Three undocumented immigrants were killed and eight others injured when state preventive police fired on a truck near San Cristóbal de las Casas in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas on the morning of Jan. 9. Police agents opened fire after the driver refused to stop the truck, which was carrying some 30 Chinese, Ecuadoran and Guatemalan immigrants entering from Guatemala in transit to the US. The agents continued to shoot during a 20-minute chase that ended with the truck crashing. All the injured and at least one of the dead had received bullet wounds; the driver and an immigrant smuggler escaped. Two of the agents were reportedly detained. (La Jornada, Jan. 10)

Thousands of fishermen in Mexico went on strike last week to protest the rise in the cost of diesel fuel, which they say has reduced their profit margin to zero. The strike, dubbed "Zero Fishing 2009," was declared in the northern state of Sinaloa by fishermen operating a fleet of around 100. In less than a week, the number of vessels involved in the strike had climbed to over 2,500.

The US continues to be the major weapon supplier to Mexico's drug cartels, according to a report the Cabinet submitted to President Felipe Calderón last week. In the text, the secretariats of Government, Defense, Navy and Public Security, and the Prosecutor General's office say the cross-border arms traffic is a $22 million-a-year trade, and that weapons from the US have reached Los Zetas, bloody paramilitary wing of the Gulf Cartel, as well as criminal organizations in Sinaloa and Tijuana.

During a live broadcast the night of Jan. 6, at least five masked gunmen riding in two pickup trucks fired high-caliber weapons and tossed a grenade outside the studios of the Televisa network in Monterrey, in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo León. The two news anchors asked the police for help on the air during the attack. Televisa's news director in Monterrey, Francisco Cobos, told local reporters that the gunmen left a message on the windshield of one of the cars parked in the station's lot saying in Spanish: "Stop reporting on us. Also report on narco officials."

On Dec. 26 supporters of Mexico's rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) began the "World Festival of Dignified Rage" in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City). The series of events marks 15 years since the mostly indigenous group took the world by surprise on Jan. 1, 1994 with the military occupation of four cities in the southeastern state of Chiapas. Some 2,500 people reportedly participated in the festival, which moved to Oventic in Chiapas on Dec. 31 and then to the city of San Cristobal de las Casas, which the rebels occupied at the beginning of 1994. The festival is to run through Jan. 5. Speakers include representatives of the New York-based Movement for Justice in El Barrio, the Unemployed Workers Movement of Argentina and the Greek Alana Magazine; Argentine-born Mexican writer Adolfo Gilly; former Nicaraguan rebel leader Monica Baltodano, now a leader of the opposition Movement for the Rescue of Sandinism; Uruguayan writer Raúl Zibechi; and Bolivian activist Oscar Olivera.

Mexican authorities announced Dec. 30 the arrest of Alberto Espinoza Barron AKA "La Fresa" (the Strawberry), reputed head of the "Michoacán Family"—the drug cartel accused of setting off two grenades during an Independence Day celebration in September, killing eight people and wounding more than 100. The federal Special Investigative Sub-prosecutor for Organized Crime (SIEDO) said "La Familia" is believed to be allied with the Gulf Cartel in a turf war for control of Michoacán with the Beltran Leyva crime family based in Sinaloa. (El Universal, Jan. 1; CNN, Dec. 31)

A member of Mexico's presidential guard was reportedly arrested as a spy for the Beltran Leyva crime machine (Sinaloa Cartel) Dec. 26. An anonymous official of the federal prosecutor's office identified Arturo González Rodríguez as an army major who was assigned to the unit that guards the president. Prosecutors announced that González Rodríguez had been placed under hour arrest for 40 days while he is investigated on claims that he passed information to the cartel in exchange for payments of up to $100,000. More than a dozen high-ranking police and judicial officials have been detained on similar charges in recent months, but none has been linked so closely to the office of President Felipe Calderón. (AP, Dec. 27)

Soldiers arrested Timoteo Mata Cruz, deputy police chief of the Mexican resort town of Zihuatanejo (Guerrero state), and six of his officers for allegedly protecting prominent narco-jefes at a cock fight Dec. 25. Fourteen suspected members of the Beltran Leyva crime machine (Sinaloa Cartel) were arrested at the pelea de gallos. Soldiers also seized 59 packets of cocaine, 40 bags of marijuana and 20 assault rifles. (AP, Dec. 25)