Mexican police carried out the controlled detonation of a car bomb on Saturday in the troubled and increasingly violent city of Ciudad Juarez, just across from border from Texas.
A telephone tip around midnight led authorities to a dead body in a car in a shopping center parking lot, the federal Public Safety Department said in a statement. In a second car, police found the bomb.
Agents deactivated the device and removed most of the explosive material to analyze it before safely detonating the vehicle, the department said. There were no injuries.
Ciudad Juarez is the same city where drug traffickers staged the first successful car bombing in Mexico, killing three people in July.
There have been three other vehicle explosions in recent weeks in Ciudad Victoria, capital of the border state of Tamaulipas.
Ciudad, across from El Paso, Texas, has been one of the cities most affected by Mexico’s escelating drug violence in recent years.
BORDER VIOLENCE
More than 2,100 people have been murdered in the city so far this year — making it highly likely that last year’s gruesome and unwanted record of 2,700 murders will be surpassed by the end of the year.
Across the country, more than 28,000 people have been killed since December 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against the cartels soon after taking office.
In the central state of Morelos, police discovered nine bodies in clandestine graves on Saturday in the same area where four more were recently found.
The Public Safety Department said in a separate statement that all 13 victims were believed to have been killed on the orders of US-born Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal, one of the alleged kingpins fighting for control of Morelos.
Valdez was captured Aug. 30 by federal police.
US WARRANT
Late on Saturday, federal authorities announced they had arrested two Colombian brothers who they alleged have ties to Valdez and belong to a group responsible for buying cocaine in Colombia and smuggling it to the US.
The men were identified as Dario Emilio Valencia and Victor Espinosa Valencia. The latter was said to own the ranch on the outskirts of Mexico City where Valdez allegedly hid out before his arrest.
The Public Safety Department said both men were named in a US warrant issued in 2004 in Florida.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
Africa has established the continent’s first space agency to boost Earth observation and data sharing at a time when a more hostile global context is limiting the availability of climate and weather information. The African Space Agency opened its doors last month under the umbrella of the African Union and is headquartered in Cairo. The new organization, which is still being set up and hiring people in key positions, is to coordinate existing national space programs. It aims to improve the continent’s space infrastructure by launching satellites, setting up weather stations and making sure data can be shared across