600% growth in tourism overwhelms popular Baja beach

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October 29, 2019

The Magical Town of Huasca, one of those with limited resources.

The federal government’s decision to eliminate funding of Mexico’s Pueblos Mágicos has left some smaller Magical Towns struggling to promote themselves, maintain key infrastructure and provide essential services.

The mayor of Orizaba, Veracruz, and president of the National Network of Magical Town Mayors told the newspaper El Economista that “the budget cut for Magical Towns is concerning.”

Speaking during the inaugural Tianguis Turístico de los Pueblos Mágicos (Magical Towns Tourism Fair) in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Igor Fidel Rojí López called on the federal government to reinstate funding.

“. . . There are magical towns like Orizaba, Cholula [Puebla], and Pátzcuaro [Michoacán], that have medium-sized populations and which have . . . sufficient resources to provide municipal services but there are small towns, like Huasca de Ocampo [Hidalgo] with 19,000 inhabitants, that don’t have sufficient resources,” Rojí said.

“For example, this state [Hidalgo] doesn’t have a sufficient water network and that can bring [Huasca] to a halt because on a weekend, 100,000 tourists might arrive, leaving it without water . . . There are lots of cases like that . . .”

The Palacio de Hierro in the Magical Town of Orizaba, Veracruz.

The government provided no funding for Mexico’s 121 Magical Towns in the 2019 budget and hasn’t allocated any resources for 2020 either. In 2018, the towns received 586 million pesos (US $30.6 million at today’s exchange rate) in federal funding.

Rojí said mayors are working with the tourism committees of both houses of federal Congress in an attempt to convince lawmakers to allocate resources to their towns in the 2020 budget.

Funding should be primarily aimed at towns that are struggling to find the resources required to carry out essential projects, he said.

Rojí said that the mayors are committed to dialogue with the federal government and ruled out any possibility that they might stage protests in Mexico City.

While calling for a resumption of federal funding for Magical Towns, the Orizaba mayor also said that municipal governments need to learn how to effectively raise their own revenue and use money wisely.

“. . . Orizaba collects its property taxes well; 95% of properties are up to date with their payments, the highest rate in the country and that’s because we provide the services that the law obliges us to, for example . . . drinking water, [street] cleaning, filling potholes, lighting,” Rojí said.

The mayor added that Orizaba raised a combined 37 million pesos from parking meters, municipal-owned public bathrooms and the renting out of public buildings.

“These resources of our own allow us to invest in tourism infrastructure . . .” Rojí said, adding that tourism has the capacity to transform residents’ lives.

“Orizaba has been transformed and has achieved greater development and economic growth,” since becoming a Magical Town four years ago, he said.

To improve promotion of the nation’s Pueblos Mágicos, the Mexican Association of Travel Agencies (AMAV) entered into an agreement with the National Association of Magical Towns Citizens’ Committees at the Pachuca fair.

AMAV president Eduardo Paniagua Morales said that towns in Quintana Roo, Veracruz, Tabasco, Nuevo León and Chiapas have made the most progress in developing tourism promotion strategies and will serve as an example for Magical Towns in other states.

Source: El Economista (sp)

80 wineries, 10 restaurants at Nation of Wines event in CDMX

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October 29, 2019

Nation of Wines is on this week in Mexico City.

Food and wine aficionados can take their taste buds on a cross-country tour of Mexico’s wine-producing regions at this year’s Nación de Vinos wine festival.

Now in its third year, an event that is billed as the country’s biggest wine festival takes place Wednesday and Thursday in Mexico City’s Hipódromo de las Américas Forum.

“We’re very happy with this year’s program,” says the festival’s creator, Valentina Ortiz Monasterio. “It’s a monumental effort by the organizing committee and the wineries. I think the best news is that Nación de Vinos is now the most anticipated wine event in the country.”

The festival celebrates the international reach of Mexican wines. The Mexican Viniculture Council reports that Mexico is among the top 10 countries with the most prize-winning labels in the world’s most prestigious competitions.

However, Nación de Vinos, or Nation of Wines, is really about inspiring passion for domestic wines in Mexicans themselves, who are more accustomed to drinking chela (beer), tequila and whisky.

“The main idea behind the event is to bring Mexicans closer to Mexican wines.”

And it appears the festival has been accomplishing exactly that. The Mexican Viniculture Council says Mexico’s per-capita consumption of domestic wines has doubled in the last five years.

The event’s third iteration will bring together 80 wineries from the winemaking states of Baja California, Aguascalientes, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Guanajuato, Sonora, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro and Zacatecas.

Food is also an important part of the event.

Visitors will be able to pair the abundance of award-winning wines with the equally acclaimed dishes of distinguished Mexico City restaurants such as Sud 777, Pujol, Nicos, Quintonil, Rosetta and La Docena, all of which recently made the list of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants.

“One thing that sets this year’s event apart will be the distinct and fun gastronomy, which is sure to include ingredients and recipes that marry well with Mexican wine, which is very important,” says Ortiz.

Nación de Vinos is the perfect occasion for getting to know in detail the virtues of each wine-growing region in Mexico and the lengths producers go through to create such high-quality beverages.

Visitors will also be able to learn about the challenges in the value chain, the vision of the industry’s future and everything else that invigorates wine culture in Mexico at the festival’s conferences, workshops, exhibitions, tastings and more.

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

Chinese firm invests in Nuevo León to build natural gas-powered buses

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October 29, 2019

Governor Rodríguez inspects one of the Golden star buses. — Governor Rodríguez inspects one of the Golden Star buses.

A Chinese bus manufacturer will invest 6.23 billion pesos (US $326 million) in an assembly plant in Nuevo León that will produce buses that burn natural gas.

Mexican bus company Golden Star 4000 partnered with Zhongtong Bus Holding Co. Ltd. to build the factory in the municipality of El Carmen.

The plant’s capacity will be 4,800 vehicles a year.

Golden Star 4000 already has 17 of the eco-friendly buses — that were assembled in China — operating on routes in Mexico.

Nuevo León Governor Jaime Rodríguez Calderón said Mexican-built buses have already been contracted for an express route to connect Monterrey to García, some 40 kilometers to the west. The route is expected to begin operating on November 15, and will connect with Monterrey’s Ecovía rapid transit system.

He said the municipality plans to create other routes for the buses the plant will produce, connecting with Juárez and Cadereyta.

The buses are equipped with high-tech amenities such as interior and exterior cameras, air conditioning and wireless internet.

The plant will take three years to build and will employ 2,800 people when it is fully operational, said Golden Star 4000.

Source: El Economista (sp)

High homicide rates put coastal tourist destinations among most violent locations

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October 29, 2019

Rosarito is high on the list of violent municipalities.

Eight coastal tourist destinations — including Rosarito, Acapulco and Cancún — are among the 50 most violent locations in Mexico, official statistics show.

According to official data analyzed by the crime monitoring website elcri.men, a homicide rate of 142.8 per 100,000 inhabitants between April and September made Playas de Rosarito, Baja California, the third most violent municipality in Mexico behind only Armería, Colima, and Bocoyna, Chihuahua.

With a per-capita murder rate of 141.3, Manzanillo, Colima – a major port city as well as a tourist destination – ranked as the fourth most violent municipality in the country during the past six months, while a homicide rate of 118.8 made Tijuana, Baja California, the 10th most violent.

The resort city of Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, was the 12th most violent municipality, while the Caribbean coast municipality of Solidaridad, Quintana Roo – where Playa del Carmen is located – was 17th. Their per-capita homicide rates between April and September were 103.8 and 83.1 respectively.

With a rate of 68.1, Acapulco, Guerrero – once Mexico’s most glamorous beach destination – was the 28th most violent municipality.

Over the course of two days earlier this month, criminal groups set four public transit buses on fire on the Miguel Alemán coastal boulevard in the resort city, the newspaper El Universal reported. In addition, at least 200 transit workers have been killed in Acapulco during the past 10 years.

Also among the 50 most violent municipalities were Ensenada, Baja California, and Benito Juárez, Quintana Roo, where Cancún is located. With 44.4 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, the former municipality ranked as the 48th most violent, while a per-capita murder rate of 41.3 placed Benito Juárez one spot lower at 49th.

Just over 11% of the 29,692 homicides in the first 10 months of the six-year term of President López Obrador occurred in the eight coastal municipalities. Mexico is currently on track to record its most violent year in recent history.

In addition to murders, many of Mexico’s popular beach destinations are affected by crimes including extortion and kidnappings.

Rubén Salazar, director of the risk analysis firm Etellekt, told El Universal that there are two main reasons for the presence of criminal groups in tourist destinations and the resulting high crime rates.

First, the influx of visitors makes them attractive for criminal activities such as drug dealing, so rival groups fight to control the market. Second, Pacific coast cities are not just tourist destinations but also entry points for illicit goods including synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals.

“A lot of these Pacific cities have maritime customs, they’re the country’s main ports and the main points of entry for precursors for the production of drugs such as methamphetamine,” Salazar said, adding that criminal organizations that control that market have displaced groups that formerly transported heroin produced in Guerrero.

The Sinaloa Cartel dominates on Mexico’s northern Pacific coast while the Jalisco New Generation Cartel holds sway farther south, he said.

Salazar said that people who haven’t benefited from tourism development have been lured into crime due to a lack of other options, adding that the government’s strategy to address social causes of violence will likely fail.

“The money that the federal government offers in scholarships or other support is insufficient. What organized crime offers . . . is a lot more attractive,” he said.

A number of popular inland tourist destinations also featured among the most violent locations in Mexico between April and September.

They included Taxco, Guerrero (26th most violent), San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato (38th), Cuernavaca, Morelos (45th) and Morelia, Michoacán (50th).

Source: El Universal (sp)

Family was given wrong body after case of mistaken identity

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October 29, 2019

Officials at Attorney General's Office got bodies mixed up.

The family of a Guatemalan migrant whose remains were found in a mass grave in Tamaulipas was given the wrong body by Mexican authorities seven years ago.

Relatives have been mourning over someone else’s disappeared family member ever since.

According to documents accessed by the newspaper Reforma and dated November 18, 2011, then attorney general Marisela Morales identified the body, which was given to family members in Guatemala in March 2012.

But Argentinian forensic anthropologists discovered in 2014 that the body had been misidentified, and the remains of the family’s loved one remained in the Forensic Sciences Institute in Mexico City.

The family has still not been notified of the error. The body they buried will have to be exhumed to be properly identified and conveyed to its true relatives.

The story is only coming to light now despite the fact that three previous attorneys general — Jesús Murillo Karam, Arely Gómez and Arturo Elías Beltrán — as well the current administration had full knowledge of the error.

The Argentinian team participated in efforts to identify 314 bodies found in secret graves in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, and Cadereyta, Nuevo León.

The team carried out its own studies despite the Attorney General’s Office having done so previously. When it discovered the mistaken identity the team passed the information on to then attorney general Murillo.

The director of the department’s genetic laboratory at the time, Martha Acela Valdéz, said the Guatemalan government was made aware of the mistake in 2016, but did not want to reveal the error for fear of being seen as irresponsible.

“We were in the Mexican Embassy in Guatemala and they told us, ‘Well, the family already has a body to mourn, so what difference does it make if we say anything or not?’” she said.

Acela says she handled the case in Guatemala until the end of 2016, when she was demoted from her post.

“It is a complete lack of responsibility, let alone a lack of empathy, but the negligence of the state in remaining quiet — and that’s what has happened up to now, no one has said a thing — is a political issue,” she said.

Acela added that she fears those responsible might want to place the blame on her, although she claims that she always insisted that the case be brought to light.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Jailed governor’s wife faces extradition hearing after arrest in England

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October 29, 2019

Macías and Duarte: he's in jail. Will she follow?

The wife of former Veracruz governor Javier Duarte, who is serving a prison sentence for corruption, was arrested in London, England, on Tuesday, federal authorities said.

The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) said that United Kingdom police arrested Karime Macías and that she will face an extradition hearing. They explained that she could either be held in custody while the extradition process takes place or released and placed under supervision.

Macías is wanted in Veracruz for her alleged participation in an embezzlement scheme that diverted 112 million pesos (US $5.9 million) from the state branch of the DIF family services agency to shell companies during Duarte’s term in office.

A state judge issued a warrant for her arrest in May 2018 while federal authorities said in October 2018 that they were investigating Macías for fraud and filed an application for her extradition from the United Kingdom.

Macías fled to the U.K. in 2017, claiming in a letter to the Veracruz Attorney General’s Office that she was forced to leave the country because of “persecution” in Veracruz.

Alongside her three children, she is believed to have lived a life of luxury in the English capital despite Interpol issuing a red notice for her arrest.

Duarte, who ruled the Gulf coast state between 2010 and 2016, is serving a nine-year prison sentence for money laundering and links to organized crime. The Federal Auditor’s Office said in 2016 that irregularities in the use of public funds during Duarte’s government were the worst it had even seen.

According to an analysis completed by the newspaper Reforma, Duarte and Macías built a multi-million-dollar real estate empire made up of more than 90 properties in Mexico, the United States and Spain.

Marco Antonio del Toro, a lawyer for Macías, said in an interview that his client submitted herself voluntarily to U.K. authorities. He said she received a notice last Friday to present herself “and did so punctually.”

Del Toro described the warrant issued in Veracruz for Macías’ arrest as “illegal,” adding that his client will fight against extradition to Mexico and hopes to do so without being remanded in custody.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Milenio (sp)

Illegal logging reduced in Monarch Butterfly Reserve

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October 29, 2019

Illegal logging has been a major threat to the butterflies' survival.

Degradation of the forest has diminished by over 25% in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve compared to the 2017-2018 season, says the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Forest degradation in 2018-2019 decreased to five hectares from 6.7 in the previous season.

“Forest degradation decreased due to the reduction of large-scale illegal logging,” said WWF Mexico director Jorge Rickards in a statement. “Nor were there serious storms like those that affected the reserve in 2016.”

Illegal logging discovered on 1.43 hectares last year declined to only 0.43 hectares.

“We’ve been able to conserve the core area thanks to the pledge made with neighboring communal lands, indigenous communities and the brigades, who are paid to keep watch on the forests . . . We also create economic opportunities so that the reserve can be a source of . . . development for people.”

Drought was one of the primary causes of forest loss documented in the reserve, according to monitoring carried out by the WWF-Telmex Telcel Foundation Alliance, the Natural Protected Areas Commission (Conanp) and the Institute of Biology at the National Autonomous University (UNAM).

Conanp has taken 1,280 tactical actions to counter illegal logging in the area with the aid of surveillance by the National Guard.

Telcel’s head of marketing and social responsibility, Sergio Patgher, said the alliance has planted millions of trees in 13,501 hectares of monarch hibernation areas since 2003. The project has utilized 13 local nurseries, generated 300 jobs and created a network of 32 mushroom nurseries in the region.

“The involvement of society is important . . . . In July 2019, thanks to the support of over 1,000 volunteers from Telcel and WWF and families from Puebla, Querétaro, Guadalajara, Morelia, León and Mexico City, we planted 15 million oyamel fir trees in the Monarch Butterfly Reserve, as part of the public awareness campaigns carried out by the alliance,” Patgher said.

In addition to the conservation actions, the alliance has planted flower gardens along the butterflies’ migration routes in Chihuahua, Mérida, Morelia, Hermosillo, Monterrey and Tijuana.

The 56,000-hectare reserve is home to 132 bird, 56 mammal, 432 plant and 211 fungus species, and the basins of the region filter water into the Cutzamala water system for over 4.1 million people in Mexico City and the metropolitan area.

It borders the states of México and Michoacán and lies 100 kilometers northwest of Mexico City.

Historically high levels of illegal logging in Mexico have been a major threat to the survival of the monarch butterflies. Another has been the loss of reproductive habitat in the United States due to land-use changes and the use of pesticides to kill milkweed, on which the butterfly lays its eggs.

Source: Reforma (sp)

3 municipalities seek emergency declaration for wildfires

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October 29, 2019

Remaining hot spots as of 8:00pm Monday.

The Baja California municipalities of Playas de Rosarito, Tijuana and Tecate have asked the state and federal governments to issue a disaster declaration due to the wildfires that destroyed 204 homes last week.

The fires also caused three deaths and burned 10,000 hectares of land, most of which is located in Ensenada.

The National Forestry Commission (Conafor) reported that two fires are still active outside of Ensenada, and firefighters are on the verge of putting out the fire in Tecate.

State authorities warned that the Santa Ana winds, the weather phenomenon that fanned the fires that broke out last Thursday, are expected to pick up again on Tuesday and Wednesday, creating the possibility of more fires.

State Civil Protection director Antonio Rosquillas Navarro said that 114 houses have burned in Tecate, 62 in Playas de Rosarito and 28 in Ensenada. His department estimates that an average of four people lived in each affected home.

“Rosarito and Tecate gave me their petitions for the disaster declaration. Tomorrow morning we will receive Ensenada’s, and then we’ll have the document ready for the governor to sign . . . on Tuesday. It will be sent to the federal government via an online portal,” Rosquillas said.

The declaration will seek aid to rebuild houses and reforest land that has lost native vegetation, but first it will have to be reviewed and approved by a number of government departments, including the secretariats of Finance and of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development.

Conafor legal representative Francisco Ávalos Hernández said that some of the worst damage has been seen in San José de la Zorra, where 7,300 hectares have burned. He also stated that he doesn’t believe the fires started naturally.

“The fires weren’t caused just by the wind,” he said. “There is undoubtedly a human factor in all of this.”

Both Ávalos and Rosquillas urged residents not to discard lit cigarette butts, light fires or dump trash on empty lots.

“Despite the requests for prevention, we see that people don’t follow the recommendations, but we’re going to continue insisting that they take precautions,” Rosquillas said.

Tijuana Mayor Arturo González Cruz has declared a pre-alert ahead of this week’s anticipated winds. He said that 71 houses and 3,500 hectares of meadowland have already burned in his municipality.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Truckers mount nationwide strike to protest double semis, fuel costs

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October 29, 2019