Mexico Violence Kills Mayor-Elect, Four Others

August 13, 2012 By Staff

Top Story — Three people were murdered in Mexico City and two men, including the mayor-elect of the town of Matehuala, were killed in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosí this weekend. Mexico City’s attorney general’s office reported that assailants shot and killed two men, ages 53 and 21, outside a Mexico City bar on Sunday. On Saturday, Mexico City police discovered a decapitated body in the Coyoacán district and recovered the head on Sunday, but the victim has not yet been identified. Meanwhile, in the central state of San Luis Potosí on Sunday, assailants shot and killed Edgar Morales Pérez, the mayor-elect of the town of me, along with his campaign manager Juan Francisco Hernández Colunga. The two men were returning from a party early on Sunday morning when they were ambushed by unknown attackers. No arrests have yet been made, but the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), to which Morales Pérez belonged, has called for a thorough investigation into the murders.

Read more from the Sacramento Bee and CNN.

Headlines from the Western Hemisphere

North America

Mexico beat Brazil 2-1 in the gold medal soccer match at the London Olympics on Saturday.
Abortion providers along the U.S.-Mexico border say that American women are increasingly crossing the border into Mexico to secure the drug misoprostol, which requires a prescription in the United States.

Caribbean

The uncle of Calle 13 singer René Pérez, Roberto Joglar Rios, was shot to death Thursday in Puerto Rico.
Jamaican sprinter and World’s Fastest Man Usain Bolt led Jamaica’s 4×100 relay team to a gold medal and world record finish of 36.84 seconds on Saturday.

Central America

The U.S. announced that it will withhold $56 million in security funds until it can investigate whether new Honduran National Police Chief Juan Carlos Bonilla ran a death squad a decade ago.

Andes

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez attacked presidential rival Henrique Capriles by asserting that Capriles belonged to a “fascist” Catholic group called “Tradition, Family and Property.”
Colombia’s national police seized cocaine bound for Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel that was hidden on a truck in northwestern Colombia.

Southern Cone

London passed the Olympic torch to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which which will host the 2016 Olympic Games after the London games came to a close on Sunday.
The city of Buenos Aires has established pensions for published writers in an effort to supplement their retirement incomes.
Uruguayan President José Mujica said that Uruguay would continue to be part of the Mercosur trade block but was also interested in joining the Alliance of the Pacific.

Image: 2bfish @ Flickr.

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