National Guardsmen at the scene of the rehab centre killings.
The attack on an Irapuato, Guanajuato, rehabilitation center on Wednesday that left 26 dead was carried out by hitmen from the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, according to survivors.
Their intention was the murder of a group of residents at the center who allegedly belonged to the rival Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the newspaper Milenio reported.
Witnesses say at least four men armed with high-powered weapons entered the center located in the Jardines de Arandas neighborhood, told women inside to flee and forced male residents to the floor before executing them indiscriminately. Seven residents were wounded but two have since died.
Investigating authorities report that survivors of the attack claim the gunmen entered the unlicensed facility shouting that they were there on behalf of “El Marro,” the nickname of Santa Rosa de Lima leader José Antonio Yépez Ortiz.
Members of the Jalisco cartel were present at the rehab center, authorities say, but it is not yet known how many of them are among the dead.
This attack occurred after the CJNG allegedly murdered El Marro’s mother’s lawyer last week. The lawyer, whose name has not been made public, was stopped by police officers at a checkpoint in Silao and later shot in the head and killed. Hours later, three police officers who were manning the checkpoint were found murdered.
El Marro took responsibility for their deaths in a video posted to social media, claiming that the officers established the checkpoint to find his mother in order to turn her over to the CJNG, but he had his mother switch cars at the last minute.
In the past week the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel has hung printed narco banners in 23 of the state’s 46 municipalities. The messages, written in white letters on a blue background were clear: “A message for the fucking CJNG who are here, we are on to you … the people of Guanajuato are in charge.” A banner hung in Celaya was accompanied by a man’s body.
With rival cartels battling for turf, power and influence, Irapuato was named the fourth most violent city in the world in 2019 by the Mexican non-profit Citizen’s Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, with a homicide rate of 80.74 per 100,000 inhabitants. Tijuana, Baja California Sur; Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; and Uruapan, Michoacán, respectively, topped that same list.
Attacks on rehab centers in Guanajuato are common. Less than a month ago 10 people in Irapuato were killed in a separate attack. Some gangs have carried out attacks targeting ex-members who checked themselves into rehab as a way of leaving their criminal lives behind. Other criminals use rehab centers as safe houses.
In the aftermath of Wednesday’s attack Guanajuato Governor Diego Sinhué Rodríguez Vallejo announced the formation of a safety task force involving federal, state and municipal authorities.“The violence generated by organized crime not only takes the lives of the young, but it takes the peace from families in Guanajuato,” he posted to social media.
Mexico’s Covid-19 case tally increased by a single-day record of 6,741 cases on Thursday while an additional 679 fatalities were added to the official death toll.
The Health Ministry reported that the accumulated case tally increased to 238,511 and that the death toll rose to 29,189.
Mexico now ranks 10th in the world for cases and remains in fifth place for deaths behind the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom and Italy.
Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía said that 25,565 confirmed cases are considered active, an increase of 831 compared to Wednesday.
Covid-19 death numbers as of Thursday. milenio
There are also 76,423 suspected cases across the country while 610,495 people have been tested. Approximately 60% of those who tested positive have now recovered, Alomía said.
He said that 12,668 of 27,928 general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are currently occupied and that 3,624 of 9,509 critical care beds with ventilators are in use.
As a result, 55% of general care beds across Mexico and 62% of those with ventilators remain available.
Thursday night’s coronavirus press briefing came after The Washington Post published a report based on an interview with Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, who told the newspaper that there were about three times more deaths than normal in Mexico City between March and May.
“How many people have died now? This statistic, which we are still refining, is about three times more,” he said.
López-Gatell told the Post that “it’s probable” that the majority of the excess deaths were caused by Covid-19.
Active Covid-19 cases in Mexico. milenio
Asked about the report Thursday night, the deputy minister said there have undoubtedly been more Covid-19 deaths than reported not just in Mexico City but across the country.
“The article in The Washington Post is about Mexico City but this phenomenon is occurring in the entire country,” López-Gatell said.
He said that the national death toll could be three times higher than currently indicated by official statistics.
López-Gatell explained that some suspected coronavirus patients die at hospital before they are tested, some die on their way to hospital and others pass away in their homes. Therefore, their deaths are not immediately classified as having been caused by Covid-19.
He reiterated that when a patient dies before he or she is tested, an expert committee assesses the death to determine whether it should be attributed to Covid-19. If there is sufficient evidence to determine that a death was caused by Covid-19, it is subsequently added to the death toll, López-Gatell said.
Mexico City has officially recorded 6,750 Covid-19 deaths but if the deputy minister’s estimate is correct, the real figure would be about 20,000.
The daily tally of coronavirus cases and deaths. Deaths are numbers reported and not necessarily those that occurred each day. milenio
Daniel Weinberger, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health who has studied excess-death data during the pandemic, told The Washington Post that the surge in fatalities in Mexico City is “on a par with what we’ve seen in the most hard-hit areas of the United States,” which has the highest Covid-19 death toll in the world.
Deezer, the music streaming service backed by billionaire Len Blavatnik, is making a big bet on the fast-growing Mexican market through a partnership with media mogul Ricardo Salinas, which values the Spotify rival at €1.3 billion (US $1.46 billion).
Grupo Salinas’ TV Azteca will take a minority stake whose size has not been disclosed in Paris-based Deezer, one of whose biggest shareholders is Blavatnik’s Access Industries.
The Mexican conglomerate will promote Deezer through its television businesses and Grupo Elektra retail stores, in exchange for an undisclosed share of revenues. The value of the advertising it will provide for the streamer over several years is worth $40 million.
The deal values Deezer at a hefty 30% premium to the company’s valuation during its last funding round in 2018, the streaming service said in a statement.
Deezer’s other shareholders include telecoms group Orange, investment fund LBO France, Saudi conglomerate Kingdom Holding and Rotana, a Middle East entertainment group.
“Mexico is one of the fastest growing music markets in the world,” said Hans-Holger Albrecht, Deezer chief executive.
“We see huge growth potential in countries like Mexico, Colombia and Argentina and are investing in marketing and subscriber growth. Our experience and No. 2 position in Brazil will help us become the main challenger in the region,” he added.
Spotify, which dwarfs Deezer with more than 280 million active monthly users, branded Mexico City “the world’s music streaming mecca” in 2018. The audio streaming market in Mexico, Latin America’s second-biggest economy, is expected to be worth more than $700 million by 2024 — double its 2019 size.
Mexico has just over 15 million users of music streaming services. Spotify commands a nearly 85% share of the market with other large players including Apple Music and Google Play, according to the Competitive Intelligence Unit, a consultancy. Deezer has 16 million monthly users worldwide.
Grupo Salinas was founded by Ricardo Salinas, Mexico’s second-wealthiest man, who is its chairman. His business assets span banking, retail and media and he is an influential business adviser to President López Obrador.
Moshe Arel, director of innovation at Grupo Salinas, hailed the alliance as “one of the most … disruptive partnerships in the market” and one that would help Deezer grow in the region while boosting TV Azteca’s content offering.
As part of the deal, Deezer will also take over a weekly show on TV Azteca called Mugo Live, watched by 2 million viewers every episode, and use it to showcase new and emerging local talent. It is also buying the Mugo social app. “We are proud to be the glue that connects our strategic partners, TV Azteca and Grupo Salinas, with Deezer,” said Ori Segal, Mugo chief executive.
Ricardo Weder of Jüsto says e-commerce adoption is accelerating rapidly.
A Mexico City-based delivery-only grocery store chain has raised an additional US $12 million in financing as it seeks to expand its services across the country and beyond.
Jüsto has now raised more than $20 million in financing in less than a year, reported the technology news website TechCrunch.
The company, which sells a range of domestic and international products including fresh produce, beverages, household items, dry goods and pet supplies, is betting that demand for home-delivery groceries will grow as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
A recent study by market research firm Nielsen found that 11% of respondents purchased groceries online for the first time in 2020 and 70% of those polled said that they planned to continue buying fresh food online.
Ricardo Weder, Jüsto’s founder and CEO, said in a statement that the e-commerce adoption curve is “dramatically accelerating” as a result of the pandemic yet the market penetration rate of e-grocers is still less than 1% in Latin America.
“That means there’s an enormous opportunity – and all the right conditions — to disrupt the grocery industry …” said Weder, a former president and CEO of Cabify, a ride-hailing service.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, a partner at Foundation Capital, a United States-based venture capital firm that has invested in Jüsto, said he saw great potential in the company’s business model.
“We’ve seen that type of model, … D2C [direct to consumer] for groceries, be very successful” in other areas, Rodolfo González said late last year.
Manolo Fernández, a spokesman for Jüsto and member of the company’s founding team, said the grocery chain has the capacity to supply fresher producer to consumers than that which they find at bricks and mortar supermarkets.
“At traditional supermarkets the fill rates are lower and the product is less fresh. One of our core tenets is to reduce waste. We don’t have fruits and vegetables sitting outside in the store,” he said.
Jüsto claims that its prices are roughly the same as those of regular supermarkets and delivery is free for orders above 1,000 pesos (US $44). Consumers can choose express, same-day or next-day delivery.
According to the Jüsto website, the company currently delivers to neighborhoods across Mexico City and part of México state.
But with extra financing now available, the e-grocer has plans to expand nationally and abroad.
“We have the technology, talent and infrastructure to scale our expansion to more cities in Mexico and to begin our international expansion, beginning with Colombia,” Weder said.
Situated on a plateau and surrounded by mountains, Mexico City is a bowl that traps smog and dust. AP Photo/Marco Ugarte
Mexico City is a dust bowl, a polluted megalopolis where breathing is hard and newly washed clothes hung out to dry turn stiff by evening.
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic began clobbering the capital city, residents regularly wore face masks during the frequent air quality emergencies.
Now Mexico City’s bad air pollution – which contributes to high rates of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases – is making the metropolitan area’s 21 million people more vulnerable to the coronavirus.
Mexico City wasn’t always an ecological and health disaster. As the center of the Aztec empire, it was verdant and diverse. As late as the early 20th century, 45 rivers ran through the Mexican capital.
The decision to bury and pave over its rivers, creating today’s arid metropolis, was a 20th-century plan meant to protect residents from disease – specifically, cholera, malaria and other waterborne illnesses brought on by frequent flooding.
Replica of Tenochtitlán, with its causeways and canals. Randal Sheppard/flickr, CC BY
I’m a scholar who studies poverty with a focus on urban areas, and Mexico City is my gray, concrete hometown. The relationship between its geography, history and health outcomes is relevant today, as the city struggles with its latest disease outbreak.
Mexico City was founded by the people now called Aztecs – but who called themselves Tenochcas – in 1325. The Aztecs built their city on a rock in Lake Texcoco, mostly because the more prime locations along the shore were already taken.
By 1427 the powerful Aztecs had defeated their lakeshore neighbors and built a shining capital that spanned the lake. The city, called Tenochtitlán, was built amid water by the development of chinampas – small plots of lake filled in with debris, pottery and soil to create solid land, with channels flowing around them.
The foremost chronicler of Spain’s colonization of Mexico, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, described Tenochtitlán as crisscrossed by engineering marvels like causeways and removable bridges, and full of “splendid” palaces. Díaz del Castillo reported that the city market was larger and better regulated than those of Constantinople and Rome. As in the Roman Empire, aqueducts supplied the city with fresh water.
Tenochtitlán looked like Venice – gorgeous – and had the same health problems, including contaminated water, mosquitoes and unpleasant smells. But the Aztecs managed the city well and prevented flooding. Their dikes and waterways permitted a great diversity of plants and animals to flourish, and the chinampa agricultural system – in which land was replenished with soil dredged from the lake bottom – was one of the most productive the world has ever known.
That good urban management ended with the Spanish conquest in 1521. Tenochtitlán was destroyed, its palaces and causeways turned to rubble at the bottom of the lake.
The Spaniards did not understand the watery ecology of the area, nor did they understand or respect Aztec engineering. To rebuild their capital, they drained the lake.
This strategy led to both drought and an inadequate water supply for most of the year. Rainy season, however, brought tremendous floods. In 1629, the worst flood in Mexico City’s recorded history is said to have lasted five years and killed more than 30,000 people due to drowning and disease. Churches reportedly held rooftop masses.
Rainy season turned parts of the city into cesspools, spawning waterborne diseases like cholera and malaria, as well as meningitis. Gastrointestinal illnesses festered, too, because residents used Mexico City’s rivers for dumping garbage and sewage. Human and animal bodies floated in the stagnant waters, emitting a terrible stench.
Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1810. To deal once and for all with its flooding problems, city leaders decided in the 1890s to channel rain, floodwaters and sewage away from the city via a 50-kilometer desagüe, or drainage channel.
Around this time, the population of the capital began to explode. Mexico City had 350,000 residents in 1900 and 3 million in 1950. By the 1930s, its novel sanitation system was already insufficient. Plus, residents were still using Mexico City’s many rivers for washing clothes, as garbage pits and as sewers.
In 1938, the architect Carlos Contreras proposed enclosing three polluted rivers – the Piedad, the Consulado and the Verónica – and turning them into one giant viaduct to prevent flooding, disease and death. Political conditions did not allow this idea to move forward at the time, but the idea of putting Mexico City’s filthy waterways into enormous pipes and burying them stuck.
Canals in Xochimilco, a part of Mexico City that retains its ancient waterways. Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
Over the following decades, rivers began to be put underground. Between 1947 and 1952 most of Mexico City’s 45 rivers were channeled into giant tubes, buried and paved over. Today, these rivers are visible only in the names of the streets that run over them: Rio Mixcoac Avenue, Rio Churubusco Avenue and others.
This system gave mid-century Mexico City enough sewer capacity, roads and buildings to serve its population. The foul smell and unsanitary conditions also diminished, because people couldn’t dump garbage into covered waterways.
But without its rivers, Mexico City dried up and grew dusty. And because of its geography – located on a plateau, surrounded by mountains – the dust was unable to escape. Mexico City is in a bowl that traps whatever floats in the air.
Starting in the 1980s, the number of cars grew into the millions, trapping pollution too. Today, Mexico City is notorious for its smog and for the terrible health consequences pollution brings, including asthma and heart disease.
The coronavirus outbreak wasn’t caused by polluted air. But the city’s bad air quality – together with overcrowding and other poverty-related factors – creates the conditions for Covid-19 to severely sicken and kill more people.
In trying to eliminate waterborne illness, the Mexican capital ended up helping an airborne virus find more hosts. It’s an irony of history the Aztecs would surely mourn.
Buildings and monuments are illuminated in green until July 10.
Government buildings in Mexico City are being lit up in green for 12 days to celebrate the International Year of Plant Health.
The green lights on buildings, roads and monuments such as the Glorieta de la Palma, the Fuente de la Diana Cazadora, the Jardín Winston Churchill, the Fuente de Petróleos, the Puerta Santa Fe and the Chapultepec Aqueduct were turned on June 29 and will remain lit until July 10 in accordance with the United Nations proclamation issued in 2018 to celebrate healthy plants in 2020.
“The year is a once in a lifetime opportunity to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment and boost economic development,” the United Nations says.
As part of the commemoration, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the National Health, Safety and Agro-Food Quality Service are conducting a virtual forum celebrating 120 years of plant health in Mexico, in which members of at least half a dozen national and international organizations will participate.
In a related video conference in late June, plant expert Jesús García Ávila of the Autonomous University of Chapingo stated that plants must be safeguarded as they contribute 80% of the world’s food supply and provide about 98% of oxygen. In Mexico, García reported, there are 32 plant health committees and 206 local boards that serve nationwide.
Keeping crops pest-free is the mandate of Mexico’s Agricultural Parasitology Commission, which was founded in 1900 to protect plant resources from the spread or introduction of insects and to preserve food security, biodiversity and facilitate trade. Currently, Mexico has 37 active insect infestations.
Although much of the country and the world’s attention is focused elsewhere due to the coronavirus pandemic, plant health remains vital to the world’s food supply, García said.
The president and Gutiérrez, who has been dubbed Witch of the Palace on Twitter.
The wife of President López Obrador has come under fire for a Twitter comment she made in response to a question asking her when she would help parents of children with cancer.
Beatriz Gutiérrez, a staunch defender of her husband and his government, published a celebratory post on the social media platform on Wednesday in recognition of the second anniversary of López Obrador’s 2018 election victory.
Responding to her post, Twitter user José David Guerra Muñoz asked the first lady when she would personally attend to the parents of children with cancer, who have protested medication shortages since last year.
“Thank you for your kind response,” he added.
Gutiérrez responded curtly with a comment that triggered online criticism for being insensitive and a demand for an apology from parents of child cancer patients.
“I’m not a doctor, maybe you are. Go on, help them,” she wrote in a comment that has since been deleted but which was widely shared by Twitter users.
The post gave rise to the trending hashtag #LaBrujaDelPalacio, or the Witch of the Palace, referring to the National Palace, the seat of executive power and the residence of López Obrador and Gutiérrez.
“If Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller doesn’t attend to the parents of children with cancer because she’s not a doctor, she shouldn’t record discs either because she’s not a singer,” one Twitter user said, referring to the first lady’s brief foray into music.
Supporters of Gutiérrez, a writer and academic, condemned the online attacks, asserting that she deserves respect.
Meanwhile, a group of parents of children with cancer issued a statement calling for an apology.
“We’re deeply offended by the frivolous and dehumanizing response of Ms. Beatriz Gutiérrez. We understand very well that she doesn’t hold any public position, that she isn’t a doctor, much less an oncology specialist, but this response isn’t befitting of an academic,” the parents said.
“She should be more empathetic and humane in her response toward the mothers and fathers who have children with cancer. For that reason, we demand that she correct her words and offer us a public apology.”
The parents also said that the shortage of some chemotherapy drugs persists and demanded that the government reestablish their supply to hospitals.
They said that while some people might be celebrating the second anniversary of López Obrador’s election, their hearts were filled with sadness due to the government’s “lack of commitment and responsibility” to solve the drug shortage problem.
On Wednesday night, Gutiérrez ceded to the demand for a public apology, although she appeared to indicate that she was surprised that her comment caused offense.
“My husband’s adversaries are very inquisitive!” she wrote on Twitter.
“If my expression ‘I’m not a doctor’ offended anyone, I apologize. … I just want to say that I am deeply human and I wish the best for everyone, now and always.”
The mayor of Zongolica, Veracruz, no stranger to controversial statements and actions, is urging people to make love as a way of keeping healthy during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a video he posted to his Facebook page on June 21 and later deleted, Mayor Juan Carlos Mezhua told viewers “it is very important these days that we have healthy food and play sports. Making love is a good sport, so everyone has to get into that at least once in a while,” he said with a chuckle before apologizing. “Sorry, I was trying to make a joke, but I think that it did not come out so well.”
And it didn’t come out well at all. The video was captured before he removed it and went viral on social media, where he was criticized for his comments which viewers felt lacked gravity in the face of a deadly pandemic that has infected at least 10 of Mezhua’s constituents.
Veracruz as a whole is marked orange on the federal “stoplight” coronavirus map, meaning that it is at high risk for the virus, but 79 of the state’s 212 municipalities remain at red, the maximum risk level.
Mezhua, whose term ends in 2021, is seeking reelection but has been involved in a string of recent controversies that may make for a difficult campaign.
In May, in another example of comments that did not come out so well, Mezhua praised the work of a government official who resigned after allegedly commenting that a woman who was critical of city government should be bathed in acid.
In June, Mezhua stated he would install parking meters in the downtown area to generate income. As of 2017 only 785 households in the municipality had a vehicle, and the area has just 148 kilometers of paved roads.
Also in June, the mayor announced he would raffle off a dancing Friesian horse he had “borrowed” from a friend. It was worth some 300,000 pesos, around US $13,300, he said.
Mezhua is issuing 2,000 tickets at a cost of 500 pesos each, hoping to raise 1 million pesos in the September 15 draw, from which he would deduct taxes and the value of the horse and use the balance to pave streets.
Zongolica has a population of 45,341, according to the latest census, and 82% of residents live in poverty.
The average worker spends 1,819 pesos a month to buy basic food products, according to government data, thus a resident of Zongolica would have to invest 30% of the monthly budget to purchase a raffle ticket for the horse.
The federal Security Ministry (SSPC) has acknowledged that Mexico is going through an “acute crisis” in public security but made a commitment to reducing homicides and some other crimes by 50% by 2024, the last year of the government’s six-year term.
In a document published Thursday in the government’s official gazette, the SSPC predicted that homicides, kidnappings, vehicle theft, burglaries, muggings and robberies on public transit will decline by half in the next four years.
The ministry also predicted that sex crimes, gender violence and human trafficking will decline but didn’t specify the reductions it is targeting.
It outlined a range of actions that will be undertaken to reduce crime and achieve its targets.
Among them: consolidating the deployment of the National Guard across the country, cracking down on the illegal entry and circulation of firearms, strengthening the government’s capacity to investigate money laundering, forming new intelligence groups in conjunction with citizens, attending to the root causes of violence, strengthening the justice system, cooperating with the governments of other countries, combating corruption, and improving decision-making through the use of crime data.
Reducing homicides by 50% will entail shaving off some 17,000 murders from Mexico’s annual statistics – last year was the most violent on record, with more than 34,000 homicide victims.
On the second anniversary of his 2018 election, President López Obrador claimed Wednesday that his government has succeeded in halting a long-established trend of growth in homicide numbers.
In its diagnosis of the security situation, the SSPC conceded that Mexico is a country plagued by violence, insecurity and impunity. It also acknowledged the power and influence of Mexico’s notorious drug cartels, which control large swathes of territory almost as personal fiefdoms.
In addition, the Security Ministry recognized that corruption has an impact on public security and that crimes involving the violation of people’s human rights continue to be committed.
The security situation has a serious adverse impact on the wellbeing of the Mexican people, causes the social fabric to deteriorate and is a barrier to social and economic development, the SSPC said.
“The severity of the security conditions in Mexico has forced a reorientation of [security] actions for the benefit of the country’s population,” the SSPC said.
The National Water Commission (Conagua) announced that due to maintenance work on the Cutzamala water system, water will be shut off in parts of Mexico City and the state of México beginning at 2 a.m. on Saturday.
The shutdown will last 24 hours, Conagua director Blanca Jiménez said, and will affect some 5 million people.
Jiménez said various pumping stations need maintenance and that changes will be made to a massive piece of pipe known as an “inverted K,” which was never properly installed. The water treatment plant in Los Berros will also be cleaned and serviced.
Jiménez said the northern and southern aqueducts that supply the Valley of México will operate normally.
Conscious of the effect of a water stoppage on the care of coronavirus patients, 12 water trucks will be made available for affected hospitals in 11 boroughs, Mexico City water director Rafael Carmona said. Five hundred water trucks will service affected neighborhoods.
In the state of México, the municipalities of Atizapán, Coacalco, Cuautitlán Izcalli, Ecatepec, Huixquilucan, Naucalpan, Nezahualcóyotl, Nicolás Romero, Tlalnepantla, Toluca, Tultitlán, Tecámac and Acolman will be without water on Saturday and into Sunday as the water commission works on the hydraulic infrastructure in six municipalities.
Public Works Minister Rafael Díaz Leal Barrueta said water will be distributed free of charge via 50 tanker trucks from Saturday through Wednesday for the 2.05 million people affected in Mexico state.
Some 75,000 people were left without water while repairs were made to the Cutzamala system after it was damaged by the powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck Oaxaca on June 23.
Jiménez asked residents to conserve and store water in advance of the shutdown and to avoid throwing garbage in the streets as it can clog the drainage system.
