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EFE News Briefs for Monday, April 17(EFE Ingles Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Horrendous bus crash kills 63 in Mexico Veracruz, Mexico (EFE).- At least 63 people died in southeastern Mexico when the bus in which they were traveling plunged off a highway into a ravine, authorities said. Julia Martinez, spokeswoman for the civil defense office in the state of Veracruz, told reporters that 63 people were killed in the crash and three others seriously injured. Federal police initially reported 57 dead. The mishap occurred shortly before 10 a.m. (1500 GMT), when the vehicle flew off the winding road near the village of La Estancia in Veracruz state, apparently due to "mechanical failure." Veracruz's deputy civil defense chief, Ranulfo Marquez Hernandez, told EFE that the bus had departed the western city of Guadalajara and was bound for Veracruz city. The tragic accident came as many Mexicans were returning home Monday from Holy Week excursions. ___ Garcia, Flores run neck-and-neck for 2nd spot in Peru runoff Lima (EFE).- Former head of state Alan Garcia and conservative lawyer Lourdes Flores were separated by fewer than 90,000 votes Monday in their battle to qualify for the second spot in the presidential runoff against nationalist Ollanta Humala. Peruvians went to the polls April 9 to choose a president to succeed Alejandro Toledo for a five-year term. With just over 90 percent of the ballots counted, election authorities say that Humala, a populist former army colonel, garnered 30.84 percent of the vote, followed by Garcia with 24.35 percent and Flores with 23.56 percent. Election authorities say they expect to finish the vote tabulation on Tuesday, though they will not declare an official result until after ruling on ballots that have been placed under review. The presidential runoff is expected in late May or early June. ___ Colombia reports 29 dead, eight missing after mudslides Bogota (EFE).- The death toll from the mudslides that struck southwestern Colombia last week rose to 29, but authorities were also able to announce that 19 people who had been missing returned to their village Monday safe and sound. The director of Colombia's office of disaster management, Eduardo Gonzalez, told the press that with the appearance of the 19 survivors, the number of people officially reported missing stood at eight. While the heavy rains that began last month have caused flooding and mudslides in various parts of Colombia, the hardest hit area has been the southwestern province of Valle del Cauca, where earth and rock buried the villages of Kilometro Cuarenta and Bendiciones, both in the mountains above Buenaventura, Colombia's main Pacific port. The mudslides also blocked the highway linking Buenaventura to Cali, the provincial capital and Colombia's third-largest city. ___ 24 Venezuelan convicts escape jail through tunnel Caracas (EFE).- A group of 24 convicts, among them some considered highly dangerous, broke out of a jail in eastern Venezuela through a 35-meter (115-foot) tunnel, authorities said. The jailbreak took place at La Pica Prison, close to the town of Maturin, capital of Monagas state. An official of the National Guard military police told Globovision TV that the escape took place before dawn Monday. The official said the tunnel went from the prisoners' block to a street alongside the jail. He also said that among the fugitives are some highly dangerous criminals who have operated as professional hit-men. ___ New poll shows Lopez Obrador's lead narrowing in Mexico Mexico City (EFE).- Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's support in polls for Mexico's July 2 presidential election has declined, with only four percentage points separating him from Felipe Calderon, of the ruling National Action Party (PAN), according to survey results released Monday. If the election was held today, some 38 percent of Mexicans would vote for Lopez Obrador, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and 34 percent would back Calderon. Roberto Madrazo, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), is drawing 25 percent support, the El Universal newspaper reported, citing the results of a poll conducted this month. Even though he is still the frontrunner, Lopez Obrador lost four percentage points in support from a poll conducted by the same newspaper in March. ___ Seven U.S.-bound Cuban women charged with endangering children Havana (EFE).- As part of a crackdown on illegal emigration and people smugglers, Cuban authorities have charged seven women with endangering the lives of their children in their frustrated attempt to reach the United States, the official newspaper Granma reported. The incident occurred last April 5, when the Cuban coast guard foiled an illegal emigration attempt by speedboat in Pinar del Rio, western Cuba, which ended with one smuggler dead and another two injured. Cuban authorities took into their care 39 people, among them 7 children between 23 months and 14 years of age and 14 women who were found in "very poor condition," the newspaper said. "Due to the parents' irresponsibility, all the children had to be hospitalized," said the official publication of the Cuban Communist Party, adding that some of them drank dirty water from lagoons and marshes. ___ Another Colombian computer intelligence chief sacked Bogota (EFE).- The information technology chief of Colombia's DAS secret police force has been fired from his post after being linked to the same kind of abuses that cost his now-jailed predecessor his job a year ago, according to media reports. The Noticias Uno television network said Sergio Sasiain has been removed after being implicated, as was Jorge Garcia, the previous holder of the job, in shady arrangements involving rightist militia leaders. Garcia alleges that former DAS chief Jorge Noguera, now Colombia's consul in Milan, facilitated the killing of opposition figures by rightist militias and destroyed agency files on drug traffickers whose extradition had been requested by Washington. He also accused Noguera of engineering regional elections fraud in the 2002 presidential balloting, which President Alvaro Uribe won. EFE dr |