The Astoria will make its first cruise out of Puerto Peñasco on December 7.
Visitors to the Gulf of California will have a new, luxurious way of exploring this megadiverse region of Mexico later this year.
The 500-passenger boutique cruise ship Astoria, operated by Cruise & Maritime Voyages, will begin offering cruises in the area this December.
Six different voyages will begin and end in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, sailing to eight ports on both the Baja California peninsula and the Mexican mainland on 11-day cruises highlighting the natural and cultural sights and experiences that the region has to offer.
Home to almost a third of the planet’s marine mammal species, over 900 fish species — including great white and whale sharks — and over 170 species of sea birds, the Gulf of California is one of the richest and biodiverse bodies of water in the world.
It is so rich in marine life that Jacques Cousteau called it a “living aquarium,” and its natural beauty and cultural heritage inspired John Steinbeck to write the books The Log from the Sea of Cortez and The Pearl.
The British cruise company says the Astoria provides an intimate cruise experience, with a traditional walk-around promenade deck and classic profile. The maiden voyage takes place December 7.
The travel industry has been hoping for several years to see more cruise opportunities in the Gulf of California through the construction of a home port in Puerto Peñasco. But that project, now several years old, has been stalled by lack of funding.
Passengers will board the Astoria via tenders rather than the dock that is part of the home port plan.
Mexico City building that was home to the first printer in the Americas.
The Mexico City building that housed the first printing press in the Americas will reopen its doors to the public, the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) announced last week.
The First Print Shop in the Americas Cultural Center will be inaugurated on Wednesday with an exhibition of objects belonging to English-born artist and nationalized Mexican citizen Leonora Carrington.
The exhibition will display over 200 photographs, letters and other objects belonging to the artist, which were acquired by the university when it purchased her studio and house in 2017. Located in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, the studio will be opened as a museum in 2020.
The building that housed the first printer in the Americas had served as a cultural and continuing education center since 1994, but was closed last year for restoration work totaling 20 million pesos (US $1.03 million).
Center director Ivette Gómez Carrión explained in a press release that the work included restoring the facade, building an auditorium, installing an elevator, fitting out a rooftop terrace and improving the rooms for exhibitions and workshops.
“[The building] has the obligation to grow and get closer to the public, and we will work intensely to make that happen,” she said.
Gómez expressed gratitude for the collaboration of the federal and city governments in the restoration process of the colonial structure located next to the National Palace in Mexico City’s historic center.
Metropolitan Autonomous University media director Francisco Mata added that thanks to the rehabilitation of the building, the university can now “increase its cultural offerings and its presence in the cultural corridor of the historic center.”
The building was constructed in 1539 atop what was previously the Aztec temple to Tezcatlipoca, the god of darkness. The print shop was established by Juan Cromberger, a publisher based in Seville, and run by Italian printer Juan Pablos.
The building is also called the Casa de las Campanas (House of the Bells), for it was here that the bells in the nearby Mexico City cathedral were cast.
A federal official has come under fire after praising the courage of members of an urban guerrilla movement that murdered a Nuevo León businessman in 1973.
Pedro Agustín Salmerón Sanginés, general director of the National Institute of Historical Studies on the Mexican Revolution (INEHRM), described the “young people” who attempted to kidnap Eugenio Garza Sada but ended up killing him and his two bodyguards as “brave.”
The killers were members of the Liga Comunista 23 de Septiembre (September 23 Communist League).
In a post on the institute’s Facebook page, Salmerón said the attempted abduction of the 81-year-old Garza, the founder of the Tec. de Monterrey university and son of the founder of the Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma brewery, was “the result of the profound division that Mexican society experienced from the 1960s.”
The September 23 communist league emerged in the early 1970s and remained active until 1981. The radical left-wing group carried out a number of violent attacks and was labeled a terrorist organization by the Mexican government.
Monterrey Tec. founder and murder victim Garza.
Salmerón published his Facebook post on Tuesday but it wasn’t until Friday that it gained widespread notoriety.
The INEHRM director subsequently deleted his Facebook and Twitter accounts after a final post in which he said he rejected violence.
However, Salmerón added that the young people who killed Garza were led to violence because of their “condemnation and exclusion” by Mexican society.
Among those who condemned the original post were federal senators, the Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex) and the Business Coordinating Council (CCE), which called for Salmerón to make a public apology.
The CCE said in a statement that anyone who seeks to deprive a person of his freedom, plans a kidnapping in order to finance the purchase of weapons for illegal activities, “murders a good man” and seeks change through violence cannot be considered brave.
It is “incomprehensible that a public official, a representative of the Mexican government, praises violence as a form of expression,” the council said.
“It’s incomprehensible that an official, who is also a historian by profession, has become an apologist of violence, a defender of crime. Society today is very hurt and these expressions only deepen the wounds . . . An episode like this doesn’t just diminish the public image of a government committed to the pacification of the country but also fuels the climate of social violence that we’re living today.”
Coparmex chief Gustavo de Hoyos called on President López Obrador to fire the INEHRM director, stating it was “unacceptable” for him to describe Garza’s murderers as brave.
National Action Party (PAN) Senator Víctor Fuentes Solís also called for Salmerón’s dismissal, describing his comment as representative of an “ideology of hate” and an “insult” to a “hero of Nuevo León and his family.”
The Nuevo León lawmaker also said that the Facebook post was an “affront” to the residents of the northern state and that the PAN won’t accept it “under any circumstances.”
For her part, Lilly Téllez of the ruling Morena party called on Salmerón to resign.
She said the guerrillas of the September 23 Communist League were not brave but “cowards” and that the attempted kidnapping and murder of Garza was a “vile act of cowardice.”
Discoveries by Mexican and Spanish archaeologists have revealed the previously unknown extent of the pre-Columbian city of X’baatún in the state of Yucatán.
Spanish archaeologist Carmen Varela Torrecilla, professor at the Universidad Europea del Atlántico in Santander, told the news agency Efe that the excavations revealed an important Mayan city whose splendor lasted over a thousand years.
“With the recent excavations, we discovered new structures and ceramic fragments ranging from the period 500 to 300 B.C. to A.D. 900 to 1000,” she said.
Varela is working with Juan García Targa of the University of Barcelona and Alfonso Muñoz Cosme of the Madrid Polytechnic University, as well as researchers from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
“Doctor García Targa will come to Yucatán next October to continue the first and second phase of the plan,” she said. “We’ll do new excavations, and next January all of us will meet in X’baatún.”
Site of X’baatún, Yucatán.
The archaeologists believe that X’baatún, which is located in the Oxhuatz tourism park, was a satellite of the major Mayan city of Izamal.
“We want to return the X’baatún archaeological site to splendor,” said Varela. “We want the inhabitants of the municipality of Tekal de Venegas to feel pride and identity through eco-tourism.”
So far, the excavations have revealed a 37-foot-high pyramid, a ball court, a cenote and several other structures. According to Varela, the pyramid is relatively tall with a narrow base, which is not characteristic of pyramids found in other places.
The archaeologists also hope that the new discoveries will help the site get proper protection.
“The pre-Columbian treasure in the Oxhuatz park is being looted,” said Varela. “And there are other problems: cows from a nearby ranch come to drink water from the cenote, and they destroy the structures.”
Varela added that she is asking the government of Yucatán to provide better protection.
Mexico soccer authorities are taking action to stop a fans’ chant that has been causing international controversy and penalties for the national team for a few years.
The national soccer team has received 14 sanctions for fans calling out “Eh puto,” an offensive way of referring to a gay man, over the last several years, including a fine of 600,000 pesos (US $30,000) during the Copa América in 2016, and another when the chant was heard during Mexico’s surprise 1-0 victory against Germany in the 2018 World Cup.
The International Association of Association Football (FIFA) recently announced that in addition to fines there will be other penalties: the first time the chant is heard, the game will be stopped for five or 10 minutes; the second time, the players will be go to the locker rooms; and the third time, the game will continue but Mexican fans will not be allowed to attend the next local game.
The first game where the new rules will apply will be a qualifying match between Mexico and Panama at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on October 15.
Mexican Football Federation president Yon de Luisa said the FIFA penalties could get tougher in the future if Mexico fails to stop the chant, and could include bans on the national team playing in certain stadiums or even expulsion from tournaments.
De Luisa and Enrique Bonilla, president of the Liga Mx, announced a series of actions that Mexican football authorities will be taking to eradicate the chant.
First, they will attempt to raise awareness among fans about the penalties that could be imposed and remove fans who chant the phrase and try to prevent them from returning.
The Liga Mx will also apply the same non-monetary penalties as FIFA for games in the league. The new policy will be applied at matches starting on October 4.
Lorena's forecast track at 10:00am CDT on Saturday. us national hurricane center
Hurricane Lorena is dumping heavy rain on Baja California Sur but the twin cities of Los Cabos were spared a direct hit as the storm took an “erratic” northward path toward the coast of Sonora.
The Category 1 hurricane was 90 kilometers southeast of Loreto, Baja California Sur, and 270 kilometers south of Guaymas, Sonora, over the Gulf of California at 10:00am CDT on Saturday, the United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. The storm was moving northward at 19 kilometers per hour.
The center of Lorena is expected to continue moving over the Gulf of California today and approach the northwest coast of mainland Mexico late tonight or early Sunday.
A hurricane watch is in effect for Huatabampito, Sonora, to Puerto Libertad in the same state, while a hurricane warning between Bahia San Juan Bautista and San Evaristo on the eastern Baja California coast has been downgraded to a tropical storm warning.
Maximum sustained winds are about 120 kilometers per hour with higher gusts but a slight weakening of the hurricane is forecast before the center of the storm reaches the coast of Sonora.
Baja California Sur and Sonora are expected to get between seven and 15 centimeters of rain Saturday and Sunday, while five to 10 centimeters is forecast for northwestern Sinaloa. The NHC said the rainfall may result in life-threatening flash flooding.
Lorena made landfall on Friday near Cabo Pulmo, a cape about 100 kilometers northeast of Cabo San Lucas and 65 kilometers from San José del Cabo.
National Meteorological Service (SMN) chief Jorge Zavala said that Lorena’s “path has been extremely erratic and uncertain,” explaining that its trajectory changed from that which was forecast.
For days, forecasters had predicted that Lorena would make landfall in or very close to Los Cabos but the storm took a last-minute turn towards the east of the resort area.
More than 1,000 people took refuge in shelters in Los Cabos yesterday, while two shelters were opened in Loreto on Saturday, Baja California Sur Governor Carlos Mendoza Davis said. Authorities said that just under 200 people sought refuge in shelters in the state capital, La Paz.
Mendoza Davis said on Twitter on Saturday morning that no serious hurricane damage had been reported in either Los Cabos or La Paz and operations at airports in both locations had returned to normal.
The governor said that electricity will be restored to the communities of Los Planes and La Ribera later on Saturday and warned motorists to take care on the Los Planes highway as heavy rain caused a section of the road to collapse.
In Sonora, Civil Protection authorities have activated an orange alert indicating “high danger” for Hermosillo and municipalities in the south of the state while a yellow “moderate danger” warning is active for the northeast.
Climate change protesters in Mexico City on Friday.
Hundreds of people marched in Mexico on Friday demanding that Mexican and world governments take action on climate change.
The protesters were among millions who took part in a global day of action as part of the Global Climate Strikes and Fridays for Future. In Mexico City, students from major Mexico City public universities and members of several environmentalist organizations marched from the Angel of Independence to the zócalo.
Marchers carried signs with messages such as “There is no Planet B” and chanted “Se ve, se siente, la Tierra está caliente!” (“You can see it, you can feel it, the Earth his hot.”)
The protesters are demanding that world governments recognize that there is a climate emergency and make a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50%.
Students also marched in Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mérida and several other Mexican cities.
Organizers say that around four million people participated worldwide, making it the biggest climate change protest in history.
The movement is inspired by 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who last year began skipping school on Fridays to protest government inaction on climate change.
The students plan to stage another protest next Friday, September 27, as part of the Global Week for Future, which started last Friday and ends on the 27th. More environmentalist and scientific organizations are expected to participate.
Other actions being planned for Global Week for Future include World Car-Free Day on September 22. The week coincides with the United Nations Climate Action Summit, which will be held in New York from September 21 to 23.
Nationwide homicide numbers holding steady since the National Guard deployment June 30.
National homicide numbers remained unchanged between July and August but Guanajuato and Michoacán both saw significant increases in violence.
There were 3,054 victims of homicide and femicide in each of July and August, according to the National Public Security System (SNSP). The unchanged figures for the two months are 0.6% lower than the 3,074 homicides recorded in June.
All told, 23,724 people were murdered in the first eight months of the year, a 3.5% increase compared to the same period of 2018, which was the most violent year since the SNSP started recording comparable statistics in 1997.
While the spiraling homicide rate has been halted since the nationwide deployment of the National Guard on June 30, violence has not been contained uniformly across the country.
Between July and August, homicide numbers went down in 16 states but increased in 15. The murder rate was unchanged in Nuevo León.
Guanajuato and Michoacán recorded the largest increases in homicides from one month to the next.
The number of murder victims in both states increased by 22% in August compared to the previous month. In Guanajuato, 296 people lost their lives to violent crime in August compared to 242 in July, while in Michoacán the number of homicide victims increased to 202 from 165.
Jalisco, the home state of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organization, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, saw a 9% reduction in homicide numbers between July and August.
In per-capita terms, Colima was the most violent state in the country in August. The small Pacific coast state recorded 8.8 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants last month.
Baja California was the second most violent, recording a per-capita rate of 7.4, followed by Chihuahua, where there were 5.8 homicide victims per 100,000 residents. The national per-capita murder rate in August was 2.4.
SNSP statistics show that homicide is not the only high-impact crime that increased in the first eight months of the year.
The number of kidnappings rose 9% to 937 cases compared to 860 in the same period of 2018, while extortion increased 36% to 5,671 investigations between January and August.
The search for human remains in Jalisco has moved to Tala.
Police and forensic experts continue to uncover human remains at locations near Guadalajara, Jalisco.
On Thursday, after the search was widened near a site where 138 plastic bags of human remains had already been discovered, 17 bags of remains were found in a nearby area, in the municipality of Tala.
Jalisco Attorney General Gerardo Octavio Solís said his team of experts will go wherever the search dogs lead them, and will not stop until they have uncovered everything.
“We aren’t leaving until we have done a complete examination of this area,” he said of the search that began on September 3 in a field in Zapopan where his team has found 138 plastic bags of human remains in two mass graves.
Supported by municipal police and soldiers, the team extended the search radius to 200 meters from the secret grave in which 119 bags were found between September 3 and 11. They are believed to contain the remains of at least 40 people.
After resuming the search on Wednesday, experts from the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences found 19 more bags of human remains and clothing in a nearby ditch.
Solís said that expert reports have confirmed 29 bodies, of which 13 are complete and 16 are incomplete, and he believes that the number will grow to around 40 once the genetic test results have come back.
For now, Solís does not intend to involve the families of disappeared persons in the search due to security, despite requests from the families.
Blanca Trujillo, a prosecutor specializing in missing persons, said that of the 119 bags uncovered in the initial search, only five bodies have been identified by relatives, among them one woman.
She said that 27 mass graves have been found in Jalisco so far in 2019 with a total of 123 bodies, 28 of which have been identified.
Jalisco is one of the regions in the country with the highest presence of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
The cartel is now considered the most active criminal organization in Mexico, having risen above the Sinaloa Cartel, weakened after the fall of its leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
San Ángel is one of 21 Mexico City neighborhoods that were designated 'magical.'
The tourism commission of the Mexico City Congress will ask the city government to revive the capital’s “magical neighborhoods” tourism promotion program.
The program, which designated 21 barrios as magical, was created in 2011 but was never formally launched and its funding was discontinued in 2012.
Commission members argue that the program’s reactivation will create new jobs, stimulate the local economy and rehabilitate run-down urban spaces.
Commission president Ana Patricia Báez Guerrero explained that the magical neighborhoods program would complement the existing Turismo de Barrio (Neighborhood Tourism) scheme.
The latter was created by the current government in order to promote lesser known tourist attractions in Mexico City and develop new ones in less visited parts of the capital.
Báez said the two programs together would provide greater opportunities for all 16 Mexico City boroughs to promote their tourism offerings and attract more visitors.
The request will be directed to the Secretariat of Tourism, Báez explained, adding that the Congress is also seeking an update on the progress of the Turismo de Barrio scheme.
Among the 21 neighborhoods that were designated as magical in 2011 are San Ángel, Santa María la Ribera, Coyoacán, Roma-Condesa, Xochimilco, La Merced, Mixcoac and Mexico City’s home of Mariachi music, Plaza Garibaldi.
