To promote more environment-friendly modes of transport and to reduce car traffic and air pollution a bicycle-lending programme, known as Ecobici, has been launched in Mexican capital.

Mexico's capital is home to nearly 19 million people and more than 5 million vehicles and Mexico City is one of the most congested and polluted cities in the world.

Mexico City is surrounded by smog and generates 9.1 percent of the country's carbon dioxide emissions though air pollution has been reduced from the levels registered in the 1990s.

Mexico City, Jan 7 : Mexico has expressed "profound concern" over the death of its undocumented migrant who was shot by a US Border Patrol agent and said it will closely monitor the investigation into the incident.

The Mexican foreign ministry said Wednesday that it will closely follow the investigation into the shooting of Jorge Alfredo Solis Palma near Arizona.

The Jan 4 death of Solis is cause for "profound concern," the ministry said in a statement.

Mexico City, Jan 5 - Mexican emigrants sent home just less than $1.5 billion in November, down 14.43 percent from the same month in 2008 and the lowest monthly total since March 2005, the Mexican central bank said.

Of that total, $1.45 billion was sent via electronic transfers, $25.61 million in money orders and $20.82 million in cash, the Banco de Mexico said Monday.

The size of the average remittance in November, $297.28, reflected a 10.65 percent decline from November 2008.

Mexico City, Dec 31 - A 56-year-old man from the northern Mexican city of Matamoros has been arrested 600 times in 10 years for misdemeanours, such as roaming around drunk or disturbing the public order, the daily Reforma reported Wednesday.

Since 2000, the man who sells sweets for a living, has been taken to the municipal prison at least once a week, sometimes at his own request.

"Sometimes we find him really drunk in the Capilla neighbourhood, and we take him in so that he is not run over, or he himself asks us to arrest him," one police officer was quoted as saying.

Mexico City, Dec 30 :Four people were killed when the small plane in which they were travelling crashed in western Mexico, officials said.

The accident took place in the town of Jilotlan de los Dolores in Jalisco state Monday. The plane crashed on a ranch.(IANS)

Mexico City  - Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced federal budget cuts in a televised address late Tuesday with the goal of saving about 14.5 billion dollars a year.

He cited the ongoing recession, which has cut into government revenues and forced him to look for ways to reduce spending.

Mexico City  - Hurricane Bill continued its path across the western Atlantic Wednesday night.

It was moving a north-westerly direction 500 kilometres from the Leeward Islands in the eastern Caribbean with wind speeds of up to 215 kilometres per hour (kph).

The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said Wednesday evening that the hurricane was moving at 28 kph.

Hurricane Bill developed in mid-Atlantic and is a category four hurricane on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale.

Sao Paulo/Mexico City  - Many democratically elected Latin American presidents are reluctant to relinquish office as their terms draw to a close. In an effort to remain president "forever," they have resorted to changing constitutions and forcing referendums to extend their time in office.

Mexico City - The Mexican government has refused to negotiate with drug cartels, after one gang leader proposed a deal to end the ongoing wave of drug-related violence.

"Criminal organizations must have it clear that the state's offensive is going to continue and that violence ... will only end once they respect the will of authorities," Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont said late Wednesday.

The government said it would not "make a deal and it will never negotiate" with the country's powerful drug cartels.

Mexico City - Mexico suffered a massive drop in tourism in May amounting to 524 million dollars because of swine flu, the tourism ministry said Thursday.

The figure was based on data gathered by Mexico's central bank and had a major impact on tourism in the country, although it was well below the expected figure of 1 billion dollars in losses, Tourism Minister Rodolfo Elizondo said.

Mexico City - Mexican President Felipe Calderon was dealt a massive blow in midterm legislative elections, which are widely considered to be a major test for the
2012 presidential poll.

The Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) wrested control of the lower house of the Mexican Congress from Calderon's National Action Party (PAN), according to preliminary results.

Mexico City - Mexican authorities arrested eight people for kidnapping 51 illegal Central American migrants, the state government said Friday in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas.

The arrests took place in Palenque, in Chiapas, near the border to the state of Tabasco.

"Through torture, they obtained information about (the migrants') relatives in the United States and in their countries of origin, to extort them for amounts ranging from 1,500 to
5,000 dollars," according to a report by the Chiapas public prosecutor's office.

Mexico City - As Tropical Storm Andres approached on the Pacific, the Mexican government Tuesday issued its first hurricane warning of the season.

According to the Miami-based US National Hurricane Centre, the storm - which was about 110 kilometres south of the southwestern Mexican port of Manzanillo on Tuesday
- was forecast to grow into a hurricane Tuesday. Measures were implemented to protect the population in coastal areas.

Mexico City - Mexican authorities issued an alert Monday for towns near the country's southern Pacific coast as Andres, the first tropical storm of the season, starts to form.

The alert ranged from the port of Zihuatanejo, in the state of Guerrero, to Manzanillo in the state of Colima.

Mexico City - A group of armed men blew up an ambulance Friday, apparently with a grenade, to kill a rival who was being transferred from one hospital to another, officials said.

The state attorney general's office in the western Mexican state of Michoacan said the ambulance had just left the Hospital Civil in the town of Uruapan to take a 24 year- old-man to a hospital in the Michoacan capital Morelia, about 300 kilometres west of Mexico City.

The man had been injured Sunday in a shootout, allegedly with a rival group.

Mexico City - Drug-related killings in Mexico reached 3,002 since January, 76.5 per cent more than in the same period last year, according to a count published Thursday by the daily El Universal.

The numbers included data until June 17.

Over the same period in 2007, killings linked to organized crime had amounted to 1,701. However, deaths escalated at the end of the year, to bring the total for 2008 up to 6,290, more than double the figure for 2007.

Mexico City - The Mexican Navy found five tons of cocaine hidden in frozen shark meat aboard a ship bound for the United States, during a weekend raid that dealt a hefty blow to the drug cartels.

The drugs were hidden in two containers onboard the Dover Straits, a freight ship sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands from South America to the US, Mexican daily El Universal reported Wednesday.

The haul of drugs, the largest in recent years, took place in the Puerto Progreso harbour on the Yucatan Peninsula.

Mexico City - A 9-month-old baby suffocated to death inside a car in the Mexican city of Saltillo, after his father forgot him there for seven hours, the Mexican daily La Vanguardia reported Friday.

The incident happened Thursday in Saltillo, about 850 kilometres north of Mexico City.

The man realized what had happened when - at the end of his working day - he went to the day care centre to pick up his son and was told that he had never got there in the morning.

Mexico City - Four people were killed in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez and two others in the western city of Uruapan, in incidents apparently linked to organized crime, the authorities said Thursday.

The incident in Ciudad Juarez, in the northern state of Chihuahua and just across the border from the United States, happened Thursday and also left two people severely injured.

Mexico City - Four people were killed in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez and two others in the western city of Uruapan, in incidents apparently linked to organized crime, the authorities said Thursday.

The incident in Ciudad Juarez, in the northern state of Chihuahua and just across the border from the United States, happened Thursday and also left two people severely injured.