Mexico City  - Only five US presidents have visited Mexico City in the past 100 years, but one more name will be added to the list Thursday with the arrival of President Barack Obama.

Obama is set to visit the city, which was once ancient Tenochtitlan - the former capital of the Aztec civilization, on Thursday, 12 years after the last visit of then-president Bill Clinton. The city is today the second-largest in the world in terms of population, with 19 million people in its metropolitan area.

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Mexico City  - An inmate who was serving time for drug trafficking was murdered and chopped up in pieces in a prison in the western Mexican town of Uruapan, authorities in the state of Michoacan said Monday.

The guards at the prison, some 400 kilometres west of Mexico City, noticed the man's absence when they went through the list of inmates after visiting hours Sunday afternoon, a spokesman for the Michoacan public prosecutor's office told dpa.

Mexico City, April 6 : Mexican archaeologists have begun the recovery of a great Mayan city buried under tons of earth and jungle in the archaeological area of Ichkabal on the Yucatan peninsula.

According to a report in the Latin American Herald Tribune, previous archaeological digs in Ichkabal indicated the existence at this site of a vast Mayan settlement comprising many buildings, of which the biggest is some 200 meters (656 feet) wide at the base and 46 meters (151 feet) high.

Mexico City  - Mexican President Felipe Calderon saluted Friday the "constructive attitude" of the new US administration in the fight against drug gangs.

As he hosted US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and US Attorney General Eric Holder in Mexico City, however, Calderon also expressed his "concern" over the fate of millions of Mexicans who live and work illegally in the United States.

Mexico City  - A former mayor of Michoacan state and the homicide department chief of Jalisco state were killed Friday in Mexico in the continuing endless wave of violence.

Police said former mayor Nicolas Leon Hernandez had been shot in the face and his body bore signs of torture. Also attached to his body was a message, apparently signed by La Familia Michoacana, one of the top six Mexican drug cartels.

Hernandez served two terms as mayor of the port of Lazaro Cardenas on the Pacific, some 550 kilometres southwest of Mexico City.