WORLD BRIEFS

MEXICO/Soldiers kill 25 in gun battle

Mexico's military says 25 suspects have been shot dead by soldiers in a gun battle near the U.S. border. A spokesman says soldiers were patrolling around noon Thursday in the town of General Trevino when they came under fire from gunmen on a ranch. The troops returned fire and killed at least 25 people. The spokesman says three people believed to be kidnap victims were rescued.

MEXICO/Calderon: Drug war must go on

President Felipe Calderon tried to rally frustrated Mexicans behind his increasingly bloody drug war Thursday, saying he knows violence has surged under his watch, but arguing that it is the price of confronting powerful and brutal cartels. Calderon delivered his annual state-of-the-nation address two days after his government brought down the third major kingpin in less than a year. But it also came less than two weeks after the massacre of 72 migrants near the U.S. border, which laid bare how freely drug traffickers operate in pockets of the country, no matter how many capos are captured.

LONDON/UN chief weighs BlackBerry ban

The chief of the UN's telecommunications agency says BlackBerry's Canadian manufacturer should allow all law enforcement agencies access to its customer data, saying governments all over the world had legitimate security concerns about the smartphone's encryption technology. Research in Motion Ltd. is embroiled in disputes with India, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates over access to its customers' e-mails.

CHINA/Landslide kills 4, leaves 44 missing

Rescuers were searching for 44 people missing Thursday after a landslide hit a village in southern China and killed at least four people. Workers rescued 23 people buried under rubble in Wama village in the southwestern province of Yunnan after the rain-triggered landslide hit Wednesday night, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Rescue efforts could be hindered as the Central Meteorological Station expects more heavy rains through the weekend.

SOUTH KOREA/Typhoon suspends flights, kills 3

Typhoon Kompasu struck South Korea early Thursday, killing three people while it knocked over streetlights and scaffolding in what was called the strongest tropical storm to hit the Seoul area in 15 years. Forceful gusts knocked over power lines, cutting off power to tens of thousands of homes and forcing airports to cancel or delay dozens of international flights, the National Emergency Management Agency said.