Latin America Caribbean

Barrick fined $16m for Pascua-Lama violations

2013-05-25 05:27:40 UTC
VALLENAR, Chile (AP) — Chile's environmental regulator blocked Barrick Gold Corp.'s $8.5 billion Pascua-Lama project on Friday and imposed its maximum fine on the world's largest gold miner, citing "very serious" violations of its environmenta...

Milestones for Guantanamo Bay detention center

2013-05-24 04:41:11 UTC
President Barack Obama on Thursday reaffirmed his 2008 campaign promise to close the military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where terror suspects have been held since 2002, and begin the transfer of some prisoners to other countries. A...

Sweden's riots raise questions about inequality

2013-05-24 04:20:48 UTC
HUSBY, Sweden (AP) — Sweden has long been a bastion of generous social welfare and an egalitarian political culture. So many people were shocked when scores of youths hurled rocks at police and set cars ablaze during rioting in several large...

Pentagon wants $450M for Guantanamo prison

2013-05-22 04:49:30 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is asking Congress for more than $450 million for maintaining and upgrading the Guantanamo Bay prison that President Barack Obama wants to close. New details on the administration's budget request emerged on...

Ex-Ford execs charged in Argentine torture cases

2013-05-22 04:36:06 UTC
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Three former Ford Motor Co. executives were charged Tuesday with crimes against humanity for allegedly targeting Argentine union workers for kidnapping and torture after the country's 1976 military coup. A...

Guatemala top court overturns genocide conviction

2013-05-21 04:34:25 UTC
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala's top court overturned the genocide conviction of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt and ordered on Monday that his trial restart, throwing into disarray proceedings that had been hailed as historic for deliv...

Penn urges US to pressure Bolivia to free US man

2013-05-21 04:23:46 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — Actor Sean Penn on Monday urged the U.S. government to pressure Bolivia to free an American businessman detained without charge since 2011 in a case that has drawn accusations he was the victim of corrupt local prosecutors....

Slim, broadcasters take fight to soccer field

2013-05-20 04:33:08 UTC
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexicans often feel that billionaire Carlos Slim owns everything in their country, from telephone and Internet companies to banks and chain stores, but his latest acquisitive foray is meeting resistance after touching a ...

Reporter remembers fear in Videla's Argentina

2013-05-19 16:47:27 UTC
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — It was just about a day after Argentine strongman Jorge Rafael Videla had seized power in March of 1976, and the bloodletting was already beginning. I had trekked out to isolated Neuquen province looking for...

Sea turtle comeback in a corner of the Caribbean

2013-05-18 16:02:28 UTC
GRANDE RIVIERE, Trinidad (AP) — Giant leatherback turtles, some weighing half as much as a small car, drag themselves out of the ocean and up the sloping shore on the northeastern coast of Trinidad while villagers await wearing dimmed hea...

OAS drug study eyes marijuana legalization

2013-05-18 15:42:50 UTC
LIMA, Peru (AP) — An Organization of American States study released Friday is calling for a serious discussion on legalizing marijuana. Drug policy reform advocates called the report historic, though it made no specific proposals and sa...

Mexico cuts growth outlook from 3.5 to 3.1 percent

2013-05-18 05:09:02 UTC
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government says it has cut its economic growth forecast for 2013 from 3.5 percent to 3.1 after exports stagnated and first-quarter GDP figures came in weak. The Treasury Department says growth in the first quart...

Brazil approves law to modernize ports

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2013-05-18 05:07:05 UTC
SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil plans to modernize and expand its overcrowded ports, attract private investments to the sector and make it easier for companies to hire skilled foreign workers, in a bid to spur economic growth, The Brazilian Congr...

Argentine dictator Videla dies in prison at age 87

2013-05-17 17:30:43 UTC
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who took power over Argentina in a 1976 coup and led a military junta that killed thousands of his fellow citizens in a dirty war to eliminate people considered to be subv...

Venezuela's military enters high-crime slums

2013-05-17 16:51:41 UTC
PETARE, Venezuela (AP) — Stern-looking soldiers clutching assault rifles wave down the beat-up Chevy Caprice entering this sprawling slum on the outskirts of Caracas. Flashlights in his face, the driver steps out and places his hands on...

Caribbean talks conservation on Branson's island

2013-05-17 16:46:15 UTC
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Political and business leaders are gathering on a billionaire's private island Friday to back a program aimed at expanding protection for the Caribbean's imperiled coasts and waters. The "Caribbean Challenge" call...

Now Venezuela is running out of toilet paper

2013-05-16 18:39:25 UTC
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities — toilet paper. Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, th...

Mexico arrests 2 men in Malcom X grandson's death

2013-05-13 18:30:53 UTC
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico City prosecutors say they have arrested two men in connection with the death of Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of political activist Malcolm X. An official of the city's prosecutor's office who was not ...

Prison for ex-dictator soothes Guatemala

2013-05-12 04:35:13 UTC
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt spent his first full day as a convict Saturday in a 16-by-13 foot cell with a small bed, bathroom and window, after receiving a landmark 80-year sentence for genoc...

Brazilian woman survives harpoon shooting

2013-05-12 04:28:05 UTC
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A 28-year-old woman miraculously survived after her husband accidentally shot her in the mouth with a harpoon, Brazilian officials said Wednesday. The Rio de Janeiro State Health Department said in a state...

Cars made in Brazil are deadly

2013-05-12 04:22:40 UTC
SAO PAULO (AP) — The cars roll endlessly off the local assembly lines of the industry's biggest automakers, more than 10,000 a day, into the eager hands of Brazil's new middle class. The shiny new Fords, Fiats, and Chevrolets tell th...

Grandson of Malcolm X killed in Mexico City

2013-05-11 05:00:11 UTC
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of political activist Malcolm X, died in Mexico City after a violent dispute in a bar, Mexican authorities said Friday. He was 28. City prosecutors are investigating the attack that sen...

Post-attack, top reporter worries his cover blown

2013-05-10 17:38:27 UTC
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — His exclusives have triggered some of Colombia's biggest scandals, leading to the dismissals, arrests and prosecutions of dozens of crooked, sometimes murderous public officials. Yet in this age of social m...

Venezuelan politics get personal, divide families

2013-05-09 18:11:04 UTC
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A portrait of Hugo Chavez stared down from a black metal frame as Jose Pastano sipped coffee after dinner with his sons in the slum house he shares with 17 relatives on the western edge of the capital. ...

Haiti cholera lawsuit threatened at UN

2013-05-09 04:31:26 UTC
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A Boston-based human rights group said Wednesday it will sue the United Nations in 60 days if the world body does not agree to compensate Haitian cholera victims, apologize to the Caribbean nation for intro...