Police made a gruesome arrest in Puebla city on Friday: a man was found in possession of a bag containing two human heads.
Juan Carlos “N,” 28, was intending to dispose of the remains, which he said belonged to his parents-in-law, by throwing them in a nearby river.
He admitted to killing his in-laws, claiming they had thrown him, his wife and their daughter — as well as the couple’s other children — out of their home.
On Saturday, two corpses presumed to be the parents-in-law were located in a house in the north of the city. Juan Carlos’ wife and parents were also found there, and are suspected of participating in the crime.
The suspect initially told officers that he had been paid to dispose of the heads but changed his story.
Gunmen attacked a children’s party in Silao, Guanajuato, on Saturday and killed six people in one of two shooting incidents in the state that took the lives of 11 people.
The attackers arrived on motorcycles at about 6 p.m., entered the property and opened fire. Two children and their mother were among the dead; six people were wounded.
When the shooters made their escape, they carried on shooting, targeting a group of people who were at another party and others who were drinking alcoholic beverages on a street corner, the newspaper El Sol de México reported.
Hours later, 113 kilometers southeast in Apaseo el Grande, near Querétaro, gunmen killed three women, one man and a 3-year-old girl.
Guanajuato generally tops the rankings as the state with the highest number of homicides. President López Obrador has previously accused Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa, who has held his post for 12 years, of being responsible for the violence.
Baja California is the lone outlier on the new map.
All but one of Mexico’s 32 states are now low risk green on the federal government’s coronavirus stoplight map as the third wave of the pandemic continues to decline.
Baja California is the outlier, remaining high risk orange on the new map that takes effect Monday.
Twenty-nine states were green on the previous map, while Guanajuato and Aguascalientes were medium risk yellow. Both those states switched green on the new map, which will remain in force through November 28.
Baja California easily has the highest number of active cases on a per capita basis, just over 80 per 100,000 people, more than double Sonora, which ranks second for current infections with just under 40 per 100,000 inhabitants.
The only other states with more than 30 active cases per 100,000 people are Coahuila, Mexico City, Querétaro and Guanajuato.
Chihuahua, Aguascalientes, Baja California Sur, Yucatán and San Luis Potosí have more than 20 active cases per 100,000 people, while Tabasco, Durango, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas have between 10 and 20. Each of the 17 other states has fewer than 10.
Nationally, reported cases are down 40% this month compared to October. An average of 2,751 new cases per day was reported during the first 14 days of November compared to a daily average of 4,612 in October.
This month’s daily average is 83% lower than the average in August, which was the worst month of the pandemic with more than 500,000 reported cases. The last time average daily case numbers were lower than they currently are was in May when an average of 2,225 per day were reported.
Reported deaths linked to COVID-19 have averaged 199 per day this month, a 43% decline compared to the daily average of 350 in October. The last time the average daily COVID-19 death toll was below 200 was in April 2020 when Mexico was amid the first wave of the pandemic.
The country’s accumulated case tally currently stands at 3.84 million, while the official COVID-19 death toll is 291,147. Both totals are considered vast undercounts, mainly due to Mexico’s low testing rate.
Nevertheless, Mexico ranks 15th in the world for total cases and fourth for fatalities behind only the United States, Brazil and India.
On a per capita basis, Mexico has the 22nd highest death rate in the world with 228 fatalities per 100,000 people, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Mexico’s fatality rate of 7.6 deaths per 100 confirmed cases is the third highest in the world after those of Yemen and Peru.
For vaccination, Mexico ranks 73rd in the world with 59% of the total population having had at least one shot, according to The New York Times vaccinations tracker. Among adults – the only sector of the population to which vaccines have been widely available – the rate is about 83%, according to the Health Ministry.
Just over 129.8 million shots have been administered to 75.4 million people. More than 63.3 million of those are fully vaccinated. That means approximately 12.1 million people have had one dose of a two-shot vaccine but chose not to get a second one or are still waiting for it.
Authorities in Mexico City – the country’s coronavirus epicenter – have offered first and second shots to all age groups but are currently administering vaccines to people who previously chose not to get vaccinated or were unable to get to vaccination centers.
One such person is Victoria Reyes, a 29-year-old woman with kidney problems who got her first shot late last week.
“What worried me is that I would get some kind of reaction,” she told the newspaper El País when explaining why she didn’t get vaccinated earlier despite losing two family members to COVID.
Reyes said she finally decided to get a shot because she’s now seeing fewer people wearing face masks and following other measures designed to stop the spread of the virus.
“People are not looking after themselves like before and I think that now [that I’m vaccinated] I’ll be more protected,” she said.
El País, which spoke to several people getting shots at the Vasconcelos Library in Mexico City last week, said there were a range of reasons why people had not previously been vaccinated, including fear, distrust of authorities, inability to get to a vaccination center and inadvertently missing their designated vaccination day.
“In my family getting vaccinated was not looked upon well,” said Diana, an 18-year-old student. “They’re anti-vaxxers and they have their theories about what’s being put into you,” she said.
“I was in Veracruz for about three months and I couldn’t come to get my second dose,” said Jesús Ramírez, a 36-year-old security guard.
Some other people showed up at the Vasconcelos Library to try to get an AstraZeneca shot after previously being vaccinated with the CanSino or Sputnik vaccines, which are not certified by the World Health Organization or recognized by United States authorities. Such people cannot currently enter the United States and many other countries, prompting them to seek inoculation with an approved vaccine.
But Yomaya Bezares, a 27-year-old teacher vaccinated with CanSino, told El País that her “mission” to get an AstraZeneca shot had failed, explaining that she was turned away because only second doses of that vaccine were on offer.
Soldiers firing from a garrison during the Ten Tragic Days, a coup that removed and killed President Francisco I. Madero, who himself ousted a president. Casasola Archives
Like that of the Mexican War of Independence, the history of the Mexican Revolution can look like a confusing series of armed struggles — few major battles but lots of fighting. However, it is important to understand the basics of what happened in this period of history to understand the Mexico of today.
The Revolution’s official start is marked by an open letter written by Francisco I. Madero urging Mexicans to revolt on November 20, 1910 — hence the upcoming federally-recognized holiday, Revolution Day.
Like all revolutions, this armed conflict was against a political and social system, and the “sins” of that society would shape what would replace it.
That system was the more than 30-year dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, who came to power in 1880 during a century when Mexico’s history was marked by coups, civil wars and foreign invasions.
Díaz’s rule started with a coup, but he managed to stay in power and even bring economic expansion and political stability to the country through foreign investment, political acumen, as well as ruthlessness.
Perhaps the most iconic photograph of the Mexican Revolution, underpinning the importance of the railroads to both sides. Casasola Archives
This period of time, called the Porfiriato, was marked by the best and worst of the Industrial Revolution: there were trains, factories and revived mining but also atrocious working conditions, company stores and the dispossession of communal lands into haciendas.
Díaz’s motto was “order and progress,” with the aim of relegating indigenous and agricultural communities to the past and justifying these actions through the academic concept of “scientific politics.”
But the economic progress benefited few and dispossessed many. During the Porfiriato, there were strikes, rebellions and other unrest, but Díaz managed to keep a lid on all that. However, some in the upper classes soured on him as presidential elections under Mexico’s 1857 constitution became a farce, with Díaz “re-elected” again and again.
Then 80 years old, Díaz promised in 1910 not to run again, which set off a flurry of political activity. Díaz reneged on the promise, but not before significant opposition had coalesced around Francisco I. Madero, a businessman and writer with reform in mind.
Shortly before the election, Díaz had Madero arrested and eventually proclaimed himself the winner in a “landslide.”
Madero escaped prison and wrote that open letter calling for armed rebellion against Díaz, later called by others “The Plan of San Luis Potosí.”
The generals and other revolutionary leaders after the Battle of Ciudad Juárez. DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
This document did not drive Díaz from power, but Madero’s allies — northern strongmen Pascual Orozco and Francisco “Pancho” Villa — mobilized in Chihuahua and began raiding government garrisons. They eventually took Ciudad Juárez, a strategically important city garrisoned by federal troops. This act forced Díaz to resign, and Madero was declared president.
If Madero had been an effective leader, that might have been the end of the story. Unfortunately, he was too idealistic and alienated key allies such as Orozco, as well as Emiliano Zapata, who was angered after Madero became president that he did not make Zapata governor of Morelos and the relationship soured between them.
Counterrevolutionaries pulled off the Ten Tragic Days, a 10-day violent coup in February 1913 that eventually resulted in Victoriano Huerta, the general of the Federal Army, becoming president and Madero being killed.
Villa and Orozco, along with fellow northerners Venustiano Carranza and Álvaro Obregón, went back to war, leading a coalition of separate armies that succeeded in ousting Huerta a year later.
But the alliance among the different generals almost immediately faltered. Soon after Huerta’s ouster, the Convention of Aguascalientes was held to try and unify the armies politically, but it resulted in Villa and Zapata forming one faction and Venustiano Carranza and Álvaro Obregón forming another. Mexico found itself back in active civil war.
The two sides fought battles until 1915. Villa was defeated at the Battle of Celaya, taking him out of the picture. Zapata’s forces, also defeated, turned to guerrilla tactics.
Center front from left to right: Francisco “Pancho” Villa and Emiliano Zapata in Mexico City. Casasola Archives
With the upper hand, but victory not assured, Carranza called for another convention in Querétaro in December 1916. It resulted in the 1917 (and current) constitution adopted in February.
Many of the grievances of the various generals are addressed in this document, having to do with working hours, land redistribution and other economic issues. It also was the beginning of a new identity for Mexico, one that combined the indigenous and the Spanish, supposedly with equal weight.
The ideal of this notion is best seen in the murals of Diego Rivera and other artists who worked in the 1920s and 1930s.
The constitution’s adoption was the beginning of the end, but the Mexican Revolution really petered out rather than conclude with a single battle or treaty. For this reason, there is disagreement as to an ending date.
Many put it at 1920, the year Álvaro Obregón was elected and served his term without getting ousted or killed. But since violence continued sporadically, some put the date as late as Lázaro Cárdenas’s presidency in the 1930s.
Perhaps the biggest change as the 20th century progressed was Mexico’s shift from political power centering on one person to power centering on institutions. The most important of these was the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which would essentially rule Mexico almost unopposed for 80 years.
Former president Vicente Fox, left, in 2003 with AMLO and México state governor Arturo Montiel. government of Mexico
By the time Vicente Fox of the National Action Party was elected president in 2000, the country had soured on the PRI but not the ideals of the Mexican Revolution.
Nowadays, we might be in a transitional post-PRI phase of Mexican politics, but we are definitely not in one where the Revolution ceases to matter.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
With leftover turkey and some hominy, create a fresh take on Mexican pozole.
It’s almost Thanksgiving, and in the food world (at least in the United States), that means turkey time.
And while in some parts of Mexico turkey isn’t regularly on the menu, in the Yucatán, wild turkeys are very much part of the local cuisine. They were domesticated and eaten by the Aztecs and Maya hundreds (maybe thousands) of years ago, and Spanish conquistadors shipped them back to Spain.
Those wild ocellated turkeys, found today in the Yucatán Peninsula forests in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, are a far cry from the highly domesticated ones sold in modern-day grocery stores.
They’re a different species, smaller and brilliantly colored with distinctive iridescent patterned feathers and bright blue heads. And they don’t make the classic turkey “gobble.”
In Mazatlán, where I live, it’s difficult (if not impossible) to find whole turkeys, and if you do, they’ll be frozen. That said, there’s no shame in roasting the biggest chicken you can find for your Día de Acción de Gracias celebration.
Wild ocellated turkeys in the forest, Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, Yucatán.
Years of habit have accustomed many of us who celebrate to a week of leftover turkey, and the things we do with it are as much a part of our Thanksgiving traditions as the cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. We all have our favorites: sandwiches, soup, the classic layered Thanksgiving-meal-in-a-goblet.
I thought to change it up a bit and share some Mexican-inspired recipes for leftover turkey or chicken. Enjoy!
Easy Turkey Enmoladas
These are so easy and delicious! Use whatever kind of store-bought or homemade mole you like.
4-8 corn tortillas, warmed till soft
Leftover roast turkey or chicken (¼ cup per tortilla)
3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
Salt
¼ cup mole sauce per tortilla
1 Tbsp. crema per tortilla
For serving: cotija cheese, sliced white onions, minced fresh cilantro, lime wedges
In each tortilla, place about ¼ cup of meat in a line, a bit off-center. Don’t fill them too much!
Roll tightly into a cigar shape and rest seam-side-down. Repeat with remaining tortillas and meat.
Heat oil in cast-iron or nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium.
Add enchiladas seam-side-down in a single row. Cook without moving until crisp on first side, 2–3 minutes.
Carefully turn with tongs; cook on second side until crisp. Remove from pan; drain on paper towels.
Season with salt immediately. To serve, spread half of sauce on a plate. Top with enchiladas, spoon remaining sauce on top. Drizzle with crema.
Sprinkle with cotija, onions and cilantro. Serve with lime wedges.
Find mole for enmoladas in cans or fresh in your market’s prepared foods section.
Turkey Tortilla Soup
For a milder flavor, omit one ancho and one pasilla chile and replace 1 cup stock with one (14.4-ounce) can of diced tomatoes with juice.
2 pasilla chiles
2 ancho chiles
2 whole canned chipotle chiles in adobo plus 1 Tbsp. sauce
2 quarts chicken or turkey broth
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, finely diced
1 whole poblano pepper, seeds and stem removed, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 lb. leftover turkey or chicken, shredded
For serving: tortilla strips or chips, minced cilantro, diced avocado, jalapeño and scallions, lime wedges
Combine pasilla, ancho and chipotle chiles in a medium-sized saucepan. Add half the broth.
Simmer over medium heat until tender, about 15 minutes. Transfer to blender; process until completely smooth.
Heat oil in large saucepan over high heat. Add onions and poblano pepper and cook, stirring, until softened but not browned, about 2 minutes.
Add garlic and cumin and cook about 30 seconds. Add remaining broth and chile purée. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to simmer, add meat and cook about 5 minutes.
Season to taste with salt. Serve hot, with tortilla strips, scallions, cilantro, avocado, jalapeños as garnishes at the table, plus lime wedges.
Turkey Carnitas
Substitute these for the pork carnitas in any recipe. Delicious in tacos, burritos or quesadillas or on top of nachos.
Any amount leftover cooked dark-meat turkey/chicken (thighs and drumsticks)
Salt
Per lb. of meat: 1 orange, 1 medium onion, 2 bay leaves, 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, chicken/turkey fat
Combine meat (with bones if available), orange, onion and bay leaves in a pot that fits everything snugly. Add enough water to cover halfway. Cover, bring to boil, then reduce to a bare simmer and cook about 1 hour until turkey is fall-off-the-bone tender.
Make guilt-free carnitas with leaner turkey instead of the traditional pork.
Discard orange, onion and bay leaves; drain turkey well. Shred meat; discard bones.
Heat oil or fat in cast-iron or nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add meat, and spread into an even layer. Cook without moving about 5 minutes until meat is well browned and crisp on bottom. Then stir to incorporate the crisp bits and move new soft bits to the bottom. Continue this process until the meat is as crisp as you like it. Season to taste with salt.
Turkey Pozole
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 large poblanos, cut into ¼-inch pieces
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. ground cumin
3 Tbsp. tomato paste
6 cups chicken broth
1 (29-oz. can) hominy, rinsed
Salt
2 cups leftover shredded turkey/chicken
½ cup minced fresh cilantro, plus more for serving
Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion and poblanos. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until just tender, 5–6 minutes. Add garlic, cumin and tomato paste; cook, stirring, 2–3 minutes. Stir in broth, hominy and ½ tsp. salt; bring to boil.
Reduce heat, simmer 10 minutes. Add meat and cilantro; cook about 3 minutes until hot.
Serve topped with tortilla strips, radishes, avocado, cilantro, cotija and a squeeze of lime.
President López Obrador salutes fellow Mexicans who gathered outside the UN building in New York City this week. lopezobrador.org.mx
Did y’all ever get around to seeing that movie New Order? It’s a fairly recent Mexican film and, I’ll warn you, not at all for the faint of heart.
It’s bleak and disturbing and left me sleepless for several nights after I watched it. If you’re someone who cares deeply about economic justice, it begins as darkly satisfying entertainment. But once the blood starts spraying, shit gets serious and eyes get wide.
The movie opens with a wedding reception for two of Mexico’s young and beautiful members of the elite. One guest has given them a newly-constructed mansion as a wedding present. Many others have given them envelopes stuffed with the kind of cash most of us could only dream of earning, let alone receiving as a gift.
It’s the kind of party where none of the guests’ shoes could possibly cost any less than 4,000 pesos and where the help wear uniforms — though there’s no need if it’s for the purpose of distinction: the workers are all about five shades darker than any of the attendants. The contrast made me squirm.
The short-version summary of this film is that the wedding happens to fall on the day that a sizable number of poor and working-class people have decided that they’ve had enough and revolt. Most of the wedding guests are shocked when their barked demands to those they consider their lessers are ineffective once the domestic help turns on them, along with the invaders who’ve scaled the property’s high walls.
Soon we learn that it’s at least a citywide movement and that many of the city’s elites are being either slaughtered or jailed (and then slaughtered) in a planned attack.
The military immediately takes advantage of the chaos by declaring martial law; their goal is not to rid the country of the corruption that plagues it or to restore citizens’ freedom (not even eventually) but to simply take advantage of the situation by making a gruesome business of keeping the spoils, mostly in the form of ransoms for people they wind up killing anyway.
Part horror movie and part cautionary tale, it’s a scathing indictment of both Mexico’s elite class and the military, as well as anyone who thinks they’ll always have their hands on the reins of power. It paints corruption as an inevitable presence in the culture, automatically wielded by whoever is in charge.
Again, not for the faint of heart. It’s bleak, man. The movie made an impression on me, one I won’t quickly forget.
I immediately thought back to this movie when I read about the recent scandal of a lavish and expensive wedding between a high-ranking Morena official — the party that prides itself on “walking the walk” on austerity — and a National Electoral Institute councilor.
At least they made an effort to hide it?
The wedding of Santiago Nieto (the president’s so-called “anti-corruption czar”) and Carla Humphrey thankfully did not feature any revolts. What it did feature was the loss of US $35,000 in cash, which raised some justifiable questions at customs, and the job of the Mexico City tourism minister Paola Félix Díaz, who had flown to the wedding in a private jet. Nieto also ended up resigning.
There were some very good questions raised about where the money for such a lavish destination wedding came from considering that Nieto was an employee in a government that, again, proudly advertises itself on having brought about the end of corruption (ha!) and the dawn of government austerity. (I’m side-eying them on this one.)
Well. At least they care about the optics, which is more than I can say for past governments. Still, it’s just as disappointing as it is unsurprising.
This is why it’s so ironic to me that President López Obrador goes so far out of his way to criticize the middle class when the middle class is precisely where most of his government functionaries come from. What exactly does he think that “middle class” even means? Does he agree with INEGI’s assessment?
I truly do not get the message he’s going for. If a poor person whom he loves and admires precisely because of their poverty does well and moves into the middle class, does he think they automatically become evil? Is helping poor people not be poor anymore nothis goal?
The fact that there has been zero COVID-related financial help given out to anyone during this never-ending pandemic that sent many Mexicans into poverty — rather than the other way around — more than answers that question.
At the start of his presidency, I was very hopeful. My own sympathy lies more heavily with those in need who have been kept down by systemic inequality and lack of opportunities. (For anyone who thinks I’m exaggerating, ask an Oxxo employee about their full-time wages and tell me what your own plan would be to “move up” in that situation.)
My only conclusion is that AMLO’s talking points are simply political theater. And while I’d love to still believe in the president’s convictions, I simply don’t anymore. He might have put on a good show for the United Nations, but we know that “ending poverty” starts at home. And we know that he knows that this is not what’s happening around here.
Again, I’m glad that they at least care about optics.
My heart also goes out to the newlyweds, whose memories of their wedding will forever be tainted — an unfortunate beginning to a marriage. While I don’t approve of their behavior, I also know that it doesn’t feel good to get caught, and I bet it especially doesn’t feel good to get caught for something that was supposed to be a happy, carefree event.
But being a public servant, and therefore in the public eye, is a trade-off. You get power (and apparently money that mysteriously appears in your bank account although it’s not part of your official salary), but you also get scrutinized.
The president made a show of being outraged, and he tries his best to carefully instruct the rest of us about what subjects should outrage us. For all of our sakes, I hope that this presidency is at least a genuine step in the direction of squeezing out corruption and the extreme inequality that results from it.
But I have my doubts, and I’m still squirming. So far, no New Order revolution seems to be afoot. But the scariest movies are frightening precisely because we could easily imagine them becoming reality.
Colima Governor Vizcaíno welcomes AMLO to her state on Thursday.
President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador has a complicated relationship with petroleum. The energy nationalist has invested in oil refineries and touted petroleum as the best business in town. However, he has also said that Mexico will only extract what it needs for its own consumption, and claimed that lower extraction rates than previous administrations were a sign of a commitment to ecology.
While the United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland, rattled on, AMLO would speak at another UN meeting on Tuesday, as chair of the Security Council’s meeting on exclusion, inequality and conflict.
The same couldn’t be said for anti-corruption czar Santiago Nieto, head of the federal government’s Financial Intelligence Unit, who got married in Guatemala in a lavish ceremony, colored by private jets and confiscated piles of cash. “It’s a scandalous issue … we must recommend that public servants act in moderation, with austerity,” AMLO said. Nieto later tendered resignation.
Some personal details about the president came to light. His favorite restaurant, he revealed, was El Cardenal, which has four sites in Mexico City. On Saturday, he reminded viewers, he would celebrate his 68th birthday.
Good spin was on show from the man from Tepetitán later in the conference: “The Financial Times put [me as] the second best president in the world: Andrés Manuel López Obrador,” he exulted, referring to a study on the leaders with the best poll ratings.
Media censorship came to the fore, and AMLO mentioned a name that’s still sure to make a splash. “I remember when they cancelled the [social media] account[s] of President Trump. I expressed my disagreement and I continue to express my disagreement. A private corporation, no matter how powerful, cannot silence the president of a country … it is an attack on freedom,” he said.
Tuesday
On Tuesday it was off to New York, where the president chaired the UN Security Council’s meeting on exclusion, inequality and conflict. If he can make it there — they say — he’ll make it anywhere.
In his speech, he cited President Franklin D. Roosevelt as an inspiration, and pointed to corruption as the world’s most pressing problem: “It would be hypocritical to ignore that the main problem on the planet is corruption in all its dimensions: political, moral, economic, legal, fiscal and financial. It would be foolish to omit that corruption is the main cause of inequality, poverty, frustration, violence, migration and serious social conflicts.
Ana Elizabeth García reveals the media’s lies of the week.
“We are in decline because never before in the history of the world has so much wealth been accumulated in so few hands through influence, and at the cost of the suffering of other people … distorting social values to make the abominable seem like acceptable business,” he said.
To lie“is to say or manifest the opposite of what one knows, believes or thinks, according to the Dictionary of Spanish Language,” fake news finder Ana Elizabeth García Vilchis announced before correcting “media lies.”
She confirmed that the Laguna Verde nuclear power plant in Veracruz did not suffer a red alert; the electricity plant in Petacalco, Guerrero, was working just fine, and the president’s energy reforms had not been stalled due to pressure from the United States.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard took the podium next. He said 47 countries had signed on to the president’s poverty-alleviation proposal at the UN Security Council on Tuesday, and summarized how the cash could be collected: 4% from the world’s richest people, 4% of the profits of the thousand highest earning companies, and 0.2% of the GDP of the G20 countries, which includes Mexico.
The energy reform, AMLO mused, was about making prices fair. Presumably he was also motivated by a traumatic experience in the past, scrambling around in the dark for an bag of potato chips: “The [chain convenience store] Oxxo pays less for electricity than a grocery store … the grocer has to have their shop lights turned off and has to unplug their freezers and their refrigerators so as not to pay so much for electricity. But you go to an Oxxo and even at night it is all lit up,” he said.
Thursday
Colima city was the venue for Thursday’s conference which — in this writer’s biased opinion — is one of the finest parts of the country.
As gems go it is a relatively undiscovered one: its violence figures may keep it so. Governor Indira Vizcaíno confirmed that the state became the country’s homicide capital during her predecessor’s term. However, it was going it the right direction, with homicides down 13% in 2021 compared to last year.
“Love is paid with love, and Colima has a lot of love for you,” Vizcaíno offered to the president.
AMLO spoke in kind: “Colima is a very beautiful state, it has the mountains, it has the Colima volcano and it has the coast … a unique fertility in this state,” he said, and confirmed that 2 billion pesos (about US $97 million) would be invested in the port of Manzanillo.
Interior Minister Adán Augusto López Hernández speaks at Friday’s conference in Hermosillo.
Quizzed on his pick for Santiago Nieto’s replacement at the Financial Intelligence Unit, the president assured viewers that Pablo Gómez was a man of morals and rectitude: “I know Pablo Gómez. For those who do not know his history, Pablo Gómez was a leader of the ’68 movement, a student leader, he was in jail in ’68 and he has always been on the left, and has resisted all temptations,” AMLO said.
Friday
Hermosillo, Sonora, played host for Friday’s conference: “Revolutionary people, dignified people, working people, noble people,” the president said of his hosts.
Governor Alfonso Durazo Montaño was full of optimism for investment in the port of Guaymas, but on security conceded that the state was second worst for femicides.
Later in the conference, AMLO assured that his government “will continue to protect women.”
Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez offered some detail on the government’s strategy: “Peace Construction” task forces were in place to combine federal and local wisdom; the National Guard was doing investigative work, and 16 days of national activism from November 25 were planned to “make the problem more visible.”
Durazo offered some context: “The fundamental problem we have is familial violence … In first place … in calls to 911 is familial violence,” he said.
The president confirmed it would be an understated 68th birthday celebration on Saturday. “On my return to Mexico City I’ll stay for a family celebration … I could not get on and face problems outside if inside I didn’t have family support …. So, they are my two great passions: the people and my family, and I’ll add one more, which has to do with Sonora: baseball.”
Just vaccinated and happy in Mexico City. Mexico City Health Ministry
The pandemic continues to wane in Mexico City, the country’s coronavirus epicenter since COVID-19 was first detected here in early 2020.
The city government’s coronavirus spokesman said Friday that the number of active cases had fallen to a “historic minimum” of slightly less than 4,000.
Eduardo Clark was referring to the lowest number of active cases since the end of the pandemic’s first wave last year.
Federal data shows there are just 3,208 active cases in the capital, which has recorded almost 1 million confirmed infections since the start of the pandemic and more than 52,000 COVID-19 deaths, far more in both categories than any other state.
Clark also said that the number of COVID patients in Mexico City hospitals had fallen to 514 from 682 two weeks ago.
“We’re already 60 below the previous minimum that we experienced on July 13 of the present year,” he said.
Clark said that 290 additional patients were admitted to hospitals in the capital over the past week, but he didn’t disclose how many were discharged or died.
He also said that Mexico City will remain low risk green on the federal government stoplight map for at least the next two weeks. The capital switched to green four weeks ago and is currently one of 29 states deemed low risk.
The federal Health Ministry uses 10 indicators to determine the stoplight color in each state, including hospital occupancy levels, the effective reproduction rate (how many people each infected person infects), the weekly positivity rate (the percentage of COVID-19 tests that come back positive) and estimated case numbers per 100,000 inhabitants.
Clark said that the capital’s score is currently the lowest it has been since the stoplight system was introduced in June of 2020.
In other COVID-19 news:
• The Health Ministry reported 3,493 new cases and 256 additional COVID-19 deaths on Thursday. Mexico’s accumulated tallies are currently just under 3.84 million and 290,630, respectively. Estimated active cases number 22,301.
• Just 17% of general care beds set aside for coronavirus patients across Mexico are occupied, and 15% of those with ventilators are in use, the Health Ministry said Thursday. More than 129.2 million vaccine doses have been administered, with more than 75 million Mexicans fully vaccinated and an additional 12.4 million partially vaccinated.
An official helps migrants fill out paperwork at an INM office. Photos from INM Facebook page
Exhausted from walking through Chiapas over the past three weeks, 800 migrants have abandoned the migrant caravan, currently in Oaxaca, to regularize their migratory status in Mexico, the National Immigration Institute (INM) said Wednesday.
The INM said in a statement that 800 migrants in situations of “vulnerability” had received temporary humanitarian visas or permanent resident status.
“… Among those who have received the documents are girls, boys and adolescents, as well as pregnant women [and] people with an illness or disability,” it said.
The institute called on the remaining members of the caravan, which has reached the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca, to regularize their status.
Its statement read like an advertisement for the benefits of turning oneself in to the INM, even though the institute has a reputation for treating migrants inhumanely.
A migrant undergoes testing at INM offices.
“… One migrant woman accompanied by her two children indicated in INM offices in the state of Morelos that she chose to carry out the regularization paperwork to favor her own safety and that of her family,” the statement said before quoting the woman.
“Walking and finding somewhere to eat is very complicated. With this [visa] card, being here in Mexico is much more comfortable,” she said, according to the INM.
The institute quoted another migrant as saying that caravan members had been deceived and that “when we found out that several colleagues already had their [visa] cards, we also turned to [the INM].”
“… Meanwhile in Oaxaca, girls, boys and adolescents, at their mothers’ sides, celebrated on the stairs of the immigration offices,” the INM statement said.
The newspaper El Universal reported that Central Americans, South Americans and migrants from Caribbean countries such as Haiti and Cuba began abandoning the caravan shortly after entering the state of Oaxaca from Chiapas. They had walked to the Isthmus region from the city of Tapachula, from which the caravan departed in late October.
After approaching INM personnel in the municipality of San Pedro Tapanatepec, migrants were transported to INM offices in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Morelos, Hidalgo and Guerrero to regularize their status. Migrants were also offered temporary accommodation in shelters in those states.
Interior Minister Adán Augusto López said Friday that approximately 1,200 migrants are still with the caravan.
“… Yesterday they covered 31 kilometers from Zanatepec to Santiago Niltepec,” he said, adding that the caravan had split into two and one group reached the latter town two or three hours before the other.
“The last ones arrived at about nine last night, and it’s expected they’ll walk 25 kilometers today,” López told the president’s morning press conference.
Last week, the group’s number had been estimated at about 2,500.
The interior minister acknowledged that about 800 migrants had voluntarily left the caravan. But some migrant activists spoke of arrests rather than caravan members turning themselves in voluntarily, the news website Latinus reported.
José, a 32-year-old Honduran, said he would continue with the caravan and steer clear of INM personnel. “… They have a lot of people locked up,” he said.
He is far from the only migrant who doesn’t trust Mexican authorities. Members of the caravan refused to undergo rapid COVID-19 testing in Santiago Niltepec on Friday morning because they believe it’s part of a strategy to halt them, El Universal reported.
They also refused face masks despite many of the migrants looking sick and coughing, the newspaper said.
According to El Universal, the migrants claimed that the authorities are attempting to instill “psychological terror” in Oaxaca communities by claiming the caravan is COVID-ridden.
“It’s not humane that the government of Mexico is telling people not to offer help [to us], to close their doors, not to give us medical care,” one migrant said.
“… Since we entered Oaxaca, they’ve been going ahead, terrorizing people. First, they said we had tuberculosis, now COVID.”
An Aguascalientes state police security checkpoint on the border with Zacatecas following an attack on Zacatecas state officers in Villa García on Wednesday. Aguascalientes Public Safety Ministry
Police are coming under attack by organized crime in the latest wave of violence in the central state of Zacatecas.
Armed civilians kidnapped a municipal police director and two officers, following which another armed group attacked state police.
The kidnappings occurred early Monday after an attack on the municipal police station in Loreto, a town on Zacatecas’ border with Aguascalientes. The attackers stole the police director’s vehicle and took captive the two officers who were standing guard at the station before driving to the police director’s home, where he was also taken prisoner.
State police initiated a search for the missing officials and set up road checkpoints. The search effort took them to Villa García, where they were attacked by another armed group. One officer was injured, while seven of the attackers were arrested and had their weapons seized.
The attacks prompted state police in Aguascalientes on Wednesday to conduct security checkpoints in border communities with Zacatecas.
No hay policías en Villa Hidalgo, #Zacatecas. Ningún elemento se presentó a trabajar porque el domingo un comando baleó la Dirección de Seguridad Pública. Ante la poca vigilancia, un grupo de hombres atacó anoche la cabecera municipal y hasta se grabaron celebrando: pic.twitter.com/1WyEIn5ib4
Thursday morning, two bodies were found dumped on a federal highway near the municipality of Enrique Estrada farther north but they remain unidentified, according to the state Attorney General’s Office.
Later that same day, gangsters held a party in the town of Villa Hidalgo, apparently celebrating the closure of the police station after it was attacked last weekend.
Video footage showed armed civilians shouting and playing music in the town’s central plaza.
El Universal reported that the municipal police force had slowly resigned in the face of mounting threats and fears of reprisals. The police station closed on Wednesday due to lack of personnel.
There were reports of state police patrolling in the municipality but none appeared during Thursday’s nights festivities.
Before the events of this week, the police of Loreto, Villa García and Villa Hildalgo had all received threats from criminal groups.
