The Zapatista Good Government Junta (JBG) "Corazón del arcoiris de la esperanza," based in the Chiapas jungle village of Morelia, issued a statement denouncing aggression by followers of the Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights (OPDDIC) in the community of K'an akil, autonomous municipality Olga Isabel. Various shots were fired "without reason or motive" in the Aug. 29 attack against Zapatista campesinos—one of whom was wounded in the abdomen.

On Aug. 27 Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice voted 11-3 to uphold an April 2007 law in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) allowing voluntary abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The Catholic Church and the governing center-right National Action Party (PAN) had sought to have the law declared unconstitutional. The court's decision, which opens the way for other state governments to legalize abortion, became official on Aug. 28. (La Jornada, Aug. 28, 29)

On Aug. 21 Alberto Cervantes Juarez, first criminal court judge in Texcoco for the central Mexican state of Mexico, sentenced campesino leader Ignacio del Valle Medina to 45 years in prison for allegedly kidnapping state officials and state and federal police agents. Judge Cervantes Juarez sentenced 10 other campesino activists to 31 years, 10 months and 15 days on the same charges. He handed down the sentences in the Molino de Flores state prison in Texcoco; 500 state riot police guarded the prison to "protect" the judge. About 150 Atenco residents arrived at the prison later in the day to protest the sentences.

Most of the 23,000 school teachers in the central Mexican state of Morelos went on strike on Aug. 13 to protest the local implementation of a national plan called the Alliance for Quality of Education (ACE). The teachers, in Local 19 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), say that the plan is oriented towards consumerism and the commercialization of education and that it was imposed in ways that violate their constitutional rights. ACE was created through an agreement between Mexican president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa and Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, longtime national president of the 1.5 million-member SNTE.

Deadly violence is reported across Mexico Aug. 23. In Hidalgo, the bullet-riddled body of state police chief Raymundo Zamorano was found on a roadside a day after he was kidnapped at gunpoint while patrolling the streets of Pachuca in his official car. A Tabasco state police officer was gunned down at a police highway checkpoint near Villahermosa by hitmen in three pickup trucks. A second officer was wounded in the shooting. In Chihuahua state, 13 people, including four police officers, were killed—mostly in Ciudad Juarez, where prosecutors and judicial authorities were holding a regional summit. Among those killed in the city was Jesús Blanco, the new municipal police chief of Villa Ahumada. Two police were also killed in an armed attack on a checkpoint in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. In Valladolid, Yucatán, a taxi driver supposedly linked to the city's narcomenudista (low-level dealer) network was assassinated. (AFP, El Universal, El Universal, Aug. 23)

In the early morning of Aug. 15 a group of about 40 dissident unionists occupied the Mexico City headquarters of the Union of Petroleum Workers of the Mexican Republic (STPRM) to protest the recent reelection of Carlos Romero Deschamps, who has headed the union for 17 years. Dissident leader Omar Toledo Aburto gave a press conference in Romero Deschamps' luxurious office, announcing that he would be the "interim national leader of the more than 97,000 petroleum workers while elections take place." Two hours after the sit-in began, about 50 supporters of Romero Deschamps arrived wielding metal pipes and carrying pistols in their belts. They retook the office, beat the dissidents and confiscated their documents and cellphones. (La Jornada, Aug. 16)

The Mexican Government Secretary (Segob) announced that the Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR) is pursuing an investigation "without any limits" into the "forced disappearance" of Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Alberto Cruz, presumed militants of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). Segob also called upon the EPR and the government-appointed Mediation Commission to work to establish conditions for a peace dialogue. (El Financiero, Aug. 14) But the Mediation Commission announced it is temporarily suspending its activities, citing lack of good will on the part of the government. The Commission said the admission of the "forced disappearance" was a "positive" move, but insufficient. At a press conference, Commission member Carlos Montemayor protested lack of access to PGR files on the case. (Milenio, Aug. 14)

Drug-related murders in Mexico have already exceeded last year's total despite the deployment of 30,000 troops to tackle the issue. The Mexican newspaper El Universal said (Aug. 16) 2,682 people across Mexico had been killed since the start of this year, compared to 2,673 in 2007. More than one-third of this year's drug-related killings occurred in Chihuahua. The state has seen 1,026 deaths since January, including 780 in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, where 2,500 soldiers have been deployed to combat narco gangs. (BBC, Aug. 17) At least 10 people were killed, including a four-year-old boy, in a shoot-out Aug. 16 in the Chihuahua mountain town of Creel. The fighting began when men armed with AK-47s opened fire from trucks on a group leaving a dance hall. (El Universal, Aug. 17)