MEXICO CITY, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - South of the US border, Mexicans are already feeling the squeeze from the US financial crisis, as unemployed migrant workers return home and remittances drop at a record rate.

CHICHEN ITZA, Mexico, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - Spanish tenor Placido Domingo sang in the Maya language and in Mariachi costume at a concert in the pre-Hispanic pyramids of Chichen Itza, southeastern Mexico, late Saturday.

TIJUANA, Mexico, Oct 3, 2008 (AFP) - Mexican police found eight bodies, two of them decapitated, in the northwestern border city of Tijuana on Friday, and 19 others after separate attacks further east in the border state of Chihuahua in the past 24 hours.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - Mexican authorities said 18 police were injured Thursday and 20 people arrested as marchers marked the anniversary of a bloody student massacre in 1968.

The confrontation with police in the country's capital came as an estimated 30,000 people rallied in honor of students killed 40 years ago by Mexican security forces, demanding justice for victims.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - Thousands of Mexicans marched through the capital Thursday in memory of scores killed in a bloody student massacre there 40 years ago, in yet another call for justice.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - The telecommunications company of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim sent 51 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba for victims of last month's deadly Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, a statement said Thursday.

PHOENIX, Arizona, Oct 3, 2008 (AFP) - Human smuggling gangs on the US-Mexico border are extorting thousands of dollars from families of illegal immigrants in Arizona by falsely claiming their relatives are being held hostage in a scam that has become known as 'virtual kidnapping.'

CHICHEN ITZA, Mexico, Oct 3, 2008 (AFP) - Spanish tenor Placido Domingo said he will sing songs in the Maya language at a concert this weekend among pre-Hispanic pyramids in Chichen Itza, southeastern Mexico.

TIJUANA, Mexico, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - Residents of the Mexican border city of Tijuana found five bodies, with their hands and feet tied and heads wrapped in tape, on Friday, police said, bringing the total to 39 killed there this week.

Police recovered the bodies, in the Mesa de Otay sector of the city bordering the United States, after calls from residents.

LONDON, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - Amnesty International appealed to Mexico's President Felipe Calderon Thursday to establish the truth behind a deadly clampdown on student protestors 40 years ago and punish the perpetrators.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - Police found a headless body and the head of another person, as well as nine other bodies in the north of the country Wednesday in the latest spate of gruesome killings in Mexico.

TIJUANA, Mexico, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - Police found eight bodies Thursday in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, near a vacant lot where a pile of 12 bodies was discovered Monday, an official at the state prosecutor's office said.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - A missing Mexican 'condom-mobile' was found in a parking lot outside the capital minus 4,000 condoms and a seven-meter inflatable replica, an HIV/AIDS prevention worker told local television Thursday.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - Mexicans were to march through the capital Thursday from the site of a bloody student massacre in memory of scores killed there 40 years ago, in yet another call for justice.

MONTERREY, Mexico, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - Mexican Manuel Uribe, the world's fattest man in the 2007 Guinness Book of Records, said Wednesday that he would wed this month, after losing nearly half his original weight.

'It will be a hefty wedding, on a large scale, but with a low-calorie banquet,' the 43-year-old told AFP.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, one of the world's richest men, said Tuesday that China should lead rescue efforts for the US financial crisis, and that worldwide stock markets needed better rules.

'China is now the most important country to help responsibly in this crisis,' Slim told journalists at a meeting in Mexico City.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - Mexico commemorates the 40th anniversary of a deadly clampdown on student protestors this week with the details of the massacre still unclear, the perpetrators untried, and impunity as widespread as ever.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - The money sent home by Mexicans living in the United States in August registered its biggest drop since record-keeping began 13 years ago, the Bank of Mexico said Wednesday.

Remittances in August dropped 12.2 percent, compared with the previous year, to 1.9 billion dollars.

LONDON, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - Amnesty International appealed to Mexico's President Felipe Calderon Thursday to establish the truth behind a deadly clampdown on student protestors 40 years ago and punish the perpetrators.

TIJUANA, Mexico, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Police found 16 corpses in the Mexican border city Tijuana on Monday, 12 of which were stacked together in a vacant lot, authorities in the northwest state of Baja California said.

OAXACA, Mexico, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Four tons of cocaine have been discovered in the hold of a shrimp trawler 137 miles (222 kilometers) off the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico, the Mexican Navy announced Monday.

The Navy arrested six members of crew, who claimed to be Mexican, said Vice Admiral Ortegan Cisneros at a press conference in front of the impounded ship.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 26, 2008 (AFP) - Police arrested three men who confessed to hurling grenades into a crowd on Independence Day that killed eight -- and said they belonged to the deadly 'Zetas' gang of guns-for-hire, officials said Friday.

OAXACA, Mexico, Sept 26, 2008 (AFP) - A US human rights activist was raped and murdered in the southern state of Oaxaca, the US Embassy and several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) said Friday.

'We know Marcella Sali Grace was murdered,' embassy spokeswoman Janice Weiner told AFP.

'She was raped and murdered,' the NGOs said in a joint statement.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 24, 2008 (AFP) - Mexico's state-run oil consortium Pemex announced Wednesday that it would 'temporarily' reduce its crude oil output due to damage caused by Hurricane Ike on refineries in the United States.

'It was necessary to temporarily close 250,000 barrels of daily production of crude,' Pemex said in a statement.

LA PAZ, Mexico, Sept 25, 2008 (AFP) - Five Mexican police have been arrested, accused of beating an US tourist to death in a prison in Baja, California, state prosecutors said.

The police have been in preventive detention since August 28 and are awaiting arraignment on charges of homicide, the officials said.

WASHINGTON, Sept 23, 2008 (AFP) - A strong 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck off the west coast of Mexico on Tuesday, the United States Geological survey said.

The epicenter of the tremor, which occurred at 0233 GMT, was located 115 miles (185 kilometers) south-southwest off the coast of Jalisco in central Mexico, the USGS said.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 23, 2008 (AFP) - A bus hit a stray elephant on a central Mexican highway early Tuesday, killing the driver and the animal and injuring four passengers, said a spokeswoman for the local authorities.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 21, 2008 (AFP) - Just over three tons of cocaine were discovered aboard a shrimp trawler off the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico, announced Mexican officials Sunday.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 22, 2008 (AFP) - Mexico's state-run oil company said Monday that production fell 9.2 percent in the first eight months of the year, compared with the same period in 2007.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 22, 2008 (AFP) - Mexican police have arrested nine suspected gang members, including one woman, in connection with the torture and beheading of 12 men last month.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico, Sept 19, 2008 (AFP) - The burned bodies of four men who died in a plane crash near the US-Mexico border have been recovered, Chihuahua state officials said Friday.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 19, 2008 (AFP) - Two US prisoners were among at least 19 killed in a riot in a Mexican prison in Tijuana near the US border, a US embassy spokeswoman said here Friday.

'Two American citizens did die in the prison riot and three were injured,' Janice Weiner, an embassy spokesperson, told AFP.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 18, 2008 (AFP) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon Thursday proposed a new law to confiscate property gained through organized crime, amid escalating drug violence and a deadly grenade attack on national day celebrations this week.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 18, 2008 (AFP) - The Mexican army seized 26.2 million dollars from a house in northwestern Sinaloa state in the second largest cash haul in the country's history, a defense ministry official said Thursday.

The army found 890 packets of cash in a house during a routine patrol in Culiacan, the state capital, general Luis Arturo Oliver told a news conference here.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 19, 2008 (AFP) - Mexican authorities on Friday created a nationwide police force to fight kidnappings and reported more than 650 abductions this year, almost a third more than in all of 2007.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 17, 2008 (AFP) - Mexico on Wednesday focused on possible drug gang involvement in deadly attacks on independence day celebrations that sparked fears that civilians were now targets in the country's drug wars.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico, Sept 17, 2008 (AFP) - Four people died, including top US and Mexican water officials, in a plane crash on the US-Mexico border, the US consulate confirmed here Wednesday, after conflicting reports on the aircraft's disappearance.