Two cartels have issued a threat to the governor of San Luis Potosí, warning that his government should cooperate because they plan to “seize the entire state.”
The Gulf Cartel and the Cartel de los Alemanes made the threat to Governor Juan Manuel Carreras in a video that has been widely shared on social media.
Surrounded by four armed and masked men, a suspected cartel member reads out a message to the Institutional Revolutionary Party governor.
“Governor Juan Manuel Carreras López, San Luis Potosí will burn in the last year of your six-year term.”
(The final year of Carrera’s term began in late September.)
“We recommend that you speak with your narco-government and tell your security chiefs that they can negotiate the state’s peace with us.”
The masked orator then told Carreras that if his government reaches a deal with the two allied cartels, current officials won’t have to go into hiding when they leave office next year.
“If you don’t help us, don’t get in our way because we’re coming with all the support of the Vaquero [the Cowboy] to seize the entire state. Stop screwing around. Yours sincerely, Cartel de los Alemanes and the Gulf Cartel,” he said.
The Vaquero is believed to be Evaristo Cruz, the suspected leader of the Gulf Cartel in Tamaulipas. He is wanted in both Mexico and the United States.
Earlier in the video, the orator announced that the Gulf Cartel and the Cartel de los Alemanes were now in the Huasteca region of San Luis Potosí “cleansing the towns” of undesirable elements so that “everything is in order.”
He told local residents to not be alarmed if they see cartel members “working” because they have no problems with them.
However, the speaker issued a threat to Huasteca region state police chief Samuel Ruiz Montealvo, telling him that he will pay with his life if he and his officers cause problems for the cartels.
“It’s better that you align [yourself with us]” or ask the San Luis Potosí security minister for a transfer, he said.
Just before he made that remark, one of the armed cartel thugs points the barrel of his gun directly at the camera.
The cartel mouthpiece also issued a threat to army Colonel Rolando Solano Rivera, telling him that if he continues sending “intelligence” people to the Altiplano region, “we’ll disappear” them.
“We’ve already located the assholes,” he said, adding that the cartels haven’t forgotten a clash with the army in the municipality of Charcas in late October in which one Gulf Cartel member was killed, two were arrested and weapons were seized.
The orator also told Solano that not all soldiers are “faithful to the homeland,” implying that some are in cahoots with cartels.
The video is the second in recent months from the two gangs. In August, a man who identified himself as cartel leader Alfredo Alemán issued threats to San Luis Potosí police director José Guadalupe Castillo Celestino and Security Minister Jaime Ernesto Pineda Arteaga.
The Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico’s oldest organized crime groups that remains active today, operates in at least 19 municipalities in San Luis Potosí, according to navy reports.
The Cartel de los Alemanes, an offshoot of the Zetas cartel, is a new criminal organization that announced its existence earlier this year.
US president-elect Biden favors the development of renewable energy but his Mexican counterpart is betting on fossil fuels.
As scientists and environmentalists — one mexicano, one estadounidense — we believe that the 46th United States president, Joseph Biden, will fulfill his campaign promises of placing environmental protection and climate change at the center of his administration’s agenda.
And we look forward to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris exercising a respectful cooperation and leadership with other nations — a leadership founded on true multilateralism. Tens of millions of Americans who gave them their vote expect nothing less, and the billions of people around the world cheering the election win will accept no less.
The U.S. and Mexico share a border of 3,000 kilometers, extending through some of the world’s most magnificent landscapes. From the banks of the Rio Grande, across the vibrant-with-life deserts of Sonora and Chihuahua bordering Texas and Arizona, to the Colorado River and Sea of Cortés, through breadbaskets of Arizona and California, to the Pacific Ocean — where the mighty gray whales have migrated for millennia between Alaska and Baja California to connect our two geographies.
And crossing the border through blue skies are millions of tiny, orange-and-black monarch butterflies weighing only half a gram but linking the hopes and aspirations of millions of U.S. and Mexican citizens through their annual migrations.
We are convinced that, despite past misgivings and sometimes mutual mistrust, for the most part the peoples of the two nations love and respect each other. Not only because we share landscapes and iconic species, but also because we depend on each other to culturally and economically thrive as neighbor nations.
It is in this context that we believe the next four years offer Presidents Biden and López Obrador an exceptional opportunity to boost an important binational alliance, one that helps tackle two of our most pressing environmental challenges: global warming and the loss of biodiversity. It is a unique moment in time for our nations to make history together.
For four years, Donald Trump led an unprecedented offensive to weaken scientific institutions and malign science and scientists. He degraded the Environmental Protection Agency and used it to undermine regulations on protected areas, wetlands, fisheries, and endangered species. His administration dismantled most public policies and institutional foundations needed to curb global warming and protect the environment and people, and he rolled back regulations for carbon dioxide emissions, toxic chemicals, food safety, and air and water pollution.
He even stopped payments to the Green Climate Fund – a UN program to assist developing countries in reducing carbon emissions.
But he might be most remembered as the builder of an infamous “wall” — a wall that offended all Mexicans and most estadounidenses, fragmented ancestral indigenous lands and some of the most mind-boggling landscapes on Earth; a wall that crippled hundreds of North America’s wild migratory species from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico.
But now comes the time for reconstruction, a time for healing and renewed partnership between our two countries. There are countless areas in which we can work together to improve our tightly linked societies and landscapes — such as immigration, trade, drug trafficking and gun smuggling, climate change, and biodiversity protection. As environmentalists, we herein focus on the last two.
The U.S. is the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter, while Mexico is the world’s 12th (and the largest in Latin America). Although fossil fuels still dominate the energy mix in the U.S., renewable energies are growing quickly. President Biden is expected to step up policies and efforts to fulfill his promise to invest nearly $2 trillion in infrastructure spending, focused mostly on renewable energy, as an opportunity to reestablish the U.S. as a global economic, environmental, and political leader. He wants to put the U.S. on an irreversible path to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by no later than 2050; an easily achievable goal that can also boost the economy.
Mexico’s López Obrador has favored fossil fuels over renewables.
On the other hand, President Lopez Obrador’s administration is betting on expanding Mexico’s fossil fuels capabilities, such as new oil refineries and boosting carbon production and use. This likely means the country would not fulfill its goal in the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions by 22% by 2030.
We believe there is ample room for the U.S. and Mexican governments to work in tandem for a renewed push in both the Paris Agreement and the Green Climate Fund, which are the most important current international agreements for tackling climate change. And there is also opportunity for President Biden to try to convince President López Obrador that the era of fossil fuels is rapidly coming to an end, and that renewable energies would not only reduce electricity prices to the people, but also create hundreds of thousands of new jobs across both countries.
Mexico and the U.S. are two of the world’s most biodiverse countries. They share a unique array of habitats and species, including 450 species listed under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and over 100 species on the U.S. Endangered Species list. These species include many migratory mammals and birds, as well as native fish, amphibians, reptiles, and insects.
The U.S. national parks and Mexico’s protected areas system are both exemplars for the world. For decades, the two countries have invested billions to strengthen those protected areas, which have proven to be the best strategies yet to protect ecosystems, indigenous lands, and the associated environmental services on which the health and wellbeing of 335 million Americans and 130 million Mexicans depend.
This December, as the third year of President López Obrador’s administration begins, we hope he gives the environment the priority it deserves for the remaining four years of his mandate. And President Biden must join the other 196 countries in the world by signing on to the pivotal Convention on Biological Diversity and help protect planet Earth for this and future generations.
Presidents López Obrador and Biden — and all mexicanos and estadounideses — must seize the moment to work closely on those issues that bind us, not those that separate us. We cannot think of a better cause for our two nations to partner on than protecting our precious shared environment.
Omar Vidal, a scientist, was a university professor in Mexico, is a former senior officer at the UN Environment Program, and former director-general of the World Wildlife Fund–Mexico.
Richard C. Brusca is a research scientist at the University of Arizona, former executive director of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and author of over 200 research articles and 20 books.
'We don't want to be imprudent,' said López Obrador, who has declined to congratulate Biden, right.
Unlike scores of leaders around the world, President López Obrador didn’t congratulate Joe Biden after United States media announced his victory over President Donald Trump in last Tuesday’s election.
Speaking in Villahermosa, Tabasco, on Saturday evening several hours after major media outlets called the race for Biden, López Obrador said he would wait until legal challenges are resolved before offering his congratulations to the successful candidate.
“We’re going to wait for all the legal issues to be resolved. We don’t want to be imprudent. … We want to be respectful of people’s self-determination and the rights of others,” he said.
The president joins the leaders of Brazil, China and Russia in withholding congratulatory remarks to the president-elect.
López Obrador, a strong advocate of non-intervention in the affairs of foreign countries, also said that “President Trump has been very respectful of us,” adding that “we have achieved some important accords.”
“We are thankful to him because he has not interfered,” he said.
Indeed, Trump didn’t make Mexico a major issue in his campaign for re-election this year as he did when he faced U.S. voters in 2016 and infamously described some Mexican migrants as drug dealers, criminals and rapists.
Despite that rhetoric and their ideological differences, López Obrador has developed a friendly relationship with his U.S. counterpart. His only trip outside Mexico since taking office in late 2018 was a visit to Washington in July to meet with Trump.
During the visit, AMLO, as the president is best known, said that in his time in office, Mexico has received “understanding and respect” from Trump and his government.
In Villahermosa on Saturday, López Obrador said that Biden has also shown respect toward Mexico and not sought to interfere in its internal affairs.
AMLO said that he has known the 77-year-old former vice president for more than 10 years, noting that he had spoken with him about migration policy.
Biden and López Obrador met in Mexico City in 2012.
“There are no bad relationships, it’s just that I can’t congratulate one candidate or the other. I want to wait until the electoral process is finished,” he said.
In addition perhaps to not wanting to offend Trump while the U.S. president remains in office and takes legal action against alleged voting irregularities, López Obrador’s decision not to congratulate Biden appears related to his own experience in close, contested elections.
In remarks that were striking in their similarity to those made recently by Trump, the president said Saturday that the presidency was stolen from him at the 2006 election he lost narrowly to ex-president Felipe Calderón.
“They hadn’t finished counting the votes and some governments were already recognizing those who declared themselves winners,” López Obrador said.
Although AMLO – who also challenged the result of the 2012 election he lost to former president Enrique Peña Nieto – said his decision to not congratulate Biden didn’t amount to an endorsement of Trump, many of his critics charged that he had indeed sided with the U.S. president, who is deeply unpopular in Mexico.
It was widely expected that López Obrador would reach out to Biden given the importance of the relationship with the United States, which shares a more than 3,000-kilometer-long border with Mexico and is the country’s most important trading partner.
“This was a very serious mistake by López Obrador,” said Jorge G. Castañeda, a former foreign minister who served in the administration of ex-president Vicente Fox.
López Obrador should have followed the lead of other leaders who quickly congratulated Biden, he said, noting that leadership aspirants welcome congratulatory remarks from foreign leaders because it confers legitimacy on election results.
“The standard on these matters, and this is a long-standing issue in diplomacy, is pretty much this: you should do what everyone else does,” Castañeda said.
The former foreign minister, now a professor at New York University, charged that López Obrador is “scared to death of Trump” but wondered “what kind of retribution” he is afraid of.
“Trump is not going to close the border. Or bomb Ciudad Juárez. Or deport 2 million Mexicans. It’s not in the cards,” he said.
Pascal Beltrán del Río, editorial director of the newspaper Excélsior, charged that López Obrador effectively endorsed Trump’s repudiation of the election results by not congratulating Biden.
“The president of Mexico now owns Donald Trump’s hallucinatory observations about the presidential election,” he wrote on Twitter. “The relationship with Biden was already going to be difficult; now more so.”
United States Representative Joaquin Castro, a Texas democrat who heads up the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said on Twitter that López Obrador’s failure to recognize Biden as president-elect was a “a stunning diplomatic failure … at a time when the incoming Biden administration is looking to usher in a new era of friendship and cooperation with Mexico.”
Jesús “Chuy” Garcia, a U.S. representative for Illinois, tweeted at the president to tell him that “American voters have spoken and Joe Biden is our president elect.”
“He won fair and square,” he added before advising AMLO not to miss out on the timely opportunity to congratulate him.
Other observers were not as critical of López Obrador’s decision to withhold his congratulations.
“The crazy guy [Trump] could close the border, deport people or [do] something else that could cause a lot of damage to Mexico and to our compatriots,” said Genaro Lozano, a political analyst and columnist.
Héctor Diego Medina, a columnist and foreign affairs analyst, said that AMLO had made a “diplomatic error” but contended that it won’t be a costly one.
“Joe Biden is not a vengeful politician,” and therefore there won’t be any reprisal against Mexico once he takes office, he said. “Biden won’t create a fuss nor will he implement any sanction [against Mexico].”
The analyst said that he actually sees a warming of bilateral relations with Biden in the White House.
“The tone [toward Mexico from the U.S. president] will be better, the bilateral … [relationship] won’t be so coarse and there will be greater possibility of dialogue,” Medina said.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said that he anticipates greater cooperation between Mexico and the United States if Biden’s election victory is confirmed.
He specifically cited economic matters as one area in which cooperation could improve but stressed that the relationship could benefit from a Biden presidency in a range of others.
Ebrard also said that the government will ask the United States to ramp up efforts to stop the flow of weapons into Mexico and the sale of drugs in the U.S.
The foreign ministers added that a meeting with an incoming Biden administration will be necessary in order to understand its vision for the relationship with Mexico. He ruled out any possibility that López Obrador’s decision not to immediately congratulate Biden will cause problems in the bilateral relationship.
Once the election result is confirmed, the Mexican government will dedicate itself to forging the “best possible relationship” with the new U.S. administration, Ebrard said.
After several close calls, Mexican golfer Carlos Ortiz came from behind to emerge as the victor at the Houston Open on Sunday. The win marked not only Ortiz’s first PGA tour victory but also the first PGA title to go to a native Mexican golfer in 42 years.
The 29-year-old Guadalajaran claimed the title with a two-shot victory, blowing past high-ranked golfers Dustin Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama, Jason Day, and Sam Burns, who started the tournament’s final day in the lead, one shot ahead of Ortiz.
In the end, Ortiz finished the tournament at Houston’s Memorial Park Golf Course 13 under par.
“I wasn’t really thinking about the other guys,” he told CNN. “I wasn’t worried. I knew if I played good I was going to be hard to beat.”
However, Ortiz was on the verge of tears at his win, accomplished with a more than 20-foot birdie putt.
“I’ve played great this week and it was really hard to hold the emotions all the way to the end,” he said of his tearful reaction. “But I’m really happy the way it played out and the way I played, too.”
The win places Ortiz into an elite group of only two other Mexican golfers to earn a PGA win — Victor Regalado, who won in 1978 at the Ed McMahon-Jaycees Quad Cities Open and in 1974 in the Pleasant Valley Classic, and Cesar Sanudo, who won the Azalea Open Invitational in 1970.
The win also qualifies Ortiz for an invitation to the prestigious 2021 Masters tournament at Augusta National Golf Course next April.
The Houston Open, which began Thursday, was the first PGA Tour event in the U.S. to have fans in attendance since March.
Flooding over the weekend was the worst in at least 50 years in the Tabasco municipality where President López Obrador was born, according to residents.
Several towns in Macuspana, located southeast of the state capital Villahermosa, suffered severe flooding due to heavy rains brought by two cold fronts and Tropical Storm Eta.
One of the worst affected was El Castaño, a community near Macuspana, the municipal seat.
The newspaper El Universal reported that residents sought refuge on their roofs as water from the overflowing Puxcatán and Tulijá rivers inundated the town.
Ángel Antonio, a local boatman who helped some residents evacuate their homes, said that floodwaters had claimed the lives of many people.
“There are a lot of dead people, [they] drowned. I saw them,” he told El Universal.
The official death toll in Tabasco from flooding stands at five but it appears likely that number will rise.
César Guadalupe Carrillo Sanchez, another resident of El Castaño, said Sunday that the town had been completely flooded for two days.
“It’s a situation that had never occurred in Macuspana,” he told El Universal while standing in waist-deep water.
“My neighbors and I are removing everything [from our homes], … We’re removing clothes and supplies, whatever we can.”
Carillo said that the only way to move about El Castaño was in a canoe or boat, adding that the roads into the community are cut off.
Macuspana under water.
“This had never happened. I’m 47 years old, I’ve been living here for 40 years and this had never happened,” he said.
Residents said that they haven’t received any support from state or federal authorities and that they are fearful of snakes and crocodiles lurking in the floodwaters. Despite that fear, some residents have fled their homes swimming, El Universal said.
In Tepetitán, López Obrador’s home town, water has inundated homes after flowing over the top of sandbag walls that were erected in vain.
Other Macuspana communities where flooding has been reported include Nicolás Bravo, Álvaro Obregón, Puxcatán, Luis Donaldo Colosio, Josefa Ortiz and San Joseito. Flooding has also affected Villahermosa, where the Grijalva River burst its banks.
The federal Civil Protection service said late Sunday that the government was providing humanitarian assistance to more than 177,000 people affected by heavy rains in Tabasco, Chiapas and Veracruz. More than 141,000 of that number are in Tabasco.
The Civil Protection service also said that 58,877 homes have been damaged and that 220 roads and 20 bridges have been affected by flooding in the three states.
Civil Protection chief Laura Velázquez Alzúa said that 27 people had lost their lives due to the heavy rain – 22 in Chiapas and five in Tabasco. Several landslides have been reported in the former state.
She said that more than 8,000 people had sought refuge in 209 temporary shelters, 195 of which are in Tabasco.
Velázquez noted that rain is not forecast this week in areas currently affected by flooding. The forecast “allows us to take very important decisions to help people,” she said.
She said that thousands of civilian and military personnel from several government institutions are contributing to efforts to evacuate affected residents and deliver humanitarian aid.
López Obrador, who flew to Villahermosa on a military aircraft on Saturday, said that no one would be abandoned by the federal government.
He also said that the government will draw up a new plan to avoid future flooding in Tabasco. Rivers will be dredged and there will be greater control over the release of water from dams on the Grijalva River, López Obrador said.
The response to the flooding by Tabasco and federal authorities was criticized by federal Deputy Verónica Juárez Piña, who said that they acted too slowly.
The lawmaker, coordinator of the Democratic Revolution Party in the lower house of Congress, said the federal and state Morena party governments lacked foresight and coordination in their response.
Fonden, she said, ensured that funds for disaster relief were available and it was managed by officials with extensive experience in responding to natural disasters.
López Obrador and the ruling Morena party ignored the warnings about the adverse consequences that abolishing the fund would have, Juárez said.
Stricter coronavirus restrictions designed to avoid a spike in case numbers as the Christmas holiday season approaches take effect Monday in Guerrero.
Announcing 12 new measures to slow the spread of the virus, Governor Héctor Astudillo said that if there is a large new outbreak, the state won’t be able to receive tourists over the Christmas/New Year period.
That would be a big blow for the economy in Guerrero, whose Pacific coast beaches in destinations such as Acapulco and Zihuatanejo are popular with tourists during the end of year holiday season.
The new measures are:
The use of face masks is mandatory in open-air and enclosed public spaces.
Shopping centers, supermarkets and nonessential stores must close between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
The sale of alcohol at convenience stores is banned after 8:00 p.m.
Pharmacies, hospitals, health centers, gas stations and funeral homes may operate 24 hours.
Citizens are prohibited from using their cars between 12:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.
Bars in open-air spaces and on rooftops must close by 11:00 p.m.
Bars in enclosed spaces, nightclubs/discos and casinos are not allowed to operate at all.
Open bar events are prohibited.
Restaurants must close between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
Movie theaters must close by 11:00 p.m.
Gyms must remain closed.
Events such as weddings and 15th birthday parties are only permitted in open air spaces and must conclude by 11:00 p.m.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
The restrictions will remain in effect for at least two weeks.
Astudillo said that a survey of residents in municipalities with high numbers of coronavirus cases found that more than seven in 10 people are in favor of stricter restrictions being implemented.
Non-compliance with the face mask measure will not immediately be punishable but Guerrero authorities are analyzing the possibility of establishing sanctions such as fines for people not wearing masks in public spaces. They are also considering the possibility of closing beaches.
To encourage compliance with health measures among visitors, officials with the state Tourism Ministry are carrying out an awareness campaign at bus stations and hotels. They are also distributing face masks and antibacterial gel to tourists in popular destinations including Acapulco.
At Playa Icacos, a popular beach in the resort city, members of the National Guard along with tourist police and municipal officials have been urging tourists to wear face masks and refrain from consuming alcoholic beverages, the newspaper Milenio reported.
According to federal data, Guerrero has recorded 22,598 confirmed coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic, the 15th highest tally among Mexico’s 32 states. The federal Health Ministry estimates that there are currently 370 active cases in the southern state.
Guerrero’s official Covid-19 death toll is 2,219, the 15th highest total in the country.
Currently classified as “high” risk orange on the federal government’s coronavirus stoplight system, Guerrero is one of several states that have recently announced tighter restrictions to control the spread of the virus.
Mexico’s national coronavirus case tally increased to 967,825 on Sunday with 5,887 new cases reported, while the official Covid-19 death toll rose to 95,027 with 219 additional fatalities registered.
Health Ministry Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía said that Chihuahua, Durango, Aguascalientes, Mexico City, Coahuila, Querétaro and Zacatecas are all seeing a spike in new case numbers.
Mexico City, which easily leads the country for accumulated cases and Covid-19 deaths, currently has the largest active outbreak among the 32 states with an estimated 12,165 active cases.
On a per capita basis, Durango – one of two states currently painted red on the federal stoplight map – has the worst outbreak with 111.5 active cases per 100,000 residents.
Facing increased economic hardship, poppy-growing communities in southwest Mexico want to join a state program offering alternative projects, but this would only be a first step that cannot tackle all the complex issues campesinos are facing.
Hundreds of farmers spread across 19 communities in the Sierra poppy-growing region of Guerrero state allege that they were shut out of a government program — known as Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life) — by an official because they “had not pacified the region,” the newspaper La Jornada reported.
Launched by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in early 2019, the government program arrived in Guerrero this year. It pays local community members 5,000 pesos (around US $240) per month to plant trees and cultivate legal harvests in an effort to move away from illicit crops. The goal is to improve living conditions for those in the countryside and stop environmental degradation.
However, the program has struggled to reach everyone in Guerrero’s Sierra. The farmers, who have banded together to form the Observatory for the Peace and Development of the Sierra (Observatorio por la Paz y el Desarrollo de la Sierra — OPDS), said officials have failed to even visit certain communities in the area, according to La Jornada.
“It is time for the government to support us; everything we have done is thanks to our efforts and from our own pockets, we have defended these forests without any support from the government,” farmer Norberto Verónica Jesús told the newspaper.
Farmers in Mexico’s poppy-growing region that stretches across the states of Chihuahua, Durango and Sinaloa, as well as Guerrero and Nayarit, have been struggling lately. Most recently, this has been driven by a sharp drop in the price of opium gum — the raw ingredient cultivated to produce heroin — as well as a complex set of criminal, social and political factors.
InSight Crime analysis
No single government program alone could adequately address the difficulties poppy farmers are facing in Guerrero.
Farmers there have grown poppies for decades, but Sembrando Vida encourages them to move towards alternative crops, such as avocado and coffee, which are also ideal for the high elevation and soil type of the Sierra. But there are other roadblocks, including the logistical problems posed by the remoteness of the area.
“You have this fertile land in the Sierra, but how are you going to transport these crops? There aren’t any roads. One of the advantages of cultivating poppy is that you can transport the opium gum in a backpack, which is much easier logistically than other, legal crops,” Irene Álvarez, an investigator with Noria Research in Mexico, told InSight Crime.
Guerrero also suffers from extreme violence and is highly marginalized both socially and geographically. What’s more, political powers — whether criminal leaders or elected officials, which at times are one and the same — have historically relied on violence to establish order and maintain power, according to Romain Le Cour, the president of Noria Research.
“You can have a legal framework for certain economic activities, but you also need infrastructure to enter the market and the political will to reform power dynamics and make them less violent,” Le Cour told InSight Crime. “As we have seen in neighboring Michoacán, the avocado and lime industries are perfectly legal and highly functional, but are regulated with violence like illegal markets are.”
Indeed, the booming avocado industry has led to criminal groups extorting exorbitant amounts from farmers in Michoacán. Alternative crops set up in Guerrero could very likely face a similar response.
The Sembrando Vida program is an important first step, according to Vania Pigeonutt, a Mexican journalist and the founder and editor of Amapola Periodismo, but does not provide the long-term focus Guerrero needs.
“Communities here have cultivated poppy and marijuana for decades,” she told InSight Crime. “There is no quick fix and any proposed solution must also analyze the roots of the complex structural factors at play.”
Reprinted from InSight Crime. Parker Asmann is a writer with InSight Crime, a foundation dedicated to the study of organized crime.
Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Jesús Seade was investigated for trips to Hong Kong.
Mexico’s chief North American trade negotiator has been cleared of allegations that he made improper use of travel allowances by flying to Hong Kong to visit family.
Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Jesús Seade traveled to Hong Kong five times between 2018 and 2020, apparently to visit his wife and other family members who live there.
But Seade, who charged the government more than 865,000 pesos (about US $42,000) for his travel, claimed that the trips were work-related.
The Foreign Affairs Ministry (SRE) said in a statement Friday that the investigation had finished and that it found insufficient evidence to conclude that Seade had acted improperly.
It said that investigations “didn’t find sufficient evidence” to demonstrate that it was “probable ” that the official had committed an offense.
Seade posted a link to the SRE statement to his Twitter account but didn’t personally comment on the accusations he faced.
Seade led Mexico’s negotiating team in the latter stages of discussions with the United States and Canada aimed at reaching a new North American trade pact. The USMCA, as the agreement is known, took effect July 1.
Mayra René's art melds U.S., European and Mexican doll making traditions.
“We are neither from here nor there,” say Monterrey-based artisans Mayra René and Bertha García, but that is a boon for their art.
The northern part of Mexico is not known for art, or even handcrafts for that matter. Fine decorations and art have been the purview of central and southern parts of the country, where more complex civilizations developed.
There is still an expression in Mexico that Zacatecas “is where culture ends and carne asada begins.” Maybe someday soon the north will get the credit it is due.
That credit may finally come through the blending of influences from the Mexican south and the gringo north.
The intertwined stories of Mayra René and Bertha García provide a template for understanding how such a blending creates new images, avoiding both outright copying and kitsch. Both these artisans are from the northeast of Mexico, where the “not here, not there” vibe is quite strong.
Doll artisans Mayra René and Bertha García became fast friends in René’s class and have been collaborators ever since.
René is the better known of the two. She has worked for decades creating, teaching and promoting the making of art dolls. The basic concept comes from her experience living on the border in Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
René had access to books and the ability to travel north, learning from the likes of other artists like Paty Medaris Culea, Barbara Willis and Elinor Pace Bailey. Consequently, much of her work has a familiar feel to that of art doll makers and collectors north of the border.
Like her U.S. and European counterparts, René’s dolls tend to be mixed media, cloth along with papier-mache, Styrofoam and/or clay. The heads are the often the most important element, finely formed and painted. However, her work does not copy these contemporaries. There is a definite lack of the princesses, goblins, and other European fairy tale characters that often appear in works north of the border.
Her original designs include elements from family doll making, regional traditions and even the long-forgotten tradition of fine-cloth dolls made centuries ago in Puebla. She also pulls inspiration from Mexico’s visual arts. A favorite for René is the surrealist work of Remedios Varo, a Spanish painter exiled to Mexico in the 20th century.
In fact, René’s work has been a significant influence on doll makers in Mexico, from the northeast down into the state of Guanajuato, a result of classes she has taught and her first book, published in 2012, El Arte de las Muñecas en Tela. Historia y Métodos de Elaboración (The Art of Cloth Dolls. History and Techniques for Creating). This is how her collaboration with papier-mache (cartonería) artist Bertha Elisa García Espinosa began.
García’s entry into art and crafts came through her family. Her grandmother and aunts rolled newspaper strips and used paste to make gift baskets to sell. Her grandfather took the women’s techniques and used it to create an image of Christ. This caught García’s attention because she realized so much more could be done with what she had learned from the women in her family.
Bertha García is “the queen of papier mache in northeastern Mexico,” according to Mayra René, fellow artist and collaborator. They often do joint exhibitions.
She began experimenting with making Catrinas, a skeletal image made popular in central Mexico. Still a psychology student at the time, she began selling the figures to her classmates. Classes in theatrical design, including puppet-making, introduced her to other papier-mache techniques.
A class in art dolls at René’s gallery in Monterrey not only introduced García to new design concepts but also to her most important collaborator and biggest fan. The two have since worked together on various projects and mutually support each other’s work through joint exhibitions, promoting both art dolls and Mexico’s cartonería traditions in northern Mexico.
René calls García the “queen of papier-mache in northeastern Mexico.”
Cartonería is not well-known in the north, but García has found success in making the teaching forms such as alebrijes (fantastical cartonería monsters invented in Mexico City in the 1930s by artist Pedro Linares), Catrinas and a type of doll called a Lupita.
Her most impressive work comes from the making of Catrinas and Lupitas, which is not a surprise given her long association with René.
Unlike alebrijes, the Catrinas and Lupitas have human (or human-like) faces — faces that lend themselves to the techniques used in art dolls to make them far more expressive. García’s Catrinas vary between the traditional and the innovative, but the dolls are always innovative in both face and body.
These two women’s creativity isn’t confined to their workplaces. The pandemic has affected them like everyone else. But rather than wait for government help, both have worked to develop online alternatives for both their sales and their classes. For García, this has meant expanding her business — not only teaching and selling to other parts of northern Mexico but also for and to clients in the United States and Spain.
Northern Mexico struggles with identity issues, with strong pressures coming from both south and north. But the work of René and García shows that this struggle is also a rich source of artistic inspiration. They have taken elements from both directions to make expressions of their own reality, without falling into the trap of simply tacking on stereotypical elements like long-toed boots onto their figures. Their work is far more subtle and meaningful than that.
René’s work can be seen at her Mayra René Gallery in Monterrey proper. García’s workshop, Galería 44 Creaciones, is located in her home in Apodaca, just outside the city.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 17 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture. She publishes a blog called Creative Hands of Mexicoand her first book, Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta, was published last year. Her culture blog appears weekly on Mexico News Daily.
At least 21 people have died in Mexico’s south and southeast due to heavy rain that triggered landslides and continued to cause flooding as of Saturday morning.
More than 100,000 people in Tabasco, Chiapas and Veracruz have been affected by the rains brought by two cold fronts and Tropical Storm Eta.
Nineteen of the reported deaths occurred in Chiapas, where at least 20 municipalities have received heavy rain. Among the deceased are 10 Tzotzil Mayan people who were killed in a landslide in the municipality of Chamula.
More than 2,000 homes have been damaged by landslides and heavy rain in the highlands region of the state.
Homes in more than 20 neighborhoods of San Cristóbal de las Casas have been damaged by flooding, according to municipal Civil Protection chief Pablo Reyes, and landslides have been reported in the municipalities of Yajalón, Tila and Chilón.
Floodwaters in southern Mexico.
The two other reported deaths occurred in Tabasco, where some 80,000 people have been adversely affected by the heavy rains. Both victims drowned in floodwaters.
At least 10 rivers have burst their banks in the Gulf coast state, causing widespread flooding. President López Obrador, a Tabasco native, called on people in the state to take shelter.
“Tabasco compatriots: the rivers are growing and it’s still raining. Keep yourself informed and … if you live in low areas, seek refuge in shelters or with family members who have homes in high areas,” he wrote in a Facebook post published Friday afternoon.
“Although furniture, homes and other assets might be affected, the main thing is life. Material things can be replaced and we will always help you.”
In a video message posted to social media on Saturday morning, López Obrador warned that water released from the overflowing Peñitas dam in Chiapas will make the flooding worse in Tabasco. He said he would travel today to Villahermosa, where flooding is severe, and convene an emergency meeting of the federal security cabinet in response to the situation.
The president noted that many of the most affected people in Tabasco are Chontal Mayans who live in low-lying coastal areas. He said Friday that corrupt past governments had allowed homes to be built in areas susceptible to flooding without constructing drainage infrastructure.
Las Choapas in southern Veracruz is one of the areas that has been hit hard by the heavy rains.
Tabasco Governor Adán Augusto López said Friday that the emergency in the state was at its “most critical point” but with the release of water from the Peñitas dam flooding could continue to worsen through Saturday.
The army, navy and Civil Protection services are helping vulnerable people evacuate their homes.
In neighboring Veracruz, at least 3,000 homes have been damaged by flooding and more than 10,000 people have been affected.
Communities in at least 12 municipalities in the state’s south and central regions have been cut off by landslides, the newspaper Milenio reported. Flooding is also widespread. Among the affected municipalities are Agua Dulce, Cosoleacaque, Las Choapas, Minatitlán and Uxpanapa.
The National Meteorological Service forecasts torrential rain in Tabasco, Chiapas and Quintana Roo due to Tropical Storm Eta, which was about 70 kilometers west-northwest of Grand Cayman at 9:00 a.m. CST.
Intense rain is also forecast for Campeche, Oaxaca, Yucatán and the south of Veracruz.
