Damon Albarn (right) is no stranger to Mexico or to Corona Capital, having performed both as a solo artist, as a member of Gorillaz and now returning as frontman for classic British group Blur. (Blur/Twitter)
The lineup for the 2023 Corona Capital music festival has been unveiled, with a distinctly Britpop and indie theme throughout the lineup.
The 13th edition of the festival opens Nov. 17 and runs until Nov. 19 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez Formula One circuit in Mexico City.
Last year’s festival was headlined by England’s Arctic Monkeys. (Twitter)
British stars of the 1980s and 1990s abound, with headline spots from Blur, Pulp and Oasis’ Noel Gallagher – playing the festival one year after his brother (and archnemesis) Liam.
Sunday’s headline act is New Wave/indie legends The Cure. Other British acts this year include Two Door Cinema Club, Hot Chip and Ben Howard.
Other main attractions include the band Thirty Seconds To Mars, fronted by Oscar-winning actor Jared Leto, as well as Canada’s Arcade Fire and Alanis Morissette.
Hidden within the extensive lineup are also a number of underrated artists, including former One Direction member Niall Horan, 2011 meme sensation Rebecca Black and moody dance producer Zhu, helping the festival to cater to a range of different musical tastes and genres.
This year’s lineup has a distinctly British flavor, with a number of Britpop superstars, alongside legends from the 1980s and 2000s. (Corona Capital)
Corona Capital recently ranked eighth on a list of most anticipated North American music festivals, in a survey conducted by UK hotel chain Premier Inn. The company based its results on the combined number of Spotify listeners from each band playing at the festival.
Corona Capital is one of the biggest music festivals of the Mexican calendar, attracting stars from across the globe. The 2022 event included Arctic Monkeys, Paramore, My Chemical Romance and Miley Cyrus.
Ticket presales began Thursday, with priority given to Citibank customers. The general sale begins Saturday at 2 p.m.
The peso has continued a trend of appreciation against the US dollar, reaching a new 7-year high this week. (Mario Jasso / Cuartoscuro.com)
The recent appreciation of the Mexican peso against the US dollar has been a topic of much debate and discussion – even distress! – for anyone living in Mexico.
The “superpeso”, which reached a new 7-year high against the dollar this week, does make daily purchases bought using foreign currency more expensive. From an individual expat’s perspective, it seems the recent peso appreciation is not good. But perhaps a bit of context and history is important here.
The peso to US dollar exchange rate is shown above from 2013 to 2023, starting around 12 to 1 in 2013, and weakening to as high as 25 to 1 in 2020. (Macrotrends)
The first time I came to Mexico in early 1996, the peso to US dollar exchange rate was 3 to 1. Just ten years ago, the exchange rate was 12 to 1. Even with the recent appreciation, the peso is still relatively much weaker than it has been when looked at from a longer time perspective.
How does this strengthening currency affect Mexican individuals and businesses? What about multinationals doing business in Mexico? And the expat population? I give a general overview and my perspective below.
Mexicans earning in pesos
The net impact of a stronger peso on Mexicans earning in pesos would generally be considered positive. Their pesos are stable for local goods and stronger for imported goods. Those with the resources to travel and spend abroad will have more purchasing power. In general terms, their standard of living would increase.
Mexico-based businesses
These businesses would see a mix of positives and negatives, depending on the type and nature of their business. Those that sell primarily in the domestic market would see little impact. Those that sell abroad would see their costs and prices relatively higher. Those that buy raw materials from abroad would be able to buy them at a lower cost, which could improve their profits.
Multinationals doing business in Mexico
Multinationals doing business in Mexico would also see pros and cons in this currency environment. A multinational primarily using Mexico for production for export would see their costs increase. A multinational doing business in Mexico for domestic customers would see their profits – when reported back in US dollars – go up. The higher profits ultimately make Mexico a more attractive place to do business, potentially catalyzing further investment and job creation.
Mexicans receiving remittances from abroad
This group would be negatively impacted by the strong peso. The foreign currency that they receive from family members abroad is worth fewer pesos than if the peso were weaker. This hurts the value of their remittances, and their purchasing power.
Property-owners in Mexico
The impact on this group is not as easy to diagnose, as there are a lot of variables. In a city where most transactions are done in pesos, the impact would be minimal, even favorable, as Mexicans would have more buying power. In a city where some real estate transactions are done in US dollars, there are contrasting currents.
Some home and property values could decrease due to foreigners being less interested in buying, with overall lower purchasing power. On the other hand, some home and property values could increase due to increased demand from Mexican buyers.
So, what’s the big picture here?
Viewed in the short term, and from the perspective of anyone earning in dollars, we definitely feel that things are more expensive than they were just a few months ago – and that’s painful.
Viewed with a longer-term perspective, my personal opinion is that this is a very good macrotrend for Mexico, as long as the peso doesn’t move too far too fast. Economic stability brings investor confidence, as well as growth and prosperity through better infrastructure, better schools, better healthcare, and higher standards of living.
I think that is something we can all be optimistic, even excited, about despite the short-term impact on our wallets.
Governor Sinhue, left, pictured here with Japanese Foreign Minister Syunsuke Takei, is on a tour of Japan, promoting nearshoring opportunities in the central state. (Diego Sinhue/Twitter)
Japanese carmaker Toyota will invest another US $328 million in its plant in Apaseo el Grande, Guanajuato, to adapt its production processes to build its recently announced new hybrid Tacoma truck.
President of Toyota México Luis Lozano Olivares announced the investment at a meeting with Guanajuato Governor Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo on Thursday, during the governor’s tour of Japan.
The new hybrid Toyota Tacoma pickup will be manufactured in Guanajuato, although the vehicles will be exported to the U.S. and Canada. (Toyota)
“This is how Toyota reaffirms its commitment to Mexico after more than 20 years of operations in the country, not only with constant investment, but also through the generation of quality jobs and improvement of automotive technology,” Lozano said.
The company said the new initiative would bring its total investment in the Guanajuato plant up to US $1.2 billion since its construction in 2011, noting that the plant currently employs more than 2,500 people.
Sinhue alsomet with Honda executives in Japan, who also discussed the expansion of their plant in Celaya, Guanajuato.
“They informed us that they have continued to invest in their Celaya plant, to reach an accumulated investment of US $1.58 billion and 4,600 jobs created,” the governor said. “That’s trust in Guanajuato!”
Honda said that they have continued to invest in Mexico, with their Celaya, Guanajuato, plant passing the US $ 1.5 billion mark since opening in 2011. (Diego Sinhue/Twitter)
In Toyota’s case, converting its Guanajuato plant to produce hybrid vehicles is an important part of the company’s electrification strategy, as carmakers around the world move towards more climate-friendly electric vehicles (EVs). However, the Tacoma trucks that will be produced at the plant are mostly intended for the U.S. and Canadian markets.
Mexico has become a key EV manufacturing hub in recent years, with other major investments including a plannedTesla factory in Nuevo León and aBMW EV plant in San Luis Potosí.
But EVs remain prohibitively expensive for most Mexicans, and are impractical outside of major cities due to a lack of charging stations. Only 2,022hybrid or electric vehicles were sold in Mexico during the first two months of this year, a third of those in Mexico City.
In 2022, only 0.5% of vehicles sold in Mexico were fully electric, a percentage that falls well below other markets such as China, Europe and the United States.
After weeks of heightened volcanic activity, the Popocatepétl volcano has quietened. (Twitter)
Authorities have lowered the alert level for the active Popocatépetl volcano and announced the development of a permanent action plan to manage potential risks in the event of future activity.
National Coordinator of Civil Protection Laura Velázquez Alzúaannounced Tuesday the decision to downgrade the volcanic warning from Phase 3 to Phase 2 on Tuesday, although it remains in the yellow “alert” phase of the warning system.
Earlier this month, locals were concerned about the possibility of evacuation, as the volcano emitted a considerable amount of ash and molten debris. (Twitter)
Velázquez said the decision was based on the recommendation of the Civil Protection’s Scientific Advisory Committee, which finally observed a decrease in Popocatépetl’s volcanic activity after 16 days of increasing concern.
The mountain’s current activity is characterized by “emissions of low ash content and the expulsion of incandescent fragments in smaller volume, with some episodes of tremor of low to moderate amplitude and sporadic minor explosions,” Velázquez said.
Authoritiesraised Popocatépetl’s alert level to Yellow Phase 3 on May 21. Ashfall affected activities at Mexico City’s two airports, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights and the closure of several schools in at least three states.
Yellow Phase 3 is the highest level of alert before the red “alarm” phase and requires authorities to mobilize for possible evacuations. During this phase, 6,500 military personnel were deployed to maintain security around Popocatépetl.
Communities surrounding the volcano have experienced environmental consequences of El Popo’s elevated activity, including respiratory symptoms from the omnipresent ash moving through the atmosphere and entering people’s homes. (File photo/National Guard)
Although the reduction of the alert means these measures can be removed, Puebla’s state government announced that it will work with the Benemérita Autonomous University of Puebla to develop a permanent action plan for living near the frequently active volcano.
Named “Just in Case” the contingency plan’s intention is to inform local authorities and citizens how to act in a volcano-related emergency and to promote a wider culture of risk reduction. The Health Ministry will also establish protocols for Volcanic Emergency Medical Care Centers.
In addition, Puebla’s health minister, José Antonio Martínez García, announced that the results of a study into possible health conditions caused by breathing in ashfall will be ready in four months, allowing authorities to develop public policies to address these potential risks.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, inhaling volcanic ash or gases can lead to what are usually short-term symptoms, including difficulty breathing, irritation of the eyes or airways, dizziness, headaches and tremors. Longer exposure to volcanic gases and ash has been linked to the development of other more serious conditions, including bronchitis, lung disease and lung cancer, according to the agency.
Mexico has been a major importer of U.S. corn ever since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994, making U.S. subsidized corn much cheaper than Mexican domestic corn. (Erik/Unsplash)
The government of Canada said Friday that it would participate as a third party in the dispute settlement consultations initiated by the United States over Mexico’s plan to phase out imports of genetically modified (GM) corn by 2024.
United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced last Friday that the U.S. had requested talks under the North American free trade pact known as the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
The USMCA was signed in 2018 by the leaders of Mexico, Canada and the U.S. Mexico’s president at the time, Enrique Peña Nieto, signed the free-trade agreement that succeeded NAFTA shortly before leaving office. (Ron Przysucha/U.S. Department of State)
“These consultations regard measures set out in Mexico’s February 13, 2023 decree, specifically the ban on use of biotechnology corn in tortillas or dough, and the instruction to Mexican government agencies to gradually substitute — i.e., ban — the use of biotechnology corn in all products for human consumption and for animal feed,” Tai’s office said in a statement.
Canada’s Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Marie-Claude Bibeau and Minister of International Trade Mary Ng confirmed in a statement that Canada “has decided to participate as a third party in the dispute settlement consultations initiated by the U.S.”
The statement said that Canada “shares the concerns of the U.S. that Mexico’s measures are not scientifically supported and have the potential to unnecessarily disrupt trade in the North American market.”
It also said that Canada expects its North American trade partners to “uphold their commitments” under USMCA and that the Canadian government is “committed to science-based decision-making and keeping food, feed and the environment safe, while supporting the ability of our farmers, workers and exporters to succeed in an innovative and sustainable agricultural sector.”
Canada’s Minister of International Trade Mary Ng, left, and Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Marie-Claude Bibeau, right, said in a joint statement that Canada is “committed to science-based decision-making and keeping food, feed and the environment safe…”
Canada’s role as a third party under USMCA rules does not mean that Canada has become a disputing party in the settlement consultation talks but rather that it has been granted permission to be a participating observer in the proceedings.
“… Canada will continue to work with Mexico and the U.S. towards an outcome that preserves trade predictability and market access for our farmers and exporters,” Bibeau and NG said.
If the dispute settlement consultations requested by the United States don’t result in agreement within 75 days, the U.S. government could ask for a dispute settlement panel to rule on the case.
Canada is not a major corn exporter, but it does send large amounts of GM canola to Mexico. (Canola Council of Canada)
Mexico’s Agriculture Minister Víctor Manuel Villalobos Arámbula said last week that he didn’t expect the conflict to reach a dispute settlement panel.
The U.S. National Corn Growers Association said in February that the proposed ban on GM corn exports to Mexico “would be catastrophic for American corn growers as well as the Mexican people, who depend on corn as a major staple of their food supply.”
President López Obrador asserts that GM corn seeds pose a contamination threat to native varieties of maize that have been grown in Mexico for thousands of years. He also believes GM corn is harmful to human health.
López Obrador asserted in March that Mexico’s decision to phase out imports of GM corn for human consumption doesn’t violate its commitments under the USMCA.
“No agreement in the world allows goods that are harmful to health to be bought or sold,” he said. “In the … [USMCA] there are clauses that protect consumers, just as the environment and workers are protected.”
Stills from the footage show soldiers kicking the men, who were alleged to be cartel members. (Twitter)
President López Obrador on Wednesday said that soldiers involved in an apparent massacre of five men in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, last month would be turned over to authorities to face justice.
“It appears there was an execution, and that cannot be allowed; we’re not the same as previous governments,” he told reporters at his morning news conference.
President López Obrador said that those accused of the extrajudicial killing would be held accountable for their actions. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro.com)
“When there is abuse, … when human rights are violated, the culprits have to be punished,” López Obrador said, adding that all the soldiers involved in the alleged extrajudicial killings were “on the verge” of being turned over to the relevant authorities.
His remarks came after the newspaper El País and the broadcaster Univisón disseminated security camera footage of the alleged army massacre, which occurred in the early afternoon of May 18 in the northern border city.
Video shows a pickup truck traveling at high speed, veering off a Nuevo Laredo road and crashing into a wall. Soldiers, on foot and in an army vehicle, arrive at the scene a short time later and surround the pickup.
They subsequently disarm and remove the civilians from the pickup before kicking some of them and forcing them against the wall. After four men have apparently been executed by the army — a fifth would later die in hospital — footage shows a soldier placing weapons next to the victims.
Opponents of the president’s militarization of the civilian sphere say that incidents like the one in Nuevo Laredo are inevitable. (Carlos Alberto Carbajal/Cuartoscuro)
In the video, the soldier uses a red bag to hold the firearms — apparently to avoid leaving his fingerprints on them. Handcuffs were also taken off one of the slain men.
“It seems that the intention was to leave these bodies with weapons to make it look like a confrontation between armed groups of civilians, as has happened before,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an associate professor at George Mason University who studies the Mexico-U.S. border.
She told the Associated Press that as long as soldiers continue to carry out public security duties in the streets, “This is going to keep happening.”
The alleged murder of the five men occurred less than three months after soldiers opened fire on another pickup in Nuevo Laredo and killed five other men. Federal prosecutors in April formally accused four of those soldiers of murder.
The president also alleged that under former Security Chief, Genaro García Luna (right), extrajudicial killings were common occurrences in Mexico but that now they’re isolated incidents. (Tercero Díaz/Cuartoscuro)
Deputy Interior Minister Alejandro Encinas said in March of the previous victims that they were unarmed and not involved in a confrontation with the army. They were reportedly returning home from a night on the town when they came under attack.
The Defense Ministry (Sedena) issued a brief statement on Tuesday after footage of the latest incident emerged. It said it was cooperating with the Federal Attorney General’s Office in order to determine responsibility for the alleged crime.
Sedena said that the Military Justice Prosecutor’s Office had also begun an investigation “to determine responsibilities derived from military legislation.”
It stressed that “no conduct contrary to the rule of law” will be covered up and that improper military behavior will be punished.
The National Human Rights Commission said it was conducting its own investigation into the events of May 18.
Raymundo Ramos, president of the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee, said that the soldiers involved in the apparent execution should have already been arrested.
Raymundo Ramos, head of Nuevo Laredo’s human rights commission, said there is “compelling evidence” that that soldiers involved should be in custody. (Victor Tadashi Suárez for Al-Jazeera America/CC BY-SA 4.0)
“There is compelling evidence that warrants the immediate arrest of the personnel,” he said.
López Obrador on Wednesday described military killings during his government as “isolated cases.”
“In the past, massacres were ordered from above; the supposed security policy was carried out by [convicted drug trafficker Genaro] García Luna, and it was ‘kill them in the heat of the moment,'” he said, referring to the man who was security minister in the 2006–12 government of former president Felipe Calderón.
“It was war, and the wounded were finished off, and there were executions,” López Obrador said. “These [incidents during my government] are isolated cases, and when they occur, they are punished.”
The president said there would be no “cover-up” of what happened in Nuevo Laredo last month “because we don’t tolerate the violation of human rights, and I repeat — even though I sound like a broken record — we’re not the same [as past governments].”
While López Obrador portrays his administration as being vastly different from its predecessors, the president has — like his predecessors — continued to use the military for public security tasks. Before he took office, he pledged to gradually remove the armed forces from the nation’s streets.
The government purports to have a non-confrontational security strategy toward crime known as “hugs, not bullets,” in which greater emphasis is placed on addressing the root causes of crime than on combating criminals with force.
But clashes between security forces and criminals still occur regularly, and there have been cases in which fatal force has been used by authorities for no apparent reason, as was the case in April when the National Guard shot and killed a pregnant teenager and a man in his 50s in Nuevo Laredo.
Located opposite Laredo, Texas, the border city is a stronghold of the Northeast Cartel, an offshoot of the Zetas crime organization. Clashes between the military and cartel henchmen are not unusual in the city, but the security situation in Tamaulipas as a whole has recently improved, authorities say.
The writer with her Guanajuato city neighbors on their terrace. (All photos by Louisa Rogers)
I turned to the last page of “Yo no soy tu perfecta hija mexicana,” (I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter) by Erika L. Sánchez and closed the novel with a happy sigh. Mission accomplished!
Although the book was originally written in English, I read all 300 pages in Graciela Romero Saldaña’s Spanish translation, which is one way I’ve found to boost my fluency in Spanish.
Hamming it up with an opera singer on the street in Guanajuato.
I’ve had an advantage learning the language because when I was nine, my family lived in Quito, Ecuador, where I attended a bilingual school. When we returned to the United States, however, French was the de rigueur foreign language taught in schools, and so I didn’t study Spanish again until I was 16.
My Spanish-language education continued in a hopscotch, on-again, off-again style — taking classes when I traveled to Latin America, then letting it lapse for long periods — until my husband and I bought our Guanajuato home in 2005. Then I started getting serious about Spanish, working toward being able to engage at a deep level.
Here are six strategies that helped me achieve my goal:
1. Reading popular magazines
Years ago, during a break between classes at the Spanish school I was attending, I found a stash of magazines on a shelf, including Buen Hogar, the Spanish-language version of Good Housekeeping. Browsing through it, I discovered that I understood more than I’d expected.
Thus began my popular-magazine approach to learning Spanish.
The writer got her start reading Mexican magazines in a genre she was very familiar with in English, which helped her breach the gaps in her vocabulary. (Internet)
Women’s magazines came first because they offered content I was familiar with. Worldwide, they all focus on health, fitness, homemaking, marriage, parenting and psychological topics. As a freelance writer, I’ve not only read these evergreen articles for years, I’ve written them myself!
I found the short articles the easiest — those divided by subtitles or organized with numbers, like “8 Ways to Make Your Home Sparkle at Christmas” and “6 Ways To Look Younger.”
2. Hiring tutors
In the early stages of studying Spanish, when I had to learn basic grammar and vocabulary, classroom structure was beneficial. But once I had the basics down, I found it more helpful to hire a tutor for individual sessions than to attend a class.
With a tutor, you can not only customize the material to your specific needs but you also get to build a personal relationship with your teacher. It’s also often more affordable because you’re not paying school administration fees.
3. Joining language exchange websites
I joined a free site called Conversation Exchange, where people chat with others around the world in order to practice a language.
Joining was easy: I created a profile, giving English as my native language and stating that I wanted to practice advanced Spanish. I filtered for age (over 40) but not for gender. Since then, I’ve had exchanges with people from Argentina, Peru, Costa Rica, Mexico and Spain.
4. Inviting people over
Coffee with the writer’s former Spanish teacher Laura in Querétaro.
Whether we’re at our home or on the road, Barry and I like to invite people we meet over to our house or Airbnb or hotel for a drink. We’ve hosted fellow travelers, our Spanish teachers and their kids, our neighbors, the owners of the Airbnb where we’re staying and builders working on our house.
We rarely invite people for dinner. Our goal is to have casual, semi-spontaneous interactions, not formal and elaborate meals, so we keep it simple and serve soft drinks, beer, wine and a few easy snacks. We’ve found this a great way to practice Spanish, get to know folks and have fun.
5. Chatting with taxi and Uber drivers
When Barry and I travel around Mexico or other Latin American countries, we don’t rent a car, since we like to interact with locals. Instead, we prefer public transit, taxis and Uber. We find that drivers are often not only providers of helpful information but also great conversationalists.
To get started, we introduce ourselves and ask how their day is going; before long, we’re off.
We’ve had lively discussions about which areas to visit and which to avoid, the drivers’ spouses, siblings, kids, in-laws — you name it. One guy even told us that he had informed his wife after their third child was born that the “factory was closed” and that he was planning to have a vasectomy. You can see why these conversations often turn into the highlight of our day!
Starting a simple conversation with a willing taxi or Uber driver is a great way to practice your Spanish and maybe learn how residents see the city or town where you live. (freetworoam)
6. Offering my skills
Before Barry and I bought our home, we visited Guanajuato city several times. During one period, I learned from Juan Carlos, my Spanish tutor, that the University of Guanajuato had a degree program in Human Resources. In my business as a training consultant, I had worked closely with many HR managers who hired me to train their company’s staff.
Juan Carlos and I discussed the idea of giving a talk to Human Resources students on my experience working with HR professionals, offering an inside perspective they probably wouldn’t otherwise get.
He helped me figure out how to approach one of the department’s professors, who showed interest. I prepared a simple presentation, first in English, then translated it into Spanish. Finally, I spent several sessions with Juan Carlos going over the grammar and vocabulary.
Looking back, I’m amazed at my chutzpah. I didn’t even know the subjunctive tense yet! But two students even took me up on discussing their career plans one-on-one! My Spanish was good enough, and I was finding a way to interact with Mexicans and having fun doing it.
I find Mexicans to be very forgiving of language errors. Even when I hear myself making a grammatical mistake, they don’t seem to mind. Frankly, their expectations are not very high when it comes to Americans speaking Spanish, and they’re delighted when they discover I can say more than buenos dias.
For me, even a simple conversation in Spanish is like a brisk walk in fresh air. It renews my energy, lifts my spirits and restores my confidence in the world.
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, louisarogers.contently.com
Eduardo Terrazas (age 87) is considered a preeminent member of Mexico's contemporary art scene. (Culture Ministry/Twitter)
A retrospective exhibition of iconic Mexican artist and architect Eduardo Terrazas has opened in Mexico City, showcasing more than 50 years of his work.
“Eduardo Terrazas: multiple equilibria, works and projects (1968-2023)”will be open to the public until Oct. 8 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts). The exhibition contains 144 pieces spanning Terrazas’ career, drawn from various collections including the Carrillo Gil and Modern Art museums, as well as ten new pieces.
The Terrazas exhibit runs until Oct. 8 at the museum of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. (Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes/Twitter)
“Terrazas is a multifaceted artist. It was very important to be able to contemplate all these perspectives without ruling anything out,” said the exhibition’s curator, Daniel Garza Usabiaga.
Born in Guadalajara in 1936, Terrazas originally trained as an architect. As a young man, he traveled through Europe and the Soviet Union with an exhibition of pre-Hispanic art.
These experiences inspired an artistic career that combines geometry and Mexican folk designs to create a distinctly Mexican contemporary artistic style, explored through the exhibition’s four sections.
The first section, “Urban environments,” highlights the artist’s first major public work: the logo for the 1968 Olympic Games, held in Mexico City. The design is influenced by tablas – a wool-based folk art made by Wixárika (or Huichol) Indigenous communities.
Terrazas designed the iconic logo for the Olympic Games held in Mexico in 1968, seen here outside the National Auditorium. (México en el tiempo/Twitter)
“We turned the Huichol tablas into a symbol of the Games by putting in one strand, and another, and another,” Terrazas says of the piece. “From that we were able to establish a whole identity, crossing the Mexican tradition with the modern essence of the games.”
The third section, “Possibilities of a structure,” contains a series of pieces based on geometric shapes.
It is divided into five axes titled “Nine Circles,” “Grid,” “Diagonals,” “Barcode” and “Cosmos,” which Terrazas says aim “to make sense of our time and present it as art.” The new pieces Terrazas created for the exhibition also draw from this style.
The final section, “Everything depends on everyone,” showcases two 16-piece mosaics Terrazas made in 1975 for a meeting of the Club of Rome in Guanajuato.
Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto with the artist at the opening on Wednesday at the Bellas Artes museum in Mexico City. (Alejandra Frausto/Twitter)
The monochrome “Exponential growth” is set alongside the brightly colored “Organic growth,” in a statement that Terrazas intended as a critique of unsustainable industrial development.
During a pre-opening tour of the exhibition, the 87 year-old artist reflected on beauty as a universal language that brings together the disparate elements of his work.
“We are in a crisis, not so much because we cannot see, but because there is such a complicated environment, so difficult, that it obfuscates us and we cannot appreciate the beauty or make it resurface,” he said. “In the things you see and how you look at them; everything starts with beauty.”
Pemex general director, Octavio Romero Oropeza, at the annual Mexican Petroleum Congress this week in Campeche. (Layda Sansores/Twitter)
Pemex’s fuel processing capacity has reached 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) according to the general director of the state oil company, Octavio Romero Oropeza.
In a speech at the annual Mexican Petroleum Congress, held this week in the city of Campeche, Romero said this makes Mexico competitive with other oil-producing countries.
Pemex has significantly increased output, according to director Octavio Romero Oropeza – and now refines almost 1 million more barrels per day than at the start of the López Obrador presidency. (Moisés Pablo/Cuartoscuro)
He said this represented a turnaround after several years during which Pemex’s production was declining. Production reached a low point of 519,000 bpd in 2018, just before President López Obrador assumed the presidency.
According to Romero, this demonstrates that AMLO’s austerity plan for the struggling state oil company — which cut Pemex’s tax burden and capital investment — has succeeded. It will allow Pemex to take charge of 100% of Mexico’s fuel, LP gas, and subsidized fertilizer consumption over the coming years, he added.
However, data reviewed by El Economista newspaper shows that Pemex’s production of combustóleo or residual heavy fuel oil, grew 19% from January to April this year, hitting 305,447 bpd. This is more than double the 146,407 bpd produced during the first four months of 2019, at the beginning of President López Obrador’s administration.
This is concerning because heavy fuel oil is both more polluting and less efficient than other fuels. It is also worth considerably less than the cheapest regular gasoline.
Despite an expansion in production, Pemex still lacks the infrastructure to cleanly and effectively refine the crude oil it extracts. (Pemex)
Although Pemex’s leap in heavy fuel oil production is partly a reflection of its overall increased refining capacity, it also shows that Pemex refineries lack the infrastructure needed to transform oil into lighter fuels, causing heavier fractions such as asphalt and heavy fuel oil to be left over from the refining process.
This could reflect a lack of investment in renovating and updating Pemex’s machinery. El Economista found that the only two Pemex plants where heavy fuel oil production decreased between April 2022 and April 2023 — Cadereyta, in Nuevo León, and Salamanca, Guanajuato — are both plants that have seen significant renovations during AMLO’s presidency.
In Mexico’s two largest refineries — in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca and Tula, Hidalgo — heavy fuel oil production rose by 12% and 17.6%, respectively. Pemex says that both plants are installing coking plants that will increase their liquid transformation capacity. The Tula plant has seen 70% progress and is projected to be completed in 2024, but the Salina Cruz plant has only advanced 10%.
Romero predicted that Pemex will close the year with refinery capacity at 1.6 million bpd, and production of 1.9 million bpd. The administration has invested heavily in a new refinery in Dos Bocas, Tabasco with projected capacity to process 340,000 bpd, however the project is behind schedule and according to a recent internal audit, will miss its July deadline to begin operations.
Despite Pemex’s continued reliance on fossil fuels, in his speech Romero did say the company is looking to move into production of clean energies, in line with global goals to start reducing fossil fuel consumption by 2030.
Brazil's Nubank has been offering savings accounts in Mexico for a month but has already managed to accrue 1 billion pesos of customer savings in that time. (Nubank)
Nubank, the largest financial technology (fintech) firm in Latin America, has opened 1 million savings accounts in Mexico one month after the accounts were made available in the country, the company said Wednesday.
Total deposits in the accounts total 1 billion pesos (US $58 million).
Nu México introduced a credit card in 2020 but is now eyeing expansion in Mexico, believing that the market will be of major importance to the fintech firm. (Nu México)
Some 90% of these deposits are kept in what Nubank calls “little boxes,” a separate space within the accounts where customers can hold funds and receive a 9% annual return.
Nu México previously launched an international credit card with no yearly fee in 2020. By September 2021, the company was the second largest issuer of credit cards in Mexico.
The firm now has a presence in nine out of 10 municipalities in the country and has issued 3.2 million credit cards in Mexico, a country with more than 126 million people.
Nubank is not the only Latin American fintech group to operate in Mexico: Argentina’s Ualá has been given clearance to acquire Mexico’s ABC Capital Bank as part of its expansion efforts. (Ualá)
Citing low penetration in the credit card market, an analysis by Citi said that the contribution of Nu México operations to the company’s total results might be limited in the short term. According to Citi data, credit card transaction volume in the country amounts only to about 20% of Brazil’s volume.
Despite this pessimism, Nubank is expanding across Latin America, with a planned checking account service scheduled to begin in Colombia. The company is also backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway investment fund.
Nubank cofounder Cristina Junqueira said last month that the bank sees growth opportunities in Mexico as “much bigger” than in Brazil. According to World Bank figures from 2021, only about 37% of Mexicans have bank accounts.
Nubank is not the only Latin American fintech firm aiming to win market share in Mexico however.
The Argentinian firm Ualá, which arrived in Mexico in 2020, announced on Wednesday the launch of a high-yield savings account available in the country, after gaining approval from the National Banking and Stock Commission (CNBV) to acquire Mexico’s ABC Capital Bank and expand operations in the country.
