At least 100 families lost what little they had when their wooden homes burned to the ground yesterday in a fireworks-related incident in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero.
Reports of a fire out of control in the Buenos Aires, Convergencia and Cima de Jesús neighborhoods reached the state Civil Protection office at around 1:30pm.
Children were playing with fireworks when a spark ignited the roof of a nearby house. A strong wind spread the first to another 20 homes and ignited propane tanks.
The homes were built of wood, cinder blocks and sheetmetal, and at least 100 were completely lost.
Local authorities set up a shelter in the Zihuatanejo Municipal Auditorium for the victims of the blaze. About 350 victims had registered at the temporary refuge as of yesterday evening.
Video footage showing an ambush of police in México state that left four officers dead has surfaced on social media.
Suspected gangsters who perpetrated the attack also appear in the footage, which was presumably filmed by one of the assailants.
The ambush took place on October 28 in Almoloya de Alquisiras, a municipality about 75 kilometers southwest of the state capital, Toluca.
In the first of two short videos, armed men are seen waiting in a forest above a dirt road between the communities of Los Pinos and Las Vigas.
“State [police] commander, we’re coming for you now,” the man filming says.
Sicarios graban emboscada a policías del EdoMex
Focusing on a man looking at a cell phone, the video’s narrator says: “Here’s ‘El Grillo’ [The Cricket], who killed the ex-community officers, who also killed the commander of the No. 1 [unit] and the municipal commander.”
Several other men appear in the video before the man filming declares: “We’re going to kill the state police here because they’re sticking their noses into our business.”
Switching the camera’s gaze to the road, he adds: “This is where it’s going to happen.”
In a second video, a volley of gunfire is heard as a state police vehicle comes into view.
The vehicle quickly overturns although not before one officer falls or jumps from its rear onto the dirt road. He is then seen running off the road to take shelter before disappearing from view.
Heavy gunfire continues for the next 55 seconds. Four police died at the scene of the ambush while a fifth officer survived.
The México state Secretariat of Security and Attorney General’s office said they are investigating the leaking of the videos, which they obtained during their probe into the October 28 crime.
The authorities said the footage forms part of the evidence against the alleged perpetrators, one of whom has already been arrested and is in custody. Some media outlets have reported that the men belong to the Familia Michoacana cartel.
Almoloya de Alquisiras is part of the notoriously dangerous Tierra Caliente region, which takes in parts of México state, Guerrero and Michoacán.
This statue of Jesus Christ in Bolivia is the world's tallest.
An actor from Tamaulipas has created a project that would give the state’s capital, Ciudad Victoria, the world’s tallest statue of Jesus Christ.
Eduardo Verástegui Córdoba explained that the 77-meter-high statue and a complex to be built around it will be known as The Christ of Peace.
He said that the purpose of the project is to leave a legacy of peace for the state in which he was born.
Verástegui said that architect Fernando Romero, whose firm designed the ill-fated Mexico City airport, will design the statue, whose arms will be outspread, as if offering citizens a hug.
The project will include an esplanade with capacity for 10,000 people, a church, restaurants, stores, a convention center, a shelter for pilgrims, a hotel, an amphitheater, a handicrafts market, funicular and cable car stations and a residential area.
Verástegui said he planned to travel to Rome to present his project to Pope Francis.
Cochabamba, Bolivia, is currently home to the world’s tallest Christ statue. It stands 34.2 meters tall.
No details have been released about the cost of the statue project or the source of the funding. The Catholic church said construction would begin early in the new year.
Unnamed promoters of the statue were quoted as saying that the Christ of Peace would represent “a message of faith, love, hope and peace” in Tamaulipas, one of Mexico’s most violent states.
The Charro Police, a force of mounted officers of the law whose uniforms resemble those of traditional charros, or cowboys, is returning to Mexico City.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum reintroduced the police force on Saturday, explaining that it will patrol the Alameda Central park and the Plaza Garibaldi, the home of mariachi music and a popular spot for tourists and chilangos alike.
Not only will the Charro Police maintain order and enforce the law, they will also serve as another tourist attraction, Sheinbaum said.
The 30 police officers and their steeds went to work on the weekend. After the holiday season is over, the city will analyze making the Charro Police a permanent fixture.
The force was created in 2002 with 40 English-speaking officers and 30 horses and a mandate to provide some tourist services as well as keeping the peace. But it was disbanded in 2012.
Mexico City Police chief Jesús Orta Martínez added that the mounted police force cum tourist attraction could extend next year to include other areas such as the Chapultepec and Aragón forests.
The city has a stable of 700 horses for its mounted division from which it can draw.
Plaza Garibaldi will be a key focus of the Charro Police.
In September, three men wearing charro attire killed five people and wounded six more in an armed attack, part of a turf war between criminal gangs operating in Mexico City.
Cloth diapers are making a comeback in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero.
It all began with the birth of Eryn Rose, daughter of local teacher Rosario Leyva, who worked long, hard hours at a rural school outside Zihuatanejo for very little pay.
Making ends meet was a struggle and using disposable diapers meant the difference for buying formula and providing other necessities for her newborn.
Enter longtime friend and activist, American expat Maryellen Jackson, who purchased enough cloth diapers to get Eryn Rose through the next two years. With that came the idea that cloth diapers would be the answer for other poor, working mothers as well. (Today, those same diapers have been passed on to seven other families and were last heard of at the home of a distant cousin near Tecpan.)
The problem was finding someone who would take on the project to make and supply cloth diapers to expectant mothers in the area.
Creators Margaret Reid and Maryellen Jackson.
Jackson called on a friend, Canadian Margaret Reid, well known for her creative “Fascinators” that she sells each year at a local “Chick Party” to raise money for the charity best known as Sailfest.
Her designs have been so well received, with women vying each year for the latest creation, that Jackson felt she was the obvious choice to help get the diaper project off the ground.
With the assistance of local organization Somas Zihua, under the direction of Lizette Tapia Sánchez, the women organized a baby shower for some of Zihuantanejo’s poorest mothers-to-be.
Several volunteers, mostly friends and relatives, were given the task of sewing the cloth diapers using donated t-shirts as the material. Each mother received a sample of three adorable creations, along with other useful items in a giant gift pack.
By incorporating the logos of the donated shirts, the diapers have caught the hearts and imaginations of women from Canada and the United States. Women in Mexico have been a little harder to convince because, surprisingly, using cloth diapers is not a part of the culture.
Those who do appreciate them, however, realize an opportunity to save money as well as the environment by keeping toxic plastic out of landfills.
Expectant mothers and their gift packs.
At the same time there is the possibility of turning this into a micro-business as has been done in other parts of the world. Jackson and Reid are convinced that over time this will be a success in Mexico, too.
To be sure, the project has had its share of criticism, some valid, such as the lack of water in areas where some of these women live.
The most important challenges include encouraging women to use them and providing enough sewing machines to women who wish to participate as a business owner in the micro-industry.
One thing is certain: as long as there are babies in the world there is a need for diapers. Finding a way to capitalize on that will be the key.
How to participate:
• Donate t-shirts.
• Make the diapers and donate them using an easy to follow pattern.
• Donate a sewing machine or send money to purchase one.
Contact: Maryellen Jackson: zihgirl@yahoo.com
The writer is a Canadian who has lived and worked in Mexico for many years.
Transportation Secretary Jiménez, López Obrador and Veracruz Governor Cuitláhuac García at yesterday's announcement.
President López Obrador officially announced an initial investment of 8 billion pesos (US $403.4 million) to develop the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region and pledged that a new free zone will be implemented there within three years.
Speaking at an event yesterday in the port city of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, López Obrador urged Mexico’s private sector to invest in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Development Plan, explaining that for “strategic and sovereign” reasons foreign investment won’t be sought.
“It’s going to be a national investment; I call on the businesspeople of Mexico [to invest] so that we have a mix of resources, public and private investment, for the development of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec,” he said.
The president said the government has created a 3-billion-peso (US $151.3-million) trust to undertake work to expand and modernize the ports in Salina Cruz and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, and that around 1 billion pesos (US $50.4 million) will go to the restoration of the trans-isthmus railroad between the two cities.
The Salina Cruz-Coatzacoalcos highway will be widened in the section between Acayucan, Veracruz, and Matías Romero, Oaxaca, the Pemex refineries at Salina Cruz and Minatitlán will be upgraded, a new trans-isthmus gas pipeline will be built and a fiber optic network will be installed to improve internet connectivity, López Obrador said.
He explained that funds to complete all the projects were announced in the 2019 budget that was presented by Finance Secretary Carlos Urzúa on December 15. López Obrador added that he expected Congress to approve the spending package this week.
The president said that once the infrastructure projects have been completed, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region will become a free zone with lower taxes than most other parts of the country.
“Once we have the basic infrastructure, which I calculate will be in two years, in the third year a free zone [will be implemented] in the isthmus . . . Once we’ve modernized the port, the railway tracks, perhaps the new gas pipeline using the right of way we already have, [once we’ve] upgraded the two refineries, then there will be a free zone. What does that mean? That we’re going to lower the IVA [value-added tax] and ISR [income tax] by half,” López Obrador said.
Communications and Transportation Secretary Javier Jiménez Espriú, who will be responsible for the rail, highway and fiber optic network projects, said that the aim of the development plan is to turn the isthmus region into “one of the most attractive places for investment and one of the most developed places in the world.”
The distance between Salina Cruz, on the Pacific Ocean, and Coatzacoalcos, on the Gulf of Mexico, is just over 300 kilometers.
The isthmus region, which is also Mexico’s wind power mecca, has long been touted as a potential rival to the Panama Canal.
Displaced citizens of Chiapas have been homeless since October last year.
It’s been 14 months since some 5,000 people in Chiapas were forced to flee their homes in Chalchihuitán. And although about 4,000 have since returned, 1,200 remain homeless, a situation for which they hold the municipal government responsible.
Representatives of the displaced people told a press conference this week that they have yet to recover their properties, which were occupied by armed civilians after the residents fled.
Municipal and state authorities have denied the existence of the displaced families, said a spokesman, on the grounds that they have abandoned the camps in which they had been staying.
But in fact, the conference was told, the displaced people have simply dispersed.
Those who remain in camps do not stay in one place for long because authorities put pressure on the owners of the land to limit the time they can stay.
The former Chalchihuitán residents accuse Mayor Hermelindo García Núñez of instigating the conflict and discriminating against the displaced.
They also accused him of attempting to incarcerate and lynch some of their number after they had attended a meeting with state and municipal authorities.
Things got worse after the disappearance of a 15-million-peso payment (US $750,000) by the state government to the displaced.
The latter demanded that the state government comply with the recommendations by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which urged municipal authorities to end the climate of violence and confrontation it has instigated.
The exodus from Chalchihuitán occurred in October last year when more than 5,000 people left everything behind and fled to the mountains after community leader Samuel Luna Girón was slain. Three months later, nearly 4,000 returned, but 1,237 have not been able to do so.
The conflict has its roots in a longstanding dispute over territorial boundaries.
Farmers demonstrate outside Congress to protest cut in agricultural funding.
Around 30 farmers’ organizations blocked access to the lower house of Congress for eight hours yesterday to protest against a 20% cut to agriculture and rural development in the 2019 budget.
Members of the groups, which included the National Farmers Confederation (CNC) and the General Union of Workers and Farmers (Ugocm), broke into the San Lázaro Legislative Palace complex at 10:00am assisted by Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) deputy Ismael Hernández, who is also the CNC president.
Standing on the building’s forecourt with Congress in session, the protesters demanded a meeting with Morena party deputy and budget committee president Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar.
The demand was met but after they outlined to Ramírez their opposition to the 20.5% cut announced in the 2019 Economic Package, the union members also insisted on a meeting with Mario Delgado, Morena’s leader in the Chamber of Deputies.
However, when that wish was not granted the protesters decided to block all accesses to the Congress in order to prevent anyone from entering or leaving.
After the legislative session concluded at 3:00pm, lawmakers and Congress employees flowed out of the building but couldn’t leave the grounds.
Some deputies scaled the perimeter fence, defying warnings from security personnel not to do so, while hundreds of employees demanded that lawmakers resolve the situation and put an end to what they described as a “kidnapping.”
When National Action Party (PAN) Deputy Marco Antonio Adame informed them about the progress of negotiations to clear the entry and exit points they shouted, “We want to leave! We’re hungry!”
At about 7:00pm, after a meeting with Delgado, leaders of the farmers’ groups announced that they would end their blockades but maintain their protest.
Delgado told a press conference that no agreement had been reached with the groups with regard to the budget cut but explained that they had committed to present their pleas in a less confrontational manner.
“They’ve taken the decision to return to their states, there was a willingness on the part of the organizations . . . to allow us to enter [Congress] tomorrow,” he said.
At 8:00pm, lawmakers and employees trapped inside the complex were finally permitted to leave via a single exit, a process that took half an hour to complete.
The Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (Sader) was allocated just over 57.3 billion pesos (US $2.9 billion), about 14.8 billion pesos less than that its predecessor Sagarpa received this year.
President López Obrador has pledged to implement agricultural policies that increase yields of corn and other foodstuffs so that Mexico can achieve food and fodder self-sufficiency.
A blockade in Hidalgo yesterday, where 14,000 retired teachers are still waiting for their year-end bonus.
State government employees and teachers in Baja California, Tabasco, Hidalgo and Chiapas took to the streets this week, protesting unpaid salaries and year-end bonuses.
The largest protest took place in Hidalgo where 14,400 retired teachers have yet to receive their yearly bonus of 6,500 pesos (US $325).
Authorities explained that they are in arrears for 100 million pesos but have no money.
In protest, the retired teachers set up at least 20 roadblocks on highways around the state at 9:00am yesterday and maintained them for the next 10 hours.
Also yesterday, thousands of government workers in the Baja California cities of Mexicali, Tijuana and Ensenada occupied several government facilities to demand payment of their aguinaldo, or year-end bonus.
Spokesman Lázaro Mosqueda explained that some 2,500 employees and 2,000 retired workers protested when the bonuses were not paid by the December 20 deadline.
The secretary of the government workers’ union in Baja California, Arturo Gutiérrez, said there were about 4,000 active workers in the state who have yet to receive the payments.
In Tabasco there were four days of protests by state government workers, teachers, health and education administrative staff and retirees, who mounted eight roadblocks around the city of Villahermosa for up to nine hours at a time.
The protesters said they will resume their demonstrations if the money has not been paid by December 27.
In Chiapas, teachers at the state-run Cobach preparatory schools protested yesterday outside the governor’s offices in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, demanding the payment of their bonuses and salaries owed since December 15.
Teachers’ union leader Víctor Manuel Pinot Juárez said more than 7,500 teachers are affected, and that 200 million pesos (US $10 million) is owed.
Mexico’s 121 magical towns might not receive any federal money in 2019 because the program that currently funds them has been cancelled.
Tourism Secretary Miguel Torruco confirmed that the government has terminated the funding program known as Prodermágico, explaining that it wants state and municipal governments to invest their own money in the upkeep and promotion of their pueblos mágicos.
Nevertheless, resources allocated to the Secretariat of Tourism in the 2019 budget presented last week increased by 124% compared to this year but the lion’s share of funding will go towards construction of the Maya Train.
The magical towns program launched in 2001 with the aim of boosting visitor numbers to lesser known destinations with special features that make them attractive to tourists.
This year, the previous federal government allocated 586 million pesos (US $29.3 million) to Prodermágico, meaning that if the money was distributed evenly, each magical town would have received over 4.8 million pesos (US $240,000).
Before the new government took office, Torruco said he would carry out an “exhaustive review” of the magical towns scheme, charging that its rules and objectives had become unclear.
The scheme also faced claims during the last government’s six-year term that it is more about politics than tourism and that the designation of a destination as magical comes down to negotiations between state governors and federal authorities, with money as the main motivator.
The decision to eliminate the program’s federal funding is expected to have the greatest impact on México state, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Michoacán, Puebla, Querétaro, Veracruz and Zacatecas. Half of all pueblos mágicos are located in those states.
Despite Torruco’s confirmation that the funding program has been scrapped, Sinaloa Tourism Secretary Óscar Pérez Barros said that both his federal counterpart and President López Obrador had assured state authorities that funding would actually increase.
Pérez said that a 27% increase in funding for Mocorito, El Rosario, Cosalá and El Fuerte was proposed, claiming “it’s in the budget, what happened is that they didn’t label it as such.”
In San Luis Potosí, municipal authorities in Real de Catorce and Aquísimón said that they will seek funding from other federal programs as well as the state government so they can continue to attract tourists.
In Jalisco, lawmaker Luis Ernesto Munguía said that cancellation of the Prodermágico program amounted to “punishment” for the state’s magical towns including Tequila, Lagos de Moreno and Mazamitla.
Adriana Cardoso, tourism director in Huichapan – one of six pueblos mágicos in Hidalgo – described the government’s decision as “regrettable,” explaining that the funding had been used both to maintain the town’s “magical” image as well as to promote it.
