The warning left Margarita Galan with no choice but to abandon her mayoral bid in a Mexican town where three candidates have already been murdered ahead of June elections.
“You stop. That’s it,” said the message to the 27-year-old chef, she told AFP in her home in Michoacan, one of Mexico’s most violent states.
Criminals in the town of Maravatio, like other areas across Mexico, are using threats and bullets to ensure their favored candidate is elected on June 2, when the country will also choose a new president.
Maravatio, an agricultural town of 80,000 inhabitants, tops the list.
On February 26, two aspiring mayors — Miguel Reyes and Armando Perez, both 58 — were gunned down in attacks just hours apart.
In November, Dagoberto Garcia, who also aspired to be mayor, was found dead.
Reyes and Garcia belonged to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s ruling Morena party, Perez to the conservative National Action Party, and Galan to the small opposition Citizens’ Movement party.
Five candidates remain in the race.
The spate of killings has left residents of Maravatio living in fear.
Two men in a car have been hanging around for hours at the rallies of the new Morena candidate, Mario Perez.
At night they stop the vehicle, roll down the window and stare at the meeting, without a single police officer in sight.
“That car’s not normal,” a member of the campaign team said. “Those things make us nervous.”
At the end of a recent rally, Perez surrounded himself with supporters for photos, and the two men slipped away into the darkness.
Perez, a 34-year-old dentist who hopes to end the Party of the Democratic Revolution’s almost quarter-century control of the district, avoids talking about insecurity in public.
He has not requested official security protection, unlike 96 other candidates in Michoacan.
Perez told AFP his goal is to offer young people opportunities so they have alternatives to darker paths.
During a political gathering on a dusty street, one of his supporters, 45-year-old teacher Liz Monroy, admitted she was “afraid to participate” because she feels politics is synonymous with insecurity.
It’s no exaggeration: on May 10, near Galan’s house, a shootout erupted between the bodyguards of two mayoral candidates from a nearby district who crossed paths, apparently due to a misunderstanding.
Michoacan state, Mexico’s main avocado-producing region, is the scene of constant fighting between organized crime groups, including the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Without a single dominant cartel, more than a dozen gangs are battling for control of activities such as methamphetamine trafficking and extortion.
They are increasingly seeking to “impose candidates” in the region, said electoral crimes state prosecutor Victor Serrato, who has received 39 complaints from candidates, mostly for threats and extortion.
“The criminals choose a candidate” and tell the others “you don’t have permission” to run for office, said Antonio Plaza, a 47-year-old aspiring state lawmaker in Michoacan.
He said in one municipality, “a gang summoned all the parties, except one, and let them know: this person is going to win here.”
Spiraling criminal violence has seen more than 450,000 people murdered since the government of then-president Felipe Calderon launched a controversial military offensive against drug cartels in 2006.
The homicide rate has almost tripled to 23 cases per 100,000 inhabitants since then.
As well as drug trafficking and extortion of avocado farmers, criminal gangs in Michoacan are involved in myriad other activities including illegal logging.
In the Tierra Caliente region, where hundreds of soldiers have been sent to monitor the elections, one cartel even set up stolen antennas to charge for internet services, according to the state prosecutor’s office.
Despite the real dangers, candidate Maria Salud Valencia refuses to abandon her bid to be a local mayor in Michoacan.
The 60-year-old teacher, who has official protection, said she has “fear, but also courage” to keep her going.
“If they’re going to kill me, let it be for defending my people,” she said.
Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have discovered a chacmool statue in the city of Pátzcuaro, Mexico.
A chacmool is a distinctive form of Mesoamerican sculpture representing a reclining figure that may represent slain warriors carrying offerings to the gods. Individual chacmools exhibit significant variation, with heads that can face either to the right or left, and in some cases, upwards.
The original name for these sculptures is unknown, with the name “chacmool” given by Augustus Le Plongeon in 1875 based on a sculpture he and his wife unearthed in the Temple of the Eagles and Jaguars at Chichén Itzá. Le Plongeon interpreted “Chaacmol” from Yucatecan Mayan to mean “paw swift like thunder.”
Archaeologists recovered a chacmool statue in Pátzcuaro during construction works, which according to the researchers was found out of context from its original location and placed in construction fill for the development of the city.
The statue is carved from basalt and measures 90 centimetres in length by 80 centimetres in height, with a preliminary study placing the date of the statue to the Late Post-Classic Period (AD 1350 to 1521).
According to an INAH representative: “These images that we know by the Mayan name of chacmool were ritual tables in pre-Hispanic times. It has been speculated that they were used in sacrificial and offering ceremonies.”
Because of the discovery, the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Mexico, through the INAH Michoacán Centre, has undertaken an archaeological rescue project to expand explorations in the immediate area of the statue to identify any further archaeological remains.
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Teen who texted 911 rescued after she was trafficked to California from Mexico
In texts received in Spanish and translated to English, the girl tried to describe her location, though she did not know where she was
Authorities rescued a 17-year old girl after she was trafficked to Ventura county, California, from Mexico two months ago and texted 911 for help.
In the messages, the girl, who did not know where she and her captor were, was able to identify landmarks and provide other identifiable information, authorities said. As the 911 dispatcher corresponded with the girl, other communications center team members delivered real-time information to authorities who were responding to the search.
After approximately 20 minutes of searching the area of Casitas Springs, a community located about 86 miles from Los Angeles, authorities located the girl. She was evaluated and transferred to Ventura county child family services until she can be reunited with her family. Authorities did not disclose whether the girl will remain in the US or return to Mexico.
The suspect has been identified as 31-year-old Gerardo Cruz from Veracruz, Mexico. Booked at the pre-trial detention facility, Cruz has been charged with human trafficking, forcible rape, lewd acts upon a child, luring and sexual penetration with force. He remains in custody with bail set at $500,000.
In its announcement, authorities hailed the ability to send text messages to emergency call centers, adding, “This incident also utilized integrated translation technology as the call taker only spoke English and the victim only spoke and wrote in Spanish. The call taker was able to quickly interpret and text back a response in English, which was quickly re-translated to Spanish for the victim.”
California is one of the largest sites of human trafficking in the US, according to the state’s office of the attorney general. Since 2015, between 20 and 30% of human trafficking cases in California that are reported annually to the National Human Trafficking Hotline involved children under 18 years old.
As Mexico, U.S. head to polls, Trudeau still aims to host trilateral summit in 2024
OTTAWA –
Canada has yet to set a date for the North American Leaders’ Summit, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he’s still aiming to host the gathering this year.
The summit has happened most years since 2005, and hosting duties rotate between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico for meetings that focus on transnational issues such as immigration and drug trafficking.
Canada agreed in January 2023 to host the next summit, and Mexican Foreign Affairs Minister Alicia Barcena said in February that it would take place in Quebec in April.
“Canada has not yet confirmed the date or the location of the next summit,” Global Affairs Canada wrote in a statement.
Mexico heads to the polls on June 2, while the U.S. election takes place Nov. 5, and Trudeau said Thursday it’s been tricky navigating that schedule.
“It’s a little more challenging to pull together the Three Amigos summit, but we still intend to hold it in 2024,” he told reporters in Caraquet, N.B.
“Getting together to work on common issues is a huge priority. We continue to work bilaterally on a number of issues.”
While it is important that the summit happen, it’s also understandable “that it might just get pushed out a little bit,” said Bruce Heyman, U.S. ambassador to Canada during the Obama administration.
“It’s going to be important that Canada, Mexico and the U.S. find ways to protect this relationship, which I think under Trump 2.0 would be very, very difficult.”
Heyman said the summit is a “critical format” to get countries on the same page around issues such as manufacturing, the environment and supply chains. He said the looming 2026 review of the trade deal that replaced NAFTA shouldn’t affect the next summit.
Yet he argued that a meeting before November would help countries set plans to limit the effect of policies that could harm relations if Donald Trump is elected in the U.S. on his pledges to implement trade and border restrictions, and to scrap certain environmental protections.
“Some things that we agreed to as a country can be rolled back under an adversarial-type administration,” Heyman said. He advocates putting U.S.-Canada issues into laws and treaties that would “future-proof” policies and make them harder for a Trump administration to repeal.
“It’s important to do that, but we’re running short on time to be able to implement those things,” he said.
Canada chairs the G7 next year, meaning it will host a series of ministerial meetings in 2025 and a leaders’ summit for the bloc, which represents like-minded rich countries.
The Mexican Embassy in Ottawa noted that whichever president Mexico elects will be a new leader who takes office in September, and so it “could be complicated” to hold a summit during the summer months.
The U.S. Embassy in Ottawa says it looks forward to working on numerous issues when the summit does take place.
“This includes work to deepen our economic co-operation, promote investment, and reinforce competitiveness, innovation, and resilience; combat the climate crisis; champion expansion of legal pathways and other humane measures to address irregular migration in the region; and combat arms and drug trafficking, as well as trafficking in persons,” a spokeswoman wrote.
Heyman noted that the trilateral summit has always been more ad hoc than meetings like the G20 or NATO military alliance. For example, Mexico delayed its hosting of the 2022 summit into January 2023.
During Trump’s four years as president, he refused to have the summit take place. Former prime minister Stephen Harper postponed the 2015 summit amid tensions over the Obama administration delaying construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Canada similarly postponed a 2010 summit, while Mexico had the 2011 gathering postponed after the death of a politician.
In late February, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador threatened to boycott the summit “if there is no respectful treatment” of Mexico. He cited Ottawa’s decision to reimpose a visa requirement on Mexican citizens, as well as a New York Times report about a preliminary American probe into alleged gang ties with his affiliates.
On March 8, Lopez Obrador said he figured it was too late to have the summit ahead of the two elections.
“I believe that it will no longer be my responsibility to attend the summit,” he said in Spanish at a press conference. “But whoever replaces me will surely attend, because we need to maintain our economic and commercial relations with Canada and the United States.”
The North American Drought Monitor reports that nearly 70% of the country is facing drought conditions, while the figure for Canada is closer to 40%. An El Niño pattern regime is widely credited for causing widespread precipitation deficits throughout North America.
MEXICO CITY – A combination of wildfires, agricultural burns and a persistent wind flow out of the south is causing air quality issues along the Gulf Coast from Texas through Florida with high-level haze occasionally impacting visibilities.
Firefighters in Mexico and countries in Central America are fighting dozens of wildfires that are producing large plumes of smoke, which are visible on satellite imagery.
On Friday, Mexico’s national forest commission reported 168 active wildfires have burned over a quarter of a million acres, and there is no apparent relief in sight.
The North American Drought Monitor reports a staggering 82% of the country is unusually dry, with nearly 70% under drought conditions.
Drought statuses that are considered to be extreme or exceptional lead to widespread crop losses, water shortages and make vegetation conducive for fires.
A recent national pickle shortage in the U.S. was tied directly to poor agricultural conditions in Mexico, with the possibility that other fruits and vegetables might suffer a similar fate over the next several months.
Air quality observation sites around Brownsville and South Texas have had some of the poorest readings in the nation, with levels dipping into the ‘unhealthy’ range, but according to the local National Weather Service, the region is in a unique situation.
“There are three reasons for that. One, of course, is the burning. But number two is the persistence of the southerly flow. It is part of the same pattern, producing a lot of the flooding and windstorms in East and Southeast Texas. The other thing is, with the very warm water temperatures of the eastern half of the Pacific and the southwestern Gulf, it’s producing additional moisture that particles to condense onto,” the NWS stated.
NWS meteorologists warned that not all of the smoke that is being observed in the Lone Star State are from wildfires, yearly agricultural burns are also taking place, with farmers preparing fields for future crops.
Forecast models show off-and-on plumes of smoke impacting communities around the Gulf Coast through the weekend, but the FOX Forecast Center warns that impacts are entirely dependent on local weather conditions and, for most, will just be a phenomenon that is barely visible in the sky.
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Mexico’s presidential frontrunner Sheinbaum’s lead narrows slightly, poll shows
The April 25-29 survey by polling firm Parametria showed Sheinbaum of the leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) with 44% support, well ahead of Xochitl Galvez, candidate of a right-left alliance of three parties, with 31%.
A survey in February by the same firm showed Sheinbaum with 49% support and Galvez with only 29%.
The poll gave a third contender, Jorge Alvarez Maynez of the opposition center-left Citizens’ Movement (MC), backing of 8%, a three-point increase over the February survey.
It showed 17% of respondents offered no preference.
The face-to-face poll of 800 people had a 3.5% margin of error.
Francisco Abundis, head of Parametria, said the increase in Maynez’s support was notable and suggested he may ultimately capture a double-digit percentage of the vote in the election.
Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old scientist who has been a close ally of the current President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for decades, could become the first woman to rule the country.
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Mexico Is Fighting Over 100 Active Wildfires Amid a Heat Wave
Mexico’s national weather service issued an alert that at least 12 states would experience temperatures higher than 45°C (113°F), with large swathes of the rest of the country expected to see temperatures higher than 30°C.
The heat wave has increased demand for power, prompting the country’s grid operator to declare the system in a state of emergency on Thursday evening for the second time this week. That means the available power was below adequate levels. On Wednesday, operator Cenace also declared the system in a state of alert.
Mexico’s national forest commission (Conafor) said the wildfires spread across 75,474 hectares (186,500 acres). It also said that 30 of the fires were in protected natural areas.
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Rolling Blackouts Hit Several Cities as Heat Wave Scorches Mexico
The electrical grid in Mexico has been strained after soaring temperatures, leading to blackouts on Tuesday.
There were rolling blackouts in multiple cities across Mexico on Tuesday, as people in several states reeled from soaring temperatures and the national energy authority briefly declared a state of emergency.
A heat wave has scorched Mexico in recent days, bringing temperatures in multiple states into the triple digits. Mexico City on Tuesday reached a high of 92 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest temperature recorded there on May 7 in over 20 years.
Mexico’s energy authority, Cenace, announced a state of emergency for the national grid early Tuesday evening, meaning that available power had dropped below adequate levels. It said less than an hour later that the system had returned to normal.
But local news media outlets reported on blackouts in municipalities across the country throughout the evening. Social media users uploaded photos and videos of darkened city skylines.
Local officials confirmed several blackouts in the state of Mexico, including in San Mateo Atenco and Metepec, near Mexico City. And during a blackout in the city of Nuevo Laredo, near the Texas border, they asked people to avoid driving.
In a statement, the national energy agency attributed the electricity shortage on Tuesday afternoon to a series of factors, including a drop in wind and solar power generation. Some power plants were also offline at the time, it said. The statement did not mention the heat wave.
An increase in nighttime demand later required rolling power interruptions across Mexico, the agency said. Electricity was gradually being restored starting at about 8 p.m., in a process that was expected to last until 11 p.m.
Mexico has experienced blackouts before, including during extreme weather events, such as hurricanes or heat waves. During power failures in the country last June, local officials reported hundreds of heat-related deaths even as federal and state governments underplayed them.
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For some residents of Mexico’s Cancun, beach seems world away
The sun-kissed beaches and turquoise waters of Mexico’s Caribbean resort of Cancun attract millions of visitors, but schoolteacher Yazmin Teran is lucky if she enjoys them a few times a year.
Like other Mexicans living on the fringes of the major tourist destination, she feels her working-class suburb and the luxury hotel zone are worlds apart.
In 2023 alone, 32.7 million visitors touched down at Cancun airport — 63 percent of them foreigners, according to official data.
Few are likely to visit Villas Otoch Paraiso, where Teran lives.
A quick internet search shows that the housing development, established in 2007 and home to about 40,000 people, is considered to be “Cancun’s most dangerous neighborhood.”
Teran remembers how excited she was when she arrived in Cancun 15 years ago from the southern state of Oaxaca so her husband could work in the tourism sector.
“You see the beaches, the tourist places and the hotel zone on television and you say ‘wow!’ the 41-year-old said.
“But when you come here to Cancun you realize that it’s not all like that,” Teran said.
“Those of us who live and work here hardly have time to go and enjoy the beach and sea,” she said, adding that such visits happened “about five times a year.”
Families without cars must make do with limited public transport.
And although the beaches are public, in practice access is restricted to hotel guests.
– High prices, low incomes –
“Going to the beach can be expensive,” said Teran, a community leader who organizes activities to help children and the elderly.
“We have to find a way to get there, buy things once we’re there or bring our own lunch,” she added.
She estimates that a family needs about 500 pesos ($30) to spend a day at the beach in the hotel zone.
The average monthly salary in Cancun is around 7,500 pesos (450 dollars), according to the specialized portal Talent.com.
In high season, a single night in a five-star hotel on Cancun’s luxury hotel strip can cost $2,000.
When Villas Otoch was built its affordable homes attracted construction and tourism workers from impoverished southern Mexican states such as Chiapas or Tabasco, as well as countries such as Guatemala or Cuba.
Seen from above, the symmetrical blocks of 14,000 identical homes measuring just 35 square meters give an impression of order.
At ground level, the street furniture is decaying and drug dealers who work in the tourist zone are also present.
According to local authorities and media, violence has increased since 2018 due to increased flows of weapons and turf wars between the country’s two most powerful drug cartels.
– ‘Last frontier’ –
Every day when their parents go out to earn a living, many children are left alone — 40 percent of them do not go to school, said Sofia Ochoa, a cultural manager who has been working in the neighborhood since 2022.
Some children stay inside while others play in the streets or are recruited by gangs.
Shootings and sexual abuse involving children are common, Ochoa said.
“Many don’t know the beach” and adjoining area, which to them “seems like the last frontier — very far to reach,” she added.
Ochoa and residents organize events to revive public spaces in Villas Otoch, such as parks that were at once time abandoned to gang members.
Rosalina Gomez, 36, came to Cancun from the southern state of Chiapas fleeing poverty and an abusive father.
Her main experience of Cancun’s tourism industry has been her job as a cleaner at the airport.
“Sometimes tourists give you clothes, a tip, a soda or say thank you because the bathroom’s clean. That’s what I like the most,” she said.
Gomez, whose 15-year-old daughter Perla del Mar has cerebral palsy, last visited the sea four years ago.
“I don’t feel comfortable going to have fun at the beach knowing that I have a bedridden daughter,” she said.
She hopes that her 17-year-old son Ricardo, who is studying food and beverages, will be able to get a job in tourism.
“Once he finishes his studies, I’ll stop working and dedicate myself to her — if God allows us,” she said.
35-41 Storms Forecast for 2024 Hurricane Season in Mexico
By:BanderasNews
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – Meteorological experts anticipate an above-average hurricane season for Mexico in 2024. The country’s vulnerability stems from its location between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, both of which are expected to see heightened cyclonic activity.
Due to the ‘La Niña’ phenomenon, the probability of tropical cyclone formation in the Atlantic Ocean exceeds 50% of the historical average, which is 14 systems. Historically, Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Quintana Roo, and Veracruz are most susceptible to landfall.
The Pacific season is anticipated to bring:
8-9 tropical storms
4-5 Category 1 & 2 hurricanes
3-4 major hurricanes (Category 3-5)
Civil Protection and National Meteorological Service personnel will closely monitor weather developments to provide timely warnings and minimize potential catastrophes. Residents are urged to stay informed, prepare for potential cyclone impacts, follow official instructions, and take necessary precautions to safeguard lives and property
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Quintana Roo, Oaxaca and San Luis Potosí recorded the strongest economic growth among Mexico’s 32 federal entities, or states, in 2023, according to data published by the national statistics agency INEGI.
Fourteen states recorded economic growth above the 3.2% annual figure for the Mexican economy as a whole last year, while growth was below that level in 18.
The economies of three states — Tamaulipas, Zacatecas and Nayarit — contracted in 2023.
Quintana Roo, the Caribbean coast state home to tourism destinations such as Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, was the only state in the country to record double-digit annual growth last year. Its economy grew 10.2% last year, according to INEGI data.
Oaxaca ranked second with annual growth of 8.3% in 2023, while San Luis Potosí ranked third with an economic expansion of 7.9%.
Rounding out the top five fastest-growing state economies in 2023 were Aguascalientes and Campeche, both of which recorded 5.2% growth.
What are the strongest state economies in Mexico?
The other states that recorded growth above the 3.2% national figure were:
- Tabasco, 5.1%
- Sonora, 4.9%
- Yucatán, 4.8%
- Colima, 4.4%
- Hidalgo, 4%
- Durango, 3.9%
- Mexico City, 3.8%
- Querétaro, 3.5
- Michoacán, 3.5%
Puebla and México state recorded 3.1% economic growth last year, while the economy of Nuevo León — a significant beneficiary of nearshoring investment — expanded 3%.
Six Mexican states — Baja California, Chihuahua, Veracruz, Morelos, Baja California Sur and Jalisco — registered growth of 2%-2.9%, while the economies of five states — Tlaxcala, Guerrero, Chiapas, Guanajuato and Coahuila — grew at a rate between 1% and 1.9%.
GDP in Sinaloa increased by a modest 0.6% in 2023.
Among the three states where GDP declined last year, Tamaulipas recorded the sharpest contraction, with the economy of the northeastern state shrinking by 1%.
The economy in Zacatecas declined 0.9%, while GDP in Nayarit fell by 0.1%.
What factors helped Mexico’s fastest-growing economies in 2023?
Hugo Félix Clímaco, president of the Oaxaca College of Economists, spoke to the newspaper El Economista about the factors that helped Quintana Roo, Oaxaca and San Luis Potosí record strong economic growth in 2023.
Tourism, public investment and the broad coverage of government social programs all benefited the economy of Oaxaca last year, he said.
The federal government has invested significant amounts of money in infrastructure projects in Oaxaca, including the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec — whose modernized railroad began operations late last year — and the new highway between Oaxaca city and the state’s Pacific coast.
Clímaco said that the 8.3% growth recorded in Oaxaca last year was also a product of its “very small [economic] base.”
“… So when a large public investment is made, like that on highways, the interoceanic corridor and the upgrade of the coking plant at the Salina Cruz refinery, it has a very big impact,” he said.
While Oaxaca recorded strong economic growth last year, Clímaco noted that there are many economic challenges in the southern state including high levels of poverty and the highest rate of informal workers in the country.
He also noted that the Oaxaca economy added far fewer jobs in 2023 than that of Quintana Roo, even though the former state has a much bigger population than the latter one.
Just over 9,000 additional jobs were created in Oaxaca last year whereas the figure for Quintana Roo was over 37,000.
The economy of Quintana Roo is heavily dependent on tourism, and thus the double-digit growth the state recorded last year can be attributed in large part to the strong performance of that sector, although it also received significant government resources via spending on projects such as the Maya Train railroad and the Tulum airport, which opened in December.
The number of visitors to Quintana Roo increased 8% to 21 million last year, while the state’s tourism revenue jumped 12% to US $21 billion.
“The challenges for Quintana Roo,” Clímaco said, “are ones of equity, greater inclusion and sustainability.”
“… While it is a tourism paradise, its greatest challenge is preserving this paradise. The environmental impact of the Maya Train can’t be denied, nor can the impact of establishing hotels in the Riviera Maya, sometimes with the destruction of mangroves,” he said.
With regard to San Luis Potosí, Mexico’s third fastest-growing state economy last year, Clímaco said that the state is benefiting from nearshoring investment and manufacturing activity. Located in the industrial-focused Bajío region, San Luis Potosí received over US $1.1 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) last year, making the state Mexico’s ninth largest recipient of FDI.
German automotive manufacturer BMW was among the foreign companies that announced new investments in the state last year.
Clímaco said that manufacturing contributes to 37% of GDP in San Luis Potosí, and noted that the state also has a large agricultural sector.
“One of every five residents … works in the agricultural sector,” he said.
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Abducted retired Catholic bishop who mediated between cartels in Mexico is located, hospitalized
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A retired Roman Catholic bishop who was famous for trying to mediate between drug cartels in Mexico was located and taken to a hospital after apparently being briefly kidnapped, the Mexican Council of Bishops said Monday.
The church leadership in Mexico said in a statement earlier that Msgr. Salvador Rangel, a bishop emeritus, disappeared on Saturday and called on his captors to release him.
But the council later said he “has been located and is in the hospital,” without specifying how he had been found or released, or providing the extent of his injuries.
Uriel Carmona, the chief prosecutor of Morelos state, where the bishop disappeared, said “preliminary indications are that it may have been an ‘express’ kidnapping.”
In Mexico, regular kidnappings are often lengthy affairs involving long negotiations over ransom demands. “Express” kidnappings, on the other hand, are quick abductions usually carried out by low-level criminals were ransom demands are lower, precisely so the money can be handed over more quickly.Earlier, the council said Rangel was in ill health, and begged the captors to allow him to take his medications as “an act of humanity.”
“Considering his poor health, we call firmly but respectfully to those who are holding Msgr. Rangel captive to allow him to take the medications he needs in a proper and timely fashion, as an act of humanity,” the bishops’ council wrote before he was found.
It was unclear who may have abducted Rangel. The hyper violent drug gangs known as the Tlacos, the Ardillos and the Familia Michoacana operate in the area. Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the crime.
If any harm were to have come to Rangel, it would have been the most sensational crime against a senior church official since 1993, when drug cartel gunmen killed Bishop Juan Posadas Ocampo in what was apparently a case of mistaken identity during a shootout at the Guadalajara airport.
Prosecutors in Guerrero state confirmed the abduction but offered no further details, saying only they were ready to cooperate with their counterparts in Morelos. Morelos, like Guerrero, has been hit by violence, homicides and kidnappings for years.
In a statement, Rangel’s old diocese wrote that he “is very loved and respected in our diocese.”
In February, other bishops announced that they had helped arrange a truce between two warring drug cartels in Guerrero.
Rev. José Filiberto Velázquez, who had knowledge of the February negotiations but did not participate in them, said the talks involved leaders of the Familia Michoacana cartel and the Tlacos gang, which is also known as the Cartel of the Mountain.
Bishops and priests try to get cartels to talk to each other in hopes of reducing bloody turf battles. The implicit assumption is that the cartels will divide up the territories where they charge extortion fees and traffic drugs, without so much killing..
Earlier, the current bishop of Chilpancingo-Chilapa, José de Jesús González Hernández, said he and three other bishops in the state had talked with cartel bosses in a bid to negotiate a peace accord in a different area.
Hernández said at the time that those talks failed because the drug gangs didn’t want to stop fighting over territory in the Pacific coast state. Those turf battles have shut down transportation in at least two cities and led to dozens of killings in recent months.
“They asked for a truce, but with conditions” about dividing up territories, González Hernández said of the talks, held a few weeks earlier. “But these conditions were not agreeable to one of the participants.”
In February, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he approves of such talks.
“Priests and pastors and members of all the churches have participated, helped in pacifying the country. I think it is very good,” López Obrador said.
Critics say the talks illustrate the extent to which the government’s policy of not confronting cartels has left average citizens to work out their own separate peace deals with the gangs.
One parish priest whose town in Michoacan state has been dominated by one cartel or another for years said in February that the talks are “an implicit recognition that they (the government) can’t provide safe conditions.”n condition of anonymity for security reasons, said “undoubtedly, we have to talk to certain people, above all when it comes to people’s safety, but that doesn’t mean we agree with it.”
For example, he said, local residents have asked him to ask cartel bosses about the fate of missing relatives. It is a role the church does not relish.
“We wouldn’t have to do this if the government did its job right,” the priest said.
In February, Rangel told The Associated Press that truces between gangs often don’t last long.
They are “somewhat fragile, because in the world of the drug traffickers, broken agreements and betrayal occur very easily,” Rangel said at the time.
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The volunteers, like Soria Aguayo, are mostly the mothers of the disappeared. They have formed their own independent groups to search in violence-torn swaths of Mexico.o convict anyone of their relatives’ disappearances. They say they just want to find their remains. Many families say not having definite knowledge of a relative’s fate is worse than it would be to know a loved one was dead.
“I started my own search alone, tracking with my own hands and searching alone in the countryside,” said Soria Aguayo, 54, whose son’s remains were recovered in Veracruz state in 2022. “My promise to these women is to continue searching until we can’t any more … because there’s still many (bodies) we haven’t found.”
The Mexican government has spent little looking for the missing, so the volunteers conduct their own hunts for clandestine graves where cartels hide their victims.
If the volunteers find something, the most authorities will do is send a police and forensics team to retrieve remains, which in most cases are never identified. The government also hasn’t adequately funded or implemented a genetic database to help identify remains.
The searches increasingly have deadly consequences. At least seven of the activists searching for some of Mexico’s missing have been slain since 2021.
Volunteer groups have been angered by a government campaign to “find” missing people by checking their last known address, to see if they have returned home without advising authorities. Activists say it is just an attempt to reduce the politically embarrassing figures on the missing.
In discussing some of the evidence found earlier at the site, Lara, the Mexico City chief prosecutor, said Wednesday morning that police went to the addresses listed on the ID cards recovered and “found that both of the people to whom those cards belonged are alive and in good health.”
Lara said one of them, a woman, told officers that her ID card and cellphone were stolen about a year ago, when thieves snatched them from her while she was stuck in traffic. While that ruled out the possibility the woman’s body could have been dumped there, it suggested criminals had used the site to dispose of evidence. In the wooded and rural fringes of Mexico City, it is not unheard of for criminals to dump the bodies of kidnapping victims.
After hours of searching through fields on the rural outskirts of the Mexican capital, volunteers came up with little other than frustration.
While some in the group cast doubt that they would find any bodies, Flores said they planned to press on in their search, adding they had already spent two days searching the area following an anonymous tip. Volunteers like Flores often conduct investigations based on tips from former criminals.
“If they don’t search, they’re never going to find anything,” Flores said.
More than half of the country’s forestry is in community and Indigenous hands – and from CO2 absorption to reducing poverty the results are impressive
Dexter Melchor Matías works in the Zapotec Indigenous town of Ixtlán de Juárez, about 1,600ft (490 metres) above the wide Oaxaca valley in Mexico, where community forestry has become a way of life. Like him, about 10 million people across the country live in and make a living from forests, with half of that population identifying as Indigenous.
As average temperatures soar around the world and wildfires rage across the Americas, in Mexico, where more than a quarter of the country suffers from drought, the number of wildfires has remained steady since 2012.A sign outside Ixtlán sawmill and furniture factory reads: ‘In this community, private property does not exist. The purchase or sale of communal land is forbidden.’ Photograph: Linda Farthing
More than half of Mexico’s forests are in community and Indigenous hands, a situation unlike anywhere else in the world, which, according to experts, helps explain why the country has done better at controlling large fires.
“There are more wildfires south of here because they have a lot of small private properties,” says Melchor Matías, a community forest manager. “They just don’t have the capacity to monitor their forests as we can.”
Worldwide, an estimated 36% of remaining intact forest landscapes are on Indigenous land. Studies show that not only do community-controlled forests absorb more C02 than those under government or private control, but deforestation rates are lower. They also suffer less during severe water shortages, greatly reducing wildfire risk.
Ixtlán’s long, narrow territory of 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres) encompasses snowy mountain peaks and lush lowland jungles with cloud forests in between. Rather than clearcutting, vertical ribbons of pine and oak between six and eight hectares (15 and 20 acres) are logged in strips down mountainsides, enabling the forest to regenerate naturally.
Logging operations are closely regulated by Ixtlán’s community forestry enterprise, which wrested forests away from a private concession in 1982. Ixtlán’s success had been happening all over Mexico since, after 1970, communities took advantage of state forestry reforms and subsidies to exert greater local control.
Of the more than 21,000 communities with forest ownership in Mexico, about 1,600 engage in sustainable logging, mostly in the southern part of the country.
Community-managed pine-oak forests in the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca, southern Mexico. Photograph: Juan Vilata/AlamyFor forest enterprises such as the one in Ixtlán, maximising profits has never been the principal goal. “Our interest is in creating jobs,” says the conservation scientist Guadalupe Pacheco-Aquino. In the second-poorest state in Mexico, relatively well-paid rural jobs like those community forestry creates in Ixtlán are a rarity. “Forestry has been instrumental in helping people to get out of poverty.”
A mostly male community assembly directs Ixtlán’s logging and a sawmill and furniture factory. Being a voting comunero, as assembly members are known, brings considerable obligations and status. It is an inherited position, generally passed from father to son. “That is beginning to change,” says Pacheco-Aquino, “as more fathers are leaving the position to their daughters”.
Decision-making is grounded in Indigenous customs that put the group’s interests above the individual, value elders’ knowledge, and prioritise consensus. Political parties are excluded. Instead, technically skilled senior members represent all the local families and participate in every significant decision.
“From a business point of view, even though we now have a consulting committee to accelerate decision-making, this system takes a lot more time. That is the disadvantage,” says Pacheco-Aquino. “But our structure has the advantage that everyone who has an interest in the outcome has a voice.”
Melchor Matías says: “With so many bosses, it was difficult to adjust at first. But gradually, you get used to how it works, and its benefits for the community outweigh the amount of time involved.”
Noemí Cruz Hernández is the manager of the community’s furniture factory. The forestry engineer supervises 40 employees who make tables, benches and chairs from the high-quality pine grown in Ixtlán’s tropical montane forests. The operation is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
“We mostly sell school furniture to the state government, but we’re working on becoming more independent. We just opened our second retail store in Oaxaca city,” she says. Using forest revenues to diversify its economy, Ixtlán now has a community-run petrol station, food store, water bottling facility, credit union, and an ecotourism inn, generating the sustainable economic development Mexican communities need.
In Ixtlán, workers are paid minimum wage, plus benefits, for 48 hours a week. “Our biggest problem is turnover,” Cruz Hernández says. “We train people, and then they leave for better opportunities elsewhere.”
People leaving the area is an issue in Ixtlán, even after establishing a local university – Universidad de la Sierra Juárez – in 2005 that emphasises forestry and conservation programmes. However, migration rates are lower than in other rural communities.
Many of Joaquin Aquino’s classmates have left. A driver, he had a chance to go to Canada but remained to help care for his sick father. Aquino, who has a four-year-old son, now works for Ixtlán’s ecotourism project. “I was able to stay because of community forestry. It has benefited all of us, as well as the towns around us,” he says. “There is much more income to go round. And protecting the forests means we have something to leave to our children.”
Despite a steady flow of remittances from elsewhere in Mexico and the US, economic hardship persists in Ixtlán. However, extreme poverty has fallen by more than half since 2010.
Samuel Bautista Aquino is a 16-year-old with three more years of high school ahead of him. The money his mother and older sister make running a small food business falls short of supporting Samuel and his two younger siblings.
Samuel had to leave school and now acts as a tourist guide. As he crouches to show a visitor a tiny forest flower, he says: “I want to go to university and learn more about plants and trees, but especially about mushrooms.” There have been 113 different kinds of wild edible mushrooms identified in Ixtlán.Forest inspections are a regular occurrence. “We have never had problems with illegal logging,” says Melchor Matías. Mexico’s community forests often suffer even lower deforestation rates than the country’s protected areas.
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According to Bray, given the urgency of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, this kind of forestry management stands out as an example of the positive outcomes of Indigenous and local control over forests. “Community forests capture more carbon than strictly conserved protected areas, mostly by storing it in wood furniture and lumber for construction,” says Bray. “When Indigenous and local communities control their forests, humans and the land benefit.”
What’s a jalapeño? It’s not always what you think
In other words, you might be able to perfectly construct your request for a taco al pastor in a local restaurant, but if that local restaurant is in Puerto Rico, you haven’t yet mastered cultural fluency.
Spanish is the dominant tongue of at least 20 countries and the second most spoken language in the world. The Spanish you hear in Spain, Colombia, or Cuba is quite different to that which you hear in Mexico, and the Spanish you hear in Mexico City is even different to the Spanish you hear in Yucatán. Each region’s language is developed within historical, religious, and geographical contexts, resulting in various ways to say the same thing.
“What’s up”, is a great example. If you’re greeted with a “Qué bola,” you’re probably in Cuba. “Qué más” and you’re likely speaking to a Venezuelan. “Qué pedo,” you’re definitely in Mexico. The way people talk fluctuates from one country to the next and true fluency enables you to know the difference. It’s like being book smart and street smart, but in a language.
To understand the words and phrases that differentiate Mexican Spanish to Spanish of any other kind is attainable through traveling, watching Mexican TV shows, reading Mexican books, and hanging out with Mexican people. This exposes you to terms you might not otherwise come across while studying for your B2 language test.
Like, jalapeño.
Obviously, it’s a pepper. A spicy one. Used as a topping for tacos or diced in guacamole.
But that’s not all.al of Veracruz is also full of jalapeños. Some are growing on bushes while others are walking to school, texting a friend, or making coffee. Because in Xalapa, the term jalapeño refers to both the pepper and the people who were born there.
Similar to “Londoner” or “New Yorker” or “Torontonian”, nicknames in Mexico are applied according to the city in which you were born. However, they’re not always so straight forward. As a matter of fact, they’re a lot more fun. For that reason, we’ve compiled a list of Mexican monikers to help you determine when someone is referring to a person from the Yucatán and not a nutty root vegetable.
Mexico City: Chilangos
Why in the world are Mexico City residents known as chilangos? No one really knows. According to Luis Fernando Lara Ramos, a linguist and researcher at the College of Mexico, “We don’t know where the word came from. There are a lot of theories but none is trustworthy.” What we do know is that it’s derogatory, but locals still wear the badge with pride.
Guadalajara: Tapatíos
The most widely accepted version of the pseudonym is that it’s a derivative of the Nahuatl word “tapatiotl” meaning “que vale por tres”, or how much for three? The phrase was used while shopping at the local tianguis and the money wasn’t a coin but rather a small sack of cacao beans. Over time, it warped into “tapatío” and the name stuck. Anything can be tapatío, from food to people to architecture.
Monterrey: Regios
When you break up the word, Monterrey becomes monte and rey, monte meaning mountain and rey meaning king. King mountain doesn’t make much sense, but royal mountain does, in which case one would say monteregio. Hence the moniker regio.
Cuernavaca: Guayabos
There are a few theories behind this one but the most probable comes from the name Cuernavaca and its Cuauhnahuac origin. Cuernavaca means “cerca de la arboleda” or, “close to the groves of trees”. Aromatic guava trees, the pink ones to be precise, protruded from these groves and thus was born the nickname of guayabo.
Aguascalientes: Hidrocálidos
Did you know that Aguascalientes is flush with natural hot springs? The word hidrocálido is a play on the hot thermal baths in the region and the people that hail from it.
Veracruz: Jarochos
According to historians, after the Spanish arrived at the port of Veracruz, a wave of African slaves followed. The indigenous had never seen black people before and didn’t know what to call them. Since the slaves were usually seen using garrochas (spears) to guide herds of animals in the style of Andalusian cowboys, they referred to them as jarochas. Today, anyone from Veracruz is known as a jarocho/a.
Xalapa: Jalapeños
One of the staples of Mexican cuisine hails from Xalapa, also spelled Japala, and it’s a little green spicy pepper known as a jalapeño. Why wouldn’t you call its residents by the same name?
Puebla: Poblanos or angelopolitanos
Just like Xalapa, Puebla is the womb of poblano peppers. And so, people from Puebla are known as the same. But once in a while you might hear a local referred to as an angelopolitano, harkening back to 1532 when the city was baptized la Puebla de los Ángeles.
Mexicali: Cachanillos
Residents of Baja California North’s capital are called cachanillas after the bright pink pom-pom-looking flower native to the region.
Tabasco: Chocos
The pseudonym for tabasqueños is often misconstrued to be a derivative of chocolate, as Tabasco is a major producer of cacao. However, the true origin comes from the Maya word Yokot’an, meaning original, authentic, and true.
Yucatán: Yucas
Also self-explanatory, but a reminder to discern using context clues when the subject of conversation is a human or a tuber.
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Masked men stop vehicle carrying Mexico’s leading presidential candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum
The men, who identified themselves as local residents, said they felt “powerless” because the government hasn’t done enough to provide security. They asked her to take action as president so their township, Motozintla, along Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, doesn’t become a “disaster” like other communities in the region.
During her campaign swing through Chiapas, Sheinbaum was escorted by the army and national guard.
The border area of Chiapas has been plagued by violence as the rival Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels battle for territory. Thousands of people have been displaced as the cartels work to control migrant, drug and weapons smuggling routes and forcibly recruit locals.
Later Sunday, Sheinbaum confirmed the incident had occurred but downplayed it and said she didn’t believe the men were part of an organized crime group. She described the encounter as “very strange” because she said a media outlet critical of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador‘s administration first published it. Sheinbaum has maintained a comfortable lead in the presidential race, according to polls.
A federal lawmaker from López Obrador’s party who was traveling with Sheinbaum had earlier described the encounter on the social platform X. Federal deputy Carmen Patricia Armendáriz wrote that they had been stopped by masked men from one of the cartels battling for the area’s control, but she later deleted it.
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How Chinese firms are using Mexico as a backdoor to the US
They’re destined for large retailers in the US, like Costco and Walmart. But the company is from China, its Mexican manufacturing plant built with Chinese capital.
The triangular relationship between the US, China and Mexico is behind the buzzword in Mexican business: nearshoring.
Man Wah is one of scores of Chinese companies to relocate to industrial parks in northern Mexico in recent years, to bring production closer to the US market. As well as saving on shipping, their final product is considered completely Mexican – meaning Chinese firms can avoid the US tariffs and sanctions imposed on Chinese goods amid the continuing trade war between the two countries.
“We hope to triple or even quadruple production here,” he says in perfect Spanish. “The intention here in Mexico is to bring production up to the level of our operation in Vietnam.”
General manager Yu Ken Wei plans to at least triple production in Mexico
The firm only arrived in the city of Monterrey in 2022, but already employs 450 people in Mexico. Yu Ken Wei says they hope to grow to more than 1,200 employees, operating several new lines at the plant in the coming years.
“People here in Mexico are very hardworking and fast learners,” says Mr Yu. “We’ve got good operators, and their productivity is high. So, on the labour side, I think Mexico is strategically very good too.”
Certainly, nearshoring is considered to be providing an important shot in the arm to the Mexican economy – by June of last year, Mexico’s total exports had risen 5.8% from a year earlier to $52.9bn (£42.4bn).
The trend is showing few signs of slowing down. In just two months of this year, there were announcements of capital investment in Mexico of almost half of the annual total back in 2020.
The Man Wah sofa factory is located inside Hofusan, a Chinese-Mexican industrial park. Demand for its plots is sky high: every available space has been sold.
In fact, the Industrial Parks Association of Mexico say every site due to be built in the country by 2027 has already been bought up. Little wonder many Mexican economists say China’s interest in the country is no passing fad.
“The structural reasons that are bringing capital to Mexico are here to stay,” says Juan Carlos Baker Pineda, Mexico’s former vice-minister for external trade. “I have no indication that the trade war between China and the US is going to diminish any time soon.”
Mr Baker Pineda was part of Mexico’s negotiating team for the new North American free trade agreement, USMCA.
“While the Chinese origin of the capital coming into Mexico may be uncomfortable for the policies of some countries,” he says, “according to international trade legislation, those products are, to all intents and purposes, Mexican”.
That has given Mexico an obvious strategic foothold between the two superpowers: Mexico recently replaced China as the US’s main trading partner, a significant and symbolic change.
Bosses at Man Wah praise the skills of the Mexican workers
Mexico’s increased trade with the US has also come about in part through a second key aspect of nearshoring in the country: US firms setting up Mexican facilities too, sometimes after relocating production from factories in Asia.
Perhaps the standout announcement came from Elon Musk last year, when he unveiled plans for a new Tesla Gigafactory outside Monterrey. However, the electric car company is yet to break ground on the $10bn plant.
And, while Tesla is apparently still committed to the project, it has slowed its plans amid concerns over the global economy, and recent job cuts at the carmaker.
But regarding Chinese investment, some urge caution over Mexico being drawn into the wider geopolitical struggle between the US and China.
“The old rich guy in town, the US, is having problems with the new rich guy in town, China,” says Enrique Dussel of the Centre for China-Mexico Studies at the National Autonomous University in Mexico. “And Mexico – under previous administrations, and in this one – doesn’t have a strategy vis-à-vis this new triangular relationship.”
With elections looming on both sides of the US-Mexico border, there may be new political considerations ahead. But whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden in the White House over the next four years, few expect any improvement in US-China relations.
Mr Dussel thinks nearshoring is better defined by what he calls “security-shoring”, saying Washington has placed national security concerns above all other factors in its relationship with China. Mexico, he argues, must be wary of being caught in the middle.
Amid this tension, Mr Dussel says: “Mexico is putting up a big sign to China saying: ‘Welcome to Mexico!’. You don’t need a PhD to know that this isn’t going to end well for bilateral relations between the US and Mexico in the medium term,” he adds.
Chinese firms are racing to buy up new-build factory space in Mexico
Others are more optimistic. “In my mind, the question is not if this trend will continue, but rather how much of this trend can we take advantage of,” says former Mexican trade official, Juan Carlos Baker Pineda.
“I’m sure people are having these same discussions in Colombia, in Vietnam, in Costa Rica. So, we need to make sure in Mexico that those conditions that are aligned by themselves go hand-in-hand with corporate and government decisions to sustain that trend in the long term.”
Back in Monterrey, the talented Mexican seamstresses at Man Wah Furniture put the finishing touches to another sofa before it’s shipped north.
When an American family buys it at a Walmart store near them, they may have little idea of the complex geopolitics underpinning its production.
But whether nearshoring is a clever back door to the US, or part of a costly war between superpowers, it’s currently Mexico’s key advantage in these hostile times of global trade
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