Latin America News

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent - Voters in the Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines decide Wednesday whether to break their ties with Britain's monarchy, even as Queen Elizabeth II is making a rare visit to the region.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Honduran police detained two Nicaraguans and two Hondurans along with several rifles, and interim President Roberto Micheletti claimed the weapons were part of a plot to attack him during Sunday's presidential election.

BRASILIA, Brazil - Rio de Janeiro's posh beach neighborhoods lost power for hours in sweltering summer weather Tuesday, prompting restaurants to toss out spoiled food and business owners to send employees home.

MEXICO CITY - A NASA astronaut says he wants to help Mexican officials start the country's first space agency.

LA PAZ, Bolivia - Bolivian police say they have busted five cocaine labs and arrested two people in a remote Indian village after a confrontation in which an officer was shot.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Police say a jaguar prowling the lush jungles of Guyana killed a gold and diamond miner as he fetched water from a creek.

BRASILIA, Brazil - Iran's leader got a welcoming bear hug from the Brazilian president, who urged Western nations to drop threats of punishment over the Iranian nuclear program and instead negotiate a fair solution.

MEXICO CITY - A U.S. consular official said Monday that an American woman has died of a gunshot wound she reportedly suffered in the Mexican border city of Matamoros.

MONTERREY, Mexico - The mayor of a wealthy suburb of this northern industrial city said Monday that he has sent his family to the United States for their own safety as he pursues his campaign against extortion and kidnapping gangs.

BRASILIA (AFP) - Italian ex-militant Cesare Battisti ended an 11-day hunger strike as he anticipated President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's verdict on his extradition to Italy.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Opposition parties and the Jewish community criticized a visit by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Venezuela, citing worries over his denial of the Holocaust, human rights violations and Iran's nuclear program.

MEXICO CITY - Mirna Torres salsas with a gray-bearded man for $1.50 a dance in the Barba Azul, a dark yet garish cabaret decorated like an erotic carnival fun house.

NEW YORK (AFP) - Britain walked away with five International Emmy Awards on Monday, including for best performances, while Brazil joined the television elite for the first time at a gala ceremony in New York.

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - Thousands of Mexicans rallied to show support for "shadow president" Manuel Lopez Obrador -- who believes his country's top job was stolen from him in 2006 -- at the mid-point of his would-be presidential term.

BRASILIA (AFP) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has urged his visiting Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to find a "just solution" with the West to Tehran's contested nuclear program.

A low-pressure system that has lingered in the Gulf of Mexico the past few days, bringing rain to the Gulf Coast, was expected to finally move inland into the Southeast on Sunday. This was likely to translate to widespread rain and even a few thunderstorms in the area even as the system weakens while moving toward the Southeast coast.

BRASILIA (AFP) - Visiting Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said Monday that US and Israeli military threats against Iran were a thing of the past, and that, in any case, "they don't have the courage" to attack Iran.

LIMA (AFP) - Peru's Supreme Court has opened a three-day review of former president Alberto Fujimori's 25-year prison sentence for human rights violations.

MEXICO CITY - A top drug cartel suspect who turned state's evidence has been found dead in an apparent suicide, while a body found in Guerrero state was identified as a rebel leader who accused the state governor of drug ties, Mexican law enforcement said Saturday.

BRASILIA (AFP) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday began a controversial visit to Brazil, the key leg of a tour to sympathetic Latin American and African countries he sees backing Tehran's vision of "a new world order."

BUENOS AIRES - Argentina's president says Israel and the United States should do more to push for peace in the Middle East.

MEXICO CITY - Authorities in the western Mexican state of Michoacan are investigating the disappearance of a journalist who wrote about organized crime.

LONDON - British police have reached a compensation deal with the family of a Brazilian man who was shot dead by police after he was mistaken for a terrorist.

SAN DIEGO - A 17-year-old pleaded guilty Friday to murdering a Border Patrol agent who was shot eight times in head, neck and torso in the mountains east of San Diego.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Faced with mounting pressure over his country's atomic ambitions, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left on a five nation tour Sunday, including Brazil in a bid to boost ties with Latin America's biggest economy and a rare backer of Tehran's nuclear programme.

MEXICO CITY - A Mexican once put forward for the title of world's oldest woman has died at 119, government officials said Thursday.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left Tehran on Sunday for a five nation tour, including Brazil and Venezuela, both supporters of the Islamic republic's controversial nuclear programme.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela has no interest in talking directly to Colombia to end a monthslong crisis but would support an effort by other South American nations to broker a solution, a top government official said Sunday.

MEXICO CITY - Cash-strapped Mexico City is pressing ahead with new bus lines and bike lanes in 2010, buoyed by prestigious recognition for a world-class transit system that has reduced pollution in one of the globe's largest cities.