The helicopter crashed near the Los Mochis International Airport in northern Sinaloa. File photo
Fourteen marines were killed Friday when a navy helicopter that supported the operation to capture drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero crashed in Los Mochis, Sinaloa.
One other marine was seriously injured and taken to hospital for treatment. The navy said in a statement that the cause of the Black Hawk helicopter accident hadn’t been established.
“Investigations will be carried out to determine the reasons that may have caused the accident [but] it’s important to clarify that there is no information at this time that [indicates] that the air accident is related to the arrest of the alleged drug trafficker.”
President López Obrador expressed his regret about the deaths of the 14 marines on social media. “I send my most sincere condolences and a hug to their families, colleagues and friends,” he wrote.
Military leaders pay their respects to the fallen marines. Sedena
The crash occurred after Caro Quintero, founder of the now-defunct Guadalajara Cartel, was captured in Choix, a municipality in northern Sinaloa on the border with Chihuahua. The narco had been sought since 2013, when he was released from prison after serving 28 years of a 40-year sentence for the 1985 murder of United States DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.
He was taken into custody early Friday afternoon after a navy dog called Max found him hiding in bushes. Caro Quintero was later transferred to the Altiplano maximum security prison in México state. He is set to be extradited to the United States, where he is wanted for the kidnapping and murder of Camarena and other drug-related crimes, according to his DEA profile.
Along with fellow Guadalajara Cartel leaders Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and Ernesto Fonseca Carillo, Caro Quintero was a major supplier of narcotics to the United States in the late 1970s and early ’80s. The U.S. had offered US $20 million for information leading to his capture, but was not directly involved in the operation that ultimately led to his arrest.
Four attacks left 9 people dead and more injured. Archive photo
Nine people were shot dead including one youth in four separate attacks in the space of 72 hours during a bloody weekend in Guaymas, Sonora.
The Sonora Attorney General’s Office said that four people were found dead on Friday at the pier of the Manga 1 fish farm in San Carlos Nuevo Guaymas, a beachfront subdivision within Guaymas. Two of the men were later identified through their fingerprints, but their names were not confirmed.
On Saturday a man was shot around 7 p.m. in Fátima neighborhood and his body was dumped on a dirt road. Later on Saturday, at around 11 p.m., three men were killed, including a 17-year-old boy, in an attack in the community of Las Guásimas. Another three people were injured in the attack. A pickup truck with bullet holes and bullet shells from various weapons was found by police.
On Sunday morning at 5:10 a.m., a man’s body was found with gunshot wounds in the Santa Clara sports field in San José de Guaymas, an ejido, or communal land, belonging to San Carlos Nuevo Guaymas.
Guaymas is no stranger to violence. There were 55 murders in the city in the first four months of the year, the newspaper El Imparcial reported. The newspaper also said that the spate of killings represented a rise on the four month average: in 2020 there were 144 murders in Guaymas and 149 in 2021.
Violence in Guaymas hasn’t been restricted to remote areas or specific neighborhoods: an attack outside the Guaymas municipal palace killed three people in November.
The city had a per capita murder rate above 100 per 100,000 people last year, according to a study by a Mexican non-governmental organization, the Citizens Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice (CCSPJP). However, Guaymas remained off the CCSPJP’s list of the 50 most violent cities in the world because it didn’t meet the requirement for inclusion of a population over 300,000.
Rina Lazo, left, and Helen Bickham have both lived in Mexico for more than 50 years pursuing art careers. Leigh Thelmadatter
Foreigners who come here to live and end up staying for decades provide a unique perspective on life in Mexico.
In 2019, I had the fortune of interviewing Guatemalan-born artist Rina Lazo. Although a major muralist in her own right, she was best known as the last surviving assistant to Diego Rivera. She embraced this legacy, in no small part because the Mexico she discovered in the 1940s was “her Mexico.”
Mexico has received immigrants for a long time, including us English speakers. Like other immigrants, we have “push” and “pull” factors. Dire poverty generally is not one of them, but economics plays a role, as it does for retirees looking to stretch pensions.
But those of us who come at younger ages are a different breed, often dissatisfied with life in our home countries. We don’t quite fit in, and we’re looking for something different.
Peace Kat gave up a promising U.S. art career after meeting the man who would become her husband. Both are seen here in Oaxaca in the 1980s. photo Rogelio Cuellar courtesy of Peace Kat
Bob Cox literally joined up with the circus as a young man in the 1960s, making his way to Tlaxcala, where he has lived since the 1970s. Dr. Stan De Loach ran away from home at age 14 to find a family in San Miguel de Allende. Teacher and artist Helen Bickham came to Mexico on vacation in 1963 with her husband and two small children. She then told her husband that he could return without them.
A distant second reason is politics. San Miguel and Ajijic started as havens for bohemians over 80 years ago. In the 1970s, some from antiwar and student protest movements found their way to Mexico despite the fact that the country had its own problems with the 1968 Tlatelolco student massacre and its aftermath.
Richard Clement and Bruce Roy Dudley came in part to avoid the draft. John Falduto’s mother came in 1980 in part because she did not like the political direction of the country, with him following her lead in 1992.
Mexico’s “pull” is the promise of an alternative.
The decision to come to Mexico and the decision to stay are often two different things. Most came here on vacation, for something job-related or to just pass through. Australian Jenny Cooper had to sail through Panama to Europe because the Suez Canal was closed by war, Patsy Du Bois came to study Spanish and Karen Windsor came to study Mayan archaeology.
If I had a peso for every time I heard something like “I was only going to be here for X amount of time, but then I met Y.”
Some are whirlwind romances. German-born Kiki Suarez was on her way around the world in the 1970s, stopped in Chiapas, met her husband and then looked for a way to make life work in San Cristóbal long before its current fame. Bonnie Sims came to Acapulco on vacation at age 19 and got involved with a local fellow. After returning to Canada, she wondered why she left and found her way back to Mexico.
Most met their future spouses in a much less-rushed manner, but that relationship was still central to the decision to stay. Peace Kat in Oaxaca flatly states that her spouse is why she remained, as she had a promising art career in Miami.
Australian Michael Rowe came to Mexico temporarily to figure out his next career move. He stayed and became a Spanish-language filmmaker.
But generally, staying is due to a mix of love for their spouses and for life in Mexico. They describe Mexican culture as “less hectic,” “less materialistic” and more “person-” and/or “family-oriented” than in the United States and Canada and Europe. People cite everything from family interactions to just being able to chat with vendors at local markets.
Mexico experienced a devastating earthquake in 1985 and the long-awaited fall of the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s 71-year dynasty in 2000, but interviewees’ comments on changes in Mexico since the late 1970s relate to improvements in infrastructure and the opening of Mexico’s economy, starting with NAFTA.
Some have stories of losing significant money during Mexico’s peso devaluations in the 1980s and 1990s, and especially 1994, but others, because they had foreign income, were not so affected.
Many, including the most bohemian, appreciate the improved access to products from the rest of the world these days, even if they feel somewhat embarrassed by it. Canadian Karen Windsor admits, “It might be a sin, but I enjoy it.” But she also notes that economic decentralization allows cities like her Guadalajara to develop.
Negative comments about globalization’s effect on the country are more related to how local communities have changed rather than how it’s affected Mexico as a whole. Everyone in San Miguel de Allende complains about waves of newcomers, for example, even if they like that the municipality has changed from a “dusty town” to a cosmopolitan center.
Peace Kat and Eric Eberman both bemoan the loss of local dress, traditions and foods in Oaxaca and Chiapas respectively.
Long-termers tend to have reservations about commenting on more recent political and social issues. Hardly anyone has citizenship, even after decades of living here, and so they are not permitted by law to participate in Mexican politics, including taking part in political action, like civil protests.
One exception is Eberman, who has been an activist for environmental issues in Chiapas, a dangerous occupation for Mexicans and foreigners.
A Oaxaca market in the 1940s. Expats have made their homes in Mexico since before the middle of the 20th century. Janice Waltzer/Creative Commons
One thing that maybe should not have surprised me was how many of my interviewees had formed connections with Mexican families of prominence at the local or national level. For example, Australia-born director Michael Rowe is married to the current minister of culture, Alejandra Frausto.
Another surprise was that my interviewees were not quite as nostalgic for “their Mexico” as Lazo was. The consensus seems to be not only that “things change,” but the essential for them — Mexico’s people — are who they have always been.
Special thanks to Patricia Grace Perrin Marion, Joanna Van der Gracht, Richard Carr and Alan Mould for their insights.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
Lychees work in many dishes — or just peel and pop them in your mouth. Yum!
My first encounter with a lychee was at Mazatlán’s organic farmers’ market, where one day a grower appeared with many boxes of the pretty, little, round red fruits. He showed me how to pinch one open; I popped it in my mouth and was hooked. Turns out the state of Sinaloa has perfect conditions for cultivating lychees and is one of the biggest producers in all of Mexico.
How did this exotic fruit, native to China, end up in Mexico?
In 1900, several hundred Chinese immigrants were given visas to work building Mexico’s railways. Their contracts allowed them to stay on, and those that did moved throughout the country. In Sinaloa, they found the climate, soil conditions and altitude to be similar to China, and some took up agriculture — especially fruit-growing. It was these Chinese migrants who introduced the lychee to Mexico.
Rambutans, while similar in taste, are the lychee’s rather wild-looking cousin, covered as they are with short and flexible red, pink and golden spikes, called spinterns. Inside is the same white globe of sweet flesh as lychees, but with a slightly different flavor. They’re grown mostly in the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca.
Rambutan is strange-looking but delicious!
The classic rambutan experience includes a wheelbarrow full of the unusual little fruits. Indeed, I was visiting a small village outside Oaxaca city, meandering through an outdoor market, when suddenly said wheelbarrow appeared in front of me.
Enthralled by the rambutans’ cuteness (they look like alien toys), I stopped and asked the young man behind the barrow what he was selling. He picked one up and pinched it open to expose the globe of shiny, white pulp, gesturing that I should eat it, which I did.
What do they taste like, besides delicious? Well, you can’t separate the flavor from the texture, which is kind of like a grape — but not. The taste is grape-like also, with lychees a bit sweeter than rambutans. Both have a fairly big, shiny black seed in the middle of the pulp that you don’t want to eat. Lychees are ping-pong ball sized, while rambutans are closer to golf ball-size.
In Mexico, May, June and July are the biggest harvest months for lychees, depending on weather; besides Sinaloa, the state of Veracruz and the Huasteca Potosina region also grow them. Rambutan trees produce into November. Refrigerated, both fruits can keep a month or two longer.
My advice is to buy them when you see them, as the season is short!
Rambutan can be used to make preserves and chutneys; both rambutans and lychees can be used to make ice cream, be added to fruit salads or blended with vodka for an exotic martini. Personally, though, I think eating them chilled and fresh-popped out of their red skins is the way to go.
If you can’t find fresh lychees, canned ones are easily available. While not the same as fresh, they’ll work just as well in these recipes.
Lychee Bellini
6 lychees (if using fresh, peel and remove pits)
8 oz. chilled, dry sparkling wine
Puree lychees with a blender. Strain pulp with a fine mesh sieve, pushing puree through with a rubber spatula.
Fill a flute or other tall, narrow glass a third full with the lychee puree.
Slowly pour sparkling wine into glass, stirring slowly as you pour. Pause to allow foam to subside as necessary.
Change up your menu with lychee ceviche!
Lychee Ceviche
½ lb. fresh snapper, cut into bite-sized cubes
¼ cup fresh lime juice
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
1 jalapeño or serrano pepper, seeded, thinly sliced
8-10 lychees, pitted, cut into small pieces (about ½ cup total)
¼ red onion, thinly sliced
¼ cup packed cilantro, minced
¼ tsp. grated fresh ginger
1 Tbsp. simple syrup or reserved lychee syrup
Season fish with salt; combine with lemon and lime juice in a bowl. Add peppers and toss. Cover and refrigerate 15–20 minutes, stirring once or twice, until fish is just becoming opaque. Add lychee, onion, cilantro, ginger and simple syrup; toss to combine. Divide among serving bowls, spooning more juice over top of each.
Lychee-Chile Lemonade
1 lb. lychees, peeled and seeded (to make about 1½ cups lychee pulp)
1 cup fresh lemon juice
¾ cup sugar
Pinch salt
½ (or less) small serrano chili
3 cups cold water
1 quart ice
Combine 1 cup lychees, lemon juice, sugar, salt and chili in blender. Process on high until smooth, about 1 minute. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into pitcher; discard solids.
Add cold water and whisk to combine. Chop remaining lychee pulp into ¼-inch pieces and add to pitcher. Add ice and serve.
Rambutan Watermelon Feta Salad
1 Tbsp. minced shallot
½ to 1 jalapeño or serrano chili, seeded, minced
2 tsp. honey
1 tsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. white vinegar
3 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 qts. seeded diced watermelon (½-inch dice)
1 lb. rambutans or lychees, peeled and with flesh torn into rough chunks (to make about 1½ cups)
Combine shallot, chili, lemongrass (if using), honey, soy sauce, and white vinegar in small bowl. Whisking constantly, drizzle olive oil into bowl. Season with salt and pepper; set aside.
Gently mix watermelon, lychees/rambutans, feta and basil in large bowl.
Add dressing; toss to combine. Serve immediately.
Lychee and Orange in Iced Syrup (Thai Loy Gaew)
3 cups sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 (5-inch) piece ginger, thinly sliced
¼ cup tightly packed grated fresh coconut
6 medium oranges, peeled and sectioned
2½ cups peeled and seeded fresh lychees, or 2 (20-ounce) cans, drained
½ cup chopped fresh mint
About 1 cup finely crushed ice
In small saucepan, combine sugar, salt, ginger and 4 cups of water. Bring to boil, reduce heat to low; simmer until liquid is reduced by half, about 20 minutes. Cool.
Toast coconut in a skillet over medium-low heat, stirring and tossing continually. Remove from heat; cool. Combine oranges and lychees in large bowl. Remove and discard ginger from syrup. Pour syrup over fruit. Stir in mint. Chill.
To serve, spoon fruit mixture into six small bowls. Add about 2 Tbsp. crushed ice to each bowl; top with toasted coconut.
An elegant parade of flamingos in Progreso on Friday. visit mérida
A group of flamingos is called a flamboyance, a particularly adept description of a group of the long-legged and elegant birds that strutted their stuff across an avenue in Progreso, Yucatán, Friday morning.
Captured by bystanders, one video uploaded to social media had NYSNC singing Bye, Bye, Bye in the background, while the birds, unperturbed by the human onlookers, strut across the street with flair.
These majestic birds are not generally sighted in this part of the state and are much more likely to be spending time in Celestún where over 35,000 flamingos spend the winter mating season, or the salt flats of Los Colorados near Río Lagartos, where they are one of the region’s most popular natural attractions with visitors during their yearly migrations.
This made their traffic-stopping appearance in Progreso even more impressive, in addition to the fact that these birds are generally only in the area from November to April each year.
There are, however, always a few, like these six living in the fast lane in Progreso, that stick around for the entire year and are joined by their feathered friends in the winter.
The chance to spot them without having to go to their breeding ground is rare and it delighted residents in Progreso.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar. He called Mexico's decriminalization of abortion in 2021 'a new route of freedom, clarity, dignity and respect for all women.'
It’s easy to feel discouraged lately.
The world has had a rough go of things. My native country, in particular, looks as if it’s about to implode on itself. It’s been rough watching democracy seemingly disintegrate before our very eyes from afar as a minority party gains an increasing amount of control over the country’s legal institutions despite the will of the majority of the people who live there.
Knowing that they could never retain power without gerrymandering, voter suppression and outright refusing to play by the rules, the Republican party in the United States has done a terrifyingly excellent job of cementing its power.
One of the most notable ways it’s done this is through Supreme Court appointments (in addition to the naming of more than 200 federal judges). After U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell successfully blocked former president Obama from appointing a new justice long before the elections, he and the Republican-controlled Senate then happily waved through several ideologically extreme and morally questionable nominees appointed by Trump who have now overturned Roe v. Wade‘s guarantee of the right to an abortion.
And if Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ curious opinion — yes, the same Clarence Thomas whose wife took an active role in trying to help Trump steal the 2020 election for himself – is to be taken seriously (and I think it should be), the right to contraception and even marriage between consenting adults might soon approach the chopping block as well.
The United States is now poised for abortion to be illegal in roughly half of its states, just as much of the rest of the world, including Mexico, is moving in the opposite direction.
I’ve been alarmed and saddened about the actions taken in my own country but hopeful about Mexico’s movement in the opposite direction over the past several years.
My optimism rose when I read a piece the other day about Mexican Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar.
The Supreme Court of Mexico, while it has less power than the one in my country, has also had a few things to say on the subject of women’s rights, including abortion, in great part because of Chief Justice Zaldívar’s leadership.
In a unanimous vote, the court decriminalized abortion last year. While its legality is still technically up to individual states to decide, the Supreme Court’s actions have paved the way for access all over the country.
To paraphrase Záldivar: “We’re in favor of life – the life of the mother.”
I’ve written about abortion several times before, including the surprising landscape in Mexico as well as strategies for actually reducing the number of abortions that take place. (Hint: criminalizing it is not an effective way to reduce its incidence and, as Záldivar himself says, rich girls have always had access to abortions, meaning that what’s actually criminalized is poverty.)
I don’t feel much of a need to express myself further on the subject at this point – you can read my other articles about it if you want to know exactly what I think – except to say that a woman’s ability to control when and if she goes through a pregnancy and has children is everything.
Without that control, which comes via not just birth control but a general culture of respect toward women and their right to avoid coercive, unprotected sex — and, yes, the right to terminate a pregnancy — women’s possibilities for participating in the public spheres of society are near zilch, as has been the case for much of history.
When women have children, their lives are, quite simply, no longer their own.
Mr. Zaldívar has become an unlikely feminist ally. He was raised in a deeply Catholic family in a deeply conservative state: Querétaro.
The state has become much more cosmopolitan and diverse since even the days that I lived there, but I personally remember being surprised at how easily people were scandalized, especially when it was more than evident that everyone regularly participated in scandalous behaviors.
Given his background, it’s curious (and to me, inspiring) that his thinking has evolved to the point that he’s been such an instrumental actor in ensuring women’s rights and women’s inclusion in legal institutions – he’s responsible for guaranteeing a certain number of seats were reserved for women on the Supreme Court.
He credits his evolution to a circle of close female friends, aides and family members who have shared their own personal experiences and viewpoints with him. In a rare move for a powerful man, he did something amazing: he listened and he sympathized. He seems to have realized very clearly that the personal is indeed very political.
I, for one, am glad that women in Mexico have people in power on our side who recognize women as fully autonomous humans who should have absolute control over their bodies because there haven’t been many powerful people who’ve thought so for most of our history.
So it’s given me a rather unfamiliar feeling lately: hope.
President López Obrador confers with his U.S. counterpart on a visit last summer to the White House. Official Website of López Obrador
President López Obrador toured Mexico’s southernmost state, Chiapas, last weekend. Agile as a yo-yo, he readied himself to travel north to meet U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington, D.C.
Monday
“We’re going to start the week,” the president announced from the National Palace, but warned time was tight before his flight to the U.S. capital.
“It’s a meeting to reaffirm our commitment to work together for the benefit of our peoples … There are bilateral issues such as migration … also support for Central American countries. We’re also going to deal with the inflation issue … Security is sure to be addressed as well,” the president said of the meeting with Biden.
On Monday, the president spoke of his expectations for his upcoming trip to the United States. Presidencia de la República
López Obrador added Mexico was better off without help from U.S. security agencies, recalling the so-called “Fast and Furious” operation by a domestic U.S. law enforcement agency, which accidentally armed Mexican cartels.
“Revenge isn’t my strength,” the tabasqueño assured when asked about an investigation into former president Peña Nieto’s finances. He exhibited mercy later in the conference, defending condolences for deceased former president Luis Echeverría, who is remembered for his violently repressive governance.
With his flight to Washington fast approaching, López Obrador reaffirmed his respect for a Cuban revolutionary. “When Fidel Castro died I said that a giant had died, just like [former South African president] Mandela,” the president said, before showing a video of the two men meeting and Mandela warmly thanking Castro for Cuba’s help in the South African civil rights struggle.
Tuesday
Two senior statesmen met at the White House on Tuesday. AMLO, 68, looked youthful across from his U.S. counterpart: Biden, 79, is the the oldest person to become U.S. president.
Diplomacy led the proceedings. “We see Mexico as an equal partner. Our nations share close ties in family and friendship, and we’re united through our values and our history,” Biden said.
However, on migration the U.S. president pushed responsibility southwards. He said the migration crisis was a “hemispheric issue” which had been addressed at the Summit of the Americas last month in Los Angeles, an event López Obrador boycotted. Biden described Mexico as “a top destination of migrants” and lamented the trafficking of people and synthetic drugs into the U.S., highlighting the truck disaster in Texas last month where more than 50 migrants died.
López Obrador was eager to share his perspective. He said that “our grievances [as Mexicans from past U.S. policy] are not really easy to forget … [but] we’ve been able to work together,” and pointed to former U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt as a model for bilateral cooperation.
The presidents and first ladies pose in the U.S. White House. Official Website of López Obrador
The president told Biden it was wrong to accept China as “the factory of the world” and said it was urgent to regularize migrants to help increase production and build infrastructure in the U.S. “I know that your adversaries, the conservatives, are going to be screaming all over the place, even to heaven … the way out is not through conservatism. The way out is through transformation,” AMLO affirmed.
“Long live the United States … Long live Mexico, dear Mexico, loved and beautiful Mexico. Viva México,” López Obrador concluded, relieving Biden.
Tuesday afternoon
The president paid tribute to civil rights icon Martin Luther King and Franklin Roosevelt at their respective monuments on Tuesday afternoon. With the son and family of Martin Luther King and many Mexican migrants in attendance, he improvised a speech.
AMLO gave an impromptu speech at the statue of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, in the U.S. capital. Official Website of López Obrador
“Not everything that has to do with the United States has been a grievance. There are, of course, moments that can not be forgotten … but there have also been moments of mutual assistance,” he said, and credited Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt for their diplomacy.
“We’re here at the monument of a great civil rights fighter, Martin Luther King, because we admire him. He is a follower … of a creed that is summarized in one sentence: love thy neighbor … it is possible to peacefully achieve a better society for all, that is the dream we have. He said at the time, ‘I have a dream.’ We have to continue to maintain that dream, that utopia, for us and for those who come after us: our children and our grandchildren. That is Luther King’s greatest lesson,” the president proclaimed.
Thursday
The deputy security minister boasted some of the week’s big arrests in the “Zero Impunity” section. He said three people were detained after the murder of an Italian businessman in Chiapas and a man known as the “Cannibal of Taxco,” who killed his wife and prepared to eat her in 2018, would finally see justice.
Deputy Security Minister Ricardo Mejía gave his weekly arrest report on Thursday. Presidencia de la República
The president reflected on his meeting with Biden which he said was “favorable, good for both nations.” He added Biden had agreed to considerably increase the number of temporary visas on offer for Mexicans and Central Americans and said consensus was found on investments to improve ports of entry between the U.S. and Mexico.
López Obrador added that U.S. businesses had pledged to invest US $40 billion, mainly in the energy sector by 2024, and said he mentioned to business representatives that salaries in Mexico were lower than in China, presumably to advertise the country as a location for manufacturing.
Tangentially, before finishing the conference, the president explained the difference between corn chips in Oaxaca, i.e. totopos, and those in Tabasco, called totopostes. In Tabasco, he confirmed, they are thinner. He then revealed his desire for a breakfast with beans, cheese, some fried bananas and totopostes.
Friday
The conference on Friday started with a message from the first Mexican woman to reach outer space. A short video of Katya Echazarreta was broadcast: “The planet looks incredibly beautiful from space. But the most beautiful thing for me was that I was able to dedicate this flight to my country, to my beloved and beautiful Mexico,” said the U.S. citizen, who was born in Guadalajara.
The president confirmed that in November delegations from the U.S. and Canada would visit Mexico to discuss the countries’ free trade agreement. Later in the conference, López Obrador thanked recent French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who had said AMLO is the natural leader of Latin America. AMLO also thanked Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, who’d said “we take off our hat” to the president for his stance with Biden.
The tabasqueño had words of support for another old leftist as well. Brazil’s Lula da Silva will compete for a third term as president in October, having been released from prison last year. AMLO called Lula a “blessing” for Brazil, and assured he was innocent of all previous allegations against him.
As was the case at the Manuel Pozos Primary School in Xochiapulco, Puebla, much of the 20-million-peso (about US $974,000 at today’s exchange rate) prize won by the Gregorio Torres Quintero Secondary School in Cihuateo was used on an ill-fated construction project.
In Cihuateo, located 35 kilometers south of Orizaba in the municipality of Los Reyes, 7 million pesos (about US $340,000) was supposedly spent on a project to upgrade and expand the local middle school. But despite the significant outlay, the project was never finished.
Unsurprisingly, parents of students who study at the school are unhappy about the situation, and they’re directing their anger at the committee tasked with managing the cash prize.
Angry parents display the complaint they filed against the committee. Courtesy Fernando Gómez
According to a report by the newspaper El Sol de Orizaba, the parents this week went to a prosecutor’s office in the nearby town of Zongolica to demand that a complaint they filed against the committee be dealt with more quickly. They’re not only angry about the failure to complete the school project, but also upset that the committee wants to use much of the remainder of the money for a road project.
In an interview with El Sol, the disgruntled parents said that it had been agreed that the rest of the money would be used for improvement projects at a preschool, primary school and church in Cihuateo. However, the committee has instead approved an 8-million-peso project to pave eight kilometers of a local road, they said.
The parents said that residents were not given an opportunity to have their say about that plan. They stressed that they are not seeking any personal benefit from the money won in the raffle, but want the funds to be used for the good of the community, in the way residents agreed to use them.
A lawyer for the parents, Alfonso Cortés Gómez, told El Sol that his clients have knowledge that the committee has made improper use of the funds won in the raffle and has tried to conceal its fraud. The committee, the parents say, has refused on repeatedly occasions to disclose how the money has been used. They also suggested that the person in charge of the incomplete school project is complicit with the alleged fraudsters on the committee.
The Gregorio Torres Quintero Secondary School was among 100 winners of 20-million-peso prizes in the raffle, which was drawn on September 15, 2020.
The combined prize pool was roughly equivalent to the value of the unwanted presidential plane, which was to be the prize until the government realized that owning and maintaining a luxuriously-outfitted Boeing 787 Dreamliner would be impractical for most Mexicans.
Notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero – the convicted murderer of United States DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena – has been arrested in northern Mexico, according to federal authorities.
Unnamed officials cited by the newspaper Milenio said that Caro Quintero – founder of the now-defunct Guadalajara Cartel – was captured by marines and federal agents in the municipality of Choix, Sinaloa.
But a Reforma newspaper report said he was detained in Guachochi, a municipality in the Sierra Tarahumara region of Chihuahua, where authorities are currently conducting an extensive manhunt for an accused murderer. No shots were fired in the arrest of the 69-year-old trafficker, according to a Reforma source.
Caro Quintero spent 28 years in jail for the 1985 murder of Camarena before his 40-year sentence was cut short in 2013 after it was ruled that he was improperly tried in a federal court when the case should have been heard at the state level. The Supreme Court later upheld the 40-year sentence, but the drug lord had disappeared by then.
There was a US $20-million reward posted for Caro Quintero by US authorities.
After his release, he allegedly returned to the drug underworld as the leader of the Caborca Cartel in Sonora. The FBI added Caro Quintero to its 10-most-wanted list in April 2018, placing new pressure on Mexico to capture him.
However, President López Obrador, who took office in December 2018, has demonstrated scant interest in detaining drug lords, and even ordered the release of one of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s sons after he was arrested in Culiacán, Sinaloa, in 2019.
Caro Quintero – who was found to have ordered the kidnapping of Camarena in Guadalajara before torturing and killing him – was a major supplier of narcotics to the United States in the late 1970s and early ’80s. He blamed “Kiki” for a 1984 raid on a marijuana plantation. The murder of the DEA agent negatively affected Mexico-U.S. relations for years.
The security forces who detained Caro Quintero – apparently on Friday – were acting on two valid arrest warrants. The drug lord is also the subject of an extradition order in the United States, where authorities had offered US $20 million for information leading to his capture.
The apprehension of Caro Quintero is probably the highest-profile arrest of a criminal in Mexico since “El Chapo” was recaptured in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, in 2016. It came as the army and Chihuahua police search for José Noriel “El Chueco” Portillo Gil, a presumed gang leader who is accused of murdering two elderly Jesuit priests and two other men in the municipality of Urique, Chihuahua, last month.
Flor del Bosque park was declared a protected area by the state this week. Puebla state Environment Ministry
The Flor del Bosque park, located southeast of Puebla city, has been declared a natural protected area, the state government announced on Thursday.
This will mean that the park’s 1,501 hectares will be off-limits for real estate development and other kinds of new settlement, and that the communities already living on the land will be obliged to participate in its sustainable use and protection.
Despite intense protest from environmentalists, in 2018 local government officials in conjunction with the state Congress transferred 42 hectares of the property to real estate developer Carlos Enrique Haghenbeck Cámara. In 2020, Haghenbeck’s claims to rights of the property were rejected by the new legislature because his company failed to pay the proper amount of taxes for its transfer.
Now that the area has been declared protected, the state’s Environment Ministry will have a year to develop a management plan for Flor del Bosque that will take into account the need to preserve and protect the area’s endemic flora and fauna.
In the official declaration it was noted that this piece of land regulates the regional climate, guarantees a source of water in the region, provides an ecosystem for all kinds of plant and animal species and provides areas of conservation, recreation and research. The area also serves as a source of oxygen, helps to recharge the local water table, and sequesters carbon. This swath of the land is also one of the few green areas left in Puebla’s metropolitan area and serves as a natural shelter for many kinds of migratory birds.
The new status will mean that certain activities are now off-limits in this forested area, including modifying the natural parameters of the area and its resources, which means any human contact that degrades the environment or harms species that live there. There will be prohibitions against physical pollution as well as noise pollution in the new reserve.
