The announcement of the loans follows other financing agreements with China that have softened a sharp economic downturn in Venezuela, including a $12 billion bilateral investment fund. China’s ties with Venezuela have grown increasingly warm in recent years, marked by rising Venezuelan oil exports to China, the Chinese launching of a satellite for Venezuela and the sale of Chinese military aircraft to Venezuela.
If the loans materialize, they could give Mr. Chávez a much-needed cash infusion. Some financial analysts, including the American investment bank Morgan Stanley, have said that Venezuela could soon face a cash crunch as it grapples with low oil revenues and a dearth of foreign investment.
“All the oil that China needs for its growth and consolidation as a power is here,” Mr. Chávez said at a ceremony on Saturday announcing the loans.
Details about the new financing deal were sparse. Xinhua, the Chinese government’s news agency, said it involved “soft loans” channeled through the China Development Bank.
The linchpin of the loans appears to be China’s thirst for oil, with the China National Petroleum Corporation, or C.N.P.C., agreeing to form a venture with Venezuela’s national oil company to explore for oil in southern Venezuela. Eventually the companies could produce 400,000 barrels a day in the area. Venezuela’s energy minister, Rafael Ramírez, said C.N.P.C. would need to pay $1 billion to move the venture forward.
Venezuela, faced with a slump in oil production, has recently been seeking to reach similar deals with energy companies from Russia, India and Spain, as well as the Chevron Corporation from the United States. Mr. Ramírez also made a rare trip to Washington this month where he spoke about oil projects.
While the United States remains the top buyer of Venezuela’s oil, China is emerging as a new market. But the precise nature of energy relations between Venezuela and China remains something of a mystery. Venezuela claims it is exporting 460,000 barrels a day of oil to China, while Chinese government data show the country importing around 132,000 barrels a day.
Moreover, Venezuela’s government has announced dozens of oil-exploration and refining ventures with companies from an array of countries including Iran, Uruguay and China itself. But almost none have been completed during Mr. Chávez’s 11 years in power; the refurbishment of an oil refinery in Cuba is a rare exception to this record.
Edgar Valdez Villarreal was arrested after a 14-month manhunt involving
1,200 Mexican federal police and an unknown number of U.S. agents. He
faces multiple indictments in the United States for importing tons of
cocaine. Mexican authorities say he is a kidnapper, torturer and murderer
- as well as a major trafficker of marijuana and cocaine.
Stashing cash in spare tires, engine transmissions and
truckloads of baby diapers, couriers for Mexican drug cartels are moving
tens of billions of dollars in profits south across the border each year,
a river of dirty money that has overwhelmed U.S. and Mexican customs
agents.
Miners in Chile smile and wave at a camera at 700 meters (2,300 feet) underground in a collapsed cooper mine where they have been trapped since Aug. 5.
Brazilian presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff increased her lead over opposition candidate Jose Serra to 24 points, according to an Ibope poll published by TV Globo network and O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper.
Supporters of the would-be presidential candidate take a wait-and-see approach. The hip-hop star, who alleges that election officials are corrupt, says he is not calling for upheaval in the streets.
For Raimunda Gomes da Silva, the impending construction of a huge hydroelectric dam here in the Amazon is painful déjà vu. She does not want to abandon her home in Invasão dos Padres, but the government is telling her and thousands others to leave.
Some areas of Mexico along the U.S. border have been paralyzed economically by drug violence, and the governor of the border state of Tamaulipas said Thursday the federal government should send relief funds.
A car bomb exploded outside a major radio station and banks in Colombia's capital, shattering windows and injuring at least nine people, police said. No deaths were reported.
Juan Manuel Santos, sworn in Saturday as Colombia's 59th president, vowed to cement security gains but declared himself open to dialogue with rebels in hopes of ending the Western Hemisphere's only armed conflict.He also got to work immediately mending frayed relations with neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador.
The clock had just struck midnight. Most of the country was asleep. But that did not stop President Hugo Chávez from announcing in the early hours of July 16 that the latest phase of his Bolivarian Revolution had been stirred into motion.
The channel's newsreaders and reporters — who make no pretense of impartiality and are undeterred by harassment and threats of a takeover — regularly blast the president with slanted coverage.
Bogota's latest complaint that Venezuela is harboring Colombian rebels is seen as a signal of President Uribe's displeasure with his successor's olive branch to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
At a state project to refurbish a decaying building in Old Havana, one worker paints a wall white while two others watch. A fourth sleeps in a wheelbarrow positioned in a sliver of shade nearby, and two more smoke and chat on the curb.
The decision to free the largest group of political prisoners in a decade follows months of talks and the intervention of Spain, the Catholic Church says.
Venezuela rejected accusations that it’s safeguarding leaders of Colombia’s biggest rebel group and will recall its ambassador to Bogota for consultations.
President Hugo Chavez announced Wednesday that Venezuela would rethink its relations with the Vatican as tensions rise between his government and Catholic Church representatives who accuse the socialist leader of becoming increasingly authoritarian.
President Hugo Chavez's government complained that a Dutch military aircraft violated its airspace and urged the Netherlands to stop provoking Venezuela, saying diplomatic relations could be hurt.
The two ends of Mexico's mainstream political spectrum -- represented by the conservative PAN and the leftist PRD -- are hinting at a willingness to team up in gubernatorial elections set for 2011, after similar coalitions performed surprisingly well against the PRI in places where it has long ruled.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton expressed frustration Saturday over the slow pace of Haiti's earthquake recovery, but said the country will escape its difficulties if it can become self-sufficient.
Riding in a fake funeral procession with a hearse decorated with flower sprays and farewell messages, some 280 police officers slipped into the crowded La Legua slum in plain daylight, a theatrical undercover job that suggests a whole new approach to crime-fighting under Chile's conservative President Sebastian Pinera.
Perceptions, once firmly established, can often obscure the truth. The homicide rate in Brazil is twice that in Mexico, but it is my country that is portrayed as lawless and violence-ridden.
Those shorelines will probably see tar balls in the months ahead, NOAA finds. Also, skimming boats prepare to go back to work, and efforts to help turtles and migrating birds are announced.
Santos' landslide win is a vote for continuity. The former military chief under current two-term incumbent President Alvaro Uribe promised in his campaign to extend Uribe's get-tough approach to guerrilla groups and to cocaine production. Analysts said the rescue of three hostages in rebel captivity announced a week before the voting also boosted the candidate's margin of victory.
A year into his presidency, the leftist Mauricio Funes faces mounting criticism for failing to tackle corruption and halt rising violence and drug trafficking.
Colombian voters overwhelmingly elected as their new president an American-educated former defense minister who oversaw a forceful counterinsurgency against the country’s rebel groups.
Imagine a siege of hydrocarbons spewing from deep below ground, polluting water and air, sickening animals and threatening the health of unsuspecting Americans. And no one knows how long it will last.
For nearly an hour , gunmen and Mexican soldiers were locked a battle that left at least 14 dead near the picturesque mining town of Taxco. The dead were all alleged gunmen, and authorities believe they were tied to a drug suspect named Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as "La Barbie." Valdez's group operates in Guerrero state, where Taxco is located.
The owner of a Venezuelan television channel that takes a critical line against President Hugo Chavez said he has no plans to surrender to authorities despite an order for his arrest.
Roman Catholic leaders announced that Cuban authorities have agreed to free an ill political prisoner and transfer six others to jails nearer home, the latest in a rare series of concessions from a government not known for its tolerance of dissent.
Brazil’s Senate has approved a bill that would divide billions of dollars in oil royalties equally among the country’s states, threatening the country’s largest oil producing state, Rio de Janeiro, with the loss of up to $4 billion in revenue.
Brazil’s former Cabinet Chief Dilma Rousseff has pulled into a tie with former Sao Paulo opposition governor Jose Serra ahead of October’s presidential election, according to an O Globo and Estado de S. Paulo survey released today.
The month-long slump that has made Brazil’s real the worst performer in Latin America may deepen as investment will slow before the election vote to replace President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The former defense minister who emerged from weekend voting as the front-runner in next month's presidential runoff election said Monday he hopes to restore good relations with Venezuela and Ecuador if he wins.
A scion of a powerful Colombian family comfortably won more votes than an eccentric former mayor of Bogotá in presidential elections, but narrowly failed to get the majority needed to prevent a runoff election in June.
Former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos held a commanding lead over former philosophy and mathematics professor Antanas Mockus as 98% of results were counted in Colombia's presidential elections. If no candidates gets over 50 percent, the two top finishers will face-off in a runoff election on June 20.
Three months ago, presidential candidate Antanas Mockus was running dead last in the polls. Now he's in a dead heat with rival Juan Manuel Santos for the election Sunday.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon announced his support for the re-election of Luis Alberto Moreno as president of the Inter-American Development Bank.
A retired Bolivian general famous for capturing Ernesto "Che" Guevara was ordered held under house arrest in connection with an alleged plot against President Evo Morales.
At the White House, President Obama and the visiting Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, discussed the finer points of border policy. At a nearby school, their wives were unexpectedly confronted with the human face of illegal immigration.
Most people here are thoroughly rattled after an 8.8-magnitude quake struck this swath of south-central Chile, killing more than 450 people, buckling bridges and downing buildings.
Colombian cocaine production fell to an 11-year low in 2009, the Interior Ministry said, citing preliminary findings by a study conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Internal documents from Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel reveal extensive contacts among the law enforcement officials who are supposed to be bringing it down.
Arizona governor Jan Brewer has signed a bill targeting the Tucson school district's ethnic studies program, for allegedly teaching students in its Mexican-American studies classes that Latinos are oppressed by whites.
The National Conference of Brazilian Bishops said Tuesday it will prepare a manual with guidelines to help bishops combat committed by clergymen in the world's largest Roman Catholic country.
An independent Cuban journalist with ties to the Ladies in White dissident group has been freed as she appeals a 20-month sentence for allegedly mistreating her adult daughter.
An outspoken critic of President Hugo Chávez has been sentenced to nearly eight years in prison for corruption as defense minister, the state news media reported Saturday.
May 7 -- Colombia’s Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus saw his lead over former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos narrow just three weeks before the country’s presidential election, a poll last night by Centro Nacional de Consultoria showed.
Bolivia’s biggest labor confederation began a national strike demanding higher wages, the first nationwide job stoppage since President Evo Morales came to power in 2006.
The Supreme Court has rejected a motion to modify an amnesty law so that officials accused of human-rights abuses under Brazil´s military dictatorship would have to stand trial.
Sitting in the tiny jail cell that has been her home for months, Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni said she knew a ruling she handed down would incense President Chávez.
Colombia’s Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus said he may win next month’s presidential election in the first round after polls showed he could defeat ex-Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos in a runoff.
When Margarita Zavala, the wife of Mexico´s president, is reminded that newspapers here all ran front-page photographs of her attending a recent memorial service for two university students killed in drug violence, she frowns just slightly.
The indigenous leaders had a plan. They would unite for a last, desperate stand against the mammoth dam threatening their lands, vowing to give their lives, if necessary, to prevent construction.
President Hugo Chavez said that China had agreed to extend $20 billion in loans to Venezuela, pointing to deepening ties between the two countries as China seeks to secure oil supplies.
In Latam the response to allegations of sexual of children by Roman Catholic priests has been muted compared to the fire storm in Europe. Buty if the matter isn´t tackled head on, doubts about the Vatican could spread.
The rain that killed at least 251 people raised lingering questions about this city’s emergency readiness and revived a long-dormant debate over the poor squatter communities that in areas at risk of flooding and landslides.
Shifting nuclear nonproliferation strategy to rogue states and terrorists, Chile has become an example of how small countries can play a big part in making the world safer.
Central bank policy makers set the benchmark interest rate and said that a combination of factors indicated that the economy is on the road to recovery, discussed slowing consumer price increases and declining inflation expectations.
The Spanish judge who indicted Augusto Pinochet and Osama bin Laden has been charged with abuse of power in an investigation of Spanish civil war atrocities.
The race to succeed Brazilian President Lula da Silva, the most popular leader in the country’s history, began with the resignation of the two frontrunners from theirher current jobs.
Two foes of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez who had publicly criticized the socialist government in recent days found themselves in jail as part of a crackdown on opposition figures that has prompted alarm about the state of democracy.
Responding to a growing sense that Mexico´s military-led fight against drug traffickers is not gaining ground, the United States and Mexico set their counternarcotics strategy on a new course
Agents from Venezuela’s military intelligence agency arrested Guillermo Zuloaga, the owner of the independent television network Globovisión and one of the country’s most influential critics of President Chavez, heightening concerns over an intensifying clampdown on news organizations and opposition political leaders.
Former Foreign Minister Noemi Sanin defeated Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's hand-picked successor for the Conservative Party's presidential nomination in a close primary. She faces Juan Manuel Santos, a former Uribe defense minister, atop a crowded field.
Candidates from parties allied with outgoing President Uribe dominated Sunday's elections in Colombia to replace a Congress tarnished by lawmakers' links to far-right criminal bands.
Clinton ended a five-day tour of Latin America with a lightning trip to Guatemala, where she promised Central American presidents more help to fight drug trafficking and repeated her call for countries to recognize the new government of Honduras.
As Chile worked to restore utilities to areas ravaged by last Saturday’s earthquake, two strong offshore tremors jolted the country’s southern coastline morning striking close to the epicenter of the first devastating quake.
U.S. Secretary of State called on Latin American nations to follow the U.S. and Canada by investing in Haiti and offering the country preferential trade terms to speed its recovery from the earthquake.
The catastrophe that shook Chile occurred at a key moment in its history, as the country is celebrating 200 years of independence and days before the inauguration of the Coalition for Change government, an alliance of mostly conservative parties represented by businessman and former senator Sebastián Piñera
Saturday's 8.8 Chile earthquake came days before next week's landmark transition from outgoing President Michelle Bachelet to conservative President-elect Sebastian Piñera. Are the two playing politics with quake relief?
The difference is just about one-millionth of a second in earth's days, a little bit shorter since the massive earthquake in Chile, but don't feel bad if you haven't noticed.
A massive earthquake struck Chile, collapsing buildings, killing at least 16 people and downing phone lines. President Bachelet declared a "state of catastrophe" in central Chile.
A Colombian court on Friday rejected as unconstitutional a proposed referendum that would have asked voters whether to allow President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia to seek re-election to a third consecutive term.
Brazilian Governor Jose Serra, the leading candidate ahead of the October presidential contest, would curb government spending if elected in an effort to make room for the central bank to cut interest rates, the head of his party said.
Leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean agreed to form a new regional group that brings Cuba into the fold but excludes Canada and the United States.
Latin American leaders will work to diffuse tensions between Colombia and Venezuela after their ideologically opposed leaders got into a shouting match at a regional summit in Mexico.
The United States remains committed to helping Colombia fight drug trafficking, and a planned $55 million cut in aid will not undermine cooperation between Washington and its top ally in Latin America, Colombia's defense minister said.
News travels fast in Caracas, and rumors even faster. So when a billionaire banker named Ricardo Fernández Barrueco learned that his home had been searched by agents from the feared secret intelligence police, he might have suspected that the rumors of a purge of magnates loyal to President Hugo Chavez were true.
Support for a free-trade pact with Colombia is growing among Democrats long opposed to it, but midterm elections and a full domestic agenda may delay the deal.
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- Costa Ricans have elected their first woman president as the ruling party candidate won in a landslide after campaigning to continue free market policies in Central America's most stable nation.
Feb. 5 -- A U.S.-Colombia defense agreement signed last year will compensate for a proposed decline in U.S. assistance to its staunchest ally in Latin America, President Alvaro Uribe said.
BOGOTA -- New militias have arisen to replace Colombia's notorious right-wing paramilitary groups and they are committing the same sorts of violence as their predecessors, a prominent international rights organization said Wednesday.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said he would “act prudently” to let the nation’s constitutional court evaluate a proposed referendum on a third term after local media said a judge recommended that his colleagues block the vote.
Five days after mudslides crippled roads and rail access near the Machu Pichu ruins in the mountains of southern Peru, more than 1,000 people had been evacuated by helicopter, but hundreds more remained stranded and faced food and water shortages.
Porfirio Lobo assumes the presidency of Honduras today as the U.S. remains split from most of Latin America over whether the fledgling government is legitimate or should be rejected as the outgrowth of a coup.
Rescue workers wound down the search for survivors of Haiti’s earthquake as officials from 20 nations headed to Montreal for a meeting to coordinate aid.
Speaking to an American audience on C-SPAN, the Haitian ambassador to the United States sketched an optimistic future for Port-au-Prince -- a smaller, well-built city to replace the teeming, chaotic and shoddily built sprawl of almost three million people that was virtually wiped away by the Jan. 12 earthquake.
Porfirio Lobo, a longtime conservative politician, appeared to have won on Sunday in the Honduran presidential election, which many hoped could help the country emerge from the crisis caused by the coup and end its isolation.
José Mujica, a brash former guerrilla fighter, was elected president of Uruguay, further cementing the hold of a leftist government credited with improving economic conditions in one of South America’s smallest countries.
Nov. 29 -- Honduran soldiers and police will stand guard at polling stations today as voters choose a new president following Manuel Zelaya´s overthrow five months ago.
RIO DE JANEIRO — President Obama sent a letter to President Lula reiterating the American position on Iran´s nuclear program a day before Iran´s president made his first state visit to Brazil, an aide to Mr. da Silva said.
RIO DE JANEIRO -- Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is seeking a new source of legitimacy while making his first visit to Brazil, a nation that maintains close ties to the U.S., Israel and other countries trying to halt Iran's nuclear push.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said he would steer clear of provocative gestures or raising tensions with Venezuela after troops from that country blew up two foot bridges along the border.
Nov. 20 -- The US, responsible for the crisis in the Middle East, shouldn’t be coordinating peace talks for the region, Brazilian President Lula da Silva said.
Reporting from El Consejo, Venezuela - Power outages are hitting Henrique Vollmer's rum distillery several times a week, interrupting production, damaging equipment and jeopardizing the jobs of his 375 workers.
Civil liberties in Cuba remain severely curtailed, despite hope among activists that Raul Castro would end Cold War-era limits on dissent and the media, a Human Rights Watch report says.
Venezuela's leader is not making empty threats, says a consultant: A border skirmish, if not war, would solidify Chavez's support base amid rising inflation, rampant crime and a stagnant economy.
SINGAPORE - Peru's President Alan García and his delegation pulled out of an Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore in protest over charges neighbouring Chile had paid a Peruvian military officer as a spy.
Senator George Le Mieux of Florida is using Senate rules to block a vote on President Obama´s nominee for ambassador to Brazil, U.S. Senate Republican and Democratic aides said.
MEXICO CITY — The collapse of an agreement that only a week ago was celebrated in Honduras as bringing the end to a four-month political standoff has only intensified the divisions that have long characterized the crisis
HOUSTON — An American whose secret recordings have placed him at the center of a $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador is a convicted drug trafficker, records show, throwing another complication into a case already tainted by accusations of bribery and espionage.
U.S. and Colombian officials signed a pact for U.S. military access to Colombian bases that has been vociferously denounced by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and other leftist Latin American presidents as a regional threat negotiated in secret.
MEXICO CITY — A lingering political crisis in Honduras seemed to be nearing an end after the de facto government agreed to a deal that would allow Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, to return to office.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — A Socialist former guerrilla fighter known for speaking his mind emerged the clear winner of the election for president of Uruguay but did not muster enough votes to avoid a November runoff, in what analysts said was a referendum on the current leftist government.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- Negotiators trying to resolve the Honduran political crisis said that talks have broken off, the third such announcement in the past week.
Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Former Uruguayan guerilla José Mujica leads opposition candidate and ex-President Luis Alberto Lacalle ahead of the country’s Oct. 25 presidential elections, according to a poll by Montevideo-based Equipos Mori.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Hugo Chavez's support has declined in the polls as many Venezuelans say they are fed up with 27 percent inflation, a stagnant economy, faulty public services - and a government they see as incapable of doing much about it.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Just over two weeks ago, this striking city landed the 2016 Olympic games, the first ever in South America, setting off a sweaty, impromptu beach party that lasted most of the weekend. President Lula da Silva of Brazil sobbed with happiness. Rio’s residents glowed with pride.
SAO PAULO -- Brazil's president promised to battle drug traffickers who launched a weekend of bloody chaos that killed 21 people in Rio de Janeiro just two weeks after the city won the 2016 Olympic games.
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — The hit men moved in on their target, shot him dead and then disappeared in a matter of seconds. It would have been a perfect case for José Ibarra Limón, one of this violent border city’s most dogged crime investigators — had he not been the victim.
There were reports of a deal on Wednesday, followed by reports of no deal. By the end of the day, the Honduras political standoff was mired in the same confusion that has characterized it from the start.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Argentina's Senate overwhelmingly approved a law that will transform the nation's media landscape , and President Cristina Fernandez quickly signed it into law.
Count Fidel Castro among those in favor of the Norwegian Nobel Committee's controversial choice of U.S. President Barack Obama for the Nobel Peace prize.
Program Part of 'New Socialist Model'
CEIBA DEL AGUA, Cuba -- Faced with the smothering inefficiencies of a state-run economy and unable to feed his people without massive imports of food, Cuban leader Raúl Castro has put his faith in compatriots like Esther Fuentes and his little farm out in the sticks.
QUITO, Ecuador — The multibillion-dollar legal case between Amazon peasants and Chevron over oil pollution in Ecuador´s rain forest keeps unfolding more like a mystery thriller than a battle of briefs.
QUITO, Ecuador -- Ecuador says it will consider changes to draft mining and water laws that provoked a clash with Indians last week that claimed a protester's life.
Uruguay’s Economy Minister Alvaro García said a former guerilla who is the frontrunner to win presidential elections this month would maintain the current economic policy, clearing the way for the country to regain an investment-grade rating on its debt.
TEGUCIGALPA-- Two rival factions fighting for control of Honduras have begun talking days before a meeting that many hope will end a political crisis sparked by Central America's first coup in more than a decade.
COPENHAGEN — The Olympics were awarded to a South American city for the first time when the International Olympic Comittee voted for Rio de Janeiro to be host of the 2016 Games.
TEGUCIGALPA, — The de facto government of Honduras expelled four diplomats from theOAS and threatened to shut down the Brazilian Embassy, where the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, has been holed up for a week.
Honduras -- Ousted Honduran President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya prepared to spend a second night holed up in the Brazilian embassy as police fought running battles with his supporters and world leaders called for a peaceful solution to the dramatic standoff.
Brazil -- Brazil's vice president says in an interview published Friday that his country should develop nuclear weapons. Other officials stressed that his comments were not government policy.
Sept. 24 -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he will visit President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran next year and defended his relationship with Iran, saying he can’t judge its nuclear ambitions or elections.
MEXICO CITY — Three months after he was expelled in a dawn coup, the deposed president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, sneaked back into his country on Monday, forcing world leaders gathered in New York to refocus their attention on the political stalemate to the south and presenting a new challenge to the de facto government.
The chief of the Russian military's General Staff, visiting Cuba, says his country will help Havana modernize and train its military and that Moscow warships will visit Cuba soon, according to reports published Friday.
Amid a scandal involving illegal spaying on government critics, Colombia´s domestic intelligence agency will be dismantled and a new agency will be set up to focus on intelligence and counterintelligence work involving national security, the agency’s director said.
Venezuelan Trade Minister Eduardo Saman recommended that President Chavez nationalize two already-occupied coffee companies to ensure supplies and boost exports.
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — President Álvaro Uribe, the top ally of the United States in Latin America, is enmeshed in a scandal over growing evidence that his main intelligence agency carried out an extensive illegal spying operation focused on his leading critics, including members of the Supreme Court, opposition politicians, human rights workers and journalists.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concern about what she said was the growing number of arms purchases by Venezuela and the potential for an arms race in the region.
UNITED NATIONS -- Following up on a critical assessment made by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last February, the United Nations Security Council met in a special session to hear a "status update" on the situation in Haiti.
MOSCOW— President Chavez of Venezuela thrust himself into one of the most contentious disputes between Russia and the West , announcing that his country would become the third to recognize the independence declared by two Russian-backed rebel regions of Georgia.
Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Argentina is failing in its efforts to restore credibility to the government’s inflation reporting, which economists say underestimates the real rate of price increases by more than 50 percent.
OTTAWA — Canada moved closer to its second federal election in less than a year on Tuesday, after the opposition leader Michael Ignatieff announced that his Liberal Party would no longer support Prime Minister stephen Harper and his Conservative government.
MEXICO CITY — President Calderón listed a catalog of misfortune that afflicted Mexico over the past year. In his annual state of the union address, he described a country tested by the global economic crisis, the swiane flu pandemic, rising drug violence, drought and plummeting oil production.
A Chilean judge ordered the arrests of 129 former security officers on charges tied to the disappearance of leftists and the slaying of the communist party leadership during the Pinochet dictatorship.
BOGOTA -- Colombia's lower House has approved a bill calling for a referendum on whether to change the constitution to allow President Alvaro Uribe to run for a third term.
South American leaders gather in Argentina to vent criticism of a planned U.S. military buildup in Colombia, a move threatening to spoil President Obama’s bid to repair frayed ties with the region.
A plan for Colombia to allow U.S. troops to use its military bases to fight drug traffickers has divided South American leaders, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez condemning it as a U.S. strategy to dominate the region.
TIJUANA— Yolanda Espinosa’s eyes darted this way and that. Her hands trembled. For Ms. Espinosa, a cocaine and heroin addict in desperate need of a fix, a new Mexican law decriminalizing the possession of small quantities of drugs had a definite appeal.
Russia will help Ecuador develop a nuclear energy program for peaceful purposes, according to a new energy cooperation agreement between the countries, Ecuador’s government said.
LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Bolivians voted for a new constitution in January after months of wrangling that included outbreaks of deadly violence and turmoil that threatened to tear this Andean nation apart.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- Manuel Zelaya's chances of getting restored to the Honduran presidency become more distant with each passing week. Across Latin America, his allies and foes alike see a precedent being set.
Britain has imposed direct rule on the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos after an investigation found evidence of corruption among the territory’s officials.
BRASÍLIA — The leader of Brazil´s Senate is under heavy pressure to step down amid a nepotism and corruption scandal that threatens to hamstring the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during his final year in office.
With the Senate’s approval of Judge Sonia Sotomayor´s nomination to the US Supreme Court, the new justice will soon take on one of the most demanding jobs in the land.
Mexican President Calderon´s waning political power heightens the urgency of a meeting with President Barack Obama this weekend where drug trafficking and border violence will probably top the agenda.
HAVANA — Cuba suspended plans for a Communist Party congress and lowered its 2009 economic growth projection nearly a full percentage point as its economy struggled through what President Raúl Castro called a “very serious” crisis.
Roberto Micheletti, the leader of the de facto government, dampened hopes for a negotiated solution to the country’s crisis, saying firmly that he would not accept the return of the ousted president as part of a deal.
In a move seen by critics as an attempt to clamp down on freedom of expression, Venezuela moved to severely limit the type of information the media -- or individuals -- can report.
President Hugo Chavez recalled his ambassador from Bogota and threatened to halt Colombian imports after the neighboring country said anti-tank weapons found in a rebel arms cache came from Venezuela.
Honduras’s military said it backed “negotiations within the framework” of the San Jose accord, which included bringing Manuel Zelaya to power after he was ousted as president on June 28.
A plan to increase the American military presence on at least three military bases in Colombia, Washington’s top ally in Latin America, is accentuating Colombia’s already tense relations with some of its neighbors.
Senator Jim DeMint has placed a “hold” on President Barack Obama´s nominee for the top U.S. diplomatic post for Latin America over dissatisfaction with the administration’s handling of the political crisis in Honduras.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez placed ties with Colombia under review after the neighboring country authorized the U.S. military’s use of bases for anti- drug surveillance flights.
The Supreme Court sentenced former President Alberto Fujimori to seven and a half years in prison for paying a $15 million bribe to his former spymaster, Vladimiro Montesinos, in 2000.
HAVANA -- Fidel Castro blames the coup in Honduras on the U.S. Embassy in that Central American country and other American diplomats in the region appointed during the administration of George W. Bush.
WASHINGTON — Republican senators sparred with Judge Sonia Sotomayor over racial bias, judicial activism and temperament as she presented herself as a reliable follower of precedent rather than a jurist shaped by gender and ethnicity, as some of her past speeches suggested.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been the clear winner so far in Honduras' political crisis, leading the hemispheric condemnation of the military ouster June 28 of President Manuel Zelaya while orchestrating Zelaya's most audacious attempt to regain power, analysts said.
MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party promised Monday it has learned from the past and changed its ways, a day after midterm elections made it the largest force in Congress again.
July 10 (Bloomberg) -- A solution to the political crisis in Honduras has been left to delegations assigned by deposed President Manuel Zelaya and interim leader Roberto Micheletti after the two avoided meeting yesterday in Costa Rica.
SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — Prospects for a quick resolution of the political crisis in Honduras were thrown into doubt, as the two men claiming their nation’s presidency left negotiations only hours after they had begun and showed no signs of budging from the positions that have divided the country.
TEGUCIGALPA, — An airborne drama that held Honduras in suspense for most of the day ended Sunday evening with the ousted president’s plane circling over the airport here in the capital, where soldiers and riot police officers blocked the runway and used tear gas and bullets to disperse supporters who had awaited what was supposed to have been his triumphal return.
BUENOS AIRES — Nestor Kirchner, the former president and head of the governing Peronist Party, conceded defeat in critical congressional elections that became a referendum on his leadership and that of his wife, the current president, Cristina de Kirchner.
MEXICO CITY — President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was ousted by the army, capping months of tensions over his efforts to lift presidential term limits.
President Obama said climate- change legislation passed by the U.S. House yesterday would help transform the nation’s economy and create millions of new jobs in alternative energy industries.
Honduras' embattled leftist president, fighting for a chance to revamp the constitution, hurled insults at congressional leaders fter After rejecting the Supreme Court's order to reinstate the military chief he had fired President Manuel Zelaya is promoting a referendum on constitutional reforms that has plunged the country into crisis by setting the president at odds with the military, the courts and the legislature that have branded the vote illegal.
The nations' envoys soon will take up their former posts. The move, analysts say, reflects Obama's desire for better Latin American relations and President Hugo Chavez's need to improve his image.
President Calderón said that the future of democracy in México was at stake in the government’s fight against official corruption and organized crime. He also criticized politicians whom he accused of wanting to return to the era when drug gangs were tolerated.
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Iran’s top electoral body ruled out annulling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad´s disputed re-election as the mass demonstrations of last week dissipated in the face of a security crackdown.
BRUSSELS — One of the real victors in this month’s elections for the European Parlament is a 64-year-old former radical, an ebullient Franco-German who has turned his efforts to transform society from revolution to ecology.
Cultivation of coca, the plant used to produce cocaine, fell 18 percent in Colombia last year, largely because of manual eradication efforts, the United Nations said in a recently published report.
YEKATERINBURG, Russia— Leaders of the four largest emerging market economies discussed ways to reduce their reliance on the United States at their first of developing countries in global formal summit meeting on Tuesday. But they concluded with only a cautious statement suggesting a move away from the dollar´s role in global commerce and a call for greater representation financial institutions.
Former caretaker president Eduardo Duhalde returned to the public eye to denounce the lack of a "strategic planning" in the country, in a renewed critic to the government that came less then a month ahead of the congressional elections.
WASHINGTON — After two days of intense negotiations, the Organization of American States agreed to lift a cold war provision that suspended Cuba from the group but also accepted a list of conditions, backed by Washington, that Havana would have to meet before being allowed to return.
SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — Thirty-four members of the Organization of American States gathered here to argue over whether to readmit Cuba. By the end of the day, the United States had failed in an attempt to broker a deal that would have lifted the ban on Havana.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- A journalist from a party of former Marxist guerrillas became El Salvador's first leftist president Monday, immediately restoring ties with Cuba while promising to remain friendly with the United States.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought signs of a thaw between the United States and Cuba to Latin America, as she arrived in a region increasingly impatient to see the United States repair the half-century-old breach with Havana.
BIRMINGHAM, ALA.---Three Colombia labor leaders are long dead---all felled in 2001 at the hands of Colombian
right-wing assassins near the Drummond coal mines in northeastern Colombia where they labored and led a coal
miners' union.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa warned that Venezuela is headed toward a dictatorship under President Hugo Chavez, and the country may eventually resemble Cuba's communist-led autocracy.
GUATEMALA CITY — An average of 16 murder victims turn up in Guatemala every day, some shot, some stabbed, some bludgeoned, and only about 3 percent of the cases are ever solved.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration signaled a willingness to reopen a channel with Cuba that was closed under President George W. Bush by proposing high-level meetings on migration between the countries.
MADRID — Spain’s crusading judges could lose their power to investigate human rights violations that occur anywhere in the world after Spanish lawmakers called for restrictions of the judiciary’s reach.
PEDREIRAS — Floodwaters receded somewhat in inundated towns across northern Brazil, but the number of people made homeless by the floods rose above 300,000, and two people were missing after an overloaded canoe overturned in swift waters.
Now comes the hard part for the United States: using the momentum from three days of diplomacy to forge new relationships with two of Latin America's most problematic leaders.
HAVANA -- Fidel Castro says President Barack Obama "misinterpreted" his brother Raul's remarks regarding the United States and bristled at the suggestion that Cuba should free political prisoners or cut taxes on remittances from abroad as a goodwill gesture to the U.S.
President Obama announced a series of steps aimed at easing the U.S. relationship with Cuba, breaking from policies first imposed by the Kennedy administration and stepping into an emotional debate over the best way to bring democratic change to one of the last remaining communist regimes.
Mexico City - In the latest flurry of activity to help stem the drug-related violence that has engulfed Mexico and begun to spill over the US border, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder are meeting with their Mexican counterparts today in the city of Cuernavaca.
President Obama plans to abandon longstanding restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba, an administration official said, fulfilling a campaign promise in a pivotal pivotal state and signaling a possible warming of relations with the Castro government.
First the soldiers came to Río Seco, a coca-growing village in the lush mountain jungles of southern Peru. “They called us subversives and they opened fire,” said Benedicto Cóndor, 55, a coca farmer. They shot dead four people at close range, including a woman who was five months pregnant, witnesses said. Two children, ages 6 and 1, disappeared and are believed dead.
Cubans complained that he had talked a lot about transforming the system, but that he had done relatively little to improve their lives. Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst who has watched Cuba for decades, said several days ago that “Raúl Castro may be showing signs of leadership fatigue” — a sentiment shared by other American analysts of Cuba.
OTTAWA — President Obama charted a delicate course with Canada, using the first foreign trip of his presidency to ease tensions over trade policy, climate change and the war in Afghanistan — all the while basking in his celebrity status in a nation where his approval ratings are so high that a local bakery named a pastry after him.
CARACAS -- Shuttered, padlocked and sprayed with multicolored graffiti, Caracas City Hall is a forlorn sight.
Opposition Mayor Antonio Ledezma, whose name is featured in the graffiti -- usually accompanied by the word "rat'' -- has been unable to work there for almost a month, since a group loyal to leftist President Hugo Chávez occupied the building.
From the moment Claudia Rugeles heard on the news that leftist Colombian rebels planned to release her husband after nearly eight years as a hostage in a jungle camp, she has been getting ready for his return, sprucing up their home and preparing herself psychologically for the reunion.
''I want him to find everything fixed up and pretty,'' Rugeles said.
The presidents of Russia and Cuba signed a strategic partnership and several other documents on Friday aimed at rekindling an alliance that collapsed after the cold war. They pledged to expand cooperation in agriculture, manufacturing, science and tourism, but studiously avoided a public discussion of military ties.
President Evo Morales seemed assured of an easy victory in a referendum on Sunday over a sweeping new Constitution aimed at empowering Bolivia's Indians. The vote capped three years of conflict-ridden efforts by Mr. Morales to overhaul a political system he had associated with centuries of indigenous subjugation.
The police used tear gas, plastic bullets and a water cannon on Tuesday to break up a protest by university students against President Chavez's attempt to eliminate term limits.
— President Chavez, buffeted by falling oil prices that threaten to damage his efforts to establish a Socialist-inspired state, is quietly courting Western oil companies once again. Social programs like food subsidies, which these women in Caracas picked up, are financed by Petróleos de Venezuela's profits. Until recently, Mr. Chávez had pushed foreign oil companies here into a corner by nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with tax authorities and imposing a series of royalties increases.
Bolivia's proposed constitutional overhaul will create "chaos" in the Andean nation if it's approved in a nationwide vote on Jan. 25, former President Carlos Mesa said.
The proposal, spearheaded by current PresidentEvo Morales, would increase the power of the indigenous majority by setting quotas for the representation of ethnic groups in the government. The quotas threaten the rights of other Bolivians, Mesa said at a news conference today at his office in the capital La Paz.
Brazil and France signed a defense agreement on Tuesday worth more than $12 billion that will give Brazil technology to develop its arms industry and build a nuclear-powered submarine, the two governments said. Under the accord, signed by President Lula da Silva of Brazil and President Sarkosy of France in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil will buy 50 EC-725 Super Cougar helicopters from France, and the two countries will jointly develop a nuclear submarine and four diesel submarines. Brazil is increasing military spending as part of a new defense strategy that emphasizes protecting the Amazon and newly discovered deep-water oil fields.
BRASÍLIA — President Lula da silva of Brazil unveiled a new national defense strategy , calling for upgrading the military forces and remaking the defense industry. The plan also called for a debate in Brazil on whether mandatory military service should be enforced and how the armed forces should be professionalized.
With his choice of New Mexico Gov Bill Richardson as commerce secretary, President-elect Obama broke with tradition, putting a longtime public servant in a position that has recently been held by private-sector executives.
OTTAWA — The prospect that Canada's Conservative government could be replaced by a coalition became more likely on Friday following a day of negotiations and agreements between opposition parties.
President Hugo Chavez asked supporters to petition for a constitutional amendment that would let him seek indefinite re-election and buy more time to build a socialist economy in Venezuela.
The arrival of Russian President Medvedev and a naval squadron in Venezuela this week is an unequivocal message to President-elect Obama that his most nettlesome challenge in the Americas will be Venezuela's populist government and its oil-fueled crusade against U.S. influence, political analysts say.
CARACAS, — From the hardened slums of this city to some of Venezuela's most populous and economically important states, many of President Hugo Chavez´ supporters deserted him in regional elections, showing it is possible to challenge him in areas where he was once thought invincible.
UNITED NATIONS -- Bolivian President Evo Morales expressed hope for improved relations with the United States under Barack Obama's presidency, but said he will never allow the U.S. anti-drug agency to resume operating in his country.
When Mexico City's government made abortion legal last year, it also set out to make it available to any woman who asked for one. That includes the city's poorest, who for years resorted to illegal clinics and midwives as wealthy women visited private doctors willing to quietly end unwanted pregnancies.
The future of Brazil's traditional Indian cultures was under challenge as Brazil's Supreme Court began hearing arguments on whether to break up a vast Amazon reserve.
BOGOTÁ, — A member of the military mission that tricked Colombian rebels into freeing 15 hostages wore the insignia of the International Red Cross during the operation, President said.
RIO de JANEIRO -- In a crushing defeat for Argentina's beleaguered president, the Senate rejected Thursday increases in the agricultural export tax that have caused a farmer rebellion, with the vice president siding with farmers and casting the deciding vote.
The nation is euphoric after intelligence agents rescued 15 hostages from the clutches of guerrillas last week, but for Magdalena Rivas, the outlook is not so bright.
The Ontario provincial government said it would conserve a huge swath of the province's boreal forest to protect polar bears and other animals and help fight climate change.
BOGOTÁ, — At 5 a.m. on Wednesday, the sun had yet to peek through the jungle canopy in this country's Guaviare Department when the guerrillas told their captives to gather their belongings. A call had come in from a top adviser to Alfonso Cano, their new supreme commander. He said to move. Immediately.
Colombia's coca crop grew by 27 percent last year, the United Nations reported , calling the increase ''a surprise and a shock,'' given major U.S.-funded eradication efforts.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Argentina's president, Cristina Fernandez , sought to cool mounting criticism over her economic policies, saying she would ask the Argentine Congress to legitimize the export taxes that have prompted three months of revolt by farmers.
Addressing an audience at a discussion of his new book, Ex-Mex, at an event co-sponsored by the Migration Policy Institute and the Inter-American Dialogue, Jorge Castañeda called for a “holistic solution because piece-meal policies failed.” The next US president must seek a comprehensive solution that is both practical and effective, suggests Castaneda, Mexic’s Foreign Minister from 2000 to 2003.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Manuel Marulanda, the guerrilla tactician whose rise from peasant origins to top commander of Latin America's largest rebel group was a mythical feature of Colombia´s long internal war, died on March 26 in a mountainous hideout in the Meta department in central Colombia. He was believed to be 76 years old.
Colombia extradited 14 jailed paramilitary leaders to the United States on Tuesday, in an effort by President Alvaro Uribe to take a hard line against the warlords and defuse a scandal that has tied them to senior lawmakers in the Colombian Congress and members of his own family.
To the relief of organizers of a summit meeting here of leaders from Latin America and Europe on Friday, the encounter was notable for being relatively free of insults being flung publicly.
A former Roman Catholic bishop and self-styled champion of the poor broke the 62-year grip on the presidency by the ruling party here, the longest-serving political party in the world.
PARIS — The French government said that it was trying to help a woman who had been held hostage by Colombian rebels for more than six years, and her son said that she needed an immediate blood transfusion to stay alive.
BUENOS AIRES — Agricultural groups suspended a nationwide farmers' strike that shut down highways across the country for 21 days and caused food shortages, in what has become President Cristina Kichner´s biggest test to date.
President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax hikes on agricultural exports T, facing down angry farmers embroiled in a nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the world's biggest beef-exporting nations.
Talk of war in the Andes has faded almost as quickly as it flared - showing that for all their bluster, none of the three leaders involved could afford a protracted confrontation.
Venezuela and Ecuador took their growing conflict with Colombia to the diplomatic front, seeking international condemnation of Colombia's deadly assault on a rebel base in Ecuador.
Venezuela and Ecuador ordered troops to their borders with Colombia, sharply raising tensions after Colombia killed a top rebel leader on Ecuadorean soil.
The Bolivian Congress, in a vote boycotted by the opposition, approved holding a referendum on May 4 on a draft constitution drawn up by supporters of President Evo Morales.
Latin America's largest rebel group, the FARC freed three men and a woman, all former members of Congress, held in captivity for more than six years after negotiations led by President Chavez of Venezuela.
Mexico has created a new federal position to prosecute violence against women and human exploitation, as rights groups urge the government to do more to investigate the killings of women, especially along the U.S. border.
Led by a column of tractors, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Mexico City to protest recent trade openings that removed the last tariff protections for ancestral Mexican crops like corn and beans.
The Canadian military secretly stopped transferring prisoners to Afghanistan's government in November after Canadian monitors found evidence that they were being abused and tortured.
These days, it is easy to form the impression that a war is going on in Mexico. Thousands of elite troops in battle gear stream toward border towns and snake through the streets in jeeps with .50-caliber machine guns mounted on top while fighter jets from the Mexican Navy fly reconnaissance missions overhead.
Peru asked the International Court of Justice to set its sea boundary through waters claimed by Chile, inflaming a diplomatic dispute with its neighbor.
Colombian guerrillas freed two politically prominent hostages on Thursday, handing them over to emissaries of President Chavez of Venezuela in a breakthrough in mediation efforts with Latin America's largest rebel group.
A Canadian government panel recommended Monday that prices be set for greenhouse gas emissions and that taxes, caps and emissions trading plans be quickly established.
President Chávez said Thursday that he would make major changes to his cabinet, including naming a new vice president, after a stinging defeat last month in a national referendum that would have greatly increased his powers.
In this city 11,900 feet above sea level, the corridors of the presidential palace are bitingly cold. Aides huddle in overcoats near space heaters. Soldiers clasping rifles with bayonets stand guard with chattering teeth.
Nov. 25 — Venezuela and Colombia moved toward a diplomatic crisis on Sunday after an exchange of insults between President Chávez and his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe.
BOGOTÁ- Nov. 22 — President Uribe withdrew his support late Wednesday for efforts by President Chavez of Venezuela to broker the release of dozens of hostages believed to be held by this country's largest rebel group, including three American military contractors who were captured in 2003.
-- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday he met with a top leader of Colombia's second-largest rebel group as he seeks to lead peace negotiations.
President Chàvez warned Spain that he would review diplomatic and business ties with it, escalating a dispute that erupted when Spain's king told Mr. Chávez in public to "shut up."
Venezuela's National Assembly overwhelmingly gave final approval to constitutional changes that would greatly expand the power of President Hugo Chavez and permit him to run for re-election indefinitely.
BUENOS AIRES -- President Nestor Kirchner and first lady Cristina Fernandez are poised to switch jobs in December, with partial results indicating Argentines elected a female president for the first time and launched their country's most powerful political dynasty since Juan and Evita Peron.
MEDELLIN, Colombia -- The U.S. congressmen were speedily transported in vans with tinted windows, their convoy escorted by policemen on motorcycles who ensured that no car ventured close. When the lawmakers stepped out, guards carrying M-16s watched wearily, whispering into microphones on their sleeves.
On what may be a sign of what is to come in Canada's next federal election, voters in Ontario returned a Liberal government with a strong majority on Wednesday after a campaign that was dominated by religion.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 9 — An Argentine tribunal sentenced a Roman Catholic priest to life in prison for conspiring with the military in murders and kidnapping during the country's "dirty war" against leftist opponents, in a case that has become for many a powerful symbol of the church's complicity with the former regime.
MEXICO CITY, Sept. 10 — For the third time in three months, saboteurs blew up several pipelines belonging to Mexico's state oil monopoly, disrupting service to dozens of factories and briefly rattling financial markets, officials said, but not killing anyone.
President Felipe Calderón harshly criticized the United States government on Sunday for the recent crackdown on illegal immigrants, saying it has led to the persecution of immigrant workers without visas.
PISCO, Peru, Aug. 17 — No area along the southern coast of Peru, which was ravaged by an earthquake that killed at least 510 people, appears to have been harder hit than this port city.
"Surely they will take photos of us by satellite," said President Hugo Chávez, referring to intelligence agencies from the United States, as his Airbus touched down in this Andean city with the actor Sean Penn, a clutch of cabinet ministers and visiting dignitaries from half a dozen countries in tow.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 3 — Alire Assis Brasil, in town to visit an aunt, waited patiently Thursday for her bus back to her home in Florianopolis — some 18 hours away.
President Lula replaced the country's defense minister, whose duties include oversight of civil aviation. The move came eight days after the deadliest air disaster in Brazilian history.
Birmingham, Alabama---A US jury verdict gave Drummond Co. and Augusto Jiminez a victory July 26 to end the three-week trial charging the multinational coal company with aiding and abetting the paramilitary in the assassination of three Colombia union leaders in 2001.
BIRMINGHAM,ALABAMA.--- Cinnamon-skin widows weep within a stone’s throw of the 16th St. Baptist Church here, the site of one of the most horrendous civil rights atrocities in US history.
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA---Two Colombians were the focus of testimony in a historic civil case here today (July 12) involving the assassinations of three union workers near the Colombian coal mines of Drummond Coal Co. of Alabama.
SAO PAULO, Brazil -- President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that Brazil will budget about $540 million over eight years to complete its nuclear program, including uranium enrichment and possibly building a nuclear-powered submarine.
More than 5,000 tremors have been felt since January in the Patagonia region of Chile, causing residents to fear that a cataclysmic earthquake may surface.
MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's government called a series of gas pipeline explosions a threat to the nation's democratic institutions and vowed to step up security after a guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the blasts.
Colombia's president used to get unmitigated praise in Washington. Now, relations with Democrats have soured and prospects for a free-trade pact are fading.
Several sources say the Colombian government is considering whether 11 lawmakers, held captive by rebels, were accident- ally killed as vigilantes tried to collect a bounty.
MEXICO CITY -- The leftist who barely lost Mexico's closest presidential election in history is betting on a weekend rally to reignite his flagging political movement, calling supporters to an enormous march on the capital's central plaza.
