Colima seeks reparation for damages caused by CFE lagoon spills

Marta Álvarez and Luis Alvarado of Mole Don Luis.

San Pedro Atocpan is a beautiful little pueblo and one of a dozen in Milpa Alta, a borough of Mexico City. It’s been designated as a barrio mágico — a magical neighborhood — and has a lovely church that was dedicated in 1680, a pretty park in the town’s center and winding cobblestone streets made for walking.

But none of these are what draws people to the pueblo. What draws them is mole, one of Mexico’s most revered dishes, because San Pedro is billed as the Mole Capital of Mexico.

Mole had a fairly humble beginning, one that stretches back at least as far as the Aztecs who made a simple sauce called chilmole. “It is a salsa of just chiles and tomatoes and almost no spices,” said Luís Gutiérrez Romero, a San Pedro resident who has researched mole’s history for many years. “It is still very common in Oaxaca, Puebla and Tlaxcala.”

According to Gutierrez, mole’s transition from a simple sauce to a thick and flavorful version began after the Conquest. The Spaniards brought nuts and spices with them that were new to indigenous groups who soon began incorporating them into their foods. “This was especially true in Puebla,” said Gutiérrez.

“Puebla had an important role in the development of mole. It is at the crossroads of México [state], Veracruz, Oaxaca and Tlaxcala. Puebla still provides chiles for our mole.”

Mole is made by hand at Aurelia Arroyo's restaurant, Jacal de María Candelaria. — Mole is made by hand at Aurelia Arroyo’s restaurant, Jacal de María Candelaria.

There are several competing stories (or legends) that purport to tell how the mole we know today came to be.

The most popular story is that Sor Andrea de Asunción, a nun in a convent in Puebla, created it in 1680 (although some claim this actually happened in the 16^th century). Supposedly, a bishop was making a surprise visit and the nun had a “celestial inspiration” that led to her creating mole. Others claim it was a monk who first created the sauce.

The most fanciful story is that wind blew a bunch of ingredients into a large pot and they somehow combined perfectly to make mole. “These versions are pretty but not true,” said Gutiérrez. “I believe the process of making mole had its origins in fiestas and where people prepared food, in the pueblos, especially in Tlaxcala and some pueblos close to San Martín. I believe with all this mixing, people tried different things and I believe mole continued to change from the 16th through the 18th century.”

He estimates that there are over 200 different kinds of mole, but there’s no way to be sure. In San Pedro, popular varieties include red, green, almond and pipian. Every pueblo and, really, every household has its own special recipe. Making mole from scratch is quite a task since each kind has at least 20 ingredients and requires two or three days of work.

Epitacia Juárez Casteñada, an 80-year-old resident of San Gregorio Atlapulco, is one of a handful of people who still make mole at home. Her specialty is mole rojo — red mole.

First, she thoroughly washes two kinds of chiles — mulato and pasilla, removes the seeds, dries the chiles and then takes them to be ground. Then she toasts and grinds a handful of five different nuts by hand using a molcajete, a bowl made from volcanic stone. This, she said, imparts flavor to the mole. Next, she grinds eight different spices, also by hand, adding them to the nuts, forming a powder that she then fries using lard or oil, finally thinning the resulting paste with chicken stock. Clearly, a lot of work. Fortunately, San Pedro’s streets are lined with restaurants and stores serving up mole.

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Jacal de María Candelaria is one of the few restaurants where mole is still made by hand. “It is artisanal mole,” said Aurelia Arroyo Martínez, the owner.

“With industrial production, machines are used to grind the ingredients. With artisanal, it is all made by hand. There is a big difference in flavor. We have a grinder made of [black volcanic] stones, which give the mole a distinct flavor and consistency. We also taste the mole as we make it; you cannot do that with industrial production.”

She admits that making artisanal mole is a lot of work since her moles have as many as 36 ingredients but, she said, “Vale la pena.“ It is worth it.

All of the stores offer mole as both a powder and paste. “The only difference is that the powdered mole lasts longer,” explained Luis Juan Alvarado Retana, owner of Mole Don Luis. His store uses recipes handed down from his mother, with only a few changes. “We have made them a little sweeter, a little less acidic.”

Marta Álvarez Cordera, his wife, gave me a short course on how to prepare mole. “Many cooks brown the mole first,” she said as she cooked using a clay pot known as a cazuela. “Some fry a little tomato in oil before adding the mole and browning it. When that is done, simply add water or stock and mix it until you have the consistency you like.”

In Mexico, the majority of cooks use lard instead of oil for frying and chicken stock to thin the mole but vegetable oil and vegetable stock work fine. As Arroyo said, “Preparing mole is more art than science.”

Epitacia Juárez is one of a handful of people who make mole at home.

Once done, the mole can be poured over enchiladas or rice or pretty much anything you enjoy eating. The most popular item on the menu in San Pedro is turkey leg with mole spooned over it.

A vegetarian option is to steam up some vegetables, add them to the mole and pour the mix over rice. Toss in some frijoles and you’ve got a complete meal.

San Pedro’s Feria Nacional de Mole has been held in October each year since 1976. It’s held in a park just outside the pueblo and features dozens of restaurants and stores. It’s a great place to sample the wide variety of moles available.

This year’s version is scheduled for October 3-25 but with the uncertainties due to the coronavirus, it’s best to check before heading to the pueblo.

Joseph Sorrentino is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily. He lives in San Gregorio Atlapulco, Mexico City.

‘The coronavirus pandemic won’t stop us from dancing!’

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September 16, 2020

dancers — Dancing 'the most Mexican thing we have.'

Mexico City’s fabled dance halls have been shuttered for five months but for some lovers of cumbia and salsa, the lack of infrastructure created an opportunity to improvise.

That’s what 52-year-old Martha Rivero Maldonado and her friends did, and now they meet up in San Juan Park to cut a rug, where more than 100 people have chipped in to purchase a speaker.

Yesterday especially Rivero felt she could not let the holiday pass without dancing. She made lunch for her employers and left work in the afternoon headed for the park, fixing a patriotic ribbon in her hair during the metro ride, and wearing red, white and green necklaces.

She’s been dancing all her life, and won’t let the coronavirus stop her.

“I try to dance only with one partner, and we have antibacterial gel that we put on every time we finish dancing. We also wear face masks,” she explained.

“This ugly pandemic has taken many things from us, but it could not take away the most Mexican thing that Mexicans have: dancing,” she said while putting on her makeup as the train neared San Juan Park.

“This is our life, dancing. It takes away my depression and we need that now. People, relatives and friends, have died. We have to move on,” she said.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Organizers of parties where Covid infection occurs subject to 12 years in jail

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September 16, 2020

This is how independence celebrations normally look in Querétaro. As in most states, they were canceled this year.

Anyone who hosts a party in Querétaro where someone becomes infected with the coronavirus will be charged with the crime of “risk of contagion” and subject to up to 12 years in prison.

Government Secretary Juan Martín Granados Torres made the announcement Tuesday as a staunch reminder to those who were contemplating celebrating Mexico’s Independence Day holiday with friends in mass gatherings.

“If indeed a person, in the normal period established by medicine, tests positive for Covid and the doctors establish that that was the place of infection, then the person responsible for any meeting or any concentration of people could incur the crime of risk of contagion sanctioned by our penal code,” he said.

The law states that “those who, knowing that they suffer from a serious illness in an infectious period, without the victim or offended person being aware of this circumstance, endanger the health of another, through sexual relations or another transmissible medium will be imposed the penalties provided for the crime of injury.” Exceptions include spouses and common-law partners.

Penalties range from three months to 12 years in prison, depending on the severity of the circumstances.

The Ministry of Health made the modifications to the law on September 11, when it announced the suspension of Independence Day celebrations in the state and suggested that municipal governments apply necessary measures to avoid contagion.

Granados said he hopes the severe penalties will act as a deterrent in the state, where businesses selling alcohol, including restaurants, were ordered to close at 6 p.m. yesterday and today to avoid crowds of patriotic revelers.

“It is not strictly speaking a dry law but a regulation in terms of limiting the hours of sale and consumption in the establishments that I have referred to because this situation is potentially generating behavior in citizens that can provoke and activate or encourage greater contagion,” Granados stated.

Authorities will be especially vigilant in border areas of the state where police will break up parties, Granados said.

As of Tuesday, Querétaro had recorded 7,784 accumulated cases of the coronavirus and 891 deaths.

Source: El Universal (sp)

OECD lowers its 2020 Mexico growth forecast to -10.2% from June’s -7.5%

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September 16, 2020

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has downgraded its 2020 economic forecast for Mexico to a contraction of 10.2% down from -7.5% in June.

Among G20 counties, Mexico is predicted to suffer the fourth deepest recession after South Africa, Argentina and Italy. The OECD predicts that India will suffer an economic contraction equal to that forecast for Mexico.

The only G20 country where the economy is forecast to grow this year is China with GDP to increase 1.8%, according to the OECD. Global GDP is predicted to decline 4.5% in 2020, a 1.5% improvement compared to the OECD’s June forecast.

In its Interim Economic Outlook report, titled Coronavirus: Living with uncertainty, the OECD said that output declines in 2020 in Mexico, Argentina, India and South Africa are projected to be even deeper than anticipated earlier due to “the prolonged spread of the virus, high levels of poverty and informality, and stricter confinement measures for an extended period.”

Mexico currently has the seventh highest coronavirus case tally in the world and fourth highest Covid-19 death toll, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The Mexican economy contracted 18.7% in the second quarter of 2020, a period that included two full months – April and May – when federally-mandated coronavirus restrictions were in force.

The government’s support for business amid the economic crisis has been extremely limited, triggering criticism from the private sector and many analysts.

While the outlook for this year is gloomy, the OECD predicts that Mexico’s growth figures will be back in the black in 2021 with GDP forecast to increase 3%. That forecast is unchanged from June.

For Mexico’s North American trade partners, the United States and Canada, the OECD is predicting contractions of 3.8% and 5.8%, respectively, in 2020, and growth of 4% in both countries next year.

The organization said its projections assume that a coronavirus vaccine will not become widely available until late in 2021.

Published Wednesday, the OECD forecasts come three weeks after Mexico’s central bank said in a report that GDP could contract by 12.8% in 2020 in a worse-case scenario.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Plane raffle has met its goal, says AMLO, but 30% of tickets remain unsold

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September 15, 2020

The presidential plane, a Boeing Dreamliner, is still up for sale.

One of the more surreal episodes of President López Obrador’s 21-month-old government is coming to a close. The draw in the raffle for the presidential plane, in which the aircraft is not in fact the prize, began at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday and was expected to take a few hours to complete.

The president announced Monday that enough tickets had been sold to cover the 2-billion-peso (US $95 million) prize pool, made up of 100 prizes of 20 million pesos (US $950,000) each.

“We met the goal to obtain [the money for] the prizes, that’s resolved so the raffle will take place [Tuesday] ” López Obrador said.

In fact, the money raised from the sale of the raffle tickets was never intended to be used to pay out the combined prize pool, which is supposed to be representative of the value of the plane, although its real worth has been estimated at $130 million.

The funds for the prizes were actually transferred to the grandiloquently named Institute to Return Stolen Goods to the People by the federal Attorney General’s Office in February. The money was obtained via a successful lawsuit against a company found guilty of defrauding the previous federal government.

Indeed, López Obrador, after telling reporters that the funds needed to pay the prizes had been raised, contradicted himself by saying that all of the raffle revenue would be used to purchase medical equipment.

“Everything we’re getting from the sale of tickets is to purchase health equipment, equipment for hospitals. … Next week, we’ll present a report about the money obtained, and all that money will be [used] to buy medical equipment,” he said.

The president said the government will buy the equipment via a tendering process and that a small plaque will be placed on each purchase that reads: “Resources obtained from the presidential plane raffle. Contribution of the people 2020.”

López Obrador first floated the idea to raffle off his predecessor’s luxuriously-outfitted Boeing 787 Dreamliner in January.

He had described the jet, which was actually purchased by the government of former president Felipe Calderón but not delivered until after his term ended, as an “insult to the people” and an “example of the excesses” of his predecessors. A year ago he presented infographics that showed that the government of ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto had spent more than 1 million pesos for supplies for a single flight on Mexico’s equivalent of the United States’ Air Force One.

The president pledged repeatedly that he would never step foot on it.

Shortly after he took office in late 2018, López Obrador put the plane up for sale but with the market for opulent, expensive aircraft undoubtedly small, it failed to sell.

As a result, AMLO, as the president is best known, came up with the idea of offloading it via a raffle but in February shattered ordinary Mexicans’ dreams of owning the plane, announcing that a lucky draw would indeed go ahead but that cash prizes rather than the jet itself would be up for grabs.

That decision came after the idea that an ordinary person could become the owner of a $130-million plane – and have the means to pay for its hangaring and operational expenses – was widely ridiculed on social media.

The president’s raffle plan became something of a national joke, with social media users musing about what they would use the plane for should they win it and wondering where they might be able to park it.

Duncan Wood, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., told The New York Times that López Obrador’s efforts to keep his promise to get rid of the plane became more elaborate, expensive and just “too weird” over time.

“If this was an episode of Black Mirror, it wouldn’t make it to the screen,” he said.

Black Mirror is a dystopian television series that explores a wide range of weird and wonderful premises.

Apparently undeterred by the criticism his raffle idea faced, and it becoming the brunt of countless jokes and memes, López Obrador forged ahead with his plan and turned his focus to the most important job in any raffle: selling tickets.

In February, he hosted a dinner at which he asked some 150 company owners, chief executives and business leaders to commit to purchasing large bundles of tickets.

The president has also repeatedly urged citizens to buy tickets for the draw and even broke his promise never to enter the plane when he stepped aboard last month to record a video designed to boost slow sales.

But despite his best efforts to get Mexico’s business elite as well as ordinary citizens to buy the raffle tickets at 500 pesos (about US $24) a pop, millions remained unsold, prompting López Obrador to announce last week that the government would spend 500 million pesos (US $23.7 million) on 1 million cachitos, as the lottery tickets are known in Mexican Spanish.

Still, as of Monday, 30% of 6 million tickets – 1.8 million in total – hadn’t been sold, the newspaper Reforma reported. Members of the general public have only purchased just over 1 million tickets since they went on sale in February, it said.

Reforma also pointed out that none of the revenue raised by the raffle will be used to offset the costs that the unsold plane, which returned to Mexico from a hangar at the Southern California Logistics Airport in July, continues to generate.

“Not a single peso from the raffle will be used to pay for the purchase, maintenance and storage of the presidential plane, which is [still] stranded without a solid purchase offer 21 months after it was put on the market,” the newspaper said.

Critics say that the entire raffle spectacle is part of efforts to divert attention at a time when Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll continues to mount – it currently stands at more than 71,000 – and the economy is facing its worst crisis since the Great Depression. López Obrador’s brother is also embroiled in a possible corruption scandal, which is not a good look for a president who has pledged to eliminate the scourge and is looking to lead the ruling Morena party to success at federal midterm and state gubernatorial elections in 2021.

Carlos Elizondo, a government professor at the Tec de Monterrey university, told The New York Times that part of the motivation for the raffle was to “keep alive the idea of the abusive political class of the past” and portray the current administration as “the austere ones.”

But “along the way,” he added, “he’s gotten entangled in an increasingly ridiculous exit strategy.”

Paula Ordorica, a columnist for the El Universal newspaper and a television host, told the Times that the plane is a “symbol” that the president is “not willing to let go.”

“The two rallying cries of this president are the fight against corruption, and austerity, and the plane allows him to address both,” she said.

Mexico News Daily

Mexico edges out Brazil as chief supplier of orange juice to US

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September 15, 2020

More than half of Mexico's orange harvest comes from Veracruz.

Mexico has once again surpassed Brazil as the major supplier of orange juice to the United States.

Although the dollar amount of orange juice shipped to the U.S. between January and June is half as much as it was last year, Mexico exported US $142 million of juice in the first six months of 2020, considerably more than Brazil’s US $91 million.

Mexico exported $333 million worth of juice last year, beating Brazil by $3 million.

A recent study by CitrusBR, an organization representing the three largest Brazilian exporters of orange juice, showed that sales from Mexico to the United States have skyrocketed since 2008, when U.S. customs eliminated tariffs on imports of concentrated and frozen orange juice from Mexico as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

In contrast, U.S. imports of orange juice from Brazil pay a tariff of US $415.86 per ton.

In 1993, when the U.S. tax on juice from all sources was still US $490.02, Brazil exported 144,500 tons of concentrated and frozen orange juice to the United States. That volume has dropped to just 71,100 tons in 2019. According to CitrusBR, Mexico’s exports of concentrated and frozen orange juice went from 9,800 to 74,700 tons in the same period.

“With a good quality product, similar to that produced in Florida, and land freight around 50% cheaper than Brazilian maritime logistics, the Mexican product continues to gain [ground],” Brazilian newspaper Valor Economico reported in reference to the CitrusBR study.

The United States Department of Agriculture forecasts that Mexico’s exports for the 2019-2020 season will total 104,850 tons, as drought has decimated the orange production affecting the supplies available for processing.

The vast majority of concentrated and frozen orange juice production in Mexico is destined for export to the United States. There is some small trade with Europe, depending on prices. Likewise, Mexico imports a small amount of orange juice for supermarkets or small processors that have their own juice brands.

Mexico has 342,885 hectares of orange orchards, 55% of which are located in Veracruz. Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo and Sonora also produce oranges.

This year the heat and drought are expected to drop Mexico’s orange production per hectare by 34%. Most of Mexico’s orange trees are older, and therefore harder hit by the drought than other fruits.

Orange varieties grown in Mexico include Valencia, Lane Late Navel, and Navelina. Valencia oranges ripen in December and are the most widely produced variety in Mexico for juice.

Orange is the main citrus fruit consumed in Mexico, with per capita consumption of 37.4 kilograms. Mexicans mainly use oranges for fresh-squeezed orange juice.

Source: El Economista (sp)

Passenger numbers slowly rising at Mexico City airport

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September 15, 2020

Airport passenger numbers since February. el economista

Passenger numbers at the Mexico City airport are slowly recovering after plunging more than 90% during Mexico’s coronavirus lockdown period, but still remain well below 2019 levels.

A total of 1.34 million national and international passengers passed through the Benito Juárez International Airport in August, according to its operators.

It was the third consecutive month that passenger numbers rose but they were still 70% below the level recorded in August 2019.

In February, some 3.82 million passengers used the Mexico City airport, a 9% increase compared to the same month last year but numbers dropped to 2.67 million in March, a 35% annual reduction.

In April, the first full month of the national social distancing initiative, only 300,000 passengers used the airport, a 93% decline compared to the same month last year. Numbers fell to 280,000 in May, a 94% year-over-year drop.

Passenger numbers rose to 560,000 in June, the month in which federally-mandated coronavirus restrictions were replaced by rules that applied on a state by state basis, and just exceeded 1 million in July. But despite the growth those figures represented annual declines of 87% and 78%, respectively.

Passenger numbers in August rose about 30% compared to July, giving airlines and other businesses that depend on travelers cause for muted celebration.

Mexico City airport operators said the busiest day last month was August 21 when 49,795 travelers passed through the facility. More than 80% of people who used the airport last month were domestic travelers.

Aeroméxico, the national flag carrier, increased flights between Mexico City and the cities of Cancún, Mérida, Durango, Los Mochis, Chihuahua and Culiacán in August. It also reopened the route between the Mexican capital and Quito, Ecuador, as well as those to the U.S. cities of Las Vegas, Denver and San Francisco.

In addition, Aeroméxico increased the frequency of flights to Miami, Paris and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

But no matter how many extra flights are added in the final months of the year and how many passengers resume air travel, 2020 is certain to go down as a year the airline industry and airport operators would prefer to forget.

In the first eight months, a total of just over 14.2 million passengers passed through the Mexico City airport, a 57.4% decrease compared to the same period of 2019.

Source: El Economista (sp)

AMLO sends proposal to Senate for national vote on prosecuting ex-presidents

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September 15, 2020

amlo — Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, left, and federal legal counsel Julio Scherer applaud the document that was sent to the Senate.

President López Obrador sent a request to the Senate Tuesday to approve a national consultation in which citizens would be asked whether the five most recent former presidents should face justice for crimes they allegedly committed while in office.

“Our decision is to submit a document to the Senate [proposing] the carrying out of a consultation of the people of Mexico about the possible prosecution … of the ex-presidents of Mexico from 1988,” he told reporters at his regular news conference.

López Obrador said that any prosecution of past presidents would proceed only after a proper investigation was carried out within the framework of the law and with respect to due process.

His decision to submit a formal request for a vote on whether past presidents should face justice means that the ruling Morena party’s efforts to collect signatures of support were essentially pointless.

According to the constitution, a consultation can be approved by the Congress if it receives a request for one from the president, 33% of the members of the lower or upper house or at least 2% of citizens who are enrolled to vote.

Ex-presidents Salinas, Zedillo, Fox, Calderón and Peña Nieto.

Morena launched a campaign earlier this month to collect 2 million signatures in support of a consultation. Party president Alfonso Ramírez said the aim was to collect that number of signatures — only 1.8 million were needed — to ensure that there were no excuses for a consultation not to go ahead.

Members of Congress and the president himself predicted that the effort to collect the signatures required would fail but López Obrador said today he had been informed that the 2 million mark had been reached.

Nevertheless, he said he decided to present his own request in order to ensure that a consultation proposal is put before the Congress.

“I believed that it was important to present this document as well to have more certainty about the request for a consultation of all citizens,” López Obrador said.

While supportive of a consultation – the president likes to portray himself as a champion of “participatory democracy” – AMLO, as the president is widely known, has said that he won’t vote in favor of prosecuting his predecessors because he prefers looking to the future rather than dwelling on the past.

However, López Obrador is prone to abandon that stated mindset, frequently railing against his recent predecessors and blaming them for all manner of problems that plague the country including insecurity, inequality, impunity and corruption.

Despite his formal backing for a vote, there is no guarantee that one will be go ahead, according to Marco Pérez, a law professor at the La Salle University in Mexico City.

In an interview with Forbes México, Pérez described the plan to hold a consultation as “cheap politicking” and “totally unviable.”

He said the constitution establishes that human rights and mechanisms designed to protect those rights cannot be subjected to consultation. “It’s clear that due process is a human right” and it would be violated by a vote because ex-presidents would be “prejudged” for alleged crimes they may not have committed, he said.

If a consultation is given the green light, Pérez said, the Supreme Court would have to review the wording of the question posed to citizens to ensure that it was not biased and didn’t violate the ex-presidents’ rights.

The academic also said that authorities have an obligation to advise the federal Attorney General’s Office if they have proof that a current or former official has committed a crime. No consultation is needed, Pérez said.

Felipe Calderón, who along with Carlos Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox and Enrique Peña Nieto could be investigated should a majority of citizens support the initiative, said much the same.

felipe calderon — Calderón: if president has no proof, ‘he should stop harassing me.’

“López Obrador is confusing the [Mexican] republic with a Roman Circus: instead of going to the Attorney General’s Office [FGR] with proof, he’s asking the masses if innocent people [should] be convicted or forgiven by giving a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. [It’s] a regression of thousands of years in terms of justice,” he wrote on Twitter.

“If he has well-founded proof against me, he should go to the attorney general today and present it without the need for a consultation. But if he doesn’t have proof or specific accusations, … he should stop harassing me and respect my rights like any other citizen,” Calderón said.

The former president, who defeated López Obrador at the 2006 election and has long had a testy relationship with him, accused the current president of political persecution and abuse of power.

Calderón also said that AMLO’s proposal to hold a consultation violates the “fundamental guarantees” of “presumption of innocence, due legal process, justice via an independent court, exclusive investigation by the [attorney general], protection of life, honor and dignity.”

Source: El Universal (sp), Forbes México (sp), Reforma (sp)

Families of lost miners sign accord for ‘immediate’ start to recovery of bodies

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September 15, 2020