IN BRIEF (Page 11)

Mexico

Fuel theft continues as toll in fire at 119

Days after a fireball erupted near the Mexican town of Tlahuelilpan, killing at least 117 people pilfering gasoline from a pipeline, the area's fuel bandits were back in business. Illegal taps, some of them newly opened, were the giveaway that fuel was flowing again. Soldiers patrolling this area in central Mexico after the Jan 18 tragedy told Reuters they found 15 illicit spigots just a few kilometers away on the same pipeline operated by the nation's state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos or Pemex. Such is the mammoth task confronting President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has vowed to end Mexico's rampant fuel theft. It cost Pemex an estimated $3 billion last year alone.