In the first of a three-part investigation, Rory Carroll reports from the gateway to America, at the centre of drug cartel violence that has claimed 28,000 lives

The events which have no name scythe through the valley like invisible reapers. They slice east to west, west to east, a homicidal pendulum. No one sees anything.

The pair of human heads left in a coolbox on the corner of the plaza? A mystery. The 18 houses burnt in a single night? An enigma. The doctor and his family who disappeared? ...

Quake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale hits west of Christchurch, with residents reporting collapsed buildings

A powerful earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale struck New Zealand's South Island tonight.

The quake hit 19 miles west of Christchurch, on the south of the island, at 4.35am local time. It shook a wide area with some residents reporting collapsed buildings, bridges and power cuts.

Christchurch, which has a population of around 400,000 people, was also rocked with a series of ...

Cricket council rebuts conspiracy charge as players accused of spot-betting scam are interviewed by police under caution

The International Cricket Council today defended its decision to charge three Pakistan cricketers under its anti-corruption code.

The three men, accused of an alleged betting scam, were today formally interviewed by police under caution and later released without police charges.

Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Test captain Salman Butt were interviewed separately at Kilburn po...

In his only live TV interview since his memoirs were published, he tried to convince the audience of his motivations for the Iraq war

Tony Blair tried to bury his "toxic legacy" last night by flying to Ireland to appear on The Late Late Show.

In his only live TV interview since his memoirs were published, he tried to convince the audience that he acted against the one million people who marched in opposition to the war in Iraq in 2003 because he simply couldn't take decisions "based on those th...

Portuguese TV presenter among six convicted over child prostitution at Casa Pia state-run orphanages

One of Portugal's most famous television presenters and a former ambassador were among six men found guilty yesterday of involvement with a paedophile prostitution ring that exploited children from state-run orphanages.

The guilty verdicts handed down to TV presenter Carlos Cruz and the five others exposed the truth of more than three decades of rumours about systematic abuse of young boys at t...

State of emergency declared after earthquake with magnitude of 7.0 strikes 19 miles west of Christchurch

A powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck New Zealand's South Island last night, causing widespread damage to buildings, although there were few injuries.

Christchurch mayor Bob Parker declared a state of emergency four hours after tremors rocked the region, warning that continuing aftershocks could cause masonry to fall from damaged buildings.

The quake hit 19 miles west of the city, on the...

We have an anaemic recovery at best. And the housing market, where this crisis began, remains in terrible shape

Back in January, US vice-president Joe Biden offered up a huge hostage to fortune. Talking to fellow Democrats about the Obama plan for the economy, he promised: "You're going to see, come the spring, net increase in jobs every month." Yesterday figures showed that a net total of 54,000 workers lost their jobs in August, taking the official unemployment rate to 9.6%. A big dollop of ...

The free travel pass is a great boon to many older people, but serious questions have to be raised as to whether it should be a universal benefit at 60. We are now in an era of huge cuts in public funding and there are more urgent social care needs among the poorest and most vulnerable older people than a free pass which can and is used by people who are still at work, such as Keith Ludeman, chief executive of Go-Ahead (Let pensioners pay one-off fee for bus pass, says Go-Ahead, 3 September)....

Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas try to breach the wall between them, with the help of Barack Obama's delicately balanced diplomacy

Stephen Hawking assumes that the big bang started from "nothing" (Universe not created by God, says Hawking, 2 September). I would like to know what his definition of "nothing" is. It is no answer to point to the emergence of positron-electron pairs that appear from "nothing" as each of these have energy and this energy must have existed beforehand. It is difficult to think of a universe in which there is "nothing" because nothing means just that, no mass, no energy and therefore no means of ...

Palestine is synonymous with violence, but politics takes a back seat on this extraordinary new walking route where the people are welcoming and the countryside stunning

There was a moment of silence. Then the Palestinian youngsters marched in front of us and I thought to myself, this is where they sing about being martyrs and dying glorious deaths. A gentle breeze swayed the mulberry tree. On the far ridges of the mountains around Nablus, the lights of the illegal Israeli settlements twinkled...

'I knew immediately who he was. It was the same face I'd been carrying around with me for over a decade'

As a child growing up in London, I was blissfully unaware of other worlds less safe and secure than my own. That all changed when I was about 12. Leafing through National Geographic, I started reading a feature about some ancient ruins in Cambodia that looked very beautiful. But what really caught my attention was an article next to it about the country waking up from the nightmare of the K...

John Sentamu accuses government of 'sitting on sidelines' while other countries tackle the cross-border problem

The Archbishop of York has joined critics of the government's opt-out from the EU's new directive on sex trafficking, describing the decision as "stunning".

John Sentamu accused ministers of "sitting on the sidelines" while other countries try to tackle a cross-border problem, which is thought to be growing but has seen fewer traffickers jailed this year than at any time since 2005.

Th...

What does it feel like to be the only person to survive a plane crash, a boat wreck or an ambush? Sole survivors tell their stories

In February 2009, 24-year-old Nick Schuyler went fishing with three friends in the Gulf of Mexico. An attempt to salvage a stuck anchor capsized the boat, and the four men were forced to cling to the hull to survive. When rescuers found the upturned boat after 43 hours (see picture, above), he was the only one still alive.

It was going to be our last fishing trip....

Beating the stars of Mad Men to an Emmy for her role in The Good Wife was a 'well-received shock', British actor Archie Panjabi says

When Hugh Laurie went home from last Sunday's Emmy awards empty handed, there seemed to be a mass slumping of shoulders among the British press. Laurie has found spectacular success with his portrayal of a grumpy doctor in the TV drama House, but perhaps it's time for him to let another ? younger, better-looking ? Brit steal the spotlight in America. She may not ...

Hurricane Earl heads for Massachusetts
Hurricane Earl is still powerful but slowly weakening as it heads toward southeastern New England, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Friday evening.
3 Sep 2010 at 9:58pm

New Zealand hit by 7.0-magnitude quake
A powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake has rocked much of New Zealand's South Island, but no immediate tsunami alert has been issued, and no injuries have been reported.
3 Sep 2010 at 4:57pm

UPS cargo plane crashes near Dubai
A UPS cargo plane with two crew members on board crashed Friday outside Dubai, officials said, and there was no immediate word on casualties.
3 Sep 2010 at 3:19pm

BP removes Gulf well blowout preventer
The broken blowout preventer whose failure allowed millions of litres of crude oil to spew freely into the Gulf of Mexico has been removed from a well on the ocean floor.
3 Sep 2010 at 2:55pm

Castro's speech warns of nuclear danger
Former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has warned thousands of students at the historic University of Havana of what he believes is the world's looming nuclear threat.
3 Sep 2010 at 12:43pm

6 guilty in Portuguese child sex abuse case
A Portuguese court has found six men guilty of crimes relating to child sex abuse in a major trial that lasted nearly six years, a prosecution lawyer says.
3 Sep 2010 at 10:21pm

Pakistan suicide bombing kills 43
A suicide bombing at a Shia procession in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta kills at least 43 people.
3 Sep 2010 at 10:48am

Philippine bus hostage probe opens
The Philippine president took control of the national police Friday as disgraced senior officials acknowledged that serious lapses had led to the deaths of eight Hong Kong tourists who were taken hostage on a hijacked bus last week.
3 Sep 2010 at 5:31am

Mexican soldiers kill 25 in cartel raid
Mexican soldiers kill at least 25 suspected drug cartel members in a raid and gun battle in a Mexican state near the U.S. border that has become one of the most dangerous battlegrounds in the country's drug war.
3 Sep 2010 at 7:17am

Acid-throwing woman sought in Wash.
Police in Vancouver, Wash., are on the hunt for a woman who threw acid in the face of another woman outside a local Starbucks coffee shop on Monday.
3 Sep 2010 at 9:35pm

Netanyahu, Abbas return home to criticism
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from the resumption of Mideast negotiations in Washington to confront internal opposition, just as his Palestinian counterpart faced harsh criticism for agreeing to the talks at all.
3 Sep 2010 at 9:28am

Scientist released after Miami airport scare
A 70-year-old scientist detained after a metal canister was found in his luggage at Miami International Airport has been released without charges, a U.S. security official says.
3 Sep 2010 at 12:45pm

Russian wildfires kill 5
Five people have been killed and 400 houses set ablaze in the latest wave of the forest fires plaguing Russia, the Emergencies Ministry says.
3 Sep 2010 at 9:12am

U.S. private sector starts hiring
A decline in government employment offset an increase in private-sector hiring and caused the U.S. economy to shed 54,000 jobs in August.
3 Sep 2010 at 9:54am

Indonesian volcano erupts again
An Indonesian volcano that was quiet for four centuries shot a new, powerful burst of hot ash more than three kilometres in the air Friday, sending frightened residents fleeing to safety for the second time this week.
3 Sep 2010 at 9:28am