Gunmen kidnap Mexican journalist

24 August 2011 Last updated at 20:45 GMT Police in north-west Mexico are searching for a journalist who has been kidnapped.

Humberto Millan Salazar, who presents the news on Radio Formula, was forced into a car by armed men outside his home in the city of Culiacan.

The US-based journalists' welfare group Committee to Protect Journalists says 58 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1992.

It says 25 of those were murdered in direct reprisal for their work.

Mr Millan Salazar was stopped by masked armed men as he was leaving his house in a residential area of Culiacan, in Sinaloa state, on Wednesday.

He was on his way to the Culiacan studios of Radio Formula, where he presents the morning news programme.

He also edits the online newspaper A Discusion.

Deadly profession

Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Freedom of Speech Gustavo Salas said 13 journalists had disappeared across the country since 2000.

"One of the common indicators in these cases is the destructive presence of drug-trafficking in certain areas of the country, which has had an impact on the rise in violence against journalists," he said.

Mr Salas said the journalists working in the northern states on the US-Mexico border were worst hit by the violence.

The disappearance of Mr Millan Salazar comes less than a month after crime reporter Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz was found dead.

Ms Ordaz, who worked for the Notiver newspaper, had her throat cut after being abducted in Veracruz state.

Veracruz officials said they suspected organised crime behind her killing, but denied that she had been killed because of her work.

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Fatal blast traps Mexican miners

4 May 2011 Last updated at 06:46 GMT Families have gathered at the mine where fears are growing for the men trapped underground Four workers have been killed and 10 are trapped underground after a blast at a coal mine in northern Mexico.

Officials say the size of the gas blast means the chances of finding any survivors are slim.

They said the blast was so strong that a teenage boy working at the mine's surface lost an arm.

Rescue workers have been unable to make contact with the men because there are high levels of dangerous methane gas in the mine shaft.

As tearful family members gathered near the entrance of the mine, the authorities tried to extract the underground gas using machines.

Labour Secretary Javier Lozano confirmed that four bodies had been found and that "the outlook is very bad".

"The truth is that it does not allow us to hold out much hope," he said.

Mr Lozano said the teenager who lost his arm had apparently been employed at the site illegally, the Associated Press reports.

Jesus Montemayor, mayor of the nearby town of Sabinas, said the blast had been felt for miles around, Reuters reports.

President Felipe Calderon has called on Mexicans to "pray that they are still alive".

He said his government was helping the local authorities in their rescue efforts.

The small artisanal mine, close to the border with the US, had been operating for less than a month.

It was one of the many small mining operations which are vital to the local economy in poorer regions.

In 2006, more than 65 miners died in a similar accident in the same region in one of Mexico's worst mining disasters.

In a statement, the Mexican mine workers union criticised the "totally unsafe conditions" in the country's mines.

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