HS News Daily

Some 300 people were rescued Tuesday from a burning building in the Mexican capital’s upscale Santa Fe neighborhood, officials said.

The municipal emergency services chief, Elias Miguel Moreno Brizuela, said that during the blaze at least 300 people inside the 10-story building suffered moments of fright and panic attacks.

He said that people from his department cordoned off the area to avoid any further mishaps and evacuated everyone in the building.

The fire sparked an immediate deployment of police, firefighters and paramedics.

Also aiding in the operation were three helicopters that rescued seven people who sought refuge on the roof to escape the flames and dense smoke.

Moreno Brizuela said the blaze was apparently caused by a short circuit in the building’s basement.

For his part, Mexico City’s public safety secretary, Manuel Mondragon, told the press that the fire was “now under control,” though he added that “work is still being done inside the building to dispel the smoke and keep the wind from reactivating the flames.”

According to official reports, a woman suffered third-degree burns in the fire and was taken to a nearby hospital, while another 16 were overcome by smoke inhalation and 16 more were treated for panic attacks. Three cars were totally consumed by the flames.

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The U.S. Census Bureau said Tuesday that it omitted more than 1.5 million people belonging to ethnic minorities in the 2010 count, though it defended the accuracy of all other figures.

The bureau released estimates of over- and undercounting in the 2010 Census.

The document calculated some 16 million omissions in the 2010 Census, which included people whose information could not be checked because they incorrectly filled out the questionnaires sent them in the mail.

The report said that in total the Census omitted close to 2.1 percent of African-Americans and 1.5 percent of Hispanics, who together add up to some 1.5 million people who were not counted as they should have been. In any case, these percentages were not statistically different from the results of the 2000 Census, the bureau said.

The 2010 Census also failed to include 4.9 percent of indigenous people living on reservations.

“We’ll use these coverage estimates to build a better 2020 Census,” Census Bureau Director Robert Groves said.

The analysis of problems in the 2010 Census was released at a time when some 100 U.S. cities, including New York, were challenging the official counts, considering them too low.

In general, the erroneous counting occurred less among people who returned their demographic questionnaires in the mail than among those who gave their answers to volunteers doing door-to-door interviews.

The 2010 Census, which cost $15 billion - an unprecedented amount meant in part to encourage the participation of minorities - also unduly added some 36,000 people to the national population, or 0.01 percent of the total.

That error was due, according to the Census Bureau, to counting white citizens twice if they had several homes. The error in the 2000 Census had been 0.05 percent.

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Amnesty International on Monday severely criticized what it said was the Mexican government’s lack of action to protect journalists in the country, adding that proof of that are the murders of six members of the media in less than a month.

The organization said in a communique that the six recent killings demonstrate “the failure” of Mexican authorities to protect freedom of expression and to defend media employees from threats and violence.

“This new wave of killings of media workers should serve as a wake-up call to the Mexican authorities, who must do more to protect journalists who are at risk for carrying out their work,” Rupert Knox, AI’s Mexico researcher, said.

The most recent killing occurred last Friday, when the mutilated body of 39-year-old crime reporter Marco Antonio Avila Garcia was found on a highway in the northern state of Sonora, one day after he was kidnapped in Ciudad Obregon, where he lived and worked for two newspapers.

Mexican authorities, according to Knox, “rarely identify or bring to justice those responsible for attacks on journalists, creating a climate a fear and vulnerability amongst those still brave enough to continue their work.”

“It is vital that full and impartial investigations are carried out immediately, including making use of new federal investigative powers, into each of these cases, to ensure the killers are brought to justice,” he said.

AI insistently has asked Mexican authorities to begin enforcing the Protection Law for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which was recently approved by Congress.

Throughout Mexico, 81 media employees have been killed since 2000, according to figures compiled by the independent National Commission on Human Rights.

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Gocho is preparing his second album with which, after a solid career as a producer and songwriter, he is seeking to further establish himself with the public as a singer.

The songwriter known as “El lapiz de platino” (The Platinum Pencil) for his work in penning urban genre hits made his debut as a singer last year with his album entitled “Mi musica.”

Now, that he is beginning the production of his second album, Jose Angel Torres, a.k.a. Gocho, said in an interview with Efe that many people have suggested that he call it “El lapiz de platino,” but he doesn’t like that name.

“It’s plain, strong, I don’t know. It’s great, people know me like that and I’m happy that they acknowledge that my lyrics have been successful, but it’s not the message that I want to send on the record,” he said.

Gocho has worked with Shakira, Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Zion & Lennox and Angel & Khriz, for whom he composed the hit “Ven Bailalo.”

With “Mi musica,” Gocho climbed in the Billboard Latino chart with the numbers “Dandole” and “Si te digo la verdad,” the latter of which has risen as high as No. 15 on the Hot Latin Songs chart.

One of his strategies has been to collaborate with his colleagues from other musical genres, including Alexis Valdes, Paulina Rubio, Elvis Crespo, among others.

Currently, he is enjoying the success of the song he collaborated on with Wisin & Yandel - “Si te digo la verdad” - which was released last week.

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The governments of Colombia and Venezuela on Tuesday consolidated their joint fight against Colombian rebels, militarizing both sides of the border in the hunt for guerrillas who killed 12 soldiers in Colombia and later returned to their base in the neighboring country.

The northernmost stretch of the border is now being patrolled by security forces from both countries who are seeking members of the 59th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

That was the unit that on Monday attacked a squad of Colombian troops who were protecting efforts to rebuild an electrical tower knocked down by the guerrillas in a rural portion of La Guajira province, killing 12 troops.

Colombian Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon said on Caracol Radio that the 59th Front “probably has its base area” in the neighboring Venezuelan state of Zulia.

Pinzon emphasized in remarks to reporters the importance of Colombia and Venezuela coordinating with one another to “mobilize troops and conduct military operations in that area.”

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos communicated to his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, that Colombian authorities had noticed that the guerrillas had fled into Venezuela, to which the government in Caracas responded quickly and willingly.

Chavez’s response was immediate, saying “We reaffirm our position: we’re not going to allow incursions by any armed force, wherever it may be from, into Venezuelan territory,” and he announced the deployment of military brigades to Zulia.

The cooperation between the security forces of the two nations received a push in August 2010, when Santos assumed power and met with Chavez to reconstitute the bilateral diplomatic ties that had gone through their worst period during the latter stages of the 2002-2010 administration of Alvaro Uribe.

Since then, Venezuelan security forces have captured drug traffickers and Colombian guerrillas.

The mutual jungle border region between the two countries is a hotbed of crime, particularly drug trafficking and gasoline smuggling, as revealed in the book “La frontera caliente entre Colombia and Venezuela” (The hot border between Colombia and Venezuela) published recently by the non-governmental organization Nuevo Arco Iris, which specializes in studying Colombia’s internal conflict.

According to that investigation, crime and violence are spreading in the remote areas on either side of the border because local authorities have been “permeated” by criminal interests and the action of the national governments has been insufficient to quell the problem.

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