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Opinion: What good is a collection Mexico can’t afford to keep?

By
María Meléndez
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Natasha Gelman portait by Frida Kahlo
Jacques and Natasha Gelman (pictured here in a portrait by Frida Kahlo) assembled one of the great collections of Mexican art, but it's now shrouded in controversy. (Banco Santander)

Amigos, you’ve seen the coverage of the Gelman Collection controversy, including the open letter from our colleagues Keith Rosenblum and Jesús Ibarra asking President Claudia Sheinbaum to expropriate and nationalize the works.

As an art historian, I’ve stayed out of this and other debates about expropriating, repatriating and nationalizing Mexican art, because these cases are the symptom of a much bigger problem.

Mexico’s federal cultural heritage structure and its 2026 budget. (Secretaría de Cultura)

Here it is, plainly: Mexico has claimed ownership of more cultural heritage than any government could afford to look after — and then locked out the only money that might have helped. We hold one of the largest bodies of tangible heritage in the world and maintain it on one of the smallest budgets.

That’s the result of decades of policy in which art and culture served as instruments of government, useful for encouraging national pride more than as a commitment to researching and preserving what actually makes up Mexico.

How Mexican culture works

Like anywhere else, culture here has two sectors. Private companies and individuals fund major art collections — Carlos Slim’s at the Museo Soumaya, FEMSA, Jumex — and pay for concerts, touring orchestras, films and plays.

Meanwhile, everything public begins at the Secretaría de Cultura, the cabinet-level ministry that coordinates every institute, museum, school, performing company and research center beneath it.

Mexico’s federal cultural heritage structure and its 2026 budget are divided into two main branches: the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), which safeguards, researches and teaches everything in this territory up to the 19th century; and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL), which picks up in the 20th century.

Their budgets look similar, but the jobs aren’t: INAH covers almost four millennia of heritage across the national territory, while INBAL also runs 29 schools, the national conservatory, the ballet and the orchestras.

President Claudia Sheinbaum 6 April, 2026
President Claudia Sheinbaum has stated that while artworks designated as cultural heritage of Mexico — as is the case with works in the Gelman Collection — cannot be sold abroad, they can be exhibited in foreign countries. (Moisés Pablo/Cuartoscuro)

A dozen more agencies, from the film institute to public radio, divide what’s left.

Now the number that matters. The Carta Cultural Iberoamericana recommends countries devote 1% of public spending to culture. Mexico’s entire culture budget comes to 0.15% of federal spending.

No box office will ever be enough

INBAL’s largest program takes roughly 2.7 million pesos — 57% of the institute’s budget — with more than 95% going to salaries. INAH’s heritage protection program received 3.4 million pesos, roughly 77% of which was used for staff pay. What remains has to cover everything else, down to the electricity that keeps the air conditioning running.

You might assume that the current budget at least buys us a full accounting of what we own. Of 53,009 registered archaeological zones, INAH estimates the real number of sites holding remains at around 200,000 — we have registered a quarter of what we believe is out there.

And last October, the Auditoría Superior de la Federación found deficiencies in inventory and cataloging in more than 90% of the cultural assets it reviewed. We are not only failing to conserve our heritage; we don’t reliably know what we have.

‘But I pay for a ticket every time I go to a museum’

I learned the rule that governs all of this from Mericia Morales Curiel, one of the most important cultural managers working in Mexico and my professor: What a museum takes in at the door will never be enough to run a museum, let alone a cultural industry.

Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City
The Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City, like many museums, cannot sustain its budget solely on ticket sales.  (Wikimedia Commons/kornemuz)

A museum is research, salaries, climate control, insurance, cataloging, conservation labs, education and security — a permanent running cost attached to objects that earn nothing on their own.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art spent more than US $402 million to operate in 2023-24. Admissions brought in US $53.3 million — 13%. The rest comes from an ecosystem that lets private industry and private citizens invest in it.

Here, there’s been a proposal to raise museum admission by as much as 223%. France ran that experiment. In January, the Louvre raised non-EU entry 45%, to 32 euros, expecting 15 to 20 million euros a year from 8.7 million visitors — barely a dent in its repair bill. France’s national auditors found the reason that bill exists: Between 2018 and 2024, the Louvre spent 105.4 million euros on art purchases and only 26.7 million on maintenance and safety compliance, allowing its security and infrastructure to decay. Their recommendation was to scrap the rule requiring the museum to spend 20% of ticket income on acquiring more art.

Back to Gelman

I feel torn writing this, but what good is owning a collection we can’t even afford to keep?

Our colleagues propose that Congress approve a budget under which, per Article 27, the state pays the collection’s holder what his property is worth: US $350 million. That is roughly 43% of Mexico’s entire annual culture budget, and more than INBAL’s total for the year. Add insurance, which recurs annually. And add a bank: The collection is pledged as collateral on a US $150 million loan from Banco Santander, which holds first claim on the paintings if the loan isn’t repaid.

They also assume no court would overturn a claim involving Frida Kahlo. In July, the Supreme Court agreed to review whether the 1984 decree protecting her work is constitutional at all, after INBAL denied Banco Ve por Más permission to permanently export “Autorretrato con medallón.” Article 16 of the 1972 law says privately owned artistic monuments may be exported with a permit. The absolute ban isn’t in the law. It’s in the decree.

What the law actually delivers

Frida Kahlo "Diego on My Mind"
The Gelman Collection includes paintings by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Siqueiros and other iconic 20th-century Mexican artists. (Banco Santander)

By decree, the entire body of work of 10 artists is a monumento artístico — among them Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Remedios Varo and Kahlo. Wherever it hangs, the state guarantees it “belongs” to all Mexicans.

Article 33 goes further: It claims the work of Mexican artists wherever in the world it was made, although it does not grant extraterritorial jurisdiction or ownership over works created or held entirely abroad under foreign law.

In practice, it delivers almost nothing. Madonna owns at least two Kahlos, among them “My Birth.” When the Detroit Institute of Arts spent more than a year trying to borrow it for a major Rivera and Kahlo show, she declined, and that was the end of it.

A work we call national heritage hangs in a private home abroad, and the country it supposedly belongs to has no standing to see it, inspect it or ask about its condition.

The decree bans permanent export from Mexico. It brings nothing home and obliges no one to show you anything. The promise is real in law and hollow in practice.

A reminder, and a lesson

How many of you have visited archaeological sites and found interpretive panels you could barely read, in Spanish only, with a guide explaining that the information is out of date? Or seen banners outside a museum because the workers are protesting their conditions? I’m not judging: For what heritage on this scale costs, these institutions perform real miracles.

The Gelman Collection on display in Mexico City
There is concern by some that if the Gelman Collection is allowed to leave the country, it may never return. (Somos Arte Experiencias/Instagram)

And here is what makes the arithmetic absurd: In 2023, Mexico’s cultural sector generated 2.8% of national gross domestic product and employed 1.4 million people. We are not subsidizing a luxury; we are underfunding an industry.

There is a solution, and it isn’t asking the president to expropriate anything. Pago en especie, codified in 1975 from an idea that Siqueiros pitched in 1957, lets artists settle their taxes with their own work — a national collection built out of the tax code. It is 51 years old officially, and we have built nothing beside it since. Finishing what Siqueiros started would take four things:

Extend pago en especie past the artist’s studio

Let heirs and collectors settle inheritance and capital gains obligations with declared works, independently appraised and transferred to public collections.

Make giving deductible in a way that isn’t punitive

Donations are capped at a small share of the previous year’s income and sit inside an overall cap. Lift that ceiling for works given to public institutions.

Create a conservation fund

Seed it with a share of the fees the state already charges for export permits and international loans, and match it with corporate contributions. A company can sponsor a stadium; it should be able to sponsor the restoration of a Rivera and be named for it.

Turn the declaratoria into a bargain instead of a bill

Offer owners technical assistance, shared restoration costs and clear export rules in exchange for enforceable commitments to exhibit the work here.

The collectors are already here — the Soumaya, FEMSA and Jumex, as well as the ones we never see. What we have never built is a legal way for any of them to help keep the rest of it alive.

So let’s legislate again — not for a single collection, but to protect our patrimonio from looting, the black market, neglect, decay, and from failing to train the next generation of researchers, historians and restorers.

Let what makes us proud be the sharing of these works and their histories. Not merely the fact that they sit on Mexican soil, quietly falling apart in a warehouse.

Maria Meléndez writes for Mexico News Daily in Mexico City.

Colima’s Pouleth Carbajal swims the English Channel

By
MND Staff
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0
Pouleth and her team
The Channel crossing by Pouleth Carbajal (second from left) was a solo effort, but as with most individual efforts her support team was key. It included her coach Sandra Venegas Ortiz, her mother Gabriela Cuero and observer Karina Almanza, herself a successful Channel crosser in 2018. (Indira Vizcaíno/Facebook)

Pouleth Carbajal swam from England to France in a little more than 14 hours over the weekend, becoming the first person from the Mexican state of Colima to complete a solo English Channel crossing.

The 24-year-old native of Manzanillo, Colima, left Shakespeare Beach, near Dover, at 2:12 a.m. Sunday and that afternoon reached the dunes at Wissant, France, according to the Channel Swimming & Piloting Federation (CS&PF).

Pouleth Carbajal
For Carbajal, the crossing meant swimming for more than 14 hours. She covered 65.3 kilometers, or about 40.6 miles. The shortest distance from England to France is 21 miles in a straight line across the Channel, but ocean currents don’t respect straight lines. (Pouleth Carbajal/Facebook)

The federation listed her unofficial time at 14 hours, 7 minutes. Mexican reports said she covered 65.3 kilometers, or about 40.6 miles, as currents extended her route beyond the channel’s narrowest straight-line distance of about 21 miles.

Carbajal was coached by Sandra Venegas Ortiz, and her support team included Gabriela Cuero, her mother. Listed as an observer was Karina Almanza, a swimmer from Mexico City who herself completed the English Channel in 2018. 

Carbajal’s swim remains subject to official ratification, but the federation called it an “unofficial success” and congratulated her “on a great swim.”

In a Facebook post, the Manzanillo municipal government called her accomplishment “a source of pride for Manzanillo,” adding that Carbajal showed that “with discipline, preparation and determination, it is possible to achieve great challenges.”

The English Channel is among open-water swimming’s best-known endurance tests, requiring swimmers to contend with cold water, tides, currents and some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. In Spanish, the waterway is called the Canal de la Mancha, derived from its name in French, La Manche, “the sleeve.”

The CS&PF database lists 3,384 solo channel swims by 2,728 swimmers, and historical data cited by Britannica put the average successful crossing time at roughly 13 hours, 34 minutes.

The one-way record is 6 hours, 45 minutes and 25 seconds, set by Germany’s Andreas Waschburger in 2023. The women’s record is 7:25:15, set by Czech swimmer Yvetta Hlaváčová in 2006.

According to the English Channel Swimming database, Carbajal’s swim, once ratified, will become the 88th Mexican solo crossing of the channel. 

That list includes a pair of two-way, over-and-back crossings — Nora Toledano Cadena in 1994 and Carlos Alfonso Acosta Aldrete in 2023; both are from Mexico City.

Another prominent Mexican open-water swimmer is David Olvera, a San Luis Potosí native who swam nonstop from Cozumel to Cancún earlier this year, and last year set a Guinness World Record for the fastest circumnavigation swim around Manhattan Island (5:34.58).

Patricia Guerra from Mexico City completed the same course around Manhattan (7:53.12) in August 2023, a month after swimming the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco.

With reports from El Heraldo de México and Milenio

Deadly Sonora heat wave expected to intensify over next 3 days

By
MND Staff
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0
heat wave
With temperatures possibly hitting 120 F, Sonora health authorities are warning that protection from the sun is not only a matter of comfort but more a matter of health and safety. Heatstroke can kill. (Graciela López/Cuartoscuro)

Temperatures are expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the next three days in the northwestern border state of Sonora, with highs reaching 47 C in municipalities in the northwest and central region, according to Mexico’s National Meteorological Service (SMN).

The dangerous heat wave, which has lasted more than six weeks, has already caused 22 deaths and sickened 350 as of Tuesday morning, reports the Sonora state Health Ministry.

The cities of San Luis Río Colorado, Caborca and Hermosillo could experience highs of between 43 C and 47 C. In the state capital of Hermosillo, the relative humidity is around 45%, while the ultraviolet radiation index is in the “extreme” category, ranging from 8 to 11.

The SMN is also monitoring summer monsoon conditions, with isolated storms reported in the mountainous regions of central and southern Sonora. 

The State Civil Protection Coordination announced that monsoons will continue to bring rainfall across much of Sonora on Tuesday but will not cause temperatures to drop. Residents can expect moderate to heavy rain, lightning and gusty winds.

Construction and agricultural workers have been warned to take precautions, and employers are urged to schedule breaks during the workday to allow workers to hydrate and reduce their exposure during peak sun hours.

Health authorities are encouraging the public to stay hydrated, wear light-colored, lightweight clothing with long sleeves and use a hat or umbrella to protect themselves from the sun. People should avoid being outdoors during the hottest hours of the day, with older adults and children at greatest risk. 

The main signs associated with heatstroke (golpe de calor) include severe headache, dizziness, confusion, nausea, very hot skin and loss of consciousness. Health authorities have advised the public to seek immediate medical attention by calling 911 if these severe symptoms occur.

With reports from La Jornada and El Sol de México

Navy seizes over 300 IEDs and 300 kg of explosives in Sinaloa

By
MND Staff
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artisanal explosive devices found in Sinaloa
Artisanal explosive devices have been used by the Los Chapitos and Los Mayos factions of the Sinaloa Cartel. (@GabSeguridadMX/X)

The Mexican Navy on Tuesday said that its personnel had seized more than 300 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and around 300 kilograms of explosives in a southern municipality of Sinaloa, a state where IEDs have been used in the long-running battle between rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The Ministry of the Navy (SEMAR) said in a statement that navy personnel found the IEDs and explosive material near Agua Verde, a small town in Rosario, a municipality that borders both Nayarit and Durango.

The discovery was made at a rural property during an operation led by the navy in conjunction with the federal Security Ministry and the Federal Attorney General’s Office.

SEMAR said that the area where the IEDs and explosives were found was cordoned off and that specialized personnel from the Navy’s Explosive Devices Search, Location and Neutralization team defused the devices “on site.”

“Through these actions, the Ministry of the Navy, via the Mexican Navy and in coordination with agencies of the [federal] Security Cabinet, helps to improve security conditions,” SEMAR said.

The ministry reaffirmed its “commitment to continue carrying out operations to uphold the rule of law and ensure the safety of Mexican families.”

SEMAR didn’t report any arrests in connection with the discovery of the IEDs and explosives.

This week’s bust came just over two months after state and federal security authorities located more than 550 IEDs at another property in Rosario. Significant numbers of IEDs have also been seized in other parts of the state, including in the municipalities of San Ignacio, Culiacán and Badiraguato, where convicted drug trafficker and former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was born.

The artisanal explosive devices have been used by the Los Chapitos and Los Mayos factions of the Sinaloa Cartel during their bloody conflict, which intensified in 2024 after Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was kidnapped by one of El Chapo’s sons, Joaquín Guzmán López, and forced onto a plane that flew him and Guzmán López to New Mexico, where both men were arrested by U.S. authorities. IEDs have also been used in Sinaloa to attack homes, businesses and police.

According to the newspaper Milenio, authorities seized 5,298 IEDs in Sinaloa last year, the highest number of any state in Mexico. Citing information it obtained via a freedom of information request, Milenio reported in February that the Mexican military and National Guard seized more IEDs across Mexico last year than ever before. The total number of IEDs seized by the military and the National Guard last year — 9,802 — represented an increase of 272% compared to 2024.

The increase in the use of IEDs — and authorities’ seizure of the devices — has been linked, in part, to the conflict between Los Chapos and Los Mayos. Other Mexican criminal groups, including the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), also use IEDs against rival organizations and authorities. After Sinaloa, the state where authorities seized the highest number of IEDs last year was Michoacán, where various crime groups, including the CJNG, operate.

Mexico News Daily

How Guanajuato became the setting for a modern ‘Don Quixote’

By
Louisa Rogers
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Movie poster for "Don Barry: A Quixotic Exploration"
"Don Barry: A Quixotic Exploration" was filmed in Guanajuato by filmmaker Paul Smart. (IMDb)

Producing a modern-day film adaptation of the novel “Don Quixote” in Guanajuato is something only an idealist would undertake, especially a newcomer to Mexico with limited Spanish. But that’s exactly what Paul Smart, a filmmaker, writer and radio producer from New York’s Hudson Valley, chose to do when he moved to Guanajuato in 2021 with his wife, Fawn Potash — a photographer and encaustic artist — and their son.

The “Cervantes Capital of the Americas,” Guanajuato has long been considered Don Quixote’s home outside Spain. Its annual international performing arts festival, Cervantino, is the biggest in Latin America, and the city’s Museo Iconográfico del Quijote houses the world’s largest collection of art inspired by the novel.

Still from "Don Barry: A Quixotic Exploration"
Paul Smart’s film “Don Barry: A Quixotic Exploration” is currently streaming on Prime Video. (IMDb)

As Smart got to know Guanajuato, strolling its labyrinthine alleys, he fell in love with the city’s “grand vistas and the layered mixture of old and new, European and Indigenous, beautiful and utilitarian,” he said.

He started reading up on local and national history, becoming so enthralled by the city’s connection to Don Quixote that he produced a 175-episode radio reading series of the novel, punctuated with pieces of music and personal reflections. It aired on listener-supported radio stations in the U.S.

“I failed Don Quixote in college,” he says in the first episode. “I was an English major, and it was in Spanish. I made fun of it.”

Today, Smart sees many parallels between Don Quixote’s quest to reinvent himself and his own midlife musings.

How the film ‘Don Barry: A Quixotic Exploration’ was conceived

After the radio series, Smart was ready for another project — but still haunted by Don Quixote — and began imagining a contemporary version of Cervantes’ classic.

“I felt nicely challenged by the fact that ‘Don Quixote’ is known for killing the ambitions of many a great director,” he said.

As he played around with a script, the image of an old friend came to mind. Barry Gerson was an 80-year-old experimental filmmaker and, like Quixote, a quirky and impractical idealist. Smart created a composite character, “Don Barry,” by mashing together the two men, one real and one fictional.

He used Cervantes’ own words from the novel’s second book, which deals with mortality and creativity.

In ironic timing, while Smart was noodling ideas, he got a call from Gerson. His friend had been experimenting with color LED therapy lights to cure himself of “the maladies of aging” — diabetes, prostate cancer and the onset of dementia. Gerson had 20 pages of detailed handwritten notes that he thought might be publishable.

Would Smart help him?

Smart suddenly realized that Gerson’s anti-aging experiments were the exact material for “Don Barry,” and the film began to take shape. Ultimately, Gerson flew to Guanajuato, and Smart shot the film in real crowds, using local dancers and musicians, during the 2023 Cervantino Festival and Day of the Dead. A young Mexican animator and physicist, Genda Monter, played a modern-day Sanchia (based on Sancho Panza), Don Barry’s assistant.

How to produce a film in Mexico without much Spanish

“I speak minimal Spanish. ‘Como un bebé,’” Smart said he tells people. But he knows how to make himself understood.

Barry Gerson in "Don Barry: A Quixotic Exploration"
Despite knowing minimal Spanish, Smart was comfortable filming in Mexico. He worked on the film in Irapuato, Guanajuato. (IMDb)

“The trick is to read a person’s eyes, smile a lot, move your hands and bring in a translator when possible.”

He also avoids places where English is spoken, “to try to activate the language center I still think exists somewhere within me.” He worked on “Don Barry,” for example, in cafés in the working-class city of Irapuato, where his son went to school for two years. You don’t hear much English in Irapuato.

Collaborating with a local producer and local camera people also helped. “We had paperwork explaining what we were doing, including various agreements for people to sign.” People understood. “I paid out a lot of 200- and 500-peso notes for release signatures, which made everyone happy,” he added.

Challenges beyond language

Gerson was not an easy person to work with.

“He didn’t tell me he could barely walk,” Smart said, “and he couldn’t remember lines. And first he had me build him an LED-light rehab studio in his Airbnb.”

A tight budget was another issue, since Smart was largely self-funding the project. Festival fees ran more than US $100. But after he began exhibiting in small cultural centers, “Don Barry” started winning accolades.

Gerda Montes in "Don Barry: A Quixotic Exploration"
Physicist Genda Monter plays Sanchia, an updated version of Sancho Panza from “Don Quixote.” (IMDb)

The film has been shown in Guanajuato, Mexico City, Austin, Portland, the Hudson Valley and Italy, and is available on Prime Video.

What’s next for Smart

Now, Smart is writing a script for a new film called “Six-Seven: Playing with Magic,” about two girls from the U.S. and two boys from Mexico, ages 5 to 7, who play together over a summer, a period that they remember a few years later in the film.

“Like ‘Don Barry,’ the film is about aging, but seen from childhood instead of old age,” Smart said. His goal is to show the film this winter at festival premieres that have already honored him.

Smart is not only a filmmaker and radio producer, but also the author of the memoir “With Different Eyes: A Covid Waltz in Words and Images.” He has also written a novel: “Overlook: A Rock and Roll Fable.”

He believes that nurturing creativity is much easier in a country like Mexico, where capitalism is less “predatory” than in the U.S., and where not all values are economic.

“One of the first things I saw and appreciated here was the way all elements of life are allowed to coexist … the ugly and beautiful, life and death, rich and poor, dirty and clean. Some call it surrealism, others a wider appreciation of life,” he wrote in an email.

Whichever it is, the rich, heady atmosphere in Mexico provides the oxygen that enables Smart to keep creating.

Louisa Rogers and her husband Barry Evans divide their lives between Guanajuato and Eureka, on California’s North Coast. Louisa writes articles and essays about expat life, Mexico, travel, physical and psychological health, retirement and spirituality. Her recent articles are available on her website, authory.com/LouisaRogers.

Spanish police confiscate dozens of critically endangered Mexican axolotls

By
MND Staff
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acptured axolotls
Andalucía authorities released this photo of seized axolotl specimens. International trade in the critically endangered amphibian is highly regulated, and the suspect under investigation allegedly did not meet the requirements. (Junta de Andalucía)

Spain’s National Police have recovered 29 axolotls, a critically endangered amphibian endemic to Mexico that survives in the wild only in the canal system of Xochimilco in Mexico City.

Spanish authorities confiscated the specimens in the city of Granada and are investigating a Mexican national for his alleged participation in illegally trading the axolotls.

axolotl
Though the axolotl population has been dangerously depleted in its natural habitat, axolotls have been trending as “pets.” But to survive, captive axolotls need the conditions of the Xochimilco canals to be duplicated, which is difficult, expensive and rarely achieved by non-scientists. (gob.mx)

Although the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the axolotl as a critically endangered species — the category immediately preceding extinction in the wild — its international trade is legal, though strictly regulated.

The species is included in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. As such, international trade must be controlled and supported by the necessary documentation to prove the legal origin and traceability of the specimens.

Spanish authorities say the suspect did not have the proper documentation. Therefore, they seized the axolotls and are pursuing charges of unauthorized possession and sale of specimens of a protected species.

Meanwhile, the axolotls are under the supervision of specialized veterinary personnel at the Zoobotanical Biodiversity Conservation Center of Jerez de la Frontera, in Cadiz.

The natural population of axolotls in Mexico has suffered a marked decline as a result of habitat destruction and degradation, water pollution, urban sprawl and the introduction of invasive species into the Xochimilco canal system. 

This precarious situation contrasts sharply with their growing popularity as pets, making it especially important to control the origin of these carnivorous amphibians and prevent demand from fueling their illegal trade.

Even so, Mexican media have reported that axolotls are illegally sold (for around 500 pesos, or US $30) at the Mixhuca Market in the Venustiano Carranza borough of Mexico City. 

In addition to Europe, the illegal trade reaches as far as South America, where Chilean officials confiscated 65 axolotls in April. Chilean officials have estimated that nine in 10 axolotls die of asphyxiation, dehydration or exposure to extreme temperatures during the transition.

Although appreciated as exotic pets, a lack of adequate information and unsuitable captive conditions endanger the lives of these amphibians. Placing an axolotl in a fish tank with clean water overlooks the reality that they are an extremely delicate species with very specific needs.

With reports from LopezDoriga.com, El Heraldo de México and N+

Cox to build US $310M desalination plant in Baja California

By
MND Staff
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Reverse osmosis desalination and water treatment facilities
The plant will use reverse osmosis technology, an advanced treatment system that employs semi-permeable membranes to remove salts, minerals and impurities from seawater and convert it into drinking water. (Shutterstock)

Spanish company Grupo Cox will build a long-awaited desalination plant in Rosarito, a coastal city in the drought-prone state of Baja California.

The National Water Commission (Conagua) last week awarded a 5.29 billion-peso (about US $310 million) contract to Cox to build both a desalination plant and its pumping station in Rosarito, a town located south of Tijuana on the Pacific coast. The company submitted a bid for the project as the leader of a consortium that includes Mexican company Gami Ingenieria e Instalaciones.

Cox, which has a Mexican subsidiary called Cox de México, acknowledged Conagua’s decision in a statement released on Monday.

“Cox, an international group specializing in critical water and energy infrastructure, has been awarded, through a public tender process, the construction of the Rosarito desalination plant in Baja California, Mexico,” the company said.

“The project, promoted by the National Water Commission (Conagua), represents an investment of US $304 million and will help strengthen water security in the region, benefiting one million people during its first phase,” said Cox, which evidently calculated the cost in dollars using an outdated USD:MXN exchange rate.

The company said that the plant — which has been in the works for years —  is “one of the priority initiatives under Mexico’s National Water Plan and will address the water supply needs of Playas de Rosarito and the south-western area of Tijuana.”

Enrique Riquelme, Cox’s executive chairman, said that the desalination plant project “reaffirms our commitment to Mexico following the acquisition of Iberdrola Mexico.”

“Through this award, we are bringing our expertise in the water sector to a country where we continue to support the development of infrastructure that contributes to people’s well-being and to the country’s sustainable growth,” he said.

“We are proud to collaborate with federal and state authorities on an initiative aligned with the objectives of the National Water Plan and one that will help strengthen the region’s resilience to the challenges associated with climate change,” Riquelme said.

Cox: Desal plant will produce 190 million liters of drinking water per day in first phase 

Cox said that the first phase of the project includes the construction of a desalination plant with the capacity to treat 2,200 liters of seawater per second, “enabling the incorporation of approximately 190 million liters of drinking water per day into the regional water supply system.”

The company said that construction of the plant is expected to be completed in three years.

“Cox will be responsible for the engineering, procurement of specialized equipment and construction of the infrastructure, which will provide a complementary and independent water source from the Colorado River, strengthening water resource availability in Baja California,” Cox said.

“The desalination plant will have a final production capacity of 4,400 liters per second, equivalent to more than 380,000 m³ [380 million liters] of drinking water per day, making it the largest facility of its kind in Latin America,” the company said.

Cox said that the plant will use “reverse osmosis technology, an advanced treatment system that employs semi-permeable membranes to remove salts, minerals and impurities from seawater and convert it into drinking water.”

This technology is recognized for its high operational efficiency, the quality of the water produced and its lower energy intensity compared with other desalination solutions,” the company said.

Cox noted that it operates desalination plants across 16 countries with a combined desalinated water production capacity exceeding 4.4 billion liters per day.

The public tender process 

Cox’s 5.29-billion-peso bid for the desalination plant project was the lowest among three participants in Conagua’s public tender process.

The score for its proposal — 94 out of 100 — was higher than those given to one consortium led by Acciona Agua México and another led by Tecno Arrendamientos y Construcciones.

The federal and Baja California governments will jointly fund the desalination plant.

Two previous tender processes for the desalination plant failed to find a company that was able to meet the technical and economic requirements of the project. Consolidated Water was previously contracted to build the plant, but the Baja California government canceled the company’s contract in 2019 and a lengthy legal dispute ensued.

With reports from Expansión, El Sol de México, EFE and BNamericas 

Bilateral security cooperation nets more fugitives, including several priority US targets

By
MND Staff
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Arrest of Antoni Covarrubias
Antoni Covarrubias, wanted on charges of second-degree murder in California, was considered a priority target by U.S. authorities. (@USAmbMex/X)

U.S.-Mexico cooperation on security matters has netted another criminal destined for extradition, sending a clear message: “Whatever the crime, criminals have nowhere to hide.”

Jalisco police officers captured a man identified as Antoni Covarrubias in Puerto Vallarta who was considered a priority target by U.S. authorities. Covarrubias, 41, is wanted on charges of second-degree murder in California.

In a social media post, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson praised the cooperative effort of Mexican authorities, highlighting the positive results derived from bilateral security coordination.

Illustrating these recent successes, Johnson announced a few hours later that U.S. authorities had “turned over six more fugitives wanted in Mexico for serious crimes, including murder and firearms offenses, with one linked to a narco-terrorist organization.”

The operation in Puerto Vallarta was carried out in coordination with the U.S. Marshals Service after Jalisco authorities received information about the fugitive’s whereabouts in the heart of the popular tourist resort.

With the help of drones and the C2 Mobile Cybertruck, state police and a tactical unit were deployed to the area. According to police reports, Covarrubias was apprehended after a brief chase without incident. 

A search of the suspect turned up quantities of marijuana and crystal meth, but charges of drug possession were set aside once it was confirmed that the man was the target sought by U.S. authorities.

State officials contacted the U.S. Marshals Service to begin procedures to hand Covarrubias over for extradition.

On Monday, Ambassador Johnson posted a photograph of the detainee, handcuffed and guarded by four Jalisco police officers, and declared “criminals have nowhere to hide.” The apprehension of Covarrubias is reportedly the ninth arrest of a high-profile U.S. target in the state of Jalisco in recent weeks. 

This spate of captures and extraditions includes the return of three fugitives to Mexico over the weekend. The three suspects — including one who is allegedly a member of the notorious Jalisco New Generation Cartel — were wanted by Mexican authorities on a variety of criminal charges, including murder.

On Sunday, Johnson said the success demonstrates that effective security collaboration sends a clear message to criminals: “You will be caught and you will be held accountable.”

Also last week, the U.S. Marshals Service announced that Mexican authorities had deported one of Texas’ 10 Most Wanted fugitives who was wanted on multiple state and federal charges.

At the same time, Mexican and U.S. authorities conducted a rapid-response binational security exercise along a highly visible stretch of El Paso-Cd. Juárez border area. 

With reports from La Jornada, LatinUS, Noticias Puerto Vallarta and Debate

Sheinbaum says fuel smuggling is ‘over’ in Mexico: Tuesday’s mañanera recapped

By
MND Staff
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Sheinbaum
"As the opposition has no plan for the country," it uses the revocation of AMLO's son's visa to "attack the project that we represent," Sheinbaum said on Tuesday. (Galo Cañas/Cuartoscuro)

Sheinbaum’s mañanera in 60 seconds

  • 🇺🇸 Sheinbaum sticks to her “political” reading of AMLO’s son’s visa revocation: Asked whether Andrés Manuel López Beltrán had ever been on authorities’ radar over huachicol fiscal, the president said flatly, “he was not,” and repeated that the cancelation of his U.S. visa is a political matter and a case of “interference in the decisions of Mexico.”
  • 🎯 Opposition is using the case to “attack” the government, president says: Because the opposition “has no plan for the country,” Sheinbaum argued, it has seized on the revocation to attack “the project that we represent,” with a barrage of criticism from the right, pundits and media outlets after López Beltrán made the cancelation of his visa public in a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump.
  • ⛽ Fuel smuggling “practically over,” according to the president: Sheinbaum said her administration has all but ended huachicol fiscal thanks to interventions in customs and a series of arrests. She complained that government critics ignore that progress in favor of using visa revocations of Morena officials as a political weapon.
  • 🚫 “There was no list”: Defending legal adviser Luisa María Alcalde, Sheinbaum denied that a “blacklist” of journalists was presented at last Wednesday’s “right of reply” press conference. She said that Alcalde simply showed how stories from reporters such as Ciro Gómez Leyva, Joaquín López Dóriga, Ana Paula Ordorica, Azucena Uresti and Carlos Loret de Mola are amplified on social media to “create an opinion trend.”

Why today’s mañanera matters

The revocation of the U.S. visa of Andrés Manuel López Beltrán, a son of ex-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the former secretary of organization for the ruling Morena party, continues to be a major topic in the national conversation. The revocation came after dozens of other Morena officials, including Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila, were also stripped of their U.S. visas.

Trump administration strips AMLO’s son of his US visa

At her Tuesday morning press conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum once again offered her opinion on the situation amid calls from the opposition National Action Party (PAN) for López Beltrán to be investigated for alleged involvement in a tax evasion/fuel smuggling scheme known in Mexico as huachicol fiscal.

Today’s mañanera was also significant as Sheinbaum weighed in on another issue that has received significant attention in recent days. That issue is the presentation by presidential legal adviser Luisa María Alcalde of a list of high-profile journalists and media outlets whose critical coverage of the government is said to be amplified online in order to attack the federal government and the “fourth transformation” political movement that Sheinbaum leads.

Sheinbaum reiterates view that revocation of López Beltrán’s US visa was politically motivated 

A reporter noted that the Federal Attorney General’s Office said on Monday that it has no proof that would warrant the commencement of an investigation into allegations that López Beltrán is involved in fuel-related crimes. He asked the president whether López Beltrán was ever on authorities’ “radar” for alleged involvement in huachicol fiscal.

“He was not,” Sheinbaum responded.

“And as I mentioned on Friday, from our point of view this is a political issue,” she said, referring to the revocation of López Beltrán’s U.S. visa.

“It’s not related to other issues,” Sheinbaum said.

Rather, she said, it’s a matter of “interference in the decisions of Mexico.”

“… There are other criminals, or alleged criminals, let’s put it that way, where there is no problem [with their U.S. visas],” Sheinbaum said.

“Or there are other politically exposed persons, as they call them, where it’s the other way around — they open the doors to them,” she said.

“I’m not going to name names because I don’t want to get into a controversy,” Sheinbaum said.

Sheinbaum: Opposition is using revocation of López Beltrán’s visa to ‘attack’ the government  

Sheinbaum asserted that “as the opposition has no plan for the country,” it uses the revocation of López Beltrán’s visa to “attack the project that we represent.”

“They take away his visa, he decided to make it public with a letter [addressed to U.S. President Donald Trump] and then the barrage of criticism came from the conservative side of politics, from the right, from the pundits, from the media outlets,” she said.

Sheinbaum: Government has ‘practically’ put an end to huachicol fiscal 

Sheinbaum asserted that her administration has “practically” put an end to “huachicol fiscal, or the smuggling of fuel.”

“It’s practically over thanks to the interventions that we’ve been carrying out in customs and the arrests that have been made,” she said.

Sheinbaum said that government critics don’t talk about the progress the government has made in combating huachicol fiscal.

Instead, they use revocations of Morena officials’ U.S. visas to attack the government, she reiterated.

“They have the right to do that. Nobody is going to censor them as they claim we will, but it is necessary to point out the work that has been done [to combat huachicol fiscal],” Sheinbaum said.

Sheinbaum defends her top legal adviser amid claims she disseminated a ‘blacklist’ of journalists 

A reporter raised remarks made by Luisa María Alcalde at the “right of reply” press conference she held last Wednesday.

She asked Sheinbaum whether Alcalde, a former interior minister and national president of Morena, had not “directly blamed” certain journalists for initiating an “offensive” against the government because she said that those journalists are the source of anti-government messages that are subsequently amplified on social media, including by bots.

Alcalde faced significant criticism for presenting a so-called “blacklist” of journalists who are said to be opposed to the federal government. In addition, video footage of Sheinbaum saying in 2021 that the drawing up of lists of political adversaries is a practice of McCarthyism and Nazism was widely shared on social media.

On Tuesday morning, Sheinbaum asserted that Alcalde did not in fact present a list at her “right of reply” press conference, a relatively new initiative of the federal government.

“First, there was no list,” she said.

“Names were presented — what Luisa presented … what she showed is the use of digital platforms, of social media, to amplify a piece of news and even create fake news,” Sheinbaum said.

“That’s what she presented,” she said.

Sheinbaum said that Alcalde showed how “a piece of news from these journalists” — among whom were Ciro Gómez Leyva, Joaquín López Dóriga, Ana Paula Ordorica, Azucena Uresti and Carlos Loret de Mola —can be amplified on social media to “create an opinion trend.”

“There are multiple cases of this that we can talk about, many cases,” she said. Narco-government, narco-candidate, narco-president, all that,” Sheinbaum said.

The president went on to say that her government defends the right to free speech.

“Who here has been censored? Give me the name of a journalist we’ve censored,” Sheinbaum said.

“There isn’t one. Tell me the name of a media outlet we’ve censored. There isn’t one,” she said.

By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)

Aeroméxico readies new CDMX-Milan flight for spring 2027

By
MND Staff
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Milan
The route would connect Mexico City International Airport (AICM) with Milan-Malpensa Airport (MXP), a major air gateway to northern Italy and a strategic hub for business and leisure travelers. (Unsplash)

Aeroméxico has announced the preparation of a new direct flight between Mexico City and Milan, Italy, scheduled to launch at the start of the 2027 spring season. 

The route would connect Mexico City International Airport (AICM) with Milan-Malpensa Airport (MXP), a major air gateway to northern Italy and a strategic hub for business and leisure travelers, as well as for connections to other European destinations.

Milan-Malpensa is located outside the city center but maintains a rail connection to Milano Centrale via the Malpensa Express. The launch of the direct flight would reduce the need for layovers in the United States, Spain, France or the Netherlands, depending on the option chosen by travelers. 

The Mexican airline has not yet given information regarding the weekly frequency, days of operation, schedules, introductory fares or flight number, as the project remains subject to the necessary government approvals.

If approved, the new route would make Aeroméxico the only airline in Mexico to connect Mexico City with two destinations in Italy, as the carrier already operates in Italy through its service to Rome-Fiumicino. 

“We are very excited to add Milan to our international network, a destination that will allow us to strengthen cultural, commercial, and business ties between Mexico and Italy,” Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Aeroméxico Giancarlo Mulinelli said in a statement. 

The new connection could also capitalize on the Italian tourism market’s growing interest in Mexico. According to figures from the Tourism Ministry, air arrivals of visitors residing in Italy last year increased by 13.7% on an annual basis, reaching 102,813 arrivals in the first eleven months of 2025.

The new route will also open up the possibility for travelers from other parts of the country to fly to Milan with a layover in Mexico City, keeping the itinerary within Aeroméxico’s network.

With reports from Aviación 21 and Punto Di Contro

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