Mexico’s biggest airline recorded passenger numbers close to pre-pandemic levels in October.
Aeroméxico carried 1 million 564,000 passengers last month, which represents 91.8% of its total for October 2019.
Domestic travel came close to hitting its October 2019 levels, but fell 2.8% short. International travel, however, was still significantly down last month on October 2019, by 20.4%.
In September, the airline announced that from December 11 it would move nine domestic flights at Mexico City International Airport to Terminal 1, from which it will operate 20 departures daily.
The routes slated to move from Terminal 2 are Campeche, Durango, Los Mochis, Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, Tampico, Zacatecas and Zihuatanejo. The company said the move will give passengers more flight options and a better level of service.
Meanwhile, the flag carrier might have to adjust its revenue projections: consumer protection agency Profeco told Aeroméxico, VivaAerobus and Volaris to stop charging for carry-on luggage and threatened legal action if they fail to comply.
Governor Sansores says it's time to take off the masks in Campeche.
Wearing a face mask in public places is now optional in the opinion of Campeche Governor Layda Sansores, but a rule requiring people to mask up in the Gulf coast state remains in effect.
The use of face masks in public places was made mandatory in Campeche in April 2020, but Sansores, who took office in September, believes it’s time to do away with the rule.
“… For me … the face mask is now optional, you put it on if you want to and if you don’t want to you don’t,” the governor said during her weekly social media program Martes del Jaguar.
An unmasked Sansores told members of her audience they were free to remove their masks if they wished. Masks are not needed because Campeche is “COVID-free” and green on the federal government stoplight map, she said before conceding that the state is still recording two or three deaths a day.
“I would also remove the social distancing [requirement], I’m going to ask if that’s possible. Of course we won’t hold [large] events, but they already had the Formula One,” Sansores said.
During her 80-minute program, the governor also said that wearing a face mask for more than eight hours a day causes people to “absorb their own microbes.”
Campeche currently has 85 active coronavirus cases, according to federal Health Ministry data published Tuesday. The state has recorded just over 24,000 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic, the second lowest total in the country behind Chiapas, and 2,030 COVID-19 deaths.
In other COVID-19 news:
• The Network for Children’s Rights in Mexico (REDIM) rebuked the federal government for challenging the court order instructing it to offer vaccines to all youths aged 12 to 17. It urged President López Obrador to comply with the order.
“We demand that the president, as the highest representative of SIPINNA [the National System for the Protection of Girls, Boys and Adolescents] give his instructions so that the right to protection [against COVID] is guaranteed,” REDIM said.
• The Health Ministry reported 3,663 new cases and 299 additional COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday. Mexico’s accumulated tallies are currently 3.83 million and 290,110, respectively. Estimated active cases number 20,383.
Daily case numbers over the past week have averaged 2,780 in Mexico, according to the Reuters COVID-19 tracker, a figure equivalent to just 15% of the daily average peak recorded in mid-August.
A Buen Fin sign at a store in Toluca, México state.
The 11th edition of the Buen Fin shopping event started on Wednesday, offering shoppers special offers from more than 131,000 businesses until Tuesday, November 16. The event was originally inspired by the Black Friday shopping event in the United States.
Concanaco, a national business organization, estimated the event — whose name means “good weekend” —would generate up to 239 billion pesos (US $11.58 billion) in sales.
The federal tax authority SAT is also participating by conducting a lottery for consumers and sellers with prizes worth 500 million pesos (about $24 million).
Offers are available both online and in-store.
A full list of the online stores participating can be found here. To search for in-store participants, go to the Comprar en tienda link, and choose a department.
Additionally, consumer protection agency Profeco is offering a price comparison tool to sort through prices for electronic goods.
The first purchase of the event was made at a pharmacy in Mexico City, with the head of the Finance Ministry’s antitrust authority, Jesús Cantú Escalante, and the head of Concanaco, Héctor Tejada Shaar, in attendance.
Though not much of a consumer himself (he professes not to own a credit card), the president beat the drum for the event during Monday’s press conference, but issued a caution against buying luxury goods.
Forecasting that Buen Fin would be a big success this year, López Obrador urged shoppers to avoid superfluous purchases.
“… one must buy what is necessary, nothing superfluous, no cheap luxury goods; one must buy what is indispensable,” the president said before declaring that the economy is clearly in recovery.
The 'Three Amigos' summit will be the first time the three leaders have met as a group in person since Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau hosted in 2016.
President López Obrador, U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet at the White House next week for the first North American Leaders Summit since 2016.
The governments of all three countries announced the November 18 summit on Wednesday.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told López Obrador’s morning press conference that the three leaders were expected to meet for two hours next Thursday. He also said the president would have separate one-on-one meetings with Biden and Trudeau.
The main issues Mexico will raise at the trilateral summit are development cooperation for southern Mexico and Central America, “regional economic integration to promote investment in our country,” preparation for the next pandemic and “how to achieve fair economic recovery in 2022 and 2023,” Ebrard said.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Mexico would like to discuss regional economic integration to promote investment.
López Obrador, who proposed a global poverty-alleviation plan at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Tuesday, said he didn’t expect that his proposed electricity reform – which favors the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission – would be a topic for discussion, even though U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar has recently raised concerns about it.
The White House said in a statement that the countries will reaffirm their strong ties and integration during the summit, “while also charting a new path for collaboration on ending the COVID-19 pandemic and advancing health security; competitiveness and equitable growth, to include climate change; and a regional vision for migration.”
It said “strengthening our partnership is essential to our ability to build back better, to revitalize our leadership, and to respond to a widening range of regional and global challenges.”
Trudeau’s office said the priorities will include “finishing the fight against COVID-19, getting the job done on vaccines, tackling the climate crisis, creating new middle-class jobs, building an economic recovery that works for everyone, and migration.”
There were no North American Leaders Summits during the four years former U.S. president Donald Trump occupied the White House, the most recent being hosted by Trudeau in Ottawa in 2016 when Enrique Peña Nieto and Barrack Obama were in power.
However, Mexico, the United States and Canada did negotiate a new North American free trade agreement, the USMCA, during the Trump years. That pact, which replaced the 25-year-old NAFTA, took effect in July 2020.
When the three nations’ leaders last met in person, Enrique Peña Nieto was Mexico’s president. File photo
López Obrador met virtually with Biden in March and the two leaders “committed to immigration policies that recognize the dignity of migrants and the imperative of orderly, safe, and regular migration.”
Higher LP gas prices helped drive inflation. shutterstock
Prices in Mexico continue to climb: monthly inflation registered its highest increase in October in 23 years, the federal statistics agency Inegi said on Tuesday.
Prices rose 0.84% in October compared to September; a jump second only to October 1998 when a monthly increase of 1.43% was registered.
The rate of inflation stands at 6.24%, the highest annual rate since December 2017, when it reached 6.77%.
The rise has been driven by higher prices for LP gas, which escalated in February due to a supply shortage caused by weather in Texas. And electricity prices rose 18.8% after a seasonal subsidy ended, the newspaper El País reported.
Eggs, onions, green tomatoes and air travel also became more costly.
Inflation in the United States is also sky high: it’s at its highest level since 1990, which inevitably has a knock-on effect for the Mexican economy, due to the two countries’ intimate trading relationship. U.S. inflation jumped from 5.4% in September to 6.2% in November, yet the Federal Reserve played down concerns, calling the rise “transitory.”
In Mexico, private sector specialists raised their inflation expectations for 2021 to 6.6%, which makes 10 consecutive months of upward adjustments. The Bank of México will meet again on Thursday to evaluate its inflation targets and monetary policy.
Deputy governor Jonathan Heath said the current inflationary phenomenon was complex and warned that the energy reforms proposed by President López Obrador could inhibit the country’s economic recovery.
However, an economist at consultancy Oxford Economics, Joan Domene, said prices could soon fall. “We will wait for the effect of the Buen Fin [shopping promotion] in November to generate a drop in prices. The recent rise in inflation and volatility of the peso could force Banxico to hike [interest rates] more aggressively,” he said.
The Mexican economy has experienced an economic rebound since the COVID-19 pandemic. Since an 8.5% fall in 2020, the government expects growth rates of 6-6.5% in 2021.
Irma Ríos described being repeatedly beaten and raped during her marriage of 30 years. Milenio
A three-decade-long nightmare that a Oaxaca woman endured after being sold into common-law marriage for a bottle of mezcal at the age of 10 has finally ended.
State Attorney General Arturo Peimbert Calvo said Tuesday that the man who gave Irma Ríos’ father the mezcal in exchange for his daughter in 1991, and proceeded to abuse her for the next 30 years, had been arrested.
The official said in an interview that authorities will prosecute the aggressor — Ignacio Rodríguez Cabrera — for a range of crimes and seek the maximum penalty the law permits.
Peimbert said that Ríos had been notified of her husband’s arrest and was receiving support from the Oaxaca Women’s Ministry and other authorities.
The victim said in a media interview before the arrest that her father sold her for a one-liter bottle of mezcal. Her husband was 20 when the exchange occurred.
"Por una botella de mezcal"; mujer indígena de Oaxaca detalla cómo fue vendida de niña
Irma Ríos’ interview with Milenio.
“… My dad said, ‘Go with him,’ but I didn’t want to go because I was 10 years old,” Ríos said.
She said she was beaten and repeatedly raped by Rodríguez, who fathered her three children. Ríos also said that she was locked up when her husband went to work and had effectively missed out on several years of her childhood.
“… I want to be happy, and I want to be free. … I want to be happy without violence,” she said.
Many of the child brides suffer years of sexual and other abuse, as was the case with Angélica, a 15-year-old girl sold into marriage at the age of 11 who was recently jailed for 10 days after she fled the home of her father-in-law, who allegedly attempted to rape her.
Indigenous girls sold into marriage in the Montaña region are “victims of the lack of attention of authorities,” said Abel Barrera, the director of a local human rights center. Families sell their daughters due to poverty, he told the newspaper Milenio.
Families who sell their daughters into marriage often do so because of poverty, said Abel Barrera, director of a Guerrero human rights center. Centro Derechos Humanos Tlachinollan
Barrera nevertheless expressed confidence that the federal and Guerrero governments will enact policies to reduce the incidence of child marriage and stop the suffering of hundreds of girls who are the victims of sexual, physical and psychological abuse perpetrated by their husbands.
Governor Carlos Joaquín welcomed federal troops to Tulum on October 26 after Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval promised to restore stability in the area. goverment of Quintara Roo Twitter
A number of foreigners have been killed in the Caribbean resort town of Tulum, shining a spotlight on a rapid rise in violence in one of the most sought-after destinations in all of Latin America.
Between January and September 2021, the town registered 65 murders, an 80.5% increase over the same period last year when just 36 murders took place, according to statistics from the National Security System.
And the violence has only continued. On October 20, two foreign tourists, a travel blogger from India and a German citizen were shot dead at a restaurant in Tulum, caught in the crossfire of a shootout between gangs. Three other tourists were injured.
This year has also seen attacks claim the lives of nationals from Spain, Uruguay and Belize.
While these killings only account for a fraction of the total death toll among Mexican citizens, local businesses are highly concerned that the violence is driving away tourism. In October, the German government issued a travel advisory warning about visiting Tulum, although this was later retracted.
The killing of two foreign tourists in a shootout is just the latest example of Tulum’s rise in violence. FGE Quintana Roo
Tulum may have become a victim of its own success, with criminal groups being attracted to the drug trafficking and extortion possibilities offered by this tourist hotspot.
The local hotel association says it knows who to blame. According to David Ortiz Mena, president of the Tulum Hotels Association, large raves and dance parties have led to an increase in demand for drugs, which attracted organized crime.
Speaking to the newspaper El Heraldo, Ortiz explained that while the world shut down during the pandemic, Tulum became known for continuing to hold raves and music festivals. This was accompanied by a rise in demand for drugs, he said.
Extortion attempts on hotels, restaurants and visitors have also increased. “Hotel owners are alarmed because their clients, tourists, are being threatened by the bad guys. And when they demand attention from authorities, they don’t get a response,” Juan Noriega Granados, another member of the Tulum Hotels Association, told the press.
Tulum has become known internationally as a party destination. This photo of a dance party was taken in December 2019. Facebook
The situation has grown so dire that security forces have had to be sent in. 450 federal troops were sent to Tulum in late October, among other security strategies, following the murder of the two tourists.
While a number of criminal groups, including national-level threats such as the Zetas Vieja Escuela cartel and local gangs such as the Bonfil, have long operated in Tulum, the arrival of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation has been blamed for an escalation in violence.
The crash on the Palenque-Playas de Catazajá highway left both transit vehicles completely burned. Chiapas Civil Protection
Two transit vans collided on the Palenque-Playas de Catazajá highway in Chiapas early on Tuesday, killing 12 people and leaving three others injured, all of whom were presumed to be migrants.
Seven bodies were recovered from one of the transit vans and five from the other. Photos published by the state’s Civil Protection office show that both vehicles caught fire and were burned out.
The state Attorney General’s Office said the victims appeared to be Central Americans but identification work is still being carried out. The three injured people, the office confirmed, were Honduran. One of the injured was a minor, identified by authorities as Kevin “N,” who had second-degree burns. He was transferred to Palenque General Hospital with the other two injured people.
The Palenque-Playas de Catazajá highway remained closed to traffic for several hours.
Criminal gangs dedicated to human trafficking are common in the area, TV Azteca reported. Known as polleros, they transport migrants from the southern Guatemala border to Mexico City or the United States border by vehicle for hefty sums.
Vehicles belonging to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel burn on a road in the Tierra Caliente region.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has carried out attacks in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán this week but no fatalities have been reported.
A cell of the powerful criminal organization launched an offensive in the community of Taixtán early Tuesday afternoon but groups of armed residents contained the attack, the newspaper El Universal reported.
However, the offensive resumed Tuesday night and Wednesday morning with attacks against local residents and army personnel.
The CJNG reportedly used high-caliber weapons and explosive-laden drones in the offensive. It is unclear who or what the cartel was targeting in Taixtán, located in the municipality of Tepalcatepec, which borders Jalisco. However, the CJNG is engaged in a fierce turf war in the Tierra Caliente region with the Cárteles Unidos, led by the Viagras crime gang.
The cartel has also clashed with self-defense force members, and recently decapitated five men manning a checkpoint in Tepalcatepec.
A day before its attack in Taixtán, the CJNG went on the offensive in Villa Victoria, the municipal seat of Chinicuila, located on the border with Jalisco and Colima. Residents and local authorities reported that an armed gang entered the town in armored trucks known as monstruos (monsters) at about 4:30 a.m. Monday and shot at homes and vehicles.
The community guard and the army responded to the attack and a confrontation ensued that lasted more than 1 1/2 hours, El Universal said. Six soldiers were wounded and transferred to a hospital in Apatzingán.
The newspaper reported Wednesday that the CJNG’s advance had been halted.
The Tierra Caliente of Michoacán has been plagued by violent crime in 2021. Another hotspot is Aguililla, where the CJNG and the Cárteles Unidos have clashed on numerous occasions.
According to a report by the Associated Press, the army has largely stopped fighting the cartels in Aguililla and surrounding areas. Instead, soldiers guard dividing lines between cartel territories so they won’t encroach on each other’s turf, the news agency said.
AP also said that the army turns a blind eye to the cartels’ criminal activities. It reported that the Viagras are extorting lime producers, cattle ranchers, avocado farmers and iron ore mines and that CJNG leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera “wants to take over all this.”
Alejandro Hope, a security analyst, told AP that the federal government’s strategy in Michoacán is clearly “some sort of pact of non-aggression.”
“… [The soldiers] are not there to disarm the two sides, but rather to prevent the conflict from spreading. The problem is that we don’t know where the army draws the line, what they are willing to accept,” he said.
Violence in the Tierra Caliente region has displaced thousands of people since President López Obrador took office in late 2018, many of whom have sought asylum in the United States.
Ken Salazar stressed that Mexico needs US investment.
The United States ambassador to Mexico has expressed cautious confidence that the two countries can reach a mutually agreeable resolution with regard to President López Obrador’s proposed electricity reform, which seeks to limit the market share of foreign and private companies.
The constitutional bill aims to guarantee 54% of the power market to the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission and get rid of the independent National Hydrocarbons Commission and the Energy Regulatory Commission.
Salazar acknowledged that renewable energy companies that have invested heavily in Mexico are worried about the president’s proposal, even though its approval is far from guaranteed because the ruling Morena party and its allies don’t have the congressional supermajority required to pass constitutional bills on their own.
He said last week that the U.S. government had “serious concerns” about the plan and was “committed to continuing our dialogue on these critical issues.”
The ambassador stressed Tuesday that Mexico needs the investment of United States companies for its economy to flourish, not just in the energy sector “but also in many other things.”
He said the U.S. government is attempting to find out “whether there are some paths on which we can reach a resolution” vis-à-vis the electricity bill.
“I don’t know if that’s possible … I believe there are possibilities that we can reach a place where [the issue] can be resolved [but] I’m not sure,” Salazar said, without revealing what concessions the U.S. is seeking.
“… What I am sure about is that the two presidents have a good relationship, and we’re having meetings with the government leaders to see the way in which we can move ahead,” he said.
López Obrador said on Monday that he was unconcerned about Salazar’s remarks about his electricity proposal because the United States government hasn’t formally lodged a complaint about it.
“We have very good relations with the United States, the border is opening today, and we don’t have any kind of complaint or protest against the electricity matter,” he said.
López Obrador also said that the United States doesn’t consider Mexico to be its “backyard” and respects the country’s sovereignty. Salazar is a good ambassador who has the right to express himself, he added.
“We’re always going to be respectful of all opinions,” López Obrador said, before accusing the media of selective reporting on the ambassador’s remarks.
“Because he said — I don’t know whether it was before or after [he raised concerns about the electricity bill] — that the Mexican government was acting well, he even praised us for following the footsteps of Roosevelt. But they don’t publish that – that’s why we shouldn’t get heated up because they take a lot of statements out of context,” he said.
