Hundreds of families — and counting — in the Michoacán community of Coalcomán have been displaced by narco violence in the past week as cartels continue fighting for territory in the Tierra Caliente region.
Local and religious authorities say the number of refugees has grown exponentially in recent days, and social media posts have shown entire families leaving their homes on foot with nothing but a few suitcases.
Authorities estimate that around 600 families, or 3,000 people, have been displaced from rural areas of the municipality in recent days. About 120 are currently lodged in the municipal capital in a small auditorium that has been converted to a shelter.
Local officials fear that the density of people will lead to violence or Covid outbreaks, but see no other option for housing the displaced. Other refugees have found shelter with family members and still others are on the street. The local government asked state authorities to allow them to use certain buildings as shelters, but were denied.
People are fleeing not just because of the armed confrontations between cartels, but also due to the scarcity that the violence has caused. Electricity, water, phone and internet services have all been compromised and food is running short, since armed groups have blocked the roads into and out of the area.
Coalcomán, a new hot spot in Michoacán violence.
Some residents have been directly threatened and told to leave.
“The armed men threw family members out of their homes and ranches and now have also taken their livestock and their land, so they don’t have anything left,” said one Coalcomán resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons.
Residents of nearby municipalities like Tepalcatepec, Apatzingán and Chinicuila have gathered donations to provide food and clothing to the displaced people, even as they themselves are caught in the crossfire of cartel violence.
Local Catholic priest Jorge Luis Martínez Chávez said Coalcomán was formerly a calm, prosperous area. The population of roughly 12,000 people worked in agriculture, ranching, forestry and business. But now, he said, “they have stolen our peace.”
“We have been dragged into the war between cartels; we live in a situation similar to that of Aguililla. The people live with the uncertainty of violence … burned cars, blocked highways, assassinations everywhere, forced exile, the destruction of the road … the destruction of telephone lines, little internet access and surrounded by armed people who defend their own interests,” Martínez said.
Residents have gone to the local military base for help, but were told that the armed forces could do nothing without orders from above, Martínez said, describing the refusal to help as “incredible.” As for the state police, they declined to interfere in a federal matter.
“We beg that the authorities help us… we do not want the luck of Aguililla, but we’re close to that point,” Martínez said.
A new record was set Thursday for new coronavirus cases for the second time in two days.
Federal health authorities reported 24,975 new cases in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 3.45 million. On Wednesday, they reported 22,711 new cases.
Another 608 deaths were reported, bring the accumulated death toll to 246,811.
After a brief lull in which there was a slight decline, estimated Covid cases are up 4% to 146,525.
Healthcare workers administered 1.03 million doses of coronavirus vaccine Wednesday, bringing the total number of doses given to nearly 75 million people. Fifty-nine percent of the adult population has received at least one shot.
In other Covid news:
• New case numbers set a record in Veracruz with 941 registered in the previous 24 hours, the state’s health minister said Thursday morning. It was the second time in a week that the record was broken after 941 new cases were reported Saturday. The state also reported 5,089 active cases.
Twelve hospitals were reported full and 14 others with occupancy over 52%. Hospitals with the highest occupany rates are in the municipalities of Veracruz, Xalapa, Poza Rica, Tuxpan, Coatzacoalcos, Minatitlán and Boca del Río.
• Oaxaca’s minister of health confirmed Wednesday afternoon that 24 hospitals were full for the third day in a row. Occupancy of Covid care beds was at 74%, leaving only 121 beds available in the state.
The number of active cases was estimated at 2,392, up from just 543 at the beginning of July.
The tallest building in the archaeological site of Tulum, the three-level El Castillo (the Castle), greets the dawn. soft_light/Shutterstock
The ancient Maya city of Tulum, with glorious ocean views, was an important trading port in the commercial route from central Mexico to Honduras. The site, around 130 kilometers from Cancún, south of Playa del Carmen via Federal Highway 307, is close to the archaeological zone of Cobá.
The name Tulum is Mayan for wall or palisade. It’s believed to refer to the ruins’ surrounding wall. The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) says 16th-century sources call the site Zamá, Mayan for morning or dawn.
Located on a cliff, the city may have been first noticed by the Spanish conqueror Juan de Grijalva in 1518 as he was sailing from Cuba to Mexico. Juan Díaz, a chaplain and chronicler of the expedition, wrote that he had seen a city “as big as Seville,” which may have been Tulum, according to INAH.
Explorers John Stephens and Frederick Catherwood famously visited the site in the early 1840s. During the Caste War of Yucatán (1847–1901), a revolt by the native Maya on the Yucatán Peninsula against the resident Hispanic white and mestizo populations, Tulum was part of the area under rebel control.
Tulum also became a key center of the Maya insurgent religious phenomenon known as the Cult of the Talking Crosses — which involved various miraculous incidents over several years said to have taken place during the Caste War.
One of the entrances through the wall around the ancient city.
According to believers, various divine crosses said to have spoken to the Maya rebels in their native tongue appeared in different rebel locations at different times during the war, providing the Maya encouragement to persevere in their insurgency. The cross in Tulum was said to have appeared in the 1860s.
The buildings at the Tulum site date from A.D. 1250–1550, but features from former periods were also discovered there, including a stela dating to A.D. 564. Therefore, INAH says that the city may have been formed earlier, perhaps as a dependent territory of the nearby Tankah ruin.
Tulum is thought to have been dedicated to Venus. Some building facades have figures of a descending god depicted upside down, who is associated with the sunset and considered connected to the planet. The entrances to structures with descending god figures are said to face the direction where Venus sets.
The Maya of Tulum are thought to have relied mostly on the ocean for food, as well as for material to make different tools and objects. Other supplies were sourced from the jungle. Also, the houses are believed to have had small gardens providing homegrown fresh produce.
The site is surrounded by a wall from the north, south and west, while it borders the ocean to the east. The wall has five entrances and two watchtowers to the north and south.
These watchtowers are also temples, each with an altar inside. Climbing the buildings is not allowed.
The Palace of the Great Lord, where Tulum’s ruler — called the halach uinic — and family would live.
Northeast of the site is the three-room House of the Cenote, built over one of the area’s many water-filled caves. A tomb was discovered in this building. To the east is the Kukulcán Group of buildings. Situated by the sea, to the northeast of this section, is the Temple of the Wind God — a square temple on a round base.
The most important section of the Kukulcán Group is the Indoor Enclosure. With 12 buildings, including temples and shrines, it was separated from the other buildings by a low wall. The most important and tallest building of the site, the three-level temple called El Castillo (the Castle), is located here.
The Castle is sometimes speculated to have been a lighthouse. The ground level has two small temples on either side of the wide stairway and altars inside, but the important religious ceremonies took place in the upper temple.
The two columns on the upper temple’s facade are serpent-shaped. The descending god is depicted on this facade, and in the corners are remains of stucco masks of animal forms.
To the north of the Indoor Enclosure is a beautiful single-room structure on a platform called the Temple of the Descending God. It features a figure of the descending god above the entrance. This temple was decorated with mural paintings.
The Temple of the Initial Series within the enclosure is worth seeing. There is an altar inside, and a stela from A.D. 564 was discovered here. The facade has a stucco relief and the remains of a sculpture of a seated human figure.
The Temple of the Frescoes, which has a temple within a temple, as well as painted murals.
The Central Group buildings are also interesting. A must-see in this section is the two-level Temple of the Frescoes.
The ground level has two temples – one inside another. The inner temple’s facade has mural paintings of gods, but unfortunately, you can’t enter to see them.
The outer temple’s facade has stucco reliefs that contain sculptures — including ones of the descending god — and masks in the corners. The upper temple has red handprints, considered decorative.
To the north, you’ll find the House of Columns, a palace on an L-shaped platform with several rooms. Further north within the Central Group is also the Palace of the Great Lord, called Casa del Halach Uinic. This was where the ruler – called the halach uinic – and his family lived.
The inside of this building is said to have a figure of the descending god as well. The benches along the walls are considered seats but may have also been beds. To the rear of the building is a section where the family living here carried out religious ceremonies.
The Chultún House, close to the west entrance and with an altar inside, is also worth seeing. The building is named after an underground water-storage cavity, called a chultún in the Mayan language.
There are other structures to see on the site. The mini buildings are called Miniature Temples, speculated to have been altars due to their size. Or you can envision the activities of the ancient trading port from the lookouts on the site in addition to enjoying the spectacular views across the ocean.
For a refreshing swim in the Caribbean Sea after exploring the ruins, take the stairs by the cliff to the beach.
Thilini Wijesinhe, a financial professional turned writer and entrepreneur, moved to Mexico in 2019 from Australia. She writes from Mérida, Yucatán. Her website can be found at https://momentsing.com/
The president displays the alleged tweet labeling him 'an asshole.'
President López Obrador said that verifying the truth of a tweet he highlighted last week doesn’t fall within his remit after a journalist challenged him on it at Wednesday morning’s press conference.
On August 5, the president referred to an insulting tweet allegedly made last October by Electoral Tribunal Judge Reyes Rodríguez, which read: “Hopefully that old asshole [the president] in the National Palace dies.”
The president had used the tweet to support his argument for reforming the Electoral Tribunal and the National Electoral Institute.
“It is degrading … I mention it because there is a crisis in the institution,” López Obrador said after the tribunal removed its president last week and named Rodríguez in his place.
“It turns out that the president they chose insulted me on one occasion. I mention it to demonstrate the characteristics of the people who occupy these very important positions.”
About an hour later, Rodríguez denied on Twitter that he had written the tweet, claiming it was a set-up to discredit him. He had filed a complaint with federal prosecutors soon after, he said.
On Wednesday morning, the president rejected that it was for him to ascertain whether the tweet was real despite the fact that he had used the information to attack the reputation of a judge. A journalist asked: “Was the tweet false, or was it not false? Has it been investigated whether or not it was false?”
“That’s not up to me,” he replied, before criticizing opponents and linking the issue to “conservative hypocrisy.”
“What I believe is that the conservatives are hypocrites, the doctrine of the conservative is a hypocrisy,” and accused them of avoiding responsibility for their actions: “[they say] ‘it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.’”
He intensified his critique, branding his opponents disingenuous criminals. “They can go to Mass on Sundays and beat their chests and confess, they take communion, and they go out to lie and steal, and they come back on Sunday to confess and to take communion.”
The journalist insisted once more for clarification on whether the tweet was false.
In response, the president implied that the tweet was real, and added to his list of criticisms. “They’re capable of that [the tweet] and more. Conservative thinking is very authoritarian and very hypocritical; they are, to be clear, classist, they are racist, they discriminate and they are very corrupt. Their true god is money,” he said.
Truth in the media has been a hot topic at the morning press conferences, particularly since the president added a new feature to address false claims directed at his administration. The “who’s who in the lies of the week” feature was introduced on June 30, and has taken place each Wednesday since.
The feature has been criticized by journalists, some of whom have used their right of reply at the conference to combat claims made against their reporting. On at least one occasion, an article was featured and discredited as a lie, but the presenter failed to isolate any single falsehood.
The common response to any alleged untruth is simply to declare it was a lie without providing any evidence to support the claim.
A Central American migrant pauses during his northward trek through Mexico.
The United Nations has rebuked the U.S. government for deporting migrants under the pretext of Covid-19 legislation — the Title 42 order — that allows for the rapid expulsion of border arrivals.
The Biden administration has been sending Central American migrants by plane to southern Mexico after denying them access to protection screening and U.S. asylum procedures, a tenet of international refugee law, according to the the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The Title 42 order was introduced by the Trump administration, but has been continued since Joe Biden took office in January.
The UN has warned that the practice will test the “already overloaded humanitarian response capacity” in southern Mexico and northern Guatemala, and could raise the risk of the spread of Covid-19 at the borders at a time when Mexico is experiencing a third wave of the pandemic.
Both the U.S. and Mexico have experienced unprecedented arrivals of migrants in recent months. The U.S. has recorded 1.2 million arrests of illegal migrants since last October, while Mexico recorded that in the first seven months of 2021 when it received a record 64,378 asylum applications, according to Comar, the Mexican refugee agency.
UNHCR representative to the U.S. and the Caribbean, Matthew Reynolds, voiced his concerns. “These expulsion flights of non-Mexicans to the deep interior of Mexico constitute a troubling new dimension in enforcement of the Covid related public health,” he said.
He added that the strategy was in contravention of international law and the humanitarian principles of the 1951 Refugee Convention. “All governments have the obligation to uphold these laws and principles at all times,” he said.
Reynolds added that risks associated with Covid-19 were no barrier to operating an effective and safe system for processing migrants. “Even where Covid-19 has surged at times, many countries have put in place effective protocols such as systematic health screenings, testing and quarantine measures that have simultaneously and successfully protected both public health and the human right to seek asylum,” he said.
In Mexico, a collective of migrant advocacy groups condemned what they called a new accord between Mexico and the U.S. and insisted that the government meet its obligation to guarantee the right to request asylum.
The collective said the first “expulsion flight” left McAllen, Texas, on Monday for Tapachula, Chiapas, where its passengers were then transferred across the border to Talismán, Guatemala, by immigration agents and National Guardsmen.
The U.S. and Mexico have undertaken a flurry of bilateral dialogue on the migrant issue this week. The president spoke with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris by telephone on Monday, and delegations from the two countries met on Tuesday, where migration and cooperation on Central America were discussed. The president subsequently announced that President Biden would be invited to Mexico in late September.
However, past U.S. rhetoric on migration has left little room for dialogue. During a visit to Guatemala in June to address the root causes of migration, Harris addressed would-be migrants with a simple message: “Do not come.”
Huerta, left, and Toledo are no longer immune from prosecution.
Protection from prosecution of two federal deputies was removed on Wednesday, but apprehending them has already proved a problem: one has disappeared, and the other flew to Chile on July 26.
The two were previously protected by the immunity to prosecution afforded to lawmakers, but the Chamber of Deputies voted to remove their privileges, just 21 days before the end of the legislature.
Morena Deputy Benjamín Saúl Huerta, 63, was arrested on April 21 for the assault of a 15-year-old boy in a Mexico City hotel, but was released due to his immunity, and new accusations have since come to light.
On Friday, authorities lost track of Huerta, who was considered a flight risk. Just the previous day, the deputy for Puebla had called on prosecutors to study the case filed against him, but his request was rejected.
Huerta’s defense team is negotiating his voluntary surrender to authorities, according to the newspaper El Universal.
Parents of the boy who has accused a federal deputy of sexual assault wait outside Congress for the results of the immunity vote.
Shortly before his April arrest, Imagen Televisíon published audio of a telephone conversation allegedly between Huerta and the 15-year-old boy’s mother, in which he tries to reach a financial settlement. “Don’t destroy me,” he pleads with her on repeated occasions. “Let’s reach an economic agreement. … I’m begging you, help me; you’re going to destroy me. I’m a good person.”
Huerta voluntarily decided not to run in the June 6 elections.
Labor Party (PT) Deputy Mauricio Toledo, 41, was stripped of his immunity due to accusations of corruption during his time in public office from 2012-2018. He heard the news from Chile, having left Mexico more than a fortnight before.
In Wednesday’s session, Mexico City corruption prosecutor Rafael Chong said that Toledo’s income over the period was 20.8 million pesos (about US $1.05 million), while his official salary was less than half that.
He added that the Financial Intelligence Unit had detected that in 2017 the legislator received 3.4 million pesos (about $171,000) from a company called Consultoría de Gestión Empresarial Lebrija, which reported zero revenue in 2016, and that seven months after Toledo took office as a deputy, he bought two apartments in cash for 6.2 million pesos, more than five times his annual salary.
Toledo wrote on Twitter to reject claims he had fled. “My legal acts are not subject to political persecution … Mexicans freely enter and leave the country. It is a right enshrined in the Constitution and international human rights treaties signed by Mexico.”
He added that his departure was not related to politics. “I am the son of Chilean parents, and my departure from the country is due to commitments made in advance.”
Congress has appeared to have been reluctant to remove the deputies’ fuero, as the immunity is known. The process has stalled several times, earning a rebuke last week from a federal deputy minister for the delay in removing that of Huerta.
The Albo app is one of several fintech offerings that can simplify financial transactions in Mexico.
Many foreigners living in or visiting Mexico might find it useful to have one of the new and easily obtainable Mexican fintech (financial technology) bank cards, which provide you with a mobile and branchless Mexican bank for no monthly fee.
Sometimes expats have problems paying their utility bills online, sending money to an employee, buying a bus ticket or an item from Mercado Libre online, paying rent online, or receiving money from a friend for his share of a dinner out. Many people might have a foreign credit card that is sometimes not accepted online on Mexican websites, or that has a foreign transaction charge (most do).
There are several similar Mexican fintech cards, but the app for Albo is available on the Canadian iPhone app store, so that is the one I am using in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato. Also, Albo is one of the largest and oldest of what are called neobanks. My son in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, is using another card called Uala, with basically the same functions.
Doing almost everything with the card is free. At one level it is a pre-paid MasterCard. Use it just like a credit card in any business that accepts credit cards, either in person or online. But Albo is also a bank account with a CLABE (Mexican bank account number), so you can instantly send and receive money to and from anyone in Mexico using SPEI transfers (the money is received in less than one minute).
Note, however, that such transfers are an option that is only available if you are a temporary or permanent resident, which allows you to obtain the personal ID number known as the CURP. You can open an account with Albo without a CURP but you won’t be able to make SPEI transfers.
You do everything from the app on your phone but if you are not a smart phone user, these cards are not going to work for you. You can pay your utility bills online from the app along with Telcel, AT&T, Movistar, CFE for electricity, Telmex, Megacable, Dish, Total Play, with more to come. But with a SPEI bank transfer you should be able to pay any Mexican bill. If your landlord gives you a CLABE number, you can pay your rent as well.
All it takes to get the card is download the app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store depending on your phone. For the Albo app you give your name, your address, your CURP, take a photo of your passport and a selfie. That is it: no lease, no utility bill, no 25 signatures and three visits to your bank to create an account. So a tourist or perpetual tourist can get the card.
The only reason for providing your address is so they can send you your physical card. Everything else is done online from the app. After you fund the card with 200 pesos, they will send you your physical card by DHL within a couple of days. However, unless you are going to use the physical card in shops or restaurants as a MasterCard, you can do everything with the app and your virtual card once you add money.
You can put money into your account instantly and for free from any Mexican bank account, or at an Oxxo, Farmacia Guadalajara, 7-Eleven, Extra, Farmacia Ahorro, Farmacia Benavides, Alsuper, and Kiosko for a fee of 8 to 13 pesos per deposit. However, the best option for most expats will be funding their card with direct deposits using Wise (formally called TransferWise) from their home country. I have found that I receive the best exchange rate possible through Wise, better than ATM withdrawals or other methods of international money movement.
Once you create a Wise account, you can easily send money from your U.S. or Canadian accounts (or from accounts in most other countries) to your Albo or other fintech card. My last transfer of Canadian funds to my Albo card took four seconds! You can also take out cash from an ATM (paying the local bank fee), but avoiding the international fee that you are probably paying for each transaction.
Everything with these fintech cards is in Mexican pesos, so if you spend 500 pesos at Farmacia Guadalajara using the credit card function, just 500 pesos comes out. If you send someone 1,000 pesos, they receive 1,000 pesos and you pay no fee. And you can only spend the money that is in the account — not one centavo more. If you pay your CFE or Telmex bill online, again, there is no charge to you. Same with paying your rent directly to your landlord’s account or paying a plumber.
Every transaction immediately shows up on your phone app. So, particularly for people living in Mexico part- or full-time without a Mexican bank account, one of these cards may be a good option. The Walmart stores (Bodega Aurrerá, Walmart, Superama, and Sam’s Club) offer a 2,000-peso cashback option with no fee when you make a purchase of as little as 20 pesos.
The app allows you to track expenses by category.
The Albo app allows you to turn your card on and off, so there is no chance of anyone hacking your card if you leave it off until needed. To create a new contact to send money you need a name and the bank account’s 18-digit CLABE or 16-digit Albo or other fintech card number. Once entered, the information is saved so the next time you send money it will just be a click and you enter the amount. You can also send a message with the payment. Once you set up a company bill payment, you don’t need to re-enter your account information.
These cards are called Mexican level 2 digital bank accounts, so there is a monthly movement limit. On the Albo card it is a monthly deposit limit of 55,000 pesos and a total balance limit of 200,000 pesos. There are no monthly or transaction fees. The only three fees are 150 pesos to replace a lost card, the 8 to 13 peso charge if you deposit money into your account at an Oxxo or one of the other chain stores, and the local bank ATM fee if you withdraw cash. Some people might just want to tuck some money into the card and have it just as an emergency option. You can see more in Spanish on their website.
I have no affiliation with Albo or any of the companies listed here. I just wanted to share a resource that will be helpful for some people living in Mexico without a Mexican bank account. Other similar Mexican fintech cards include Bnext, Fondeadora, Flink, HeyBanco, Cuenca, Nelo, Enso, Broxel, Warp, MIBO, RappiPay, MIIO, Xpats, Delt.ai, Tauros, Lidh, Klar, Ualá, Spin by Oxxo, and Klu.
Advantages
Albo is a pre-paid MasterCard that can be used wherever MasterCard is accepted.
The card is also a mobile and branchless Mexican bank account.
There are no monthly fees and no transaction fees (except for a small charge for making a deposit to your account at a chain store).
You can make credit card purchases in person or online.
Send and receive money instantly from anyone in Mexico who has a bank account or a similar fintech card. (Only available if you have temporary or permanent residency and a CURP.)
Pay your utility bills online with a couple of clicks.
Fund the card from accounts in Canada, the U.S., or most other countries using Wise directly to your own card receiving an excellent exchange rate.
You can move money into your account from Wise when the exchange rate is to your advantage.
See every transaction instantly on the app.
Take money out from an ATM (paying the fee for that bank).
Once you set up a bill payment like your CFE account (or a payment to a landlord, friend, employee, or anyone else) the contact information is saved so you will just need the amount that you want to send the next time.
When you send money you can include a brief explanation.
At any of the Walmart stores you can do a cashback of up to 2,000 pesos with no charge with a purchase of 20 pesos or more.
Perhaps just keep a few thousand pesos in the card for an emergency financial backup.
You can turn the card on and off with the app, so you will not risk being hacked.
There is no minimum balance.
The card can replace most of the functions available with a Mexican bank.
You can make all payments, send and receive money while outside of Mexico.
You can create “jars” in your account to set aside money for whatever categories you choose to create (rent, CFE, vacation, or Telcel).
Downsides
Albo requires the smartphone app. It will not work from a computer.
If you are not funding your card from a direct Mexican bank transfer or a Wise transfer from a foreign bank, there is a charge of between 8 and 13 pesos per transaction at the chain stores like Oxxo that will receive the deposit.
When you withdraw cash from any ATM you will be paying the local bank charge.
The maximum daily ATM withdrawal limit is 9,000 pesos per 24 hours.
UPDATE No. 2: An Albo account can be obtained without temporary or permanent residency but the account holder will not be able to make interbank SPEI transfers.
Jim Blakley is a former college counselor from Canada and now remote worker who is a 16-year resident of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato.
A SpaceX Falcon rocket lifts off at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in April, carrying a payload of 60 Starlink satellites.
Elon’s Musk’s satellite internet service, called Starlink, which beams internet down from 1,650 satellites in orbit, will soon be offering connectivity to Mexico.
The government’s approval on May 28 set a period of 180 days in which the company, operated by the business magnate’s SpaceX, has to be ready to offer its services, meaning operations should begin by October 28.
But how fast will the service be? Internet performance service Speedtest has released the results of an analysis in which Starlink’s internet speeds were compared to those of other satellite providers and regular fixed broadband services, based on data collated from April-July this year.
The report found that in the U.S., Starlink was much faster than its satellite competitors HughesNet and Viasat, but lagged behind fixed broadband. Meanwhile, in France, Germany, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom Starlink’s service eclipsed fixed broadband providers in terms of download speed.
Mexico currently depends on readily available fixed broadband, which is much faster than the available satellite services from HughesNet and Viasat. Speedtest reports that Viasat, with a median download speed of 13.95 Mbps, is the faster of the two. HughesNet was measured at 11.92 Mbps.
However, if Starlink speeds in Mexico are anything close to those registered in the U.S. they will far outstrip any internet service available in the country.
Download speeds on fixed broadband in Mexico were reported at 29.99 megabits per second (Mbps), and upload speeds were registered at 7.96 Mbps. Meanwhile, Starlink in the U.S. offers a hugely superior download speed of 97.23 Mbps, and an upload speed of 13.89.
With a 100 Mbps download speed, users can download a film in under a minute, according to the price comparison website Uswitch.
One key difference between Starlink and other satellite services is in latency, the time it takes for the signal to travel from a computer to a remote server and back. Speedtest said it was the only satellite provider in the U.S. with latency figures that resemble those of fixed broadband.
Starlink’s latency was measured at 45 milliseconds, HughesNet at 724 and Viasat at 630, a substantial difference. All fixed broadband services came in at just 14 milliseconds.
Speedtest also compared the service of broadband providers in Mexico, and found Telcel to be significantly faster and more consistent than any of its competitors, Movistar, Altán Redes or AT&T.
It also revealed mean service speeds for different cities in Mexico. The fastest was Veracruz, which was almost twice as fast for downloads and uploads as 10th place Ciudad Juárez. None of the three biggest cities made the top five: Querétaro was in second place, followed by San Luis Potosi, Puebla and Tijuana.
Guadalajara was in sixth place, Monterrey in seventh and Mexico City in eighth.
Starlink service at speeds of 1 gigabyte per second (Gbps) cost US $99 per month in the United States, and it was reported earlier this year that the cost will be the same in Mexico. Service will also require the purchase of a Starlink hardware kit, which will cost $499 plus shipping.
The company has said it plans to spend $10 billion putting 12,000 small satellites into low Earth orbit. It has launched 1,700 so far and is being used by 90,000 customers in 12 countries.
A U.S. man has admitted to killing his two young children in Rosarito, Baja California, on Monday, claiming he was was saving the world from monsters.
Matthew Taylor Coleman, 40, was arrested Monday while crossing the border at San Diego and faces charges of the foreign murder of U.S. citizens.
According to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday in a California court, Coleman told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he drove his children from their home in Santa Barbara to Rosarito, where he shot them in the chest with a speargun.
The bodies of the children, a 10-month-old girl and a 2-year-old boy, were found Monday morning with multiple stab wounds at Rancho del Descanso in Playas de Rosarito.
An FBI agent said in an affidavit that Coleman confessed to the murders, stating he believed his children were going to grow into monsters and he had to kill them. He explained that “he was enlightened by QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories and was receiving visions and signs revealing that his wife possessed serpent DNA and had passed it on to his children.”
Coleman believed he was saving the world from monsters, the affidavit said, and admitted he knew it was wrong but it was “the only course of action that would save the world.”
QAnon and the Illuminati are conspiracy theorists who claim there are people secretly controlling world affairs.
In Mexico, officials have recovered the murder weapon, bloody clothes and a baby’s blanket, the FBI said.
On Sunday, Coleman’s wife reported him and the children as missing. She earlier told Santa Barbara police that she didn’t think her husband would hurt their children or that they were in danger.
Coleman, owner of a surfing school in Santa Barbara, appeared in court Wednesday where he was ordered held in custody. He will be arraigned August 31 in Los Angeles.
The tallest ever replica of the Aztecs’ Templo Mayor is being erected in Mexico City’s central square, the zócalo, to coincide with the 500-year anniversary of the fall of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire and forbear to Mexico City.
The Templo Mayor was the heart of the Aztec world where two deities were venerated with elaborate pageantry and sacrificial offerings. It was destroyed by Spanish invaders during the Conquest and fall of Tenochtitlán on August 13, 1521, and a Roman Catholic cathedral was built with many of the same stones next to where it once stood.
The 16-meter mostly white, square mock temple, adorned with small red and blue towers, attempts to capture the grandeur of the original, which was as high as a 15-story building, according to archaeologists.
President López Obrador will attend a ceremony in the zócalo on Friday to commemorate five centuries since the fall of the ancient city. The structure will stand in the zócalo until September 1, and a 15-minute film about the foundation of Tenochtitlán will be projected onto each of its four sides every evening.
Mexico City Culture Minister Vannesa Bohórquez López explained the symbolism of the temple’s four platforms and towers. Three of the platforms, she said, represented skulls, snakes and water and the towers on top were chapels dedicated to the rain god Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli, the patron deity of Tenochtitlán.
Federal Culture Ministry festival director Argel Gómez Concheiro described the significance of the original temple. “For the [Aztecs] it was the center of the universe. It was the point at which one could enter the underworld and the different celestial levels,” he said.
As well as the fall of Tenochtitlán, this year also marks 200 years since independence. However, the government’s decision to plan 15 events this year to celebrate “Seven Centuries of History” have caused controversy. Archaeologists and other academics accused the government of manipulating history for political ends by claiming the foundation of Tenochtitlán was in 1321, 700 years ago, when the academic consensus points to 1325.
Yet in another area, the president has sought to set the historical record straight: he requested an apology from the Spanish monarchy and the Vatican for human rights abuses committed during the Conquest; a request which the government of Spain “vigorously rejected.”
The short film called Memoria Luminosa will be projected three times each evening from August 13 to September 1 at 8:30 p.m., 9:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
