Amazon delivers a Beetle to a Mexico City collector.
A happy customer has taken delivery of the first of 65 final edition Volkswagen Beetles that are on sale in Mexico exclusively on the e-commerce platform Amazon.
Joaquín Jasso’s new car arrived at his México state home on the back of an Amazon truck inside a box custom made by the German automaker.
The Beetle, or Vocho as the car is affectionately known in Mexico, was made at the Volkswagen factory in Cuautlancingo, Puebla.
The plant produced 1.7 million New Beetles between 1997 and July 10 this year when the last one rolled out the doors to head to its final resting place, the Volkswagen Museum in Puebla city.
Jasso told the news website Expansión that purchasing his new car on Amazon was easy.
“It was very simple. The truth is if you have an Amazon account . . . it’s all very simple, it took me barely three minutes to buy,” he said.
The 44-year-old, who owns around 40 VW vehicles, said he was extremely happy with his latest purchase.
“I’ve always looked for special editions . . . and cars that are in impeccable condition . . . In my entire collection, each car has fewer than 100,000 kilometers [on the odometer] . . . most of them don’t have license plates and I’m not thinking about putting plates on this either . . .” Jasso said.
Volkswagen México wrote on Twitter that “Joaquín is part of the legend,” explaining that he is one of a select group who will have the privilege of receiving their new Beetle inside a box at their home.
Seeing the Volkswagen box on the back of the truck parked in front of his home, Jasso said it was like receiving “a big toy.”
“[Getting] a new car is always a really cool feeling and what’s better with this car is the way in which I bought it . . .” he said.
The final edition Beetle sells on Amazon for just over 410,000 pesos (US $21,000).
Families of missing youths display a banner bearing their photos.
The disappearance of seven young men has turned Huautla, Oaxaca, from a magic town to a tragic town in the last eight months.
The first to disappear from this Magical Town in Oaxaca’s Sierra Mazateca was Fausto Ríos, who was taking surveys for the government when he last seen on December 5, 2018. The most recent cases are those of Iván and Efrén Martínez, two brothers who disappeared on July 31.
Ríos’ mother, María Mendoza, told the newspaper Reforma that her son left her a voicemail on the day he disappeared, saying that he was fine, but he could not talk to her at the time.
“A lot of young people have been taken away, there is a lot of crime here, it’s not a magical town, because people are taking our children away and we don’t know why,” she said. “We want them back, alive.”
Residents of Huautla, many of whom depend on offering services to visitors, are living in fear because of the recent wave of crime.
“This started when the current mayor, Óscar Peralta Allende, took office, and he’s not helping us at all,” said Mendoza. “When we ask him for help, he says he doesn’t have a magic wand to say ‘here’s your son.’ A mayor shouldn’t say a thing like that, he should talk to those of us who are in pain because our sons have disappeared.”
Susana Cerqueda, whose brother Juan Cerqueda went missing on June 15, said family members have not been asked for ransom payments. They also take place in broad daylight.
“. . . the disappearances have happened in the center of Huautla, out in the open,” she said. “When we made the report, coincidentally, the municipality’s security cameras weren’t working that day . . . people here in Huautla are afraid to talk because they’ve been threatened and we, family members, have been threatened by municipal officials who are close to the mayor.”
The municipality is known for being the birthplace of indigenous healer María Sabina.
Guevara said airport facilities will be insufficient to meet growing demand.
The decision to build the Santa Lucía airport instead of continuing with the airport at Texcoco will put Mexico at a competitive disadvantage in the global tourism market, claims the president of the World Trade and Tourism Council (WTTC).
Speaking at a tourism conference in Mexico City, Gloria Guevara said the effects of the decision will be seen in five or seven years.
The government’s plan to build the Santa Lucía airport – currently mired due to legal opposition – and upgrade the existing airports in Mexico City and Toluca will be insufficient to meet growing demand for air travel, she charged.
“It’s essential that we have an airport of the size [worthy] of a tourism power such as this country is – a world class one and with the technology it requires,” Guevara said.
The WTTC president, who served as tourism secretary in the government of former president Felipe Calderón, said she understands “perfectly” and supports President López Obrador’s commitment to stamp out corruption but contended that his alternative airport plan won’t provide Mexico with the level of airport infrastructure it needs.
Asked about the government’s decision to disband the Tourism Promotion Council, Guevara said she was willing to collaborate with authorities to discuss alternative marketing strategies, adding that she was interested in meeting with Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard.
Before Guevara spoke, Tourism Secretary Miguel Torruco officially opened the fourth edition of the International Congress of the Women’s Association of Executives of Tourism Companies.
He acknowledged that there has been a “rethink” of tourism policy since the new government took office that has included measures that haven’t pleased everyone.
However, he highlighted that the number of tourists who visited Mexico in the first half of the year increased 7% compared to the same period last year.
Citing figures from statistics agency Inegi, Torruco said that around 22.1 million visitors came to the country between January and June, and spent US $11.9 billion while they were here, a 13.9% increase compared to the first half of 2018.
He said that tourism revenue declined 0.8% in the first quarter of 2019 but explained that the Easter vacation period this year fell in April whereas in 2018 it was in March.
The Lamborghini after Saturday morning's accident.
The driver of a Lamborghini abandoned the car after colliding with a sidewalk planter in the Mexico City neighborhood of Roma Sur early Saturday morning.
The accident occurred around 5:00am, at the intersection of Zacatecas and Yucatán streets, where it struck a sidewalk garden.
The front of the car was badly damaged, and left with a missing wheel, but there was now sign of the driver.
Police found a permit to drive without license plates in the name of José Jiménez Villalobos. But the permit did not correspond to the Lamborghini.
The accident was captured by a C5 security camera, and police are examining the video.
The Lamborghini was valued at between 4 million and 5 million pesos (US $203,000-$254,000).
A pioneer ecotourism operator and conservationist in the Gulf of California and on the Baja peninsula died August 13 in San Diego due to complications with diabetes.
Timothy Irwin Means Heineman, 75, was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Arizona, where he fell in love with the Sonoran desert at an early age.
He turned his childhood fascination with the wild deserts into a lifetime of commitment to conservation and eco-adventures for more than five decades, sharing his vision and inviting people to connect with the natural world.
Friends say that “gravity brought Tim Means to Baja California” – metaphorically following the rapids of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, where he was a raft guide in his early career.
That gravity took him down to the waters of the Gulf of California where he founded Baja Expeditions in 1974 in La Paz, then a quiet port and home to fishing families and today the bustling city where he lived for the rest of his life.
A Mexican citizen since 1993, Means and Baja Expeditions welcomed thousands of visitors from around the globe and supported research and education dedicated to marine and wildlands conservation. He devoted his life to the preservation of the deserts of Baja California and the Gulf of California.
Means worked with fishermen, scientists and politicians to draw attention to the depletion of sea life and loss of wildlands posed by overfishing and rampant development.
He was a catalyst for the federal designation of Isla Espíritu Santo as a national protected area in 1994.
Just before the island’s official protection, development pressure was intense and a developer wanted to build a resort casino on the island.
Means bought land in the middle of the developer’s property, forcing him into negotiations, then enlisted the support of donors to purchase the property and donate it to the federal government.
With the threat of the casino gone, he and a coalition of conservationists put together another deal to purchase and permanently protect the entire island and provide public access. The successful campaign resulted in a thriving ecotourism sector and sustainable artisanal fishery in La Paz.
As a result of Means’ work, Isla Espíritu Santo and 244 other islands were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.
Concerned over the threat of rapid coastal development in Baja, Tim and others founded the Sociedad de Historia Natural Niparajá in 1990 to preserve the coastal wildlands of the Baja peninsula and promote sustainable fishing.
Means and several partners also bought an old ranch on the coast of the Sierra La Giganta as a reserve for bighorn sheep and other species.
Means believed that conservation starts with education, and supported and led countless expeditions and programs for students, scientists, filmmakers, politicians and citizen scientists to invite people to enjoy a connection with the natural world and emphasize the need to preserve wildlands for healthy ecosystems.
Timoteo, as he was affectionately called, was a colorful and influential figure in the community who helped support and inspire a whole generation of young explorers, collectors of La Paz’s solid waste recycling and conservationists.
A public celebration of his life will take place on September 13 in La Paz.
Women march for a second time this week in Mexico City.
A police station was set on fire and a bus station was vandalized Friday night at the end of a women’s protest in Mexico City against gender violence.
About 2,000 protesters, most of whom were women, gathered at the plaza outside the Insurgentes Metro station yesterday evening to attend a rally calling for the prosecution of police who allegedly raped a woman and a 17-year-old girl.
They also called for the declaration of a gender alert in the capital.
Women from several collectives participated in the protest, the second this week after a march Monday that culminated in an attack on the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office.
The protest movement has gained momentum via social media, where the hashtags #NoMeCuidanMeViolan (They Don’t Look After Me, They Rape Me) and #ExigirJusticiaNoEsProvocación (Demanding Justice is not Provocation) have been used thousands of times.
Emotions ran high during Friday’s march.
The latter spread after Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and Attorney General Ernestina Godoy labeled Monday’s protest a “provocation.”
That protest came after Godoy said last week that police officers accused of raping a 17-year-girl in the borough of Azcapotzalco had not been charged because authorities are waiting for the girl to identify the perpetrators.
Sheinbaum announced on Wednesday that six officers had been suspended in connection with the case. Another officer was arrested on charges that he raped a woman at a Mexico City museum.
At the end of yesterday’s rally, one group of women smashed a glass wall at the Insurgentes Metrobús station and started a fire inside. They also graffitied buses that continued to stop at the station until it was closed.
The newspaper Milenio reported that the women clashed with camera operators and photojournalists who were recording the vandalism and in some cases damaged their equipment. A reporter from news station ADN 40 was knocked to the ground while transmitting live.
Another group of women left the Insurgentes plaza to march to the Florencia police station in the capital’s Zona Rosa district. Along the way, they smashed the glass facades of stores and banks and graffitied walls and doors, Milenio said.
Some protesters turned to vandalism to make their point.
The protesters vandalized the exterior of the police station and broke inside, where they set a fire in an area where police files were stored.
When firefighters arrived to extinguish the blaze, they were met with violence and prevented from entering. One firefighter was reportedly injured.
Protesters subsequently moved on to the Angel of Independence monument on Reforma avenue, allowing firefighters to enter the police station to put out the fire. Women clashed with reporters and police on Reforma and vandalized the base of the Angel monument.
The protest concluded at around 11:00pm, Milenio said, at which time paramedics arrived to treat people who had been injured, 14 of whom were police officers. Six were taken to hospital, where they were reported in stable condition.
At about 10:00pm, the Mexico City government issued a statement in response to the protest.
“About today’s demonstration, we respect that the majority protested peacefully. For them, the doors of the Mexico City government are always open for frank dialogue. However, the violence of a few, which only sullies the defense of women’s rights, cannot be justified. Violence is not combated with violence,” the statement said.
A protester drums a marching beat.
The government reiterated that it will not “fall into the provocation” of using force against the protesters, which it charged is “what they are seeking.”
It also said it has launched investigations into the acts of aggression against journalists and others, and the vandalism of buildings.
“We call on those who are legitimately fighting for the defense of human rights and the eradication of violence to help to generate a climate of peace so that together we can build a safe city . . .” the statement concluded.
Federal officials have arrested a United States citizen and suspected jihadist at a migrants’ center in Huehuetan, Chiapas, near the Guatemala border.
The suspect, identified only as Mohammed “A,” is being investigated in the U.S. for supporting jihadist groups and was sought by Interpol.
“An [Interpol] blue notice was requested because the FBI has information that the foreigner has probably published statements of support for violent jihad and radical Islam on digital platforms,” the Mexican Attorney General’s Office (FGR) said in a press release.
The National Immigration Institute, as well as the FGR, participated in Friday’s operation to arrest the man.
The FGR said he was to be deported to the U.S. later on Friday.
The federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has arrested eight people — including active-duty army officers and a Jalisco municipal police chief — on suspicion of firearms trafficking.
Among them were the chief of police of Villa Corona, Jalisco, a retired army captain, a police officer from Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, and two other army officers. The other three were civilians.
The arrests were carried out in Jalisco, Mexico City and Sinaloa.
The FGR confiscated guns, including five 7.62 caliber rifles, more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition, a pickup truck and 250,000 pesos (US $12,700) in cash.
The municipal police forces of Villa Corona and Tlaquepaque have been accused of involvement in organized crime before.
The abandoned airport at Texcoco must be left untouched.
The federal government’s airport plan has hit yet another
legal hurdle.
A federal judge has ordered that construction of the Santa
Lucía airport (AISL) must be suspended and that the abandoned airport project
at Texcoco be left intact.
The ruling was made in response to an injunction request
filed by the #NoMásDerroches (No More
Waste) Collective, a group made up of civil society organizations,
law firms and more than 100 citizens.
The group said in a statement that it has already obtained six definitive suspension orders against the AISL that stipulated that construction could not begin until environmental, safety and aeronautical viability permits, among others, had been obtained.
“In other words, once all the permits and studies in those matters have been obtained, which for the most part depend on the federal administration itself, the government would have the legal opportunity to start construction of the airport even if the injunction proceedings haven’t yet concluded,” #NoMásDerroches said.
“With this new injunctive relief obtained by #NoMásDerroches, construction of the AISL will
have to wait until the injunction proceedings are definitively resolved,” it
explained.
The collective has filed 147 separate injunction requests that could hold up or threaten construction of the new airport.
According to Rogelio Rodríguez, an attorney who specializes
in aviation law, resolving all of them could take up to a year.
President López Obrador once again described the legal action against the US $4.8-billion airport as “legal sabotage.”
“. . . It’s incredible, more than 80 injunctions. How many injunctions were presented when they [the former government] wanted to do the juicy business of building the Texcoco lake airport?” he asked at today’s presidential press conference.
Answering his own question, López Obrador said that there were none before claiming that now that he is in office, “filing injunctions against all the projects we’re doing is like a national sport.”
“I hope that this is resolved soon. We’re asking the judicial power, in accordance with the law, to resolve this because they’re stalling tactics . . . so that the project isn’t built or is delayed . . .” he said.
The president declined to offer a prediction about how long the project might be delayed.
The Secretariat of National Defense, which is building the airport, said last month the airport will open in January 2022, six months later than originally anticipated.
According to the master plan, its construction will take 30 months.
A federal agency has identified eight Tamaulipas doctors who offer cosmetic surgery without having the necessary qualification.
The head of the state office of the Federal Commission for Protection Against Sanitary Risk (Cofepris) said that doctors — and even veterinarians — sometimes claim to be specialists in certain areas such as plastic surgery.
“So far, we’ve identified eight in Tampico, Reynosa and Matamoros,” Óscar Villa Garza said. “Usually, they claim to be plastic surgery specialists, when they really aren’t.”
Villa said that to address the problem, Cofepris will create an online platform that will allow people to verify doctors’ specializations.
“Soon, we will put information about specialists on the Cofepris webpage,” he said. “Right now, we are cleaning out and updating the information of every specialist, in every municipality, so that people will know who is treating them.”
Villa asked citizens to report unlicensed surgeons so that irregularities and malpractice will no longer go unpunished.
According to Tamaulipas plastic surgeon Sonia Estela González Macay, there are more than 15 general practitioners who illegally perform plastic surgery in the state, and many more people who offer plastic surgery without having medical degrees.
“There are people who aren’t even doctors, and they are doing cosmetic surgery,” she said. “This problem is getting worse and worse, and now there are even some hairdressers that offer plastic surgeries. Some of them are doctors, but don’t have the certification or the training. It’s especially odontologists, ENT specialists, dermatologists, general practitioners and ophthalmologists who do cosmetic surgery without having the proper certification.”
González, who has been practicing plastic surgery for 35 years and is the only woman plastic surgeon in Tamaulipas, said that people looking for cosmetic surgery should only go to surgeons who are certified by the Mexican Plastic Surgery Council, and should avoid hiring “charlatans” for procedures that could be potentially dangerous.
“They inject substances in the mouth, the chest and the buttocks, substances that aren’t even medical products, like baby oil, or mineral oils, or even automotive or kitchen oil,” she said. “They use fillings that haven’t been well evaluated, and that aren’t trustworthy, but are cheap. They offer surgery for 3,000 pesos (US $153), when a real surgery with local anesthesia is never cheaper than 20,000 pesos.”
