ACAPULCO: Drug-related violence left 17 people dead Saturday in Mexico’s southern Guerrero state, including four people who were decapitated, authorities said.

Five police officers were shot to death by a lone gunman in Tulchingo, near Acapulco, the officials said. One more lawman died later of wounds.

Five more bodies, including two decapitated ones, were found in the Native American village of Tres Palos, west of the resort.

Meanwhile, four civilians were also found dead in and around Acapulco.

In addition, two bodies of decapitated men were found overnight on Scenic Avenue in downtown Acapulco, officials said.

The states of Guerrero and neighboring Michoacan are largely under the control of the vicious “La Familia” drug cartel, one of the most powerful trafficking groups in the country.

Rival drug cartels are fighting deadly battles over lucrative drug routes to the north into the United States.

Drug-related crime has left more than 15,000 dead in the past three years in Mexico, despite a nationwide clampdown on the growing violence involving the deployment of some 50,000 government troops.

JAKARTA: A powerful quake with a magnitude of 7.0 hit off the Indonesian island of Maluku on Sunday, seismologists said, but no tsunami warning was issued.

The quake struck at 07:47 pm local time (1247 GMT) about 132 kilometres (82 miles) southeast of Labuha, North Maluku province, at a depth of 56 kilometres, the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said.

“There has been no report of casualties so far. There was some shaking felt in several areas but it’s not strong,” the agency’s technical chief Suharjono told media.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.

North Korea said Tuesday that it would boost its nuclear weapons capability because US President Barack Obama was determined to ignore its calls for peace and bring it down by military force.
North Korea said this week that it had put its army on full combat alert as US and South Korean forces began joint military drills involving nearly 40,000 troops, an annual event that draws anger from the North but typically results in no major incidents. ‘The US is leaving no means untried to bring down the DPRK (North Korea) including military threat, economic sanctions and ideological and cultural poisoning’, the North’s KCNA news agency quoted an unnamed foreign ministry spokesman as saying.
‘(The North) will continue bolstering up its nuclear deterrent as long as the US military threats and provocations go on’, the spokesman said. The North has come under pressure to return to six-party disarmament-for-aid nuclear talks because of UN sanctions imposed after a May 2009 nuclear test and prodding by its major ally and the host of the talks, China. Sanctions have dealt a blow to its wobbly economy, and a botched currency move late last year has sparked inflation and rare civil unrest. The two Koreas are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice and not a peace treaty. The North said at the weekend that any talks on denuclearising the Korean peninsula would ‘naturally come to a standstill’ because of the drills. North Korea conducted live fire exercises near sea borders with the South earlier this year.

22-year-old Giselle, a social escort, joins in the RazorTV studio. Find out how she utilises online tools to market herself, and what she thinks of the rising trend of online prostitution.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed grave concerns about the ethnic and religious violence in Nigeria where hundreds of people were murdered over the weekend.
‘I am deeply concerned that there has been more inter-religious violence with an appalling loss of life,” Ban told reporters. “I appeal to all concerned to exercise maximum restraint’. In recent years, fierce competition for control of fertile farmland and other resources between indigenous Christian groups and Muslim settlers from the north have repeatedly triggered conflicts and clashes. Since 2001, more than 2,000 people have been killed in communal violence in Plateau State.
‘Nigeria’s political and religious leaders should work together to address the underlining causes and achieve a common solution to the crisis’, said Ban.

Rangapanchami occurs a few days later on a Panchami (fifth day of the full moon), marking the end of festival celebrations involving colours. Rangpanchami2010 sms collection @ Rangpanchamisms. Many asked this question, What is the purpose of HOLI festival? Holy called the Festival of Colors, is a spring festival celebrated by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and others. It is primarily observed in India.Rangpanchami festival is a continuation of the Holifestival and is observed mainly in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and some parts of North India. The festival is observed five days after Holi Dhuleti.In locations connected to the god Krishna: Mathura, Vrindavan, Nandagaon, and Barsana. These places have become tourist destinations during the festive season of Holi, which lasts here to up to sixteen days.

Brazil rebuffed a US appeal for new sanctions on Iran about its nuclear programme, vowing not to “bow down” to gathering international pressure during a visit from US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pre-empted Clinton even before she could make the case for new United Nations Security Council penalties. Hours before meeting with Hillary Clinton today, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that Brazil would not “bow down” to international pressure to agree to new UN sanctions on Iran.
“It is not prudent to push Iran against a wall,” Silva said, “The prudent thing is to establish negotiations.” Brazil is currently a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Clinton is traveling there as part of a Latin American tour to try to persuade Brazil to sign off on a new UN Security Council resolution on Iran as early as next month. But it’s a particularly tough Security Council, with key current non-permanent members of the 15 member body such as Brazil and Turkey not certain to support such a resolution, Lebanon likely to vote against it, and at least one permanent member, China, also reluctant. Three past UN Security Council resolutions on Iran passed overwhelmingly, with no “no” votes and only a few abstentions. Lula is due to travel to Iran in May.

Taiwan Earthquake, TAIPEI : A 6.4 magnitude quake struck southern Taiwan on Thursday, causing panic among residents in the island’s second largest city who rushed into the streets as buildings shook.

The quake hit about 70 kilometres (about 40 miles) from the main southern city of Kaohsiung, the US Geological Survey said, and it was felt as far away as the capital Taipei in the north of the island.

It was the worst earthquake to hit the Kaohsiung area since records began, the TVBS news network reported.

No tsunami warning was immediately issued and the extent of the damage was not immediately clear.

Residents of Kaohsiung rushed out into the streets as buildings started shaking, and were reluctant to re-enter, according to local television.

Services on the Kaohsiung subway were halted, as were trains on the high-speed rail connecting the north and the south of the island, the television reports said.

The epicentre of the quake was in Jiahsian township in Kaohsiung county, one of the worst hit areas in Typhoon Morakot that struck southern Taiwan in August last year, killing more than 700 people.

Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes as the island lies near the junction of two tectonic plates. A 7.6-magnitude quake killed around 2,400 people in September 1999.

Nissan Recall, Nissan Motor Co.’s North American unit said late Tuesday it is recalling 539,864 vehicles due to brake-pin and fuel-gauge problems, most of them in the U.S. The brake-pin recall stems from “three reported instances of brake pedal pins partially disengaging, causing a loss of normal braking ability,” the company said. That recall involves the Nissan Titan, Armada, Quest and Infiniti QX56 of model years 2008 to 2010.

Four people including 3 siblings and their aunt died while nine others injured when a rocket fell at a house in Bahamari area, Peshawar.
According to SHO PS Bahamari, some unidentified miscreants fired the rocket, which fell on the house of one Rehman Ullah. Resultantly, four persons including Rehman’s three children aged between 9 to 12 and his 16-year-old sister died on the spot while nine others received serious burn injuries. The wounded were shifted to hospital, of whom four are stated to be in a critical condition, while rescue teams are busy in removing the debris.