Serledios Ph at the top of the antenna on the iconic Mexico City skyscraper.
A YouTuber reached dizzying new heights and posted a video of a phenomenal view by climbing the antenna atop the Torre Latinoamericana (Latin America Tower) skyscraper — without protective equipment — in Mexico City’s historic center earlier this month.
But he outdid himself a week later by scaling the antenna of the 207-meter World Trade Center (WTC).
Serledios Ph started his ascent from the roof of the 166-meter, 44-floor Torre Latinoamericana to climb the 16-meter antenna, where he was left completely exposed to the elements, as seen in an eight-minute viral video posted on December 12.
Once at the top, he filmed himself standing above the city with the Bellas Artes building and its neighboring Alameda Central park far down below, from an angle that few had ever witnessed.
It is not clear how Serledios reached the roof of the tower, which is located in the borough ofCuauhtémoc.
Serledios Ph’s video of his ascent of the Torre Latinoamericana.
However, there was no rest for the daredevil, who posted a video of himself climbing the antenna of the 207-meter WTC in Mexico City’s Benito Juárez borough on Sunday.
“Well, guys, we’re done up here. Everything went well, as you can see. Hopefully going down I don’t get stuck or anything like that,” he said before descending the WTC antenna.
The urban explorer warned viewers against imitating the Torre Latinoamericana feat at the start of the December 12 video, alerting them to the inherent physical danger of the pursuit and the undesired attention it could attract from police.
The iconic tower was Mexico’s first skyscraper and is anarchitectural landmark since it was the world’s first major skyscraper successfully built on a highly active seismic zone. It was the tallest building in Latin America when it was erected in 1956, and is now Mexico’s 17th tallest.
The 50-floor WTC is the country’s 10th tallest building. It first opened as the Hotel de México in 1972 but now largely contains offices.
The tallest building in Mexico is the T.Op Torre 1 in Monterrey, Nuevo León, at 305 meters.
Video footage released by the state indicates that a video published last week was in fact a year old.
Reports that the sons of jailed drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera threw a Christmas party in Culiacán, Sinaloa, last Friday are fake news, according to the state security minister.
“Information that is circulating that points to a recent event in Sinaloa … is false; the images being disseminated correspond to December 17, 2020. … There is no information of a recent event,” he wrote.
The security minister noted that last year’s party was shut down thanks to a security operation carried out by all three levels of government.
He shared photographs of the 2020 posada and compared them with those disseminated this week to support his assertion that no event was held last Friday.
The four Guzmán brothers have been in the spotlight in recent days after the United States government last week announced rewards of up to US $5 million each for information leading to their arrest and/or conviction.
All four are high-ranking members of the Sinaloa Cartel and subject to indictments in the U.S. for their involvement in the illicit drug trade, the Department of State said.
Sectors most affected by closures were finance, retail and manufacturing.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced the closure of many businesses but it couldn’t kill off the Mexican entrepreneurial spirit.
Almost 1.6 million businesses closed for good between May 2019 and July 2021, a new study shows, but approximately 1.2 million new businesses were established in the same period.
A study by the national statistics agency INEGI found that just over 1.58 million businesses closed in the 27-month period, mainly due to the pandemic-induced economic downturn.
INEGI said in a press release Tuesday that 32.6% of almost 4.9 million businesses counted in its May 2019 economic census – of which 99.8% were small and medium-sized enterprises – had closed by the end of July 2021. The worst affected sectors were services excluding those offered by the finance industry, retail and manufacturing, INEGI said.
Quintana Roo, which is heavily dependent on tourism, recorded the highest number of business closures as a percentage of total businesses. Over 46% of the businesses operating in the Caribbean coast state two years ago are now closed.
The only other state where more than 40% of businesses closed was Colima, where just under 42% didn’t survive the pandemic.
Nuevo León, Aguascalientes and Tabasco ranked third to fifth, respectively, with business “death” rates above 38%.
More than a quarter of businesses in every one of Mexico’s 32 states shut between May 2019 and July 2021, according to INEGI, but five states had closure rates below 30%. They were Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán and Jalisco.
The closures caused significant job losses across the country.
With regard to the opening of new businesses, Hidalgo led the way. The number of business openings between May 2019 and July 2021 was equivalent to 36% of all Hidalgo businesses counted in INEGI’s 2019 economic census. Openings almost offset closures in Hidalgo, where the business “death” rate was 38%.
The next best performing states were Puebla, Tlaxcala, Aguascalientes and México state. The number of openings in each of those states was equivalent to more than 30% of total businesses counted in May 2019. On a national level, the number of business openings was equivalent to 24% of all businesses counted in 2019.
The best performing sector for openings was retail, which accounted for 27% of all new businesses created in the 27-month period to July 2021.
United States-based communications company Viasat provides Mexico’s fastest satellite internet service for downloads, a new analysis shows, but speeds are well below the fixed broadband median.
The only other satellite internet service included in the analysis was HughesNet, another U.S.-based company, which had a median download speed of 10.64 Mbps in Q3, an 11% decrease compared to Q2.
By contrast, Mexico’s median download speed for fixed broadband in Q3 was 33.14 Mbps, or more than twice as fast as the service provided by Viasat.
For uploads, HughesNet was 58% faster than Viasat. The former service’s median upload speed in Q3 was 3.21 Mbps while the latter’s was 2.03 Mbps. The median speed for fixed services was much higher at 8.88 Mbps.
Compared to fixed broadband, both satellite services performed poorly for latency, the time it takes for a signal to travel from a computer to a remote server and back.
Viasat and HughesNet had third quarter latency of 675 milliseconds (ms) and 748 ms, respectively. Median latency for fixed broadband services was just 12 ms.
Starlink, the satellite internet service owned by business magnate Elon’s Musk, was given permission to operate in Mexico in May, and the government stipulated that it had to be ready to offer its services within 180 days, or by October 28.
But technology news website Xataka reported that Starlink is not expected to begin operations in Mexico until late 2022 or early 2023. It was reported earlier this year that the service would cost US $99 monthly. Service will also require the purchase of a Starlink hardware kit, which will cost $499 plus shipping.
Operated by Musk’s company SpaceX, Starlink is the fastest satellite internet service in the United States and several other countries, according to Speedtest. Its download speed in Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom was faster than the median for fixed services.
In the United States, Starlink’s median download and upload speeds last quarter were 87.25 Mbps and 13.54 Mbps, respectively. Its latency was 44 ms.
Few places love classic cars like Mexico, where retro vehicles are painstakingly restored to near perfect condition.
But Querétaro city has won the classic car competition hands down with a new way for visitors to see the sights of the historic center: in electric replicas of the Model T Ford.
The Model T — generally considered to be the first affordable automobile — revolutionized motor transport in the early 20th century. It was sold from 1908-1927 and held the record for most units sold of any car until the Volkswagen Beetle surpassed it in 1972.
Querétaro city has rolled out seven replica Model Ts, which can transport five to eight passengers. Local authorities hope they will take as many as 960 tourists around the city per day and by April next year, the offering could expand to 24 vehicles.
The drivers are trained specifically to drive the Model T and to give a history tour of the city.
There are three tour routes on offer for visitors, each lasting 45-60 minutes: the “For tongues and bells” (Para lenguas y campanas) route focuses on viceregal history; “Goodbye Mama Charlotte” (Adiós mamá Carlota) examines the mid-19th century period of the Second Mexican Empire and “A Treasure turned into water” (Un Tesoro convertido en agua) takes sightseers to the city’s aqueduct.
Querétaro city Tourism Minister Alejandra Iturbe Rosas said the project was devised by a group of local businesspeople who worked together with local authorities. “This novel, attractive and avant-garde tourist product is environmentally responsible and respectful of the image and care of our historic center,” he added.
The service will operate every day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., from September 16 street in front of the Rosalío Solano Cinema.
Básica Studio's all-female team of bike makers: studio owner Eli Acosta at center with Jimena Palomino, left, and Elein Lacy, right. PJ Rountree
Hacksaws, wrenches, metal scissors and the occasional set of forgotten sunglasses are scattered across the workbenches of Básica Studio, Mexico City’s only woman-led bike manufacturing shop. A jig sits center stage in the back of the shop with half a frame attached to it. Not that I would know what it was if I hadn’t asked Eli Acosta, Básica’s owner and principal bike-maker.
Petite and fast-talking, Acosta moves through the shop with the labyrinthine intimacy one gets when they live and breathe a space, her intensity of purpose broken only when a contagious grin occasionally spreads across her face.
Making bikes by hand is not a game for the mild-mannered or weak-willed. The world no longer has patience for the time and skill required of great craftsmanship, and Acosta has encountered a few hurdles on her way to becoming Mexico’s famed female bike builder.
No small amount of the struggle, according to her, is due to her own rebellious nature.
“I never felt like I had a space,” she says recounting her struggles in school while growing up, in particular with authority. “I remember one time my mom said to me, ‘Eli, this is it. I don’t know how else to help you. You are going to have to find your way alone.’”
Acosta invited the other two women on her bike-building team and taught them everything she knew. PJ Rountree
She was 17 then — rebellious, lost. She finished high school but didn’t want to head back into the education system for college. She struggled to figure out her path.
Somewhere in the midst of her search, she bought a bike and began to reconnect to the city on two wheels.
“I remember having these feelings, like hanging out with my friends and thinking, ‘I wish I were riding my bike.’ And it wasn’t like I was going through parks or anything, I rode down Tlapan [Avenue], out to Coyoacán and the Cineteca [Nacional México], that kind of thing.”
Something about the freedom of riding got deep under her skin.
When fellow cyclist Liliana Castillo Reséndiz was hit by a car on her bike and killed, it ignited an activist streak in the young Acosta, and she began to participate in protests for cycling rights and got more deeply involved in the biking community in Mexico City.
But not until she started working with bike sellers in the city to trick out vintage bikes did her long-lasting love affair with the ins and outs of bike construction begin.
One of the studio’s recent custom-built bikes, made with lightweight but strong chromoly steel. Básica Facebook
“I started to understand the mechanics of bikes and how they are made,” she explains. “Above all, [the bikes I was selling] started to have problems with the frames, and that made me ask myself, ‘Why? Bikes are really simple; what’s going on?’”
Acosta sought out one of the only remaining manufacturers of handmade bikes in the city at the time, Manuel Valerio, to see if she could glean something from his years of knowledge. After some insistent pestering, he acceded to having her around, but she found in Valerio a reticent and, at times, belligerent teacher.
He was tight-lipped about his work and not forthcoming with his knowledge — even more so with a woman. She spent almost four years observing him work in the shop he built in Itzapalapa. Only after endlessly patient hours was she able to work on her first bike in fits and starts, and then only when he wasn’t around.
“He wasn’t particularly rude or anything, but I was able to see, by watching him with his family and other people, that he didn’t want a woman [in his shop] and that he didn’t like sharing what he knew because he thought that someone would come along and take his work,” Acosta says. “He [also] lacked a lot of knowledge about certain things like geometry and didn’t want me to see that.”
When things finally came to a head with Valerio, her mother — who while ignorant of the bike business knew the determination of her daughter — offered to loan her the money to buy the equipment she needed to build bikes on her own.
In the Atea arts and architecture collective in the Merced neighborhood, Acosta set up a workshop and production space for other tradespeople and artists, and there she found a community of like-minded souls with whom to share her passion, one of them being Jesús López, now her partner at Básica.
Acosta decided to make her own bikes from scratch after realizing many of her bikes’ frames weren’t that strong. Básica Facebook
While she’s adamant that the support of López and her team of male mechanics are part of why her shop is so successful, it’s obvious that the group of women making bikes with her in the back is her pride and joy.
“From the time I started working on my own … I really had this idea of having an all-women team [in my shop],” she says.
Jimena Palomino and Elein Lacy joined the team just this year, when, as Acosta puts it, she called them into her life by visualizing an awesome team of women working together to build bikes. Lacy trained as a petroleum engineer but rejected her expected career path and was doing deliveries by bicycle at the time. Palomino was a bike messenger, an industrial designer and a bike polo player.
“At first I was just interested in the mechanics part,” says Lacy, “The idea of making bikes seemed impossible to me; it was like something unreachable. I couldn’t imagine there would be an opportunity to learn because there isn’t anyone anymore who makes bikes and nobody to teach bike-making.”
“I was looking at some of [Acosta’s] InstaStories [on the online social media platform Instagram], and in one of them, Elein and Eli were there together,” says Palomino. “[Acosta] wrote something like ‘I hope I can create a team of women builders,’ and I was like, ‘Me! Please!’ Then, when I wrote her, she wrote back and said, ‘Yeah, come on down [to the shop].’”
“Something that has given me a lot of strength is to observe them and know that when there is motivation to learn and motivation to teach, it’s a much faster process than what I experienced,” says Acosta. “For me, it’s really, really awesome to teach something that required so much work for me to learn.”
Lacy and Palomino enjoy a work break in the Básica studio. PJ Rountree
While Acosta has strong feelings about the benefits of cycling and the need for cycling rights to be respected in the city, her true personal passion is one that reflects her perfectionist nature — she wants to build bikes that last forever.
“Bikes have always represented for me a way to use cars less, make my commute more efficient and be much happier, like 100% happier,” she says. “So I imagine that if we were all to start using bikes, we would be able to reduce pollution levels. But I am more focused on the idea that the bikes I make, despite the fact that they do involve dirty processes like making metal, will work for a lifetime.”
On this Thursday afternoon, Básica buzzes with energy. Sounds of spray can be heard from the paint cabin as Lacy solders a bike frame in one corner and Acosta goes over a purchase with a new customer. A dog named Tiggy, the shop mascot, holds court among cyclists that stop by to gossip and ogle the handcrafted frames on the wall, which also has a hodgepodge of cycling memorabilia and bike art.
Palpable in the flurry of all this activity is the contented vibe of Básica’s team. In this tiny corner of the Juárez neighborhood, Acosta has reignited an appreciation for bike craftsmanship in Mexico City, one that is sure to pedal far beyond the crowded entryway of her shop and out into the world.
To get to know Básica’s bike manufacturing studio in Mexico City (and see a portrait of Tiggy, the shop mascot), visit their Instagram page.
Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
President López Obrador expressed satisfaction with Monday's low homicide total.
November was the least violent month since President López Obrador took office in December 2018, federal data shows.
There were 2,593 homicides last month, the lowest monthly figure since February 2018.
Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez reported Monday that homicides declined 3.8% in the first 11 months of 2021 compared to the same period of 2020. Month-over-month declines were recorded in each of the past four months.
There was a total of 30,693 homicides between January and November for an average of 92 per day.
Rodríguez said that homicides in Mexico’s 50 most violent municipalities have declined 1.8% since the government ramped up security efforts in late July. Between August and November, there were 4,555 homicides in those municipalities, among which are Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, León, Acapulco and Guadalajara.
The reduction in homicide numbers also came up at President López Obrador’s morning press conference on Tuesday.
After noting that the murder rate is on the wane, the president declared that Monday wasn’t a bad day because there were only 68 homicides. His boast attracted an avalanche of criticism on social media.
“Mr. [President], there are 300 homicides a year in Spain. Don’t say stupid things. When someday no one in the country is killed, brag then,” said one Twitter user.
“He probably said that because of those 68 homicides none involved [a member of] his ‘distinguished family.’ He’s more removed from reality every day and it’s clear he doesn’t care about the country or its inhabitants,” said another.
Calleros holds the stray bullet that fell through the roof.
It’s no secret that violence in Mexico is widespread but for a surprised man in Sonora, not only did danger arrive at his home, it dropped right in.
Leobardo Calleros Juárez had just finished cleaning his kitchen when he stepped into his living room, sat down, and heard a sudden bang.
“It all happened in fractions of a second. Since I’d just washed the dishes, it was such a loud noise, that I thought the dishes had fallen and were destroyed …” he said.
He entered the kitchen and found a cloud of dust and natural light coming in from outside. He looked up, and saw a hole.
When Calleros realized the hole had been created by a bullet, he tried to stay safe by lodging himself in the door frame for nearly an hour. He later concluded that the bullet had hit the floor and ricocheted into a door.
The resident of San Luis Río Colorado was already familiar with the dangers of stray bullets: a friend of his father lost his pregnant wife some years ago in a similar incident.
“Thank God [the shooter] was not someone who wanted to put my life at risk … he was an unaware person who shot in the air, for whatever reason,” he said.
Calleros published an account of the incident on social media to raise awareness about the dangers of stray bullets, and urged caution over the festive season.
“It was something that I didn’t expect, no one expects it. Death can arrive just like that. I shared it to be able to generate awareness so that people don’t shoot in the air,” he added, before offering an appropriate adage: “Everything that goes up tends to come back down,” he said.
Injuries and even deaths from stray bullets are not uncommon in Mexico, particularly at Christmas and on other festive occasions. A 5-year-old boy died in Michoacán in the early hours of January 1 when a bullet passed through the roof of his home and killed him.
The incident, one of several last January, was attributed to someone firing a weapon into the air during a New Year’s celebration.
A National Guardsman with confiscated bags of fentanyl.
Authorities have seized a record 1,852 kilograms of fentanyl this year, National Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval said Monday.
The army general told a press conference that seizures of the powerful synthetic opioid totaled 3,497 kilograms in the first three years of the current federal government – December 2018 to November 2021, a whopping 525% increase compared to the three previous years.
In part, seizures of the drug have increased because drug consumption and production patterns have changed, Sandoval said.
“There was a change in consumption, there was a change in drug markets due to the ease of producing synthetic drugs,” he said.
Criminal organizations are moving away from naturally grown drugs such as marijuana and opium and putting more resources into the manufacture and distribution of more powerful synthetic drugs, Sandoval said. The production and distribution of fentanyl – which is also mixed with other illicit drugs – yields higher profits for cartels, the army chief added.
Most fentanyl made in Mexico is illegally exported to the United States, where there is a drug overdose crisis that has caused more than 100,000 deaths in the 12-month period to April 2021, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Cartels import fentanyl and precursor chemicals from Asia, especially China, to make the drug. The illicit products enter the country via Pacific coast ports such as Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, and Manzanillo, Colima.
Sandoval also said that almost 125,000 kilograms of methamphetamine have been seized in the last three years, a 128% increase compared to the final three years of the previous government. The record seizures have occurred despite a lower number of narco-labs being dismantled over the past three years than in both the first and second halves of Enrique Peña Nieto’s 2012-18 presidency.
Cartels’ use of bigger, more productive labs is the main reason for the discrepancy.
“The laboratories that have been discovered or seized in this administration have had larger capacities, which has allowed us to seize a larger quantity of methamphetamine products,” Sandoval said.
Sandoval said that strategies used by security forces have been successful in both locating labs and identifying routes used to get drugs to market.
Powerful criminal groups such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel are involved in the production and distribution of such narcotics.
A trucker from Mexico was arrested last week after attempting to smuggle almost 8,000 kilograms of meth and 176 kilograms of fentanyl into the United States via the Otay Mesa border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego.
The seizures were the largest of either drug in the United States for both this year and last, U.S. authorities said.
While Sandoval touted the increase in narcotics seizures, security analyst Alejandro Hope opined that it might in fact be “a very bad sign.”
“It could be because of a greater effort, or it could be because there is a greater volume” of illegal drugs being produced, he told the Associated Press, adding that external indicators – such as overdose deaths in the U.S. and last week’s record bust – suggest that Mexican authorities “haven’t affected the flow in the least.”
Humberto Saiz calls a player safe but the umpire himself struck out on Sunday.
An apparently drunk baseball umpire was escorted from the field by police during a Mexican Pacific League (LMP) game in Sinaloa on Sunday night.
Humberto “Lobito” Saiz was taken off midway through the game between the Mazatlán Deer and the Navojoa Mayos at the Teodoro Mariscal Stadium in Mazatlán.
In a video filmed by a fan, Saiz is seen being ejected from the diamond by three men, at least one of whom was a police officer, by the scruff of his neck with his arms behind his back, to cheers from fans.
Before his ejection, some social media users spotted Saiz’s erratic behavior and commented that he was having a party at third base, where he was umpiring.
Saiz gave a middle finger salute several times, looked unsteady on his feet and had altercations with his fellow officials, managers, players and fans during the game, the television channel TV Pacífico reported.
Saiz later said in a statement that he was ashamed of his actions and apologized to his wife, children, fans, umpires, journalists and directors. “Not only did I commit an undignified act for myself, but that also undeservedly transmits to my colleagues in the profession and the Mexican Pacific League which has always put its trust in me,” he said.
The LMP confirmed Saiz had been suspended.
The match was the third in the series between the teams. The Mayos beat the Deer 10-8, bringing them closer to the playoffs: the Mayos are in first place in the league, while the Deer are second last in the 10-team division.
