Mexico City  - Mexico made an important contribution to world kissing culture with singer Consuelito Velazquez's song "Besame, besame mucho-".

However, if Guanajuato Mayor Eduardo Romero Hicks had his way, the "mucho" (a lot) would be struck from one of the best-known songs in the Spanish language.

The right-wing, municipal leader supported an edict banning among others "Olympic kisses" - that is, all physical contact beyond a normal "beso" or kiss as well as obscene gestures in public. Violations were to be punished with up to 36 hours in jail and a fine of 1,500 pesos (107 dollars).

Mexico City  - The economies of Latin America and the Caribbean are set to grow at best by 2.3 per cent in 2009, while unemployment rates will rise to above 8 per cent, according to a report that the United Nations made public Thursday.

Mexico City  - Whoever follows in the footsteps of Francisco "Pancho" Villa (1878-1923) and Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919) is in for a surprise: discovering the other face of Villa's black legend and understanding how the two revolutionaries of 1910 can still live on so long after their deaths.

The tourist will find wartime love stories and victorious troops who beg rather than loot, and see Villa, "The Centaur of the North," forcefully recruit 350 children not to make them fight, but to make them go to school.

Among its cultural tours, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) offers one which not only follows the activities of the two revolutionaries, but also looks at their personalities and ideologies.

Mexico City - The son of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim dismissed a report that his father was interested in buying the Honda Formula One team for the symbolic price of 1 dollar, the daily newspaper Reforma reported Sunday.

Reforma said it had received a statement dismissing the story from Carlos Slim Domit, son of the billionaire and second richest man in the world.

The Italian newspaper La Stampa reported earlier Sunday that Slim would have to invest some 300 million euros (421 million dollars) to finance the team next season

Honda announced earlier this month it was pulling out of F1 because of the escalating crisis in the automobile industry.

Mexico City  - The Mexican beauty queen arrested shortly before Christmas on suspected connections to illegal drugs was Friday ordered to spend 40 days in investigative detention by the state's attorney.

Laura Elena Zuniga Huizar, 23, who is Hispanic America Queen 2008 and was to represent Mexico in the Miss Universe 2009 pageant, is suspected of membership in a criminal organization, possessing illegal weapons and criminal violations of public health.

Mexico City  - Mexican beauty qu