A tire-popping system was put into operation at a México state toll plaza less than a week ago but motorists have already found a way to evade it despite not paying the toll.
Some motorists discovered they were able to prevent the activation of the automated traffic spike system at the Las Américas toll plaza in Ecatepec by getting out of their vehicles and manually lifting the boom barriers.
Motorcyclists have also reportedly continued to pass through unimpeded despite not paying the toll by avoiding all contact with the boom.
For drivers of cars, buses and trucks, “the secret is to not push the barrier [with your vehicle],” shouted one scofflaw late last week, according to the newspaper El Universal.
The man works as a ticket collector on a bus but now has the added responsibility of alighting at the toll plaza and lifting up the barrier with his hands, the newspaper said.
Por negarse a pagar la caseta, conductor casi es atropellado y tráiler embiste su auto
A runaway semi-trailer totalled his car, but the driver got away unscathed.
El Universal witnessed three other motorists lifting the boom gates so they could pass through without paying the toll and without having their vehicles’ tires punctured, as happened to a semi-trailer last Tuesday.
One of the toll evaders was a police officer, the newspaper said. It reported that an officer got out of his car and demanded he be let through for free. But a toll plaza employee refused to lift the barrier even though the officer showed her his badge and gun.
The policeman proceeded to lift the gate with his hands and his vehicle and seven others subsequently passed through the toll plaza without paying.
Another man’s attempt to avoid paying at the same plaza may have saved his life. On January 9, before the tire-spike system began operating at the Las Américas toll plaza, a man got out of his car to manually open the boom gate.
Seconds later, a semi-trailer narrowly missed him as it passed through the plaza at high speed. The truck smashed into the man’s car, pushing it down the road well past the toll gate where it had stopped, footage posted to social media showed.
El Universal reported that the man’s car was destroyed in the collision. The truck driver, whose vehicle’s brakes apparently failed, was uninjured. It was unclear whether the man who opened the toll gate was fined, El Universal said.
(S)he said, she said: Energy Minister Rocío Nahle and US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm pose for a photo at their meeting last week. Twitter @rocionahle
United States Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm conveyed “real concerns” about Mexico’s proposed electricity reform during her visit to Mexico City late last week, contrary to statements by Mexican officials.
Energy Minister Rocío Nahle said last Thursday that the United States was not concerned about the planned constitutional reform – which would guarantee 54% of the electricity market to the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission, but Granholm countered that claim in a statement issued Friday.
“Throughout my trip, I met with senior Mexican leadership, including President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as well as industry, legislators, and civil society, for frank and respectful dialogue. In each meeting, we expressly conveyed the Biden-Harris administration’s real concerns with the potential negative impact of Mexico’s proposed energy reforms on U.S. private investment in Mexico,” she said.
“The proposed reform could also hinder U.S.-Mexico joint efforts on clean energy and climate,” Granholm added.
On a more positive note, the energy secretary said she was assured that Mexico is committed to supporting clean energy and resolving current disputes with energy projects within the rule of law.
“Mexico is blessed with an abundance of potential renewable energy, that, if fully realized, could power its own country at least 10 times over, create millions of good-paying jobs, and develop an extraordinary export industry geared for a world in need of clean energy solutions,” the statement continued.
“We have expressed our enthusiasm about working with the Mexican government to advance their climate goals, and grow a competitive and diversified clean energy economy,” Granholm said.
They warned of a range of adverse consequences if the proposed electricity reform is approved, including the cancellation of renewable energy permits, contracts, and certificates.
In public remarks during a meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard last Thursday, Granholm acknowledged that “there may be issues” with regard to the electricity reform but emphasized that the United States and Mexico would continue to be “strong allies” and “strongly supportive of a strong North American economy.”
In a letter sent to Republican Party Representative Buddy Carter the same day, the energy secretary, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai declared that U.S. agencies remain committed to ensuring fair treatment of U.S. investors in Mexico.
The officials told the lawmaker that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative was continuing to review Mexico’s energy sector plans to determine their compliance or lack thereof with the USMCA, the North American free trade pact that took effect in July 2020. U.S. lawmakers, including the senators who wrote to Granholm last week, have warned that the electricity reform violates USMCA provisions.
The Congress is expected to vote on the controversial bill – which requires two-thirds support to pass – in April. The ruling Morena party doesn’t have a supermajority in either the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate, meaning it will need the support of some opposition lawmakers to approve the reform.
Robert James Dinh, left, and Thomas Cherukara, right, died in the attack at the Xcaret Hotel. Ceara Jessica Sahadee survived. All three victims were Canadian.
Robert James Dinh was part of a Vietnamese crime syndicate operating in Canada and the United States, according to news reports. He was suspected of money laundering, using a false identity and other criminal activities, and was thought to be the right hand man to the gang’s leader Cong Dinh, the news website Infobae and the newspaper El Universal reported.
The other victim, Canadian Thomas Cherukara, was suspected of a long list of criminal activities including drug trafficking, robbery, weapons possession and using a false identity, but it is not clear whether he belonged to the same organization. A Canadian woman, Ceara Jessica Sahadee Yari, 29, was wounded.
Authorities are searching for a male assailant who fled on foot immediately after the shooting at the Xcaret Hotel between Playa del Carmen and Tulum.
The former chief superintendent of federal policing in British Columbia, Keith Finn, said in 2019 that the Vietnamese criminal group had wide international operations. “It was allegedly transporting ecstasy and marijuana to the southern United States, as well as cocaine to northern Canada,” and had affiliates in California, Mexico, Australia, Vietnam and across Canada, he said.
Canada announced a CAD $50,000 reward for Cong Dinh in 2019.
The newspaper Milenio reported that Robert Dinh and Cong Dinh were the same man, who was thought to have fled to Vietnam in 2013. The Canadian police offered CAD $50,000 (about US $37,700) for information on Cong Dinh in 2019.
Red is back on the map for the first time in 2022. Semáforo COVID-19
Maximum risk red appears on the federal government’s coronavirus stoplight map for the first time this year as the fourth wave of infections continues to grow.
The small Bajío region state of Aguascalientes is red on the updated map, which takes effect Monday and remains in force through February 6.
Nine states are high risk orange, 10 are medium risk yellow and 12 are low risk green. There were 19 green states on the previous map and just three orange ones, but case numbers have exploded recently as the highly contagious omicron variant spreads rapidly across the country.
Among the 32 states, Aguascalientes – yellow on the previous map – has the highest occupancy rate for hospital beds with ventilators, with 65% currently in use.
Almost three-quarters of general care beds are taken in the state, which has just over 3,000 active cases, or about 200 per 100,000 people, according to the latest Health Ministry data.
Health personnel attend to a patient suspected of having COVID-19 in Mexico City. IMSS
Eight of the nine orange states are in Mexico’s north. The northern border states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Nuevo León are all high risk as are Baja California Sur, Durango and Zacatecas.
The only orange state not in the north is tourism-oriented Quintana Roo, where Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum are located.
The 10 medium risk states are Mexico City, México state, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Jalisco, Morelos, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Yucatán. The 12 green states include Mexico’s five southernmost Pacific coast states and the Gulf coast states of Campeche, Tabasco and Veracruz.
The entry into force of the new map comes after Mexico recorded just under 300,000 confirmed cases over the past seven days.
A new single-day record of 60,552 new cases was set last Wednesday, and over 50,000 were reported on each of Thursday and Friday before the daily count fell to 49,906 on Saturday.
The Health Ministry reported 20,872 additional cases on Sunday, lifting Mexico’s accumulated tally to 4.66 million. There are just over 338,000 estimated active cases.
The daily average of reported case numbers is up 910% in January compared to December, but COVID-19 deaths are down 2% to an average of 163 per day in the first 23 days of the month.
An additional 98 fatalities were reported Sunday, increasing the official death toll to 303,183.
In other COVID-19 news:
• The national occupancy rate for general care beds in COVID wards is 41%, while 25% of beds with ventilators are taken, the Health Ministry reported Sunday.
Durango has the highest rate in the former category with 83% of beds in use. Three-quarters of general care beds are taken in Nuevo León, while the occupancy rate is 73% in each of Aguascalientes and Mexico City.
• Health Ministry data shows that 516 children were hospitalized for COVID-19 between January 9 and 15, the highest number for a single week since the beginning of the pandemic. The previous high was 396 between August 15 and 21 of last year, when Mexico was amid a delta-fueled third wave.
Workers in the COVID area of a Mexico City hospital transport an infant.
Almost 12,000 children have been hospitalized for COVID since the beginning of the pandemic and just over 1,000 have died. Infants aged two and under account for 37% of hospitalizations among minors.
• Baja California Sur still has the highest number of cases on a per capita basis with over 1,000 per 100,000 people. Mexico City ranks second with more than 800, while each of Tabasco and Colima has over 600.
• More than 83.3 million people have been vaccinated in Mexico, of whom 93% are considered fully vaccinated. The federal government began a booster shot program last month with seniors and teachers given priority.
• The northern state of Nuevo León will be the first to have all citizens aged five and up vaccinated against COVID, the governor announced after obtaining a donation of 500,000 Pfizer shots from its U.S. neighbor, the state of Texas.
Samuel García said his state will set an example for all of Mexico within three months by vaccinating children aged five to 14, something the federal government — which is vaccinating youths aged 15 and up — has declined to do.
• Despite the increase in case numbers, classes and large events such as concerts won’t be canceled in Mexico City, said Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum.
Although the capital regressed from green to yellow on the stoplight map,“the city’s activities are not changing,” she said Sunday.
“… We’re asking people to take care and the strategy is to vaccinate [residents with a third dose] as soon as possible,” Sheinbaum said, adding that she expected all citizens to have received a booster shot by the end of February.
Mexico City currently has more than 73,000 active cases, meaning that about one in five confirmed cases over the past two weeks were detected in the capital.
The megalopolis leads the country for both total cases and COVID-related deaths with 1.16 million of the former and 53,189 of the latter.
Pendulum work at the haunted hospital in Colonia Roma in Mexico City, part of the Tour Insólito. Mexican Agency for Paranormal Investigation.
Antonio Zamudio, a paranormal investigator for over 25 years in Mexico, says the country is rich in ghost stories in part because its history “has been written in blood in all of its decades.”
It should be no surprise that ghost stories concentrate in the country’s oldest and largest cities. They especially abound in Mexico City, where paranormal activity has been mentioned here since the early colonial period, including the first Spanish-language mention of La Llorona.
But attempts to scientifically prove or disprove such phenomena has a far spottier history. The last major researcher and believer was none other than the man who launched the Mexican Revolution, president Francisco I. Madero — a tragic figure in his own right.
Madero founded a society specifically related to the paranormal, but it dissipated after his death. For decades, the only organization like this was the still-in-existence Mexican Society for Skeptical Investigation, which does not focus only on the paranormal and leans heavily toward the debunking of stories.
Antonio Zamudio.
That is until psychologist Antonio Zamudio of Mexico City came upon the scene.
As you might expect, Zamudio’s relationship with the paranormal began with a personal experience, starting from when he was only four years old. His family had rented a house in the capital for a time.
Being the youngest, Zamudio slept with his parents. But that did not stop him from waking up in the early morning hours with the idea that someone was watching him. The sensation came from a window facing a tragaluz, an enclosed niche in the back of many Mexico City residences to allow for the entrance of light and air but with no access to the street.
Of course, his parents thought it was bad dreams until the other family members began seeing strange things. The main trauma that Zamudio experienced came one early morning while getting ready for school.
Drinking a warm beverage, he looked into the mirror to find the ghost of a woman with burned and peeling skin sitting next to him. The memory terrified him until he was about 10, when he started reading books about paranormal research.
That particular house has had a strong reputation for being haunted for many years, and even to this day, Zamudio has not yet done an investigation there.
Using a ouija board on the Mexico City Tour Insólito in Mexico City.
He continued his interest in psychology and parapsychology into his college years, enrolling at the National Autonomous University. However, there was friction between him and the psychology department over whether to take parapsychology seriously.
But he did meet a number of like-minded people and decided to go to Barcelona to study parapsychology and the occult.
Europe is relatively open-minded about such things and has organizations dedicated to scientifically examining claims. Zamudio asked himself, “Why not in Mexico?’”
The first group is dedicated to fieldwork, interviewing witnesses and trying to record evidence with various kinds of modern devices. They do not go in with the assumption that a story is true.
Some members specialize in software specifically designed to detect frauds. They have video blogged a number of their cases at a Spanish language site.
Advertisement for the Netflix series Zamudio co-hosted.
Zamudio and his organizations over the years have investigated and documented over 300 cases. He does not believe that such experiences are limited to those with some kind of gift but rather something that can happen to anyone.
Although Mexico City provides the potential for more than one lifetime of work, Zamudio does not limit his attention to the capital. There are associates with one or both organizations in just about all of Mexico’s states, as well as collaborations with people in Europe and Latin America and fieldwork in Colombia and other South American countries.
Another aspect is community engagement: this began with the Tour Insólito (Unusual or Strange Tour), whose main function is to take a group of people and enter a place noted for being haunted, going through with the visitors the same steps that their researchers do. This includes high-tech devices but also some classic tools such as Ouija boards and pendulums.
Before the pandemic, their tours were regularly scheduled in the Roma-Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City, but they had done others sporadically in Guadalajara and other cities. Zamudio hopes to return to the tours in March, including those in English.
His other outreach work is collaborating with Netflix. In 2021, he co-hosted a series called Haunted: Latin America, which focuses on cases in Mexico and Colombia. The first Mexican episode featured “The Evil House” of Apodaca, Nuevo León, basically the Amityville Horror of Mexico.
Zamudio emphasizes that while there is an element of drama to the episodes, all cases presented follow his organization’s standards for investigation. He currently is negotiating with Netflix on a new project but declined to reveal any of the details.
The logo of Zamudio’s Mexican Agency for Paranormal Investigation.
The purpose of these outreach efforts is not to convince people to believe in ghosts — and certainly not in any particular case — but rather to encourage people to be more open-minded about both the existence of the paranormal and the ability to research it scientifically.
• Have you ever seen or experienced something like Antonio Zamudio investigates? Share your story with us in the comments.
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.
You may have seen these tasty tacos all over Instagram.
Traditional birria, made with lamb or goat, originally hails from Jalisco, where it’s a standard at weddings, parties and holiday gatherings, and also a hangover remedy for said celebrations. The flavorful stew can be made thick or thin, eaten with corn tortillas and topped with fresh onions and cilantro.
But the taco of Instagram fame came out of Tijuana, where enterprising cooks, using beef instead of mutton, folded the flavorful braised meat into a tortilla filled with melted cheese and served it with a broth for dunking.
In the last few years, it’s become a “culinary craze” all over the United States and beyond, and I must admit I love quesabirria tacos too, especially for breakfast.
In what is actually typical of Mexican cuisine — but unknown to many cooks in Western countries — an assortment of chiles is what makes birria so notable and deliciously earthy, irresistibly sweet and spicy all at the same time. Those of us in Mexico are lucky that we can find these dried chiles easily; readers north of the border may have to search a little harder.
Birria is traditionally cooked long and slow with pots of the marinated meat steamed in an underground oven much like barbacoa. This ensures that all the flavor is released from the bones and a complete melding of the spices, chiles, herbs and other ingredients.
In Jalisco, don’t hold your wedding without some birria!
Without an underground oven, modern-day methods include using a slow cooker or Instant Pot or just several hours of slow, covered braising in the oven. While it’s a bit time-consuming to make the marinade and sear the meats, the end result is well worth the effort, and once everything is in the oven, you’re free to do whatever.
Part of the allure of quesabirria tacos is the combination of the crisped tortilla shells, red with spice and fat, the gooey melted cheese and the delight of dipping the whole thing into a flavorful consommé.
Is it easier to find a restaurant that serves it and just go out to eat? Definitely. But for those adventurous cooks who want to try making it at home, birria is an immensely satisfying (and impressive!) dish to add to your culinary repertoire.
Quesabirria Tacos
5 dried guajillo chiles
3 dried morita chiles
3 dried pasilla chiles
1½ Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 lb. beef brisket or beef chuck roast
2 lb. oxtails, short ribs, or beef shank
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
10 cloves garlic
6 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp. dried oregano
1½ tsp. cumin seeds
3 Roma tomatoes, halved
¼ cup white wine vinegar
1 onion, quartered
5 bay leaves
Corn tortillas
Shredded Oaxaca or mozzarella cheese
Minced fresh cilantro and white onion
Lime wedges
Preheat oven to 350 F. Place all chiles into a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven. Over medium heat, toast 1–2 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove to a bowl; cover with 3 cups boiling water.
Submerge chiles for 20 minutes until rehydrated and pliable. Remove chiles, reserving liquid.
Season beef with salt and pepper. Add oil to Dutch oven. Heat on medium-high. Working in batches, sear beef thoroughly (6–7 minutes per side for brisket/roast, 4–5 minutes for bone-in parts). Set aside.
In blender, add dehydrated chiles, garlic, cloves, cinnamon stick, oregano, cumin seeds, tomatoes, vinegar and 1½ cups of chile liquid. Carefully process 1 minute until mixture becomes a pourable paste.
Return beef to Dutch oven over medium heat; add onion and bay leaves, then chile paste and enough water to just cover the beef (about 3–4 cups). If using Instant Pot or slow cooker, at this point, see instructions for each of these options below.
Bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, cover and place in preheated oven. Braise 4 to 4½ hours until beef is fork-tender. Discard bay leaves and onion; transfer meat to a cutting board. Reserve all broth/consommé. Shred beef; set aside.
Season consommé with salt and pepper to taste. If desired, thin with water, chicken or beef stock. Bring to a simmer and taste/season again.
Outside Mexico, the chiles you need may require some hunting down.
In an Instant Pot: follow recipe for sauce above. Sear meat in Instant Pot or stovetop. Place sauce and meat in Instant Pot; cook on high in the Stew setting for about 50 minutes. Remove meat and shred, reserving liquid (consommé). Continue for instructions to make quesabirria tacos.
In a slow cooker: make the sauce as stated in the recipe. Sear the meat, then pour in the sauce and broth. Cook on high for 6–7 hours. Remove meat and shred, reserving liquid (consommé). Continue for instructions to make tacos.
To make quesabirria tacos: Bring consommé to a simmer (there will be a layer of dark red fat on the top). Heat a comal or cast-iron pan over medium. Line up bowls with shredded Oaxaca cheese, cilantro and onions; place tortillas and shredded beef nearby.
Working in batches, place about ⅓ cup of beef in comal or pan and sear, stirring to evenly brown. Dip one corn tortilla into consommé, coating both sides with the red fat. Place on the pan/comal and cover with cheese.
Fry tortilla for 3 minutes until cheese has mostly melted and the underside has browned and started to crisp. Place a small amount of the seared meat onto one half of a tortilla; top with cilantro and white onion. Fold into a taco and sear each side for 30 seconds and remove.
Repeat with all the meat. Serve tacos with lime wedges and small bowls of consommé for dipping. — www.delish.com
Birria María Cocktail
The Bloody Mary’s Mexican cousin!
Tajín (find it in your market sold with the spices)
1 cup cold birria broth, skimmed of fat, strained
2 oz. fresh lime juice
1 oz. fresh orange juice
1 oz. tequila blanco
Hot sauce to taste
Salsa Maggi or Worcestershire sauce
Red wine vinegar
Cold beer (like Pacifico)
Lime wedges, for garnishing
Rim two pint glasses with Tajin. In a cocktail shaker, add broth, tequila, lime and orange juice. Add hot sauce, Salsa Maggi and vinegar to taste.
Fill shaker with ice, secure lid and shake vigorously at least 30 seconds. Strain into the glasses.
Top with beer; stir to blend. Garnish with lime wedges.
Have you ever tried this dish, perhaps at a party with your Mexican friends? What did you think of it? We’re curious to hear your experiences with this unusual sweet, sour and spicy food.
One of Mexico's indelible collective memories is that of the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre. Will what is happening today end up imprinted on the nation's consciousness?
In a Psychology 101 class in college, our teacher showed us a documentary about a man whose memory reset approximately every seven seconds.
The condition was the result of a virus, and since it had struck him, he’d been living in a psychiatric hospital.
His diary was filled with hundreds of variations of the same line: “I just woke up. I just woke up. I just woke up.” By the time he finished writing the sentence, he’d again have the feeling of just having regained consciousness and would write it down again.
The man’s wife would go visit him, and the visits, at least for him, looked joyful. She’d walk in, and he’d hop up to envelop her in a big bear hug. “I’m so happy to see you!” That was usually the extent of the dialogue of their visits since by the time the hug was finished, his memory had reset.
He did not seem unhappy. In fact, I’d say he seemed downright amazed by all the wonderful things he perceived to be suddenly before him.
It’s a story that has stuck with me for over 20 years. This is remarkable for me, as my own memory is, I’m pretty sure, extremely bad.
When things go into my head, they don’t get organized and filed away, but rather turn into little water particles that float around in what feels like a cloud of vague sensations. They’re hard to get back, and I find it ironic that words are precisely how I make my living given that both my memories and most of my thoughts are not actually in the form of words.
I only recently discovered that most people have an internal dialogue going, The Wonder Years-style. I never suspected that was real.
Ask me what I did yesterday, and I really have to think about it. I keep a diary specifically to ensure that there’s a record somewhere, and when I forget (ha!) for a day or two, it’s a real struggle to think back to everything that I did two or three days prior. I’d be useless on a witness stand.
My house is filled with calendars and to-do lists that provide various degrees of helpfulness. I open every click-baity article with a title like, “Could You Have Adult ADHD?”
Knowing that memories tend to become distorted as time goes on, I decided to see what information I could find about the man from the documentary.
His name is Clive Wearing, and while he has a charming British accent that might throw some people off (how do they always sound so jolly?), he’s most definitely not joyful all the time.
Asked what it’s like to have no memory, he says, “It’s exactly the same as being dead … You don’t do anything at all.”
Ah, memory. You have failed me once again!
The more recent documentary I found of him on YouTube led me down a rabbit hole where I found stories of people on the opposite side of the spectrum: those who could very literally remember the entirety of their lives.
The actress Marilu Henner (the redhead lady from the American TV show Taxi) is one of them. While she seemed perfectly happy and grateful to remember all the details of her life to date, others expressed the desire to give back this “gift.” If many of one’s memories are both sad and constantly accessible, I imagine it can be a real drag.
What does all this have to do with Mexico? Well, so far, nothing.
Sick of all the depressing news and not wanting to essentially rewrite any number of articles I’ve already written, I had decided to write about something much more benign: spring cleaning. In addition to writing and translating, one of my biggest passions is, well, cleaning. Or more romantically: making one’s physical environment safe, functional and beautiful.
It’s also fresh on my mind right now as I’m currently working for a friend (from a distance) to help her get her house organized and packed for a move next week. “I know!” I thought. “A nice spring cleaning guide specific to Mexican homes!”
So I got started by writing about the importance of fresh starts. I love the feeling of everything being new, of feeling refreshed, of an illuminating change of perspective brought by an adjustment, or a purge.
I love dumping out the old and the stale.
I want to feel like “I just woke up,” have my mind glistening clean before my cloud of wordless, heavy thoughts moves into consciousness. I abhor junk.
So I do in my physical space what I can’t always do in my mind: I get rid of useless stuff that’s just clouding things up; sort; organize; put everything in its proper place. (I’m still planning on writing out some spring cleaning tips, by the way, which I suppose at this point I’ll leave for next week.)
In the meantime, I’m meditating on how our memories hurt or help us along this winding path of history and how important either remembering or forgetting will be for our collective futures.
Luis Echeverría just turned 100 (only the good die young?), and I wonder: do the memories of the Tlatelolco massacre haunt him? Has he forgotten? Or has he distorted them in a way that leaves his conscience clear?
What about memories of all the COVID-19 victims who didn’t make it over the past two years as tourists continue pouring into the areas that have become the hardest hit? Are the bad times best left forgotten, or should we keep those cautionary memories on the surface even as this wave seems mercifully lighter but more widespread?
Will AMLO ever let go of the actions he was sure would turn Mexico into a utopia from the 1970s, or will his insistence that those never forgotten but now outdated plans keep the country from moving forward? Is the refusal to recognize our very recent, very poor record of human rights violations a forgetfulness, a willful blindness or just plain old cognitive dissonance?
Which memories are worthy of being kept ever-present in our collective consciousness and which should simply be discarded so that we can all say, “Ah, I just woke up! It’s a brand-new day!”
The president speaks at his morning press conference on Monday. Presidencia de la República
After four days on the sidelines, President López Obrador was back in his natural place this week: before the press and public at the National Palace.
His old friend and fellow Tabascan, Interior Minister Adán Augusto López, had stood in during a forced absence due to COVID-19.
They both attended a ceremony at the Bellas Artes Museum on Sunday for the poet and writer Carlos Pellicer, who was also from the southern state. He acted as a mentor, and something of a moral guide, to AMLO early in his career.
Monday
The president was back and offered a first hand account of the omicron variant. “It is demonstrable that this variant does not have the same severity as the delta variant, neither in symptoms nor in recovery time … it is a very contagious variant, very very contagious, infections are growing a lot in the country.”
He also offered some advice for a speedy recovery: “Honey for the throat, I tried to not put too much lime as it’s so expensive … they make fun of the Vaporub, but it helps.”
The president switched topics to finance.”Hopefully it mexicanizes … for Mexican bankers and Mexican entrepreneurs to participate and keep the bank in the country,” he said of the country’s third largest bank, Banamex, which was put up for sale during his absence.
However, he wasn’t prepared to forget a rather friendly business deal two decades before. “When they sold Banamex they did not pay taxes, this was in 2001 … they always argue that it was legal. And I say: yes, it was legal, but immoral, because how can you not pay taxes? That only happens in a country … where all the laws were made to benefit a minority … throughout the neoliberal period they reformed the constitution and the laws to protect elites and legalize corruption, theft and looting.”
Tuesday
COVID-19 has featured heavily in recent conferences but the Deputy Health Minister, Hugo López-Gatell, was back on Tuesday to sort the wheat from the chaff. He said there was an enormous contrast between omicron cases and hospitalizations and deaths. Reopening schools, he added, hadn’t caused a significantly higher number of infections and over 40s could sign up for a booster shot.
Later in the conference, a journalist asked the president about the appointment of historian Pedro Salmerón as the Mexican ambassador to Panama. Salmerón was accused of sexually harassing a student while teaching at the ITAM university in Mexico City. “There isn’t, as I understand it, any formal legal complaint [against Salmerón] … he’s a first-rate historian,” the president replied.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell reported for duty on Tuesday and presented his regular pandemic update. Presidencia de la República
AMLO also commented on the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s threat to expel two ex-governors if they accepted diplomatic positions offered by the president.
“It seems very harsh and very excessive … they can’t stop with their militancy,” he said. “I find it very unpolitical, very intolerant and hopefully they will change their minds.”
Was the Tabascan’s criticism of journalists causing more of them to be murdered, after two recent killings?
“That’s speculation, I would say it’s incorrect. [The criticisms] have nothing to do with it. If we analyze case by case, there is no relationship.”
Wednesday
Truth adjudicator Elizabeth García Vilchis laid out the agenda for her feature: “Today we’ve brought two news reports and an invitation,” she said.
Elizabeth García Vilchis invited the general public to report fake news for her weekly section, who’s who in the lies of the week. Presidencia de la República
The under-construction Dos Bocas refinery in Tabasco, García confirmed, had not flooded and she insisted that the president and Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum were not selling COVID-19 tests in Mexico City airport, as opposition deputy Luisa Gutiérrez Ureña suggested.
And then, the invitation: “Since last week the section ‘who’s who in the lies of the week’ opened a space for all citizens committed against the infodemic and the right to information to participate in the exercise … we invite all citizens to collaborate in this section by denouncing false reports through Facebook … Twitter … and email … Together we’ll fight the infodemic,” she said.
The president speculated on common interests between the newspaper Reforma and a Spanish energy company, and issued an ironic offer. “Now a permit has expired for Iberdrola and Reforma is saying that there will be a blackout because they want their permit renewed. What flavor would they like their ice cream?” he asked, pretending to be at their service.
The president also had a message for a Spanish newspaper he particularly dislikes. A 2012 op-ed in El País was titled “Obrador, a burden.”
“I do not hate, but I do not forget,” he stated.
Thursday
The monthly security report kicked off Thursday’s conference. Crime was going in the right direction, Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez said: federal crimes were down 32.3% compared to when the president entered office and homicide was down 4%. Meanwhile, femicide was down 7% since the administration began, but extortion was up.
For state elections in 2022 — in Aguascalientes, Durango, Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo and Tamaulipas — Rodríguez said she’d met with the head of the National Electoral Institute (INE) to ensure there would be “complete peace and tranquility.” She may have a task on her hands: the June 2021 elections were the most violent on record, with 102 homicides, according to research by risk analysis firm Etellekt.
Money matters came back to the president’s mind. Ex-presidents, he said, paid themselves 5 million pesos (about US $240,000) per month. On a table of the pensions of former world presidents, he showed that Felipe Calderón‘s was the highest: double that of former U.S. president George Bush, who was second. “In previous governments even plastic surgery was done at the expense of the treasury,” he said.
The announcement of the Deer Park deal. Presidencia de la República
“The people of Mexico are the owners of the refinery,” he assured, before adding that it cost $600 million and would produce 320,000 barrels of oil per day. The Dos Bocas refinery in Tabasco, he appended, would produce 340,000 barrels a day.
“When we came to government, Mexico’s six refineries were processing 38%; now we are … above 55%, but [Deer Park] is at 85%,” the president said.
Between AMLO and the head of Pemex, Octavio Romero Oropeza, the shareholders of oil company Shell, international bank Barclays and law firm Winston & Strawn were thanked for their work on the deal.
Another near essential resource was to be widely distributed: “There is going to be internet everywhere, we are investing for that,” the president announced.
However, for all AMLO’s positive words for the business community, capitalist bureaucracies still weren’t quite his cup of tea.
“A call to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to give fair treatment to Argentina. The International Monetary Fund must assume its responsibility for the excessive indebtedness of Argentina,” he said.
An older man with symptoms of COVID arrives at a hospital.
More than 50,000 additional coronavirus cases were reported for a second consecutive day on Thursday, lifting the estimated active case tally to a new record high.
The Health Ministry reported 50,373 new cases, increasing Mexico’s accumulated tally to 4.54 million. The estimated active case count rose to almost 343,000 as the omicron variant continues to spread rapidly. Baja California Sur remains the country’s coronavirus hotspot with the highest number of cases on a per capita basis.
The official COVID-19 death toll increased to 302,390 on Thursday with an additional 278 fatalities reported.
The Health Ministry reported that the occupancy rate for general care hospital beds had risen one point to 38%, while 22% of beds with ventilators were taken, a two-point increase compared to Wednesday.
Aguascalientes has the highest occupancy rate in the former category with over 80% of general care beds in use. Almost three-quarters of such beds are taken in Durango, while Coahuila, Chihuahua, Zacatecas, Mexico City and Nuevo León have occupancy rates above 60%.
A child takes a COVID test in Acapulco, Guerrero.
Meanwhile, children’s hospitals in Mexico City are reporting an increase in the number of consultations for minors with coronavirus-like symptoms, the newspaper El País said Thursday.
According to a recent report from the National System for the Protection of Girls, Boys and Adolescents (Sipinna), just over 3,600 coronavirus infections among children have been detected this year, but that figure is likely a significant undercount due to low testing rates.
The federal government hasn’t offered vaccines to minors younger than 15 – with the exception of those with existing health problems – meaning that they could be more susceptible to infection.
The Sipinna report suggests that older children are more likely to become infected. Only 19% of the confirmed cases were detected in children aged five or younger, while 24% were found in those aged six to 11 and 57% in youths between the ages of 12 and 17.
There have been more than 800 COVID-related deaths among children in Mexico, but Health Minister Jorge Alcocer has recommended against vaccinating minors, even as many other countries administer shots to kids as young as five.
In other COVID-19 news:
• México state will regress to medium risk yellow on the federal coronavirus stoplight map on Monday, Governor Alfredo del Mazo announced. There are more than 25,000 active cases in the state, the federal Health Ministry reported Thursday, while the hospital occupancy rate for general care beds is 34%.
México state is one of 19 states that are currently low risk green on the stoplight map.
• Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said it was probable that the capital would also switch from green to yellow on Monday.
“We’re going to wait for the information that the [federal] Health Ministry will give us in the afternoon,” she said Friday.
Sheinbaum ruled out introducing additional economic restrictions. “… It’s important to say that our strategy is to vaccinate and provide information to citizens in order to protect ourselves,” she said.
Mexico City currently has more than 70,000 active cases, while the hospital occupancy rate for general care beds is 65%.
A health worker administers a free COVID-19 test at a drive-through center in Baja California Sur. BCS Health Ministry
Between 20% and 40% of patients currently in Mexico City hospitals were admitted for other reasons and later tested positive for COVID, coronavirus spokesman Eduardo Clark said Friday.
• Booster shots will be available in Mexico City for adults aged 40 to 49 starting January 31, authorities announced.
The federal government began offering booster shots to seniors across the country last month but has not yet concluded that campaign.
Almost 76.2 million Mexicans are fully vaccinated and over 83 million have received at least one shot, according to the latest data.
Mexico’s population-wide vaccination rate is 65%, according to The New York Times vaccinations tracker, 10 points lower than the rate in the United States, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends everyone aged five and older get a COVID-19 vaccine.
A video camera caught the suspect in Friday's shooting in Quintana Roo.
Two Canadian tourists are dead and a third is wounded after an unidentified man opened fire on all three in the restaurant area of the Xcaret México hotel in Quintana Roo.
According to state Attorney General Óscar Montes de Oca, one of the three victims died in the ambulance on the way to receive medical care. The second died in hospital. The condition of the third victim, a woman, was not released.
Authorities are searching for the male assailant, who fled on foot immediately after the shooting, de Oca said, adding that the attack appeared to have been premeditated, based on video surveillance footage.
The identities of those involved have not been released.
De Oca said that the shooter appeared to be a guest of the hotel because video footage showed that he was wearing an Xcaret wristband.
A surveillance camera caught the suspect with gun in hand.
The incident took place Friday afternoon around 3 p.m., de Oca said. Earlier reports had stated that the shooting appeared to be the result of an argument, but the attorney general later that evening said that video footage showed the suspect deliberately approaching the victims before opening fire.
The two male murdered victims had criminal records in Canada, he said, but neither had ever been investigated by police in Mexico. “This is not a case of fighting between antagonistic groups dedicated to selling drugs,” he told Milenio.
It is not yet clear if the shooter intended to attack all three victims. Canadian law enforcement told Quintana Roo authorities that one of the homicide victims had a long criminal history involving, among other crimes, cocaine trafficking, robbery and the use of false identities, de Oca said in an interview with the media outlet Fórmula Noticias.
The state Attorney General Office’s Twitter account also posted Friday evening that the second deceased victim had a criminal record, but it did not provide details.
“We are reviewing everything carefully to see if this plot was in conspiracy with others, which is what we’re thinking, due to the personality of the man who died. Certainly, it was not an isolated incident but one planned in order to take his life,” de Oca said.
The hotel is located next to the Xcaret theme park between Playa del Carmen and Tulum.
The incident took place in the restaurant area of the Xcaret México, a luxury hotel located between Playa del Carmen and Tulum. Xcaret Twitter
Another incident saw two drug dealers shot and killed on a beach in Puerto Morelos in November. In December, shooters arrived on a Cancún beach in personal watercraft, fired weapons into the air and fled.
UPDATE: preliminary reports by Quintana Roo law enforcement indicated one dead victim and two wounded. That information has since been revised by authorities to change the number of dead victims to two and to provide more details about the incident, including the gender of the injured victim. Information from the previous reports appeared in an earlier version of this story.
