MEXICO PRISON CLASH LEAVES 17 DEAD
DURANGO: Eleven prisoners and six guards were killed in armed clashes at a prison in northern Mexico that erupted when inmates attempted a jailbreak, state security officials said.

The fighting broke out as wardens were “thwarting the inmates’ attempted prison break” in the city of Gomez Palacio, the public security office in Durango state said . Alarm bells rang out in the facility as the inmates mutinied, shooting at the guard towers and the wardens’ office, it added. In the midst of the shooting, a group of inmates tried to escape through tunnels and over a back fence. Guards initially fired in the air before returning the prisoners’ fire directly. Troops deployed to the prison eventually put a stop to the attempted jailbreak and regained control of the facility.

CHAVEZ ‘STABLE’ AFTER RESPIRATORY INFECTION
CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is in “stable” condition after being diagnosed with a respiratory infection following his latest cancer surgery in Cuba, an official said. Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas said doctors had treated the infection and brought it under control, adding that it was a common consequence of “complicated surgeries” and that the ailing leader required “absolute rest.” Chavez, 58, is due to be sworn in for a third presidential term on January 10, but the country is now on tenterhooks to see if the outspoken, formerly tireless leader will remain their president, become incapacitated, or worse.

JAPANESE WORKER FINDS $120,000 CASH IN TRASH
TOKYO: A worker at a waste disposal site in Japan found $120,000 cash in a stream of pulverized rubbish, police said on Wednesday. A spokesman at the Asaminami police department in Hiroshima prefecture said “there were about a thousand 10,000 yen ($118) bills that came out of a pulverizer unscathed.” He added that there were also 2,300 fragments of bills destroyed by the machine at a municipal facility that processes bulky waste, such as cupboards and mattresses, that cannot be collected by regular garbage pickup. Police suspect the owner of the cash might have forgotten the money was there when they threw away some furniture. The cash was found on Monday. If no one comes forward within three months, the waste disposal facility will have the right to claim the money, the spokesman said.

DEATH PENALTY FALLS OUT OF FAVOR IN AMERICA
WASHINGTON, D.C: Most US states have now abandoned the death penalty in law or in practice, and the number of American convicts sentenced to execution each year is falling steadily, according to a new report. While 33 of the 50 states still have capital punishment on the books, only nine actually carried out an execution in 2012, and three quarters of the total number of executions were in four states in the South. According to an end-of-year survey by the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit educational group, this reflects a long-term trend that has seen the death penalty fall into disuse across most of the country. AFP