A protestor displays a sign reading "Freedom of the press," at a 2016 protest against violence against journalists in Mexico City. EFE
Mexico dropped five places on the latest edition of an index that measures freedom of the press and expression in Western Hemisphere countries.
With a score of 49.2 out of 100, Mexico ranked 16th out of 22 countries included on the Inter American Press Association’s Chapultepec Index 2021. It ranked 11th last year with a score of 55.
The only countries below Mexico were Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela.
Based on more than 200 expert reports from the 22 countries, the index scores are derived from four different dimensions that measure the freedom of everyday citizens to express themselves: the freedom of journalists to do so; violence against journalists and the media, and the levels of impunity for such crimes; and government control of the media.
Mexico scored 11.57 out of 23 in the first dimension, 6.86 out of 10 in the second, 11.35 out of 42 in the third and 19.43 out of 25 in the fourth.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) said that Mexico’s rating in the third dimension – violence against journalists and the media – is “alarming,” noting that 12 Mexican journalists were murdered in its one-year assessment period, which concluded at the end of July.
President López Obrador’s frequent attacks on sections of the media create a “poisoned atmosphere” and risk inciting violence against journalists, according to Roberto Rock Lechón, general director of the news website La Silla Rota and president of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information at the IAPA.
The Mexico representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists said late last year that the president’s attacks on the media pose a threat to freedom of expression.
“The political climate in Mexico doesn’t encourage freedom of expression. When the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office we saw some positive signs; for example, the commitment to put an end to impunity, censorship and the murder of journalists,” Jan-Albert Hootsen said.
“Unfortunately, almost two years later there is a climate of significant polarization, … a rhetoric of confrontation with the press [and] a division between good press and bad press,” he said.
“… The vast majority of media outlets, with their commentators, columnists, contributors and news presenters, have completely given themselves over to defamation and lies,” he wrote.
Mexico’s overall score on the Chapultepec Index is 6.4 points below the regional average. Mexico is part of a group of countries where there is “partial restriction” of freedom of expression, according to the IAPA. The other countries in the same group are Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala and El Salvador.
There is “high restriction” of freedom of speech in Brazil and no freedom of speech in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, the organization said.
Uruguay and Chile ranked first and second, respectively, on the index and are the only two countries where there are no restrictions on freedom of expression, according to the IAPA.
Ranking third to 11th were, in order, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Canada, Costa Rica, Peru, Paraguay, Panama, the United States and Honduras. There is “low restriction” on freedom of expression in those countries, the association said.
Hiking alongside the sheer canyon walls of the Río Seco. Bakpak Revista de Aventura
Over the course of some 35 years, I have written descriptions of more than 100 hikes to out-of-the-way sites in what I call the Magic Circle around the city of Guadalajara, within which all five of Mexico’s ecosystems just happen to converge.
Every now and then, people would ask me to organize a hike to one of these picturesque places and I would do so, inevitably choosing a route that involved clambering over rock walls, squeezing under barbed wire fences, slogging through swamps or hanging on to a cliffside for dear life above a 100-meter drop: just the sort of excursion I considered challenging and fun in my younger days.
I would think, “They wanted an adventure, and what an adventure they got!”
However, the most common request I received from people who participated in those hikes was, “When are you going to organize something I could bring my kids to?” and more specifically, “I want a hike where I can take along my five-year-old.”
Honestly, I had so many requests for hikes suitable for a five-year-old that I finally started looking for trails that might satisfy this criterion. I sought out caminos (paths) that were interesting, challenging and not very long.
Examining a scorpion on Chuyville Loop, a relaxing interpretative trail in Jalisco.
Loops, of course, are always more fun than trails where are you have to backtrack, so I focused on loops no more than three kilometers long. To make everything more interesting, I got the help of botanists, biologists, geologists and archaeologists to tell me about features along the trail that I could later present to families doing the hikes.
The Chuyville Loop is one of these interpretive trails that I believe will delight not only kids and their parents but abuelitos and abuelitas (grandpas and grandmas) as well. It’s situated entirely inside the huge Primavera Forest, located adjacent to Guadalajara along the western boundary of the city.
The hike begins in the Río Seco (Dry River) Canyon alongside the community of Pinar de la Venta.
The high, sheer canyon walls have a story to tell, the tale of a huge explosion that took place 94,000 years ago, shooting 40 cubic kilometers of volcanic ash and pumice into the air and leaving behind a great hole in the ground that geologists call the Primavera Caldera.
Long horizontal lines on the canyon walls — indicating layers of sediment — tell us that the caldera filled with water and became a lake for 10,000 to 20,000 years. Eventually, volcanoes popped up in the lake and spewed out their volcanic froth, which then hardened into lightweight pumice.
These great “icebergs” of pumice floated on the surface of the water for a while and then sank to the bottom of the lake, forming a stratum, or layer, several meters high, now known as the Giant-Pumice Horizon.
A golden scorpion. Chuy Moreno advises his kids: “Never put your hands into a place where you can’t see your fingers.”
It’s easy to spot, even for a five-year-old.
In the Dry River, we also find pieces of obsidian, volcanic glass that was perhaps more valuable than gold to the pre-Hispanic indigenous people here.
They didn’t have metal tools, but an obsidian knife can be sharpened far finer than a steel blade. Obsidian was also the raw material for much-needed cutting and scraping tools and a truly clever flat sword called the macuahuitl.
This weapon was made of hardwood with a groove along its edge, into which sharp obsidian blades were glued using chicle (natural gum). It’s hard to believe, but the Spaniards testified that this native sword could decapitate a horse.
From the Río Seco, we plunge into a pine and oak forest. During this 325-meter stretch of the hike, there is no trail.
We make our way uphill through a great patch of aromatic wild sage plants interspersed with wildflowers. If it happens to be near October, we are likely to see the Flor de San Francisco, and the sage will be replaced by jarra plants, whose stalks were traditionally used to make charcoal sticks, a favorite of Mexico’s muralists.
On a short hike you have plenty of time to stop and appreciate the shape of a beautiful pine tree.
Now, we are immersed in the forest, walking on a carpet of pine needles, occasionally dodging the pointy spikes of the Agave guadalajarana, endemic to the area.
In this neck of the woods, the most common pine tree is Pinus oocarpa, known as el pino amarillo in Spanish and as the egg-cone pine in English. This species was the progenitor of many of the other Mexican pines.
As is clear from its name, its small, oval-shaped pine cones make it easy to identify.
It appears that the pine nuts inside these little cones are also delicious, judging from dozens of pine cone cores lying everywhere on the hillside that were recently gnawed by hungry squirrels.
Here we also find plenty of robles with big, wide leaves and encinos with long, slim leaves. Curiously, both of them are oak trees, but it’s only the acorns of the encinos that the local woodpeckers choose to store in hundreds of holes drilled not into oaks but into the soft bark of the egg-cone pines.
Reaching a high ridge, we follow a very old and well-worn trail to Chuyville, which is the name I gave to a flat clearing in the woods that looks like a little village. It’s dotted with rustic shelters made of tree branches and other ad hoc material.
“This shelter was built by kids like me,” says a young visitor to Chuyville.
Each shelter represents a project carried out by kids who, over the years, have participated in month-long summer courses taught by nature photographer Jesús “Chuy” Moreno.
In these courses, around 80 children of all ages spend eight hours a day — rain or shine — learning all about flora and fauna by seeking, finding, collecting, measuring, dissecting, drawing and sometimes eating the wonderful plants and creatures hiding in the woods.
Moreno’s hands-on approach to teaching science has turned hundreds of Mexican kids on to nature, inspiring quite a number of them to choose biology, botany or agronomy for their career in life.
The Chuyville Loop takes about two hours to do at an easy pace, but that can easily turn into three hours if you can’t resist stopping to look at every praying mantis, mushroom or woodpecker you happen to come upon.
If you’ve never visited Jalisco’s celebrated Primavera Forest, you may agree with Luis López, who commented, “I think this caminata (walk) was the perfect introduction to Bosque la Primavera!”
Deep canyons fall away on both sides of this narrow ridge.
If you prefer to have a guide, you may want to participate in one of the short hikes I occasionally organize. Just send me an email ([email protected]) and I’ll sign you up for the next one.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
Most senderos in Mexico are quite unlike the well-maintained trails in US national parks.
The acorn woodpecker, Melanerpes formicivorus, is easy to recognize from a long distance, both by its red cap and its raucous cry.
During the rainy season, the woods of the Primavera Forest fill with mushrooms.
Egg-cone pines are a favorite place for woodpeckers to store their acorns.
In this canyon wall, you can see the Giant-Pumice Horizon just above many layers of sediment deposited at the bottom of the Primavera Caldera lake. Bakpak Revista de Aventura
The silhouette of Pinus oocarpa, whose pine cones are small and egg-shaped.
The Mexican aster, or flor de San Francisco, is said to bloom every year around October 4, the feast of San Francis of Assisi.
What’s left of pine cones after squirrels have removed all the pine nuts.
The three-kilometer trail winds through a forest of oak and pine trees.
This narrow arroyo (creek) is in the process of turning into a slot canyon. Bakpak Revista de Aventura
A narrow opening in a canyon wall is the hidden entrance to the trailhead.
The Nissan Versa is one of the most popular cars among thieves.
In the last 12 months, thieves stole 380 vehicles a day on average, a 17% decrease from the previous 12-month period, according to a report on stolen car statistics by the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions (AMIS).
Despite car insurance being obligatory on federal highways and in many states, the reality is that in Mexico, many cars are uninsured. So out of the nearly 140,000 vehicles stolen over the past year, fewer than 63,000 had insurance, leaving 54.8% of victims without any support to cover the cost of their loss.
Of the insured cars stolen, close to 29,000 were recovered, AMIS director Norma Rosas said. The recovered cars represented 46% of those stolen, a percentage that has steadily risen over the past five years.
México state, Jalisco, Mexico City, Guanajuato, Puebla and Veracruz had the most robberies, with seven out of 10 thefts happening in one of those states. The most-stolen models were the Nissan Versa, the Nissan NP300 pickup, the General Motors Aveo and Beat, and the Nissan Tsuru.
The organization also shared its data on vehicle accidents where both parties were insured, which peaked in June with more than 30,000 reported accidents.
There were also 6,906 thefts of tractor-trailers, buses, trucks and other heavy vehicles, a 21% decrease from the same period last year. Rosas credited the decrease in thefts to work her organization undertook in coordination with authorities and other industry organizations.
“We have a working agenda with the Citizen Security Ministry and Canacar [the National Chamber of Cargo Transporters], which has strengthened the safe roads program,” Rosas said.
A scene from the new Netflix miniseries, Maya and the Three.
A new miniseries based on Mesoamerican mythology and created by a Mexican animator debuts this Friday on Netflix.
Maya and the Three, by Jorge Gutiérrez, tells the story of Maya, a warrior princess in a fantasy world. Gutiérrez based the magical story’s setting on Aztec, Mayan and Inca mythology, as well as modern day Caribbean culture. The nine-episode series features the voices of a number of well-known actors, including Gael García, Diego Luna, Joaquín Cosío and Kate del Castillo. The English version of the audio also features the voices of Zoe Saldaña and Alfred Molina.
To create the story, Gutiérrez conducted extensive research, reading the Popol Vuh, a sacred Mayan text, watching documentaries and even drawing inspiration from the work of painters like Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Jorge González Camarena.
When he began the project, however, Gutiérrez had doubts about whether he was the best person to tell the story.
“I felt the weight of thinking, who was I to represent this culture. I questioned myself a lot, but I realized that every person can tell their version. My mom’s enchiladas are different than those of my grandmother and those of my aunt, but now it’s my turn to make my own enchiladas. I’m Mexican and I have that right,” Gutiérrez said.
Maya and the Three | Official Trailer | Netflix
In the end, Gutiérrez was happy to be able to create a story with a strong female lead that honored Mexican and Latin American culture. He described characters like Maya — who was designed by his wife and fellow animator Sandra Equihua — as “super important, because Hispanic characters and Mexican women in the history of Hollywood have been hyper-sexualized … that’s how other countries see us.”
“The character of Maya represents humanity, but she comes from someone from Mexico, not just visually but also from the heart, and it shows,” Gutiérrez said.
After the Thursday seminar, Morales met with the president in the National Palace. Official website of López Obrador
Two years after taking up the federal government’s offer of political asylum, former Bolivian president Evo Morales is back in Mexico to attend a seminar organized by the Labor Party (PT), one of the allies of the ruling Morena party.
Speaking at the PT’s 25th International Seminar, the former leftist president declared that Mexico saved his life by offering him political asylum after he lost the support of the police and the military in Bolivia following the disputed 2019 general election.
“When I arrived and said [Mexico] saved my life it wasn’t to ingratiate myself with the president, the government and the Mexican people. Brothers and sisters, Mexico and other countries really did save my life. Mexico is not just my home it’s the home of all those who fight for the liberation of our peoples,” Morales said.
Representatives of dozens of leftist organizations from Latin America and beyond are in Mexico City for the PT seminar, where they will close ranks against “imperialist meddling,” according to the newspaper El País.
Among the topics up for discussion at the three-day event, which began Thursday and will conclude Saturday, are the drafting of a new constitution in Chile; a potential political comeback by former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impact; the political situation in El Salvador; the conquest of the Americas; and the case of the 43 students who disappeared in Guerrero in 2014.
After his participation in the seminar on Thursday, Morales and his entourage attended a two-hour meeting with López Obrador and other Mexican officials in the National Palace. Both men acknowledged the meeting on their Twitter accounts.
“We spoke to Evo Morales, loyal leader of the people of Bolivia and the most authentic representative of the native peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean,” López Obrador wrote.
“With the brother president of Mexico @lopezobrador_ and his political team we had an extended and very productive meeting to share experiences of government and public management and to make an assessment about the political and economic situation of Latin America,” Morales said.
“We expressed … our gratitude, deep respect and affection for saving our lives and our admiration for helping us recover democracy in Bolivia,” he wrote.
Among the Mexican officials at the meeting was Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who welcomed Morales to Mexico on Wednesday.
The former Bolivian president also met with Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum on Friday morning. “We went over our history and the struggle of our ancestors and shared experiences,” Morales wrote on Twitter.
Sheinbaum described the opportunity to meet with Morales and the Bolivian ambassador to Mexico as “a great honor.”
After downloading the hoozie app, users can earn hoozies through activities like running, using public transporation and signing up new users. Twitter @ANTADMx
A new digital currency can now be used to pay for goods and services in participating businesses in the Guadalajara metropolitan area.
Pegged 1:1 to the Mexican peso, the hoozie, as the currency is called, was officially launched on Thursday.
Citizens can obtain hoozies, a blockchain-based currency, by downloading the hoozie app on their cell phones and carrying out certain activities that benefit their communities or the environment.
Hoozies can also be earned through the use of public transport, running and cycling. Riding a bike for 30 minutes, for example, earns a hoozie app user 10 hoozies. People get 50 hoozies if they sign up a friend to the app and 100 if they sign up a business.
When people use the digital currency to make purchases in participating businesses, 4% of the value of the transaction is returned to them in hoozies.
The currency is an initiative of the University of Guadalajara and the Irish company Domila Limited.
The Jalisco Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology contributed 1.2 million pesos (US $59,500) to aid its development via a funding scheme designed to support initiatives that will help reactive the state economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.
A pilot program to test the functionality of the new digital currency was run at the 2021 expo of the National Association of Supermarkets and Department Stores (ANTAD), which was held in Guadalajara this week. About 1,800 attendees downloaded the app during the event.
Many of the Jalisco-based ANTAD members are expected to allow the use of hoozies in their supermarkets and stores. To date, more than 100 businesses, including restaurants, hotels, beauty salons and clothing stores, have signed up on the platform.
Participating businesses have the option of running exclusive promotions for hoozie users. They receive 500 hoozies just for signing up. More information about the new digital currency is available on the hoozie website.
At his regular press conference on Thursday, the president accused UNAM of individualism and 'promoting neoliberal projects.'
President López Obrador launched an attack on Mexico’s most prestigious university on Thursday, asserting that it became “individualistic” during what he describes as the nation’s neoliberal period.
He told reporters at his regular news conference that the neoliberal period – 1982 to 2018 – was an era of “backwardness, looting … [and] manipulation.”
Two generations were adversely affected by the period, López Obrador said, adding that the National Autonomous University (UNAM) – which he attended in the mid-1970s – became “individualistic” and a “defender of neoliberal projects.”
“It lost its essence of training … professionals to serve the people,” he said.
“There are no longer the economists, sociologists, political scientists and lawyers of before. There are no longer constitutional law [courses], agrarian law is now history,” López Obrador said, lamenting the focus on commercial, civil and criminal law.
“It was a process of decadence,” he added. “Fortunately, we have the opportunity to lay the groundwork for the transformation [of Mexico] and completing the fourth transformation is possible, but it’s a process.”
The president’s remarks about UNAM triggered outpourings of support for the university.
Former rector José Narro said the university, recently ranked as the 105th best in the world, has always been committed to the wellbeing of the country.
“It has shown that time and again, with one president and the next,” he said in a radio interview.
Narro also said that Mexico wouldn’t be the country it is today without the contributions of professionals who were educated at UNAM.
Diego Valadés, a former director of UNAM’s Institute of Legal Research, rejected López Obrador’s claim that the university lost its people-oriented “essence,” asserting that it continues to educate in accordance with its “social commitment.”
Opposition politicians also defended the university while condemning the president for his remarks.
“I think it’s very regrettable that the federal executive is harming, damaging and assaulting our highest institute of learning,” said National Action Party (PAN) Senator Kenia López Rabadán.
“… This president will go like all [before him] have gone but our highest institute of learning will prevail; enough already of attacks on UNAM,” she said.
Institutional Revolutionary Party national president Alejandro Moreno offered his “full support” to UNAM Rector Enrique Graue and other members of the university community, while PAN Deputy Santiago Creel described López Obrador’s remarks against his alma mater as “reprehensible.”
A new criminal organization calling itself the “Cartel del H” is threatening businesses in the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa, demanding exorbitant extortion payments and threatening to burn down the premises of those that don’t comply.
“We have been in office less than 20 days and … we have received reports of this kind of extortion … and of the appearance of a new cartel that we had not heard of here in Iztapalapa,” council member Olivia Garza told the newspaper Milenio.
She said that in the most extreme case reported, various armed men demanded that an owner pay 150,000 pesos (US $7,400) or they would burn down his business. The owner made a deal to pay in installments of 10,000 pesos. He made six payments but after being unable to come up with the seventh, his business was burned to the ground.
Garza said that while making rounds of the borough she has heard other reports of excessive demands by the new gang, which is going after business owners and market vendors.
She requested the immediate intervention of the Citizen Security Ministry (SSC) and the investigative police.
“The borough needs a great deal of support on this issue, that’s a responsibility of the city government,” Garza said. “The appearance of this cartel needs to be investigated with the intention of preventing the creation of more criminal cells, rather than as a reaction to the presence of new cartels.”
According to Mexico City authorities, at least 14 criminal groups operate in the capital, including La Familia Michoacana, La Unión Tepito, the Beltrán Leyva cartel and others. Their activities include narco-trafficking, kidnapping and extortion.
Two women dining at La Malquerida restaurant and bar in Tulum were killed on Wednesday. FGE Quintana Roo Twitter
Two foreign tourists were killed and three were wounded in a shooting in Tulum, Quintana Roo, on Wednesday, state authorities said Thursday.
A German woman and an Indian woman died after being shot while dining at La Malquerida, a restaurant/bar in the center of the Caribbean coast resort town.
Two other Germans and a Dutch national were wounded and taken to hospital for treatment. All three remain hospitalized, the Quintana Roo Attorney General’s Office (FGE) said in a statement.
The FGE said that one of the women who was fatally shot died at the scene while the other passed away in the hospital. It said preliminary investigations indicated the tourists were caught in the crossfire of a shootout between drug gangs.
One of the aggressors was also wounded and detained, the FGE said, adding that state police are investigating and seeking to identify, locate and capture the other assailants.
The incident is the latest in a string of violent attacks in public places in Tulum, a once sleepy beach town that has become an international party destination. A Spanish tourist died after being shot in a taco restaurant in March, two men were shot and killed on a beach in June, a man was gunned down in the street in August, a taxi driver and security guard were executed at a restaurant in September and a man was murdered in the parking lot of the Tulum archaeological site earlier this month.
Last November, two people were killed and three others — including a police officer — were injured during a gunfight at a beach club Halloween party in Tulum.
According to the state Security Ministry, at least six criminal groups operate in the Riviera Maya, a coastal region of Quintana Roo that also includes Cancún and Playa del Carmen. They include the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Old School Zetas.
Tulum recorded 65 homicides in the first nine months of this year, 16 more than in all of 2020, while Cancún and Playa del Carmen registered 234 and 70, respectively.
The German Federal Foreign Office is currently advising German citizens not to leave their hotel complexes if they are in the Riviera Maya. It noted in a travel advisory that there have been violent attacks at restaurants and nightclubs in recent weeks that have affected German travelers and claimed the life of one.
An electron microscope photograph of SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
After President López Obrador criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) for taking too long to approve two COVID-19 vaccines, the head of the United Nations agency suggested he leave it up to the experts.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus advised López Obrador to send medical experts to learn more about the process used to approve vaccines.
The president chastised the WHO on Tuesday for its tardiness in approving the Sputnik V and CanSino vaccines, both of which have been used in Mexico. He said he would send a letter to the organization asking it to expedite its process.
Asked about the president’s remarks at a press conference on Thursday, Tedros said he was unaware of them.
“We haven’t heard from Mexico. … If they have any concerns they can ask us, they can send us a message and we can give them any answer. This is the first time I’m getting information that they have concerns,” the director-general said.
“If they’re interested they can send experts to see how we do it here. … Instead of a president raising this issue without any contact with our experts, its better to leave it up to the experts to discuss. … If he wants to know [about the vaccine approval process] I think he can send experts” and they can discuss it, Tedros said.
“One thing I would like to assure his excellency the president is that we use data and evidence and principles, nothing else, and the final recommendations come from experts with the right skills and experience,” he said.
López Obrador’s concern about the Sputnik and CanSino shots not being certified by the WHO stems from the United States’ announcement that all travelers seeking to enter the U.S. will have to be fully vaccinated with a WHO-approved vaccine starting November 8.
In other COVID-19 news:
• Mexico’s accumulated case tally rose to 3.76 million on Wednesday with 5,069 new infections reported. The Health Ministry reported 424 additional fatalities, lifting the official COVID-19 death toll to 285,347. There are 33,414 estimated active cases.
Tabasco has the highest number of active cases on a per capita basis with just over 70 per 100,000 residents. Baja California, Mexico City and Guanajuato are the only other states where there are more than 50 active cases per 100,000 people.
• Almost 113.5 million vaccine doses have been administered in Mexico, according to the latest Health Ministry data, after just over 450,000 shots were given Wednesday. Almost 69.5 million adults have received at least one shot, and three-quarters of that number are fully vaccinated.
In percentage terms, 78% of adults have received at least one shot. The real vaccination rate among adults is likely at least a few points higher as many Mexicans have traveled to the United States to get their shots.
• The federal government reiterated this week that companies cannot legally require employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
“In Mexican laws there’s no justification for that. If someone is asking you for your vaccination certificate in order to report to work, he or she is committing an offense. Putting conditions on access to work is not legal,” Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday.
