Palliative care hospice for children with cancer is first in Mexico

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December 1, 2021

An event organized by the foundation for children with cancer. — An event organized by the Antes de Partir foundation for children with cancer.

The first palliative care hospice in Mexico for children with cancer has opened in Mexico City.

Casa Colibrí, or Hummingbird House, was officially inaugurated by the British Ambassador to Mexico, Jon Benjamin, and Mariana Hernández, the founder of the Antes de Partir (Before Departing) foundation.

Located in Gustavo A. Madero in the northeast of the city, the hospice has eight rooms decorated with different themes, a palliative care clinic, a playroom, kitchen, dining room and terrace.

Childhood cancer is a serious health problem in Mexico: it is the first cause of death by illness for children from 5-14, and kills more than 2,000 children a year, according to figures from the National Center for the Health of Children and Adolescents (Censia).

More than 20,000 children live with a terminal illness, of whom 80% do not have access to drugs for palliative care or psychological care for the final stages of their lives, the foundation said.

As a result, “16,000 minors die annually with great physical pain, symptoms associated with terminal illness and psychological suffering.” It added that only a few public health institutions in Mexico provide similar services.

Hernández said every day should be valued for a child in care. “Before Departing has a philosophy of life that invites you, whether you are a healthy person or with a disease, to live day by day in the best way. We are aware that sooner or later we will no longer be here, but until that moment arrives, we have the commitment to laugh, and to enjoy life to the fullest and it is precisely what we try to convey to both patients and their families,” she said.

Antes de Partir says it has helped 330 children and more than 2,300 parents through courses, workshops and conferences. It offers services in medical and psychological care, funerals, and helps families with food and transportation.

The foundation’s sponsors include the Gonzalo Río Arronte Foundation, Qualitas Insurance, IENOVA Foundation, Home Depot and Prevex Insurance.

Mexico News Daily

Opponents of projects in Oaxaca’s Isthmus will fight AMLO’s fast-tracking decree

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MND Staff

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December 1, 2021

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A 2019 protest against projects in the Isthmus.

Two environmental activists in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca have denounced the presidential decree that fast-tracks government infrastructure projects and protects them from scrutiny and legal challenges.

Published in the government’s official gazette last week, the decree shields from scrutiny the construction of infrastructure projects in a wide range of sectors by declaring them pertinent to national security.

Two environmental group leaders who spoke with the newspaper El Universal asserted they won’t stand by and allow the decree to violate their rights.

The government is building a trade corridor across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a project that includes construction of a new highway and gas pipeline, modernization of the existing railroad and upgrades to the ports in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz.

The project faces considerable opposition from environmental and indigenous rights groups.

Miguel Ángel García Aguirre, regional coordinator of the National Committee for the Defense and Conservation of Los Chimalapas Forest, said the decree uses similar language to that used by “repressive” former president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, who was in office when the armed forces carried out the Tlatelolco massacre of students in Mexico City.

He warned that individual rights could be threatened by the decree, which allows the federal government to avoid having its projects halted by injunctions and other legal instruments.

García said the decree – which he described as “terrible and dangerous” – will be met with “very strong indigenous resistance” in the Isthmus region because it opens the door to possible human rights violations, including repression, against people protesting infrastructure projects.

Betina Cruz Velázquez, a representative for the People’s Assembly for the Defense of Land and Territory in the Isthmus, said the decree will remove the obligation for environmental impact assessments to be carried out before infrastructure projects break ground. The removal of that requirement – due to the fast-tracking aspect of the decree – is in violation of the constitution and international agreements to which Mexico is party, she charged.

The decree tramples on indigenous people’s rights, Cruz said, adding that the group she represents is preparing to take legal action against it. The goal, she said, is to block “authoritarian policies” that threaten people’s freedoms.

The government intends to invest more than 10 billion pesos (US $465 million) in the trade corridor next year, and activists fear that the use of that money won’t be transparent as a result of the presidential decree. Several consultation processes on projects in the Isthmus haven’t been completed, and there are concerns that the government will go ahead with work before they are finished.

“We think [the decree] is grave for the indigenous communities,” said Irma Pineda Santiago, Mexico’s representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

“There is a risk that free, prior and informed consultations will be omitted, which would violate human and environmental rights, and the right to consultation,” she said.

With reports from El Universal

US officials say Mexico is once again providing visas to drug enforcement agents

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MND Staff

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December 1, 2021

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dea — DEA agents are working in Mexico again, US officials said.

The federal government is once again issuing visas that allow United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents to work in Mexico, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

Broadcaster CNN reported almost two months ago that Mexico had not processed visa applications for 24 DEA agents this year.

Anonymous White House officials told CNN that the 24 agents had been waiting for more than six months for their visas to be issued.

The process normally took just a month, but Mexico enacted a law in January that restricts and regulates the activities of foreign agents in Mexico. The long waits for visas appeared to be related to the promulgation of that legislation.

Todd Robinson, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, told a hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that the Mexican government “just agreed to more visas for DEA agents in Mexico.”

He also said that U.S. authorities are working “very closely” with the Mexican government on security issues.

“They have agreed with us on an accord that lists a number of things we’re going to do, including greater cooperation on intel exchange,” Robinson said.

“… One of the aspects that we miss, that is not as public, is the great work we do … with state and local governments in Mexico. They clamor for greater opportunities to cooperate and collaborate with us on security issues, on equipment, on training, so we are trying to keep up with the demand,” he added.

“The last thing I would say is we have some work to do at home on this issue as well. If we can’t get a handle on the demand side for these drugs—” Robinson said before being cut off by a senator.

His revelation that Mexico was issuing new visas for DEA agents came after the agency’s chief, Anne Milgram, requested in October the reactivation of joint anti-narcotics operations and greater sharing of intelligence.

Matthew Donahue, deputy chief of operations for the DEA, said in May that joint efforts to combat drug cartels in Mexico had broken down due to a collapse in trust and cooperation between law enforcement forces and the militaries in the two countries.

“They themselves are too afraid to even engage with us because of repercussions from their own government if they get caught working with the DEA,” he said.

The breakdown in bilateral security relations could be traced back to the United States’ arrest of former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos in October 2020 on drug trafficking and money laundering charges. The arrest of the ex-army chief — whom the United States subsequently returned to Mexico under pressure from Mexican authorities — occurred without the U.S. first notifying Mexico, a slight that led the federal government to express “profound discontent” to its counterpart north of the border.

Security relations have improved considerably since then. The two countries have sought to reset their relationship after U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January, and they announced a new agreement encompassing security after top officials held bilateral talks in Mexico City on October 8.

In the “bicentennial framework for security, public health, and safe communities,” the two countries pledged to work together to combat the trafficking of drugs and weapons.

The leaders of Mexico, the United States and Canada subsequently acknowledged that more needs to be done to combat drug trafficking and gunrunning.

“To address these issues, and protect our communities from harms emerging from the global illegal drug environment and firearms trafficking facing North America, we need a collective, coordinated approach,” President López Obrador, President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau said in a joint statement after the North American Leaders Summit in Washington D.C. last month.

“We commit to continue addressing these issues via venues like the North American Drug Dialogue in 2022 and beyond,” they said.

With reports from Reforma

Highline walker breaks records crossing 800-meter-high Chiapas canyon

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MND Staff

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December 1, 2021

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highline2 — Highline walker Alexander Schulz high above the Sumidero Canyon on Tuesday.

A German highline walker broke two world records on Tuesday with an aerial crossing of the Sumidero Canyon in Chiapas while blindfolded.

Alexander Schulz, 30, began the tense 800-meter high crossing on the north side of the canyon near the community of El Triunfo at 8:00 a.m., slowly walking the 1,720-meter-long band in 4,080 steps.

When he arrived at the Los Chiapa viewpoint on the other side an hour and a quarter later, Governor Rutilio Escandón Cadenas was there to receive him.

Schulz is the sport’s standout figure and already held a long list of world records before his latest feat, which was organized by the state Tourism Ministry. He has broken records without a harness but he wore one for the Chiapas event.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alexander Schulz (@alex_schulz_slackliner)

After achieving the feat, Schulz admitted to some nerves. “The past two weeks have been a roller coaster ride of emotions. Sleepless nights of stress, excitement, fears and doubts, throwbacks and again sleepless nights … But today in the morning we completed a project that we had planned … for over two years,” he wrote on his Instagram page.

On Facebook he wrote that the canyon crossing was the climax of his career.

The Bavarian daredevil isn’t an easy man to frighten. In December 2016, he broke highline records in urban surroundings in Mexico City, crossing between the Reforma Tower and the BBVA Bancomer Tower over Reforma Avenue at a height of 230 meters.

In April 2020, he crossed an active volcano on the south sea island of Tanna, Vanuatu.

Highline is a sport that tests the balance of its brave practitioners. Amateurs suspend a band between two anchor points, usually trees, and tighten it before jumping on and trying to walk across.

With reports from Milenio and TV Azteca

Sinaloa Cartel’s internal dispute extends into Sonora, Baja California

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MND Staff

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December 1, 2021

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A dispute between competing cells of the Sinaloa Cartel has spread beyond the borders of the criminal organization’s home state, according to federal officials.

Unnamed officials cited by the newspaper Milenio said a dispute between Los Rusos and Los Chapitos has extended into states such as Sonora and Baja California.

Los Rusos, led by Jesús Alexander Sánchez Félix, is affiliated with the Sinaloa Cartel’s top leader, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

Los Chapitos is headed by the sons of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States in July 2019.

Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, known as El Chapito, and his brother Alfredo are notorious for acts of violence they have ordered or perpetrated. Ovidio Guzmán, El Ratón (The Mouse), is the least violent brother and maintains a low profile, Milenio said.

Sinaloa Cartel weapons found in Baja California — Weapons found at a crime scene in Baja California that authorities said belonged to Sinaloa Cartel members. Baja California Attorney General’s Office

The federal officials told the newspaper that Sánchez Félix, known as El Ruso (The Russian), led the “rescue” of Ovidio Guzmán when he was arrested in Culiacán in October 2019, triggering a vicious cartel response.

But Los Rusos and Los Chapitos are no longer on good terms. According to Milenio, the power Sánchez Félix wields within the cartel – he is considered El Mayo’s chief operator – angered Los Chapitos and caused a rupture between the two cells. Los Chapitos want a bigger share of the cartel’s criminal activities for themselves.

The federal officials told Milenio there is evidence that Zambada ordered Los Rusos to leave Sinaloa to avoid a turf war in that state, but they are now fighting Los Chapitos in Sonora and Baja California. The officials said Los Rusos have taken charge of the Sinaloa Cartel’s main criminal activities in the two border states, whereas people affiliated with El Chapo and Los Chapitos were formerly in control.

Meanwhile, Los Chapitos have started to lose the sympathy of Sinaloa residents due to acts of violence they have committed against cartel members and ordinary people, the federal sources said. Such violence didn’t occur when El Chapo was in charge, although the crime group did clash with rivals and government security forces, the officials told Milenio.

Murders of cartel members in Sinaloa in recent months were the result of a purge carried out by Los Chapitos, they also said.

The same cell has also recently clashed with an organization led by Fausto Isidro Meza, a one-time leader of the Beltrán-Leyva Organization known as El Chapo Isidro. Milenio said gunfights have occurred in the northern Sinaloa municipalities of Guasave and Sinaloa de Leyva.

In addition, Los Chapitos have clashed with another criminal group in Badiraguato, Sinaloa, the municipality where El Chapo was born. That dispute is over drug trafficking routes into Chihuahua, Milenio said.

With reports from Milenio

Commando uses dynamite-loaded vehicle for Hidalgo jailbreak; 9 inmates freed

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MND Staff

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December 1, 2021

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Car bombs appear to have been used as a distraction.

Armed men rammed vehicles into a Hidalgo prison and freed nine inmates early Wednesday, state authorities said.

Aided by the detonation of two apparent car bombs in nearby streets, the audacious jailbreak occurred at approximately 4:00 a.m. at a prison in Tula, located about 100 kilometers north of Mexico City.

Local media reports said the vehicle used to ram down the prison door was loaded with dynamite.

One of the freed inmates was the alleged head of a fuel theft gang called Pueblos Unidos. José Artemio Maldonado Mejía, known as “El Michoacano,” was arrested in México state last week on fuel theft, kidnapping, homicide and drug trafficking charges.

The Hidalgo Security Ministry said in a statement that there were clashes between the armed men and prison personnel, adding that two police officers were injured and were receiving medical care. It also said that municipal, state and federal security forces were engaged in an operation to detain the gang members and escaped inmates.

Hidalgo Interior Minister Simón Vargas said “an armed group burst into the prison aboard several vehicles,” adding that “it’s worth noting that near the prison, two vehicles were burned as part of the criminal group’s operation, as a distraction.”

The use of car bombs by Mexican criminal organizations is rare but one such attack in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, in 2010, killed three people. In 2019, explosive devices were found in a vehicle left outside the Pemex refinery in Salamanca, Guanajuato.

While car bombs are rare, cartels frequently set vehicles alight to hinder police operations. So-called narco-blockades have been seen in several states, and Mexico City.

With reports from El Universal, Reforma and AP

Cultural ties between Spain and Mexico hold fast in a political storm

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Daniel Dombey

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December 1, 2021

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Day of the Dead display in Madrid was a popular attraction.

It is 500 years since the Spanish conquest of Mexico but a line winding around a Madrid block shows that the legacy of half a millennium is more than rancor.

The queue was for an exhibition last month at the Casa de México cultural institute — a display about the Day of the Dead that attracted 65,000 visitors, overwhelmingly locals. Families patiently waited to see traditional altars heaped with model skulls and ceramics, great green glass candelabras and other examples of popular Mexican art.

That level of interest, in a city where rival attractions include some of the world’s great museums and galleries, contrasted with a transatlantic slanging match between politicians.

Mexican President López Obrador stepped up his campaign for Spain to ask forgiveness for its conquest of his country. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the leader of Madrid’s regional government, contested that Spain had given the Americas the Spanish language, Catholicism “and as a result, civilization and freedom.”

This was always set to be a turbulent year for relations between the old capital and the former colony: 2021 also marks the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s declaration of independence from Spain.

Perceptions of the colonial period differ drastically. Mexico is so marked by the experience that people say “mande” — “command me” — instead of “what”? As a former Mexico reporter now in Spain, I still do a double take when I walk past streets named after the likes of Hernán Cortés, the conquistador who remains many Mexicans’ public enemy No. 1. Cortés is a sinister, simpering presence in Diego Rivera’s great murals in the National Palace in Mexico City, where the viceroys ruled and López Obrador now holds court.

Yet even as politicians shout past each other to rally their bases, culture can be a meeting point. One reason my family went to the Day of the Dead exhibition was because my son, like many other primary-school kids in Madrid, is learning about Mexico.

Some Europeans appreciated Mexican art from the first. In 1520, the German artist Albrecht Dürer visited an exhibition of plundered Aztec treasures in Brussels and wrote: “All the days of my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these things, for I saw among them wonderful works of art, and I marvelled at the subtle ingenuity of men in foreign lands.”

While those gold necklaces, scepters and mosaics have disappeared, melted down for their gold amid the despoliation of the Aztec empire, the much humbler exhibition at the Casa de México is an exercise in bridge building. “We are a window into Mexico in Spain,” says Ximena Caraza Campos, its director general.

As a Mexican cultural institution the Casa, which gets over 130,000 visitors a year, has government representatives on its board. But its day-to-day operations are privately financed and it was founded by Valentín Díez Morodo, a son of Spanish émigrés who has made millions with Grupo Modelo, Mexico’s biggest brewery (now part of AB InBev). The Casa is his bid to bring the two countries closer, by fostering cultural and also business ties.

Those ties run deep. Mexico has a place of pride, particularly among the Spanish left, for taking in republicans during and after the Spanish civil war. Among them was Luis Buñuel, the Aragón-born surrealist filmmaker, who made, among other Mexican masterpieces, Los Olvidados, about Mexico’s City’s street children.

When I lived in Mexico City, 25 years ago, I used to stroll in Parque España, where a statue of an open hand pays tribute to Mexico’s welcome to the exiles. After landing a freelance job with the Financial Times, I celebrated by taking a slow train to Veracruz, and traveled to La Antigua, the first Spanish town in Mexico, where tropical forest grows among the ruins of Cortés’ house.

By contrast, when the Spaniards built on the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, which became Mexico City, their works endured. Mexico remains the country of mestizaje, or mixing, its Spanish legacy an essential ingredient as the two countries’ cultures criss-cross the centuries. Places such as the Casa de México make the subtle ingenuity of people in faraway lands just that little bit closer.

Government raffles land in Sinaloa development to fund hydroelectric plant

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MND Staff

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December 1, 2021

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First prize in Sunday's raffle is this home at Playa Espíritu.

A beachfront property in Sinaloa will be the star prize in a lottery whose proceeds will help build a new hydroelectric plant in the state, President López Obrador said Tuesday.

The 12,000-square-meter property on Playa Espíritu, located on the Sinaloa-Nayarit border, has 11 bedrooms, a swimming pool and a terrace and is valued at 28.9 million pesos (US $1.36 million)

The government hopes to generate 5 billion pesos (almost $233 million) from the lottery to meet half the cost of the Santa María hydroelectric dam in El Rosario, 73 kilometers southeast of Mazatlán.

“Everything that is obtained by raffling this land goes to Sinaloa … [the dam] is a project of around 10 billion pesos,” the president said.

“Buy your ticket … to get yourself a safe property … It’s an Eden, a paradise.” A ticket costs 250 pesos and the draw will be held Sunday.

Second, third and fourth-place prizes of 5 million pesos each will be awarded, followed by 200 waterfront lots, each with a value of about 1.2 million pesos.

The total value of the prizes is 297 million pesos, said the head of the National Lottery, Margarita González Saravia.

The lottery’s first prize is a ranch that belonged to former Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) governor Antonio Toledo Corro. The land in the area was bought in 2008 by the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur), during the administration of president Felipe Calderón, to create a tourist destination.

However, the project failed because the property was bought at an elevated price, López Obrador said. He added that the cost of the upkeep posed a challenge. “Fonatur bought it for around 2.5 billion pesos ($22 million in 2008) and since then they had to continue spending on the land … they exceeded 4 billion pesos. It is difficult to maintain it. No one has wanted to invest … because it is not accessible,” he said.

Presidential raffles have been a frequent sideshow during the López Obrador administration. The presidential plane was advertised as a prize in a 2020 raffle, but symbolic cash prizes were awarded instead, and the plane is still in possession of the government. Box seats in the Azteca Stadium, which were a governmental asset, and the properties of drug traffickers were given away as prizes in September.

The lottery will be broadcast live on Sunday at 8:00 p.m.

With reports from El País

Highly-rated university, think tank — seen as neoliberal — gets new director

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MND Staff

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December 1, 2021

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The protest against the appointment of a new director at CIDE.

Against the wishes of students and a large group of academics, the interim director of a prestigious Mexico City-based public university and think tank has been appointed to the position on a permanent basis.

José Antonio Romero Tellaeche, an economist, was appointed director of the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) for five years after a unanimous vote to ratify his permanent tenure, announced María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, director of the National Council of Science and Technology.

The vote, in which seven external academics participated, took place Monday. Álvarez-Buylla’s claim that the vote was unanimous was disputed.

Romero has been rejected by students due to his dismissal of academics since taking the reins of the university as interim director in August and his declaration that CIDE has become a “neoliberal” institution. He was also criticized for describing students as “sponges” that only absorb what their professors want them to.

President López Obrador is a fierce critic of what he describes as Mexico’s “neoliberal period” – 1982 to 2018 – and claims his government is carrying out the “fourth transformation” of the country. He said Monday CIDE had “moved to the right” and that the government’s wish was for “chieftainships” in academia to come to an end.

Álvarez-Buylla said Monday “CIDE is an institution of the Mexican state and must adhere to the new realities.”

After his appointment, Romero pledged to manage the university in a “democratic” way and committed to establishing an environment of “stability, freedom and plurality.”

“… It’s necessary to establish new lines of research … that propose … solutions to outstanding problems,” he said, indicating that he wanted to take the university in a more pragmatic direction.

While Romero said he was committed to democratic administration of the university, the voices of students and many academics were apparently not heard during the process to designate him as director.

Students have been protesting against his leadership since he became interim director, and occupied CIDE’s Mexico City campus and declared an indefinite strike after his permanent appointment on Monday. They also prepared a petition calling for his dismissal and launched legal action aimed at stopping his appointment as permanent director. They remain hopeful they will receive a court ruling in their favor.

“This person has a unique way of thinking and he wants to impose it [on the university]. What we’ve seen [so far] is just a taste of what he could do to the institution, that’s why we won’t let him,” Ramón, a student, told the newspaper El Universal.

“We’re fighting for a CIDE that conforms to the international and national vanguard, and to the needs of society.”

José Antonio Aguilar, a CIDE academic, suggested that Romero himself was not the problem but rather “the intervention of political power in universities.”

“That’s the central problem causing the CIDE crisis,” he said. If that’s the case, the interim and then permanent appointment of Romero added fuel to the fire.

A large number of CIDE academics and administrative staff expressed their preference for the appointment of Vidal Lleranas, a former federal deputy, over Romero. In an internal assessment process, the former achieved a score of 8.98 while the latter scored 7.29.

However, CIDE academics and staff, via the university’s permanent Academic Assembly, claimed their views weren’t taken into account. They also said there were other irregularities with the appointment process. One was the refusal to allow a CIDE academic council observer into the meeting on Monday at which the vote took place.

Academics also expressed support for the protesting students. “We call on the authorities to respect their right to peaceful protest,” they said in a statement.

With reports from El Universal and Animal Político

New York’s Central Park is cheap compared to Mexico’s Chapultepec, says TikToker

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MND Staff

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November 30, 2021

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After seeing Chalpultepec, Central Park is nothing special, one Tiktoker reported. — After seeing Chalpultepec, Central Park is nothing special, a TikToker reported.

New York’s world famous Central Park pales in comparison Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park, an Australian TikToker said, to the acclaim of Mexican viewers.

“For those that don’t believe me that Central Park is the lame version of Chapultepec, I’m going to show you my videos so you see,” user @itBends said, in a stylized video.

She then showed clips taken in Central Park and complained that the only food she found there were pretzels, which she said were “the driest thing in the world, more like cardboard than food.”

In a mocking tone, she added that the New York park had lots of grass, a bridge, people drinking and playing music, and skyscrapers which she said “the Reforma [avenue in Mexico City] has a lot of.”

The TikToker concluded that Central Park was worthy of one star, having left her hungry.

@itbends

Mejor no vayan a Central Park, Chapultepec trae mucho más ambiente #chapultepec #chapultepeccdmx #chapultepeccastillo #turismocdmx #nuevayorktiktok

♬ original sound – It Bends

@itBends’s select public seemed to agree with her. “Most people don’t value it [Chapultepec], and TV and Hollywood hypnotizes them to think that all of the best things are in the USA, when the coolest things are here [in Mexico],” replied Gustavo Chavez.

Yaxum Cervantes Gali also attested to the Mexico City park’s superior offering: “Chapultepec: museums, fountains, lakes, giant heads, food, monuments, a castle, a zoo. Central Park: a bridge and some pretzels.”

Central Park opened its gates in 1858. Meanwhile, news website Animal Político reported that trees in Chapultepec date back to the 15th century.

Chapultepec is the biggest park in Latin America and at 686 hectares is more than double the size of Central Park.

With reports from Animal Político