that objectify women, especially girls and teenagers,” Women’s Affairs Secretary Ana Vázquez Colmenares said.
Vázquez explained that the “objectification” to which women are subjected to in such events doesn’t allow them to assume a full role in society, limiting them to becoming an object of pleasure.
Legislation is required to prohibit granting prizes to the women with the most sexual and physical appeal, a parameter that should not be used to measure a woman’s worth, much less that of a girl, she said.
Vázquez’s proposal also calls for sanctions that range from fines and reprimands to charges of human trafficking.
The initiative is part of a broader plan designed to ensure respect for gender equality after a gender alert was issued for the state in early September.
The gender alert mechanism was created in 2007 and is described by the federal government as “a set of emergency government actions to confront and eradicate violence” against women.
The Oaxaca Women’s Affairs Secretariat also intends to install offices in the 570 municipalities of the state, with special attention to those governed by ancestral indigenous customs and traditions, a form of government known as usos y costumbres.
President López Obrador has declared his support for the leader of the United Kingdom Labour Party to become the next British prime minister.
He made the endorsement of Jeremy Corbyn, whom he described as “my eternal friend,” during a gathering of high-profile friends at López Obrador’s ranch in Palenque, Chiapas, yesterday.
López Obrador, who is being sworn in today, posted a video to social media in which he appears with Corbyn, Miguel Ángel Revilla, president of the Spanish autonomous community of Cantabria, and Cuban singer Silvio Rodríguez.
“. . . We’re Hispanic but we have good relations with all the people and all the nations of the world and we especially have a very good relationship with the planet’s progressive movements,” the new president said.
“We have a very good relationship with the United Kingdom labor movement, we identify with each other because progressive governments, democratic governments respect migrants and respect the right that all human beings have to seek a [better] life, that’s the principle of human rights,” López Obrador continued.
The leftist political veteran also appeared to make a veiled attack on the hardline attitude of United States authorities towards the thousands of Central American migrants currently stranded on Mexico’s northern border.
“The United States is a country, a nation that became a power because of the work, effort and intelligence of migrants,” López Obrador said.
He then declared his unequivocal support for Corbyn to become the next leader of the United Kingdom.
“Those from Latin America, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, are our brothers and now the English people will have the opportunity – I hope, I want it with all my heart, with all my soul – to have a prime minister like Corbyn,” López Obrador said.
“I don’t know what the laws are, I’m not yet formally the president of Mexico, I won’t be the constitutional president until tomorrow, that’s why I dare to say these things. From tomorrow I have to put a limit on myself but now I say what I think and I have always said what I think,” he added.
A United Kingdom Labour Party statement issued from London said that López Obrador “faces huge challenges in his mission of transforming Mexico, but Jeremy hopes his election will offer Mexico’s poor and powerless a real voice and a break with the failures and injustices of the past.”
It added that the new president “has shown that a progressive agenda for change can win power and take on the status quo.”
Corbyn is married to Mexican lawyer and activist Laura Álvarez.
AMLO gets a warm welcome while visiting an indigenous community.
Mexico’s new president will receive special recognition today by the country’s indigenous people.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador will become the first president to take part in a traditional indigenous cleansing ceremony as part of his inauguration.
Representatives of Mexico’s 68 distinct indigenous peoples as well as members of Afro-Mexican groups will hand over a bastón de mando – a staff or baton indicative of authority – to the new president as a show of confidence that he will govern for all citizens and make wise decisions.
Adelfo Regino Montes, a Mixe man from Oaxaca tapped to head up the new National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, will be in charge of the ceremony, which takes place at 6:00pm in the zócalo, Mexico City’s central square.
He told the newspaper El Economista that there will be two fundamental parts to the observance, which will occur just hours after López Obrador has been officially sworn in as Mexico’s new president.
“On the one hand, [there will be] a ceremony of purification and consecration, what we call a cleansing . . . .” Regino said.
“After that will come the handover of the bastón de mando, then there will be traditional music, flowers, copal [a tree resin burned as incense], a range of elements that are traditionally used at these kinds of events,” he added.
Regino said that the “bastón de mando is a symbol of service, identity [and] commitment to the Mexican people,” explaining that in indigenous communities it is traditionally bestowed on a leader at the start of a new seasonal cycle or mandate.
The new president’s acceptance of the baton will reinforce his legitimacy in the eyes of the nation’s indigenous people, he added.
“He [López Obrador] has been very clear in stating that the priority for his government will be the most humble people, the excluded, the forgotten people of the homeland and that’s who we, the indigenous peoples and communities of our country, are. The important thing is to provide a message of service and hope to these people from the start of his rule . . . that’s the meaning [of this ceremony],” Regino said.
López Obrador, he explained, was more than happy to take part.
“He accepted [the proposal] with a lot of love and affection. He has traveled to the indigenous towns of our country . . . With the knowledge he has of the reality and the political and social life of our people, he welcomed the proposal with great enthusiasm and affection . . . We’ve been working with our traditional authorities, with the people who do these ceremonies, so that we are ready for December 1 . . .” Regino said.
“It’s the first time that in a public ceremony and [as part of] an inauguration that a president of the republic will receive the bastón de mando on behalf of our people and communities . . . [That fact] has been welcomed with a lot of joy, a lot of emotion and hope, because our people have great hope that the new government will attend to the serious problems – the neglect, the marginalization – that we have.”
A faulty, gas-powered water heater caused the death of a couple from the United States last month, authorities have confirmed.
The prosecutor’s office in Guanajuato said on Friday that two people on vacation in San Miguel de Allende died of asphyxiation from propane gas.
The victims have been identified as Edward Winders and Barbara Moller, both 76, of New Orleans, Louisiana, who were staying in a rented apartment when a gas leak occurred.
The owner of the apartment notified emergency personnel on November 17 after noticing a strong odor of gas in the vicinity.
It was the second time this year that visitors on vacation in Mexico have died as a result of faulty gas heaters. A couple and their two children died in a condominium in Tulum, Quintana Roo, last March.
There’s a move under way in Hidalgo to preserve cockfighting by declaring it intangible cultural heritage.
Lawmaker Enrique Garnica of president-elect López Obrador’s Morena party made a proposal in the state Congress yesterday to protect the blood sport from prohibition, after being lobbied by the state’s cockfighting association.
“Animal [rights] associations have every right [to oppose cockfighting] but they must understand that there are things that are a given [in our culture]. This is not an initiative to increase violence in this sport but just to recognize it as intangible heritage,” he said.
The lawmaker also claimed that “a lot of environmentalists go to palenques,” or cockfighting rings, to watch the sport.
“It’s like a vegetarian who eats meat when there are no vegetables,” Garnica said, seemingly insinuating that there are few other entertainment options in the state.
Javier Pelcastre Guerrero, president of the Hidalgo Cockfighting Committee, said that cockfight supporters have been lobbying lawmakers for years to try to have the sport declared cultural heritage but until now none had agreed to take up the cause in Congress.
He said that not only is cockfighting one of the most important traditions in the country, it also makes a significant contribution to the economy and creates jobs.
Across the country, there are more than 1,200 cockfighting clubs and associations, which hold on average 20 events each during a season that runs from November to June.
Thousands of people work in the sector and it contributes more than 36 billion pesos (US $1.8 billion) annually to government coffers in tax, Pelcastre said.
Cockfighting has already been declared intangible cultural heritage in the states of Querétaro, Tlaxcala, Aguascalientes and Zacatecas.
Veracruz, on the other hand, became the first state to prohibit the sport by passing legislation in November 2016. A Supreme Court ruling earlier this month upheld the legality of the ban.
Hidalgo gamecock breeder Mario Vilchis said the cockfighting ban in Veracruz has only sent the sport underground and that the cultural heritage proposal sought to prevent that from happening locally.
Central Mexico has a lot going on right now. There is business boom in Querétaro. San Miguel de Allende is experiencing a culinary awakening. And the entire region is part of a wine renaissance.
The last 13 years or so have seen vineyard after vineyard pop up in what is commonly called Mexico’s breadbasket, El Bajío.
Incorporating parts of Guanajuato, Querétaro, Jalisco, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Aguascalientes, the region actually has a long history of winemaking. Guanajuato state is reported to have been the first place in the Americas were wine grapes were grown, particularly encouraged by priest, winemaker and revolutionary Miguel Hidalgo.
One of the very reasons that Mexican independence fighters were so up in arms (high taxes and various commercial prohibitions by the Spanish crown in regards to Mexico and Mexican criollos) was related to the country’s nascent wine industry at the time. Hidalgo did not like to be told what to do with his wine.
But after independence it wasn’t really until 2005 that this microclimate in the center of the country, unique in its capacity for nuanced wine making, once again saw grape vines buried in its semi-desert soils. Pioneers of that movement were Juan Manchón and Ricardo Vega of the brand Cuna de Tierra; since their success, dozens have followed.
Winemaker Alejandra Cordero.
San Miguel would seem ripe to become the next mini-Napa Valley. With lots of money flowing into what was once a quaint Mexican backwater, the town has exploded with gourmet restaurants, high-end boutique hotels and a mix of culture and art that attracts a substantial expat population and streams of national tourists.
Just outside of town several of the region’s winemakers have decided to set up shop. One of them is the Tres Raíces project, opened this past August on the road between Dolores Hidalgo and San Miguel. As you approach the turnoff in the road, there is just a simple sign, almost hidden, that says Tres Raíces.
Springing from the middle of agricultural fields, a long stone fence is punctuated with massive iron doors, already starting to display a little desert rust, which makes them all the more charming. Entering the vineyard there are grape vines to every side of you and a grand stone step entrance that leads you into the main building and restaurant.
The vibe is Argentina hacienda — leather couches, massive carved wooden doors, fireplaces, and a state-of-the-art fermenting room that is part of the public tour available to visitors. There is also an outdoor terrace, a wine-tasting bar, a grand meeting room and a private drinking den built for the project’s partners (three businessmen from Tamaulipas).
Tres Raíces has been producing wine with Chihuahua grapes for the past three years while watching its own 23 hectares blossom into fully grown vines. The master of the wine cellar is 29-year-old Alejandra Cordero, a passionate winemaker who is already revealing shades of a future master.
Cordero comes from Chihuahua and has logged in a lot of years working in wineries despite her age. She studied biochemical engineering and while she has a scientist’s precision in her calculations, she’s also aware of the sensorial subtleties that go into every drop of wine she makes.
The vineyards at Tres Raíces.
“Every glass of wine is a moment that you are sharing with someone. It’s an entire year, maybe several years, of life distilled down to a single sip,” she says dreamily.
At the moment Tres Raíces is offering a merlot (with a hint of pepper and black current), a cabernet sauvignon (smooth and elegant with a touch of oak), a rosé (made with syrah grapes, fruity and light), a syrah (intensely aromatic, great for seafood), and a sauvignon blanc (buttery and dense). Their wines are only for sale at the winery and make a tempting reason to visit.
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The vineyard’s international cuisine restaurant (with great views of the vineyard) is open to the public from Thursday to Sunday, but yet to come is the boutique hotel that will be hosted on Tres Raíces’ grounds, in the middle of the vineyard and with a orientation that will catch the early-morning fog as it drapes over nearby hills and the Guanajuato sunset.
The hotel will consist of seven king-sized singles, four queen doubles and a master suite with two bedrooms and space for six. Also under construction is a small spa where you can get a wine-based beauty treatments, all the rage right now.
While you may think another fancy winery with another another boutique hotel is no big deal, we beg you to give it a second glance. Try the wines before making up your mind. With Cordero at the helm this vineyard is guaranteed to glitter beyond the crystal stemware and morning dew on the vines.
Lydia Carey is a freelance writer based in Mexico City.
Former education secretary Nuño: critics say he was campaigning to be a presidential candidate.
The federal government’s expenditure of at least 81.5 billion pesos (US $4 billion at today’s exchange rate) to implement its landmark education reform has been called excessive and abusive by education experts.
The government paid out large sums of money on a range of programs to operate the reform and also spent big on advertising to promote it.
In addition, it gave more than 3 billion pesos to the SNTE teachers’ union to promote the 2013 reform among its members.
One of the central elements of the reform was to subject teachers to compulsory evaluations, a move that put the government at loggerheads with the dissident CNTE teachers’ union.
The aim, ostensibly, was to improve the standard of teaching in the nation’s classrooms.
But Francisco Urrutia de la Torre, a researcher at the Jesuit University of Guadalajara (ITESO), says it was a mistake to spend more on assessing teachers than on their professional training and development.
“It’s like someone who wants to lose weight spending five times more on scales than the gym. It was absurd: if you want to improve education, the most important thing is to train teachers and to take certain evaluation actions but what was done was excessive,” he said.
Rodolfo Ramírez Raymundo, a researcher at the Senate’s Belisario Domínguez Institute, described the government’s spending on the reform as “unjustified” and a “waste” of money.”
The expenditure of almost 6 billion pesos (US $294 million) on publicity was “a real abuse” of power aimed at “positioning the then-secretary of education [Aurelio Nuño] as a possible presidential candidate,” he added.
“Money thrown directly down the drain” was how another researcher, Ángel Díaz Barriga of the National Autonomous University (UNAM), described spending on advertising to promote the supposed benefits of the reform.
“To have spent so much money on publicity when the National Commission of Human Rights said that 42% of public schools don’t have sewer systems is a scandal . . .” he said.
He added that spending on some education reform programs, such as those related to teacher training, was “a great waste” because courses offered to teachers didn’t respond to their needs. He also criticized the “willy-nilly” expenditure on tablets and computers.
With president-elect López Obrador having pledged to cancel the reform as soon as he takes office, virtually the entire government outlay on implementing and promoting what was one of its signature policy initiatives could be considered money down the drain.
“The only thing that will continue is the handling of the payroll by the federal government” to ensure that the money gets to the teachers, López Obrador explained.
Guests on Saturday include, from left, the king of Spain, Venezuela's Maduro and US presidential advisor Ivanka Trump.
At least 400 representatives of foreign governments have been confirmed as guests for tomorrow’s inauguration ceremony in Mexico City, where Andrés Manuel López Obrador will be sworn in as Mexico’s 58th president.
Organizers describe the event as historical for the international representation, which includes 20 heads of state.
About 900 guests are expected in total at the event, which will be held at the legislative palace of San Lázaro, but they will be outnumbered by journalists. Some 1,800 have been accredited to attend.
Notable on the foreign guest list are the king of Spain, Felipe VI, United States vice-president Mike Pence and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whose invitation sparked an outcry of protest.
The day’s events begin at 9:00am, when the 628 members of both legislative chambers meet for a Congress of the Union session at the Chamber of Deputies.
President Peña Nieto and López Obrador will arrive at 11:00am for the transition of power ceremony. The latter intends to break with tradition and address the nation from Congress, a first in the nation’s recent history.
Enrique Peña Nieto will leave Congress after the singing of the national anthem, bringing the ceremony to a conclusion.
López Obrador will attend a private event with his Mexican and foreign guests at the seat of the federal executive, the National Palace, at 2:00pm.
A festival — dubbed AMLOFest — will kick off two hours after that on the streets and zócalo outside, and Mexico’s new president will address the crowd later that evening from a balcony at the palace.
A traditional indigenous ceremony will also part of the inauguration. At 6:00pm, López Obrador will be presented with a leader’s baton by representatives of Mexico’s 68 indigenous peoples to acknowledge him as their leader.
It will be the first time in Mexico’s history that a president has been accorded the honor.
President-elect López Obrador takes office tomorrow and hopes are high that he will quickly bring change to Mexico.
The survey Expectations of Government 2018-2024, conducted by the polling firm Consulta Mitofsky for the newspaper El Economista, shows that 45% of Mexicans polled believe that change will be noticeable within a year.
More than half of those respondents said they expected change to be apparent within six months.
A further 25% said it would take between one and three years for López Obrador to achieve change in the country.
A pessimistic 5% of respondents said that change would never be seen in Mexico while another 5% said it would take longer than the six years the new president will have in office.
Asked whether the general situation in Mexico under López Obrador’s leadership would improve or get worse, 43.2% said that things would get better and 17% said that they would continue equally as well.
Only 12.8% of those polled said that things would get worse while another 12% said that the situation would remain as bad as it is now.
The combined 60.2% of people who believe that Mexico “will improve” or “continue just as well” during López Obrador’s administration is higher than the percentages who said the same about the previous two governments when they took office.
In November 2012, just before President Peña Nieto was sworn in, 52.3% of poll respondents said that they anticipated that the country’s situation would improve or continue just as well under his leadership, while in November 2006, just 48.8% said that they expected the same during the Felipe Calderón administration.
López Obrador also fared five points better than Peña Nieto on a question asking whether the incoming president would succeed in maintaining control of the country through his six-year term.
However, almost one-third of respondents said the new president would “lose the reins” of the country at some point.
The poll found that people’s three main demands of the new government are to change the security strategy to combat violence, put an end to corruption and create jobs. Other lesser demands were to improve the economy, be honest and improve salaries.
Just under 52% of poll respondents said they expected López Obrador to keep all or most of his campaign promises while 9% expected he wouldn’t keep any of them.
Over 62% of those surveyed said they approved of the way that López Obrador conducted himself as president-elect while just under 35% said that they disapproved.
While many people welcomed the chance to have their say, others said that the referendums were illegal and unrepresentative.
The leftist political veteran will take office tomorrow with a “credibility” rating of 60%, a figure around 15 points higher than those enjoyed by Peña Nieto and Calderón when they were sworn in.
However, Vicente Fox, president between 2000 and 2006, enjoyed even higher ratings than López Obrador both on credibility and approval of his actions as president-elect.
Asked whether the new administration will bring a change to the way Mexico is governed or merely a change of personnel, 53.9% said the former while 27.8% opted for the latter.
Five months later, he still has a strong approval rating. Another recent poll found 67.2% of respondents had a good or very good opinion of their new president.
López Obrador will be sworn in tomorrow morning at a ceremony at the federal Congress, where heads of state and dignitaries from around the world will be in attendance.
The Yucatán colonial town of Valladolid has been named one of the top nine emerging travel destinations in North America for 2019 by the travel website Travel Lemming.
An expert panel of six of the world’s top travel influencers — travel bloggers and YouTubers known worldwide — selected “the next nine hot and trendy spots” from dozens of submissions sent in by tourism organizations from around the globe.
In describing why Valladolid won, the website said: “. . . Those who build in the time to soak up this magical village will soon come to wonder why it wasn’t at the top of their list to begin with. From stunning Spanish colonial architecture to bustling markets, visitors to Valladolid will be spoiled for choice of activities.”
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Among the judges’ comments: “Valladolid is often missed by tourists but we think it should be on everyone’s bucket list. If you looking to go to some of the best cenotes in Mexico and check out some Mayan ruins, base yourself in Valladolid for a day or two.”
The city, which is also a Pueblo Mágico, or Magical Town, is located about 160 kilometers east of the capital, Mérida, and a 30-minute drive from the Chichén Itzá archaeological site.
Travel Lemming promotes travel to emerging travel destinations, encouraging travelers to think beyond the popular destinations and forge their own path.
