Activists push for Mexico’s GM corn ban to include imports

Cultivating genetically modified corn is banned in Mexico, but the country still imports it from the United States 

Date: Feb. 9, 2022

Source: AlJazeera

No food can rival corn in either material or symbolic importance to Mexico, where the ancient grain was first cultivated some 9,000 years ago. As the saying goes: “sin maíz, no hay país” – no corn, no country.

For Rojas, a spokesperson for the organisation Red Tsiri (Tsiri is the Indigenous Purépecha word for corn), if genetically modified (GM) corn is planted in Mexico, the grain’s great biodiversity and deep cultural knowledge would be threatened.

Mexico currently bans the cultivation of GM corn – a status quo the Supreme Court reinforced in October when it affirmed the right of Mexican authorities to refuse applications to plant GM corn.

But the government appeared to signal that could just be the start of a wider crackdown.

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3.5 million pilgrims converge on Basilica of Guadalupe

Source: Mexico News Daily

Some 3.5 million pilgrims made their way to the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City over the past 12 days to pay their respects to the Virgin of Guadalupe 490 years after her purported apparition on the nearby Tepeyac hill.

While numbers were well down compared to 2018 and 2019 when almost triple that number converged on the pilgrimage site, the faith of the devotees of the venerated virgin was undiminished.

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In Heart of Mexico City, Tourists Embrace Day of the Dead Celebrations

Source: US News

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Foreign tourists and Mexicans taking part in Day of the Dead celebrations flocked to downtown Mexico City on Monday, drawn by elaborate offerings to the departed.

Visitors peered at large altars decorated with chocolate skulls, fruit and freshly-cut marigolds around Zocalo Plaza, Mexico City’s bustling main square built near the ruins of the Aztec Empire’s most holy temples.

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100s more archaeological sites found on Mexico train route

10/22/2021

Source: ABC News

Mexican experts said Thursday they have detected the ruins of almost 2,500 pre-Hispanic structures and 80 burial sites on just one-sixth of the route of the president’s controversial “Maya Train” project on the Yucatan peninsula.

Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History did not say whether any of the remains were disturbed or destroyed by the train project, which in some places runs alongside existing rail lines. It described the ruins as being “on the edge of the project.”

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Mexico’s new culture war: Did a pyramid light show ‘decolonize’ or rewrite history?

10/18/2021

Source: Los Angeles Times

A replica of the Great Temple of the Aztecs, about a third of the size of the original, rose from the floor of the central square of Mexico’s capital this summer like a gargantuan child’s toy, more than 50 feet high, a gleaming form smack in front of the baroque National Palace. At night, the pyramid’s slanting white walls became a video-mapping screen that told a dramatic animated story of the rise and fall of the Mexica, or Aztec Empire — an event that took place 500 years ago, right on this spot in a city on a lake that was once called Tenochtitlan.

Throngs of locals and tourists showed up to watch the 15-minute history show. Vendors walked among the crowds selling Aztec-style souvenir headdresses with colored lights, filling the Zócalo with flashes of revelry.

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World’s 50 best restaurants include 2 in Mexico City

10/08/2021

Source: Mexico News Daily

Two Mexico City restaurants appear on the 2021 list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

Pujol ranks ninth, three places higher than in 2019, while Quintonil took 27th place, down three spots compared to two years ago.

A list wasn’t published last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Italy halts auction of archaeological artifacts on Mexico’s request

09/21/2021

Source: Mexico News Daily

Italian authorities intervened to cancel an auction in Rome at which 17 Mexican archaeological artifacts were to go on the block.

Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto said the timely action of Mexico’s ambassador in Italy, Carlos García de Alba, and the European nation’s chief of police for the protection of cultural heritage, Roberto Riccardi, were crucial to the suspension of the auction, which the Bertolami Fine Arts auction house planned to hold last Thursday.

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Below a pyramid, a treasure trove sheds new light on ancient Mexican rites

09/01/2021

Source: Reuters

More than a decade after Sergio Gomez began excavating a tunnel under a towering Mexican pyramid, the archeologist still spends most of his time studying the massive cache of sacred artifacts carefully placed there by priests some 2,000 years ago.

The volume and variety of objects hidden in the sealed tunnel under Teotihuacan’s ornate Feathered Serpent Pyramid has shattered records for discoveries at the ancient city, once the most populous metropolis of the Americas and now a top tourist draw just outside modern-day Mexico City.

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Mexico: Builders bulldozing outskirts of Teotihuacan ruins

05/26/2021

Source: Associated Press

The Mexican government said Tuesday that a private building project is destroying part of the outskirts of the pre-Hispanic ruin site of Teotihuacán, just north of Mexico City.

The Culture Department said it has repeatedly issued stop-work orders since March but the building crews have ignored them. The department estimated at least 25 ancient structures on the site are threatened, and it has filed a criminal complaint against those responsible.

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Mexican women protest violence via art, breastfeeding

Photo by Wendy Wei on Pexels.com

11/26/19 – AP News

By Amy Guthrie and Ginnette Riquelme

Women’s groups protested at cultural institutions in Mexico’s capital ahead of Monday’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, using painting, crocheting and breastfeeding to call attention to rampant violence and machismo in their country.

Dozens of women painted on a protective barricade around the Angel of Independence monument on the city’s main avenue Sunday while others crocheted purple and pink hearts to string up. The wall was erected after feminists used paint to deface the monument with graffiti in August to decry alleged rapes by police in the capital as well as high rates of murders of women throughout the country.

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