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.

The Canada-based Linear Gold Corp. ceded to pressure from indigenous communities who oppose plans to exploit gold and silver deposits at Ixhuatán in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas, and announced the closure of its offices in the state on Sept. 28. Along with the company Blackfire Exploration Corporation, Linear Gold Corp. holds most of the concessions granted by the Mexican government to foreign mining outfits in the conflicted state. The company's statement upon closing its Chiapas offices cited the world financial sitaution, and left open the possibility of resuming local operations. The Mexican Network of the Mining-Affected (REMA) had held numerous protests against the project. (No a la Mina, Sept. 28)

Internationally-known Mexican environmentalist and forest defender Felipe Arreaga was killed Sept. 16, while driving his ATV in Petatlan, Guerrero. The longtime campesino leader was struck by a mini-bus and died a few hours later in a hospital in nearby Zihuatanejo. Although Petatlan is the site of a military base, it lacks civilian medical facilities capable of handling serious injuries. The driver of the mini-bus fled the scene of the crash, and many circumstances of the incident are still unclear.

Taking a cue from Argentina's Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, relatives of disappeared persons staged a loud demonstration in Tijuana on Sept. 25. Banging pots and pans, protesters gathered outside the Baja California state government building to demand answers about the whereabouts of 320 people forcibly disappeared or kidnapped. In an action that attracted public attention, relatives of the disappeared plastered pictures of their loved ones on the exterior of the government offices.