Month: February 2024

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MEXICO CITY — As the Super Bowl approaches, there could be problems for guacamole, a favorite game-time food in America: A lack of rain and warmer temperatures has resulted in fewer avocados being shipped from Mexico.

The western state of Michoacan, which supplies almost 90% of the creamy textured fruit for the big game, has suffered a hotter, drier climate that has led to a lack of water in growing areas.

Lakes in the state are literally drying up: Desperate avocado growers send tanker trucks down to suck up the last water, or divert streams, to feed their thirsty orchards, sparking conflicts. The state received about half the rain it normally gets last year, and reservoirs are at about 40% of capacity, with no rain in sight for months.

Meanwhile, some growers are illegally cutting down pine forests that feed the water system to plant more avocados. To top it all off, another American obsession — tequila — is starting to cause problems too.

The whole situation is not good for avocados. Last year, avocado exports from Michoacan for the Super Bowl grew by 20% to 140,000 tons. This year, that number actually declined by 2,000 tons, despite increased planting; meaning fewer of the creamy textured fruit in U.S. produce departments. Alejandro Méndez, the state secretary of the environment, estimates 30% of avocado orchards in Michoacan are now water-stressed.

Something’s got to give, and with consumers demanding more environmentally conscious produce, state officials are finally putting together a sustainable certification program.

The certification program would presumably result in growers improving their water use, enabling them to offer consumers both greener avocados and more of them.

Coming soon to a grocery store near you: fruit with a sticker saying something like “this avocado wasn’t grown on deforested land,” or “this avocado used water responsibly.”

Officials are still working on a catchy slogan for the greener avocados. But given that it’s coming from the same people who brought you years of Super Bowl ads about avocados from Mexico, a catchy slogan is highly likely.

“The idea is that there is going to be a certification sticker with a QR code that you can scan with your telephone, and that link will take you to a page with a satellite photo of the orchard … and the forest associated with the orchard,” said Méndez.

Because they use more water than pine forests, growers will have to contribute to a fund that ensures several acres of forest are preserved for each acre of orchard.

“So with that orchard, you can be assured the dollar you paid for this avocado is going to preserve this piece of forest,” said Méndez, who estimates about 70% of the orchards in place before 2011 were planted on old farmland, not forests. But the remaining 30% give the rest a bad name, he complains.

The decision to act comes not a moment too soon. The Center for Biological Diversity said Thursday that more than 28,000 people have signed an online petition calling on grocery chains to adopt more sustainable avocado-sourcing policies.

“Many people in Mexico have lost their forests and water because of the 304 million pounds [138 kilograms] of avocados we’ll be eating on Super Bowl Sunday,” said Stephanie Feldstein, the center’s director for population and sustainability. “Our obsession with avocados has a horrific hidden cost. It’s time for grocery chains to take responsibility and make sure they’re not buying avocados grown in deforested areas.”

Up to now, there hasn’t been much consumers could do. There are few certified sustainable avocados available year-round on the market, and if you want guacamole, there’s not much else you can use. That’s despite all the news coverage about how avocado growers and packers have to pay protection money to drug cartels.

Julio Santoyo, a front-line anti-logging activist in Villa Madero, Michoacan, says he’s taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the new certification program. Until then, Super Bowl this year — like every year — was “a kick in the pants,” he said.

“The growth in illegal orchards continues unabated,” Santoyo said. “We assume that more than half of the avocados consumed around the Super Bowl are from illegal planting.

“Up to now, the Mexican government has not taken practical steps to certify environmentally sustainable avocado production,” he said.

The crisis is clear in the once heavily forested, lake-dotted state. Lake Cuitzeo, Mexico’s second largest, was once a vast sheet of water reflecting blue skies near the state capital; it is now about 60% dry, exposing kilometers of dry ground and grass.

And poor Michoacan faces new threats from U.S. consumers: Part of the state next to neighboring Jalisco is certified to grow the blue Weber agave, the only plant from which true tequila can be distilled.

While agave likes drier, hotter, poorer soils than avocados, growers are still cutting down native scrub and low, thorny woods to plant the spikey-leafed seedlings, whose barrel-like centers will later be cooked down and fermented.

It’s a relatively new problem, fed by rising demand for tequila.

“In the last two years, the price for a kilo of agave went up a lot, it went up to almost 35 or 40 pesos [about $2] per kilo,” Méndez said.

“We have 50 million agave plants,” he said. “It’s grown a lot, and we have started to see deforestation as well in that area.”
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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday will elevate to sainthood the first female saint from his native Argentina, an event that will be attended at the Vatican by his former strong critic, Argentine President Javier Milei.

Milei, a maverick right-wing libertarian, in the past called Francis an “imbecile,” a “son of a bitch preaching communism” and the devil’s man on Earth — but has softened his tone since taking office in December.

The pope, for his part, has said he did not pay too much attention to the insults, telling Mexican broadcaster N+ that what matters is what politicians do in office, rather than on the campaign trail.

Francis is set to lead a canonization Mass for Maria Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, better known as “Mama Antula,” an 18th century woman who renounced her family’s riches to focus on charity and Jesuit spiritual exercises.

The ceremony comes as Argentina is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, with inflation at more than 200%. Francis has said he hopes to be able make his first trip back to his homeland since being pope in 2013 in the second half of this year.

The Argentine leader, who has said he may convert to Judaism, will attend the service in St. Peter’s Basilica with his entourage, and is set to have a private audience with Francis on Monday.

Mama Antula was the daughter of a wealthy landholder and slave owner.

She promoted spiritual exercises — a mix of prayers and meditations — walking thousands of kilometers barefoot, involving the rich and poor, despite the Jesuits having at the time been banished from Latin America.

Francis, himself a Jesuit, described her on Friday in a meeting with pilgrims from Argentina as a “gift to the Argentine people and also to the entire Church,” praising her dedication to the poor.

Quoting from his past writings, the pope condemned the “radical individualism” that permeates today’s society as a “virus,” in words that may jar with Milei’s radical free market instincts.

On Monday, wrapping up a week-long overseas tour that took him to Israel before Italy and the Vatican, Milei is also scheduled to meet Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
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TOKYO — Will she make it in time?

Taylor Swift’s last song was still ringing in the ears of thousands of fans at the Tokyo Dome on Saturday night when the singer rushed to a private jet at Haneda airport, presumably embarking on an intensely scrutinized journey to see her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce, play in the Super Bowl in Las Vegas.

“We’re all going to go on a great adventure,” Swift earlier told the crowd. She was speaking of the music, but it might also describe her prospective race against time, which was to cross nine time zones and the international date line.

With a final bow at the end of her sold-out show, clad in in a blue sequined outfit, the crowd screaming, strobe lights pulsing, confetti falling, Swift disappeared beneath the stage — and her journey to the other side of the world began.

Her expected trip to see Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs play the San Francisco 49ers in Las Vegas on Sunday, U.S. time, has fired imaginations and speculation for weeks.

“I hope she can return in time. It’s so romantic,” said office worker Hitomi Takahashi, 29, who bought matching Taylor Swift sweatshirts with her friend and was taking photos just outside of the Tokyo Dome.

At Saturday night’s concert, there was plenty of evidence of the unique cultural phenomenon that is the Swift-Kelce relationship, a nexus of professional football and the huge star power of Swift. In addition to people wearing sequined dresses celebrating Swift in the packed Tokyo Dome, there were Travis Kelce jerseys and hats and other gear celebrating the Chiefs. Some in Tokyo spent thousands of dollars to attend the pop superstar’s concerts this week.

“Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone,” Swift sang Saturday.

She won’t find that Sunday in Las Vegas when a sold-out crowd, not to mention millions around the world, will be watching her.

If she makes it, that is.

To call the worldwide scrutiny of Swift’s travels intense is an understatement.

Fans have tracked her jet. The planet-warming carbon emissions of her globe-trotting travels have been criticized. Officials have weighed in on her ability to park her jet in Las Vegas airports.

Even Japanese diplomats have gotten into the act. The Japanese Embassy in Washington posted on social media that she could make the Super Bowl in time, including in their statement three Swift song titles — “Speak Now,” “Fearless” and “Red.”

“If she departs Tokyo in the evening after her concert, she should comfortably arrive in Las Vegas before the Super Bowl begins,” it said.

Takahashi, the fan at the Tokyo Dome, was aware of the criticism Swift has faced about her private jets but said the singer was being singled out unfairly.

“Many other people are flying on business, and she is here for her work. She faces a bashing because she is famous and stands out,” Takahashi said.

Swift has been crisscrossing the globe this week already.

Before coming to Asia, she attended the Grammys in Los Angeles, winning her 14th Grammy and a record-breaking fourth Album of the Year award for “Midnights.” The show was watched by nearly 17 million people. She also made a surprise announcement that her next album is ready to drop in April.

Then came the four concerts in Tokyo, and now apparently a rushed trip to try to make it to Las Vegas to watch Kelce, the tight end for the Chiefs, play in the Super Bowl. She has followed Kelce for much of the Chiefs’ season.

If it all goes as planned, she’s then expected to fly to Australia later this week to continue her tour.

“This week is truly the best kind of chaos,” Swift posted Wednesday on Instagram.
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london — In British history, the secrecy of the monarch’s health has always reigned supreme. Buckingham Palace’s disclosure that King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer shattered that longstanding tradition. 

On the heels of the shock and well-wishing that followed the official statement Monday came the surprise that the palace had announced anything at all. Indeed, the unprecedented missive was sparse on details: Charles, 75, had begun treatment for a cancer it did not name after being diagnosed during a recent corrective procedure for an enlarged prostate. The king is stepping back from public duties but carrying on state business during his treatment, which he’ll receive as an outpatient, the palace said. 

“The King has cancer,” The Times of London declared in a terse banner headline Tuesday. It was unlike any other in British history. 

Never complain, never explain, as Charles’ late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was known to say. Charles has withheld details of his illness and treatment, and in that way is carrying on her approach. But in beaming a sliver of light from inside the palace walls and his own life, the king has broken with his mother and royal tradition.

Royals’ health a mystery

The world still does not know the cause of Elizabeth’s death in 2022 at the age of 96. In the final years of her life, the public was told only that the queen was suffering from “mobility issues.” Her death certificate listed the cause simply as “old age.” 

The British public wasn’t told that Charles’ grandfather, King George VI, had lung cancer before his death in February 1952 at the age of 56, and some historians have claimed that the king himself wasn’t told he was terminally ill. 

Given that Charles rules in a media-saturated age, “I do think it’s incumbent on him to reveal more than he’s revealed,” said Sally Bedell Smith, author of “Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life.” 

“He was admirably candid in what he said about being treated for an enlarged prostate, and his impulse was to be open and also to encourage men to have the necessary examinations,” she added. “But then he reverted to the traditional royal form, which is mystery, secrecy, opacity.” 

On Tuesday, former royal press secretary Simon Lewis told BBC Radio 4 that Charles’ openness about his cancer diagnosis has been his style as a monarch. 

“I think 20 years ago we would have got a very abrupt, short statement, and that’s about it,” he said. The palace statement goes as far as possible, “given that the King has had a diagnosis of cancer and, as a lot of people know, processing that is a pretty tough process.” 

One reason for disclosing his illness, the palace statement said, was “in the hope it may assist public understanding for all those around the world who are affected by cancer.” Cancer patient advocates reported glimmers of success on that front, with Cancer Research UK reporting a 42% rise in visits to its cancer information page, according to Dr. Julie Sharp, the group’s head of health and patient information. 

The jump “reflects that high-profile cancer cases often act as a prompt to encourage people to find out more or think about their own health,” she said. 

But there was another pragmatic reason: To keep control of the information in the age of lightning-fast social media and misinformation. The palace statement said Charles “has chosen to share his diagnosis to prevent speculation.” 

Privacy part of past

In the annals of power, leaders and their advisers strive to maintain — or at least, not undermine — the perception of being in strong and in control. Because to allow any perception of vulnerability or weakness could spark a fight for the gavel or the crown — or encourage a coup. 

The former Soviet Union was famous for neglecting to mention when its leaders are sick or dead — think Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, secretly sick and soon deceased one after the other in the 1980s. Each event sparked scrambles for succession. 

In the United States, there’s little to no debate about the public’s right to know the health status of their leaders. It’s a key feature of the 2024 presidential rumble between President Joe Biden, 81, and former president Donald Trump, 77, with other contenders, such as GOP hopeful Nikki Haley, arguing that they’re both too old to preside. 

And on February 1, U.S.. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin — sixth in the presidential line of succession — apologized for keeping secret his cancer diagnosis and surgery. In a rare press conference, he acknowledged missing a key chance to use the experience as a teaching moment for those he leads across the Defense Department and, even more importantly, for Black Americans. 

How much does the British public have a right to know? 

Whether the monarch owes the world more information about his health than other Britons do is a tense subject. 

Royals are private citizens but also, in a sense, part of the public trust given that they are subsidized by British taxpayers and play an important — though largely powerless — constitutional role. Unelected, they inherit their wealth under a 1,000-year-old monarchy that Republican activists have long tried to dislodge. 

And though some polls show the public is friendly toward Charles, opposition and apathy to the monarchy are both growing. In a recent study by the National Center for Social Research, just 29% of respondents thought the monarchy was “very important” — the lowest level in the center’s 40 years of research on the subject. Opposition was highest among the young. 

Remaining relevant is part of what makes Charles’ legacy and succession so urgent. Maintaining at least the appearance of vitality can be key to leaders’ pursuit of and hold on power. The king, the palace was careful to note, would step away from public-facing duties during his treatment but continue to manage other duties of state. 

In Charles’ case, succession has long been set: Next in line is his son, William, the prince of Wales. But the king’s illness makes William’s preparation more critical at a time when he’s also caring for his wife, Kate, princess of Wales, who is recovering from abdominal surgery. 

Charles’ news was received with great sympathy in a country in which 3 million people live with cancer, according to Macmillan Cancer Support, a London-based charity. On average, it says, one person is diagnosed with cancer in the UK every 90 seconds. That’s about 1,000 new cancer cases detected every day, according to the National Health Service. 

That the king has joined those ranks — and, critically for a British monarch, shared that vulnerability with the world — heralded for some a new era of transparency in an era of social media and misinformation. 
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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A Catholic laywoman who lived in 18th-century Argentina and joined the Jesuits in their evangelical mission throughout the South American country will become the first female saint from the home country of Pope Francis on Sunday.

María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, more commonly known by her Quechua name of “Mama Antula,” was born in 1730 into a wealthy family in Santiago del Estero, a province north of Buenos Aires. At the age of 15, she left the comfortable life of her home and the privileges of her family to join the Jesuits — at a time when women’s options were limited to marriage or joining a convent. 

“She was a rebel, just like Jesus,” Cintia Suárez, co-author of the biography Mama Antula, the first female saint of Argentina, told The Associated Press. “She confronted her father saying, ‘I’m not going to get married or become a nun.’ She just didn’t want to follow orders.”

Mama Antula collaborated in the performance of spiritual exercises based on the writings of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Company of Jesus in 1534, according to her biographer.

When the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits from America in 1767, considering them a threat to its interests, Mama Antula decided to take up the mantle and continue her work, even at the risk of being imprisoned.

She was a very astute woman who, against the prejudices of the time, had the ability to persuade parish priests and bishops to continue the spiritual exercises of the Jesuits despite the prohibition.

“Patience is good, but perseverance is better,” is a phrase that is attributed to her in historical texts collected in Suárez’s biography.

At a time when slavery still prevailed, masters and slaves, rich and poor were welcome in her spiritual exercises.  It was within that space of reflection that she helped to erase social differences.

“Mama Antula’s charity, above all in the service to the neediest, is today very much in evidence in the midst of a society that runs the risk of forgetting that radical individualism is the most difficult virus to overcome,” Francis told a group of Argentine pilgrims Friday who are in town for this weekend’s canonization.

Despite her outstanding work, Mama Antula was not widely recognized due to her status as a lay woman until 2013, when Francis, also a native of Argentina, was elected pope and brought her back to the public eye.

Francis first authorized her beatification in 2016, after the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints recognized a miracle linked to Mama Antula. It was the inexplicable healing in 1905 of a seriously ill nun belonging to the religious order in charge of the House of spiritual exercises founded by Mama Antula in Buenos Aires.

The second miracle that opened the door to her canonization came in 2017, when a former Jesuit seminarian was left on the verge of death from a stroke. A friend brought a picture of Mama Antula to the hospital and stuck it on the vital signs monitor. The man improved and left intensive care.

The canonization of Mama Antula in a ceremony to be presided over by Francis at St. Peter’s Basilica marks not only the first time a female from Argentina will become a saint, but will bring together two antagonistic figures: Francis and the newly elected president of Argentina, Javier Milei, who once called the pope an “imbecile” for defending social justice and “the representative of malignance on Earth.” 

Francis, who had a long conversation with Milei after he was elected, has indicated he has forgiven him for the campaign rhetoric and even suggested he is considering visiting his native country this year.

María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, or “Mama Antula,” died March 7, 1799, aged 69.
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TOKYO — Seiji Ozawa, the Japanese conductor who amazed audiences with the lithe physicality of his performances during three decades at the helm of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has died, his management office said Friday. He was 88.

The internationally acclaimed maestro, with his trademark mop of salt-and-pepper hair, led the BSO from 1973 to 2002, longer than any other conductor in the orchestra’s history. From 2002 to 2010, he was the music director of the Vienna State Opera.

He died of heart failure Tuesday at his home in Tokyo, according to his office, Veroza Japan.

He remained active in his later years, particularly in his native land. He was the artistic director and founder of the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival, a music and opera festival in Japan. He and the Saito Kinen Orchestra, which he co-founded in 1984, won the Grammy for best opera recording in 2016 for Ravel’s “L’Enfant et Les Sortileges” (“The Child and the Spells”).

In 2022, he conducted his Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival for the first time in three years to mark its 30th anniversary. That turned out to be his last public performance.

Ozawa exerted enormous influence over the BSO during his tenure. He appointed 74 of its 104 musicians and his celebrity attracted famous performers including Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman. He also helped the symphony become the biggest-budget orchestra in the world, with an endowment that grew from less than $10 million in the early 1970s to more than $200 million in 2002.

When Ozawa conducted the Boston orchestra in 2006 — four years after he had left — he received a hero’s welcome with a nearly six-minute ovation.

Ozawa was born Sept. 1, 1935, to Japanese parents in Manchuria, China, while it was under Japanese occupation.

After his family returned to Japan in 1944, he studied music under Hideo Saito, a cellist and conductor credited with popularizing Western music in Japan. Ozawa revered him and formed the Saito Kinen (Saito Memorial) Orchestra in 1984 and eight years later founded the Saito Kinen Festival — renamed the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival in 2015.

Ozawa first arrived in the United States in 1960 and was quickly hailed by critics as a brilliant young talent. He attended the Tanglewood Music Center and was noticed by Leonard Bernstein, who appointed him assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic for the 1961-62 season. After his New York debut with the Philharmonic at age 25, The New York Times said “the music came brilliantly alive under his direction.”

He directed various ensembles including the San Francisco Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra before beginning his tenure in Boston in 1970.

At the time there were few nonwhite musicians on the international scene. Ozawa embraced the challenge and it became his lifelong passion to help Japanese performers demonstrate they could be first-class musicians. In his 1967 book “The Great Conductors,” critic Harold C. Schonberg noted the changing ranks of younger conductors, writing that Ozawa and Indian-born Zubin Mehta were the first Asian conductors “to impress one as altogether major talents.”

Ozawa had considerable star quality and crossover appeal in Boston, where he was a well-known fan of the Red Sox and Patriots sports teams. In 2002, Catherine Peterson, executive director of Arts Boston, a nonprofit group that markets Boston’s arts, told The Associated Press that “for most people in this community, Seiji personifies the Boston Symphony.”

Ozawa is largely credited with elevating the Tanglewood Music Center, a music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts, to international prominence. In 1994, a 1,200-seat, $12 million music hall at the center was named for him.

His work at Tanglewood was not without controversy. In 1996, as music director of the orchestra and its ultimate authority, he decided to move the respected academy in new directions. Ozawa ousted Leon Fleisher, the longtime director of Tanglewood, and several prominent teachers quit in protest.

Despite glowing reviews for his performances in Europe and Japan, American critics were increasingly disappointed in the later years of his tenure with the BSO. In 2002, Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times wrote that Ozawa had become, after a bold start, “an embodiment of the entrenched music director who has lost touch.”

Many of the orchestra’s musicians agreed and even circulated an anti-Ozawa newsletter claiming he had worn out his welcome in Boston.

Ozawa won two Emmy awards for TV work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra — the first in 1976 for the BSO’s PBS series “Evening at Symphony” and the second in 1994, for Individual Achievement in Cultural Programming, for “Dvorak in Prague: A Celebration.”

Ozawa held honorary doctorates of music from the University of Massachusetts, the New England Conservatory of Music, and Wheaton College in Norton, Mass. He was one of five honorees at the annual Kennedy Center Honors in 2015 for contributing to American culture through the arts.

In later years, Ozawa’s health deteriorated. He was treated for cancer of the esophagus in 2010, and in 2015 and 2016 he canceled performances for various health problems.

Ozawa’s management office said his funeral was attended only by close relatives as his family wished to have a quiet farewell.

He cancelled some appearances in 2015-16 for health reasons, including what would have been his first return to the Tanglewood music festival — the summer home of the Boston symphony — in a decade.
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