Of the 13,000 species of mushrooms in Chiapas, only 300 are edible.
Five people are dead and two others are in intensive care in Chiapas after two incidents involving poisonous mushrooms.
Health spokesman Octavio Alberto Coutiño Niño said that a family of four from Huixtán was admitted to a hospital in San Cristóbal de las Casas with symptoms indicating they had consumed poisonous mushrooms.
But doctors were unable to save three of the victims. A fourth family member is still receiving treatment at the Huixtán health center.
In another incident, a family of three collected mushrooms for personal consumption in a forest near the community of Chichelalo in San Andrés Larráinzar. Days later, all three were hospitalized but a 30-year-old man and his 6-year-old son died shortly thereafter. A third family member survived and is recovering in the San Andrés Larráinzar hospital.
The secretary of health called on citizens in the Tsotsil-Tseltal highlands region to collect mushrooms only while accompanied by someone experienced in distinguishing which varieties are edible.
There are 13,000 species of mushrooms in Chiapas, of which only 300 can be eaten. Among the most toxic species are the amanita verna, better known as the fool’s mushroom, and the amanita virosa, also known as the destroying angel mushroom, which account for most of the serious poisoning cases seen in the state.
The second mansion to be seized in Santa Rosa de Lima.
The leader of a fuel theft gang believed to be responsible for much of the violence plaguing Guanajuato remains on the run but he has no resources to fund his criminal activities, according to federal and state authorities.
Government sources told the newspaper Milenio that the bank accounts of Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel leader José Antonio “El Marro” Yépez Ortiz are frozen, undermining his capacity to bribe authorities, pay other gang members and buy the loyalty of people in different parts of the state.
The federal Financial Intelligence Unit has blocked accounts held by Yépez or people linked to him. They contain nearly 35.5 million pesos (US $1.85 million).
Authorities said the joint federal and state government operation launched in March against the Santa Rosa gang and its leader is ongoing, and that by intercepting cartel communications they have confirmed that key members have deserted, leaving “El Marro” isolated and vulnerable.
A total of 62 people involved with the cartel – including a municipal police officer in Irapuato who provided intelligence – have been arrested since the operation began and one gang member was killed in a confrontation with federal forces last month.
El Marro continues to elude capture.
Authorities have seized 14 properties, 129 vehicles — including several luxury cars and a fuel truck, close to 50 weapons, ammunition, bullet-proof vests, jewelry, drugs and cash, among other items, from the cartel.
A luxury home seized in March in the municipality of Villagrán with extensive gardens, a large swimming pool and two stone lion statues is believed to have been Yépez’s personal residence, while later the same week another similar home was secured.
The former property is now being used as barracks for the National Guard.
Other homes have been seized in Comonfort and Celaya. Behind one property in the former municipality, authorities discovered buried barrels containing human remains and weapons.
Authorities also reported that nine kidnapping victims have been rescued during its operation, some of whom are believed to be members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which is engaged in a turf war in Guanajuato with the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel.
One of the kidnapping victims was a former police officer from Juventino Rosas while another was an active officer from Uriangato.
Yépez has been sought by authorities since 2008 on charges of fuel theft and organized crime. He became the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel leader in 2017, according to a report published today in Milenio.
Explosives, referred to in the narcomanta as a “little gift,” were also left inside a vehicle parked in front of the Salamanca oil refinery but were removed by the army before they detonated.
The Sinaloa Cartel was behind the enslavement of 21 men who were held in caves and forced to work on marijuana and poppy fields, the Chihuahua attorney general said.
“We have identified the criminal group that operates in the region, which is presumably the same one that deprived these people of their freedom,” César Augusto Peniche said, referring to the Sinaloa Cartel.
The men were rescued by more than 50 state police officers in the municipality of Ocampo last Thursday. The attorney general said that authorities received their key break in the case when an escaped captive gave police the location of the caves.
“We were able to establish contact with a person who told us that he had been deprived of his liberty to work in these [marijuana and poppy] fields. He himself gave us details that allowed us to pinpoint the location of where [the 21 captives] could be found.”
However, it was not the first attempt to rescue the men. Police first began receiving anonymous tips that a crime gang was forcing people to work in the Sierra Tarahumara along with reports by family members of some of the men’s disappearances over a year ago.
Some of the 21, several of whom are indigenous and nearly all of whom are from Chihuahua, were reportedly lured into captivity by promises of high-paying agricultural work. But the men worked all day and were given only flour, water and beans for food.
Some of the men said they had been forced to work for as long as two years.
Augusto Peniche said the investigation had been complicated by the vast territory and uneven terrain in the region. He added that the state was currently attempting to locate the victims’ families.
None of the men’s captors was present at the time of the rescue and no arrests have been made.
Scientists at the National Autonomous University (UNAM) have developed a chemical formula to preserve cadavers without the use of refrigeration.
The formula is safer than using refrigeration and maintains the flexibility of the bodies, which allows them to be used for research and teaching.
According to Diego Pineda, the head of the biological innovation department at the UNAM’s medical school, researchers experimented for a year and a half before discovering the formula, which has several advantages over formaldehyde, commonly used for most chemical preservation of cadavers.
To be preserved in the latter, bodies need to be treated for three months, but the new formula developed at UNAM can preserve a body in 15 days, after which the body will not need further treatment or refrigeration to remain preserved. The formula contains less than 3% of formaldehyde mixed with other substances.
Formaldehyde and other alcohols that are used to preserve cadavers also dehydrate bodies, make them rigid and distort their natural colors, which limits their usability for research and teaching.
“With better cadavers, we will develop better skills, and reduce medical errors,” said Pineda. “And that will have a positive impact, because medical errors are the third-most-common cause of preventable death in the world.”
The new preservation process, along with an expansion of the medical school’s body donation program, has allowed the school to offer more postgraduate courses. Currently, more than 2,000 people have signed up to donate their bodies to the school. On average, one body can be used to teach eight courses.
The preservation formula is currently in the process of receiving Mexican and international patents.
Last week’s spill of sulfuric acid into the Gulf of California at a Grupo México facility will probably not have a serious environmental impact, according to Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) Secretary Víctor Toledo Manzur.
Toledo told a press conference that Semarnat will continue monitoring the situation and examine Grupo México’s history of environmental accidents. According to the environmentalist group Poder, the company has been implicated in 120 environmental infractions since the year 2000.
The environmental protection agency Profepa has opened an investigation into the July 9 spill.
Carlos Navarrete, a Social Encounter Party deputy in the Sonora legislature, blamed Grupo México for what he called an “environmental tragedy,” and said he will push the federal government to cancel the company’s mining concessions in Sonora.
“We have serious problems because of Grupo México, because they’re polluting every day, and there hasn’t been a complete investigation by Profepa or Semarnat,” he said. “It’s more like ‘Grupo Tóxico’ than Grupo México, because it’s hurting the health of all Sonorans.”
In his morning press conference on Monday, President López Obrador promised there will be an investigation into the accident, and that Grupo México will be punished if wrongdoing is discovered.
Grupo México stocks have already suffered as a result of the spill. Between July 10, when the accident occurred, and market close on Monday the company lost over 16 billion pesos (US $838 million) on the Mexican stock exchange, or 4.4% of its value.
Meanwhile, Profepa said the death of a sea lion in Guaymas, photos of which appeared on social media, was not connected with the spill. The photos were taken last month.
But an autopsy is being carried out on a dead sea turtle to determine the cause of death.
Grupo México is owned by Germán Larrea, the second-richest person in Mexico, and is the country’s largest mining company.
Bids will start at 655,000 pesos for this diamond-encrusted, gold Rolex Oyster.
A 3-million-peso Piaget watch and a jewel-encrusted Montblanc fountain pen are among 153 lots of jewelry that will be auctioned July 28 in Mexico City.
The 1,978 pieces, which President López Obrador described as a demonstration of social decomposition, have been valued at 22.6 million pesos (US $1.2 million).
They had been confiscated by the courts, the Federal Tax Administration and the federal Attorney General’s Office.
Brands include Cartier, Corum, Rolex and Gucci and Montblanc.
The cheapest piece is a woman’s Gucci watch, which has a starting price of 10,200 pesos.
This 375,000-peso Montblanc gold pen has a Mexican flag made of emeralds, rubies and diamonds.
The most expensive is a men’s Piaget watch, with the face and band made of 18-carat white gold and encrusted with 49 diamonds.
It has a starting price of almost 3 million pesos.
A Montblanc fountain pen, adorned with a Mexican flag made of emeralds, rubies and diamonds, has a starting price of 374,400 pesos.
The president told his morning press conference today that the extravagance of the jewels demonstrates the level of social decomposition that existed in Mexico before he became president.
“We should do an exposition of how this cheap luxury became so important,” he said. “How did these material goods become more important than cultural, moral and spiritual values?”
He encouraged people to participate in the auction because the money raised will support poor communities around the country, although he did not specify which.
Highest-priced piece is this Piaget men’s watch of white gold and diamonds. Starting prices is almost 3 million pesos.
Anyone interested in participating can buy a pass at regional offices of the System of Administrative Allocation of Assets (SAE), or at convenience stores. After buying a pass, participants will need to register at an SAE office.
Earlier auctions have sold automobiles and real estate seized from drug lords and other criminals.
Pemex CEO Romero presents the oil company's new business plan.
Tax cuts, large injections of capital and increased oil production are proposed in the new business plan for the heavily-indebted state oil company Pemex.
Company CEO Octavio Romero said today that the company will pay 7% less tax and duties next year and an additional 4% less in 2021.
The plan will reduce the tax rate paid by Pemex from 65% to 54% in 2021, he said.
The government will inject 141 billion pesos (US $7.4 billion) into the company over the next three years, including 66 billion pesos in 2020.
Pemex will reinvest 221 billion pesos of its own funds next year while the tax cuts will generate savings of 45 billion pesos and the private sector will provide 14 billion pesos in the form of service contracts, according to a presentation at this morning’s presidential press conference.
All told, investment in Pemex will total 347 billion pesos ($18.2 billion) next year, while in 2021 it will rise to 411 billion pesos ($21.6 billion).
President López Obrador said the plan, approved unanimously yesterday by the Pemex board, is designed to transform “an oil industry in ruins” to one with the capacity to finance national growth.
“We are sowing oil . . .” he declared. The president has also pledged that a new $8-billion refinery on the Tabasco coast will start operations in May 2022.
Romero said that in the second half of President López Obrador’s six-year term “it will be Pemex which supports the federal government to finance growth and development in our country.”
He said the state-owned company is focusing its exploration efforts in shallow waters and onshore areas.
Pemex, which has long been the biggest contributor to public finances, currently provides about a fifth of the national budget even as oil output continues to decline, falling to a historic low of 1.625 million barrels per day (bpd) in January.
However, by the end of López Obrador’s administration in 2024, the company expects to produce 2.697 million bpd, a 66% increase on January numbers.
According to the new business plan, production will average 1.707 million bpd this year, 1.866 million bpd in 2020 and 2.069 million bpd in 2021.
While the production figures cited are positive, further downgrades to Pemex’s credit rating are expected if the plan fails to convince, the Financial Times said.
Analysts at the investment bank Citigroup said after the presentation of the new business plan that a downgrade for both sovereign bonds and Pemex is only “a matter of time.”
A cut to Pemex’s rating would likely place pressure on the peso, which fell 0.6% today on news of the plan.
In a note to clients, Citigroup also said the strategy “doesn’t solve the main structural problems of the company.”
Pablo Medina, vice president of Welligence Energy Analytics, told Bloomberg that “Pemex is trying to be too many things at the same time under the new government policy, and its portfolio is very inefficient.”
He said that to improve its financial situation, Pemex needs to sell non-core assets and restart joint ventures.
“They need to take advantage of what the energy reform allows, leverage capital and stop trying to do it all by themselves.”
The wildfire advances across the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve.
A wildfire that has burned away 2,500 hectares in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve in Quintana Roo rages on, continuing to threaten hundreds of native plant and animal species that live within the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Reserve director Omar Ortiz Moreno said a joint team of army and navy personnel with special vehicles and a helicopter, firefighters, volunteers and authorities from the three levels of government have managed to bring 45% of the blaze under control and extinguish 15%.
Gonzalo Merediz Alonso, executive director of the organization Friends of Sian Ka’an, said the wildfire, which was initially discovered by satellite imaging on Sunday by the National Forestry Commission, was started by illegal fires lit by hunters in the forest’s underbrush.
“It is a common practice [in Quintana Roo] for hunters to set fire to the savanna to be able to better spot deer since the grass is very tall. Of course, this time it looks like things got out of control.”
Castillo Carballo, a legal assistant for the National Forestry Commission, said a fire eight years ago burned 3,000 hectares in the same area. He added that in the south and southeastern portions of the biosphere reserve, the flames were going out as they met with denser forest.
Firefighters walk through a burned area of the reserve.
“We hope that it continues doing that, but as a preventative measure we are opening gaps and setting up firewalls, which means that we should have the fire fully under control within a week.”
The flames are fed mainly by grass between 30 and 80 meters high, and sometimes leap as high as 3 to 5 meters, but are extinguished as soon as they make contact with denser forested areas or after all the grass has been burned.
“We must stay focused and prevent the fire from ‘jumping,’ which is why we have opened gaps and set up firewalls so that the flames come up against a barrier.”
State Civil Protection chief Adrián Martínez Ortega said fighting the conflagration has been complicated by especially dry conditions and by federal budget cuts, which have left the National Forestry Commission short-staffed. He said a 50% budget cut forced the commission to let go of several employees, including wildfire experts who had intimate knowledge of the affected area.
Friends of Sian Ka’an’s Merediz said the wildfire will have a direct and negative effect on the reproductive cycles of crocodiles, turtles, snakes, frogs and some birds, and that the burning vegetation will release a significant amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
“If someone committed a crime, they should be punished for it according to the law, because a reserve like the Sian Ka’an is an important tool for development and we must take steps to prevent this kind of devastation.”
The 528,000-hectare reserve is located in the municipalities of Tulum and Felipe Carrillo Puerto.
The founder of a self-defense force that took up arms against criminal organizations in Michoacán in 2013 announced yesterday that he was rearming.
Hipólito Mora Chávez wrote in a Facebook post that he would begin carrying a rifle and a pistol because governments have failed to provide security and are only interested in being in power and deceiving the Mexican people.
“Any authority that tries to detain me or disarm me will have to murder me because they won’t take me to jail or disarm me alive,” he wrote.
“When the government provides us with security . . . I’ll gladly lay down my arms . . .” Mora said.
In a radio interview, the former self-defense force leader stressed that he wasn’t joking about his pledge to avoid arrest.
“Nobody will put me in jail, I’ll shoot them if they try to arrest me. It’s a very strong statement that places my life and those of the people who work with me at risk but that’s the way I like to speak . . . without fooling anybody,” Mora said.
“I know that it’s illegal to carry a weapon, I’m aware of that but we’re not going to cross our arms and watch . . . people being murdered,” he said, adding that he travels in an armored vehicle and has several bodyguards.
Mora, who in February 2013 took up arms against the Los Caballeros Templarios cartel and other criminal groups in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán, charged in his Facebook post that the security situation is “worse than ever” and that authorities are “once again working with the cartels.”
They allow them to “move freely in the whole country and don’t arrest them,” he wrote.
Mora asked his Facebook friends and followers to share his post so that “it reaches all of Mexico” and people realize that “there are still men willing to die for others.”
The vigilante, whose son was killed in a 2014 confrontation between warring factions of the Fuerza Rural self-defense group that left 11 people dead, said he has a “very big moral commitment” with all the “good people” who died defending their families, adding that it would be “an honor to die for them.”
In an interview with the news website Sin Embargo, Mora further defended his decision to rearm himself.
The security situation ‘is worse than ever,’ Mora says.
“If one sees that the government isn’t doing its job, if one sees that in a large part of the country there are murders, extortion and kidnappings, and the criminals can move freely, well I ask myself: why can’t people who work honestly – as is my case because I have a small lime orchard – carry a gun to defend ourselves?” he said.
“What I’m saying to the authorities is give us the security we deserve. That’s what I’m asking for, I’m not challenging the government, if they take it as a challenge, that’s a matter for them. I know that there might be consequences and I accept them, I’m responsible for my statements and for whatever comes against me. The only thing I want is to deal with this problem,” Mora added.
He also said that state and federal politicians are constantly campaigning rather than working for the well-being of citizens.
“. . . But that’s not what Mexicans want, what we want is for them to provide us with security. The people in the government deny [that there is] insecurity, they’re always saying that everything is getting better but it’s not,” Mora said.
In response to Mora’s declarations, President López Obrador asserted that nobody is above the law.
“I believe that it’s in the interest of everyone to be in a country where there is a real and authentic rule of law. We [the government] are responsible for guaranteeing public security . . .” he said.
“. . . With regard to the opinions of people on this issue, I’m respectful of what they say. Just remember that we all must act with rectitude and adhere to the law.”
Inaugurating the National Guard at a ceremony in Mexico City on June 30, López Obrador acknowledged that his government has not yet made progress in combating the high levels of insecurity but he has expressed confidence that the new security force will be successful.
An average of 94 homicides per day made the first half of the year the most violent on record, and security specialists are not optimistic that things will improve in the final six months of 2019 even with the deployment of the National Guard.
Nearly 400 Central American migrants who lost limbs hopping freight trains in Mexico have received prostheses over the past eight years thanks to a Red Cross program.
Boarding northbound freight trains known collectively and colloquially as “La Bestia” (The Beast) is a common practice among migrants aiming to reach the United States.
Unfortunately, the occurrence of accidents while riding the rails is also quite common.
Guatemalan Luis Estuardo lost his left leg below his knee earlier this year after falling from “La Bestia” in Achotal, Veracruz, and getting caught up in the train’s wheels.
He is now undergoing rehabilitation treatment in Celaya, Guanajuato, and will soon be fitted – at no expense of his own – with a prosthetic leg.
The artificial limb will be funded by a program first started by the International Committee of the Red Cross in Chiapas in 2011.
Since then, 388 migrants have received prosthetic legs, arms and hands, and three years ago the program’s hub was transferred to Guanajuato, where it is supported by the local Red Cross, a migrant shelter in Celaya and the state’s Institute for People with Disabilities (Ingudis).
Alberto Cabezas, a spokesman for the International Red Cross in Mexico, described the program as “important humanitarian work,” explaining that it has also helped migrants who lost limbs due to the violence of criminal gangs.
After migrants leave hospital, they are transported to the Casa ABBA shelter in Celaya, where they stay while undergoing physical and psychological therapy provided by Ingudis. During the same period, the migrants are measured for prostheses.
Leticia Díaz, the program’s rehabilitation coordinator, said that making an artificial limb that fits perfectly and feels like a natural part of a person’s body is a “delicate process.”
She added that migrants who lose limbs go through a lot of suffering and emotional stress in the lead-up to being fitted with a new arm or leg and for that reason a psychologist offers support and helps them plan for a new life.
After receiving their prostheses, some migrants have opted to travel to the northern border to seek asylum in the United States while others have chosen to return to their home countries.
In the latter case, the Red Cross assists with the repatriation process.
