This is a very important year for Mexico’s democracy. On 1 July 2012 Mexicans will go to the polls to elect a new president, who will hold office for six years, a new Senate and new Chamber of Deputies as well as numerous state and local officials. How does Mexico’s democracy compare with that of other countries? Recent allegations of bribery related to Wal-Mart de México beg the question: How serious is corruption in Mexico? Mexico has signed several multilateral anti-corruption agreements, and recently passed a stiff anti-corruption law. However, legal instruments alone will not reduce corruption in Mexico, according to Emilio Godoy in his article “Tangled Web of Corruption Debilitates Mexico” (IPS, 10 May 2012). What is needed is aggressive government action as well as dramatic cultural changes among public and private sector officials. This will not be easy, given the existing long-established systems based on patronage, nepotism, cronyism and organized crime. 
In the past few days, Popocatepetl Volcano has continued to emit gas, steam and ashes, periodically shooting ash-laden clouds high into the sky. The columns of ash have risen up to 2500 meters above the volcano before drifting downwind. Depending on the wind direction at the time, light falls of ash have been reported from Mexico City (especially the Milpa Alta and Iztapalapa districts) and the city of Puebla... 
Much recent attention in the USA and Mexico has focused on the allegations of bribery related to Wal-Mart de México. This article looks at the diffusion of Wal-Mart stores across Mexico. Recent news reports allege that this aggressive growth may have been facilitated by payments of bribes to expedite construction permits. As of March 2012, Walmex was operating no fewer than 2,106 retail units throughout Mexico. They include 127 Sam’s Clubs, 213 Walmart Supercenters, 94 Suburbias, 385 Bodega Aurreras, 88 Superamas, 358 VIPS and El Portón restaurants, and over 840 Bodega Aurrera Expresses and other small outlets. 
Starting in the west, the first active volcanoes are Everman and Barcenas in the Revillagigedo Islands. The westernmost volcanoes on the mainland are near Colima. At 4260 m (13,976 ft), the inactive Nevado of Colima, Mexico’s sixth-highest peak, is as tall as the highest mountains in the contiguous USA. Its younger brother,Colima Volcano (or Volcán de Fuego) is lower (3820 m) but highly active and considered potentially very dangerous. It has erupted in cycles for several hundred years, and is capped by a dacitic plug characteristic of a silica-rich Pelean volcano... "The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill. After four decades that brought 12 million current immigrants—more than half of whom came illegally—the net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped—and may have reversed, according to a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of multiple government data sets from both countries. The report is based on the Center’s analysis of data from five different Mexican government sources and four U.S. government sources..." Despite this being an obvious question, there is no simple or generally accepted answer! According to Mexico’s tax authorities (SHCP), the nation’s financial system “gained” at least 10 billion dollars last year from unrecorded, presumably illicit, activities such as drug trafficking. North of the border, the US State Department believes that money laundering in Mexico accounts for between 8 billion and 25 billion dollars a year, while figures as high as 29 billion dollars have been offered in the US Congress... In just 20 years, Mexico has gone from a nation that needed to import less than 400,000 metric tons of corn (maize) a year in order to satisfy its domestic market to one where, in the 2011-12 season, it will need to import almost 10,000,000 tons. One producers’ organization, Mexico’s National Confederation of Maize Growers (CNPAMM), argues that this reliance on imports has relegated the work done by its members to a relatively minor role in providing the nation with food. The growers claim that the price they receive for corn (post-NAFTA) has declined in the face of cheaper imports, jeopardizing their livelihoods. (For one view of the changes post-NAFTA, see NAFTA Truth and Consequences: Corn).... 
In a previous post, we identified the tectonic plates that affect Mexico. To the east of Mexico, in the last 100 million years, outward expansion from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (a divergent boundary) first pushed South America ever further apart from Africa, and then (slightly more recently) forced the North American plate (and Mexico) away from Eurasia. The Atlantic Ocean continues to widen, expanding the separation between the New World and the Old World, by about 2.5 cm (1 in) each year. A recent report from researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) confirms that the height of the water table below Mexico City is dropping by about one meter a year, as more water is pumped out of the aquifer than the natural replenishment rate from rainfall. About 60% of Mexico City’s drinking water comes from wells, with the remainder piped into the city, mainly via the Cutzamala system. The researchers say that up to 65% more water is taken from some parts of the Mexico City aquifer than the amount replaced each year by natural recharge. 
What do Mexican suburbs look like? What is their function? As the country’s towns and cities continue to expand, new suburbs appear on their outer edge. Some are gated communities, generally aimed at high income families; these suburbs sometimes include private schools and sports clubs. Other suburbs offer smaller homes aimed at low-income families.Photographer Alejandro Cartagena lives in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area, which includes nine different municipalities in the state of Nuevo León: Monterrey, Guadalupe, San Nicolás, San Pedro, Santa Catarina, Escobedo, Apodaca, García and Juárez. 
How is drugs money laundered?Drug funds have allegedly financed hotels, car dealerships, bus companies, airlines, casinos, beauty salons, skyscrapers and restaurants, as well as the lavish lifestyles of individual cartel members who acquire gold jewelry, expensive cars, vehicles, yachts and planes. “Trade-based laundering” is on the rise. Drug cartels are reported to be increasingly using regular cross-border trade to launder their ill-gotten gains. Profits from the sale of drugs in the USA and elsewhere are used to purchase truckloads of goods such as fruit, toys and fabric, which are then sent south to Mexico to be sold for pesos. This cross-border trade effectively changes US dollars into pesos with few questions being asked. The world’s richest man in 2011 and other Mexican billionaires | Geo-Mexico, the geography of Mexico
The Forbes magazine list of the world’s richest individuals in 2011 consists of more than 1500 individuals, each with a wealth of one billion dollars or more. Eleven Mexicans (all men, but one more than last year) made the list... |
One of the more beautiful, unusual and useful map projections ever devised was created by cartographer Bernard Cahill. Cahill’s butterfly map, like Buckminster Fuller’s later Dymaxion Maps (1943 and 1954) enabled all the continents to appear linked, and with reasonable fidelity to a globe. Cahill demonstrated this principle by also inventing a rubber ball globe which could be placed under a pane of glass and flattened into the “Butterfly” form. When removed, the map/globe reverted to its original shape... 
Linked to Mother’s Day , Save the Children just published their 13th annual report on the“State of the World’s Mothers”. The report investigates childhood malnutrition and relates it to the well-being of mothers. The focus is on the first 1,000 days from the time of conception to the child’s second birthday. Proper nutrition and health care during these 1,000 days are critically important to brain development and the welfare of the child throughout its lifetime... 
Alexander von Humboldt's visit to Mexico began in Acapulco on March 22, 1803, and lasted for almost a year. In his year in Mexico, Humboldt had been incredibly busy. He had measured, recorded, observed and written about anything and everything, with remarkable industry and accuracy. He had climbed mountains, burned his boots on active volcanoes, descended into mines, recorded geographical coordinates, and collected numerous specimens and antiquities... 
This month is likely to be a critical month for wildfires. The disastrous wildfire season of 2011– 2011 was Mexico’s worst year for wildfires for 30 years. The on-going drought in northern Mexico (the worst for 70 years) means that this year’s wildfire season is not likely to be any better. May is the critical month because it marks the end of the dry season in most of Mexico, the time when the natural landscape looks parched. During the month of May, the landscape waits for the start of the rainy season, a season that is sometimes preceded by a spate of electrical storms. Electrical storms can trigger wildfires if they ignite the tinder-dry vegetation. 
How can we measure the health of forests and other forms of natural vegetation? It has become commonplace to read about biodiversity and many conservation programs rightly stress its importance in the global scheme of things. In a previous post, we examined the biodiversity of Mexico and saw how it is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world... 
Popocatepetl is Mexico’s second largest volcano, after El Pico de Orizaba.Popocatepetl rises to a height of 5500 meters (18,045 feet) ... In the past week, Popocatepetl (aka “Popo” or “Don Goyo”) has sprung back into life, blowing off steam and ash in a series of minor eruptions, accompanied by minor earth tremors, many of which registered between 3 and 4 on the Richter scale. Incandescent rocks (“volcanic bombs”) have been thrown up to 1000 meters (3000 feet) from the crater down the slopes of volcano.. 
Mexico’s active seismic zones have created numerous volcanoes, many of which are still active. Virtually all the country’s active and recently dormant volcanoes are located in a broad belt of high relief which crosses Mexico from west to east: the Volcanic Axis (see map). Altitudes in this region vary from a few hundred to several thousand meters. The principal peaks are shown on the map. They include many of Mexico’s most famous mountains, such as Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, near Mexico City; Pico de Orizaba, Mexico’s highest peak;.. 
Mexico’s 3P (proven, probable and possible) reserves remained unchanged last year (2011) as new discoveries, mainly in the Chicontepec field, offset oil extraction. The Chicontepec field alone holds about 17,000 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), almost 40% of Mexico’s total 3P reserves of more than 43 million BOE (see graph). Mexico’s total 3P reserves are sufficient for about 32 years at current rates of extraction....
The theory of plate tectonics suggests that the earth’s crust or lithosphere is from 5 to 65 km (3 to 40 mi) thick and divided into about a dozen large tectonic plates, tabular blocks that drift across the Earth in different directions and at various speeds (up to a few centimeters or inches per year), probably as a result of thermal convection currents in the Earth’s molten mantle. Most plates consist of a combination of both ocean floor and continent, though some are entirely ocean floor... 
Mexico’s Magic Town (Pueblo Mágico) designation is given to inland destinations that offer a complementary tourism based on historic and cultural attributes. Between them, Magic Towns welcomed 2.3 million tourists in 2011. Mexico’s federal Tourism Secretariat has announced there will be 52 Magic Towns by 2012, when the promotional program is due to end. Mexico recently added two more towns, bringing the current total to 50 Magic Towns. The latest two additions are: 
Not all volcanoes give any warning of impending activity. Thirty years ago, just before midnight 28/29 March 1982, the El Chichón volcano in Chiapas erupted completely without warning and with unexpected fury. Two further eruptions followed in early April. The lack of warning caused heavy loss of life among local villagers who had been unable to evacuate their villages. About 2,000 people lost their lives as a result of the eruption.
The status of World Heritage site is a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) denomination. Mexico has 31 sites on the list, considerably more than any other country in the Americas. For example, the U.S. has 20 (together with a share of a 21st that straddles the border with Canada), Brazil 17 (as well as one jointly held with Argentina), Canada 14 (plus the joint U.S.-Canada site) and Peru 11. Worldwide, only five countries have more World Heritage sites than Mexico... |
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