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Friday, November 10th

Oaxaca Newscast
Oaxaca Newscast
Friday, November 10th
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From Oaxaca, Mexico, I’m Peter Aronson, today is Friday, November tenth, and this is your last Oaxaca Newscast.

Federal public health officials reported 46 new confirmed cases of dengue among patients seen at public-health institutions in the state of Oaxaca over the past week and 619 new suspected cases of the mosquito-borne illness. Those numbers don’t include people seen at private clinics.

After Hurricane Otis thrashed our neighboring state of Guerrero, some health officials had predicted that Guerrero would see a huge rise in dengue. But, in fact, Oaxaca had 50 percent more suspected cases than Guerrero in the past week and more than double the number of confirmed cases. So if you’re wondering whether it’s time to stop using repellent, the answer is still no…

A third-year law student at the UABJO (the autonomous state university) is suing the federal government in Oaxaca district court to force Mexico to publish a list of Mexico’s most polluted or contaminated sites. According to an international treaty called the Escazú Agreement that Mexico signed in 2018 and ratified in 2021, participating countries have to make certain information public.

María Fernanda Hernandez Morales spoke with Oaxaca Newscast via Zoom.

“According to article 6.3 of the Escazú Agreement, participating countries are obligated to provide a system of ordered access to environmental information,” she said.

“What I’m asking for is that there should be a list of contaminated areas, listed by contaminant and their location, so we can then take appropriate action,” she said. A local non-profit legal-activist organization based in Oaxaca, Strategic Indigenous Litigation, is representing her.

Oaxaca Newscast reached out to the federal secretariat of the environment and natural resources for comment, and a spokesperson for the agency, Lidia Huelgas, emailed us a response, which said, in part:

“In Mexico there is the National Program for the Remediation of Contaminated Sites, which … seeks to strengthen the National Inventory of Contaminated Sites. … This information is presented in layers that allow you to see in detail the type of contaminants found in each site and the search is carried out by state and municipality.”

And she included a link where you can look up the information on a map. However, it appears that the map only includes sites where where the toxic contamination has already been cleaned up or remediated… not sites where cleanup is still pending.

Mexico’s national meteorological service issued a bulletin today cautioning that some areas of Oaxaca could expect up to 75mm (that’s 3 inches) of rain today. But… it didn’t say which areas. 🙃

In the capital city of Oaxaca today expect partly cloudy skies and a high temperature of 28ºC (that’s 83ºF) and a 40 percent chance of rain or even a brief thunderstorm peaking around 4pm, while on the coast you can expect mostly cloudy skies and a high temperature of 33ºC (that’s 91ºF) and a 70% chance of rain in the afternoon.

If skies are clear enough on Saturday night, be on the lookout for shooting stars! The Northern Taurids meteor shower will peak this weekend with as many as five shooting stars per hour. And next weekend, on the night of Friday the 17th, the Leonids meteor shower could offer the chance to see up to 15 shooting stars per hour. And if you’re into sky-watching, make plans to be somewhere with clear dark skies in mid-December, when the Geminid meteor shower lights up the sky with up to 100 shooting stars per hour.

If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, Oaxacan artist Rufino Tamayo spent more than twenty years rescuing prehispanic art pillaged from burial sites, and his museum here in Oaxaca has now reopened! Hours:

  • Wednesday through Saturday 10am–2pm, 4pm–7pm
  • Sunday 10am–3pm
  • Monday 10am–2pm, 4pm–7pm
  • Tuesday CLOSED

Museum map link

Starting next week we’re going to try out a new format for the podcast: Instead of having a Oaxaca Newscast every weekday morning, we’ll have a wrap-up of the week’s news once a week on Fridays.

Do you love the podcast? Hate it? Got a comment or suggestion? Would you like to sponsor an episode? Send us an email… the address is oaxacanewscast AT gmail DOT com.

By Peter Aronson

I’m an award-winning radio journalist, a former Latin America correspondent, a longtime resident of Mexico and — for the past few years — a resident of Oaxaca. Now I host Oaxaca Newscast!