In addition to the 18 deaths, 20 people — including six children and the driver—were taken to a nearby hospital, according to the Nayarit Attorney General's Office.
Eighteen people are dead after a bus traveling from Mexico City to the Mexico-United States border veered off a highway in Nayarit and plunged into a ravine early Thursday.
Twenty other people, including six children and the driver, were taken to hospital in Tepic, according to a statement issued by the Nayarit Attorney General’s Office (FGE) Thursday afternoon.
Authorities have arrested the bus’s driver, who they believe was driving faster than the highway’s speed limit. (Government of Nayarit)
The FGE said that the accident occurred at about 3 a.m. on the new Libramiento Norte highway in an area just north of Tepic called Barranca Blanca. A bus owned by the Elite bus company with approximately 42 people on board fell into a ravine that is approximately 40 meters deep, the statement said.
The position of the bus in the ravine made for a challenging rescue operation for emergency services personnel.
The FGE said that the deceased passengers haven’t been identified but reported that most were foreigners and that some of them were heading to Tijuana, Baja California, to cross into the United States. It said that 10 men, five women, two girls and a boy died in the crash.
The FGE said that people from India, the Dominican Republic and African nations were on board the bus, which is believed to have been traveling above the 80 km/h speed limit when it reached a curve, at which point it lost contact with the road.
The Nayarit accident comes not quite a month after a July 5 highway bus crash in Magdalena, Peñasco, Oaxaca, that killed 29 people. (Social Media)
In addition to being hospitalized, the 42-year-old driver has been “detained as the probable culprit of the events,” the Attorney General’s Office said. He began driving in Guadalajara — located about 220 kilometers southeast of the site of the accident — after relieving another driver.
The driver who drove the first leg of the journey, a man from the Dominican Republic and a man from Mazatlán were among 14 people who gave accounts of the accident to authorities, they said. The FGE said that the bus was in “regular mechanical condition without damage in its brake system,” but its tires were worn.
The accident occurred less than a month after a bus crash in the mountainous Mixteca region of Oaxaca left a death toll of 29 people. Seventeen people were killed in February when a bus transporting migrants from South America and Central America crashed in the state of Puebla.
Some are up in arms about the new government-issued textbooks that will replace the current public school curriculum. (SEP)
Just weeks before students return to school from their summer break, a fierce battle has broken out over the new textbooks they will be issued for the upcoming academic year, with one leading opposition figure asserting that they contain “dangerous ideological content” and “big political lies” and calling on parents to throw them out or destroy them, a move that prompted ruling party governors to compare him to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Despite widespread criticism and a court order against the printing of the Education Ministry’s new primary and secondary school textbooks, the federal government currently remains committed to their distribution.
President López Obrador with Leticia Ramírez Amaya, who was appointed Education Minister in September. (AMLO/Twitter)
President López Obrador said Tuesday that the books will be in schools for the start of the new school year on Aug. 28, and asserted Thursday that they are “well-made,” although he conceded that they “might be perfectible.”
“… There is nothing to fear, nothing to worry about. The books are very well-made by specialists, educators, but above all teachers participated [in their creation],” the president told reporters at his Thursday morning press conference.
Marko Cortés, national president of the National Action Party (PAN), other opposition lawmakers, a prominent parents’ organization and some academics have a very different view.
“The new books that we’ve been able to review are riddled with errors,” says Alma Maldonado, an academic who created an online petition against the textbooks that had attracted over 130,000 signatures by 5 p.m. Thursday.
Alma Maldonado (center) with PRI federal deputy Ana Lilia Herrera (right) at a press conference about the new textbooks on Thursday. (Alma Maldonado/Twitter)
Among the other criticisms made by Maldonado, an academic at the Center for Research and Advanced studies at the National Polytechnic Institute, is that traditional subject textbooks have been replaced with books that focus on loosely-defined topics such as “our knowledge,” “multiple languages” and “classroom projects.”
“In this new [education] scheme, children don’t have books for Spanish, mathematics, natural sciences, geography, biology, health and universal and Mexican history. They won’t learn the logical reasoning of mathematics, they won’t deepen their knowledge of Spanish. The children will now supposedly learn doing projects that teachers choose from the new books,” she wrote on the change.org petition website.
Irma Villalpando, an educator with a doctorate in pedagogy from the National Autonomous University, told the newspaper El País that the new textbooks have a range of shortcomings including conceptual errors and a lack of mathematical content. The deficiencies collectively amount to an “enormous backward step” in the education of Mexican students, she said.
Córtes, national leader of the PAN since late 2018 and a federal lawmaker before then, delivered a scathing assessment of the new Education Ministry (SEP) textbooks in a video message posted to social media.
PAN president Marko Cortés has accused the government of turning schools into “centers of indoctrination.” (Marko Cortés/Twitter)
“Mexico is living through one of the greatest tragedies in its history, not just because of the violence that reigns in the whole country. I’m referring to the tragedy of basic education,” he said, referring to the schooling of students up to the age of 15.
“… The government is rejecting mathematics and science and seeking to turn schools into centers of indoctrination, into temples of adoration for López Obrador and his political vision,” Córtes said.
As his video shows a superimposed image of a textbook activity in which fifth grade students are required to make a model of the male reproductive system and “simulate the process of erection and ejaculation,” the PAN leader asserts that the government hasn’t taken the opinions of parents into account and is seeking to impose a “view on childhood sexuality.”
The textbooks were written “secretly” and contain “errors of all kinds, dangerous ideological content for our children and big political lies,” Cortés said before describing them as “primers of ideological propaganda.”
“… We demand that you comply with the court order and stop the distribution of the textbooks,” he said, directing a message to the president and the government he leads.
“And to all the parents of the country, in the face of the probable failure to comply of López Obrador, we urge you to throw out the textbooks that are given to your kids, or at least remove the pages that you consider inappropriate for the education of your children,” Córtes said.
In a radio interview on Wednesday, the PAN chief called on parents to “completely destroy” the textbooks or tear out the pages they don’t agree with.
State governors who represent the ruling Morena party and its allies responded to Cortés’ radio interview remarks in a statement in which they compared him to both Hitler and former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
“Not much could be expected of the country’s conservative right, they unmasked themselves and were exposed as the retrogrades they are,” the governors said before noting that the PAN’s national leader proposed the destruction of the textbooks set to be distributed to Mexican students later this month.
“It’s worth remembering that the attitude [in favor of] the destruction of books was promoted by and acted on by the most evil figures in recent history. … Adolf Hitler ordered books to be burned 90 years ago; the dictator Pinochet in Chile did the same,” said the governors of 21 states and the mayor of Mexico City.
The destruction of books has been advocated at times when the goal was to “prevent the democratic, cultural and humanistic progress of society,” they said.
The president asserted that the textbooks will not prevented from reaching schools in time for the start of classes on Aug. 28. (Gob MX)
At his morning press conference on Thursday, López Obrador claimed that most critics of the textbooks “haven’t even read them,” and contended that the criticism is politically motivated. He asserted Tuesday that there is no court ruling that prevents the distribution of the textbooks, even though a Mexico City administrative court – in response to an injunction request filed by the National Union of Parents – ordered SEP in May to suspend the printing of them.
Education Minister Leticia Ramírez said Tuesday that SEP hadn’t been “officially notified” of that court order. She said in a video message that the ministry will comply with the order after notification of same, but it may be inconsequential as textbooks have already been printed.
Ramírez said that the new textbooks are arriving at “regional warehouses” and will soon be in schools. The “new family” of books are the work of thousands of “innovative teachers” as well as education experts and illustrators, she said.
The books “constitute a fundamental change [in education] because they favor work through projects to promote collaboration, active learning, creativity and critical thinking,” Ramírez said.
“… Students will learn from a humanist and scientific perspective,” she said, adding that they will also be taught about gender equality, diversity, social justice and inclusion.
While the war of words over the textbooks continues, the Supreme Court will have to decide whether it can settle the controversy as the Mexico City administrative court that ordered the Education Ministry to suspend the production of the books referred an appeal filed by SEP to the nation’s top court.
Education Minister Leticia Ramírez says the textbooks teach from a “humanist and scientific perspective.” (Leticia Ramírez Amaya/Twitter)
Controversy over school textbooks is not a new phenomenon in Mexico. The National Union of Parents in 2018 accused the previous federal government of attempting to indoctrinate children through sexual education content in textbooks for first-year middle school students.
The current government, which introduced a new education model after repealing its predecessor’s education reform, last year advised against against the use of words and concepts such as “educational quality, competition, efficiency [and] productivity” in textbooks because of their alleged association with neoliberalism – a frequent target of López Obrador’s criticism – and in 2021, told textbook authors to “eliminate authoritarian discourse” that appears in existing texts.
Writer Ann Marie Jackson spoke with the filmmakers and lawyers behind this award-winning documentary about the crisis of asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. (Courtesy)
A documentary particularly well-received at the Guanajuato International Film Festival last week was the award-winning“Las Abogadas: Attorneys on the Front Lines of the Migrant Crisis”, directed by Victoria Bruce.
Filmed during 2019 to 2021, “Las Abogadas” follows four female immigration attorneys who worked at the U.S.-Mexico border as the Trump administration upended established policies for refugees and asylum seekers prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Attorney Charlene-D’Cruz (right) accompanies a Cuban asylum seeker across the U.S.-Border. (Courtesy)
Director Victoria Bruce wanted to bring a humanitarian perspective to the border crisis, as rhetoric in Washington felt like it was reaching a fever pitch, and chose to center her film on four fearless female immigration attorneys – Rebecca Eichler, Charlene D’Cruz, Mulu Alemayehu, and Jodi Goodwin – all of whom granted her full access to their lives and legal practices.
Eichler is a retired attorney and first-generation U.S. citizen of Chinese and German descent. She and D’Cruz (who came to the U.S. from India as a teenager) drove a VW Bus to intercept a migrant caravan in central Mexico in 2018 and offer pro bono legal aid.
Alemayehu is an Ethiopian-American who came to the U.S. as a political refugee and fulfilled her dream of studying law to help other victims of persecution, and Goodwin is a Texas-based attorney known for her work reuniting separated migrant families. This diverse group of lawyers worked to help asylum-seekers find safety in the United States, in the midst of rapidly-changing policies and political conflict.
The film also features the women’s clients, such as Oscar, who fled Honduras to escape gang violence and government corruption. While living in a refugee camp in Matamoros, he helped D’Cruz identify vulnerable migrants who should be allowed to enter the United States under a humanitarian exemption to the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) implemented by the Trump Administration in January 2019.
Attorney Jodi Goodwin gives a press conference in 2021 when the Biden administration announced the end of the “Remain in Mexico” policy. (Courtesy)
Under the MPP, colloquially known as “Remain in Mexico,” asylum-seekers were forced to wait in unsafe camps on the Mexican side of the border for their chance to apply for asylum in the United States, and even throughout the ensuing immigration proceedings.
In the film, we learn the story of people like Yodalys, who fled Cuba in search of political asylum. She was repeatedly turned back from the U.S. border, despite the fact that she was going blind from a parasitic infection and in desperate need of medical treatment, and had family members in the U.S. Only when the attorneys took her story to the press was she finally granted a humanitarian exemption.The documentary also tracks Cameroonian refugees Raisa and Martine, who flew to Ecuador to escape civil war, and then walked thousands of miles to Tijuana, a year-long journey.
Gisselle, another Honduran, left her home to rejoin her mother, who had already fled to Mexico. In a tragic accident, Gisselle fell from the top of La Bestia (“The Beast”), the infamous freight train on top of which many migrants risk their lives trying to enter the U.S., and both of her legs had to be amputated. During the film, she recuperates at Albergue ABBA, the only migrant shelter in Mexico equipped to treat amputees and provide them with prostheses.
In March 2020, with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) under President Trump invoked Title 42, an obscure clause of the Public Health Service Act of 1944 that grants the ability to take emergency action to prohibit migrants from entering the country in order to prevent the introduction of communicable diseases. With the border effectively closed, the four attorneys struggled to find ways to continue their work.
While the 2020 U.S. Presidential election brought hope and joy for the attorneys as some of their clients were allowed into the United States, the crisis hasn’t abated.
“In some ways, things are worse now than they were when Trump was in office,” executive producer Careen Shannon said to me. “Back then, so many people were up in arms about the situation. The United Nations spoke out against the Trump administration’s immigration policies, including family separation and the Migrant Protection Protocols, aka the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program. The Red Cross was there at the border, along with many nonprofits. Then when Biden came into office, initially there was this feeling that things were going to be OK, and so everybody left to move on to the next crisis.”
Gangs have reportedly filled the void, running the camps and terrorizing their residents, including kidnapping girls and women. “It is the most lawless place … run by gangs,” said director Victoria Bruce. “In that situation, desperate people can turn against each other. We saw Haitians being attacked by some Central Americans. They were fighting over incredibly limited resources.”
The Biden Administration twice tried to cancel MPP, but was prevented from doing so by the Supreme Court. In August 2022, the program was finally terminated. Title 42 remained in effect until President Biden lifted the COVID-19 public health emergency in May of this year.
With the lifting of Title 42, however, new restrictions immediately followed. The Biden administration decreed that migrants are ineligible for asylum if they cross the border illegally, or fail to seek asylum in another country, such as Mexico, on their route. Furthermore, migrants can only apply for asylum by scheduling an appointment via a government app called CBP One.
“The border is effectively closed,” said Eichler. “It was closed under Trump, and it still is. Think of a castle with a moat and a drawbridge. Revoking Title 42 is like lowering the drawbridge, but if there’s a big, heavy door at the end of the bridge—and these new restrictions lock that door—refugees still won’t get in.”
A recent court ruling provides a glimmer of hope for migrants stuck in the camps. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar ruled that the Biden Administration’spolicies violated the law by endangering migrants fleeing harm and preventing them from seeking asylum. According to federal law, it does not matter how asylum seekers entered the country if they say they are fleeing persecution. The judge stated that the U.S. government also cannot compel migrants to seek asylum in countries that lack robust asylum systems or are unsafe. In Mexico, for instance, he wrote that migrants are at “extraordinary risk of violence,” including rape and kidnapping for ransom.
The Biden Administration is appealing Judge Tigar’s ruling, but refugee advocates hope it holds.
“I want to make the point,” said Eichler, “that what is happening is completely illegal. Like Charlene D’Cruz says in the film, all migrants have the right, even if they cross the border irregularly, to present themselves to U.S. authorities and apply for asylum. Forcing these people to apply for asylum in other countries first, and to wait indefinitely in Mexico, is contrary to U.S. law and international law.”
The attorneys believe that a solution to the border crisis must also include an effective guest worker program.
“Many people at the border won’t qualify for asylum, but that doesn’t mean it is safe to go back to the countries they fled. It also doesn’t mean they might not have something to offer the country,” said Shannon. “We’re missing an essential workers program … What’s more, if it weren’t for immigration, we would have a negative birth rate, which, as the governments of Japan and certain European countries can tell you, brings with it a host of economic and social problems.”
The attorneys hope to humanize the border crisis and decrease the fear of migrants. “They’re fleeing terrible situations in their home countries, and then the journey is horrific,” said Bruce. “But when they get to the U.S., most work very hard to build good lives. Opportunity is the great equalizer.”
“What I hoped to accomplish with this film,” Bruce continued, “is to wake people up to the fact that while the refugee crisis may feel like this vast unsolvable issue, it is something that can be helped one person at a time. Everywhere we put the film in front of an audience, it has changed hearts. It has informed. It has brought people to the table who want to help.”
“Las Abogadas” was produced by Laura Seltzer-Duny, executive produced by Careen Shannon, and edited by Simon Efokoa—one of the Cameroonian refugees featured in the story. The movie also includes an original song entitled “Far Away” by San Miguel de Allende’s own Liah Alonso and Carl Cane. For more information about the film and to access resources for helping refugees in need, visit: www.lasabogadasfilm.com.
Based in San Miguel de Allende, Ann Marie Jackson is a writer and NGO leader who previously worked for the U.S. Department of State. Her novel “The Broken Hummingbird” will be out in October. Ann Marie can be reached through her website, annmariejacksonauthor.com.
At stake is an average US $5 billion a year in corn exports to Mexico. Mexico says it's concerned about GM corn affecting citizens' health and contaminating Mexican native crops. The US says that Mexico's concerns are not based on good science. (Cedrssa)
The United States has rejected a proposal by Mexico to collaborate researching the health effects of genetically modified (GM) corn as tensions heighten over Mexico’s impending GM ban.
At stake is an average US $5 billion a year in corn exports to Mexico.
The Lopez Obrador administration’s turn away from GM corn imports has been happening simultaneously with a government drive to encourage national food self-sufficiency by convincing farmers to cultivate more native corn and other basic staple crops and encouraging homegrown consumption via an exorbitant tariff on the types of corn that’s typically imported. (Andrea Murcia/Cuartoscuro)
The two countries discussed the request during a visit by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack but failed to reach an agreement, Mexican Deputy Agriculture Minister Victor Suárez told Reuters on Wednesday.
“They did not want to establish a period in which the two parties agree to carry out impact studies on animal health and human health,” Suárez said. “Their science is the word of God. That is not science, that is ideology.”
The U.S. refusal comes as the two countries edge closer to a formal trade dispute overMexico’s decision to phase out imports of GM corn for human consumption by January 2024 and to gradually replace GM corn imports for animal feed. Mexico asserts that GM corn harms native biodiversity and may pose risks to human health.
Mexico, who currently buys around US $5 billion of corn from the U.S. each year — consistently putting Mexico into the top 3 list of importers of U.S. corn worldwide — mostly purchases GM yellow corn for animal feed.
“If we defend ourselves, we think we are going to win,” Deputy Minister Victor Suárez told Reuters about the trade dispute. (Presidencia)
The U.S. claims that Mexico’s GM ban violates the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA) and will hurt U.S. farmers.
Mexico argues that the ban is unlikely to impact trade in the short term, as Mexico is already self-sufficient in the non-GM white corn used for staple food products like tortillas. In July, the Health Ministry issued a new proposal toaccelerate the ban on GM corn in tortillas, which could come into effect within two months.
Last month, Mexican Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro met with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and her Canadian counterpart Mary Ng to discuss USMCA-related issues but failed to resolve the question of Mexico’s GM corn ban.
Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro attending one of the many meetings between the U.S. and Mexico to discuss the dispute over Mexico’s impending GM corn ban. (Raquel Buenrostro/Twitter)
“We stand behind the safety of our agricultural products that have been enjoying a very robust trade between our three countries for several decades now and will continue to pursue our rights and interests,” Tai said at the time.
If the conflict is not resolved within 75 days from the consultation’s initiation, in this case, on August 16, the U.S. can refer the case to a dispute settlement panel. If that panel were to rule against Mexico, the country could be forced to change its policy or face heavy tariffs. But Mexico has shown no sign of backing down.
“If they establish the panel, we will defend ourselves. And if we defend ourselves, we think we are going to win,” Deputy Minister Suarez told Reuters on Wednesday.
Guerra — who has swum the English Channel, the nine bays of Huatulco, Oaxaca, and, last month, the Strait of Gibraltar — will swim 48 kilometers around Manhattan on Saturday, part of a project to prove women over 50 can stay physically fit. (Patricia Guerra/Twitter)
Mexican swimmer Patricia Guerra plans to swim 48 kilometers around Manhattan on Saturday, a month after breaking the women’s world record for swimming across the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco.
The 51-year-old athlete flew to New York on Wednesday to prepare for her latest challenge, which she aims to complete in under nine hours.
Guerra, 51, is a former triathlete who eventually shifted to taking on ocean-swimming challenges, starting with the English Channel in 2004. (Patricia Guerra/Twitter)
“The idea is to go around the 20 bridges on the island; in some sections there will be a favorable current, and thanks to that I will be able to swim at a speed of up to 6 km/h,” she told reporters.
“I will concentrate more on time than distance. It will be the way my head will deal with those 48 kilometers; do not pay attention to the distance.”
On July 8, Guerra swam the Strait of Gibraltar from Tarifa, Spain, to Tangier, Morocco, with a time of 2:43:04, beating the previous women’s record set by 21-year-old Nathalie Pohl in 2016.
Both swims are part of her 50 + 1: 2023 project, which aims to show that women over 50 do not have to lose their physical fitness.
Guerra, left, also is a philanthropist who founded her own foundation to support cancer-prevention and nutritional programs in disadvantaged sectors of Mexico. (Bernandino Hernández/Cuartoscuro)
“If you have hormonal and physical monitoring, you can continue chasing your dreams,” she said before taking on the Strait of Gibraltar.
Guerra is a former triathlete who has completed many strenuous open-water swims in her career, including the English Channel in 2004 and the nine bays of Huatulco, Oaxaca, in the Mexican Pacific, in 2006.
In 2007, she sustained multiple fractures after she was struck by a whale in southern Chile’s Strait of Magellan but still returned to competitive swimming.
She is also a dedicated philanthropist, who has supported numerous cancer-prevention and nutritional programs in disadvantaged sectors of Mexico through her Patricia Guerra Foundation.
An epidemiological report by the Health Ministry revealed there to be 300 cases of leprosy in Mexico nationwide. There are 12 municipalities in seven states with more than one leprosy case per 10,000 residents.
Three hundred people across 28 states are currently being treated for leprosy, the federal Health Ministry reported Tuesday.
Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s Disease, is a contagious infection caused by slow-growing bacteria called Mycobacterium leprae.
Leprosy is caused by a fungal bacteria. The disease is contagious but requires prolonged close contact to spread. (Department of Pathology, Calicut Medical College/Wikimedia Commons)
The Health Ministry said in an epidemiological report that leprosy cases have been registered in all states except Tlaxcala, Baja California, Chiapas and Sonora. Authorities in the final three states haven’t provided any information about the incidence of the disease, the ministry said.
It also said there are 12 municipalities in seven states with more than one leprosy case per 10,000 residents. The so-called “priority municipalities for leprosy” are:
Tuxcacuesco, San Sebastián del Oeste and San Cristóbal de la Barranca in Jalisco.
Nocupétaro and Nuevo Urecho in Michoacán.
Tlaltizapan in Morelos.
Lampazos in Nuevo León.
El Espinal, Santiago Niltepec and San Miguel Chimalapa in Oaxaca.
Choix in Sinaloa.
Tunkas in Yucatán.
The Health Ministry said that “intervention in these municipalities aimed at interrupting the chain of transmission” must be prioritized.
Illustration of leprosy-infected cells. Overall, leprosy in Mexico has been trending downward, declining 98% between 1989 and 2022, according to Mexico’s Health Ministry. (Wellcome/CC BY 4.0)
It said that 234 of the 300 cases are multibacillary leprosy, meaning that patients have various lesions on their skin, while the remaining 66 cases are paucibacillary leprosy, meaning that patients have just one or a few lesions.
According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “prolonged, close contact with someone with untreated Hansen’s disease over many months is needed to become infected.”
“… Leprosy can be cured with antibiotic treatment. Once someone starts treatment for Hansen’s disease, they can no longer spread the disease to other people,” the CDC said.
“… Leprosy was once feared as a highly contagious and devastating disease, but now we know it doesn’t spread easily and treatment is very effective. However, if left untreated, the nerve damage can result in crippling of hands and feet, paralysis, and blindness.”
Leprosy cases in Mexico declined 98% between 1989 and 2022, the Health Ministry said, adding that the country remains in the process of eliminating the disease as a public health problem.
Over 16,000 cases were reported in each of the four years between 1989 and 1992 before the incidence of leprosy declined significantly in the later years of the 1990s. Case numbers dropped below 1,000 in 2004 and have remained below that level since then. There were 618 cases across 24 states at the end of last year, the Health Ministry said.
Health Ministry official Fátima Luna and academic Patricia Guadarrama, both quoted in an El País newspaper report, say that leprosy is sometimes not diagnosed in a timely manner in Mexico. The lack of timely diagnosis allows the disease to continue spreading, especially among people who live together.
The CDC said earlier this week that there were 159 leprosy cases in the United States in 2020, the most recent year for which data was studied. Almost 70% of those cases were reported in the states of Florida, California, Louisiana, Hawaii, New York and Texas.
One of the bodies was found tangled in a buoy wall built by the Texas government to prevent migrants from crossing the Rio Grande as a way of illegally entering the U.S. via Eagle Pass, Texas. (Voice of Europe)
Two bodies have been found floating in the Río Grande on the United States border, including one that was caught in a barrier of buoys installed last month on the orders of Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
In astatement on Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry (SRE) said that Mexican authorities are working to recover and identify the bodies, presumed to be migrants who were trying to cross to the United States.
The SRE also condemned the 305-meter-long buoy barrier, which was installed in July near Eagle Pass and is intended to make it more difficult for migrants to swim across.
“We reiterate the position of the Government of Mexico that the placement of chained buoys by Texas authorities is a violation of our sovereignty,” the SRE said. “We express our concern about the impact on the human rights and personal safety of migrants of these state policies, which run counter to the close collaboration between our country and the United States federal government.”
The buoy wall installed in the Rio Grande by the government of Texas.
The discovery of the bodies comes just days after the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit demanding that Texas remove the floating barrier, due to humanitarian and environmental concerns.
However, U.S. authorities stressed that the cause of the recent deaths is unclear. Only one of the bodies was found caught in the buoys, while the other was discovered about five miles upstream. Migrants drown frequently in the Rio Grande, and it is unknown whether these two deaths were connected.
“Preliminary information suggests that this individual [found caught in the buoys] drowned upstream of the sea barrier and floated toward the buoys,” said Steve McCraw, director of the Department of Public Safety. “There are personnel stationed at the sea barrier at all times in case any migrants try to cross.”
The floating barrier is the latest attempt by Texas to reinforce the border, which has also included erecting wire fences and prosecuting migrants for trespass. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has previously denounced the barrier as a “propaganda act of the Governor of Texas” and demanded it be removed.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott. (Wikimedia Commons)
At his Thursday morning press conference, AMLO reiterated his criticism of Governor Greg Abbott. “He shouldn’t act like that, it’s inhumane,” AMLO said. “Nobody should be treated like that, that’s not what good people do.”
AMLO insisted that irregular migration had already dropped by as much as 50% between May and June, before the installation of the buoys. He attributed this to the end of Title 42, the pandemic-era immigration policy that allowed the U.S. to immediately expel asylum seekers to Mexico on public health grounds.
Since Title 42 ended on May 12, Mexican and U.S. authorities have reached new agreements to offer more legal pathways for asylum seekers trying to reach the U.S. and to expand development programs in Central America and the Caribbean.
“We can’t resolve the migration problem, which has social roots, with coercive measures,” AMLO said. “Nothing is fixed by militarizing the border, installing buoys or walls.”
Mushrooms are a central ingredient on the menu at Huitzil, a restaurant in the mushroom town of San José, Oaxaca. Its owner founded the region's famous Wild Mushroom Festival. (Photos by Anna Bruce)
July to October is the season for mushrooms in the mountains of Oaxaca. Days are humid as clouds build up to an afternoon of rain. But despite the weather, people arrive at this time of the year to explore and to forage for mushrooms in the state’s cloud forest, located just a few hours from Oaxaca City.
And on the first weekend of August this year, a festival will celebrate mushroom season and the culture in the towns of San José del Pacifico and San Mateo Río Hondo.
In the misty mountains outside Oaxaca city, the rainy season brings all sorts of mushrooms to the region — edible, toxic and hallucinogenic.
“Our main mission in the Wild Mushroom Festival is to meet every year to jointly celebrate the arrival of the rainy season and, with it, the mushrooms,” says one of the festival’s founders, Ariadna Pinacho Cruz, who also runs a beautiful restaurant on the outskirts between San José and San Mateo called Huitzil.
Huitzil pays homage to the area’s mushroom culture: its open-air dining room surrounded by wooded land showcases local mushrooms in beautiful broths, alongside steak and blended with pasta.
Pinacho remembers learning how to forage and identify wild varieties from her father.
“As a child, he used to take me to the forest for a walk to look for mushrooms during the rainstorm,” she says.
Mushrooms are a big part of the culture in the mountains of Oaxaca. Ariadna Pinacho Cruz’s restaurant, Huitzil, reflects that heritage in its menu. Pinacho is also a founder of an annual festival dedicated to the region’s fungi.
The pine trees, mist, rain and mushrooms of the environment here brings “a little piece of the forest to the palate of our diners.”
Pinacho has been running the event since 2020 in collaboration with two partners, Cesar Kevin Pérez Pacheco and Erik Gasgar. The festival consists of a guided walk with local mushroom growers and mycologists. Attendees get a unforgettable encounter with the fungi kingdom and learn how they function in an ecosystem.
The Wild Mushroom Festival’s experts teach the importance of fungi as food and how it fits in with local gastronomy. They also identify the toxic fungi in the region, and discuss mushrooms’ general impact on the health sector and society.
They also teach the importance of the sacred mushrooms from the genus Psilocybe within the culture of San José.
The Oaxaca towns in which these mushrooms are abundant, like San José del Pacifico and San Mateo Río Hondo, are small, rural, tight-knit communities.
For decades, Oaxaca’s mountains have famously been a destination for pilgrims seeking to explore the “magic” properties of mushrooms thanks mainly to American amateur mycologist Robert Gordon Wasson, who traveled to Oaxaca in the 1950s to investigate rumors of a hallucinogenic variety in the region. His article in Life Magazine, “Seeking the Magic Mushroom” (1957), about his experiences at a velada (vigil) in the village of Huautla with the Mazatec healer María Sabina, inspired travelers worldwide — including many rock stars and celebrities of the era — to pursue the world of mushrooms.
San José del Pacifico didn’t become known for its mushrooms until the 1970s, when an eclipse drew visitors to this town above the clouds. As with Huautla, there is a tradition of using “magic” mushrooms. Cruz remembers trying them for the first time when she was 14.
“They are very good for curing diseases, healing the mind, spirit, soul, clearing the conscience and many more benefits,” she says. “It is a healing introspection that I do only once a year, every August 22. First I take a temazcal [an indigenous traditional sweat lodge experience], like my dad, to detoxify my body, relax and prepare myself for the medicine.”
“Later it is the taking of the sacred mushrooms in the forest to be able to connect with Mother Earth and have your own healing,” she says.
Anna Bruce is an award-winning British photojournalist based in Oaxaca, Mexico. Just some of the media outlets she has worked with include Vice, The Financial Times, Time Out, Huffington Post, The Times of London, the BBC and Sony TV. Find out more about her work at her website or visit her on social media on Instagram or on Facebook.
In just the last month, Pemex has made the news several times for spills and a deadly fire, as well as downgraded credit ratings from two major ratings agencies: Moody's Analytics and Fitch Ratings. (Moisés Pablo Nava/Cuartoscuro)
July wasn’t a great month for the state-owned oil company Pemex.
Two workers were killed in a fire that broke out on an offshore platform in the Gulf on July 7. Then on July 26, Pemex admitted that oil spilled into the same body of water from an aging underwater pipeline soon afterward. And then last Sunday — the penultimate day of the month — Pemex shut down Mexico’s largest oil-exporting terminal due to a leak, according to a report by the Bloomberg news agency.
An area near Pemex’s Nohoch-A offshore platform in Campeche, which was involved in a fire on July 7, also appears to be the site of an oil spill that Pemex has failed to report, say environmental organizations and academics. (Carlos Álvarez/Twitter)
Bloomberg reported Tuesday that Pemex closed the Yúum K’ak’ Náab floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit in the Gulf of Mexico because of a leak in one of its hose trains.
The news agency said it saw the information in a shipping report. Norwegian FPSO operator BW Offshore handed over ownership and operation of the Yúum K’ak’ Náab FPSO unit to Pemex just over a year ago.
The FPSO, located off the coast of Campeche, has storage capacity of 2.2 million barrels, with oil processing capacity of 200,000 barrels per day and gas handling capacity of 120 million cubic feet per day, according to the online business intelligence platform BNamericas.
Bloomberg noted that Pemex also shut its terminal in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, last month “after hoses loading a ship were blown off by strong winds.”
There were also problems at the Salina Cruz refinery, after strong winds interfered with tanker operations.(Presidencia/Cuartoscuro)
The string of mishaps occurred at a time of year when Pemex’s oil sales to the United States usually increase to meet demand generated by the summer vacation period, when many people go on road trips.
Bloomberg reported that the Yúum K’ak’ Náab FPSO vessel and the Salina Cruz terminal were expected to resume operations later this week. Citing a shipping report, the news agency also said that Pemex was reactivating a floating platform at the Cayos Arcas terminal off the Campeche coast on Wednesday.
The activation, Bloomberg said, “is meant to help ease a backlog of seven ships waiting to load 8 million barrels of oil for clients in the U.S., South Korea, China and India.”
Shortages of key drugs have been a serious issue in recent years. (Gobierno de la Ciudad de Mexico/Cuartoscuro)
A warehouse containing “all the medicines of the world” could be the solution to ongoing problems with the supply of pharmaceuticals, President López Obrador said Wednesday.
Speaking at his morning press conference, López Obrador said he would put his proposal to federal health authorities.
President López Obrador said he would put his proposal to stockpile medication to the federal health authorities. (lopezobrador.org.mx)
“We now have supply of over 90% in 14 states where IMSS Bienestar is operating,” he said, referring to the government’s new universal healthcare scheme.
“But to provide a definitive way out from the [medications] shortage, I’m going to propose the creation of a kind of pharmacy — a pharmacy in Mexico City, a warehouse, with all the medicines of the world in reasonable quantities,” López Obrador said.
He said the facility would serve as a “reserve bank of medications” and pledged that it would be in operation before he leaves office on Oct. 1, 2024.
“The idea is to have all the medications so that we never lack any,” López Obrador said, adding that his proposal is to have a permanent inventory of all pharmaceutical drugs including those that are “the most difficult in the world to obtain.”
In 2020, the president said he would create a state-owned company to distribute medications, medical supplies and vaccines, but it was never established. (Nastya Hulhiier/Unsplash)
He didn’t provide an estimate on the cost of creating a national stockpile of pharmaceuticals to supply public hospitals, which have faced shortages of some drugs – such as ones used to treat children with cancer and people with psychiatric disorders – during the term of the current government, which took office in late 2018.
Although López Obrador promised that the well-stocked warehouse will become a reality, if it doesn’t come to fruition it won’t be the first time that one of the president’s health sector proposals fails.
Almost two years ago, López Obrador directed Health Minister Jorge Alcocer and another senior official to resolve the problem of medication shortages “without excuses.”
AMLO’s administration has struggled to have enough of a variety of medications on hand in the country for public health service patients, who can end up waiting weeks and month for crucial medications to be available. Here, parents protest at Mexico City’s airport over a lack of chemotherapy medicines available for their children with cancer. (File foto/Cuartoscuro)
“I don’t want to hear that medications are lacking and I don’t want excuses of any kind. We can’t sleep soundly if there are no medications to treat sick people,” López Obrador said in November 2021.
“We won’t relax while there isn’t a sufficient supply of medications, … free medications, all of them, even those that are hardest to get,” he said.
López Obrador has said on repeated occasions this year that the government has purchased enough medications to cover needs for this year and 2024, but shortages of some drugs have continued to be reported.
The president has blamed shortages on distribution problems and, earlier in his government, corruption in the now-defunct purchasing system used by previous governments.
The government’s new purchasing system and insufficient spending have been cited as factors that have contributed to medication shortages during López Obrador’s presidency.
