Maya Train station added to provide Isla Holbox connection

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June 5, 2020

Destinations hope to see recovery in domestic tourism starting in July.

Mexico City-based airline Aeromar is partnering with hotels on the country’s Pacific coast in a new campaign to encourage visitors to visit five beach destinations.

The marketing campaign, called “Frente del Pacifico,” or “Pacific Front,” offers travelers discounted air travel to Acapulco, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido and Puerto Vallarta, as well upgrades and special rates on activities, hotels and restaurants at each of the five destinations.

Tourists only need to present their paper or electronic boarding pass at any of the 100 participating businesses.

The tourism sector is hoping for an easing of restrictions in July, which is when they expect to see domestic tourism slowly start to rebound, with several destinations hoping to reach 50% hotel occupancy by December.

Aeromar’s fleet of 10 turboprop planes will fly at 50% capacity, meaning fewer than 50 passengers per flight, until at least June 30 in order to allow for social distancing measures recommended by the International Air Transport Association, Aeromar executive director Juan Pablo Rosello announced.

Planes will be thoroughly sanitized after each flight and antibacterial gel will be widely available, Rosello said. The airline will update flight schedules on a weekly basis depending on the coronavirus situation at each of its destinations.

Flights start at US $44 and must be purchased by July 31 for travel anytime before December 31.

Source: El Universal (sp), Forbes (sp)

Covid-19 death toll could reach 35,000, says virus czar; worst case: 60,000

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June 5, 2020

The deputy health minister presents the latest coronavirus report Thursday evening in Mexico City.

Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll could reach 35,000 or as many as 60,000 in a worst case scenario, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Thursday after more than 800 additional fatalities were reported.

Speaking at the Health Ministry’s nightly coronavirus press briefing, López-Gatell said that estimates about the death toll could change depending on how the pandemic develops.

“We don’t rule out 30,000 or 35,000 deaths” he said. “In a catastrophic scenario, it could be 60,000.”

His remarks came after Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía reported that the coronavirus death toll had increased to 12,545 with 816 additional fatalities registered on Thursday.

The death toll has spiked sharply in the past two days with almost 2,000 additional fatalities reported on Wednesday and Thursday. López-Gatell reiterated that not all the new deaths reported occurred in the preceding 24 hours.

Active Covid-19 cases as of Thursday. milenio

More Covid-19 deaths occurred on May 17 than any other day since the start of the pandemic, he said, affirming that there were 340 fatalities on that date.

In addition to the more than 12,500 confirmed Covid-19 deaths, an additional 1,033 fatalities are suspected of having been caused by the disease but have not yet been confirmed.

If a suspected coronavirus patients dies without being tested, and is not tested post-mortem, a committee of medical specialists analyzes the case and decides whether there is sufficient evidence to attribute the death to Covid-19.

Some of the deaths reported on Wednesday and Thursday actually occurred in April but were not reported at the time because they hadn’t been confirmed as Covid-19 fatalities.

The coronavirus case tally has also spiked sharply in recent days with just over 15,000 confirmed cases reported since Monday.

Alomía reported that the case tally had increased to 105,680 with a record 4,442 cases registered on Thursday. He said that 18,377 cases are considered active, an increase of 1,548 compared to Wednesday.

Latest case and death figures as of Thursday. Death numbers are those reported on any particular day rather than those that actually occurred. milenio

Three federal entities have more than 1,000 active cases: Mexico City, with 3,945; México state, with 2,424; and Tabasco, with 1,003.

Alomía said that there are also 46,659 suspected cases across the country and that 314,063 people have now been tested.

Mexico’s per capita testing rate remains low compared to many other countries but the government has dismissed the need to significantly ramp up testing.

López-Gatell said Thursday that the government has no plans to purchase rapid tests because of doubts about their accuracy.

The use of rapid tests, rather than the “gold standard” PCR tests, could have “harmful consequences on the population,” the deputy minister said, because they could show false positives or false negatives and generate misplaced confidence or confusion.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Police accused in death of man arrested for not wearing face mask

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June 4, 2020

The death of Giovanni López while in custody has triggered several protests.

A 30-year-old man who was arrested in Jalisco last month for not wearing a face mask was beaten to death by municipal police officers, says his brother.

Christian López told the news website Latinus that his brother Giovanni López, a construction worker, was arrested in the municipality of Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos on May 4 for not wearing a face mask amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“The policemen came to carry out a raid to arrest people who did not have face masks. We were going to dinner and they came and assaulted us,” he said.

“My brother was grabbed by like 10 policemen, myself as well, but I managed to get away and he was being beaten, tortured, choked there. At that moment I started recording,” López said.

López said that he later went to the local police station to ask about his brother but was only told that he was in hospital.

Por no usar cubrebocas, policía detiene a joven y lo regresan muerto en Jalisco.

Watch this video on YouTube

Police arrest Giovanni López in Ixtlahuacán, Jalisco.

Giovanni López died the next day from a traumatic brain injury, according to his death certificate. He had also been shot in the foot, the newspaper Reforma reported.

Ixtlahuacán Mayor Eduardo Cervantes Aguilar said that an investigation is underway to determine what happened.

“We’re carrying out the necessary steps to shed light on this regrettable incident, [my] government always has and will continue to be a fair one,” he said.

Christian López claimed that through a third party the mayor offered his family 200,000 pesos (US $9,125) not to publish the video he recorded of the police aggression, which has since circulated on social media and news websites.

He also said that Cervantes threatened to kill members of his family should the video come to light. The mayor has rejected the claims.

“At no time did I offer 200,000 pesos or any amount in exchange for the silence of the family members, nor did I threaten them. On the contrary, from the beginning and until today I have instructed my municipal agencies to provide all the information to the state Attorney General’s Office,” he said.

“In my municipal government we do not tolerate police brutality, abuse of authority, and much less serious violations of human rights, such as deprivation of life,” Cervantes said.

Speaking on Thursday, Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro described the man’s death as an “atrocity” and said that a state government investigation is underway.

Alfaro said his government will apply the “full weight of the law” to whoever is responsible for Giovanni López’s death.

“What happened in Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos is an atrocity, a product of the actions of municipal authorities. It has to be clarified that there was no participation of state police,” he said.

Meanwhile, the alleged murder of African American man George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week, and the widespread protests it triggered, has placed renewed focus on another incident of police brutality in Mexico that resulted in a death.

In Tijuana, Baja California, a homeless man died on March 27 after two police officers arrested him at a gas station. A video of the incident shows one officer holding the handcuffed man down by stepping on his neck while the other placed his knee on his back until he stopped breathing.

The deceased man, Oliver López, had been throwing rocks at people at the gas station, according to a police statement. Baja California Governor Jaime Bonilla said on Twitter on Tuesday that there will be no impunity in the case.

The two officers have been stood down while an investigation takes place.

Police in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León, are also alleged to have acted aggressively toward citizens. Residents of the San Pedro 400 neighborhood were allegedly beaten by police after they were called out to a street brawl early Sunday morning.

The police aggression, like the two other incidents, was captured on video. A complaint against the police has been filed with the Nuevo León Attorney General’s Office.

Source: Reforma (sp), Milenio (sp), Latinus (sp), Daily Mail (en)

Puerto Vallarta prepares marketing campaign to recover lost tourism

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June 4, 2020

Puerto Vallarta seeks to bring back the tourists.

Puerto Vallarta, the premier tourist destination in Jalisco, is preparing a marketing campaign aimed at getting visitor numbers back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year.

The campaign will target potential tourists in the United States – the main source country for visitors to the Pacific coast resort city – Canada and Mexico’s largest cities.

The Jalisco government will contribute 100 million pesos (US $4.6 million) to the efforts to revive tourism in Vallarta, located on Banderas Bay just south of the Nayarit border.

Jalisco Tourism Minister Germán Ralis told the news website Forbes México that authorities are hopeful that tourists will start returning to the city over the summer.

However, the marketing campaign will try to attract visitors to Vallarta in the fall and winter months, he said.

Ralis said the campaign will primarily target potential tourists who live in cities where it takes no more than four flying hours to get to Vallarta given that there is unlikely to be much appetite for long-haul trips while Covid-19 remains a threat.

He said that Puerto Vallarta, “our star destination,” and other tourism hubs in Jalisco – among which are state capital Guadalajara and the town of Tequila – will be especially competitive in the United States market.

Ralis also said that Jalisco has signed an agreement with Zacatecas, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato and Aguascalientes to encourage residents to take short interstate trips.

The tourism minister said that some Jalisco hotels will offer three-nights-for-two promotions and that some restaurants will also offer special deals to create an “integrated experience” for visitors from within Mexico and abroad.

Some nonessential businesses in Jalisco that were ordered to close due to the coronavirus pandemic have begun reopening but the state’s economic restart has been surrounded by confusion.

Jalisco had recorded 2,136 Covid-19 cases as of Wednesday of which 790 are considered active. The metropolitan area of Guadalajara has recorded more than 1,000 confirmed cases while 276 people have tested positive in Puerto Vallarta, according to the federal government’s Covid-19 municipal map.

Source: Forbes México (sp)

Foundation hands out boxes of food to Mexico City organ grinders

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June 4, 2020

Organ grinders receive care packages in Mexico City.

About 200 Mexico City organ grinders gathered on Donceles Street today to receive food boxes containing rice, beans, tuna, oil and other items to help them get through the coronavirus crisis.

The food was a gift from the non-profit aid association CADENA, which helps communities in more than 23 countries in times of crisis and disaster.

Members of the organ grinders union lined up on the sidewalk wearing masks, practicing social distancing and playing music as they waited for their packages.

One said they suffer abuse and discrimination but remarked “it’s a great job.”

Another said organ grinders are often ridiculed by younger crowds who don’t respect their craft or the traditions behind it.

“I am going to be 18 in December. I started because of the lack of work and because my father has always dedicated himself to being an organ grinder. He has left me with many wonderful experiences,” the young woman said.

“If you don’t like it, don’t mistreat us, ignore us, it’s our way to earn a livelihood.”

Organ grinders emigrated to Mexico from Europe in the late 1800s and are commonplace on the streets of the nation’s capital where they work for around US $10 a day, although even that has been hard to come by during the coronavirus pandemic.

Since stay-at-home measures were enforced, many organ grinders have abandoned the street corners they usually stake out to travel to neighborhoods where they play for audiences confined to the balconies of apartment buildings.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Tropical Storm Cristóbal dumps heavy rains in six states

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June 4, 2020

Flooding in Campeche has forced 138 people to flee their homes.

Tropical Storm Cristóbal has battered six states in Mexico, causing heavy rains, flooding, evacuations, landslides and damage to homes and highways in Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Veracruz, Chiapas and Tabasco before moving into Campeche where it was hugging the coast of the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday.

Nine thousand soldiers and National Guard members have been dispatched to affected areas and those still in the storm’s path.

Cristóbal’s sustained winds dropped to 65 kph yesterday as it approached Ciudad del Carmen, and it was downgraded to a tropical depression earlier today with sustained winds of 56 kph.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said at 4:00 p.m. CDT on Thursday that the storm is expected to deliver extreme rainfall amounts through Saturday in Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatán.

Cristóbal is expected to regain strength as it moves over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico Friday night and heads northward where it could make landfall in the United States.

In Campeche, 139 people had to be evacuated by the army due to rising floodwaters that washed out highways and threatened residences. Two communities in the municipality of Centla, Tabasco, were also evacuated.

A highway is left impassable by Tropical Storm Cristóbal.

Yucatán officials declared a yellow alert due to the approaching storm, which could be raised to red by Friday.

Mass evacuations could be carried out in Celestún, Maxcanú, Hunucmá, Opichén, Kinchil, Samahil, Santa Elena, Chocholá, Tekax, Kopomá, Muna, Oxkutzcab, Sacalum and Tzucacab if conditions worsen. Five thousand hectares of soybeans, squash, chiles and other crops have been lost to the flooding in Yucatán, where some areas have received up to 360 mm of rain since Sunday.

In Quintana Roo, the Chetumal-Escárcega highway was closed due to flooding, with water levels reaching 80 centimeters, leaving the southern part of the state cut off.

At least 12 municipalities in Veracruz were put on yellow alert due to strong winds and torrential rain.

In Chiapas, Chicoasén, Bochil, Copainalá, Tecpatán, Ixtapa and Unión Juárez have all seen landslides and wash-outs due to the storm.

National Civil Protection coordinator David León said one person in Chiapas was killed by a falling tree.

Cristóbal was born on June 2 from the remnants of Pacific Tropical Storm Amanda, which battered Central America leaving at least 22 dead in El Salvador and Guatemala, and marks the earliest named storm in the Atlantic ever. The previous record was set in 2016 when Tropical Storm Colin formed on June 5.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Universal (sp), Accuweather (sp)

Some tequila brands are narcos’ ally for laundering drug money

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June 4, 2020

El Viejo Luis tequila was linked to the Güeros cartel.

The tequila industry and some of Mexico’s notorious drug cartels have a criminal association dating back at least 14 years.

The federal government announced this week that the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) had frozen the bank accounts of 1,770 people, 167 businesses and two trust funds linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) through a money-laundering network of front companies passing themselves off as vendors of tequila.

Accounts containing a total of US $1.1 billion were frozen after an operation, dubbed “Blue Agave” for the main ingredient in tequila, was carried out by the UIF in cooperation with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

It’s not the first time that criminal groups have made use of Mexico’s most famous tipple to advance their illicit activities – links between the tequila industry and the underworld date back to at least 2006.

That was the year the DEA first discovered a connection between tequila and drug trafficking in Mexico, the newspaper Milenio reported on Thursday.

Onze Black tequila was allegedly a product of Jalisco cartel ally Los Cuinis.

The criminal organization found to be in cahoots with the tequila industry at the time was the Tijuana Cartel, also known as the Arellano Félix organization.

According to a September 2006 report by the United States Department of the Treasury, the tequila company 4 Reyes helped the Tijuana Cartel to launder the money it obtained from distributing drugs in both Mexico and the U.S.

Seven years later, the DEA discovered that shipments of cocaine were being brought into the United States in trucks transporting bottles of tequila. According to a 2013 U.S. Treasury Department report, two tequila companies were in fact front companies for the criminal organization known as Los Güeros.

United States authorities identified four brothers as the chief operators of the drug cartel: Daniel, Esteban, Luis and Miguel Rodríguez Olivera. Daniel and Esteban were both arrested in Mexico and extradited to the United States, where they were jailed on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.

Another link between narcos and tequila was detected in 2015 when the U.S. discovered that the tequila company Onze Black had been set up by Los Cuinis, a drug gang with close links to the CJNG, to help finance the latter’s criminal activities. The U.S. government added the company to an economic blacklist the same year.

Earlier this year, the daughter of CJNG kingpin Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes was arrested in Washington, D.C., after she arrived at a federal court to attend a bond hearing for her brother. Jessica Johana Oseguera González was charged with associating with businesses blacklisted in the United States for their links to the CJNG including a tequila company.

A tequila company owned by the actress Kate del Castillo was investigated by Mexican authorities to establish whether it had any financial links to the former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, currently imprisoned in the United States.

However, no illicit dealings between del Castillo’s company, Tequila Honor, and El Chapo were detected.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Baja fisherman potentially beats world record with 39-kilo sea bass

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June 4, 2020

Ricardo Reyes and his potentially record-breaking sea bass.

A fisherman from La Paz, Baja California Sur, landed a giant white sea bass on April 30 which could beat a long-held world record for the species.

“This catch has the potential to break the current All-Tackle record of 37.98 kilograms that has been held for over 67 years,” the International Game Fishing Association (IGFA) posted to its Facebook page yesterday.

The white sea bass is a species of croaker normally found between Magdalena Bay, Baja California, and Juneau, Alaska.

Ricardo Reyes Martínez, 36, caught the monster fish, which he says weighed in at 39.9 kilos, southwest of La Paz on the Pacific side of the Baja California peninsula while surfcasting for snapper.

Should the catch be certified, it could set a double world record for the All-Tackle and 9-kilo-line class catch.

The fish could break a 67-year-old record.

The IGFA has strict rules on how a world record is measured, requiring the catch to be weighed on an IGFA or government-certified scale, but Reyes is hopeful that his application, which needs to include samples of his fishing line, photos and witness testimony, will be approved.

“I did not expect to win a world record. I did not even plan to send the information, but when I saw that the fish was a good size, I decided to send in the official documentation,” he said.

Source: BCS Noticias (sp)

Massive Maya structure in Tabasco is largest and oldest ever found

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June 4, 2020