MEXICO: Two candidates for mayor in the city of Maravatio, Armando Perez of the National Action Party and Miguel Angel Zavala of the Morena party, have been gunned down within hours of each other, authorities said today.

Experts have predicted that the widening control of drug cartels in Mexico could make the June 2 election especially violent.

Election campaigning formally begins on Friday.

GERMANY: A former member of the disbanded left-wing militant Red Army Faction group has been arrested after more than 30 years on the run, authorities said today.

Prosecutors in the northern town of Verden confirmed the arrest of Daniela Klette, but wouldn’t immediately give further details. The Bild daily, which cited unidentified security sources, reported that she was arrested in Berlin on Monday evening.

PAKISTAN: A senior police officer and two wanted Pakistani Taliban members died in an intense shoot-out set off when police raided a militant hideout early today in Mardan, a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a local police official said.

The local official, Hidayat Ullah, identified the slain police superintendent as Ijaz Khan, who led the raid. Two other police officers were wounded in the shooting. 

KOSOVO: A court today sentenced two ethnic Serbs to six-month jail terms for attacking Nato-led peacekeepers a year ago.

But one of them will be released for time served, and the other can avoid jail time if he pays a €6,000 (£5,135) fine.

Local media named them as Radosh Petrovic and Dusan Obrenovic, who had attacked Kosovo Force troops in Zvecan, a municipality in Kosovo’s north, where most of the ethnic Serb minority lives.