WASHINGTON - Venezuelan officials say President Hugo Chavez has died after a long struggle with cancer.
 Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced the death on national television Tuesday. He urged the Venezuelan people to show strength and courage, and to be united and fulfill the expectations of “this great leader.” 
 The 58-year-old Chavez had been treated in Cuba […]

WASHINGTON - U.S. senators are warning Latin American nations against deepening financial and military ties with Iran, pledging heightened U.S. vigilance of Iranian activities in the Western Hemisphere. The Senate’s Foreign Relations Subcommittee took a close look Thursday at Tehran’s dealings with Latin America.
 
Iran’s increasingly isolated regime retains friends in Latin America, most notably Venezuelan […]

WASHINGTON - A human rights group in Cuba says Havana has included five political prisoners among more than 2,500 prisoners who were released in a humanitarian gesture ahead of a visit by the pope.
The Cuban Committee for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said Tuesday that at least 50 political prisoners remain behind bars. It called […]

WASHINGTON - The former dictator of Panama, Manuel Noriega, has returned home, after spending more than 20 years in prisons in the United States and France.
Noriega arrived Sunday evening after being extradited from France, where he served time for money laundering.
The former strongman now faces three separate sentences in Panama for the slayings of political […]

WASHINGTON - Authorities in Brazil are suspending the oil drilling activities of U.S. energy giant Chevron following a recent oil spill off Rio de Janeiro state.
The country’s National Petroleum Agency made the announcement Wednesday, saying Chevron is banned from drilling until the causes of the leak are fully known.
The decision comes two days after Brazil […]

WASHINGTON - The United States’ most prominent public health agency is calling the cholera epidemic in Haiti “the worst cholera outbreak in recent history.”  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says cholera continues to spread across Haiti a year after it was first identified, despite better access to clean water.  This, as the […]

MOSCOW - Russia’s Soyuz carrier rocket is set make its first launch from outside the former Soviet Union on Thursday, carrying European satellites.
 
The Soyuz is scheduled to blast off from a new launch site at the Kourou space center in the jungle of French Guiana, off the Atlantic coast.
 
The Russian rocket will carry Galileo navigation […]

WASHINGTON - The rating agency Standard & Poor’s has downgraded Venezuela’s credit rating, citing the country’s political risk as a key weakness.
S&P lowered the country’s sovereign currency rating once notch Friday from BB¯ to B+ with a stable outlook.
In a statement, S&P said “changing and arbitrary laws, price and exchange controls, and other distorting and […]

WASHINGTON - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he plans to give the government exclusive control over the nation’s gold mining industry to boost the country’s international reserves.
Speaking on state television Wednesday, President Chavez said he will issue a decree in the coming days to nationalize operations currently under the control of private and foreign companies.  […]

PARIS - A lawyer for former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega says France has agreed to extradite him to face charges in his home country.
The lawyer says French Prime Minister Francois Fillon signed the extradition order last month and Noriega was notified last week. 
Panama and France have not confirmed the development.  Panama requested Noriega’s extradition for […]

LIMA - Ollanta Humala has taken office as Peru’s president, pledging in his inaugural address to ensure that all Peruvians will benefit from the country’s economic growth.
Addressing Congress after being sworn in Thursday in Lima, President Humala said “economic progress” and “social inclusion” must work together.
Mr. Humala was elected on promises he would more evenly […]

WASHINGTON - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez arrived in Cuba late Saturday to begin chemotherapy, after undergoing surgery last month to remove a cancerous tumor.
Before boarding his plane in Caracas, Chavez said he was going away for a few days, but the length of his stay in Cuba is not known.
Earlier in the day, President Chavez […]

PARIS - France says it will begin proceedings to extradite former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to his home country.
Noriega served 20 years in prison in the United States for drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering before being extradited to France in 2010. He had been sentenced in absentia in 1999 to seven years in jail […]

WASHINGTON - Cuban President Raul Castro has been named the head of the nation’s ruling Communist Party, officially replacing his brother, former President Fidel Castro, who held the post since the party’s founding 46 years ago.
President Raul Castro was named First Secretary Tuesday during a Communist Party Congress in Havana.
Despite raising hopes during the gathering […]

WASHINGTON - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday wrapped up a three-day, private visit to Cuba, his second to the communist-led island since 2002, the year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The United States and Cuba do not have formal diplomatic relations, only interests sections that are technically part of the Swiss […]

WASHINGTON - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is headed to Cuba on Monday for a private visit.
Mr. Carter’s Atlanta-based Carter Center said Friday that the former president and his wife, Rosalynn, will be in Cuba at the invitation of its government. A statement said the couple will meet with President Raul Castro to discuss ways […]

WASHINGTON - The United States says it has imposed sanctions on a six-nation network of drug traffickers linked to Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel.
The U.S. Treasury Department announced Wednesday that it has designated as drug traffickers Colombian native Jorge Milton Cifuentes Villa and more than 70 individuals and entities in his organization.
The action freezes any assets […]

WASHINGTON - The State Department said Wednesday U.S. officials are “surprised and concerned” by an incident last week in which a U.S. military aircraft was searched, and items aboard seized, in Buenos Aires.  The Air Force plane and crew were to have taken part in a training exercise with Argentine forces.
Officials here say they are […]

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama has loosened travel restrictions on Cuba to allow religious groups and students to travel to the communist country.
The White House said Friday the measures are aimed at developing “people to people” contacts through more academic, cultural and religious exchanges.  It says the looser restrictions are designed to support civil […]

WASHINGTON - A freedom fighter who was tortured by her country’s dictatorship has become the first female president of Brazil.
Thousands of people lined the streets of the capital, Brasilia, despite heavy rains to cheer Dilma Rousseff as she made her way to her historical inauguration ceremony Saturday in a Rolls Royce, flanked by an all-female […]

WASHINGTON - The United States has revoked the visa of the Venezuelan ambassador to Washington Bernardo Alvarez, in apparent retaliation for Caracas’ rejection of Washington’s nominee for U.S. ambassador.
Earlier, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said there could be “consequences” because of Venezuela’s objections to having Larry Palmer serve as the U.S. envoy in Caracas.  But […]

WASHINGTON - Violent unrest in Haiti has spread to the capital, Port-au-Prince, where angry Haitians clashed with U.N. peacekeepers, whom they blame for the nation’s cholera epidemic.
Reports from the capital late Thursday say protesters threw rocks at the peacekeepers and blocked roads with burning tires.
Violent riots broke out earlier this week after some Haitians accused […]

WASHINGTON - The chief of Haiti’s medical association says an outbreak of cholera in the north of the country has killed 135 people and sickened 1,500 others.
Claude Surena tells the French news agency that laboratory tests confirm cholera and that the government plans to make a statement soon.
Most of the sickened people have been taken […]

MOSCOW - Russia has signed an agreement to help build Venezuela’s first nuclear power plant.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez finalized the deal Friday in Moscow, during talks on joint energy, defense and finance ventures.  Mr. Chavez said the nuclear energy plant will help Venezuela reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.
The deal […]