Youth aligned with the Fridays for Future climate change movement held a protest against the Grand Island megaproject in Cancún on Friday.
The Grand Island resort is a 3,000-room hotel and convention center planned for the tourist zone near the Nichupté lagoon system.
Yesterday’s march against the development was the fourth organized by Fridays for Future members in Cancún since March.
But as they marched down Tulum avenue, the youths were met by opposition: over 1,000 workers and their families who gathered to show their support for the jobs the project is expected to create.
Upon arriving at the esplanade of the city’s municipal palace, the pro-development contingent countered the climate change protesters with signs and T-shirts reading, “Yes to work, yes to developing Cancún.”
‘Yes to work:’ supporters of the 3,000-room hotel.
With union leaders at the head of the demonstration, the pro-development crowd included students, women and workers escorted by a line of trucks sounding their horns in unison.
Meanwhile, the Fridays for Future protesters displayed signs reading, “The mangroves give us more than Grand Island,” “Just because they have permission doesn’t mean it’s OK,” “We must change the system, not the climate,” and “Your mistakes are my future,” among others.
Protester Ana Fernanda claimed that documentation shows the company behind the project was fined for illegal deforestation in the mangrove forests.
She also cited local hotel owners who have said the megaproject will put a strain on the water supply and other public services in the area, and make traffic worse.
“People go out and protest honestly for what they believe in and love, but how many hotels are there in Cancún? They’re always expanding and there’s never enough work. They must study the way these projects affect quality of life beyond the issue of employment,” she said.
Another member of the protest felt intimidated by the pro-development march.
“It was overwhelming to see so many people supporting [the project], while we are against it; but even still, we won’t give up because this is something that . . . can affect everyone in the world, not just people from Cancún.”
The president predicted it would give a boost to the economy of the state of Quintana Roo. The developer said it would create 12,000 jobs.
The Fridays for Future protesters are part of an international movement of students who are demanding action on climate change. It was founded by Swedish student Greta Thunberg.
More than 2,000 women protested against gender-based violence in Mexico City on Friday by replicating a performance originating in Chile that condemns rape, sexism, impunity and the “oppressive state.”
After rehearsing the choreography and learning the words of the performance in the Alameda Central park, women from several feminist collectives marched in the late afternoon to the zócalo, where the rendition of “Un violador en tu camino” (A rapist in your way) took place.
Blindfolded and in long lines that stretched across much of the central square, the women chanted the words written and first performed by the Chilean feminist collective Las Tesis.
The patriarchy is a judge who tries us for being born and our punishment is the violence you now see.
It’s femicide, impunity for my murderer, it’s disappearance, it’s rape.
And it wasn’t my fault, nor where I was, nor how I was dressed (x4).
You were the rapist, you are the rapist.
It’s the police, the judges, the state, the president. The oppressive state is a macho rapist (x2).
The rapist was you. The rapist is you.
Sleep calmly, innocent girl, without worrying about the criminal because your policeman lover is watching over your sweet and smiling dreams.
You are the rapist (x4).
CDMX canta la Intervención un violador en tu camino en el Zócalo
The powerful performance came four days after the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which was commemorated in Mexico City with a march by more than 3,000 women.
In addition to participating in the choreographed performance,the woman called for justice for 48-year-old Abril Pérez Sagaón, who was shot and killed in the capital on Monday. Her ex-husband is suspected of ordering the murder.
The National Autonomous University in Mexico City and Ecatepec, México state – which is notorious for femicides – also saw renditions of Un violador en tu camino, which was first performed in Valparaiso, Chile, earlier this week.
Beyond the metropolitan area of the capital, women in states including San Luis Potosí, Oaxaca, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Hidalgo, Quintana Roo, Coahuila, Jalisco, Chiapas and Michoacán participated in the same performance as did women in cities abroad including New York, London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin and Bogotá.
“I’m fighting for myself, for my generation of young people and for the generation of my daughter,” Belifet Antones, who participated in the zócalo performance with her two-year-old daughter, told the newspaper El Universal.
“. . . I believe that women carrying out these kinds of protests can achieve something better for us women . . . I don’t want to leave this violent Mexico to my daughter . . . I don’t want anybody to murder her, to rape her,” she said.
Acknowledging yesterday’s protest in a twitter post, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum reiterated her government’s commitment to do everything possible to ensure that the capital is a safe city for women. The mayor last week issued a gender alert for Mexico City, activating a range of measures to address violence against women.
Also this week, Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero insisted that “not a single” femicide case will go unpunished. “We are going to go after those who commit femicide. There will not be a single incident that goes without punishment . . . let’s make that loud and clear . . .”
Ten women are killed on average every day in Mexico, making the country one of the most dangerous for females in the world.
An air quality alert was activated Saturday in Monterrey, Nuevo León, for the second time this week after 12 of the city’s 13 air quality monitoring stations registered high levels of pollutants.
The city’s Comprehensive Environmental Monitoring System (SIMA) have warned residents of poor air quality since Monday.
Photos of the Nuevo León capital showed a dense cloud of gray smog shrouding the urban center, and its iconic backdrop of the Cerro de la Silla mountain skirted in an acrid haze.
Areas most affected were Santa Catarina, San Bernabé and Universidad, authorities said. The Puebla Serena monitoring station was the only one that showed normal air quality.
An environmental alert was issued on Wednesday, prompting officials to urge citizens to minimize activity in the open air, keep their doors and windows closed and not allow vehicles to idle, among other measures. That alert was deactivated on Thursday.
The government also advised the industrial and construction sectors to not engage in activities that increase particle emissions into the air.
However, a number of citizens and businesses disregarded the government’s appeal.
Videos published on social media revealed businesses emitting contaminants, burning trash and tires and generating large amounts of dust that were kicked up into the air.
Although the environmental alert was revoked on Thursday, authorities reinstated it on Saturday after the air quality continued to decline.
Air quality monitoring requirements were increased not only in Nuevo León but throughout Mexico on November 20 when the federal Environment Secretariat issued new regulations. They replace the former Metropolitan Index of Air Quality (Imeca) with the Index of Air Quality and Health Risks (ICARS).
The new regulations require urban areas to check for airborne particulates every 12 hours rather than every 24 hours as was previously required.
Trial runs allowing solar parks to inject electricity into the grid have been suspended.
A federal appeals court has reversed a decision made by a lower court on a rule change for the renewable energy sector that allowed the government to grant credits to its own existing projects.
The ruling is a big win for the clean energy industry, which argued that the granting of credits known as CELs to government projects would dilute the value of the credits issued to new renewable projects and severely harm clean energy investment.
The credits can be sold to large energy consumers that are required by the government to buy a certain amount of renewable energy. Their sale generates additional revenue for renewable energy projects.
The Mexican Association of Wind Energy and the Mexican Association of Solar Energy said in a joint statement last week that the rule change “destroyed the value of renewable energy project assets already in operation.”
The credits “were the main mechanism by which Mexico was to meet its national and international clean electricity generation goals,” the statement continued.
Yesterday’s decision only guarantees the value of the credits of the company that filed the injunction but other courts are now expected to follow the precedent. Bloomberg said that if more injunctions are granted in lower courts, the rule change will effectively be stopped across the country.
Sources told the news agency that there are still at least 18 injunction requests to be considered.
The Energy Secretariat could launch an appeal against the federal court decision but a prompt ruling would be unlikely and the suspension of the rule change would remain in place in the interim.
A beloved 69-year veteran of the Guadalajara Red Cross who gained national prominence in the aftermath of the 2017 earthquakes died on Thursday after being hit by a delivery vehicle.
Roberto González Pulido, 91, suffered a skull fracture in the accident that occurred in the historic center of the Jalisco capital.
He was crossing a road on his way home when he was struck, the newspaper El Heraldo deMéxico reported. Red Cross paramedics transferred González to hospital but he died hours later.
Comandante Pulido, as the veteran was widely known, joined the Red Cross as a 21-year-old in 1950 and served tirelessly as a volunteer right up until the day of his death.
Comandante Pulido with boxes of earthquake aid two years ago.
During his years of service, González helped countless victims of accidents and natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes.
After the September 7, 2017, earthquake that devastated southern Mexico, the Guadalajara Red Cross posted a photo on Twitter of Comandante Pulido that showed the then 89-year-old carrying boxes of supplies to be sent to victims.
The photo went viral on social media just after the September 19, 2017 earthquake, inspiring cartoonists, including the well-known Rictus, to immortalize González in their work, and bringing him to national attention as Mexico mourned the victims of the twin quakes and started the long process to clean up and rebuild.
At the time, he told the newspaper El País that he didn’t expect to receive so much attention for the work he had been doing for most of his life.
“. . . I feel that I don’t deserve so much [attention],” he said. “I joined the Red Cross because of what my mother taught me. She taught me to take atole or bread to the poor; that had a big effect on me. My mom also sent me to visit sick people to try to get them not to cry, to get them to have the best time they could.”
While González remained modest, he was a hero in the eyes of Mexicans, including his colleagues at the Guadalajara Red Cross.
“He’s an example for all of us who see him working every day from seven in the morning to send help. He’s a great man,” Red Cross representative Fanny Hernández told El País in 2017.
After his passing, González’s daughter told El Heraldo deMéxico: “His life was the Red Cross – always as a volunteer, he never received a salary.”
Water lanterns will carry their messages in two locations in December.
The Water Lantern Festival, a popular cultural event held in over 80 locations in the United States and at others around the world, makes its way to Mexico in December.
One festival will take place on December 7 at Zirahuén lake in Michoacán and and a second on December 14 at Parque Tezozómoc in Mexico City.
Billed as “an incredible experience . . . to create a magical memory,” the festival invites visitors to write down their hopes and dreams on paper lanterns, which are then sent out on to the water.
In addition to offering the spectacle of lights, the festival also includes food, beverages and music.
The sentimental farewell to 2019 begins at 3:30pm in Zirahuén, when festival-goers can register and collect their lantern kits. Events begin at 5:15pm.
The first lanterns will be placed on the water at 7:00pm.
Zirahuén lake is about 3 1/2 hours from Mexico City, and a half-hour from the popular Day of the Dead destination of Pátzcuaro.
In Mexico City the lantern festival begins at 2:30pm in Parque Tezozómoc, located in the northwestern borough of Azcapotzalco.
General admission tickets cost 250 pesos (US $13) for adults and 165 pesos ($9) for children, and can be purchased in advance at Boletia.com.
The lantern kits are included with admission and come with a light, a marker and other decoration materials.
An illustration prepared by the municipality shows what a Tesla patrol vehicle will look like.
A mayor in San Luis Potosí has announced the purchase of 15 of the modernistic new Cybertrucks manufactured by Tesla Inc.
Adrián Esper Cárdenas of Ciudad Valles said he reserved the trucks by making a deposit of US $1,500 with his own money, equal to a month’s salary.
“I reserved 10 two-motor and five three-motor models,” he said at a press conference after placing the order. “We’ll take a photo and send it to [Tesla CEO] Elon Musk, see if he gives us a discount.”
Esper said he did not consult his constituents about the purchase but said his decision to buy the electric vehicles for police, trash collection and other uses was “common sense.”
“It’s not about speed, because we don’t want speed. What we’re looking for is torque in order to haul water pipes, the garbage trailers. They’ll have twice the loads of a normal truck,” he said.
Tesla’s new Cybertruck.
Although the models Esper ordered come with price tags of $49,900 and $69,900, he claimed they would generate savings as high as 24 million pesos ($1.2 million) annually, since the trucks require little maintenance and no gasoline to operate.
“The important thing is that regardless of the fact that the cost can be a little high, the benefit is that if you don’t have to perform maintenance or put gas in them, you’ll be able to save 24 million pesos a year, and with that you’ve paid back half of the investment,” he said.
Tesla founder Elon Musk unveiled the Cybertruck on November 21, and despite a gaffe in which the vehicle’s windows failed to be as unbreakable as he claimed, orders for the truck are reportedly in the hundreds of thousands.
A reserve price of just US $100 has driven preorder numbers as high as 250,000, according to a tweet by Musk on Tuesday.
The Cybertruck launch included a video of the truck winning a tug of war against a Ford F-150 and dragging the competition up a hill. A Ford executive responded by challenging the Cybertruck to an “apples to apples” rematch, and Musk said he would be happy to oblige.
Although Tesla’s market share is down around 7% since the unveiling of the Cybertruck, the gambling community likes Tesla’s chances in the rematch with Ford. Online bookmakers were offering five to two odds that the Cybertruck would win out again over the F-150.
Ford later responded that the tweet was a joke and said it plans to release a hybrid F-150 next year and an all-electric version in the next few years.
I recently had a chance to visit the town of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, capital of the Mexican state of Chiapas. If you’re not quite sure where Chiapas is, it’s no wonder.
You see, Mexico is located in North America, but Chiapas is not. How this could be possible, I’m not sure, but to my surprise I discovered that Tuxtla is in Central America . . . and so was I!
The word Tuxtla, I learned, is a corruption of Tuchtlán, “The Place Where You Find Rabbits,” though I have yet to see one hopping along any of the streets I’ve visited. As for “Gutiérrez,” I asked numerous people who live here just who this individual was, and drew a blank every time.
At first I assumed Gutiérrez must have been a Spanish conquistador, but upon investigation I learned that Joaquín Miguel Gutiérrez Canales had been a military man who then served as governor of Chiapas off and on between 1830 and 1835, at which point he was apparently thrown out of office.
A 2.5-kilometer-long path takes visitors to 80 attractions.
Here it must be mentioned that in those days Chiapas was a sort of break-away chunk of Guatemala and its inhabitants were facing three choices: a. join up with Mexico; b. stay with Guatemala; or c. go for independence.
Joaquín Miguel Gutiérrez was pushing for Chiapas to become a Mexican state, and even though he had lost his job as governor, he was undaunted in his crusade and went ahead to form his own guerrilla band. It was long thought that he was eventually killed in a battle, fighting for his cause. New information, however, has come to light regarding the demise of Gutiérrez.
Ricardo Cuéllar Valencia relates, in El Heraldo de Chiapas, that one day, in 1838, in an effort to raise funds, Gutiérrez sent men to Hacienda Santiago, owned by a certain Esteban Figueroa, demanding money, horses and cattle. Señor Figueroa was not at home, but his wife Cecilia told the men: “Go and take the animals, if you want, but as for the money, my husband Esteban keeps it hidden and I don’t know where it is.”
According to Esteban Figueroa’s great-grandson, says Valencia, the band of intruders then tied up Doña Cecilia, suspended her from a tree branch and beat her, but to no avail. At last they left her still hanging in the air and made off with all the hacienda’s animals.
When Esteban Figueroa came home and heard all the gruesome details from his wife, he gathered a large party of men and went off to the church in Tuxtla, where they found and shot Joaquín Miguel Gutiérrez.
The official version of his death, however, showed Gutiérrez dying in battle for the cause of Mexicanization, and in 1848 his paternal surname was added to the name of the capital.
A fox takes a look around his jungly home at the Tuxtla zoo.
Having thus learned a tiny fraction of Tuxtla’s history, I wanted to have a look around and decided to head for the local zoo which, I understood, had been called, back in 1979, “The Best Zoo in Latin America,” far ahead of its time in respect to treating animals decently.
Well, I was not disappointed. Zoológico Regional Miguel Álvarez del Toro, affectionately known as ZOOMAT, struck me as quite unusual, first because every single one of its 1,600 animals is native to Chiapas. Then there is its location. Most zoos I’ve seen look as if their architects started with a flat, featureless plot of ground which was subsequently landscaped.
Here in Chiapas, however, you have jungle everywhere and it appears they chose one of their finest tropical forests, put in paths and transformed it into a zoo so beautiful that a walk through it would be utterly delightful even if you never saw a single animal.
A third thing I really like about this zoo is that many of its inhabitants are not behind fences or walls at all, but run about just as free as the visitors. Fortunately, there are plenty of signs reminding people to stay on the walkways at all times, and the result is that you are quite likely to discover, or be discovered by, creatures you have never seen or heard of before, such as the endangered Guatemalan black howler monkey or the critically endangered guaqueque or Mexican agouti, a rabbit-sized rodent with a big black rump, which I bumped into over and over.
Then again, you might find yourself suddenly engulfed by a whole family of noisily chatting chachalaca birds crossing your path on their way to who knows where, clearly letting you know that it is they who own this place while you are merely a guest.
Chiapas has one of the greatest diversities of wildlife in the Americas, with more than 700 species of birds, 209 species of mammals and more than 200 of reptiles. It’s famous for its species of regional fauna such as wild boars, black jaguars, toucans, macaws and of course quetzals, all of which you can see in this zoo.
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And let’s not forget the nocturnal animals: ZOOMAT certainly hasn’t. To see them in semi-darkness, you first step through a rope curtain into a dimly lit room where you are urged to do nothing for a while so your eyes can adjust to the dark. Then you are asked to keep silent as you enter a long, wide tunnel with window after window giving you a rare opportunity to observe animals like the tepezcuintle (lowland paca), the martucha (kinkajou or honey bear), the cacomixtle (ringtail) and, of course, murciélagos, bats, all doing their thing in the murky twilight.
ZOOMAT is open Tuesday to Sunday from 8:30am to 4:30pm. That is not a typo: it closes unusually early because the path is 2.5 kilometers long and getting everyone out must be quite a challenge. On top of that, the tall trees and dense foliage bring darkness well before sunset.
So, if you would like to be among ZOOMAT’s 450,000 yearly visitors, I suggest you go there as early as possible and psychologically prepare yourself for spending most of the day within its boundaries. After all, if you dedicate only four minutes to visiting each of the zoo’s 80 attractions, that alone would take over five hours.
Tuxtla has such a fine zoo due to the untiring efforts of novelist, painter, poet and biologist Miguel Álvarez del Toro, who has been called “the first Mexican conservationist.” In his lifetime, Álvarez del Toro, who was born in Colima, also managed to get four areas of Chiapas designated as biosphere reserves and is considered the founder of the state’s emblematic Sumidero Canyon National Park, which I hope to describe in Part 2 of “A Glimpse of Chiapas.”
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
Many new hotels, such as this Grupo Vidanta property in Los Cabos, will be built under new infrastructure plan. But will the total investment be enough?
An extra US $50 billion a year is needed in infrastructure spending in order to meet the nation’s needs and the federal government’s investment target, attendees at an engineer’s conference said this week.
Speaking at the National Civil Engineering Congress the same day, the president of the Mexican College of Civil Engineers said the investment in 147 projects over a period of five years is insufficient.
Ascensión Medina Nieves described the agreement between the government and the private sector as being of “the greatest importance” but expressed disappointment that the size of the investment isn’t bigger.
“With these investments, we’ll get close to 3% of the country’s GDP, far below what is recommended internationally for emerging countries like Mexico, which is between 5% and 8% . . .” he said.
The government is targeting the former figure of 5% of GDP.
Reyes Juárez del Ángel, president of the consultancy firm FOA Consultores, and other conference attendees said that about US $70 billion per year is needed in infrastructure investment to reach that figure. However, total investment is only projected to be US $20 billion per year.
Juan Luis Flores, a managing partner at Valorum Capital, was among those who agreed that the planned investment was insufficient, while an expert on public-private partnerships expressed doubt that all of the PNI projects announced on Tuesday will go ahead.
“Will the support that is being offered [in the agreement] really be given?” Francisco Treviño asked, pointing out that the projects have not yet been put out to tender or obtained financing.
The “great Achilles heel,” he added, will be obtaining public resources to prop up private projects that turn out to be unprofitable.
At the same conference, Communications and Transportation Secretary Javier Jiménez Espriú said the 147 projects announced on Tuesday represent only a first step in the infrastructure plans for the country.
Both the government and the private sector could invest more, he said, explaining that the latter has identified 1,600 potential infrastructure projects.
The government, however, already has an ambitious infrastructure agenda. Among the large projects it plans to build during President López Obrador’s six-year term are a new Mexico City airport, an oil refinery on the Tabasco coast and the Maya Train railroad on the Yucatán peninsula.
A Mexico City judge has been suspended after releasing a man suspected of involvement in the murder of his ex-wife this week.
Judge Federico Mosco ordered the release earlier this month of Juan Carlos García, former CEO of Amazon in Mexico, from preventative custody after downgrading charges against him from attempted murder to domestic violence.
García’s wife, Abril Pérez Sagaón, accused her then husband of attempted murder in January, saying that he attacked her with a baseball bat while she was asleep.
According to media reports, Mosco questioned the intent of the crime allegedly committed by García, saying he could have killed her if he wanted.
Pérez was killed on Monday while in Mexico City to attend a meeting linked to a custody battle with her ex-husband. A motorcyclist ambushed the vehicle in which she was traveling, shooting her dead in front of two of her children.
A relative of the victim told the newspaper El País: “He [García] has enough money to hire a hitman. We have no doubt it was him.”
At his morning press conference on Friday, President López Obrador criticized Mosco for releasing García and said it was unfortunate that the victim hadn’t been afforded protection.
“It’s very regrettable, reprehensible, that these things happen . . .” he said.
López Obrador said he was confident that Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar would take up the matter and sanction the judge, who also released a doctor who is accused of raping a female patient.
Hours later, the president of the Mexico City Superior Court announced that Mosco and another judge who made rulings in the case against García had been suspended. Rafael Guerra Álvarez said the decision was taken so as to not obstruct ongoing investigations into the crimes against Pérez.
Authorities are currently seeking to re-arrest García in connection with the murder of his ex-wife.
The Mexico City government has not yet said whether it will investigate Pérez’s death as a femicide, a crime in which a woman or girl is killed on account of her gender and which often includes sexual violence against the victim.
The murder occurred on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which was commemorated in Mexico City with a march by more than 3,000 women.
Ten women are killed on average every day in Mexico, making the country one of the most dangerous for females in the world.
