On Dec. 12, "narco-banners" (narcomantas) with a four-paragraph communiqué were hung from pedestrian overpasses at 10 different spots around the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, signed with the name of Miguel Angel Treviño AKA "Z-40"—a fugitive leader of Los Zetas. Not hand-scrawled like most narcomantas, but professionally printed, the messages' first paragraph declared: "We do not govern this country, nor do we have a regime; we are not terrorists or guerillas. We concentrate on our work and the last thing we want is to have problems with any government, neither Mexico nor much less with the US." The message went on to distance both Treviño and the Zetas from the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US, as well as an August attack in a Monterrey casino that killed more than 50.

A Lebanese drug kingpin with alleged connections to both Hezbollah and Mexico's Los Zetas drug cartel, was charged with drug trafficking and money laundering, the Justice Department and DEA announced Dec. 13. Ayman Joumaa AKA "Junior" is accused of shipping an estimated 85,000 kilograms of cocaine into the United States and laundering more than $850 million in drug proceeds for Los Zetas cartel through front companies and the Lebanese Canadian Bank. The indictment, unsealed in Alexandria, Va., says his trafficking and laundering networks extended to the United States, Lebanon, Benin, Panama, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere. DEA administrator Michele Leonhart said in a statement: "According to information from sources, his alleged drug and money laundering activities facilitated numerous global drug trafficking organizations, including the criminal activities of the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel." (ABC News, DEA press release, Dec. 13)

Norma Andrade, a leader of the organization Our Daughters Return Home and a critical voice demanding justice in the long string of "femicides" in Ciudad Juárez is stable condition after being shot twice Dec. 2, as she drove home from her job as a teacher in the violent Mexican border city. Five shots were fired altogether. Chihuahua state police said she was the apparent victim of a carjacking or robbery. But the Mexico office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement calling for authorities to take actions to protect human rights defenders in the country. (UN News Centre, Nov. 6; CNN, Dec. 6; El Paso Times, Dec. 3)

The UN Economic Comission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC, CEPAL in Spanish) released a report on Nov. 29 showing that the poverty rate in Latin America had dropped from 48.4% to 31.4% between 1990 and 2010, while the indigence rate fell from 22.6% to 12.3%. Despite the progress, 174 million people continue to live in poverty, and their situation is likely to worsen because of rising food costs, according to the UN commission, which is based in Chile.

Unknown assailants gunned down Mexican activist Nepomuceno Moreno Núñez on a street in Hermosillo, the capital of the northern state of Sonora, on Nov. 28. Moreno Núñez had been working with the Movement for Peace With Justice and Dignity (MPJD), which was founded by the poet Javier Sicilia this year to oppose the militarized "war on drugs" that has killed as many as 50,000 Mexican since late 2006.

A little-known office of the US Defense Department is now taking bids from private security firms on a $3 billion contract for US-funded anti-narcotics operations in Mexico, Colombia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries. According to a report in Wired News, the Pentagon's Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office (CNTPO) announced a "mega-contract" on Nov. 9 for as much as $950 million for "operations, logistics and minor construction," up to $975 million for training foreign forces, $875 million for "Information" tasks, and $240 million for "program and program support." The cash will start flowing next August, and the contractors may be able to extend the jobs for three more years.

Mexican human rights attorney Netzaí Sandoval on Nov. 25 filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague asking the court to investigate human rights violations and possible crimes against humanity by the security forces under President Felipe Calderón's campaign against the drug cartels. The complaint, backed by 23,000 signatures, names 470 cases of human rights abuses by government forces since 2006, and estimates 40,000 dead in drug-related violence. The complaint also names Public Security Minister Genaro García Luna, Defense Secretary Guillermo Galván and fugitive Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin Guzmán AKA "El Chapo" (long held to be secretly collaborating with the Calderón administration).

On Nov. 16 the largest US labor federation, the AFL-CIO, presented its 2011 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award to Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, general secretary of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers and the Like of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM). AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka and United Steelworkers (USW) president Leo Gerard made the presentation at ceremony in the federation's Washington, DC headquarters; Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and Rep. Mike Machaud (D-ME) also attended. The two US labor leaders both have links to the Mexican miners' union: Trumka is the former head of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), and Gerard and the USW have been working closely with the SNTMMSRM, which represents steelworkers as well as miners.