Police search for animal that killed a 50-year-old man.
The México state Ministry of Education suspended classes indefinitely in 13 schools in Valle de Bravo after a resident of the municipality was killed by what is believed to have been a big cat.
A man of around 50 years of age was found dead on Sunday in the community of Cerro Gordo. The nature of the wounds found on his body have led authorities to believe that the attack was carried out by a species of large cat.
México state Governor Alfredo del Mazo Maza issued an alert for the communities of Cerro Gordo and El Pinal del Marquesado and urged residents not to go to the area where the attack occurred.
The Ministry of Education took the extreme measure of cancelling classes on Wednesday, announcing that the suspension is indefinite while authorities from the state Commission of National Parks and Forests (Cepanaf) search for the animal.
The suspension includes seven primary and six secondary schools.
State and municipal authorities are carrying out surveillance operations in the municipality.
“The municipal environmental department has already been in contact with specialized personnel from Cepanaf … and [the federal environmental agency] Profepa with the aim of searching the area, finding the cat and taking it to a zoo,” said Valle de Bravo Mayor Mauricio Osorio on his Facebook page.
Authorities took DNA samples of the animal found on the body to ascertain what type of feline might have carried out the attack. They also set up camera traps that will help obtain specific data in order to confirm the species.
In addition to agents from Cepanaf, Profepa and the Ministry of the Environment, there are also personnel from the National Protected Areas Commission, the México state Attorney General’s Office and state and municipal Civil Protection in the area.
Marines and state police have also been deployed to the municipality to aid local police in security operations.
Guevara: alleging corruption is far from the truth.
The director of the National Commission for Physical Culture and Sport (Conade) lashed out at the Ministry of Public Administration (SFP) on Tuesday over its questioning of the use of almost 31 million pesos (US $1.6 million).
Speaking to reporters after attending a meeting at the National Palace on Tuesday morning, Ana Gabriela Guevara accused the SFP of getting ahead of itself by publicly questioning the use of the funds before the audit process is finished.
Guevara’s remarks came two weeks after Public Administration Minister Irma Sandoval told a press conference at the National Palace that the SFP had detected that Conade had presented “false invoices” to justify the high costs it incurred for expenses such as travel.
“This case is serious due to the immorality … it implies,” Sandoval said. “The possible damage [to public coffers] … is almost 31 million pesos.”
Guevara asserted that Conade has done nothing wrong, charging that the SFP is only assuming that there were irregularities in the use of public money by the commission. The former Olympic 400-meter runner accused the ministry of being “treacherous” by saying that irregularities had been found before the audit process is completed.
Sandoval claimed there were false invoices.
“All the departments have irregularities, all the ministries have irregularities but … saying that there are serious crimes of corruption is a long way off” the truth, Guevara said.
“We have the right to defend ourself; the most serious thing of all was the violation of the right of reply and of the constitutional guarantee of the presumption of innocence,” she said.
Later on Tuesday, the SFP rejected that claim, saying that it has always respected the right of reply and presumption of innocence and that Sandoval’s remarks didn’t amount to an accusation against Guevara.
“The Ministry of Public Administration always conducts itself in accordance with the law and with strict respect to due process and fundamental rights,” the SFP said in a statement.
For those reasons, the ministry never makes accusations against public officials before the conclusion of an investigation, the statement said.
The SFP said that the remarks made by Sandoval at last month’s press conference consisted of “public information” and that the minister provided it after being instructed to do so by President López Obrador.
The ministry and Sandoval have made it clear that an SFP audit in itself cannot lead to the imposition of a penalty on any person found to have acted corruptly. Only separate investigations into irregularities that have been detected by audits can result in sanctions, the SFP said.
Guevara, a silver medal winner at the 2004 Athens Olympics who was appointed Conade director at the start of the López Obrador administration, has also faced pressure due to the SFP’s detection of irregularities in the use of 50.8 million pesos allocated to the government’s high-performance sports fund known as Fodepar, which is used to provide grants to elite athletes.
National Action Party Deputy Miguel Alonso Riggs last month accused the Conade chief of embezzling resources from Fodepar and called for her dismissal.
“This is an issue that has been hurting athletes, sport in Mexico. I think that speaking about the dismissal of Ana Gabriela Guevara from Conade is appropriate [although] probably a little late,” he said.
The big-box home improvement store The Home Depot announced that it will invest nearly 2.4 billion pesos (US $122.8 million) in Mexico this year, which will include the opening of four new stores.
The company said that it aims to continue consolidating its presence in Mexico by improving customers’ experiences, maintaining productivity and increasing efficiency. It invested 1.95 billion pesos in its Mexico operations in 2019, 0.25 billion more than in each of the previous two years.
One of the retailer’s goals is to improve distribution, for which it will open two logistics nodes to supply stores with the lowest inventories on their sales floors. It will also augment two distribution centers to increase its warehousing capacity.
The company said that it will “strengthen its PRO strategy, directed at construction professionals, both in stores and online, through the renovation of modules and personalized service in the store,” among other changes.
It said that it plans to link brick-and-mortar stores with online commerce to be able to serve customers at any moment and in any part of the country. It will reinforce its customer service at both points of sale to achieve this, the company said.
The company closed 2019 with 125 stores in all of Mexico’s states, including Mexico City.
Rescuers break through a wall to retrieve abandoned baby.
Rescue workers in Mexico City freed a newborn baby who was found trapped between the walls of two buildings in the borough of Iztacalco on Tuesday.
Members of the Rescue and Medical Emergency Squadron responded to 911 calls in which neighbors reported hearing a baby crying somewhere in the walls of a building on Plutarco Elías Calles street in the neighborhood of Santiago Norte.
They spotted the baby girl from the roof of the building. She was trapped three meters down in the space between the walls of the buildings. They also saw blood stains on the bricks.
Rescue workers broke through the wall of a residence in order to get the baby out, after which she was treated by paramedics and diagnosed with bradycardia, or a low heartrate. Firefighters arrived on the scene to take her to a pediatric hospital in the borough.
Although the infant was found alive, her presumed grandfather told the news outlet Telediario that his daughter had had an abortion on Monday, adding that she later ran away. It is believed that she threw the baby into the space between the buildings from the roof before fleeing.
The infant was reported to be in critical condition.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, there were 1.6 million orphaned minors in Mexico in 2017.
However, the lack of an official database for orphaned children has led to a number of different estimates. The organization Aldeas Infantiles SOS México estimates that there are 412,456 orphaned children in the country.
The federal Social Assistance Accommodations Census reports that there are 879 orphanages in Mexico, which look after a total of 30,000 children and teenagers.
Among the principal causes of orphaned children are abandonment, migration and organized crime.
Mexican soprano Denis Vélez is one of five candidates selected in a competition for the chance to audition for the Metropolitan Opera, held by the Metropolitan Opera National Council (MONC) in New York on March 1.
She is the first Mexican to win a shot at an audition, which comes with a US $25,000 prize.
“I do not have the words to express my excitement and the profound gratitude to my family and my teachers that have accompanied me throughout my education to make it to this point. As a Mexican, I feel profoundly honored to be the first finalist … to represent the young talent of Mexico at one of the world’s top-tier competitions. It is a dream come true.”
Despite her triumph, Vélez admits that she didn’t grow up with opera or classical music. Born in Puebla in 1992, she heard Mexican popular music, her initial contact with classical music being through Disney movies. That changed when she was 17 and entered the Conservatory of Puebla. She fell in love with opera though she hasn’t entirely left her musical roots behind.
“Yes, (Mexican) popular music influences me, and I feel that much of the musical ability I have comes from it. For me, there is no clear line between popular and classical music, although it can certainly be difficult for people to appreciate it as opera is not Mexican.”
Denis Velez, soprano
Vélez performs in San Miguel de Allende last year.
Vélez continued her studies at the National School of Music in Mexico City and soon became part of the Opera Chorus at the Palace of Fine Arts. For two years, she was part of an intensive program for new talent at the Ryan Opera Center, part of the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
She has won regional competitions in the past, her major national triumph being with the Carlo Morelli National Singing Competition at the Palace of Fine Arts in 2018.
Last year she was fourth-place winner at the 11th Concurso San Miguel held in San Miguel Allende for promising young opera singers.
Her current repertoire includes Le nozze di Figaro (Contessa and Susanna), Bastián y Bastiana (Bastiana) and Così fan Tutte (Fiordiligi) by W. A. Mozart, along with L’elisir d’amore (Adina) by Gaetano Donizetti, and La Bohème by Puccini.
Vélez was also chosen to join the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center of the Lyric Opera in Chicago for the 2020-2021 season.
She is returning to Mexico to sing on March 7 at the 90th anniversary of the Isauro Martínez Theatre in Torreón with Mario Rojas and the Chamber Orchestra of Coahuila.
MONC was founded in 1954 with the express purpose of finding new talent and giving them the chance to work with the Met. It holds the most important competition of its type in the United States and one of the most prestigious in the world. This year, Mexico became a permanent site for Met Opera auditions.
Members of Mexico’s largest teachers union, the SNTE, took a leaf out of the playbook of its more dissident counterpart on Tuesday by blocking train tracks to pressure the government to meet its demands.
The militant CNTE teachers union has been successful in obtaining more than 800 million pesos (US $40.9 million) in unpaid bonuses in Michoacán by blocking tracks, the newspaper Reforma reported, noting also that it has won promises from the government related to the allocation of teaching positions in states such as Oaxaca and Chiapas.
In that context, some members of the SNTE teachers union “copied” the railroad blockade strategy in Veracruz, Puebla and Tlaxcala on Tuesday to demand that President López Obrador and Labor Minister Luisa María Alcalde ensure that new labor laws guaranteeing them the right to elect their union leaders in free and secret ballots are adhered to.
Reforma reported that there were blockades on tracks in the Veracruz municipalities of Coatzacoalcos, Fortín, Córdoba and Orizaba as well as in the Puebla municipality of Rafael Lara Grajales and in Huamantla, Tlaxcala. Members of a group called Maestros por México (Teachers for Mexico) – linked to former, long-serving SNTE boss Elba Esther Gordillo, who was absolved of corruption charges in 2018 – led the blockades at several points.
Freight trains transporting products including steel, fertilizers, auto parts and foodstuffs, among other goods, were held up by the blockades.
Protesting teachers warned that rail blockades in states such as Hidalgo, México state, Nuevo León, Jalisco and Michoacán, will follow if the Labor Ministry doesn’t ensure that their demand for union democratization is met. They also called for teachers who were dismissed during the administration of the previous government to be reinstated and for more funds to be allocated to education.
Rail blockades by members of the CNTE union in Michoacán lasted 18 days in early 2019, costing the economy at least 18.5 billion pesos.
Tijuana residents received US $476 million in remittances.
Residents of Tijuana, Baja California, received more money in remittances sent home by Mexicans living abroad in 2019 that those of any other municipality, according to a report by the bank BBVA.
Completed by the bank’s research division, the report shows that US $476.2 million in family remittances was sent to the northern border city last year.
Puebla city ranked second, with residents receiving $458.7 million, followed by Morelia, Michoacán, $440.8 million; Guadalajara, Jalisco, $432.9 million; Culiacán, Sinaloa, $373.8 million; Álvaro Obregón, Mexico City, $360.1 million; León, Guanajuato, $330.9 million; Juárez, Chihuahua, $328.9 million; Oaxaca city, $321.6 million; and Zapopan, Jalisco, $313.6 million.
The top 50 municipalities in terms of remittances received – among which were also large cities such as Monterrey, Acapulco and Hermosillo as well as municipalities with much lower populations – accounted for 30.7% of the total of just over $36 billion that was sent to Mexico from abroad in 2019.
Just under 95% of remittances came from the United States, BBVA said, noting that the monetary transfers exceeded their historical peak for the fourth consecutive year.
The 50 municipalities that received the most remittances from the US in 2019.
Michoacán, Jalisco and Guanajuato were the biggest beneficiaries among Mexico’s 32 federal entities, receiving $3.58 billion, $3.5 billion and $3.29 billion respectively.
“In general, the states that receive most remittances are those that have seen the most migrants depart over the last 50 years,” BBVA said. “For at least 15 years, Michoacán, Jalisco and Guanajuato have been the country’s top three recipients of remittances.”
Residents of México state and Oaxaca received $2 billion and $1.8 billion in remittances, respectively, to rank fourth and fifth. Rounding out the top 10 were Puebla, Guerrero, Mexico City, Veracruz and San Luis Potosí.
The five states that received the lowest amounts in remittances were, in order, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatán and Tabasco. The states with the highest growth in remittances received in 2019 were Chiapas (21.4%), Tabasco (19.6%), Mexico City (18.6%), Chihuahua (13.2%) and Sinaloa (13.1%).
BBVA also reported that California was easily the largest state of origin for remittances. Just over $10.5 billion was sent from the Golden State, a figure that accounts for almost a third of the $34.11 billion in remittances from the United States.
Texas ranked second with remittances of $5.56 billion followed by Illinois, Florida, New York and Georgia, with amounts of between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion each.
BBVA said that total remittances to Mexico could grow 6% this year to $38.2 billion, which would ensure that a new record is set for a fifth consecutive year.
While more money is flowing into the country in the form of remittances, less is leaving, the BBVA reported.
The bank said that remittance outflows, or remittances sent from Mexico to another country, decreased by 1.9% to $981.2 million in 2019.
The United States is the main destination for remittances from Mexico, receiving 40% of the total last year, followed by Colombia, China, Peru, Honduras and Guatemala.
Fishboats attack the Sharpie in the Gulf of California on Tuesday.
Conservationists and federal inspectors were assailed by fishermen who hurled Molotov cocktails and fishing net weights at them Tuesday as they carried out surveillance operations in a protected area of the Gulf of California.
The federal environmental agency Profepa said in a press release that fishermen in two skiffs known as pangas attacked the crew aboard the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessel M/V Sharpie while in the Upper Gulf of California Biosphere Reserve.
“Over 20 smaller boats gathered around the two skiffs, attacking and provoking [the authorities], first verbally, then physically, aiming to stop [their] efforts to curtail illegal fishing,” said Profepa.
“At first, the fishermen threw fishing net weights at the inspectors; later, Molotov cocktails. … after an initial pursuit, [the conservationists] decided to avoid confrontation but not before notifying the navy, which arrived aboard [a patrol boat] to provide security,” it added.
The inspectors and conservationists used anti-piracy tactics such as high-speed maneuvering and defensive water cannons to repel the attacks. The use of Molotov cocktails caused military on board to fire a warning shot, which convinced the fishermen to stop their attack and disband.
Profepa said that a second boat called the M/V Farley Mowat was also attacked. It was carrying 15 Sea Shepherd conservationists, two Marine infantrymen, two National Guard troops, one member of the National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commission and one Profepa inspector.
The conservationists reported seeing a minor among the attacking fishermen.
“Today on World Wildlife Day, I watched a young child throw lead weights at our ship during an attack,” said Sea Shepherd Captain Jacqueline Le Duc.
“Witnessing this firsthand was extremely sad. Sea Shepherd is here to save a species on the brink of extinction so that future generations can continue to enjoy the biodiversity this area has to offer. We should be teaching younger generations the importance of the conservation of nature, not the exploitation of it.”
The Upper Gulf of California Biosphere Reserve is a protected conservation area for the vaquita, a critically endangered marine mammal. The Autonomous University of Baja California Sur reported last year that only 22 vaquitas remained in the Gulf of California.
Protesters march last year in protest against the Mexicali brewery.
A public consultation will be held to decide whether the United States company Constellation Brands will be allowed to open its new brewery in Mexicali, Baja California, President López Obrador said on Tuesday.
The president said that the Environment Ministry has already approved moving forward with a vote to determine the fate of the US $1.5-billion brewery, which is currently under construction.
Farmers in the area have protested the construction of the brewery since 2016, claiming that its production will put a strain on the state’s water supply. They have fought various legal battles in an attempt to halt the project.
However, Environment Minister Víctor Toledo assured federal authorities in January that the brewery would not affect the region’s water supply. For its part, Constellation Brands, which produces Corona and other Grupo Modelo beers, has claimed that there will be enough water for farmers, citizens and the 1 billion liters of beverages it plans to produce annually.
Speaking at his regular news conference on Tuesday, López Obrador said that citizens deserve the right to have their say about the brewery in a consultation. It was the same mechanism he implemented to test support for the previous government’s airport project at Texcoco, México state, which was subsequently cancelled.
Farmers have expressed concerns about the brewery’s water consumption.
“The company says that there will be no impact, that it’s an investment that will create jobs in the area. It should have the confidence of the citizens, and they should decide,” he said.
The president said that his government plans to go ahead with the consultation even though United States officials have warned against it.
“We were sent messages, even from the U.S. Embassy … that if the consultation happens, it’ll end badly for the country,” he said.
“People say: ‘it will set a bad precedent if there’s a consultation, because it will impact investment.’ No, the bad precedent was already set when, without taking people into account, they gave out the permits,” he said.
The federal government’s announcement of its intention to hold a consultation comes a year after electoral authorities in Baja California reversed a decision to allow a vote on the controversial brewery. The Baja California Electoral Institute (IEE) received a request supported by more than 18,000 signatures for a plebiscite and approved one before five of six members on its general council subsequently voted against the consultation going ahead.
Clemente Ramos Mendoza, president of the general council, said at the time that the IEE is not the authority to which citizens should have turned in order to try to stop the construction of the brewery.
“There are federal tribunals for that … administrative courts. They are the relevant authorities,” Ramos said in March 2019.
In response to López Obrador’s announcement on Tuesday, Constellation Brands reiterated in a statement that the operation of the brewery would not affect local water supply, noting also that the plant has been granted all the required permits.
The company, which is also the largest importer of beer to the United States, called for the rule of law to be respected in order to provide certainty for investors and citizens alike.
Separately, Constellation Brands indicated in a March 2 letter that was published by the newspaper Reforma that it would consider other locations for a new brewery if Mexico became too problematic.
“The company no longer has the time to embark on a public consultation in which its future in Mexico is still uncertain,” said the letter, signed by Constellation Brands’ Mexico president Daniel Baima.
Constellation confirmed that the letter was authentic, the news agency Reuters reported.
If the company decides to continue construction of the brewery in Mexicali – and its operation is given a green light at the government’s planned consultation – it is expected to open at the end of 2021.
Anielka Garcia Villajuana, center: pioneer of the Patronato.
It’s always the same story. The election, the passion, the waving of the fist, the belief. Mr. ‘manifesto-of-change’ stands on the steps of the town hall, in the parliamentary chamber, or in front of the presidential residence, and professes a revolution in government. An end to corruption, an overhaul of burgeoning bureaucracy, a new way forward for the Mexican people.
Then comes the inevitable descent, often more insipid than dramatic, and so the process begins again.
Mexico is bored stiff, more than bored: disdainful at best, furiously distrustful at worst. The country sees this on a daily basis, the self-perpetuating actions and processes of institutionalized politicians, the literal systemic nature of the problem. But what is rarely seen or acknowledged is that the beginning of a sea change is already quietly rolling through society.
This isn’t a new phenomenon, it fact it’s been around us the whole time, but is now perhaps starting to reach (whisper it) a critical mass; and these initiatives are harder to identify because inherent in their genus is not placing importance on the validation of being lauded. Moreover, the structures inherent in these parallel systems are civilian-led, structured from the bottom up allowing for a foregrounding of real people over grand projects, grass-roots development and concerted local participation over bloated grand designs.
A particularly interesting individual in this context is Anielka García Villajuana, president of the independent non-profit Patronato de la Ciudad de Campeche. The Patronato was set up 20 years ago to oversee Campeche’s transition to a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but under García has morphed into a multi-directional body, which while retaining that initial focus now also works across wide-ranging socio-environmental programs in the city and its environs.
Empresa Verde works with business and the Patronato alike.
Perhaps the greatest signpost to this evolution is García’s instinct for people: “There really are good people everywhere, all too often fighting a daily fight against the odds just to be allowed to get on with things. We try to work alongside existing projects and just give them agency. None of it can be about us, we’re just here to say: ‘We believe in you, how can we help?’ And then get our hands dirty too.”
Projects can take the form of environmental initiatives, cultural events, educational workshops, even medical programs. Essentially, the aim is not to introduce a higher standard of living, fix a road with an x amount of net spend or provide a particular service, but to participate intrinsically alongside and within society, to act and encourage action across existing progressive, civic endeavors and in that way to encourage more change-making from the bottom up. It’s not a physical evolution of society, but a cultural one.
Obvious to all is that there are gaps in governmental works in Campeche, and where these demonstrate their slack, García has picked it up, working in areas where there is often a clear absence of state systems, such as sustainability in businesses. Enter Empresa Verde, an expanding citywide collection of sustainable businesses, working on everything from intelligent purchasing to elimination of single-use plastics to waste separation and reuse.
This then feeds into El Campanario, a piece of land on the outskirts of the city loaned by local businessman Juan Pérez Hernández that serves as a not-so-final destination for organics from these businesses and that also doubles as a space for urban growing courses, animal rescue and organic small-scale farming. This process has been infrastructurally supported by other local businesses including El Surco S.A. de C.V., which has helped clear land, transport materials, and much more.
Not to mention the now-famous “Doctor en Bici,” Luis Fernando Hernández, who visits marginalized communities on weekends to provide free medical consultations. “He is doing such great work,” says García.
“Nothing at all needed changing, but we realized we could help by encouraging people to donate medicines and be a reception center for these, so that’s what we’re doing. Not much really.” Her tone, unsurprisingly, is self-deprecating.
Luis Fernando Hernández: The ‘doctor en bici.’
Essentially — perhaps without even realizing it — García, who is emphatically not alone in working this way, is fracturing a system that has failed so many. “Traditionally authorities would see an existing project which was working,” she says, “and — at worst — want to co-opt it, or at very best just get in the way. What very rarely happens, but in my view is exactly what we should be doing, is giving amazing people and projects licence to run … to just get on with things. It should involve us all sweating and bleeding together, because that’s how community comes together, and the better societies are formed.”
García’s words ring true from a local governmental level all the way through to national leadership. Normal processes involve each new political remaking and relaunching for ego’s sake, there is no vested interest in continuation or maintaining what works, rather pretending everything that came before was a waste of time, scorching the earth and presenting yourself and your new initiatives as those of the returning King.
Placing the people at the center of the change is quietly radical, but it’s also the next logical step. While the interventionist state may have its place (something that García herself understands), it perpetuates the resilient legacy of colonialism, an era in which something would be adopted, changed or quashed on the whims of plutocrats, not the affected people. At least remnants of this attitude linger on today, and the only way to reject a recklessly interventionist patronage seems to be in its restructuring, and the re-centering of the community.
On the face of it, it appears as though we have seen something similar enacted on a national scale before, through Mexico’s National Anti-Corruption System (NACS). Despite being introduced by the government, it is comprised entirely of non-governmental interests. The organization is essentially presided over by a board of civilians, with the goal being to kick the entire political football from the field of interests.
But this theorized structure hasn’t yet been able to yield the fruits imagined of a truly democratized institution, likely because generating an anti-system just ends up being co-opted by existing paradigms — it remains in discourse with the structures that created it. It may give the illusion of purity, but inevitably leaves the door wide open to the influences of the government they exist to challenge.
The NACS framework seems on face value to be a wider extrapolation of García’s networks, but it falls short in how it came to be and therefore its cross-societal structures. These initiatives cannot be brought to life from one place, they have to come from everywhere, and consequently be cross-societal, multi-sectoral, and a truly amorphous network. We can’t just replace the sullied with the unsullied. Instead, our answer may need to mirror the complexity of the society it seeks to unify.
Countless humble pioneers working in this way across the country display a clear message: they are here to help and get things done, but not by fixing the government’s mess, instead by existing in parallel. Such a philosophy is coming to be productive in Mexican society; it encourages change-makers and innovators, but recognizes that the political powers still have a responsibility to work with them and get their own house in order.
Meanwhile, behind closed doors, right across the country, incredible things are happening; pioneers of change continue to toil below our radar, quietly demonstrating the raw power of people.
