Islamabad  - Pakistan's top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud Saturday claimed responsibility for the shootings at an US immigration services centre in New York state that killed 13 people.

"I accept the responsibility. They were my men," Mehsud told reporters in Peshawar on phone from some undisclosed location.

A lone gunman took more than 40 immigrants hostage Friday when they were taking a citizenship class at the American Civic Association building in Binghamton, located around 225 kilometres north-west of New York city.

Mexico City  - Mexican President Felipe Calderon saluted Friday the "constructive attitude" of the new US administration in the fight against drug gangs.

As he hosted US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and US Attorney General Eric Holder in Mexico City, however, Calderon also expressed his "concern" over the fate of millions of Mexicans who live and work illegally in the United States.

Hong Kong  - Hong Kong's former head of civil engineering has been arrested over an alleged multi-million US dollar corruption case involving government highway contracts, a news report said Saturday.

Twenty people have been arrested for alleged corruption in the tendering of highway contracts in the former British colony, according to the city's Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Among those arrested, according to Saturday's South China Morning Post, is retired director of civil engineering Tsao Tak-kiang.

Mexico City  - A former mayor of Michoacan state and the homicide department chief of Jalisco state were killed Friday in Mexico in the continuing endless wave of violence.

Police said former mayor Nicolas Leon Hernandez had been shot in the face and his body bore signs of torture. Also attached to his body was a message, apparently signed by La Familia Michoacana, one of the top six Mexican drug cartels.

Hernandez served two terms as mayor of the port of Lazaro Cardenas on the Pacific, some 550 kilometres southwest of Mexico City.

Washington 

Sana'a, Yemen  - A villager opened fire indiscriminately during his daughter's wedding party in southern Yemen on Friday, killing two young women and injuring four others including the bride, police sources said.

The gunman, identified as Hamoud Ahmed Obaid, rampaged with an AK- 47 rifle during the ceremony in the Ga'afaria village of the southern Dalea province, the sources told the German Press Agency dpa.

The two victims, aged 15 and 20, were killed on spot, and four others were rushed to hospitals in a nearby town.

Police arrested the assailant, and he was being interrogated, they said. His motives were not immediately clear.