Zipolite Beach, site of a world-famous nudists' festival.
An annual nudist festival in Oaxaca will go ahead as planned at the end of this month despite Covid-19, say its organizers, who have promised that they will follow all required sanitary protocols.
The Zipolite Nudist Festival — put on by the Mexican Nudists’ Federation — has taken place in the coastal municipality of San Pedro Pochutla for six years on Mexico’s only legal nude beach. The event attracts as many as 8,000 people.
This year, it will run from January 29–February 1.
The festival’s promotional brochure warns visitors that they need to have reservations in a local hotel and will be expected to observe sanitary guidelines, including wearing masks and using sanitizer. It also urges people to avoid coming if they are experiencing sore throat, fever or fatigue and is apparently trying to avoid any gatecrashers augmenting the numbers by urging those who don’t already have plans in place not to go.
“If you don’t yet have flight and hotel reservations, then we invite you to stay at home,” says a message on the festival’s Facebook account, adding that another event is planned for September 17–19.
The publicity about the festival has inspired some negative comments online, with one commenter saying, “This will be chaos. We are already seeing the first cases [of Covid-19] in Zipolite.”
Festival organizers defended their decision to go ahead with the event, saying that the town’s general assembly voted on December 20 to allow it to happen with the understanding that it would not be a massive event and that organizers would make sure visitors comply with health protocols, both on the beach and off.
Municipal officials have made no comment on their decision even though the entire state is currently listed as orange or “high” risk on the national coronavirus stoplight map.
Currently, Oaxaca has accumulated 28,730 cases of the coronavirus and 2,153 deaths from the disease. Of those, the coastal region where this event is to take place has seen 1,459 Covid cases and 143 deaths.
The municipality of San Pedro Pochutla has registered 145 cases and 10 deaths.
A fire in Tulum’s hotel zone Wednesday night destroyed several businesses and prompted emergency personnel to evacuate around 1,000 people.
There were no casualties, Tulum Civil Protection director Gilberto Gómez Mora said, but the fire, which is believed to have begun shortly before 10 p.m. and was already raging out of control by the time emergency personnel arrived at 10:06, stripped 36 business owners of most or all of their possessions.
“It was enormous. The losses were in the millions [of pesos],” he said. “Smothering the fire and avoiding that it spread was a titanic job. We didn’t have any loss of life, but there were certainly owners of businesses in shock, watching their entire life savings being consumed.”
No hotels in the area were damaged, he said.
According to Gómez, the fire currently appears to have one of two possible origins: either a discarded lit cigarette at a party in the area or a short-circuit of Christmas lights that were hanging behind a clothing shop in the plaza.
“We are doing an analysis,” Gomez said. “We detected Christmas lights. Some of them could have caused the short circuit and ignited a spark that spread throughout the businesses, which were all made with materials from the region.”
Gomez was referring to the fact that many of the shops, in accordance with regional tradition, use palalpa-style thatching on their roofs, which may explain how the fire spread.
Regarding the party, Gomez said that a cleaning woman for the plaza told Civil Protection about having seen a party in the area where candles had been lit and people were smoking.
“We found spent fire extinguishers. Some lit cigarette butt could have been the origin [of the fire],” Gómez explained.
The fire also damaged 10 living quarters, officials said.
Evacuations were hampered by the sheer number of people Civil Protection was trying to move out of the area.
Firefighters managed to put out the fire around 1:00 a.m. with request assistance from nearby towns.
The ambassador takes a selfie during a visit to Mazatlán, Sinaloa, earlier this week.
United States ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau announced Friday that he would be leaving his post due to the imminent change of government in the U.S.
“With the change of government in the United States on January 20, my position as ambassador in Mexico will come to an end,” he announced on Twitter.
“One of my great pleasures has been this communication with hundreds of thousands of Mexicans though social media – the new channel of diplomacy, especially during the pandemic,” Landau wrote.
His post had attracted 3,000 generally favorable comments and 27,000 “likes” by 1:00 p.m.
“Dear friend and colleague, thanks for all the collaboration, friendship and dialogue these years. We’ll see each other soon and continue working for the benefit of our people. A hug,” responded Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Martha Barcena, who announced last month that she would soon leave her post.
During his almost 1 1/2 years in the job, he cultivated a strong following among Mexican Twitter users, many of whom praised him for his apparent love of Mexico and his promotion of its culture, food and traditions. As of Friday he had nearly 280,000 followers on the social media network.
The Federal Telecommunications Institute is one of the autonomous bodies that would disappear.
Former transparency watchdog officials, business groups and others have slammed President López Obrador’s plan to incorporate autonomous agencies into ministries and other federal departments, warning that the move would eliminate important counterweights to government power and represent a backward step for democracy.
AMLO, as the president is commonly known, said Thursday that his government intends to absorb autonomous organizations such as the National Institute for Transparency and Access to Information (Inai) and the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) into federal ministries and departments. The aim of the plan is to save money and eliminate the duplication of responsibilities, he asserted.
But critics say it is an attempt by López Obrador to further concentrate power in the executive.
Former INAI commissioners Jacqueline Peschard and María Marván said that autonomous organizations were created in the first place to avoid “hyper-presidentialism,” or unchecked power in the hands of the sitting president.
AMLO’s plan would be a setback for democracy as it would further concentrate power in the executive, they told the newspaper Reforma.
The plan is an attack on the checks and balances of the Mexican political system, said Peschard. “It has very serious implications for democratic development, it implies a concentration of power.”
She emphasized that the role of regulators – which are among the autonomous bodies that could be affected by AMLO’s plan – is to stop officials from committing acts of corruption and engaging in conflicts of interest. But if they are placed under the control of government departments, their capacity to effectively oversee officials will be hamstrung.
“The president is popular and has social support but he’s not eternal and he’s seeking to eliminate institutions that have taken us 30 years [to build], it’s … not right,” Peschard said.
Xóchitl Gálvez, a senator with the National Action Party, said that it is clear that López Obrador wants to get rid of counterweights to his power. If he had his way, he’d eliminate all three powers of government and become “viceroy” of Mexico, she said.
Juan Pablo Guerrero, who served as a commissioner at the Inai’s predecessor, the Federal Institute for Access to Information, said that AMLO’s plan is akin to an attack on the Mexican people and their right to access government information.
“It’s as simple as that,” he said, pointing out the hypocrisy of the plan given that the president characterizes himself as a man of the people.
Gálvez: president sees himself as a viceroy.
The Business Coordinating Council (CCE), an influential umbrella organization representing 12 business groups, said in a statement that the plan to “weaken or eliminate” autonomous agencies generates uncertainty. It also said that “the concentration of power and the elimination of controls and technical knowledge” would “never contribute to achieving positive results in … the areas currently regulated in an autonomous way.”
For its part, the Mexico branch of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) said that incorporating autonomous agencies into federal ministries is equivalent to turning them into political bodies.
“They would lose their raison d’etre, which is to take technical decisions,” it said.
ICC México added that it would be a backward step in terms of regulation, evaluation and control in areas such as telecommunications, broadcasting, economic competition and transparency.
It asserted that the IFT and the Federal Economic Competition Commission have had a positive impact on competition in Mexico, citing lower prices for telecommunications services and increased competition among internet service providers.
ICC México also noted that officials at Mexico’s numerous autonomous bodies are highly knowledgable and experienced people whose appointments were approved by lawmakers. They take joint decisions to avoid the possibility of one individual representative being improperly influenced, it said. If autonomous bodies lose their independence by being incorporated into federal ministries, the attributes that have made them well regarded would be lost, the organization said.
Among other critics of AMLO’s plan were Eduardo Bohórquez of Transparencia Mexicana, an anti-corruption advocacy group, and Lourdes Morales Canales, director of Red por la Rendición de Cuentas (RRC), an organization that advocates for government accountability.
Bohórquez said he was in favor of austerity but not the concentration of power. He said that AMLO’s plan – the president said Thursday that legal reforms for the incorporation of autonomous bodies into ministries would be drawn up and submitted to Congress – should be reviewed carefully to determine the extent to which it is about saving money and increasing efficiency and the extent to which its objective is to concentrate power in the executive.
Morales said the disbandment of Inai would represent a setback for democracy, noting that the fight for people’s right to access information began 30 years ago.
The RRC director emphasized that Inai is a “politically uncomfortable” organization for those in power, insinuating that López Obrador wants to get rid of it to prevent it from releasing information that could harm him and/or his government.
The rise in new Covid cases since the beginning of the year. el economista
New coronavirus case numbers hit a record high for a second consecutive day on Thursday while the daily Covid-19 death toll was above 1,000 for the third day in a row.
The Health Ministry reported 13,734 new cases, 389 more than the previous record set Wednesday. Almost 41% of the new cases – 5,590 – were detected in Mexico City, the country’s coronavirus epicenter.
Mexico’s accumulated tally now stands at 1.49 million, the 13th highest total in the world. The Health Ministry estimates that 81,652 cases are currently active.
An additional 1,044 Covid-19 fatalities were reported Thursday, lifting the death toll to 131,031. Mexico ranks fourth for total deaths after the United States, Brazil and India.
Thursday’s four-figure daily death toll came after a record high of 1,165 fatalities was reported on Wednesday. A day earlier, 1,065 deaths were added to the grim tally.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
Just over a quarter of the deaths reported Thursday occurred in Mexico City, where almost 23,000 people have lost their lives to Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.
A suspension of nonessential economic activities in the capital remains active after Mexico City switched to “maximum” risk red on the coronavirus stoplight map a week before Christmas.
“We’re still on the red light and we need the participation of everyone to reduce infections and hospitalizations. Let’s stay at home, don’t go out if it’s not necessary,” Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said in a message posted to her Twitter account on Friday morning.
Hospital occupancy levels remain concerning in Mexico City, where 89% of general care beds are occupied and 84% of those with ventilators are in use.
Four other states have an occupancy rate above 70% for general care beds. They are México state, 82%; Nuevo León, 80%; Hidalgo, 79%; and Guanajuato, 78%. Seven states – Baja California, Morelos, Puebla, Querétaro, Sonora, Tlaxcala and Nayarit – have general care bed occupancy rates between 50% and 69%. The other 20 states have rates below 50%.
At 79%, México state has the second highest occupancy rate for beds with ventilators. Five states – Nuevo León, Baja California, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala and Querétaro – have rates between 50% and 69%, while fewer than half of beds with ventilators are occupied in 25 states.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s vaccination program continues, albeit at a slow pace. The Health Ministry reported Thursday that 58,402 people – mainly health workers – have received a first shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. A total of 4,444 people received a first dose of the vaccine on Thursday, according to data presented at the ministry’s Thursday night coronavirus press briefing.
To date, Mexico has received just 107,250 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, although it has a deal to purchase 34.4 million doses. It is the only vaccine currently being used in Mexico but the health regulatory agency Cofepris approved the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine on Monday. Mexico intends to purchase 77.4 million doses of that vaccine but inoculation with it is not expected to begin until March.
Mexico also has an agreement to purchase 35 million doses of China’s CanSino Biologics single-dose vaccine. Immunization could begin in February if it is approved by Cofepris, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said Thursday.
The government announced earlier this week that it expects to vaccinate 12.45 million seniors against Covid-19 by the end of March but only provided limited details about its ambitious plan.
Valley of México restaurants can only serve customers for take-out or delivery.
Restaurant owners in Mexico City and México state have made a desperate plea to their political leaders to allow them to reopen to in-house dining, saying that their businesses will “die” if they are not allowed to do so.
Restaurants in the capital and neighboring México state were forced to close their doors to customers dining on the premises on December 19 after authorities reimposed red light coronavirus restrictions. As hospitals in the two entities remain under intense pressure from a recent influx of Covid patients, it appears unlikely that the suspension of nonessential economic activities will be lifted on January 11 as planned.
Consequently, restaurants look set to be restricted to takeout and delivery service for the foreseeable future.
In an open letter to Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and México State Governor Alfredo del Mazo published Thursday, restaurant owners issued a “call for help,” declaring that they can’t go on as the situation currently stands.
“Restaurants are in danger of disappearing. Since the beginning of the pandemic 13,500 establishments in the Valley of México metropolitan area have closed,” they said.
The letter said that at least 50,000 restaurant sector jobs have been lost during the pandemic and that restaurants no longer have savings to help them survive the economic shutdown.
“In addition, grace periods with our creditors have ended. We are in water up to our necks because we have to continue paying taxes, licenses, services, etc., and with our doors closed it’s impossible not just to pay debts but to survive,” it said.
The document emphasized that restaurants have invested in the implementation of health measures to ensure the safety of employees and customers, and said that international studies have shown that eateries are not sources of coronavirus infection.
“Parties and private events and even informal commerce have caused the pandemic we are living through today,” it said.
The restaurant owners pointed out that other industries are adversely affected by the closure of their businesses and denounced the fact that they have received no financial support from the authorities.
“While in the entire world extensions for the payment of taxes and services, support to negotiate with suppliers and even unemployment subsidies have been given, here there is nothing,” they said.
“In the case of Mexico City, support of 2,200 pesos [US $110] is being granted to some workers in the sector [but] while we applaud this measure the best way to help them would to … [keep] restaurants open.”
In closing, the letter asserted that the end of the pandemic and a “return to normality” is still a long way off despite the commencement of a vaccination campaign. For that reason, finding a way to allow restaurants to welcome in-house diners while red-light restrictions remain in place is urgent, they said.
“It’s about protecting the economy and health in a balanced way. We’re in a crucial moment for survival, and we will continue fighting to preserve this industry that has done nothing but generate benefits for the country. … We ask that the restaurant industry be considered an essential activity and that we be allowed to return to work. If anything is clear, it’s that we [either] open or we die.”
Like millions all over the globe, Mexicans have a love affair with trains. Mexican President López Obrador, or AMLO, is no exception, with his at least temporarily stymied-by-environmental-concerns tourist train and a plan to unite northern Mexico with at least the center of the country via new rail routes.
The love affair runs deep through Mexican culture from the romantic ballad El Tren de la Ausencia (The Train of Absence), whose lyrics include the heartstrings-tugging lines, “I’m leaving on the train of absence, I have no return ticket.”
Of course there are heroics, too, as in Engine 501, the tragic ballad of brave brakeman Jesús García who left his mother on a Sunday only to perish trying to extinguish a fire on an explosives train.
The pre-Revolution brings us a now-iconic photo of Pancho Villa riding on the cowcatcher of a locomotive with some mustachioed, bandoliered “revolutionaries;” and the camera in 1917 captures the same Villa dynamiting a train.
The romance continues to the modern day, with the about-to-be-recalled-for-errors 100-peso bill featuring a powerful locomotive.
There is no passenger service in 2021, except for a fully priced tourist train through the Copper Canyon and an informal “Beast” informally carrying would-be immigrants to drop-off points near the U.S. border.
Historically, however, the love has not always been requited. The first concession in the 1830s for a line from the capital to Veracruz never produced a single chug, and repeated storm damage washouts in the late 20th century caused a U.S. concessionaire to abandon its right of way in the far southern area on the border with Guatemala.
The biggest train wreck of all occurred in 1935 when Mexico nationalized the largely U.S.-owned entire rail system, an event from which at least passenger service arguably never recovered. The days have passed on since I could take a passenger train from Mexicali to DF (and return) or an overnighter from DF to Oaxaca.
Enter AMLO. Whether from a disappointed childhood (“I wished for a train set at Christmas”) or a shrewd calculation that inexpensive labor-abundant Mexico could competitively build a new track system to relieve the pressure on the crumbling road infrastructure, AMLO has vowed to reverse the decline.
Only time will tell if his departure ticket is accompanied by a return coupon.
Carlisle Johnson writes from his home in Guatemala.
The president shows his support for the deputy minister at Wednesday's press conference.
As Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell continued to face criticism for taking a beach vacation amid the worsening coronavirus pandemic, President López Obrador on Wednesday lavished praise on his coronavirus point man, calling him an “extraordinary” public servant.
Although Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll is just shy of 130,000 – the fourth highest total in the world – the president said that López-Gatell’s work in combatting the pandemic and informing the public about the coronavirus mitigation measures has been “exemplary.”
He denied any suggestion that the coronavirus czar is thinking about stepping down.
“The participation of Dr. Hugo López-Gatell has been a lot of help for us, exemplary,” López Obrador told reporters at his regular news conference before contending that there is no other public official in the world with such impressive credentials.
“He’s first-rate, … prepared and a great professional,” the president said prior to calling for the deputy minister’s CV to be put on display.
“Compare this CV with those who were health ministers before. [López-Gatell] is a specialist in pandemics, he’s prepared, with general culture [and has] a capacity for explanation. … It’s very important to know how to convey to people what they must do [during the pandemic]. He has a lot of capacity for that. Furthermore, he’s honest and honorable,” López Obrador said.
Behind the president, a slide showing an image of the smiling deputy minister and detailing his academic background was projected onto a large screen.
Under the heading “expert in epidemiology,” the slide said that López-Gatell is a member of the National System of Researchers, has doctorate and postdoctorate qualifications in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University and is a specialist in internal medicine.
“A doctorate and a post doctorate from this prestigious university in the United States, one of the most prestigious!” López Obrador remarked. “How could we get rid of Dr. Hugo López-Gatell?”
The president charged that the pandemic honcho has been the victim of a “smear campaign,” although it is clear that he ignored his own stay-at-home advice in choosing to travel to the coast of Oaxaca for an end-of-year vacation while the pandemic continued to rage.
“I think it’s very unfair because he’s been applied [to his job] full time. Imagine the pressure, what it means to be managing the actions against the pandemic, with all the pain, all the sadness,” López Obrador said.
“He’s a sensitive man, a human,” the president said before noting that he has been subjected to “blows and blows and blows” – relentless criticism for his management of the pandemic.
“Let it be heard well and far. We consider him to be an extraordinary public servant.”
For his part, López-Gatell on Monday defended his decision to travel to Oaxaca, saying that he had “nothing to hide” and followed health recommendations while visiting “very close relatives” and “very good friends” in the southern state.
Two Mexican cities ended up ranking high on Condé Nast Traveler‘s 2020 list of “The Friendliest Cities in the World:” Mérida, Yucatán, which ranked No. 3, and San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, which ranked No. 4.
The rankings were based on reader input to the publication’s annual Reader’s Choice Awards survey, which the magazine said received “an impressive” number of responses, despite 2020 being an unusual year for travel.
Readers gave subjective assessments of a city’s friendliness, focusing on where they felt welcomed as they traveled.
“Did an outgoing local go out of their way to give you directions? Was the city easy to navigate? Did you simply get good vibes from the people around you?” were questions the magazine used to obtain the rankings.
Condé Nast cited Mérida’s Mayan heritage and colonial past as part of its charm and said the inland city draws tourists seeking “a bit of a slower-paced vacation than what you’d find at the bustling all-inclusive beach resorts of Cancún and the Riviera Maya.”
“In Mérida,” it added, “travelers delight in culinary, cultural, and creative experiences — and chatting it up with the friendly locals, who have earned their city the third spot on our list.”
San Miguel de Allende, the magazine noted, had also been voted the best small city in the world in 2020 by Condé Nast‘s readers. It called the locale a “hub for expat artists.”
Citing the city’s more than 350 restaurants — ranging from five-star quality to mom-and-pop style — the publication praised the Bajío-region municipality with having “a diverse and gregarious class of locals,” yet also called it “authentically Mexican.”
Notably, Mérida and San Miguel de Allende were the only two cities in the Americas to make it in the top 10. All the others were located in Southeast Asia, Europe or Australia, as well as New Zealand, which had two cities on the list.
Tortilla makers are going off the grid in Querétaro.
Mexico’s history of making tortillas goes back centuries but in the state of Querétaro today’s tortilla makers are producing the staple food in a thoroughly modern way — using solar power.
According to the Federation of Producers of Corn Flour and Tortillas, a trade association for tortilla shop owners and other related producers in the state, 40% of its 389 tortillerías are currently powered with solar panels, which are not only more environmentally friendly than conventional electricity but ultimately cheaper for the proprietors as well, says association president Arturo Campos Novoa.
The eventual goal, says Campos, is to get 100% of shop owners off the grid.
The initiative, which is financed in part by the organization and in part by the state government, allows tortilla shop owners to take out 40,000-peso, low-interest, no-collateral three-year loans to purchase and install the photovoltaic equipment.
As soon as a participating business gets the panels, it stops paying for conventional electricity. Meanwhile, the loan’s monthly payments end up costing about the same or less than owners are used to shelling out for monthly electric bills.
“Over three years, they have to pay [monthly] for the [solar panels], but after that, it will be a benefit to the business,” said Campos, explaining that after the loan term, the owners make more profit since they have fewer overhead costs.
He estimates that altogether, participants in the program are already saving 20,000 pesos bimonthly against projected electricity costs.
And what’s good for tortillerías is also good for Querétaro citizens, he added, since more profitability means that tortillerías can afford to keep their prices down, even when the cost of ingredients goes up.
The state’s price ceiling on tortillas, an amount regulated by the government, has stayed the same in Querétaro since 2018 at 18 pesos per kilo, and Campos predicts that it will remain the same into next year thanks in part to the program.
