■ Mexico
Explosion cripples gas line
A series of explosions at a natural gas pipeline killed two people and injured more than a dozens as it set afire houses, cars and cattle in a rural community 620km east of Mexico City, authorities and witnesses said on Saturday. The explosions near Cunduacan, 40km northeast of Villahermosa, the Tabasco state capital, crippled a major natural gas pipeline that supplies the Gulf coast shipping station at Dos Bocas, said Carlos Morales, director of exploration and production for Mexican state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos. The Pemex pipeline carried 3.3 million cubic meters of natural gas a day, Morales said. Officials could not say when it would reopen.
■ Canada
Native fined for hate crime
A court in the province of Saskatchewan on Friday found a former Canadian indigenous leader guilty of fomenting hatred, over anti-Semitic comments he made to a reporter more than two years ago. David Ahenakew, 71, a former grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the largest indigenous organization in Canada, was fined C$1,000 (US$800). "The Jews damn near owned all of Germany prior to [World War II]," Ahenakew told a Saskatchewan newspaper in December 2002. "That's how Hitler came in. He was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over Germany or Europe. That's why he fried six million of those guys, you know," he said.
■ United States
Monument gets a makeover
After more than 60 years of being exposed to the elements, the presidents of Mount Rushmore are getting a facial. Park rangers armed with hand-held power washers begin rappelling down the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln on Saturday to blast away the dirt, grime and lichen that has collected on the granite surfaces. It's not purely cosmetic. Lichen eats away at granite and over time can cause cracks and pockmarks. If left for long enough, they could eventually cause the 18m statue to crumble. "This is the first time the faces have been washed," said Judy Olson, Mount Rushmore's chief interpreter.
■ Brazil
Minister takes party helm
The education minister is taking over leadership of the governing Workers Party, replacing a presidential ally who resigned amid allegations of vote buying in Congress. Jose Genoino, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's friend and the party's president for the past two and a half years, asked to be dismissed from his post on Saturday "so the party could move forward during this difficult moment."
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