Municipal police pose with their new vehicles. Courtesy photo
The capital of Sonora has become first place in Mexico where police drive electric vehicles, joining New York City and Windsor, Ontario, in Canada.
Hermosillo Mayor Antonio Astiazarán Gutiérrez confirmed that his government had leased 220 electric sport utility vehicles for municipal police for 28 months. Some six vehicles have been delivered so far, and the rest will arrive before the end of May.
The contract is worth US $11.2 million and the manufacturer guarantees five years or 100,000 kilometers of usage. A fully charged vehicle can travel up to 387 kilometers: in an average eight hour shift, police in Sonora usually drive 120 kilometers.
The state previously had 70 non-electric vehicles, which will still be used.
The Chinese-made JAC SUVs are designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and noise pollution. When the brakes are applied, the vehicles convert the by-product energy created by the brakes into electricity. The local government plans to install solar panels at police stations to charge the vehicles.
One of the new electric patrol vehicles. Courtesy photo
Astiazarán said the new vehicles were symbolic of a fresh approach to security. “In the municipal government we’re betting on innovation and promoting new solutions to old problems such as insecurity. As promised, to provide citizens with the security and well-being that Sonoran families deserve,” he said.
“Hermosillo becomes the first city in Mexico to have a fleet of electric patrol vehicles to take care of our families,” he added.
Astiazarán highlighted that the vehicles are 90% electric-powered, reducing fuel costs, and said that the plan would make police officers more responsible and efficient. “For the first time in the history of Hermosillo, each unit will be managed and cared for by a single police officer, by which we seek to make them last longer. With more training … we intend to reduce the response time of municipal police … to an average five minute maximum,” he said.
Current response time is 20 minutes.
The head of the Public Security Ministry in Hermosillo, Francisco Javier Moreno Méndez, said the municipal government was following an international trend. “In Mexico there is no inventory of electric patrols like we’re going to have. In other countries, I believe there is,” he said.
Moreno added that Hermosillo had leaped into the future. “I feel proud and excited to have the prestige of being the first [security force] in Mexico that has electric patrol cars … that’s the future. We are one step further into the future … we will be pioneers in the use of these vehicles for public safety,” he said.
Security forces seized around 1.7 tonnes of cocaine off the coast of Manzanillo, Colima, the Navy Ministry confirmed on Wednesday.
Marines were assisted by an aircraft to detect the small boat with four passengers about 500 kilometers southeast of Manzanillo port.
The suspects tried to escape after noticing the aircraft and navy boats, sparking a chase. They threw packages into the sea as they fled, but were eventually caught and arrested.
A navy patrol secured the packages thrown overboard by the suspects and found a total of 35 packages containing around 1.7 tonnes of cocaine.
The Navy Ministry said in a statement that the operation was carried out with the collaboration of ships, a helicopter and an interceptor vessel.
La Secretaría de Marina aseguró aproximadamente mil 700 kilogramos de cocaína y una embarcación menor, al tiempo que detuvo a cuatro personas, en la costa de Manzanillo, Colima. pic.twitter.com/BeoTatgI7j
Footage shared by the military showed parts of the chase and seizure operation.
Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval detailed the government’s drug seizures in late March in the president’s regular morning news conference. He said 73,834 kilograms of cocaine had been seized during the administration, coming from South and Central America.
While cocaine is transported into Mexico, Cresencio said that synthetic drugs were being produced in laboratories in the country and that 127 labs had been busted by the current administration, mostly in Sinaloa. He added that the base substances for those drugs were arriving via ports on the Pacific, such as Manzanillo.
In the same conference, President López Obrador said the government was considering legalizing “nondestructive drugs with light effects, as is the case with marijuana,” but that an internal agreement hadn’t been struck.
The president put the military in charge of the nation’s ports and customs offices in 2020.
Workers remove sargassum by the wheelbarrow load on Tuesday from a beach in Isla Mujeres.
Record amounts of sargassum – a seaweed that emits a foul odor when it decomposes – have washed up on the coastline of Quintana Roo in March and April, according to the head of the state’s sargassum monitoring network.
“What we’re seeing is that the massive arrivals of sargassum came much earlier than in other years,” Esteban Amaro, a marine biologist and director of the Quintana Roo sargassum monitoring network, told the news website Animal Político.
In previous years, large amounts of the seaweed didn’t reach the Quintana Roo coast until June or July, he said. This year, however, it began washing up in January, while quantities never seen before arrived in March and April, Amaro said.
Some 6 million tonnes of the seaweed washed ashore in March, up from 4 million tonnes in February, he said.
“In other words there was a large increase and in April it will probably be even greater. The figures tell us that this year will be a very big sargassum year,” Amaro said.
A map published Wednesday by the monitoring network shows that there are currently 20 beaches in Quintana Roo with excessive amounts of sargassum, including 10 on the east coast of Cozumel, an island off the coast of Playa del Carmen. Most of the other 10 are in Tulum and Cancún.
An additional 17 Quintana Roo beaches have abundant amounts of the smelly, brown seaweed, while 18 have moderate amounts, the map shows.
Amaro said the monitoring network warned at the start of the year that large amounts of sargassum would reach the coast this year but authorities “didn’t do anything to prevent this situation.”
“We have seen for years that the [anti-sargassum] strategy doesn’t work – over and over again the same deficiencies have been on display. For example, we’ve already seen that the barriers don’t work because the sargassum goes over [them]. They’re barriers designed for the contention of oil spills,” he said.
The navy uses sargassum-gathering vessels to remove the seaweed before it reaches the shore, but the amount extracted is dwarfed by the quantity that washes up on Quintana Roo’s famous white sand beaches every sargassum season.
The navy removed 1,483 tonnes from the sea last year, a 173% increase compared to 2019, but still only a very small fraction of the total quantity of the weed that reaches the shore. That means that most sargassum removal work happens on shore, with government workers as well as people employed by beachfront hotels doing much of the work manually.
The sargassum map published Wednesday morning by the sargassum monitoring network.
Instead of having an anti-sargassum strategy whose central component is removing the weed from beaches, efforts should be focused on installing longer and more robust barriers at sea, Amaro said. Such barriers would assist the navy’s collection efforts, he added.
Amaro said the positioning of barriers should take sea currents into account so that they are effective in diverting sargassum back out to sea.
“I always say, ‘what is from the sea should go to the sea.’ Why do we want to remove a tremendous amount of … seaweed [on land]? To contaminate the beaches, jungle and sea? We’ve already seen that isn’t working. We have to rethink the strategy,” he said.
Laura Artemisa Patiño, president of the environmental organization Moce Yax Cuxtal, agrees. “What we’re asking is that the sargassum be collected at sea because the [environmental] impact is much less,” she said.
“Sargassum on the coast becomes mud and the white sand stops being sand because it [becomes] mud, which causes the entire surrounding ecosystem to die. That’s why the first alternative has to be offshore collection,” Artemisa said.
José Burgos, a fisherman and president of a Playa del Carmen fishing cooperative, lamented the impact that excessive sargassum has on the local economy.
“They didn’t resolve this matter in past administrations and now we’re still waiting for something to be done because this affects all of us: restaurateurs, hoteliers, those who give massages on the beach and those of us who have tourist boats,” he said.
“… The foreign tourist is not used to these conditions and can even get sick from breathing the air,” Burgos said.
In July last year, numerous civil society organizations, including Moce Yax Cuxtal, launched an online petition under the title “SOS. We’re sinking in sargassum! Its efficient management in the Mexican Caribbean is urgent.”
The change.org petition, which attracted support from almost 25,000 people, called on all three levels of government to attend to the sargassum crisis through the implementation of 10 different measures, among which were the sufficient allocation of resources for the installation of barriers and the promotion of the use of sargassum for commercial and industrial purposes.
But the response from municipal, state and federal authorities was unsatisfactory, said Fabiola Sánchez, a representative of a Puerto Morelos citizens group that supported the petition.
“They dedicated themselves to passing the buck to one another,” she told Animal Político. “The feeling is that we’re still buried in sargassum. There’s very little progress, … a lot of hot air, a lot of noise but scant action.”
Sommelier Juan Carlos Alcántara Ruiz earned internationally-known certification from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust through Vino Vallarta. Vino Vallarta
Despite having at least three major regions to produce wine grapes, Mexico is not historically a wine-drinking country. This is probably because Spain’s King Charles II forbade wine production in Mexico in 1699 to all but the Catholic Church.
This, and the prevalence of agave, meant that Mexico’s preferred drink for centuries would be mezcal and tequila.
However, in Mexico, the pursuit of fine wine is still a nascent interest – though growing. In the past decade, wine consumption in Mexico has doubled, although it is still less than a liter per capita, way under the more than 50 liters a year drunk in countries like Portugal.
Production of good wine requires relatively few people to know how to make it, but its consumption requires a populace educated in selecting the right wine for their tastes and food. Many Mexicans try wine not knowing what they like or, even worse, get wine damaged by poor handling or storage. This can lead people to believe that they do not like wine.
Since opening in 2018, Robb has expanded her offerings to both English and Spanish classes, has a second campus and teaches throughout Mexico. Vino Vallarta
Mexico’s interest in finding good wines is driven by three factors: the first is pride in Mexico’s native wines. The second is the tourism and entertainment industry, especially those businesses catering to upscale clientele. The last is that there is a growing segment of Mexicans who can afford the still relatively expensive passion.
Kami Lee Robb worked in the Canadian wine industry for decades and decided to up and leave Canada with her daughter in 2018 after losing a job. Her experiences working as a sommelier in Mexican cities made her realize that wine appreciation classes, common in Canada, are almost unheard of in Mexico. Wine knowledge in Mexico is better than in the past, but there is still much to do, Robb said.
She came to Puerto Vallarta with some inkling that certain Mexican businesses would benefit from wine training, but she assumed that, at least initially, her main clientele would be snowbirds and other foreigners there. It turned out this community was more than happy with margaritas and beer, so the city’s hotels and restaurants quickly became her base.
In Canada, she worked for many years with an English institution called the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET), which has a presence in 70 countries but not in Mexico. Robb navigated the organization’s strict standards and the Mexican legal hoops to officially found Vino Vallarta and offer students internationally recognized certifications.
Her business has two main bases of operations: one in Vallarta and one in Mexico City.
In Vallarta, many of her students are upscale restaurant, hotel and resort employees who need to be able to recommend wines for guests. Many companies pay for the classes as good wine has a better profit margin and more prestige than either tequila or beer. Robb feels she is helping students with their careers, teaching them a valuable and still-rare skill.
Recent Vino Vallarta graduate Joaquín Labrado, who earned a WSET certification in sake, poses at work at the One & Only Mandarina luxury hotel in Nayarit. Vino Vallarta
The business’s other location is near the World Trade Center in Mexico City and partners with Mexican wine aficionado Oscar Lagos Zepeda, who himself is an alum of the school and owns his own wine-related business. In Mexico City, the clientele is quite different, mostly lawyers, engineers and other professionals who have found a passion for wine. One of the company’s goals is to reach out to corporate clients in the capital as many major importers and retailers have headquarters here.
While she’s expanded greatly since opening in 2018, it has had its bumps in the road. Robb’s business was set to take off when the pandemic hit. She suddenly could not give in-person classes.
But a little ingenuity, luck and liberal Mexican laws saved the day. She found a way to do classes online. Getting wine samples to clients turned out not to be a problem since Mexico allows the shipping of wine samples after Robb repackages them. Try doing anything like that in the United States or Canada!
Her business is not the first to offer wine education in Mexico. There are others such as Uncork Mexico, but they tend to focus strongly on Mexican wines. Robb’s focus is international, and often her tastings and classes do not have Mexican vintages. This is important as Mexico still produces only 30% of the nation’s domestic consumption, and wine is often attractive to those with an international worldview.
Per WSET rules, Robb can teach only in English, but she is amazed at how well students in both Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City are able to follow her in this language. And she now has two associates — Ralf Oliver Boschofsky and, soon, Balam García — to teach in Spanish in Mexico City.
Mexico has been very good to both her and her daughter, Robb says. She hopes to leave Vino Vallarta to her someday. And Robb has partnered with exceptional associates who share her passion for wine and have administrative and other skills that she lacks.
Robb giving a class at Vino Vallarta’s Mexico City site. Leigh Thelmadatter
However, she has not completely decided to stay in Mexico, feeling a call to Europe, at least for a time.
But, she says, “Mexico will always have a part of my heart.”
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.
A surveillance camera captured a woman making off with the baby on Tuesday.
A hospital employee in Chiapas was arrested for kidnapping a newborn baby on Tuesday.
The one-day-old baby is suspected to have been taken by Yeni Fernanda “N,” who worked in the public hospital in Tapachula as an office assistant.
The baby’s mother alerted hospital staff after she discovered the baby was missing. Security forces later imposed an Amber Alert in the state.
People outside the hospital said they saw a woman carrying a baby and boarding a taxi.
The newborn was found about two hours later some 10 kilometers away from the hospital on the southern outskirts of the city.
Yeni Fernanda started working in the hospital in February, the newspaper El Universal reported.
Governor Rutillo Escandón confirmed the rescue. “We are happy to report that elements of the state Attorney General’s Office recovered, safe and sound, the newborn that was stolen today,” he said.
The head of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), which runs the hospital, said the search was a collaborative effort. “Thanks to the coordination of many state and federal institutions, the newborn has been recovered and the person who took it from the hospital has been detained,” he said.
It was the main conduit for the DEA to share leads on drug shipments with Mexico.
The federal government last year disbanded a United States-trained elite anti-narcotics unit that collaborated with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for almost 25 years, according to a report by the news agency Reuters.
A DEA agent with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that the government formally advised the DEA in April 2021 that Mexico’s organized crime-fighting Sensitive Investigative Unit (SIU) had been shut down. However, the unit had been inoperative for some time before that, the agent said.
A second Reuters source who is also familiar with the situation confirmed that the unit had been disbanded.
The news agency said it was unable to establish why the government didn’t publicly announce the dissolution of the elite group, which was formed in 1997.
Made up of over 50 officers, it was one of a number of DEA-trained SIUs that operate in about 15 countries, Reuters said.
According to United States officials, the units are “invaluable in dismantling powerful smuggling rings and busting countless drug lords around the globe.”
The now-disbanded SIU, which collaborated with the DEA but remained under the control of Mexican authorities, was made up of some of the country’s best officers. They received training in the United States on latest surveillance and policing techniques and were vetted by U.S. officials.
The unit worked on major cases such as the 2016 capture of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
Reuters said the disbandment of the unit could hinder United States’ efforts to combat Mexican cartels, which ship large quantities of drugs into the U.S., contributing to the drug – and overdose – crisis in that country.
The DEA agent who spoke with the news agency said the government “strangled” the SIU, one of two such units that were established in Mexico.
(The other one is based inside the ostensibly independent federal Attorney General’s Office and continues to operate.)
The demise of the police SIU “shatters the bridges we spent decades putting together,” the agent said.
The now-defunct unit “was the main conduit for the DEA to share leads on drug shipments and tips obtained on U.S. soil with Mexico’s government,” Reuters said.
Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former chief of international operations, told the news agency that the closure of the SIU and President López Obrador’s decision to reduce security collaboration with the U.S. – although the two countries recently reached a new security agreement and Mexico has issued new visas to DEA agents – will have a detrimental effect on both countries.
“It will mean more drugs going to the United States and more violence in Mexico,” Vigil said. He also said that “Mexico is shooting itself in the foot” given that it disbanded a unit that pursued the criminal organizations that are the country’s main instigators of violence, which remain at near record levels.
While it was made up of highly-trained, U.S. vetted officers, the SIU was not beyond beyond reproach. Its former chief, Ivan Reyes Arzate, turned himself into United States authorities in Chicago in 2017 and pleaded guilty to cocaine trafficking conspiracy in a U.S. federal court last October.
Reuters said that alarm bells for the elite Mexico-based SIU rang in 2019 when López Obrador disbanded the Federal Police, in which the unit was embedded, and moved many officers from that force into the newly-created National Guard.
Another portent of the unit’s eventual fate was legislators’ approval of a law that restricts and regulates the activities of foreign agents in Mexico and strips them of diplomatic immunity.
Some observers, including veteran drug war journalist Ioan Grillo, said the legislation was retaliation for the United States’ arrest in October 2020 of former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos on drug trafficking charges. Cienfuegos was returned to Mexico and charges against him were dropped but the episode harmed Mexico-U.S. security relations.
Six months after his detention in the U.S. and just a few months after the tougher foreign agents law took effect, the Mexico-based SIU was officially dissolved. The new law was the “nail in the coffin” for the unit, said the DEA agent who spoke with Reuters.
Víctor Hugo Michel, director of information for the Milenio media group, said on Twitter that the decision to disband the SIU was not clearly a bad thing or a good thing.
“Is closing the Sensitive Investigative Unit that the DEA trained for decades positive? Yes and no, I think. … It reduces bilateral cooperation and sends a message of mistrust to Washington. But the unit was involved in scandals such as the Allende massacre [of as many as 300 people in Coahuila],” he wrote before citing several other positives and negatives of the now-defunct SIU.
A Conagua helicopter spreading fire retardant over Santiago, Nuevo León, forest fires last week. Conagua
More than half the country is facing drought conditions, according to a report by the National Water Commission (Conagua).
Conagua’s most recent drought monitoring report said that on April 15, 53.3% of the nation’s territory was in anywhere from moderate to exceptional drought, 7.2% more than on March 31.
One hundred percent of Aguascalientes is in moderate drought, while 99.9% of Sonora is either in moderate or severe drought. In Baja California, 99.6% of its territory is either in moderate or severe conditions.
However, the worst affected states are in the north and northeast: Coahuila has 29.7% of its territory in extreme drought and 1.7% in exceptional. In Tamaulipas, 1.6% of of the state is in exceptional drought, while 15.2% of Nuevo León is in extreme drought and 8.5% of Chihuahua is also in that category.
More than a third of the country’s municipalities — 896 — are dry, up from 671 on March 31.
Data shows moderate to severe drought conditions scattered throughout the country. Bright red indicates extreme drought and maroon exceptional drought. Conagua
Jalisco has the most municipalities affected, 115, followed by Veracruz, 75, and Sonora, 72. The municipalities with the worst exceptional drought are in Coahuila (Guerrero, Hidalgo and Nava) and Tamaulipas (Guerrero).
The southeast of the country was the exception, after experiencing above-average rainfall. Yucatán, Campeche, Tabasco and Quintana Roo have all been unaffected.
Conagua said that in the first half of April there were two high pressure systems that created clear weather and high temperatures, conditions that favored the increase of areas affected.
It added that the worst drought was isolated to the north and northeast of the country. “The increase in areas with moderate to severe drought in the northwest, north-central, east and west continued. As for the extreme and exceptional drought, these increased in the north and northeast of the country.”
Rainfall this year is significantly down. Until April 14, 44 millimeters of average rainfall were recorded across the country, 35.3% below the historical average.
Only one of Mexico’s principal dams — Nexapa, Puebla — was full. Another 64 dams are less than three-quarters full.
Posters in the national campaign bear the names and photos of deputies who voted against the reform bill on Sunday and the message, 'Let's never forget he is a traitor to the nation.'
Mexico’s main opposition party has accused the ruling party of generating hate and violence by characterizing lawmakers who voted against President López Obrador’s proposed electricity reform on Sunday as “traitors to the country.”
A constitutional bill that would have overhauled the electricity market to favor the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission failed to attract the two-thirds support it needed to pass the lower house of Congress.
López Obrador, who founded the ruling Morena party, claimed Monday that opposition lawmakers committed “an act of treason” in not supporting the bill because they defended the interests of unscrupulous foreign companies rather than those of the Mexican people and the nation.
Morena national president Mario Delgado announced a national information campaign to expose the faces and names of the deputies who voted against the electricity reform, whom he described as “traitors to the nation.”
Morena’s leader in the lower house, Ignacio Mier, and Chamber of Deputies president Sergio Gutiérrez Luna, another ruling party deputy, took posters into the Congress on Tuesday that featured photographs of opposition party parliamentary leaders and the phrases “Traitor to the country” and “History will judge you.”
National Action Party (PAN) president Marko Cortés said in a radio interview interview that Morena’s campaign against opposition lawmakers was “absolutely reprehensible.”
He said the PAN – which occupies the second highest number of seats in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate – would blame López Obrador and Morena for any physical attack on its lawmakers.
“The campaign of hate and violence they’re generating is dangerous and irresponsible,” Cortés told Radio Fórmula.
“Although the president lives in a palace, Mexico is not a monarchy. Mexico is and will continue to be a democracy in which there is the right to not agree,” he said.
“More aggression cannot be accepted, especially from those who govern the country and have the responsibility of generating harmony, not discord,” Cortés said.
Alejandro Moreno, a federal deputy and national president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the second largest opposition party in terms of representation in Congress, warned Delgado and the Morena party more broadly that the attacks on PRI legislators that voted against the electricity bill will not intimidate them.
PAN Senator Téllez, left: ‘Campaign of hate;’ Morena Senator Hernández: ‘You live in a bubble.’
“You see the country as your playground, we see it as the home of millions of families who want a better Mexico. We will defend it above all else … and that will be the case every time you try to put it at risk,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Our proud vote against [the electricity bill] was born out of the demand of citizens. Your shameful vote was born from the impulse of a single man. Read very well: the threats and attacks won’t be enough to destroy the strength of millions of Mexicans who love Mexico.”
PAN Senator Lily Téllez, who defected from Morena in 2020, took a more direct approach to condemning the ruling party’s “campaign of hate,” using her speaking time in the Senate to take aim at Senator Citlalli Hernández, who threatened to “exhibit” dissident lawmakers in city squares.
“I ask you, Senator Citlalli Hernández, how will you take responsibility for the [potential] aggressive actions against lawmakers that you have … [denounced]? … What actions will you take to stop the campaign of hate that you have started against all the lawmakers who have voted against the wishes of López Obrador?” Téllez questioned.
“You don’t have the right to stigmatize them. How will you take responsibility for the hate you have sown? … Answer and take responsibility,” the senator demanded.
Hernández, who is also Morena’s secretary-general, rejected the accusations and asserted that those who have in fact sown hate are politicians who represent the “classist, racist opposition, which has lowered the level of debate in this country.”
She reiterated her claim that lawmakers who opposed the electricity bill are traitors and claimed that citizens agree with that view because they have expressed it at Morena information meetings.
“The issue is that you don’t leave the bubble,” Hernández told opposition senators. “You live in self-deception, you live with funded bots that only speak on social media. You don’t know what people think – go out and ask them what they think about [opposition lawmakers] having voted against this energy reform. Go out and ask them if they’re traitors to the country,” Hernández said.
However, there is little doubt that his governance of the country and his rhetoric – including calling opposition lawmakers traitors and his frequent attacks on the media – have exacerbated, if not created, political division.
Carmen Aristegui, a prominent journalist and a victim of the president’s attacks, asserted in February that López Obrador deliberately uses his weekday press conferences to cause division.
“What the president of the republic is doing … with his strength, his power, his mandate, the resources of all of us … is engaging in confrontational discourse that seeks to, and manages to, divide and inflame,” she said
A reform to the federal Mining Law that nationalizes lithium will take effect this week after it was approved by the Senate on Tuesday.
The law declares that lithium “is an asset of the nation and its exploration, exploitation, extraction and use is reserved in favor of the people of Mexico.”
No new concessions for the mining of the metal – a key component of lithium-ion batteries used in electronic devices and for green energy storage – will be issued to foreign or private companies as a result of the reform, allowing López Obrador to fulfill his pledge to create a state-owned lithium company.
The lower house of Congress approved the reform on Monday, a day after López Obrador’s constitutional bill that would have overhauled the electricity market in favor of the state and nationalized lithium failed to attract support from the required two-thirds of lawmakers.
The Mining Law reform only needed support from a simple majority to pass Congress, which was easily achieved. Eighty-seven senators voted in favor in general terms, 20 voted against it and 16 abstained. López Obrador announced last week that he would send the proposal to Congress if his electricity bill wasn’t approved.
“The lithium is ours,” López Obrador declared at his news conference on Tuesday, recalling “the oil is ours” refrain from the country’s 1938 expropriation of the oil industry from foreign companies. That act is still seen as a landmark expression of sovereignty by Mexican nationalists.
“It was a very good decision yesterday. Let’s see if it acts as a scolding to those who didn’t finish the job,” he added in reference to opposition lawmakers who “thought by blocking the constitutional reform that it was resolved — no, no, no.”
Senator Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, a mining union boss who represents the ruling Morena party, said the nationalization of lithium allows the wellbeing of the Mexican people to be prioritized.
“What we’re doing is preventing the concentration of large national and foreign monopolies,” he said.
Instead, the state will have a virtual monopoly on lithium extraction, although companies with existing concessions, such as China’s Ganfeng Lithium, are expected to be allowed to remain in the country to mine the metal. However, when asked about the private lithium investment on Tuesday, López Obrador responded: “These contracts have to be reviewed.”
Gustavo Madero, a National Action Party-affiliated senator who is part of an independent “plural group” of upper house lawmakers, questioned why the reform was needed given that the constitution already establishes that the state controls lithium.
‘We’re preventing the concentration of large national and foreign monopolies:’ Morena Senator Gómez.
“What the constitution says is that concessions for lithium [extraction] can’t be issued,” he said, even though close to a dozen companies have existing contracts to explore potential lithium deposits, according to Reuters.
Madero, who voted against the reform, described it as a “consolation prize” for the president given he was unable to get his electricity bill through Congress.
Institutional Revolutionary Party Senator Mario Zamora rebuked Morena lawmakers for seeking to nationalize something that is already the property of the state. “Sunday’s defeat was tough and they want to put something on the table,” he said.
Juan Manuel Fócil, a Democratic Revolution Party senator, warned that a state company for lithium could become like the Federal Electricity Commission and state oil company Pemex – firms “with too much bureaucracy and too much debt.”
“[They’re] inefficient companies that have lost money,” he said.
Analysts expressed bewilderment with the president’s high hopes for lithium, describing his hasty nationalization as more about saving face after the failed energy reform than promoting prosperity. “The lithium initiative is a response to the fact that the electricity reform was not approved. It could be seen as a political gesture to say they didn’t lose,” said Gabriela Siller, head of financial and economic research at Banco Base.
Mexico has large potential reserves of lithium in Sonora and smaller potential deposits in states such as Baja California, San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas. However, most of Mexico’s potential reserves are in clay deposits that are technically difficult and expensive to mine, leading to doubts about the state’s capacity to exploit them.
There's plenty of Mexican pomp and circumstance to be had at Puebla city's Cinco de Mayo celebration. This year is the 160th anniversary of the 1862 battle. Government of Mexico
Things are heating up in May, and it’s the perfect time to soak up some fun and engage with locals at traditional fairs or at a modern showpiece event. Also, a last-minute advisory for April: if there’s a Mexican child in your life, don’t make the social faux pas of forgetting Dia del Niño (The Day of the Child) on April 30. It’s a big deal in Mexico; kids are feted in school and get gifts from family and friends.
Also a fairly big deal for Mexicans? The Hot Sale, this year happening May 23–31. This online sales event is often compared to Buen Fin or Black Friday in the United States and is when Mexicans get discounts from major retailers on everything from furniture to flights to beauty products to sports equipment. To find out more or get on an email list for notifications of deals, visit the Hot Sale site.
Here’s the rundown of what’s on in Mexico now and all next month.
• San Marcos Festival, Aguascalientes city (Now–May 8)
This 90-hectare festival in Aguascalientes celebrates its 193rd birthday this year and has something for everyone. The Feria Nacional de San Marcos offers visitors colonial tradition in the bullring, music, nightclubs and family attractions on an artificial lake on San Marcos Island. Most of the big Mexican artists are yet to perform as part of the fair’s palenque concerts, including Gloria Trevi, Christian Nodal, Edith Marquéz and Alejandro Fernández. Find tickets here, but note that when you are taken to the Ticketshop website, you must click the link in the middle of the screen where it says to “remove all filters” in order to see the available shows.
Dallas electronic artist Ishi is one of several artists in the lineup at Cozumel’s Piña Güera Weekend Festival, a three-day dance music event in Cozumel happening May 5–8.
• Expo Festival Guadalupe, Nuevo León (Now–June 12)
A bull-heavy local festival in Nuevo León’s second biggest municipality with over 70 years of tradition. Expo Feria Guadalupe can entertain the kids at the fairground while parents find their way to the beer garden. Last year, the 60 pesos (US $3) at the gate gave people unlimited access to fairground rides.
National Donkey Festival, Otumba, México state (April 29–May 1)
The running of the donkeys in Otumba, known as the Carrera Internacional del Burro, where the beasts of burden are dressed up in local traditional costumes and run five- and 10-kilometer races. If Donald Trump-themed donkeys or a Buzz Lightyear burro sound appealing, then this is a must. Visitors can also watch a donkey polo match.
Note that the information about buying tickets that is listed at the link we provided applies to racers, not spectators.
• Puebla Festival, Puebla city (April 29–May 14)
Puebla’s major festival returns: the Feria de Puebla at the Centro Expositor y de Convenciones de Puebla (Puebla Expo and Convention Center).
Bull running and cockfighting events, plus music from famed Mexican artists such as Carlos Rivera, Banda MS and Los Tigres del Norte. Concerts start at about 11:30 p.m. Tickets cost from 300-3,500 pesos (US $15-172). See all the events here. Any tickets labeled as “Palenque Puebla” are for concerts at the festival.
And if you’re in town anyway, don’t spend Cinco de Mayo in a bar with a bottle of Corona, head downtown to witness a massive spectacle of military might, floats, indigenous performances and more as the city celebrates not only the 160th anniversary of the 1862 Battle of Puebla with its annual Cinco de Mayo parade — in which Mexican forces beat back French invaders — but also the return of the parade, which hasn’t been put on for two years due COVID-19. Also, President López Obrador is scheduled to be the parade marshall this year.
• Santa Cruz Festival, Bernal, Querétaro (May 4)
A UNESCO-recognized festival in the Magical Town of Bernal. Some 50 members of the indigenous Otomi-Chichimeca community form a long line up a large boulder and pass an 85-kilogram wooden cross almost 300 meters up to the top. There, the cross is returned to the small chapel it was taken from earlier in April.
Other events are arranged in Bernal to coincide with the ascent of the cross, including a marathon and a competition between artisan mask makers.
• Piña Güera Festival Weekend, Cozumel, Quintana Roo (May 5–8)
If your ideal weekend is spent relaxing in sun and sand by day and dancing the night away to electronica, pop, funk and soul, this DJ festival is for you. Taking place at two of Cozumel’s boutique hotels, Hotel B Unique and Hotel B Cozumel, tickets are for all-inclusive deals that include lodging, food and alcohol and activities like yoga classes, and for the more adventurous, daytime activities such as snorkeling and diving.
• Pulso GNP Music Festival, Queretaro city, Queretaro (May 7)
If you’re interested more in rock, pop and indie than pure dance music, this one-day festival takes place at Queretaro’s old airfield. The lineup of Mexican and international acts includes Gorillaz, AfroBros, Cold War Kids, The Dears, Carla Morrison, Natanael Cano and Akil Ammar, plus stand-up comedy performances by Michelle Rodríguez, Carlos Ballarta and Karla Camacho. The price is currently 1,500 pesos for general admission tickets and will go up as it gets closer to the concert.
You can also pay more to access special “Tecate Plus” tickets, giving you pit seating close to the main stages and other privileges. Handicapped accessible facilities, including the bathrooms, entrances and stage areas. See the lineup at the Pulso GNP site and buy tickets here.
• May Cultural Festival, Guadalajara/Zapopan/Santiago Tamazola, Jalisco (May 7–29)
The 25th year of Jalisco’s May Cultural Festival (FCM), largely taking place in theaters and venues in Guadalajara. Classical music concerts, interpretive dance, opera and modern theater with an abstract light show promise to keep people entertained.
Tickets for concerts range from 80–600 pesos (US $4–30) and can be purchased here. However, many events are free, including art exhibitions and organ concerts. Artists set to perform at the festival hail not only from Mexico but Ukraine, Denmark, Canada, Japan and the United States.
• Tamasopo Cross-Country Run, Tamasopo, San Luis Potosí (May 8)
A run in the countryside that includes some sizeable obstacles, such as rivers, waterfalls and sugarcane fields. The race begins in the central garden of Tamasopo, a town flush with waterfalls in the indigenous Huasteca region. Runners can opt to go five kilometers, 10 kilometers or the whole 21-kilometer distance.
Unfortunately, signups ended in March, but the festive atmosphere and surrounding natural beauty will undoubtedly be worth soaking up even as an observer.
• Ironman Monterrey, Monterrey, Nuevo León (May 8)
Swimming kicks off the competition in Mexico’s second largest city with a 1.9 kilometers paddle in the Santa Lucia Canal, an artificial river. Racers then mount bicycles to do two laps of a highway (90 kilometers) before three loops of a running track (21 kilometers), with the finish at the Macroplaza, home to the city’s Mexican History Museum.
Registration for the event is still available for US $400, which includes a swimming cap, backpack, food on the day and more.
• Volare hot air balloon festival, Orizaba, Veracruz (May 21)
This festival takes place near Mexico’s highest mountain with a musical lineup that includes Argentine rockers Babasónicos, tecnocumbia group Mi Banda el Mexicano and rock band El Gran Silencio. Tickets can be found here for 599 pesos (US $30) or 299 pesos (US $15) for children. Tickets include – subject to availability – a 15 meter ride 100 meters above the event in a hot air balloon.
• The National Festival of Cheese and Wine, Tequisquiepan, Querétaro (May 20–June 5)
Few things combine better than a selection of cheeses, and a few glasses of wine. 50,000 people are expected for the 42nd edition of the annual event which will take place in the magical town of Tequisquiepan on three consecutive weekends. Art and fashion exhibitions and concerts accompany the culinary offering.
Tickets to the event for a day are available for 250 pesos (US $12.50). This year Spain is invited to showcase the quality of its cheese and wine.
Heart of Mexico Wine Tours is offering a 3 day/4 night getaway for the festival that includes a hotel stay, admission to the festival, visits to wineries, wine and beer tasting and some meals included. Visit this link for more information.
• Born To Be Wine, near Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato (May 28)
The festival combines wine and food at the Cuna de Tierra vineyard, 12 kilometers outside of Dolores Hidalgo, before the DJs arrive for an all-out electronic music party.
Tickets are available here for 1,550 pesos (US $78). The tickets include a free bar and transport to and from San Miguel de Allende, where you can catch outbound transportation.
