From AP, Nov. 25:

MEXICO CITY: A violent Mexican drug gang took out a rare, half-page ad in newspapers in which they claimed to be anti-crime vigilantes who wanted to stop kidnapping, robbery and the sale of methamphetamine in the western Mexican state of Michoacan.

Zapatista Subcommander Marcos, continuing his "Other Campaign" tour of northern Mexico, arrived once again on the US border Nov. 22 when he stopped in Nuevo Laredo, Tamualipas, a border town which has been torn by narco-fueled violence in recent months. Marcos drew attention to the ongiong social crisis on the border which has been overshadowed by media reports of spectacular violence, meeting with shanty-dwellers who work in the maquiladoras but are squatting lands near the town garbage dump, with no legal title to their homes or access to running water or other services. (La Jornada, Nov. 23 via Chiapas95)

Thousands of supporters of Andres Manual Lopez Obrador again filled Mexico City's central plaza, the zocalo, Nov. 20 to witness his swearing in as Mexico's parallel "legitimate president," with a cabinet of 12 mostly drawn from his former administration as the capital's mayor. (AP, Nov. 20) "It is an honor to be the legitimate president of Mexico and above all the leader of free men and women like you," López Obrador told the crowd after leftist senator and human-rights activist Rosario Ibarra de Piedra placed a red-white-and-green "presidential sash" over his shoulder. (LAT, Nov. 21)

From El Universal, Nov. 19:

At least three of 10 lawyers being held hostage by inmates were killed Saturday after police raided the prison in the state of Michoacán to rescue them, media reported.

Two dead and one injured are reported in an ambush Nov. 14 at the community of La Conchuda in the municipality of San Agustín Loxicha, in the southern mountains of Oaxaca, known as a bastion of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). The victims, Faustino Sebastián Valencia and Jesús Valencia, father and son, and Lorenzo Jiménez, were ambushed by masked men with automatic rifles while walking on a mountain road. Faustino and Jesús Valencia were killed instantly, while the third remains hospitalized. All three were prominant local supporters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Juan Sosa Maldonado, Loxicha regional leader of the Organization of Indigenous Zapotec Pueblos (OPIZ), a member organization of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), called the growing violence in the Sierra del Sur a "grave issue." (ADN Sureste, Nov. 17)

Follwing the conclusion of its "constitutive congress," the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) announced through its spokesman Flavio Sosa Villavicencio its intention to convert "the popular revolt into a peaceful, democratic and humanist revolution," on the model of the indigenous communities of Chiapas. (APRO, Nov. 15)

Six years after it was first introduced, a bill allowing same sex civil unions in Mexico's Federal District (DF, Mexico City) was approved by the Federal District Legislative Assembly (ALDF) by a vote of 43 to 17, with five abstentions. Thirty-three deputies from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) voted for the measure, and one abstained, while 16 of the 17 deputies from the center-right National Action Party (PAN) voted against it; most deputies from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and smaller parties abstained or backed the law. Human rights and lesbian-gay rights groups had repeatedly criticized the PRD, which has ruled the DF since 1997, for failing to get the law passed.

From El Universal, Nov. 14 (our translation, links added):

OCOSINGO, Chiapas -- The organization Maderas del Pueblo [Timber for the People], which has a presence in the Selva Lacandona, confirmed that up to nine campesinos were assassinated in the comunity of Viejo Velasco.