Latin America News

BRASILIA, Brazil - The world must engage, not isolate Iran in the push for Middle East peace and Iran should negotiate with Western nations for a "just and balanced" solution to its polemical nuclear program, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Monday.

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.

HAMILTON, Bermuda - Bermuda's highest court has struck down the conviction of a Florida woman who accidentally brought the ammunition magazine from her gun to the British island territory.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - The coup last summer in this tiny, Central American country blew up into an international incident, with thousands of Hondurans taking to the streets while everyone from Barack Obama to Fidel Castro lined up behind ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

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.

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez is hailing the forthcoming arrival of 300 Russian-made tanks and armored vehicles, and urging civilians to join government-organized militias to be ready to defend Venezuela from a foreign invasion.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is inviting his mentor Fidel Castro to visit Venezuela during the coming months.

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez is praising Carlos the Jackal, the imprisoned Venezuelan once notorious for a series of Cold War-era bombings, assassinations and hostage dramas, saying he was a "revolutionary fighter" and not a terrorist.

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.

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 on Monday 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) - 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."

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.

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

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.

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) - 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.

KAMPALA, Uganda - Ugandan officials were offended Sunday after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wondered out loud whether Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was truly as brutal as he was reputed to be.

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

BRASILIA, Brazil - Famed 101-year-old Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer is reportedly back at work just weeks after surgery for gallstones and an intestinal tumor.

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.

SALVADOR, Brazil (AFP) - Israeli settlement expansion on Palestinian territory must stop immediately, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Friday as he seeks to position Brazil as a player in the Middle East.

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - The United States has severely restricted access to a spot on the Mexican border where families and lovers divided by illegal immigration could unite briefly to hold hands or kiss through a fence.

SALVADOR, Brazil - Brazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva is joining his Palestinian counterpart in calling on Israel to stop building new settlements in areas claimed by Palestinians.

MANAGUA (AFP) - Thousands of pro- and anti-government protesters took to the streets of Nicaragua's capital, protesting and backing President Daniel Ortega's bid to remain in power.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Campaign contributions to retired U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, paid for more than $700,000 in lawyers' bills arising from an ethics investigation into his role in the 2007 firing of former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias.

SALVADOR, Brazil (AFP) - Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday received Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas here Thursday for the first in a series of discussions on forging peace in the Middle East, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

CUCUTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Saturday ruled out any military retaliation against Venezuela after Venezuelan troops dynamited two cross-border footbridges.