Three Kings Day bread-making was a competitive event on Monday in the Yucatán city of Tizimín, which broke the Guinness World Record for the longest Kings Day bread in the world.
The rosca de reyes, as it’s called, measured 3,009 meters and making it required two tonnes of flour, 13,000 eggs and 19,000 tiny baby Jesus figurines. Mexican Three Kings Day tradition dictates that anyone who finds a baby Jesus must make tamales for friends and family on Candlemas Day, February 2.
Tizimín took the record from Saltillo, Coahuila, which baked a 2.65-kilometer rosca last year.
The measuring process took over five hours on Monday, with the result that some of the people who went to witness the record-breaking event lost interest and left. But hundreds remained when the time came to serve the bread, a requirement for winning the record.
Guinness World Records certification official Carlos Reyes Tapia said that each individual piece of the rosca must not exceed 50 centimeters in length, that they must be perfectly joined and that the bread be cooked according to the traditional recipe.
The various pieces that made up the record-breaking bread were cooked in four different bakeries in Tizimín, which is renowned for its Three Kings Day celebrations.
Over 1,000 people worked all through the weekend to help bake the rosca.
In addition to the flour and eggs, the recipe also called for 50 kilograms of yeast, 50 kilograms of salt, 625 kilograms of sugar, 625 liters of milk and 1,500 pieces of candied fruit.
Seven people died and 36 were injured after a train struck a bus that was attempting to race it to a level crossing in Guaymas, Sonora, on Tuesday morning.
The Sonora Attorney General’s Office (FGJE) said the bus was carrying agricultural day laborers.
Witnesses said the bus driver, who was arrested at the scene, caused the crash when he tried to beat the train to the crossing.
The seven passengers who lost their lives ranged in age from 16 to 50.
Authorities reported that the majority of the injured passengers were taken to a hospital in Ciudad Obregón, while four were taken to the IMSS clinic in the Guaymas community of Vícam.
Ferromex issued a statement lamenting the accident and vowing to support the investigations.
“Ferromex staff have been . . . in constant communication with Sonora state authorities and those of the community of Yaqui de Vícam, with the goal of supporting the emergency services and corresponding investigations,” it said.
The company also expressed condolences for the dead and wounded and asked the public to heed safety signs, measures and regulations in order to avoid accidents.
'We love you:' a protest against suspected cartel leader's arrest.
A federal judge ordered the release of a suspected cartel leader in Tabasco on Monday due to police error, but he won’t leave prison because state authorities reactivated a previous criminal procedure against him.
The judge said that José Trinidad Alberto de la Cruz Miranda, also known as El Pelón de Playas del Rosario, was not required to stand trial on charges of possession of military-grade weapons because there were errors in the police report detailing his arrest.
Following the ruling, the Tabasco Attorney General’s Office reopened a case against de la Cruz for possession of stolen goods, meaning that the presumed leader of the Pelón de Playas del Rosario Cartel will remain in preventative custody.
De la Cruz was arrested by the National Guard and Federal Police officers on December 30 after allegedly robbing a grocery store truck at gunpoint. The night of the same day, narco-banners signed by the cartel appeared in Villahermosa demanding the release of El Pelón, and at least five cars were set on fire in the city.
Residents of Villa Playas del Rosario, de la Cruz’s hometown, marched on December 31 to demand El Pelón’s release, while pieces of a human body appeared on a bridge in Villahermosa on January 4 alongside a cardboard sign that warned the judge that he would face consequences if he didn’t acquit him.
It is unclear whether the pressure and intimidation were factors in the decision reached by the judge. It is not uncommon for suspected criminals to be released in Mexico due to inconsistencies in police reports detailing their arrests.
Tabasco Governor Adán Augusto López Hernández said later on Monday that a state judge had revoked the release order issued by the federal judge. De la Cruz will spend at least the next 10 days in prison before attending a hearing on the possession of stolen goods charges, he said.
El Pelón was convicted on the charges and given a three-year prison sentence in September last year. However, his legal team appealed the decision and de la Cruz was released on the condition that he attend court on a weekly basis to sign before a judge.
The suspected cartel chief failed to comply with the requirement, making him a fugitive from justice until his capture on the penultimate day of last year.
The state-owned Banco del Bienestar (Bank of Well-Being) will have the largest network of branches in the country if President López Obrador’s ambitious construction plans come to fruition.
The construction of 2,700 branches of the so-called “bank of the poor” has been approved, the president said at his regular news conference on Monday.
Half the branches will be built this year and the other 1,350 will follow in 2021, López Obrador said, explaining that military engineers will build the new banks for a total cost of 10 billion pesos (US $528.7 million).
While still ambitious, the plan to build 2,700 new Banco del Bienestar branches to supplement the existing 538 ones (formerly branches of the federal savings bank Bansefi) is well short of a figure of 13,000 floated by the president in December.
The branches will provide banking services to recipients of financial support from the government including the elderly, disabled people, scholarship holders and Mexicans employed by the state-run tree-planting program Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life) and the “Youth Building the Future” apprenticeship scheme, López Obrador said.
Construction will be prioritized in the nation’s “most isolated, most marginalized communities” where the “poorest people of Mexico” live, he added.
Construction of 2,700 new banks would bring the total number of Banco del Bienestar branches to 3,238, a figure equivalent to almost 28% of the 11,687 private bank branches in the country. The well-being bank would have far more branches than the largest of the 51 private banks that operate in Mexico.
According to a report by the newspaper Milenio, Banco Azteca currently has the highest number of branches with 1,860, followed by BBVA México with 1,850; Citibanamex with 1,465; Santander with 1,227; BanCoppel with 1,168; Banorte with 1,165; Scotiabank with 553; and HSBC with 362.
López Obrador’s plan to build so many new branches goes against the trend seen in the last 10 years, Milenio said, noting that commercial banks have placed greater emphasis on providing services to their customers through their websites and mobile apps.
Data from the National Banking and Securities Commission shows that the number of bank branches in Mexico has grown by just 3% since 2010.
The president of the Mexican Banking Association (ABM) has said on numerous occasions that increasing the number of bank branches is not the solution to incorporating more Mexicans in the formal banking system because of the massive investment it entails.
Luis Niño de Rivera said that ABM member banks have focused instead on strengthening their digital capacity, pointing out that they collectively invest about 70 billion pesos (US $3.7 billion) a year in technological innovation. All banks in Mexico are now offering their customers the option to pay for goods and services using the CoDi (Digital Charge) app developed by the central bank.
Milenio also noted that the president’s strategy to bring financial services to people in isolated, rural areas is not consistent with that implemented by governments in other countries such as Russia, China and Honduras.
More people in those countries are entering the formal banking system thanks to greater availability of digital payment systems including one accessible by mobile telephone, as well as the ease with which an account can be opened without having to go into a bricks and mortar branch.
Juan Daniel opens a gift after 'the kings' came through in the end.
Being told by his mother that he had been forgotten by the three kings was too much for a Guanajuato boy who had been hoping to find presents waiting for him on the morning of January 6: he decided to run away from home.
Juan Daniel, 8, was later found wandering the streets by police in Santa Teresa. They said the boy told him that he had found his unanswered letter to the three kings inside his shoes where he had left it the night before.
When he asked his mother why they hadn’t brought him the talking robot he had asked for, she told him that they had forgotten about him. Upset at the oversight, Juan Daniel ran away.
Moved by the story, officers and administrative staff at the police station took up a collection to buy him the gifts that had not appeared.
Soon after, a police officer carrying a bag of toys came to the station pretending to be an emissary of the three kings. He told Juan Daniel the kings had been busy so they had asked him to help pass out toys to children.
The boy opened the bag to find the robot he had asked for, as well as a train, a ball, notebooks and a box of crayons.
Meanwhile, social workers provided support to the boy’s mother for problems with addiction.
AMLO meets with an indigenous community in Puebla on Saturday.
A weekend pledge by President López Obrador to reroute a natural gas pipeline away from “sacred hills” in Puebla could ultimately help finish the project, according to experts.
López Obrador told indigenous residents of the Sierra Norte in Puebla on Saturday that his government will not allow the Canadian company TC Energy to build the pipeline through areas they consider sacred.
“. . . Even if we have to pay [for the rerouting], the gas pipeline will not pass through the sacred hills . . . We’re going to propose other routes that don’t affect the sacred areas . . .” he said at an event in Pahuatlán.
“. . . We inherited a lot of rotten things [from past governments] but now it’s not the same politics as before, there have been changes. I can tell you that we haven’t handed out a single mining concession . . .” López Obrador said.
Residents of the Sierra Norte have opposed the the Tuxpan-Tula pipeline project for the past four years on the grounds that it would damage the environment and their traditional way of life.
Completion of the 90-kilometer middle section of the 286-kilometer-long pipeline – which was tendered by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) to supply its combined-cycle power plants in Veracruz, Puebla and Hidalgo – has been delayed while the Energy Secretariat carries out consultations with indigenous communities.
Mexico City-based energy consultant Gonzalo Monroy told the website Natural Gas Intel (NGI) that López Obrador’s promise could be good news for the pipeline, which was first announced in 2015.
The CFE needs to get the project finished, he said, because it will allow fuel oil used at the power plants to be replaced with cheaper natural gas.
“I think that it was actually a very pragmatic decision by López Obrador, saying if they have to pay extra for the rerouting, so be it.”
José Valera of global law firm Mayer Brown told NGI that “it’s possible that a rerouting is properly warranted” although he conceded that “it could increase costs.”
The “bottom line,” he added, is that “it’s not necessarily . . . improper or undue on the part of a government to put a hold on a project like this, given this type of local opposition.”
NGI reported that no date has been set for the completion of the pipeline although TC Energy’s Francois Poirier, who oversees the company’s Mexico operations, said in November that it was expected to begin operations two years after the completion of the indigenous consultation.
Monroy highlighted that nobody yet knows what the new route will be or how additional rights of way will be obtained.
The government reached an agreement in August last year to modify contracts signed with TC Energy and two other companies that built pipelines for the CFE.
López Obrador said the accord would save the government US $4.5 billion because it reduced the amount it has to pay the firms to transport natural gas through the Texas-Tuxpan and Samalayuca-Sásabe pipelines.
However, no pact has been announced to change the contracts for the Tuxpan-Tula and Tula-Villa de Reyes lines, both of which are TC Energy projects.
Former federal security secretary Genaro García Luna has entered into negotiations with the United States government to change his not guilty plea on charges of drug trafficking conspiracy and making a false declaration to U.S. immigration.
Papers filed on Monday in a federal court said the defendant and the United States government are “engaged in plea negotiations, which they believe are likely to result in a disposition of this case without trial.”
García, security chief between 2006 and 2012 in the government of former president Felipe Calderón, pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges that he allowed the Sinaloa Cartel to operate in exchange for multimillion-dollar bribes and that he lied to United States authorities about his past criminal activity when applying for U.S. citizenship in 2018.
By changing his plea to guilty and cooperating with U.S. authorities to provide them with information, the 51-year-old former official, who was arrested in Dallas, Texas, in December, will likely spend less time behind bars than if he were convicted at trial.
García’s lawyers are expected to file an application for him to be released on bail but U.S. prosecutors have indicated that they would oppose any such request because the former official’s wealth and alleged cartel links make him an extremely high flight risk.
According to the U.S. indictment unsealed last month, Sinaloa Cartel bagmen personally delivered payments on two occasions to García using briefcases that contained between US $3 million and $5 million.
The allegations first surfaced in November 2018 at the trial of drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán when former Sinaloa Cartel operations chief Jesús Zambada said that he gave García US $6 million in the mid-2000s.
García allegedly provided the cartel with security that allowed it to move cocaine to the northern border and supplied confidential information about government investigations and other criminal organizations.
Former president Calderón has denied any knowledge of the ex-secretary’s alleged criminal complicity.
There are more than 61,000 missing persons in Mexico, the federal government said on Monday, a figure significantly higher than that previously reported.
The official number of missing persons is 61,637, the chief of the National Search Commission told a press conference.
“These are data of horror that have a lot of stories of pain behind them, both of families in Mexico and of migrants,” Karla Quintana said.
Quintana said the sharp increase is due to updated and carefully revised information from state-based Attorney General’s Offices. She explained that 60,053 of the missing persons disappeared between 2006, the year former president Felipe Calderón launched the war against drug cartels, and 2019.
The other disappearances occurred in previous years dating back to 1964, Quintana said.
The search commission chief said the highest number of disappearances have occurred in Tamaulipas, Jalisco, México state, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Coahuila, Puebla, Guerrero and Veracruz.
Just under three-quarters of the missing persons are men and just over one-quarter are women.
Almost a third of the total number of missing persons – 19,108 – disappeared between 2016 and 2018, the final three years of the Enrique Peña Nieto government.
In 2019, the first full year of the government led by President López Obrador, 9,164 people were reported as missing of whom 5,184 have not been located, said human rights undersecretary Alejandro Encinas. Among the number of people who disappeared last year and still haven’t been found are 1,177 women, he said.
Encinas also said that 1,124 bodies have been found in 873 hidden graves since López Obrador took office in December 2018.
Of that number, 395 have been identified and 243 have been returned to the victims’ families, he said, adding that the highest number of hidden graves have been uncovered in Sinaloa, Colima, Veracruz, Sonora and Jalisco.
The official said that between December 1, 2018 and December 31, 2019, authorities have carried out searches for hidden graves at 519 different locations across practically all of Mexico’s 32 federal entities. In February last year, Encinas described the country as a whole as an “enormous hidden grave.”
He said on Monday that the federal government will extend an invitation to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances to have its members visit Mexico this year.
The government was criticized last month for failing to keep its promise to allow the committee to visit the country and thus open up Mexico’s investigative processes to international scrutiny.
Later on Monday, Quintana responded to criticism from the organization Data Cívica, which said on Twitter that the government had “obstructed and complicated efforts to understand the magnitude of the [forced] disappearance problem in the country.”
It claimed that the government neglected to explain the methodology used to arrive at the number of missing persons and didn’t subject its data to scrutiny by civil society.
“We have nothing to hide,” the search commission chief told the television program La Nota Dura.
“We have a massive load of information that has been reviewed by the National Search Commission itself . . .” Quintana said, adding that the methodology used to calculate the number of missing persons in Mexico will be made public in the coming weeks.
Plaza Revolución Mexicana in the morning, looking towards the old church.
The sudden shock of the pothole jolts me out of my gentle slumber, and the next curve on the drive rocks me back and forth in the car. We’re not far outside of Puerto Vallarta, but judging by the condition of the road, we seem to be in the middle of nowhere.
It’s hard to believe that this is the “improved” road and I can’t imagine how the journey was just a few short years ago.
As the highway winds its way through the Sierra Madre mountains to the east of the popular tourist resort town, a sudden change takes place. Gone are the sandy beaches, replaced by the lush greenery of the mountainous jungle. Gone are the traffic-clogged streets, replaced by the open, albeit terrible, highway. Gone are the crowds of the Malecón pedestrian boulevard, we are now among the quiet cobblestone streets of San Sebastián del Oeste.
San Sebastián lies in the narrow valleys of the Ameca and Los Reyes rivers, which wind through town and the neighbouring haciendas. The rugged topography of the surrounding area ― think steep peaks, thick jungle, and deep ravines ― created a wealth of minerals and metals. When the gold, silver and lead were discovered in the area in the early 1600s, miners moved to the area and established up to 30 mines and 10 haciendas to support the industry. In its heyday in the mid-19th century, over 20,000 people lived in this once booming town.
But following the Mexican Revolution in 1910, many foreign-owned mining companies left the area, and by 1921 the mines were shut down. Today, just a quarter of that population remains in the municipality, and some suggest the town itself has less than 600 people. As such, life moves at a much slower pace, especially on the weekdays, when I visited.
In fact, it feels as if the town hasn’t changed much since the early 1900s. Crossing the 19th century straight bridge into town felt like I was transported back to a time when horse and carriage roamed the narrow streets. Despite the few cars that were there, most people still walked around in no rush to get to where they’re going. One of the few signs of modernity are the well painted matching white and burgundy walls that adorn most of the buildings, from the hotels and restaurants to the church, museums and haciendas.
Perhaps the most famous of these haciendas is Hacienda Jalisco, situated about a 20-minute walk outside of town. Once owned by Hollywood artist Bud Acord, the hacienda has played host to many actors and directors such as John Huston, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole.
The front gate of the San Sebastián church in the evening.
Spanish mining companies built the hacienda in the 1800s to support the industry as they plundered the surrounding hillsides for silver and gold. At one point in time it had its own hydroelectric plant, but today that is long gone. In its place, oil lamps, candles and fireplaces aid the guests who stay in the hotel.
I walk the long path from the highway to the front gates, enamored by the buzzing of what sounds like thousands upon thousands of insects in the trees and bushes that line the road, although none was visible to identify what they were. Just past a small airstrip and over a small bridge that leads through the front gates, the gardens of the hacienda spread out in front of me. To the right, the hacienda’s main building stands, where a museum dedicated to the mining history and story of the hacienda exists on the lower level. Through the back, a cozy terrace leads to the kitchen and an old underground cellar.
One of the other ex-haciendas worth a visit is La Quinta Mary. Located just over the straight bridge as you enter town, La Quinta Mary produces organic coffee. The high altitude and favourable climate make San Sebastián del Oeste one of the 10 regions in Jalisco that produce high quality coffee, and at La Quinta Mary you can walk among the coffee plants, watch as the workers roast the coffee, and sample some of the varieties available.
As with any colonial town, the main plaza is the gathering hub for the local community. San Sebastián’s plaza principal dates to 1774 and is perhaps one of the most picturesque I’ve visited in Mexico. An intimate bed of flowers surrounds the central kiosk, along with a stone fountain and well manicured shrubs, all juxtaposed with the steep, looming peak of La Bufa to the southeast.
In the plaza, older gentlemen gather in the morning and relax on the benches as the day goes by.School children play on the basketball courts behind the plaza, while a small group of tourists mills about the grounds, taking photos and making memories. The hungry find a seat on the quaint patio of El Fortín, a local restaurant serving international cuisine. And overlooking it all, the aqua-coloured church tower stands out against the horizon.
The exterior of Hacienda Jalisco.
That church is one of the highlights of San Sebastián del Oeste. Originally built by Augustinian friars in the 17th century, it was most recently reconstructed after a large earthquake struck the area in 1868. Through the iron gates and up the stairs of the church, visitors can walk around inside the neo-classical building. In the courtyard in front, the parish museum hosts artifacts and items from pre-Hispanic times through the colonial era, with a focus on religious items. The museum also hosts a brief history of mining and the town of San Sebastián.
Just behind the church, in what is known as the Plaza del Hueso, or Portal of the Bone, the Casa Mexicana store hosts a wide selection of artisans’ crafts by local artists, from finely crafted chess boards to jewelry and blankets.
For those who enjoy nature, the summit of La Bufa can be reached via 4×4 to the base and a hike up to the top. Rumour has it that on clear days you can see all the way to Puerto Vallarta and the ocean beyond.
Across the curved bridge to the east of the main plaza, a sign hangs over an open doorway that reads Taller y Platería. Inside the cramped space sits a middle-aged man looking down intensely under a bright light, surrounded by many pieces of shiny jewelry. I’ve found one of the modern connections to the past: the local silver maker. Even though the raw silver needs to be brought in from central Mexico, this tiny shop provides a sliver of silver history of the region.
The man looks up from his work desk and greets me with a warm, small-town hello. We talk briefly about his work, and the town. “Muy tranquilo,” (very quiet) he says, explaining what he likes most about the town. A different world from Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara, he points out.
“And difficult to get to,” I add, but that only adds to its deep Mexico charm, making San Sebastián del Oeste a very worthy destination.
Mark Locki is a Canadian writer and a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily.
Mayor Sheinbaum, left, listens as Finance Secretary Luz Elena González announces spending plans.
The Mexico City government will increase spending on security by 6.6% this year to just under 42.2 billion pesos (US $2.2 billion).
Finance Secretary Luz Elena González told a press conference on Sunday that the resources will be used to increase police salaries by 9%, hire more officers, pay the lease costs of new police cars and fund the C5 security command center, among other measures.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said that 5,000 new police as well as 1,000 investigative officers will be hired this year.
González also outlined the government’s planned 2020 spending on transportation, public and social infrastructure, the environment and education.
Just over 29.7 billion pesos will go to transportation projects, González said, a 10.8% increase compared to last year.
Of that amount, 3.1 billion pesos will be allocated to the construction of two cable car systems (one in the north of the city, the other in the eastern borough of Iztapalapa) and 1.86 billion pesos will be used to purchase new light rail cars and trolley buses.
González also outlined several transportation projects that will be funded by resources allocated for public and social infrastructure.
Among them: construction of an elevated trolleybus line in eastern Mexico City for which 2.6 billion pesos has been allocated and a 500-million-peso project to extend Line 12 of the subway system.
Scores of projects are planned to upgrade the capital’s road network and parks as well as health, cultural, educational and sporting infrastructure. A total of 20.36 billion pesos will be spent on public and social infrastructure, González said, a 9.5% increase compared to 2019.
The secretary said that just under 18.2 billion pesos will go to environmental projects including almost 5.4 billion to improve water and drainage systems, while education funding will increase a whopping 128.1% to 10 billion pesos.
Just over 4.1 billion pesos will fund a scholarship scheme for primary and secondary school students and 1 billion pesos will be used to provide free uniforms and school supplies to children from economically disadvantaged families.
González added that funding for Mexico City’s 16 boroughs will increase 2.1% this year to more than 43 billion pesos.
Total spending of 238.97 billion pesos (US $12.7 billion) is outlined in the capital’s 2020 budget, a 2.1% increase compared to last year.
