Marylou Morton returned 31 pre-Columbian pieces and one more recent historical artifact. (SRE/X)
The Mexican Consulate in Portland, Oregon, will soon repatriate 32 pre-Columbian archaeological artifacts turned over by a U.S. citizen, according to a statement by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
Mexican Consul Carlos Quesnel Meléndez traveled to Eugene, Oregon, to officially receive the artifacts. (SRE/X)
“The reports by INAH specialists have confirmed that the 32 pieces are movable works owned by the Mexican nation,” the statement says. “Thirty-one pieces are archaeological works manufactured between 300 B.C. and A.D. 1521, while the remaining one is a historical asset.”
The consulate will send the Mexican archaeological artifacts home from Oregon in a diplomatic pouch so that INAH specialists can issue their professional opinion based on the physical inspection of the pieces.
In the statement, the Mexican Government thanked Morton for the voluntary restitution of the heritage assets. It has also called on the population to restrain from participating in the plundering of archaeological objects to preserve Mexico’s cultural heritage.
The artifacts will add to the more than 14,000 items recovered by Mexico as part of the #MiPatrimonioNoSeVende initiative (My Heritage is Not for Sale). This strategy is part of the current administration’s mission to reclaim, safeguard and promote cultural heritage unlawfully taken from Mexico. The U.S. has been the top source of reclaimed artifacts, followed by Spain and Italy.
The current administration has worked to repatriate Mexican artifacts from around the world through the #MiPatrimonioNoSeVende initiative. (SRE/X)
Mexico has also recovered cultural heritage from the Netherlands, Switzerland and France, among other countries.
Ternium operates nine industrial centers in Mexico, six of which are located in Nuevo León.(Ternium México)
Ternium, one of Latin America’s leading steel companies, has announced a major investment in Mexico as part of an ambitious expansion plan to be completed in 2026.
Amounting to US $4 billion, the announced investment will go towards building additional steel manufacturing plants in the northern municipality of Pesquería in Nuevo León. The new facilities will produce cold-rolled, raw and galvanized steel for the automotive, appliance, construction, electric motor, plumbing and train equipment industries, among others.
Ternium’s plant in Pesquería, which received US $4 billion in investment earlier this year. (Ternium México)
Ternium CEO Máximo Vedoya said he has already shared the investment plan with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum.
“We have already invested more than US $4 billion in certain plants [in Pesquería] and we’re now going to invest another 4 billion dollars in carrying out different processes,” Vedoya said in a press conference. He added that this investment will strengthen the value chain in North America, with the USMCA as its main driving force.
The move follows the ongoing construction of a Ternium steel mill in Pesquería which the company announced in March. This facility, once built, will have the capacity to generate 2.6 million tonnes of cast steel annually.
Ternium’s investment in Mexico seeks to add value to the country, Vedoya said.
“I’m convinced that in the North American region we have to work together, because the enemy is not the United States, not Mexico,” he stressed. “The enemy of Mexico and the United States are subsidies, and the aggressive policy of taking good jobs to Asia, mainly China and other satellite countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia.”
“Mexico is not going to supplant all those imports from China,” Alberto Villarreal, director of Nepanoa, a Chicago-based company that helps foreign companies expand to Latin America, told the newspaper El País. He added that Mexico is competing “at a global level for those exports with other economies in Asia such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, which is a much more developed country, and with India.”
For Vedoya, the USMCA is “a great treaty” for Mexico as it has helped the country increase its exports to the U.S. “This is what we need to continue to encourage,” he concluded.
Ternium, which employs 20,000 people, operates nine industrial centers in Mexico, six of which are located in Nuevo León. Founded in Argentina, the company has had a presence in Mexico since 2007.
Mexico News Daily writer Louisa Rogers was tasked with bringing U.S. customer service to a Mexican hotel. Here's what she learned abut Mexico in the process. (Shutterstock)
A few years ago, the manager of a boutique hotel in Guanajuato asked me to lead a customer service training for the hotel’s reception, restaurant and cleaning staff. As a business trainer in the United States, I’d led customer service training many times. But never a Mexican customer service training session! I was probably more nervous than the participants, especially with the language, even though I spoke advanced Spanish.
The manager wanted to empower his staff to make decisions without always consulting him. That’s a tall order in Mexico, where employees are typically expected to show respect for authority and defer decisions to the manager. He was also concerned that the staff didn’t always understand what international guests expected, leading to frustration for guests and employees alike.
Even in high end establishments, Mexico’s business culture is quite different from that of the United States. (Booking)
What was more, he told me, they sometimes came across as overly formal, responding to questions with just a brief yes or no without any explanation. I had experienced this myself in different settings and knew that it wasn’t a helpful response to the mostly international hotel guests, visiting from the United States, Canada, Japan and Germany.
I prepared for weeks, customizing my English-language customer service training material for a Mexican group and going over the resources and exercises I planned with my Spanish tutor. At the seminar, I began the first session by introducing myself and then telling the participants that I believed focusing on customer service would help them gain success.
The universal elevator speech
We started with self-introductions, which are an important part of any business interaction. One by one, each person stood up and told us their name and role. They were nervous at first, but gradually warmed up. I usually asked them to do it again, suggesting that they slow down, pause frequently and speak up.
For foreigners, Mexican names can be a mouthful, consisting of a first name (or two), the father’s last name, followed by the mother’s. These sometimes sound like a blur and are hard to remember for those with little exposure to Mexico. By the end of the circuit, everyone seemed more comfortable with their self-introduction.
Responding to complaints
Then we made a list of the main complaints they heard from guests:
“The air conditioning doesn’t work.”
“There’s no hot water.”
“This meal wasn’t what I expected.”
“It’s nighttime. I have this problem, and the maintenance crew isn’t around.”
We role-played how to respond. I was delighted when a participant pointed out that just answering with one word wasn’t helpful; what was important, he said, was to offer a solution.
From busboys to management, staff talked and laughed about common problems they faced running the hotel. (American Green Travel)
Everyone cracked up when one of the cleaners shared that a customer complained when a wheeled bed kept escaping from its usual spot and rolled all the way to the door.
Changing old habits isn’t easy
During the role-playing exercise, the staff told me that workers in Mexican hotels and restaurants are trained to keep their hands behind their backs as a sign of deference, a style that wouldn’t work well with most North American or European guests.
I brought this up later with the manager, who suggested I encourage them to use more visible body language, but also that I ask them how they felt trying a different nonverbal style, as it’s not easy to change deeply ingrained habits. I was impressed with his level of understanding and respect for his staff.
Alternatives to common responses
Later in the session, we discussed different options to statements often used in Mexico:
Instead of “no hay” — “There isn’t any” — try “We don’t have that currently, but would you like…?”
Instead of“no es posible,” offer something that is possible.
Instead of“no puedo” — “I can’t” — say something positive: “What I can do is…”
Instead of “se acabó” — “We’re out of it” — try “We don’t have that currently. Would you like this instead?”
Body language
As participants practised alternative responses, we also discussed the fact that nonverbal communication is very cultural, and what’s appropriate in one culture may not be in another. As the manager suggested, I encouraged them to experiment with keeping their hands visible and looking directly at the guest, even though it was different from their normal style, and to notice whatever feelings came up.
For homework between sessions, I gave the participants a list of questions about the hotel to increase their knowledge, so that they could better answer a question, even if it was outside their area of expertise, such as “List a couple of the services offered in the Day Spa” and “What the are the three types of suites called?”
Hotel employees needed to know about the services to provide a better experience. (Ashwini Chaudhary/Unsplash)
Following upon guests’ concerns
In the second session, we discussed how to let a client know they would get back to them with an answer. Guests from goal-oriented cultures like the United States and Germany are reassured by a precise time frame, not the “ahorita” — fairly soon — or “un ratito” — “a little while” — so commonly used in Mexico.
Making action statements
In the final exercise, the participants created action statements such as “I’ll promise only what I can deliver,” “I’ll offer solutions, not excuses,” “I will give specific, concrete responses to guests,” “I’ll focus on the guest instead of chatting with my coworker” and “I won’t look at my phone when guests are around.”
I also created action statements myself: “I’ll institute the ground rule I always use in the U.S. but forgot here: No side conversations!” There wasn’t a lot of chatter, but it doesn’t take much to be distracting. And “I’ll make it clear that no one has to ask my permission to go to the restroom!”
What we all learned
Based on their evaluations, the hotel staff learned why it was helpful to come across less passive and deferential, as well as the importance of cross-departmental knowledge.
And I learned that despite a highly egalitarian manager, they still found it difficult to let go of their hierarchical cultural training. I was also struck by the fact that, among themselves, they ignored differences in status and pay, had fun, teased each other and made jokes.
I was pleasantly surprised when they said Americans and Canadians were pretty forgiving when their expectations weren’t met. In their experience, it was Mexicans and Italians who were more likely to get irritated.
On further reflection, my only regret is that I didn’t schedule a follow up session a couple of months later to find out how well they were internalizing the insights they’d gained. Still, they were so positive at the end that I’m hopeful the training helped increase their success in their work lives.
Louisa Rogers and her husband Barry Evans divide their lives between Guanajuato and Eureka, on California’s North Coast. Louisa writes articles and essays about expat life, Mexico, travel, physical and psychological health, retirement and spirituality. Her recent articles are on her website, https://authory.com/LouisaRogers
Studies in the northern state of Sinaloa suggest wild jaguars are once again breeding in the state. (All photos by Yamel Rubio Rocha)
At the foot of Sinaloa’s Sierra Madre Occidental range lies the municipality of San Ignacio. Much has changed since San Ignacio’s founding in 1633. But one thing remains the same: despite years of being hunted and feared, jaguars still roam the forests that surround the town.
The same can’t be said in many other places. Jaguars’ range once stretched from what is now the United States down to Argentina. Since the arrival of the Spanish, however, they have disappeared from more than half of the areas they once lived. Many remaining populations are on the brink of disappearing. The destruction of their home forests, loss of the prey that live in those forests, and killings by cattle ranchers are just a few of the threats jaguars face.
While jaguar populations have disappeared in many areas of Latin America, the big cats still roam wild in the state of Sinaloa. (Eduardo Esparza)
Despite the challenges, Mexico’s jaguars are a rare success story in the world of conservation, thanks in part to the work of researchers like Dr. Yamel Rubio Rocha. Rubio is a biologist at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) and the force behind FUSCBIO, a conservation nonprofit.
The third jaguar census is currently wrapping up, with results expected in October. When I visited Rubio at Sinaloa’s Jaguar Biological Station in July, she and her team had just collected the camera traps they use to tally and study the big cats.
Yamel Rocha Rubio and her team prepare the camera traps to monitor wild jaguar populations. (Yamel Rubio Rocha)
Yamel Rocha Rubio has seen signs of the animal’s presence and even heard its deep, hoarse roar nearby in the forest, though she’s never seen it with her own eyes in nature. That’s no surprise: jaguars are a “cryptic” species whose stealth and wariness of humans means that even people who live all their lives near the cats rarely see them.
Rubio, however, has seen hundreds of jaguars via the camera traps her team uses for the Cenjaguar count. This year in Sinaloa, the team worked from April to July. They braved sweltering heat to set up and later collect 40 camera traps from 30 stations, over a 200-square-kilometer area. On top of all that, they also monitor highways and roadkills to understand how traffic impacts jaguars and other large mammals.
Now that they’ve collected the camera traps, it’s time to analyze the thousands of photos and videos captured since April. By carefully comparing the rosette, or spot, patterns of the jaguars caught on camera, biologists can identify individuals. Tracking the movement patterns and reappearances of each jaguar allows them to estimate how many live in a given area.
“We’ve identified at least four different individuals in our San Ignacio research area [this year], but there’s more for us to do because we’re talking about examining hundreds and thousands of images,” Rubio said in late July.
Reason for hope
The camera traps are detecting more wild jaguars than initially expected. (Yamel Rubio Rocha)
The team has even spotted a mother with two cubs, a promising sign for the local ecosystem.
“That also gives us a lot of hope because when you have territory with females and males, that’s fabulous,” Rubio said. “But when you have cubs, then we’re talking about a source site, about a site where there are conditions that allow individuals to reproduce.”
She hopes this year’s results will show that San Ignacio’s feline family is not an anomaly. Since Cenjaguar began in 2010, the population in Sinaloa has seen a small increase. Taking into account a margin of error, Rubio says that “at least at the moment, I can tell that the population is holding on.”
Dr. Gerardo Ceballos also expressed hope that this year’s census will show population increases. Ceballos is a national leader of the Cenjaguar project alongside “Mexican Bat Man” Rodrigo Medellín. He told Mexico News Daily in March that jaguar populations at the national level increased between the first and second censuses.
Dr. Gerardo Ceballos presenting the national plan for the conservation of jaguars in 2016. (Moisés Pablo/Cuartoscuro)
“In the first census there were 4,000 jaguars,” Ceballos said. “In 2018, we had increased to 4,800 jaguars despite the enormous problems the country has.” Ceballos predicted that this year’s survey would find even more specimens.
Globally, jaguar populations are near-threatened and decreasing, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). But in Mexico, the trend seems to be moving in the opposite direction.
Local initiatives to protect jaguars
In San Ignacio, Rubio says the community’s commitment to conservation gives her hope.
The project has become an important part of the local community. (Yamel Rubio Rocha)
Locals take part in reforestation projects and guide the scientists as they search the forest for likely jaguar hangouts. Two local women, Mónica Osuna and Rosa María Manjarrez, take care of the small but vibrant Jaguar Museum in the neighboring town of Cabazán. The museum is free, though donations to support its programming are welcome. Jaguar themes have also become a notable part of local patronal festivals, where the pre-Columbian dance of the jaguar is still sometimes performed.
Meanwhile, government programs reimburse ranchers for livestock lost to animal attacks, which are often blamed on jaguars. Rubio, however, says the station’s monitoring work points to other causes like feral dog packs and reimbursement fraud.
The biological station also hosts guests. It rents out rustic cabins in the forest near the station for nature lovers, students and academics who want to participate in and learn about the research. Rubio recommends visiting between November and March to avoid the hottest months of summer. Interested parties can reach out by email to her, FUSCBIO or the Jaguar Museum for more information.
The cabin rentals help raise money for the station’s research operations. They also help with another goal: spreading understanding of jaguars’ beauty and their cultural and ecological importance.
For the time being, Rubio and the biological station are focused on analyzing camera trap photos with the hope that come October, they will have good news to report.
Rose Egelhoff is a freelance writer based in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. Follow her work at RoseEgelhoff.com
It's official: 240 legal complaints regarding the validity of Claudia Sheinbaum's election as president of Mexico on June 2 have been dismissed by the nation's Federal Electoral Tribunal, clearing the way for the president-elect to take office in October. (Andrea Murcia/Cuartoscuro)
The Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF) has validated Claudia Sheinbaum’s victory in the June 2 presidential election, meaning that she is now the official president-elect of Mexico.
The TEPJF said in a statement on Wednesday that its upper chamber dismissed 240 complaints against the election results as well as one request from a citizen for the election to be annulled.
Mexico’s Federal Electoral Tribunal chief Mónica Soto Arali, center, makes the announcement Wednesday that the tribunal had dismissed all complaints filed over the nation’s June 2 presidential election of Claudia Sheinbaum. (Galo Cañas Rodríguez/Cuartoscuro)
The court also dismissed a claim of election irregularities filed by Xóchitl Gálvez, the candidate for the main opposition parties at the June 2 election.
“Afterward, the final calculation of the presidential election was carried out, which concluded that the candidate Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo obtained the majority of votes,” the TEPJF said.
It said that Sheinbaum, the ruling Morena party’s presidential candidate, received more than 35.9 million votes or 59.76% of the total number of ballots cast.
The presidential election was found to be “valid because it was free, authentic and periodic,” the TEPJF said.
“Furthermore, it complied with the principles that govern the organization of elections: certainty, legality, independence, impartiality, maximum publicity and objectivity,” the court said.
Given that she “satisfies the requirements to be president of the United Mexican States” in accordance with the Mexican Constitution, the upper chamber of the Federal Electoral Tribunal “declared Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo the first presidenta electa,” or female president-elect, of Mexico, the TEPJF said.
Presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, Sheinbaum’s main opponent, filed a complaint with the Federal Electoral Tribunal soon after the election over what she believed were irregularities in the process. The tribunal ultimately dismissed her complaint. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro)
Sheinbaum, who will be sworn in on Oct. 1, will receive a certificate confirming her majority victory at the TEPJF headquarters in Mexico City on Thursday.
Her comprehensive victory on the first Sunday of June ensures the continuation of the so-called “fourth transformation” (4T) of Mexico, initiated by current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Sheinbaum said in June she would put forth two of her own constitutional reform proposals — one that would ensure that all women aged 60 to 64 receive government financial support and another that would guarantee educational scholarships for all public school students.
A protégé of López Obrador who served as environment minister in Mexico City when the current president was mayor there in the early 2000s, Sheinbaum will provide continuity in a range of areas, including by maintaining significant government support for Mexico’s most disadvantaged people.
An estimated tens of thousands of fish had died due to severe water depletion in three Chihuahua lakes, but the whole state is struggling with what one state official called "an ecological disaster." (Civil Protection Cuauhtémoc)
A long-running drought in the northern state of Chihuahua has caused three lakes to dry up, leaving tens of thousands of fish to die.
The Bustillos, Encinillas and Fiero lakes have gone from being “robust” bodies of water to “small puddles” surrounded by dying and rotten fish, according to a report published on Wednesday by the EFE news agency.
How Laguna de Bustillos looked in 2020, in better times. (Facebook)
Laguna de Bustillos is located in the municipality of Cuauhtémoc, Laguna de Encinillas is in the north of the municipality of Chihuahua (which includes the state capital) and Laguna Fierro is in Nuevo Casas Grandes.
Ernesto García Chánez, municipal director of ecology in Nuevos Casas Grandes, told EFE that extreme drought across Chihuahua has caused an “ecological disaster” in the state.
During a visit to Laguna Fierro, he told the news agency that drought has affected Chihuahua for around two years. As water levels in lakes decline, “contaminants concentrate and cause fish to die,” García said.
The estimate that tens of thousands of fish have perished comes from local campesinos, or farmers.
The Milenio newspaper reported in June that most dead fish in Laguna de Bustillos were carp and catfish, some weighing as much as 20 kilograms. Pedro Ortiz Franco, president of a local environmental group, said that rainfall in the area in 2023 was only about one-third of normal levels.
In a striking headline in June, El Heraldo de Chihuahua said that Laguna de Encinillas had gone from an “oasis” to a “desert” in just one year.
Beginning in June, drought meant Chihuahua’s Laguna de Bustillos had basically more dead fish than water. State and local personnel had to be called in to remove thousands of rotting fish. (Blanca Carmona/La Verdad Juárez)
“It’s sad to see that this lake is dry as a result of the drought and climate change,” Kamel Athie, a water expert and former National Water Commission (Conagua) official, told the newspaper.
The mass fish die-off at Laguna de Bustillos attracted international news media attention in June, and even the attention of the United States Geological Service, whose Landsat satellites captured images of the lakebed’s devastation.
The entire state of Chihuahua is in drought
In a drought monitor update published on August 5, Conagua reported that 100% of the territory of Chihuahua was affected by some level of drought. The only other state with all of its land affected by drought was Sinaloa.
Just over 54% of land in Chihuahua was affected by “extreme drought,” 27.6% by “severe drought” and 11.1% by “exceptional drought.”
Humberto Salazar, an agriculture official in Nuevos Casas Grandes, told EFE that farmers don’t have enough water or pasture on their properties for their livestock.
“The producers in the region have been taking feed up [to their animals] since March or April, and lately they’ve been taking water up to the fields as well because we don’t have the rain we need,” he said.
Rainfall during the current rainy season has been “very isolated, very limited,” Salazar said. “We hope that the situation improves in coming days.”
Mexico's Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco, left, and Carlos Cordera Frazen, right, the director of Mexico City's soon-to-open Mario Moreno Cantinflas Museum, ceremonially unveil a plaque commemorating the iconic Mexican actor's birthplace. In the center is a Cantinflas impersonator. (Alice Moritz/Cuartoscuro)
A museum dedicated to treasured Mexican comedic actor Cantinflas will open later this year in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, officials said Tuesday at the unveiling of a Cantinflas mural in another part of the capital.
The museum, which officials said will fully open by the end of the year, will pay homage to Cantinflas’ legacy in Mexican cinematic and cultural history. Currently referred to as the Mario Moreno Cantinflas Museum, it will include exhibition areas, modern technology, a cafeteria and a souvenir shop.
Officials announced the upcoming opening of the Mario Moreno Cantinflas museum at the unveiling of a street art mural dedicated to the iconic actor in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood. The artist responsible for the mural, known as Yuka, is second from right. (Alice Moritz/Cuartoscuro)
The museum dedicated to the Mexican film legend will be housed in a facility to be called “La Carpa Valentina,” in tribute to a popular vaudeville theater (which were called carpas, or tents) in Mexico City where a young Cantinflas honed his comedic skills before gaining wider recognition.
Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno Reyes — known simply as Mario Moreno before his “Cantinflas” moniker took hold — was born 113 years ago this week, on Aug. 12, 1911. He died in 1993 at age 81.
The colorful, new Cantinflas mural unveiled Tuesday is located in the capital’s Guerrero neighborhood, at 182 Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas, the building where the Mexican icon grew up. The mural was painted by the prominent Mexican street artist known as “Yuka,” whose works also appear in Germany, Italy, Japan and Argentina. The site of the new mural also includes a Cantinflas plaque, which was affixed in 2013 to pay tribute to the actor’s birthplace.
Officials said the museum will initially open in late September and will display 777 pieces related to Cantinflas, such as clothes, scripts, letters, articles and film clips. That number was chosen in deference to the famous Cantinflas film “El patrullero 777,” or “Patrolman 777.”
Sporting a distinctive, whimsical mustache that was part of the Mexican actor’s overall comic persona, Cantinflas had a film career that spanned from his heyday in the 1940s and 1950s up through the early 1980s. Sometimes he is referred to as “the Mexican Charlie Chaplin.”
He mostly portrayed hapless but well-intentioned characters, such as a patrolman who wants to keep order but finds himself in increasingly absurd (and funny) situations. His best films are known for their witty dialogue, physical comedy and social commentary.
Un Día Común | El Barrendero (1982) | Now Español
A clip of Mexican actor Cantinflas in his final role, in 1982’s “El Barrendero” (The Sweeper).
The mural unveiled on Tuesday by the Tourism Ministry shows Cantinflas as four of his most famous characters: the aforementioned patrolman, the affable but perplexed Chato from “Ahí está el detalle” (“It’s All in the Details”), the rapid-speaking but nonsensical Professor Pancito López in “El profe,” and a lovable but woebegone street sweeper in “El barrendero.”
The legendary Mexican actor received perhaps an even bigger honor in 1992, when the Royal Spanish Academy added to its dictionary the verb cantinflear, alluding to someone who expresses himself by talking a lot but saying nothing — as Cantinflas regularly did in his movies.
Another honor will occur later this month, when a national lottery ticket dedicated to Cantinflas will be issued for the Aug. 25 drawing.
López Obrador styles himself as an anti-corruption crusader, while MCCI also says it is committed to reducing corruption in Mexico. But their common causes have not resulted in them seeing eye to eye. (lopezobrador.org.mx)
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday that he will send a letter to United States President Joe Biden to complain about U.S. government funding of Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), a civil society organization he regards as an opponent of his administration.
He also said that the Foreign Affairs Ministry will send a diplomatic note to the U.S. government about the same issue.
This is the second time that AMLO has raised the issue of the United States’ funding of MCCI, saying it is “outrageous” that the U.S. finance a group “that opposes a legal, legitimate government.” (Moisés Pablo/Cuartoscuro)
The reason, López Obrador explained at his morning press conference, is that “we believe that the United States government is openly interfering in matters that solely correspond to the sovereignty of our country.”
In “an act of interventionism that violates our sovereignty,” the United States Embassy in Mexico has financed the anti-graft group since 2018 with funds supplied by the U.S. Agency for International Development, López Obrador said at the time.
The U.S. government subsequently issued a memorandum in which it underscored its commitment to fighting corruption, including by “increasing support to grow the capacity of civil society, the media, state and local bodies, international partners, and other oversight and accountability actors.”
López Obrador’s announcement on Wednesday that he will write to Biden came a day after he once again railed against U.S. funding of MCCI, a group founded by businessman Claudio X. González that has exposed alleged corruption in the current government.
“It’s outrageous … that a government that is a friend, a neighbor, is financing a group that opposes a legal, legitimate government. What’s that called? Interventionism, yes,” the president said.
“… How can they maintain good relations on one side … and at the same time give money to [Mexican government] opponents to slander us? Why such vulgar politicking of throwing a stone and hiding the hand? Why this double discourse, this double standard? Why this hypocrisy?” López Obrador said.
He asserted that the United States is also funding groups opposed to governments in other countries and described the practice as a “bad custom.”
“… The United States government should stop this, it makes them look very bad. Then they complain why there is antipathy [toward the U.S. government] … it’s because of that,” he said.
“… And the other thing is [they should] stop blaming Mexico and other countries for their problems, like drug use. Do you know of any United States government plan to combat the growing use of drugs among young people? Do you know of anything? There is nothing,” López Obrador said.
UIF: MCCI has received 96.7 million pesos from the US Embassy since 2018
The head of the federal government’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) told López Obrador’s press conference on Wednesday that MCCI received 96.74 million pesos (US $5.1 million) from the United States Embassy in Mexico between late August 2018 and late January 2024.
Pablo Gómez also presented information about large donations MCCI has received from private organizations in the United States, including the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Pablo Gómez revealed on Wednesday that MCCI received US $5.1 million via the U.S. Embassy between late August 2018 and late January 2024. (Rogelio Morales/Cuartoscuro)
In addition, he said that companies and individuals in Mexico have donated just over 299 million pesos (US $15.8 million) to MCCI since 2016.
All told, MCCI has received a sum of 502.58 million pesos (US $26.6 million) in donations since 2016, Gómez said.
The organization, led by María Amparo Casar since 2020, was founded in 2015.
Laws governing donations to NGOs could be changed, says AMLO
López Obrador said Wednesday that he will ask the government’s Tax Prosecutor’s Office and the federal tax agency SAT to carry out a review and prepare a report on donations made to organizations such as MCCI.
“We still have time to make some modifications, to present bills so that campaigns against the interests of the majority of Mexicans are not carried out with the people’s own resources because when tax-deductible donations are made that’s money that doesn’t reach the public treasury and can’t be used for the development of the country for the benefit of all Mexicans,” he said.
The money that would have been paid as tax to the government is instead used for “factional purposes,” López Obrador said.
Why does AMLO have a vendetta against MCCI?
López Obrador styles himself as an anti-corruption crusader, while MCCI also says it is committed to reducing corruption in Mexico. But their common causes have not resulted in them seeing eye to eye.
MCCI has rankled the president because it has published various reports alleging that the current government is plagued by corruption.
MCCI founder Claudio X. González and director María Amparo Casar in 2019. (Victoria Valtierra/Cuartoscuro)
On Tuesday, he said that the organization is “participating in a social war against our movement and the president of Mexico.”
“We maintain that they are financing the complete cost of the internet campaign with the slogan ‘AMLO Narco,’ no — ´Presidente narco‘ or something like that, ‘narcopresidente,'” López Obrador said.
The libelous nickname caught on early this year after ProPublica, Deutsche Welle and Insight Crime all published reports saying that people working for López Obrador’s 2006 presidential campaign received between US $2 million and $4 million from drug traffickers affiliated with the Beltrán-Leyva Organization and the Sinaloa Cartel.
The New York Times subsequently published allegations that people close to López Obrador, including his sons, received drug money after he took office in late 2018.
Mexico's first lady, Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, a scholar and author, presented her new book, "Silent Feminism" to a supportive crowd Tuesday in Mexico City's main square, the Zócalo. (Daniel Augusto/ Cuartoscuro)
Mexico’s “first lady” Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller presented her new book, “Silent Feminism,” in front of a supportive crowd in the Zócalo on Tuesday, a crowd that included her husband, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
During the presentation, Gutiérrez declared, “As I entered the public eye, due to circumstances outside of my own doing, I will leave the scene silently,” insisting she’ll “live the rest of my life with characteristic prudence.”
Supporters of President López Obrador brought a banner of the president and the first lady to the Zócalo for Gutiérrez Müller’s presentation of her book, “Silent Feminism.” (Daniel Augusto/Cuartoscuro)
Journalist Pedro Miguel described the book, whose full title is “Feminismo silencioso: Reflexiones desde el yo, el nosotros, el aquí y el ahora” (“Silent feminism: Reflections about the I, the us, the here and now”), as “vexing and haunting.”
Miguel said the book seeks to resolve tensions that arose around Gutiérrez’s political and social status and her determination to not take advantage of her family connections or her husband’s office.
“She found herself in a situation of protagonism [i.e., unwanted limelight] that she did not seek,” Miguel said.
“Silent feminism is yours and mine,” Gutiérrez writes in the book. “We don’t need to have a larger discussion to know that we deserve equality, solidarity and opportunity.”
Gutiérrez’s book analyzes fundamental notions of feminism while also redefining three critical concepts of the term silent feminism: silence as a form of expression, the theory of transference (from psychoanalysis) and the notion of resistance.
Gutiérrez is a journalist and academic with a PhD in literary theory. Her published works have primarily focused on historical and philosophical themes.
The position of “first lady” is not formally recognized in the Mexican political system; presidential wives have typically been limited to serving as the titular head of the National System for Integral Family Development (DIF), a government-funded family welfare institution.
However, she’s occasionally gotten peripherally involved in political life, making news in 2021 after she posted a presumed warning on Facebook to Campeche Governor Layla Sansores about having appointed a new Cabinet member whose social media account in 2020 had made a post calling Gutiérrez and President López Obrador “imbeciles.”
Gutiérrez did offer some political advice during the presentation.
With President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum in attendance, along with designated members of her Cabinet and members of López Obrador’s Cabinet, Gutiérrez urged those listening to “never forget where you come from, and pay heed to the public.”
University of Oregon student Aedan Seaver examines the murky world of Mexican cockfighting. (Juan José Estrada Serafín/Cuartoscuro)
This article was written by Aedan Seaver, a journalism student at the University of Oregon program, as part of a study abroad program in Querétaro, Mexico. Our CEO recently met with the students and the MND editorial team reviewed and selected the top articles to publish.
An enormous, severed bull’s head loomed out of the semi-darkness, looking very much alive from its mount above Quique Bandin’s living room mantle. Posters of bullfighters filled the walls and chicken-shaped trophies sat proudly on the coffee table — reminders of a uniquely Mexican family history.
Bandin, whose father was a bullfighter and chicken breeder, has spent his life raising and selling gamecocks — fighting roosters — to be used in cockfights worldwide. Although banned in many countries, the ancient tradition of cockfighting persists both legally and illegally as entertainment and as a piece of cultural heritage.
Fighting cocks are still highly prized in many parts of Mexico. (María Ruiz)
A cockfight unfolds in an enclosed, circular arena, called a “palenque” in Latin America. After the roosters are weighed and the bets are placed, judges and spectators look on as the birds peck and claw each other, often assisted by metal spurs fastened to their legs. The duel ends when one rooster is killed, badly injured, or withdrawn by its handler.
According to Bandin, the Mexican tradition of cockfighting can be traced to the 16th century Spanish colonization of Latin America. Today, it is simply a social reality. “These chickens have been here fighting since the time of our ancestors,” Bandin said. “Through the years, the culture has naturally strengthened and grown intertwined with the music and festivity of the local fairs.”
A 2018 review of Mexican gallistics — cockfighting — led by anthropologist Lorena Luna Rodríguez outlines a link between “combat birds and the fighting spirit,” associating gamecocks with “the incitement in man of the need to fight until the last drop of blood is lost.”
Although legal in many Mexican states, Bandin said cockfighting tournaments and the associated gambling are heavily regulated. “You have to get permits from the government and meet various requirements but this means safe, secure events,” Bandin said.
Like many blood sports, cockfighting attracts big money – and big danger along with it. (Diego Simón Sánchez/Cuartoscuro)
Clandestine cockfights, according to Bandin, can be dangerous. “If you play by the rules, everyone has fun,” he said. “You go to other places and there are bad people — money launderers and drug dealers, gambling lots of money.” For this reason, Bandin said he’s a proponent of sanctioned, well-organized cockfights, and that he only sells the animals he raises to trusted, credentialed buyers.
The Humane Society of the United States considers cockfighting an unnecessarily violent sport and a breach of animal rights. They point out that “even the birds who aren’t killed during cockfights suffer terribly,” citing steroid injection, separation from other animals and poor living conditions.
Bandin pointed out the hypocrisy of such U.S.-oriented perspectives by comparing cockfighting to factory farming. “Nowadays, the chickens you eat are raised in five weeks and then they’re in the supermarket,” Bandin said, “without ever seeing a ray of sunshine, without ever climbing a tree or running around scratching for worms in the dirt.”
Bandin’s gamecocks, he said, enjoy relative freedom as they mature naturally. They aren’t sold for combat until they reach two to three years of age. According to Bandin, little training is necessary, as fighting breeds are naturally aggressive. “It’s not what you feed the cocks or how you bathe them or anything,” he said. “It’s in their blood – it comes with their race. Like a fighting bull.”
