The long awaited Oaxaca-Puerto Escondido highway is finally set to open after almost 15 years of construction. (Gobierno de Mexico)
The long-awaited new highway linking Oaxaca city to the Pacific coast town of Puerto Escondido will be inaugurated on Sunday, more than eight years after it was originally slated to open.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced the imminent inauguration of the Oaxaca-Barranca Larga-Ventanilla highway at his Tuesday morning press conference.
The new highway will significantly shorten travel times between Oaxaca city and the popular beach resort town of Puerto Escondido. (Gobierno de Mexico)
“It took 15 years that highway [but] finally on Sunday we’re going to inaugurate it,” he said.
“It will be possible to go from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido in two hours, 2 1/2 hours. It’s a great project, it will help the development of that whole area a lot, [benefit] the people of the communities of course and also tourism,” López Obrador said.
The Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport (SICT) touted the transformative power of the highway in a series of posts on social media.
“Great news for Oaxaca! The conclusion of the Barranca Larga-Ventanilla highway marks the beginning of a new era in mobility for rural and indigenous communities. They will now be able to access basic services and work opportunities more quickly,” the ministry said in a post on X on Tuesday.
Barranca Larga is located in the Central Valleys region of Oaxaca about 70 kilometers from the state capital, while Ventanilla is a community near Puerto Escondido, an increasingly popular tourism destination.
Construction of the 8.2-billion-peso (US $480 million) 104-kilometer-long highway between the two points has faced numerous delays, including ones caused by land disputes and landslides. As part of the project, the existing highway between Oaxaca city and Barranca Larga — Highway 175 — has been upgraded.
In another post on X, SICT said that the “100% completion” of the highway — which will replace the treacherous mountain road Highway 131 — “represents more and better opportunities for Oaxaca families.”
“Oaxaca is about to live a transport transformation,” the ministry said in yet another post that includes a video in which a resident of the town of Juquila speaks about the highway.
Así va quedando la autopista de Oaxaca a Puerto Escondido.
Reduce el tiempo de traslado a la mitad, será gratis por un año y se inaugura el próximo mes, febrero. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/T4C2oDsG72
“How cool that finally after 10 years they’re going to inaugurate it,” said Jazmín Hernández.
“I think it’s a project that the region has been waiting for for a very long time. It’s a project with a lot of impact,” she said.
For his part, Infrastructure, Communications and Transport Minister Jorge Nuño Lara said that “the Oaxaca-Puerto Escondido highway will mark a turning point in the connectivity of the state.”
Travel time between the capital and the coast will be reduced to 2.5 hours from six or eight hours, he said.
A contract for the highway was originally awarded in 2009 during the presidency of Felipe Calderón.
Five years later, the original concessionaire ceded the rights to the project to another company, while in 2016, the project was about halfway done when it was suspended and passed to the National Infrastructure Fund. A completion target of July 2015 was originally targeted, but delays caused the expected opening date to be revised on numerous occasions.
After the highway opens this Sunday, traveling on it will be free for one year, according to José Luis Chida Pardo, the top SICT official in Oaxaca.
“On the president’s instruction, nothing will be charged the first year in order to promote [the highway] and make it more attractive for people,” he said.
SICT estimates that an average of 4,253 vehicles per day will use the highway, which at certain times over the years seemed unlikely to ever open at all.
Alfonso Caso Andrade, an important Mexican archaeologist, has been honored in today's Google Doodle. (Screen capture)
Today’s Google Doodle honors distinguished Mexican archaeologist and professor Alfonso Caso Andrade, born on this date in 1896.
Caso died at 74 in 1970, leaving behind an invaluable legacy for the understanding of Mexico’s ancient cultures. One of his most notable achievements was the first major excavation of the pre-Columbian city of Monte Albán in Oaxaca.
Caso Andrade was best known for his work in Oaxaca. (UNAM)
The “doodle” is a daily feature by which Google celebrates a person or historical event with an image and a biography. Some doodles are region- or country-specific. Caso’s Doodle shows him holding a book as he stands in front of a shovel, books and ancient artifacts. Behind him is a pyramid and the word “Google” emblazoned on stones, with one of the O’s represented by the cover of Caso’s book.
Caso is one of Mexico’s “Seven Sages,” a group of early 20th-century intellectuals who shared an intense enthusiasm for literature and law. Together they founded the Society of Conferences and Concerts in 1916, aiming to propagate culture among university students in Mexico City.
Other members of the group include Alberto Vásquez del Mercado who went on to become a Supreme Court justice, Manuel Gómez Morín, a founding member of the National Action Party (PAN), and Vicente Lombardo Toledano, founder of the Workers’ University of Mexico.
As a young man, Caso frequently visited pre-Columbian archaeological sites. Although he already had a law degree and had begun teaching university courses, he decided to go back to school and focus on archaeology as a career.
The Zapotec city of Monte Albán is considered one of Mexico’s most important archaeological sites. (Vadim Petrakov/Shutterstock)
His rigorous methods of interpretation earned respect from his fellow faculty, and he quickly became the leading voice in archaeology at what is now the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
As the head of the university’s archaeology department and later the director of its museum, Caso led excavations across the country, including at the ancient Zapotec site of Monte Albán.
In 1932, excavations at Monte Albán unearthed Tomb Seven, one of the richest burial sites ever found. Using the remarkable burial offerings in the tomb, Caso was able to outline a history of Monte Albán dating back to the 900s AD. Writing books about his findings and methodology, he began to focus on the Mixtecs (Ñuu Savi), an Indigenous people of southern Mexico Caso discovered Mixtec sites around the country in Yucuita, Yucuñudahui and Monte Negro. In a major step forward for the field of archaeology, Caso learned to read Mixtec codices.
Caso also served as the first director of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), which was established in 1939, and was a member of several U.S. societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
For 30 years, he was the director of the National Indigenist Institute, the first Mexican public institution to address Indigenous affairs, which existed from 1948 to 2012. He also served as the rector of UNAM from 1944 to 1945 and was the founding editor of the Mexican Journal of Anthropological Studies and the Bibliographic Bulletin of American Anthropology.
In all his roles, Caso focused on protecting Mexico’s archaeological heritage and took significant steps to safeguard the traditions and history of Indigenous communities.
Mexico's Supreme Court has declared a 2021 law that favors the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) over private companies to be unconstitutional.(Cuartoscuro)
The Supreme Court (SCJN) on Wednesday ruled that a law that favors the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) over private companies is unconstitutional, dealing a blow to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s energy agenda.
Reforms to the Electricity Industry Law (LIE) that gave power generated by the CFE priority on the national grid were passed by Congress in March 2021.
The CFE was given priority in selling electricity to Mexico’s national power grid in the 2021 reform. (CFE)
Under the new law, private companies that generate electricity that is often cheaper and cleaner than that produced by the CFE were sidelined.
The order in which electricity was injected into the national grid was previously determined by price, with cheaper power given precedence. Energy companies were required to submit bids in order to place their power on the grid.
The new LIE rolled back key parts of the previous government’s 2013 energy reform, which opened up Mexico’s energy sector to foreign and private companies, ending a state monopoly that lasted for 75 years.
The Supreme Court’s ruling
The SCJN’s Second Chamber considered a request for an injunction against the LIE filed by six energy companies. Two of the chamber’s five justices voted in favor of granting the injunction, two voted against the move and one abstained. Second Chamber president Alberto Pérez Dayán, one of two justices who supported the injunction request, broke the deadlock with a casting vote.
The SCJN said in a statement that the Second Chamber determined that “the order of priority in the dispatch of electricity” as set out in the 2021 Electricity Industry Law violates constitutionally-enshrined principles of free competition in Mexico’s power sector.
Instead of meeting the “efficiency criterion” in the constitution, the government’s secondary legislation prioritizes “state generators (CFE) or plants associated with them, creating an alteration in the electricity market,” the SCJN said.
The court also said that the new LIE disincentivized the production of clean energy in violation of the “principle of sustainable development.”
Justice Pérez Dayán broke a deadlock with a casting vote in support of the injunction request filed by six private companies against the law. (Cuartoscuro)
The Second Chamber “specified that the supposed strengthening of state companies” — López Obrador asserts that his government has “rescued” both the CFE and state oil company Pemex — “is not a reason to ignore the constitutional framework in electricity matters,” the SCJN said.
Although the injunction was granted to just six energy companies, the Supreme Court said that the ruling “will generate the same consequence” for all participants in the wholesale electricity market to ensure a level playing field.
As a result of the ruling, the Electricity Industry Law that was in effect before the reforms were approved in 2021 will once again govern the sector.
During AMLO’s administration, there has been a focus on reviving state-owned energy firms, including CFE and Pemex. (Moisés Pablo Nava/Cuartoscuro)
Private companies have filed hundreds of applications for injunctions against the LIE, but they have not yet been considered by the Supreme Court.
The SCJN previously considered the LIE in April 2022, confirming at that time that the most important articles of the law could be implemented. Seven of 11 Supreme Court justices held that the LIE violated the right to free competition in the energy sector and hindered the transition to clean energy sources, upholding a federal court ruling that suspended the law shortly after it took effect.
However, their opinions were insufficient to invalidate the law as eight votes were needed for its revocation.
In 2022, the governments of the United States and Canada both launched challenges under the USMCA trade pact against Mexico’s nationalistic energy policies. That dispute has not yet been resolved.
AMLO pledges to challenge the ruling
At his morning press conference on Thursday, López Obrador said he will challenge the process used by the Supreme Court to rule that the LIE is unconstitutional.
López Obrador said that the CFE director Manuel Bartlett (seen here on AMLO’s left) suggested a strategy to challenge the ruling. (Lopezobrador.org.mx)
At the suggestion of CFE director Manuel Bartlett, he said the government will argue that Justice Pérez doesn’t have the power to decide the matter with a casting vote.
The two justices who voted against declaring the LIE unconstitutional also questioned the legality of Pérez’s use of a casting vote. The Second Chamber’s fifth justice didn’t vote because he served as a federal prosecutor under former president Enrique Peña, whose government proposed the 2013 energy reform.
López Obrador expressed both surprise and annoyance at the fact that the SCJN was able to hand down a ruling against the LIE that was supported by just two justices.
“Just imagine, two justices erase, repudiate, cancel a law — two!” he said.
“Of course, we’ll challenge [the ruling],” López Obrador said before railing against the “judicial power” and repeating his belief that a constitutional reform is needed to “clean up” the judiciary and ensure that it is “at the service of the people” rather than “an oligarchy, a greedy minority.”
Another energy sector reform?
López Obrador also said he was planning to send a constitutional reform proposal to Congress next Monday that is aimed at canceling the 2013 energy reform.
Most of his proposals are likely to fail as the ruling Morena party and its allies don’t have the two-thirds majority in Congress that is required to make changes to the constitution.
With regard to energy, the plan is to leave the constitution like president Adolfo López Mateos left it when his six year term ended in 1964, López Obrador said.
“How are we going to accept the predominance of private power over public power?” he asked.
The caravan of trucks caused long delays on the heavily trafficked highway on Wednesday. (Viral Noticias/Facebook)
Truck drivers have called off a protest blockade on the Querétaro-México highway after being granted a meeting with the Interior Ministry (Segob) to discuss their concerns about increasing violent robberies and extortion on the roads.
At least 100 trucks had been advancing in a slow caravan along the Querétaro-México highway on Wednesday, causing hours of snarled traffic on this major national route.
Images posted to social media showed trucks blockading the highway. (Irma Lilia Navarro/Facebook)
Most of the protesting truckers were members of the Union of Freight and Tourism Transporters (UTCT) or the Mexican Alliance of Transporters Organization (Amotac). They came from 27 states around the country, including Veracruz, Puebla, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Hidalgo, Guerrero, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa and Morelos.
They gathered at kilometer 40 of the highway on Wednesday morning and drove slowly down the central lanes toward the capital, carrying banners bearing slogans such as “Mr López Obrador, no more murders and no more robberies” and “No more restricted zones.”
Just after midday on Wednesday, the federal roads and bridges service (Capufe) reported that there was a 10-kilometer line of traffic on the highway. The road was cleared again by about 5:30 p.m., after Segob agreed to meet with the drivers.
The truckers were protesting a wave of insecurity on Mexico’s highways that has seen85,000 freight robberies during the administration of President López Obrador, according to a report by the Confederation of Industrial Chambers (Concamin). The National Chamber of Freight Transportation (Canacar) reportednearly 13,000 cargo robberies in 2023 alone, mainly targeting oil, chemical and clothing trucks.
Insecurity on Mexican highways has become a significant problem in recent years, with transport groups reporting an increasing struggle to find drivers, despite rate of pay well above the national average. (GN_MEXICO/X)
The México-Querétaro highway has become a particular flashpoint for these robberies, with several violent attacks and even murders of truck drivers reported in recent weeks. Amotac previously protested the violence on the highway in October 2023.
Highways in Veracruz, Puebla and Guerrero have also been severely affected. A further 500 truckers protested in Veracruz on Wednesday, demanding that the mayor of Veracruz update the documentation required for them to enter the region.
“We are not here to fight for anything illegal,” said Valentín Romero Trujillo, an advisor to Amotac. “We are demanding more safety on the roads. Today, we have many operators who no longer want to work; we have had 25 operators shot dead in two months.”
On Feb. 5, 15 industry organizations, including the Mexican-American Transporters Federation (Fematrac) and the Mexican Transporters Alliance (AMT) are planning another national road strike of up to 5,000 vehicles, demanding greater National Guard presence on dangerous highways, tougher penalties against truck robbers and greater support for victims’ families.
The Baja Bay Club is a collaboration between U.S.-based DMB Development and Swaback Architects and Planners and Mexican partners Grupo Desarrolla and Grupo Questro. (Baja Bay Club)
The quality of golf in Los Cabos is suggested by the names of those who have designed golf courses in the area: acclaimed players and course designers like Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Greg Norman, Fred Couples, Davis Love III and Robert Trent Jones Jr.
Now there’s another name to add to the list. David McLay Kidd, the Scottish golf course architect who designed the famed links-style layout at Oregon’s Bandon Dunes, is also designing a course on the Los Cabos municipality’s picturesque East Cape.
What to know about Baja Bay Club and its golf course
Kidd’s 18-hole links-style layout in Los Cabos will be a signature amenity for the residents at Baja Bay Club, a 2,400-acre East Cape real estate development expected to feature up to 500 beach- and ocean-view homes. Located only six kilometers from the living coral reef and national park of Cabo Pulmo, the residential community will be nestled between the Sierra de la Laguna mountain range and the Sea of Cortez, with over three miles of beachfront land.
“Once in a lifetime, a golf designer might get a site on sand, next to an ocean and in the perfect climate and with an owner that understands how to respect such precious land,” Kidd noted via Robb Report. “At Baja Bay Club, we hit the jackpot. We intend to celebrate not only the rumbled dunes but the gorgeous native trees and shrubs that cover these precious sand dunes. If we do our job, we will take these perfect ingredients and create a course full of mystery and adventure, fun and challenge. We believe Baja Bay Club can redefine golf in Baja.”
No projected completion date for the course has been announced, but those eligible to play Kidd’s course will also have access to the club’s short course and practice facility.
Baja Bay Club’s connection to other Los Cabos golf courses
The Baja Bay Club is a collaboration between U.S.-based DMB Development and Swaback Architects and Planners and Mexican partners Grupo Desarrolla and Grupo Questro. The latter partnership, it should be noted, is also responsible for bringing to life the Puerto Los Cabos resort, residential and marina development just outside San José del Cabo. Grupo Questro, of course, is a very familiar name to Los Cabos golf aficionados, as it manages three world-class golf courses in the area: the Cabo Real course designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., the Jack Nicklaus-crafted layout at Club Campestre and 27 holes at Puerto Los Cabos. 18 of the holes at Puerto Los Cabos are courtesy of Nicklaus, while the other nine are the work of Greg Norman).
Oleada and other courses in development in Los Cabos
Golf and real estate go hand in hand in Los Cabos. It should come as no surprise, then, that another notable course in development is linked to Oleada, an 860-acre residential and resort community north of Cabo San Lucas. The course here, scheduled to open in 2026 between nearby courses at Diamante and Solmar Golf Links, will be crafted by Ernie “Big Easy” Els, a four-time major champion making his design debut in Mexico.
In other Los Cabos golfing news, Jack Nicklaus has signed on to add a second course at Quivira. His first, famously, is one of three Los Cabos courses currently ranked by Golf Digest among the 100 greatest in the world — the others being Querencia and Diamante’s Dunes Course. A second Tom Fazio design is currently in development at Querencia as well.
That means Los Cabos, which currently has 18 operating golf courses, will boast at least 22 in a few more years.
Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook, and a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related content and lifestyle features focused on food, wine and golf.
Nopales tacos are an excellent vegan option to prepare in Mexico. (Shutterstock)
Now that you’ve read our favorite tips on shopping vegan in Mexico, it’s time to learn how to make the most of them, with some delicious recipes from Sofía Toraño, a vegan chef based in Mexico City. We’re starting off with our most magical and multifaceted ingredients: mushrooms, chickpeas, tofu, and nopales. Sofía shares how to add more flavor and variety to your diet while making the most out of the fresh and incredible food that is so easily available in Mexico.
“All cultures share the necessity to eat,” says Sofía. “In Mexico, we are very culturally drawn to celebrations, parties, and “sobremesas.” We spend a lot of time at the table sharing food … Our lives literally rotate around food.”
Mushrooms, as we’ve said, are your best friends when substituting meat, as they have very versatile textures – plus, they add amazing flavor to any dish.
You can prepare them as non-vegans would normally prepare meat to make yourself some delicious tacos.
Sofía’s favorite is “mushroom barbacoa.” Barbacoa is a traditional Mexican meat dish (usually lamb, but occasionally goat or beef), steam-cooked in an underground oven with a wide variety of spices until it is very soft. Today, the term is also used for a similar preparation on a stovetop or slow cooker.
Find yourself your favorite barbacoa recipe and use mushrooms instead, but keep in mind that they cook quite fast in comparison to meat.
Chickpeas are your go-to protein and mineral source. They are one of Sofía’s kitchen staples.
An easy and yummy way to use chickpeas is to make yourself spreads and hummus.
Put them in a blender and add: Tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil, and you’ve got yourself a very easy hummus to snack on for a week.
For a Mexican twist, you can add some cilantro and substitute the lemon juice for lime juice.
Feel free to improvise by adding in your favorite herbs, oils, or other flavors!
Tofu is one of the most versatile ingredients in your fridge. You can have it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even dessert. Apart from being healthy and delicious, it will provide you with much-needed protein.
Scrambled tofu instead of scrambled eggs. Cook it exactly as you would eggs, on a pan in the morning. Great and full-of-protein start to the day.
Spread on bread, put in tortillas, or on top of nopales.
Vegan chocolate mousse, with tofu
Ingredients:
Soft tofu
melted chocolate of your choice (vegan, of course)
your favorite plant-based syrup. Sofía suggests maple, agave, or date syrup.
Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until everything is mixed. Serve with fresh berries or seasonal fruit. Enjoy a perfectly smooth and sweet vegan chocolate mousse!
Nopales, prickly pear cacti, are also a great all-around ingredient, not to mention indispensable in traditional Mexican cuisine. Some people are put off by the juice, or slime, that they exude when cooked, but there is any easy way to get rid of it before you start cooking.
When raw, cut a nopal into pieces (or leave whole) and put it in a bowl. Add 2 spoonfuls of salt, mix it up, and let it sit for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then, run the nopal pieces under cold water, rinsing as many times as possible for the slime to come off.
Nopal tacos
Mix of cooked nopales, tomato cubes, small pieces of onion, and cilantro. Add a little bit of salt, pepper, and salsa of your choice. Put this mix inside your preferred tortilla, and you have yourself a quite traditional and delicious taco.
Sopes de nopal
Ingredients:
Nopales (whole)
Refried beans (or beans of your choice)
Onions
Tofu
For this recipe, your nopales will serve as a sope, or thick tortilla, so you should leave them whole.
After washing them properly, put them on a pan, or better yet, a comal, and let them cook/roast for a while. Flip them over when they’ve been grilled to your preference. Once they’ve blackened a bit, spread a layer of refried beans (or beans of your choice) on top. Add small pieces of onion, and if you want, top it off with some tofu. Some salt and pepper, and you’ve prepared very easy, quick, and tasty nopal sopes.
For a less Mexican, but equally delicious and easy recipe, Sofía suggests a vegan bolognese pasta. This is a wonderful recipe to use up all the leftover veggies inside your fridge.
Ingredients:
Veggie leftovers in your fridge (onion, zucchini, carrots, mushrooms). Any will do, but onion and mushroom add some extra flavor!
Salt and pepper, or any of your preferred spices
Olive oil
Tomato sauce
Pasta
Put all the veggies in a blender or food processor and add some salt and pepper. Once you have your mix, put it in a pan with some olive oil on medium heat. Stir frequently, and add in your preferred spices. Let it brown a little bit. Next, pour your tomato sauce into the pan. When the sauce and the veggie mix have mixed properly, add it to your pasta.
This is also a good recipe for people who need to include more veggies into their diet, as well as for vegans or plant-based diet consumers who are tired of eating a lot of vegetables separately. It’s also good for tricking children into eating their vegetables!
Besides the dessert and the breakfast ideas we’ve provided, here’s a very easy vegan pancake recipe:
Ingredients:
one and a half bananas
one cup oats
one cup plant-based milk
Put all of this in a blender and whizz. Once you have your mix, use the batter to make pancakes in a hot pan.
As vegans, Sofía says, “there’s an even greater necessity to create new recipes in new shapes and forms, in order to maintain that tradition.”
Use this new year and these recipes you’ve just added to your cookbook as an opportunity to gather around a table with people you love, try new things, and most importantly – eat deliciously.
You can find more on Sofía’s instagram profile: @alcachofffa, where she frequently posts tips and easy recipes.
Montserrat Castro Gómez is a freelance writer and translator from Querétaro, México.
The Mexican Army dealt with a grenade discovered at Mexico City's Pemex Tower on Wednesday. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro)
A grenade was found on the grounds of the Pemex Executive Tower in Mexico City on Wednesday, 11 years to the day after a deadly explosion at the state oil company headquarters.
Pemex said on social media that the army was notified of the presence of a “presumed explosive device” in a garden at the tower, located in the Miguel Hidalgo borough of the capital.
Video en exclusiva de la granada dentro del centro administrativo de PEMEX @Pemex , fue grabado desde la Torre de Pemex cuando llegó el @SEDENAmx a retirlar el artefacto pic.twitter.com/RBKpco3dA0
The army sent specialists in explosive ordnance disposal to the Pemex headquarters and the device was subsequently removed, the state oil company said on X and Facebook.
“The area was cordoned off … while the aforementioned device was removed,” Pemex said.
It said the “characteristics” of the explosive indicated it was “an ornamental device,” adding that it will make another announcement once that information is confirmed.
Pemex was alerted to the presence of the device by an anonymous call.
In its social media message, Pemex noted that Wednesday is the 11th anniversary of an explosion at the tower complex’s B2 building that claimed 37 lives and injured more than 120 people. A gas leak triggered the blast, which caused significant damage to the building.
Several foreign news outlets have accused Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador of receiving money from the Sinaloa cartel during his run for office in 2006. (Galo Cañas/Cuartoscuro)
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Wednesday rejected reports that his 2006 presidential campaign received millions of dollars in drug money, describing them as “completely false.”
ProPublica, Deutsche Welle and Insight Crime all published reports on Tuesday that said that people working for López Obrador’s campaign received between US $2 million and $4 million from drug traffickers affiliated with the Beltrán-Leyva Organization (BLO) and the Sinaloa Cartel, which at the time colluded in a criminal alliance called the Federation.
President López Obrador in 2006, at the time that his campaign is alleged to have received money from major drug cartels. (Enrique Muñoz/X)
The three outlets received information about a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation into the alleged funding of the campaign with drug money. The investigation was dropped years ago.
At his Tuesday morning press conference, AMLO said that the reports amounted to “libel” and accused the United States government of involvement in their publication.
He asserted that the press, not just in Mexico but around the world, is “very subservient to power.”
“In the case of the United States, the Department of State and [other government] agencies have a lot of influence in the management of the media,” López Obrador said.
He said there is no proof that his campaign received drug money, before denouncing the media outlets and journalists responsible for the articles as “despicable libelers.”
AMLO also asserted that the publication of the reports is related to the upcoming elections in the United States, but didn’t elaborate.
With the ProPublica, Deutsche Welle and Insight Crime articles projected onto a screen behind him, he remarked:
“It’s a campaign. It’s [in the] United States, it’s in Germany, it’s here. Where is the proof?”
Later in the press conference, López Obrador said his criticism wasn’t directed at the media outlets or journalists, but at the United States government “for allowing these immoral practices.”
“… How was this orchestrated? What? Didn’t [the U.S. government] agencies know about it?”
The criminal group run by Édgar Valdez Villarreal, alias “La Barbie”, allegedly gave the López Obrador campaign millions of dollars in cash according to reporting by ProPublica. (Cuartoscuro)
The New York-based nonprofit news organization reported that years before AMLO became president in 2018, “U.S. drug-enforcement agents uncovered what they believed was substantial evidence that major cocaine traffickers had funneled some $2 million to his first presidential campaign.”
“According to more than a dozen interviews with U.S. and Mexican officials and government documents reviewed by ProPublica, the money was provided to campaign aides in 2006 in return for a promise that a López Obrador administration would facilitate the traffickers’ criminal operations,” wrote journalist Tim Golden.
“The investigation did not establish whether López Obrador sanctioned or even knew of the traffickers’ reported donations,” he said.
ProPublica reported that the DEA was told that “in three deliveries” in 2006, “La Barbie’s organization” gave López Obrador’s campaign about $2 million in cash.
La Barbie is Texas-born Édgar Valdez Villareal, whose nickname is a nod to his blonde hair and fair skin.
ProPublica noted that Valdez – sentenced to 49 years in jail in 2018 – was “a major trafficker, working with a larger mafia run by the Beltrán Leyva brothers, who in turn were part of the alliance known as the Sinaloa Cartel.”
AMLO ran for president three times, with two unsuccessful attempts prior to his 2018 victory. (Alan Ortega/Cuartoscuro)
“An investigation carried out between 2010 and 2011 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the DEA, secret until now, obtained solid evidence that the Sinaloa Cartel contributed between $2 million and $4 million to the campaign of Andrés Manuel López Obrador when he was a candidate for the presidency in 2006,” wrote Mexican journalist Anabel Hernández in Deutsche Welle, a German state-owned media organization.
In what is described as a “column” rather than a report, Hernández said that investigators obtained audio recordings in which “Sinaloa Cartel witnesses” and people in “AMLO’s close circle” confirm there was “illicit funding” of López Obrador’s 2006 campaign.
The article said that La Barbie was the main negotiator for the Sinaloa Cartel. López Obrador, “as the United States government found out,” spoke to Valdez on June 15, 2006 and thanked him for the financial support for his campaign, Hernández said.
She added that López Obrador told La Barbie that as president his aim was to reduce violence, and asked the trafficker for his assistance to that end.
AMLO ultimately lost the 2006 election by a narrow margin to Felipe Calderón, who promptly launched a militarized “war” against drug cartels.
Insight Crime, a think tank and media organization focused on organized crime in the Americas, reported that U.S. investigators believed that representatives of the BLO, including La Barbie, “made a deal with the AMLO campaign” in late 2005.
The arrangement, wrote Insight Crime co-director Steven Dudley, was that “BLO would give millions of dollars to AMLO’s presidential campaign” and “in return, AMLO’s team promised to give the BLO first right of refusal on who would be attorney general, which, for the investigators, amounted to a free pass to traffic drugs.”
Those considered responsible for channeling money into the López Obrador campaign include the Beltrán Leyva brothers and “La Barbie”, according to the report by Insight Crime. (Insight Crime)
In 2006, Roberto López Nájera, a lawyer for La Barbie, gave Mauricio Soto Caballero, an apparent “political coordinator” for AMLO, “between $2 million and $3 million, which Soto later said he passed to the AMLO campaign,” Insight Crime reported.
“Investigators said that some of the money was also channeled through another alleged BLO operative named Roberto Acosta Islas, alias ‘R,’ who then moved that money through López to Soto, who said he passed it to the AMLO campaign.”
Three people were placed at the top of an Insight Crime infographic titled “The money trail of the BLO’s alleged AMLO campaign financing”: La Barbie and the brothers and cartel leaders Héctor Beltrán Leyva and Arturo Beltrán Leyva.
Insight Crime said its report was “based on more than a dozen interviews, including with several current and former law enforcement officials and diplomats with knowledge of the investigation.”
López Obrador denounced similar “slander” in 2023
This is not the first time these allegations have been leveled at AMLO, who categorically rebutted similar claims in 2023. (Cuartoscuro)
In New York in 2023 at the drug trafficking trial of Felipe Calderón’s security minister Genaro García Luna, a lawyer for García Luna, César de Castro, asked prosecution witness and former Sinaloa Cartel member Jesús “El Rey” Zambada whether he recalled telling U.S. authorities in 2013 that he delivered US $7 million to a Mexico City official to fund the 2006 presidential campaign of López Obrador, who was mayor of the capital between 2000 and 2005.
Zambada denied making such a declaration. “I couldn’t have said it because it isn’t true,” he said.
López Obrador said last February that he would file a lawsuit against de Castro for slandering him, but subsequently decided against the move. García Luna was convicted of collusion with the Sinaloa Cartel, but has not yet been sentenced.
A former DEA official predicts a deterioration in Mexico-US relations
Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the DEA, told MVS Noticias that he read the ProPublica article, but “didn’t see any evidence” that López Obrador was aware of the alleged illicit funding arrangement or had the intention of receiving “hot money” from drug traffickers.
Indeed, ProPublica itself, as noted earlier, said it wasn’t established “whether López Obrador sanctioned or even knew of the traffickers’ reported donations.”
In contrast, Hernández’s column made a clear assertion that AMLO was aware of the arrangement.
Vigil told the Associated Press that the publication of the three articles on Tuesday will have an adverse affect on the relationship between Mexico and the United States and their cooperation to combat drug trafficking.
“It’s just terrible, it’s going to mean more drugs heading to the United States and more violence in Mexico. It’s worse than when [former defense minister Salvador] Cienfuegos was arrested” in the United States in 2020 on drug trafficking charges, he said.
Vigil told AP that the reports published Tuesday constitute “a direct attack against” AMLO.
“Secondly, he views it as an impact on the presidential campaign or in the presidential elections that are coming up. Now, if we thought the relationships with Mexico were bad, they are going to go from worse to almost nonexistent,” he said.
Mexico and the United States have in fact been collaborating closely on the fight against fentanyl and other illicit drugs, and on other shared challenges.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in October that “more than ever before” in his 30 years of experience in foreign policy, “the United States and Mexico are working together as partners in common purpose.”
Mexico is set to host an extension of the U.S.
college sport circuit. (big12sports.com)
The Big 12 Conference is coming to Mexico at the end of 2024, the United States college athletics league has announced.
The groundbreaking initiative “Big 12 Mexico” will bring basketball, women’s soccer and baseball games to Mexico City — and perhaps a football bowl game to Monterrey’s BBVA Stadium in late 2026.
College-level basketball, soccer and baseball are branching out into the Mexican market. (stories.uh.edu)
“Mexico is a natural extension to the Big 12 footprint, and I’m thrilled to introduce Big 12 Mexico as the conference’s first-ever international presence,” Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said in a statement. “Through Big 12 Mexico, our student-athletes will have the opportunity to compete in an international setting, and our conference will have the chance to showcase our brand across Mexico.”
The Big 12 is a college athletics league that currently includes 14 U.S. universities, including University of Oklahoma, University of Texas at Austin, Baylor University, University of Kansas, West Virginia University, University of Central Florida and Brigham Young University (BYU).
Though flagship schools Oklahoma and Texas are leaving on July 1 to join the Southeast Conference, four new schools are set to join the Big 12. The addition of University of Arizona, Arizona State University, University of Colorado Boulder and Utah will give the conference a total of 16 teams in 2024.
“We have an appetite to be a national conference in our makeup from coast to coast,” Yormark said last spring.
The first games in Mexico will be regular-season men’s and women’s basketball games between University of Kansas and University of Houston at Mexico City Arena, which hosted a regular-season NBA game in November 2023 that drew 19,986 fans.
Beyond basketball, there will also be exhibition games featuring to-be-announced Big 12 baseball and women’s soccer teams playing against Mexican squads, conference officials said.
In addition, a college football bowl game in Monterrey is being explored for after the 2026 season. Big 12 officials said they want to hold it at the picturesque BBVA Stadium, a 53,500-seat facility next to a mountain that’s nicknamed “El Gigante de Acero” (The Steel Giant).
Big 12 officials have noted that a college bowl game in Monterrey would be the first bowl game ever held in Mexico, although a football game called the Aztec Bowl has been played intermittently in Mexico since 1947 and sometimes has involved a team of American all-stars from lower-level colleges.
The Aztec Bowl has been contested between Mexican teams and lower-level U.S. colleges over the years. (Aztec Bowl/Facebook)
The Big 12 said that it has partnered with Zignia, a Mexico City–based live entertainment agency, on its “Big 12 Mexico” venture. The conference also noted that the venture will be promoted through channels such as ESPN Deportes, ESPN Mexico and Fox Deportes.
Also, in an effort to grow its Latin American audience, Big 12 officials said they are seeking to secure Spanish-language radio broadcasts for its football and basketball title games starting this year.
Five current or future Big 12 campuses – Baylor University, University of Houston, Texas Christian University (TCU), University of Texas and Texas Tech University – are located within 400 miles of Mexico. University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State have campus extensions in Mexico.
Mexico City has hosted MLB, NBA and NFL games, and is home to the Mexico City Capitanes, who play in the G League, a U.S.-based development league run by the NBA.
Less than three days after 40,000 fans packed the stadium to see a bullfight in Mexico City, a federal judge has ruled that bullfights in Plaza México must once again be halted.
Judge Sandra de Jesús Zúñiga on Wednesday granted a provisional suspension that will remain in place until the next hearing on Feb. 7, when it will be determined if the suspension becomes permanent.
Animal rights activists protested the resumption of bullfighting last weekend. (Andrea Murcia/Cuartoscuro)
The competition on Sunday — in which six bulls fought and all were killed — marked the first bullfight in Mexico City in 20 months.
In the first half of 2022, a lower court judge issued an injunction that sided with activists, mainly on the point that bullfighting hinders people’s rights to a healthy environment. But this decision was overruled by the Mexican Supreme Court (SCJN) in December..
That opened the door for nine bullfights to be scheduled from Jan. 28 through March 24 at Plaza México, now the capital’s only official bullring. It has been hosting events since 1946.
Now, however, the two bullfights scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 4 and Monday Feb. 5 are up in the air, as well as those that follow. It wasn’t immediately known if Plaza México would try to overturn the decision before the hearing scheduled for next week, or even if that would be possible by Friday.
Mexico City’s Plaza de Toros, the world’s largest bullfighting ring, is the last remaining site in the capital. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro)
In making her ruling on Wednesday, Fifth District Judge de Jesús accepted an injunction presented by the animal rights association Todas y Todos por Amor a los Toros (Everyone for the Love of Bulls).
Her ruling hinged on a law against “mistreatment and cruelty” for animals in public shows, rather than the 2022 ruling, which focused on presenting a healthy environment for people.
Before and during the Jan. 8 bullfight, members of the Todas y Todos organization– and others – protested outside the stadium. Estimates put the number of protesters between 200 to 300.
Her ruling was based on the Animal Protection Law of Mexico City, which while not specifically prohibiting bullfighting, calls for action when a complaint is filed.
Bullfighting is currently prohibited in five states: Sonora, Guerrero, Sinaloa, Coahuila and Quintana Roo. Meanwhile, it is considered as an intangible part of cultural heritage in Aguascalientes, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo, Querétaro, Zacatecas, Michoacán, Nayarit and Guanajuato.
