Sea turtle hatchlings on the sands of a Quintana Roo beach. (Photo: Government of Quintana Roo)
More than 2 million sea turtle hatchlings got supervised crawls into the warm Caribbean waters of the Quintana Roo coast in 2022, according to a new report by a statewide committee for conservation of the marine animals.
The state’s 2022 sea turtle birthing season finished in the late fall, with Quintana Roo having played host to the nests of approximately 37,000 green turtles, 3,000 loggerheads, 1,500 hawksbills and three leatherbacks, said Itzel Trujano, president of the State Committee for the Protection, Conservation and Management of Marine Turtles.
Hatchlings of several different species were released on more than 45 beaches in the state this year, according to the committee’s report, entitled “Protection of Sea Turtles 2022.”
The report said that numbers of hatchlings in 2022 were up from 2021 — perhaps because word about fewer tourists on the beaches due to the pandemic (and fewer nests being disturbed) had gotten around in the turtle world.
A green turtle can lay around 450 eggs per nesting season, but the odds are against the hatchlings surviving to adulthood. (Photo: Turtle Conservation Society.org>
The conservation committee is made up of 21 institutions — hotels, civil associations, private companies, academic institutions, researchers, environmental consultants and municipal, state and federal entities that share information on the beaches they protect.
“It is important to remember that [only] one out of every 1,000 hatchlings reaches adulthood” in the wild, Trujano said. “That is why this season we worked with more than 10,000 people with different environmental awareness and education strategies.”
The strategies range from talks, workshops, guided visits to the turtle preservation refuges, talks in schools, putting on puppet shows, exhibitions and beach cleanup events.
In the case of beach cleanups, more than four tonnes of waste were collected, Trujano said. The ministry said that 1,600 people benefited from environmental and awareness-raising workshops, and that there were 145 assorted courses held for a range of people from teachers to lifeguards.
The Akumal Ecological Center, one of several conservation organizations working with the statewide marine turtle preservation program, reported 940 nests during the 2022 breeding season on Akumal beaches and 76,440 hatchlings. (Photo: Centro Ecológico Akumal)
The committee’s report broke down turtle releases by area:
In Cancún, where about 12 kilometers of coastline in the hotel zone are permanently monitored by various organizations during nesting seasons, 978,000 hatchlings were released into the sea. They came from 1,033,000 eggs produced in 9,100 nests, though no leatherbacks were observed in Cancún this year. The hotel and condominium sector protected 46 primary nesting areas, while the state’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment attended to eight, according to the committee’s data.
Tulum, meanwhile, recorded 17,096 green turtle nests and 2,216 loggerhead nests — approximately 46% and 73% of the state’s totals, respectively.
Officials are predicting that the upward trend will continue next year because, despite problems in the area such as sargassum and erosion, the natural behavior of the turtles is being bolstered by organized care and protective actions. They are predicting a longer 2023 hatchling season, starting around May 1.
The report was revealed in an event held at the recently opened, adults-only Riu Palace Kukulkan in Cancún.
Migrants waiting outside the Mexican Commission on Refugee Assistance (Comar) office in Chiapas. ( Damián Sánchez Jesús / Cuartoscuro.com)
Mexico received 111,257 asylum applications in 2022,according to data released by the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar), purportedly the third highest number worldwide.
Although claims have fallen slightly from the nearly 130,000 registered in 2021, they are still higher than any pre-pandemic year on record. Asylum applications in Mexico rose steadily through the 2010s to over 70,000 in 2019, then dropped by almost a half during 2020, before surging again when coronavirus travel restrictions were lifted.
Comar said that the increase shows Mexico is now seen as a destination country by refugees around the world. Mexico has received asylum requests from 136 different nationalities, with the main countries of origin in 2022 being Honduras, Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Federal data through November 2022 shows Mexico had 111,257 applicants, the majority of whom sought asylum at the Tapachula, Chiapas, office.
“Year after year, there has been an increase in the number of people fleeing their country due to fears of persecution,” said Comar spokesperson Andrés Ramírez Silva. “Mexico ranks as the third country to receive people in need of international protection, after the United States and Germany.”
This claim appears to refer to the number of formal asylum applications received, rather than the number of refugees hosted. On the latter metric, these three countries are surpassed by countries such as Turkey, Colombia, Uganda and Pakistan, according toUnited Nations figures.
According to Comar, 86% of applications in Mexico over the last 10 years have been made during the current administration of President López Obrador, of which the vast majority have been granted.
“More than 83% of people in need of international protection have been recognized as refugees, and complementary protection has been given to those who have arrived at Comar in the last 10 years,” Ramírez said.
He emphasized that Mexico has been building up its asylum processing capacity in order to meet this demand. Whereas Comar only had four regional offices at the beginning of 2019 — in Mexico City; Tapachula; Tenosique, Tabasco; and Acayucan — it now has six more in Palenque, Chiapas; Monterrey, Nuevo León; Guadalajara, Saltillo, Coahuila; Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez. Plans are underway to add two more and to create new working groups to coordinate Mexico’s response.
Members of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) in a Dec. 20 interinstitutional meeting with other government representatives. (Comar/Twitter)
Mexico’s growing role as a destination country for refugees comes despite its own severe problems with criminal violence. Its status as a “safe” country has also eased asylum pressure on the U.S., which has increasingly looked to traditional transit countries such as Mexico to absorb U.S.-bound migration.
Mexico abides by the Cartagena Declaration, which promises protection to anyone threatened by “generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order.” The U.S. uses narrower criteria that require a person to have been individually targeted for specific reasons.
Under pandemic-era immigration restrictions known as Title 42, the U.S. can also expel would-be asylum seekers to Mexico without recourse to legal hearings. While this has created a huge backlog of migrants in camps along the U.S. border, it has likely also boosted asylum claims in Mexico. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday allowed Title 42 to remain in place, despitelegal challenges.
Mexico also has a long history of granting asylum to political activists and deposed leaders, although it has also been known to deport foreign activists who involve themselves in Mexican politics using a longstanding law against foreign interference in Mexico’s affairs.
Notable political figures who found refuge in Mexico in the 20th century include Leon Trotsky, former Argentine president Héctor José Cámpora, the former Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchú.
More recently, Mexico has granted asylum to deposed Bolivian president Evo Morales and the family of ousted Peruvian presidentPedro Castillo.
This tiger cub was rescued from the trunk of a car. Police also recovered weapons and ammunition from the vehicle. (SSP El Marqués Facebook)
A couple driving in the state of Querétaro was pulled over and arrested even before a surprising discovery — a tiger cub in the trunk of their vehicle.
The incident unfolded on Tuesday when a man later identified as Manuel N. was pulled over on a highway just outside the city of Querétaro for committing a minor traffic violation, according to the region’s Department of Public Safety (SSP).
Upon being stopped and questioned, the man and his female passenger acted “aggressively” toward the officers and tried to flee the scene, SSP said, which led to their immediate arrests.
Then, when searching the vehicle, police officers found the baby feline as well as four guns and 98 rounds of ammunition in the trunk of the car. The cub was wedged in between suitcases and bags.
🔴#VIDEO| Derivado de las estrategias de operatividad y prevención de la Policía de El Marqués, se logró la detención de dos personas que trasladaban un tigre cachorro, cuatro armas de fuego y 98 cartuchos útiles. Los detenidos ya fueron puestos a disposición de la FGR. pic.twitter.com/g1TXYdBPQJ
The suspects and the weaponry were handed over to the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), which is investigating. Officials said the cub is being cared for by experts who would aim to return it to “its natural habitat,” though the meaning of that statement was not clear.
Though it is not illegal to own an exotic animal in Mexico, the owner must be able to prove it came from a certified dealer and was born in captivity. However, trafficking of wildlife is illegal and almost always constitutes a crime.
Drug traffickers often keep exotic animals as pets and the smuggling of big cats is a lucrative business. Shelters and reserves in Mexico often provide homes for seized animals, although sometimes those places get into hot water, too.
The incident in question occurred near the municipality of El Marqués, a few miles outside of central Querétaro de Santiago on the highway that goes to the capital city’s international airport.
This isn’t the first time a tiger has been captured by police in Mexico. In 2020, an adult Bengal tiger was captured on the streets of Tlaquepaque, Jalisco. Its owner, who was chasing it with a lasso, had the correct paperwork, but police argued he had failed to comply with safety regulations.
This latest tiger-in-the-trunk incident might lead some to recall Esso’s ad campaign in the 1960s and ’70s: “Put a tiger in your tank.”
Mexicans and even newspapers like Reforma annually play pranks on Holy Innocents Day. Reforma's Dec. 28 issue this year claimed billionaire Elon Musk wants to buy the Dos Bocas oil refinery and that the military would take over the national soccer team. (Photo: La Reforma)
To many Mexicans, Dec. 28 might seem like a fun day — where it’s traditional to play jokes or pranks on friends and family — but the origin of this day, known in Mexico as Día de los Inocentes (Feast of the Holy Innocents), is far from fun. In fact, the religious holiday has its origins in a tragedy.
The story goes back over 2,000 years, to the time when Herod was king of Judea, a city under the Roman empire. According to history, he was considered a client king of the empire, subservient to Rome.
According to St. Mathew’s gospel in the New Testament, the Three Wise Men — known as the Reyes Magos in the Spanish-Catholic tradition — announced that the messiah would be born soon and that he would become the King of Israel and of all Jewish people.
When Herod heard the news, he asked for the Wise Men to inform him when the baby was born so he could worship him. But Herod actually wanted to kill the baby because he saw him as a threat to his reign.
Catholics worldwide mark Dec. 28 as the Feast of the Holy Innocents, a day honoring the babies of Bethlehem that the Bible says were killed by King Herod. But it’s also become a day of pranks in Mexico. (Photo: painting by Peter Paul Rubens/Creative Commons)
But a revelation warned the Wise Men of Herod’s plan, and when the king found out he’d been tricked by the Wise Men, who didn’t inform him of Jesus’ birth, the Bible says that he ordered the slaughter of all male infants under two years old in and around Bethlehem. Joseph, Mary and their son escaped by fleeing to Egypt.
Over time, the babies murdered by Herod became known as the Holy Innocents. They’re considered Christianity’s first martyrs. In English, this Biblical event is often referred to as the Massacre of the Innocents.
As happens with many traditions across the globe, Día de Los Inocentes evolved in different ways across Spain and Latin America. In Mexico, as in Spain, it evolved into a day of tricks and pranks, just as the Three Wise Men tricked Herod.
La Jornada Maya’s contribution to this year’s Día de Inocentes news items was a story about how AMLO had decided to move his presidency to Cancún in order to better supervise construction of the Mayan Train. (Photo: La Jornada Maya)
News outlets in Mexico (and Spain) also participate in this day, reporting ridiculous and funny fake-news, not unlike how some English-language news outlets run humorously fake articles on April Fool’s Day.
This year, Expansión shared several made-up news items on Wednesday that the publication said it felt readers would like to have seen this year, including one about President López Obrador deciding that he would stop holding daily press conferences after his 1,000th. Another said that the much-maligned new Felipe Ángeles International airport had won one of architecture’s biggest awards.
Expansión even poked fun at many Mexicans’ frustration this year with Argentina’s national soccer team (Mexico’s rival), which defeated France to win the World Cup in the nail-biting final on Dec. 18, with the headline: “FIFA will repeat the World Cup final due to referee errors.”
In its parodic front page this year, the newspaper Reforma announced that the Defense Ministry (Sedena) would be put in charge of the Mexican national team.
Although Expansión warned its readers of the jokes at the top of its articles, and Reforma makes a special front page with its name changed to “Reformado,” other news outlets play it straight until the very end, as the newspaper La Jornada Maya did Wednesday, with an article about AMLO supposedly moving his administration to Cancún in order to better supervise the construction of his signature project, the Mayan Train.
#Entérate El Presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador culpó a Grupo REFORMA de dejar sin médicos a los servicios de salud públicos de todo el País https://t.co/6wUf9GgeRg
The newspaper Reforma poked fun at AMLO’s contentious relationship with journalists with a satirical article claiming that the president was now blaming the newspaper for the public health system’s real medicine shortages.
At the bottom of the article, editorial staff finally let readers in on the joke with a banner reading, “Inocente palomita que te has dejado engañar, esta edición no es del todo verdad.” (Innocent little dove, you’ve let yourself be fooled; this edition is not entirely true.)
Inocente palomita is the term used for anyone fooled on this day.
So when Dec. 28 comes each year, look out for pranksters — and don’t believe all that you read in the news.
The president was responding to questions from reporters about a viral video showing residents of a Guadalajara neighborhood receiving gifts from alleged Jalisco Cartel members. (Photo: Government of Mexico)
President López Obrador has warned Mexican citizens not to be “manipulated” into protecting drug cartels after footage emerged of cartel members distributing Christmas gifts in Guadalajara.
A video circulated on social media appears to show gang members associated with Ricardo Ruiz — a local leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) known as “RR” or “El Tripa” — delivering toys from a vehicle in the El Retiro neighborhood on Christmas Eve.
“They are using people,” AMLO said when asked about it at his morning conference. “I’ll take the opportunity to say it so that people don’t allow themselves to be manipulated… even if [the cartel members] give them groceries, that is not in good faith; it is to use the population as a shield.”
AMLO said that cartels use such tactics to build social support within their territories, which they hope will lead to early tip-offs by locals about police operations and will instigate protests against unfavorable policies.
Residents of Guadalajara’s El Retiro neighborhood wait in line on Christmas Eve for alleged cartel members to hand out gifts.
The phenomenon has along history in Mexico: the Sinaloa Cartel has invested in local social services; the Gulf Cartel has organized community parties; and the CJNG has given out food and toys on previous occasions. Various criminal groups also distributed handouts during the coronavirus pandemic, although AMLO argued that the phenomenon has lessened during his administration.
“At the beginning of my government, it was notorious, in the public domain, that the criminal gangs relied a lot on their social bases, on the people of the communities [to whom] they delivered groceries, merchandise, toys,” he said. “All this has been disappearing.”
Yet he also suggested that the phenomenon is now reactivating, as cartels are seeking to manipulate the population into protesting against the National Guard.
Throughout his presidency, AMLO has championed the National Guard as a necessary bulwark against cartels and sought to minimize critiques of the militarized force’s impact on local communities and human rights.
“[The cartels] don’t want us to establish National Guard barracks, which we only have now in Jalisco, where there are apparently spontaneous demonstrations [by local people] saying they don’t want the National Guard,” he said.
“It happened to us in Chihuahua,” the president said. “We still have something like that in Michoacán.”
The defunct Federal Police (PF) force was replaced by the National Guard in 2019, only a decade after the PF was created. (Photo: Government of Mexico)
“The Federal Police didn’t have barracks; it was a complete mess,” he added. “Moreover, they ended up protecting the gangs, so now there is more presence of the National Guard.”
In the first half of the year, 85 billion cyberattacks were attempted in Mexico, according to the Mexican Cybersecurity Association. (Photo: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock)
Mexico ranks among the countries hit hardest by cyberattacks in 2022, recently released data has revealed.
In the first half of 2022, 85 billion cyberattacks were attempted in Mexico, according to the Mexican Cybersecurity Association (AMECI), an increase of 40% over the same period in 2021.
The global cybersecurity company Fortinet said that from January to June, Mexico suffered more cyberattacks than some of the biggest targets in Latin America, including Brazil (at 31.5 billion) and Colombia (6.3 billion). Fortinet noted that many attacks used sophisticated and targeted strategies such as ransomware.
Mexico had the region’s highest ransomware distribution activity in the period, with more than 18,000 detections, according to Fortinet, followed by Colombia (17,000), Costa Rica (14,000), Peru, Argentina and Brazil.
Among the higher profile cyberattacks this year on private companies was a data breach at Mercado Libre, which affected customers in Mexico and throughout Latin America.
Hackers have targeted both companies and federal and state governments in Mexico. The online sales platform Mercado Libre, for example, announced in March that a hack had compromised data of 300,000 customers in Mexico and Latin America. A number of sites belonging to state agencies in Jalisco have been targeted for cyberattacks since December 5.
After a cyberattack on October 24, Mexico’s Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport suspended a range of bureaucratic procedures and other work for the rest of 2022. And in September, President López Obrador acknowledged that tens of thousands of emails stored in the Defense Ministry (Sedena)’s servers, containing communications from 2016 to September 2022, had been hacked and released to journalists by the Guacamaya hacktivist group.
Michal Salát, director of threat intelligence at Avast, an international cybersecurity company that operates in Mexico, told Excelsior that cybercrime is on the rise due to several factors — the most crucial being that malicious, open-source code is easily available on public platforms.
This means, he noted, that even those with basic tech knowledge can acquire malware and be more inclined to “join the dark side.” He also said criminal groups have been recruiting and paying people to carry out denial-of-service attacks or install ransomware on their employers’ devices.
Salát stated that ransomware attacks have been “a nightmare” for companies and individuals in 2022, especially when cybercriminals threaten to make their targets’ data public if a ransom is not paid.
According to IBM, the average cost to a company suffering a cyberattack, one in which significant and wide-ranging disruption occurs, was US $2.1 million dollars in 2022 — an increase of 15% over 2021.
Moreover, 60% of the companies affected increased the price of their services after a data leak, IBM added in its Latin American Perspectives report, which also stated that phishing is the most common tactic used by cybercriminals.
The giant hack of Sedena’s computers in September outed many government secrets, including AMLO having a health scare in January that required emergency hospitalization by aerial ambulance. (Photo: screen capture)
Phishing is carried out by infiltrating networks by impersonating companies or people who are credible in order to convince individuals to voluntarily provide personal information such as passwords, bank information or other data. It is different from cyberattacks in that it uses spam emails, texts or social media platforms to attempt to steal passwords and/or data from individual users.
In regard to those types of attacks, a Mexican non-governmental agency this week issued recommendations on how to deal with cybertheft aimed at individuals.
The National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI) said the best thing people can do is that, when receiving emails from well-known institutions such as banks, look at the email address and verify that it is valid (fraudsters often use emails similar to the originals, but there will usually be something amiss).
The institution also urged not to provide personal information when answering an email, text message or phone call, and to use official websites or social media channels when contacting an institution or company.
“You should avoid opening unverified email attachments, as they may contain viruses,” the INAI said, adding that it is important to change passwords from time to time, as that decreases the chances they can be obtained by outsiders.
Also, the agency noted, “practice ego surfing from time to time. This action consists of using social networks and search engines to locate information about ourselves on the internet, in order to verify that there are no false profiles or suspicious activities.”
The poinsettia, or as it is known in Mexico, the nochebuena, was considered a medicinal plant in Mexico for centuries. (Photo: Depositphotos.com )
There is no plant more closely associated with the holidays than the poinsettia. This ubiquitous plant can be found adorning city halls, restaurants, hotel lobbies, churches, nativity displays, town squares and homes.
Many in the United States think of the poinsettia as a flower, but it is really a shrub indigenous to Mexico. The smaller red leaves at the top of the plant, called bracts, burst into color in December and grow wild in the southern part of the country.
Poinsettias come in leaves of a variety of colors other than the traditional red — pink, red-and-white striped, yellow and white. The plant’s only flowers are the tiny golden blossoms at the center of the bracts.
Like many traditions — and much of the symbolism in Mexico — this plant can be traced back to the Mexica, who called it Cuetlaxochitl — “the mortal flower that perishes and withers like all that is pure.“ The Mexica used the milky, white sap of the Cuetlaxochitl for medicinal purposes — to reduce fevers and for poultices to restore circulation and treat infections.
Mexico City’s pueblos originarios are known for growing poinsettias. This year, the city held a poinsettia fair to support growers. (Photo: Government of CDMX)
It was also used for decorative purposes: the Mexica boiled the red leaves — the bracts — to create red and purple dye for textiles and for cosmetic purposes. As a symbol of purity and the sacrifice of warriors, the Cuetlaxochitl was presented in December as a gift to the gods and was displayed in temples.
Montezuma — the last emperor of the Mexica — was so captivated by the plants that he had caravans of Cuetlaxochitl brought from the lower elevations, where they grow, to adorn the palaces in Tenochtitlán in December.
A young Mexican girl named Pepita is partially responsible for the Cuetlaxochitl’s popularity with modern-day Mexicans. By the 17th century, it had become customary to bring an offering to Jesus on Christmas Eve at his nativity scene. According to legend, Pepita and her cousin Pedro were on their way to Christmas Eve services, but Pepita was ashamed and distraught that she didn’t have any offering.
Looking around, she arranged some Cuetlaxochitl that she saw growing by the side of the road. Legend says that as she approached the altar and placed her bouquet of weeds, her tears of shame fell on the leaves, which burst into bright red flowers. It was proclaimed a miracle, and the Cuetlaxochitl became known as the flores de la Noche Buena (flowers of the holy night, or Christmas Eve). Nowadays, poinsettias are known in Mexico as nochebuenas.
Inspired by the story of Pepita, Franciscan friars in Taxco de Alarcón, Guerrero — where the plant grows in abundance — decided to make Pepita’s story and the flores de Noche Buena part of the Christmas celebrations. They began decorating the churches with nochebuena plants and incorporated them into the nativity procession.
More than a century of commercial cultivation has changed the poinsettia’s look. This 1850s drawing of the plant done in the Philippines is likely similar to the plant’s original appearance. (Photo: Creative Commons)
The unique shape of the red leaves came to be seen as a symbol of the Star of Bethlehem. The color of the red bracts represented the blood of Christ and his sacrifice on the cross — the white parts symbolized purity. The colors of the nochebuena plant — red, green and white — became the colors most associated with Christmas.
Although the display of poinsettia plants became widespread in Mexico, they were not found in the United States until the winter of 1828, when U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Joel Roberts Poinsett made a diplomatic visit to Taxco on behalf of U.S. President John Quincy Adams.
During a visit to Taxco, Poinsett became enchanted with this unfamiliar plant that burst into color in the month of December. He was an accomplished botanist and sent some cuttings of the plant back to his home in South Carolina, where he owned a greenhouse.
Upon his return to the States, he began cultivating the plant and sending them to friends and botanical gardens. One of his friends, John Bartram, sent the plant to Robert Buist, who owned a nursery in Philadelphia. Buist began cultivating the plant and is credited with selling the first flores de Noche Buena to the public in 1833 which he sold by its botanical name — Euphorbia pulcherrima.
By 1836, the plant was becoming known as the poinsettia, after the man who made it known outside Mexico. Historian William Prescott reinforced the plant’s name as poinsettia when he wrote of Poinsett’s discovery in his book “History of the Conquest of Mexico” in 1843.
However, the poinsettia was still largely unknown in the United States. But all that changed in the early 1900s.
Joel Poinsett was a U.S. diplomat to Mexico who fell in love with poinsettias on a visit here in the mid-1800s, when they were considered a weed.
German emigrant Albert Ecke started a commercial orchard in California in 1909, the Ecke Family Ranch, to cultivate the plant. He started sending free poinsettias to decorate on-air broadcast sets of television studios for the holidays. His plan paid off, and millions began to associate poinsettias with Christmas.
Ecke Family Ranch became highly successful. Although it has changed names numerous times over the years, it is still the largest producer of poinsettias in the U.S. Every year, 70 million poinsettias are sold in the six weeks leading up to Christmas; most are sold by the Ecke Ranch, which provides nearly 80% of those sold in the United States, and over 50% of the poinsettias sold worldwide.
Today the poinsettia — once considered a weed — is the most popular Christmas plant around the world. You will see them everywhere in Mexico and the U.S., but my favorite display is at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., built in 1838 after British scientist James Smithson decided to bequeath US $500,000 — the equivalent of over US $15 million today — to the United States government to build an institution for the “increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Poinsett, who became a founding member of the Smithsonian, was U.S. Secretary of War at the time and strongly argued that the money should be used to build a national museum for the sciences.
If you visit the Smithsonian at Christmastime, you will see an incredible profusion of thousands of red poinsettias in the buildings and throughout the grounds — a fitting tribute to the man who gave the United States not only the “Christmas flower” but also the world’s largest education and research complex.
Each year, the United States’ Smithsonian displays poinsettias throughout multiple buildings in honor of the museum’s founder, Joel Poinsett, who gave nochebuenas their name in English. (Smithsonian)
Poinsett died on December 12, 1851, and in 2002, Congress proclaimed December 12 — the day of his death — National Poinsettia Day.
Today, no Christmas scene is complete without a poinsettia, or nochebuena. However, after years of breeding, propagation and engineering, the modern poinsettias bear little resemblance to the tall, weedlike plants that still grow wild in Mexico.
Sheryl Losser is a former public relations executive and professional researcher. She spent 45 years in national politics in the United States. She moved to Mazatlán last year and works part-time doing freelance research and writing.
The Mitla ruins in Oaxaca won an online competition of best sites in Mexico. (Depositphotos)
Celebrating 60 years of exploration at Teotihuacán
In 1959, Jorge Acosta and Ignacio Bernal designed a plan to excavate and rebuild the archaeological site of Teotihuacán at a scale Mexico had never seen before. Since then, exploration and restoration of the site hasn’t stopped, and remarkable discoveries have happened over the past six decades.
Archaeologists went through a lot of difficulties to unearth the pre-Hispanic buildings. However, after excavating 48 structures in the area, the site was officially inaugurated by President Adolfo López Mateos on Sep. 14, 1964.
View of Teotihuacán site. INAH
These facts and more details on the 60-year history of discovery at Teotihuacán are displayed in the exhibit “Teotihuacán: Proyecto 1962-2022″ at the National Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City, open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 7 pm.
“Spirit of 22”: 100 years of muralism in Mexico
Never-before-seen paintings by Diego Rivera and Ramón Alva de la Canal, are now on display along with 246 other works of Mexican muralists at the San Ildefonso school in Mexico City.
The exhibit “Spirit of 22: a century of muralism at San Ildefonso” is a collaboration between the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (INBAL) and heirs of the master muralists, collectors and foundations who loaned the exhibited pieces.
Admira obras de Rivera, Leal, Charlot, Revueltas, Alva de la Canal, Siqueiros y Orozco en “El espíritu del 22”, la exposición que celebra 100 años de muralismo mexicano en @SanIldefonsoMx.
— Secretaría de Cultura de la Ciudad de México (@CulturaCiudadMx) December 19, 2022
Works from the artists Diego Rivera, Fernando Leal, Jean Charlot, Fermín Revueltas, Ramón Alva de la Canal, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros are explored in detail in the exhibition. The display also includes easel work, drawings, sketches, photographs, magazines, and videos.
“Espíritu del 22” will run through June 12 and is open Tuesday to Sunday between 11 am and 5:30 pm.
Significant archaeological findings of 2022
Many discoveries have been unearthed during 2022 from a wide range of archaeological sites in Mexico. However, among the more than 20,000 archaeological pieces registered by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) throughout the year, a few are truly remarkable.
A starfish in an offering unearthed at the Templo Mayor in March 2022. (INAH)
There was the finding of a life-size sculpture of a human figure in Yucatán; a 16th-century wall painting with a plume and a shield discovered in Morelos; a starfish offering in the underground heart of the Templo Mayor; an effigy of the Mayan god of corn, and an ancient Mayan stela that represents duality between life and death.
On top of these discoveries, the prestigious Spanish Princess of Asturias award was bestowed on Mexican archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma for his exceptional contribution to the knowledge of pre-Hispanic societies and cultures. Matos Moctezuma directed the site excavation of the Templo Mayor in Mexico City from 1978-82.
But not all is good news. This year closes with an unfortunate event: a group of vandals set a fire in Building 1 of the archaeological site of El Tajín, in Veracruz. The site, declared a World Heritage Site 30 years ago by UNESCO, is being examined by INAH experts..
Updates to the Spanish dictionary
The Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy or RAE), added more than 3,000 words and amendments to its online dictionary this year.
Among the new terms are “micromachismo,” defined as a form of machismo that manifests itself in small acts, gestures or expressions that are usually unconscious; and “conspiranoia,” referring to a tendency to interpret certain events as if they were a conspiracy. Other new additions include “puntocom” to refer to an online business, and “garciamarquiano” as a way to describe something in the style of the great Colombian writer, Gabriel García Márquez.
The update was presented by Santiago Muñoz Machado, director of the RAE and president of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, as well as by Paz Battaner, director of the 24th edition of the RAE dictionary. “We speakers are continually reflecting on the language, not just academics, but people in general…the speakers demand it,” noted Battaner on the accelerating pace of linguistic updates.
Mitla, the legendary ancient Zapotec “City of the Dead” in Oaxaca, was crowned as winner of the INAH “World Cup” after being chosen by voters on social media as the best archaeological site in Mexico.
The competition included 32 Mexican archaeological sites and in the final round, Mitla beat Palenque in Chiapas.
“With this we reaffirm that Oaxaca is the state with the greatest cultural, artistic, historical and architectural mosaic”, said Salomón Jara Cruz, the state’s Governor. “The prize that has been awarded to this archaeological site places it as the most endearing one for Mexicans,” he added.
Oaxaca’s Minister of Culture, Víctor Cata, said that Mitla is known as the City of the Dead because that is where peoples from the region go to talk to their dead loved ones – they believe that is where the underworld begins.
The Cablebús cable car transport system has been in operation since July 2021. It currently has two routes. It's first line saw 78% more ridership than expected. (Photo: Victoria Valtierra Ruvalcaba/Cuartoscuro)
Line 3 of Mexico City’s Cablebús system, set to open in December of 2023, will help connect all four sections of the capital’s iconic Chapultepec Forest, transforming it into one of the largest public parks in the world.
Construction on Line 3 began in November. Doppelmayr, the same company that built Cablebús’ Line 1, won the bid to build the project. When finished, the cable car line will run from the Santa Fe neighborhood to the Los Pinos Cultural Center, in the Miguel Hidalgo neighborhood for a fare of 7 pesos.
The planned cable car line is part of the “Chapultepec: Nature and Culture” project, a federal project with UNESCO support whose purpose is to connect the approximately 800 hectares that comprise the four sections of the forest and transform them into one of the largest spaces for cultural recreation and social integration in the world, according to UNESCO.
Line 3 of the cable car system will travel a 20-minute route, connecting Chaputapec Park’s four sections. It’s also hoped to provide better mobility for residents of the Santa Fe neighborhood.
Line 3’s route is predicted to transport 36,000 passengers daily in 180 cabins across a total 5.42 kilometers along six stations. Cabins will have 10-passenger capacity.
The line’s total journey will take 20 minutes and will pass by cultural landmarks such as the Papalote Museo del Niño (Children’s Kite Museum), the Cárcamo de Dolores (a hydraulic structure in Chapultepec Park) and the new Cineteca Nacional.
The new line will also give riders access to the city’s Urban Culture Park, the National Art Warehouse, the former Gunpowder Factory and the Cultural Environmental Center.
Despite all that, the main point of the line is not to serve tourists, said Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum. “Our main goal is mobility,” she said in a press conference back in July. “The second goal is tourism and culture.”
As Lines 1 and 2 of the Cablebús system sought to provide greater connectivity between outer neighborhoods and the main part of the city, the third line seeks to connect the working-class neighborhood of Santa Fe, which has little transportation connectivity, to the rest of the city, the mayor said.
“There is a lot of inequality [there],” Ernesto Morua Ramírez, professor of public policy at the National Autonomous University (UNAM), told the newspaper Expansión. “You can find skyscrapers and international headquarters [in the area], but also… localized poverty.”
Urban planner and mobility specialist Roberto Remes doesn’t think the cable line will have high demand as there are not enough people living close to the stations. Even with the new cable line, mobility is still fragmented in and out of Santa Fe, he said.
“I still have to take a cable car and then a train,” said Remes, who said the situation was the consequence of a lack of planning when the city’s public transport system was designed.
Experts have also raised concerns about the negative impact the project could have on Chapultepec Park, a place recognized as an Area of Environmental Value (AVA).
“We are worried about the need to remove trees,” Jorge Carlos Negrete Vázquez, president of the Foundation for the Rescue and Recovery of Urban Landscape in Guadalajara told Expansión.
He explained that Line 1 and Line 2 were built in completely urbanized areas with “few plants and trees.” This is not the case in Chapultepec’s Forest.
“There could be an ecological and landscape alteration as a consequence of construction of Line 3,” he said.
Negrete also warned about the risks Line 3 would represent to the view of Casa Luis Barragán, the home of the Mexican architect built in 1948 that is now a museum and is recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Both the federal government and Mexico’s City government have denied that there will be any such effect.
Photos of snowfall in Mexico City's highest altitude areas have been widely shared on social media since Dec. 25. (Martí Batres Twitter)
An Arctic front is sweeping down from the north across Mexico, bringing subzero temperatures in central and northern states and rare snowfall in parts of Mexico City.
Mexican authorities have issued orange and yellow weather alerts, warning of temperatures between -5 and -10 degrees Celsius across thecentral states, and possibly as low as -15 degrees Celsius in the mountain regions of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango and Nuevo León.
Snow on Dec. 25 and 26 brought visitors to high-altitude areas near Mexico City, like the Nevado de Toluca volcano. (Cuartoscuro)
“We anticipate that on Wednesday we will see a third winter storm. This is a new front that, together with a polar trough, could generate snow and sleet in the north of the country,” said Berenice Pelaes, meteorologist at Mexico’s National Meteorological Service (SMN).
This new cold front promises a continuation of the freezing weather that firsthit Mexico last week and has also caused havoc across much of the United States, including road closures, power outages and at least 50 deaths.
Low temperatures are expected across most of the north and into central Mexico. (Conagua Clima Twitter)
Although no deaths have yet been reported in Mexico, civil society organizations have expressed concern about the situation of Mexico’s poorest communities, including migrants in makeshift camps along the U.S. border. Southern and eastern states could also experience extreme weather conditions, with heavy rain and winds of up to 80 km/h.
However, many people have also been enjoying the cold snap, which has brought a picturesque frost to some of the wooded hamlets above Mexico City. Christmas Day brought snow in Tlalpan, Milpa Alta and Cuajimalpa, drawing sightseers from the city to witness and take photos of the unusual sight. Snow is expected to remain on the ground in Ajusco through the mid-week, although the SMN is not predicting further snowfall in the area.
Montañas de Tlalpan, Milpa Alta y Cuajimalpa.
Hay bellos paisajes nevados en la Ciudad de México.
Sin embargo, hay que abrigarse bien si salimos de casa. pic.twitter.com/Q8VIuouial
Civil Protection authorities urge citizens to “wear at least three layers of clothing, preferably cotton or wool; use cream to protect and moisturize the skin against the cold; avoid exposure to sudden changes in temperature; drink plenty of water and consume fruits and vegetables rich in vitamins A and C.”
