Octavio Almanza Moreles AKA "El Gori 4" and six other presumed members of the Gulf Cartel's notorious paramilitary arms, the Zetas, were arrested in the Mexican resort city of Cancún on charges related to the killing of retired Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello Quiñones and 10 other military men, the federal Prosecutor General's Office announced Feb. 13.

In an effort to soften the impacts of the auto industry crisis, Mexican officials are offering financial assistance to foreign-owned companies with plants in Mexico. In the northern border state of Coahuila, the administration of Gov. Humberto Moreira announced it will give $1.5 million to General Motors in a bid to stave off more lay-offs. The aid package, which is meant to cover worker salaries, was unveiled after General Motors dismissed 600 workers at its Ramón Arizpe industrial complex in Coahuila last week.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) charges that Mexico's investigation into the shooting death of US video-journalist Brad Will presents a scientifically flawed theory that ignores PHR's conclusive findings, including the discovery that one of the bullets was a ricochet. Will died of gunshot wounds while covering protests in Oaxaca in October 2006. According to public statements made last December by Mexico's Attorney General (PGR), the PGR rejected PHR's forensic expert findings that one of the bullets that struck Will in the chest had ricocheted off a red-colored object prior to hitting him.

Retired army Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello Quiñones, a civilian and another soldier, found dead near the Caribbean resort of Cancún, were tortured before being shot, Mexican authorities say. "We have to determine where the execution took place, where the torture occurred, surely in some safe house that the criminal groups must have," said Bello Melchor Rodríguez y Carrillo, the state attorney general of Quintano Roo.

Mexico's Federal Preventative Police announced Feb 5 the arrest of Gerónimo Gámez García, said to be the key middle-man between the Beltran Leyva criminal organization (a faction of warring Sinaloa Cartel) and Colombian cocaine suppliers. Gámez was reportedly apprehended with a million dollars in cash in the Ciudad Satélite suburb of the national capital. Eight men arrested with him reportedly included one Colombian. Federal authorities hailed it as a major blow against the cartels. (BBC News, La Jornada, Feb. 5)

For the second time in less than one week, the streets of the Mexican border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, hosted protestors Feb. 4. The actions spanned a range of grievances—high food and fuel prices, maquiladora lay-offs and the presence of the Mexican army in the city located across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Tex.

Thousands of campesinos from across Mexico blocked central avenues of the capital Jan. 30, many having traveled for days for the protest directed at President Felipe Calderón. Protesters decried that Calderón has instated a freeze on petrol prices, but not diesel—on which tractors and other farm equipment run. They also rejected Calderón's free trade policies, which they say hurts the farm sector.

More than 250 farmers with tractors and work trucks gathered in Ciudad Chihuahua's Plaza Hidalgo Jan. 27 to protest the high cost of diesel fuel and the lack of opportunity in Mexico's agricultural sector, blockading the entrances to Chihuahua state office buildings before beginning a sit-in outside the federal Agriculture Secretariat. They intend to caravan north and arrive at the border city of Ciudad Juárez later this week to blockade the international bridge to El Paso, TX.