Supreme Court halts Veracruz port expansion on environmental grounds

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February 10, 2022

The Supreme Court (SCJN) has halted the Port of Veracruz expansion project on environmental grounds in a ruling that protects the Veracruz Reef System (SAV).

Justices ruled unanimously on Wednesday that the federal Environment Ministry (Semarnat) violated the human right to a healthy environment by authorizing the expansion of the port without having previously analyzed “each of the different environmental impacts the project … could cause.”

They also determined that the ministry didn’t act in accordance with “the best available scientific information” and that “the project and the works linked to the same were analyzed in a fragmented way.”

The court’s ruling came in response to an injunction request filed by the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA) on behalf of Veracruz residents.

“CEMDA filed this injunction, together with the community, to protect and contribute to the conservation of the Veracruz Reef System, as well as the reefs and the services they provide, since they are key to the well-being of the people living in the Veracruz-Boca del Río-Medellín region,” said Xavier Martínez Esponda, the center’s technical operations director.

The SCJN ruling annuls the authorization for the port’s expansion and orders a complete re-evaluation of the project’s environmental impacts and determination of the consequent viability of the project, said Earthjustice, a United States-based environmental nonprofit organization that submitted an amicus brief in support of CEMDA’s lawsuit.

“The decision indicates that the country’s highest court supports making the environmental principles of prevention and precaution much more ingrained in the decision-making process of infrastructure projects,” the organization said in a statement. “It signals to authorities and investors that it is more expensive to not completely evaluate their projects with accuracy than to comply in time and form with the Environmental Impact Assessment.”

Earthjustice also said that the ruling will “protect the vulnerable reef, home to sea turtles and other critical ecosystems, that is globally recognized as a UNESCO biosphere reserve and Ramsar Wetland of International Importance.”

The SCJN ruling stated that “the protection of wetlands is a national and international priority that has led our country to issue a strict regulation of this ecosystem and … any analysis made in relation to wetlands must be guided by a criterion of maximum precaution and prevention.”

The SCJN instructed Semarnat to draw up a plan for the protection and restoration of the reef affected by the port expansion project. The project could resume at some point in the future as long as the expansion avoids adverse impacts to the SAV. CEMDA said in a statement that “the case is a precedent that will transform the way in which Semarnat and state authorities carry out environmental impact assessments in the country.”

The SAV is the largest reef system in the central region of the Gulf of Mexico and hosts the greatest biodiversity of species in the western region of the same body of water.

With reports from Animal Político

Army drives Jalisco cartel out of stronghold in Aguililla, Michoacán

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MND Staff

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February 10, 2022

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Soldiers stand at the entrance to Aguililla, in a photo shared by the National Defense Ministry on Wednesday. — Flooding an area with soldiers, as the Ministry of Defense did in Aguililla, Michoacán in 2022, can dampen cartel violence but at the cost of many lives, Dalby said. (Sedena)

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has fled Aguililla, Michoacán, after the army entered the notoriously violent Tierra Caliente municipality on Tuesday.

Members of the powerful criminal group escaped via the mountains and headed to the port city of Lázaro Cárdenas, according to a report by the newspaper Milenio.

The CJNG has been involved in a turf war with the Cárteles Unidos in Aguililla and the broader Tierra Caliente region since early 2021.

Milenio reported that Aguililla was surrounded by government security forces on Wednesday. Vehicles entering the municipality were inspected by soldiers with the aim of detecting drugs and weapons.

The Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) said in a statement Tuesday that the army, National Guard and Michoacán state police had entered Aguililla to carry out operations aimed at strengthening the rule of law in the region.

Jalisco New Generation Cartel improvised tank — The army captured 21 vehicles, including this improvised armored tank with the words “Mencho Special Forces.” Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera is the CJNG’s leader. Sedena/Twitter

Sedena said that it fulfilled that objective in 43 localities in the municipalities of Aguililla, Buenavista, Coalcomán and Tepalcatepec.

As a result, residents were able to return to their homes and crops were able to be harvested and commercialized, the ministry said.

It also said that the security forces “liberated” three main roads and seized more than 150 kilograms of marijuana, firearms, ammunition, 23 improvised explosive devices, 21 vehicles (including some that were armored) and tactical equipment.

The community of El Aguaje – where the CJNG has paraded armored vehicles and carried out a drone attack against police – had been a virtual ghost town due to the presence of the feuding criminal organizations, but several businesses opened after the army’s arrival, Milenio said.

Residents who spoke with the newspaper warned that the criminals — and the violence they generate – would return if the army leaves the region. Locals have long been calling for a military intervention to combat organized crime.

During a visit to Aguililla last April, the Vatican’s then-ambassador to Mexico, Archbishop Franco Coppola, said that organized crime flourishes where the state is absent, while residents accused the army — which has a barracks in the town — of doing little to combat the cartels.

The Associated Press reported in November that the army had largely stopped fighting the cartels in Aguililla and surrounding areas. Instead, soldiers were guarding dividing lines between cartel territories so that they wouldn’t encroach on each other’s turf, the news agency said.

Criminal groups seek to control the Tierra Caliente region and other Michoacán municipalities because of the opportunities to extort lime producers, cattle ranchers, avocado farmers and operators of iron ore mines.

Violence in Tierra Caliente municipalities has displaced thousands of people since President López Obrador took office in late 2018, many of whom have sought asylum in the United States.

With reports from Milenio

Mexico-US working group will encourage clean energy development

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MND Staff

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February 10, 2022

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President López Obrador and U.S Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry met in Mexico City on Wednesday. Twitter @lopezobrador_

Mexico and the United States have agreed to form a working group to collaborate on the fight against climate change.

After a lengthy meeting between President López Obrador and United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry in Mexico City on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard announced an agreement to create the U.S.-Mexico Climate and Clean Energy Working Group.

Via the group, which will involve key agencies in both Mexico and the United States, the two countries will determine what actions they can take together to mitigate climate change, Ebrard told reporters.

López Obrador’s office and the United States Embassy in Mexico later issued similar statements on the objectives of the working group.

“During the bilateral meetings … the delegations of both countries reiterated the commitment to act swiftly and ambitiously on five lines of action for the purpose of combating the effects of climate change,” the president’s office said.

Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry in conversation on Wednesday. Twitter @mebrard

The U.S. statement said the policy focus areas of the working group will include: accelerating renewable energy development including solar supply chains; tackling methane emissions from oil and gas, waste, and agriculture; reducing transportation emissions through electrification and other strategies; eliminating deforestation and supporting nature-based solutions; and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

NDCs are efforts by individual countries to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

“The two sides … agreed to meet in the next 30 days to consider opportunities for rapidly enhancing clean energy deployment,” the U.S. statement said.

Mexico’s statement said that López Obrador had stressed to Kerry that the priority of his government is to put an end to corruption. In that context, the president “highlighted the urgent need to modify the current electricity scheme in Mexico.”

The Mexican Congress is set to vote as soon as next month on a proposed electricity reform that would guarantee 54% of the electricity market to the fossil fuel-dependent, state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and thus limit the participation of private renewable firms.

The United States has raised a range of concerns about the planned constitutional change, arguing that it will have a negative impact on U.S. investment in Mexico, hinder U.S.-Mexico joint efforts on clean energy and climate and adversely affect Mexican consumers and the Mexican economy.

The U.S. statement said that Kerry and Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar “raised the significant concerns the Biden-Harris Administration has about Mexico’s current energy-sector proposal and the imperative to bolster open and competitive economies, consistent with USMCA,” the North America free trade agreement.

The USMCA prohibits favoring national companies, including state-owned ones, over firms from the other partner countries.

In an interview with news agency Reuters, Kerry said the talks with Mexican officials were “very constructive” and the two sides “found an enormous amount to agree on” vis-à-vis the benefits of using renewable energy.

With regard to Mexico’s energy sector plans, “we expressed concerns that we not run up against the USMCA,” the U.S. climate czar said.

“[We said] that it’s important to have reforms that are going to be — and I think [López Obrador] wants this — that reforms will not act as a hindrance to an open and competitive market,” Kerry said.

“The key … is attracting investment and participation,” he told Reuters.

Any loans provided by the U.S could be used to modernize CFE hydroelectricity plants, like La Yesca in Nayarit. CFE

In earlier public remarks, Kerry said the U.S. government was ready to be “as helpful as we can be” in promoting the use of electric vehicles and renewable energy in Mexico. He said that the U.S. government is willing to offer financial and technological help to expedite the country’s efforts to combat climate change but stressed that “we respect completely the sovereignty of Mexico.”

“Mexico can play a vital, extraordinary role in our efforts to combat the climate crisis,” the envoy said. “… Working together, North America can become the world’s leading clean energy economy.”

López Obrador, who has promoted the continued use of fossil fuels while pinning his environmental credentials to the government’s reforestation efforts, said Tuesday that Mexico would ramp up its clean energy production if the United States supports the endeavor by providing low-interest loans.

Any loans provided by the United States could be used to fund the modernization of CFE’s aging hydroelectricity plants.

The president said Tuesday that he was committed to strengthening the CFE and guaranteeing that power prices don’t increase excessively. The federal government is also upgrading Pemex’s six existing refineries and building a new one on the Gulf coast in Tabasco. In addition, it recently reached an agreement to purchase Shell Oil Company’s share of the jointly-owned Deer Park oil refinery near Houston, Texas.

As part of López Obrador’s quest to reach national self-sufficiency for fuel – and to bolster his environmental credentials – the state oil company intends to slash crude oil exports this year and end them in 2023.

But there is skepticism that Pemex will be capable of refining all of its own crude given its poor operating and safety record, and López Obrador’s commitment to meaningful action on climate change has been called into question.

Mexico took second place in the Climate Action Network’s “Fossil of the Day” award at last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, “for pumping more, not less, money into the fossil fuel industry, building oil refineries, and delaying policies aimed at carbon emissions reductions.”

With reports from Milenio and Reuters

Aeroméxico announces 2 flights daily at Mexico City’s new airport

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MND Staff

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February 9, 2022

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Aeroméxico announced Wednesday that it will begin operating at the new Mexico City airport in April with two flights per day to cities in Mexico’s southeast.

The Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), located about 50 kilometers north of downtown Mexico City in México state, will open in late March.

Aeroméxico said it will operate two flights per day from AIFA to Mérida, Yucatán, and Villahermosa, Tabasco.

“Our customers will have the flexibility … to fly from these two cities to AIFA or AICM,” the airline said in a statement.

AICM is the current Mexico City airport, located about 10 kilometers east of the capital’s historic center.

Aeroméxico said its decision to use AIFA was made after analyzing the needs of its customers. It had indicated late last year that it wasn’t planning to operate out of the new airport, built by the army on the Santa Lucía Air Force base.

CEO Andrés Conesa said the airline is in the final stage of a “profound process of restructuring and transformation that will allow us to emerge strengthened and take decisions like this for the benefit of the connectivity of our country, … our customers and the creation of jobs.”

Aeroméxico is the third airline to announce it will operate at AIFA after Volaris and VivaAerobús.

Volaris announced in October that it will operate daily flights to and from Tijuana, Baja California, and Cancún, Quintana Roo, starting March 21. VivaAerobús will fly to Monterrey, Nuevo León, and Guadalajara, Jalisco, starting the same date.

Airport departure fees will be more than 60% lower at AIFA than at AICM. Domestic passengers will pay 245 pesos (US $12) while those flying internationally will be charged 466 pesos (US $23).

With reports from Forbes México

Ex-minister takes issue with AMLO over accusation regarding Quintana Roo quarry

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MND Staff

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February 9, 2022

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A former federal environment minister has hit back at President López Obrador after he accused her of being responsible for environmental damage caused by a quarry on land near the coast in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo.

Julia Carabias, environment minister during former president Ernesto Zedillo’s 1994-2000 government, accused the president of endangering the safety of environmentalists via his “unjustified and frequent defamation” of many such people including herself.

At his February 1 press conference, López Obrador noted that a permit for a quarry in the Caribbean coast resort city was granted to the company Calizas Industriales del Carmen (Calica) at the end Zedillo’s six-year term.

He expressed disbelief that a permit for a quarry across 400 hectares of land “in paradise” had been granted.

“I’m being informed and I’m going to confirm that it was Julia Carabias, the environment minister and … great defender of the environment” who authorized the permit, López Obrador said.

“Just imagine granting a permit to extract construction material [limestone] … 1,000 meters from the beach, the Caribbean, the turquoise sea, one of the most beautiful areas in the world. [It was] always double talk and double standards. That is no longer permitted,” he said.

The Environment Ministry (Semarnat) said in a statement last Thursday that Fedro Carlos Guillén Rodríguez, the former head of the National Institute of Ecology – which was part of Semarnap, as the Environment Ministry was formerly known – was in fact responsible for granting the permit to Calica and did so in the “record period of 36 days.”

The ministry said that mining beneath the water table caused “serious environmental damage such as the definitive and unrecoverable loss of the subsoil, alteration of the pressure of the aquifer … [and] the risk of collapses and fracturing of the subsoil.”

It also said that the operation of the quarry affected water quality, superficial and subterranean drainage, the natural landscape and local ecosystems.

In a statement published online, Carabias said that the history of the case involving Calica and the quarry permit it was granted was “extremely complex” and that López Obrador’s version of events was a “clumsy” simplification of the facts.

The Environment Ministry’s statement contributed to the “confusion and disinformation by alleging … that the only competent authority to authorize those permits … was Semarnap and no local authority had that kind of power,” she wrote.

In a lengthy statement, Carabias noted that the Quintana Roo government in fact authorized the expansion of the quarry site across two properties known as La Adelita and Corchalito in 1996.

She also acknowledged that quarrying “is legal in our country” and that “environmental legislation has instruments to prevent environmental damage, such as the assessment of environmental impact.”

Environmental authorizations are not “unconditional or eternal permits,” she wrote.

“They’re not blank checks. Each authorization … fixes precise conditions that regulate the operation of each project in a way that the impacts on the environment are minimized,” Carabias said.

“In case of non-compliance authorities can suspend the operation or revoke authorization at any time. … Semarnap, at the time, acted in accordance with the valid legal framework and the authorization was legal,” she said, adding that the federal environmental protection agency Profepa partially shut the quarry down in 2018 due to a breach of environmental conditions.

“… With regard to the questioning of the president and the federal government about my actions at the helm of Semarnap it’s timely to say … that it’s precisely thanks to the [current] environmental legislation (which emerged and was strengthened between 1987 and 1996) that the authorization granted in 2000 is public and transparent and therefore can be the object of an informed debate that allows us to seriously evaluate environmental management,” Carabias wrote.

She said that “the unjustified and frequent defamation of many environmental defenders” by the president at his morning press conferences – “as he has done on this occasion to me” – represents a threat to “our physical safety.”

Defamed environmentalists who contribute to public programs “in very complex and unsafe areas” where the government is not present are particularly vulnerable, Carabias said.

Scores of environmental defenders have been killed in Mexico in recent years, making the country one of the world’s most dangerous for environmentalists. One of those killed since López Obrador took office in late 2018 opposed a thermal power plant in Morelos that the president supported.

In addition to launching broadsides at environmentalists, AMLO also frequently attacks sections of the press, an oratorical modus operandi that has been blamed for encouraging hostility toward – and even physical assaults on – journalists who are critical of the government.

Carabias advised the president to stop his verbal attacks on environmentalists and cease “placing at risk those of us who work for Mexico with the sole interest of defending nature and human rights.”

“I don’t have double standards, as he slandered me,” she added. “I have always acted according to my principles and within the framework of legality.”

Mexico News Daily

Stalemate between Otomis and feds holds 23,000 folk art pieces hostage

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Leigh Thelmadatter

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February 9, 2022

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INPI building Mexico City — The National Institute of Indigenous People's building on Avenida Mexico-Coyoacan in Mexico City.

If you go by the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) building on Avenida México-Coyocán in Mexico City, you will not see any government workers there, but rather signs and activists and even some handcrafts and Chiapas coffee for sale.

After months of protests in front of the building, on October 12, 2020, the Otomis of the Emiliano Zapata-Benito Juárez People’s Revolutionary Union simply took over INPI’s offices. Since then, none of the federal agency’s staff have been inside.

Such occupation of federal buildings is certainly nothing new in Mexico, but there is a plot twist: the fate of an irreplaceable collection of 23,000 pieces of Mexican folk art.

The people who have taken over the building are principally those that live in Mexico City, with roots in Santiago Mexquititlán, Querétaro. Starting in the 1960s, waves of indigenous Otomis and Mazahuas have been migrating to the capital from México state, Querétaro and Michoacán for both political and economic reasons.

Life in the city has not been easy for them, and many took over abandoned lots and earthquake-damaged buildings and made them their homes. For decades, they have fought with city authorities to remain in a number of these places, including in the regentrifying neighborhood of Roma. They’ve also struggled to get government-sponsored housing constructed on these lots.

folk art collection - INPI building, Mexico City — Two examples of the collection’s items kept in specialized storage: indigenous rattles and an antique lacquered plate from Chiapas.

In the summer of 2020, it looked like they were making progress when the city moved to expropriate four lots of land to build such housing. But then the pandemic struck, halting everything.

Frustrated with what looked like yet another stalling tactic, the Otomis began protesting at offices of INPI, whom they believe should be more intimately involved in the matter.

When talks with the city broke down yet again in the fall, the Otomis voted to take over the building on Columbus Day.

Few might have cared about an office building, and indeed the occupation drifted along for more than a year. However, a recent interview by INPI head Adelfo Regino in January changed that by bringing attention to a collection of folk art housed in the building.

This is not just any collection of Mexican folk art: the collection of the National Museum of Arts and Folk Industries (MNAIP) is the first national collection of Mexican folk art in Mexico itself.

Founded in 1951, it brought together pieces dating as far back as the 17th century, began competitions to expand the collection with examples from living traditions, and is credited with bringing back handcraft traditions in several states that nearly disappeared.

Unfortunately, its building in Mexico City’s historic center was heavily damaged by the 1985 earthquake. Efforts to keep it open succeeded until 1998, when it closed for good.

Possession of the collection remained in federal hands and eventually became the property of INPI with the name of Acervo de Arte Indigena (Indigenous Art Heritage), despite the fact that most pieces are made by those of mixed heritage.

However it does have more work by indigenous peoples than many other collections.

INPI has a small museum in the north of Mexico City, where some pieces are exhibited, but the vast majority have been warehoused in facilities at the Mexico City office building, with specialized rooms conditioned for maximum preservation.

The importance of the collection is not generally known by the public, but the pieces have been available for viewing by researchers and museums both in Mexico and abroad. But since October 2020, INPI staff and other specialists have not been allowed to enter or work with the collection, raising concerns about its safekeeping.

Some of that concern is that there will be plundering of the collection, not because of anything this Otomi group has done but because such things have happened in Mexico before.

mexico city squatter homes — Two examples of unoccupied buildings in Mexico City that migrant Otomis took as squatters.

But the main problem, according to Regino and several experts, is that the collection’s environment needs to be monitored at least daily for temperature and humidity. The occupying Otomi group has locked the specialized warehouse areas, put tape on the doors and more to keep any accusations of theft away.

And so no one has gone into these rooms for over a year. That means that no one knows the conditions of the pieces inside.

Regino’s alarm has caught the attention of folk art experts such as Sol Rubín de la Borbolla (son of the founder of MNAIP) and scholar Marta Turok. It’s also generated accusations hurled at President López Obrador of failing to protect the collection.

In the meantime, the Otomi and INPI have traded accusations of neglect. INPI blames any possible damage to the collection on being blocked from it, but the Otomis put the responsibility onto INPI for ignoring their demands and not paying the power bills, resulting in various outages.

The indigenous protesters also accuse Regino of “criminalizing” their rights to protest, with INPI making a formal complaint to the city for the taking over of the building.

The day after Regino’s interview with the newspaper Reforma, the Otomi group held a press conference to demand meetings with INPI directors and other experts about the collection. It is not yet known if there has been any progress on this front.

Although the fate for the four lots of land in Mexico City (Londres 7, Guanajuato 200, Calzada Ignacio Zaragoza 1434 and Zacatecas 74) were the spark for the takeover, the list of demands has grown.

They now include a halt to renovations in the Otomi hometown of Santiago Mexquititlán and a halt to the Maya Train project in Yucatán.

The standoff continues.

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.

Ex-federal police commander gets 10 years in US for cocaine trafficking

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MND Staff

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February 9, 2022

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A former federal police commander who had collaborated closely with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other United States authorities was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a U.S. federal court on Wednesday for trafficking cocaine.

Iván Reyes Arzate, known as La Reina (the Queen), pleaded guilty to drug trafficking conspiracy in October. He will only serve a further eight years behind bars, having already spent two years in prison awaiting trial.

Reyes described himself to the judge as “a man who does not run away from his responsibilities.” The judge expressed surprise that the prosecutors didn’t demand a longer sentence.

However, prosecutors assured the judge that Reyes wasn’t a collaborating witness. Reyes worked in the same period as ex-security minister Genaro García Luna, who is accused of taking multimillion-dollar bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel. García is in the U.S. awaiting trial, which is expected to begin in October.

Reyes’ lawyer, Mark DeMarco, argued that five years would be an appropriate sentence given the length of previous punishments handed down to corrupt public servants.

As the former commander of the police force’s sensitive investigative unit (SIU), Reyes collaborated with a criminal group called El Seguimiento 39, which trafficked cocaine and marijuana to the United States on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas.

In October, Reyes admitted that he gave information to traffickers in 2016 in exchange for bribes. As the SIU commander, he learned that the U.S. investigators were tracking El Seguimiento 39 and accepted a US $290,000 bribe from criminals for information.

In 2016, he provided information that led to the torture and murder of a DEA informant in Miami. Reyes was at the meeting where the murder was planned, and along with two other people charged US $3 million for the information.

United States Attorney Breon Peace said in October that Reyes, who turned himself into U.S. authorities in 2017, and was convicted and jailed on a separate conspiracy charge in 2018, “forged a deplorable alliance with drug traffickers and betrayed not only the people of Mexico he was sworn to protect but also his law enforcement partners who put themselves at risk to disrupt the [El Seguimiento 39] cartel.”

Ray Donovan, the DEA special agent in charge of the criminal investigation, said in October that Reyes offered criminals a perfect environment. “Reyes Arzate turned a blind eye toward drug traffickers, enabling criminal enterprises to operate with impunity, while serving as a commander in the Mexican Federal Police … DEA and our law enforcement partners worked tirelessly to isolate and identify this bad seed and bring him to justice,” he said.

With reports from Milenio and Infobae

More teachers protest, this time in Zacatecas over unpaid salaries

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MND Staff

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February 9, 2022

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striking teachers in Zacatecas city — Striking teachers in Zacatecas city on Tuesday.

Striking teachers in Zacatecas took over government offices in the state capital on Wednesday one day after 5,000 members of the SNTE teachers union protested there.

The newspaper Sol de Zacatecas reported Wednesday morning that members of the SNTE took over government offices in the Zacatecas city Palace of Government building and took control of the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance and Education there. The newspaper also reported that teachers around the state had taken control of tax collection offices in several municipalities. On Wednesday afternoon, the state Finance Ministry announced on Twitter that only 19 of 58 remained open to the public.

The striking teachers are demanding a missing fortnightly salary payment for the second half of January and the payment of a bonus. One of the leaders of the protest, Óscar Castruita, the director of SNTE’s Section 58, said the money had been sent by federal authorities but then disappeared.

“Eight days have passed, and the second half of January has not been paid,” he said. “The unfortunate thing for everyone is that the single national compensation bonus has not been paid either. Where are the resources that the Treasury sent through the SEP [Education Ministry] to pay the bonus?”

Zacatecas Governor David Monreal said the state was in an economic crisis. He blamed his predecessors for not putting salaries under the direct responsibility of federal authorities and said the government hadn’t sent Zacatecas officials 500 million pesos (US $24 million) to cover the state’s debts.

SNTE Zacatecas leader Oscar Castruita — On February 1, strike leader Oscar Castruita called for Zacatecas city teachers to stop working. Students in conventional public schools in the city have been without classes since February 2.

The state is also facing an security crisis: at least 18 homicides were recorded there on Saturday, the highest daily count for murders for any state so far this year.

However, Zacatecas isn’t the only state where educators are dissenting. In Michoacán, members of the CNTE teachers union tried to block train tracks near Uruapan on February 1. They plan to march again in that city on Thursday.

Teachers have also been protesting in Hidalgo since January and are demanding 196 million pesos (US $9.6 million) in bonuses. They blocked streets and highways in Pachuca on February 3.

In Guerrero, students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college — the school attended by the 43 young men who disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014 — attacked National Guardsmen with a semi-trailer at a toll booth on February 4.

In reaction to the Guerrero protests, President López Obrador called for non-violent demonstrations. “You have to fight for ideals, not for destruction. There should be no rebel without a cause,” he said at his Monday morning press conference.

With reports from Reforma, El Sol de Zamora and El Sol de Zacatecas

Arrival of the pelicans is a big event in Petatán, Michoacán

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MND Staff

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February 9, 2022

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pelicans of petatan, michoacan — The migratory birds from Canada live each year on the Michoacán side of Lake Chapala from October to April. Por un Cojumatlán LIbre y Digno/Facebook

Thousands of pelicans migrate from Canada to an island in Michoacán each year, attracted by the warmer weather and the generosity of the locals.

Petatán Island on Lake Chapala, 250 kilometers west of Morelia, plays host to as many as 20,000 American white pelicans for six months every year from October to April.

The town’s citizens have made their winged visitors feel welcome: they offer food to the birds and consider them a good omen, hoping that they’ll attract tourism to the area.

Locals say the migration phenomenon is almost identical to that of the monarch butterflies in eastern Michoacán. The huge birds can measure up to 1.75 meters in length and have a wingspan up to three meters wide.

The mayor of nearby Cojumatlán de Régules, Ana Manso, said she wanted the pelicans to enjoy the same fame as the monarch butterflies.

“We want the pelican phenomenon to be known at the state level, at the national level and at the world level because wherever you go, everyone knows the phenomenon of the monarch butterfly, but the pelicans are a bit forgotten,” she said.

However, Manso added that the birds were already a pull for visitors from nearby towns, helping to fill restaurants and boat tours over Lake Chapala to see them up close.

That economic benefit goes some way to explaining the generosity of local people. Petatán is a fishing community so the fish offal is served to the pelicans during the season, Manso said.

A local man who fillets fish, Enrique Martínez, estimated that one to two tonnes of fish offal were fed to the feathered visitors on a daily basis.

Martínez confirmed that the pelicans were welcome and that tourists would be given the same warm reception. “It doesn’t affect us at all, we like to have them [the pelicans] here … we want people to come and see them …” he said.

American white pelicans have the second largest average wingspan of any North American bird, after the California condor, which allows them to easily migrate. Their name in Spanish, pelícano borregón, takes the augmentative form of the word for sheep — borrego —due to their thick white plumage.

News report from earlier this month showing the pelicans in Petatán.

With reports from Excélsior and El Universal

Is tequila about to become the United States’ favorite liquor?

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MND Staff

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February 9, 2022

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Diageo's Casamigos tequila: 'It’s not just shots and margaritas as it used to be many years ago.'

Tequila could become the United States’ best-selling liquor in the coming years if the strong sales growth it recorded in 2021 continues.

Data from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (Discus) shows that tequila and mezcal sales increased 30.1% last year to US $5.2 billion. All but 2% of that revenue came from tequila sales.

The agave-based spirits category was the second highest selling category after vodka, sales of which increased by a more modest 4.9% to $7.3 billion. Vodka has been the United States’ favorite liquor since the 1970s.

The tequila/mezcal category was also the second fastest growing spirit category after premixed cocktails, which recorded growth of 42.3% to total sales of $1.6 billion.

Discus spokeswoman Christine LoCascio said that premium tequilas are contributing to the strong growth of agave-based spirits in the United States.

“It’s not just for margaritas,” she said at the trade association’s annual economic briefing last week.

“There are so many high-end tequilas that you can sip and savor like many other high-end products, like whiskeys and cognacs and bourbons and high-end rums as well.”

The CEO of multinational beverage firm Diageo, whose brand portfolio includes Don Julio and Casamigos tequilas, made similar remarks during a recent earnings call.

“The category’s appeal across demographics is significant,” Ivan Menezes said.

“It has crossed over. The multicultural growth is very strong. It cuts across age segments, it cuts across gender. … It’s not just shots and margaritas as it used to be many years ago,” he said.

Menezes predicted that tequila sales will grow more quickly than the spirits sector as a whole during the next five to 10 years.

Diageo’s tequila sales increased 56% in the last three months of 2021 compared to the same period a year earlier.

LoCascio said that mezcal sales are also growing but noted that the spirit – made with any type of maguey – is “still a very small portion” of the broader agave category it shares with tequila, made exclusively from blue agave.

With reports from CNBC