Nuevo León toy museum founder began collecting at age 5

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January 6, 2020

Some of the 6,000 toys collected by the museum's founder, Uncle Temo.

He was just five years old when he started his toy collection. Sixty-eight years later, Uncle Temo as Artemio Ábrego Treviño is known, has more than 6,000.

They come from 15 countries representing over 20 cultures and regions of the world — and the collection is still growing.

About 800 pieces from that collection now form the the first stage of the Museo Interactivo del Juguete, the Interactive Toy Museum, in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León. It was a 25-year-old dream which came to fruition with the opening of the museum in early December.

Ábrego spent many of those years approaching various people and institutions about the idea of opening a toy museum in the Monterrey area. While a number said it was a good idea, no one followed through to help him create it. That is until 2 1/2 years ago when a former general manager of chemical company Grupo AIEn, Alfonso García Hernández, became enthusiastic about the project and worked with Ábrego to make it happen.

The idea behind the museum is that “toys are the tools to enjoy life.” They allow children to imagine life beyond their current boundaries, seeing themselves as pilots, firefighters, scientists, artists, doctors and even superheroes.

The museum in San Pedro Garza García has 800 toys on display.

The museum joins a growing list of toy museums in Mexico, including the Museo de Juguete Antiguo in Mexico City and the Museo La Esquina in San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato.

The museum has 850 square meters of exhibition space divided into six rooms on two floors. García states that that the museum is unique because it is organized by theme rather than by historical period. For example, the collection of Star Wars toys include those from the past and present, with those coming out in the future represented by news stories of the current and upcoming movies and shows. Toy vehicles are arranged similarly, grouped by cars, firetrucks, ambulances, etc.

The museum’s founders state that toys change over time along with the culture and the society they come from because of both demand and technology. For example, toy cars have been made with pull strings or to move “by themselves” via batteries or winding mechanisms. The robot collection includes those made over the past 50-60 years, allowing a visitor to compare those which are very simple to those which are quite sophisticated.

García believes that “toys will never go away. Systems and controls change, but the enjoyment is always there.”

The museum has a wide variety of toys from traditional handcrafted ones to modern, computerized ones. Some toys are one-of-a-kind. Ábrigo has collected toys on travels to Italy, Germany, the United States and China, but he has not forgotten traditional Mexican toys such as the wood top and ball-in-cup game.

The collection features commercial toy series such as Hot Wheels. One of the oldest pieces is a “magic lantern” from the end of the 19th century. The newest is a robot with “artificial intelligence” which Ábrego recently purchased.

García, left, helped Tío Temo (Uncle Temo) fulfill a 25-year dream.

The collection also includes toys featured on television shows and movies. One toy belonged to famed Mexican children’s television host Chabelo. The collection also includes a Turbo Man, the toy featured in the movie Jingle All the Way with Arnold Schwartzenegger.

Uncle Temo says that in all of his 68 years he has never stopped looking for interesting pieces to add to the collection.

The museum is 100% privately financed and seeks to be self-sufficient, with no government funding.

Although Ábrego’s collection is big enough to open several museums, the current goal is to consolidate the current museum in San Pedro. The surplus in his collection is slated to rotate in and out of the museum space and is also available for loan to other museums.

But the collection may yet grow larger. It has already received its first offers of donations, one of 800 Barbie dolls and a set of 80 Mr. Potato Heads from the museum’s architect, Roberto Romero.

Source: El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp)

American family attacked in Tamaulipas; 13-year-old killed

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Cody Copeland

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January 6, 2020

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The Northeast Cartel has been linked to the attack on US visitors. — The Northeast Cartel has been linked to the attack on the US visitors.

An attack on an American family in Tamaulipas left a 13-year-old boy dead and three other family members wounded on Saturday night.

Bound for Oklahoma, the family was returning from spending the holidays in San Luis Potosí when armed men traveling in two vehicles ordered them to stop in the town of Ciudad Mier, near the border with Texas.

The family, which was also traveling in two vehicles, refused to stop for the attackers, who then rammed the victims’ cars to force them to stop. The gunmen opened fire, killing the child and wounding two adults and a 10-year-old boy.

The minor killed in the attack was a U.S. citizen, as is the wounded boy, while the adults have permanent residency in the United States. Authorities reported on Sunday that the wounded were in stable condition at a hospital in Cerralvo, Nuevo León.

Although Mexican authorities have not released information about the motive for the attack or the criminal affiliations of the perpetrators, the newspaper El Diario attributed it to members of the Northeast Cartel due to the recent U.S. State Department travel alert, which advises U.S. citizens not to travel to Tamaulipas due to the gang’s activity in the state.

The cartel’s initials — CDN — were scrawled onto a window of one of vehicles found at the scene.

The incident was the second high-profile attack on U.S. citizens in Mexico in the last three months. On November 4, nine women and children were massacred in a highway attack in Sonora.

El Diario reported that another U.S. family recently posted on social media that it had been threatened at gunpoint by presumed members of the Northeast Cartel.

Sources: CBS News (sp), El Diario (sp)

Electrical workers’ union members charge corruption among leadership

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MND Staff

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January 6, 2020

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Electrical workers' union members protest against the leadership last September. — Union members protest against the leadership last September.

Real estate gifted to the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME) by the federal government is only benefiting the union leadership when it rightfully belongs to all unionized workers, claim dissident members.

Since the 2009 dissolution of the state-owned energy company Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LyFC), the government has given the SME at least 17 properties as “gifts” to use as power generation businesses and thus provide employment to former employees of the defunct LyFC.

However, other kinds of businesses, including parking lots, mechanics’ workshops and storage facilities, are located on some of the properties, the newspaper Milenio confirmed. In the Mexico City borough of Azcapotzalco, the SME last year opened a massive neon sign factory that extends across five lots that the government gave to the union.

But dissident SME members say the rank and file have seen no benefits from the arrangement.

They claim that secretary general Martín Esparza and other leaders have made huge profits from the businesses without passing any financial benefit on to the 44,000 workers.

They are calling for the removal of Esparza, who has led the union since 2005, and are also considering filing a criminal complaint against him for corruption. Some union members have declared a hunger strike outside the National Palace in Mexico City to protest against his alleged wrongdoings.

“The electrical union has no end of properties and buildings. They were given to the SME because there were corrupt agreements, obviously with [former president] Felipe Calderón and then with [his successor] Enrique Peña Nieto,” said dissident leader Ramón Ramírez.

“All the union’s land and buildings are property of the current 44,000 workers because they were purchased and built with the union dues of all those who worked in Luz y Fuerza del Centro since 1914. [The properties] belong to everyone, not to Martín Esparza nor to [just] the 16,000 workers he says he represents . . .” he added.

Ramírez claimed that Esparza and other union leaders close to him are also the sole beneficiaries of revenue generated by other properties owned by the SME, such as sports centers inherited from the LyFC in Mexico City, México state, Morelos and Puebla.

The operation for their own personal gain of properties collectively worth an estimated 20 billion pesos has allowed union leaders to pocket some 30 million pesos (US $1.6 million) in profits that belong to all union members, dissidents claim.

“In each [former LyFC] division, there is at least one sports center where [the SME leadership] is renting out swimming pools [and sports] courts,” he said, adding that the centers are also made available for “gastronomy events, cock fights” and a range of other purposes.

“Esparza is making huge profits by renting out and running these properties that belong to all union members,” Ramírez said.

“The biggest sports center is in [the Mexico City neighborhood of] Villa Coapa. The property is enormous. They’re renting part of it to a bus station; they rent out the courts, the swimming pools, the multi-purpose rooms for parties. They rent out everything, they exploit all the properties and sadly no resources reach the union members,” he said.

Ramírez claimed that Esparza knows that his days as union leader are numbered and is therefore not putting any of his ill-gotten gains back into SME-owned businesses and properties.

“Esparza knows that he’s done for, that at any moment he’ll fall so he hasn’t wanted to re-invest the millions that he’s collected . . .”

Source: Milenio (sp)

Armed civilians celebrate New Year’s by shooting out cameras

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Cody Copeland

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January 6, 2020

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Damaged surveillance cameras in Sinaloa.

Armed civilians in the Sinaloa cities of Mazatlán and Culiacán shot out 40 video surveillance cameras in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day.

Mazatlán Mayor Luis Guillermo Benítez Torres asked state authorities to investigate the vandalism and replace the equipment as soon as possible.

Although he said he knew of only three damaged cameras in the city, state Public Security Secretary Cristóbal Castañeda Camarillo said the number was actually 22. The majority were located along roads connecting with the México City-Nogales highway.

The rest of the damaged cameras were located in Culiacán.

Benítez said his administration will contribute to the state Attorney General’s Office’s investigation to identify the vandals, but that the responsibility to replace the cameras ultimately falls on the state Secretariat of Public Security.

State authorities reported that the destruction of the 18 cameras in Culiacán was carried out by armed men in at least four vehicles. They were recorded shooting at the cameras on Pedro Infante and La Conquista boulevards, among other streets in the city.

Castañeda said replacing and repairing the cameras should take around 30 days and added that both cities saw similar acts of vandalism in September and November of last year.

Source: El Universal (sp), Línea Directa (sp)

50 homes sustain minor damage in 6.0 quake in Oaxaca

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Cody Copeland

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January 6, 2020

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Epicenter of Saturday night's earthquake in southwestern Mexico.

Fifty homes sustained minor damages after a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck 38 kilometers southeast of Unión Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Saturday night.

Civil Protection agency chief Wilbert Cabrera reported cracks in walls and broken windows in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec town.

The municipal government building, the health clinic, the market and the old train station were also damaged. Over 100 years old, the government building was already damaged by the 8.2-magnitude quake that struck the region in September 2017.

Saturday’s quake, which occurred at 10:40pm CT, worsened those damages, which had previously been estimated to cost 3 million pesos (US $159,000).

Juchitán Civil Protection coordinator William López Cabrera reported some damages though not as serious as in 2017.

Five people were treated for nervous breakdowns, one of whom was a woman who had just given birth.

A couple of homes in nearby San Blas Atempa and Santo Domingo Tehuantepec sustained damages to their facades and roofs, but no injuries were reported.

Minor damages were also reported in the Cuenca del Papaloapan region, in the north of the state.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Mexico City program seeks to take 3,000 kids off the streets, away from crime

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MND Staff

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January 4, 2020

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Mayor Sheinbaum said the program is for youths identified as high-risk.

A government program in Mexico City will seek to get 3,000 young people off the streets and lead them away from a life of crime, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said on Friday.

The mayor said that the Jóvenes unen al barrio (Young people join the neighborhood) program will offer educational scholarships to youth identified as being prone to crime and provide them with opportunities to participate in social and environmental schemes such as the Reto Verde (Green Challenge), a tree-planting initiative.

About 3,000 young people are expected to join the Youth Institute program this year, Sheinbaum said.

The program is part of a wider anti-crime initiative called Alto al Fuego (Ceasefire), which has already begun in the borough of Álvaro Obregón and will be extended across Mexico City this year.

The initiative consists of identifying people involved in criminal activity through intelligence work and then sending them messages that warn them that there will be zero tolerance for any high-impact crimes they commit.

The strategy doesn’t seek to negotiate with criminals or enter into agreements with them, said security undersecretary Pablo Vázquez, but rather “send them a clear message” that their crimes will be punished with “the full weight of the law.”

The Alto al Fuego initiative is directed at the 1% of the population that is directly involved in violent crime or has links to a criminal group, he said.

“It’s not a conversation, at no time do [the identified criminals] have a voice, it’s one-sided communication,” Vázquez said.

“. . . Alto al Fuego is a strategy . . . known as focused deterrence . . .It’s a strategy that has been implemented in U.S. cities such as Boston, with the so-called Operation Ceasefire in 1996, and in Oakland, California, a city which . . . has similar characteristics as the Mexican capital,” he said.

“We’re not seeking dialogue or negotiation, we’re trying to communicate in a direct way . . . ”

With the implementation of the strategy, the government is aiming to reduce murders and other violent crime in Mexico City, where there were 2,021 homicides and 60 femicides in the first 11 months of last year.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Miracles in Zihuatanejo improve conditions for seniors

By

Elisabeth Ashe

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January 4, 2020

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Deb Kraemer with a resident of the new seniors' home.

I believe in miracles, especially at Christmas. Perhaps two of the best miracles I have witnessed are those that have occurred for the residents of the formerly named Casa María de Asilo in Zihuatanejo, now called Asilo DIF.

About a year ago I wrote an article for Mexico News Daily in which I compared the faith-based seniors’ home in Las Pozas, near Zihuatanejo, with the government-run facility in La Noria, an impoverished neighborhood close to Centro Zihua. In it I discussed the differences in quality and care.

Although both provided for seniors who had been neglected and forgotten, or whose families had no support in place, that was where any similarities ended. The faith-based home had all the advantages of seniors’ homes you would hope to find while the one run by the government had little or none.

Until, that is, when Deb Kraemer from the United States and Shirley Cullum from Canada stepped in in 2016 and things began to happen. In a few months the quality of care improved and living quarters became cleaner, bathrooms were retiled and issues that were neglected began to have some semblance of order.

Still, despite their efforts and the immense dedication of a small army of volunteers, the roof still leaked, staff were untrained or in some cases incompetent, and food and basic supplies were in short supply or of poor quality.

The new home for seniors in Zihuatanejo.

And this is where the second miracle begins in the form of one woman, Lizette Tapia Castro, wife of Mayor Jorge Sánchez. In Mexico, the mayor’s wife automatically becomes the figurehead of the DIF family services agency.

In the past, some have taken this position seriously and have made positive changes while some, unfortunately, have not. Luckily for Zihuatanejo, Lizette Tapia is one of the former.

With a degree in social services, Tapia involved the DIF in initiatives to improve the lives of people, particularly women, children and the marginalized (such as seniors) in positive ways.

For example, she took a hands-on and dedicated approach during a horrific fire this time last year that wiped out a whole community, and has been involved in programs such as sewing cloth diapers and holding showers for new expectant mothers.

Perhaps the most impressive of Tapia’s accomplishments has been the incredible transformation in the lives of the seniors from La Noria. Rather than merely fix the roof of a crumbling, desolate seniors’ home, she and her husband undertook to reconstruct an unused portion of an old DIF building a few blocks away.

In a record six months, Casa DIF was transformed into a bright, airy facility. Where before residents were crammed as many as 15 in one room, now they are living in relative luxury at just two to a room with their own bathroom.

Moving day: a resident with DIF president Tapia and her husband the mayor.

The wide-open spaces of the courtyard allow residents to move freely in wheelchairs among plants and ocean breezes to cool down in the sometimes oppressive heat of summer.

Along with a few of the best staff from the old facility, the DIF hired a new and extremely capable manager, Laura Solis, to oversee the nurses, housekeeper and cooks.

Walking into the facility you can see the difference not only in staff attitude, but in the smiles from the residents themselves, who before were often bored and listless. Now many are walking about, playing games and doing crafts, and generally engaged in positive ways with staff and visitors alike.

In short, they are happy, loved and well cared for. Secret Santa celebrations, more school visits and local involvement have all contributed to the changes three women from Mexico, the U.S. and Canada have instigated.

The writer is a Canadian who has lived and worked in Mexico for many years.

‘Sorry:’ Mexico City officials apologize after error triggers seismic alert

By

MND Staff

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January 4, 2020

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Alarm system speakers emitted a false alarm at 7:00pm Friday.

The Mexico City government apologized on Friday night after the earthquake alarm was accidentally activated in at least four boroughs just after 7:00pm, causing people to rush into the streets.

“Due to a regrettable error that we will review internally the seismic alert was activated at 900 posts in the city. We apologize to the public,” Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum wrote on Twitter.

The alarm was heard in neighborhoods in the boroughs of Cuauhtémoc, Benito Juárez, Miguel Hidalgo and Tlalpan.

With the devastating earthquake of September 19, 2017, still fresh in the memory of Mexico City residents, the sounding of the seismic alert – which depending on the location of a quake can give people up to a minute to flee buildings that could be susceptible to collapse – triggers immediate fear and anxiety in many.

The C5 security command center said in a statement posted to social media that the alert was inadvertently set off while tests were being carried out to ensure that the earthquake alarm’s audio system was functioning correctly.

“This test consists of sending a file without audio to the 13,337 loudspeakers of the system [that are] divided in groups of posts. One of these groups, made up of 900 posts, was not properly configured and consequently reproduced the seismic alert file instead of reproducing the file without audio,” the statement said.

It added that the tests had been suspended while the problem was being corrected.

“The Mexico City C5 command center offers an apology to the citizens of Mexico City for the inconvenience caused,” the statement concluded.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Morelos music and art festival celebrates in ‘hippie style’

By

Leigh Thelmadatter

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January 4, 2020

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Tickets are on sale now for for the eighth Carnaval Bahidorá international music and art festival, a “hippie style” event slated for February 14-16.

The festival’s music includes electronic, rap, hip-hop and more and the 2020 line up so far includes Masters at Work, Ibibio Sound Machine, Teto Preto, Son Rompe Pera, DJ Jasss, Move D, Theo Parrish and Avalon Emerson. More are to be announced.

The site is Las Estacas, a natural water park that is part of the Sierra de Montenegro Ecological Reserve, located 90 minutes south of Mexico City in Tlaltizapan, Morelos. It is a mountainous, wooded area centered on a natural spring which is the source of the Yautepec river.

The park has a number of ecological attractions such as areas for snorkeling, camping, boating, kayaking and inner tubing. It is open to the public, and hosts various events during the year.

The music festival declares itself to be 100% sustainable, providing recycling facilities and more. It also seeks to minimize the impact of the event on the park, such as prohibiting pets and flammable substances, as well as providing bus transportation.

Attendees wear costumes, masks or body paint and food options include vegetarian and vegan specialties. A marketplace will feature clothing, handcrafts, jewelry and other items.

Only people aged 18 and over may attend the event, which does not permit pets, professional video cameras, selfie sticks, flammables, knives or outside food and drinks.

Reservations can be made through the festival website.

Source: El Universal (sp)

State dismisses warden of prison where riot killed 17 inmates

By

MND Staff

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January 4, 2020

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Inmates' families wait for news outside the Zacatecas prison.

The governor of Zacatecas has announced the dismissal of the warden of a state prison where 17 inmates were killed in two riots this week.

Alejandro Tello told a press conference Friday that authorities believed that the removal of Antonio Solís as head of the Cieneguillas Social Reinsertion Center was necessary in light of the events that took place Tuesday night and Thursday morning.

Sixteen inmates were killed in the first riot, while another prisoner was killed in the second clash. Ten other inmates were wounded. Authorities relocated 120 prisoners after the first outbreak of violence.

Zacatecas Public Security Secretary Ismael Camberos Hernández said Thursday that authorities are investigating prison guards and other staff for allowing the entry of weapons into the facility, located just west of Zacatecas city.

A search of the prison after the New Year’s Eve riot uncovered almost 30 blades and knives, a variety of other weapons, marijuana, methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia and other prohibited items.

The probe extends to Solís but Governor Tello stressed that the decision to dismiss him wasn’t intended as criticism of his “work, effort [and] commitment” as prison warden. A replacement warden will be appointed next week, he said.

The governor said that authorities know that the Cieneguillas prison is a “time bomb” because it houses hundreds of highly-dangerous prisoners with links to organized crime in a minimum-security environment.

“We mustn’t forget that we’re talking about a prison that’s more than three decades old, we mustn’t lose sight [of the fact] that we’re talking about a prison that today houses several hundred federal-jurisdiction inmates [in] a minimum-security penitentiary,” Tello said.

“For a long time, since the first day of my government [in 2016], we’ve been speaking with federal authorities insistently about the prison issue because we know that it is a time bomb,” he added.

The governor said the violence seen in recent days in the prison was an extension of turf wars between criminal groups in the state, asserting “they’re in a fight outside and they’re settling scores on the inside.”

Security Secretary Camberos said the violence was due to disputes between members of the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels.

Tello said that federal intervention is required to guarantee safety in the prison, adding that he had spoken to both National Intelligence Center director Audomaro Martínez Zapata and Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo.

The former made a commitment to identify the cause of the violence and find a solution to it, he said, while the latter pledged that the federal government would provide additional resources for the prison and training for staff.

Source: Reforma (sp), El Financiero (sp)

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