Latin America: Week in Review, Mexico, North America
Mexico Car Bomb Kills Two, Injures 7 More
July 4, 2012 By Staff
Top Story — A car bomb exploded Tuesday morning in the Mexico border state of Tamaulipas, killing two police officers and wounding seven more people. The bomb had been placed outside the home of Tamaulipas Public Safety Secretary Rafael Lomeli, the state’s top police official. Though Lomeli was not injured, three of his neighbors were cut by fragments of shattered glass that exploded in the blast. Tamaulipas state Interior Secretary Morelos Canseco said he believed the car bomb, which was detonated with a cell phone and parked just outside a security barrier on Lomeli’s street, was tied to criminal gangs as the Gulf and Zetas drug cartels battle for turf. In addition to the two police officers killed in the blast, four more police officers were injured, one of whom is in critical condition.
Read more from the Associated Press.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- Presumed president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto outlined his goals as Mexico’s next president though his win has been challenged by rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
- ICE agents responded to a call by Arizona police to detain two men suspected of being in the U.S. illegally for the first time since portions of Arizona’s SB 1070 were struck down.
Caribbean
- Jamaican police have arrested two suspects involved in a shooting that killed two people in August Town, Kingston.
- The U.N. disapproves of Cuba’s decision to ship mosquito larvicides to Africa to fight malaria, where the disease kills 600,000 people each year.
- Three people have died and 53 were infected by cholera in the Cuban city of Manzanillo.
- The U.S. Coast Guard seized 1,982 pounds of cocaine from a boat traveling south of the Dominican Republic.
Central America
- Honduran authorities said that a plane from Colombia carrying a load of cocaine crashed in eastern Honduras, killing at least one person aboard.
- A British designer and Amnesty International have designed an art installation filled with butterflies to protest violence and sexual abuse against women in Nicaragua.
Andes
- A protest against the proposed $4.8 billion Conga gold mine in Cajamarca, Peru turned deadly on Tuesday when protesters and police clashed in the town of Celendin, leaving 3 dead.
- Former Colombian chief of security Mauricio Santoyo turned himself in to U.S. authorities to face charges of drug trafficking and was extradited to the U.S. on Tuesday.
- Bolivian health officials said that 11 people have died of H1N1 virus and more than 900 are infected during a recent outbreak.
- A hospital in Riobamba, Ecuador is offering traditional Andean healing therapies alongside Western medicine.
Southern Cone
- An Argentine court ruled that Barrick Gold Corp. will have to conduct an inventory of glacial ice in the zone where it wants to construct the Pascua Lama mine before proceeding.
- Brazil may take the consortium building the Belo Monte dam to court after it was revealed that the consortium may have mishandled a turtle hatchery, killing thousands of baby turtles.
Image: baleman @ Flickr.
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