Intersections

Incidents of travel in the Yucatan, Part 1

Is this for real?

Your faithful writer, floating over an eternal galactic blue portal into the inframundo.

Google Street View now available for Mexico archaeological sites

** Originally published at World Now:

For travelers who've never been to the ancient Maya city of Chichen Itza, a virtual window into the site's pyramids and plazas is available online, among 30 archaeological zones in Mexico now mapped by history's greatest peeping Tom: Google Street View.

From the comfort of a computer, any Internet user anywhere can now zoom in and examine the perfect form of Chichen Itza's Kukulkan pyramid, known also El Castillo, or the Castle.

On Google Street View, a viewer can almost feel like they might tumble into the Sacred Cenote, or natural sinkhole, where Maya priests practiced ritual sacrifice. Or imagine cavorting on the Plaza of the Thousand Columns. Or maybe do some souvenir browsing, up close and in intensely high resolution.

Google and Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH, announced the new maps last week. Using a 360-degree camera mounted on a bicycle, Google captured "street views" of other major archaeological sites in Mexico, such as Monte Alban in Oaxaca and Teotihuacan outside Mexico City.

Lesser-known Mesoamerican sites are also now mapped by Google Street View, including Tula in the state of Hidalgo and Xochicalco in Morelos.

The Internet search engine has focused its publicity campaign for the new maps on images captured at Chichen Itza, one of Mexico's most storied tourist destinations. But for travelers who have been there, could Google Street View now be better than the real thing?

Consider: A recent (physical) visit to Chichen Itza confirmed that tourists are no longer allowed to climb the Castillo pyramid, no more tackling its famous 91 steps that President Felipe Calderon recently climbed in a widely mocked tourism video.

Visitors can no longer actually, physically cavort among the plaza of the columns. In fact, most of the structures at Chichen Itza these days are off-limits to tourists, who must settle on snapping photos behind wire barriers. Worse, the archaeological zone is also overrun with vendors from the neighboring communities, making a non-virtual visit a somewhat disappointing experience overall.

Since Chichen Itza was declared a new Seven Wonders of the World site in 2007, access has been limited due to concerns over deterioration and also because the site's restoration process is ongoing, said an INAH spokesman.

The same is true at the Palenque zone in Chiapas, the spokesman said, where a visitor like you and me may no longer be able to climb that site's spectacular structures. But on Google, at least, there's a decent shot of a man in an orange polo with a sweat towel on his head.

* Photo: A view of the Kukulkan pyramid, or El Castillo, at the Chichen Itza archaeological site in the Mexican state of Yucatan. Credit: Google, via INAH

Mexico student movement plans more protests against Peña Nieto

** Originally published at World Now:

The student-led movement that emerged in Mexico against president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto is planning another round of protests Sunday. The protests are part of a wave of demonstrations that began almost spontaneously during the presidential campaign and appear to still be drawing big crowds since the July 1 election.

The #YoSoy132 movement, or "I Am 132," said it will call demonstrations in "all public plazas" and at the presidential residence Los Pinos in Mexico City, in rejection of Peña Nieto's victory by more than 3 million votes over his nearest rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Each weekend since the July 1 vote, tens of thousands of people have demonstrated in dozens of cities in Mexico over the apparent victory of Peña Nieto, whose Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ruled for seven decades until its ouster in 2000. The protests have been largely peaceful and almost entirely generated on social media; in fact, Sunday's planned demonstrations are only the second since election day that the #YoSoy132 movement has formally organized.

In one grassroots demonstration July 7, protesters stormed the live televised wedding of an actor and actress tied to the Televisa network. Televisa is a target of demonstrators who allege that the dominant media conglomerate in Mexico favored Peña Nieto's candidacy.

Protests have been buoyed by a string of reports that suggest the PRI campaign "bought" votes by handing out debit cards and allegations from rivals that it topped campaign spending limits -- including possibly laundered money -- in its effort to return the party to power.

The PRI denounced the allegations but acknowledged before federal investigators that it handed out debit cards to supporters, a practice the party claims is legal.

The second-place finisher, leftist stalwart Lopez Obrador, said he would seek to nullify the election result through Mexico's electoral tribunal system, and promised public "informative assemblies" of his own this month and in August. The leaders of both the main liberal and conservative parties said Thursday they would join forces to challenge the PRI victory over new allegations that some debit cards could be tied to sham companies formed by PRI supporters that served as fronts for laundering illicit money.

The transition of political power is scheduled for December. Lopez Obrador's declared "National Plan in Defense of Democracy and Mexico's Dignity" looks to repeat the movement he started in 2006 after he was defeated in his first presidential bid by less than half a percentage point.

The #YoSoy132 movement is thus left walking a narrow line between maintaining a non-partisan stance but supporting the broader goal of nullifying the election results.

Because of its arduous decision-making process, in which consensus must be reached on major points, the student movement has been unable to articulate a long-term plan in the likelihood that Peña Nieto takes office. More so-called "inter-university assemblies" are planned in the coming weeks.

In two conventions held recently outside Mexico City, one in a town in Morelos state and one in the political flash-point of San Salvador Atenco, participants said the movement resisted some internal pressure to support Lopez Obrador or the youth-oriented wing of his political movement.

"We remain non-partisan," Rodrigo Serrano, a student-movement spokesman at the Ibero-American University, said Friday. "We couldn't ... support [Lopez Obrador] because our original rules don't allow it."

The "I Am 132" movement is named after a Twitter hashtag that emerged in response to a YouTube video by students at the Ibero-American University, after a contentious Peña Nieto appearance there on May 11. On its website, #YoSoy132 has also begun circulating a question-and-answer video on the movement's origins and the claims made against it.

* Photo: Demonstrators gather to protest the results of the July 1 presidential election in the central plaza of Guadalajara, capital of the western state of Jalisco, July 7, 2012. Credit: Ulises Ruiz Basturto / European Pressphoto Agency

To be a journalist in Mexico

 

Watch the video above, I implore you. Support, ponder, and bear witness. A democracy in Mexico cannot survive without the women and men you see here.

Mexicans protesting election results crash televised wedding

** Originally published at World Now:

They were images that could not have been scripted with any more dramatic irony. Come to think it, it looked quite a bit like a network-produced telenovela. Just gone painfully wrong.

During the latest wave of demonstrations against the results of the July 1 elections in Mexico, protesters in Mexico City on Saturday converged on a colonial church downtown and began chanting and shouting from the outside while an actor's wedding took place inside.

The wedding of comedian Eugenio Derbez and actress and singer Alessandra Rosaldo was being aired live on the Canal de las Estrellas, the entertainment channel belonging the dominant media conglomerate Televisa. Televised weddings are a customary practice for a channel that tends to employ Televisa personalities' real lives as fodder for programming.

Protesters who had gathered by the tens of thousands in central Mexico City apparently got word of the televised event and dozens marched to the church from the Zocalo main square, reports said.

"Fraud! Fraud! Fraud!" the protesters shouted.

The chanting was audible over the Televisa live feed, making for excruciating footage as the bride and groom attempted to stick to their vows while the ruckus was heard loudly and clearly. See unofficial video here and a longer clip here.

There were no reports of arrests or injuries. But the incident stood out as an uncontrollable and spontaneous hijacking of air time in a tense period for Mexico's political and media establishment. Demonstrations have continued in several cities in rejection of apparent president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Activists have rejected the election results due in part to widespread reports of vote-buying by the PRI. They are also targeting Televisa, which controls nearly all of Mexico's television channels in a duopoly formed with second network TV Azteca, and which they accuse of giving favorable coverage to Peña Nieto and the PRI for years.

Derbez, known for his role on the slapstick program "La Familia Peluche," is presumably enjoying his honeymoon and has not made public comments since the wedding. But on his Twitter account, the actor retweeted a message from a supporter claiming Derbez did not support Peña Nieto in the election and the demonstrators were "sheep."

Televisa's breezy newscast report on the Derbez-Rosaldo wedding does make a mention of the protesters, perhaps in acknowledgment that their shouting could not be ignored or edited out. 

Separately, in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, a man identified as a member of the PRI was arrested and jailed after he pointed a pistol at election protesters from a restaurant balcony in the capital city of Xalapa during Saturday demonstrations.

Juan Pablo Franzoni Martinez, a PRI activist and restaurant investor, was detained and dragged away by police as his pants were coming down, creating embarrassing images that were then promptly ridiculed on Twitter. Authorities in Veracruz said Franzoni was booked on charges of threatening the protesters and for illegally carrying a firearm.

There's plenty of video circulating of that incident, too.

Mexico's leftist candidate has high hopes, fervent supporters

** Originally published on June 27, in the print edition of the Los Angeles Times:

TLAXCALA, Mexico — His razor-thin defeat in the 2006 presidential election spiraled into a contentious political melodrama that divided Mexican society after he refused to accept the results.

Now Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is running again, his second and presumably last attempt to become Mexico's first leftist president in modern times.

"We are going to win the presidency of the country once more," the former mayor of Mexico City proclaimed triumphantly during a campaign stop last week in this small colonial center east of the capital.

Once again, his optimism may belie the facts on the ground. In national polls, he continues to lag far behind Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, although he says his own internal polling shows him running neck and neck.

Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, has been gaining slightly in national polls since the race began in March, capitalizing on discontent with two successive governments under the ruling National Action Party, or PAN, and on lingering distrust of Peña Nieto and the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Wrapped in a long wool serape thrown on him as he inched his way through throngs of supporters, Lopez Obrador described his "adversaries" as "desperate," detailing what he views as a conspiracy of television and political propaganda to "impose" front-runner Peña Nieto on the public.

The crowd booed, jeered and banged on drums. "May God never will it," a woman huffed near the podium.

This week, Lopez Obrador called on PRD supporters to be vigilant observers at polling places Sunday in case the PRI or PAN attempted to steal votes or stuff ballot boxes, which his campaign claims occurred widely in 2006.

Silver-haired at 58, Lopez Obrador inspires fervent passion in supporters — and profound angst among his many critics.

Mexico election candidates rally thousands in final days of race

** Originally published at World Now:

Mexico's presidential campaign entered the home stretch Monday, with less than a week left until voters cast ballots in a race that could return the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, to power. The PRI ruled virtually unchallenged and often with a heavy hand for 71 years before losing the presidency in 2000.

The top three candidates crisscrossed the country over the weekend rallying thousands of supporters at huge events in the final days of official campaigning.

The PRI's poll-leading candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, on Sunday held a closing rally at the cavernous Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. Leftist coalition candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, runner-up in the 2006 election, closed his campaign in the capitals of western states Nayarit and Jalisco.

Josefina Vazquez Mota of the incumbent National Action Party, or PAN, rallied supporters in the port city of Coatzacoalcos, in the state of Veracruz.

"I am not like the PRI candidate who has brought a foreigner to take care of our families," Vazquez Mota said, in reference to Peña Nieto's appointment of Gen. Oscar Naranjo of Colombia to be an external advisor in security matters if he wins.

Mexicans will vote Sunday, in balloting that will also pick senators and deputies in Congress and six governors in races that could similarly see gains for the PRI, polls show. The PAN could lose two states it currently governs, Morelos and Jalisco, which have seen increases in violence tied to the government's campaign against organized crime.

The presidential campaign took an interesting twist after student-led demonstrations against the possible return of the PRI began in Mexico City in May and spread across the country.

The #YoSoy 132 movement managed to organize Mexico's first non-official "citizens debate" online June 19, with three of four candidates. Peña Nieto declined to attend, saying he believed the movement opposed his candidacy.

Another large demonstration against Peña Nieto was held in the center of Mexico City on Sunday. But despite the protests, most polls still show him withstanding early fumbles and maintaining his lead.

Throughout the campaign, Peña Nieto, 45, has been forced to reassure observers of his credentials to govern. In December, he was unable to name three books that influenced his life, and allegations have surfaced during the campaign that a former PRI governor of the violence-plagued state of Tamaulipas, Tomas Yarrington, has ties to drug traffickers.

The PRI ruled the country from the end of the Mexican Revolution until it was voted out in 2000. Opponents fear its return could lead to authoritarian echoes of the past, such as repression and censorship.

Peña Nieto has campaigned on a message of inclusion, and has mostly refrained from attacking his opponents.

"I propose to the nation a plainly democratic presidency," he said Sunday. "I am part of a generation that has grown up with democracy and I aspire to be a president that governs by respecting liberties, listening to all and including the voices of everyone."

All three candidates have essentially similar security platforms, The Times reported Sunday, suggesting that the election is unlikely to reshape the drug war that has left more than 50,000 dead and scores missing in nearly six years.

Since 2000, two successive center-right governments under the PAN saw economic stability but few significant reforms. Drug-related violence has exploded since 2006. Vazquez Mota has dipped to third in some polls, in a sign of weariness with the results of the drug war.

On the left, charismatic populist Lopez Obrador remains at least 10 points behind Peña Nieto. He asked supporters Sunday to use social networks to "guard the vote" to avoid a repeat of the contested results in 2006, which saw him lose by 0.56 point.

"I want to clarify this so that no one will think it's a small thing we're looking for," Lopez Obrador said in Guadalajara. "It's not only about reaching a public office. What we want is to achieve the rebirth of Mexico."

Also on Sunday, at least 26 people died when a passenger bus plunged off a road in the southern state of Guerrero. The victims were identified as supporters of the Democratic Revolution Party who were headed to a campaign event to support a minor leftist party candidate for a local mayoral race.

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-- Daniel Hernandez

* Photo: Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, center in white shirt, rallies supporters at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City on Sunday. He stands with Beatriz Paredes, PRI candidate for mayor of Mexico City, left, and his wife, actress Angelica Rivera. Credit: Alex Cruz / European Pressphoto Agency

Desperate senior crawls under truck to see candidate

Here's an elderly man -- he seemed to be about 75 -- who is literaly crawling under a big rig truck to get one last glimpse of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador today in Tlaxcala, the tiny state in the antiplano north of Puebla.

As "AMLO" attempted to leave the closure of his campaign in this state, squeezing into his campaign minivan to head down to Veracruz, the customary chaos ensued. This truck stood in this man's way. Others were doing it, too. ... Why?

Mexico cancels mega-resort project near Baja California reef

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's government on Friday halted a controversial mega-resort development in Baja California Sur after environmentalists said it would have threatened a large coral reef in the Sea of Cortes that has rebounded dramatically from years of damage.

The government canceled the proposed Cabo Cortes project by withdrawing provisional permits first granted in 2008 to the Madrid-based company Hansa Baja Investments. President Felipe Calderon said at the presidential residence Los Pinos that the company failed to provide enough proof that the project would not harm the rich biodiversity of the nearby Cabo Pulmo National Park.

The protected marine reserve of more than 17,550 acres -- most of it at sea near Cabo San Lucas -- has become  a symbol of environmental renewal after years of overfishing in the area.

"Due to [the project's] magnitude, we needed absolute certainty that no irreversible damage would be generated, and that absolutely certainty, simply and plainly, was not generated," Calderon said.

The Spanish company did not immediately react to the cancellation of the project. Hansa Baja Investments reportedly has been hard-hit by the Eurozone financial crisis.

Nonprofit groups, environmental advocates and researchers in Mexico campaigned heavily to stop the Cancun-size Cabo Cortes development, arguing that the proposed marina and 30,000-room hotel would be built too close to the reserve, one of the largest and most important in the country.

Since the Cabo Pulmo reserve was established in 1995, the total amount of fish rose by more than 460%  over a 10-year period, according to a 2011 study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

Greenpeace Mexico said in a statement that more than 220,000 citizen signatures opposing the project were delivered to the federal government last week. The group hailed Calderon's decision as a victory but said that it would still press for investigations of authorities in Mexico's environmental agency over the Cabo Cortes development's permit process.

"The Cabo Cortes project was not only unsustainable, it was also illegal," said Greenpeace Mexico Executive Director Patricia Arendar. "Mexico needs accountability, transparency in the authorization of projects of this kind, and guarantees that environmental rights will be respected."

* Photo: An undated photograph of a humpback whale at the Cabo Pulmo National Park marine reserve. Credit: Prometeo Lucero / Greenpeace

Crowds in Mexico protest leading presidential candidate

** Originally published at World Now:

Tens of thousands of protesters streamed through Mexico's capital and rallied at the Angel of Independence monument Sunday in another large demonstration against the country's mainstream media and the former ruling political party.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, whose rule over Mexico for much of the 20th century was marked by corruption and authoritarianism, is poised to return to power in the July 1 presidential election.

"All the people have just had it up to here that the government manipulates us," said Misael Nava, 28, a native of the state of former Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto of PRI, the leading candidate.

Nava stood among crowds that rallied for up to eight hours against Peña Nieto.

The student-led # YoSoy132 movement, or I Am 132, organized concurrent protests in at least 17 other cities in Mexico as the four presidential candidates prepared to meet for their last official debate Sunday night in Guadalajara. In the race, Peña Nieto is leading by double digits.

Protesters claim the PRI is favored by the media duopoly of Televisa and TV Azteca, which they suspect organized a propaganda campaign against the leftist candidate in the 2006 election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The former Mexico City mayor is running again and moving into second place behind Peña Nieto after demonstrations against the possible return of the PRI began one month ago.

Sunday's demonstrations spread to other sites in the city, including the Televisa studios near downtown. Students in the I Am 132 movement, roused by a contentious appearance by Peña Nieto at a private university, said they were also marking the anniversary of a 1971 student massacre blamed on the then-ruling PRI government.

"I have a son of 11 and a daughter of 9, and I'm here to show them to not be indifferent to what happens in their country," said Regina Soto, who held up home-made signs with her two children.

"They don't want the PRI to win. We want clean elections where we decide who gets to govern us," she said.

Most demonstrators stood by an early pledge in the movement to remain nonpartisan, but the demonstrations have led to slight gains for Lopez Obrador in some polls. The other main candidate, Josefina Vazquez Mota, has dipped to third.

Protesters said they would work to keep the movement past the July 1 election, regardless of who wins.

* Photo: A view of the Paseo de Reforma avenue in central Mexico CIty during Sunday's large demonstration against the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and the major news media in Mexico.

On voting for the first time for president in Mexico

From Latino USA:

Writer Daniel Hernandez was already disappointed in US politics when he moved to his parents’ home country of Mexico almost five years ago. Now that he is registered to vote in Mexico for the first time he has found old problems in the political system of his new home.

Go here for the audio file and program of my radio essay for Latino USA with Maria Hinojosa on National Public Radio. Here's Latino USA's news report on the #YoSoy132 movement, with guest journalist Luisa Ortiz Perez. Good stuff.

* Previously, "Mexico students plan protests as second presidential debate nears."

Busty hostess steals limelight in Mexico presidential debate

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- It was, in a manner of speaking, the biggest moment of Sunday night's presidential debate in Mexico.

To mark the debate's start, a stunning, undeniably well-endowed model took the floor, smiling silently and carrying a box with four pieces of paper in it that candidates drew to see who went first.

The candidates managed a straight face, but at first sight of her, dozens of journalists inside the debate press room at Mexico City's World Trade Center gasped and jeered.

The woman, identified later as a model and former playmate for Mexican Playboy, Julia Orayen, almost immediately became a trending topic on Twitter.

Orayen was serving as an edecan, a role that has long been traditional to formal political, business, or entertainment events in Mexico.

The edecan is a sort of hostess who stands during meetings or parties to help guide or coordinate guests. They are usually attractive young women with long hair who wear sexy dresses and heels, a feature of Mexican public life that some consider a throwback to the culture's more macho tendencies.

"Who won the debate?" one Twitter user quipped. "Edecan: 93%."

As photos of the debate's busty model kept abuzz online overnight, analysts and even some of the candidates on Monday morning took the edecan as a topic serious enough to discuss on the morning news radio programs.

Speaking to host Carmen Aristegui, presidential candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota said she thought Orayen was "very attractive" but that her dress was inappropriate for the generally serious nature of the debate, the first of two organized by the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE.

"The truth is, Carmen, I want to say that suddenly I was surprised, and I [thought], 'Well, what sort of event are we attending here?'"

Playing defense, a member of the IFE's governing council said that the edecan was hired by an independent production company contracted to organize the debate, but Councilor Alfredo Figueroa would not identify the producer (link in Spanish).

"We asked the producer that there be no elements of distraction, for a sober dress," Figueroa said.

Orayen had her own opinion on the matter. The model told W Radio host Brozo -- who wears a clown costume -- that she felt "weird" by the sudden surge of attention. 

"I just got a call to be there, I didn't know what it was going to be about, and much less that it would have such an impact for 30 seconds," Orayen said.

"The costume ... intrigued me," Brozo replied.

"I got a call for a white dress. I took many options, and this was the one chosen by me," she said.

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* Image: In a screen shot of Sunday's video feed of the presidential debate in Mexico, model Julia Orayen carries a clear box to each of the candidates. Credit: Twitpic.com, via Twitter

Mexican reporter killed in another case unlikely to be solved

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- If the long list of unsolved murders of journalists in Mexico offers any indication, there is little likelihood that justice will be reached in the weekend death of magazine reporter Regina Martinez.

Little chance of a credible arrest. Little chance of charges or a successful prosecution for her killer or killers.

The 49-year-old journalist was found dead in her home in the state of Veracruz on Saturday, beaten and strangled to death. She was a correspondent for the national investigative news magazine Proceso and based in Xalapa, the capital of a coastal state where violence and corresponding impunity are widespread.

A neighbor called police after noticing Martinez's front door was left open since morning. The day before, Martinez was reporting on municipal police officers arrested for alleged links to organized crime. Throughout her career, Martinez reported on organized crime and corruption, including a 2007 case of the rape and killing of a indigenous woman at the hands of Mexican soldiers.

Martinez, a native of the state she covered, is at least the fourth journalist killed in Veracruz since Gov. Javier Duarte took office in late 2010, reports have noted.

Last year, a newspaper columnist and his wife and son were shot to death during an ambush in their home. A woman covering crime in the port of Veracruz was found decapitated. And a rural Veracruz columnist was kidnapped in March and found dead in May.

All those cases remain unsolved, said Mike O'Connor, a representative in Mexico for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which says that more than 40 journalists have been killed or have disappeared throughout the country since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006.

The Duarte administration said it was investigating Martinez's murder and formed a special commission Sunday that includes the participation of Proceso's founder, Julio Scherer. But "given the history, there's very little likelihood that there will be justice in this case," O'Connor said.

Already, Veracruz prosecutors said one line of investigation is that Martinez may have been killed in a robbery. Two cellphones, a laptop computer and plasma television screen were stolen, they said.

"That is how they are going to minimize the gravity of this murder," Jose Gil Olmos, a fellow reporter for Proceso, said in an interview on Monday. "It is a message of power and impunity. That is the lesson of this act."

Calls made to the Veracruz state government were not returned.

Nationally, efforts to protect news gatherers during 5-1/2 years of high drug violence have been feeble or ineffective. The post of special federal prosecutor to investigate crimes against "freedom of expression" was created in 2006. But it has mainly operated as a revolving door for bureaucrats, and closed no significant cases. The latest official tapped to head the post was appointed in February.

On Monday, as previously scheduled, the lower house of Congress unanimously passed legislation meant to further help protect reporters (link in Spanish). Martinez's killing was memorialized from the chamber's floor with a minute of silence. But press advocates, in exasperation, said the basic problem remains. Killers are rarely brought to justice.

"There is simulation by the state," said Antonio Martinez, spokesman for Articulo 19, a free-speech advocacy group. "We have more than enough mechanisms for protection. Nevertheless, they fail to attack the impunity."

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Photos, from top: Journalists embrace during a demonstration in Mexico City condemning the killing of fellow journalist Regina Martinez in Veracruz on Saturday (Credit: Marco Ugarte / Associated Press);  Martinez, in an undated photograph (Revista Proceso).

Mexican ex-general once accused of narco ties is shot dead

** Originally published on April 22 at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- A gunman has shot and killed a retired Mexican army general at a garage in Mexico City, authorities said.

Gen. Mario Acosta Chaparro was accused in 2000 of ties to the Juarez drug cartel in northern Mexico, but later exonerated. A lone gunman shot him three times in the upper body late Friday afternoon at a garage in the Anahuac district, on Mexico City's central-west side, authorities said. Witnesses said the gunman then fled on a motorcycle, the Mexico City attorney general's office reported.

Acosta, 70, who survived a shooting attempt in 2010, is the second retired general to be assassinated in Mexico City in the last year.

In May 2011, retired Gen. Jorge Juarez Loera was shot in Ciudad Satelite, a northwest suburb. Theoutspoken general had overseen Joint Operation Chihuahua, a military-led campaign targeting drug traffickers in the northern border state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juarez, the violence-plagued base of the Juarez cartel, is located.

Acosta Chaparro was accused in 2000 of ties to the late Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who for years led the Juarez cartel. Acosta Chaparro was sentenced by a military tribunal in 2002 to a minimum of 15 years in prison for ties to drug traffickers. The federal attorney general's office exonerated him in 2007, and the general retired in 2008, reports said. 

Mexico City Atty. Gen. Jesus Rodriguez Almeida told reporters Friday evening that authorities had not yet established a motive for the killing, and that his office would continue its investigation.

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* Photo: Retired Gen. Mario Acosta Chaparro is escorted by military police into a military court trial Oct. 31, 2002, in Mexico City. Credit: Victor R. Caivano / Associated Press

Leading Mexico candidate, actress wife star in reality TV campaign ads

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- The campaign for the front-runner in Mexico's presidential election is producing reality TV-style documentary videos that show him kissing and flirting with his wife, eating ice cream and returning home after a day on the campaign trail to hug his daughters.

The videos constitute a new level in the blurring of lines between politics and pop media in Mexico, and appear to be energizing support among voters.

Enrique Peña Nieto, galloping toward the July 1 vote with a double-digit lead over his two main rivals, would be the first president from the former ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the 21st century. The PRI, often labeled through its history as quasi-authoritarian, was booted from power in 2000.

The videos primarily star Peña Nieto's wife, telenovela actress Angelica Rivera, and are narrated from her perspective under the title, "What My Eyes See, and What My Heart Feel" (links in Spanish). In them, she follows her husband to campaign events and chats with him between stops in clips that feel like journals or diary entries.

One ends with Peña, 45, and Rivera, 41, arriving home and letting the viewer in on plans for an evening of dinner, bathing and bedtime. In another, he samples local ice cream. Here's a new clip from a stop in Villahermosa, in the state of Tabasco:

The videos are meant to show an informal, intimate side of the couple, who married in 2010 after the sudden death in 2007 of Peña Nieto's first wife, Monica Pretelini, while he governed the central state of Mexico. The clips have garnered thousands of views on YouTube and "likes" on Facebook. There, Rivera's public page frequently posts casual snapshots of her and her family.

Political advertising in Mexico's two most recent presidential campaigns, won by Vicente Fox in 2000 and fellow conservative Felipe Calderon in 2006, has moved steadily toward a more U.S.-style media approach. The PRI's effort this year takes the current social-media orientation of Mexican politics to a new level.

Peña Nieto personifies the trend, making some political commentators bemoan the nature of the 2012 race. In a Jan. 27 column in the daily Reforma, author Juan Villoro called Peña Nieto a "political hologram" and a "tele-candidate."

"There is no election today that is not decided in the media," Villoro wrote. "Trusting in this precept, the PRI has chosen a telegenic candidate. The problem is that he appears to have little more than luminous wrapping."

U.S. officials in Mexico have been watching Peña Nieto's rise for years, noting his telegenic qualities since the start, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables. One of those cables from 2009 relays a description of Peña Nieto as "a pretty face with nationwide appeal, but lacking in substance and political savvy."

His strongest detractors early on were apparently concentrated within his own party, the leaked cables show. In another from 2009, contacts inside the PRI told U.S. officials that they believed Peña was "paying media outlets under the table for favorable news coverage, as well as potentially financing pollsters to sway survey results."

His campaign has carefully guarded his public appearances, and the videos in "What My Eyes See, and What My Heart Feels," although edited with an unscripted, chop-and-cut flair, are no different.

During his first campaign stop in the city of Oaxaca, for example, Rivera's video diary showed an upbeat Peña Nieto greeting supporters at the city's central plaza but no images of the crowds of demonstrators who had gathered to protest the PRI machine.

The party isn't alone in pumping funds into sleek documentary-style video spots.

The campaign for Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate for the conservative National Action Party, released a video Wednesday documenting her visit that day to the prestigious Tecnologico de Monterrey university.

In it, she speaks to students in an auditorium, then responds to a protestor who yells at her from the audience. The nature of the protestor's complaint, however, is not specified, and neither is the candidate's response, for that matter. Instead, the video ends with a crescendo of music and the candidate calling over applause, "Do not tire of truth! Do not tire of liberty!"

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Photo: Institutional Revolutionary Party presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, center, and his wife, actress Angelica Rivera, left, during a campaign stop in Papantla, Veracruz, on April 13. Credit: Peña Nieto campaign

Mexico's 'Popo' volcano shoots glowing rocks

** Originally published at World Now:

Glowing red rocks were thrown from the top of the active Popocatepetl volcano at dawn Friday, producing more spectacular (and slightly frightening) images from the peak southeast of populous Mexico City. But authorities did not raise the alert level for a potential major eruption.

"Popo" or "Don Goyo," as the volcano is affectionately known, has been shooting plumes of ash, gas and rocks for a week. Residents of the semirural communities near the volcano have reported hearing hours of "low-pitched roaring" emanating from the 17,887-foot Popocatepetl.

President Felipe Calderon said Friday during a meeting with governors of the peak's neighboring states that the government is prepared, in case evacuations become necessary. Authorities said contingency plans are ready if the volcanic activity threatens residents in the states of Mexico, Puebla and Morelos.

"The volcano is in command," said Roberto Quaas, director of Mexico's National Disaster Prevention Center. 

The government has not raised its alert level on the volcano since Monday. Yet a week of sustained exhalations has produced worry among some Mexicans who live near "Popo," which is visible from some points of Mexico City on days with relatively low pollution.

An estimated 5 million people would be directly affected by a large-scale eruption, and some 19 million other people live near the volcano.

Popocatepetl, which means "smoking mountain" in the Aztec's language Nahuatl, dominates much of the landscape in central Mexico along with its "twin" volcano, the dormant Iztaccihuatl.

Popo spews gas, ash; authorities raise alert

** Originally published at World Now:

Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano has ramped up activity in recent days, spewing ash and gas and prompting authorities to raise the alert level for neighboring communities in the states of Mexico, Morelos, Tlaxcala and Puebla.

The federal government said "Popo," as the volcano is commonly known, has been spewing red-hot rocks and also seen its lava dome expand in recent days. Ash has fallen on some communities and glowing light has been photographed atop the 17,887-foot peak at night.

The volcano has "exhaled" at least 14 times since Friday, said a recorded message at the National Disaster Prevention Center. Popo, located about 50 miles southeast of Mexico City, has been increasingly active in recent months, the center said. Late Monday, the official alert level for the volcano was raised a notch, but remained short of a grade that would require evacuations.  

Separately, Mexico has been rattled in recent weeks by a series of strong earthquakes, including a 7.4 temblor on March 20 that briefly prompted a false rumor of a rising volcano near the quake's epicenter in the state of Guerrero.

* Photo: Ash and smoke rise from Popocatepetl volcano, as seen from the town of Xalitzintla in the central state of Puebla on Tuesday. Credit: Pablo Spencer/AFP/Getty Images

Poll: Mexicans more afraid to walk alone at night

** Originally published at World Now:

Mexicans' trust in their military and national police has steadily declined since 2007, the first full year of President Felipe Calderon's war against drug cartels, a new Gallup poll says.

The poll released last week also finds that most Mexicans said they felt less safe walking alone at night in 2011 than they did in 2007.

The findings suggest that two key points of perception in Mexico's conflict -- safety and confidence in authorities -- have eroded since the start of the military-led campaign in late 2006.

In the poll, 56% of Mexicans said they didn't feel safe walking alone at night in their city or neighborhood in 2011, in contrast to 57% who said they felt safe walking alone at night in 2007.

The poll shows a steady decline of confidence in the military, from 64% in 2007 to 58% in 2011. Only 38% of respondents expressed confidence in the government in 2011, and 35% said they trusted the federal police, down significantly from 50% in 2007, Gallup reports.

allup said it has polled approximately 1,000 Mexican citizens 15 or older, in face-to-face interviews, starting in July 2007.

As Mexico's drug war nears the six-year mark, more than 50,000 people have been killed in related violence and thousands more are missing.

The Gallup poll measures public perceptions of safety and security institutions in Mexico through  December. Recent data released by Mexico's national statistics institute, however, indicate that public safety perception has improved as recently as last month.

INEGI, as the institute is known by its Spanish acronym, said its Public Safety Perception Index rose 5.5 points in March 2012 from March 2011 (pdf link in Spanish). The index measures how safe Mexicans feel walking in the area where they live between 4 and 7 p.m.

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Photo: Soldiers and federal police inspect a car that police said contains four human heads in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco on March 22. Violence continues in Acapulco as drug gangs battle for control of the region. Credit: Bernandino Hernandez / Associated Press

Back home in Mexico wearing U.S. military surplus

What does it mean that Mexican migrants are returning to their home lands, starting up farms, and wearing U.S. military surplus while doing it?

In this report in the Christian Science Monitor, the workers followed by reporter Sarah Miller Llana all appear to be wearing recent U.S. military surplus, clothes concievably manufactured for the United States's war campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Here are more:

So, Mexican workers pushed north to the United States by the economic realities in both countries, returning home to Guanajuato after the U.S. downturn, and starting up new farms wearing soldier gear? No idea.

Read the full report here, another homage to "net zero migration," and the video of the guys here. A strong, deeply reported story.

Death toll is 2 in Mexico quake; no volcano

** Originally published at World Now:

Two people have died after last week's large earthquake in Mexico, the first casualties reported since the magnitude 7.4 quake shook densely populated Mexico City and damaged thousands of homes across several southern states.

The mayor of a municipality in Guerrero state, near the border with Oaxaca and near the quake epicenter, said that one man died of his injuries after a wall fell on him and that another man died from complications of a heart attack suffered during the quake.

The deaths in the Cuajinicuilapa municipality were reported to the federal government during a tour Friday of the largely rural zone by Social Development Secretary Heriberto Felix Guerra.

Previously, no deaths and no major damages had been reported since the quake, which was centered in Ometepec, Guerrero state.

It was one of the largest seismic events in Mexico since the devastating magnitude 8 quake of 1985 that left more than 10,000 dead. (A quake of equal magnitude hit western Mexico in 1995, killing 49, and a quake measuring 7.6 hit the same region in 2003.)

The low death toll in Tuesday's quake suggests Mexico's progress on earthquake preparedness since 1985 makes the country a "model for preparedness in the developing world," said an online story by Nature. 

Mexico's interior secretariat said 29 municipalities in Guerrero would receive funds for damage to homes and buildings during the quake. Thousands were damaged in Guerrero and Oaxaca, officials said.

Separately, the geophysics institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico released a statement contesting a claim made by Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre that caused a brief buzz on social networking sites. The governor said Thursday that the university's geophysicists were headed to the quake zone to determine whether a small volcano was emerging and therefore causing the seismic activity.

The institute said it was routine to send analysts to earthquake epicenters to study seismic activity after a large quake. "The earthquake ... had a non-volcanic origin," the statement said.

On Sunday, a quake measuring 7.1 hit Chile, resulting in no deaths.

More snapshots from Monterrey, NRMAL fest *

El Festival NRMAL fue *laaaaa onda.* Pero la otra realidad pica.

From Wikileaks: "While there is public concern about the influence of the cartels, civil society is in general unaware of the degree to which the cartels have infiltrated key state and municipal institutions. All of the region's police forces are controlled by organized crime. In the case of San Pedro, the ABL cartel called the shots although a 15-person advance squad from la Familia was present in the city and trying to gain a foothold among the police force. (Separately, the former San Pedro Secretary of Public Security reports that La Familia has been engaged in such efforts intermittently since 2006.) As for the other police forces in the area, the Gulf Cartel was the true master. In general, and as was the case in San Pedro, the cartels did not attempt to bribe the municipal secretaries of public security, but bought off the number two and number three level officials on the force. Note: The mid-September detention by state law enforcement authorities of the Municipal Secretary for Public Security of Santiago (a Monterrey suburb) would represent an exception to this rule. End Note."

NRMAL music festival shows different side of Mexico

** Originally published in the L.A. Times Calendar section:

REPORTING FROM SAN PEDRO GARZA GARCIA, MEXICO -- Oakland-bred Raka Rich brought the flow of California hip-hop, in Spanish.

Puerto Rico's Davila 666 ignited a wild mosh-pit with its Latin-tinged punk.

And all kinds of new Mexican acts — as varied as Juan Cirerol of Mexicali and cumbia-rockers Sonido San Francisco — showed that Mexico's independent music scene just might be at its most dynamic in years. Over 12 hours on Saturday, some 4,500 fans gathered to hear more than 50 international acts at a sonically diverse annual music festival called NRMAL.

The name belies the fact that nothing here can be taken for granted. Not only was it the biggest NRMAL fest held in the past three years, but the fact that it took place in this industrial city of more than 4 million without any serious trouble makes it even more of a triumph.

Metropolitan Monterrey is currently a battleground in Mexico's ongoing drug war, where a string of deadly tragedies such as the last August's Casino Royale massacre, in which 52 people died after drug traffickers torched a casino, have traumatized a once-proud hub of industry and innovation.

The storied Monterrey night life that was once centered around the Barrio Antiguo neighborhood is all but dead after a series of shootings with multiple fatalities at popular night spots. Many musicians who in previous years helped make Monterrey an incubator for new Latino sounds — groups such as Kinky or newer rockers She's a Tease — have migrated to safer centers such as Mexico City or to the United States.

"There was sadness, deception, uncertainty, a lack of will to get things done," said NRMAL organizer Pablo Martinez, speaking about the effects of violence on the Monterrey scene. "I think the fruits of staying standing through this year is this festival."

The outdoor fete, with bands spread over three stages all day long, was a stylish yet friendly event where security was casual and the boundary between the performing musicians and the fans was almost nonexistent.

"This is definitely a cutting-edge festival," said Travis Egedy of Denver punk-rave act Pictureplane as the afternoon got going. "The idea to have a cross-cultural music festival is really important and really cool, getting Americans to play down here for Mexicans."

That welcoming vibe was partly the product of a new spirit of collaboration brought by this year's NRMAL co-curator, Brooklyn DIY promoter Todd P.

In 2010, Todd P. organized a separate festival in Monterrey dubbed MTY MX, competing with the budding NRMAL crew and its first festival. That same year, an outbreak of drug-war violence in Monterrey resulted in many U.S. performers canceling their visits at the last minute. Both festivals struggled.

This year, Todd P. joined forces with NRMAL, setting aside the previous atmosphere of competition. He pumped a New York indie ethos into the lineup with acts he invited such as Prince Rama, Liturgy and Gatekeeper.

"The story line is: It's so bad, things are falling apart and it's chaos," Todd P. said. "I'm here, I'm looking around. It's not falling apart. This is a functioning country. It has problems but it's not the country portrayed in the news."

* Read the rest here.

* Photo: Tijuana goth-pop singer Dani Shivers performs at Festival NRMAL in San Pedro Garza Garcia, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, March 10, 2012.

Left, right, or center? Understanding the brand-names of Mexican politics

** Originally published at World Now:

A leading political party in Mexico this week chose a woman as its candidate for the presidency, a first in the country's history. More interesting, the party that did it is the ruling bastion of Mexican conservatism, the National Action Party, or PAN.

As the July presidential election nears, watchers of world news are sure to be hearing much more about the PAN, its candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota, and her main rivals, Enrique Peña Nieto of the party known as PRI, and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the PRD.

These three main parties are sometimes described in easy categories of left (PRD), right (PAN) and center (PRI), but the reality is far more complex. Here's a primer on how to understand the top political name brands in Mexico heading into the July vote.

Institutional Revolutionary Party

There is easily no more loaded term in Mexican politics than the three letters that make up the acronym of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI. And perhaps no greater oxymoron, some might quip.

It emerged as a consolidating force after the tumult of the Mexican Revolution. Over time, the PRI practically invented brand-name politics. Its name, ideology and even brand colors (same as the national flag) are directly linked to the very concept of the Mexican republic. For many years, the party was the country, and the country was the party.

The PRI developed a patronage system that virtually ensured electoral victory year after year. It soon became synonymous with corruption, disastrous financial mismanagement and violent repression of dissent, as typified by the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968.

In the 1988 presidential election, the PRI was accused of electoral fraud that some claim robbed the outcome from dissident candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, son of a revered former president, when PRI-controlled election authorities announced the vote-counting system "went silent."

When the system returned, the PRI's candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was declared the winner. Salinas went on to lead Mexico through the worst of the PRI's decadence, and by 2000, exasperated Mexicans finally booted their longtime political overlords from power with the election of Vicente Fox of the PAN.

Ever since, the PRI has been mounting its comeback, leading the pack by substantial margins incurrent polls. Claiming it is a "new" PRI, the party has yet to state in a clear fashion that it would govern much differently than before.

Candidate: Enrique Peña Nieto

Campaign color: Red

National Action Party

National Action is the party that unites Catholics and capitalists in Mexico. It is free-market, conservative on social issues and friendly to foreign interests. It casts itself as efficient and effective, but it now faces the same kinds of accusations of corruption and waste as the PRI did in its heyday.

The PAN's roots are also found in the post-Revolutionary period, after the Cristero War, a bloody conflict in which Roman Catholics were persecuted in a wave of anti-clerical sentiments and laws. Counter-revolutionary leaders seeking religious freedom organized themselves in 1939 into a political group, which included some factions that were sympathetic to European fascism.

To this day, the PAN remains the political home for Mexico's devout Catholics.

For decades, PAN survived as the minor opposition to the PRI behemoth, but by the 1980s, growing disillusionment with the PRI made the PAN an attractive alternative.

The first PAN governor was elected in Baja California in 1989, reflecting its early foothold in the more industrial, more "American" north of the country. Today, PAN governs nine states (including several multi-party coalitions) and holds about a third of seats in Congress.

Despite disaffection with two consecutive PAN administrations under Fox and current President Felipe Calderon, the party is hoping a buzz-worthy female candidate could help keep it in power for six more years.

Candidate: Josefina Vazquez Mota

Campaign color: Blue

 

Party of the Democratic Revolution

After the repression of 1968 and the ensuing Dirty War, a generation of political thinkers lost trust in the dominant party for good, and rumblings began for the creation of a new wing of progressive politics. In the aftermath of 1988, the progressives formed the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD. Cardenas was its presidential candidate in 1994 and 2000, finishing third each time.

The PRD gradually built its political base in the populous capital, where it has governed without interruption since 1997. Cardenas remains the "moral leader" of the party, but its figurehead is now Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City.

Lopez Obrador is a polarizing figure. In 2004, he was subjected to a legal attack from the Fox administration, which sought to disqualify him as a future national candidate. The attack failed andbolstered Lopez Obrador's popularity.

But the PRD's goal of finally capturing the 2006 presidency would not be. The PAN campaign under Calderon smeared Lopez Obrador as a "danger to Mexico" and a would-be Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's hard-line leftist president. On election night, authorities said the result was too close to call.

What followed was a wild political drama that saw a partial recount, an early Occupy-style sit-in by the dissatisfied PRD, and an official result of less than 1 percentage point difference between Calderon, the declared winner, and Lopez Obrador, who also declared himself the winner and the "legitimate president."

Lopez Obrador was badly damaged by his decision to shut down the city center and his refusal to accept the official results. For now, the PRD trails in polls behind the PAN and PRI. But two internal factors that worked against the leftist in 2006 are not in his way this time.

First, a minor socialist party that offered a likeable woman candidate in 2006, Patricia Mercado, has since lost its registration and disbanded. (Mercado won nearly 3% of the vote in 2006.)

Second, Cardenas did not publicly support Lopez Obrador's campaign in 2006, a gaping absence rooted in personal differences between the two men. On Monday, a day after Vazquez Mota won the PAN primary, the old PRD leader came out and endorsed Lopez Obrador for president in a show of symbolic leftist unity heading into the 2012 vote.

Candidate: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

Campaign color: Yellow

* Photo: Supporters of a PRI gubernatorial candidate, Eruviel Avila, rally in Toluca, Mexico state, in June 2011. Credit: Alexandre Meneghini / Associated Press

Oh, the Places You'll Go! (At Burning Man)

If you're like most people and have never been to Burning Man, here's a video you won't know whether to love or to hate: A narration of the Dr. Seuss classic "Oh the places you'll go!" by people of the desert-rave "tribe."

Does it melt your heart and brain? (Wait. Should we go this year?)

Raquel Welch for 2012

Raquel Welch singing "Age of Aquarius" and "Let the Sunshine In" at the pyramids of Teotihuacan, via mañanarama, always on the touch.

The costumes are weirdo enough, but the interplay with the ancient archeological site and performers who appear to be native mexicanos is even weirder. Can she come back and do more? Or should we film a re-make?

Feliz año nuevo!