Mexican singer El Shaka killed after denying his murder

Mexican singer Sergio Vega, 40, has been shot dead only hours after he had denied reports he had been murdered.

The singer, known as El Shaka, told an internet site he had increased security measures after a growing number of Mexican musicians were killed.

Musicians performing narcocorridos, songs celebrating the lives of drug barons, often become the targets of rival drug gangs.

Gunmen opened fire on Mr Vega on his way to a concert in Sinaloa state.

Mexican media reported Mr Vega was driving his red Cadillac on Saturday night when a truck started following him.

Shortly afterwards, shots were fired at the car, injuring Mr Vega and making him lose control of the vehicle and crashing it, his passenger told El Debate newspaper.
Deadly rumours

The gunmen then “finished Mr Vega off” with shots to the head and chest, El Debate reported the passenger as saying.

Police confirmed they found spent bullet shells next to the driver’s door.
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G20 summit agrees on deficit cuts by 2013

Leaders at the G20 summit in Canada have agreed to cut national budget deficits without stunting economic growth.

Summit host Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the group’s richest members should halve their deficits within three years.

Correspondents note that every major G20 country had already committed to that target before the summit.

Proposals for a global levy on banks have been dropped, Mr Harper said.

Instead, that will be left to individual countries.

Mr Harper also said government debt, as a proportion of the economy, “should be at least stabilised or on a downward trend by 2016″.

He added: “All leaders recognise that fiscal consolidation is not an end in itself. There will be a continued role for ongoing stimulus in the short term as we develop the framework for strong sustainable and balanced growth.”
Renminbi row

Speaking to reporters after the summit, US President Barack Obama said tighter regulations, including bigger capital requirements for banks, would be addressed at the next G20 summit in Seoul, South Korea, in November.
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Geithner tells Europe to focus on growth

Europe must focus on growth as well as cutting spending to reduce national deficits, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said.

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Geithner said that world leaders must concentrate on the “paramount” challenges of growth and confidence.

He added the world could not rely as much on the US as it has in the past.

Mr Geithner was speaking in Washington ahead of G8 and G20 meetings this weekend in Toronto.

The Group of Eight and Group of 20 rich and developing nations are assembling on Friday for three days of talks on emerging from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

But the Reuters news agency reported that world leaders at the meeting would admit that sickly public finances could hurt long-term growth.

Many European governments, including the UK, have implemented severe austerity measures in recent weeks in order to cut debt levels.
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BP forced to remove containment cap in Gulf of Mexico

Oil is gushing unhindered into the Gulf of Mexico after an underwater accident at the site of the current major leak.

BP was forced to remove its containment cap after an underwater robot bumped into the venting system, the US coast guard say.

Gas had risen through the vent that carried warm water down to prevent ice-like crystals from forming in the cap.

Without the cap, the only means of collecting the oil is a ship at the surface that sucks up oil and burns it.

BP said on Wednesday evening it had begun “operations… to reinstall the cap”, Reuters news agency reports.

BP’s Bob Dudley, who has taken over from chief executive Tony Hayward as manager of the company’s spill response, said a few hours earlier he expected the cap to be working again within a day.

Mr Hayward was strongly criticised in the US for making a series of PR gaffes after the 20 April spill.

In a separate development, two workers involved in the clean-up operation died, Coast Guard Adm Allen said.

One death, he said, appeared to have been a swimming pool-related accident, while the second one was an apparent suicide.
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Australia has first woman PM as Gillard topples Rudd

Australia’s Julia Gillard has become the country’s first female prime minister after former PM Kevin Rudd stood aside from a party ballot.

The change in the leadership of the ruling Labor Party comes just months ahead of a general election.

Correspondents say Mr Rudd did not stand in the vote, knowing he would suffer an embarrassing defeat.

The Labor Party has suffered a sharp drop in support in recent opinion polls.

Ms Gillard’s swearing in as prime minister will be a formality.

“I feel very honoured, I will be making a full statement very shortly,” she told reporters after emerging from the party vote at Parliament House in Canberra.

A party spokesman said Ms Gillard had stood unopposed at a vote of the Labor Party’s 112 members of parliament at a meeting on Thursday morning.
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US Afghan commander Stanley McChrystal fired by Obama

The commander of multinational forces in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, has been dismissed by US President Barack Obama after critical comments about senior administration officials.

He will be replaced by Gen David Petraeus, who led the “surge” in Iraq.

Mr Obama insisted it was “a change in personnel but not a change in policy”.

In a profile in Rolling Stone magazine, Gen McChrystal and aides were quoted as making disparaging remarks about Mr Obama and senior colleagues.

Gen McChrystal himself described the period last year when President Obama was slowly moving towards the approval of the deployment of thousands more US soldiers to Afghanistan as “painful”.

And referring to a key Oval Office meeting between Mr Obama and Gen McChrystal a year ago, an aide of Gen McChrystal said the president “didn’t seem very engaged. The boss [Gen McChrystal] was pretty disappointed”.
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Times Square bomb accused Faisal Shahzad pleads guilty

The main suspect in an attempt to set off a car bomb in New York’s Times Square has admitted weapons and terrorism charges.

Faisal Shahzad told a court in Manhattan he wanted “to plead guilty and 100 times more”.

The Pakistani-born US citizen admitted all 10 charges so there will be no trial. He will be sentenced in October.

The petrol and propane bomb was left in a sports utility vehicle near Broadway theatres on 1 May but failed to ignite.

Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, in Manhattan’s Federal District Court, asked Shahzad a series of questions to ensure he understood his rights.

She asked him if he understood he might spend the rest of his life in prison, to which he said he did.

Asked by Judge Cedarbaum if he was sure he wanted to plead guilty, he launched into a statement, saying he wanted “to plead guilty and 100 times more”.

He said he wanted to let the US know that if it did not get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and stop drone attacks and meddling in Muslim lands, “we will be attacking US”.
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BP to fund $20bn Gulf of Mexico oil spill payout

Oil giant BP is to put $20bn (£13.5bn) in a compensation fund for victims of the Gulf oil spill and will not pay shareholders a dividend this year.

Barack Obama announced the compensation deal after talks at the White House with senior BP executives.

Shortly afterwards, BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said dividends would not be paid for the rest of this year.

The payout fund is to be run by Kenneth Feinberg, a lawyer who oversaw compensation after the 9/11 attacks.

In his current role as Mr Obama’s “pay tsar”, Mr Feinberg sets salary limits for executives at firms in receipt of federal bailout funds.

Mr Obama said a $120m fund would also be set up to compensate oil industry workers.

He said he had heard growing concerns about the pace of compensation payments, and that the new fund would ensure all “legitimate” claims were paid.

“If you or your business has suffered economic loss as a result of this spill you will be able to file a claim,” the president said.
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North Korea rejects torpedo findings, threatens war

United Nations (CNN) — North Korea on Tuesday rejected international findings that it sank a South Korean ship, warning at the United Nations the dispute could lead to war.

“A war may break out any time,” Ambassador Sin Son Ho said, accusing South Korea of “fabricating” the results of the investigation into the sinking of the Cheonan.

The loss of the ship and 46 sailors in March raised tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

North and South Korea presented their cases to the United Nations on Monday, and South Korea then urged the Security Council to take “timely and appropriate measures.”

North Korea’s envoy responded harshly Tuesday.

“If the Security Council releases any documents against us, condemning or pressuring us … then myself as diplomat, I can do nothing. … The follow-up measures will be carried out by our military forces,” he said.
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Oil estimate raised to 35,000-60,000 barrels a day

(CNN) — Government scientists Tuesday increased the estimate of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico to between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day, up to 50 percent more than previously estimated. That translates into 1.5 million gallons to 2.5 million gallons per day.

The government’s previous estimate, issued last week, was 20,000 to 40,000 barrels per day. The change was “based on updated information and scientific assessments,” and was reached by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Chair of the National Incident Command’s Flow Rate Technical Group Marcia McNutt, the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center said.

“The improved estimate is based on more and better data that is now available and that helps increase the scientific confidence in the accuracy of the estimate,” it said.

Alberto Alisedo, a member of the flow rate technical group, said scientists reached the consensus after a three-hour conference call on Monday and a 10-hour meeting on Sunday of the group in Seattle, Washington.

“Our response to the spill is not determined by flow rate estimates,” said BP spokesman Toby Odone. “Our primary concern is to capture as much oil as possible. We are building options to contain higher volumes of oil.”

He called measurement of the flow rate “extremely challenging,” given the fact that the leak is a mile below the surface of the water.
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