The blast occurred in a restaurant in Avenue Benito Juarez, the major business area of the town, Rio Bravo's policeman Enrique Hernandez said.

Restaurant Red Snaper, where the leak first started, and two other businesses were seriously damaged. The death toll might increase as rescue efforts continued, sources with the local civil protection agency said.

Firemen of the neighboring towns in US Texas state also came to the scene of accident to help with rescue operations.

Red Cross rescuers had asked for heavy machinery to remove the debris.
 

Mudslides kill six in Peru
Rescue workers have found the bodies of six people killed by mudslides that hit on Saturday morning the southeastern Inca citadel Machu Pichu.

"Six bodies have been found on the river bed. They are all locals from this district," town hall official Hector Olivera said.

Authorities said they were continuing to search for missing people.

"One of the mudslides took six houses with it and damaged another 20," said Carlos Cuaresma, president of the Cusco region. He said at least 11 people were missing, including an entire family, and around 70 were homeless.

Train company Peru Rail said 1,500 tourists were stranded in the town.

Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, who was in the region to help film a television travel program, offered his presidential helicopters to evacuate the tourists.
 

Latin American Human Rights Group Condemns US Attacks on Mosques in Iraq
The Latin American Human Rights Association Thursday strongly condemned recent US attacks on mosques in Iraq, calling them barbaric acts.

In a press release, the Quito-based organization said the US forces in Iraq had unleashed attacks on Shiite and Sunni mosques in the past several days, killing more than 100 civilians.

"These barbaric acts committed by occupation forces openly violate the Geneva Convention and international humanitarian laws, constituting war crimes," the group said.

The human rights group also demanded an immediate withdrawal of occupation troops from Iraq and the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi people, with the support of the United Nations, according to the press release.

About 1,200 US Marines have mounted an anti-insurgent "Vigilant Resolve" operation in Iraq since Monday and many civilians were killed or wounded in the operation.

 

Venezuela, Argentina Ink Pact on Economic, Technical Cooperation
Venezuela and Argentina signed an agreement here Wednesday to expand their cooperation in trade and mutual technical support.

The accord was signed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Argentine Federal Planning Minister Julio de Vido at the Presidential Palace.

Under the accord, the two sides vow to jointly design programs and projects for bilateral cooperation and to appeal to both the public and private sectors for the execution of the two countries' common plans.

On energy and mining, the Venezuelan Energy and Mines Ministry and the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry agreed to set up a permanent consultation mechanism to assess investment and the participation of the Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA and Argentine firms in the cooperation programs.

Chavez said that "these lines of cooperation opened with the signature of this accord are centered, especially, on the search of strategic aims in our endogenous model of development."

He stressed that the agreement opened an immense cooperation arena for both states.
 

EU puts Colombian Rebel Group on Terror Organizations List
The European Union (EU) has officially put on its list of terror organizations Colombia's National Liberation Front (ELN), the second biggest rebel group of the country, official sources said here Monday.

The list was compiled to set up "specific restrictive measures against certain personalities or entities" connected to terrorism, according to the sources.

Earlier, the pan-European bloc had already included in the list the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest guerrilla group, and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a far-right rebel paramilitary organization.

Thus, the FARC, the ELN and the AUC, three main Colombian illegal armed groups, have all been included in the terror lists of both the EU and the United States which had declared the three groups terrorist organizations before the EU did so.

Other terror groups on the EU list are Spain's Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA) and organizations closely linked to it.

The list is posted every year and was created in December 2001 after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The ELN has an armed force of 4,500 people, ranking second in strength following the 17,000-strong FARC.

Colombia has been plagued by a four-decade civil war, the longest in Latin America, in which government forces, leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries fight one another. The conflicts kill an average of 3,000 people every year.