Six years after it was first introduced, a bill allowing same sex civil unions in Mexico's Federal District (DF, Mexico City) was approved by the Federal District Legislative Assembly (ALDF) by a vote of 43 to 17, with five abstentions. Thirty-three deputies from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) voted for the measure, and one abstained, while 16 of the 17 deputies from the center-right National Action Party (PAN) voted against it; most deputies from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and smaller parties abstained or backed the law. Human rights and lesbian-gay rights groups had repeatedly criticized the PRD, which has ruled the DF since 1997, for failing to get the law passed.

Classes resumed at Oaxaca's state university Nov. 13, even as 1,700 delegates of the leading coalition of protest groups emerged from a "constitutive congress" vowing to step up their actions. The Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) announced that its activists will re-install the barricades in the state capital and elsewhere, many of which were dismantled when the federal police moved in two weeks ago. APPO's Zenen Bravo Castellanos said the delegates also decided to retake over both state and municipal public buildings, and block highways. "The purpose is to demonstrate that there is no governability in this state," Bravo said. (El Universal, Nov. 14)

From EFE, Nov. 12 via Chiapas95 (our translation):

OAXACA - A group of 250 indigenous from the community of Acteal in Chiapas state marched today in the city of Oaxaca and held a religious ritual in support of peace for this state, which has suffered a political conflict since almost six months ago.

From El Universal, Nov. 14 (our translation, links added):

OCOSINGO, Chiapas -- The organization Maderas del Pueblo [Timber for the People], which has a presence in the Selva Lacandona, confirmed that up to nine campesinos were assassinated in the comunity of Viejo Velasco.

From AP, Nov. 12 (links added):

OAXACA, Mexico -- Four youths wearing masks tossed gasoline bombs at a McDonald's restaurant in the conflict-torn city of Oaxaca on Sunday, damaging the windows, seats and play area, police said.

From El Universal, Nov. 9 via Chiapas95 (our translation):

GENEVA, Switzerland - The Federal Prosecutor of the Republic [PGR] admitted that following the police operation of this past May in San Salvador Atenco, sexual abuses and torture were committed against detained women.

Campesinos organized by the National Front of Struggle for Socialism (FNLS) blocked four central highways in Mexico's southern Chiapas state Nov. 10, including the Panamerican Highway and the coastal frontier highway, in solidarity with the Popular People's Organization of Oaxaca (APPO) and to demand the withdrawal of federal police from the embattled neighboring state.

From El Universal, Nov. 10 via Chiapas95:

One of the most horrific crimes in recent Mexico City history - the 2004 beating and burning to death of two federal police officers by a mob of residents in the Tlahuac district - may have been planned by the People's Revolutionary Army guerrilla group, the top Federal District law enforcement official said Thursday.