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)

Nine decapitated heads were found in plastic bags in Chilpancingo, capital of Mexico's southern Guerrero state, among 13 men assassinated in the state Dec. 21. Four were thrown off the Quetzalapa bridge in Iguala. Of the nine decapitated, eight were soldiers and one was a former subdirector of the state Judicial Police. Local residents found the heads at dawn near a shopping center; the bodies were located later, with signs of torture—three of them five kilometers away. A note was found near the heads, warning: "For each one of us they kill, we will kill 10 of them." The Defense Secretariat responded in a statement: "They are trying to frighten the Armed Forces, but we'll continue the battle." The regional army commander, Enrique Jorge Alonso, speaking at a ceremony honoring the slain soldiers warned: "The criminals made a grave mistake with this audacious crime." (AGI, Dec. 22; AFP, Cronica de Hoy, Nov. 21)

On Dec. 12 a judge in Mexico's Coahuila state ordered the release of Carlos Pavón Campos, political affairs secretary of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), on 5.611 million pesos bail (about $426,600). Pavón Campos had been held for eight days; he was arrested Dec. 4 on charges of defrauding union members. On Dec. 15, it was reported that another SNTMMRM leader, Vigilance and Justice Council president Juan Linares Montufar, had been denied bail on charges in a similar case. The union's general secretary, leader Napoleon Gómez Urrutia, is also charged; he fled to Vancouver in 2006 but continues to direct the union. The original charges reportedly included officials of the Scotiabank, but no action seems to have been taken against them. (La Jornada, Dec. 13, 15)

Mexican President Felipe Calderón said Dec. 19 his government "does not and will never negotiate" with the drug lords, and vowed to press ahead with his military crackdown on the cartels. Drug-related deaths have doubled this year, to more than 5,300, despite the deployment of 36,000 troops across the country. Mexico has also extradited a record 85 criminal suspects to the US so far this year. Mexico extradited 83 in 2007 and 63 in 2006, but still refuses to extradite anyone who could face the death penalty. (AP, Dec. 21; AFP, Dec. 20)