Another 44 people were killed in Mexico's narco wars this weekend, including four police officers in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, which has been the scene of some 1,500 violent deaths this year. Two police were killed at a post protecting the city's General Hospital, authorities said. A list naming 28 threatened police officers was found near the bodies of another five dead men. The bodies of two handcuffed men were found at a bus stop, repeatedly shot in the face. Medical staff, veterans and students took part in a 24-hour strike and public marches Dec. 12 in Juárez to protest the city's narco violence. More were killed over the weekend in the state capital of Chihuahua and across the Sierra Tarahumara region. (AFP, Dec. 16; EFE, Dec. 14)

A US anti-kidnapping expert was himself kidnapped in northern Mexico Dec. 10, Coahuila state authorities revealed. Felix Batista—a veteran FBI agent now working for ASI Global Kidnap & Ransom Response of Houston who claims to have helped resolve nearly 100 kidnapping cases—was seized by gunmen in a mini-van when he stepped outside a restaurant in Saltillo to answer a phone call. He was apparently working under contract to private businesses and families. There was no word on whether a ransom has been demanded. (Milenio, Notimex, Dec. 15)

General Motors Mexico will temporarily shut assembly lines at three of its Mexican plants as part of an overall strategy to cut production due to falling demand, the company announced Dec. 15. The plants in San Luis Potosi and Ramos Arizpe (Coahuila state) factories in Mexico, which make Chevrolets, Saturns and Pontiacs, will both go offline from Dec. 22 to Jan. 5. The Silao factory (Guanajuato), which makes Chevrolets, GMC trucks and Cadillacs, will shut down from Dec. 22 to Jan. 8. The three plants have more than 10,000 employees—the bulk of the 13,000 GM jobs in Mexico. GM, now asking the US Congress for immediate cash injections to avoid collapse, announced two days earlier it would slash first-quarter production in North America by 60%. (Reuters, Dec. 15)

Killings linked to Mexico's narco wars have more than doubled this year compared with 2007 and are likely to escalate before they start to fall, Prosecutor General Eduardo Medina Mora said Dec. 8. The number of narco-killings since the start of the year stood at 5,376 Dec. 2, a 117% increase over the 2,477 killings in the same period in 2007, Medina Mora said in a luncheon meeting with foreign correspondents. The bulk of the killings occurred in the northern states of Chihuahua, Baja California and Sinaloa. "These criminal organizations don't have limits," said Medina Mora. "They certainly have an enormous power of intimidation." But the New York Times reports that he "said the overall level of violence in Mexico remained moderate compared with that in other Latin American countries." (NYT, Dec. 8)

On Dec. 2 Altos Hornos de Mexico (AHMSA), Mexico's main steelmaker, announced plans for laying off 8,500 contract workers in its Proyecto Fenix modernization project and 3,500 of its own employees. (La Jornada, Dec. 3) In the two days after the layoff announcement, the Mexican government froze some funds belonging to the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), which represents AHMSA workers, and arrested two union leaders. Based on complaints that the union mishandled a $55 million miners' fund, the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) arrested the union's Vigilance and Justice Council president Juan Linares Montufar on Dec. 3 and political affairs secretary Carlos Pavón Campos on Dec. 4.

The Sixth Intergalactic Commission of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) has announced a "First World Festival of Dignified Rage" (Festival Digna Rabia), to be held in January at San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. Participants have been confirmed from some 20 countries around the world. Among the Mexican participants are the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), representatives from maquiladora workers in Baja California and Tamaulipas, and from the Lomas de Poleo land struggle at Ciudad Juárez. International participants include a delegation from the ACIN indigenous alliance in Cauca, Colombia; Spain's anarcho-syndicalist General Workers Confederation (CGT); and representatives from the labor struggle in Iran. Invited writers include Mexico's Adolfo Gilly, Ireland's John Halloway, the USA's Michael Hardt, and India's Arundhati Roy. (La Jornada, Nov. 29)

In an escalation of the land conflict at Lomas de Poleo community on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez, on Dec. 4 demolition equipment was brought in—backed up by trucks full of henchmen with clubs, chains and rifles—to destroy the home of resident María Alvidres, who was away across the border in the US caring for an ill son. Resident Silvia Carrillo, who was looking after the house for Alvidres, returned from shopping to find the demolition underway. Residents say the gang was directed by Catarino Del Río, overseer for the brothers Pedro and Jorge Zaragoza Fuentes, local barons who claim the community's lands. Residents called the police, but none ever arrived; when they protested to Del Rio, they were threatened at rifle-point. The residents report they have formally complained to Juárez municipal, Chihuahua state and Mexican federal authorities, but believe the Zaragoza brothers have "total impunity." (Lomas de Poleo statement via Enlace Zapatista, Dec. 5)

Thirteen men were found Dec. 4 shot to death in northern Mexico's Sinaloa state. The bodies—lined up, face down, their hands bound, and mostly with execution-style coup de grace shots to the head—were discovered by local police some 600 meters from Highway 15 between the town of Coyotitlan and the coastal resort Mazatlán, in the pueblo of San Miguel, San Ignacio municipality. Some 80 spent shells were found nearby—and an abandoned truck with license plates indicating "Federal Public Service." The victims were all between 25 and 30, and all had military-type haircuts. Police say they have identified the men; they are from Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, and were transfered to Sinaloa in the truck.