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.
Tourists from the United States will not be welcome in Sonora over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
The Mexico-United States border is closed to nonessential travel until July 21 but Governor Claudia Pavlovich Arellano nevertheless affirmed that people seeking to enter Sonora from Arizona – where coronavirus cases have spiked recently – for nonessential purposes will not be allowed in this weekend.
She said Wednesday she had advised the foreign affairs minister of the plan to block the entry of nonessential travelers from the United States and he expressed his support for the plan.
She also said she spoke with Arizona government officials and United States Ambassador Christopher Landau and that they understood Sonora’s perspective and didn’t consider blocking nonessential travelers an affront to the U.S.
“We don’t want [people from the United States] to come to Sonora at this time,” Pavlovich said.
Almost 50,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in the United States on Wednesday, the fifth single-day case record in just eight days, and Arizona, as well as the border states of California and Texas, are among the new Covid-19 hotspots in Mexico’s northern neighbor.
Case numbers spiked sharply in Arizona in June. Just 187 new cases were reported on June 1 while 4,797 cases were reported on June 30, according to a New York Times database.
Pavlovich reminded Arizona residents that Sonora’s Gulf of California beaches will be closed this weekend and warned them that upon arrival at the border they will be asked to return home if they don’t have an essential reason to enter the state.
Authorities in Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point or “Arizona’s Beach” due to its proximity to the Grand Canyon State, said this week that visitors were welcome to return to the resort destination but the welcome mat won’t be rolled out to U.S. tourists until July 21 at the earliest.
Pavlovich said that U.S. visitors will not only be unwelcome on Sonora’s beaches this weekend but also in border cities such as San Luis Río Colorado, Nogales and Agua Prieta and municipalities of the Sonoran Sierra Madre Occidental.
“We’re all going to be on alert,” the governor said, adding that Mexicans who live in the United States, American citizens and anyone else who seeks to cross the border for nonessential purposes will be refused entry.
“These decisions have been taken,” Pavlovich said, stressing that Sonora cannot run the risk of increasing its Covid-19 caseload.
The northern state had recorded 8,976 confirmed Covid-19 cases as of Wednesday night, according to the Health Ministry, and 909 deaths.
A woman is handcuffed in Monterrey for wearing a badly placed face mask.
A woman was arrested and placed in handcuffs by state police in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Tuesday for failing to wear her face mask properly at a subway station.
A video of the arrest posted to social media that has garnered more than 14,000 views shows the woman, wearing a mask that covered her mouth but not her nose, being forcibly detained by armed officers, one of whom also was wearing a mask incorrectly.
The detainee, identified by local media as 41-year-old María, was at the Cuauhtémoc station when she was stopped by police officers who grabbed her arms as she struggled in protest.
In a statement released that afternoon by authorities, the officers were reproached for their behavior, although the arrest was deemed legal. “We consider such action unnecessary by the officers,” law enforcement officials said.
“The current situation that prevails in the face of the pandemic, as well as the economic difficulties that our country is going through, cause a high degree of stress in the inhabitants of the state, a situation that forces the public safety officers to carry out their work always keeping calm, promoting serenity and tranquility among citizens,” the statement read.
The Ministry of Public Safety said it was contacting police officers by radio every three hours “to remind them that their actions must adhere to reason, the common good and, above all, good judgment, and not only to strict compliance with municipal regulations.”
Officials did not disclose what happened to the woman after she was taken into custody, nor did they mention any sanctions for officers involved.
The incident came the same day a new law went into effect in Nuevo León which states that those found guilty of infecting other people by not respecting quarantine protocols during health emergencies can be punished with up to three years in prison and fines of up to 34,000 pesos, around US $1,500.
Likewise, the municipalities of Monterrey and San Pedro announced that they will arrest people who do not wear masks in public places.
“The Secretary of Public Safety of Nuevo León endorses their commitment to the people of Nuevo León to protect and serve with integrity and recommends abiding by the measures indicated by the Ministry of Health during the coronavirus contingency,” officials advised.
As of Wednesday, Nuevo León had 6,226 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, had seen 344 deaths and was at maximum risk for the coronavirus, according to the federal government’s “stoplight” map.
The rehab center where the massacre took place Wednesday.
Twenty-four young men were shot and killed in an attack on an unregistered drug rehabilitation center in Irapuato, Guanajuato, on Wednesday afternoon, local authorities said.
At least seven other people were wounded in the attack, and at least two are in serious condition in hospital.
Irapuato Police Chief Pedro Cortés Zavala said that several armed men entered the rehab center and opened fire at about 5:24 p.m. Wednesday. He said the gunmen arrived at the facility in the Jardines de Arandas neighborhood in a pickup truck and forced their victims to the floor before executing them.
Spent bullet casings from assault rifles such as AK-47s were found at the scene of the crime. The National Guard and municipal police secured the rehab center and carried out searches for the aggressors but no arrests were reported.
Cortés said the center was not registered with local authorities. Irapuato Mayor Ricardo Ortiz said recently that just 15 of 265 rehab centers in the municipality were operating with the appropriate permits.
Guanajuato Governor Diego Sinhue condemned the attack in a Twitter post and pledged to hold the perpetrators to account and restore peace in the state, Mexico’s most violent.
“Guanajuato and its institutions have an absolute commitment to justice. … We’re working and we won’t rest until we’ve returned tranquility to Guanajuato,” he wrote.
The attack in Irapuato, promoted as the strawberry capital of the world, was one of the worst in terms of the number of victims since President López Obrador took office in December 2018 pledging to reduce the high levels of violence plaguing Mexico.
Attacks on rehab centers are fairly common in Mexico, and have resulted in the deaths of scores if not hundreds of people over a period going back more than a decade.
Some gangs have also carried out attacks on rehab centers that targeted ex-members who checked themselves in as a way of leaving their criminal lives behind.
The Guerrero tourist destinations of Acapulco, Zihuatanejo and Taxco are ready to welcome visitors after the governor of Guerrero approved the reopening of hotels, restaurants and beaches with certain restrictions, state authorities announced Wednesday.
After three months of lockdown, hotels and restaurants can now operate at 30% capacity and beaches are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for running, walking and swimming.
Warehouses, shopping malls and churches can also reopen. Parks, athletic fields and zoos can now be visited at 25% of their capacity, and barbershops and beauty salons can open by appointment only.
The move comes in anticipation of Guerrero’s transition from a red, or maximum risk designation on the federal government’s color-coded coronavirus “stoplight” map, to orange, or high risk, when the map is updated on Friday.
In a message posted to social media, Governor Héctor Astudillo announced that the decision to reopen was reached after consulting with the federal government, businesses and social organizations.
“The opening will be in observance of the protocols in accordance with the trend that may place us at the epidemiological orange traffic light of the federal government,” he announced.
Guerrero Health Minister Carlos de la Peña reiterated that changing to orange does not mean that the coronavirus crisis has ended and health protocols will remain in place.
Earlier this week, businesses in Acapulco removed the protective plywood some had installed on doors and windows and hung banners announcing their reopening. “Thank you very much for your support and solidarity, for helping our people during the confinement, we are back,” read the banner at the entrance to the Krystal Beach Hotel.
Restaurants began deep cleaning and rearranging tables to accommodate diners and conform with social distancing regulations.
Juan Campos Baños, president of a beach workers union in Pie de la Cuesta, Acapulco, said the reopening has been met with both enthusiasm and uncertainty among workers in the tourism sector.
“We do not know if tourists will come. The economy was badly hurt during this break due to confinement,” he said. “It’s been almost three months without working, without money. Informal businesses have also been affected, as have waiters, those who offer horseback riding on the beach and people who give massages.”
For those businesses who do reopen, owners will have to purchase the supplies necessary to meet government health protocols, such as antibacterial gel, face masks and sanitary doormats. Those who don’t have the resources to make such an investment will have to remain closed, he said.
“We do not know what awaits us, but we have to start little by little,” Campos said. “What we do not want is to enter the red light again.”
As of Wednesday, Guerrero had recorded 5,571 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 900 deaths.
Healthcare workers account for 20% of all coronavirus cases in Mexico.
Mexico now has the sixth highest Covid-19 death toll in the world after passing Spain’s total on Wednesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The federal Health Ministry reported 741 additional fatalities at Wednesday night’s coronavirus press briefing, increasing Mexico’s official death toll to 28,510 – 146 more than that of Spain.
The only countries that have recorded more Covid-19 fatalities than Mexico are the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Italy and France.
The Health Ministry also reported 5,681 additional confirmed coronavirus cases, increasing the accumulated tally to 231,770.
As a result, Mexico overtook Iran to rank 10th in the world for total Covid-19 cases but new cases reported in the west Asian country on Thursday lifted it back into 10th place.
The daily tally of coronavirus cases and deaths. Deaths are numbers reported and not necessarily those that occurred each day. milenio
Mexico currently ranks 11th for total cases, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Covid-19 dashboard, behind the United States, Brazil, Russia, India, the United Kingdom, Peru, Chile, Spain, Italy and Iran.
More than 10.7 million people had tested positive for Covid-19 around the world as of Thursday morning and over 516,000 had lost their lives to the disease.
Health Ministry Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía said that 24,734 confirmed cases in Mexico are considered active, an increase of 952 compared to Tuesday.
There are also 75,005 suspected cases across the country, while almost 596,000 people have been tested.
Medical personnel account for 20% of all confirmed Covid-19 cases in Mexico, according to Health Ministry data that shows that 46,013 health workers have been infected.
Alomía said that 683 health workers have lost their lives to the infectious disease, 2.4% of Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll.
Covid-19 death numbers as of Wednesday. milenio
The Health Ministry reported on June 23 that 584 health workers had died since the beginning of the pandemic, meaning that an additional 99 fatalities were registered in the space of just eight days.
Alomía said that Mexico City, México state, Puebla and Veracruz have recorded the highest number of deaths among health workers.
To ensure that Mexico has sufficient medical personnel to respond to the pandemic, almost 50,000 additional health workers have been recruited, said Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell.
He said the majority of new recruits are general physicians and that they are working under the supervision of specialist doctors.
National data shows that 44% of general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are currently occupied while 39% of those with ventilators are in use.
Mexico City currently has the largest outbreak, according to official data, with 3,469 active cases. Even though the capital leads the country for active cases, hospitalizations of Covid-19 patients have recently trended downwards and coronavirus restrictions are being gradually eased this week.
México state has the second largest outbreak, with 2,207 active cases, while seven states have more than 1,000 active cases. They are Guanajuato, Puebla, Nuevo León, Veracruz, Tabasco, Yucatán and Coahuila.
The coronavirus infection risk level is currently set at “orange light” high in Mexico City and 17 states, a stoplight color that allows some restrictions to be eased. The other 14 states currently face “red light” maximum risk restrictions.
The Health Ministry will present an updated “stoplight” map on Friday with the corresponding restrictions to take effect starting Monday.
Approval rating in blue, disapproval in orange in the latest poll by El Financiero.
Two years to the day after Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected president, Mexico is divided over whether he is doing a good job running the country.
Roughly 50% of Mexicans approve of the president’s performance a year and a half into his six-year term while the other half do not, according to two new opinion polls.
A poll conducted by the newspaper El Financiero in June found that 56% of 820 respondents approve of López Obrador’s performance, while a much larger survey commissioned by El Economista found 47.5% support for the president and his government.
López Obrador’s approval rating declined by 4% and 1.7%, respectively, compared to the newspapers’ May polls. His current rating is well below the peak of his popularity in the months after he was sworn in when as many as 83% of Mexicans approved of his performance.
The El Financiero poll found that 42% disapproved of the job López Obrador is doing, an increase of five points compared to May and 13 points compared to April, the first full month of nationwide coronavirus restrictions.
The poll by El Economista indicates approval in green and disapproval in red.
The percentage of respondents who rated him highly for the personal attributes of honesty, leadership and ability to deliver results all declined to their lowest level ever.
The El Economista survey, which polled 45,186 smartphone users, found 52.1% disapproval of López Obrador’s performance. The figure is almost double the 28.4% disapproval rating the same poll found just three months into the president’s term.
El Financiero found that 51% of respondents believe that AMLO, as the president is known, is successfully fulfilling his duty to the Mexican people while 44% said that he is failing.
As Mexico faces tough economic times due to the coronavirus pandemic and associated restrictions, 65% told El Financiero that the federal government is doing a very bad or bad job managing the economy, an eight-point spike compared to May and a 33% hike compared to January.
Respondents were divided over the government’s management on health as the coronavirus pandemic continues to grow, with 40% saying that it is doing a very good or good job and the same percentage saying the opposite.
With Mexico on track to record its most violent year on record, almost two-thirds of respondents said that the government is performing very badly or badly on public security, while just 23% said that it is doing a good job in the area.
Only 43% said that they had a positive view of the news conferences López Obrador holds every weekday morning, a decline of six points compared to May, while 56% said that they had a favorable view of the Health Ministry’s nightly coronavirus press briefings, a 5% drop.
The National Guard, a new federal security force created by the López Obrador administration, is more popular than both news conferences, the survey found. Two-thirds of those polled said they had a high opinion of the force, while just 14% were critical of it.
The result appears at odds with AMLO’s apparent opinion of the force. He published a decree in May ordering the armed forces to continue carrying out public security tasks for another four years, seemingly acknowledging that the National Guard has failed in its mission to reduce violence.
Asked to identify the biggest problem in Mexico today, 38% of respondents to the El Financiero poll nominated the coronavirus pandemic, 30% said the economy and unemployment and 18% suggested insecurity.
Fifty-six percent of respondents to the El Economista survey said that insecurity has worsened since López Obrador took office, a 9% spike compared to May.
Two-thirds of respondents to the same poll said that AMLO has a poor relationship with Mexico’s business leaders.
Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said Tuesday that prosecutors have requested 46 warrants for the arrest of municipal officials in Guerrero in connection with the disappearance and presumed murder of 43 teaching students in September 2014.
Gertz said in a video message that the officials are sought for the crimes of forced disappearance and organized crime in relation to the kidnapping of the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College students on September 26, 2014 in Iguala, Guerrero.
“It’s necessary to make it very clear that these crimes weren’t even investigated” let alone prosecuted by the former government’s prosecutors, he said.
The attorney general said the 46 new arrest warrants sought are in addition to warrants obtained in March against former Attorney General’s Office officials, including the ex-head of the Criminal Investigation Agency, Tomás Zerón, who has reportedly fled Mexico.
Gertz said that an Interpol red notice had been issued against Zerón, who is wanted on charges of torturing people detained in connection with the students’ disappearance, forced disappearance, evidence tampering and altering a crime scene.
One of the first of many Ayotzinapa protest marches took place in November 2014 in Mexico City.
The attorney general said the location of Zerón is known but didn’t disclose it. It is believed he might be in Canada but authorities are also searching for him in the United States, Guatemala, Belize and Europe.
Gertz also said that José Angel Casarrubias Salgado, the presumed leader of the Guerreros Unidos gang that allegedly abducted and killed the students, was arrested on Monday after almost six years on the run.
However, a federal judge on Wednesday ordered the release of Casarrubias, also known as “El Mochomo,” due to insufficient evidence, although he could be immediately rearrested after he is set free, the newspaper El Financiero reported.
Gertz said Tuesday the new investigation into the students’ disappearance is making progress and declared that the former government’s “historic truth” – that the students were kidnapped by corrupt municipal police, turned over to the Guerreros Unidos, killed and burned – “is over.”
“Our investigation continues and at the end of this week we hope to be able to bring cases against other officials of varying levels as well as provide more information about the human remains that were sent to the university” in Innsbruck, Austria, he said.
Then-attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam offers ‘the historic truth’ at a press conference in January 2015.
In an interview with the newspaper La Jornada, Gertz explained that the “historic truth is over” because “all the elements on which it was based” have been discredited “due to the irregularity and illegality with which the case was managed.”
Independent experts found numerous flaws in the previous government’s investigation and the United Nations said in a 2018 report that 34 people arrested in connection with the crime were tortured.
Gertz said that the Attorney General’s Office is now “seeking is to restore credibility in the investigations” and find out what happened to the young men.
“That’s what the entire public and the parents of the victims really care about,” he said.
Asked whether there was evidence that not all of the students were killed and burned at the dump in the municipality of Cocula, Guerrero – as the “historic truth” claimed – Gertz said there was but declined to give further details.
“That information will be provided later. For now we’re trying to obtain arrest warrants and we’ve had to travel around the whole country because there are judges that don’t want to accept the files and we’ve had to go to other places,” he said.
Investigators at the Cocula dump, where the students’ bodies were believed to have been burned.
Deputy Interior Minister for Human Rights Alejandro Encinas said in March that the remains of three of six bodies sent to Innsbruck were found in a ravine located on community-owned land in Cocula, while the other remains were found near the city of Iguala in an area known as Jesús de Nazaret.
But Gertz said more remains have since been found and that authorities have established a new theory about what happened to the students.
“We already know what happened, we know who ordered it, who covered it up … and [why] they did what they did,” he said.
Asked whether authorities had accepted it as fact the students were murdered, Gertz responded: “Don’t ask me to answer that until I’m certain.”
He said the theory that the students were mistaken for members of a criminal group is “absolutely” supported, adding that the entire region surrounding Iguala was affected by a drug trafficking turf war.
Asked whether the former mayor of Iguala, José Luis Abarca Velázquez, and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa – once known as the imperial couple of the Guerrero city – were involved in the students’ disappearance, the attorney general told La Jornada that he could neither confirm it or deny it.
The former mayor of Iguala and his wife were arrested in connection with the case in 2015, and remain in jail awaiting the outcome.
The Ayotzinapa case is the biggest stain on the record of former president Enrique Peña Nieto, whose administration was plagued by scandals.
The disappearance of the students triggered some of the biggest protests seen in Mexico in recent years, with demonstrators calling for the resignation of Peña Nieto.
But the ex-president survived the uprising and went on to complete his six-year term in 2018 before vanishing from public life.
