Lozoya blaming others to protect himself: former cabinet minister

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August 21, 2020

Former cabinet minister Videgaray. — Videgaray called the accusations false, 'absurd, inconsistent and reckless.'

Luis Videgaray, a former cabinet minister who served in the government of ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto, has rejected accusations made against him by former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya.

His denial Thursday came after the leaking this week of a document submitted to the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) in which Lozoya accuses the former finance and foreign affairs minister of leading a bribery scheme that paid off National Action Party (PAN) lawmakers for their support of the previous government’s structural reforms.

In a statement posted to Twitter, Videgaray described the accusations against him as “false, absurd, inconsistent and reckless.”

“Lozoya’s accusations are invented lies to try to get out of the consequences of his own actions,” he wrote.

“The only person responsible for the serious legal situation that he, his mother, his sister and his wife face is Emilio Lozoya.”

The former state oil chief, extradited from Spain last month, is awaiting trial on corruption charges related to bribes paid by the Brazilian company Odebrecht in exchange for lucrative contracts and Pemex’s 2015 purchase of a run-down fertilizer plant at an allegedly inflated price.

Lozoya has agreed to cooperate with authorities in the hope that he will receive a more lenient sentence if convicted and has been afforded protected witness status by federal authorities.

Videgaray, now a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said it was unsurprising that he is now blaming others to try to protect himself.

“It’s an attitude that’s fitting for his personality,” he wrote, adding that it’s also unsurprising that he is one of Lozoya’s targets.

“It’s widely known that we had a bad personal relationship due to his poor financial management of Pemex, what he sought to do with the energy reform and his conduct as a public servant,” Videgaray said.

“I’m always ready to respond to the call of the relevant authorities and contribute in that way to the clarification of the truth. … I will not allow myself to be defamed out of political revenge. For that reason, I will have to resolve these issues and I will defend my honor through the relevant legal authorities.”

Meade: goal should be finding the truth rather than let Lozoya make accusations without proof. — Meade: goal should be finding the truth, not letting Lozoya make accusations without proof.

José Antonio Meade, another former cabinet minister accused of corruption by Lozoya, responded to the claim against him – that he received a 4-million-peso kickback – on Twitter.

“I dedicated my public life to building a better country, always with absolute honor and legality,” he wrote.

The former minister, who served in a range of portfolios in the previous two governments and was the Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate in the 2018 presidential election, also said that the opportunity Lozoya has been given to cooperate with authorities should be aimed at establishing the truth, not giving the former Pemex chief the chance to “accuse without proof those of us who denounce illicit acts.”

Meade added that he will be respectful of the investigations and that he has notified authorities of his whereabouts.

José Antonio González Anaya, who succeeded Lozoya as Pemex chief before becoming finance minister, also rejected corruption accusations leveled at him.

Former president Felipe Calderón has defended himself against Lozoya’s accusations but two other ex-presidents cited, Enrique Peña Nieto and Carlos Salinas, have remained silent.

The corruption scandal has kept the coronavirus crisis off the front pages of newspapers in recent days and given President López Obrador new fodder for one of his favorite pastimes – attacking past presidents and “their corrupt, neoliberal” governments.

Senator Julen Rementería del Puerto, the PAN’s deputy leader in the upper house, charged Thursday that the ruling Morena party is using Lozoya as a “battering ram” against its conservative opponent with the aim of damaging it electorally before the 2021 midterm elections.

“Lozoya [is] a battering ram of the government to hit who? The PAN, clearly,” he told a virtual press conference.

“He has shown a perverse intention of a political nature to hurt the main adversary of the [party] which poorly governs our country today.”

The head of the anti-corruption commission at the business lobby Coparmex said much the same. “This trial is being played out in the media,” said Max Kaiser. “It appears to be designed to be able to talk about [the president’s] political enemies.”

The head of México Evalúa, a think tank, said López Obrador was using the case to distract from the worst recession in Mexico’s history and the world’s third-highest death toll.

“The moment López Obrador used this in his morning rant, it turned into a political issue,” Luis Rubio said. “He will not advance the cause of justice, he will only prosecute his enemies — it’s the traditional Mexican game of playing politics with the law.”

Source: Milenio (sp), El Universal (sp), Financial Times (en)

Covid deaths reach 59,000; hospitalizations on rise in Mexico City

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MND Staff

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August 21, 2020

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Hospital admissions of Covid-19 patients rose this week in Mexico City. — Hospital admissions rose this week in Mexico City.

Mexico’s official Covid-19 death toll is on the cusp of reaching a figure that the country’s coronavirus czar once said could only be reached in a “catastrophic scenario.”

The federal Health Ministry reported 625 additional Covid-19 deaths on Thursday, increasing the accumulated tally to 59,106.

Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said June 4 that total Covid-19 fatalities could reach 60,000 in a “catastrophic scenario.”

At the time, Mexico’s pandemic death toll was just over 12,500 and López-Gatell predicted that it would likely increase to between 30,000 and 35,000.

While the official toll is now nearing 60,000, several independent studies suggest that Mexico is grossly underestimating deaths from the virus that claimed its first victim here in mid-March.

Coronavirus deaths are set to hit a ‘catastrophic’ level. milenio

The Health Ministry also reported Thursday that the accumulated case tally had increased to 543,806 with 6,775 new cases registered. There are 29,143 active cases while the results of 82,786 tests are not yet known.

More than 1.2 million people have been tested for coronavirus in Mexico since the beginning of the pandemic for a positivity rate of 45%. The rate is extremely high because testing is mainly targeted at people with serious coronavirus-like symptoms.

At Thursday night’s coronavirus press briefing, Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía reiterated that new case numbers have declined in recent weeks. But data shows that testing has also declined during the period, which could explain the reduction in new case numbers.

Alomía also said that Covid-19 deaths are on the wane although more than 600 were reported on 15 of the first 20 days of August.

He said 38% of general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are currently occupied while 33% of those with ventilators are in use.

Nayarit and Nuevo León are the only states with more than 60% of general care hospitals in use while Colima and Nuevo León have the highest occupancy rates for critical care beds, at 56% and 53%, respectively.

coronavirus cases — Confirmed cases are brown, suspected are orange and negative test results are purple. Deaths are shown in black at the base of the chart. The final week shown—No. 32— is August 2-8.ministry of health

Alomía said that the number of coronavirus patients hospitalized across the country has decreased in recent weeks.

However, hospitalizations have increased in Mexico City, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday.

The Mexico City government’s latest Covid-19 report shows that there are currently just under 2,900 coronavirus patients in the capital’s hospitals.

Mexico City has been the country’s coronavirus epicenter since the beginning of the pandemic with almost 90,000 cases detected over the past six months. The capital’s official Covid-19 death toll passed 10,000 on Thursday with 64 additional fatalities reported.

Despite the increase in hospitalizations, Sheinbaum announced Friday that the “orange light” high risk level will remain in place in Mexico City for a ninth consecutive week between August 24 and 30.

Source: Reforma (sp), El Economista (sp)

8 places in western Mexico to escape a virus without running into a crowd

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John Pint

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August 21, 2020

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When orders to “stay at home as much as possible” reached my community, I noticed an immediate result, which could be considered peculiar. Suddenly, there were many more people walking up and down our rustic, cobblestone streets than I had ever seen before.

They were out there early in the morning walking their dogs and back again in the evening to catch the often splendid view of sunset over the nearby Tequila Volcano. Self-quarantining seemed to have given all of them a new appreciation for the pine and oak forest in which we live and for the great outdoors in general.

I also noticed that, after weeks of “staying at home,” many people began to send me emails with questions like: “Do you know if the Primavera Forest is now open to visitors?” and “Can you recommend someplace I can go to commune with nature without running into anybody?”

In response to people like these, I offer a short list of outdoor sites in western Mexico which meet three criteria: first, they are, for the most part, places where you are unlikely to bump into a single soul. Second, they are all unfenced and open to the public. And finally, they are places where I’ve never heard tales of unsavory characters lurking about.

So, if you live in western Mexico and have been cooped up for too long, here are a few options for getting away from it all without getting infected.

Villa Felicidad

This is a sprawling, uninhabited area just east of Tala, Jalisco, filled with big rocks of amazing shapes which may resemble walls, bathtubs, armchairs, tree trunks and much more, depending entirely upon your imagination. It’s also home to the utterly unpolluted Río de las Ánimas where you can find cool, clean pools to splash in. It’s a perfect place for a picnic! Look for “Villa Felicidad” on Google Maps. Driving time from Guadalajara: one hour and 11 minutes.

Hacienda La Cofradía

How about going for a stroll through the ruins of a 19th-century neoclassical hacienda? Rancho de la Cofradía del Puente lies alongside the Arenal River, not far off the old highway linking Guadalajara to Tequila. A plaque there says the building had “a double corridor with three apartments that were connected by an arcade made up of nine arches held up by Tuscan pillars that today lack a roof.”

The property was once in the middle of extensive agave field and they were producing tequila here as early as 1800. This hacienda is one of several old tequila distilleries or tabernas located near the town of Amatitán.

To visit the hacienda, ask Google Maps to take you to “R8P8+7Q La Villa de Cuerambaro.” Driving time from Guadalajara: 57 minutes.

La Campana

Here is a small, beautiful and very curious mountain not far from Mascota, Jalisco, where you’ll see exotic rock formations shaped like giant waves. The walk to the top takes less than half an hour, but you’ll feel like you’ve stepped onto another planet. For more details, see La Campana, Jalisco’s Psychedelic Bell. Ask Google Maps to take you to “9CC4+67 Los Volcanes, Jalisco” and you’ll find yourself at the trail head. Driving time from Guadalajara is about two hours.

The Teuchitlán Andador

This is a three-kilometer-long hiking and bicycling path which follows the short but scenic Teuchitlán River from its source to the point where it enters La Vega Dam. At its south end it turns into a path on a narrow strip of land, with a marsh on one side and the lake on the other: a great place to spot waterbirds.

You might expect to see white egrets, tiger herons, lily trotters, ibises, anhingas, cormorants, puffins and more.

As for human beings, I’ve never seen one here, even though the trail is quite near a string of fine restaurants along the lakeshore. To reach this spot, ask Google Maps to take you to “M5G5+64 Teuchitlan.” Park and walk south to see the waterbirds. Driving time from Guadalajara: one hour.

Cerro Viejo

“The Old Hill” is a picturesque mountain that fills the skyline overlooking Lake Chapala. Its peak is 2,960 meters above sea level and reaching the top would take you many hours of hard hiking. I am not sending you all the way up there, but just inviting you to enjoy one of the mountain’s lovely foothills, which is easy to reach from the little town of San Juan Evangelista, home to some of Jalisco’s most talented potters.

Let Google Maps take you to “9MRM+4Q San Juan Evangelista, Jalisco,” on the shores of Lake Cajititlán. You’ll find yourself at a bridge over the Macrolibramiento expressway. Walk across the bridge, and you are on your way into the beautiful foothills of Cerro Viejo. Driving time from Guadalajara is about 50 minutes.

La Maltaraña Mansion

This strikingly beautiful casona, with 365 doors and windows, was built in the early 1900s by Manuel Cuesta Gallardo, one-time governor of Jalisco and the man responsible for reducing the size of Lake Chapala by 33%. La Maltaraña was also known as La Bella Cristina in honor of Cuesta’s daughter.

For more information, see Some Chapala spots well worth a visit. On Google Maps this elegant old house is identified as “68G8+R7 Jamay, Jalisco.” Driving time from Guadalajara: two hours.

Propped up by poles, La Maltaraña is still elegant.

The Ghost Town of El Amparo

Apart from the ghosts, you’ll find the ruins of one of Mexico’s most successful gold and silver mining operations, one of the very few companies that kept operating right through the Mexican revolution. For the full story see Amparo: the rise and fall of one of Mexico’s most controversial mines.

To visit some of the most intriguing of the old buildings, ask Google Maps to take you first to Etzatlán, Jalisco. Once you are there, tell Google Maps to direct you to “PW29+6R Etzatlán.”

This subterfuge is to make sure you approach Amparo from the north, on a far better road than the awful one coming from the south. Driving time from Guadalajara: two hours.

El Diente

This is the only one of these eight sites where I would expect you to find a few people — almost certainly rock climbers — whom you may see high above you dangling from a handhold in one of the huge monoliths standing tall on the hillside.

[soliloquy id="120623"]

You may enjoy watching Jalisco’s best bouldering enthusiasts do their stuff (with little danger of contagion) or you may prefer to wander off on your own to discover other rocks which, instead of resembling a tooth, may remind you of a turtle or a teapot.

One advantage of El Diente is that it’s located only five kilometers from Guadalajara’s Ring Road, but nevertheless bestows solitude, peace and beauty upon its visitors. For more info see El Diente, a forest of rocks. To get there, look for “QJR3+CF Rio Blanco, Jalisco” on Google Maps. Driving time from the center of Guadalajara: 50 minutes.

Enjoy your escape to the great outdoors where — as Burt Lancaster put it in The Kentuckian — the air “has got a clean taste like nobody ever used it before.”

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.

Municipal council in Hidalgo decides kids shouldn’t be barred from bullfights

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Susy Buchanan

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August 21, 2020

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A bullfighting ring in Pachuca: children welcome.

Children in Pachuca, Hidalgo, are free to attend bullfights and cockfights, municipal council members decided Thursday.

An initiative to bar minors from the fights due to the violent nature of the events was rejected by a vote of 11 to 5.

Biofutura, a non-profit devoted to biodiversity and animal rights, had lobbied in favor of the bill, which was based on an international recommendation by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

For years the committee has advocated for banning children from participating in or attending bullfights as it exposes them to extreme violence which, it says, affects their mental and emotional well-being.

Councilor Isabel Vite argued against the motion, saying there was no scientific evidence that exposure to bull or cockfights affects children.

The Mexican Bullfighting Association applauded the proposal’s defeat. “This preserves fundamental rights enjoyed by girls, boys and adolescents such as access to culture, the free development of the personality and freedom of expression,” it said in a statement. “Neither empirically nor much less scientifically is there evidence that proves that witnessing or participating in bullfights generates violent behavior or some other personality disorder.”

According to the federal Ministry of Agriculture, bullfighting generated 6.9 billion pesos, more than US $313 million, in 2019.

In Hidalgo alone there are 30 breeders of fighting bulls and bullfights are held in 60 towns. The state also has two bullfighting schools attended by over 50 children.

A law banning bullfighting, cockfighting and other acts that cause suffering or harm to animals took effect in Quintana Roo in November, making it the fourth state to outlaw bullfighting, after Coahuila, Sonora and Guerrero.

Spain, France, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador are the only countries that still allow bullfighting.

Source: El Universal (sp), La Silla Rota (sp)

July homicide numbers up 3.9% to total 2,980; year to date they’re up 1.6%

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MND Staff

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August 21, 2020

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Security Minister Durazo presents crime statistics at Thursday's press conference.

Homicides increased 3.9% in July compared to June, according to official data that also shows that Mexico is on track to record its most violent year on record.

There were 2,980 homicide victims last month, according to the National Public Security System, an increase of 113 compared to June.

There were 20,494 murder victims in the first seven months of the year, up 1.6% from the same period of 2019, which was the most violent year since national records were first kept in 1997.

Presenting the July data at Thursday’s presidential press conference, Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said that homicide numbers are on the wane in 22 states.

Although homicides are up compared to the first seven months of last year, the minister claimed that the government has managed to establish a “containment line” against the crime.

Durazo said that July was a “hectic” month in terms of violence due to the capture of José Antonio Yépez Ortiz, leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel (CSRL), a Guanajuato-based crime gang. However, Yépez, better known as “El Marro,” was in fact taken into custody on August 2.

Guanajuato, where the CSRL is engaged in a vicious turf war with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was the most violent state in the country in July with more than 400 homicides but Durazo noted that murders have decreased since the crime leader’s arrest.

“We can’t sing victory but the incidence of … homicides in Guanajuato is fortunately on the wane today … and we hope to consolidate this trend,” he said.

Durango and Querétaro recorded the biggest increases in homicides between June and July, the newspaper Milenio reported.

There were 22 homicide victims in the former state last month, a 214% increase compared to June when seven people were murdered. In Querétaro, homicide victims increased 100% in July to 16 from eight the previous month.

Aguascalientes recorded a 50% increase between June and July, with numbers increasing from eight to 12, while murders spiked 53% in Quintana Roo from 34 to 52.

In Baja California Sur, Mexico’s second least violent state this year, homicide victims increased 80% to nine in July from five in June.

During the first seven months of the year, Guanajuato was the most violent state in the country with a total of 2,695 homicide victims. The figure accounts for 13.1% of all homicides in Mexico so far this year, meaning that one of every eight murders was committed in the Bajío region state.

México state ranked second with 1,678 homicide victims.

Four other states have recorded more than 1,000 murders this year. They are, in order, Chihuahua, Baja California, Jalisco and Michoacán.

At the other end of the scale, seven states have recorded fewer than 100 homicides this year. They are Yucatán with 28; Baja California Sur, 36; Campeche, 44; Aguascalientes, 59; Tlaxcala, 68; Durango, 97; and Nayarit, 98.

In per capita terms, Colima was the most violent state between January and July with 51.2 homicide victims per 100,000 residents.

Along with homicides, extortion, drug dealing and robberies increased in July compared to June while there was no change in the incidence of kidnapping, with 62 cases in both months.

Femicides – the killing of women and girls on account of their gender – declined 27% from 101 in June to 74 in July.

Source: Reforma (sp), Milenio (sp)

Tricycle vendors say they suffer triple extortion in Mexico City

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Susy Buchanan

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August 21, 2020

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Tricycle vendors in Mexico City’s Miguel Hidalgo municipality say they have to pay three different bribes totaling 700 pesos (about US $32) a week to peddle their wares. Sometimes the total represents more than half their income.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, tricycle vendors say, they earned up to 1,500 pesos a week. Now they are lucky to take in 1,000 and the bribes have further crippled their incomes.

Coffee sellers Omar and Federico say that each week they have to pay municipal authorities 100 to 200 pesos in order to operate on the municipality’s streets, and the amount fluctuates depending on the products the sellers offer.

“You must give people from the [mayor’s office] a fee to let you sell,” Omar told the newspaper El Universal while attending to customers near the Metro Auditorio subway station. “That fee is mandatory. If it’s not paid, they won’t let you work.”

Those who sell in the tony Polanco area also pay police 50 pesos a day for the privilege of setting up shop there.

Hegel Cortés Miranda of the Miguel Hidalgo mayor’s office said the government is aware of the allegations of such payments but no one has made a formal complaint.

But there’s another fee that speaks to the growing rumors of nefarious forces controlling wheeled trade in the city.

Vendors say they are also being charged 500 pesos a week by unidentified individuals in exchange for protection from government inspectors. They refuse to name those involved for fear of reprisals.

On August 15, Miguel Hidalgo officials announced that they had confiscated 140 tricycles, for which several reasons were given. One was the coronavirus, another was that the city had received more than 3,000 complaints, and still another was that the seizure represented an attempt to break up a tricycle mafia on the city’s streets.

“These are not ordinary people who dedicate themselves to this, but there is a whole tricycle industry,” Miguel Hidalgo Mayor Victor Hugo Romo said. “I can say that in some cases it is a mafia, there are honorable exceptions, but the ones that we have removed are in a union, like an industry, (under the command) of two people who hoard their tricycles and invade public space without permission,” he explained in an interview on Monday.

Those individuals, who Romo says have been identified, control tricycles across the municipality and reap huge profits. “For 500 carts they take in 2 million pesos (US $90,578) a day,” the mayor said in a recent interview.

Although Romo’s office first said it would destroy the tricycles, it later recanted and said they would be returned to their owners provided they have a receipt, and those that are not claimed would be donated to charities such as Bicitekas, which provides healthcare personnel with bicycles.

As of yesterday, 35 tricycles had been reclaimed.

Source: El Universal (sp), La Silla Rota (sp), Milenio (sp), W Radio (sp)

Videos show delivery of bags of cash to AMLO’s brother; president denies corruption

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MND Staff

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August 21, 2020

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A bag of cash changes hands between León, left, and Pío López Obrador.

More videos have surfaced in which large amounts of cash change hands, but this time it’s the Morena party that’s involved.

Two videos show President López Obrador’s brother receiving large amounts of cash from David León, a former Civil Protection chief who was recently named to run a state company that will distribute medical supplies.

In one video, Pío López Obrador receives a paper bag which, according to León, contains 1 million pesos (US $45,300 at today’s exchange rate). The transaction reportedly took place in 2015 in Pío López Obrador’s home in Chiapas.

León tells López Obrador that the cash is to support the “movement” – presumably the now-ruling Morena political party – in Chiapas.

The president’s brother was a political operator for Morena in the state at the time while León was a private consultant and an advisor to the state government.

Léon also tells Pío López Obrador to let his brother know that “we’re supporting” his campaign for the 2018 presidential election.

The two men also spoke about arrangements for the delivery of an additional 1 million pesos.

In a second video, León gives Pío López Obrador a large stuffed envelope during a meeting in a restaurant that also reportedly took place in 2015.

“Here I’m bringing you 400,” León says, presumably referring to a quantity of 400,000 pesos.

The appearance of the videos, presented Thursday by journalist Carlos Loret de Mola on his program on the news portal Latinus, comes just days after a video was posted to YouTube in which two former Senate officials linked to the National Action Party (PAN) are seen receiving 2.4 million pesos. The money is believed to have been used to pay bribes to lawmakers in exchange for their support of the previous federal government’s 2013-14 structural reforms.

The damning video could be presented as evidence in the corruption case against former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya, who claims that several PAN lawmakers were paid bribes by the previous government and that former president Enrique Peña Nieto and two of his predecessors, Felipe Calderón and Carlos Salinas, were involved in corruption related to deals with the Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht.

The López Obrador brothers and David León.

President López Obrador has described the Lozoya case as important because it will help shed light on the corruption committed by past government officials. However, the story also provides a welcome distraction for the president amid the coronavirus crisis and the accompanying economic downturn.

But a video of his brother receiving large sums of cash doesn’t look good for the corruption-fighting López Obrador.

Speaking at his morning news conference on Friday, he denied that the payments his brother received were corrupt but said the Attorney General’s Office should investigate them nevertheless.

López Obrador said the payments were “contributions to strengthen the [Morena] movement” and came from ordinary people who supported the party, which he founded in 2014. He said the funds were used for 2015 elections in Chiapas but when asked whether the campaign money was registered with authorities, the president said he didn’t know.

López Obrador rejected any suggestion that the money his brother received was in any way comparable to the Lozoya scandal currently embroiling a who’s who of Mexico’s political elite.

“Our adversaries seek to compare things, … this is quite normal … when a transformation is being carried out. … In this case of the video of my brother with David León there are obvious differences with relation to the other matters. … It’s not just the amount of money, which can’t be compared,” he said.

“In just one illicit operation that Mr. Lozoya is denouncing, they [Pemex under the former government] paid 200 million pesos for a junk [fertilizer] plant. In that case, … which has our adversaries very annoyed, it’s extortion without a doubt, it’s bribery, … it’s corruption,” López Obrador said.

“The aim [of the publication of the videos] is to damage the image of the government but they will not achieve it,” he added.

León, whom the president described as “one of the government’s best public servants” when announcing last month that he would be the director of a new state-run medical distribution company, responded on Twitter to the publication of the videos.

“From November 2013 to November 2018, I was a consultant not a public servant. My way of supporting the [Morena] movement was to collect resources among acquaintances for holding meetings and other activities,” he wrote.

León said he will not accept the nomination to head the new company until the matter of the videos has been clarified.

As of Friday morning, Pío López Obrador had not made any public comment about the videos.

Source: El Universal (sp), Reforma (sp)

Oaxaca is already famous for mezcal. Could corn whiskey be next?

By

MND Staff

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August 20, 2020

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Hernández and is native corn whiskey from Oaxaca.

It all started when a farmer in the Central Valleys region of Oaxaca tried to offload his surplus corn crop to a company CEO to whom he was already selling castor beans.

From that humble entrepreneurialism on the part of the farmer – and a gamble by the head of a castor oil company – an “ancestral” corn whiskey made out of native, Oaxaca-grown corn was born.

According to a report by the newspaper El Universal, when the farmer first tried to sell his excess corn along with his castor beans to Jonatan Hernández Díaz, CEO of RicinoMex, he got a negative response.

Undeterred, the same farmer tried his luck a year later. “Buy it! Do something with it, make mezcal,” the farmer reportedly urged Hernández in a jocular way.

The RicinoMex chief agreed to the purchase even though he had no idea at the time what he would do with the corn.

Deidades whiskey will go on sale in December.

First he thought of grinding it into flour but that idea was discarded because of an already crowded market and the investment in infrastructure that was required. What about corn chips? Again the investment required was deemed to be too high.

Hernández’s third idea was the one that stuck – he would move into the distilling business and make a 100% handcrafted corn whiskey.

Thus a new company – Deidades (Deities) – was formed. Hernández and his team began making whiskey 3 1/2 years ago with native corn purchased from about 80 indigenous small-plot farmers in the Central Valleys.

The first batch of 50,000 bottles will go on sale in December, possibly in international markets as well as in Mexico.

Hernández told El Universal that the vast majority of the farmers from whom RicinoMex buys castor beans also grow corn and therefore finding maize for the whiskey wasn’t difficult.

“Their corn is for their own consumption but sometimes they have a surplus,” he said, adding that most found it difficult to sell it at a fair price.

Now that Deidades is making whiskey, Deidades pays the farmers 8 pesos a kilo for their white, yellow, red, blue and black corn, double the price they can get from other buyers.

Hernández said he wants the price he pays to reflect the “value of the work carried out in the communities” where the corn is grown. He described the native corn species grown in Oaxaca as “something magnificent” and a treasure that must be shared with the rest of the world.

Making whiskey with it is an innovative way to do just that.

After malting and mashing the corn and completing the fermenting and distilling process, the end result – the native corn whiskey – is placed in French oak barrels for aging. Hernández explained that he is working with specialists to determine the optimal amount of time his product should be aged.

He said the aim is to have a product that proudly tells the story of native Mexican corn on imbibers’ taste buds and which they truly savor.

Oaxaca is already famous for its mezcal. Could Deidades’ “Whisky de maíz ancestral” be the next big thing?

Source: El Universal (sp)

Homegrown hero SuperSlim joins the fight against Covid-19

By

Jude Webber

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August 20, 2020

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López Obrador and Slim: an unlikely duo.

Mexico is locked in combat with an invisible enemy, whose menace is sweeping the globe. Spiderman, Superman, Batman and the Avengers are nowhere to be found. But one homegrown hero has stepped out of the shadows to fight: SuperSlim.

Carlos Slim, the famously unassuming telecoms mogul, has been hailed as a savior since his charitable foundation announced last week it would fund production of a promising AstraZeneca and University of Oxford Covid-19 vaccine as Mexico grapples with the world’s third-highest coronavirus death toll. Little wonder that a cartoonist in the national newspaper El Economista portrayed the 80-year-old magnate pulling open his shirt to reveal a Superman “S.”

For Mexico’s (and once the world’s) richest man, who prefers to think of charity as “social investment,” the move was in character. As he told his biographer, Diego Osorno: “Our concept focuses on achieving and resolving things, rather than giving. We don’t go around like Santa Claus.”

But for the cash-strapped government of leftist nationalist President López Obrador, the deal was a godsend as it struggles to tame a pandemic that has killed nearly 60,000 people.

The foundation, which Slim set up nearly 35 years ago, will stump up an unspecified sum to help produce 150 million to 250 million doses of the vaccine in Argentina and Mexico. López Obrador says that means a free, universal Covid-19 vaccine will be available in the first quarter next year — and volunteered to be the first to be inoculated.

It is not the first time Slim has ridden to López Obrador’s rescue. But a populist president who rails against Mexico’s neoliberal past, and a billionaire who made his fortune because of it, nonetheless make an unlikely duo. In fact the man-of-the-people president and the billionaire América Móvil boss go back a long way: López Obrador tapped Slim to help him spruce up the capital’s grungy historic center when he was mayor from 2000-05.

But as López Obrador barrelled towards his landslide presidential victory in 2018, Slim admitted to feeling queasy about the investment climate if he won and went ahead with a pledge to scrap the US $13-billion Norman Foster-designed Mexico City airport, which the magnate backed.

López Obrador did just that, straining the relationship between them, and only in the past year has there been a rapprochement. Last August, López Obrador fulsomely praised Slim for helping engineer a deal to settle a row over gas pipeline contracts he considered exorbitant.

The love-in continued, with Slim throwing his weight “100% behind” the president’s goals, including combating corruption and developing Mexico’s poor southeast through mega-projects. Indeed, a consortium led by Slim’s companies in May won a tender to build a section of the government’s flagship Maya train project and Slim has promised to invest $5 billion in infrastructure.

In February, when López Obrador summoned the business elite for a fundraising dinner at the National Palace, Slim was seated at his side. When López Obrador visited U.S. president Donald Trump at the White House in July, Slim joined the two leaders on the top table at a dinner with businesspeople.

Slim has graciously allowed López Obrador to bask in the credit for the vaccine program. But the president sometimes has a funny way of saying thanks: within days of the announcement, he called for an ethylene plant contract between loss-making state energy company Pemex and a consortium of Brazil’s Braskem and Mexico’s Idesa to be scrapped, or at least revised. Slim’s Inbursa bank is a major Idesa creditor.

The $5.2-billion plant was a landmark investment because of its size, but Pemex no longer has a glut of ethane — the raw material used in the plant — and is struggling to meet the terms of a contract the president considers unfavourable to the state company.

But he appears to be overlooking the fact that if Pemex fails to fulfil its contract, Braskem Idesa has an option to force it to repay all the investment plus return on capital. Pemex already has debts of $107 billion. Averting that disaster could be the next test for SuperSlim’s negotiating skills.

Mathematician predicts 100,000 Covid deaths by year’s end

By

MND Staff

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August 20, 2020

0

Mexico’s official Covid-19 death toll could exceed 100,000 by the end of the year and confirmed cases could total more than 1 million, according to a National Autonomous University (UNAM) mathematician.

Arturo Erdely told the newspaper Milenio that fatalities could go past six figures by the end of 2020 and case numbers could exceed seven figures if the pandemic wanes only slowly, as is currently occurring. If face masks are not made mandatory in the entire country, the numbers could be even higher, he said.

As of Wednesday, the official Covid-19 death toll was 58,841, an increase of 707 compared to Tuesday, and the accumulated case tally stood at 537,031, up 5,792.

Noting that some states have not yet reached the peak of their local epidemics, Erdely predicted that there will be 65,000 confirmed Covid-19 deaths by the beginning of September and 79,000 at the beginning of October. Fatalities will reach 88,000 at the start of November and 95,000 by December 1, he said.

“We could close the year with more than 100,000 deaths due to Covid-19,” Erdely said.

Active coronavirus cases as of Wednesday. milenio

According to official statistics, Erdely added, “confirmed cases are also trending downwards but very, very slowly.”

As a result, there will be sufficient time this year for “many more cases” to accumulate, he said. “At this pace, we could go past a million cases by the end of the year.”

As Mexico’s testing rate is low – only just over 9,000 people per 1 million inhabitants have been tested to date – and targeted at people with serious symptoms, the real number of citizens who have been infected has almost certainly already passed 1 million.

Estimating a fatality rate of 0.6 per 100 cases (Mexico’s rate is currently 10.9), one infectious disease specialist said in late July that Mexico’s real coronavirus case tally could be more than 7 million. Independent studies have also found that Covid-19 deaths have been grossly underreported in Mexico.

The UNAM mathematician stressed that his end-of-year predictions are for the government’s official numbers. With regard to face masks, Erdely said it was unfortunate that the federal government hasn’t “forcefully”promoted their use.

The government’s coronavirus point man, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, did wear a face mask at Wednesday night’s coronavirus press briefing and for the first time in almost six months of nightly appearances left it on for the entire hour-long conference.

He reiterated that new case numbers in Mexico are on the wane and thanked citizens for continuing to follow coronavirus mitigation measures and maintaining a “healthy distance” from each other.

The deputy minister called on people to remember that the coronavirus outbreak is still active despite the decrease in case numbers and urged them to not drop their guard.

The Health Ministry estimates that there are currently just over 40,000 active cases across Mexico with the largest current outbreaks in Mexico City, México state, Guanajuato, Nuevo León and Coahuila.

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