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/ 3 September 2006
Hurricane John ripped tin roofs off homes, knocked out power and sent billboards flying in the southern tip of Baja California before weakening to a tropical storm that could still bring flash floods and mudslides as it crosses the peninsula. No deaths were reported as the storm blew through the city of La Paz.
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/ 1 September 2006
Powerful Hurricane John roared toward one of Mexico’s most exclusive beach resorts on Friday, forcing hundreds of foreign tourists to flee ahead of howling winds, angry seas and lashing rain. John picked up power overnight to become a dangerous category-three storm.
Hurricane John punished Mexican ports and beaches with huge sea surges, heavy rains and strong winds on Thursday morning as the powerful storm swirled in the Pacific Ocean off the coast. The dangerous category three hurricane may dump up to 0,2m of rain, causing landslides or flooding and had maximum sustained winds approaching 205kph.
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.
Three Mexican fishermen who drifted more than 8 000km across the Pacific have been rescued near the Marshall Islands after at least three months at sea, an official said on Tuesday. The fishermen, who survived by catching seabirds and drinking rainwater, were picked up on August 9 by a Taiwanese fishing boat.
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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/ 26 February 2006
Toxic gas levels inside a northern Mexican coal mine are too high for any of the 65 miners trapped inside by an explosion to have survived, the mining company said on Saturday. An analysis of underground air showed it was too poisonous to breathe, said Xavier Garcia, president of Industrial Minera Mexico.
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/ 20 February 2006
Sixty-six miners were trapped underground on Sunday after a pre-dawn gas explosion led tunnels to collapse inside a coal mine where they were working in northern Mexico. Soldiers, firefighters, civil protection workers and specialised teams from the mine company were expected to work through the night in a desperate attempt to reach the men.
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/ 1 February 2006
She may be a second-generation boxer, but if Laila Ali eventually has children, the world’s most famous woman fighter will discourage them from taking up the sport. ”I’m not encouraging anybody else’s kids,” she said. ”So why would I encourage my own. No. I’m crazy, but I hope my kids are sane.”
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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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/ 23 October 2005
Six people were listed as killed and two as missing early on Sunday after Hurricane Wilma erased beaches and flooded luxury hotels up to the third floor in Mexico’s famous Yucatan resorts. More than 71 000 people, many of them foreign tourists, remained in emergency refuge centers for a second night as slow-moving, powerful Wilma continued to pummel the region with high winds and rains.
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/ 22 October 2005
Sea water rushed into the Mexican resort city of Cancun early on Saturday as Hurricane Wilma whipped up a massive storm surge and unleashed heavy rain and driving winds over a resort area known for its picturesque beaches. The Category Four storm hit the Yucatan peninsula packing sustained winds of 215km an hour, felling trees and tearing roofs off buildings, as tens of thousands of tourists and residents cowered in emergency shelters.
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/ 21 October 2005
Hurricane Wilma battered deserted resorts along Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula with howling winds and torrential rain on Friday, toppling trees and power lines. The heart of the fearsome hurricane moved slowly on to the Mexican coast, and authorities have warned it could be one of the most dangerous storms in decades.
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/ 21 October 2005
Mexico braced on Thursday for a major hit from a monstrous Hurricane Wilma as the powerful storm threatened to grow even stronger before making landfall in this touristic coastline. The storm forced thousands of European and American tourists to flee Cancun resort hotels, while tens of thousands of people were evacuated in Cuba.
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/ 20 October 2005
A monstrous Hurricane Wilma barrelled toward Mexico and the storm-weary United States coast on Thursday, forcing tens of thousands to flee coastlines after it mushroomed into the most powerful storm recorded to date in the Atlantic. Cuba has started to evacuate 235 000 people.
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/ 20 October 2005
Hurricane Wilma weakened slightly as it roared toward Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and southern Florida on Wednesday, leaving 13 people dead in its wake and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands in coastal areas from Honduras to the Florida Keys. Forecasters said the hurricane could strengthen again.
Hurricane Stan, which slammed ashore on Mexico’s oil-rich Gulf coast on Tuesday but was downgraded to a tropical storm by the end of the day, drenched much of the country’s south after killing at least 58 people. The storm packed maximum sustained winds of 130kph as it made landfall near Punta Roca Partida, 120km southeast of the port city of Veracruz.
More than 1 000 people fled their homes and stiff rains sparked flooding along main streets of the Mexican resort city of Cabo San Lucas on Saturday as Hurricane Otis swirled off the coast of western Mexico. Forecasters expected Otis to move ashore along a sparsely populated stretch of desert far north of the city on Sunday.
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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.
Downgraded to a tropical storm, former hurricane Emily was weakening quickly as it moved inland over north-eastern Mexico on Thursday with flood-threatening rains, after it walloped the coast with 200kph winds. Pounding rains drenched Tamaulipas state and south Texas, where tornadoes damaged several homes.
The Argentinian coach of Mexican First Division giants Cruz Azul was kidnapped on Tuesday, the club’s vice-president announced. Ruben Omar Romano had just left a training session when five men forced the 47-year-old out of his 4×4 and took him away in another car.
Hurricane Emily blasted the world-famous beach resorts on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Monday, where thousands of tourists were evacuated or took refuge in shelters while the storm toll across the Caribbean rose to seven dead. Thousands of tourists were evacuated to wait as Emily headed out into the Gulf of Mexico.
Northeastern Mexico braced for heavy rains along the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday as Tropical Storm Gert approached land, threatening to douse areas already soaked by Hurricane Emily last week. Gert packed sustained winds of 65kph and was expected to move inland late on Sunday about 500km south of the United States border near Tampico,
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.
About 11 000 people turned out on Friday to feast on an attempt by 250 chefs and culinary students to set a new record for making and eating the region’s renowned nutty spiced chocolate garnish, known as <i>mole</i>. The chefs spent days preparing the famed Puebla sauce, a traditional Mexican food.
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.
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/ 23 December 2004
Alarmed by glimpses of sweaty citizens in the buff, the city council in the south-eastern city of Villahermosa, Mexico, has adopted a law banning citizens from allowing themselves to be seen nude by the public, even while in their own homes, officials confirmed on Wednesday.