A tense strike and occupation at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) in the southeast of Mexico City entered its 31st day March 2—despite the picket line being attacked by hostile students. Students—themselves divided by pro-strike and anti-strike factions—have also interrupted negotiations between union leaders and the university authorities. The most recent round of negotiations was abandoned Feb. 28, when there were clashes following the forced entrance of a group of students into the meeting room, supposedly attempting to submit a document about the strike to the UAM secretary general.

Lawmakers in Mexico's lower-house Chamber of Deputies Feb. 26 removed a draconian measure from their plan to reform the country's judicial system that would have given police the power to enter homes without first obtaining a warrant in emergencies and in cases of hot pursuit. Human rights groups had strongly opposed the measure, and the press labeled the proposed measure the "Gestapo law." The last-minute change delays passage of the constitutional reform that is meant to speed up trials that can now last years and to better prepare the state to battle narcotics traffickers. "In this country, no one is satisfied with our justice system," said César Camacho Quiroz, a legislator with the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who opposed the expanded police powers.

In a communique made public on Feb. 21, Mexico's rebel Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) denied any connection to the Jan. 30 shooting death of police director Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, a bodyguard and two civilians in the southern state of Oaxaca. Barrita Ortiz headed a police unit that guards banks and other businesses; the government blames his death on criminals. The communique said he was involved in the May 2007 disappearance of two EPR leaders, Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sanchez, but charged that he was murdered because he had become "inconvenient for the government of [Oaxaca governor] Ulises Ruiz [Ortiz]." (La Jornada, Feb. 22)

The anti-immigration blog VDare (who get creds for being bilingual) approvingly note from a persual of Monterrey's daily El Porvenir that the Monterrey suburb of San Nicolas is planning to build a security fence on its border with the neighboring municipality of Guadalupe—reportedly, to keep out thieves and gang activity.

A delegation of striking miners from Grupo Mexico's Cananea copper mine in Sonora, Mexico, and of leaders from the US-based United Steelworkers (USW) visited the Capitol in Washington, DC on Feb. 13, to ask the US Congress to withhold a $1.4 billion funding package for Mexico's security forces proposed by the administration of US president George W. Bush ("Plan Mexico") until it has held public hearings to investigate the use of the police and military against the strikers on Jan. 11. "Mexico cannot be allowed to violate workers' human rights with impunity under the pretense of securing borders and combating narco-trafficking," USW president Leo Gerard said, noting that USW members in Arizona struck Grupo Mexico-owned copper mines for four months in 2005 over the company's "refusal to bargain in good faith." (AFL-CIO Weblog, Feb. 13)

Some 70,000 teachers in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca suspended classes on Feb. 14 to participate in rallies in Oaxaca city and other cities; the rallies were organized by Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) and supported by members of the leftist Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). The strikers called on the national union to expedite internal elections and demanded that the government drop charges against teachers and others for their participation in five months of militant strikes and protests in 2006. Section 22 members also protested efforts by another SNTE local, Section 59, to take over some Oaxaca schools. Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz discounted the possibility that the 2006 social conflict would be renewed. The state government and Section 22 were now handling disputes through a "permanent dialogue," he said. (La Jornada, Feb. 16)

On Feb. 13, Mexico's El Economista reported that the Mexican Senate's Energy Commission, led by Juan Bueno Torio of President Felipe Calderón's conservative National Action Party (PAN), has called for a "special program of private investment" for Pemex, the state oil monopoly. While Bueno Torio emphasized "Pemex will not be privatized," he said new investments were needed to meet Mexico's growing energy demands.

A lunchtime blast that killed one and injured two on Chapultepec Ave. in the Roma district near Mexico City's tony Zona Rosa Feb. 15 was the work of narco gangs and not leftist guerillas, authorities say. Federal District police say the bomb contained C4 explosive of the type used by the Mexican military. They also note that the blast came two days after Federal District police uncovered an "arsenal" in the nearby Portales district and arrested nine men they said were linked to the Sinaloa Cartel. The bomb went off some 150 meters from the headquarters of the Federal District Public Security Secretariat (SSP-DF), which authorities say was the intended target. (La Jornada, El Universal, Milenio, Feb. 16)