BBC News

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Friday he wants to change the name of a notorious drug-producing area known as “the Golden Triangle” to “The Triangle of Good, Hard-Working People.” The remote, mountainous area in northern Mexico is where the borders of the three states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango meet. For decades, drug cartels have used the area to grow marijuana and opium poppies, because much of region is difficult to access and has little police or army presence. But López Obrador said Friday during a visit to the region that the name unfairly stigmatized residents. “I don't like it, it bothers me that it is called the Golden Triangle, and hopefully we can all try to find a way to call it “The Triangle of Good, Hard-Working People” or 'the region of good neighbors,' or something like that," he said. “This has to change already because there is much goodness here, a lot of good, hard-working people, as has been said,” the pre...

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine -- Moscow-backed separatists pounded eastern Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region Friday, claiming to capture a railway hub, as Ukrainian officials pleaded for the sophisticated Western weapons they say they need to stop the onslaught. The advance of Russian forces raised fears that cities in the region would undergo the same horrors inflicted on the people of the port city Mariupol in the weeks before it fell. The fighting Friday focused on two key cities: Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk. They are the last areas under Ukrainian control in Luhansk, one of two provinces that make up the Donbas and where Russia-backed separatists have already controlled some territory for eight years. Authorities say 1,500 people in Sievierodonetsk have already died since the war's start three months ago. Russia-backed rebels also said they’d taken the railway hub of Lyman. The governor of Luhansk warned that Ukrainian soldiers may have to retreat from Sievierodonetsk to avoi...

BEIJING -- At least 15 people have died in torrential rains across southern China, state media reported Saturday. Eight died in two building collapses from landslides in Fujian province, near China's east coast, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Wuping county information office. Five others died and three were missing in Yunnan province, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) away in southwestern China, state broadcaster CCTV said in an online report. Three children were swept away by floodwaters Friday in Xincheng country in the Guangxi region, authorities said. Two died and one survived. The storm damaged roads, bridges and telecommunications and power facilities in Yunnan's Qiubei county, which is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of the border with Vietnam. In Fujian, five victims were found in a collapsed factory building and three others in a collapsed residential building on Friday, Xinhua said. Heavy rain started Thursday evening in Wuping county, which ...