Oaxaca’s state environmental law enforcement agency has fined the city of Oaxaca 6,000,000 pesos for dumping garbage along the Atoyac River. Milenio reports that Oaxaca mayor Francisco Martínez Nery acknowledged the fines but said the city doesn’t have the means to pay them. A parallel effort in district court brought by the National Water Commission (CONAGUA) aims to force the city to clean up the illegal garbage dump and could bring criminal penalties for noncompliance, the newspaper reported.
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador arrived in Oaxaca yesterday to check on the progress of several projects in the state. Those include the train line that will carry freight containers from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf Coast as an alternative to the Panama Canal, and the well-known federal highway from Oaxaca City to the coast. But that’s not the only superhighway under construction in the state… Another federal highway that will run from Oaxaca City to the Isthmus of Tehuantepéc is also under construction. The president will also visit Oaxaca’s second-largest city, Tuxtepéc, to check on the construction of a hospital there, according to El Universal.
That newspaper was full of coverage this week about the slowdown of immigrants crossing through the state of Oaxaca on their quest to gain political asylum in the United States, as well as various possible causes, among them:
- The mayor of Santo Domingo Zanatepec, flanked by police officers, stopped a caravan of 1500 migrants from crossing through her town.
- The same newspaper reported that the mayor of another town, Santiago Niltepec warned residents to “take precautions and close your doors” in a racist rant where he warned that “descendents of Afros, dark-skinned people, and Blacks are coming.”
- And El Universal reported that one caravan of two thousand migrants, whose numbers — according to caravan organizers — include 30 pregnant women, 700 other women, and 800 children — decided to avoid the city of Oaxaca altogether and go through Veracruz instead.
Drew Johnson is with the non-profit migrant aid organization COLLÍN A.C. in Oaxaca city. Speaking with Oaxaca Newscast via WhatsApp, he confirmed that fewer migrants are coming through the city.
In addition, the makeshift bus station that had been set up for migrants in the nearby town of San Sebastián Tutla has been shut down.
If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, check out “Climate change 2050” this evening at 7pm at the Manuel Alvarez Bravo Photography Center, a musical-visual concert to call attention to what we can do to stop harming the planet.
Or take a stroll through Oaxaca’s Ethnobotanical Garden. Admission will be free this evening only, from 6:30pm to 7:30pm.
On Saturday, November 25th, check out the Planetarium shows at the Nundehui Planetarium at 4pm, 5pm, 7pm and 8pm. They’ll also have conferences, contests, science clowns (whatever that 🤡 means…), and telescope viewing.
Or check out the drag show at Estación Morelos on Saturday at 8pm.
Don’t miss next week’s Oaxaca Newscast: It’s going to be a great episode, where I sit down for an exclusive interview with a very talented up-and-coming Zapotec artist!