Hundreds of thousands marched this week in Mexico city and tens of thousands more in dozens of other cities across Mexico to protest at the kidnapping of 43 student-teachers from Ayotzinapa. They were clear in pointing the finger squarely at the Mexican state. The actions were part of a widespread nationwide 48 hour student strike. Jorge Martin looks at the latest developments in Mexico.

It is now a month since the beginning of the movement of students at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) in Mexico. This is a huge movement involving tens of thousands of students in dozens of schools, mass assemblies with thousands of participants, which has forced the national government to make important concessions in order to prevent a general explosion of the youth movement.

The horrendous incident in which police officers opened fire on students killing six people and injuring 17, and then kidnapped another 43 and handed them over to a drug cartel, has brought out sharply the depth of the rottenness of the Mexican capitalist state, to what degree its structures are linked with those of the drug cartels, and finally, how they stop at nothing in suppressing anyone they perceive as a threat to their interests.