Mexico & Latin America

The week in Mexico: 2-7-2010

By David Gaddis Smith, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 1:26 a.m.

Colosio’s father dies: Luis Colosio Fernández, the father of the Institutional Revolutionary Party presidential candidate who was assassinated in Tijuana in 1994, died yesterday at a hospital in Hermosillo of pneumonia and other ailments at age 86. He will be buried in Magdalena de Kino, where his son Luis Donaldo Colosio was interred after being slain.

Cuisine recognition sought: Mexico has many of its monuments on UNESCO’s list of protected sites. Now the government is asking for international recognition for the country’s cuisine. U.N. officials will decide in the spring whether to add Mexico’s food, including corn tamales, to the organization’s list of intangible cultural patrimony, Mexican cuisine expert Gloria López said Friday.

Genetically modified corn: Capping a decade-long battle, private companies in Mexico have begun the first legal plantings of genetically modified corn on experimental plots mostly in Sonora and Sinaloa states, the Agriculture Ministry said. Environmentalists and farm groups said they have filed an appeal with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, arguing that the government has been unwilling or unable to halt the illicit spread of such crops in Mexico, the birthplace of corn.

Lowe’s in Mexico: Home-improvement retailer Lowe’s said it will open its first two stores in Mexico tomorrow as part of its international growth strategy. Both stores are in Monterrey.

Toyota recall: The Mexican unit of Toyota Motor Corp. will begin calling in seven models this week to repair gas pedals that have led the Japanese automaker to recall cars in the United States, Canada, China and Europe. Toyota said it hasn’t had reports of sticking accelerator pedals in Mexico, but will still recall recent models of the RAV4, Matrix, Camry, Highlander, Tundra, Sequoia and Corolla.

Ensenada flooding: It will cost Ensenada $19 million to repair the damage caused by heavy rains last month, Mayor Pablo Alejo López Núñez said.

Hank Rhon’s wife for mayor? Members of the Territorial Movement, linked to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, have invited María Elvia de Hank Rhon to run for the PRI’s nomination for mayor of Tijuana. She is the wife of gambling magnate Jorge Hank Rhon, mayor from 2004-07. Members of the group said she’s the only person who can do battle with the National Action Party of Mayor Jorge Ramos. Three days before the group’s invitation, billboards featuring her began appearing in the city.

Journalist slain: Jorge Ochoa Martinez, director of El Sol de la Costa, a small newspaper that covers mostly local issues in communities southeast of Acapulco, was shot in the face and killed as he left a food stand Jan. 29 in Ayutla. Two other Mexican journalists were killed in early January, and 12 reporters were killed in Mexico during 2009.

Diego Rivera’s daughter dies: Marika Rivera, a daughter of Mexican artist Diego Rivera, died in Charlton Down, England, of dementia Jan. 14, a son said Tuesday. She was 90. Rivera, a film and stage actress who had little contact with or support from her father, was born from his tempestuous affair with Russian-born artist Marevna Vorobieff. Rivera found Vorobieff’s “wild beauty” irresistible despite her reputation for a ferocious temper. The affair ended violently as Vorobieff — by then pregnant — pulled a knife, cut the back of Rivera’s neck and then her own neck. Marika Rivera was born Nov. 13, 1919. Diego Rivera, who married artist Frida Kahlo in 1929, died in 1957.

Compiled from news reports by Foreign Editor David Gaddis Smith: (619) 293-2211; david.smith@uniontrib.com