The international event will be held in Ensenada this year, where 2,500 guests will discuss climate change, sustainability and the wine market in a post-COVID world. Sherry Smith/Istock
Ensenada, Baja California, will host the 43rd annual World Congress of Vine and Wine from Oct. 31 to Nov. 4. The global event, which has not been held since 2019, returns to Mexico for the second time, the first being in 1980.
The event is organized each year in one of the 48 member countries of the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) and brings together scientists, academics and grape and wine producers. This year, an estimated 2,500 guests will discuss climate change, sustainability and the wine market in a post-pandemic world.
According to Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila, her state is the largest producer of wine in the country, with seven out of 10 wines produced nationally coming from the Ensenada region. The famed Valle de Guadalupe, known as “Mexico’s Napa Valley” is located in the Ensenada municipality.
Mexico produces 64 million liters of wine a year in 14 states today, with a range of grape varietals. While Mexico doesn’t have “very large production” yet, according to Paz Austin, the director general of the Mexican Viticulture Council (CMV), there are 8,000 hectares dedicated to vineyards nationwide, and the country has been recognized for its growth and for the quality of the wines produced.
Ensenada Mayor Armando Ayala Robles held a press conference to announce that the conference for the wine market worldwide would be held in his municipality starting Oct. 31. CMV/Facebook
In recent years, the OIV has recognized Mexican wines with 1,500 awards.
“This shows the relevance of the industry, and it is thanks to this that the OIV, [based in France], chose Mexico as the venue for this 43rd world gathering,” said Hans Backhoff, president of the CMV.
During the event, guests will get to visit the wine regions of Baja California and to learn about Mexican wineries’ practices in environmental matters, microclimates, agriculture and oenology while also enjoying tastings. As part of its cultural agenda, the conference will also host celebrations related tothe Day of the Dead.
“There is a lot of interest in attending this event, it is like the Formula 1 of wine,” said Austin.
The iconic La Catrina image, created by Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada. Creative Commons
La Catrina is perhaps the most recognizable symbol of Day of the Dead. In the week leading up to the Day of the Dead, Catrinas and skeletal images stare back at you from shop windows, T-shirts, vendors’ stands, and festivalgoers.
Typically the Catrina is depicted in an elegant dress sporting a bonnet adorned with flowers, feathers and even miniature skulls. Her attire proclaims that this is a festive occasion, a day for celebration.
But the presence of La Catrina in Mesoamerican mythology makes a much deeper statement regarding the way indigenous peoples view death. Colorado State University assistant professor Dr. María Ines Canto says that La Catrina was born from several elements, including “the relationship that indigenous cultures had with death.”
The first “guardian of the afterlife” was Mictecacíhuatl — the queen of the Mexica underworld, known as Chicunamuctlan. It was her role to look after the bones of the dead.
Mictecacíhuatl was the goddess of the underworld and protector of the dead’s bones in pre-Hispanic religious mythology. INAH
The Mesoamerican peoples believed that most of the dead take a journey through nine levels of Chicunamuctlan and that Mictecacihuatl was the guardian of the ninth level. These ancient peoples believed that death was a time to celebrate your ancestors and loved ones who had passed on to the next leg of their journey.
The myth and her name vary regionally, but she is always present. For example, in Oaxaca, legends refer to her as Matlacihua in Nahuatl— “the woman who entangles” or “the huntress.” She punishes womanizers and drunken men who mislead and bring harm to unsuspecting women.
The modern image of La Catrina first made an appearance in 1910 in an etching called “Calavera Catrina” by José Guadalupe Posada — the father of Mexican printmaking. Posada was known for his societal and political satire, which often appeared in the Mexican press.
Bertha Rodríguez, chief operating officer at San Francisco’s Mexican Museum, believes that the image poked fun at Mexico’s street market vendors who stopped selling corn, a traditional Mexican staple, and began selling garbanzo beans instead.
Artist José Guadalupe Posada created La Catrina as a form of social satire, mocking people of the early 20th century who aspired to look and dress more European and eschew their Mexican roots. Government of Durango city
“They were women who were poor but [who] would wear European clothes and try to look European, and they would deny their indigenous roots. It was a critique of the masses, not of poverty.”
The original print by Posada shows a female skeletal figure wearing a French hat decorated with ostrich feathers but not wearing any clothing. Rodríguez explains that “Posada was saying to these women, ‘You don’t have anything, but you are still wearing a French hat.’”
University of San Diego associate professor Dr. Antonieta Mercado explains that “Posada painted many other skulls and skeletons and used the trope of skeletons to satirize and criticize politicians and public figures of the time.”
“La Calavera Catrina” was not only a statement on Mexican women who tried to emulate Europeans but also a satire about the European obsessions of President Porfirio Díaz, who was known for donning layers of makeup to make his skin look white and wearing the European fashions of the time.
Frida Kahlo’s frequent association with La Catrina in the modern era may be inspired by her husband Diego Rivera’s mural that includes images of Kahlo and La Catrina standing next to each other. Creative Commons
La Catrina was further popularized later by Diego Rivera in his mural “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Central,” (1947–1948). This cultural treasure — located at the Diego Rivera Mural Museum in Mexico City — covers 400 years of Mexican history and La Catrina.
In Rivera’s mural, La Catrina is front and center, wearing an elegant full-length gown. On one side, Diego has positioned Posada, the creator of the original La Catrina. On her other side are Frida Kahlo and the artist himself, represented as a boy.
According to Dr. Mercado, artists like Rivera “started a tradition of vindicating indigenous iconography in the 1930s” because they considered the Mexican Revolution a war that vindicated the rights of the common people, not elites.
The image of La Catrina can be seen in many different forms — from sugar skulls being sold by vendors to large papier mache statues in plazas to the elaborate clothing on skeletons at festivals.
One of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s many self-portraits. Some modern representations of La Catrina borrow elements from these works. Centre Pompidou
She is also big business: her image can be found on T-shirts, handbags, tablecloths, shoes and even children’s school backpacks. It also became popular in Mexico to combine the image of Frida Kahlo with La Catrina to create the Frida Kahlo Catrina, which resembles Frida’s self-portraits.
Although La Catrina’s image has become an emblem of the Day of the Dead, it means so much more than a Halloween costume, and she should not be conflated with iconography from that holiday.
Many Mexican women in Mexico and of Mexican heritage in the United States dress as Catrinas on Day of the Dead to keep their culture alive. Photographer Gustavo Mejía helps keep the Catrina tradition alive from behind the camera.
“The Catrina, to me, it means culture, a festive symbol of the Día de los Muertos,” he said.
Many women in Mexico and of Mexican heritage elsewhere dress as Catrinas on Day of the Dead to keep their culture alive: Mexican-American makeup artist Stephanie Callejas as a Talavera version of La Catrina. shiny_alpaca/Instagram
La Catrina’s elegant dress suggests celebration, her inescapable, sly smile reminding us that there is comfort in mortality — and a reminder that the dead should be remembered, not feared. As portrayed by both Posada and Rivera, she captures the comfortable and intimate relationship Mexicans have with death.
“La Catrina has come to symbolize not only El Día de los Muertos and the Mexican willingness to laugh at death itself, but originally La Catrina was an elegant or well-dressed woman, so it refers to rich people,” said David J. de la Torre, former executive director of the Mexican Museum in San Francisco and board member of the Art Museum of the Americas.
“Death brings this neutralizing force; everyone is equal in the end,” he said.
Posada’s reduction of every person to bones had an apparent message that ‘underneath, we are all the same’ — with the same destiny. His satirical etchings are a societal leveler — no matter which part of society you occupy, death eventually comes to everyone.
It also draws a direct line back to the earliest Mesoamerican beliefs: whatever comes after life, the guardian of our souls is a female.
Sheryl Losser is a former public relations executive and professional researcher. She spent 45 years in national politics in the United States. She moved to Mazatlán last year and works part-time doing freelance research and writing.
Deputy Interior Minister Alejandro Encinas, head of the Ayotzinapa truth commission, has investigated the military's involvement in the 2014 student massacre and disappearance. Daniel Augusto / Cuartoscuro.com
President López Obrador on Thursday defended the government’s investigation into the disappearance and presumed murder of 43 students in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014 after The New York Times published a critical report.
The Times said Wednesday that the case involving the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College students has “unraveled” since the government’s truth commission released a report in August saying that the police, army and Guerreros Unidos crime gang were all involved in the crime. Among the allegations was that a retired army general who was a colonel at the time of the students’ disappearance ordered the murder of six of the young men.
In support of its claim that the case has fallen apart, the Times reported that: “Arrest warrants for military suspects were revoked. The lead prosecutor resigned. And now, the backbone of the government’s explosive new report is in question.”
Deputy Interior Minister Alejandro Encinas, the head of the Ayotzinapa truth commission, told the newspaper that “a very important percentage” of new evidence in the report is “invalidated” as it couldn’t be verified as real.
“The extraordinary admission — along with a review of government documents, a previously undisclosed recording and interviews with several people involved in the inquiry — points to how the government’s rush to deliver answers resulted in a series of missteps: a truth commission that relied on unsubstantiated evidence and a criminal investigation that botched the prosecution of key suspects,” the Times said.
Speaking alongside Encinas at his regular news conference, López Obrador said that “the latest [truth] commission report is more solid [than previous accusations] in terms of what happened” to the students. He accused The New York Times of being unethical and having cozy relationships with “vested interest groups.”
“You already know the opinion we have about these [prestigious] media outlets, right? They’re very famous but also unethical and closely linked to both economic and political vested interest groups,” López Obrador said.
“For us, the case of the missing young men from Ayotzinapa is a fundamental issue. We have to find out the truth, clarify what happened, punish those responsible and most importantly find out where the young men are,” he said.
After The New York Times’ report on setbacks faced by the investigation, Encinas presented this graphic to underscore the complexity of the events and the number of sources of sometimes contradictory information that the truth commission is sorting through. Youtube / Presidencia de la República
The president said that The New York Times report “questions or attempts to question” the actions of Encinas, “who for us is an exemplary public servant in whom we have complete confidence.”
He said that the Times — which obtained a recording of a conversation in Israel between Encinas and Tomás Zerón, head of the now-defunct Criminal Investigation Agency when the students disappeared — and other unethical newspapers “feed off espionage.”
In the aforesaid recording, Encinas pleads with Zerón — who is accused of abduction, torturing witnesses and tampering with evidence related to the Ayotzinapa case — to provide information about the students’ remains and offers the president’s support in exchange for his cooperation, according to the Times, which said the meeting “yielded no new information.”
“The president doesn’t care about putting anyone in jail,” Encinas told Zerón, the Times reported. López Obrador criticized the newspaper for not revealing how it obtained the recording.
“It would be good, for ethical reasons, for it to disclose its source. It won’t do it because they always argue that they have to protect their sources. It’s very regrettable that this happens,” he said.
“… Perhaps Reforma and El Universal have more journalistic rigor and ethics,” López Obrador said, mentioning two Mexican newspapers of which he is frequently critical.
The president said that the government would continue with its investigation and noted that it is attempting to have Zerón extradited to Mexico from Israel.
“We’re going to continue insisting because he’s the No. 2 culprit [in the former government], according to the [truth commission] report. The first culprit … is the [former] attorney general [Jesús] Murillo Karam and Zerón is in second place,” López Obrador said.
Former attorney general Murillo Karam, left, and investigator Tomás Zerón, who is currently seeking asylum in Israel. Archive
Murillo Karam — considered the key architect of the previous government’s so-called “historical truth” with regard to what happened to the students — was arrested on charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice in relation to the Ayotzinapa case in August.
“We’re going to resist all the attacks and we’re going to make progress [in the case],” López Obrador said. “Imagine, The New York Times is involved in this, helping torturers, supporting and protecting those who tolerated crimes of the state,” he said, insinuating that the newspaper’s report portrayed Zerón in a positive light.
“What kind of journalism is that? Where is the justice? Are they worried about the young men? Are they worried about the parents who suffer from not having their sons? No, it’s journalism of power, it’s not journalism of justice, that’s why [I have] no respect [for the newspaper],” López Obrador said.
Mexicans workers are some of the most overworked in the world, according to (Twitter @Tu_IMSS)
Both houses of Congress have now approved legislation that seeks to guarantee that Mexico’s more than 2 million domestic workers have access to social security benefits.
In March, senators voted unanimously in favor of reforming the Social Security Law (LSS) to make the enrollment of domestic workers in a Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) scheme obligatory, and lawmakers in the lower house of Congress followed suit on Thursday.
The reform, supported by 486 deputies and opposed by none, will become law once it has been promulgated by President López Obrador. It adds a new chapter to the LSS that stipulates that employers of workers such as housekeepers and nannies must register them with IMSS. Employers of full-time and part-time workers will be required to comply with the new law, meaning that they will have to make a monetary contribution to IMSS and retain and forward an employee’s contribution to the same institute.
The amount the employer and employee are required to be paid can be calculated using an IMSS online tool (Spanish only) and registration can also be completed on the IMSS website. Information about how to register an employee is available in English in this Infobae article.
The law will provide Mexico’s almost 2.3 million domestic workers — over 90% of whom are women — with a range of benefits, including health care and free medicines. Their family members will also be able consult doctors free of charge at IMSS health care facilities.
Among the other benefits that will be available to domestic workers are sick leave, maternity leave, paid vacations, worker’s compensation, childcare, life insurance, severance pay and a pension.
Marcelina Bautista, the founder of the home workers training and advocacy organization CACEH, celebrates the passage of the law with other activists for domestic workers’ rights. Twitter @CACEHmx
Belén Sanz Luque, Mexico representative of UN Women, said in February that 97% of domestic workers were employed informally and weren’t receiving benefits such as health care and paid vacations. That situation should now improve, although the policing of employers could prove to be a challenge.
Marcelina Bautista, founder and director of the National Center for Professional Training and Leadership of Domestic Workers (CACEH), described the Chamber of Deputies’ approval of the legislation as “the last step that had to be taken” to ensure that maids, nannies, gardeners, drivers and others can access social security benefits. As a result of the pilot program, employers of domestic workers “already know … how to comply with this obligation,” she told the news website MVS Noticias.
Deputy Angélica Cisneros Luján, president of the lower house of Congress’ social security committee, said that the new law “has historical significance for Mexico.”
It establishes “the regulatory bases for the incorporation [in a social security scheme] of a sector of working people who have historically been discriminated against and made invisible,” the Morena party lawmaker said.
Festival participants dressed as a catrina and a catrín pose with an altar. Facebook / Festival de las Ánimas, Mérida, Yucatán
For the first time since 2019, Mérida is hosting in-person festivities to celebrate Hanal Pixán, a Maya tradition to commemorate the dead. The Festival de las Ánimas, or Festival of Souls, started on Monday and will run through Nov. 2.
Hanal Pixán, which means “food for the souls,” is an ancient Maya tradition celebrated only in the Yucatán peninsula. Participants offer traditional foods to the deceased, who are believed to visit their loved ones from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2. The first day is dedicated to honoring children who have passed away, while the second day is dedicated to adults. On the third day, a mass is traditionally held for all the deceased.
Activities for the 2022 festival range from displays of altars to parades, exhibitions, and culinary samples. The famous Paseo de las Ánimas (Parade of the Souls), in which adults, youth, and children dress up as deceased in the typical Yucatecan costume, is set to happen on Friday, starting at the General Cemetery and finishing at the Arch of San Juan.
A parade of catrinas, José Guadalupe Posada’s famous figure which has come to characterize Día de los Muertos, will take place on Saturday night. And the fifth edition of the Mucbipollo Festival, dedicated to the Maya dish also known as pibipollo, will take place the following day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the softball court in the neighborhood of San Sebastián.
Catrinas on parade in Mérida. Facebook / Festival de las Ánimas, Mérida, Yucatán
The first edition of Pixan Peek will also be held at the festival. Announced by the local government on Oct. 19, the event will be held in honor of deceased dogs. A showing of altars, a dog training exhibition, and a costume parade will be held on Friday evening to promote adoption and humane treatment of animals.
Finally, a giant altar will be set up in Plaza Grande, Mérida’s main square, to honor local authorities who have passed away.
On her adventure tour, Lydia Carey got to see extinct volcanos, enormous craters, and this canyon as tall as a skyscraper.
The sun is rising over fields of late fall wildflowers in Guanajuato. Most of us are city slickers and not fully prepared for the chill of 8 a.m. in Tarandacuao, a town in the state’s southern lowlands, close to its border with Michoacán. Our flimsy jackets have us shivering over Blanca Estela’s oat atole, pozole soup and cafe de olla. Papel picado flags rustle in the cool breeze as we sit in the open dining room, fueling up for a day of kayaking with the Taranda Rafting company.
We are a group of travel agents and media folks, here to see what the state has to offer visitors, and while I lived in Guanajuato for almost five years when I first arrived in Mexico, this is a part of the country that I am completely ignorant of and eager to explore.
Our guide Pedro had planned for us to go river rafting today, but the water levels are too low, so we will be kayaking down a lower section of the Río Lerma instead.
We’re divided up among those who can swim and those who can’t with the most hesitant kayakers placed in inflatable double kayaks that are almost impossible to flip.
Rappelling into the Hoya de Álvarez crater. The writer says the view was “absolutely breathless and worth every minute that I thought I might die.”
We take off, expecting wild (or at least quick) rapids, attacks from tree branches and impossible currents but instead find ourselves lazily floating past farmers with their cows out for a morning graze. Migratory birds are flying away faster than the currents that swirl around us.
By mid-trip, helmets have found their way into the bottoms of boats and shoes are optional.
The Río Lerma is the longest river in Mexico, stretching from México state all the way to Lake Chapala in Jalisco. It’s one of Mexico’s most important bodies of water, generating electricity and providing drinkable water to Mexico City and other metropolitan areas. In the past few years, the river has been a cause of concern for many environmentalists and farmers that depend on it, in that it is often the recipient of illegal dumping by the industries that surround it.
Still, it remains a favorite location for water sports, and our guides assure us that this part is very clean.
After about four hours, we are wet and sunburnt, watching from the shore of the Presa Solís (Solis Dam) as the final kayak makes its way across the water with two of our more cautious paddlers. We make bets on which is slowing the other down.
That night, we salute a day of “wild” rapids and chow down on grilled arrachera steak and Spanish sausage at the Parilla del Vaquero, a local hangout with families and groups of friends settled around outdoor tables and caguama beers. A trio of musicians plays to a table of very drunk men, one of them with his head in his hands, undoubtedly thinking about lost love and regret.
The following day, we are back on Presa Solís, our goal for the day being to reach the 150-meter-high canyon on the presa’s other side, then paddle in for several kilometers.
Our slow paddlers have now been separated, so we are about to see which of the two is the lead anchor, and as one sets out on his own, easily keeping up with the group, it’s pretty clear.
Our guide Rodrigo tells us that normally, we’d be able to float 6 or 7 kilometers into the canyon. But the water is extremely low because farmers are watering their crops at this time of year. It seems probable Mexico’s nationwide drought this year also has something to do with it.
Along the canyon walls and high on the trunks of the bald, white trees that sit in the water, the normal water line was 3 to 4 meters higher than it is now. The canyon shivers with the legs of spiders weaving massive webs along the rocky crags, butterflies chasing each other in the sun and the subtle dance of the lenteja aquatic plants shifting around our boats.
It’s a place that silences everything – everything that is but the two older ladies in our group that chatter on about the prices of an Uber in Cleveland and their favorite restaurants in Denver. Everyone else paddles past their incessant conversation marveling at the otherworldly ambiance of the tree graveyard that we are floating through, shifting from hot to cold under the canyon walls’ shadows.
It’s obvious that most everyone is reluctant to return to shore, and the trip back is a long haul in the blazing sun against the current. Still, the wide-open landscape is breathtaking, and the sky a cool, cloudless blue.
After each day of adventures, participants celebrated with a family-style meal provided by a local restaurant or, in this case, in a local home.
That evening, we land in Valle de Santiago, one of Guanajuato’s larger towns. Our guide from EcoValle Tours tells us that its gorgeous cathedral is second in height only to the cathedral in San Miguel de Allende. The area’s famous seven extinct volcanoes, called the Siete Luminarias, are said to hold mystic and spiritual powers. Devotees arrive each year to perform rituals and meditate in these monster holes left in the landscape.
We get a quick spin around town and then off to a pulque tasting at the Pulquería Tallacua, set inside a 19th-century home. Awaiting us is a beautiful al fresco table laden with pumpkins, purslane and other bounty common to this region.
Julio César Aquilar, the master pulquero, explains to the group how pulque — a fermented drink made from agave sap — is made and processed at their pulqueria. He passes around various versions of the drink, from its least alcoholic version to its most (not many pulques reach over 8% or 9% alcohol) and asks the group to notice the subtle flavors within this ancient elixir — indigenous peoples were making it before the Spanish arrived.
Extremely knowledgeable and informative, Aquilar is not fond of questions that distract from his one-man show. It’s better to sit quietly, sip your pulque and enjoy the fresh quesadillas hot off the grill.
The following day, we head out to visit two of the seven craters.
The first, Rincón de Paranguero, is accessible through a tunnel that was dynamited by local miners in the 1900s. The crater is a massive swath of white, bleached by the salt and other minerals that lay at its depths. Our guide tells us that, according to researchers from Mexico’s Autonomous University (UNAM), the crater’s bottom is home to stromatolites, believed to be Earth’s oldest life-forms. The next crater: the Hoya de Álvarez, is the exact opposite: its 1.2-kilometer floor is covered in bright-yellow-tasseled corn and gray-green agave plants.
The community here is made up of only about 30 families, and they are in many ways isolated from the outside world. With no public transportation and most of the men gone to work in the United States, the community’s women are a force to be reckoned with, maintaining the local school and supporting their families with tourism to the area. Several cabins sit on the edge of town to house the hikers and climbers that take advantage of the high crater walls.
Exactly what we are doing today, most of us for the first time — rappelling down a 30-meter rock face.
While it looks benign from below, once we are at the top and strapped in to our various lines, my stomach drops to the bottom of the valley floor. Felipe, the rappel master, assures us that in all his years doing this, he has never lost a single person, but hovering over the 30-meter drop it feels less than reassuring.
The actual rappelling part is only about 10 meters, and then you are basically lowered to the ground in slow motion as you gently twist on the line. Once I stop panicking, the view over the crater valley is absolutely breathless and worth every minute that I thought I might die.
When everyone is safely on the ground, we have lunch at a local home with a terrace that overlooks that same beautiful valley, tasting regional salsa and fried pork in chile guajillo ancho sauce with yellow Mexican rice and slippery paddles of grilled nopal cactus. In love, I turn to a friend on the trip and say I could stay here forever; she responds with a raised eyebrow, as if to say, “you’d likely last a week.”
As we head to Guanajuato city for the end of our trip, I am left with the sensation that there is a lot more to Guanajuato that I had realized in my years in the high desert, in the central part of the state. That there could be canyons and craters and wild(ish) rivers here was not something I was expecting.
The desolate Rincón de Paranguero crater, one of two the writer explored on her tour.
Like a previous year’s trip to Chiapas, where I was struck by pristine beaches in a place never considered a beachgoers’ paradise, I was reminded that even after 15 years in Mexico, there is still so much to discover.
I made a mental note to come back.
Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of Mexico City Streets: La Roma. Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at www.mexicocitystreets.com.
Tamaulipas was the last holdout in a string of legislative votes this year to approve same-sex unions in seven other states. Fos Feminista
Tamaulipas legalized gay marriage on Wednesday, becoming the 32nd and final federal entity to allow same-sex couples to marry.
Marriage between two people of the same gender is now legal everywhere in Mexico.
Twenty-three of 36 lawmakers voted in favor of recognizing such unions. The vote in the northern border state came a day after Guerrero legalized same-sex marriage.
Nancy Ruíz Martínez, a deputy with the National Action Party, presented the proposal to the state Congress and said that its approval ended one form of discrimination against gay people. There are no longer first and second-class citizens when it comes to the right to get married, she said.
“All people must enjoy that right,” Ruíz said. “Whenever there is a just cause to fight for, know that you have an unconditional ally in me.”
Tamaulipas is the eighth state to legalize same-sex marriage this year after Guerrero, Durango, Jalisco, Yucatán, Veracruz, México state and Tabasco. Several other states, including Guanajuato, Querétaro and Zacatecas, approved marriage equality in 2021.
Krebs recommended that the government strengthen cybersecurity, invest in modern technology and work with the private sector to better protect its IT systems. Depositphotos
Mexico needs to do more to protect itself from cyberattacks that could be perpetrated by countries such as China and Russia, according to the former director of the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Christopher Krebs, fired by former United States president Donald Trump shortly after the 2020 presidential election in that country, believes that infrastructure built in Mexico by foreign companies poses the greatest risk to the country’s cybersecurity.
There are growing numbers of Chinese and Russian companies in Mexico and intelligence agencies from those countries could take advantage of their facilities to launch attacks on critical IT systems in Mexico with the aim of obtaining strategic information, he said in an interview with the El Universal newspaper.
Krebs said that the government needs to strengthen cybersecurity, invest in modern technology, work with the private sector to better protect its IT systems and collaborate with U.S. authorities to better understand the threats it faces.
Christopher Krebs, former director of the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. U.S. DHS
Speaking to El Universal during a professional visit to Mexico, the cybersecurity expert said that as the trade relationship between Mexico and the United States grows so too does China and Russia’s interest in having their intelligence agencies operate here.
Air Force General Glen VanHerck, commander of the United States Northern Command, claimed earlier this year that Russia has more intelligence agents in Mexico than any other country.
As the Mexico-U.S. trade relationship grows, Krebs said, foreign intelligence services will increasingly seek to infiltrate IT systems in Mexico to extract and exploit sensitive information.
His warnings and advice are especially pertinent given that the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) and the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport (SICT) have both been recent victims of cyberattacks. The Guacamaya “hacktivist” group infiltrated Sedena’s servers and stole millions of emails and documents while unidentified hackers breached the security of 110 SICT computers and installed ransomware.
Krebs said he was surprised that the hackers were able to get into the army’s IT system given that armed forces around the world normally guard classified information “very jealously.”
“I have a hard time believing that wasn’t the case [in Mexico], that high level intelligence information could be exposed,” he said.
Although Sedena was unable to adequately protect its own IT system, Mexico has made some progress in improving cybersecurity, Krebs said without citing any specific advances.
“Mexico is working, it’s a critical partner for the United States and I see that it’s taken steps to protect … [its IT systems],” he said.
However, around the world there is a “very clear lack of talent on the side of companies and governments to protect themselves” from growing threats to cybersecurity, Krebs said.
The conglomerate, best known for ownership of convenience store chain Oxxo, has taken further steps into the fintech sector with this acquisition.(Depositphotos)
Oxxo, the ubiquitous convenience store chain owned by Coca-Cola bottler FEMSA, is not just a retailer of products such as beer, soda, chips and cigarettes but also a major player in Mexico’s burgeoning fintech sector.
Spin by Oxxo, an app launched last November that can be used to send and receive money, currently has 4 million users, but that number is predicted to grow quickly over the next 12 months.
Asensio Carrión, Spin by Oxxo’s general director, told the news agency Reuters that the fintech product — which also comes with a Visa debit card — is set to reach 10 million users next year.
“The porosity we have allows us to reach more distant places and offer services where there are none,” he told Reuters. “We are in every Mexican state.”
As of this month, Spin by Oxxo is now licensed to operate as a financial technology institution, meaning that users will be able to receive remittances from abroad. Spin by Oxxo
According to the Spin by Oxxo website, users can send money to other Spin accounts, regular bank accounts and to people without bank accounts. In the latter case, the recipient can withdraw the money at one of Oxxo’s more than 20,000 stores across Mexico.
The website says that users can deposit money to their own Spin account via the app, a bank account or in Oxxo stores.
Oxxo charges commissions for some, but not all, transactions. It costs five pesos to make a cash deposit at a store, for example, and 12 pesos to withdraw money at the same location. A debit card costs 50 pesos.
Reuters reported that 60-65% of Spin’s users are active, meaning they’ve made a transaction or received money in the past 56 days.
The service, which FEMSA financed itself, has more customers than Latin America’s largest fintech bank — Brazil’s Nubank, and Mexico’s Stori. However, Banorte, a traditional Mexican bank, has more digital clients, reporting 6.7 million earlier this year. Banorte was recently granted approval to operate a 100% online bank, a development the bank says will help it strengthen its position as a digital leader in the Mexican banking market.
Spin by Oxxo was granted a new license to operate as a financial technology institution earlier this month, Reuters reported, adding that users will now be able to receive remittances from abroad.
The news agency also said that FEMSA is seeking permits that would allow Spin users to deposit larger sums of money and receive their wages. Carrión said that Spin could be rolled out in other countries in the future.
Fewer than 50% of Mexican adults have a bank account, official data shows, although the government is seeking to increase that number by building large numbers of state-owned “well-being” banks, including branches in isolated communities where there are no traditional banks.
Monarch butterfly are considered a "poster species," and efforts to conserve them also benefit less glamorous pollinators as well. (CorreoRealMX/X)
Monarch butterflies have started to arrive in Mexico as part of their annual migration from Canada and the U.S., reported the organization Protection of Mexican Fauna (Profauna), based on observations made in the northern states of Mexico.
Each year, the monarchs embark on a 4,000 km journey to migrate from their breeding grounds in the U.S. and Canada, to overwinter in the warmer forests of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in central Mexico.
These sanctuaries are critical for monarch butterfly hibernation since 87% of the total population of butterflies converge here each season. There are four reserves open to tourism in the states of México and Michoacán.
Profauna encouraged the population living in the northern states of Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas, to report their sightings, and citizens began reporting times, weather conditions and GPS locations of observed butterflies.
The monarch butterfly is a species with “special protection” under Mexican law. Due to the destruction of its habitat and to climate change, the migratory species was also added to the endangered species list of the International Union Conservation of Nature (IUCN) this year owing to a decrease in its population over the last decade.
However, in the 2020-2021 hibernation season, the WWF Mexico reported that the butterflies’ presence in and around the biosphere,grew from 2.10 hectares to 7.02 hectares – a “fragile” but positive improvement that represents an increase of 35% compared to the previous season.
“The growth in the monarch population is good news and indicates that we must continue working to maintain and strengthen conservation measures in Mexico, the United States, and Canada,” said Jorge Rickards, Director General of WWF Mexico, in a statement.
The butterflies are estimated to begin arriving at the biosphere no later than Nov. 1, coinciding withDay of the Dead celebrations. However, Rocío Treviño, the program’s coordinator, anticipated that the highest migration peak will not be recorded until the third seasonal cold front.
