Financial authorities have warned that cryptocurrencies are not legal tender and that financial institutions that integrate their use will be subject to sanctions.
The joint statement by the banking regulator, the Bank of México and the Finance Ministry came after Banco Azteca owner Ricardo Salinas Pliego said he planned to allow customers to operate with Bitcoin, the world’s leading cryptocurrency.
Salinas called Bitcoin “the new gold” and argued in favor of its value as an investment opportunity and a parallel currency option for his bank’s clients. “At Banco Azteca we are working to bring [Bitcoin] to our clients to continue promoting [financial] freedom,” he wrote Sunday on Twitter.
The Monday statement by financial authorities sought to put a check on Salinas’ plans. “The financial authorities reiterate their warnings … on the risks inherent in the use of so-called ‘virtual assets’ as a means of exchange, as a store of value, or as another form of investment,” the statement read.
“The country’s financial institutions are not authorized to carry out and offer operations to the public using virtual assets, such as Bitcoin, Ether, XRP and others in order to maintain a healthy distance between [those virtual assets] and the financial system,” the statement continued.
Finance Minister Arturo Herrera reiterated the position at a news conference, saying that under current rules cryptocurrencies are prohibited from being used in the financial system, and that regulation is not likely to change.
There are reasons to be wary of Bitcoin’s immediate integration: the cryptocurrency’s valuation has had a turbulent recent history. It fell to a five-month low last Tuesday, due to China’s crackdown on cryptocurrency mining and trading after reaching a high of US $63,000 on April 13.
However, the premise is also a threat to financial authorities, who are used to central banks having authority over currencies. In contrast, Bitcoin has not depended on any central institution since its anonymous creation in 2009.
Salinas is no neutral bystander. Banco Azteca is one of the country’s leading remittance processors, which are increasingly being sent in Bitcoin. He is also something of an ally to the president, having previously backed a bill that would have forced the Banxico to buy up foreign cash.
The entrepreneur is worth about US $15.8 billion according to Forbes, making him Mexico’s third richest person. He runs TV Azteca, Mexico’s No. 2 television broadcaster, and Grupo Elektra, a retailer founded by his grandfather in the 1950s that targets lower-middle class consumers.
If President López Obrador was chastened by his losses in midterm elections this month, he has not shown it.
The morning after the June 6 vote, the government published a law to extend the mandate of Supreme Court President Arturo Zaldívar, who is close to the president, in what critics fear may provide a template for López Obrador to extend his own term beyond 2024.
Within days, the president vowed to pursue constitutional reforms in the areas of energy, elections and security, despite having lost the two-thirds majority needed for such changes in Congress. He accused the “perverse, slanderous, immoral” media of poisoning voters against him and attacked the middle class as selfish social climbers.
Despite the fiery rhetoric, to some this looked more like business as usual for López Obrador rather than a shift to a more radical agenda after his Morena party lost about a fifth of its seats in Congress and more than half the districts in Mexico City.
“Clearly AMLO will keep on being AMLO, and this is something businesses and society have to learn to live with — we’re not going to change him,” said Antonio del Valle, head of the Mexican Business Council representing the country’s biggest companies, using the president’s nickname.
“But after three years, we can understand by now that, just as he isn’t going to change politically, he won’t change his economic policy either … and that reassures me a lot.”
Top business leaders have learned to look past the veteran populist’s incendiary messaging and applaud how he has resisted pressure to borrow heavily for a big spending splurge, like other leftists in Latin America.
One chief executive, who asked not to be named, said the president’s “bark is worse than his bite.”
While his rhetoric remains confrontational, many observers expect little deviation from a plan he mapped out long ago to achieve his vaunted “transformation” of Mexico: social programs to tackle deep income inequality, infrastructure projects in the poor southeast to create jobs and energy self-sufficiency based on fossil fuels.
After a stint as mayor of Mexico City in 2000-2005, in which López Obrador displayed a pragmatic streak, “I was expecting him to be more moderate, and he hasn’t been”, said Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, a totemic figure of the Mexican left and one of the few in the ruling Morena party who is critical of the president.
López Obrador’s desire to extend Zaldívar’s term to secure a potentially more compliant judiciary and his attacks on the respected electoral authority INE, as well as independent regulators, have sounded alarm bells.
“I hope he won’t toughen the presidency to oppose institutions,” said Muñoz Ledo. “Mexico’s presidency is already very powerful.”
Claudia Sheinbaum, López Obrador’s protégée and the mayor of Mexico City, ridiculed what she said had been opposition efforts to portray the election as a watershed for Mexico’s democracy with “this idea that it would be the last time we voted because we were heading for dictatorship.”
Graham Stock, a partner at BlueBay Asset Management, saw “limited opportunity” for López Obrador to radicalize without a congressional supermajority and rejected comparisons with Venezuela’s late authoritarian leader Hugo Chávez.
“He’s a fiscal conservative, so he won’t be spending money in a dash for growth,” he said. “The chaos and destruction narrative that his opponents have always tried to say would happen — I don’t buy that . . . He’s not the next Chávez, he’s quite unique.”
After winning a landslide in 2018, López Obrador has kept supporters loyal with handouts, higher pensions and big increases to the minimum wage. His stubborn refusal to take on more debt meant there was no Covid-19 stimulus program, triggering a deeper recession last year than in many Latin American peers.
Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister from the conservative PAN party, said he believed López Obrador had wasted an opportunity to use his “enormous legitimacy” to enact far-reaching reforms.
“What you have to do is what he hasn’t done, although he could have: a serious tax reform,” he said. López Obrador has promised to close loopholes rather than raise taxes.
“It could seem short-termist, but it’s a pragmatic logic,” said Gerardo Esquivel, a deputy governor of the Bank of México. “All past attempts at fiscal reform have been political flops … In his opinion, it’s more transformative to make people pay what they have to and get salaries where they should be.”
Mexico’s economy is now on the rebound after contracting 8.5% in 2020 and is heading for growth of 6% or more this year, helped by President Joe Biden’s US $1.9-trillion stimulus package in the U.S.
But a climate of uncertainty lingers, stoked by López Obrador’s cancellation of partially built airport and brewery projects, weighing on the investment that Mexico needs to break out of its traditionally weak growth rates.
López Obrador’s unrelenting attacks on political enemies, including the rich, the media and the business class, have also fuelled concerns about the risks of further dividing an already deeply fractured and violent society.
“The most important thing is to stop the polarization of the country: rich versus poor, north versus south,” said the chief executive of one Mexican bank. “We all need to row in the same direction for the boat to advance.”
Although there seems to be nothing there now but open water, Isla Bermeja was on maps as early as 1539. Google Maps shows where the island was believed to exist.
First appearing in a Spanish compendium of all the islands of the world in 1539, Bermeja has flummoxed sailors, fishermen and politicians since it seemingly vanished from the ocean around the turn of the 21st century.
22°33’N, 91°22’W. Take a boat to these coordinates and you are almost certain to find nothing but empty water and open skies despite the fact that, dating back to the 16th century, this phantom islet in the Gulf of Mexico was clearly visible on maps and charts.
Isla Bermeja’s dematerialization only became apparent over the course of negotiations between the governments of Mexico and the United States in 2008 and 2009 over who had drilling rights to parts of the Gulf of Mexico, in which the phantom island was considered crucial for determining national marine boundaries.
“Isla Bermeja was a controversy because it was a key area of the Exclusive Economic Zone in the Gulf of Mexico,” geographer and islands specialist Israel Baxin Martínez explains. “There were official searches around this time to see if there was some remnant of this island because the expansion of this zone for Mexico would mean an abundance of oil.”
Off the north coast of the Yucatán, it would have been the northernmost Mexican island in the gulf. As a result of its absence, Mexico lost rights to a maritime area that was believed to hold 22.5 billion barrels of oil.
The Mexican government searched for Isla Bermeja’s remnants, hoping it would help the nation secure drilling rights in the area, says geographer Israel Baxin. UNAM
It has been speculated that the island disappeared as a result of natural geographic shifts in the ocean floor and rising sea levels that have already swallowed remote islands in Hawaii, Japan, and the Arctic.
It could also be, of course, that the island never existed and that its appearance on early maps was merely the result of erroneous observations by cartographers.
With such a plentiful stock of black gold on the line, and the complex political latticework that oil negotiations necessarily entail, conspiracy theories about the cause of the island’s disappearance abound.
It is even common chatter among fishing communities along the coast of the Yucatán that the island was destroyed deliberately to allow the United States to eat into the Exclusive Economic Zone.
However, when negotiations began in 2009, oil production rates had been dropping — or failing to increase — every year since 2004. In spite of this, oil revenues count for 10% of Mexico’s export earnings, and therefore are a significant contributor to national GDP.
Notwithstanding the continuing global slump in oil demand as a result of the rise of sustainable fuel options and a more widespread awareness of the damaging effects of drilling for and burning crude oils, the loss of the territory to the U.S. represented a significant blow for economic expansion.
“It’s a conspiracy theory, of course,” an unmoved Martínez says.
Yet the layman’s whisper has seeped into the political chat at large: in November 2008, six senators from the then governing National Action Party (PAN) raised questions about Isla Bermeja, citing suspicions that the island had been made to vanish deliberately by American powers in order to give the U.S. more leverage in negotiations over marine territory.
This, however, is a more-than-suspect allegation. It is scarcely believable that an entire island could be destroyed or obfuscated from the map without somebody noticing, and there is already a precedent for confusion around the existence of small islets.
In the Pacific, for example, Martínez cites islands that, through issues with cartography or nomenclature, either do not exist or are existentially confused. He cites as examples cartographical inaccuracies appertaining to the Isla de Cedros and the Revillagigedo Islands southwest of the southern tip of Baja California, a large archipelago famous for its endemic flora and fauna.
“Conceptually,” Martínez continues, “we notionally believe that everything that is mapped must exist. So, because the island was mapped in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the assumption was that the island existed, and the map record confirms it.”
In these cases, Martinez says, the existence of the islands was “a continually unconfirmed truth,” which is as much to say that once an entity is mapped, its existence is assumed and replicated without question.
Bermeja (circled in red) on a map from 1846. Theories of what happened to the island range from it being subject to ocean floor shifts or rising water levels to it being destroyed by the US to gain oil rights. It also may have never existed.
Bermeja, however, is a little different. Historically, the island was mentioned in the cartography of explorers in the 18th century, but it is additionally mentioned in other documents, including a number of official inventories at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century — some of which were government inventories.
“The question with Bermeja in particular is that it’s not just mentioned in cartographic history,” says Martínez. “It has a much larger backlog of studies and a presence in the official inventories.”
Since 2009, there have only been four official expeditions to find Bermeja, alongside a handful of journeys by enquiring journalists and the generally curious.
In the last decade, TV Azteca and the National Autonomous University launched maritime research campaigns to locate the territory, but the missions came to the same conclusions as those sponsored by the government: that the island does not exist and that there are no vestiges of such a body of land in the area.
It is telling that there was little interest in the island until it was believed to have been taken away; like a child with toys, the Mexican cultural consciousness was uninterested in an uninhabited island miles into the gulf until it was no longer there.
“Culturally, what we see with Bermeja, as in many other cases, is that people don’t care about what they’ve got, but they do care about what they’ve lost,” Martinez reflects. “People are jealous of what has been taken from them, but they refuse to do anything with what they already have.”
And therein — perhaps — lies a much greater truth, one that has little to do with disappearing islands and much more to do with the unquestioned lies we build up around us in order to perpetuate the myths of who we believe ourselves to be.
Shannon Collins is an environment correspondent at Ninth Wave Global, an environmental organization and think tank. She writes from Campeche.
An artist's rendition of section four of the Maya Train, where it will run adjacent to the highway between Cancún and Izamal.
The National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) withheld critical information about the US $8-billion Maya Train railroad when it sought funding for the project from the federal Finance Ministry (SHCP).
The newspaper El Universal reported Monday that Fonatur, which is managing the construction of the 1,500-kilometer tourist and freight railway through Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, hid “critical information” related to the Maya Train route, expected passenger demand and construction risks.
Professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was paid 32 million pesos (US $1.6 million) by Fonatur to carry out a financial analysis of the project but many of its key findings were not included in a cost-benefit analysis the tourism fund submitted to the SHCP.
El Universal, which obtained almost 7,500 pages of documents delivered to Fonatur by PwC , said the multinational warned of an extremely complex process to build a section of the railroad through jungle between Xul-Ha, Quintana Roo, and Escárcega, Campeche.
PwC also said that construction of the 250-kilometer section would come at great cost and have a significant environmental and social impact.
But Fonatur didn’t include that information in the analysis it submitted to the SHCP. “In other words, fundamental information about this section was hidden,” El Universal said.
Fonatur also withheld a range of other information from the SHCP, including warnings from the Federal Electricity Commission that it would face “significant difficulties in building electrical lines parallel” to existing highway infrastructure, “which generates doubts about the practicality and capacity to deliver a railroad beside it.”
In addition, it didn’t disclose warnings that it was likely to face significant opposition from environmental groups, especially in places such as the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Campeche.
PwC warned of a total of 10 construction and operational risks for the Maya Train that Fonatur didn’t disclose or didn’t disclose fully to finance officials.
The risks, which PwC said have a high probability of materializing, “would have a severe impact” if they occurred, El Universal reported, noting that they could cause cost overruns and delays for the government’s signature infrastructure project.
“The [possible] delays range from one to 10 months and the overruns could reach 20% of the [total cost of the] project,” the newspaper said.
Among the likely problems identified by PwC were a lack of coordination in the management of the project; delays in obtaining social approval; delays in obtaining environmental permits; difficulties in obtaining right of way permission; deficient management of the construction contracts; geological risks – there is a vast underground water network on the Yucatán peninsula; and erroneous estimates about demand for Maya Train services.
(The government has said that as many as 18 million people could rise the train annually, an estimate described as pie in the sky by Francisco Javier Gorostiza Pérez, a former train boss and ex-government official.)
Given President López Obrador’s enthusiasm for the train – which he says will spur social and economic development in Mexico’s southeast – it is unlikely that the SHCP would have rejected funding for the project had it been informed of the information Fonatur hid from it. However, withholding information is not a good look for a government that says it prides itself on being transparent.
The government has already faced criticism for carrying out a referendum in 2019 that found overwhelming support for the project but which didn’t meet all international human rights standards, according to the United Nations.
Legal challenges have held up construction of some sections of the railroad but the government is forging ahead, pressuring companies to build it a cracking pace so that it can open before López Obrador leaves office in 2024.
The government has even engaged the army – a favored infrastructure contractor that is also building the new Mexico City airport, among other public works – to build some sections of the railroad, a move that could make resistance to the project more difficult.
The government is adamant that the railroad – which will also offer local services to residents of the five states through which it will run – will begin operations in 2023. It has found a company to build the required trains but it remains to seen whether demand for the service will be high enough for the government to recoup its investment costs and deliver the economic benefits touted by the president, the railroad’s preeminent backer.
The president has branded a commercial featuring the Papantla Flyers as racist, after it was also criticized by the Ministry of Culture.
An advertisement for Mexican cash loans provider Moneyman shows the Dance of the Flyers ceremony in full motion and asks: “Do you know what the number of flyers’ spins and your first Moneyman loan have in common? Both will generate zero interest.”
A block of text displaying “$4,000” — the maximum zero interest payment — then falls from the top of the screen to extinguish a flute player.
The pre-Hispanic ritual, which is principally practiced in Veracruz and Puebla, was named an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2009. In the ceremony, participants climb a 30-meter pole tied by ropes, before they jump towards the ground and spin around the pole 13 times. One participant remains at the top, dancing and playing a flute and drum.
The president stated his disapproval at Monday morning’s press conference, the mañanera: “A few days ago there was a questioning of the dance of the Voladores de Papantla: racist,” he said.
Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto Guerrero had already condemned the commercial in similar terms: “An advertisement where the ceremony is offended, discriminated against, devalued and ridiculed; which is considered sacred by the preservers of this ancestral practice … This is one more example of the racism of certain social groups in Mexico toward indigenous peoples,” she said.
Frausto also offered her support for cultural organizations which promote the tradition. “We energetically join the pronouncements that have been made against this commercial and offer our full support to the Council for the Protection and Preservation of the Ritual Ceremony of the Flyers,” said added.
The actor in the commercial, Arath de la Torre, apologized on social media after thousands of complaints. “I feel a deep admiration for the Papantla Flyers and pride for all the traditions that are part of our culture, so under no circumstances do I want to collaborate in any campaign where my participation could be interpreted as offensive to any person,” he said.
The tradition is believed to have originated with the Nahua, Huastec and Otomí peoples in pre-Hispanic central Mexico.
The 13 rotations completed by each Papantla Flyer are a symbolic representation of falling through the 13 heavens of the Sun God, and together equal 52 spins: the number of years in an Aztec “century,” or calendar round.
The elevated section of Line 12 of the Mexico City Metro, part of which collapsed last month, was overburdened by the weight of its tracks, according to a report by the newspaper Milenio.
The Mexico City government hired a company in 2014 to inspect that section of the line due to warping of some sections of tracks. The company, Systra, recommended the replacement of several rail track components including the rails themselves, sleepers, fasteners and ballast.
In a report submitted to the government, Systra said it didn’t detect any “anomalies” with the structure that supported the elevated tracks but advised against it being overloaded.
However, the Mexico City Ministry of Public Works and the then director of the Metro system, Joel Ortega, chose replacement track components that did overburden the structure, Milenio reported.
Citing government information, Milenio said the combined weight of almost 38,000 fasteners increased fivefold to almost 950,000 kilos, an increase of 759,760 kilograms, or nearly 760 tonnes.
The combined weight of the new sleepers was 6.53 million kilograms, an increase of 1.53 million kilos, while the replacement rails weighed just under 1.35 million kilograms, an increase of 76,007 kilos.
All told, the structure supporting the elevated section of Line 12 was burdened with an additional 2,367 tonnes of weight.
During six years of service, and two powerful earthquakes in September 2017, the excess weight damaged the infrastructure supporting the elevated section, Milenio said.
“Experts consulted by Milenio commented that this excess load took the structure to its elastic limits, creating cracks, fragmentation and deformation [that] damaged [metal and concrete] sheets, beams and columns,” the newspaper said, adding that the situation worsened as a result of the 2017 earthquakes.
Milenio said that unionized Metro workers were the first to notice that columns supporting the elevated section of Line 12 had shifted due to the excess weight they were supporting. In early October 2014, the secretary general of the union, Fernando Espino, wrote to then Metro chief Jorge Gaviño to request a “meticulous inspection” of Line 12, “specifically the structure and columns on the elevated section because some displacements of the structure have been identified.”
Three companies that built the line, Carso Infrastructure and Construction, ICA and Alstom, were contracted to inspect and repair the elevated section and Gaviño subsequently said it was safe to reopen the line, which had closed in the wake of the earthquakes.
DNV’s report noted deformations, fractures and displacement of beams that form part of the structure that supports the elevated section. The excess weight placed on the structure during a period of several years may have contributed to the collapse, the Milenio report suggests.
DNV will release a final report detailing the results of its investigation into the cause of the tragedy later this year.
Violent waves caused by Hurricane Enrique have killed two people in separate events in Acapulco, Guerrero, and destroyed hundreds of houses in the state. The storm has also caused damage in Michoacán and Colima.
Authorities on Monday morning predicted torrential rains in Colima, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nayarit and Sinaloa, but said they were optimistic the hurricane would move towards the coasts of Nayarit and Sinaloa on Tuesday and be downgraded to a tropical storm in its advance toward Baja California Sur Wednesday.
Enrique continued to be classed as a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale as of 1:00 p.m. CDT but was weakening.
Tropical storm watches are in place between Puna Mita and San Blas in Nayarit and from Cabo San Lucas to Los Barriles in Baja California Sur while a hurricane warning has been downgraded to a tropical storm warning between Cabo Corrientes and Playa Perula in Jalisco.
Guerrero has recorded 207 houses destroyed, landslides and fallen trees, with 10 municipalities affected. The most serious damage was reported in Coahuayutla, where rain and winds collapsed the roofs of 120 houses; in Copalillo, 70 houses were damaged.
The storm wiped out a bridge in Colima.
In Colima, which faced 24 hours of constant rain, the El Carrizo bridge collapsed on the Manzanillo-Minatitlán highway. Minatitlán was one of four municipalities affected, and was inaccessible by land.
In Michoacán, most of the damage has been registered in Lázaro Cárdenas with flooding and fallen trees.
The Defense Ministry has assigned 13,397 personnel and 310 vehicles to attend to damage and support local people.
Those in affected areas are instructed to follow updates from the Meteorological Service of the National Water Commission (Conagua).
The 2021 rain and tropical cyclone season began on May 15 and ends in November.
President López Obrador walks a section of old railway on the route of the Maya Train.
Contracts issued by the federal government to build three sections of the Maya Train railroad stipulate construction periods that are too short, the results of a survey of construction companies suggest, raising concerns that the project could be substandard and ultimately dangerous, as Line 12 of the Mexico City Metro – the scene of a deadly disaster last month – proved to be.
The National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur), which is managing the project to build a 1,500-kilometer tourist and freight railway through Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, has given the companies building sections 1, 2 and 3 of the project 28 months to finish once they have started construction.
The aim is to inaugurate the new railroad before the end of the six-year term of President López Obrador, who has pressured the construction companies to work more quickly.
A market survey conducted by Fonatur, PricewaterhouseCoopers and other consultants in 2019 found that a majority of 21 construction companies believed that a period of at least 36 months was needed to build a 250-kilometer section of railroad – provided everything went smoothly.
However, “companies with more experience in the construction of railroad tracks favor a period between 36 and 48 months,” the survey report said.
The president during a recent inspection of progress on the train.
All told, about two-thirds of the construction companies consulted said that at least three years were needed to build each section of the railroad, the government’s signature infrastructure project.
Completing a 250-kilometer section in that period of time would require an absence of “delays caused by environmental, social or right of way issues,” the survey report said.
Sections 1, 2 and 3 of the ambitious project – which faces legal challenges from indigenous communities – are all shorter than 250 kilometers, but not significantly so.
Section 1 will run 228 kilometers between Palenque, Chiapas, and Escárcega, Campeche; section 2 will traverse 235 kilometers from Escárcega to Calkinía, Campeche; and section 3 will cover 172 kilometers from Calkiní to Izamal, Yucatán, a stretch that will cross land beneath which there are numerous caverns and cenotes, or natural sinkholes.
López Obrador, who believes that the new railroad will spur economic and social development in Mexico’s long-neglected southeast, appears determined to ensure that the construction companies comply with the 28-month construction period set by Fonatur, asking them on several occasions to speed up the process.
During a visit to Campeche last December to inspect the progress of section 2 – which is being built by a consortium controlled by business tycoon Carlos Slim – López Obrador offered a “respectful recommendation” to simultaneously work on different parts of the stretch at the same time. “More progress is made that way,” he said.
The president made similar remarks during an inspection of the same section in March, and pledged to visit as frequently as every two weeks if construction fell behind schedule.
“That there is a rush to complete the Maya Train before he leaves the National Palace is more than obvious,” the newspaper El Universal said in a report published Monday, although the work has not kept pace with the president’s predictions.
“In December 2018 [the month the president was sworn in], López Obrador said that construction in Palenque was going to start that month. In February 2019, he promised that the tendering process would begin in March and in June he guaranteed that construction work would begin in 2019. In December of that year, the president guaranteed that there would be construction work in March 2020. Between April 23 and May 15 of 2020, sections 1, 2 and 3 of the Maya Train were awarded and the physical construction work was inaugurated in June, just a month later, providing almost no time to carry out a quality executive project [master plan],” El Universal said.
Construction began very soon after the signing of contracts despite a majority of companies surveyed by Fonatur indicating that they would need six to 12 months to draw up construction plans for a single section of the railroad.
Asked by El Universal why a period of just 28 months was set for each of sections 1, 2 and 3 to be completed and why construction began so soon after the contracts were awarded, Fonatur responded that the companies that submitted successful bids “presented construction work programs” that made a commitment to finish in that period of time “after analyzing in detail the viability of their development.”
“With respect to the beginning of the work, it is the usual norm in these kinds of contracts that the executive project is presented in partial deliveries …” it said.
There was also a rush to finish Line 12 of the Mexico City Metro.
The apparent rush to complete the train before López Obrador’s term ends in 2024 appears eerily similar to the alleged scramble to open Line 12 of the Mexico City Metro – where 26 people were killed in an accident on May 3 – before former mayor Marcelo Ebrard left office in late 2012.
The preliminary results of an independent investigation indicate that the collapse of an elevated section of Line 12 was caused by a series of faults during construction. The New York Times reached the same conclusion after conducting an investigation based on years of government records, interviews with people who worked on construction of Line 12 and expert analysis of evidence from the site of the crash.
“In a rush to finish, the city demanded that construction companies open the subway well before Mr. Ebrard’s term as mayor ended in 2012. The scramble led to a frenzied construction process that began before a master plan had been finalized and produced a Metro line with defects from the start,” the Times report said.
It also said that the “heralded expansion” of the Mexico City Metro system “could boost his credentials for a possible presidential run.”
However, Ebrard – now foreign minister – denied the claim that the project was rushed for political purposes and suggested that a lack of maintenance during the government led by his successor as mayor, Miguel Ángel Mancera, could have caused the collapse of the overpass.
Two of the companies that worked on construction of Line 12, Slim’s Carso Infrastructure and Construction and ICA, are involved in the construction of the Maya Train project. ICA, a Mexican firm, is building a section between Izamal and Cancún, Quintana Roo.
Fonatur has said that the Maya Train project is being built with the “highest quality and safety standards,” but the Times said it has seen hundreds of messages in which “engineers have discussed construction progressing on [the Maya Train] without plans or details being approved, as well as unfinished designs.”
The director of construction company Coconal, which is not working on the Maya Train project but participated in the Fonatur survey, raised concerns in May about the tight timetable to build the railroad and other large government infrastructure projects, such as the new Mexico City airport and the Dos Bocas oil refinery on the Tabasco coast.
“If the project has risks that you’re going to assume unknowingly … and in addition you know beforehand that it won’t be achieved [on time], you shouldn’t take it on,” Héctor Ovalle said.
Fonatur director Rogelio Jiménez Pons said the Line 12 tragedy was “a timely warning” for the Maya Train project but remained defiantly committed to the 28-month construction period, asserting that the tourism fund has to lay everything on the line to ensure that it is met.
His boss expects no less: the Maya Train has to be ready in 28 months, López Obrador said while inaugurating the project on June 1 last year. No excuses will be accepted for delays, he stressed, asserting that a long period of rain, for example, would not be considered a valid reason for the project falling behind schedule.
While a majority of construction companies surveyed by Fonatur believe that the Maya Train can’t be built in 28 months, the president made his view very clear, declaring unequivocally as he triumphantly waved a starting flag for the project that “of course it can.”
Gazpacho from Morelia takes advantage of Mexico's easy access to sweet fruits like mango, pineapple and papaya.
The other day I was at the mercado, noticing the glorious array of summer veggies and thinking about making gazpacho. Then it occurred to me that gazpacho is basically salsa whirred in a blender.
Further research revealed that the original gazpacho was quite different than the type we enjoy today. Tomatoes weren’t added until the early 19th century, and bread — mashed, soaked, crumbed — was a foundation of the dish. In fact, the word gazpacho is derived from the Arabic for soaked bread.
History tells us that gazpacho most likely originated in the Iberian peninsula, perhaps carried by the Romans. Although traditionally eaten as a cold soup of raw vegetables blended with stale bread, vinegar, salt and olive oil, variations abound.
One of the most interesting is the traditional gaspacho made in Morelia, Michoacán, basically a fruit soup with a few unusual twists. Small minced cubes of mango, jicama, papaya, pineapple, watermelon and onion, layered with cotija cheese and chile powder, are then doused with orange juice and eaten with a spoon — kind of like a sweet pico de gallo. Apparently, this curious dish was a hangover remedy created in the 1960s by a greengrocer named José Alfredo Ferrer Ortíz, known as “the pioneer of gazpacho.” It was originally made solely with jicama, cotija cheese, a few drops of vinegar and chile powder.
The more common gazpacho (unless you live in Morelia!) is tomato-based and includes a variety of raw chopped veggies in season: cucumbers, onions, parsley and other fresh herbs, garlic, avocado, celery, bell peppers and, of course, the juiciest tomatoes you can find.
This creamy take on gazpacho uses yogurt and cream cheese for richness and grapes for just a touch of sweetness.
The freshness of the ingredients is crucial; straight from the garden is the best. Before blenders, fresh garlic was pounded into a paste in a mortar and pestle and then olive oil, soaked stale bread, a few drops of vinegar and salt were added to make a paste. This formed the foundation of the soup.
Vibrant fresh flavors are the crux of gazpacho. Besides the best, freshest, ripest vegetables, fruits and herbs, a good, flavorful extra-virgin olive oil, kosher or sea salt, fresh-ground black pepper and the best-quality vinegar you can find will all make a difference to the finished product.
Classic Gazpacho
6 oz. any kind of bread, crusts removed, torn into 1-to 2-inch chunks
3 lbs. very ripe tomatoes
Salt and pepper
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded
3 stalks celery
1 red onion
1 green or red bell pepper
¼ cup roughly chopped fresh oregano leaves
2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
2 Tbsp. sherry vinegar, plus more to taste
Chopped fresh herbs such as parsley, chives, cilantro or oregano for serving
Cut tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, celery and bell pepper into one-inch chunks. Place bread in bottom of a large bowl. Add half the tomatoes in an even layer on top and season generously with salt and pepper.
Add cucumbers, onion, peppers, celery and garlic. Sprinkle with oregano, salt and pepper. Add remaining tomatoes, and sprinkle with more salt and pepper. Drizzle oil and vinegar over top. Let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Gently toss all ingredients with a wooden spoon. Transfer half, including the liquid at the bottom of bowl, to a blender. Blend on high speed until smooth. Press mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a large bowl. Repeat with remaining soup.
Season to taste with more salt, pepper and vinegar.
Serve immediately, garnished with chopped herbs and drizzled with olive oil, or chill for up to three days before serving.
Traditional Morelian Gaspacho
1 cup jicama
1 cup mango
1 cup pineapple
1 cup watermelon
1 cup orange juice
3-4 limes, juiced
Salt to taste
4 tsp. chili powder
1 cup cotija cheese
½ cup onions, finely chopped
Chop all fruit into tiny cubes. In a large bowl, combine chopped fruits, onion and the orange and lime juices. Refrigerate until serving. Just before serving, sprinkle individual cups or bowls with cheese, chili powder and salt.
Quick and spicy gazpacho, with only three steps, lives up to its name and makes it easy to get your veggies.
Cantaloupe Gazpacho
1 medium cantaloupe (peeled, seeded, chopped)
1 small cucumber (peeled, chopped)
2 Tbsp. chopped red onion
1/3 cup water
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
Fresh mint leaves
Purée cantaloupe, cucumber, onion and water in a blender till smooth. With motor running, drizzle in olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Chill. Garnish each serving with mint leaves.
Green Grape and Almond Gazpacho
5½ cups seedless green grapes
1 cup chopped, peeled cucumber
1 cup chopped scallions
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
½ cup plain regular yogurt
¼ cup toasted sliced almonds
¼ cup rice vinegar
¼ cup buttermilk*
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
½ tsp. ground arbol chile powder
Garnish: fresh herbs like dill, parsley, cilantro, basil
* Can’t find buttermilk? Mix 1 tsp. white vinegar into a scant ¼ cup of regular milk; let sit five minutes.
Combine everything except the dill in a blender or food processor. Purée until mostly smooth with a few small pieces remaining.
Cover and refrigerate until cold. Serve topped with minced fresh herbs.
Quick and Spicy Gazpacho
4 stalks celery
3 red bell peppers
3 yellow bell peppers
2 cucumbers
3-4 avocados, sliced
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
1 bunch green onions
½ red onion
½ lb. shrimp, grilled or sautéed
46 oz. bottle tomato-vegetable juice cocktail (like V-8)
2 (32 oz.) bottles tomato and clam juice cocktail
12 oz. bottle hot pepper sauce (such as Cholula)
⅓ cup red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon or lime juice
3 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil
Dice celery, peppers, cucumbers, all onions. Combine all ingredients except avocados and shrimp in a large bowl; season with salt and pepper.
Refrigerate at least six hours to blend flavors.
Serve topped with shrimp and avocado slices, drizzled with olive oil.
Banco Azteca plans to become the first bank in Mexico to accept Bitcoin.
Owner Ricardo Salinas Pliego, Mexico’s third richest person, announced the plan in a series of tweets on Sunday in which he called Bitcoin “the new gold.”
Bitcoin is the world’s largest crypto currency. It was created anonymously in 2009 does not depend on any central institution.
Salinas stated investment opportunity and customer service were the main drivers. “Bitcoin is a good way to diversify your investment portfolio and I think that all investors should start studying cryptocurrencies and their future. At Banco Azteca we are working to bring them to our clients to continue promoting [financial] freedom,” he wrote.
In November, the billionaire revealed on Twitter he had 10% of his liquid portfolio invested in the crypto, which received a boost in recent weeks when El Salvador announced it would become the first country to make it legal tender. Lawmakers in a Brazil and Panama expressed an interest in following suit.
However, the crypto currency’s valuation has had a turbulent recent history. It fell to a five-month low on Tuesday, due to China’s crackdown on cryptocurrency mining and trading. On Monday it was trading at US $34,620 after reaching a high of $63,000 on April 13.
Salinas is worth US $15.8 billion according to Forbes. He runs TV Azteca, Mexico’s No. 2 television broadcaster, and Grupo Elektra, a retailer founded by Salinas’ grandfather in the 1950s that targets lower-middle class consumers, many of whom buy products using money borrowed from Banco Azteca.
