Baby'O, one of Mexico's most famous nightclubs, was torched on Wednesday night.
An iconic Acapulco nightclub popular with celebrities and politicians during the last 45 years was destroyed by fire on Wednesday night.
According to the owners, a group of armed men subdued a security guard, broke into the Baby’O nightclub, doused it with gasoline and set it alight.
Video footage posted to social media shows three men pouring a liquid onto the floor of the cave-like club before a fire is started with what appears to be a burning piece of paper.
There were no reports of injuries or loss of life at the club, which has been closed for the past 18 months due to the pandemic.
Baby’O has played host to a who’s who of Mexican and foreign celebrities. Among the international stars who partied at the club were Tony Curtis, Rod Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, Donna Summer, Julio Iglesias, Luis Miguel, Geena Davis, Sylvester Stallone and Bono.
Politicians such as former president Enrique Peña Nieto and current México state Governor Alfredo del Mazo also let their hair down at the famous nightspot, as did sports stars, organized crime figures, prominent businesspeople and countless tourists.
The nightclub was destroyed the night before Acapulco Mayor Abelina López Rodríguez was sworn in, triggering speculation that a crime group is sending a message to the new mayor.
Asked about the blaze at his morning news conference on Friday, President López Obrador said it was not yet clear what had happened.
“It can’t be attributed to organized crime without proof, because even the owner said [the club] was never a victim of extortion. But that’s what the media wants to say, that it’s a matter of insecurity and not paying extortion, … but we have to wait,” he said.
“It’s also known that the nightclub was insured. … We’re in contact with the governor of the state, [the authorities in Guerrero] are doing their investigative work and once we have the result of the investigation we’ll make it known.”
The owners said in one report that their insurance didn’t cover damage caused by vandalism.
National Guardsmen assist flood victims in San Juan del Río.
Heavy rains in Querétaro in the last 24 hours have forced 2,440 people from their homes after the San Juan River overflowed its banks. Residents of Santiago de Querétaro, San Juan del Río and Tequisquiapan have been affected and further flooding is predicted in the latter municipality.
Governor Mauricio Kuri warned that there was a 90% chance of more flooding as water is released from the Centenario dam, which has been filling quickly with water from the San Juan River.
Officials in Tequisquiapan, where heavy rainfall has triggered a red alert for the second time in 10 days, warned residents to stay away from the area of the dam due to the likelihood of flooding. A red alert signifies that residents should be prepared to evacuate their homes.
The National Guard has been working in affected areas, where floodwaters have entered people’s homes and businesses, the newspaper Reforma reported.
Diageo's plant in Atotonilco, one of two the company owns in Mexico.
The British beverage firm and tequila producer Diageo has announced a US $500-million investment in a new tequila plant in Jalisco. Construction of the facility, Diageo’s third in the state, will begin this year in La Barca, situated in the eastern Ciénega region.
The company said in a press release that the new plant will use environmentally friendly technology and create more than 1,000 jobs, while expanding Diageo’s capacity to supply tequila to the local and international market. Diageo has a 20% market share in Mexico, and tequila makes up 8% of the company’s net sales worldwide, mostly driven by the North American market.
“This is the most significant investment we have made in Latin America and the Caribbean in the last 10 years,” said Álvaro Cárdenas, regional president of Diageo.
The company said that since its acquisition of Don Julio Tequila in 2015, it has continued to invest in Jalisco, creating jobs and starting a program for female entrepreneurs. In 2019, it completed another tequila facility at “El Charcón” in Atotonilco El Alto. The company is also the owner of Tequila Casamigos, a brand created by actor George Clooney and other partners.
Tequila is differentiated from other agave-based liquors by the fact that it is made from blue agave and produced only in a special geographic area that includes Jalisco and parts of other states.
Former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar mocked President López Obrador at the national convention of Spain's People's Party.
The ruling Morena party has hit back at a former Spanish prime minister after he mocked President López Obrador for seeking an apology from the the king of Spain and Pope Francis for the conquest of Mexico.
Speaking at this week’s national convention of the People’s Party (PP), a conservative political party in Spain, José María Aznar ridiculed López Obrador for requesting the apology in 2019, pointing out that if the conquest hadn’t occurred the Mexican president would never have been born.
“What’s your name? Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Andrés from the Aztecs? Manuel from the Mayans? López! – is it a mix of Aztecs and Mayans? And Obrador – from [the Spanish city of] Santander,” gibed the former prime minister, who held office for the PP between 1996 and 2004.
“Man, if these things hadn’t happened you wouldn’t be here,” Aznar quipped. “Nor could you be called what you’re called, you couldn’t have been baptized, the evangelization of America couldn’t have occurred.”
Aznar’s belief that there is no need for Spain to apologize for events that occurred 500 years ago is shared by other conservative political figures in Spain, such as PP president Pablo Casado and the president of the Community of Madrid, who this week criticized Pope Francis for acknowledging that “very painful” errors were committed in the past in Mexico.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who governs the Spanish capital for the PP, described the promotion and protection of indigenous rights as “the new communism.”
The government of Spain, led by Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party since 2018, “vigorously” rejected the need for an apology when López Obrador revealed in March 2019 that he had sought one from the Spanish king and the pope.
In response to Aznar’s remarks, Morena released a statement portraying the former prime minister as a warmongering denialist. (His government was a strong supporter of the Iraq War.)
Morena “categorically condemns” Aznar’s declarations, the party said, noting they were made at an event organized by the PP, a “political force linked to Francoism.”
The party founded by López Obrador said the former prime minister had openly offended “the history of our country and the dignity and memory of the indigenous people of Mexico and the world.”
“It doesn’t surprise us that an instigator of war denies the indigenous genocide in our continent and defends the Catholic evangelization, taking into account abuses carried out by members of the Spanish crown,” it added.
“… Our movement forcefully rejects his persistent interference in the internal affairs of Mexico, both by him and his representative Santiago Abascal, president of VOX, a far-right party whose presence in our country was regrettable and shameful,” the statement said.
“Mr. Aznar, denying history doesn’t erase it. The ancient cultures of our people that your political ancestors tried to annihilate are still alive and are uplifted by the transformation of Mexico,” Morena concluded.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, a close ally of López Obrador and a leading contender to succeed him as president, also took aim at the former prime minister.
“Here, Mr. Aznar, is the difference between a humanist leader with vision and a racist,” she wrote on Twitter above a link to a video of López Obrador offering an apology for past injustices to the Yaqui people of Sonora.
“The Spanish state is losing a historic opportunity by not recognizing the atrocities committed against the indigenous peoples,” Sheinbaum said, referring to the 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán.
If Spain were to offer an apology, she added, progress would be made toward “a world without discrimination.”
The president tours a CFE facility. The government wants to give the electricity commission 54% of the energy market.
President López Obrador has unveiled plans to change the constitution to strengthen the state’s grip on the country’s energy market by eliminating independent regulators and nationalizing future lithium exploration.
The constitutional bill sent to Congress on Friday would guarantee 54% of the power market to state electricity company CFE — compared with 38% that the company says it holds currently — and would get rid of the independent National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE).
The proposal is a sign that Mexico’s nationalist leader is redoubling efforts to strengthen state energy companies, keep natural resources in government hands and reverse a 2013 opening of the market to private investment.
The bill is more radical than legislation passed by Congress this year, which has faced multiple legal challenges and was suspended by courts. Friday’s announcement instead would change the constitution directly and potentially blunt future legal challenges.
Energy analysts said the bill, if passed, would hamper more investment in the sector and increase reliance on dirtier power produced by CFE plants.
“The initiative, if passed, will destroy the electricity market and with it Mexico’s potential economic development,” said Montserrat Ramiro, a global fellow at the U.S.-based think tank Wilson Center and a former regulator. “This will hurt Mexicans, let alone industrial consumers and power industry participants.”
In order to pass, the reform will need backing from opposition parties to reach the two-thirds majority needed in both houses of Congress. Experts are focused on what the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which spearheaded the 2013 liberalization, will do.
“There’s no way any member of the opposition can support that without branding themselves anti-business,” said Pablo Zárate, managing director at FTI Consulting.
In the bill the government also proposed that only the state can produce lithium, a key component in batteries for electric vehicles. “All the lithium that there is in the subsoil of the motherland is owned by Mexicans,” López Obrador said in his morning news conference.
Existing concessions for lithium exploration that had been started would be respected, the government said, however.
Investors are betting that the rise of electric cars will drive a period of rapid growth for lithium miners and battery producers. More research is needed into Mexico’s lithium deposits and whether its extraction would be profitable at current prices, experts say.
An image of a Xoloitzcuintle dog from the upcoming immersive virtual reality special-effects show "Inframundo The Experience."
The doors to the Mexica underworld will open this October thanks to a new virtual reality experience in Mexico City. The show, “Inframundo The Experience,” will take place in a geodesic dome set up in the esplanade of the Benito Juárez borough of the city and will run from October 22 to November 7.
The Mexica world of the dead, known as Mictlán, will be recreated with video mapping, sound, lights and virtual reality headsets, immersing the audience in Mexica mythology for the show’s 45-minute duration.
Viewers will descend through the nine levels of the underworld, starting with Itzcuintlan, “the place of dogs,” where a Xoloitzcuintle dog helps the traveler cross the river of death. Next comes Tepectli Monamictlan, “the place of colliding mountains,” where the traveler must cross through a narrow pass between two rocky peaks that open and close, crashing into each other.
To traverse the remaining levels, the audience must walk for miles on sharp rocks, climb icy peaks, withstand the attacks of invisible archers and watch helplessly as their hearts are ripped out by a jaguar, among other challenges.
Finally, on the ninth level of Chicunamictlan, the god of death and the goddess of the Earth await to help the traveler move on and leave worldly suffering behind.
The event is open to children four and up, and tickets cost 295 pesos per person. The show will run Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tickets are available on the Inframundo website.
Both President López Obrador and Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell played down the gravity of the coronavirus.
A leading medical journal has published a damning indictment of Mexico’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, claiming there was a breakdown in the effective functioning of the health system due to the federal government’s deflection of responsibility for “essential decisions that require centralized stewardship.”
Researchers presented a new concept – “punt politics” – in a paper published by The Lancet about what they described as the failure of health system stewardship in Mexico and Brazil during the pandemic.
“Punt politics refers to national leaders in federal systems deferring or deflecting responsibility for health systems decision-making to sub-national entities without evidence or coordination,” the paper said.
“The fragmentation of authority and overlapping functions in federal, decentralized political systems make them more susceptible to coordination problems than centralized, unitary systems. … Punt politics has been the operating principle for COVID-19 in several countries around the world, particularly where federalism coincides with populism.”
The paper notes that the Mexican government declared a national health emergency on March 30, 2020 – a month after the first case was detected – “but punted responsibility to the states to determine what constituted timely action.”
That deflection of responsibility is perhaps best demonstrated by the federal government’s introduction in June 2020 of a stoplight risk alert system, which provides advice about when restrictions should be tightened and eased but ultimately gives states the freedom to decide how to go about combating the spread of the coronavirus.
Before that, on April 21, 2020, the Ministry of Health gave state governments the responsibility to implement the necessary public policies to promote physical distancing and prevent transmission of the virus, the researchers said.
In both Mexico and Brazil, “the absence of national stewardship fostered a fragmented NPI [non-pharmaceutical intervention] response across state and municipal governments, lacking an evidence base,” the paper said.
It acknowledges that some states and municipalities implemented COVID mitigation policies ahead of national governments but others limited themselves to following federal guidelines, “thus reacting slowly and incompletely.”
In Mexico, the federal government never ordered a strict lockdown and didn’t advocate forcefully for the use of face masks, especially early in the pandemic.
Instead, “President López Obrador promoted the benefits of a lucky four-leaf clover that ‘protected’ him from the virus,” The Lancet paper said.
Both President López Obrador and Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell played down the gravity of the coronavirus.
“He also downplayed the COVID-19 threat in the initial stages of the emergency, encouraging the population to continue their daily activities and interactions, such as going out to eat in restaurants, traveling, and attending rallies into late March of 2020,” it added.
“… Lockdowns were late and partial, and testing, contact tracing, quarantines, and isolation programs have been minimal, while vaccine rollout has been slow,” it said, referring to both Mexico and Brazil, which respectively rank fourth and second in the world for COVID-19 deaths.
The researchers argued that the punt politics approach didn’t work because it wasn’t supported by adequate “real-time testing data that trace the spread of the infection and viral genomic sequencing for identifying the spread of new variants.”
“… Sub-national policymaking must then rely on mortality data which lag by weeks at best. During a pandemic, policymaking that is guided by mortality data is necessarily slow, reactive, and ineffective, compared to policymaking based on wide scale, equitably distributed testing accompanied by accurate diagnosis,” the paper said, noting that in late August Mexico ranked 168th out of 209 countries for its per-capita testing rate.
With regard to the different ways in which states in both Mexico and Brazil responded to the pandemic, the researchers said the political leanings of state governors might explain some of the variation observed, providing evidence of a partisan pandemic.
“In Brazil, allegiance with, or opposition to President Bolsonaro is strongly correlated with state policy decisions, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. Governors on the rhetorical left and center initially implemented more stringent NPIs,” the paper said.
(Ten non-pharmaceutical interventions were considered: information campaigns, international travel limits, travel limits within states, meeting/gathering size limits, public event restrictions, workplace closures, school closures, suspension of local public transport, stay-at-home orders and mask-use mandates.)
“Political alignment with the president explains less of the variation across Mexican states relative to Brazil, suggesting a policy vacuum,” the paper said.
“More stringent responses did not come exclusively from opposition governors. Yet, opposition governors were among the first to act and contrast themselves with the national government, and none of the best performing states’ governors are aligned with López Obrador. For example, centrist and right governors (opposition) were particularly stringent in mask mandates relative to those on the left.”
The paper says that Chiapas – under Morena party Governor Rutilio Escandón, an ally of López Obrador – “stands out as having several low NPI scores throughout the pandemic” – although paradoxically it has the lowest case tally and second lowest death toll among Mexico’s 32 states.
“In Mexico, [information] campaigns were strong and consistent across most states, with a few notable exceptions, such as Chiapas,” the paper said.
“Mask use mandates are consistent and relatively rigorous in many Mexican states, but several states implemented them late. Chiapas never went beyond recommending mask use.”
The federal government introduced its coronavirus stoplight system in June 2020, but left the responsibility for implementing COVID strategies with the states.
The researchers also noted that national responsibility for managing the pandemic in Mexico was not concentrated with the president but rather the office of Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell.
The paper noted that along with the president, [López-Gatell also downplayed the gravity of the threat and made “not overreacting a guiding principle, creating obstacles for a strong and coordinated national response,” the paper said.
In their conclusion, the researchers – among whom are former Mexican health minister Julio Frenk and his wife Felicia Knaul – asserted that “populist regimes are attracted to punt politics because their objective is political gain, not maximizing health outcomes.”
“A defining characteristic of populist regimes is valuing and prioritizing power as an end goal rather than a means and, in the case of a pandemic, this implies that policy adoption (or lack thereof) will not be based on prioritizing health needs, promoting trust, or eliciting population compliance,” it said.
“… Instead of harnessing and applying evidence and science in a coordinated manner, Mexico and Brazil’s leaders employed punt politics to achieve political gain or avoid the political cost of implementing unpopular policies such as lockdowns. The result is a health system where some components are functioning, while others, like disease surveillance, are not; the lack of coordination leads to a whole that is far less than the sum of its parts.”
Remittances from Mexicans working abroad continued their steady upward trend in August and set a new monthly record, according to the Bank of México.
Total for the month was US $4.74 billion, up 32.7% over August 2020. It lifted the total for the year to $32.9 billion, an increase of 24.8% over the same period last year.
Remittances sent during the 12 months ending August 31 came to $47.1 billion, up from $45.9 billion in the previous 12-month period.
The August figure, up 4.5% over July’s total, was well above the $4.4-billion median estimate by economists in a Bloomberg survey.
The Cerritos-Tula section of Highway 101 in San Luis Potosí. A woman driving on the bridge at the time of the collapse was killed.
The collapse of a bridge in San Luis Potosí left one person dead and at least four injured on Thursday near the state border with Tamaulipas. The accident occurred at kilometer 2 of the Cerritos-Tula section of the super highway 101 around 2 p.m., causing the section of road to be closed.
The same section of highway was closed to traffic on July 9 when cracks appeared in the asphalt after a period of heavy rain, triggering fears that the bridge would collapse. The construction company Constructora Quid repaired the cracks, and the bridge was reopened four days later.
The newspaper La Jornada reported that the repairs continued long after the bridge reopened in July and that the four people who were injured were construction workers assigned to the project. The woman who died was crossing the bridge in her vehicle at the time of its collapse.
State Civil Protection announced the closure of the road on social media, asking that citizens obey signage and take alternative routes, and the State Roads Committee (JEC) promised an in-depth review of the request for bids and the contract with the construction company Quid.
“Now the only thing we can do is investigate what happened so that there are penalties if we detect that ex-officials were responsible,” JEC director Mowgli Gutiérrez said.
🔴Caída de puente dé paso superior vehicular(tramo Estatal)
Tramo cerrado por caída de Puente Elevado, Kilómetro 002+000 aprox. en la Supercarretera Cerritos-Tula, Tamps. *(Tramo Estatal)* Municipio de Cerritos,S.L.P pic.twitter.com/tnfOKlNPXn
Mazatlan's malecón boardwalk has gorgeous seawall views and is a popular tourist attraction.
Several years ago, the city of Mazatlán launched a beautification project to make the city more attractive to tourists. One of the first big steps was to plant 115 coconut palms along a 4.5-kilometer stretch of the malecón, the concrete boardwalk between the Gold Zone and Olas Altas at the edge of the historic center.
When I first heard of this project, I remembered a statistic about falling coconuts killing 10 times more people than sharks — that’s sharks in the ocean, not falling sharks.
Ornamentation with a potential body count — I liked it already.
Since I ride my bicycle along this stretch of waterfront several times a week, I watched this construction parody, from the chalk marks on the concrete to the towering palms with their stainless-steel accent lighting. It was an excellent lesson in the economics of Mexican public works.
I have, in one form or another, been in the construction industry for about 40 years, mostly on the commercial side; so let’s say I have a basic understanding. Thus I know that laying out a simple square on a flat concrete surface is a skill that should be possessed by most apprentice masons, all journey-level masons and, you would think, all architects and engineers.
Note the tree in the foreground in a hole surrounded by a grate. This will be important as you read on.
But are perfect squares all that important in the overall scheme of things? If the squares vary an inch here or there, does it really matter? I mean, these things were just holes to put palm trees into, right? How hard could it be to plant a bunch of palm trees along flat surfaces with great access?
Anybody could do it — right?
One of the primary rules when doing repetitious work is maintaining a common geometry so that the finished product is pleasant to the eye. Laying out something symmetrically allows the use of pre-made patterns and simple math, which can be repeated at every hole the same way, simple in its consistency — dare I say it: idiot-proof.
The squares would need a common point of alignment so that they will all be visually in sync when complete. Using the straight edge of the malecón/sea wall on the ocean side or the straight edge of the curb on the street side would be quick and simple. It would allow the square holes to share two parallel sides with either the curb or the seawall, thereby assuring close-to-perfect symmetry.
However, the city had its own cunning plan for creating holes and planting palm trees.
The first to appear were a pair of two-man crews, each with 16-inch, walk-behind concrete saws.
Each crew was responsible for drawing its own version of a square on the concrete prior to making the cuts. I watched as the cutting went on for a week before someone realized that the holes were too small to accommodate a full-grown palm tree.
Plan B: instead of enlarging the holes with the concrete saws, they brought in a backhoe with a hydraulic jackhammer on the articulating arm. So the backhoe hammered out the holes well past the saw-cut lines, thereby rendering the saw-cut process wasted time and money.
As the backhoe worked its way down the malecón, the intense vibrations from the jackhammer attachment were transferred through the machine to the tires on the ground. The vibrations from this operation were so intense, they settled the sand that supports the concrete slabs that comprise the boardwalk.
This caused portions of the concrete pathway to collapse several inches into the shallow voids created by the settling.
Plan C: the backhoe was then placed into the closest traffic lane to do the work while traffic was shunted around the working equipment. This must have caused complaints because the backhoe was back on the malecón a week later.
By now, the concrete cutting crew had returned and were cutting straight lines just outside the jagged destruction created by the backhoe’s jackhammer attachment. This time, the problem was that they did not cut completely through the concrete, so the backhoe with the hammer had to come and finish off the holes.
It appears that not all the palm trees on the malecón were lucky enough to get an aesthetically pleasing stainless-steel grate.
This caused divots or even chunks to be knocked out of the concrete walkway beyond the saw cut, thereby rendering this saw-cut process more wasted time and money.
As all this was taking place, there was another concrete-saw crew cutting a trench between the tree well holes to accommodate an electrical conduit.
The conduit-laying crew must have been kept in the dark as to where to place the conduit stub-outs at the tree well because there was no consistency whatsoever. The black pipe stubs were mostly in the general area of the soon-to-be-formed tree wells.
After the palm trees were inserted into their holes, the masons were sent in to give each tree well four straight sides, in an attempt to make them appear to be squares, which should have happened with the first round of saw cuts.
After watching the masons for a few days, I realized no one had informed them that the black pieces of pipe that were sticking up needed to be inside the tree well, not on the sidewalk.
During the next several days, there was another two-man saw crew out cutting the sidewalk so that the electrical conduit that had been cast into it could be moved to inside the tree wells.
At this point — two months into this poorly managed circus — the vast majority of the holes had become parallelograms and trapezoids with very few palms actually centered in the geometric blunders.
This probably would not have mattered much if the final plan had not called for a two-piece, stainless-steel grate with a hole in the center to be installed perfectly flush with the surface of the malecón. I am sure there was a set of plans somewhere that contained drawings of just how impeccably perfect the finished project would look.
The first stainless-steel grill was fitted at the north end of the project and looked to be custom-made for that particular tree well. I am sure that whoever submitted the bid to supply 115 stainless-steel grates, all exactly the same size, was recoiling vigorously. Needless to say, there were no more stainless-steel grates filling the remaining 114 quadrangles.
The accent lights and associated conduit started going up about a week after the single grate appeared. Both the lights and the conduit are held by stainless-steel straps that encircle the trunk of the palm and are quite tight.
I am not sure just what will occur when the palms grow, but these are trifling details to be dealt with by the next city administration.
If from the beginning this project had had just one competent person involved for even a couple of hours per day, significant time and money would have been saved. But this is Mexico, where it is more important to keep people working and where competence can give way to a bit of cronyism and a complete lack of circumspection.
The writer admits that most people visiting the boardwalk probably won’t notice a bunch of imperfectly planted trees. But he’ll know.
The end result is a malecón with palm trees fluttering in the balmy tropical breezes. And the growing coconuts will provide a whole new opportunity for fun in the sun.
And only obsessive-compulsive gringos like myself will ever notice any of the discrepancies.
The writer describes himself as a very middle-aged man who lives full-time in Mazatlán with a captured tourist woman and the ghost of a half-wild dog. He can be reached at [email protected].
