AMERICAS

SRI LANKA

| Colombo — Sri Lanka’s government has started counting the dead, wounded and missing in its quarter-century civil war amid international pressure to conduct a credible investigation into war crimes allegations. It comes two years after a local war commission recommended a census to determine the number of civilian deaths in the civil war which ended in 2009. Thousands are said to have perished in just the last few months of the fighting. Government census official A.J. Satharasinghe says the countrywide count started Thursday by some 15,000 workers will be completed on Dec. 20.

MEXICO

| Mexico City Mexico’s main leftist party has pulled out of the Pact for Mexico, the multiparty alliance that has managed to push a range of reform programs through congress. The Democratic Revolution Party’s leader says his group walked out of talks on changing electoral law and overhauling the energy industry. Jesus Zambrano says the Institutional Revolutionary Party of President Enrique Pena Nieto hasn’t acted on the left’s demands for a powerful central federal election board and for citizen involvement via ballot initiatives and other measures. Zambrano also claimed Thursday that the president’s party has been negotiating in secret with the conservative National Action Party to open the state-owned oil industry to wide-ranging private investment. Zambrano said Democratic Revolution will return to the pact only if the ruling party changes its attitude.

BRAZIL

| Sao Paulo — A safety engineer at the World Cup stadium where a giant crane collapse killed two workers allegedly warned his supervisor of possible problems with the operation, only to have his concerns brushed aside, a labor union leader charged Thursday. The incident has fed worries about Brazil’s capacity to host next year’s showcase tournament, as well as the 2016 Olympics. Sao Paulo’s Arena Corinthians was to be completed by the end of December, and workers have suggested that speed was a top priority on the construction site. Antonio de Sousa Ramalho, president of Sao Paulo’s civil industry workers’ association, told The Associated Press that supervisors pressed ahead with the operation to finish the roof despite several rainy days that soaked the soil. He said the engineer warned his supervisor that it appeared the ground was not stable enough to support the 500-ton piece of roofing. “To his surprise, he was told by the supervisor that nothing was wrong and work should continue,” said Ramalho. “They discussed the matter for a while but in the end the supervisor’s decision stood.”

CUBA

| Havana — Colombian guerrillas and government negotiators have resumed peace talks in Havana with discussions turning to the country’s entrenched drug trade. It’s the third of the talks’ six-item agenda. This month, the two sides reached a partial agreement on the rebels’ political participation after a peace deal is struck. And earlier this year, an accord on agrarian issues was announced.