Got milk?

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April 23, 2022

Irish coffees — Creamy cold drinks like this are where you really notice the difference in what your milk is made of.

A popular 1960s advertisement featured a smiling, aproned Mom pouring 7-Up soda into a glass of milk with the slogan, “For children who won’t drink milk … for adults who want the nourishment of milk with a decidedly different appeal … Mothers know that this is a wholesome combination.”

Hmmm.

Suffice to say that’s not the case, although I don’t go so far as thinking cow’s milk is as evil as some make it out to be. Local friends call packaged milk agua blanca (white water). It’s easy to understand why. Pasteurized, homogenized and pumped full of vitamins and extra proteins, commercial brands like Lala are a far cry from the natural goodness of real, actual milk.

What exactly is lactose-free milk? Why is milk always homogenized and pasteurized? Is raw milk OK to drink? Let’s explore some of these questions.

Lactose is a naturally occurring sugar found in milk and milk products; for some folks, it’s difficult to digest. Lactose-free milk is usually made by adding the enzyme lactase to the milk, which breaks down the lactose so the body can digest it better. Some brands completely filter lactose out of the milk. There’s no noticeable taste difference between lactose-free and pasteurized, homogenized milk.

7-Up ad from 1950s — Did you ever drink this concoction? What was it like?

Pasteurization is the simple process, used all over the world, of heating and cooling milk to specific temperatures to kill harmful bacteria. While some say it changes the nutritional content or flavor of milk, scientific evidence says the contrary.

Homogenization is another story; it breaks down natural (and delicious) fat molecules to disperse them more evenly throughout the milk. Some say these microparticles are absorbed directly into the bloodstream, leading to an increased risk of heart disease; tests remain inconclusive. In terms of taste and mouthfeel, though, homogenization practically destroys both. If you’ve had raw or pasteurized-not-homogenized milk or cheeses, you know what I mean.

Most commercial milk has all the milkfat skimmed off right away. It’s then added back in varying percentages, depending on whether the end result will be “whole” (entera), “reduced-fat” (leche lite), etc. Skim milk has no milkfat at all and can seem sweet because of this. Commercial whole milk contains between 3.25% and 4%. Cream categories are all about milkfat: half-and-half (12%), light cream (20%) or heavy cream (34% to 38%).

The whipping cream found in Mexican supermarkets has about 34% milkfat but is also full of additives to make it whip better and preservatives to prolong its shelf life. Serious cooks, check out this dried heavy cream powder with 72% butterfat. I’m fortunate to have a local dairy here where I can buy pasteurized-not-homogenized milk and dairy products. Each liter has about two inches of thick, buttery cream on top. My cats — who won’t touch packaged milk — happily lap it up.

One of my favorite recipes for using milk is Japanese Milk Bread — tender, fluffy, flavorful loaves that make beautiful sandwiches or toast. The base is tangzhong, a warm flour and water paste. (This is what panko breadcrumbs are made from.)

Drop Biscuits

1½ cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 stick cold unsalted butter (4 oz.), cut into ¼ -inch cubes and refrigerated
¾ cup whole milk

Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C). Line baking sheet with parchment or grease with butter. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Working quickly, cut butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal. Add milk. Stir with a fork until the mixture just comes together into slightly sticky, shaggy dough.

For small biscuits, use a teaspoon to mound walnut-sized balls of dough onto a prepared baking sheet. For large biscuits, mound ¼-cup balls of dough. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes for small biscuits and 20 minutes for large ones. Cool slightly; transfer to wire rack and serve.

Mashed Cauliflower

Milk’s the secret to making this dish taste like what you have in restaurants.

1 large (2-pound) cauliflower, cut into small florets
2 cups whole milk
2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
4 sprigs fresh thyme, plus more for garnish
Salt and pepper
3 Tbsp. Mexican crema or sour cream

Chicken in milk recipe — Chicken in milk — comfort food at its purest!

In medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine cauliflower, milk, garlic, thyme and 1 tsp. salt. When mixture begins to bubble around the edges, reduce heat to low. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until cauliflower is very tender, 10–15 minutes.

Drain cauliflower, reserving milk. Discard thyme sprigs. Return cauliflower and garlic to pot and mash with a potato masher or purée with an immersion blender until smooth.

Add reserved milk 1 Tbsp. at a time, mashing or blending in between, until cauliflower reaches desired consistency. (About ¼ cup milk total.)

Stir in sour cream/crema; season with salt and pepper.

Jamie Oliver’s Chicken in Milk

1 (3-4 lb.) whole chicken
Salt and pepper
¼ cup unsalted butter
¼ cup olive oil
1 small cinnamon stick
10 whole cloves garlic, skins on
2½ cups whole milk
15-20 fresh or dried sage leaves
2 lemons

Heat oven to 375 F (190 C). Season chicken generously with salt and pepper. Using an oven-safe pot that the chicken will fit snugly inside of, melt butter and olive oil. When butter melts and starts to foam, place chicken in the pot and sauté, turning every few minutes, until browned all over.

Turn heat to low, remove chicken from pot onto a plate. Drain off all but a few tablespoons of fat from pot. Add cinnamon stick and garlic to pot; cook 2 minutes. Return chicken to pot along with milk and sage.

Using a vegetable peeler, cut wide strips of skin off the lemons; add them to pot. Place pot in oven; bake approximately 1½ hours, basting occasionally, until chicken is tender and cooked through and sauce has reduced to be thick and curdled. (If sauce is reducing too quickly, cover pot halfway with foil.) Serve over rice, pasta or potatoes.

Frozen Irish Coffee

½ cup vanilla ice cream
1¼ cups whole milk, frozen in an ice cube tray
4 oz. chilled strong coffee
2 oz. brandy
2 oz. coffee liqueur
¼ tsp. fresh coffee grounds, for garnish

Mix ice cream, frozen milk cubes, chilled coffee, brandy and coffee liqueur in a blender on high until ice is crushed and drink is smooth.

Divide between highball glasses and swirl a pinch of coffee grounds on top of each.

Janet Blaser is the author of the best-selling book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, featured on CNBC and MarketWatch. She has lived in Mexico since 2006. You can find her on Facebook.

Betrayal and battery power: the week at the morning press conferences

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MND Staff

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April 23, 2022

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President López Obrador at his Monday press conference. Presidencia de la República

Lawmakers voted last Sunday on the electricity reform. The proposed constitutional change riled energy company leaders in the United States by promising to give 54% of the power market to the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and to nationalize future lithium exploration.

However, the president faced an uphill battle to gain the required two-thirds majority, after opposition parties pledged to vote the reform down.

Monday

The elephant in the room roamed freely through the report on consumer prices and videos of the government’s projects until, eventually, the president addressed it.

“Yesterday was an act of betrayal to Mexico, committed by a group of legislators who, … instead of defending the public, became outspoken defenders of foreign companies,” he said, after the electricity reform failed to pass in the Chamber of Deputies.

“This isn’t over because we were prepared for betrayal. We knew of the interests that were in question. Very powerful interests,” he added.

The president said that the vote showed the deficits of representative democracy. “If we did a survey, I believe that 80% of Mexicans would be in favor of the electricity industry being in the hands of the nation,” he said.

The tabasqueño quoted French feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir to accuse his opponents of complicity with powerful forces. “The oppressor would not be so strong if he didn’t have accomplices among the oppressed themselves,” he cited.

Later in the conference, the president extended his condolences to one woman who spent much of her life battling authority. Missing persons activist Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, the first woman to run for the presidency, died on Saturday at 95.

Amor y Control (Love and Control), a song by Panamanian salsa artist Rubén Blades closed the conference in tribute to Ibarra.

Tuesday

After the weekly COVID-19 update, the president claimed that all told, the pandemic had gone well in Mexico. In international terms, “our country was one of the least affected in the American continent and
in the world. This was everyone’s achievement,” he assured.

Mexico’s death rate was the 33rd worst in the world out of more than 200 countries, according to the statistics website Worldometer.

The tabasqueño said the battle over the Maya Train, which had its construction suspended by a judge on environmental grounds, was a class battle. “They feel like they own Mexico … they know the truth … they have the right to privileges, not the people,” he said of the project’s opponents, before recounting a woman’s public snub: “Andrés Manuel, you’re a peasant,” she’d shouted out her car window.

Still nursing his wounds after Sunday’s vote, the president celebrated the Senate’s speedy approval of a law to nationalize lithium. He said the precious metal was powerful enough to topple governments and change the course of history.

“I’m not sure, but there are those who argue that the coup d’état in Bolivia [in 2019] had to do with lithium,” he mentioned as an example. “I can’t say for sure.”

Wednesday

The president highlighted the importance of security on Wednesday. “Security is fundamental so that we can live in peace … without that, nothing is possible. You can advance economically, even socially, but if there is no peace or tranquility, there is no meaning to life,” he said.

Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez said federal crimes in March were at their lowest in seven years and that murders were down 13.5% compared to their historic peak.

Later in the conference, the president referred back to peace and tranquility. “Yesterday was not such a bad day in terms of homicide, there were 56 in the country, but the day before there were 90,” he said.

In the section on media lies, Elizabeth García Vilchis said it was untrue that a National Guard airplane was making trips to Houston, where AMLO’s son lives, and that a photo of timber trading was taken near the Amazon, not near the Maya Train. The 1,525 kilometers of track being laid “protects and strengthens the environment,” she assured.

López Obrador was confident in the harmlessness of the project, and invited two of its opponents, actors Eugenio Derbez and Laisha Wilkins, for a chat at the National Palace. “I’m going to invite them, to see what their doubts are and clarify them. Let’s see if they accept it,” he said.

Thursday

The president confirmed that people could sleep easier. The Colombian drug trafficker known as El Boliqueso (The Cheeseball) had been caught by security forces in Mexico City.

However, AMLO was less impressed with U.S. security forces, confirming that a collaboration with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had ended more than a year ago, and criticizing its arrest of General Salvador Cienfuegos in 2020. “They made that decision without informing us and they fabricated the crimes,” he said.

The president also addressed criticism he received for calling senators who voted against the electricity reform “traitors,” and defended the label as a fair description. “Things have to be called by their name. Enough of the hypocrisy and agreements in the dark between elites that people don’t know about,” he said.

On appropriate names, the president assured that a new public lithium company wouldn’t be called AMLITIO, a combination of his nickname and the Spanish word for lithium, as some had suggested.

Friday

The president headed east to Veracruz city for Friday’s conference. He said he was in the coastal state to remember the U.S. invasion there in 1914 and that he’d join a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar and U.S. and Canadian businesspeople to promote trade.

The body of 18-year-old Debanhi Escobar had been discovered in a motel in Nuevo León 10 days after investigators had searched the property. “We send a hug and our condolences to the relatives of the young woman, to her friends … We believe that, in addition to corruption, what has most damaged Mexico, because they go hand in hand, is impunity,” the president said.

Later in the conference, López Obrador announced that Derbez, Wilkins and other artists who oppose the Maya Train would meet him on Monday. He mentioned that the same artists had posed no objections to the construction of the XCaret tourist park in Quintana Roo.

“Maybe they did not see it, like it just happened overnight … they drilled through cenotes and underwater rivers,” he said.

The president signed off from another week of conferences by attempting to charm his hosts. “It gives me great pleasure to be here in Veracruz, in my land … My mother was from Tabasco, but my father was from Veracruz … the children of people from Veracruz are from Veracruz,” he asserted.

Mexico News Daily

‘My daughter is dead because of incompetent people’

By

MND Staff

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April 22, 2022

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Debanhi Escobar disappeared from Escobedo, Nuevo León on April 9 after attending a party with friends. — Debanhi Escobar disappeared on April 9 after attending a party near Monterrey with friends. Instagram @debanhi.escobar

The father of an 18-year-old Nuevo León woman whose body was found in an underground water tank at a motel on Thursday asserted Friday that the state Attorney General’s Office (FGJ) is partially to blame for his daughter’s death.

The FGJ “didn’t do its job,” Mario Escobar told reporters, asserting that it should have done more to locate his daughter, Debanhi Escobar, while she was still alive.

“…My daughter is dead because of incompetent people, because of people who harass … young women, because of sexual harassers,” he said.

Debanhi Escobar disappeared on the night of April 8 after getting out of a taxi on the highway between Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey in General Escobedo, a municipality that is part of the Monterrey metropolitan area.

Mario Escobar said Friday that prosecutors told him that footage showed the taxi driver touching his daughter’s breasts.

Mario Escobar holds missing person flyers with his daughter, Debanhi's name and image. — Mario Escobar holds missing person flyers with his daughter, Debanhi’s name and image.

“I suppose that my daughter did not put up with the harassment,” he said, explaining her apparent reason for getting out of the taxi early. “It’s harassment where the attorney general says there is no harassment. I publicly accuse [the taxi driver] Juan David Cuéllar for all this.”

Escobar said that the taxi driver – who has been arrested – triggered his daughter’s death by putting her in a vulnerable situation. After getting out of the taxi, Debanhi asked for help at Alcosa, a transport company.

Escobar said that some of the company’s security footage had inexplicably disappeared. It is unclear what happened to Debanhi after she sought help at Alcosa.

A decomposing body that is believed to be hers was found Thursday in a subterranean water tank at a General Escobedo motel nor far from where Debanhi got out of the taxi.

Deputy Security Minister Ricardo Mejía said that the body had a crucifix necklace and clothing that Debanhi was wearing the night she disappeared. “The alert was sounded by hotel workers, because of the fetid odors coming from the area,” he said.

Escobedo rejected an FGJ theory that his daughter had fallen into the tank and drowned. “It’s a lie,” he said, adding that the authorities must do everything they can to apprehend those responsible so that “there is no danger” to other women.

Mario Escobar talks with reporters after a meeting with Nuevo León Governor Samuel García on Friday.

President López Obrador said Friday that the federal Attorney General’s Office could carry out an investigation into the case.

Nuevo León Security Minister Aldo Fasci questioned why the body wasn’t found until the FGJ’s fifth visit to the motel.

“It’s a massive human failure – they were there four times and found nothing,” he said.

Escobedo suggested his daughter’s body was planted there. “Why does it appear the fifth [time they looked]?” he asked. “Question. Did they plant it [there]?”

Nuevo León Governor Samuel García called on the FGJ to release all the evidence it has gathered about the case.

“I urge the Attorney General’s Office to … today make known … the videos, photos, evidence [as well as] searches and routines [carried out] because I firmly believe we have the right to know what is in the investigation so that the truth comes to light,” he said in a video message Friday.

“We have the right to be informed,” said García, who acknowledged that “everything seems to indicate” that the body is Debanhi’s but added that we “obviously we have to wait for an autopsy.”

Femicides – murders of women and girls on account of their gender – are common in Mexico, but impunity for such crimes is high. Nuevo León has recently seen a spate of disappearances of women, leading the governor to announce last week the implementation of a protocol to expedite searches for missing women and girls.

Debanhi’s case, the Associated Press reported, “made headlines because of a haunting photo taken by a driver who was supposed to take her home that night.”

“… The driver, who worked for a taxi application, took the photo to show Escobar got out of his car alive on April 8 on the outskirts of the city of Monterrey. There she was, a young woman standing alone at night on the side of a highway, wearing a skirt and high-top sneakers,” AP said.

With reports from Milenio, Reforma and Associated Press

Go for an ultralight flight and experience unbounded freedom!

By

John Pint

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April 22, 2022

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Kordich Air Sports Club, Los Pozos, Jalisco — A airborne "trike" skims above the Laguna de Sayula wetlands and salt flats near Lake Chapala as it comes in for a landing. Kordich Air

One day, I got a call inviting me to fly over Jalisco’s salt flats, located 17 kilometers northwest of Lake Chapala, in a tiny three-wheeled aircraft called an ultralight — also called a trike. I was told it’s a kind of delta wing or hang glider with a small engine and just enough room for two people.

Well, up to that moment, my policy about high and dangerous places was that I preferred to enjoy such views only when wearing a harness and attached to a rope. Nevertheless, I picked up the phone and called a friend with hang glider experience for an opinion.

“You have a chance to fly in an ultralight?” he said. “Go for it! My wife and son both loved the experience!”

Well, I assumed that his wife and son had not only enjoyed their trike flights but had also survived them, so I accepted the invitation.

So the following Sunday, I headed for Kordich Air Sports — a 40-minute drive from Guadalajara — where I had an appointment to soar into the sky at 9 a.m.

After driving through a pueblito called Los Pozos, I stopped and asked a local man if I was on the right track.

“Sí qué sí,” said David García with a big smile, but he said he prefers to call the place I was looking for “Los Pozos International Airport” because, as he explained, it now attracts hang gliding enthusiasts from all over Mexico and a few other countries. They gather here to float upon the extraordinary thermal updrafts created by the unique geography of Los Pozos.

Los Pozos is bounded by a towering cliff on one side and desert-like, treeless flats on the other, plus 80-kilometer-long Lake Chapala nearby.

A few minutes later, I was given a warm welcome by owner Pedro Kordich, who has been flying delta wings for some 35 years.

“Early in the morning, we have ideal conditions for flying ultralights,” Kordich told me, “but a few hours later, the thermals begin to rise, and then it’s perfect for hang gliders. At Los Pozos, you can have the experience of surfing, only you are riding waves of air instead of water.”

But now it was time for my ultralight flight.

First, I slid into my seat behind Pedro. Then he and an assistant snapped a seat belt on me and fitted a huge helmet on my head with a built-in communication system. I felt a bit like an astronaut about to head into space.

“Vámonos,” Pedro shouted with a big laugh as we sped along the runway.

Suddenly, we were in the air and Pedro was already turning the aircraft left and right, pointing things out to me even though we were only 20 meters off the ground. He was “steering” by weight-shifting: pushing, pulling and turning the bottom bar of a big tubular triangle. I was amazed at how maneuverable this trike was in comparison to a commercial plane.

Then we went up high and fast, and suddenly I could see, in one panoramic view, all of Lake Chapala and, beyond it, the Nevado de Colima volcano, at 4,260 meters, the highest point in Jalisco.

In addition, I hate to say, I could see countless forest fires blazing in the hills all around us. It was an overpowering view.

“If we fly over one of those incendios, you might feel some turbulence,” came the tinny voice of Pedro through my earphones.

I answered something, but I’m not sure what it was since I discovered that I couldn’t hear my own voice due to the engine’s roar. Without a doubt, I must have said, “Hey, sure, let’s fly right over a forest fire” because that’s just what we did.

Far below (maybe 400 meters?), I could see orange flames licking the sky. Our smooth ride suddenly got bumpy. Apparently, this is what you would experience if you flew in the afternoon around here, which is why they do the trike flights in the morning.

The next phase of my ultralight educational experience was discovering exactly what happens when the engine fails.

Pedro turned it off and: nothing! We didn’t fall. We stayed right where we were, only now, it was a whole lot quieter.

This truly amazed me. Our trike was behaving as if it were a kite tethered to an invisible rope, “as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.”

I recalled a comment a friend had made about his second hang glider flight in this very place.

“The thermals lifted me up, and there I stayed for over three hours. It was a wonderful experience, and I didn’t come down until the sun set.”

My experience was also marvelous, and I believed I was up there for at least half an hour. However, when I came back down to Earth, I was told my flight had lasted only 10 minutes.

Well, those 10 minutes were jam-packed with rich experiences I’ll never forget. I highly recommend you give it a try!

As I was preparing to leave, a lot of hang glider pilots were arriving.

Now, the hang glider (delta wing) differs from the trike in that there’s no motor. Takeoff and landing depend on the pilot’s legs. This means the hang glider flights all start at the top of the sheer cliff that was towering above us.

One of the hang glider pilots I talked to was Mexican photographer and cinematographer Lars Herrmann. I asked him what he found so attractive about this sport.

“Hang gliding is about nature,” said Herrmann. “It has a really strong spiritual side. It’s about being up there all by yourself, reading the weather conditions, reading the clouds.

“When you’re in a hang glider, everything is beautiful; there’s no war when you’re up there, no envy. You forget about everything, and you concentrate on the present. You don’t worry about your possessions; you only think about flying. Hang gliding is the very best antidote for a midlife crisis.”

A short flight in a trike costs 1,700 pesos and lasts 10 minutes. For 2,300 pesos, you can fly twice as high for 15 minutes.

If you just want to sit and watch the action in the sky above, it won’t cost a centavo.

Kordich Air Sports also has a new tandem option: you are in a delta wing with an expert pilot, but instead of jumping off the top of the cliff, a trike tows the two of you, pulling you up to the proper altitude, where — like Ana Paula Díaz, one of only three women who practice hang gliding in Mexico — you will have a chance to discover that this sport is pura libertad, or unbounded freedom.

In a future story, I hope to describe the tandem delta wing experience.

For more info, phone Pedro Kordich (who speaks excellent English) at mobile 331-270-3838 or visit the Kordich Air Facebook page. And if you’ve been in one of these marvelous machines yourself, by all means, let me (and our readers) know what it was like for you.

The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, since 1985. His most recent book is Outdoors in Western Mexico, Volume Three. More of his writing can be found on his blog.

Elite anti-narcotics unit was infiltrated by organized crime: AMLO

By

MND Staff

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April 22, 2022

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The president said critics of the decision to shut down Mexico’s special anti-drug trafficking unit, which worked with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, lacked information. — The president said critics of the decision to shut down Mexico’s special anti-drug trafficking unit, which worked with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, lacked relevant information.

An elite anti-narcotics unit that was disbanded last year was infiltrated by organized crime, President López Obrador said Thursday.

He confirmed a Reuters report that Mexico’s organized crime-fighting Sensitive Investigative Unit (SIU) – whose officers collaborated with and were trained by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration – was shut down.

“That happened more than a year ago,” López Obrador told reporters at his morning press conference conference.

“… We maintain cooperation with international security organizations but we make sure our sovereignty is respected. Before they entered and left the country and did … what they wanted, they even fabricated crimes. You already know that order was established and we have a relationship of cooperation [with foreign governments] but with respect for our sovereignty,” he said.

The president said that government adversaries complained about his administration’s decision to disband the SIU but asserted they lacked information about the matter.

After being extradited to the U.S., former federal police commander and SIU chief Iván Reyes Arzate was convicted of trafficking cocaine. — After being extradited to the U.S., former federal police commander and SIU chief Iván Reyes Arzate was convicted of drug trafficking.

“It was proven that that group was infiltrated by crime, one of its leaders is being tried in the United States,” López Obrador said.

Former SIU chief Iván Reyes Arzate was in fact sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in the United States in February for trafficking cocaine.

López Obrador said his government has a good – and respectful – relationship with its United States counterpart.

When Felipe Calderón was president and Arturo Sarukhán was Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, U.S. authorities “came in and even brought weapons in,” he said.

“It’s no longer the time of those operations, like ‘Fast and Furious,’” López Obrador said, referring to the 2009-2011 scheme under which the United States government allowed people to buy guns illegally in the U.S. and smuggle them into Mexico so that the weapons could be tracked and law enforcement officials could locate and arrest crime bosses.

“It really catches my attention that there is so much affection in certain media outlets, not all, for foreign agencies,” the president said. “… There is still cooperation but that group that was supposedly of a very high strategic level was infiltrated and its leaders are being investigated and there are prisoners from that group.”

President López Obrador spoke about the disbandment of the investigative unit at his Thursday morning press conference.

López Obrador said that the only foreign agents now in Mexico are those allowed “according to the new legislation.”

A law that restricts and regulates the activities of foreign agents in Mexico and strips them of diplomatic immunity was approved by Congress in late 2020.

“It emerged, as you know, after the arrest of General [Salvador] Cienfuegos,” López Obrador said, referring to the former defense minister’s arrest in the United States on drug-related charges in October 2020, which angered the federal government.

“… They took that decision without informing us; in addition, they fabricated crimes,” he said.

López Obrador said there are firm guidelines that now govern Mexico’s cooperation with other countries on domestic security issues.

“No to violations of our sovereignty, no to foreign groups operating in roles that correspond only to Mexican authorities, no to the violation of human rights, no to massacres, no to torture. All that is clear and it’s complied with every day,” he said.

With reports from Animal Político

Homicides crept up 6% in March – but last year’s number was worse

By

MND Staff

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April 22, 2022

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Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez and Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval confer during the Wednesday morning press conference. Presidencia de la República

March was the most violent month to date in 2022, even as homicides decreased almost 10% compared to the same month of last year.

There were 2,657 homicides reported last month, according to data presented by Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez at President López Obrador’s Wednesday press conference.

That’s a 9.8% decrease compared to March 2021 when there were 2,946 homicides. March’s total is 17.5% higher than that of February, during which 2,261 murders were recorded, but last month had three more days than the previous month.

The average daily murder count in March was 85.7 compared to 80.7 in February, an increase of only 6.2%.

Rodríguez also presented data that showed there were 7,354 homicides in the first three months of 2022 for a daily average of just under 82. It was the lowest total for the January-March period since López Obrador took office in December 2018 and a 12.6% decline compared to the first quarter of 2021.

Many victims of homicide have not been identified, while others are reported as missing until their bodies are found. File photo

Based on homicide data for the first quarter, Mexico is on track to record approximately 29,500 homicides this year. If murders don’t exceed 30,000, it would be the first time that has happened since López Obrador took office. His first full year as president – 2019 – was the most violent year on record, with over 34,000 homicides.

Rodríguez acknowledged that there were more homicides in March than each of the previous four months, but highlighted that the total was the lowest March tally in the past five years.

“We’re continuing to work with a lot of coordination, intelligence and strategy to deliver precision shots against organized crime,” she said.

About 50% of the homicides committed so far this year occurred in six states: Guanajuato, Michoacán, México state, Baja California, Jalisco and Sonora. Rodríguez reported that five of those six states recorded more homicides in March than in February. Jalisco was the exception, with murders declining to 155 from 163.

In addition to the more than 2,650 homicides last month, there were 73 femicides – murders of women and girls killed on account of their gender. The figure represents a reduction of 28.4% compared to the same month of 2021 and a 34.8% decline compared to last August, when there was a record 112 femicides.

The federal government has accused its predecessors of incorrectly classifying many murders of women as homicides rather than femicides.

The president joined the discussion about the security data at the Wednesday press conference. Presidencia de la República

Rodríguez presented data on a range of other crimes, including kidnappings, which decreased 28.4% to 48 in March compared to 67 in 2021. “It’s the lowest figure for 10 years,” the security minister said.

Rodríguez also reported that over 4,400 people were arrested for kidnapping between July 2019 and March 2022, 477 kidnapping rings were broken up and almost 1,900 victims were freed.

Drug trafficking, home burglaries and domestic violence were among other crimes that decreased in the first three months of the year compared to the same period of 2021. Extortion and federal firearms offenses were among those that increased.

National Guard commander Luis Rodríguez Bucio and Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval also addressed Wednesday’s press conference. The former said that almost 114,000 guardsmen are carrying out public security tasks, while the latter said that nearly 160,000 soldiers are deployed across the country, including more than 28,000 at the southern and northern borders to stem irregular migration into Mexico and the United States.

Before he took office, López Obrador pledged to gradually remove the military from the nation’s streets, but signed a decree in May 2020 that ordered the armed forces to continue carrying out public security tasks for another four years.

With reports from El Financiero and EFE

Glorieta de la Palma’s 100-year-old tree to be removed Sunday

By

MND Staff

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April 22, 2022

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Experts determined that the tree cannot be saved. Twitter @LaloGonzalezM

A palm tree planted on Mexico City’s emblematic Paseo de la Reforma avenue over 100 years ago will be removed this Sunday because it is infected with a fungal disease commonly known as pink rot.

Located at the Glorieta de la Palma (Palm Tree Roundabout) less than a kilometer from the Angel of Independence monument, the tree was planted during the Porfiriato, the period between 1884 and 1911 when Porfirio Díaz was president.

The first known photo of the iconic palm tree was taken in 1920, the newspaper Reforma reported. The Mexico City government estimated in 2013 that the palmera could live another 200 years but it became infected with pink rot, also known as Gliocladium Blight, in 2019.

The disease causes bud, stem, and trunk rot on infected palms, according to Bartlett Tree Experts, a United States-based firm that describes itself as the world’s leading scientific tree and shrub care company. It attacks trees that are already weak or stressed.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said experts determined that the tree couldn’t be saved. An event will be held on Paseo de la Reforma Sunday to bid farewell to the palm before its removal.

El registro fotográfico más antiguo de la palma de Paseo de Reforma es de 1920. No se tiene la fecha exacta de cuando fue plantada. Posiblemente finales del s. XIX o inicios del XX. Lo que sí sabemos es que la glorieta data de 1864 a partir del proyecto original de Luis Bolland. pic.twitter.com/IQkSTWtp7Z

— Tlatoani_Cuauhtemoc (@Cuauhtemoc_1521) April 22, 2022

A historic photograph of the Glorieta de la Palma, shared on Twitter by a well-known historian.

“We’re going to do a symbolic removal because of what it represents in the history of the city,” Sheinabuam said.

“We will pay tribute to the palm tree that was on Paseo de la Reforma for more than 100 years,” she wrote on Twitter.

Sheinbaum said that citizens will have the opportunity to have their say about what kind of tree should be planted in its place and whether the name of the roundabout should change.

“It could be a palm tree, a ceiba, a jacaranda, an ash tree [or] an ahuehuete [Montezuma cypress],” she said.

For a period of one week starting Monday, citizens will be able to vote for their preferred species on Plaza Pública, the Mexico City government’s participatory democracy website.

After removal, the trunk of the diseased palm will be transported to the Nezahualcóyotl nursery in the Xochimilco borough of the capital where it will be treated to neutralize the pathogen before it is handed over to a group of young artists who will turn it into a work of art.

Héctor Benavides, an expert with the National Forestry, Agriculture and Livestock Research Institute, said that the palm tree is one of 3,750 in Mexico City that are infected with pink rot. Fungicides have been injected into other palmeras in an attempt to save them.

Benavides said that a lack of rain during the past two years accelerated the drying out of diseased palm trees, as occurred with the Glorieta de la Palma specimen.

“They’re subject to water stress. … When they don’t have [enough water], they become weak,” he said.

With reports from Reforma

Los Cabos received record number of tourists in March; most were Mexican

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MND Staff

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April 22, 2022

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Thanks to a busy month in March, the total number of tourists for the first quarter of 2022 was over 800,000, a 13% increase compared to the same period of 2019. Via El Sudcaliforniano

Over 300,000 tourists visited Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, in March, setting a new monthly record for visitor numbers.

The head of the local tourism trust reported that 325,000 tourists visited the twin resort towns of Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo last month.

“For the size … of the destination, it’s a lot. It’s the month with the largest tourist influx in the history of Los Cabos,” said Fiturca chief Rodrigo Esponda. “We had never had more than 300,000 tourists in a month.”

The Los Cabos tourism industry has depended heavily on visitors from the United States, but 97% of tourists in March were Mexicans. The influx of Mexican visitors came after tourism authorities increased promotion of the destination in the domestic market.

The record tourist numbers last month lifted the total for the first quarter of 2022 to just over 800,000, a 13% increase compared to the same period of 2019.

Hotel stays cost an average of $450 per night in March, a significant increase over pre-pandemic prices. Grand Velas Los Cabos

Tourists stayed an average of 6.7 days in Los Cabos and spent an average of US $3,000 each, a 20% increase compared to 2019. Hotel stays cost an average of $450 per night, an increase of $100 compared to pre-pandemic times.

Esponda said that hotels have limited their capacity to 75% in order to offer guests better service and an overall experience that justifies the higher daily rates.

As destinations around the world open up and lure American travelers farther afield, Fiturca will seek to attract visitors from other markets, such as Canada and Europe, to offset any reduction in arrivals from the U.S.

The tourism trust expects that some 3 million tourists will fly into the Los Cabos international airport in 2022. The airport is the sixth busiest in Mexico, according to federal government data.

A boon for the Los Cabos tourism industry is the reduction in violence in Baja California Sur, which was plagued by violent crime as recently as the second half of the last decade but is now one of the country’s safest states.

The future for the sector looks rosy, with the construction of at least nine new luxury hotels already underway or set to start soon.

With reports from Reforma

Bank of México predicts inflation will drop to near 3% in mid-2023

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MND Staff

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April 22, 2022

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The head of the Bank of México, Victoria Rodríguez Ceja, appeared before the Senate's Finance and Public Credit Committee on Thursday. Senado

The Bank of México has predicted that inflation will drop to near 3% by mid-2023.

Central bank Governor Victoria Rodríguez Ceja announced the forecast while appearing before senators on the Finance and Public Credit Committee on Thursday. “It’s expected that general inflation will decline throughout 2022, converging on the 3% target toward the end of the forecast horizon,” she said.

“For annual core inflation, it is anticipated that there will be an increase in the first half of 2022, and then a decrease, converging on levels close to 3% by mid-2023,” she added. Core inflation removes some volatile items from the basket of products used to calculate general price increases.

Rodríguez pointed to inflationary pressures such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, but said a population wide consensus was needed to keep prices down.

“The situation presents very complex challenges that have postponed reaching the established inflation target. That’s why we consider it a priority that there is a consensus in our society regarding the importance of the convergence of inflation towards our goal of 3%,” she said.

Rodríguez added that the bank was committed to lowering the rate of inflation. “Although the achievement of the inflation target faces particularly complicated conditions … I want to insist on the unequivocal commitment of the bank’s policy to achieve” the target rate, she said.

Mexico’s inflation rate was 7.62% in the second half of March. The Bank of México has increased the benchmark interest rate by 2.5% through its last seven monetary policy meetings to 6.5% as a means to control price rises. The inflation rate is intimately linked to that in the United States, which rose to 8.5% for the second half of March, its highest since 1981.

Rodríguez also predicted growth rates of 1.9-3% in 2023. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its 2022 economic growth forecast for Mexico from 2.8% to 2% on Tuesday, and some other financial experts recently revised their forecasts downward.

However, some financial experts are more bullish on the Mexican economy due to first-quarter indicators.

The head of economic regional analysis at Banorte, Alejandro Cervantes Llamas, said that bearish sentiments were misplaced.

“Even though there have been a lot of private sector economists that have revised their forecasts downward, the economic situation in Mexico really doesn’t look that bad … [wage growth for formal sector workers] has been greater than inflation in every state of the country … Formal job creation has been strong … Consumption, despite this inflationary spike, continues to be strong,” he said.

Cervantes added that Banorte expected 1.7-1.8% growth in the first quarter of 2022, which would be the highest since the 3.7% surge in the fourth quarter of 2020, when the economy rebounded from the lows of the pandemic.

The president of the Mexican finance executives association (IMEF), Alejandro M. Hernández Bringas, said widespread problems with supply chains from China could benefit Mexico. “Mexico could be the supplier that jumps in to replace these Chinese products and, in this way, get some traction on growth,” he said.

The national statistics agency INEGI said month-on-month growth rates increased for the fourth consecutive month in March.

With reports from Reforma and BN Americas

Thousands toke up outside Senate for World Cannabis Day

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MND Staff

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April 21, 2022

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World Cannabis Day Mexico City 2022 — The protest was also a party, with many in costume and many smoking marijuana in plain view of police doing crowd control.

Thousands of people toked up outside the Senate in Mexico City’s historic center on Wednesday to celebrate World Cannabis Day until around 9 p.m.

Marijuana smokers rolled joints, drank alcohol and bought drugs in open view on Reforma Avenue. A disc jockey and bands performed, and organizers held a Lucha Libre match in a ring set up on the avenue.

Some people had non-life threatening injuries after falling during a stampede, while other people were pushed into metal barriers. There was also some commotion when some drug sellers were expelled by the organizers.

Police didn’t intervene to prevent the consumption of drugs but helped keep traffic flowing along Reforma and Insurgentes avenues. Four grams of marijuana were being sold for 100 pesos (US $5).

The crowd chanted “There’s a gap in the law. Rights for stoners! … Legal weed raises morale,” and “Earth to sow it, freedom to smoke it,” as floods of people took over lanes of Reforma.

One of the event’s organizers addressed the crowd at 4:20 p.m, in reference to 420, a symbolic identifying number used in the pro-marijuana community. “We are no longer alone. Peasants, communal landowners, scientists, doctors … cannabis-smoking women and especially today the responsible stoners who are here in peace,” he said.

The organizer added that it was unlikely that there would be any changes in legislation before September.

The Senate has yet to legalize the possession of up to 28 grams of marijuana for personal use and the cultivation of up to six plants in one’s home, despite the motion passing the Chamber of Deputies in March 2021. At his regular morning news conference on March 31, President López Obrador said that there were some plans for wider legalization of “nondestructive drugs with light effects, as is the case with marijuana.”

Former president Vicente Fox is one person who is betting on marijuana legalization: he is the co-owner of a chain of cannabis stores that plan to open 130 outlets in 2022.

With reports from El Universal