Hidden cameras have caught a jaguar and its cub eating a sea turtle in Nayarit’s Marismas Nacionales Biosphere Reserve.
The Natural Protected Areas Commission (Conanp) captured the event using a camera trap monitoring system.
The adult jaguar is seen dragging the turtle’s remains in order to hide them, then taking refuge in the mangrove trees.
Evidence of predatory behavior and feeding contributes valuable information to the conservation and protection of the jaguars, their prey and their habitat, Conanp said in a press release.
The footage was obtained thanks to the efforts of Francisco López Jiménez, a community monitoring volunteer and head of the Miguel Guardado Pérez turtle camp.
Jaguares se alimentan de una tortuga marina en Marismas Nacionales Nayarit
During one of his rounds, he noticed that one of the turtles that had come ashore to lay its eggs had not returned to the sea. After finding coyote and jaguar prints around the turtle’s nest he followed their trail and found the dead turtle, which had been dragged into tall grass about 50 meters away.
He notified Conanp, which sent personnel to the camp, confirmed the kill and set up camera traps. The turtle was gone in the morning, and the researchers had photographic evidence of the jaguars feeding.
Passengers at the Miguel Hidalgo International Airport in Guadalajara, Jalisco, are still dealing with an infestation of mosquitoes.
“There’s nothing to prevent them from reproducing,” one passenger told the newspaper Milenio.
But according to Aurora Adame, corporate affairs director of Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico, which manages the airport, there are no more mosquitoes than normal.
“The airport is located in an environmental area that is completely eroded and destroyed,” he said. “That has affected the growth of mosquitoes for many years. It’s not a recent issue for us to be affected . . .”
However, some passengers suggested the airport should warn travelers about the high numbers of mosquitoes so they can take precautions against them.
The airport operator said in July it had succeeded in reducing mosquito numbers by 95% in a battle that has been going on for years. It also said a study was under way to determine how to rid the airport of mosquitoes permanently. The results were expected this month.
In the north of Guadalajara, the bugs have also been causing cases of dengue fever around the University of Guadalajara center for art, architecture and design, according to student Gabriel de la Torre.
“Half of the school is sick,” they said. “I’ve seen lots of mosquitoes, and many of my classmates have missed class because of it. I know of four or five students who are sick.”
There have been 86 confirmed cases of dengue in the school, affecting 57 students, six teachers and 23 administrators.
Pharmacies have reported increases in the sales of paracetamol and insect repellent.
Jalisco has the second-highest number of cases of dengue in the country with 5,704 confirmed cases, and 13 confirmed deaths from the disease. Authorities are investigating another 48 deaths that could be related to dengue.
Burning vehicles block streets in Culiacán Thursday afternoon.
Security forces released a son of convicted drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán on Thursday after his arrest in Culiacán, Sinaloa, triggered a wave of cartel attacks that terrorized residents of the northern city.
Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo told the news agency Reuters late on Thursday that soldiers and members of the National Guard retreated from the Culiacán home where Ovidio Guzmán López was captured “without Guzmán, to try to avoid more violence in the area and preserve the lives of our personnel and recover calm in the city.”
Violence broke out in Culiacán at about 3:30pm and quickly spread as rumors swirled about the capture of one of “El Chapo” Guzmán’s sons.
There were gunfights and blockades, some of which were formed by setting trucks and other vehicles on fire, at several locations in Culiacán, generating what Durazo called “a situation of panic.”
The security secretary said last night that 30 members of the army and National Guard were attacked by armed civilians at a house in the Culiacán neighborhood of Tres Ríos on Wednesday afternoon while carrying out a routine patrol.
Smoke indicates hot spots during yesterday’s shootouts.
The security forces returned fire and “took control” of the house, where they found four people, including Guzmán López, a Sinaloa Cartel leader wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges.
Durazo said several groups of armed criminals quickly surrounded the house, outnumbering security forces.
“Likewise, other groups carried out violent acts against citizens in several points of the city generating a situation of panic. With the aim of protecting the greater good . . . of Culiacán society, the officials of the security cabinet agreed to suspend the actions,” he said without clarifying whether Guzmán López remained in custody.
Durazo subsequently told Reuters that the 28-year-old had been released and a lawyer for the Guzmán family confirmed in an interview that Ovidio Guzmán was free.
Durazo’s assertion that Guzmán López, one of four children from El Chapo’s second marriage, was arrested during a routine operation contradicted other federal officials who told the newspaper Milenio that the detention came during a targeted operation.
In the hours following the arrest, Sinaloa Cartel gunmen took control of Culiacán in a terrifying show of strength.
Scores of videos posted to social media showed citizens running for cover or trying to hide amid bursts of gunfire. Photographs showed black plumes of smoke rising above the city.
One image showed two heavily armed men in the back of a truck with their weapons, including an M2 machine gun, at the ready. Another showed gangsters with military-grade weapons in a pickup truck just two blocks from the municipal palace in downtown Culiacán. Milenio said that the violence “exceeded any precedent” in the city.
In one photograph published online, two men, one of whom is wearing a camouflage shirt and a bullet-proof vest, are seen lying dead on the street in a pool of blood.
A video posted to Twitter showed families with young children lying on a road next to their cars as gunfire raged.
“Dad, can we get up now?” a young boy said to his father. “No, stay there on the ground,” the man responded with a trembling voice.
Other videos showed masked, heavily armed-men blocking streets and stopping traffic. Businesses closed across the city, public transit was suspended and residents locked themselves in their homes.
In the middle of the chaos, more than 50 prisoners escaped from the Culiacán penitentiary.
Video footage showed the prisoners, accompanied by armed men, stopping and then hijacking vehicles traveling on a street outside the jail. Four prisoners were later recaptured, state security secretary Cristóbal Castañeda said, but 49 remained at large on Friday morning.
Castañeda said two prison guards were killed during the prison break and that 21 other people were wounded in the wave of attacks across Culiacán. At least four soldiers and two state police officers are among the injured.
“It was a very difficult, intense and complicated afternoon . . .” said Sinaloa Governor Quirino Ordaz, whose government issued a statement urging residents to “keep calm.”
Speaking at his morning press conference on Friday, President López Obrador said that he supported the security cabinet decision to release Guzmán López.
“. . . The situation became very difficult and a lot of citizens, a lot of people were at risk,” he told reporters.
Culiacán under fire: locations of shootouts Thursday in the Sinaloa capital.
“I was in agreement [with the decision] . . . because we can’t have massacres . . . the capture of a criminal cannot be worth more than people’s lives,” López Obrador said.
“You can’t put out fire with fire, this is the difference of this [security] strategy with those . . . [of] previous governments, we don’t want deaths, we don’t want war, this is hard for many people to understand but the strategy that was being applied turned the country into a cemetery.”
Two Mexican companies will invest more than US $1 billion to build a 3,000-room hotel and 10,000-square-meter convention center in Cancún, Quintana Roo.
The mega-hotel will be built in two stages by the companies Murano and BVG World.
The first stage, which includes the construction of 2,000 hotel rooms as well as guest amenities, the convention center, swimming pools and a parking lot, will open in 2022. A further 1,000 rooms and more amenities will be built in the second stage, which is expected to be completed in 2024.
The hotel will be built on two parcels of land in the second section of Cancún’s hotel zone. The Kukulcán boulevard site is near the Nichupté Lagoon Natural Protected Area but the developers say that neither flora nor fauna will be adversely affected by construction of the hotel.
A view from above of the new hotel planned for Cancún.
Torruco said that Mexico’s state-owned bank Bancomext and two foreign banks will provide funding. This is “one of the biggest investments . . . in a hotel in the past 30 years,” he said.
The convention center will be Cancún’s biggest.
Murano general manager Marcos Sacal said that construction of the hotel will create 7,500 direct and indirect jobs and that a further 12,000 positions will be generated once it opens.
López Obrador said that the project will provide a boost for the Quintana Roo economy.
“It’s very important to highlight that we’re doing well . . . with investment in the tourism sector. We haven’t had any problem, there has been investment, jobs are being created. This sector is strategic because it doesn’t just generate wealth but also distributes wealth. It’s an activity that enables income for workers . . . it completely reactivates the economy,” he said.
The president said the development of new hotels in Cancún has acted as a magnet for workers from other states in the southeast of the country.
“. . . Fortunately, they’re continuing to invest and there continues to be economic growth,” López Obrador said.
The official ceremony Thursday to mark start of construction.
President López Obrador officially inaugurated construction of the Santa Lucía airport on Thursday, declaring that it will open in early 2022.
“We’re going to build two runways for civil aviation . . . in two and a half years,” the president said at an event at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base.
“We’re going to be inaugurating this new airport in April of 2022,” López Obrador added before turning to the military architect in charge of the project and asking him to aim for an inauguration date of March 21, 2022.
“I’m sure that this commitment will be met,” he said.
There was a festive atmosphere at the Santa Lucía air force base today as the army rolled out its heavy construction equipment.
This “is the beginning of an important project,” López Obrador said, adding that the government had shown that it is capable of solving problems “with efficiency, austerity and honesty.”
He renewed his pledge that “all the information about the construction of the airport will be disseminated,” asserting that there will be “complete transparency, absolutely nothing will be hidden.”
The president estimated that construction of the new airport will cost 75 billion pesos (US $3.9 billion).
He pointed out that the figure represents a saving of 120 billion pesos compared to the 300 billion the new airport at Texcoco was expected to cost. López Obrador also stressed that funding for the project is guaranteed.
“We already have the budget, the project will never stop due to a budget shortfall,” he said.
Aeropuerto Internacional "General Felipe Ángeles", Santa Lucía, Estado de México.
“Why do we believe this option is better than building the airport on Lake Texcoco? . . . History . . . and the facts will speak [for themselves] but I can say in advance that this decision is better because this land is better to build on, there is solid land here, it’s a lake there,” he said.
Prior to López Obrador’s address, presidential legal adviser Julio Scherer Ibarra praised the government for “overcoming the legal obstacles” that delayed the project for months.
The #NoMásDerroches (No More Waste) collective, a group that supported the resumption of the Texcoco project, filed close to 150 injunction requests against the Santa Lucía airport and was granted seven.
The new airport, Scherer said, will bring “great benefits” to the country and fill Mexicans with pride and satisfaction.
“The Santa Lucía airport is a reality today. We shall not allow its construction to cause further division.”
Military architect Gustavo Ricardo Vallejo Suárez, who will head up the defense department team that has been given responsibility for the project, said the challenge is to “design and build an exceptional airport.”
He said that “two hard years of construction work are ahead of us” after which “six months of preparation and certification” will follow prior to opening.
Unauthorized changes to heritage sites along with the proliferation of bars, nightclubs and restaurants pose a risk to historical neighborhoods in the Mexico City borough of Coyoacán, local residents say.
The neighborhoods of Santa Catarina, Villa Coyoacán and Barrio Coyoacán as well as part of Del Carmen were classified by the federal government in 1990 as an area of historical monuments.
As a result, any construction and restoration projects in the 86-block area – within which 50 historically important buildings are located – must receive prior approval not just from local authorities but also the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
However, local residents claim that the municipal government and some private citizens have carried out work that has altered the appearance of the historical streets and buildings of Coyoacán without first seeking permission from INAH.
Leticia Perdiz of the Villa Coyoacán residents’ association laid blame squarely at the feet of the Coyoacán mayor.
Work in Coyoacán that doesn’t have approval from INAH.
“Manuel Negrete is a mayor whose priority is soccer,” she said about the 60-year-old former professional footballer who represented Mexico at the 1986 World Cup.
“Since he arrived [in 2018], his lack of knowledge about historical monuments has been noted,” Perdiz said.
During Negrete’s administration, the façade of the old town hall (also known as the House of Hernán Cortés) has been altered and pavilions have been installed in the central square without INAH approval, she said.
Perdiz added that authorities also failed to seek INAH permission to replace sidewalks in Francisco Ortega street.
INAH official Manuel Villarruel confirmed that there was no collaboration between the Coyoacán government and the institute on the projects but added that the two parties have recently begun working together.
He also said that INAH has shut down some projects that were being carried out without authorization.
Perdiz also said that large numbers of bars, nightclubs and restaurants opened in the area during the administrations of previous governments.
But she charged that even more establishments have arrived since Negrete took office and claimed that the mayor is allowing them to violate local regulations.
“We don’t have anything against commerce, the problem is that all the [traditional] stores have been lost,” Perdiz said, referring to businesses such as stationary stores and tortilla shops.
“They’ve been driven out by bars and nightclubs. A lot of residents have moved because of the excessive noise. We want the law to be respected and the [cultural] wealth and diversity of the neighborhood to be preserved,” she said, explaining that a lot of establishments remain open beyond legal operating hours.
Villarruel said that INAH doesn’t have any authority over what kind of businesses can operate in central Coyoacán but explained that the institute does seek to ensure that new construction projects “don’t alter the heritage value” of the area.
Undocumented migrants board their flight for India.
In the largest deportation in the country’s history, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute (INM) sent 311 undocumented migrants back to India on Wednesday night.
Accompanied by federal immigration agents and National Guardsmen, the migrants were put aboard a Boeing 747 headed for New Delhi from Toluca International Airport.
The migrants had been detained Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco, Sonora, Durango, Baja California and Mexico City before being transferred to the migrants’ center in Acayucan, Veracruz, for identification and transfer to Toluca.
The INM reported that the detainees included 310 men and one woman, all of whom were adults.
The action was unprecedented in the history of the INM, both in the procedure by which it was carried out and the number of people deported.
“This action, in which we had the support of the Federal Protection Service (SPF) of the Secretariat of Security . . . was carried out without setbacks and with the respect of the human rights of the foreigners transferred to their country of origin,” the INM said in a statement.
Aparicio, left, and Villarreal among world's most inspirational women.
Two Mexicans are on a list of the world’s 100 most influential and inspiring women of 2019.
Oscar-nominated actress Yalitza Aparicio and computer programmer Paola Villarreal are among the British Broadcasting Corporation’s 100 Women of 2019.
The two share the spotlight with teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg, American soccer star Megan Rapinoe, United States Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Uruguayan poet Ida Vitale and Malaysian transgender rights activist Nisha Ayub.
“This year 100 Women is asking: what would the future look like if it were driven by women? . . . Many on the list are driving change on behalf of women everywhere. They give us their vision of what life could look like in 2030,” the BBC said.
While employed as an elementary school teacher, Yalitza Aparicio was chosen for the leading role in Roma, the Oscar-winning film by Alfonso Cuarón.
A Mixtec woman from the state of Oaxaca, she became the first indigenous woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for best actress. She now advocates for gender equality, the rights of indigenous communities and constitutional protection for domestic workers.
“The ideal future for women is one in which we achieve gender equality,” she told the BBC. “We have the same rights and the same opportunities as men. In the workplace, a future in which we receive just pay and are compensated for the value we create would be a good start.”
The MIT-trained computer programmer Paola Villarreal helped to overturn 20,000 racially biased drug sentences through the development of Data for Justice, a tool with an interactive map that compares police activity in white and minority neighborhoods.
She also made the 2018 MIT Innovators Under 35 LATAM list for this project.
“There is still time to use data and technology to redistribute power among those that have been historically forgotten,” she said. “If we don’t do it now, the data and technology will only automate the status quo and all the biases and inequalities that currently exist.”
Police attend the robbery of a Chiapas secondary school.
Two armed men entered a classroom at a secondary school in Cacahoatán, Chiapas, this week and robbed 30 students of their belongings.
The victims said the men entered the classroom while a class was in session. The teacher initially panicked, but then told the students not to resist.
The thieves collected cell phones and other belongings from the students and the teacher, including the latter’s computer, before fleeing on a motorcycle.
The Jaime Sabines school is located in the Álvaro Obregón neighborhood of Cacahoatán, a city on the Pacific coast near Tapachula, and has 26 teachers and an enrollment of 420 students.
The widow of one of the police officers at his funeral on Wednesday in Michoacán.
The body of one of 13 state police officers killed in a cartel ambush in Michoacán on Monday was returned to his family wrapped in nothing more than black plastic bags.
María Guadalupe Reyes, mother-in-law of slain officer Juvenal López Castolo, rebuked the Michoacán government for not making the effort to properly prepare the body for the funeral.
Authorities delivered Lopez’s plastic-cloaked body with a state police uniform placed haphazardly over it, she said.
Another relative, Soledad Medina, told the newspaper Milenio that blood and other bodily fluids were leaking out of the plastic into the box in which López was placed.
“. . . Blood was dripping from the head . . . liquid was coming out of the body . . . It’s not right,” she said.
A funeral was held for the 29-year-old victim on Wednesday at a cemetery in Charo, a municipality that borders the state capital Morelia.
Milenio reported that the song Historía de un Policía (Story of a Police Officer) accompanied the funeral procession, its lyrics eerily reminiscent of the fate López and the other slain police officers met at the hands of suspected Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) gunmen.
“Unfortunately, here in my land the damn war has no end. Hooded men, strong and armed . . . ambushed us . . . shot from different sides. They riddled us [with bullets] in seconds,” the song says.
State police deployed to the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán said that before Monday’s attack, CJNG members threatened to retaliate if officers didn’t agree to work for them.
Leading yesterday’s funeral procession was López’s widow and mother of his two daughters, Jazmín Guzmán, who a day earlier confronted Michoacán Governor Silvano Aureoles at a memorial service in Morelia.
“What’s the use of this [service] if [all] I want is him alive,” she asked.
