From the AP, Nov. 7:

Hundreds protest border fence in Mexico

CIUDAD ACUNA, Mexico -- The mayor of a Mexican city on the Texas border led about 400 people on a 55-mile march Tuesday to protest U.S. plans for new border fence.

How ironic. We noted in August that ex-Israeli security chief Uza Dayan was warning the US against emulating Israeli strategies in securing the Mexican border. Now it appears that Elbit Systems, an Israeli firm which is building the "Aparthied Wall" in occupied Palestine, has been awarded a contract, along with Boeing, to build the wall on the Mexican border. From Israel21C, Oct. 15:

There have now been 84 "arbitrary detentions" by the Mexican federal police in Oaxaca, according to the Miguel Augustin Pro-Juarez Human Rights Center (PRODH), which has dispatched a team of investigators to the besieged city. The group also reports 59 "disappearances," in which the whereabouts of the detained is unknown, since the city was occupied by 4,000 Federal Preventative Police on Oct. 29. (La Jornada, Nov. 5)

Bombs exploded at three high-profile targets in Mexico City early on the morning of Nov. 6, causing property damage but no injuries. A door was damaged and windows blown out at the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TRIFE), a body which had angered leftists in September for ruling that conservative candidate Felipe Calderon won July's disputed presidential race. Glass and ceiling panels covered the floor of an annex building at the headquarters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), now embroiled in a bitter conflict in the state of Oaxaca. An explosion also tore apart the metal and glass facade of a branch of Canada's Scotiabank. A fourth bomb at another bank failed to detonate. (Reuters, Nov. 6)

Under the slogan "the struggle of Oaxaca is the struggle of Puebla," representatives of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) met with local activists in the capital of neighboring Puebla state Nov. 3. Leaders of the Frente Civico Poblano (Pueblan Civic Front), the Movimiento Cholulteca Unido (United Cholutecan Movement), the Asociacion de Comerciantes 28 de Octubre (October 28 Merchants Association) and other groups pledged to join under the umbrella of a "Popular Assembly of the State of Puebla," to unite social, labor and human rights struggles in their own state. They said the new organization would have up to 40,000 members from its inception. The participating groups have been holding large demonstrations in solidarity with Oaxaca over the past weeks. (APRO, Nov. 3 via Chiapas95)

From Reporters Without Borders, Nov. 3 via Chiapas95:

While noting that two of Indymedia cameraman Brad Will's alleged killers were arrested and taken before a judge yesterday in Oaxaca, Reporters Without Borders today condemned the shortcomings in the investigation into his fatal shooting and the fact that three others allegedly involved have been able to escape.

Oaxaca's beseiged Gov. Ulises Ruiz continues to resist calls for his resignation from all three of Mexico's major political parties. He insisted Nov. 4 that the conflict in his state affects only "one avenue in one of 570 municipalities." (La Jornada, Nov. 4) "No conditions exist in which I would resign," he told another reporter from the governor's mansion in Santa Maria Coyotepec, just outside Oaxaca City, where he returned from an exile of several weeks in the naitonal capital after federal police were sent in last weekend. (El Universal, Nov. 4)

Tens of thousands of protesters from across Mexico have gathered in Oaxaca City Nov. 5 to defy federal police control of the streets in what organizers are calling a "mega-march." Cars and buses from throughout the country arrived at Oaxaca‘s state university, which is controlled by protesters and is serving as a staging ground. Soldiers searched cars for weapons as they arrived on the outskirts of the city, and federal police unrolled razor wire in the city center. But under Mexican law the police cannot enter the university campus without the permission of the rector. Oaxaca rector Francisco Martinez has said police are not welcome.