Frame from security video shows the train pushing the trailer out of its path.
Another semi driver has once again tried to win a race against a train — and lost, this time in an urban area in the greater Mexico City metropolitan area.
Security cameras captured the semi traveling across a level crossing in the Rústica Xalostoc neighborhood of Ecatepec, México state, and almost winning the race.
But the train struck the back end of the semi-trailer, driving it sideways into a car, a school bus and a motorcycle that had stopped for the train on the other side of the crossing.
Mexico's poppy production remained high last year.
Poppy cultivation and heroin production remain at record-high levels in Mexico, according to the United States government.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) said in a statement yesterday that an annual U.S. government estimate found that the area of land dedicated to poppy cultivation decreased by 5% from 44,100 hectares in 2017 to 41,800 hectares last year.
But the size of the area was the second highest recorded this decade and 298% above the low of 10,500 hectares estimated in 2012.
The ONDCP said that the potential for pure heroin production declined by 4% from 111 tonnes in 2017 to 106 tonnes last year. They were the only years in the last decade in which heroin production estimates have exceeded 100 tonnes.
Production last year was 31% higher than in 2016 and 308% above the lowest level estimated this decade – 26 tonnes in both 2012 and 2013.
Mexico continues to be the primary supplier of heroin to the United States, the ONDCP said, explaining that 91% of heroin seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2017 was determined to have originated in Mexico.
Six Mexican criminal organizations – the Jalisco New Generation, Sinaloa, Juárez, Gulf, Los Zetas and Beltrán Leyva cartels – have the greatest drug trafficking impact on the United States, according to the DEA.
“Poppy cultivation and heroin production in Mexico continue to threaten the United States,” the ONDCP said.
In 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 47,600 Americans died from overdoses involving opioids and that 15,482 of those deaths involved heroin.
“President Donald J. Trump is focused on stopping the trafficking of heroin and other dangerous drugs coming from Mexico. He declared a national emergency on our southern border in part to ensure the safety of the American people from these deadly drugs,” the ONDCP said.
The rising demand for the powerful synthetic opioid among U.S. drug users has been identified as the cause of plummeting opium gum prices in Mexico.
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told senators Tuesday that during the migration tariff negotiations between U.S. and Mexican authorities last week there were also discussions about measures to stop the production and transit of illicit drugs.
“The joint declaration we signed was mostly focused on migration, but a good deal of the conversation was . . . about the traffickers’ desire to move whatever product will bring a market price that causes them to have an incentive to continue to do the things that disrupt so many lives here in the United States,” he said.
“We’ll try and take down these criminal enterprises between all of the elements of the U.S. government. We’ve donated equipment to the Mexican law enforcement, security forces; we’ve trained their officers to eradicate poppy and interdict drugs; we’ve provided them sniffing dogs. And yet, as you can see from the data today, many challenges remain.”
Guillén promised a kinder approach to immigration. Today, he quit.
Mexico’s immigration chief resigned today a week after the government reached an agreement with the United States to increase enforcement against undocumented migrants.
In a brief statement, the National Immigration Institute (INM) said that Tonatiuh Guillén López had presented his resignation to President López Obrador and thanked him for the opportunity to serve the country.
Guillén was sworn as INM commissioner on December 1, the same day that López Obrador took office.
“We have to make the [immigration] institute much more protective, caring and humane,” he told the newspaper Reforma in an interview published on November 1.
“It’s really establishing a new paradigm in Mexico’s immigration policy that is based on Mexico’s laws and the country’s international commitments,” he said at the time, conceding that it wasn’t the “ideal scenario” for Donald Trump.
The number of arrests and deportations increased and the INM stopped issuing humanitarian visas.
Human rights and migrant advocacy groups warned that the increasingly militarized approach to combating migrants’ transit through Mexico posed a threat to their rights, but the government agreed last Friday to implement even stricter enforcement as part of a deal to stave off tariffs threatened by the United States.
Among the commitments Mexico made were to deploy 6,000 National Guard troops to the southern border and to accept the return of a higher number of asylum-seekers as they await the outcome of their claims in the United States.
While Guillén hasn’t cited any reasons for his resignation, the government’s shift towards stricter migration enforcement appears the logical explanation.
“This really shows there’s a rift within the administration between the hard-liners, those who want to comply with Trump to avoid tariffs at all cost, and those who have qualms about militarized enforcement of immigration laws,” said security analyst Alejandro Hope.
A criminal analysis completed by law enforcement authorities in Mexico City has identified the capital’s most dangerous neighborhoods and boroughs as well as the times and days when homicides are most commonly committed.
And it’s not good news for Iztapalapa: the sprawling, heavily populated eastern borough is considered the most violent in Mexico City and is home to two of the capital’s three most dangerous neighborhoods, or colonias.
Between December and May, 184 people – 160 men and 24 women – were murdered in the borough, according to the analysis completed by the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (PGJ).
A settling of scores was determined to be the probable cause of 30% of the homicides, 17% occurred during robberies and 16% of victims were killed during arguments or brawls.
The cause of the remainder of the murders in Iztapalapa is unknown.
Homicides in the borough most commonly occur on Sundays between 9:00pm and midnight, the analysis said, noting that between those hours a large number of parties and other events are held at which people consume large quantities of alcohol and drugs.
Within the borough, Citlali and San Lorenzo rank as the two most dangerous neighborhoods in Mexico City based on homicide statistics.
The PGJ said that high levels of alcohol and drug consumption in both colonias, their geographical location, turf wars between drug gangs, narrow streets with various entrances and exits and a lack of public lighting were among the factors that contribute to the high levels of crime.
Murders are most commonly committed with firearms by assailants who arrive in and flee from the neighborhoods on motorcycles.
The second most dangerous borough is Gustavo A. Madero, where there were 131 homicide victims in the six-month period to the end of May, followed by Álvaro Obregón, where 61 people were killed.
The former borough, located in the capital’s extreme north, is home to Zona Escolar, Mexico City’s third most violent neighborhood. In one week during the period analyzed, there were five murders in the densely-populated colonia, which borders México state.
Identified with a red marker are Mexico City’s three most dangerous boroughs.
A lot of murders and other crime in Mexico City occurs on the outskirts, where criminals can easily move into neighboring México state and escape the jurisdiction of the capital’s police force.
Crime experts say that the ease with which criminals move between the two entities breeds impunity.
Francisco Rivas, president of the National Citizens’ Observatory, an independent organization that monitors security conditions, said that some criminal groups base themselves on the capital’s fringes “precisely because it generates greater difficulty in the prosecution of crime.”
Across Mexico City, there were 730 intentional homicides between December 5 and May 29, the PGJ said, but police only made arrests in 40 cases.
The period, which coincides with Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum’s first six months in office, is the most violent of the past 20 years. Kidnappings also surged in the first four months of 2019 to levels not seen in almost a decade.
The PGJ analysis said that a lot of the violent crime in the capital since Sheinbaum became mayor is due to turf wars.
Martín Barrón Cruz, a criminal researcher, said that violence in Mexico City has increased since the administration of former mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera, stating that his government’s denial that organized crime groups operated in the capital was a factor that allowed it to grow.
Daniel Cunjama, an expert in criminal sociology at the National Institute of Criminal Sciences, said that violence in Mexico City could get worse.
“We have more and more young people recruited by organized crime who are working as sicarios [hitmen] and other positions . . . such as halcones [hawks or lookouts],” he said, adding that the criminals don’t just come from impoverished backgrounds but also the “middle and lower-middle classes.”
Father and daughter abseiling together at Nameless Falls.
Canyoning — known as canyoneering in theUnited States — is a sport which involves rappelling down cascades, lots of hiking and plunging into cold pools of water in order to follow a river down a canyon. It is practiced all over the world wherever river canyons are found.
The exploration of canyons is probably as old as the human race itself, but the modern sport of canyoning seems to have got its start in 1905 when Edouard Martel, “the father of modern speleology,” conducted a hair-raising hiking and rafting expedition down France’s Gorges du Verdon, the largest canyon in Europe.
Canyoneers are typically exposed to very cold temperatures and have to wear wet suits as they slide or jump down waterfalls, plunge into pools and then swim for their lives. When I first heard about this sport from my caving friends, I honestly thought that canyoneers must have a screw loose somewhere.
“What’s the point of rappelling,” I asked them, “if there’s not something important at the bottom of your rope . . . like a cave?”
When I asked Luis Medina, an experienced canyoneer who has represented Mexico in international canyoning events, what it is that he finds so attractive about canyoning, I was surprised by his reply.
Canyoning at San Martín Falls in Jalisco. Alberto Cortés
“I was a climber,” said Medina. “In 1998 I started climbing and I loved it. I could easily have spent 24 hours a day doing nothing but climbing. It became my passion, my religion, my everything!
“Well, I was doing a lot of rock climbing in Huaxtla canyon, just north of Guadalajara and because it was really hot there, I would cool off in the waterfall. So I was alternating between climbing and canyoning and little by little, my friends and I started doing more and more canyoning.
“Actually, canyoning is more fun than climbing because you are jumping, swimming, hiking, discovering new places, exploring, and you have more chance of seeing wild animals. So now I see climbing as more oriented toward technique and canyoning more toward nature.”
Medina told me that the very best place for canyoning in Mexico is the area around the city of Monterrey. “In this area,” he said, “you have Cumbres de Monterrey, Matacanes, Chipitín, Hidrofobia and La Garganta del Diablo (The Devil’s Throat), all of them with very high walls, limestone rock and big waterfalls. There are also great places in Tabasco, Veracruz, Hidalgo and all around Mexico City.
“As for Jalisco, we have beautiful, but rather short canyons like Aquetzalli, Huaxtla, Los Azules and the Sierra de Quila.”
Although I really prefer to stay high and dry on weekends, I found Luis Medina’s rationale for canyoning intriguing, so my ears perked up when my friend Rodrigo Orozco told me: “I’m going to abseil down a waterfall tomorrow. It’s located in a place so beautiful that I want to be buried there someday.”
Sliding down a natural water slide in Aquetzalli canyon.
Now that got my attention, but when Rodrigo mentioned that he hates to get wet while canyoning, I really became interested. “I always put my rope as far from the falling water as possible,” he told me.
I was sold. “Dry canyoning? That’s for me!” I told him.
The next day I set off with Rodrigo Orozco and another canyoneer, Chris Lloyd, whose daughters, aged 9 and 7, were planning to do the rappel.
“If they can do it,” I said, “so can I.”
Off we drove to the spot where our 90-minute hike would begin. Remember that part about canyoning often including more hiking than rappelling? Well, in this case the landscape we passed through was so varied and beautiful, I soon forgot all about the waterfall jump. It was October and wildflowers were blooming everywhere. We were simply dazzled by the variety and profusion of all we saw.
Add to this the amazing talent of “Tarantula Man” Rodrigo for finding curious creatures every time he overturns a stone, and you have the recipe for a marvelous outing. Frogs, spiders, scorpions, brightly colored butterflies and, of course tarantulas, seemed to be lurking everywhere. So was plenty of mud and several streams we had to cross.
Matacanes Canyon, near Monterrey in Nuevo León. Andrés Guerra
At last we reached our goal, which Rodrigo instructed me to refer to as “Nameless Falls,” as he would prefer to keep the place secret. My friends then attached a rope to a convenient tree, supposedly in a spot well away from the cascade. This, however, I couldn’t determine, since it was just about impossible to see anything directly beneath us.
“John, why don’t you go first?” said Rodrigo.
“OK, if you’re sure the rope reaches all the way to the bottom.”
“I hope so,” came the less-than-comforting reply.
I am a caver and I can assure you that leaning backward over the edge of a black, gaping cave entrance is a lot easier than doing the same out in the blue, where you can actually see the tops of trees far below you, giving your brain plenty of time to calculate the distance and imagine what will become of your body if something goes wrong.
This may be why some people never get beyond the first lesson in Rappelling 101 which, of course, includes standing at the edge of a cliff, connected to the rope by your rappelling device, leaning back and jumping. For some people, terror sets in during the leaning-back part, just at the moment they look down, and nothing on earth can get them to actually go ahead and jump, thus putting a quick end to their rappelling career.
[soliloquy id="81376"]
In my case, being the first to jump turned out to have a big advantage: a favorable breeze blew the spray from the waterfall away from me and I had a very pleasant and dry slide down the rope.
At last, from the bottom, I could see the waterfall in all its glory. It was about 60 meters high and much wider than the little river up on the top. There was a nice pool at its foot which would be inviting in the summer but I was happy to be wearing a jacket on this autumn day.
As my companions descended, each one got a little wetter than the previous because the spray had started to blow towards the rope. This meant that the last one over the edge, little Meli Lloyd (who came down with Rodrigo Orozco on parallel ropes), ended up soaked to the skin. To raise our body temperatures, we quickly began hiking up a very steep trail back to the head of the waterfall.
At last I could call myself a canyoneer of sorts, but I think it will be a long time before I forget little Meli’s final assessment of this sport, made as she stood soaked to the skin at the foot of the falls.
“What was it like, Meli?” we asked her.
Shivering, she looked up at us from under the helmet she was still wearing: “C-c-cold and w-w-wet,” she said through chattering teeth, and I will add no further comment.
Along with the thrills of canyoning come plenty of dangers. Flash floods, hypothermia and falling to your death are just a few to be considered. So, this extreme sport should only be practiced in the company of true experts using proper gear. Check out the canyoning excursions offered in the Monterrey area by Bakpak, Revista de Aventura.
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.
The population of the endangered Mexican wolf grew by three after pups were born at the Desert Museum in Saltillo, Coahuila.
Museum staff said it was the fourth successful captive breeding since 2015.
A total of 14 pups have been born in the facility since then as part of a binational Mexico-United States program designed to breed the endangered wolf.
Also known as a lobo, the Mexican wolf is a subspecies of gray wolf once native to a territory that straddled the border between the two nations, inhabiting the northern half of Mexico and parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
The lobo is also the smallest of North America’s gray wolves and the most endangered. As of 2017, there were 143 living in the wild and 240 in captive breeding programs.
The museum has 10 specimens under its protection, including the three new ones.
Farmers block the Iguala-Chilpancingo highway to demand their fertilizer.
Farmers in Guerrero have continued to protest this week against the delay in the delivery of fertilizer promised by the federal government.
One group of farmers yesterday blocked the Iguala-Chilpancingo federal highway while another stormed a warehouse where fertilizer was stored in the municipality of Tepecoacuilco.
On Wednesday, farmers from Atlixtac in the state’s Montaña region blocked the Chilapa-Tlapa federal highway and corn growers in Teloloapan occupied the municipal palace.
The former agreed to lift their blockade Wednesday night after they were told that federal authorities would meet with them in Chilpancingo yesterday.
Protests first broke out at the end of May in Heliodoro Castillo, where about 400 farmers detained soldiers and police officers to demand the government honor an agreement to distribute free fertilizer.
Farmers said delivery of the fertilizer was urgent because the rainy season had started, and they might miss their chance to plant.
According to Pablo Almícar Sandoval, the federal government’s super-delegate in Guerrero, the distribution of 120,000 tonnes of fertilizer began on June 3.
But almost two weeks later farmers in several parts of the state say they still haven’t received an allotment.
Guerrero Governor Héctor Astudillo predicted that protests will continue in the coming days if the delays persist.
He said that one of the main things that is holding up the delivery of the fertilizer is the number of bureaucratic procedures the farmers have to complete in order to access the fertilizer.
The governor said President López Obrador had good intentions but the federal distributors have complicated the allocation process.
“They’ve become [like] auditors and comptrollers from the past who operate ineffectively in the present,” he said.
Restaurant owners in Guadalajara say that enforcement of an anti-noise law in the city is seriously affecting investment and employment in the food service sector.
Aldo Alejandro de Anda García, Jalisco president of the national restaurant association Canirac, told the newspaper El Economista that closing restaurants for violating noise regulations puts dozens of people out of work and affects investments of millions of pesos.
For example, de Anda said, a Sonora Grill in the Providencia neighborhood of Guadalajara that was closed almost a month ago left 80 to 100 employees without work. He said over 50 million pesos (US $2.6 million) had been invested in the restaurant.
According to the municipal government, officials had received numerous noise complaints about the Sonora Grill before it was closed.
But de Anda said actions being take by authorities would indicate they are more focused on damaging the industry.
“Like these anti-noise operations they’ve been doing, where they bring five squad cars, 15 to 20 officers and dogs.”
De Anda said in April there had been no cases of abuse since anti-noise operations began but given “the security situation,” the sight of police cars and a large contingent of officials scares customers away.
In one case, he said, the mayor led an anti-noise operation in which many police officers and other officials entered restaurants to check noise levels.
Such operations scare guests who justly believe there is something more going on than a simple noise inspection, he said.
De Anda said that Canirac is willing to negotiate with the government to address the problem of noise at restaurants.
“We’re willing to work together, to have discussions, for them to tell us which places have been reported, where the problems are,” said de Anda. “We can have a dialogue with them, and if the dialogue doesn’t work, we can talk about sanctions.”
Under Guadalajara’s municipal law, businesses that generate more than 65 decibels of noise face a minimum fine of 2,500 pesos. Repeat offenders will face larger fines and can have their restaurant licenses suspended or revoked.
The anti-noise law applies to the entire municipality of Guadalajara, but the city has been focusing enforcement in Chapultepec, López Cotilla and Providencia.
Oaxaca entrepreneurs and their environmentally friendly burger packaging.
Two young Zapotec entrepreneurs in Oaxaca are using an innovative and local alternative to plastic and Styrofoam to join in the effort to eliminate the use of non-biodegradable materials and prevent environmental damage.
Hambre Feroz (Ferocious Hunger) sold its first hamburgers to hungry customers just nine months ago in Juchitán, but already Samantha and Luis Fernando — who were identified only by their first names — have made a name for themselves by wrapping their meals in banana leaves.
The two say that the move towards ecologically-conscious packaging was inspired by innovative solutions in other parts of the world and a sense of urgency to move away from practices that pollute and degrade the environment.
“We saw how in Asian cultures, especially in Thailand, they use banana leaves [to package different foods] and we wanted to do it in our business, too, not to copy them or because it’s a fad, but because we believe that we need to protect the environment and to save it starting now. We cannot wait any longer; our mother Earth is undergoing an environmental collapse, and I believe that we should live naturally starting with our businesses and other small spaces.”
Packaging is especially important to Hambre Feroz; the company does not have a fixed location, but makes its sales online and delivers its products. Samantha and Luis Fernando said that although there was some initial pushback against their new natural packaging, many people have applauded the decision.
Wrapped and ready for delivery.
Another big advantage is that the new packaging saves money: the Styrofoam plates they used before cost double what they now spend on banana leaves in Juchitán’s market.
The two added that environmentally responsible packaging is just one of their efforts. They also donate a peso from every hamburger sale to a reforestation campaign that that they hope to launch soon in their hometown.
Additionally, the cooking oil they use in their hamburgers is recycled to make ecological soap, which they donate.
“Our principal concern is to begin to take care of the environment as well as fair business practices. We are young, but we are sure of the need to establish a socially responsible business.”
Samantha and Luis Fernando’s packaging solution follows a law approved in April by the Oaxaca Congress to ban single-use plastic throughout the state, giving its 570 municipalities one year to prohibit the material.
Local governments have also established measures to against non-biodegradable materials. At the beginning of this year, Santiago de Laollaga became the first municipality in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to declare itself plastic-free and in the young business owners’ hometown of Juchitán, one of the principal food markets levies a fine on merchants who give plastic bags to customers.
The fence surrounding a migrant shelter in Tlaxcala.
A razor wire-topped chain-link fence around a migrant shelter in Apizaco, Tlaxcala, was erected for security reasons and not because of discrimination, residents say.
Residents of the Ferrocarrilera neighborhood say that the fence was required to guarantee safety in the area.
They claim that the neighborhood has been overrun by drugs, disease and crime since the Sagrada Familia Shelter opened in 2010. Some residents say that migrants have broken into their houses, and that they don’t feel safe anymore.
“We can’t go outside after seven or eight at night,” Mónica Ramos told the newspaper Milenio. “We have to stay in our houses because of the insecurity.”
A large influx of migrants has overwhelmed the shelter’s capacity during the past year, with as many as 300 people sleeping in the facility. Neighborhood residents say that some end up sleeping on the street in front of their houses.
“We don’t have the tranquility we had before, and we feel afraid because there are people we don’t know,” said Julio Flores, a member of a neighborhood committee. “We don’t know who these people are who are in front of our houses.”
The committee came to an agreement with the municipal government to build the fence, whose gate will close between 10:00pm and 7:00am daily, preventing migrants from leaving the shelter. But now, some people in the neighborhood are asking the municipality to close the shelter indefinitely.
However, many others see the fence as a sign of discrimination against migrants. Shelter director Elías Dávila told Milenio that he understands the concerns of the neighborhood, but he is asking them to be tolerant and remove the fence.
“There are people who, thankfully, help migrants, but there are others who, influenced by [U.S. President] Trump, have racist attitudes,” he said. “The fence is a sign of discrimination, of contempt for migrants. It says, ‘We don’t allow migrants here, because they are migrants.’”
Representatives of the Catholic Church in Tlaxcala called the fence “antihuman,” and said they will appeal to the National Human Rights Commission to have it removed.
