Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Mexico hosts hot air balloon fest
A hot air balloons is getting readied for liftoff.
It's among dozens taking part in the 11th annual Leon International Balloon Festival in Guanajuato, Mexico.
Started in 2002 with just 27 balloons, the festival has
grown to become the biggest in Latin America, drawing pilots from 14
different countries last year.
Peter Pierre, from the United States, says it's his 10th
visit.
SOUNDBITE: Hot Air Balloon Pilot from Fresno, California,
Peter Pierre, saying (English)
"The people have been great, we are very happy to come
down and fly. As you can see the beautiful sky with all of the balloons,
it's always real good flying here, we really enjoy it."
Besides pilots, the festival also attracts thousands of
spectators.
SOUNDBITE: Visitor From Mexico City, Jacqueline Gutierrez,
saying (Spanish)
"The balloons are varied, very colorful, unique to each
company and the idea is good."
A sky filled with dozens of balloons, butterflies and even
Elvis is without a doubt a beautiful sight.
But perhaps the best view is reserved for the pilots who
soar high above Leon's Metropolitan Ecological Park.
Water Sharing update USA and Mexico
The United States and Mexico agreed Tuesday to new rules on sharing
water from the Colorado River, capping a five-year effort on how to
spread the pain of drought and reap the benefits of wet years.
The far-reaching agreement gives Mexico badly needed water storage capacity in Lake Mead, which stretches across Nevada and Arizona.
Mexico will forfeit some of its share of the river during shortages, bringing itself in line with western U.S. states that already have agreed how much they will surrender when waters recede. Mexico also will capture some surpluses when waters rise.
Also under the plan, water agencies in California, Arizona and Nevada will buy water from Mexico, which will use some of the money to upgrade its canals and other infrastructure.
The agreement, coming in the final days of the administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, is a major amendment to a 1944 treaty considered sacred by many south of the border. The treaty grants Mexico 1.5 million acre-feet of river water each year — enough to supply about 3 million homes — making it the lifeblood of Tijuana and other cities in northwest Mexico.
The pact represents a major departure from years of hard feelings in Mexico about how the U.S. manages the 1,450-mile river, which runs from the Rocky Mountains to Mexico. In 2001, U.S. states established rules on how to divide surpluses but set aside nothing for Mexico. Several years later, the U.S. government lined a border canal in California with concrete to prevent water from seeping through the dirt into Mexican farms.
"We have chosen collaboration over conflict, we have chosen cooperation and consensus over discord," said U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who called the new pact the most important international accord on the Colorado River since the 1944 treaty.
Mexico will begin to surrender some of its Colorado River allotment when the elevation in Lake Mead drops to 1,075 feet and begin to reap surpluses when it rises to 1,145 feet. Mexico will be allowed to store up to 250,000 acre-feet of water in the reservoir and draw on nearly all of those reserves whenever needed.
The agreement expires in five years and is being billed as a trial run, potentially making it more palatable in Mexico.
"These are big political steps for Mexico to take," said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which will buy some of Mexico's water. "Chances are we won't have a surplus and we won't have a shortage but, if we do, we'll have the guidelines in place on how we're going to handle it."
In 2007, facing an eight-year drought, California, Arizona and Nevada agreed on how much each state should sacrifice during shortages on the river. That same year, the U.S. and Mexico promised to work on ways to jointly address shortages.
The negotiations gained a sense of urgency for Mexico in 2010 after a magnitude-7.2 earthquake damaged canals and other infrastructure, forcing it to store water temporarily in Lake Mead.
"No matter how sacred the treaty is, and it is, the evidence is overwhelming that you have to adjust it," said Carlos de la Parra, who advised the Mexican government on the agreement.
Los Angeles-based Metropolitan and two other agencies — the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Central Arizona Water Conservation District — will buy water from Mexico as part of $21 million in payments from the U.S. to Mexico that also call for wetland preservation and other environmental measures south of the border.
California's largely agricultural Imperial Irrigation District, the largest single recipient of Colorado River water, refused to sign the agreement because it felt it should have been allowed to buy some of the water from Mexico. U.S. officials said they hoped to address those concerns.
"This is such a historic arrangement that I think, at the end of the day, it's going to be difficult for Imperial not to sign on," Salazar said.
The river is also a major source of water for Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
The far-reaching agreement gives Mexico badly needed water storage capacity in Lake Mead, which stretches across Nevada and Arizona.
Mexico will forfeit some of its share of the river during shortages, bringing itself in line with western U.S. states that already have agreed how much they will surrender when waters recede. Mexico also will capture some surpluses when waters rise.
Also under the plan, water agencies in California, Arizona and Nevada will buy water from Mexico, which will use some of the money to upgrade its canals and other infrastructure.
The agreement, coming in the final days of the administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, is a major amendment to a 1944 treaty considered sacred by many south of the border. The treaty grants Mexico 1.5 million acre-feet of river water each year — enough to supply about 3 million homes — making it the lifeblood of Tijuana and other cities in northwest Mexico.
The pact represents a major departure from years of hard feelings in Mexico about how the U.S. manages the 1,450-mile river, which runs from the Rocky Mountains to Mexico. In 2001, U.S. states established rules on how to divide surpluses but set aside nothing for Mexico. Several years later, the U.S. government lined a border canal in California with concrete to prevent water from seeping through the dirt into Mexican farms.
"We have chosen collaboration over conflict, we have chosen cooperation and consensus over discord," said U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who called the new pact the most important international accord on the Colorado River since the 1944 treaty.
Mexico will begin to surrender some of its Colorado River allotment when the elevation in Lake Mead drops to 1,075 feet and begin to reap surpluses when it rises to 1,145 feet. Mexico will be allowed to store up to 250,000 acre-feet of water in the reservoir and draw on nearly all of those reserves whenever needed.
The agreement expires in five years and is being billed as a trial run, potentially making it more palatable in Mexico.
"These are big political steps for Mexico to take," said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which will buy some of Mexico's water. "Chances are we won't have a surplus and we won't have a shortage but, if we do, we'll have the guidelines in place on how we're going to handle it."
In 2007, facing an eight-year drought, California, Arizona and Nevada agreed on how much each state should sacrifice during shortages on the river. That same year, the U.S. and Mexico promised to work on ways to jointly address shortages.
The negotiations gained a sense of urgency for Mexico in 2010 after a magnitude-7.2 earthquake damaged canals and other infrastructure, forcing it to store water temporarily in Lake Mead.
"No matter how sacred the treaty is, and it is, the evidence is overwhelming that you have to adjust it," said Carlos de la Parra, who advised the Mexican government on the agreement.
Los Angeles-based Metropolitan and two other agencies — the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Central Arizona Water Conservation District — will buy water from Mexico as part of $21 million in payments from the U.S. to Mexico that also call for wetland preservation and other environmental measures south of the border.
California's largely agricultural Imperial Irrigation District, the largest single recipient of Colorado River water, refused to sign the agreement because it felt it should have been allowed to buy some of the water from Mexico. U.S. officials said they hoped to address those concerns.
"This is such a historic arrangement that I think, at the end of the day, it's going to be difficult for Imperial not to sign on," Salazar said.
The river is also a major source of water for Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Monday, November 19, 2012
53,273 illegal immigrants approved so far
Tens of thousands of young illegal
immigrants are taking advantage of President Barack Obama's offer to let
them stay and work in the United States.
The government said Friday it has approved 53,273 applications under the program that began in August to waive deportations of qualifying illegal immigrants who came into the country as children. Altogether, more than 300,000 have applied; requests have been coming in at a rate of 4,827 a day. Most are still under review. Obama announced in June that he would delay deportation of many illegal immigrants under the temporary program. An overhaul of immigration laws is high on his second-term agenda.
Mexico is the main country of origin for the program's applicants. California is their top state of residence, then Texas and New York.
The government said Friday it has approved 53,273 applications under the program that began in August to waive deportations of qualifying illegal immigrants who came into the country as children. Altogether, more than 300,000 have applied; requests have been coming in at a rate of 4,827 a day. Most are still under review. Obama announced in June that he would delay deportation of many illegal immigrants under the temporary program. An overhaul of immigration laws is high on his second-term agenda.
Mexico is the main country of origin for the program's applicants. California is their top state of residence, then Texas and New York.
Mexico has opened up a massive new museum in Cancun just in
time for the world to end on Dec. 21, 2012 -- that is, if you believe in
some of the more radical interpretations of the Maya calendar.
Six years in the making, the massive Museo Maya de Cancun is the largest structure built by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) since the Templo Mayor Museum in 1987. It boasts three exhibition halls of more than 4,400 square feet, as well as two permanent and one temporary venue for international exhibitions.
Six years in the making, the massive Museo Maya de Cancun is the largest structure built by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) since the Templo Mayor Museum in 1987. It boasts three exhibition halls of more than 4,400 square feet, as well as two permanent and one temporary venue for international exhibitions.
Inside, visitors first encounter 14,000-year-old skeletal
remains discovered in the last 12 years in Tulum’s underwater caves,
which offer important clues to the arrival of mankind on the American
continent. Beyond that, they’ll find more than 350 archeological
artifacts, including relics that have never before been shown to the
public and others discovered in recent excavations. The remainder of the
items on display throughout the museum were culled from different
venues like the Museo Regional de Yucatan or “Canton Palace” and the
former Archeological Museum of Cancun.
Some 70 percent of the estimated $15 million project came from the federal government through the INAH. Designed by Mexican architect Alberto Garcia Lascurain and built on an area of over 55,000 square feet, it sits next to the recently opened San Miguelito archeological site, which was inhabited over 800 years ago until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.
Some 70 percent of the estimated $15 million project came from the federal government through the INAH. Designed by Mexican architect Alberto Garcia Lascurain and built on an area of over 55,000 square feet, it sits next to the recently opened San Miguelito archeological site, which was inhabited over 800 years ago until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.
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The Mexican government expects that the museum will attract about a million guests each year and form one of the pillars of the nation’s new push to become a top destination for the type of people who generally have more money and stay longer than the average beachgoer.
Mexico, whose travel and tourism industry now constitutes 13.2 percent of the country's GDP, set aside $10 million for the Mundo Maya 2012 initiative last summer, and it invited four neighboring countries with historic Maya ties -- Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala -- to collaborate. The campaign revolves around the end of the Maya calendar on Dec. 21, 2012, and the beginning of a new era, and it includes aggressive infrastructure investment in roads and facilities to improve access to archeological sites and develop projects like the Maya Museum.
Beyond the money and attention, what Mexico really hopes to get out of the Year of the Maya is a little respect. Sure, the government acknowledges that just 40,000 of its estimated 200,000 archeological sites are properly registered. Sure, just 200 of those are open to the public. But the more Mexico can diversify its tourism offerings away from the beach and into the interior, its tourism board argues, the more it can protect its heritage, draw international crowds from beyond North America and ultimately prosper.
“One of the beauties of tourism is that it spreads social wealth,” Rodolfo López Negrete Coppel, COO and undersecretary of the Mexico Tourism Board, told IBTimes in September. “It reaches the farthest corners of the country, reaches deep in the jungles and to the little villages.”
The Mundo Maya campaign, he said, is like a rallying cry: We’re not just America’s playground south of the border. We’re not just sun, sand and too many tequila shots. We’re a nation with a cultural wealth on par with China or Egypt.
That, he said, was Mexico’s plan for the new era. The new Maya Museum in Cancun is just the beginning.
North America's 1st Black President?
T the first black president in North America was Vicente Guerrero, the second president of the Republic of Mexico in 1829 and was has been immortalized for abolishing slavery in Mexico. 54 years before Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.Guerrero was born in 1783 in a town near Acapulco called Tixtla, which is now located in the state that bears his name. It is the only state named after a former Mexican head of state, and it is the location of the Costa Chica, the traditional home of the Afro-Mexican community in Mexico.
Guerrero joined the fight for Mexico's independence from Spain in 1810, under the leadership of another black man, also a mulatto, General José María Morelos y Pavon, a Catholic priest who played the dominant leadership role in the war until he was killed in combat in 1815. Morelos, like Guerrero, is one of Mexico's greatest heroes. (His face graces the 50 peso bill, and a Mexican state is also named for him.) Within a year of Morelos' death, Guerrero became general of the rebels, fighting guerrilla skirmishes until Mexico was granted its independence in 1821.
Theodore G. Vincent, Guerrero was of mixed African, Spanish and Native American ancestry, and his African ancestry most probably derived from his father, Juan Pedro, whose profession "was in the almost entirely Afro-Mexican profession of mule driver." Some scholars speculate that his paternal grandfather was either a slave, or a descendant of African slaves.
Guerrero ran twice for president, once in 1824 and again in 1828, both times unsuccessfully. Claiming foul play, Guerrero and his supporters rebelled, toppled the new government, and Guerrero became president on April 1, 1829.
On September 16, 1829 -- Mexico's Independence Day -- Guerrero abolished slavery throughout the country, which has led many historians to refer to him as the "Abraham Lincoln of Mexico," though Lincoln more properly should be referred to as "the Vicente Guerrero of the United States." (And this action, by the way, was part of the reason that Texans fought to secede from Mexico a few years later, in 1836; remember the Alamo? Guerrero suffered for his actions: Three months after abolishing slavery, he was driven out of office. Two years later, Guerrero joined the rebel forces fighting against the new government. Betrayed by one of his friends, he was executed in January 1831.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who became the first governor-general of the Independent Republic of Haiti in 1804 Caribbean wa .
Haiti has had two Henri Christophe and Alexandre Pétion were presidents of the divided republic of Haiti: Christophe in the north in 1806, Pétion in the south in 1807.)
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Night of the Stars Mexico
Thousands of Mexicans were taking part Saturday in the 4th “Night of
the Stars” being held at a number of sites around the country under the
guidance of astronomers who will share their knowledge about the
different celestial phenomena.
In Mexico City, residents were invited to take part at the capital’s huge Zocalo plaza and at the Luis Enrique Erro Planetarium of the National Polytechnic Institute, or IPN, where countless telescopes have been installed so they can find and identify stars, planets and galaxies.
The organizers said on their Web site that the program of activities, which began Saturday at noon and was to end Saturday night, includes workshops, conferences and exploring outer space through telescopes.
They said that stargazers can bring their own telescopes if they wish.
“Night of the Stars” began in 2009 in Mexico with the aid of France and has attracted a total of more than 500,000 people to its three previous presentations, which were served by some 15,000 volunteers and provided the public with the use of more than 3,000 telescopes.
According to the organizers, the purpose is to get people familiar with observing the heavens and in that way make science a more deeply rooted part of Mexican culture.
During “Night of the Stars,” participants will be able to increase their knowledge astronomically from the conferences “Astronomers and their Discoveries” with Ana Maria Hidalgo, “Evolution of the Galaxies: Where do they come from and where are they going?” by Isaura Fuentes Carrera, “Traveling to the Frontiers of the Universe” by Hector Osvaldo Castañeda, “Mayan Year” with Ignacio Vega, and “The Mythology of Astronomy through Time” by Wilder Chicana Nuncebay.
In Mexico City, residents were invited to take part at the capital’s huge Zocalo plaza and at the Luis Enrique Erro Planetarium of the National Polytechnic Institute, or IPN, where countless telescopes have been installed so they can find and identify stars, planets and galaxies.
The organizers said on their Web site that the program of activities, which began Saturday at noon and was to end Saturday night, includes workshops, conferences and exploring outer space through telescopes.
They said that stargazers can bring their own telescopes if they wish.
“Night of the Stars” began in 2009 in Mexico with the aid of France and has attracted a total of more than 500,000 people to its three previous presentations, which were served by some 15,000 volunteers and provided the public with the use of more than 3,000 telescopes.
According to the organizers, the purpose is to get people familiar with observing the heavens and in that way make science a more deeply rooted part of Mexican culture.
During “Night of the Stars,” participants will be able to increase their knowledge astronomically from the conferences “Astronomers and their Discoveries” with Ana Maria Hidalgo, “Evolution of the Galaxies: Where do they come from and where are they going?” by Isaura Fuentes Carrera, “Traveling to the Frontiers of the Universe” by Hector Osvaldo Castañeda, “Mayan Year” with Ignacio Vega, and “The Mythology of Astronomy through Time” by Wilder Chicana Nuncebay.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Mexican Black, or Black Gold (Not Oil - Coal).
Mexican business people moved into a new field, a coal field that is. The new wealth for an old product.
Mining is big business you can be a broker buy and sell without being in the business directly. A rich coal area lays along the US border where you can produce or buy from small mine operators, then resell to a state-owned
company at a profit.Along the way, besides the earth's black bounty, the new legal business people reaping credibility as now legitimate business people.
Mexican Mining Association says Mexico produces 15 million tonnes of coal a year, worth $3.8 billion. About 95 percent of it comes from Coahuila State.
The new investors reportedly produce or buy 10,000 tonnes of coal a week. Selling it at a profit, that might dou ble their investment.
Business diversification into the local economy is a natural evolution.
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