Mexican drug violence claims 24 lives in 24 hours

Drug violence in the Mexican state of Chihuahua left 24 people dead in the span of 24 hours this weekend, the state attorney general's office said Sunday.
The killings were scattered over four locations throughout the state, with eight dead in Juarez, 10 killed in the capital of Chihuahua, five killed in Cuauhtemuc and one killed in Parral.



All the slayings occurred in public places, with the killings in Cuauhtemuc occurring in a bar, said Carlos Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general.
The killings took place between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, Gonzalez said.
The victims -- all male -- ranged in age between 18 and 25 years old.
No other details about the killings or the victims were immediately available.
"This is an indicator of the incrementally increasing war between the two cartels battling for Juarez Plaza, the state's drug trafficking corridor," Gonzalez said, referring to an ongoing battle between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels for dominance in the area. Juarez Plaza is a major thoroughfare through the area.
"I can't give you a reason why the violence is picking up the last week of April going into this month," Gonzalez added.
Some Mexican news organizations have reported that the Sinaloa Cartel had defeated the rival Juarez organization but Gonzalez said, "There is no winner to this war."
The spate of weekend killings followed another bloody week in the Ciudad Juarez area.
On Wednesday, at least 15 people were killed in drug-related violence in Juarez, authorities said.
The slayings included four people whose bodies were found at one location, another three -- one of them a woman -- who were found slain at a second location, and another eight victims who were killed at a bar, police spokesman Jacinto Seguro said.
On Tuesday, 10 people were killed, Seguro said, including three who were shot outside a supermarket. Another victim was killed outside a shopping mall.
In all, 25 people were killed between Tuesday and Wednesday, Seguro said.
Ciudad Juarez is the most violent city in Mexico, with more than 2,600 drug-related deaths in 2009. No official numbers are available for this year, but more than 500 killings have been reported by local media. Some reports have the figures as high as 810 in Juarez this year.

According to a report released in April by the Mexican government, Chihuahua state is Mexico's hardest-hit state by drug violence, with 6,757 people killed since the start of the drug war at the end of 2006.

Taliban claims deadly suicide attack in Pakistan

The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed at least 13 people and injured dozens in the northwest part of the country Saturday, authorities said.
The attack at a security checkpoint in the city of Saidu Sharif injured 37, according to Ibrahim Khan, a police official in the Swat District, where the military launched an offensive against the Taliban last year. The city is near Mingora, the largest city in the district.
Khan said the suicide attacker, who was dropped off on a rickshaw, approached a checkpoint manned by police and military personnel.
Security personnel opened fire when the attacker refused to stop. Moments later, the attacker detonated explosives.

Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, told by phone that his organization takes responsibility for the deadly blasts in Lahore on Friday and the attack Saturday.
The Saturday blast comes a day after a twin suicide bombing on a military convoy in Lahore killed 44 people and injured nearly 100 others. Assailants targeted military convoys, approaching on foot and detonating their explosives 15 to 20 seconds apart, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sana Ullah said. Five of the dead were Pakistani soldiers, he said.
"Pakistan has become a colony of Blackwater," Tariq said, referring to the company now known as Xe Services that provided security to U.S. officials in Iraq.
"The government of Pakistan has become puppet of U.S," he added.
Tariq warned that failure to halt operations against the Taliban will lead to more attacks.
"Our 2,000 suicide bombers, who have already spread across the country, will act against security personnel and government installations," Tariq said.
Tariq said the attacks on both days were a retaliation for the killing of innocent "Mujahedeen" by Pakistani government under the orders of the United States. A Pakistani crackdown on militants has resulted in the arrests of top Taliban.
After the twin bombings Friday, a series of low-level blasts occurred in succession in the Iqbal Town area of the city that night. Three people were injured in the blasts and damage was minimal, Lahore Police said.

Earlier this week, gunmen entered a North West Frontier Province compound of the humanitarian agency World Vision, threw grenades, opened fire on the staff inside and detonated a homemade bomb before leaving, according to a World Vision statement.

Chinese Firm Claims Apple Stole iPad Design and Name

When it came to naming its new lozenge computer, the iPad, Apple was infrequently coining an peculiar state. as The Times outlined in a story loiter week, a number of variant electronics companies commenced sell products that use the iPad name.

Now a minute electronics camper in southern China is demanding that Apple didn’t thieve adapted the advance of its product, but also its forge. Wu Xiaolong, manager adviser of Shenzhen noted Loong Industrial, says that last July, his company released a tablet computer called the P88.

“Anyone who sees the P88 will realize the iPad looks exactly the same,” he vocal. “We talked to a lawyer and we’re preparing fabric for a lawsuit.”

The products take a out most resemblance, but hereafter seem quite different. The P88, which can enact seen on the trellis site of the tiny electronics maker, runs Microsoft Windows instead of Apple’s iPhone operating system, has an Intel chip, uses a 10-inch-diagonal screen (the Apple iPad is 9.7 inches) and is priced at $570, a bit fresh than the child's play iPad model. legitimate is about a pound heavier than Apple’s device and boasts a salvo life of 1.5 hours, compared to the iPad’s claimed 10-hour life.

In titanic Apple, Great Loong is trying to bring a page from the playbook of America’s technology giants, which through oldness have complained about how small electronics firms predominance southern China clone the contemplation — and sometimes other components further features — of branded goods, including the iPhone, Nokia cellphones and Dell computers. Some of these loud knockoffs — called shanzhai goods — are singable fix rural areas of China through they flash like the veritable thing but cost significantly less.

Mr. Wu said revered Loong developed its iPad totally on its own. “The P88’s appearance, system and mode are all accomplished by our own engineers,” he said.

Great Loong says irrefutable has already signed deals to ship the P88 to France, Germany, Japan and the United States.