Theft and muggings are common in her Oaxaca city neighborhood of La Noria, says Laura, who heads her community's citizens' committee.
If you see a steely-eyed, machete-wielding woman in the streets of Oaxaca city, don’t be afraid: she’s there to protect you, not hurt you.
A 54-year-old La Noria resident who heads up the community’s citizens’ committee has taken to the streets to clamp down on the crime that she says municipal police are failing to stop.
“I’m the president of the residents’ committee in the neighborhood of La Noria, and we [patrol] the streets because there is a lot of crime and there is no police vigilance. That’s why we’re working,” the woman, who only identified herself as Laura, told the newspaper Milenio.
Machete in hand, she walks through the streets of La Noria, located just outside Oaxaca city’s historic center, every day from early in the morning. Car batteries and water meters are frequently targeted by thieves, and muggings are common, Laura said.
“That is what is bothering us a lot; it makes us very angry,” she said. “… The municipal police don’t patrol despite the complaints we made to Mayor Oswaldo García Jarquín,” she said.
“… There are robberies almost every day,” she added. “… On Saturday, some people on motorcycles grabbed a young woman and took her bag, cell phone and everything she was carrying. They shoved her as well.”
Asked why she decided to arm herself with a machete, Laura responded that it was a matter of coincidence. One day, she went to collect the blade from a person she had lent it to, and from that day on she began carrying the machete with her while patrolling the streets.
She said that carrying some kind of weapon is necessary because criminals are always armed with ice picks, knives or guns.
Due to her courage and concern for the well-being of her fellow residents, citizens have dubbed Laura “La Guerrera” (The Warrior), saying they admire and respect her for the work she does.
There's nothing left of Tomás Velázquez's corn field.
Hurricane Grace was both friend and foe to farmers in Veracruz, which bore the brunt of the storm’s wrath when it carved a destructive westward path across Mexico on Saturday.
“Many people say it was the work of the Lord,” said Tomás Velázquez Pérez, who lost virtually all his crops.
“… The majority of the community landowners produce between 13 and 15 tonnes of oranges per hectare but there will be less production this season and orange prices might go up because there will be few [available] in December,” he said.
“A tonne might go up to 2,000 pesos [about US $100] because [large-scale buyers] usually pay 1,300-1,500 pesos or even 1,000 pesos,” Velázquez said.
His corn crop, which he grows to help feed his family, was completely destroyed by Grace and her powerful wind.
“We’re sad, worried, look at it,” Velázquez told the newspaper El Universal as he stood in his ravaged corn field.
He said 40 community landowners met with a local official to assess the damage and request help from authorities. But no assistance has yet been offered. Farmers in communities such as Agua Dulce, Arroyo Colorado, Arroyo Grande, La Guásima and Poza Verde are in the same situation, Velázquez said.
Farther north in municipalities such as Tihuatlán, Hurricane Grace dealt a “death blow” to farmers, said Sergio Ruiz Valencia, president of a local branch of the National Farmers Confederation. The losses stemming from the damage of crops caused by Grace are incalculable, he said.
“The countryside is a disaster and there’s no Fonden now. It’s a very critical situation in the farming sector; in Tihuatlán alone 70% of its territory is used for agriculture,” he said.
One benefit of the hurricane for farmers in northern Veracruz is that it helped replenish dried up dams and gave a good soaking to parched farmland. Drought-stricken Tampico Alto, Pueblo Viejo and Ozuluama were among the municipalities that benefited from the heavy rain brought by Grace.
León Almazan Zavala, a local official in Pueblo Viejo, said the rain will spur the growth of grass, ensuring that cattle have food to eat in the coming months. In Ozuluama, dams filled to at least 60% capacity, said a local agriculture official.
Despite the heavy rainfall over the weekend, the three northern Veracruz municipalities still need more rain to avoid farmers having to truck in water at a high cost. They remain hopeful that there will be decent rain in September and October, the newspaper El Sol de Tampico reported.
Claiming that President López Obrador is trying to imprison him for the next 30 years, former presidential candidate Ricardo Anaya reiterated Monday that he would leave Mexico and continue his opposition to the federal government from abroad.
The former deputy and ex-National Action Party chief, who appears to be positioning himself for a second consecutive run at the presidency in 2024, claims he is a victim of political persecution but López Obrador rejected that accusation on Monday two days after denying any involvement in his case.
“I have nothing to do with the persecution Ricardo Anaya imagines [is occurring]. Revenge is not my strong suit. If the Attorney General’s Office and the judicial power accuse him of corruption and he’s innocent, he shouldn’t shield himself or flee, he should defend himself with proof and with the strength of the truth. We’re no longer in the times of before: there can be imprisoned politicians but not political prisoners,” he wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
The president said Monday that charges against the 42-year-old politician stem from accusations by former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya that lawmakers such as Anaya took bribes in exchange for supporting the former government’s 2013-14 energy reform.
In a video message posted to social media later on Monday, Anaya said he had received a subpoena to attend a virtual court hearing this Thursday.
Anaya and López Obrador at a presidential debate during the 2018 election campaign.
“… Do you know where the conclusion of the hearing would take place? In the Reclusorio Norte [prison in Mexico City],” he said.
“… Do you know how many years’ imprisonment the crimes López Obrador’s Attorney General’s Office is accusing me of add up to? Thirty years’ imprisonment. Just as well that there is no political persecution and that revenge is not your strong suit, Andrés Manuel. If that wasn’t the case, just imagine …” Anaya said.
“López Obrador posted a message to his Facebook in which he basically asks me to present myself at a hearing at Reclusorio Norte. He says that I shouldn’t worry if I’m innocent. Of course I’m innocent but of course I don’t believe the most untruthful president in history. I know perfectly well that if I enter the prison, as López Obrador kindly proposes, they won’t let me leave.”
Anaya claimed that the president directly ordered the case against him, asserting that the charges are designed to silence him and put an end to his political career.
“… Once you’re in prison, you lose your political rights; in other words I couldn’t be a candidate in 2024 and obviously I wouldn’t be able to record videos in which I denounce the ineptitude of his government. That’s the underlying reason why they want to jail me,” he said.
López Obrador negó quererme encarcelar, pero resulta que me acaba de llegar el citatorio para una audiencia en el reclusorio norte. Los delitos que me imputan “solo” suman 30 años de prisión. ¡Menos mal que su fuerte no es la venganza! Vamos para adelante, hasta donde tope. pic.twitter.com/VoIVueuQNE
“… If you’re with López Obrador, you have protection,” Anaya said, citing alleged corruption cases involving the president’s brothers, Pío and Martín Jesús, officials involved in the construction of Line 12 of the Mexico City Metro (part of which collapsed in May), former cabinet minister Irma Sandoval and Federal Electricity Commission chief Manuel Bartlett.
“He even released Ovidio, the son of Chapo Guzmán,” he said. “But if you’re his adversary, they send you a subpoena in 24 hours and try to put you in jail for 30 years. What country are we turning into?”
Anaya – who said Saturday that he would leave Mexico – remarked that going into exile was a “a very painful decision” but his only option. He has previously lived for lengthy periods with his wife and children in Atlanta, Georgia – an arrangement that has attracted criticism, including from López Obrador who has described Anaya as “a little rich kid” with the nickname “Ricky Riquín.”
“… In times of autocrats like López Obrador, exile is the only alternative in order to be able to continue fighting. … Allowing yourself to be jailed by an autocrat often means losing the battle. Let it be very clear, Andrés Manuel, I’m not hiding or fleeing, I’m showing my face and exiling myself from my country with a lot of pain in order to continue fighting,” Anaya said.
“You’re not going to get rid of me, and there are more and more of us who are not afraid of you and are ready to confront you wherever that may be. I’m convinced that we’re going to succeed and that the best is yet to come.”
Whether Anaya has already left Mexico or remains in his home state of Querétaro is unclear.
Meanwhile, there is speculation that Lozoya, who has been given protected witness status, may avoid prosecution on the corruption charges he faces in exchange for implicating opposition party politicians, including outspoken critics of the president, in wrongdoings he claims he was ordered to commit during the 2012-18 rule of ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto.
A lot of the water infrastructure needs upgrading, say municipal officials in La Laguna.
A troubled water project in Durango and Coahuila is likely to face fresh hurdles due to old and leaky lines.
The Clean Water for the Laguna project seeks to supply drinking water from the Nazas River and the Lázaro Cárdenas and Francisco Zarco dams to 1.6 million people in the Durango municipalities of Gómez Palacio, Lerdo, Mapimí and Tlahualio, and the Coahuila municipalities of Francisco I Madero, Matamoros, San Pedro, Torreón and Viesca. The National Water Commission (Conagua) predicts the investment will cost over 10 billion pesos (about US $503 million.)
It could be completed by the end of 2023, according to projections, and involves building a pumping station, a water treatment plant, 35 kilometers of gravity-fed lines and 11 kilometers of pressure lines, among other infrastructure.
But the project was stalled when a district judge gave temporary approval to its suspension on May 27 on environmental grounds, eliciting an attack on the “rotten judiciary” by President López Obrador. He suggested it should be considered by the Supreme Court due to the health implications of failing to provide clean water to communities.
However, regardless of the status of the project there are inadequate water lines, some of which are 80 years old.
Of the 2,000 kilometers of pipelines that cross Torreón, 450 kilometers need to be modernized, meaning an expense of 250 to 300 million pesos (about US $12.3-$14.7 million), according to the newspaper Milenio. The lines in the western section are more than 80 years old, and more than 60 years old in the central section. Taken together, those lines are responsible for losing nearly half of all the water that is being pumped.
Luis Gamiz Ortega, manager of the water authority in Francisco I. Madero, reported that 70% of the lines have been identified as needing replacement.
Mayor Jonathan Ávalos Rodríguez said the upgrades pose an extensive challenge. “The lines are very old, more than 50 years old. Many are affected by asbestos, which is an issue that requires a lot of spending on infrastructure … we are talking about changing the lines and repaving the area,” he said.
Raymundo Rodríguez de la Torre of the Torreón water authority warned that if the Clean Water project began immediately, almost half of the water would be wasted. “We have to put our house in order before we receive the water,” he added.
The situation is mirrored in Durango. In Gómez Palacio the water lines are more than 20 years old and are responsible for the loss of 38% of the water in the municipality. The network’s replacement is planned through an investment of 1.4 billion pesos (about $68.7 million). In Lerdo, the head of the water authority said that 236 kilometers of roughly 50-year-old network should be replaced to avoid leaks of up to 40% of the water being pumped through the system. That, he said, represents a loss of 220 liters per second.
The same goes for the network in Matamoros, Tamaulipas: local deputy and former mayor Raúl Onofre said the municipality wasn’t ready for the Laguna water project as some of the area’s pipes date back more than 50 years, and would have to be completely replaced.
Eduardo Arellano Félix at the border in Matamoros on Monday.
A former leader of the Tijuana Cartel was deported to Mexico by the United States on Monday after he was released from a U.S. federal prison early last week.
The Attorney General’s Office and the army took Eduardo Arellano Félix, 64, into custody at the Brownsville-Matamoros International Bridge at 5:15 p.m. Monday, the former said in a statement.
A federal judge had issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of organized crime, drug trafficking and criminal association.
Arellano, who was detained in Tijuana in 2008 after a shootout and extradited to the United States in 2012, was transferred from Tamaulipas to the Altiplano maximum security prison in México state.
After his release from a prison in Allentown, Pennsylvania, last Tuesday and prior to his deportation to Mexico, the former financial operator for the notoriously violent Tijuana Cartel – also known as the Arellano Félix organization – was held in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Arellano Félix at his arrest in Tijuana in 2008.
Nicknamed “El Doctor,” he spent less than 10 years in jail in the United States even though he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment after pleading guilty to money laundering charges. He qualified for early release as a result of his cooperation with U.S. authorities, who indicted him on drug trafficking and laundering charges in 2003 and offered a reward of up to US $5 million for his capture.
Arellano Félix became leader of the Tijuana Cartel in 2006 after his younger brother, Francisco Javier Arellano Félix, was captured by U.S. authorities while fishing in international waters off the coast of Baja California Sur. However, he subsequently ceded the leadership to a nephew.
Arellano Félix was the last of four brothers to be killed or sent to prison in connection with the Tijuana Cartel’s illicit activities.
The organization – which was founded in the late 1980s and continues to operate in alliance with other cartels – smuggled hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of narcotics into the United States at the height of its power, Reuters said.
“… It’s a criminal organization whose capacities have been reduced but it hasn’t disappeared,” said security analyst Javier Oliva Posada.
He told the newspaper La Jornada before Arellano Félix’s deportation to Mexico that his release “could generate an increase in violence” if he decides to rejoin the ranks of the Tijuana Cartel.
Veteran journalist José Reveles said the cartel appears now to have an alliance with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which is generally considered Mexico’s most powerful criminal organization.
“It’s a territorial alliance that only has effect in the [Baja California] peninsula,” he said.
Pemex is set to lose approximately US $25 million per day while an an offshore oil platform remains out of action as a result of a fire that claimed the lives of at least five workers.
The state oil company was forced to cease operations at the E-Ku-A2 platform, part of a gas processing center in the Ku-Maloob-Zaap oil field, located in Campeche Bay.
Pemex also had to shut down 125 wells from which 421,000 barrels of oil are usually extracted per day. That quantity of oil accounts for just under 25% of the company’s average daily production of 1.7 million barrels.
A barrel of Mexican oil is currently selling for about US $60, at which price daily losses due to the platform closure would add up to almost $25.3 million.
The newspaper Milenio calculated a daily loss of $24.9 million based on a recent per barrel price of $59.16, while El Universal determined a $26.2 million loss based on a price of $62.22.
“Right now the platform is still not operating, so they can’t continue to extract oil,” Pemex CEO Octavio Romero told a press conference on Monday.
“The wells are closed. And we hope to resume production as soon as possible,” he said, adding that could occur within days.
The 80-minute blaze on Sunday afternoon – which claimed the lives of one state oil company employee and four workers with oil services group Cotemar – followed a spectacular inferno on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico in Campeche Bay in early July. Pemex said that fire was caused by a lightning strike after gas began leaking from an underwater pipeline. There were no casualties nor was there any damage to Pemex facilities.
Romero asserted that no incidents at Pemex facilities during the current government were caused by a lack of maintenance or neglect, and therefore losses incurred will be covered by insurance.
“No case is associated with abandonment or negligence due to not attending to intolerable risk situations; that is the case with the event yesterday [Sunday] with the fire on the E-Ku-A2 platform,” he said.
The CEO said that adverse incidents at Pemex facilities caused losses of $923.1 billion between 2013 and 2018 but losses were only $64 billion between 2019 and June 2021.
Romero: ‘We hope to resume production as soon as possible.’
“There is no problem of lack of investment and resources; the oil industry is risky [but] accidents are numerically lower than in past administrations,” Romero said, adding that the government has recently increased Pemex’s maintenance budget.
The safety of workers is Pemex’s priority, he said, stressing that they were more important than reaching production goals.
However, there is evidence that the heavily indebted state oil company is not maintaining all its facilities as it should be.
Pemex workers last month denounced unsafe working conditions and a lack of proper maintenance at the company’s maritime terminal in Pajaritos, Veracruz. Footage broadcast by Televisa showed that parts of the terminal were on the verge of collapse.
Workers said that Pemex had only carried out superficial repairs to structural damage on the wharf, where oil tankers offload crude for transfer to refineries.
“We experience conditions of insecurity, there have been accidents because they’re not taking the right [maintenance] measures,” said Ricardo Castelo, one of two former Pemex workers who were dismissed this month for speaking out about the situation.
Speaking at his news conference on Monday, President López Obrador, who has pledged to “rescue” the state utility from what he describes as years of neglect before he took office, lamented the deaths of the five oil workers on Sunday.
Pemex said in a statement that six other people were injured and are receiving treatment in hospital, while two were missing. The latter worked for the company Bufete de Monitoreo de Condiciones e Integridad.
The fatal blaze occurred while Pemex – saddled with more than $100 billion in debt – is amid a recovery phase after recording heavy losses in 2020 as global demand for oil slumped due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The company posted a $723 million profit in the second quarter of this year but has scant resources to reinvest because most of its earnings are consumed by tax payable to the Mexican state.
Hipólito Serna and Yolanda García in their roofless home in Poza Rica.
Some Hurricane Grace victims in Poza Rica, Veracruz, are still waiting for government assistance more than two days after the Category 3 hurricane slammed into the Gulf Coast state.
Grace made landfall 20 kilometers north of Tecolutla, located southeast of Poza Rica, early Saturday morning with maximum sustained winds of 205 kmh and gusts to 240. The hurricane claimed eight lives in Veracruz (seven in state capital Xalapa) and an additional three in Puebla, taking the storm’s death toll to 11. Two of the fatalities in Puebla occurred in Tlaola, while the other occurred in Huachinango. Both municipalities are in the state’s Sierra Norte region.
In Poza Rica, a city of some 200,000 where one person was killed, the homes of some residents of colonias populares (working class neighborhoods) such as La Ceiba, La Nacional and Los Sauces were severely damaged when Grace’s powerful winds swept through.
Two victims were Hipólito Serna Márquez and his wife Yolanda García, residents of Los Sauces whose wooden house was battered by the hurricane and lost its roof. It was the second time that their home was severely damaged by a hurricane after Diana toppled it in 1990.
They told the newspaper El Universal that many other families are in a similar situation and need help, including food and water.
But no assistance has been forthcoming, they said while sitting on their bed, which unlike some other pieces of furniture, they managed to save.
“One feels sad and my wife is sick as well,” Don Hipólito told El Universal through tears. “Where are we going to get something to eat, who’s going to bring us something – nobody,” he said.
“This is the way we’re living now, suffering, but while God gives us life we have to bear it. We have to wait for God to extend his hand to support us, so that we have food for another day; when we don’t lack beans to eat, we’re happy.”
Serna said that he voted for the president, state governor and local mayor currently in office, and now he and his wife are waiting for some support in return.
“If they don’t support us, nothing can be done, we’ll continue suffering. I don’t work because I’m 80 years old,” he said, adding that he hasn’t received the food supplement to his pension since June.
“My wife is the only one who works. As she’s a midwife, sometimes they call her out … and we’re able to eat.”
Hurricane damage in the state of Puebla, where three people were killed.
In the neighborhood of La Ceiba, Enrique López, along with his brothers, tried in vain to save the sheet metal roof of the home he built five years ago.
“When the strongest wind came it lifted all three of us up, we had to let go of the roof and everything flew away, and we ran,” said the 38-year-old food delivery driver.
“We took shelter, we left everything [in my home], we were unable to get anything out. We didn’t expect it [the hurricane] to be so strong,” López said. Asked whether he felt abandoned by authorities, he told El Universal:
“That’s how it is. The authorities aren’t helping anyone, at least around here. They should take a look to see how things are. There are a lot of toppled homes in the Antorcha neighborhood as well, it’s the same there as it is here and no authorities are seen, there’s no help of any kind.”
“We’re the forgotten ones,” one lady told El Universal while walking in the streets of La Ceiba.
According to the Red Cross, however, aid is on the way. The agency said 13 tonnes of humanitarian aid left Mexico City Monday in a tractor-trailer bound for Poza Rica and Tecolutla.
Some states have also launched aid campaigns. Tabasco, Tamaulipas, and Mexico City announced they would be collecting and sending supplies to victims.
Property was also damaged by Grace in other parts of Mexico, including the two Puebla municipalities where fatalities occurred as well as Zacatlán, Chignahuapan, Chinconcuatla and Cuetzalan in the same state.
The Puebla government said that replacement sheet metal roofs and mattresses had been distributed where needed and the delivery of food aid was to continue on Monday. More than 835,000 Federal Electricity Commission customers in Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala and San Luis Potosí lost power as a result of the strong winds and heavy rain brought by Grace, but the service had been restored in almost half that number of households by Sunday night.
The hurricane, which caused severe flooding in parts of Veracruz, Puebla and some other states, was downgraded as it made its way westward across central Mexico on Saturday afternoon and had largely dissipated by 4:00 p.m.
Remnants of the hurricane coalesced to form Tropical Storm Marty, which was 485 kilometers southwest of the southern tip of Baja California at 3:00 p.m. Monday and not threatening any land, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
For years, Mazatlán traffic lights have seen a revolving cast of performers who sip some flammable liquid and put on a show for drivers in hopes of earning some pesos.
Wherever you travel throughout Mexico, when roads form a junction an opportunity is created for both commerce and compassion as well as a bit of entertainment.
Busy streets with traffic lights provide a captive audience for an elaborate form of panhandling or the sales of a multitude of objects that changes with the seasons or the simple act of begging for a benevolent handout.
In the summertime, the intersection vendors have ice-cold agua de coco (coconut water), limonada (limeade) and jugo de sandia (watermelon juice), along with a variety fresh fruits. Hand fans, sweat towels and UV protection sleeves appear during the dog days of summer.
When mosquito season arrives, which it seems to do every few months, intersection vendors are offering battery-powered bug rackets. They look like a child’s tennis racket with a triple-layered, electrified mesh that gives off a satisfying snap and sizzle whenever you score a hit. For the killer price of 150 pesos, our household always has a couple on hand.
Recently, I have seen a breakdancing group of five young men at an intersection, all wearing ball caps with the bills pointing everywhere but the front. They clap and kick in unison for a few seconds, then one steps forward and does a few one-armed, spinning handstands. The next one up does a complicated spin routine while two walk between the stopped cars with ball caps held out for a few pesos. It must be somewhat worthwhile; I have seen them on a number of occasions.
Breakdancing youth at a traffic light in Mazatlán.
The low startup cost for becoming an intersection windshield washer has made them ubiquitous throughout Mexico. Many of these entrepreneurs do a quick and efficient job improving your visibility. There are also, however, the few that attempt to clean your windshield with a filthy rag and not enough water, smearing the dirt and bug guts across the entire glass.
I have heard a story about one of those less-than-meticulous window washers confronting a nervous gringo. A Mexican friend who was riding with the gringo related this story to me. They came to an intersection notorious for pushy window washers when a rather seedy-looking fellow headed their way. He had wild eyes that looked chemically dilated. Before he could be stopped, he attacked the windshield with a muddy rag.
After rendering the glass a murky mess, he went to the driver’s side and thrust his head through the open window and demanded pesos. The nervous gringo put a Taser to the man’s forehead and pushed the button. I have been told that since this stressful event, the gringo has purposely avoided that intersection for several years.
Some intersections have a spacious and shaded median between the lanes that allows a larger staging ground for vendors with large items. A couple of years ago, it was at one of these types of intersections that a vendor had a number of inflatable Donald Trump effigies set up. They had weighted bottoms that would return them to an upright position after each punch.
This vendor would place the blow-up bunko artist in front of the stopped traffic and have his 12-year-old son pummel it with a piñata stick — continually and ruthlessly.
Many cars on both sides of the intersection would honk their horns during this display while applause could be heard echoing off the facades of the nearby buildings. This man had two other helpers selling the deflated Donalds — just add hot air — to people waving their hands filled with pesos.
At one point, these punching bags were a hot item at a Mazatlán traffic light frequented by the writer.
One intersection in our town is infamous for the human blowtorch, who can be seen most nights. His routine is panhandling on steroids — combined, of course, with a death wish.
He has a small stick with a kerosene-soaked rag on the end that he lights up with a flick of his Bic. He then lifts a plastic jug to his mouth and fills it with kerosene, which he then blows across the flame of his torch.
This act of madness produces a two-meter fireball into the night air with an audible roar. He expels three fireballs before going car to car with a cup in one hand and his torch in the other.
Over the years, this intersection has always had its human blow torch, but the person changes every year or so. I can only speculate that the early retirement is either health-related or due to spontaneous human combustion.
Try as I might, I can’t wrap my mind around just how destitute a person would have to be to decide to subsist on the negligible earnings from this slow-motion suicide.
About 12 years ago, I saw an intersection performance that could have been, or should have been, a one-off. It was Christmastime, and the streets were teeming with potential patrons.
When the red light stopped traffic, a long-haired and bearded man clothed only in a crude loincloth began by waving his hands to draw attention. He quickly spread a blue tarp between the cars, then covered it in shards of broken glass from a ratty burlap sack. I need to clarify: these were not pieces of sea glass or flat pieces of plate glass but the jagged and curved glass of broken beer bottles — a lot of them.
With only a couple of minutes left, he lay on the broken glass, first on his front, then on his back. His routine was well-timed; with about 20 seconds left before the light changed, he popped up and walked between the cars with his hand held out.
I handed him a 20-peso note and watched his bloody back recede in my mirror.
When I find myself at the front of the line at el semáforo (stoplight) in somewhat heavy traffic, I will always wait about three to five seconds before taking off. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen a speeding bus, car or fool on a scooter run the red light at the very last second.
I was heading home late one afternoon and the sun was in my eyes as I sat at the head of the line at a red light. There was a bus to my right, which blocked my view in that direction, and when the light changed, I did my three seconds before hitting the throttle, which was exactly when a man ran out from in front of the bus and ended up with his face planted on my windshield.
Since then, I have waited for the vehicle on my right to move first.
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].
• We imagine you’ve seen some version of these activities going on at traffic intersections in your city. What’s most popular or unusual where you live? Do you enjoy the spectacle or see any convenience in it, or do you simply find it annoying?
Cortés, Zambrano and Moreno were in Washington Monday to make their claim before international organizations.
The leaders of three opposition parties were in Washington D.C. on Monday to submit a complaint to two international organizations that the June 6 elections were unduly influenced by organized crime.
Marko Cortés of the National Action Party (PAN), Alejandro Moreno of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Jesús Zambrano of the Democratic Revolution Party presented their complaint to the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an autonomous organ of the OAS.
The three parties contested the June 6 elections – which came at the conclusion of the most violent electoral season on record – as part of an alliance known as Va por México (Go for Mexico).
The ruling Morena party was easily the most successful party in the outcome, although it lost its supermajority in the lower house of federal Congress.
The newspaper El Universal, which has seen the 57-page complaint, said the PAN, PRI and PRD leaders planned to ask the OAS to send a committee of observers to Mexico to investigate their claim that organized crime intervened in the elections to an unprecedented level. The three men subsequently took the same complaint to the IACHR.
Criminal groups “supported, installed, censured and murdered candidates in the majority of the country’s states” during the lead-up to the elections, the complaint says.
Cortés, Moreno and Zambrano met with OAS general secretary Luis Almagro and were due to meet with IACHR executive secretary Tania Reneaum later on Monday to discuss their claims.
Cortés described the meeting with Almagro as “very good,” while Zambrano said the OAS chief is “very worried about what is happening in our country” and committed to closely study the complaint submitted to him.
“… We will not allow Mexican democracy to be placed at risk,” Moreno said on Twitter above a photo of the three party leaders with Almagro.
The PAN, PRI and PRD assert that principles contained in the Inter-American Democratic Charter were blatantly violated during the process leading up to the elections, and people’s right to democracy was impinged upon as a result. The charter states that governments have an obligation to do all they can to defend democracy.
Their complaint, El Universal said, details a range of electorally-motivated crimes including homicides, kidnappings and intimidation of both candidates and everyday citizens.
A campaign vehicle in Michoacán that was attacked a month before the June elections.
It refers in depth to criminal interference in elections in seven states where it was especially bad or there were particularly high-profile cases of political violence: Sinaloa, México state, Guerrero, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Veracruz and San Luis Potosí.
The complaint also mentions the appearance of a decapitated human head at a polling station in Tijuana on the morning of June 6.
“The image of this severed head with open eyes was the perfect metaphor for the interference of organized crime, not just on the day of the elections at which 20,500 federal, state and municipal positions were up for grabs, but also during the months that preceded them and the days that have followed,” it says.
“For months, the warnings of threats, kidnappings and murders suffered by the candidates to these positions carried the warning that violence and criminal coercion were going to be present like never before in these elections, the largest ever of the young Mexican democracy.”
The complaint also states that “armed groups kidnapped and immobilized complete campaign teams, seized polling stations and forced citizens to emit their votes publicly and on their orders.”
“… Thousands of citizens who were victims of this violence were forced to keep quiet. Lawyers preferred to abstain from processing electoral coercion complaints …” it says.
The complaint says there were a total of 693 victims of electorally-motivated violence during the 2020-21 electoral period, an increase of 68% compared to the 2017-18 period.
Speaking at his regular news conference on Monday, President López Obrador said he was completely unconcerned about the opposition parties’ decision to file a complaint with the OAS and the IACHR in the United States capital.
“… They’re very desperate,” he said before adding that they have the right to present their accusations.
“It’s legitimate for them to criticize us, to make accusations at international organizations as long as they act peacefully, … it’s for the good of the country, that’s the way democracy is everywhere.”
Traffic was up 14% in July compared to the same month in 2019.
Tourism is recovering in the Pacific coast resort city of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, even as Mexico endures a worsening third wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
Passenger traffic at the city’s airport was up 14.4% in July compared to the same month of 2019, while hotel occupancy rates were just below pre-pandemic levels.
A total of 457,100 passengers used the airport last month, according to its operator GAP, an increase of 57,600 compared to July 2019. International passengers outnumbered domestic passengers by 11% with 240,800 of the former and 216,300 of the latter.
Passenger traffic for the first seven months of the year – just over 2.1 million – was 33.2% lower than in the same period of 2019.
Compared to 2020 – the worst year in living memory for tourism destinations across Mexico – passenger traffic at Puerto Vallarta airport was up 361% in July and 32.7% in the first seven months of the year.
The increase helped hotels in Puerto Vallarta achieve an average occupancy rate of 70%, according to data cited by the newspaper Reforma. The figure is only 7.7% below the average occupancy level in July 2019.
“We’re going well; we believe tourism has recovered quite well,” said Jorge Careaga, the former Coparmex chief who made the five-year recovery prediction.
Other GAP airports that recorded increases in passenger traffic last month compared to July 2019 were those in Manzanillo, Colima, (+16.4%), Morelia, Michoacán (+13.5%), Los Cabos, Baja California Sur (+11.1%), Tijuana, Baja California (+10.7%) and Aguascalientes city (+4%).
Passenger numbers at GAP’s six other Mexican airports – Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Hermosillo, Mexicali, La Paz and Los Mochis – were all down in July compared to two years earlier.
The decline in the Jalisco capital was 14.4% to just under 1.2 million, while La Paz, the capital of Baja California Sur, recorded the largest drop – 17.5% to just over 88,000.
Hotel occupancy in Guadalajara nevertheless increased compared to previous months to 53% in July, according to Gustavo Staufert, director of the Guadalajara Visitors and Conventions Office. That figure is 9.5% below July 2019 levels.
Staufert said that hotel reservation data for the second half of the year shows that Guadalajara is the fifth most “booked” destination in the country and Puerto Vallarta is No. 3.
“When you add Vallarta and Guadalajara together, Jalisco becomes No.2 [among the 32 states] for the quantity of reservations,” he said, citing data from online travel agency Expedia.
