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/ 6 November 2009
One day a year cemeteries in Mexico City burst with life. Jo Tuckman joins locals at one on the outskirts of the capital.
Mexico’s president told citizens to stay home from Friday for a five-day partial shutdown of the economy.
Former United States president Bill Clinton was to take centre stage at the International Aids Conference in Mexico on Monday.
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has left for Mexico City to attend the United Nations XVII International Aids Conference.
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/ 16 February 2008
A bomb exploded on a street near the security ministry in central Mexico City on Friday, killing one person and wounding two. No group claimed responsibility for the blast and there was no warning. The government is locked in a battle with drug gangs and has yet to catch left-wing rebels who planted small bombs at oil installations last year.
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/ 12 February 2008
A strong earthquake of magnitude 6,4 shook south-western Mexico on Tuesday, the latest in a series of temblors in recent days, but there were no reports of casualties or serious damage. The quake briefly cut off power in the Chiapas state capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez, but officials said checks of dozens of small towns across the state found no damage.
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/ 9 February 2008
A magnitude 5,4 quake struck very close to the northern Mexican city of Mexicali in Baja California on Saturday morning, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said, but there was no immediate report of any casualties or damage. The USGS said the very shallow quake, only 7km deep, was centred 26km south-east of Mexicali.
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/ 23 January 2008
Mexico City has started a women-only bus service to protect female passengers from groping and verbal abuse common on the city’s packed public-transportation system. Millions of people cram into subway trains and buses in the Mexican capital, one of the world’s largest cities.
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/ 30 October 2007
An aspiring writer who left a horror scene of body parts in his apartment was arraigned last Thursday on charges of murder and desecrating a corpse after he allegedly cut up and ate part of his girlfriend’s body. But he refused to make a formal plea, saying: ”I can’t get my thoughts together right now.”
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/ 19 October 2007
Tropical Storm Kiko swirled along Mexico’s Pacific coast and was expected to strengthen into a hurricane on Saturday night, forecasters said on Friday. A tropical-storm watch was issued for western Mexico from Punta San Telmo to Cabo Corrientes. Kiko had maximum sustained winds of 65km/h early on Friday.
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/ 13 October 2007
Mexican police have arrested a suspected cannibal after finding the severed limbs of his fiancée in the fridge and a pot of meat boiling on the stove, prosecutors said on Friday. The remains of a meat dish were also found on a plate on the dining table in the Mexico City apartment of Jose Luis Calva Zepeda (40).
Tropical Storm Barbara strengthened in the Pacific Ocean on Friday and was expected to make landfall near the border between Mexico and Guatemala on Saturday without becoming a hurricane. Forecasters at the United States National Hurricane Centre in Miami said Barbara was located 350km south of the small oil port of Salina Cruz.
Tropical Storm Barbara, the first Pacific cyclone to form close to the coast this year, swirled erratically off Mexico on Wednesday and may reach hurricane strength within four days. Mexico’s Civil Protection Agency said Barbara was veering slightly southwards about 305km south of the port of Puerto Angel in the state of Oaxaca.
Two strong earthquakes shook Mexico early on Friday, sparking gas fires in Mexico City and sending residents into the streets around the sprawling capital and in the southern city of Acapulco. The first quake, which lasted less than a minute, was of 6,2 magnitude and struck at 12.41am local time, according to authorities.
An economist and a journalist became the first couple united under Mexico City’s new gay civil-union law, kissing while a string orchestra played Besame Mucho and police cordoned off streets around a white wedding tent filled with guests. The new law took effect on Friday.
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/ 13 January 2007
The northern Mexican state of Coahuila became on Friday the third Latin-American jurisdiction to approve gay civil unions, but the new law bars same-sex couples from adopting children. The law, which follows similar moves in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, allows same-sex and heterosexual couples to register as ”civil or united companions”.
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/ 1 December 2006
Felipe Calderon took over as Mexico’s president on Friday and pleaded for an end to months of unrest over his narrow election win, but a huge brawl erupted in Congress where leftist opponents vowed to block him from taking the formal oath of office.
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/ 15 November 2006
Tropical Storm Sergio became a hurricane off Mexico on Wednesday and was due to brush by Pacific coastal towns by the weekend, the United States National Hurricane Centre said. ”Additional intensification is likely during the next day or two,” the Miami-based centre said.
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/ 22 October 2006
Tropical Storm Paul formed off Mexico’s Pacific Coast on Saturday and looked set to turn into a hurricane as it headed toward luxury resorts on the Baja California Peninsula, the United States National Hurricane Centre said. Charts showed Paul passing near the tip of the desert peninsula popular with US tourists next week.
Hurricane John grew into a powerful cyclone off Mexico’s Pacific Coast on Tuesday, threatening to trigger dangerous flash floods and mudslides as it neared Acapulco and other tourist resorts. The Miami-based National Hurricane Centre said John turned into a dangerous storm in just a few hours and was now packing maximum sustained winds of almost 185kph.
An earthquake rocked central and western Mexico on Friday, forcing office workers and residents to evacuate buildings in Mexico City. The tremor, measuring 5,9 in magnitude, was centred in the western Michoacan state. It was not immediately known whether there were any casualties or serious damage to buildings.
South Africa appears to be winning the battle to restore its spoiled wetlands, with more hectares being rehabilitated each year than are lost to urban development and poor land management, says the wildlife organisation WWF. The Working for Wetlands programme is rehabilitating about 7 000ha of wetlands each year.
Faecal pollution from human settlements is a big threat to groundwater reserves in South Africa, says the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. Some schemes utilising groundwater had been shut down, and others were being closely monitored as a result of this pollution, said the department’s manager for information programmes, Eberhard Braune.
”Theft” of water by South African farmers upstream the Nkomati River has prompted a complaint from downstream Mozambique, after the river’s flow dropped to a trickle last year. The department of water affairs’ executive manager for institutional oversight, Silas Mbedzi, said the Mozambicans had been very upset when the river ”almost stopped” flowing across the international border.
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/ 25 January 2006
Miguel Caballero likes to shoot people whenever he has an audience and a volunteer. ”Take a deep breath and let the air out after the shot,” he said to one recent target. ”You may get a bit of a bruise.” The range was point-blank, the bang loud and the smell of burned powder strong, but the human bullseye didn’t flinch. The bullet was embedded in an internal protective panel of his brand-new suede jacket.
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/ 19 November 2005
The World Boxing Council ordered interim heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman to fight James Toney, and the winner to meet Oleg Maskaev. The challengers were named on Friday ”with the goal of ratifying the indisputable championship of Rahman and in order for him to make his obligatory defence” the WBC said in a news release.
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/ 6 September 2005
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday said male chauvinistic attitudes continue to prevail in his country during a meeting with Mexican lawmakers. Obasanjo met Mexican senators to discuss subjects ranging from women’s rights to management of natural resources.
Lingering questions about the death of Mexican boxer Martin Sanchez following a July 1 bout in Las Vegas have prompted the World Boxing Council to launch an investigation, the governing body’s president said on Tuesday. ”In the case of ‘Fireman’ Sanchez, there are things that should be investigated in greater depth,” WBC President Jose Sulaiman said.
The first tropical storm of the eastern Pacific season is on an unusual, dangerous track toward the Central American coast on Wednesday. The United States National Hurricane Centre in Miami said that Tropical Storm Adrian could bring torrential rains to much of Central America in the coming days.
Mexican President Vicente Fox apologised on Monday for saying that Mexicans in the United States do the work that blacks won’t, but many Mexicans — stung by a new US crackdown on illegal immigrants — said Fox was just stating a fact. Fox at first refused to apologise for the Friday comment, saying his remark was misinterpreted.
Hundreds of posters advertising the upcoming final instalment of the <i>Star Wars</i> film saga have been stolen from bus stops across Mexico City, 20th Century Fox officials said. The posters are made with a glow-in-the-dark material and cost about $6 (R38) each to make.
Marilu Torres’s knees hurt when they swell, her varicose veins are a constant bother and cataracts are slowly stealing her vision. Even so, the 72-year-old hits the streets looking for work every day. ”This year is my golden anniversary as a sex worker,” laughed Torres, who became a prostitute as a young widow with no other means of feeding her children.