Category: Translations

From El vendedor de silencio, Enrique Serna, 2019

https://www.megustaleer.com/libros/el-vendedor-de-silencio/MMX-009149

[Miguel Alemán was president of Mexico in 1946-52]

He’d been waiting nearly an hour and a half in the outer office. Before long he would finish the book he had brought with him to kill time: Maeterlinck’s The Lives of Bees. He got up to stretch his legs. In front of the picture window that looked out on the main plaza, he admired the imposing cathedral, built of pink stone, tinted purple by the fading light of sunset. The plaza’s pigeons, frightened by the church bells’ ringing, flew off in formation to the gazebo handrail. He wouldn’t mind settling in Zacatecas when he reached retirement age. A pretty province, too attractive to be governed by a swine like Leobardo Reynoso.

Extract: “Special Report: The Secret Files”

May 1, 2020

Semana [Colombian newsmagazine]

[For background: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/opinion/colombia-spying-corruption.html]

https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/espionaje-del-ejercito-nacional-las-carpetas-secretas-investigacion-semana/667616

SEMANA reveals evidence of an Army computer surveillance program in which most of the targets were journalists, including several Americans. Politicians, generals, NGO staff and union activists were also among the 130 subjects.

Army units carried out for several months one of the most sensitive intelligence investigations in the country’s recent history. Between February and early December of last year, the activities of more than 130 citizens were targeted for what the military termed “profiling” and “special tasks.”

Extract of story by Manu Ureste, Animal Politico, April 28. 2020

https://www.animalpolitico.com/elsabueso/nicotina-tabaco-no-ayuda-frenar-covid-19/

[A French study, “A nicotinic hypothesis for Covid-19 with preventive and therapeutic implications,” (in English here) suggested a possible use for nicotine in anti-coronavirus therapy.

Mexican medical experts are dubious]:

“As doctors, we have a lot of solid evidence that a smoker’s lung is unhealthy. Therefore, it is highly implausible that, if tobacco puts you at risk for everything, that there is something it can protect you against  – much less a lung infection. That, right away, makes us especially skeptical about this study’s results,” Uri Torruco, infectious disease specialist and a graduate of the Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Medical Science and Nutrition.