President vows action on crime

MEXICO CITY - Moving quickly to address mounting anger over crime, President Felipe Calderon promised yesterday to adopt several proposals from civic groups who led more than 100,000 Mexicans in marches against daily kidnappings and killings. Among the measures are the creation of a citizens' panel to monitor government progress in fighting crime, better police recruiting and oversight systems and equipping police with more powerful weapons, the president said. The government "shares the demands and the indignation of the people," Calderon said after meeting with 14 civic leaders who staged Saturday night's candlelight protests in the capital and cities across the country. (AP)

SHANGHAI - The devastation from an earthquake that struck southwestern China on Saturday might be much worse than initially feared, state-run news media reported yesterday, saying that the quake had destroyed more than 100,000 homes and that the death toll had risen to at least 28 and was likely to be higher. The earthquake, which was centered in Sichuan province on Saturday and had a magnitude of 6.1, damaged highways, reservoirs, bridges and hundreds of schools, and it forced the evacuation of more than 40,000 people in Sichuan and neighboring Yunnan province, reported Xinhua, the state news agency. More than 230 people were reported injured. (New York Times News Service)

MOSCOW - A Russian journalist known for his opposition views was arrested at an airport in southern Russia yesterday and then fatally shot in the head, in what authorities said was an accident but human rights groups said was suspicious. The shooting in Ingushetia, and other violence in southern Russia recently, suggested a possible clampdown on domestic dissent in Russia's volatile North Caucasus border region. The Russian prosecutor general's office said the journalist, Magomed Yevloyev, was shot in the temple while being driven from the airport to a police station, and said it would open an investigation into an accidental death. The local police in Ingushetia told the Interfax news agency that Yevloyev was arrested for taking part in a terrorist bombing, and that he had tried to grab an assault rifle from a police officer in the car. (New York Times News Service)

MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was feted by Russian media yesterday for saving a television crew from an attack by a Siberian tiger in the wilds of the Far East. Putin apparently saved the crew while on a trip to a national park to see how researchers monitor the tigers in the wild. Just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran toward a nearby camera crew, the country's main television station said. Putin quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilizer gun. "Putin not only managed to see the giant predator up close but also saved our television crew too," a presenter on Rossiya television said at the start of the evening news. (Reuters)