Federal police rescued two kidnapped news cameramen in northern Mexico on Saturday, five days after they were seized by drug traffickers in a bid to get their employers to broadcast cartel messages.
Mexican Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said Javier Canales of Milenio Multimedia Television and Alejandro Hernandez of Televisa were freed before dawn on Saturday in the city of Gomez Palacio, where the men had been held in a residential area.
At a press conference in Mexico City, Garcia Luna, who was accompanied by the two cameramen, said the Sinaloa drug cartel was responsible for the abductions and that the kidnappers escaped.
“What this criminal group sought ... was the transmission of organized crime messages that would have an impact on the community,” Garcia Luna said.
Shortly after the abductions, the kidnappers demanded that the journalists’ employers broadcast videos of two police officers and two civilians being interrogated and accusing officials of favoring the rival Zetas drug gang.
Garcia Luna said the federal police decided to raid the house after the kidnappers failed to free the cameramen.
Hernandez said his captors tortured them physically and psychologically.
“All day and all night, they would intimidate us psychologically and it was very hard,” Hernandez said.
He said he was beaten on Friday with a wooden board.
“Here are the scars,” Hernandez said pointing to a bloody gauze on his head.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition