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The Mexican army and the National Guard clashed with an armed group working for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel ( CJNG) in Aguililla, Michoacán.

After the shooting, authorities didn't reveal if there were fatalities, wounded gunmen, or detainees.

Reports indicate the federal forces seized a large arsenal that included assault rifles, grenade launchers, and ammunition.

Moreover, authorities seized three armored vehicles, which the criminals used during shootings and ambushes.

Recommended: Colombian authorities deliver a major blow to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel by seizing one ton of cocaine

This criminal group, led by Miguel Fernández, aka "El M2," often engages in shootings with security forces in El Aguaje.

In recent weeks, several gunmen have died and authorities have arrested at least 20 criminals. Even then, the criminal organization has expanded and it's a threat in Tepalcatepec and Coalcomán, in Jalisco.

Locals have recently reported caravans of vehicles owned by the CJNG.

Weeks ago, EL UNIVERSAL reported the bloody cartel is now using drones armed with explosives to attack its enemies in Tepalcatepec, Michoacán.

Recommended: Mexican authorities analyze video of CJNG gunmen to determine its authenticity

Journalist Denise Maerker revealed the information and explained the drug cartel uses C-4, an explosive used during wars.

In an interview with local vigilante groups, they said that after a clash with the deadly cartel, they found two drones and four explosives. This way, vigilantes discovered the CJNG is creating new weapons by strapping bombs to the devices.

Vigilante groups emerged in the region known as "Tierra Caliente" years ago after criminal organizations terrorized entire communities. However, the region registered a sudden surge in violence on July 25, when criminals attacked the Tepalcatepec vigilante group in a bid to gain control over the community.

This is not the first time the Jalisco New Generation Cartel uses drones. The Attorney General's Office launched an investigation in May and the drug cartel now faces organized crime and terrorism charges.

Back in May, the Attorney General's Office found several drones and C-4 explosives in Puebla. The CJNG also used these types of explosives in Guanajuato.

Tierra Caliente

Tierra Caliente is region located in the Michoacán. During the last decade, the region has registered a surge in crime and violence due to the presence of violent cartels such as CJNG, Los Viagras, Los Caballeros Templarios, and La Familia Michoacana.

Vigilante groups operate in the region to protect themselves from the criminals since 2013.

This region is characterized by violence, crime, poverty, and drug trafficking.

The CJNG

The CJNG was originally known as the Zeta Killers and first appeared in 2011, with the display of the bodies of 35 alleged members of Los Zetas. Although the criminal organization is based in Jalisco, it also operates in Colima, Michoacán, the state of Mexico, Guerrero, and Guanajuato.

The Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación allegedly served as an armed group for the Sinaloa Cartel until 2013.

In 2015, the Mexican government declared CJNG one of the most dangerous cartels in the country. In October 2016, the U.S. Department of the Treasury described the group as one of the world's "most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations."

According to some analysts, the CJNG has operations throughout the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

Moreover, the brutal Mexican cartel has been linked to several mass graves in southwestern Mexico and shot down an army helicopter in 2015.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel distributes drugs in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta. Furthermore, this drug trafficking organization is "one of the most powerful and fastest-growing cartels in Mexico and the United States" as it has a presence in at least 24 of 32 Mexican states.

This drug cartel is characterized by its rapid expansion and its willingness to "engage in violent confrontations with Mexican Government security forces and rival cartels."

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Mexican authorities seized armored vehicles and grenade launchers from the CJNG

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The Mexican army and the National Guard clashed with an armed group working for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel ( CJNG) in Aguililla, Michoacán. After the shooting, authorities didn't reveal if there were fatalities, wounded gunmen, or detainees. Reports indicate the federal forces seized a large arsenal that included assault rifles, grenade launchers, and ammunition.

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In the midst of the federal proposal to cut the budget to the Cinematographic Training Center (CCC) for 2021, a short from that film school has won a Student Academy Award, a competition that includes productions from different countries.

Crescendo, directed by Percival Argüero Mendoza and that addresses the abuse of power suffered by a woman in Mexico, won the award in the Narrative category of the International Film School.

The Student Academy Awards is an annual competition in which more than 1,400 students participated this year.

"It is definitely worrisome that culture has been so hard hit for so many years, particularly the CCC which is the institution I love and to which I owe everything I have; it's a film school that gives us the capacity to learn by making films, education for creators is crucial and we must defend it," said the filmmaker.
Recommended: Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco's new dystopian drama triumphs at Venice Film Festival
The story, co-written with his sister Hipatia Argüero, follows a young violinist (Sofía Sylwin) who, in order to join a strings quartet, must face a teacher (Jacobo Lieberman) who has sexual intentions with her,

Crescendo is Percival's thesis project for the CCC, a school the Finance Ministry is planning to give MXN $26 million for 2021, five million less than the current year.

For the filmmaker, along with the prize, the most important is the topic and to make violence against women in Mexico visible.

"I think we did a film with a delicate subject that is already being addressed after being ignored for a lot of time.

"We are not discovering anything new, it is to each collaborate from their front to express our support to make this visible; there are women fighting and demanding and requesting the government to acknowledge the seriousness of the problem," he stressed.

He received the news from the award via Zoom by filmmaker Lulu Wang, who is nominated to the BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film for The Farewell.

The virtual awarding ceremony will take place next October 21.

"I couldn't imagine, not even when they told me they had this special guest; I could not believe it; I told the team and the couldn't either," he remembers.

The CCC has given Mexico three Student Academy Awards with The Last New Year (1991) by Javier Bourges and El ojo en la nuca (2001) by Rodrigo Plá, shorts starred by Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal, respectively.

Crescendo hopes to keep being invited to international festivals. It premiered in the Morelia International Film Festival in 2019 and participated at Polland's International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Camerimage and was recently featured in Short Mexico.

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Mexican short film on violence against women wins Student Academy Award

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In the midst of the federal proposal to cut the budget to the Cinematographic Training Center (CCC) for 2021, a short from that film school has won a Student Academy Award, a competition that includes productions from different countries.

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On Friday, Michoacán authorities confirmed the body of Jessica González Villaseñor, 21, was found days after her family reported her disappearance.

According to authorities, Jessica left her home on September 21 and told her family she would meet with a friend.

Authorities later revealed that Jessica was beaten to death and that she had been dead for around 72 hours when authorities found her body.

Authorities said Jessica was murdered by a former partner.

Recommended: Mexico registers four disturbing femicides

After Jessica's death was confirmed by local authorities, her family and feminist activists demanded justice for the young teacher and started using the hashtag #JusticiaParaJessica.

Governor Silvano Aureoles took to Twitter to condemn the heinous crime and sent his condolences to Jessica's family.

A day later, activists took the streets to protest the murder of Jessica González Villaseñor. Hundreds of people walked through the streets of Morelia to demand justice for the young teacher.

The feminist group "Red Colectivas Feministas Michoacán" called on local to join the protest. During the protest, Jessica's family demanded the arrest of Diego Melgoza, who is at large.

Jessica's family also thanked the feminist activists and all the locals who attended the protest to demand an end to gender-based violence. One of the victim's relatives said: "you have done more than authorities and if it's necessary, burn everything. Burn everything because Jessica is gone."

Meanwhile, a feminist group said women in Michoacán are not grieving: "We are outraged and full of anger because some of us are gone. Jessica González Villaseñor is gone, today she joins the 156 women who have been murdered in the state this year."

Recommended: Mapping for justice: How one woman took it upon herself to register femicide in Mexico

Michoacán has investigated six femicides between January and August. Moreover, Morelia is the sixth township with the most femicide cases in the country.

Femicide and gender-based violence have reached alarming levels in Mexico in the last two decades. Weeks ago, victims' families and feminist activists occupied the National Human Rights Commission in Mexico City to demand justice for femicide victims, gender-based violence victims, and victims of enforced disappearance.

In August, Mexico registered a series of disturbing femicides. According to Mexican authorities, the country registered 566 femicides between January and July 2020. In July alone, Mexico registered 101 femicides, the highest number ever registered.

What is femicide?

The term femicide refers to a specific hate crime that affects girls and women and has become widely used to describe a phenomenon that has prevailed in Mexico for decades.

Femicide is defined as "the gender-based murder of a woman or girl by a man" and was coined by Diana Russell in 1976, during the First International Tribunal on Crimes against Women in Brussels.

In Mexico, the term gained notoriety when it was translated as "feminicidio" by activist Marcela Lagarde. Her translation aimed to differentiate femicide, a hate crime, from the murder of a woman, which is not sparked by misogyny. Lagarde's translation also emphasizes the gender issue so that people would notice the sexist ideology behind femicide. The translation coined by Lagarde was essential to understand a wave of violence against women in Ciudad Juárez, which started around 1993.

In a broader context, femicide is just one type of violence against women. Moreover, femicide is accompanied by physical violence, sexual abuse, torture, mutilation, sexual slavery, sexual harassment, and other forms of extreme violence.

In Mexico, the majority of femicides were wrongly labeled as "crimes of passion," which are defined as "a crime committed because of very strong emotional feelings, especially in connection with a sexual relationship." But once the phenomenon of femicide was explained and the term was coined, activists, authorities, journalists, and society, in general, we're able to understand the gender-based implication behind the brutal killing of women. However, sexism still reigns in countries such as Mexico; for example, after 26-year-old Ingrid Escamilla was murdered by her partner in early 2020, a newspaper titled the article "It was cupid's fault" and printed a photograph of her skinned and dismembered body on its cover. One of the two newspapers that published the graphic pictures issued a statement where it acknowledged the fact that it had revictimized Ingrid with its words and photographs but did not apologize to the victim's family.

What is the difference between femicide and homicide?

Femicide is primarily perpetrated by men, it is motivated by misogynistic ideas, and is the result of systematic abuse. In contracts, homicide can be the result of different factors, but it does not involve the same gender-related factors behind femicide.

Furthermore, Jill Radford defined femicide as the "misogynous killing of women by men, motivated by hatred, contempt, pleasure, or a sense of ownership of women."

Femicide in Mexico

In Mexico, Ciudad Juárez became an emblematic femicide case in Mexico and the world. Authorities registered a series of femicides in 1993. The heinous crime was perpetrated against female factory workers, which followed a serial pattern involved extreme violence against women of certain socio-economic characteristics. The cases were never solved and no criminal was ever prosecuted.

The tragic Ciudad Juárez case was followed by hundreds of victims, mainly in the state of Mexico.

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Femicide: Protesters took the streets to demand justice for Jessica González Villaseñor

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On Friday, Michoacán authorities confirmed the body of Jessica González Villaseñor, 21, was found days after her family reported her disappearance. According to authorities, Jessica left her home on September 21 and told her family she would meet with a friend.

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Tension between Latin America and the U.S.

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Amid the upcoming election, immigration is a key issue for the U.S. and Latin America

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El cardenal Carlos Aguiar Retes dijo este jueves que México está dañado por la violencia, el miedo y la inseguridad, por lo que oró para que los gobernantes del país tomen las mejores decisiones a favor de la sociedad; también llamó a los ciudadanos a ser responsables en promover la justicia y la paz.

Las declaraciones del también arzobispo primado de México tuvieron lugar en la Catedral Metropolitana, al celebrar la misa por la Solemnidad de Corpus Christi, fiesta en la que los católicos conmemoran la institución de la Sagrada Eucaristía.

"Señor Jesús, tú eres nuestra paz, mira nuestra patria dañada por la violencia y dispersa por el miedo y la inseguridad, consuela el dolor de quienes sufren; da acierto a las decisiones de quienes nos gobiernan; toca el corazón de quienes olvidan que somos hermanos y provocan sufrimiento y muerte, dales el don de la conversión; protege a nuestras familias, a nuestros niños, adolescentes y jóvenes, a nuestros pueblos y comunidades; que como discípulos misioneros tuyos, ciudadanos responsables sepamos ser promotores de justicia y de paz para que en ti nuestro pueblo tenga vida digna", dijo desde el púlpito.

Durante la celebración religiosa, en la oración universal la Arquidiócesis también pidió por los grupos más pobres de la sociedad, los padres de familia y por los fieles difuntos. En su sermón, el mitrado llamó también a la sociedad a enfrentar la "contingencia y fragilidad" de cada persona mediante el desarrollo espiritual.

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"De esta positiva experiencia de relación humana, personal y comunitaria, experimentaremos con mayor facilidad, la bondad y el amor, y generalmente propiciaremos el surgimiento de la relación con Dios Trinidad, y mantendremos nuestro hábito de dirigirnos al Padre, al Hijo y al Espíritu Santo en la oración. ¡Que así sea!", dijo.

Por Iván E. Saldaña

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México está "dañado" por la violencia, el miedo y la inseguridad, afirmó el cardenal Aguiar

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El cardenal Carlos Aguiar Retes dijo este jueves que México está dañado por la violencia, el miedo y la inseguridad, por lo que oró para que los gobernantes del país tomen las mejores decisiones a favor de la sociedad; también llamó a los ciudadanos a ser responsables en promover la justicia y la paz.