Authorities have arrested five suspects in the killing of a journalist in the northern Mexican city of Torreón, Coahuila, the federal Prosecutor General's office announced June 12. Hooded gunmen abducted the journalist, Eliseo Barrón, 35, from his house on May 25, and his body was found the next day. He covered the police for the local newspaper La Opinión, and had written about a police corruption scandal shortly before he was killed. The Prosecutor General's office said the five men had been stopped by soldiers who found drugs and weapons in their car. One of the men, Israel Sánchez Jaimes, confessed to being part of the Zetas narco gang and said he killed Barrón after the group had abducted him. Mexico's drug war has made the country one of the most dangerous in the world for reoporters. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 27 reporters have been killed since 2000 and another eight are missing. (NYT, June 12)

First, the local police in Monterrey, Mexico's third largest city, lost their assault rifles after an armed confrontation with federal agents while protesting the arrest of city officers for suspected drug corruption. Now police in the city will be stripped of cellphones. The legislature in Nuevo León state, this week approved a bill banning city and state police from carrying personal cellphones while on duty in an effort to stop corrupt officers from communicating with narco gangs. Federal forces raided police stations this month in 18 towns in Nuevo León, detaining 78 officers suspected of working with narcos. The operation came after soldiers found lists of police names in the possession of suspected traffickers. (AP, June 10)

The legacy of Dr. Manuel Arroyo Galvan was remembered in a large rally and march held June 3 in Ciudad Juárez. The 44-year-old sociology and education professor for the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) was shot to death in broad daylight in a May 29 killing that outraged a city practically numbed by more than 2,200 murders during the last 17 months.

Baja California Prosecutor General Rommel Moreno Manjarrez has announced that Colombian specialists will provide anti-kidnapping training to state law enforcement officials. Members of the Colombian National Police were in Baja California this week to lay the groundwork for the training which will be offered to 35 personnel attached to the state prosecutor general's office. Officers selected for the training will be vetted by the Colombians, Moreno said.

On May 20 about 100 residents of seven rural communities in Cunduacán municipality in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco blocked access to the Madrefil-1 oil well to demand compensation for what they say is damage to their lands. Drilling on the well, which belongs to Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), the government's giant oil monopoly, started at the beginning of the year. The campesinos say the work has already killed their crops and livestock and damaged their homes. "We asked the PEMEX engineers to take us into account, but they didn't pay any attention," one protester told the media.

In a large-scale anti-drug operation involving hundreds of Mexican soldiers and Federal Preventative Police troops, a total of 27 mayors and public officials were arrested May 26 in President Felipe Calderón's home state, Michoacán. Among the detained were the mayors of Apatzingán, Uruapan, Buenavista Tomatlán, Coalcomán, Nuevo Urecho, Arteaga, Tepalcatepec, Aguililla, Tumbiscatío and Ciudad Hidalgo. Several officials were also detained in the state prosecutor's office in Morelia, which was stormed by federal troops.

Enrique Torres, leader of ejidatarios (communal farmers) who led protests against mining operations last year in Huizopa, Chihuahua, was arrested by state police May 24. He is charged with illegally blockading operations of the Minera Dolores company. The arrest comes days after the company gave six houses to relocated families, as well as 45,000 pesos (approx. $3,400) for a church and 50,000 for a community baseball team. Torres, minutes before his arrest, told El Diaro newspaper that more than half the Huizopa ejidatarios (120 of 220) rejected the deal with the company. (El Diario, Ciudad Juárez, May 25)

On May 20 the Mexican government's National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) announced that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 8.2% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period the year before. The next day Salomon Presburger, president of the Concamin business organization, told a Mexico City press conference that the country had already lost 300,000 jobs in 2009 and would probably lose a total of 600,000 during the year, half of them from the industrial sector, in which he expected a 12-13% contraction. He predicted that the numbers would be even worse when statistics come in on the effect of the H1N1 influenza ("swine flu"), which has caused at least 74 deaths to date, has reduced tourism and led many companies to shut down for a week in late April and early May.