15 dead in clash between suspected gangsters, military in Guerrero

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October 16, 2019

Soldiers at the scene of Tuesday's attack in Guerrero.

A soldier was among 15 people killed in a gunfight between the army and suspected gangsters just outside the city of Iguala, Guerrero, on Tuesday, the second mass killing in Mexico in as many days.

State security spokesman Roberto Álvarez Heredia said in a statement that the confrontation occurred in Tepochica, a community about five kilometers from Iguala.

A call to the 911 emergency number at about 5:30pm alerted authorities to the presence of armed men in the community, triggering a deployment by soldiers. They were attacked upon their arrival.

The military personnel returned fire and killed 14 armed men, but one soldier was killed during the clash and another was wounded.

After the shootout, the army seized several military-grade weapons and three stolen pickup trucks in which the armed men were traveling.

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Photos showed some of the slain men slumped in the back of a pickup truck and two others in the back seat of a vehicle, one with a long gun lying across his body.

Security forces carried out a land and air-based operation in and around Iguala following the confrontation. Guerrero Attorney General Jorge Zuriel de los Santos Barilla traveled to Tepochica to oversee the police investigation and the removal of bodies.

The newspaper El Universal reported that the area is believed to be protected by members the Guerreros Unidos, a crime gang which allegedly killed the 43 students who disappeared in Iguala in September 2014.

On Tuesday morning, residents of Iguala awoke to images of suspected Guerreros Unido leader Pedro Flores Millán plastered across the city, El Universal said.

According to government sources, the gang is currently engaged in a turf war in the north of Guerrero with the La Familia Michoacana cartel.

Guerrero, a major producer of opium poppies and a trafficking corridor for both heroin and marijuana, is one of the most violent states in Mexico. Several other criminal groups, including Los Rojos, Los Ardillos and Los Granados, also operate there.

Yesterday’s confrontation came a day after 13 state police officers were killed in an ambush in Michoacán allegedly committed by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

President López Obrador told reporters on Tuesday that the incident was “very regrettable” but reiterated his government’s commitment to addressing the root causes of violence.

“I’m optimistic we’ll secure peace . . . We’re completely dedicated to this issue,” he said before blaming past governments for allowing violence to grow.

At his regular news conference on Wednesday morning, the president said the clash in Guerrero was also “very regrettable,” adding that “the relevant authority will have to carry out an investigation” and “we don’t want violence.”

The confrontation is the first major gun battle between the army and gangsters since López Obrador took office last December.

The president says that his government is committed to achieving peace without resorting to authoritarianism or the use of force, telling reporters on Monday “you can’t fight fire with fire . . . you have to fight evil by doing good.”

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

Pressure mounts for longtime Pemex union boss to quit

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MND Staff

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October 15, 2019

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López Obrador, left and union boss Romero.

President López Obrador said on Tuesday that the longtime boss of the Pemex workers’ union should quit to face the corruption charges filed against him.

The Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) opened an investigation into Carlos Romero Deschamps in July after the Finance Secretariat’s Financial Intelligence Unit filed criminal complaints against the union boss and members of his family for money laundering and illegal enrichment.

A group of state oil company employees has also presented evidence to federal authorities to substantiate accusations that Romero embezzled wealth that rightfully belongs to union members.

After suggesting that the union chief should step down from the position he has held since 1993, López Obrador told reporters that his government would not seek to intervene in the Pemex union’s affairs.

“We’re not going to get involved . . . installing a replacement [leader] is a significant change, the union has to resolve that . . .” he said.

Time may be running out for union boss Romero.

The president said that it is not the role of the government to attempt to negotiate Romero’s departure from the union.

“. . . We can’t act in that way,” López Obrador said, adding that “if he wants to leave the position to face up to his [legal] matter” as Supreme Court Judge Eduardo Medina Mora chose to do earlier this month, that’s a decision for him.

“. . . He will resolve this matter, we’re not going to remove a leader in order to install another . . .” he said.

The newspaper Reforma reported on Tuesday that Romero, who has also served as a federal lawmaker with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), is indeed preparing to leave the position he has held for the past 26 years. Sources close to the union leader said that a resignation announcement would be made in the coming days.

However, some federal senators said they won’t be satisfied until Romero – named by Forbes magazine in 2013 as one of the 10 most corrupt politicians in Mexico – is locked up in prison.

“It’s not enough for him [just] to resign, he has to face justice. With all the evidence that he robbed the union and Pemex, he should end up in jail with [his lawyer] Juan Collado,” said Samuel García of the Citizens’ Movement party.

Independent Senator Emilio Álvarez agreed that Romero must face justice, describing him as an epitome of the type of union and political corruption that has long plagued Mexico.

“He’s been a protected figure . . . for years,” he said, adding that if the government allows him to evade justice, it would be a sign that it has reached an “impunity pact” with Romero – a “get out of my way” and “I’ll guarantee you impunity” deal.

Mauricio Kuri and Gustavo Madero of the National Action Party also said that the FGR probe into the union leader must continue.

Romero has been implicated in various scandals while head of the Pemex workers’ union including the so-called Pemexgate case in which the union was found to have diverted 500 million pesos to the 2000 presidential campaign of PRI candidate Francisco Labastida.

He has also been criticized for his ostentatious lifestyle, including giving a limited-edition Ferrari to his son and picking up the tab for the lavish wedding of his daughter.

Romero was re-elected to head the union in 2017; his term doesn’t expire until 2024.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Seniors stretch their pensions by renting through Airbnb

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MND Staff

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October 15, 2019

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A private room rental at a home in Puerto Vallarta.

Lack of employment opportunities, insufficient pensions, widowhood and the need to have extra income to pay off or maintain a home are among the reasons why many Mexican seniors have become hosts on the accommodation platform Airbnb.

According to a report prepared by the online accommodations broker, 9.7% of its hosts in Mexico are retirees and 12% are aged over 60. The number of older adults renting out rooms or entire properties on the site has grown by 50% over the past year.

Carlos Olivos, the company’ communications director for Latin America, told the newspaper El Financiero that offering accommodation on Airbnb provides an opportunity for older people who have been “disregarded” by the traditional labor market to earn an additional income.

People who wish to keep working can “complement their income and . . . keep themselves active,” he said.

One such person is 80-year-old Marina Bautista, who rents out a space in her Nuevo Vallarta home for 1,763 pesos (US $90) a night.

“At the age of 80 and with my husband at 86, we were unable to get more money than what we received for our pensions. Now we have the income that we lacked [to meet] expenses that are necessary due to our age,” she said.

Across Mexico, 71% of hosts on Airbnb, like Bautista, rent out part of their home to visitors.

Ana María Prieto, a 62-year-old retired teacher, started renting out a room in her San Miguel de Allende home for 750 pesos (US $40) a night after a former colleague recommended signing up.

“In general, the experience with Airbnb has been very good,” she said, adding that the money she makes complements the “limited income” she receives from her pension.

Travelers who stayed at Airbnb properties in 2018 generated an economic spillover of US $2.7 billion, according to a company estimate. Mexico is the ninth biggest Airbnb market in the world.

Olivos said that people who choose to stay at Mexico’s Airbnb properties are by and large happy with their experience.

“Mexicans are great hosts and the platform shows it because we have an average rating of 4.7 out of five stars, which reflects our hospitality . . . Older people, with their experience and knowledge, can provide valuable experiences to those who stay with them,” he said.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

‘Government says everything is fine but all we see is pure violence’

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MND Staff

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October 15, 2019

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Former self-defense leader Mora: authorities must fight back against violence.

A former self-defense force leader has criticized the federal government’s security strategy in the wake of a cartel ambush in Michoacán that left 14 police officers dead, claiming that it is allowing criminal groups to operate with impunity in the state.

“As I said months ago, the cartels continue to drive by with caravans of armed people,” said Hipólito Mora, founder of a self-defense force that took up arms against the Caballeros Templarios cartel and other criminal groups in 2013.

“It gives the impression that the authorities are in agreement [with them] . . . The unfortunate thing is that a lot of people are dying. The government people say that . . . all is well but what we see is pure violence . . .” he added.

Mora said that the attack allegedly committed by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) on state police in the municipality of Aguililla on Monday could be heard from his home town of La Ruana, located in the neighboring municipality of Buenavista.

“The gunshots or grenade fire in Aguililla was heard here in La Ruana, it’s incredible . . . The people who were at the farm told me that they heard a lot of shots . . .” he said.

“This attack happened in Aguililla but at any time it could happen here, and it already has happened [before]. People live in fear . . . sometimes there are people who are not involved with cartels but they die,” Mora said.

The 63-year-old, who announced in July that he was taking up arms again because governments have failed to provide security, renewed his attack on authorities in a radio interview.

“. . . The [federal] government is making a mistake by prioritizing other things, [combating] insecurity must be first, everything else is secondary,” Mora said.

“They don’t want to fight violence with violence but if they let them [the criminal groups] thrive there will be more deaths than if they fought them,” he added.

Mora urged the government to change its strategy, warning that if it fails to do so, a lot more families will be affected.

“What we’re asking of authorities is to make an effort, forget about [political] campaigns, votes . . . The main problem we have in Mexico is violence and while there is no security, no one is going to work at ease. They should do their work, that’s what they’re paid for,” he said.

Burned police vehicles after the ambush in Aguililla.

The possibility of the government changing tack and adopting a more confrontational approach to combating violence appears unlikely.

President López Obrador told a peace summit in Mérida, Yucatán, last month that his government is determined to achieve peace in Mexico without resorting to authoritarianism or the use of force.

Before yesterday’s attack, he told reporters at his regular news conference that “you can’t fight fire with fire.

“I’ve said it many times. You can’t fight violence with violence, you can’t fight evil with evil. You have to fight evil by doing good.”

The president argues that the best way to combat crime and violence is to address the root causes of poverty so that people have viable alternatives to a life of crime.

The implementation of welfare and employment programs has been a priority for the government but high levels of violence persist.

Michoacán has been one of the most violent states in the country in 2019, recording 1,192 homicides in the first eight months of the year.

According to Ricardo Ravelo, a journalist who writes about drug trafficking and violence, four criminal organizations are vying for control in the state: the CJNG, Los Viagras, Los Valencia, and the Caballeros Templarios /La Familia Michoacana.

Source: Sin Embargo (sp), Milenio (sp)

Evidence shows Jalisco cartel boss wants to return home

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MND Staff

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October 15, 2019

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A red narco-banner on one of the vehicles in which state police officers were killed. — A red narco-banner containing a warning message from the CJNG lies on one of the vehicles in which police officers were killed on Monday.

The leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) is reportedly planning to go back to his roots and return to his home town in Michoacán.

The newspaper El Universal reported on Tuesday that Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes has advised social leaders, mayors and municipal security officials in Michoacán of his intention to move back to Naranjo de Chila.

The town is located in the Tierra Caliente municipality of Aguililla, where the CJNG was allegedly behind an ambush Monday in which 14 state police were killed.

Security authorities in several municipalities told El Universal that they had been made aware of Oseguera’s plan, adding that his intention is to make the region surrounding Aguililla his “bunker.”

The message was relayed by associates of “El Mencho” to authorities and other people in the municipalities of Tepalcatepec, Los Reyes, Tancítaro, Aquila, Coahuayana, Buenavista, Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Coalcomán and Chinicuila.

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According to El Universal, recent CJNG attacks on residents in the municipalities of Tepalcatepec and Los Reyes, its bloody turf war with the Los Viagras crime gang and Monday’s ambush all serve as evidence of Oseguera’s intention to take up residence in his home town.

Preparations for Oseguera’s return – a United States DEA agent said in August that the CJNG leader was hiding out in the mountains of western Mexico – have been underway for months.

In the area of Michoacán where the Tierra Caliente, Costa, Sierra and Sierra-Costa regions meet, threats and attacks began to increase in April. Sources told El Universal that the violence is directly related to Oseguera’s desire to return home.

The kingpin wants to retire, be arrested or die in his native land, they said, adding that he intends to guarantee his security with “human walls.”

To establish the “walls,” Oseguera is seeking complete control of Aguililla as well as surrounding and nearby municipalities.

To establish control, the CJNG must defeat Los Viagras in Apatzingán and Buenavista, the sources said, and eliminate strongholds of the Caballeros Templarios in Lázaro Cárdenas and Tumbiscatío.

In other municipalities that “El Mencho” is seeking to control, the CJNG faces opposition from self-defense groups.

That opposition can be very fierce: nine presumed Jalisco Cartel hitmen were killed in clashes with citizens of Tepalcatepec in late August.

Less than two weeks later, the CJNG released a video in which a masked gunman said the cartel’s conflict isn’t against the ordinary residents of Tepalcatepec but rather Juan José “El Abuelo” Farías and a local crime gang he allegedly leads.

The speaker claimed that Farías is also a member of the Caballeros Templarios cartel or the Viagras gang and urged residents to run him out of town.

However, citizens of Tepalcatepec are wary of the intentions of the CJNG, telling El Universal that they are not willing to succumb to the cartel’s control as part of Oseguera’s strategy to stay safe in his home town.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Coffee documentary connects Chiapas growers with Seattle cafes

By

Cody Copeland

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October 15, 2019

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Directors Díaz Infante and Díaz San Vicente.

The untold stories behind a cup of coffee are what directors Andrés Ibáñez Díaz and Alejandro Díaz tell in their new documentary A Six Dollar Cup of Coffee, which premiered in Mexican City last week after making the rounds in the international film festival circuit.

The film focuses on a Tzeltal family that works in a coffee cooperative in Chiapas and the trend of specialty coffee in Seattle, U.S., questioning the paradigms of quality in the coffee world.

“We opted for this type of documentary because we’re big-time coffee drinkers, we have up to five or six cups a day,” said co-director Ibáñez. “And although we like it a lot, we didn’t know from where it came or what it entailed.”

Alejandro Díaz assured viewers that A Six Dollar Cup of Coffee isn’t a documentary meant to make them feel bad for drinking their favorite pick-me-up.

“What we hope to do is to initiate a conversation. That coffee drinkers look at the product with instinctive eyes and check the label before consuming it, or that when they want a coffee, they analyze whether it’s good to go to the chain store or walk another block to buy it from their neighborhood cafe,” he said.

A six dollar cup of coffee (trailer español) from Andres Ibañez Diaz Infante on Vimeo.

“You shouldn’t be shocked by a six-dollar cup of coffee,” says a person interviewed for the trailer for the film. “You should be shocked by a one-dollar cup of coffee. Because if a cup of coffee costs one dollar, and you truly know and understand the process and where that coffee came from, someone is getting screwed along the way.”

Ibáñez explained that coffee from Mexico to Ecuador is cultivated by indigenous people.

“We have no idea who is paying the producers, but it’s a chain of intermediaries that usually pays them very little,” he said.

Despite the market benefiting the farmers the least, the directors found them to be resilient, positive and self-affirming. Far from seeing themselves as victims, they saw themselves as enterprising producers of a quality product.

“The first thing we encountered [at the cooperative] was a syncretic Mayan/Catholic ceremony to celebrate the beginning of the coffee planting season, and we delved into the cosmogony,” said Ibáñez. “And their stories blew our minds.”

It took Ibáñez and Díaz five years to complete the documentary, which was shown at film festivals in Havana, Vancouver, Turkey, Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as in Querétaro and Guadalajara.

“We learned to be patient because the documentary moved at different rhythms from our own . . . We had to wait until the coffee was ready to be harvested . . . It was a long process, but it filled us with satisfaction,” said Díaz.

Source: La Jornada (sp)

Terminator filmed in Spain due to insecurity in Mexico City

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Simon Schatzberg

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October 15, 2019

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Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger traveled to Madrid instead of Mexico.

Producers of the film Terminator: Dark Fate decided on Madrid over Mexico City as a filming location because of insecurity in the Mexican capital, director Tim Miller said.

At a press conference in Mexico to promote the upcoming film, Miller said that a few factors pushed the production to forgo filming in Mexico, even though much of the sixth installment of the Terminator franchise takes place in the capital. Specifically, the Terminator team was nervous after the 2017 murder of Carlos Muñoz Portal, a location scout for the Netflix series Narcos in Temascalapa, México state.

“The last nail in the coffin was the murder of a scout as he was looking for locations for the series,” Miller said.

The director added that budget concerns also played into the decision to film in Spain; because the crew had already been filming in Budapest, it would have been more expensive to bring them to Mexico.

The film was shot in the Madrid neighborhoods of Pueblo Nuevo and Lavapiés, although changes were made to make it seem more Mexican. The façade of a mechanic’s shop was repainted with the name “México Motor,” and many cars were painted pink and white to make them look like Mexican taxis.

The new film, which will be released on November 1, will be a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and was produced by James Cameron, who directed the first two Terminator films.

The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, and also features Mexican actor Diego Boneta, known for his performance in the Netflix series Luis Miguel.

Source: 24-horas (sp)

Dismissal for displaying swastika tattoo goes to Supreme Court

By

Cody Copeland

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October 15, 2019

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Judge Piña has released a statement calling the tattoo a form of hate speech.

The case of a man who was fired from his job for refusing to cover or remove a swastika tattoo has gone to Mexico’s Supreme Court.

The man claims to have been the victim of discrimination for exercising his right to freedom of expression and seeks compensation for “moral damages” from his former employers who, along with many of his former coworkers, are Jewish.

Presiding Judge Norma Lucía Piña Hernández is expected to absolve the company of wrongdoing when she presents her ruling on Wednesday.

While recognizing the plaintiff’s right to freedom of expression, Piña stated that the Nazi symbol is a form of hate speech and in this case is not protected by the law.

She said that in the context of a workplace employing people who are mostly of Jewish origin or the Jewish religion, it creates a climate of discrimination.

“The court recognizes that bearing a tattoo is permitted and one must not be discriminated for it, but in this case the symbol that the plaintiff bore represents an apologia of hate or anti-Semitic hate speech . . .” the judge said in a statement.

The statement goes on to declare that the company’s decision to fire the employee was “valid, reasonable and proportional,” and that it did not constitute an act of discrimination.

Sources: Milenio (sp), AM (sp)

Earthquakes chronicled in Aztec codex reveal potential threat to 52 million

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MND Staff

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October 15, 2019

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The Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt has been more active in the past than previously thought. — The Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt.

Earthquakes chronicled in Aztec codices and the accounts of Spanish missionaries have led seismologists to believe that Mexico is more seismically active than previously thought.

In a recent issue of the journal Tectonics, scientists offer details about a series of scientifically undocumented earthquakes that occurred in Mexico during the past 450 years.

They looked specifically at quakes that occurred along a 1,000-kilometer-long stretch of volcanoes from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.

Known as the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, the region is home to 52 million people, or 40% of Mexico’s population.

While only a small number of earthquakes have occurred along the belt since the advent of instrumental seismology in the early 20th century, information uncovered from codices and colonial-era accounts suggest that it is indeed quite susceptible to telluric movements.

One ancient codex, the Anales de Tlatelolco, says that an almost five-kilometer-long crack opened up in central Mexico during a series of earthquakes that lasted up to five days in February 1575.

That seismic event and others recorded in ancient texts were studied over a period of eight years by a team of Mexican seismologists, who attempted to ascertain the magnitude of the earthquakes.

Gerardo Suárez, a researcher at the National Autonomous University (UNAM) and co-author of the report, said that if the earthquake history of a region is compared to a feature film, the era of modern monitoring is just a blip on the screen.

“That hundred years of seismicity is like watching just two or three seconds of the movie,” he said.

Looking at records that pre-date modern earthquake records allows seismologists the opportunity “to see a few more frames,” Suárez added.

Zachary Ross, a geophysicist at the California University of Technology, agreed, telling National Geographic that geologists and seismologists often have to assume the role of a historian in order to get a fuller picture of earthquake activity in any particular region.

Even cave paintings and oral histories that have been passed from one generation to the next over long periods of time can be valuable to seismologists.

However, even more valuable are texts such as the records written by the missionary Fray Antonio Tello.

He chronicled an earthquake on December 27, 1568 that occurred in the western part of the volcanic belt.

Known as the temblor grande, the quake damaged churches and convents, triggered landslides, turned soil into bubbling fluid and opened up cracks in the ground. The UNAM team estimates that it was a 7.2-magnitude earthquake.

F. Ramón Zúñiga, a UNAM seismologist not involved with the study, said the reason why earthquakes are triggered along the volcanic belt is still being debated.

However, he added that it is now clear that earthquakes take place along its entire stretch.

Suárez said that if a moderately powerful crustal earthquake occurs along the belt in an area that is highly populated, such as Guadalajara, there is potential for “a great deal of damage.”

He said he hopes that news of the historical earthquakes, as detailed in Tectonics, will make people living along the volcanic belt more aware of the danger that lurks beneath the ground.

Source: National Geographic (sp)

With 10 days to go, Grand Prix tickets sell out for fifth year in a row

By

Simon Schatzberg

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October 15, 2019

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Sergio Pérez is the top-ranked Mexican driver at this year's race.

With less than two weeks to go before Mexico City’s Formula 1 Grand Prix race, tickets have already sold out.

It is the fifth year in a row that tickets have sold out for the event, which will take place October 25-27 at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City.

Federico González Compeán, general manager of the race, said he was happy Mexicans are responding favorably and showing interest in motorsports.

“We’re very excited about the response, and the interest of the passionate Mexican public,” he said. “Each one of them and every fan has been a fundamental part of making this event the best of all. For the fifth year in a row, we’re working on creating an excellent experience for our guests.”

British driver Lewis Hamilton is the top-ranked driver at the event, followed by Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas. The top-ranked Mexican driver is Sergio Pérez.

The Formula 1 came back to Mexico in 2015 after a 23-year break. But earlier this year it appeared the race would leave once again after the federal government said it was not prepared to help finance it.

However, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum made an agreement in August with entertainment company Grupo CIE to hold annual Grand Prix events until 2022, although starting in 2020 the event will be renamed the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Private-sector funding has replaced the 400 million pesos (US $20.76 million) provided by the government in recent years. That money has been redirected to the construction of the Maya Train rail project.

More than 30,000 racing fans attend the event, one-fifth of whom travel from the United States to see it.

Source: La Razón (sp), Esto (sp)