The death toll from days of flooding in southern and central Mexico has risen to 80, and new reports of landslides in a village near the resort of Acapulco threatened to drive the number of casualties even higher.

The death toll has risen to 47 from the unusual one-two punch of a tropical storm and a hurricane hitting Mexico at nearly the same time.

Tropical Storm Ingrid and the remnants of Tropical Storm Manuel have drenched Mexico's Pacific and Gulf coasts with torrential rains, flooding towns and cities, cutting off highways and setting off deadly landslides.

If the annual cheese roll in England or wife carrying competition in Finland is too boring for you, here are five very strange ones that might be worth visiting, even if it's just to tweet a pic from.

Seismic activity is continuing at the Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City and authorities say they have readied shelters and identified evacuation routes in case they should be needed.

Seat-of-the-pants expedition filmmaker Brian Armstrong has an eye for weird and wonderful alcoholic concoctions.

Forget plates piled high with nachos. Here are five yummy Mex dishes that locals swear by.

Bored of an evening? You could always create an Algae Biofuel Lab as one 17 year old student in the US did to win a $100,000 science prize.

Prime Minister John Key went a tad off-script in a speech in Santiago yesterday, and delivered New Zealand's economic history via a parable of wine.

When Prime Minister John Key lands in Mexico tomorrow it will have been more than a decade since the last New Zealand prime minister toured Latin America, and he concedes the region has been neglected in favour of Asian economies.

As Michael Juhran discovers, Chichen Itza is a genuine architectural and mathematical masterpiece that the builders, the Mayas, achieved.

Revellers celebrate Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) - when Mexicans traditionally visit the graves of dead relatives and leave offerings of flowers, food and candy skulls - in Mexico and the US.

The Mexican engineer whose wife and baby daughter fell 26 floors to their deaths is holding on to hope the tragedy could have been an accident.

A Mexican engineer lost his wife and 3-month-old daughter in a 26-storey fall soon after arriving in New Zealand to undertake a seismic research project.

Amy Rosenfeld finds herself entranced by the vibrant chaos of one of the world's most-populated cities.

As mining makes a political comeback Catherine Masters finds strong local opposition to the prospect of a Northland gold rush