The International Tribunal on Freedom of Association, a new body investigating violations of the right to unionize, held its opening sessions on Oct. 26 and 26 in Mexico City. Created by more than 30 Mexican and foreign civil society organizations, the tribunal includes 16 authors, academics and labor and human rights activists from eight different countries. They heard testimony and received documents from 16 cases brought by trade unions alleging that the Mexican government had violated International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 87, on freedom of association and the right to organize, and Convention 98, on the right to collective bargaining.

The US Department of Justice announced Nov. 1 that Mexico's extradition of 11 fugitives to the United States the previous day has brought the number of extraditions this year to a record 100. The individuals face charges ranging from conspiracy to distribute and distribution of narcotics, to money laundering, molestation, and murder.

Staging raids in 38 cities across 19 states, the Justice Department claimed a major blow against the stateside networks of Mexico's La Familia Michoacana narco gang this week. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Oct. 22 announced the arrests of 303 people in the past two days, the culmination of a four-year investigation dubbed "Operation Coronado."

The Mexico Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) presented a report in Mexico City on Oct. 13 on the dangers facing human rights activists in Mexico. According to the report, "Defending Human Rights: Caught Between Commitment and Risk," the OHCHR found 128 cases of aggression against activists from January 2006 to August 2009, including 10 murders. OHCHR staff visited 10 of Mexico's 32 states to compile the report, interviewing non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights defenders, victims of aggression, journalists and government authorities.

At least 150,000 Mexicans joined a march from the Angel of Independence in downtown Mexico City to the central Zócalo Plaza in the late afternoon of Oct. 15 to protest the Oct. 10 seizure by Mexican soldiers and federal police of facilities of the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC). Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's center-right administration decreed the liquidation of the company and terminated its employees as the security forces were occupying the plants. The number of workers laid off is now said to be more than 43,000.

At around 11 PM the night of Oct. 10, Mexican soldiers and federal police agents occupied facilities of the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) in Mexico City and several central Mexican states, reportedly using force to remove workers on the night shift. About an hour later Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's center-right administration published a decree liquidating the company and terminating some 41,000 active employees. The decree promised respect for the workers' labor rights: the government said it would guarantee severance pay and pensions, at an estimated cost of some $20 billion pesos ($1.512 billion).

Prosecutors in Guadalajara, Mexico, say they have filed charges against two suspected members of a gang blamed for what the press has dubbed the "clown jewels" caper. The gang—some members dressed in clown costumes—burst into a jewelry store July 26 and made off with at least $900,000 worth of loot. The clown costumes were later found abandoned in a car. The Jalisco state prosecutor's office says two of six suspects have been caught and charged while a third has been detained pending investigation. One of the suspects reportedly confessed to being the one of the men behind the masks. (AP, Oct. 9)

Members of the independent Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) were guarding the Mexico City facilities of the state-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) to make sure the federal government could not "throw the switch and blame the workers," union president Martín Esparza Flores said after a labor forum in the capital on Oct. 3. The union charged on Sept. 29 that President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's center-right administration was contemplating a quasi-military occupation of the plants within a week on the pretext that the SME was planning to cause a blackout. The LFC provides power for the Federal District, and México, Morelos, Puebla and Hidalgo states.