From AP, Dec. 14 via Chiapas95:

MEXICO CITY -- A group of about 300 Mazahua Indians briefly seized a water treatment plant on Mexico City's western outskirts Wednesday and temporarily cut off one of the main sources of water for the metropolis of 18 million people, the National Water Commission said.

Another turn of the screw. From AlJazeera, Dec. 13, emphasis added:

A Guantanamo prisoner who won a landmark US Supreme Court ruling in June lost his bid to challenge his detention when a federal judge dismissed the case because of a new anti-terrorism law signed by George Bush, the US president.

Another sign of de-escalation in Oaxaca? From AP, Dec. 11:

OAXACA - A labor group allied with the government of the southern state of Oaxaca announced on Monday that it was ending a controversial, 1 1/2-year blockade of the offices of Noticias, a newspaper frequently critical of state authorities.

From The Guardian, Dec. 13:

Bushmen forced out of the Kalahari desert by Botswana's government won a landmark legal victory today as the country's high court ruled they had been illegally removed and should be allowed to return.

Hermann Bellinghausen noted some salient comments in his report from Zapatista Subcommander Marcos' tour stop at Bagdad Beach (on the Rio Grande, just outside Matamoros) for La Jornada, Nov. 24. Via Chiapas95:

BAGDAD, Tamaulipas - December 1, the day that Felipe Calderon takes office, will be "the beginning of the end for a political system that, since the Mexican Revolution, became deformed and began to cheat generation after generation, until this one arrived and said, 'Enough,'" warned Subcomandante Marcos during a press conference. Calderon, he added, "will begin to fall from his first day."

From La Jornada, Dec. 11 via Chiapas95 (our translation):

GUADALAJARA - Some 100 sympathizers of the popular movement in Oaxaca announced the formation of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Jalisco (APPJ), whose primary aim will be "the unity of the distinct resistance movements in the state against the attack of the ultra-right now in power."

Growing signs of a revolutionary convergence in Mexico—open solidarity between the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO). From AP, Dec. 11 via Chiapas95:

OAXACA - A leader of Mexico's largest leftist party led thousands of protesters in a march to the center of this historic city on Sunday, demanding the resignation of the state governor and the withdrawal of thousands of federal police.

More fodder for our ongoing Irony Watch. We have little doubt that Mengistu is guilty of genocide. But—as we have had the unfortunate duty to point out—so, it seems, are Ethiopia's current rulers, if not quite on the same scale. From AlJazeera, Dec. 12:

An Ethiopian court has found exiled Mengistu Haile Mariam, the former Marxist ruler, guilty in absentia of genocide, ending a 12-year trial.