6-year-old’s arm amputated after reattachment rejected

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August 6, 2018

Investigators outside the house where bodies were buried.

Ten bodies have been recovered from a clandestine grave in a house in Guadalajara since Friday after the owner alerted authorities of foul odors.

The bodies were discovered just a few streets from the city’s historic center in the Santa Elena de la Cruz neighborhood.

The owner was renovating the house in preparation for selling it when the fetid odors were detected from a patio area. On Friday, municipal police located one body at ground level and after some digging came across three more, all in an advanced state of decomposition.

Excavation with heavy machinery continued on Saturday, unearthing four more corpses. Sources close to the investigation told the newspaper El Universal that two more bodies were exhumed yesterday on the same property.

Autopsies are being carried out at the Guadalajara Forensic Medical Service (Semefo).

Until a week ago the house was rented to a man who one neighbor suspected of selling drugs.

Eighteen bodies were found in hidden graves at three different locations in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara during July. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is suspected of being responsible.

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

Nudes in the seaweed is Spencer Tunick’s latest photography project

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August 6, 2018

A photo shot by Spencer Tunick Saturday in Tulum.

The masses of sargassum seaweed that have washed up on Mexico’s Caribbean coast beaches inspired an impromptu nude photoshoot Saturday by renowned New York photographer Spencer Tunick.

The 51-year-old photographer, known internationally for his large-scale nude shoots, told the newspaper La Jornada that he was having an early dinner in Tulum, Quintana Roo, when a new friend told him about the sargassum problem and suggested that it could be incorporated into a new photo project.

“At our table, there were about 12 people. That was when José Antonio Silva, representative of the Makers movement, sat next to me and began to tell me about the sargassum problem,” Tunick said.

“He even wanted me to do a piece that night. It surprised me a lot, then I looked around and thought it was possible, as there were other diners who could be asked to participate to form a larger group.”

Silva invited Tunick to take a walk on the beach, which opened the artist’s eyes to the extent of the problem and convinced him to follow through with the proposal.

“It was incredible, José said that the moment to act was now and that I could help by doing a spontaneous work. By pure luck I had a camera with me. In total, 25 people posed, enough to create a good piece, which is expected to make people aware of the problem and [lead to] possible solutions in the immediate term,” he said.

For the spontaneous shots, Tunick asked his naked subjects to partially cover themselves with fresher and greener sargassum collected near the water because the older, brown seaweed was smelly and infested with mosquitoes and their larvae.

Then the photographer got to work, shooting the participants in different poses while draped in the seaweed that has arrived on Quintana Roo beaches en masse this year, discoloring the turquoise waters and white sand that make the coastline so popular with tourists.

The sargassum “resembles a massive invasive organism that seizes the coasts and beaches of Quintana Roo and the Caribbean. What was once a pristine beach now looks like the Upside Down world from the Stranger Things series,” Tunick said.

The photographer later uploaded a short video of the shoot to his Instagram account with a caption that read: “Seaweed is invading the beaches and coastline of the Yucatán and Caribbean. It’s a Natural Disaster due to humans.”

Tunick, a frequent visitor to Mexico with his family, photographed 18,000 naked people in Mexico City’s central square — the zócalo — in 2007 and has remarked that “Mexicans are very open-minded” about baring all for the camera.

He also completed two projects in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, in 2014 and 2016.

The first featured 100 naked women wearing only garlands of orange marigolds in accordance with a Day of the Dead theme while in 2016 he shot 20 nude people standing on their heads in a work intended to illustrate the upside-down nature of the world order.

Source: La Jornada (sp), Yucatán Expat Life (en)

Seaweed is invading the beaches and coastlines of the Yucatan and Caribbean. It’s a Natural Disaster due to humans. Link to story in Profile. #SOSTulum #sargassum #globalwarming #sargasso #climatechangeisreal @letsallbemakers @lajornadaonline @lajornadamaya

A post shared by Spencer Tunick (@spencertunick) on Aug 4, 2018 at 7:43am PDT

Mexico finishes with record 341 medals at Central American Games

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August 4, 2018

Gold medalist Patricia Sánchez at the finish line of the women's 10,000-meter race.

Mexico finished the Central American and Caribbean Games in Barranquilla, Colombia, with a total of 341 medals, the highest number ever won at the regional sporting event.

Mexico’s tally — which included 132 gold, 118 silver and 91 bronze medals — was 99 more than the number won by the Cuban team, which finished in second place with 242 medals, of which 102 were gold.

Colombia finished third despite winning 28 more medals than Cuba because it won fewer gold medals.

For Mexico, it was the first time that its team came out on top of the medal tally at a Central American and Caribbean Games at which Cuba also competed. At previous games it was only the most successful country when the island nation was absent from the competition.

The delegación azteca at this year’s event was made up of 675 athletes who competed across the whole gamut of sports that made up the event.

The team’s female athletes fared slightly better than the men, winning 180 medals compared to 161.

Valentín Yanes, an official with the National Sports Commission (Conade) told a press conference after the conclusion of the games that Mexico’s strong showing was the result of many years of hard work but added that greater challenges are still to come.

“We have to continue with our growth, with our hard work, we can’t be too sure of ourselves. The [2019] Pan American Games includes first-world sporting nations, such as the United States and Canada, and then the [2020] Olympic Games come and that’s . . . where we should be aiming,” he said.

Yanes also said that each medal winner will receive cash prizes of 50,000 pesos (US $2,700) for gold, 25,000 pesos (US $1,350) for silver and 12,500 pesos (US $675) for bronze, adding that multiple medal winners will only be eligible to claim once for their best result.

As the bumper medal crop indicates, the highlights for the Mexican team in Barranquilla were many but some performances stand out as being particularly memorable.

They include Diego del Real breaking a 20-year-old games record to win gold in the hammer throw, Juan Luis Barrios winning his eighth career gold medal at the games in the 10,000-meter running event to become the region’s most successful track athlete and Daniela Rodríguez winning Mexico’s first gold at the games and in the process becoming Mexico’s most successful ever taekwondo competitor at the games.

Madaí Pérez won Mexico’s final gold medal in Colombia during the final day of competition yesterday, crossing the line first in the women’s marathon in a time of two hours, 57 minutes and 55 seconds.

The women’s soccer team also took out gold beating Costa Rica 3-1 in the final, while the pool, the shooting range and the squash court were all among the happy hunting grounds for medals for Mexico’s team.

The next edition of the games will be held in Panama City in 2022 while the 2019 Pan American Games will be held in Lima, Peru, next July and August.

Source: El Universal (sp), Televisa (sp), Marca Claro (sp), Milenio (sp)

Police nab Pemex worker for speeding — and find a cargo of stolen gasoline

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August 4, 2018

Containers of gasoline were found inside vehicle driven by Pemex employee.

A Pemex worker has been caught red-handed with stolen gasoline in Tecate, Baja California, but only because he was speeding.

The pipeline pump operator was stopped by police after he was seen traveling at high speed on the Rumorosa-Tecate highway.

When police approached the vehicle the strong smell of gasoline triggered a closer look at what the man was carrying.

They found more than 1,800 liters of Magna in 39 plastic containers, stacked inside the vehicle.

The driver was taken into custody and his truck and cargo seized.

Corruption within Pemex is widely thought to be responsible for much of the petroleum theft in Mexico, but few employees have been caught.

Source: Milenio (sp)

AMLO effect? Consumer confidence spiked 14.8% in July

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August 4, 2018

Mexico’s Consumer Confidence Index spiked sharply in July to its highest level in more than a decade, immediately after Andrés Manuel López Obrador — known as AMLO — won a landslide victory in the presidential election.

The index rose 14.8% last month, the National Statistics Institute (Inegi) said yesterday, to reach 101.7 points.

The figure was well above the 90.4 median forecast of eight analysts surveyed by news agency Bloomberg and the highest since March 2008 when it hit 102.3 points.

The only comparable surge in consumer confidence came in February last year when the index increased by just over 13%.

However, that result followed the so-called gasolinazo of January 2017 when fuel prices rose sharply to put a major dent in confidence.

“Consumers have definitely given a positive vote to the electoral results,” said Joan Enric Domene, an economist at the brokerage firm Invex Casa de Bolsa.

“People haven’t seen a substantial improvement in their quality of life yet, but they are happy with the outcome.”

The index was also up 17.8% compared to July last year.

The Inegi data is based on the National Consumer Confidence Survey that the institute carries out during the first 20 days of each month in conjunction with the Bank of México.

Confidence about Mexico’s economic outlook over the next 12 months increased by 31.9% compared to figures from the previous month, the biggest single-month jump recorded in the history of the survey.

Respondents’ confidence in their own purchasing power over the next year also increased, albeit by a lesser 11.3%.

The percentage of people who said they currently had plans to buy furniture, a television, a washing machine or another domestic appliance increased by13% compared to June figures.

The peso has also fared better since López Obrador’s election, appreciating 6.3% against the US dollar. A greenback currently buys just over 18.5 Mexican pesos.

Following his July 1 triumph, the president-elect and his prospective cabinet sought to calm fears surrounding the next government’s economic plans, a move which analysts believe has reassured investors and contributed to the peso’s strong performance.

Although household consumer confidence is up, Domene said that the same confidence hasn’t manifested itself in the business community.

“There are loose ends that the private sector is waiting to see tied up by this new government,” he said.

“Surely, in the next few months, investment from the private sector will be more reticent than consumer spending.”

López Obrador will take office for a six-year term on December 1.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Bloomberg (en)

Tourism down 30-35% due to sargassum: Playa del Carmen mayor-elect

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August 4, 2018

The mayor-elect of Solidaridad, Quintana Roo, estimates that tourism has dropped as much as 35% due to sargassum seaweed washing up on a 480-kilometer-long stretch of otherwise pristine Caribbean beaches.

Laura Beristain Navarrete told the newspaper Milenio that the sargassum situation is of national importance. Piles of seaweed as high as three meters are paralyzing tourism and fishing, she said.

“Environmentalists and the government are looking for alternatives,” said the incoming mayor, who is also a senator with the Morena party.

She and fellow Morena senators are planning a series of meetings with specialists and elected officials to discuss the damage caused by the seaweed, the results of which will be presented to president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The intention of these meetings is to create a governmental agency dedicated to addressing the sargassum crisis.

Options include placing nets offshore to contain the seaweed before it reaches the beaches. The weed would then be collected by boats. Another option would be to use tractors to collect the seaweed after it washes up on the beaches.

Senator Beristain said beach clean-ups should occur daily in the state to remove the sargassum.

State authorities said last week that 80,000 cubic meters of the seaweed had been removed between June 22 and July 22 on beaches in Cancún, Solidaridad, Tulum, Puerto Morelos, Othón P. Blanco and Cozumel.

The president of the Cancún and Puerto Morelos hotels association described the impact as huge, and of international proportions, given that it’s not just Mexico’s problem, but one affecting all the islands of the Caribbean.

Some people are suggesting that it should be declared an international emergency, Roberto Citrón said.

Two researchers warned this week that the sargassum could cause a serious environmental disaster for beaches in the region.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Body of fifth rockslide victim recovered at mine site

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August 4, 2018

Rescue workers search the slide area in Hidalgo.

The search for victims of the landslide at an Hidalgo marble mine concluded yesterday when the body of the fifth person missing was found in the rubble.

Seven workers from the town of Dengantzha in Francisco I. Madero were working at the mine on Thursday when hundreds of tonnes of rock slid down the hillside above them.

Three escaped the slide but four workers, aged between 16 and 38, were not so lucky.

The fifth victim was a 60-year-old shepherd who used to visit the mine workers at lunchtime.

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Rescue workers had to proceed with extreme caution on Thursday after another slide occurred.

One of the victims was just 18 years old and had only been working at the mine for a month. He leaves his 16-year-old girlfriend and their unborn child.

Governor Omar Fayad Meneses offered his condolences to the families of those killed and said his administration would offer whatever assistance is required.

Some of the mountainous areas of the Mezquital Valley, where Dengantzha is located, are rich in marble and limestone. Private and community-owned mines exploit the rock, an activity that is often the only source of income for local families.

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

AMLO, Meade meet for breakfast, fueling speculation about the latter’s future role

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August 4, 2018

AMLO, left, and Meade: former rivals meet over breakfast.

President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador met yesterday with his former presidential rival José Antonio Meade, fueling speculation that the latter could be offered a job in the incoming administration.

In a video posted to López Obrador’s social media accounts, the two former presidential candidates appear together after having breakfast at the president-elect’s home in southern Mexico City.

“He [Meade] is a good, decent, honorable person, that’s my point of view,” said the 64-year-old political veteran commonly known as AMLO.

“On July 1, José Antonio was the first person to speak to me to acknowledge that we had won and to wish us well because in that way the country will do well,” he said.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate’s prompt concession of defeat was seen by many analysts as breaking the mold of the party’s usual political conduct.

López Obrador won the election in a landslide with 53% of the vote, well ahead of Ricardo Anaya who had 22% support and Meade, who placed third with 16%.

The president-elect explained that the purpose of his invitation to Meade was reconciliation, declaring that bringing all Mexicans together was vital in order to carry out what he describes as Mexico’s “fourth transformation” following independence from Spain, the 19th-century liberal reform known as La Reforma and the Mexican Revolution.

“Mexicans have to unite, all of us. We have to make peace, we have to join together to take our beloved Mexico forward and to carry out the fourth transformation of the country’s public life,” he said.

In response, a bearded and jovial Meade thanked the president-elect for his invitation before the video closes with the pair sharing an amiable handshake that contrasted sharply with the more acrimonious relationship they shared during the campaign.

“I can reiterate what I said to you in that call, I wished you the best of luck knowing that in your success lies the success of the country. I’m sure you’ll do very well . . .” Meade said.

Neither López Obrador nor Meade offered further detail about their 90-minute meeting although the former said later in the day that there is “nothing to hide.”

However, lawmakers of varying political stripes said that Meade could add further economic expertise to Mexico’s next government if the incoming president chose to offer him a role.

The 49-year-old Yale-educated economist served as secretary of finance for just over a year in the current federal government after he held the positions of secretary of foreign affairs and secretary of social development earlier in President Enrique Peña Nieto’s six-year term.

He also served in former President Felipe Calderón’s cabinet as secretary of energy.

Jorge Luis Lavalle, a maverick senator who was recently expelled from the National Action Party (PAN), said that Meade would be a good fit for a role at Mexico’s central bank.

“He has a proven capacity in holding positions of considerable responsibility. I think that if they reach an agreement . . . it would be positive not just for the Bank [of México] but also for the country. I believe that it would generate very good prospects for the markets, it would generate confidence and certainty,” he said.

PRI Senator Enrique Burgos said Meade is still a young man but one with a lot of experience in carrying out key government tasks, adding that both he and López Obrador had shown a “democratic spirit” by meeting and putting past conflicts behind them.

Luis Humberto Fernández, Senator with the López Obrador-led Together We Will Make History coalition, said the meeting between the two former rivals was a sign that all Mexicans, regardless of their political persuasion, can work together for the good of the country.

He added that it is premature to assume that Meade will be offered a job but charged that the president-elect has the “important political talent” of being able to bring together “personalities of different political stripes and to make everyone walk in the same direction.”

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

11 remain in hospital after plane crash; passenger sues for negligence in US

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August 4, 2018