A man was lucky to escape with his life after a multi-vehicle pileup completely crushed his vehicle between a semi-trailer and a large bus.
The accident took place near the Xonacatepec bridge at kilometer 133 of the Puebla-Mexico City highway.
Although his small sedan was almost flattened between the two heavy vehicles in an accident that involved a total of six vehicles, the driver sustained only non-life-threatening injuries.
Paramedics transferred the man to Betania Hospital in Puebla City. No one else was injured.
The newspaper Milenio reported that while authorities temporarily closed off the highway toward Mexico City, vehicles were still permitted to travel along the somewhat slower access road.
According to the National Council for Accident Prevention, the Puebla-Mexico City highway is the nation’s most accident-prone and deadliest. Two other major arteries connecting Mexico City were awarded second and third place for the high number of accidents: the Cuernavaca-Mexico City highway and that between Toluca andMexico City.
The Pan-American Health Organization reports that Mexico was the seventh deadliest country in the world in terms of traffic accidents in 2018, while the Secretariat of Public Health reported that traffic accidents are one of the three top causes of death in the country.
The science council said in a Twitter post that the staff dining room is an “achievement” of a collective labor agreement that Conacyt has “respected and strengthened by improving the quality of food” served.
According to a contract posted to a government transparency website, Conacyt hired Pigudi Gastronómico to provide mainly organic, low-fat, low-sugar breakfasts and lunches for 120 employees at its Mexico City office every working day from April 22 to December 31.
Among the ingredients it instructed the caterer to use are organic pork and chicken, salmon, red snapper, wild rice and organic apple vinegar.
Revelations of the science council’s extravagant spending on gourmet meals coincided with news that its public research centers are struggling to pay basic expenses as a result of budget cuts.
In a radio interview, Conacyt director María Elena Álvarez-Buylla denied that the council is forking out more than 15 million pesos (US $787,500) for the provision of meals, stating that the figure cited in the contract is a ceiling, or maximum amount, but in reality the catering costs will be much lower.
“In contrast to what has been disseminated, Conacyt has made provision for annual expenditure of 6 million pesos for the workers’ dining room service whereas the previous administration spent close to 12 million pesos for the same concept,” she said.
“Therefore, the information disseminated by some media outlets is unfortunately imprecise and distorted,” Álvarez-Buylla added.
The Conacyt chief asserted that meals served at the dining room are part of a “traditional Mexican diet,” adding that special care is taken not to use ingredients that could contain toxins.
“By no means is it a gourmet service . . . They are [meals] that we should all be eating,” she said. “We’re promoting a healthy diet not an elitist one, it’s a constitutional right.”
Flores, left, and Ramírez are leaders of rival Mexico City gangs.
Federal agents have arrested the leaders of the Unión de Tepito and Fuerza Anti-Unión criminal organizations in Mexico City.
The Criminal Investigation Agency arrested Pedro Ramírez Pérez, the leader of the former, and Jorge Flores Concha, head of the rival Fuerza Anti-Unión.
Both men face charges that include homicide, kidnapping, extortion and drug trafficking. Ramírez also faces sex trafficking charges.
Ramírez took control of the Unión de Tepito last October after the arrest of the former leader. Based in the central neighborhood of Tepito, it is one of the largest and most feared criminal organizations in the country’s capital. Its activities include extortion of restaurants and bars around Mexico City, as well as drug sales in neighborhoods like Roma, Condesa, Zona Rosa and Polanco.
Flores, a lifelong criminal who has been sentenced to prison four times, founded the Fuerza Anti-Unión in December 2017 after members of the rival gang kidnapped and killed his younger brother. Authorities believe the conflict between the two groups is one cause of rising violence levels in Mexico City over the past year.
One Zamora resident says greater police presence doesn't make her feel safer.
Rising violence in Zamora, Michoacán, is creating terror among residents even as the state and federal governments take actions to restore order.
Early Sunday morning, gunmen associated with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel attacked police in two separate ambushes, killing three officers and injuring eight, one of whom later died of his injuries. Two civilian bystanders were also injured in the attacks.
Many residents do not feel reassured by the government response, which has included beefing up police and military patrols.
Although the Secretariat of Education decided not to cancel classes, many individual schools are closing on their own initiative.
One young mother told El Universal that she has avoided going outside in recent days, and that the police and military presence near her house do not make her feel safer.
“There’s a lot of insecurity, and we can’t go outside when we want to,” she said. “We can’t take the kids out after a certain time of night, because we are afraid.”
She added that although the government has made many promises safety has not improved in Zamora, and she does not see any indication that the situation will improve.
“They could start shooting again, and something could happen to one of my kids,” she said.
Fernando, a Zamora resident who only gave his first name, told El Universal that he happened to be present at both of the Sunday morning attacks on police.
“There was a heavy smell of burning, and there was too much tension among everyone.” When it was over, he said, “it was very sad to see the officers lying on the ground.”
In his morning press conference on Monday, President López Obrador confirmed that the National Guard will be sent to help restore security in Michoacán.
Meanwhile, Michoacán Governor Silvano Aureoles announced that the state and federal governments are cooperating on a security plan that includes sending 350 state police officers to Zamora.
“Our response will be far greater than those who try to intimidate us, violate our peace or hurt our society,” he said. “We’re not going to allow them to hurt us, or make people live with fear, uncertainty and anxiety.”
Altos Hornos is Mexico's biggest integrated steelmaker.
Federal officials have frozen the bank accounts of Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA), one of Mexico’s biggest steelmakers, and the former CEO of the state oil company, Emilio Lozoya, for allegedly carrying out financial operations with illegal resources.
The Finance Secretariat (SHCP) said several operations in the domestic and international financial system were carried out with resources that “allegedly did not come from lawful activities and which are presumed to have derived from acts of corruption.”
Sources told the newspaper El Financiero that the freezing of AHMSA accounts is related to its sale to Pemex of an unserviceable fertilizer plant during Lozoya’s administration. Pemex paid US $475 million for the plant in 2014 but the current government says that it was only worth about $50 million.
In addition, the investigative news website Quinto Elemento Lab reported last August that the steelmaker paid US $3.7 million to a shell company allegedly set up by Odebrecht to pay bribes.
Lozoya, chief of Pemex between 2012 and 2016 and a close associate of former president Enrique Peña Nieto, has been accused of receiving US $10 million in bribes from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in exchange for the awarding of contracts.
The secretariat said that in freezing the accounts of Lozoya and AHMSA, its Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) was fulfilling its obligations as an authority of the Mexican state.
Its actions are supported by the United Nations Conventions against Corruption and Transnational Organized Crime, it added.
The SHCP said that the legal rights of both Lozoya and AHMSA are guaranteed, stating that “the Financial Intelligence Unit acts at all times in accordance with the law” and that its intention was not to harm the workers, shareholders or suppliers of Altos Hornos de México.
AHMSA employees’ access to their bank accounts will be restored today, the department said.
The case against Lozoya and AHMSA is the highest profile corruption probe since President López Obrador took office last year after winning the 2018 election on a strong anti-graft platform.
Lozoya hasn’t commented publicly on the latest sanction against him but has repeatedly denied allegations of any wrongdoing during his tenure at the helm of Pemex.
AHMSA said in a statement that the UIF had “improperly” frozen its accounts and denied all allegations of unlawful conduct.
“It’s an unprecedented act – arbitrary and a violation of all rights. The UIF, whose purpose is the prevention and combat of crimes of operations with resources of illicit origin, is obstructing the operational continuity of AHMSA, harming its shareholders, more than 20,000 workers and thousands of suppliers, customers and third parties that make up the vast industrial chain,” it said.
The Coahuila-based company also said that the economic stability of that state was at risk as a result of the actions against it.
Hotel owners in Quintana Roo say that government inaction is forcing them to act on their own to deal with the tonnes of sargassum that are washing up on beaches in the state.
Pablo Azcárraga, president of Grupo Posadas, Mexico’s largest hotel company, told El Financiero that a lack of coordination among government agencies is partly to blame for the crisis.
“It’s not an issue the navy should be dealing with, we need specialists, people who know about this,” he said. “The navy has more important priorities, which aren’t necessarily collecting sargassum on beaches.”
President López Obrador announced earlier this month that the navy would lead efforts to combat the macroalgae’s annual arrival on Mexico’s Caribbean coast.
Hector Tamayo, tourism director for Puerto Morelos, a Quintana Roo municipality that has been hit hard by sargassum, told El Financiero that there has been little support from the federal government to address the problem.
Cancún hotels are cleaning up much of the sargassum on the beaches but according to El Financiero, they don’t use proper methods for disposing of the seaweed.
Sargassum often has high levels of heavy metals, which can contaminate aquifers if the algae is mixed with other waste.
Luis, a man who was hired by a hotel to collect sargassum from the beaches, told El Financiero that it is only removed from hotel beaches, while no one cleans public areas of the coast.
“We leave the sargassum with the rest of the trash,” he said. “There’s no special treatment, we just collect it from the beach.”
Hotels have also been putting up barriers to prevent sargassum from washing up on beaches. However, about 30% of the sargassum still manages to get past them.
The large amounts of sargassum that have been washing up on beaches since 2014 have hit hotels especially hard. The Association of Hotels of Cancún, Puerto Morelos and Isla Mujeres estimates that hotels lost US $100 million in the first quarter of 2019 because of sargassum and other factors, and that they may be forced to lower prices by as much as 15% in the summer.
The summit was intended to discuss strategies to deal with sargassum at the international level.
An international summit to discuss strategies to combat sargassum that was scheduled to take place tomorrow in Cancún, Quintana Roo, has been postponed because only six of 18 countries that were invited confirmed their attendance.
Planning for the federal government-sanctioned Caribbean sargassum summit began months ago, and invitations were extended to government officials, members of the tourism sector and international sargassum experts.
The Quintana Roo government said the event was postponed because state elections will be held this Sunday but off the record, officials explained that the real reason was the poor attendance.
Earlier this month, the president of the Cancún and Puerto Morelos Hotels Association, Roberto Cintrón, acknowledged that “unfortunately, there are very few countries that have confirmed.”
Among those that did commit to attending were representatives from the United States, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Barbados, according to media reports.
Even the provision of free accommodation and meals for summit attendees proved to be insufficient incentive.
The CEO of Grupo Palace Resorts, whose Moon Palace property was to host the summit, said he hoped that the event will be held within a month.
José Chapur Zahoul also claimed that the state elections were the reason why the meeting was postponed.
Sargassum, a brown-colored seaweed that reeks when it decomposes, is predicted to wash up en masse on Mexico’s Caribbean coast beaches this year.
On the weekend, more than 400 volunteers joined government officials and collected 48 tonnes of sargassum on the beaches of Cancún, Tulum, Mahahual and Xcalak.
Last week in Mexico City, the Environment Secretariat gave away free trees to residents to plant in their communities.
The tree giveaway took place in Viveros de Coyoacán and a Facebook post announcing the event quickly gained 26,000 reactions. Residents came from all 16 boroughs of Mexico City to claim their trees.
On Monday, each person was allowed to take five trees. By Wednesday, that number had shrunk to three. By Friday, it was down to one tree per family and some waited in line for as long as an hour to receive just one tree. The program is now suspended until July.
The timing of the tree giveaway coincided with an environmental contingency. In the dry months before the rainy season begins, pollution builds within the Valley of México and this year the early weeks of May saw air contamination reach record-breaking levels.
Pollution, including ozone and particulates, gave the air a brown haze that could be seen throughout the city, closing schools on May 17 and prompting many companies to give their employees the day off. The city government activated emergency rules that banned many vehicles from the roads.
A family picks up their trees at Los Viveros.
The best action individuals can take to help clean their air is simple — plant a tree. In addition to providing oxygen and removing carbon dioxide, trees clean the air of many pollutants. Ozone, nitrogen oxides, ammonia and sulfur dioxide are all absorbed by trees. They also filter particulates out of the air, trapping them on their leaves and bark.
Los Viveros, which produces one million seedlings a year, has been donating trees to CDMX residents since as early as 1907. The trees can be planted in private or public spaces as long as they will receive sufficient light and have the necessary space to grow. A city biologist conducted brief interviews with each resident to determine which species of tree they could take home and to advise them on the best place to plant it.
They also reminded the recipients that to plant in a public park or in the middle of the camellón (the walkways in the middle of Mexico City avenues), they must first request permission from their borough. No such permission is required to plant on the sidewalk, although spaces must be chosen carefully as the young trees are vulnerable.
As global temperatures continue to rise, trees have taken center stage in the battle against urban heat waves. The air temperature of cities can be 1.8 to 5.4 F warmer than surrounding rural areas. At night, the difference is even more profound, with cities retaining up to 22 degrees more than rural areas, which quickly lose their heat as the sun goes down.
The right amount of tree coverage in cities can lower temperatures in the summer by up to 10 F. By providing shade and releasing water vapor, a tree does more for overheated residents than any other personal cooling system. A detached house with trees placed around it can expect to save 20% to 30% on their air conditioning costs.
Residents were encouraged to wait for the rainy season to plant their trees, giving them the best chance of survival. Now that the seasonal storms have returned to the valley, the trees can go into the ground. While their cooling, cleaning and oxygen-producing effects will be far more pronounced once they grow to maturity, people today can give a gift to future generations simply by planting a tree on the sidewalk.
For the overwhelming number of people who came to Los Viveros, they hope that their legacy will be one of green streets, and not of brown sunsets.
The Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes in the Paso de Cortés.
White sand beaches and colonial churches are beautiful, but there comes a time when you need to smell pine trees and the lingering smokiness of a campfire in your hair.
I have spent years scouring the internet and pestering friends about places to camp in Mexico, but as I get older I find sleeping on the ground is no longer a joy and snuggling up in a cozy cabin is much more my style.
Here are three delightful retreats in central Mexico that I have found and loved, each just a few hours outside of Mexico City, yet a world away.
In the northern Sierra mountains of Puebla, Zacatlan de las Manzanas is a tiny town with the country’s longest functioning Franciscan church and a flower clock famous throughout the country. This is the home of Latin America’s first clock factory and also a hub of apple cider making, whose season culminates in the crowning of the apple queen at a yearly apple festival.
There are a handful of places to take in the majesty of the surrounding mountains and the evening fog that rolls in over them, but my favorite is the Tlatempa Campamento. The cabins are built right into the side of the mountain but without much clearing of trees, creating lots of emerald shade.
Zacatlán’s flower clock.
The style is full-on hippie-rustic. Expect construction using recycled materials (like glass bottles and brightly-painted tires) and an emphasis on preserving nature (dry toilets, composing, etc). Tlatempa has a warm, hospitable vibe. There is a restaurant at the property’s highest point that makes down-home dishes.
Cabins and a camping platform are available — definitely ask for the best views of the valley when you reserve. This is not a place for anyone with mobility issues as the way to and from the cabins is a series of stair trails that remind one of the Swiss Family Robinson. There is lots of local hiking to be had as well as the Piedras Encimadas Valley just 30 kilometers from town.
The physical beauty of the Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes is even more romantic than their love story. Monuments to nature’s wonder, you can get breathtaking views of both in the Paso de Cortés, where a visitors’ center for the Izta-Popo Zoquiapan National Park sits surrounded by nothing but sweeping prairie and these two giants on either side.
A few kilometers deeper into the parque and you will find the Buenavista Villa Turistica, a campground with a dozen or so cabins, a restaurant, and small man-made lake. I suggest visiting during the week if you can when the tourist crowd thins and you will have the place basically to yourself.
Cabins are simple, sturdy king-size or full-size beds, fireplaces, a few shelves to store your things and bathrooms. Smaller cabins accommodation two to six people and there is a massive family inn for big groups. The complex itself is pleasant to wander around, and several people have vacation homes built in a rustic style similar to the rest of the complex.
But exploring Itza and Popo (as they are lovingly called) is the best attraction in the area. There are several walking trails from the visitors’ center and great photo opps. The pass is over 11,000 feet above sea level so even in warmer months expect to have to bundle up, at least at night. Also make sure you check the activity status of our friend Popo — when he’s spitting ash the park is off limits.
One of the cabins at Buenavista.
Probably my favorite on this list is Rancho Santa Elena, a former hacienda once owned by members of the Hernan Cortés family. Part of the charm of this small handful of cabins is that there are three small kitchens for guests to use.
The best set-up is in the gallinero-style cabin with its own outdoor kitchen attached to the back. The two gallinero cabins sit side by side, each with a king-size bed and a loft with either two twins or a full mattress. The other cabins in the main hacienda building have full beds and an area with bunkbeds but feel like a tighter fit.
There are also 10 camping spots scattered through the acreage and a massive cabin that sleeps 15 for big groups.
The hacienda has acres of hiking trails and a small reservoir for swimming (although at its fullest the water is freezing cold) and kayaking.
The hacienda provides trail maps but the trails aren’t well marked at the moment. Hopefully that will be something they improve in the future.
Also, several mountain biking trails and courses are set up throughout owing to the fact that the owner’s daughter is Daniela Campuzano, who represented Mexico at the Rio Olympics in mountain biking.
A walk through the pines, just a few hours from Mexico City.
The closest town from the ranch is about a 20-minute drive. There is a small shop with some basics (they even have wifi) but it’s best to bring all the food you need as what you can find is limited. The kitchens are 100% stocked with pots, pans, dishes and hand towels.
The view of the surrounding mountains, the silence and the pleasant but invisible staff make this place an absolute delight.
So now you know, if you want to hunker down and get cozy cabin-style in Mexico, here are three great options for fireplaces, mountain views and clean forest air. As an added bonus each of the places I mentioned is pet-friendly (some for a fee). See you in the woods!
Lydia Carey is a freelance writer based in Mexico City.
Every day, 8,600 tonnes goes to a Mexico City landfill.
The Mexico City government will invest 3.1 billion pesos (US $162.6 million) this year in a “zero garbage” plan that aims to drastically reduce the quantity of waste that ends up in the landfill.
Presenting the plan yesterday, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum explained that the capital currently produces 12,700 tonnes of solid trash per day, of which just under half is organic waste.
Sheinbaum said that a ban on single-use plastics – scheduled to come into force late next year – will reduce non-organic garbage, adding that “another fundamental part [of the plan] is to recycle more . . . plastic, glass and metal.”
Sheinbaum explained that one goal of the “zero garbage” plan is to increase the quantity of non-organic waste that is recycled from the current 1,900 tonnes per day to 3,200 tonnes in 2024, the year her six-year term will end.
She added that the private sector will collaborate with the government to work toward reaching the target.
The mayor presents her new garbage plan.
The government will invest in two new waste separation plants and six others to process rubble generated by the construction industry.
Another goal, Sheinbaum said, is to increase the quantity of compost produced from organic waste from 1,400 tonnes per day now to 2,250 tonnes in 2024.
In addition, the waste management plan will seek to make much greater use of garbage to generate alternative fuels. Currently, 800 tonnes of waste per day are used to that end while the goal is to increase the quantity by 275% to 3,000 tonnes.
If the government meets its goals, just 2,000 tonnes of trash will end up in a landfill each day in 2024 compared to 8,600 tonnes today.
“Our wish is [to have] a zero-garbage city with a circular economy; in other words we’ll recycle, reuse and reduce [waste] so we don’t send garbage to the landfill, and so it doesn’t end up in rivers, ravines or the sea . . .” Sheinbaum said on Twitter.
Environment Secretary Marina Robles predicted that the city’s plan will generate savings of just under 8.4 billion pesos (US $440.7 million) in the six-year period.
