For the third time in less than a week, an industrial fire scarred the skies of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The April 7 fire at the MCS (ex-Zenith) plant near the city’s airport sent huge columns of black smoke climbing into the heavens and drifting across the borderland. The blaze spread to factories belonging to the Foxconn, Cormex and Dometic companies, temporarily idling about 1,000 workers. The disaster also caused delays and evacuations at the Ciudad Juárez airport.

Officials in Nuevo Laredo have destroyed more than 35 statues dedicated to a "Death Saint" popular with drug traffickers—prompting protests from followers of the "folk Catholic" cult, who charge religious discrimination and have demanded a meeting with President Felipe Calderón. The statues, most depicting a robed skeleton resembling the Grim Reaper, line roads and highways around the Mexican border city. More than 30 such shrines have been destroyed in the campaign launched this week by city police backed up by federal army troops.

Eleven people were found shot to death around Mexico April 4, some bearing signs of torture and left with threatening "narco-messages." Four of the victims were found in a car in Apatzingán, Michoacán, along with a message threatening the Zetas, the paramilitary arm of the Gulf Cartel. The message was signed "La Familia," Michoacán's reigning crime machine.

The Obama administration's chief law enforcement officials traveled to Cuernavaca April 2 on Thursday to meet with their Mexican counterparts and begin formalizing plans to join forces against the drug cartels. "There's no doubt that the vast majority of weapons seized in Mexico come from the United States," said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. "This is a reality we have to face in the United States, and it's one Mexicans have long had to confront. We will take responsibility on our side to work with Mexico to get a handle on this serious problem."

The Mexican Senate April 2 passed an amendment to the country's constitution that would permit seizure of property from suspected drug traffickers and other criminals prior to conviction. Under the proposed amendment, which will now be sent to the lower house, prosecutors may seek the seizure of property and income derived from organized crime, including illegal narcotic sales and kidnapping. Currently, a conviction on the charges is required before property can be seized. The proceeds of the seizures will be used to pay for criminal investigations and to compensate victims. The bill passed only after safeguards for tenants and landlords who are uninvolved in crime were included. (Jurist, April 3)

The Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Dennis Blair, speaking to reporters in Washington March 26, downplayed the notion (raised in a recent Pentagon report) that narco-violence has brought Mexico to the brink of collapse: "Mexico is in no danger of becoming a failed state. [Let me] repeat that. Mexico is in no danger of becoming a failed state. The violence we see now is the result of Mexico taking action against the drug cartels. So it is in fact the result of positive moves, which the Mexican government has taken to break the baneful influence that many of these cartels have had on many aspects of Mexican government and Mexican life." Blair added: "The Mexican campaign is our campaign."

The US Border Patrol intends to employ a chemical herbicide to eradicate stands of the Carrizo cane, an invasive plant that grows as tall as 30 feet and provides convenient cover for undocumented border crossers and smugglers. The variety of Carrizo cane that is common in the Laredo-Del Rio borderlands is from the region of Valencia, Spain.

About 25,000 members of the indigenous Movement of Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT) marched in Oaxaca city in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca on March 18 to demand that the state government start talks on incidents of violence against the Triqui and others over the past two years. The protesters tied up traffic as they marched from the Monumento a La Madre along the Cerro del Fortín highway to the city's main plaza.