Health: Prevention of Suicide in Girls, Boys and Adolescents that took place in March 2020, the Mexican Psychiatric Association noted that children between 12 and 17 are experiencing more mental health problems.
More than 50 children under the age of 18 commit suicide each month in Mexico, according to the federal statistics agency Inegi.
This Lamborghini was one of many vehicles sold by auction by Indep.
The federal agency tasked with distributing funds obtained via the sale of assets seized from organized crime and tax cheats is plagued by corruption, according to its outgoing chief.
In his resignation letter to President López Obrador, Jaime Cárdenas of the Institute to Return Stolen Goods to the People (Indep) said that when he took over as director a range of “probable administrative irregularities” were detected.
Cárdenas, who has led Indep for about 100 days and will step down on September 30, said officials stole jewelry in the agency’s possession and manipulated the auctions it held.
Indep, an agency created by the López Obrador administration and one that has been held up as a beacon of honesty, has held several auctions to sell off assets the government has seized from organized crime. Assets that have been sold include jewelry, luxury vehicles and properties.
Cárdenas also said that officials were found to have engaged in other improper conduct including the “mutilation of jewelry” and the drawing up of contracts that were unduly favorable to companies with which Indep had dealings.
With regard to the theft of jewelry, the Indep chief said that criminal complaints have been filed with the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
He said that Indep legal officials are analyzing the possibility of filing complaints against those who allegedly manipulated auctions “in favor of a few people.”
The outgoing director also said that a review of Indep’s IT systems with the aim of “eradicating manipulation” in future online auctions has been completed.
Cárdenas, also an academic at the National Autonomous University’s Institute of Legal Research and a longtime supporter of López Obrador, said that 2 billion pesos transferred to Indep to pay the prizes in the “presidential plane” raffle has not yet been reconciled.
“These resources are invested, they generate interest but they haven’t been used,” he said without clarifying when the money will be withdrawn to pay prizes to the winners of the raffle, which was drawn last week.
On a positive note, Cárdenas outlined Indep’s achievements since he became its director.
Outgoing Indep chief Cárdenas.
Among them: transferring millions of pesos to two indigenous municipalities in Oaxaca and Guerrero; providing financial support to the government-affiliated, non-profit publishing group Fondo de Cultura Ecónomica; providing funds to the Ministry of Culture to purchase musical instruments for children’s bands in Oaxaca; and allocating almost 180 million pesos to Insabi, the agency tasked with managing the government’s universal healthcare scheme.
Cárdenas also said that Indep under his leadership approved the transfer of more than 200 million pesos to the Ministry of Communications and Transportation for the construction of highways and that a further 500 million pesos will go to Insabi when the funds are available.
All told Indep approved the transfer of more than 3.7 billion pesos (US $167.4 million) to indigenous communities, the health system, cultural institutions, athletes and infrastructure projects.
Cárdenas wrote that Indep has a “significant but not endless” chest of resources as well as “serious challenges,” noting that it has debts to suppliers and lacks the liquidity it requires to pay settlements to former government railway and electricity workers.
Despite the corruption at Indep and the other problems it faces, the outgoing director said that he was leaving the federal government with a heavy heart.
“I deeply regret not accompanying … the project of transformation you are leading,” Cárdenas wrote in the opening to his resignation letter to the president. “I always wish the best for you and the country,” his letter concluded.
Cárdenas, who has previously served as a lawmaker in Mexico City and a lawyer and legal adviser for López Obrador when he was a presidential candidate, will be replaced as Indep chief by Ernesto Prieto, the former director of the National Lottery.
Tacovid, the new viral flavor in León, Guanajuato.
Viral-flavored tacos don’t sound very appetizing but a 23-year-old man who closed his dance studio due to the coronavirus pandemic and repurposed it as a Covid-themed restaurant has made them a popular meal in León, Guanajuato.
Brandon Velázquez converted his dance academy into a taquería, or taco restaurant, at the end of July, and given that Mexico and the rest of the world was – and is – in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic decided to call it Tacovid Sabor Viral (Tacovid Viral Flavor).
“I had to close my dance academy during the pandemic [but] then an opportunity arose to return to the same place,” he told the newspaper El Universal.
“I’d always wanted to open a taquería and at the end of July the opportunity came up to do it. … I took advantage of the moment to establish this coronavirus-themed business.”
Velázquez said that all of the dishes on the menu have Covid-themed names.
Tacovid’s menu and the waitress cum nurse.
Among them: tacovid – steak, chorizo, chuleta (pork chop) or chicken tacos; pandemia, a mega-torta ( large sandwich) with steak, chorizo and cheese; cuarentorta (a play on the Spanish word for quarantine), a regular sized torta; and quesanitizante (a portmanteu of queso – cheese,and sanitizante – sanitizer), a quesadilla stuffed with meat.
There are also dishes called brote (outbreak), cubrebocas (face mask), OMMMMS (a play on the Spanish-language acronym for the World Health Organization), la cura (the cure), la vacuna (the vaccine), la peste (the plague) and asintomático (asymptomatic).
The Covid theme doesn’t end there – a waitress dressed as a nurse who goes by the name of “Susana” takes customers’ orders.
The waitress’s mock name comes from Susana Distancia (Your Healthy Distance), a cartoon superheroine created by the federal government to promote its social distancing initiative.
Velázquez said that sales have been good despite the pandemic and that diners enjoy its Covid theme.
“I’m surprised because we’ve had very good sales despite the circumstances,” he said, adding that his business has done so well that he opened up a second branch.
A cheeky ad — ‘Dr. Gatell, I love my curve’ — is a play on the many times Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell has announced a decline in the curve indicating the number of Covid cases.
“The customers think that the theme we’re using is funny and they’re delighted with the dishes we’re serving.”
Velázquez said he hopes to add new Covid-themed dishes to the menu and even franchise his business model and name to other would-be taquería owners.
As for his dormant dance studio, the young entrepreneur said he planned to reopen it and operate it concurrently with his popular taco restaurant, which like its offerings has gone viral (online).
“I plan to continue with the dance academy and the food business because I have the time I need to attend to both. A lot of the time we make up excuses due to the fear of failure but we should be more afraid of not trying something [we want to do] because life goes by in a flash.”
