Due to geography, Zacatecas becomes fentanyl nexus for 5 cartels

February 4, 2020

Surveillance camera catches an operation by Jalisco cartel suspects in Zacatecas in 2018. — Surveillance camera catches an operation by Jalisco cartel suspects in Nochistlán de Mejía, Zacatecas, in 2018.

Five drug cartels are involved in the trafficking of fentanyl and other illicit drugs in Zacatecas, according to the state public security secretary.

Ismael Camberos Hernández told the newspaper El Universal that the Gulf Cartel, the Northeast Cartel and Los Talibanes have long had a presence in Zacatecas, through which drugs pass en route from Pacific coast states such as Jalisco and Colima to Mexico’s northeast border with the United States.

Over the past year, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) have also become involved in the drug trade in Zacatecas, he said.

The former’s presence is strongest in the municipalities of Mazapil, Juan Aldama, Río Grande, Chalchihuites, Sombrerete and Fresnillo, Camberos said.

The CJNG’s involvement in the trafficking and transport of fentanyl and other narcotics is via a pact with the Gulf Cartel, the secretary said.

The direct and indirect entry of the two powerful cartels has not caused violence to increase – homicides declined 7.6% last year to 634 cases from 686 cases in 2018 – but kidnapping and extortion are both up, Camberos said.

For his part, Zacatecas Governor Alejandro Tello Cristerna declared that there will be no complacency from authorities in the face of the threat posed by the two groups, identified by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration as the two most dominant cartels in that country.

Tello said that he has spoken with the governors of both Jalisco and Sinaloa about what can be done at a regional level to combat the criminal organizations.

“There’s no complacency. . . [The cartels] are companies that are seeking to expand,” he said, adding that Zacatecas’ geography provided both blessings and curses.

“Unfortunately, it places us in a position of great vulnerability,” the governor said, because the state is on the way to the U.S., which is the largest drug consumption market in the world.

However, Tello expressed confidence that the deployment of 1,900 members of the National Guard will help to combat trafficking in Zacatecas.

There are two important federal highways that pass through the state en route to the border with the United States: federal highway 54 between Colima and Tamaulipas and highway 45, which runs to the border from central Mexico.

Fentanyl has been seized from vehicles traveling on the highways since 2018, according to federal authorities, but confiscations increased last year. Almost five kilograms of the synthetic opioid, whose demand in the United States has surged in recent years, was seized in August, while authorities confiscated just under a kilo of 97% pure fentanyl in October.

“What drives the cartels is money and as long as fentanyl yields large profits,” they will be involved in trafficking it, Camberos said.

The drug, considered up to 50 times more potent than heroin, is produced in Mexican states such as Jalisco and Durango with precursors imported from China and other Asian nations via Pacific coast ports including Manzanillo, Colima, and Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán.

Clandestine labs have also been found in Zacatecas municipalities near the state’s border with Jalisco.

Security specialist Ricardo Márquez Blas warned last year that Mexico was on track to become the largest producer of fentanyl in the world, predicting that the shipment of precursors to the country will only rise.

As a result, cartels will not only export more fentanyl to the United States but also begin to sell the drug domestically, especially in northern states, he said.

Source: El Universal (sp)

New cookbook taps a growing interest in Oaxaca’s richly varied cuisine

Rich Tenorio

February 3, 2020

Readers will find a recipe for Pollo Enchipotlado in the new cookbook. — Readers will find a recipe for Pollo Enchipotlado in Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico. Quentin Baker

From moles to nopales, a new cookbook introduces readers to the regional cuisine of Oaxaca in its many varieties: Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico by Bricia Lopez.

Lopez’s Oaxacan immigrant parents established the Guelaguetza restaurant in Los Angeles 25 years ago. She sees the current moment as opportune to broaden awareness in the United States of regional Mexican food, including that of her family’s home state.

“Oaxaca has such a great variety of foods and recipes,” Lopez told Mexico News Daily in a phone interview. “You can live there a year and eat something different every single day.” And in this southeastern Mexican state, “there are no rules (about) what you can have for lunch or dinner.”

Lopez worked on the book with Javier Cabral for about a year. Recently released by Abrams Books, it comes out as Guelaguetza celebrates the quarter-century mark.

“It’s a combination of my mother’s and father’s stories coming to the U.S., the ups and downs of business, the trajectory of an immigrant family,” she said.

In the introduction, Lopez notes that the word guelaguetza comes from the indigenous Zapotec spoken throughout her home state and “embodies one of the core values of Oaxacan culture: to always share what you have with others no matter how much or how little you may have.”

She described her family’s restaurant as consistently sharing many features of Oaxaca in LA. “It’s the first restaurant that really focused on Oaxacan cuisine, culture, art and music,” she said of the popular eatery created by her parents, Fernando Lopez and Maria de Jesus Monterrubio.

“It’s already been two generations now of people coming in … It’s grown awareness of Mexican foods (and the) different regions that Mexico has to offer,” including “other states, not just Oaxaca.”

The book notes that the late food writer Jonathan Gold called Guelaguetza “the best Oaxacan restaurant in the country.”

“Jonathan Gold had not just [an influence on] Oaxacan cuisine, but I think LA cuisine, immigrant cuisine in LA,” Lopez said. “He had a deep sense and commitment to the communities growing in LA. He was the first journalist to not just write about, but show an interest in our culture.”

Famous for being the self-described land of seven moles, Oaxaca is also a renowned hub of mezcal, and readers will discover plenty of recipes for both.

“I think as far as complex [recipes in the book], I always lean toward the mole,” Lopez said. “The ingredients are complex in flavor, not as much in the process.”

She added that the six mole recipes in the book are “common knowledge in Oaxaca.”

Mezcal, meanwhile, is the “drink of choice at the restaurant,” she noted.

“Before tequila, there was mezcal,” she said of the centuries-old spirit distilled from the agave plant. “It’s the essence of Oaxacan culture. It’s not the national spirit, but definitely the state spirit.”

She noted that 80% of mezcal today is made in Oaxaca.

But as Lopez writes in the book’s introduction, Oaxaca goes well beyond mole and mezcal: “The corn, the chiles, the herbs and spices, and the chocolate that form the foundation of the food here establish this beautiful state as the culinary heart and soul of the Mexican nation.”

She said the book includes “a section that’s just on salsa, which is easy to make.” In particular she mentioned her chileajo, calling it one of the simpler recipes in the book — “vegetables tossed in guajillo sauce,” with aguas frescas (fresh fruit beverages) and salsas.

Still other recipes shed light on dishes that may be less familiar to readers in the U.S., with ingredients such as nopales and even grasshoppers.

You can have nopales for breakfast (eggs with nopalitos), or with mole (white bean yellow mole with nopal and dried shrimp). Other possibilities are the chicken in salsa verde with potatoes and nopales and the nopalito salad with guajillo chilies.

“I think in LA, ingredients like [that] are easy to find,” Lopez said of the prickly pear. “Nowadays as [part of] a Mexican cultural and culinary scene, you really just expect [to find them] throughout the country. They’re tender. You can cure or boil them. They’re a very hardy [source] of fiber and delicious.”

The book also includes two recipes for grasshoppers, or chapulines: chapulín and chicharrón (pork rind) tacos and chapulín salsa.

“Grasshoppers are very popular in Oaxaca,” Lopez said. “They are obviously a wild insect that has one of the highest concentrations of protein, a very sustainable source” and “a little bit acidic in texture.”

They’re also available at “any Oaxacan market in LA,” she added, calling chapulines “part of a Oaxacan culture. I don’t think they’re weird at all.”

Lopez also hopes her book will dispel what she described as the racist notion that Mexican food is cheap. She said she hopes people start “paying attention to all the labor, all the ingredients” involved in its preparation.

Mexican food is at a crossroads in the U.S., she said, not unlike where Italian food used to be. As she explained, there is a rise in Mexican restaurants in the U.S., as well as more young chefs interested in Mexican cuisine.

“I think people are more open,” she said, adding that people are increasingly “able to pay homage — and dollars — to Mexican food.”

She hopes that her book will help in this regard.

“I think it really is a story that anyone from an immigrant family can relate to,” Lopez said, “how we put our family stories first, and complement it with recipes we grew up eating.”

Walls closing in on El Marro, Guanajuato cartel capo

MND Staff

February 3, 2020

The noose appears to be growing tighter around the neck of José Antonio Yépez Ortiz after the recent arrest of the Guanajuato crime boss’ wife and the murder of his sister at her own wedding.

Karina Mora, wife of the leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima fuel theft and extortion cartel, and three other suspected members of the criminal organization were detained in Celaya on January 29.

Two and a half weeks before Mora’s arrest, the sister of “El Marro,” as Yépez is commonly known, was shot dead during her wedding ceremony at a church in the Guanajuato community of Pelavacas.

Karem Elizabeth Yépez Ortiz’s husband-to-be, an alleged Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel member known as “El Calamardo,” was also killed and four other people were wounded.

According to El Blog del Narco, which reports on organized crime, Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) gunmen took the decision to attack the church on January 11 after they became aware that El Marro would be in attendance at his sister’s wedding.

However, Yépez left the church before the sicarios arrived, the news website La Silla Rota reported.

His sister was allegedly in charge of criminal operations in Celaya, which is considered one of the most lucrative hunting grounds for the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel.

The gang has been engaged in a bloody turf war with the CJNG in Guanajuato in recent years, turning the state into Mexico’s most violent.

Guanajuato authorities say that the conflict has weakened the Santa Rosa cartel, and state security commissioner Sophia Huett López claimed in October that security forces were closing in on Yépez and that his capture was only a “matter of time.”

However, one of the main barriers to his arrest is that he has protection from state authorities in Guanajuato, the news website Infobae reported, stating that Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa has been accused on several occasions of allowing Yépez to evade capture.

The federal government launched an operation to capture the crime boss early last year but while luxury homes linked to the cartel were seized and scores of its members were arrested, El Marro himself escaped, allegedly via tunnels that connected different properties in the town of Santa Rosa de Lima.

The operation came after a narco-banner appeared in Salamanca on January 31, 2019, warning President López Obrador to remove security forces from Guanajuato or innocent people would die.

The narcomanta read in part: “I’ve left you a little gift in my refinery so that you see how things are going to get if you don’t release my people who have been taken . . . Face up to the consequences. Yours sincerely, El Señor Marro.”

The “little gift” presumably referred to explosive devices that were left in a vehicle outside the Salamanca refinery. Soldiers from the anti-bomb squad removed the devices before they detonated.

Operations against the cartel that continued throughout last year took more than 90 people into custody including 10 men who were arrested in San Miguel de Allende in October.

The federal government’s Financial Intelligence Unit has also blocked access to 35.5 million pesos (US $1.9 million) in bank accounts held by Yépez or people linked to him.

Federal and state authorities said in July that El Marro had no resources to fund his criminal activities, undermining his capacity to bribe authorities, pay other gang members and buy the loyalty of people in different parts of the state.

Yet he has still been able to avoid capture. Now, however, with his wife in custody and his sister dead, there is a growing sense that Yépez too will fall.

The authorities and the Santa Rosa de Lima’s bitter rival, the CJNG, are both in contention to deliver a final blow to El Marro, who was previously arrested in 2008 on organized crime charges but released due to a violation of due process.

Capture by the former would spell the end of his criminal career, while his location by the Jalisco Cartel, considered Mexico’s most dangerous and powerful criminal organization, would likely precede a violent end to his life.

Source: Infobae (sp)

Mexico’s pineapples: sublimely sweet and recipe ready

Janet Blaser

February 3, 2020

Pineapple and chicken are great together on kabobs.

For a while I lived along the coast in Nayarit, in a tiny pueblo of a few thousand people surrounded by literal jungle. That part of the state is an amazingly lush, tropical area and the climate makes it possible for an abundance of fruits to be cultivated: watermelon, mamey, pineapples, all kinds of citrus, the strange yaca (jackfruit), bananas, coconuts, soursop (guanábana), avocados. Moringa trees grow everywhere.

I learned to love the small, sweet “Honey Pineapples” — piña de miel — that grew in fields that stretched in every direction. This past week I was thrilled to see piles of them in the market here in Mazatlán: the season has begun!

Mexico is one of the top pineapple producers in the world, and Honey Pineapples are some of the sweetest, registering at 28 on the Brix scale of measurable sugar (as opposed to the common pineapple’s score of 19). They have a sweet, floral fragrance that’s hard to resist, and taste just like they smell – delicious!

Turns out pineapples have been revered throughout history. In Mexico, the Maya cultivated pineapples for hundreds of years, recognizing their natural anti-inflammatory properties for use in poultices and as a digestive aid. Culinary historians say the first European to taste one was Colombus, who recorded his delectable experience in 1493 after landing in the Caribbean.

In 1516, King Ferdinand of Spain said it was “the best thing he had ever tasted,” and in the 16^th century the Spanish royal family’s steward wrote, “The pineapple appeals to every sense but that of hearing.” Exotic, expensive and hard to come by, it became a status symbol of wealth and privilege.

Honey pineapples are among the sweetest. — Honey Pineapples are among the sweetest.

Pineapples are picked green and ripen as the starch in the leaves turns to sugar and spreads downward through the fruit, resulting in the trademark yellowish “glow” and sweet aroma.

They ripen easily at room temperature, and ideally should be eaten immediately. If you buy a pineapple already ripe, be prepared to eat it right away, especially if it’s been sitting out in a tienda or open-air stand. Depending on the degree of ripeness, they may last a day or two in the refrigerator.

Besides the classic piña colada and its valuable addition to fruit salad, fresh pineapple lends its tantalizing sweetness to all sorts of recipes. And baking or broiling – with ham, pork chops or by itself for a simple dessert with vanilla ice cream – brings out a rich, caramel flavor.

Agua de Piña, Pepino y Apio / Pineapple, Cucumber & Celery Drink

2 cups chunked pineapple
1 cup peeled and chunked cucumber
1 cup diced celery
2 Tbsp. lime juice
Sugar to taste
Optional: fresh mint or basil leaves

Put the pineapple, cucumber, celery, fresh herbs if using, and 2 cups of water in a blender. Blend well. Pour the liquid through a sieve to strain out the pulp, then pour into a large pitcher. Add 6 cups of water, the lime juice, and sugar. Mix well. Serve cold. Makes 2 quarts. – Mexconnect.com

Pineapple water with cucumber and celery.

Simple Pineapple Salsa

2 cups diced fresh pineapple
1 cup diced red pepper
½ cup chopped cilantro
¼ cup finely chopped red onion
3 Tbsp. minced jalapeno pepper, or to taste (stemmed and seeded)
Juice of 1 large lime
Pinch salt

Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate until serving.

Chicken Pineapple Kabobs

These kabobs can be grilled or baked.

3 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
3 Tbsp. brown sugar (or grated piloncillo)
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
1 Tbsp. minced fresh ginger
1 Tbsp. minced fresh garlic
1 pineapple, cut into chunks
2 red or green bell peppers, cut into chunks
2 red or white onions, cut into eighths
15 cherry tomatoes or 4 tomatoes, cut into wedges
Approximately 6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 2-inch pieces (about 1 lb.)
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/3 cup water
Bamboo skewers

In a shallow glass bowl, mix the soy sauce, brown sugar, rice vinegar, sesame oil, ginger and garlic. Separate into 2 bowls and marinate the chicken and pineapple separately, in the refrigerator, for 1 hour.

Discard chicken marinade. Remove pineapple from marinade; save liquid. To make basting sauce, use reserved pineapple marinade and add 1/3 cup water and cornstarch. Heat over low heat on stove, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 5 minutes; use to baste skewers as they cook.

Thread chicken, pineapple, peppers, tomatoes and onion alternately onto skewers. Bake in preheated 350-degree oven for about 20 minutes on foil-covered cookie sheet, turning once or twice and basting near end of cook time. Or preheat grill to medium-high and lightly oil grate. Grill 15 to 20 minutes, turning occasionally, or until chicken juices run clear. Baste during the last few minutes. Makes about 8 skewers, depending on size.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

1-1/3 cups flour
¾ cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
¼ cup oil
½ cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
¼ cup unsalted butter
½ cup packed light brown sugar or grated piloncillo
7 slices fresh pineapple (about ¼ inch thick)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Whisk together flour, white sugar, baking powder and salt. Add oil and milk and beat with a mixer on medium until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Melt butter in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add brown sugar and cook, stirring, until moistened. (If you don’t have a cast-iron pan, use a non-stick skillet to melt butter and cook brown sugar as directed, then transfer to a 9-inch cake pan for remainder of recipe.) Remove from heat; arrange pineapple on top. Pour batter evenly and carefully over top and smooth with a spatula. Bake until knife inserted in center comes out clean, 45-50 minutes. Let cool in pan 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of cake and carefully invert onto a platter. – Martha Stewart

Janet Blaser of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life and feels fortunate to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Her work has appeared in numerous travel and expat publications as well as newspapers and magazines. Her first book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, is available on Amazon. Contact Janet or read her blog at whyweleftamerica.com.

Cutting-edge virtual reality facilities a highlight of new science museum

Cody Copeland

February 3, 2020

Materia Museum: bringing science to the people.

The Sinaloa Science Center in Culiacán has inaugurated a new museum that houses state-of-the-art virtual reality facilities and combines art and technology to bring cutting edge scientific concepts to light in new and engaging ways.

Materia Museum director Luis León said that the goals of the museum are to “bring science [to people] in a way that is easier to understand, use new languages that enable us to have a better impact on new generations … and dare to take on themes not dealt with by other museums.”

Materia is just one of two museums in the world (the other being in Austria) to house 8k augmented reality technology. The “Black Cube” exhibition takes visitors on high-tech virtual journeys to explain scientific, social and artistic trends and concepts.

The museum also hosts temporary exhibitions featuring the work of internationally renowned artists. The first guest artist is Dutch sculptor Theo Jansen, who fuses art and engineering to animate animal skeletons that “walk” using the force of the wind.

The exhibit titled “The Beautiful Creatures of Theo Jansen” compiles 15 of his emblematic pieces to dazzle the first round of visitors for the revamped museum’s opening season.

The remodeled Materia Museum in Culiacán.

Other current exhibits include “Under the Moon,” from sculptor Miquel Navarro, “Printing the Future,” “Parasitic” and “Chijikinkutsu.”

With the intent to be in constant flux, Materia administrators formed alliances with 14 international institutions to exchange exhibitions, programs and content.

The partnered institutions include the Miraikan Museum in Japan, the Science Museum in London, the Kathleen McLean Exploratorium in the United States, the Museum of Tomorrow in Brazil, the Pompidou Center in France and the Center of Complexity Sciences at the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM).

The theme for the next season is “Superbugs,” which will deal with mutated bacterial diseases that are not responding to antibiotic medications.

The museum was built with a 200-million-peso (US $10.6-million) investment from both the public and private sectors, as well as input from 2,000 Culiacán residents.

“We sat down with them and asked them what they wanted in the new museum, what they thought about the subject of art mixed with science, what they thought about women in engineering … and we took all that into account,” said head curator Ricardo Rubiales.

The Sinaloa Science Center was designed and built in 1992 by Alberto Kalach, the renowned architect who is known for creating the Vasconcelos Library in Mexico City.

Tickets for the newly remodeled Materia Museum are being sold at a discounted price of 55 pesos (free for students) until April. After that, general admission will cost 120 pesos.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Jailed ex-governor, wife divorce after charges of fraud, embezzlement

Cody Copeland

February 3, 2020

duarte and macias — When love was young.

After 20 years of marriage, the jailed ex-governor of Veracruz, Javier Duarte, and Karime Macías Tubilla have finalized their divorce — giving her a tidy alimony payment every month.

Currently fighting extradition in England, Macías filed for divorce in May of last year. She is wanted in Veracruz for her alleged participation in a 112-million-peso (US $5.9-milion) embezzlement scheme.

Duarte is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence for money laundering and links to organized crime. He conceded custody of their three children to Macías, who is living in the exclusive Chelsea neighborhood in London after being released on bail in October.

He also committed to a monthly alimony payment of 180,000 pesos (US $9,600), which will be guaranteed by a mortgage on a property in Veracruz for 2.16 million pesos, corresponding to one year of the provision. Duarte acquired the property before the two were married.

In addition to the charges of fraud brought by the Veracruz Attorney General’s Office for which Macías faces extradition, the government’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) has filed new charges against her for the embezzlement of 228 million pesos.

She is accused of having diverted funds from the Veracruz family services agency (DIF) to as many as 26 shell companies during her husband’s term as governor.

Duarte was arrested in Guatemala in April 2017 and extradited to Mexico three months later.

He and Macías allegedly built a multi-million-dollar real estate empire made up of over 90 properties in Mexico, the United States and Spain.

Macías will appear before a judge in London in November to hear a ruling on her extradition case.

Sources: Milenio (sp), Debate (sp)

Warm reception for AMLO in Campeche overshadows muted dissent

Jack Gooderidge

February 3, 2020

AMLO gets a hero's welcome in Campeche. jack gooderidge

On Saturday, in just one of many similar appearances we can expect in the coming months, President López Obrador took the stage in Campeche’s capital, one of the cities due to be affected by his pre-emptive legacy project, the Maya Train.

Although he is a universally popular president across Mexico at a time when disdain and even disgust toward the political class in Latin America is at an all-time high, a question mark hung over his visit to Campeche, a state and city split by the implications of a revolutionary train network unifying the southeastern communities.

He needn’t have worried. A 20-meter walk to the stage from the motorcade took the same number of minutes, punctuated by praise-singing loyalists eager to meet his eye and shake his hand.

Amid the extensive jubilation you may be forgiven for walking away believing that AMLO’s train project lacks the contention needed to justify a presidential tour of the Yucatán. Banners declaring “Campeche with AMLO,” “Yes to the Maya Train” and “We are with you” may just about manage to obscure the groups beyond the awning — groups with concerns that aren’t as lyrical as those of the yay-sayers or perhaps just too long to fit on their banners.

The Maya Train, a project devised by Mexico’s leftist, pragmatic and socially minded president as a way of unifying the Yucatán, leveraging coastal tourism inland and connecting communities across the region, may not be as one-nation as we are led to believe.

Tensions forged in the ever-growing milieu of emotion have been heard and dismissed just as quickly as they’ve been voiced. Indigenous communities, most recently those from Calakmul and Xpujil, have been speaking against what they see as a wedge being driven through their semi-autonomous, traditionally maintained towns and villages. Fonatur (the National Tourism Promotion Fund) brushed off that claim as “not indigenous communities complaining but just a small group of people that are trying to oppose the project.”

The same is true of those protesting in the shadow of the project’s ecological impact. Researchers, standing on the shoulders of conservationists, agricultural workers, and residents of Mexico’s vast jungles, have claimed the Maya Train will be an “environmental crime.” That accusation was seemingly considered through a number of consultations throughout December in the Yucatán, but when images of construction were concurrently leaked it became hard for residents to see them as anything other than coy rhetoric.

This could be considered the most problematic aspect of the project. Whether the train will devastate the region ecologically or not, whether communities will be displaced, whether tourism will benefit or shake the inland towns, all will become moot if residents of the Yucatán doubt that the conversation is being had in anything other than a meaningful way.

Two “referendums” in tandem with his astronomical polling averages have been AMLO’s mandate and his springboard but both have been plagued with controversy over legitimacy and breadth. In the new year, for AMLO to be able to endorse the Maya Train with a clear and open conscience he’ll have to create a dialogue that not only debates the hard truths of his infrastructural reform, but convinces the people it affects that the conclusion is not already carved in stone.

It’s hard to know whether or not this divide could widen into a serious social conflict but the tension is born from a dynamic we know all too well from the history books.

The imposition of developmental initiatives into otherwise remote areas is, more often than not, a decision taken lopsidedly by those it doesn’t stand to affect, and as long as scenes like those in Campeche continue, it seems unlikely that the dissenters will be able to raise their voice to meet the cheering crowd.

Jack Gooderidge writes from Campeche.

Climate change cited as hotter, wetter weather forecast for 2020

MND Staff

February 3, 2020

sunny weather — While the north cools off, the heat in central and southern Mexico will be intense this week. (File photo)

Temperatures will be higher than average in Mexico this year and more rain will fall than in 2019, according to the head of the National Meteorological Service (SMN).

Jorge Zavala told the news agency EFE that the SMN is forecasting hotter than average weather not just this year but over the entire decade.

“We’ll have temperatures similar to those we had in the past decade,” he said.

The last six years were the six hottest on record in Mexico and climate change is to blame, according to Zavala.

After highlighting that 2019 was the second hottest year since 1953, with an average nationwide temperature of 22.4 C, the SMN chief predicted that climate change will also push temperatures above average this year.

The hotter weather will likely cause damage to some crops and harm some wildlife species, Zavala said.

Without providing a specific prediction about how much wetter this year will be compared to 2019, the meteorologist said that rainfall will increase in 2020. Rain is sorely needed in many parts of Mexico that are currently affected by drought after precipitation declined last year.

February is forecast to be drier than previous years, but higher than average rainfall is predicted for March.

More fires and floods can be expected this year as a result of the hotter and wetter weather, Zavala said.

“A fire needs favorable conditions to spread and they include very high temperatures. . .” he said.

“We’re now facing new climatic conditions in which the temperatures are higher than before and they’re not expected to go down,” the meteorologist added.

Source: EFE (sp)

Ignoring pledge to animal advocates, Puebla announces bullfighting arena

Cody Copeland

February 3, 2020

Despite having made a campaign commitment to respect the rights of animals, Puebla Governor Miguel Barbosa has announced the construction of a new bullfighting arena and cockfighting ring in the capital city.

“In a few weeks the secretary of tourism is going to present the plan for the Puebla State Fair, with the lineup for the bullfights, the lineup for the cockfights, a community theater [and] folk art,” he said.

He emphasized that the fair will be “grand, not the dinky thing it has become.”

And part of that return to greatness will be the construction of new facilities for events Barbosa had previously pledged would not occur during his administration.

“Immediately afterwards we’re going to begin construction on the foundations for the Plaza de Toros [bullfighting arena] and a palenque [cockfighting ring],” adding that it wouldn’t be like “the jury-rigged version it is today. Puebla deserves better than a bullfighting arena made of boards and sticks.”

During his 2018 campaign for governor, Barbosa, of the Morena party, signed a document promising to honor seven proposals by animal rights activists including one to “restrict violent events involving animals.”

He lost that bid to National Action Party (PAN) candidate Marta Erika Alonso in a highly contested election for which suspected irregularities had triggered a recount.

However, Barbosa ended up winning a special election held after Alonso and her husband were killed in a helicopter crash two weeks after she took office.

In response to his announcement, animal rights activists created a petition campaign on Change.org to put a stop to the construction of the bullfighting arena.

The petition had 2,336 signatures as of Monday afternoon.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Narco killings at ‘epidemic proportions’ in Mexico: DEA

MND Staff

February 3, 2020

Drug-related murders in Mexico are at “epidemic proportions,” the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says in a new report.

In its National Drug Threat Assessment 2019 report, the DEA said that while narco killings “continue to reach epidemic proportions. . .there is little spillover violence in the United States” because U.S.-based members of Mexican drug cartels “generally refrain from inter-cartel violence to avoid law enforcement detection and scrutiny.”

However, acts of violence related to Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) do occur in parts of the United States, particularly along the southwest border, the federal agency said.

The DEA said that Mexican TCOs remain the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States, asserting that no other groups are currently positioned to challenge them.

Formerly headed by convicted trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Sinaloa Cartel maintains “the most expansive footprint” in the United States, while the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has become the second most dominant Mexican cartel over the past few years, the report said.

Among the six Mexican TCOs identified by the DEA as having the greatest drug trafficking impact on the United States are also the Beltrán Leyva organization, the Juárez Cartel, the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas.

“Mexican TCOs continue to control lucrative smuggling corridors, primarily across the southwest border,” the DEA said, explaining that they move drugs into the United States in hidden compartments in cars and trucks, via subterranean tunnels, on freight trains and passenger buses and by using “mules” who cross into remote parts of the U.S.

To a lesser extent, cartels also use maritime vessels, ultralight aircraft and drones to get narcotics into the country, the agency said.

“. . . [Mexican cartels] continue to expand their criminal influence by engaging in business alliances with other TCOs, including independent TCOs, and work in conjunction with transnational gangs, U.S.-based street gangs, prison gangs, and Asian money laundering organizations,” the report said.

“Mexican TCOs export significant quantities of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, and fentanyl into the United States annually. . .[They] maintain drug distribution cells in designated cities across the United States that either report directly to TCO leaders in Mexico or indirectly through intermediaries.”

The DEA said that the criminal activity of Mexican cartels in the United States is mainly overseen by Mexican nationals or U.S. citizens of Mexican origin.

“U.S.-based TCO members of Mexican nationality enter the United States legally and illegally and often seek to conceal themselves within densely populated Mexican-American communities. Mexican TCO members operating in the United States can be traced back to leading cartel figures in Mexico, often through familial ties,” the report said.

The DEA said that the Sinaloa Cartel, now led by El Chapo’s sons in an alliance with veteran trafficker Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, has distribution hubs in U.S. cities that include Phoenix, Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta and Chicago, while the CJNG is “one of the most powerful and fastest growing cartels” in both Mexico and the United States.

Headed by Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, who has a US $10 million price on his head, the CJNG smuggles illicit drugs into the United States by accessing various trafficking corridors along the southwest border including Tijuana, Juárez, and Nuevo Laredo,” the DEA said.

“CJNG’s rapid expansion of its drug trafficking activities is characterized by the willingness to engage in violent confrontations with Mexican government security forces and rival cartels. Like most major Mexican TCOs, CJNG is a poly-drug trafficking group, manufacturing and/or distributing large amounts of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl. CJNG reportedly has presence in at least 24 of 32 Mexican states,” the report said.

Noting that all of the Beltrán Leyva brothers have been killed, the DEA said that splinter groups and remnants of their organization continue to operate in various parts of Mexico, including the states of Guerrero, Morelos, Nayarit and Sinaloa.

The two most prominent splinter groups, Los Rojos and Los Guerreros Unidos, operate independently “due in part to their role in the heroin trade,” the report said. Beltrán Leyva-affiliated splinter groups rely on “loose alliances” with the CJNG, the Juárez Cartel and Los Zetas for access to smuggling routes, the DEA said.

The federal agency said that the Juárez Cartel continues to influence drug consumer markets in El Paso, Denver, Chicago and Oklahoma City, while the Gulf Cartel holds key distribution hubs in Houston and Detroit.

Formed as an independent cartel in 2010 after breaking away from the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas has lost significant influence in recent years due to “pressure from rival cartels, Mexican law enforcement, and internal conflicts,” the DEA said.

However, its members continue to “traffic methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine, and heroin through key distribution hubs in Laredo, Dallas, and New Orleans.”

Mexico News Daily

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