The allegedly fake doctor who was selling vaccines for up to 1,500 pesos each in Tapachula, Chiapas.
A man posing as a doctor was arrested in Tapachula, Chiapas, on Saturday for selling fake shots of Covid-19 vaccines for 1,000 to 1,500 pesos.
Gerardo “N,” 40, was found in a hotel — where he allegedly administered the vaccines — wearing a doctor’s uniform with state Health Ministry logos and in possession of a plastic bag with empty syringe cases, two empty bottles of sodium chloride, fake vaccination certificates and a list of people who had received the shots.
The border town is the primary entry point for immigrants entering the country from Central America, many of whom see the United States as their ultimate destination.
Chiapas has the second lowest rate of vaccination of any state in the country, according to information published by the Health Ministry. Only 29% of the adult population has received at least one shot; Puebla is in last place with 26%.
The low rate of uptake is attributable to a low rate of Covid-19 cases in the state and a widely dispersed population, which reduces the risk of transmission.
Meanwhile, trust in the federal government is low in the state where the militant Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) controls large swaths of territory. Faith in vaccines wasn’t helped by an episode in 2015 when two babies died after receiving vaccines, and 29 more were hospitalized.
In line with the national picture, Chiapas is experiencing a third wave of the pandemic. However, it has the lowest number of Covid-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for any state: 236 per 100,000 people, compared to the most severe rate of 8,412 per 100,000 in Mexico City.
The state is one of three that are green on the coronavirus stoplight map, alongside Coahuila and Aguascalientes.
Covid-19 vaccines are provided free by the federal government, and their sale is illegal.
López Obrador also suggested that a common market similar to the European Union model could be created in Latin America.
Cuba is an “example of resistance” and the entire island nation should be declared a World Heritage site, President López Obrador said Saturday.
He made the remarks at an event in Mexico City to commemorate the 238th anniversary of the birth of Simón Bolivár, a military and political leader known as the “liberator of America” and a proponent of a unified Latin America.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez was among the guests at the event, held at the Chapultepec Castle.
“We can agree or not with the Cuban Revolution and its government but having resisted 62 years without subjugation is quite a feat. … For their struggle in defense of the sovereignty of the country, I believe that the Cuban people deserve the prize of dignity and the island should be considered the new Numantia [an ancient Iberian Peninsula city that clashed with Ancient Rome] for its example of resistance,” López Obrador said.
“And I think that it should be declared a World Heritage site for the same reason,” he said.
“… I also maintain that it’s now time for a new coexistence among all the countries of America because the model imposed more than two centuries ago is exhausted, it has no future, … it no longer benefits anyone,” López Obrador said two weeks after calling for an end to the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, which has recently seen large protests against the Communist Party government led by President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Mexico must ensure that it is not seen as a “protectorate, colony or backyard” of its northern neighbor, López Obrador said.
“… Obviously it’s no small thing to have a nation like the United States as a neighbor. Our proximity obliges us to seek agreements … but at the same time we have powerful reasons to assert our sovereignty,” he said.
The president also suggested that a common market similar to the European Union model could be created in Latin America.
“The proposal is neither more nor less than to build something similar to the European Union, but adhering to our history, our reality and our identities,” AMLO said.
In that context, the Organization of American States (OAS) should be replaced “by a body that is truly autonomous” and “not anybody’s lackey,” he said, insinuating that it takes orders from the United States.
“It’s a complex issue that requires a new political and economic vision. … [It’s] a large task for good diplomats and politicians, like those who fortunately exist in all the countries of the continent,” he said.
“What I’ve suggested here might seem to be a utopia but it must be considered that without ideals on the horizon you don’t get anywhere. Let’s keep the dream of Bolívar alive.”
The government plans to recruit another 50,000 members of the Guard.
The National Guard (GN) will receive an additional 50 billion pesos (US $2.5 billion) in funding over the next two years, President López Obrador announced on Sunday.
The new funding will “finish strengthening this institution by the end of 2023,” he said during the inauguration of new GN barracks in Xalapa, Veracruz.
López Obrador said the security force will have all the members it needs by the end of that year and they will be paid “fair salaries.”
It currently has 100,000 members, about three-quarters of whom were formerly soldiers or marines, but the government wants to increase its numbers to 150,000.
The additional funding will significantly increase the budget of the GN, which was created by the current government and inaugurated in June 2019. It received just under 29.3 billion pesos in funding last year and was allocated almost 35.7 billion this year.
An additional 50 billion pesos during 2022 and 2023 should lift the security force’s annual budget above 60 billion pesos (US $3 billion). Its announcement comes as Mexico continues to register very high levels of violent crime, although homicides decreased 3.5% in the first six months of 2021 compared to the same period last year.
López Obrador also said Sunday that the GN will have all the facilities it needs by the end of 2023, which will be the last full year of his six-year term. In addition to barracks, housing for troops’ families will be built, the president said.
The president, who has relied heavily on the military during his 2 1/2 years in office, said he didn’t want the GN – which is officially part of the civilian Security Ministry – to end up as part of a ministry that doesn’t have the discipline and professionalism required to manage the security force.
“We don’t want … what happened with the Federal Police to happen again. … It was established in one ministry and then it came to depend on the Interior Ministry and it was completely spoiled by corruption, it rotted,” López Obrador said.
“This institution [the GN] has to adhere to ideal principles, be incorruptible so that it can last through the years, becoming a branch of the Ministry of Defense,” he said.
“That’s the way it’s done in other countries, the civil guard belongs to ministries of defense, that’s the model we’re going to carry out – from an initiative I’m going to send to Congress, of course,” López Obrador said.
However, the likelihood of the Congress passing such a reform appears low because a two-thirds majority is required. The ruling Morena party and its allies don’t have a supermajority in the Senate and lost the one they had in the lower house as a result of last month’s elections.
The president in Xalapa also defended his use of the military in public security tasks, even though he promised prior to winning the 2018 presidential election that he would withdraw the armed forces from the streets.
“We have to count on the support of both the Defense Ministry and the Navy Ministry in public security work because they’re two fundament institutions, pillars of the Mexican state, … institutions that have discipline and in which there is professionalism…” he said.
Not only has López Obrador used the military for public security – albeit with an order to avoid confrontation with criminal groups wherever possible – he has also assigned a range of other non-traditional tasks to the armed forces including infrastructure construction and the management of customs and ports.
The new cable car in the north of Mexico City has proved a hit with residents who are using the airborne transportation method far more than was predicted.
Line 1 of the Cablebús system, which went into full operation on June 11, has registered 56,000 users per day compared to the 48,000 predicted. That makes it the second most used cable car in Latin America, even by pre-pandemic numbers, according to city officials.
The 2.9-billion-peso line (about US $145 million) links Cuautepec, a working-class neighborhood in a hilly area of the Gustavo A. Madero borough, to the Indios Verdes Metro and bus station, taking 33 minutes end-to-end. It is the longest cable car line in Latin America at 9.2 kilometers, with six stations along 63 towers. It travels at five meters per second, or 18 kilometers per hour.
The new transit option has seen robust uptake, despite social distancing measures which only allow six people to travel in each cabin, leaving four seats empty.
Almost 10% of passengers so far have benefited from free transport through the the Inclusive Metro Pass for people with disabilities and seniors over 60.
The first section running between Tlalpexco and Campos Revolución stations at the Cuautepec end of the line first opened on March 4. At the time, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum highlighted the social benefit the cable car would generate. “It’s a historic day because we’re opening a new system of collective transport … it’s social transport … Having the best transportation for the poorest parts of the city reduces inequality,” she said.
The mayor added that a second cable car line is under construction in Iztapalapa, a sprawling, densely populated borough in the capital’s east.
Previous to the opening of Line 1, Guillermo Calderón, director of the electrical transportation system in Mexico City, said that residents in Gustavo A. Madero had long been deprived of adequate transport links. “They [currently] make their trips [to the Metro station] in small vans that descend through narrow streets, and that may take, from the highest point [of the area] … as long as 55 minutes or an hour,” he said.
The Associated Press reported that traditional transportation solutions like bus or subway lines are almost impossible in the area because there are no rights of way in the densely packed slums, which are crowded along hillsides on steep 15-degree slopes.
A public transit cable car system already operates in Ecatepec, a México state municipality that borders Gustavo A. Madero. The most used cable car in Latin America is the Purple Line in La Paz, Bolivia, which transported 58,000 people per day prior to the pandemic. In third place is the Yellow Line in the same South American city, which transports 45,000 passengers per day. Medellín in Colombia and Río de Janeiro in Brazil also have similar cable car systems.
A journey on Line 1 costs 6 pesos. It runs from 5:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Monday to Friday; 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m on Saturdays; and from 7 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. on Sundays.
The federal government has determined that the average salary of police officers in Mexico should be 13,639 pesos (US $680) per month.
The National Public Security System (SNSP) and the National Minimum Wage Commission (Conasami) completed a study that found that state and municipal police as well as prison guards need to earn that amount, on average, to be able to satisfy their needs and those of their family with regard to diet, footwear, housing, health, education and recreation.
The study, whose findings were published in a report entitled A Living Wage for Police in Mexico, took a range of factors into account including officers’ age, gender, marital status, education level and government welfare support they receive as well as prices of essential goods and services in each of the country’s 32 states.
The SNSP and Conasami concluded that police in Veracruz can cover their expenses with the least amount of money while those in Quintana Roo need the highest.
“A living wage that will allow families of police to cover their most basic needs ranges between 8,651 pesos (Veracruz) and 18,024 (Quintana Roo) with a national average of 13,639,” the report said.
Low wages have been cited as a major reason for high levels of collusion between criminal organizations and police forces.
“The difference is due to the composition of [police] families in each state,” it added.
The study found that 14 states currently pay police salaries that are higher than the amount determined to be a living wage in each entity while the other 18 do not.
Those in the former category are San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Jalisco, Baja California, Querétaro, Zacatecas, Veracruz, Sinaloa, Durango, Yucatán, Nuevo León and Hidalgo.
Police in San Luis Potosí earn the highest wages in the country: officer receives a net salary of 21,091 pesos (US $1,053) per month on average. That’s almost 90% higher than the amount determined to be a living wage in that state.
Across Mexico, police are currently paid 13,283 pesos per month on average, 356 pesos below the national living wage threshold, the report said. Police in Tamaulipas, Quintana Roo and Aguascalientes earn more than that amount on average but their salaries are lower than the living wages in those states as determined by the SNSP and Conasami.
Police in Nuevo León and Hidalgo earn less on average than the national living wage but their salaries exceed the living wages determined for those two states.
Mexico City is one of the 18 states where police earn less than a living wage. Officers in the capital earn 11,705 pesos per month on average but a living wage was determined to be 21% higher at 14,221 pesos.
Mexico’s worst paid police are those in Chiapas, where the average monthly salary is just 6,357 pesos ($318). However, a living wage in the southern state is 64% higher at 10,413 pesos, according to the report.
Police in Tabasco, the second worst paid in the country, are even worse off. Their average monthly salary is 6,415 pesos but the state’s living wage is 116% higher at 13,871 pesos.
Low wages have been cited as a major reason for high levels of collusion between criminal organizations and police forces, especially those at the municipal level. Entire municipal police forces have been disarmed on numerous occasions due to suspected or proven links to organized crime. Among the municipalities where that has occurred are Acapulco, Guerrero, and Tlaquepaque, Jalisco.
Mexico City residents say their faith in God has strengthened through the Covid-19 pandemic, while their confidence in the government has declined, according to an El Financiero-Bloomberg survey.
Forty-eight percent of respondents confirmed their trust in the divine had grown and just 16% said that their confidence in government had increased.
Forty-four percent said that they had less faith in government than they did before the pandemic.
Faith in God and confidence in science showed themselves not to be mutually exclusive: alongside increased trust in God, 36% of respondents signaled more trust in science. Faith in the common man also grew: 16% said they trust people more.
Meanwhile, the pandemic has been a source of motivation for some of those surveyed. 53% said they had greater desire for personal improvement and 35% said they felt more motivated.
The diminishing support in Mexico City for the ruling Morena party was reflected in the June 6 elections. Despite the capital being a stronghold for the party in recent years, it lost in four of the 11 districts it governed, making Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum the first to govern with a majority of districts in opposition hands.
Sheinbaum blamed the “terrible tragedy” of the Metro collapse on May 3, which killed 26 people, while both she and the president made claims of a “dirty war” against ruling administrations both nationally and in the capital.
However, the pandemic has also hit the city hard. Mexico City has born the brunt of Covid-19 cases, recording far more than double the next worst affected state.
Voters may also have been dissuaded by the pattern of government investment, which has been focused outside of the capital. Early in the administration, President López Obrador opted to cancel the construction of the Texcoco airport, destined to serve Mexico City, which was somewhere between 20% and 30% complete; his flagship project, the Maya Train, will connect towns and cities in the south-east of the country.
Faith in God is generally expressed through Catholicism, which is the dominant religion in the country and the capital. However, it has shown a gradual decrease in followers in the two decades preceding 2020.
Protestant and evangelical faiths also grew in popularity over the same period, but remain fringe compared to Catholicism. The capital is also a historic home to the country’s small Jewish population.
The survey of 500 Mexico City residents was conducted by telephone on July 15-16. The margin of error was estimated at 4.4%.
Saturday's march against medicine shortages Saturday in Mexico City.
Thousands of parents and other relatives of children with cancer along with cancer survivors, HIV patients and others took to the streets in Mexico City on Saturday to protest once again against long-running medication shortages.
People from across Mexico participated in a march from the Angel of Independence monument on Reforma Avenue to the Alameda Central park in the capital’s downtown.
Organized around the slogan quimios sí (chemo yes), the march was the latest protest among many held during the past two years against the federal government’s failure to supply public hospitals with sufficient quantities of pediatric oncology medications as well as a range of other medicines including antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS.
“I don’t believe there is a more just cause at the moment than defending the right for people with cancer and many other diseases to have their complete medications on time. This is the most humane fight that Mexicans can have,” one protester told the EFE news agency.
“[The shortages are] real, there are no medications, not for cancer nor for other diseases. So we have to demand that the authorities [supply the medications], pressure them so they fix this problem they caused,” said Marcela Martínez, a cancer survivor who lost her mother to the disease last year.
‘Chemo yes!’ read the signs of two protesters in the capital on Saturday.
“They’re populists, they promise and promise but lie and lie, and now we’re tired of the lies and the promises,” said Teresa Herrera, another protester who called on all citizens to empathize with those suffering from the drug shortages.
“I can’t believe that we put up with them taking our medicines away because a country that allows medicines to be taken away allows everything. We can’t allow it, we can’t forget it,” she said.
“We’re here supporting the fathers and mothers of children with cancer because like them, people who live with HIV haven’t had medications. Enough of them not hearing us!” Alaín Pinzón, leader of the HIV patients advocacy group VIHve Libre, told the newspaper Milenio.
The protesters blamed President López Obrador for the lack of drugs and were also highly critical of Health Minister Jorge Alcocer and Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, who claimed last month that protests against shortages were linked to international right-wing groups with a mentality that borders on coup plotting.
The march took place just days after the government asserted that the problem – which experts say is caused by López Obrador’s overhaul of a procurement process he claimed was plagued by corruption and price gouging – had been solved as the result of an almost 77-billion-peso (US $3.85 billion) outlay on the purchase of medications via its own tendering processes and through a collaborative purchasing agreement with the the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).
Speaking at his regular news conference last Tuesday, the president described his administration’s purchases as a “triumph” after reiterating his claim that medication procurement under previous governments was “a business of a thieving minority.”
But almost 87% of medications bought in collaboration with UNOPS have not been delivered to health facilities, according to data presented by the Health Ministry at the same press conference. Some 196.5 million units of medications have been purchased but only 25.8 million units – 13.1% of the total – have so far reached hospitals.
Saturday’s protest came two days after a court filed a complaint with the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) against Health Minister Alcocer and Finance Minister Arturo Herrera for failing to comply with an injunction that ordered them to guarantee the supply of cancer medications.
A group of parents of children with cancer also recently filed a complaint against Deputy Minister López-Gatell for genocide, discrimination and negligence in relation to the long-running shortage of cancer medications.
Journalist Carlos Loret de Mola asserted earlier this month that 1,600 children with cancer have died as a result of drug shortages, although he provided scant evidence for the claim.
Enedina Bazán Chávez, left, shows a visitor to En Vía how to spin yarn. The non-profit connects new female entrepreneurs with tourists and potential customers. Allegra Zagami
One of the first things that impressed me in Mexico was the ability of people to start a business with next to nothing — a table on the street with some food or small merchandise. Granted, I have never had to do this to get by, but I also come from a culture where police now shut down kids’ lemonade stands.
When I talk about this with Mexican friends, they agree that it is a positive, but a number note that the problem often is how do you take it to the next level? In the valley of Tlacolula, Oaxaca, the microfinance non-profit En Vía (On the Way) is providing rural women with the means to do just that.
According to En Vía managing director Viviana Ruiz Boijseauneau, microfinance is a natural extension of Mexicans’ natural entrepreneurial tendency. “There is a lot of initiative in Mexico,” she said. “We provide small incentives, capital and training.”
En Vía’s work is very similar to microfinance organizations around the world, a model that was much hyped a couple of decades ago as the solution to world poverty. Although it never did turn out as promised, it can be very useful.
The trick is to adjust the model to local circumstances.
A business-oriented English class at En Vía. En Vía
Like other such organizations, En Vía focuses on giving very small business loans for start-ups to poor rural populations who lack access to banking and credit services. As in many parts of the world, people in rural Oaxaca are isolated from the mainstream economy with no credit histories and often no verifiable incomes. If a credit agency does lend to them, it is at exorbitant rates.
These microfinance organizations do more than just lend; they provide ongoing support. En Vía’s basic education program consists of eight sessions covering topics such as managing finances and setting prices. In addition, they offer more specialized classes such as textile marketing and design, computer skills, branding, diabetes prevention and worm composting.
Like many such operations, En Vía funds exclusively women clients. This is ideological.
“Our mission is to empower women to have a better quality of life — first them (the women), then their families and their communities,” says Ruiz. On En Vía’s website, it states, “It has been proven that women are more likely to put generated income toward the benefit of their family’s well-being.”
The main difference between En Vía and other microfinance organizations is its ability to take advantage of a unique regional economic opportunity: central Oaxaca’s important tourism industry.
Luring tourists outside Oaxaca city proper, En Vía promotes “responsible tourism,” which it defines as something that “… improves the well-being of the local community.” It encourages visitors to “meaningfully connect with local people, to learn about their culture and livelihoods and to allow for genuine exchange.”
The organic market La Cosecha in Oaxaca city, the business of a woman helped by En Vía. Osvaldo Barrientos
This includes tours of their clients’ businesses to let the women show visitors what they are doing. By touring the businesses, outsiders get a more “authentic view” of life in the Central Valleys than can be seen in the city.
It dovetails well with the businesses of most of the women, who are artisans and depend on tourism to have a market for their wares. On a practical level, the tours bring customers, but they also bring in funding to En Vía to cover operating expenses, helping to keep the loans interest-free.
Because of tourism, English language lessons are very popular among younger women so that they can sell to more people.
Not all of the women in the program are artisans; some open restaurants, and one even opened a hardware store.
The pandemic has hit En Vía’s artisans hard, forcing them and En Vía to look at alternatives. This has included learning to sell their products online, but perhaps more interesting has been some clients’ move to raising chickens.
Initially, En Vía began helping women raise chickens as a way to feed their families once income sources dried up. However, a number of their clients have decided that they can go beyond that, working toward commercialization of the birds, including breaking into better-paying organic production.
Emiliana Antonio Miguel from San Miguel del Valle, Oaxaca, shows a visitor on En Vía’s responsible tourism program how to make a tortilla. Stephanie Knibbe
The tours, a foreign resident population and general interest in Oaxaca’s socioeconomic situation also mean that En Vía works with a significant number of volunteers. Depending on the time of year (in normal, non-pandemic times, that is), it can vary from 25 to about 50.
They get the most volunteers during the “high seasons,” which are December to April for snowbird retirees and May to August when students are on summer break.
Ruiz says that volunteers have a unique opportunity to work meaningfully with clients in a way that has real benefit. They run tours, teach English classes and specialized workshops and do translations. Many of the tour guides and English instructors are foreign residents. En Vía has university student volunteers doing classes in business and other specialized topics.
Microfinance is not a magic bullet. The European Microfinance Platform has warned against problems with Mexican borrowers taking on multiple loans, making their ability to pay questionable. However, Ruíz boasts that En Vía has a 99.8% repayment rate. She criticizes more traditional lenders’ justification for high interest rates.
“Just because they are poor does not mean they will default. We are proof that the opposite is true. The women respond well to the mutual confidence that we encourage.”
Much of that mutual confidence comes from the fact that the women’s work gets such outside attention. It is not simply a matter of lending money to women who work in obscurity. En Vía provides a platform through which women in isolated communities can reach out beyond their world — and the world can reach out to them.
The hands of master potter Elia Mateo Martínez from San Marcos Tlapazola.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
A man walks by a sign encouraging participation in the August referendum on investigating ex-presidents.
The messaging is everywhere in my city: En la consulta, vota sí (Vote yes on the consultation).
Sometimes it’s Juicio a expresidentes (trial for ex-presidents), with the faces of Mexico’s previous five presidents underneath, their eyes blocked out — newspaper crime section style. The hashtag for it all reads, “Trial yes, impunity no.”
Sigh.
It makes for great political theater — I’ll give them that.
And here’s how I might go for it — instead of my current response: the narrow side-eye — if the current administration weren’t, in a very literal sense, mostly talk.
The government’s upcoming referendum on August 1, in which it asks the people to vote on whether they would like to see past “political actors” (although all the accompanying advertising associated with the referendum makes it clear that we’re talking about the country’s last five presidents before the current one) investigated for corruption is good, convincing talk. But I’d like to think that most of us know better by now.
Anyone who’s lived long enough has met people like our current president: talkers both forceful and smooth, so good at promising you the moon that you sit outside every night staring at the night sky, sure that any minute now it will appear right on your lawn.
President López Obrador is the boyfriend who’s always telling you how beautiful you are, how much he loves you, that you’ll soon get married and live happily ever after in a castle … but the move-in day never arrives, and he’s very good at convincing you that the reason it doesn’t is because of someone else’s evil sabotage.
It’s a characteristic of both the current president of Mexico and the former president of my own country. The clear message to their citizens is: your suffering is not my fault — and plus, I’m a victim too!
Can’t we get someone with a the buck stops here sign on their desk who really means it for a change?
People like to complain about Gen Z (or about millennials, depending on how old the complainers are) whining and throwing tantrums when they don’t get their way, but there’s nowhere I see that attitude more than among a large handful of quite powerful and quite mature men these days.
It’s not that I’m against anyone facing justice for past wrongs; I’m all for it, in fact. But does being unenthusiastic about this particular call to action mean that I’m indifferent?
I don’t doubt that past presidents are responsible for all manner of crime — mostly “rich people” crimes of corruption like fraud and money laundering, as I explained to my sister. But why are we only talking about presidents here?
What about the lower-level leaders at the state and municipal levels too? Why are they not in the eye of the hurricane as well?
It also seems silly to potentially use our resources to “go after” people who are not actively causing damage at the same time that we’re finding it impossible to do so with people who are damaging our society every day in the present — in a very real sense.
So why do I think that this is more a silly distraction rather than a big, important revolutionary reckoning?
Oh, let me count the ways!
This administration has not shown that it cares about justice for women. Even if we set aside the president’s disparaging and dismissive remarks regarding the women’s movement, this year’s federal spending on baseball, the president’s favorite sport, has received nearly twice the allocation as programs for women.
The current government has shown little real concern about all the candidates that got killed in this year’s elections, the second most violent on record, or the fact that narcos have had such an outsized role in determining who will hold power at the local and state levels.
Speaking of narcos, do we have any kind of plan for taking back any of the one-third of the territory that they completely control?
Where is the concern for the record number of people who have fallen into poverty, and others into extreme poverty as a direct result of the pandemic in which no one received any kind of pandemic-related economic support? Talk about being on our own.
Early on, the president downplayed the coronavirus to such an extent that there are still people who think it’s fake; in retrospect, I keep wondering: did he tell everyone to keep going out in the early days because he knew that those businesses wouldn’t get another chance to earn money for a long while?
He insisted on bringing General Cienfuegos, a high-ranking military officer who’d been arrested in the United States for drug trafficking, back to stand trial in Mexico, where he was promptly released.
The president famously quips “I have different data” every time he doesn’t like the numbers with which he’s challenged — which is a lot. It’s not strange for him to contradict people in his own government, and his daily morning press conferences seem more about keeping people on his side than informing citizens about the goings-on in the country.
He regularly goes after the press, “joking” that they should serve jail time for telling “lies” about him. Thinking about this as I write this article makes me wonder: might the president think it a good idea to “let the people decide” to go after anyone at all?
The Economist and Le Monde have both recently published pieces essentially making fun of what they see as the political gimmick of proposing trials for ex-presidents. I’m sure he won’t like it; I’m sure, too, that it won’t improve his views of the press.
But the president’s most ardent supporters will likely continue to support him. It’s nice — and apparently irresistible to some — to feel that someone powerful is on your side. It’s nice for them to be able to say, “Yes, you are so right.”
But I’m not 17 anymore. I want to see results.
And from what I can tell so far, it’s mostly closed-up shops, tumbleweeds and blood around here.
Mexican classics like quesadillas lend themselves well to using marlin.
Have you ever had smoked marlin (marlin ahumado)? It’s been so much a part of “my Mexican experience” here in Mazatlán that I forget it’s not as common outside Sinaloa, where it’s recognized as a specialty.
One can easily surmise that’s because Mazatlán is such a big, thriving commercial and recreational fishing port, and has been for decades. Plus, marlin grow to be really big fish: the average size is about 11 feet, with weights of 200–400 pounds. What to do with all that marlin? Smoking it certainly makes sense.
Personally, I find fresh marlin a little too oily, but smoked it’s absolutely delicious. More firm than smoked salmon, it has a texture almost like chicken. And the smoked flavor lends itself to any number of dishes — let your imagination take the lead! My favorite fishmonger here sells smoked marlin with no added coloring, which I prefer; commonly, a bit of red dye is brushed onto the outside of the fish to give it a brighter, more attractive color. It’s not harmful and doesn’t change the flavor, so not to worry if that’s all you can find. Some vendors will claim the red color comes from the smoking process; you’ll have to be the judge.
An easy way to try smoked marlin is to sauté it with scrambled eggs, along with a little onion, bell or poblano pepper and tomato. That’s a very common breakfast here in Mazatlán. You can also make a sort of tuna salad with it, using the ingredients you regularly do but substituting smoked marlin for canned tuna. Add it to a quiche or frittata, use as a filling for fried or baked empanadas or serve it sliced with cheese and crackers, as a happy hour appetizer. Or try one of the recipes below.
Those of you not in Mazatlán may need to look in the refrigerated section at the grocery store, where you’ll find it in shrink-wrapped packages.
Serve smoked marlin salsa at your next party and grab your guests’ attention!
Marlin Paté
½ kg. smoked marlin or tuna
2-3 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
2-4 Tbsp. mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
¼ cup chopped red onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tomato
1 jalapeño, seeded
Salt to taste
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
Juice of 1 lime
Blend all ingredients in food processor or blender until smooth. Adjust seasonings and amount of cream cheese. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours. Serve with crackers or chips.
Salsa de Marlin Ahumado
½ -1 jalapeño, seeded and minced
¼ cup chopped onion, in tiny cubes
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tomato
1-2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
1 cup smoked marlin, cut into tiny cubes
1 avocado
Fresh coriander, minced
Cube tomato and avocado. Mix all ingredients together; serve with tortilla chips.
Smoked marlin, almost as firm in texture as chicken, makes for a fresh change to your taco.
Smoked Marlin Tacos
2 garlic cloves
½ large white onion, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cup of tomato, chopped
2 cups smoked marlin, crumbled
1 Tbsp. ground cumin
1 Tbsp. dried oregano
½-1 jalapeño, minced
20 taco tortillas (small)
1 cup prepared pico de gallo
1 avocado, chopped into small cubes
Sauté garlic and onion in oil. When they begin to brown, add tomato, jalapeño and marlin, then salt, pepper, cumin and oregano. Continue cooking for a few minutes. Heat tortillas. Mix pico de gallo with avocado. Fill tacos with marlin mixture, top with salsa and serve.
Cut carrots, celery, marlin into tiny cubes. Cut beans into tiny pieces. In a pot of boiling water, parboil veggies separately (using a slotted spoon to remove them from water) until crisp-cooked; set aside.
In a blender or food processor, mix tomato puree, 1 liter of water, oregano and bay leaves. Heat olive oil in a big soup pot; sauté onion and garlic, then add tomato mixture and remaining water. Bring to a boil, lower heat and then stir in veggies and marlin, adding more water if needed. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour in jalapeños and vinegar liquid from the can. Add olives if using. Bring to a boil, simmer 20 minutes and serve topped with garnishes and with warm corn tortillas.
Have you ever tried this alternative to salmon and tuna? What did you think? What recipes have you tried?
