José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, a prosecutor who oversaw Mexico's extradition of drug traffickers, resigned Aug. 4—the second senior crime fighter to quit in a week. Santiago was Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor for two decades before taking his current position as sub-prosecutor for international affairs in the office of the Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR). Noé Ramírez resigned late last week as chief of the Special Sub-Prosecutor for Investigating Organized Delinquency (SIEDO), as part of a law enforcement shake-up by President Felipe Calderón. A US State Department statement welcomed the reorganization as part of the Mérida Initiative. (AP, El Informador, Mexico, Aug. 5; Milenio, Mexico, Aug. 3)

Some 1.8 million Mexicans voted overwhelmingly in an unofficial, non-binding referendum on July 27 to reject President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's proposals to allow more involvement in the state oil monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), by local and foreign private companies. The vote was held in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) and nine states; similar unofficial votes are planned for the remaining 23 states on Aug. 10 and Aug. 24.

On July 27 voters in Mexico's Federal District (DF, Mexico City) and nine states were scheduled to vote in a non-binding referendum on President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's proposals to allow more involvement the state oil monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), by local and foreign private companies. Voters were to answer yes or no to two questions: "1) Currently the exploitation, transport, distribution and refining of hydrocarbons are exclusively activities of the government. Do you agree or not that private companies should now be able to participate in these activities? 2) In general, do you agree or not that the initiatives currently being debated in Congress relating to energy reform should be approved?"

Excavations at the ex-military barracks at the Mexican village of Atoyac, Guerrero state, to discover the remains of an estimated 470 "dirty war" victims, are expected to conclude this week. Overseen by Argentine anthropologist Claudia Bisso, the excavations were undertaken by the Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR) following a years of pressure from the local Association of the Families of the Detained, Disappeared and Victims of Human Rights Violations (AFADEM). AFADEM vice president Tita Radilla Martínez said other sites are being identified where excavations will be demanded. She also called for former military leaders to appear in court to reveal the whereabouts of mass graves. "If Gen. Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro is called to testify, surely he could say where the bodies of our relatives are." (La Jornada Guerrero, July 20; La Jornada, BBC, July 19)

Police officials in Mexico say drug traffickers have built makeshift car bombs to attack police officers, troops and rivals. Soldiers found two car bombs in a safe house in Culiacán, Sinaloa, July 14. One vehicle was packed with cans of gasoline and another stuffed with gas canisters, and both wired to be detonated by cellphones. (Reuters, July 17) On July 17, Mexican naval troops seized a makeshift 33-foot submarine 125 miles off Oaxaca that turned out to be carrying tons of cocaine. The crew had left the Colombian port of Buenaventura seven days earlier. (LAT, July 18)

According to the online magazine Narco News, the company that taught torture methods to police agents in Leon in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato (see Update, July 6) is Risks Incorporated, a private security firm with offices in Miami and the United Kingdom. One of the two instructors involved in the training may be Risks Incorporated's Andrew "Orlando" Wilson, who served in the British military 1988-93, including 22 months in Northern Ireland. The other instructor appears to be Gerardo "Jerry" Arrechea, a Cuban-Mexican martial arts instructor; he seems to be the same "Jerry Arrechea" that the right-wing Miami-based Comandos F4 organization lists as its Mexican contact. In 2007 Risks Incorporated said its instructors used "psychological torture" in some courses "to show how easy it is to break a hostage and we're being nice!" (Narco News, July 7)

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) July 11 issued eight recommendations to the Secretary of National Defense (SEDENA) concerning grave violations of basic guarantees—including homicide and torture—in anti-crime operations in the states of Sinaloa, Sonora, Michoacán and Tamaulipas.

For the past two weeks, some 200 troops from Mexico's elite Federal Preventive Police (PFP) have occupied the village of Zimapán, Hidalgo, the scene of protests over a toxic waste site that the Spanish firm Befesa is scheduled to open this month. Heavily armed troops—some in ski masks and full riot gear—arrived in military-type trucks backed up by helicopters June 12, and continue to patrol the town's streets. The former bishops of the conflicted San Cristóbal diocese in Chiapas, Samuel Ruiz García and Raúl Vera López, have demanded the withdrawal of the PFP. (vaXtuxpan, June 30; La Jornada, June 17; Radio AMLO, June 15)