19 different varieties of mole at festival to kick off Guelaguetza

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July 21, 2018

A chef stirs a pot of mole sauce during Oaxaca festival.

The city of Oaxaca is ready to celebrate its 86th Guelaguetza and offer visitors a unique opportunity to get to know the state’s culture and diversity. And few dishes are as intertwined with the identity of the people of Oaxaca as the many traditional mole sauces.

The last two days have been dedicated to the Mole Festival, an event hosted at the city’s Ethnobotanical Gardens where visitors sampled 19 of the mole varieties prepared in the state.

On Thursday, visitors also had the opportunity to witness the preparation of moles including negro, amarillo, coloradito, verde, de caderas and chichilo.

The special focus of this year’s festival was the region of Cuenca del Papaloapan and its mole rojo de mojarra (tilapia red mole), along with cooks from the Technological University of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region.

The chairman of the state chapter of the restaurant industry association Canirac told the newspaper Milenio that the event promotes moles among visitors, and that all were prepared in the traditional manner.

“Oaxaca is known by foodies as the capital of moles, as the largest variety of them is concentrated here,” said Fernando Enrique Martín Serrano.

The culinary abundance of Oaxaca is comprised of rich socio-cultural, historic and traditional values, which are showcased in the annual Mole Festival, he said.

Although formally over, visitors to the capital city of Oaxaca can still try the 19 mole varieties showcased at the festival by visiting participant restaurants, where each will serve one type of mole sauce. The special offer continues until July 31.

Governor Alejandro Murat Hinojosa said an estimated 114,000 visitors are expected to attend this year’s Guelaguetza and related festivities, and will leave behind more than 300 million pesos (US $15.8 million).

He also explained that his administration is planning to create a traveling version of the festival that could visit several countries and attract even more tourism to the state.

Source: Milenio (sp), Primera Línea (sp)

14 bodies found in hidden graves in Guadalajara metropolitan area

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MND Staff

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July 21, 2018

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Some bodies were found buried in yards of abandoned homes.

Authorities found 14 bodies in hidden graves at three different locations in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, Jalisco, this week.

Seven of the bodies were found on abandoned properties in the Lomas del Mirador neighborhood in the municipality of Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, located around 30 kilometers southwest of the Jalisco capital.

The newspaper Milenio reported that the bodies were buried in the backyards of four abandoned homes on the same street.

According to local residents, officers from the state’s Fuerza Única police force had been stationed outside the homes since last week as they waited for the state Attorney General’s office to obtain a search warrant.

A judge issued the warrant Wednesday, which allowed the officers to enter the properties to recover the bodies.

Attorney General Raúl Sánchez Jiménez told a press conference that “the bodies appear to be five men and a woman,” making no mention of the seventh.

The bodies were taken to a city morgue to undergo autopsies. Police investigations into the crimes are ongoing.

Sánchez said the properties had been located as a result of intelligence work carried out by officers in the state police homicides and missing persons unit.

In the municipality of El Salto, authorities found another six bodies Thursday in a clandestine grave on a property in the neighborhood of El Zalate.

Municipal police said the bodies were wrapped in plastic and that the age of the victims ranged between 25 and 40. They were taken to a morgue for identification.

A single body was also exhumed this week from a makeshift grave in the neighborhood of La Mezquitera in the municipality of Tlaquepaque.

Violent crime has increased in Jalisco this year.

Among the most prominent cases in the state have been the kidnapping and murder of three film students in March, the disappearance of three Italian men in January and an attack on the former attorney general in May.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is suspected of being involved in all three cases.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Tierra Caliente mayor-elect one of two Morena members killed

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Tony Richards

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July 21, 2018

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Mayor-elect Delgado was assassinated in Michoacán. — Mayor-elect Delgado was assassinated in Buenavista.

Morena party members were shot and killed in two states yesterday.

The mayor-elect of a Tierra Caliente municipality in Michoacán was assassinated yesterday while meeting with other Morena party members of the local council.

Eliseo Delgado Sánchez was in a restaurant across from municipal headquarters in Buenavista when a gunman entered and began firing.

One of the councilors attending the meeting was wounded.

Morena, the party headed by president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, swept the municipal election in Buenavista on July 1.

Days before the election armed civilians shot and killed the interim mayor, Javier Ureña González. He was traveling in a vehicle in the community of 18 de marzo on June 27 when the gunmen opened fire from another vehicle.

In Jalisco, meanwhile, armed civilians aboard a truck gunned down Zenón Cocula Fierros, who had been a Morena candidate for council in San Pedro Tlaquepaque. He was killed instantly, the Tlaquepaque police chief said.

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

Bimbo suspends sales in four high-crime areas of Acapulco

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Tony Richards

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July 21, 2018

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A Bimbo delivery truck burns in Acapulco.

Violence in four neighborhoods of Acapulco has driven out Mexico’s largest baker, Guerrero’s economic development secretary said.

Bimbo has suspended sales in the high-crime neighborhoods of Zapata, Renacimiento, La Postal and Unidos por Guerrero following attacks and threats by organized crime.

Two Bimbo delivery trucks were detained on Wednesday and Thursday; one was set on fire and destroyed in La Postal. Drivers were given documents bearing telephone numbers and demanding extortion payments. They were instructed to give them to their employers.

The company’s decision, which took effect on Wednesday, affects eight delivery routes in the municipality.

Economic Development Secretary Álvaro Burgos Barrera said government representatives will meet next week with business owners to analyze the security problem.

Beverage companies Coca-Cola and PepsiCo closed plants earlier this year in the Tierra Caliente region due to violence.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Coahuila spent 25 million pesos on 8 bullet-proof vehicles

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MND Staff

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July 20, 2018

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The Coahuila government spent more than 25 million pesos (US $1.3 million) to buy eight armored vehicles during its first six months in office, public records show.

According to the state government’s transparency website, the Miguel Riquelme-led Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) administration purchased four bulletproof SUVs from two separate companies between January and May this year.

Each vehicle cost an average of 3.2 million pesos (US $168,000).

The newspaper El Universal reported today that the office of the governor purchased three of the armored vehicles, the state’s Interior Secretariat purchased two and the Attorney General’s office, Secretariat of Public Security and Secretariat of Finance bought one each.

El Universal requested details about the purchase contracts but the government’s transparency unit refused to supply the information on the grounds that the vehicles were bought for use by “first-level officials in charge of public security tasks.”

However, the newspaper pointed out that the secretary of finance — who heads the department that took delivery of the most expensive of the eight vehicles — is not responsible for any public security duties.

Public records also show that the amount spent on the armored vehicles is greater than the government funding allocated to a range of different areas during all of 2017.

Last year, the Coahuila government spent 13.7 million pesos on science and technology, 10.2 million pesos on transportation, 17.4 million pesos to pay off debt and 17.5 million pesos for security materials and supplies.

Nevertheless, a citizen councilor for the state’s anti-corruption system said the amount spent on armored SUVs is not high for a state such as Coahuila, although he added that the government should still publicly explain the expense.

“I don’t think it’s wrong. I don’t know . . . who is using them but I believe that given the conditions in the country, they are required,” Adolfo Von Bertrab Saracho said.

“We’re coming out of a violent electoral process . . . I’m of the opinion that all the precautions that can be taken are valid. It has to be justified but for such a big state, caught up in a national problem and being on the [United States] border, it’s not over the top.”

Source: El Universal (sp)

Pay cuts will produce savings of 38 billion pesos, before lost tax is factored in

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MND Staff

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July 20, 2018

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Selling the presidential Dreamliner is one of the austerity measures AMLO has announced.

President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s proposed pay cuts for thousands of high-ranking government officials will produce savings of almost 38 billion pesos (US $2 billion), an analysis shows.

The study, which was conducted by specialists close to the incoming administration, shows that 53,997 high-ranking officials including cabinet secretaries, undersecretaries and departmental heads, among others, currently earn gross salaries that add up to a combined 75.16 billion pesos (US $3.95 billion) annually.

The analysis, of which the newspaper El Universal has a copy, says that across-the-board cuts of 50% would reduce that payroll cost to 37.58 billion pesos.

But there’s a catch.

By reducing salaries, the amount of income tax that high-level bureaucrats pay will also go down.

Instead of withholding 27 billion pesos (US $1.4 billion) as is currently the case, tax authorities will only collect 8.5 billion pesos (US $446 million).

That means that the net saving from cutting salaries is a more modest 18.6 billion pesos (US $976.1 million).

The biggest savings will come from the Secretariat of the Interior (Segob), which currently has the highest payroll of any government department, employing 1,290 high-ranking officials to whom combined salaries of 2.27 billion pesos will be paid in 2018.

In the weeks following his landslide victory in the July 1 presidential election, López Obrador and his prospective cabinet have outlined a range of austerity measures they intend to adopt in government.

Pensions for former presidents and private medical insurance for officials are also on the chopping block.

López Obrador has said he will earn a net monthly salary of 108,000 pesos (US $5,670), which is less than half the amount current President Enrique Peña Nieto takes home.

He has also pledged to forego personal security, sell the presidential plane and convert the president’s official residence into an arts and culture center.

Selling the Boeing 787, which was delivered in 2016 after former president Felipe Calderón placed the order for it, could prove costly. The newspaper Milenio obtained documents that showed an analysis by the president’s office in 2015 revealed that the selling price could finish up being $137 million less than the $218.7 million that was paid.

López Obrador will be sworn in for a six-year term on December 1.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Hidden among the chiles, a hot shipment of illegal drugs

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César Hernández

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July 20, 2018

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Chiles that was being transported yesterday from Guadalajara to Tijuana might have been hot but even hotter was the additional cargo discovered by police.

They found 452.5 kilograms of several different drugs were packed within the shipment of chiles.

The driver, identified only as Luis Miguel T, was traveling on the federal highway No. 2, between the Sonora cities of Sonoyta and San Luis Colorado when he was stopped at a Federal Police checkpoint for a routine inspection.

Police found an assortment of drugs that included 342.3 kilograms of methamphetamine, 42.5 kg of fentanyl, 42.7 kg of cocaine and 25 kg of heroin.

The illegal cargo also included 19,715 fentanyl pills and 175 benzodiazepine capsules.

The driver was arrested for crimes against health, pending further investigation.

The confiscated drugs were weighed and counted before being burned.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Dead manatees now up to 20 in Tabasco, and remain a mystery

By

César Hernández

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July 20, 2018

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Specialists examine a dead manatee in Tabasco.

Over the last month and a half the number of manatees found dead in Tabasco has leapt from eight to 20, and authorities have yet to find an explanation for the deaths.

The director of wildlife inspection and surveillance at the federal environmental agency Profepa told a press conference yesterday that only one of the bodes was found in good enough condition to collect usable samples.

They tested positive for brucellosis and Weil’s disease but Joel González Moreno explained that those bacteria are found naturally in the environment, and it cannot be concluded that they caused the deaths of the other manatees.

Seventeen of the mammals were found in the Bitzalez lagoon system. Three more were located in Boca de Pantoja, while two were found in Paraíso and at the Grijalva II bridge in Villahermosa.

The advanced state of decomposition has hindered the search for an answer, continued González, and conclusive results are still out of reach.

Still, the Profepa representative asserted that a hydrocarbon spill has been discarded as a cause of death, suggesting instead that an illness could be behind the deaths.

Several agencies, including the National Water Commission, are collaborating and collecting samples from the dead animals and the waters in which they were found to determine the cause of death.

Sample collection has also extended to fish species and farm animals found in the Bitzales area, which are currently being analyzed at Senasica, the National Service for Agrofood Health, Safety and Quality.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Guinness record for world’s biggest marzipan set in Guadalajara

By

César Hernández

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July 20, 2018

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The world's largest marzipan, made in Guadalajara. — The world's largest marzipan, made by a Jalisco candy-maker

Jalisco-based candy-maker Dulces de la Rosa made history yesterday by preparing an 8.3-tonne peanut marzipan.

That’s a lot of marzipan: for comparison, the portions of marzipan widely sold in Mexico are just 28 grams.

Peanut marzipan, known simply as mazapán, is a typical sweet emblematic of Mexican culture and De la Rosa is almost as emblematic. The company has been known for its mazapán for 75 years.

The firm decided to celebrate its 75th anniversary by shooting for a Guinness World Record, which it did by successfully delivering the massive mazapán yesterday, to the delight of many with a sweet tooth.

Preparations began 11 days before and it took close to 100 people more than three hours to make the marzipan.

The result was an 8,296.1-kilogram peanut marzipan sweet, a record certified by Guinness World Records representative Carlos Tapia.

Mazapán is known to be a fragile sweet: 28-gram packages often crumble apart if not opened with care. So the integrity of the record-beating product was a major concern for the confectioners because it had to remain in one piece while it was labeled, weighed and measured.

Yesterday’s ceremony and celebration gave De la Rosa the opportunity to announce its plans for the future, which entail the launch of 14 new products, including a special variety of chocolate bar.

The marzipan was prepared at the Plaza Fundadores park in downtown Guadalajara, where starting today the public can try a sample. De la Rosa will be giving away its monster mazapán in chunks of 100 grams.

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

9 houses have collapsed in Tijuana; 15 more may follow

By

MND Staff

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July 20, 2018

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One of the houses that has collapsed in Tijuana.

A geological fault is suspected to have caused the collapse of nine houses in Tijuana since Saturday, while 15 more are at risk of suffering the same fate.

In total, more than 60 homes in the Reforma neighborhood of the border city have been affected by ground instability that residents first noticed around two weeks ago.

Municipal authorities have since ordered the evacuation of all homes at risk of collapse.

Tijuana Civil Protection director José Rito Portugal said that a 2014 risk assessment report shows there is a geological fault at a distance of 200 meters from the affected houses.

However, he added that it was too early to say definitively that the fault is the cause of the collapses.

“The urban administration division [of the Tijuana council] will be responsible for conducting the necessary tests to determine what happened. Preliminarily we can say that it could be the continuation of a land slippage that was already present in this area, but we’re waiting [to see],” Rito said.

Isabel Corona, whose home of 40 years has partially collapsed, told the newspaper El Universal that it’s not the first time that houses in the area have fallen.

“. . . Around 18 years ago, about 30 houses collapsed, only those were on the other side of the hill,” she said.

Corona’s architect son Ricardo has also lost his home.

He told El Universal that a friend who is a civil engineer assessed his home and others in the area on July 9 and warned that they that were at risk of collapse.

However, unlike other nearby homes, Ricardo’s house didn’t have any cracks in its walls.

He explained that it wasn’t until he noticed that the doors wouldn’t shut that he realized the collapse was imminent.

“I thought: ‘this is really going to fall,’ which is why I started to pack my things, my documents, I didn’t know how much time I had until everything would fall,” Ricardo said.

“Material things are material things and can be recovered. Here what hurts and what’s important are the memories, where I grew up and where I watched my children grow up.”

Source: El Universal (sp)