Parking meters are now in operation in the center of Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, despite opposition from business owners and other residents.
The meters began operating on Sunday but a number of motorists had trouble using them, according to a report by the newspaper Noticaribe.
“It asks us for our license plate and other things but doesn’t accept them. We’ve been here 10 minutes already,” complained one man outside the Playa del Carmen market.
Another man told Noticaribe that he tried to pay the 10-peso hourly fee but couldn’t. Both motorists decided to look for parking spaces elsewhere to avoid the risk of having wheel clamps placed on their vehicles.
Four young people struggled to pay at a parking meter near city hall and eventually succeeded after 20 minutes.
On 15th street, the owner of a Colombian restaurant said he hadn’t heard any complaints from his customers about the parking meters but a man selling hamburgers on 4th street said they weren’t good for his business.
“It’s not good for us,” he said, adding that he heard on the radio that meter profits will go to the company managing them rather than the municipal government.
In fact, Promotora de Reordenamiento Urbano (Promourb), which was awarded a contract in November 2017 to install and operate 5,200 meters, will be required to pass on 25% of the resources it collects to the Solidaridad municipal council.
In the lead-up to the meters coming into operation, business owners and other residents of the resort city voiced their opposition to them on the grounds that they weren’t consulted and their finances will come under undue pressure.
At a protest on October 1, the head of the Playa del Carmen chapter of the Mexican Chamber of Commerce, José Luis Hernández Barragán, said the government violated the law by approving the parking meters without first consulting business groups.
In an interview with Noticaribe last week, Promourb executive Marco Antonio Blásquez Corona didn’t vouch for the government but said the operating company has responded to the concerns raised by business owners and the public in general.
Blásquez argued that the meters will encourage people to use public transit and thus help the environment and stop people from occupying parking spaces the whole day, which he said would benefit business.
People who live in the area where parking meters were approved (between Avenida Aviación and Avenida 48, and the beachfront and Avenida 35) can apply for government authorization so they don’t have to pay to park outside their homes, he said.
Mexican 15-year-olds rank last among students in the 36 OECD member countries in mathematics, reading and science, according to the results of the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey.
Published on Monday, the PISA results show that 35% of Mexican students did not achieve the minimum level of proficiency (Level 2) in all three subjects whereas the average among OECD countries was 13%.
Only 1% of students performed at the highest level of proficiency (Level 6) in at least one subject whereas the OECD average was 16%.
In math, 44% of Mexican 15-year-olds attained proficiency of Level 2 or higher whereas the OECD average was 76%.
The PISA report said that “at a minimum, these students can interpret and recognize, without direct instructions, how a (simple) situation can be represented mathematically.”
Only 1% of Mexican students achieved proficiency of Level 5 or above in the subject compared to 44% in China and 37% in Singapore. Among all 78 countries assessed in the PISA survey, Mexico ranked 61st in math.
In reading, 55% of students attained at least Level 2 proficiency compared to an OECD average of 77%.
“At a minimum, these students can identify the main idea in a text of moderate length, find information based on explicit, though sometimes complex criteria, and can reflect on the purpose and form of texts when explicitly directed to do so,” the PISA report said.
Again, only 1% of Mexican students achieved proficiency of Level 5 or above in the subject compared to an OECD average of 9%. Among all 78 countries assessed, Mexico ranked 53rd in reading.
In science, 53% of 15-year-olds attained at least Level 2 proficiency compared to an OECD average of 78%.
“At a minimum, these students can recognize the correct explanation for familiar scientific phenomena and can use such knowledge to identify, in simple cases, whether a conclusion is valid based on the data provided,” the report said.
A “negligible” percentage of students achieved Level 5 or 6 proficiency in science compared to 7% across OECD countries. Among all 78 countries assessed, Mexico ranked 56th.
Chinese students ranked first in all three subjects. However, the results from the Asian nation are questionable because the PISA survey only assessed 15-year-olds in four large and wealthy cities.
The report said that Mexican boys generally outperformed girls in both math and science, while girls fared better than boys in reading. It also said that socio-economic status was a strong predictor of performance in all three subjects.
Since Mexican students first participated in the PISA survey in 2000, mean performance across the three subjects assessed has remained relatively stable.
“Only PISA 2003 performance (in reading and mathematics) was significantly below 2018 levels, and only PISA 2009 (in mathematics) was significantly above the 2018 level. In all other years, and across all subjects, Mexico’s mean performance was not significantly different from that observed in PISA 2018,” the report said.
However, the overall stability “hides more positive trends amongst the lowest-achieving students,” the report added, explaining that the gap between the top and bottom performers in math and science has shrunk over time in Mexico.
Also on the brighter side for Mexico was that that 83% of students surveyed said they are satisfied with their lives compared to an OECD average of 67%; 85% said that their teachers showed enjoyment in teaching (the OECD average was 74%); and 89% said they can usually find a way out of difficult situations (The OECD average was 84%).
The percentage of Mexican 15-year-olds who said they are bullied at least a few times a month was on par with the OECD average of 23%.
No hugs, just bullets: damage in Villa Unión after Saturday's attack.
The Northeast Cartel attacked police and the municipal building in Villa Unión, Coahuila, on Saturday in an attempt to take control of the area to run drugs, arms and people into the United States, according to state authorities.
The attack by the cartel’s military wing Hell’s Army left 23 people dead, including 17 cartel members, four police officers and two civilians. Police have arrested 10 suspects, who confirmed the cartel’s plans to take over the region.
“The statement [of the attackers] is confidential, but I can say that we have found that the route to the United States is attractive to the criminal group for the trafficking of people, arms and drugs,” said Coahuila Attorney General Gerardo Márquez.
He said about 50 civilians opened fire on the municipal building in Villa Unión, where they were met by 15 police officers who fought back until other security forces arrived.
The cartel hitmen were ultimately driven away from the town but not before they had taken several people hostage. Officials reported that all the hostages were later released.
The area resembled a ghost town after the attack, with empty streets, three closed schools and most people too scared to leave their homes to attend Sunday mass at the local church.
The National Guard installed a base of operations in Villa Unión on Monday to secure the town.
“From today [Monday], we are going to establish personnel here permanently to provide more confidence . . . to the people of Villa Unión and we’re going to coordinate with the municipal authorities so that they can start carrying out their normal activities,” said National Guard coordinator Rubén Barraza.
The theft of materials and equipment from Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) plants cost the public utility 75 million pesos (US $3.8 million) in the first nine months of the year.
Information obtained by the newspaper El Universal via a freedom of information request reveals that a wide range of assets are stolen from CFE facilities including tools, tanks of gas, copper cable, screws, computer equipment, video projectors, printers, pipes, antennas, thermographic cameras, air conditioners and even vehicles.
Thieves sell the stolen goods on the black market or to CFE competitors, El Universal said.
Sources inside the state-owned company told the newspaper that CFE workers are likely responsible for the vast majority of thefts, although outsiders also pilfer materials from the utility. Some private security company personnel who work at CFE plants are believed to be complicit with the crime.
According to the information obtained by El Universal, practically all CFE facilities across the country are affected.
However, more than half of the losses incurred in the first nine months of this year – just under 38.7 million pesos – were the result of thefts in the Valley of Mexico. More than 3 million pesos worth of assets were stolen from the Volcanes and Tacuba plants, while the Toluca plant suffered losses of just under 3 million pesos.
El Universal said that CFE management, led by director Manuel Bartlett, doesn’t appear to be overly concerned about theft on the inside of the company, explaining that there is more emphasis on stopping criminals from stealing cable conductor and steel from transmission towers.
The newspaper also noted that there is barely a mention of theft inside CFE facilities in publicly available documents.
One reason why there is little focus on the problem could be that the losses it causes the company are dwarfed by those it incurs due to electricity theft and technical issues.
Tabasco is one of Mexico’s poorest states, known for being the namesake of a brand of hot sauce and near-constant flooding. But it is also home to a taxi-driving Santa Claus.
Every year taxi driver Armando Castillo dons one of his three Santa suits each day during the month of December to drive around the streets of the state capital, Villahermosa, where temperatures rarely drop below 35 C.
He has even named his taxi Rodolfo (Rudolph in English).
Castillo has done this every year for seven years, making him well-known in this small city, which feels more like an oversized town. Santa behind the wheel attracts a lot of attention, especially at traffic lights. Sometimes prospective fares will fight for the chance to ride with him and, of course, taking pictures of themselves with him on their cell phones.
Castillo’s main purpose in dressing up in his Santa suit is to collect and give away toys to poor children. This year his goal is to give away 1,000. The toys come from community organizations, businesses and individuals, and he accepts new toys as well as used ones in good condition.
In the real world, Castillo is a married man with five grown children of his own. The idea to turn himself into Santa Taxista, as he is known, came about around a decade ago, prompted by the look on poor children’s faces when presented with an unexpected gift. To attend to his duties as Santa Claus, Castillo parks in various parts of the city, where children run up to him with letters in hand and adults bring toys and other donations.
His work has been so successful that in 2019 he founded the non-profit the Dream of Santa and the Three Wise Men, partnering with local businesses to open donation centers.
But being Santa is not enough. Castillo dresses as Santa during the entire month of December, but after Christmas he assumes another role as one of the Three Wise Men along with two of his friends. This is because in Mexican culture, children traditionally receive gifts on Epiphany (January 6), like the Baby Jesus did.
Stay off the beach is authorities' message to hotels.
A battle is brewing over public access to beaches in Quintana Roo.
The federal office of maritime land zones (Zofemat) will launch legal action against large hotel chains that refuse to open up access to the Caribbean coastline, director Rodrigo Hernández Aguilar told a press conference.
If hotels fail to comply with orders to grant public access to beaches they could be demolished, he warned. The Zofemat chief said that access to between 90% and 95% of beaches in Quintana Roo is obstructed. Under Mexican law, all beaches are federal zones and must be accessible to the public.
The legal action against hotels, many of which belong to Spanish-owned chains, is part of the government program known as the National Movement for the Recovery of Public Accesses to Beaches, Hernández said.
One hotel project in the Puerto Juárez area of Cancún has already been demolished because it would have blocked public access to the beach.
“We demolished the project because it was obstructing the federal zone,” Hernández said. “. . . We’re going to continue battle by battle . . .”
He said that the Spanish-owned Palladium Hotel Group, which is building a new property that will block access to the Chacmuchuc beach in the municipality of Isla Mujeres, is one of the chains that will face legal action.
“. . . They come to Mexico to do what they wouldn’t dream of doing in Spain, where they couldn’t close a beach and if they tried there would be an energetic and historic protest,” Hernández said.
“Why do they come here to do what they don’t do there? Investment is welcome but they have to include the coastal communities and Mexicans [in their plans].”
Hernández issued a “friendly call” to Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquín to visit Zofemat to contribute to the beach access recovery plan. His support, the federal official said, will be important to resolve beach access issues in Playa del Carmen, Akumal, Chemuyil and Tulum.
“I especially want to request his support to open public access . . . at Punta Venado beach [in Playa del Carmen], Hernández said.
The Zofemat director said that public access in beaches in Quintana Roo had been restricted due to corrupt dealings between past governments and a number of hotel groups.
An anti-violence activist and relative of the nine victims of a cartel ambush in Sonora last month declared on Sunday that defending human life must be the No. 1 priority in Mexico.
“For the love of God, let’s stop fighting for secondary things,” Julian LeBarón said at a rally against violence in Mexico City. “Let’s agree that the obligation of each one of us is to defend human life.”
While an estimated quarter of a million people listened to President López Obrador speak in the zócalo to mark the first year of his government, a few thousand marched from the Angel of Independence to the Monument to the Revolution, where the anti-violence (and anti-AMLO) event was held.
Julian and Adrian LeBarón and other members of the Mormon community in northern Mexico, devastated by the November 4 attack that left three women and six children dead, marched at the rear of the contingent.
“Those who murder women or children, those who murder their neighbor have no [place in this] country. . .” Julian LeBarón said.
Members of the LeBarón family in Mexico City on Sunday.
“. . . What’s at risk now is our freedom. If we have no way to protect life, we have no way to protect freedom. We have to join together to protect life and take up the battle to those who are taking it away. They’re not Mexicans!” he added.
“. . . We have to be united to defend life. That’s a lot more important than all the differences we have.”
Speaking to the rally attendees, among whom were leaders of three opposition parties, Adrian LeBarón also said that other issues paled in comparison to the violence plaguing Mexico.
“I’m sorry if I offend anyone but my heart is full of pain and my voice is trembling with rage. Sorry to come here and say that today I don’t care about the economy or corruption, the airport or political party colors . . .” he said.
“. . . We live in a country where we lose life for the most unfair of reasons: wanting to live. For being – I’m saying this in the name of Rhonita [one of the three women who were killed] – a woman, girlfriend, wife, lover . . . a giver of life, a daughter, granddaughter . . .” LeBarón said.
“We live in a country that has lost the respect for life . . . that has lost the capacity to feel . . .”
Also on Sunday, federal authorities said that three suspects had been arrested in connection with last month’s attack including a suspected plaza chief of La Línea, a gang with links to the Juárez Cartel.
Authorities said shortly after the attack that the criminal group may have mistaken the vehicles in which the women and children were traveling as those of a Sinaloa Cartel splinter cell called Los Salazar. Family members rejected the claim.
Sunday’s arrests followed the detention of another suspect in Mexico City last month. Military authorities said the man detained in November provided information about the alleged perpetrators of the crime that led to the latest arrests in a joint operation between police, the National Guard and intelligence agents.
After a meeting with López Obrador on Monday, Adrian LeBarón said that he and other family members were happy with the progress that has been made in the investigation.
“. . . We can’t say more because it’s dangerous even for us. We have another meeting with him [the president] in a month . . .”
An art show in Mexico City’s Art Point Polanco gallery invites visitors to rethink their relationships to the natural world and the other living things in it.
Artist Karen Rumbos wants her audience to reflect upon endangered species, to find a connection to them and ultimately consider what can be done to preserve their habitats when they visit Don’t be sorry, do something.
Her intention, however, isn’t to scold her audience or take them back to school. Rumbos hopes to captivate with the exhibition’s colors, shapes and textures, ultimately creating empathy and respect for nature and the animal kingdom in her audience.
The exhibition begins even before entering the gallery: in a display window in the facade, a glittery panda welcomes visitors among stalks of bamboo.
Inside, the show is spread out among the gallery’s three floors, comprising nine framed paintings, three murals, an installation and a life-size giraffe sculpture. Rumbos used oil paints, acrylics, resins, wood and gold and silver leaf, among other materials.
Artist Karen Rumbos intends to captivate with the exhibition’s colors, shapes and textures, ultimately creating empathy and respect for nature.
Plaques provide context for each piece with information from the United Nations and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The show’s other highlights include a polar bear covered in around 5,000 beads of Czechoslovakian crystal in a habitat covered in white fur.
The monarch butterfly installation is also sure to please. Rumbos pays homage to the insects’ breeding grounds in Michoacán with a display made of dried foliage inhabited by dozens of butterflies. Artistic representations of the insects convincingly cover the walls and hang from the ceiling.
The most colorful section is on the third floor of the gallery, where tropical murals stand out on a backdrop of bright Mexican pink. Among the furniture in a comfortable room and the brightly colored walls of a small terrace there are leafy palms, monkeys, birds and butterflies of all colors.
The most impactful experiences, however, are those in virtual reality. Footage from the documentary Our Planet contrasts the splendor of the natural world, from the North Pole to the African savanna, with the consequences of climate change, pollution and resource exploitation.
The exhibition will be on display at Art Point Polanco, located at Calle Séneca 53, in Polanco, Mexico City, until December 31. The gallery is open from 10:00am-6:00pm, Monday-Friday. Entrance is free and does not require a reservation.
Sunday's one-year anniversary celebration in Mexico City.
The transformation of Mexico is “within sight,” President López Obrador declared on Sunday in an address in Mexico City’s central square to mark the first anniversary of his government.
In a 90-minute speech to an estimated 250,000 supporters in the zócalo, López Obrador listed his government’s achievements since he took office on December 1, 2018.
Among them: laws to combat corruption, the implementation of austerity measures, a change to the constitution to prevent tax avoidance by large corporations, cancelation of the previous government’s education reform, elimination of protection from prosecution for the president, creation of the National Guard, increased welfare for the nation’s most disadvantaged people, a 16% increase to the minimum wage, establishment of a northern border free zone and a 94% reduction in petroleum theft.
Accompanied on stage by his wife, Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, the president claimed that his government has fulfilled 89 of the 100 commitments he made in his inaugural speech as president one year ago.
However, “the main task of the government,” Lopez Obrador stressed, is to “eradicate political corruption.”
“We’re implementing order from the peak of power . . . We’re cleaning up the government from top to bottom, like stairs are cleaned,” he told loyal supporters who intermittently broke into chants such as “es un honor estar con obrador” (it’s an honor to be with Obrador) and “no estás solo (you’re not alone).
Stamping out corruption and implementing austerity measures has allowed the government to fund the budget without raising taxes, increasing the cost of fuel or putting the country into debt, the president said.
López Obrador conceded that the economy hasn’t grown as the government would have liked but claimed that there is now a “better distribution of wealth.”
The president expressed confidence that the new North American trade agreement will be approved by the United States and Canada “very soon.”
López Obrador highlighted that construction of the Santa Lucía airport and the modernization of the railway on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec have both begun.
AMLOve in the zocalo.
“Corrupt conservatives” attempted to stop the former project through legal action but couldn’t, he said, because “reason and the law were enforced.”
López Obrador also said that construction of the new refinery on the Tabasco coast is underway as are projects to upgrade the six existing ones. In addition, the government has halted a 14-year decline in oil production, he said.
International tourism and spending by foreigners while in Mexico have both increased compared to last year, the president said before taking the opportunity to thank the navy for its efforts to clear sargassum from the country’s Caribbean coastline.
López Obrador said that half of all Mexican households and 95% of indigenous ones are benefiting from at least one government welfare program.
“Soon it will be 100% of indigenous households,” he said, adding his oft-repeated slogan: “For the good of all, the poor come first.”
López Obrador said that his government is preventing the over-exploitation of water and has outlawed the use of genetically-modified seeds and fracking.
In the second half of his speech, the president railed against producers of television series that portray the drug trafficking underworld as a “paradise” with “mansions, luxury cars, power, good-looking young men and women and designer clothes.”
There is also “another reality,” López Obrador said – people who consume drugs “can die within a year.”
“. . . That’s sadness, pain and suffering for young people, for their families. That’s not the way to achieve happiness . . . True happiness is being at ease with oneself, being at ease with our conscience, with each other . . .” he told attendees, among whom were also federal lawmakers, state governors and the event’s guest of honor, former president of Uruguay José Mujica.
“. . . If we reduce the consumption of drugs, we will be able to solve the serious problem of insecurity and violence; if not . . . it will be more complicated,” López Obrador declared.
As on many previous occasions, the president blamed the high levels of violence currently plaguing the country on the security strategies of his predecessors, especially Felipe Calderón, who launched the so-called war on drugs shortly after he took office in late 2006.
“The country is still suffering the consequences of that mistaken policy,” López Obrador said, asserting that his government will not repeat such an “absurd and unhinged strategy.”
Sonora Santanera was among the entertainers at the event.
The president said his government remained committed to addressing the main causes of violence – “unemployment, poverty, marginalization” – ensuring that no human rights violations are committed by the armed forces and finding the 43 teaching students who disappeared in Guerrero in 2014.
Reducing crime is the government’s “main challenge,” López Obrador said.
“But we are certain that we are going to pacify Mexico with the support of the people and the coordinated work of the entire government . . .” he added.
While the transformation of Mexico is “within sight” and a lot has been achieved in the government’s first year, the president said that the country is still in a “process of transition” and a lot more needs to be done.
“The old has not yet finished dying and the new is still being born . . .We’re not playing around, we’re not pretending, a new way of doing politics is underway, a regime change. It’s not more of the same, now we’re being guided by honesty, democracy and humanism,” López Obrador said.
“How much time will we need to consolidate the project of transformation? I think one more year . . .The foundations for the construction of a new country will be established . . . It will be practically impossible to return to the period of shame . . . the neoliberal period . . . I’m sure that when we complete two years of government the conservatives will no longer be able to reverse the changes . . .”
Poon, Volovich and Hardeman with Puerto Morelos' new fire truck.
A donated fire truck arrived in Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo, from Edmonton, Alberta, on the weekend after a lengthy bureaucratic delay.
Retired firefighter Chris Hardeman and his friends Roger Poon and Brad Volovich arrived at their destination on Saturday after driving the truck from Texas, where it had been held up by nearly a year by bureaucratic red tape.
They arrived late in Puerto Morelos, but there was a reception party nonetheless.
“We were actually surprised [at] the reception that we got because of it being so late,” said Hardeman after their arrival. “There was probably a good contingent here of 30 to 40 people. We thought there’d be three or four.”
“We had a big, long, 17-hour day of driving yesterday to get here. So it was nice, everybody staying up to greet us.”
The three intended to deliver the fire truck in January but were stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas for not having the proper paperwork.
They left the truck parked in Laredo and returned to Edmonton to wait out the administrative process.
“It’s taken quite a long time with a little break in between while it sat in Texas,” said Volovich. “We’re happy to finally get here last night. It was a great experience after all is said and done, even with the delays.”
The Puerto Morelos fire chief and firefighters were among those who waited up to greet the Canadians.
Donated by the city of Edmonton, the CAD $35,000 truck will serve Puerto Morelos as well as the neighboring town of Leona Vicario, which has no fire service at all, Hardeman said.
Hardeman, Volovich and Poon started a GoFundMe page in January 2018 to collect donations to acquire fire equipment for Puerto Morelos and as of Monday it was just over CAD $2,000 short of its $18,000 goal.
Poon had to return to Canada just after arriving, but Hardeman and Volovich will stay in Puerto Morelos until December 8 to train the local crew to operate the truck.
“They’re all really excited to get at it, and certainly very, very thankful for what the three of us have done,” said Hardeman.
After finally getting south of the border, the trio had to deal with another setback when the truck had an electrical problem. However, people stepped up to help out, and they were able to get the problem fixed easily.
“The power of social media and the generosity out there is simply amazing,” Hardeman said.
This is not the only example of retired firefighters from north of the border helping underequipped areas of Mexico. The tragic death of a woman in a house fire La Ribera, Baja California Sur, in August prompted a former fire chief to found a volunteer fire department.
