Rodríguez sells his pulque from under the shade of a tree in Atotonilco.
For years 88-year-old Bernabé Rodríguez Tovar has been making and selling pulque in Atotonilco de Tula, Hidalgo, the newspaper Milenio reported on Tuesday. After his story was published, the community rallied around the elderly man who survives at times on just pennies a day.
Pulque is a moderately alcoholic, viscous beverage and an ancestor to tequila, dating back to 1,500 years before the arrival of the Spaniards in Mexico. It is made from fermenting maguey sap, and is called by some “the drink of the gods.”
Rodríguez has long been something of a fixture among locals, who often stop to visit him and chat while they sip the milky, slightly foamy spirit.
Now a widower, Rodríguez once lived in Mexico City with his three children, but four years ago he returned to the Ocampo area of Atotonilco de Tula where he grew up and began making pulque. He sells the elixir for 30 pesos a liter (US $1.32) from underneath a tree near a gas station several days a week.
“I have a maguey that gives two liters of sap in the morning, and a liter and a half in the afternoon, so I work hard at processing the pulque.” He sells three or four liters a day.
Rodríguez gets a hug from a young woman delivering a bag of supplies.
Rodríguez was attacked by unknown assailants several years back while out buying food for his chickens. His left arm is partially paralyzed as a result, his fingers gnarled and immobile, but he continues working in order to keep the tradition alive. Some days he barely makes enough money to feed himself.
After the newspaper released the story profiling Rodríguez, he saw an outpouring of support from community members, who dropped off groceries and cash for him, in addition to buying his product.
The owner of a local café gave him 50% of one day’s sales and a youth group organized a food drive in his benefit.
Touched by the community’s support, Rodríguez emphasized the importance of maintaining Mexican culture and heritage in an ever-changing world. “Young people must plant magueys and rescue the production of pulque so that this tradition and the identity it gives Mexicans is not lost,” he said.
Their role will soon go beyond riding around in the back of a pickup truck.
Municipal and state police will not just patrol the streets but also carry out criminal investigations under a new policing model approved by a national security organization.
Members of the National Conference of Municipal Public Security, namely mayors, approved a federally-formulated policing model that proposes the creation of investigative units within all municipal and state police forces.
According to a federal Security Ministry (SSPC) document that details the policing model, municipal and state police are generally better suited to investigative tasks than their federal counterparts.
“For criminal investigation purposes, municipal and state police generally have a significant advantage over” federal authorities “because they patrol city streets every day,” the document says.
It says the officers have a better understanding of the local criminal landscape and “generally maintain a close relationship with the community.”
The document also says that it is fundamental that prosecutors’ offices seek assistance from municipal and state police to solve crimes, apprehend perpetrators, file complaints and gather criminal intelligence.
“Some municipalities and states have managed to form investigative units or have police who are trained to carry out these roles,” the SSPC document says, adding that those units and officers have supported the work carried out by local prosecutors’ offices.
Under the SSPC model, municipal and state police officers who are part of their forces’ investigative units will carry out a range of tasks including inspecting crime scenes, interviewing witnesses and victims and gathering evidence.
Readers surveyed by Travel + Leisure magazine have named Oaxaca as the World’s Best City, the magazine announced yesterday.
A total of four Mexican destinations made the top 25, after readers rated cities on their sights and landmarks, culture, cuisine, friendliness, shopping and overall value. The survey began last November and ended at the beginning of March.
Oaxaca, which received a score of 93.54 out of 100, was lauded for its rich culture. “Whether you’re into art, architecture, food, history, spirits of the drinking kind, or handicrafts, Oaxaca has it in spades,” the magazine wrote of the city that was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987.
Readers praised the city’s artisans, open-air markets, art museums and nearby pre-Columbian ruins of Monte Albán, with one voter calling it “one of the most delightful cities I’ve ever visited.” The city came in at No. 5 on last year’s Best Cities list.
San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, was ranked as the world’s second greatest city, as it was in 2019, and is also home to Hotel Amparo, a five-room hotel in the center of the colonial city took the No. 2 spot in the magazine’s survey of the World’s Best Hotels, and was also named the top city hotel in Mexico.
Mexico City ranked No. 11, down from No. 4 last year and Mérida, Yucatán, took 24th place on the Best Cities list.
“I’m proud to celebrate all of the honorees recognized by our readers in this 25th edition of the Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards,” said Travel + Leisure editor in chief Jacqui Gifford. “These remarkable brands and destinations inspire us all to get out there and explore by providing singular experiences — experiences that reinforce the idea that travel, at its core, has the ability to open hearts and shape minds. To be a force for good.”
Bonilla, center, announces takeover of toll plaza on Tuesday.
Less than two days after Baja California Governor Jaime Bonilla Valdez issued a decree announcing that the state government would be taking over a federal toll plaza, the federal government is back in control.
On Tuesday afternoon the governor said the state would assume control of the Playas de Tijuana toll booths on the Tijuana-Ensenada highway. But well before dawn Thursday morning, around 50 soldiers and members of the National Guard arrived at the toll plaza and returned federal employees to their posts without incident. Tolls are once again being collected.
Bonilla had attempted to wrest control of the stretch of toll road that runs from Playas de Tijuana to Rosarito from the Federal Highways and Bridges Agency (Capufe), place it in the hands of the state government and stop charging motorists for its use, an action Capufe called “illicit.”
Baja California Government Secretary Amador Rodríguez Lozano declared yesterday that the dispute with the federal government would be resolved politically and legally and that tolls would not be reinstated.
“Under no circumstances will this collection return; the governor’s determination is clear and forceful,” he said. Bonilla’s decree favors the safety of Baja’s citizens over “the collection of money to defray the expenses of the federal government. The option is very clear, to be in favor of citizens,” he said.
“We care about the public. There are others who are not from here and who have only been interested in taking money to take it to Mexico City. We are not interested in that; we believe that the governor’s decree is based on law,” Rodríguez added.
Capufe accused Bonilla of damage to and interruption and deterioration of the highway and accused him of violating federal laws and the constitution. The governor could face legal action and fines.
Some oil field contractors may have to wait till next year to get paid.
Pemex is seeking to delay payments to some contractors until next year, according to the news agency Bloomberg.
People with knowledge of the state oil company’s situation said that Pemex is asking some of its contractors if they can wait until 2021 for payments they are owed now.
The unidentified sources said three contractors are being asked to agree to the postponement of payments totaling US $115 million. The total amount currently owed to contractors working across Pemex’s supply chain could easily run into the billions of dollars, the news agency said.
In an email seen by the newspaper El Financiero, Pemex middle managers acknowledged that the state-run company has cash flow problems and said that contractors working at the Cantarell and Ku-Maloob-Zaap oil fields will have to wait until 2021 to be paid.
According to the people who spoke with Bloomberg, contractors are required to enter their invoices on the Pemex website in order to receive a a confirmation number and an estimation of a payment date.
However, the sources said that invoice numbers are no longer being issued in some cases. Bloomberg said that Pemex didn’t respond to its request for comment about the matter.
Wilbur Matthews, founder of Vaquero Global Investment, a Pemex bond trader, said the extension of Pemex’s outstanding debts is concerning given the problems the state oil company, saddled with almost $105 billion in debt, already faces.
“If Pemex refuses to give you an invoice number, it doesn’t become a payable to Pemex and it doesn’t become a receivable to the [supplier], so it’s like accounting limbo land,” he told Bloomberg.
“But the reality is that Pemex owes them this money. What it means is that Pemex has a massive additional debt burden.”
President López Obrador has pledged to “rescue” Pemex, boost oil production and make Mexico self-sufficient for its fuel needs. He said in January that the government had “saved Pemex” but that assertion wasn’t backed up by the company’s first quarter result, although the coronavirus pandemic was a major factor in the poor performance.
The coronavirus crisis, low oil prices, a tumbling peso and 15 years of declining oil output all took a toll on the company between January and March, resulting in a loss of almost $23 billion.
Due to its financial problems, Pemex has been forced to cut at least $1.8 billion from its 2020 exploration and production budget, and thousands of workers have lost their jobs as a result of the state oil company’s suspension of contracts with service providers and suppliers.
Ruaraidh Montgomery, research director at oil consultancy Welligence, told Bloomberg that the delay of payments to contractors shows that the situation Pemex is “is starting to bite.”
Matthews said it is possible that a company owed money by Pemex will seek legal intervention.
“I don’t know which company will go to court, where the judge says Pemex has to pay what it owes, but something bad is going to happen. At $40 a barrel things have to be run perfectly, and Pemex is not run perfectly,” he said.
Perhaps seeking to fend off the possibility of legal action, Pemex is currently negotiating with Nacional Financiera, a federal development bank, to have it pay the outstanding debts to contractors, according to a source within the state oil company.
The battered ATM, abandoned by unsuccessful thieves.
In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, a group of intrepid thieves attempted to steal an ATM machine from a Culiacán, Sinaloa, shopping center by dragging it away using a stolen tow truck.
Police were tipped off by anonymous callers just after 5 a.m. and arrived at the scene outside the Ley Express supermarket to discover broken glass doors and the ATM abandoned in the middle of the street after the thieves had beaten it with hammers, police say, in a failed attempt to remove the cash. The tow truck was left about 30 meters away.
An investigation revealed that the would-be thieves had tied ropes around the ATM, dragging it off its base inside the shopping center with the powerful Ford truck.
It is believed the thieves were spooked by unrelated police activity in the area and fled, leaving the battered but intact ATM and its contents behind.
The incident is similar to another theft of an ATM in Culiacán on April 27 in which thieves also used a vehicle to haul off the cash machine, although that time they were successful and police recovered the ATM, empty, from the back of a van.
Duarte was arrested in Florida after fleeing Mexico three years ago.
The former governor of Chihuahua, César Duarte, was arrested on corruption charges in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday, Mexican and U.S. authorities said.
The federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) said that Duarte, governor of the northern border state between 2010 and 2016, was taken into custody by officers with the United States Marshals Service who were acting on an arrest warrant for extradition purposes issued by a court in New Mexico.
Manny Puri, assistant chief for the U.S. Marshals Service in South Florida, said the ex-governor was detained by the law enforcement agency’s fugitive task force “without any incidents.”
The federal government renewed its request for Duarte’s extradition to Mexico in January.
The former Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) governor is wanted in Chihuahua on charges of criminal association and embezzlement to the tune of 6 billion pesos (US $264.2 million at today’s exchange rate). Some of the money was allegedly funneled to the PRI to fund election campaigns in 2015.
Duarte is also wanted on federal charges that he embezzled 14 million pesos from state government employees’ salaries and handed it over to the PRI.
New Mexico court documents said the accusations against Duarte included putting the state of Chihuahua into debt of more than 48 billion pesos and diverting at least US $6.5 million to two companies of which he had served as chairman.
The ex-governor had been on the run since 2017, and Interpol had issued red notices for his arrest.
Duarte will face a hearing at a federal court in Florida within 72 hours of his arrest at which the crimes of which he is accused will be set out. At the same hearing, a judge will likely inform Duarte of his bail rights or lack thereof.
Experts who spoke with the newspaper El Universal predicted that the 57-year-old former governor will be denied bail due to the high probability that he will abscond.
The arrest of Duarte and his probable extradition to Mexico is likely to make some other PRI politicians, both former and current, nervous because the ex-governor could choose to cooperate with authorities in exchange for a reduction in his sentence.
Duarte, the newspaper Milenio reported, could inform on other PRI members who participated in or had knowledge of the embezzlement schemes in which he was allegedly involved.
Duarte has previously denied any wrongdoing but if he were to name names, Luis Videgaray, a former federal finance and foreign affairs minister, former tax service chief Aristóteles Núñez and even ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto could come up, Milenio said.
Peña Nieto, who former Pemex chief Emilio Lozoya could implicate in his own corruption charges, has been accused by some people of protecting Duarte from prosecution while he was president of Mexico.
The FGR noted that the arrest warrant under which Duarte was detained was requested by the current administration and accused Peña Nieto’s government of failing to pursue the ex-governor.
López Obrador was informed of the arrest before it was publicly announced, El Universal said, but he made no mention of it in the public remarks he made while at the U.S. president’s official residence.
Travelers at Mexico City’s Benito Juárez International Airport will be able to enjoy free Wi-Fi in both terminals starting July 13, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced.
Through a network of some 200 antennas, the service will have the capacity to connect up to 8,000 simultaneous users and will not ask for personal information nor interrupt browsing with advertisements. There will also be no time limit on Wi-Fi usage, and browsing will, for the most part, be free of restrictions. Up to 130,000 users can connect each day.
The airport’s Wi-Fi network, with bandwidth of 3.5 megabits per second per user, will be called Gratis_CDMX_Avenida and will be available at 36 gates in Terminal 1, and 23 gates in Terminal 2, as well as common areas and food courts throughout the airport.
The airport’s general manager, Jesús Rosano García, highlighted that free internet in the terminals will benefit national and international passengers as they monitor flight information and general information about the city.
The service comes at no extra cost to city government per the terms of its telecommunications contract with Telmex.
Mayor Sheinbaum also reported that the speed of free Wi-Fi services at 13,694 C5 security posts throughout Mexico City has been increased from 20 to 100 megabits per second. Mexico City now ranks at No. 2 in the world for the number of free internet access points, second only to Moscow.
Shopping centers were busy after they reopened in Mexico City on Wednesday.
A new single-day record for coronavirus cases was set on Wednesday but Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell asserted that Mexico’s epidemic is slowing down.
The Health Ministry reported 6,995 new confirmed cases, increasing Mexico’s accumulated tally to 275,003. It was the seventh time that more than 6,000 cases were reported on a single day and the fifth time this month.
The Health Ministry also reported 782 additional Covid-19 fatalities, lifting the official death toll to 32,796.
Active cases increased to 27,891, a spike of 1,334 compared to Tuesday, while there are 80,893 suspected cases across the country.
Mexico City continues to lead the country for accumulated and active cases, with 54,405 of the former and 4,122 of the latter. Case numbers have been on the wane in the capital in recent weeks but data shows that active cases increased by 171 on Wednesday.
Coronavirus cases in Mexico as of Wednesday. milenio
México state ranks second for accumulated cases followed by Tabasco, Puebla and Veracruz. México state also has the second largest active outbreak in the country followed by Guanajuato, Nuevo León and Tabasco.
At the municipal level, León, Guanajuato, currently has the largest active outbreak in Mexico, overtaking Puebla city on Wednesday.
The municipalities with the third, fourth and fifth largest outbreaks in the country are Mérida, Yucatán; Centro (Villahermosa), Tabasco; and Iztapalapa, Mexico City.
Mexico City also has the highest Covid-19 death toll in the country, having recorded 7,303 confirmed fatalities as of Wednesday. México state ranks second, with 4,985 deaths, followed by Baja California, where 2,189 people have lost their lives to Covid-19.
The other states with more than 1,000 Covid-19 fatalities are Veracruz, Puebla, Sinaloa, Tabasco and Guerrero.
Health Ministry data shows that 40 pregnant women have died from Covid-19 out of 1,829 who have tested positive. Twenty-eight babies under a year old have also succumbed to the disease.
Covid-19 deaths as of Wednesday. milenio
Despite the record increase in case numbers reported on Wednesday, López-Gatell, the government’s coronavirus point man, told reporters at last night’s press briefing that the speed with which new infections is occurring is decelerating.
“In the national panorama we see that the epidemic is continuing to slow down. This is a message that we’re very interested in highlighting,” he said.
“There is noise, there is a racket of information that suggests things that are technically incorrect and therefore they become lies, whether it’s with the intention of lying or not,” the deputy minister said, presumably referring to media reports that compare Mexico’s death toll with other countries, using absolute numbers rather than per-capita death rates.
“The epidemic in Mexico is slowing down, it hasn’t accelerated and the process of coming out of lockdown, of returning to activities in public spaces has not manifested as a new outbreak or … as an increase in the speed with which the epidemic is occurring. The epidemic is slowing down,” López-Gatell said.
The deputy minister stressed that the easing of coronavirus restrictions comes with the inherent risk that new outbreaks will occur “in one place, two, three, five, or any number.”
“This has happened in every country in the world when they started to come out of lockdown. … Nobody should be surprised that this can happen,” he said.
However, López-Gatell said that there is no evidence that the easing of coronavirus restrictions in the states that have transitioned to an “orange light” on the federal government’s “stoplight” map, used to indicate the risk of infection, has caused case numbers to spike.
“The epidemic in the country as a whole is slowing down,” he reiterated.
“Obviously, the epidemic is still active [but] that there is an increase in the number of cases doesn’t mean that the epidemic is speeding up. One thing is that the epidemic is still in a growth phase … and another thing is that the speed at which this increase is occurring is increasingly slower.”
The two presidents in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
President López Obrador described the new North American free trade agreement as a “great achievement” Wednesday afternoon during an address to the media alongside United States President Donald Trump at the White House.
Speaking in the Rose Garden after a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, López Obrador said the USMCA will benefit Mexico, the United States and Canada and allow “greater integration of our economies.”
He said the new agreement, which replaced NAFTA on July 1, will help to generate more jobs and stem migration from Mexico to its northern neighbor.
The pact will enable the three countries “to march together into the future,” López Obrador said.
In a lengthy address on a hot day in the U.S. capital, López Obrador declared that Trump has treated Mexico with respect since he took office in late 2018, an assertion he also made earlier this week to brush off criticism of his trip to Washington.
“During my term as president of Mexico, instead of insults toward me, and … more importantly toward my country, we’ve received understanding and respect,” he said.
López Obrador said the United States president has never tried to “impose” anything on Mexico that violates the country’s sovereignty and “hasn’t tried to treat us as a colony.” Both are claims that some might challenge by pointing to the blanket tariffs Trump threatened to place on Mexican imports if the country didn’t do more to stem the flow of migrants to the U.S.
Citing the examples of former presidents Benito Juárez and Abraham Lincoln – whose memorials he visited earlier on Wednesday – and subsequently Lázaro Cárdenas and Franklin D. Roosevelt, López Obrador said that “history teaches us” that it is possible for Mexican and United States presidents to understand each other and work well together.
Any differences between Mexico and the United States can be resolved through dialogue, he said.
“Some people thought that our ideological differences would inevitably lead us to confrontation,” López Obrador said, referencing his and Trump’s opposing positions on the political spectrum. “Fortunately, this bad omen didn’t come true.”
López Obrador concluded his address by wishing “long life” to the Mexico-United States friendship, the U.S., Canada, “our America” and of course, Mexico.
López Obrador at the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday.
“Viva México!” he repeated three times before Trump thanked him for his “beautiful job.”
Speaking before his Mexican counterpart, Trump declared that he has an “outstanding” relationship with López Obrador and that the ties between the United States and Mexico have “never been closer” and “never been stronger.”
“People were betting against that but … we’re doing a tremendous job together. We’re cherished friends, partners and neighbors. Our cooperation is founded on mutual trust and mutual respect between the two of us and between our two countries,” he said.
“With his visit President López Obrador and I have the opportunity to strengthen the bond we have forged since his impressive election victory more than two years ago. … Each of us was elected on the pledge to fight corruption, return power to the people and put the interests of our countries first. And I do that and you do that, Mr. President,” Trump said.
The U.S. president said that he and López Obrador are “building a powerful economic and security partnership,” adding that “together we have addressed many of the most complex issues facing our two countries.”
Trump said that the USMCA was the “largest, fairest and most advanced trade deal ever reached” and that it “includes groundbreaking labor protections for workers in both nations.”
Mexican and US officials joined López Obrador and Trump in the Oval Office.
“This landmark agreement will bring countless jobs from overseas back to North America and our countries will be very big beneficiaries,” he said.
Trump also said that the U.S. and Mexican governments are cooperating closely to stop the illicit cross border flow of drugs, guns, cash and contraband, “and very importantly stopping human trafficking.”
“We’re forging critical partnerships across the Western Hemisphere to combat the cartels and the smugglers and to ensure safe, humane and lawful migration. … We’ve been helped greatly by Mexico in creating record numbers in a positive sense on our southern border,” he said, presumably referring to the deployment of the National Guard in Mexico to block migrants’ path to the U.S.
Trump made no mention of his long-promised border wall, which he has claimed Mexico will fund.
Following their remarks, the two presidents signed what Trump described as “a joint declaration committing ourselves to a shared future of prosperity, security and harmony.”
They didn’t take questions from reporters.
Trump will host López Obrador, Mexican government officials and business people at a White House event on Wednesday night that a senior U.S official described as a state dinner “lite” within the context of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The Mexican delegation, which also includes Foreign Minister Ebrard, Economy Minister Graciela Márquez and López Obrador’s chief of staff Alfonso Romo, will return home on Thursday.
