WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department will stop accepting new applications at midnight on Thursday for a program that allowed children fleeing violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to apply for refugee status in the United States before leaving home. New applications will not be accepted after 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday (0459 GMT on Friday), the State… Read more »
Police seized more than 12 tons of cocaine from Colombia’s top crime gang on Wednesday, the biggest haul ever in the nation’s long-running fight against drug trafficking, President Juan Manuel Santos said] The cocaine, with a U.S. market value estimated by Santos at about of $360 million, was found stored underground on four farms in a banana-growing region of northwest… Read more »
An occupation is a stretch of land that many Brazilian families have set up tents on due to their inability to pay for housing. In Sao Paulo especially, these families are hoping to pressure their government into building more low-income housing so that they can move out of these “squatter towns” and have a place of their own.
Shaking off its climate change “pariah” status alongside the United States and war-torn Syria, Central American nation Nicaragua took the plunge and joined the Paris Agreement to tackle global warming before U.N. climate talks began on Monday. But environmentalists say Nicaragua’s lecturing of big polluters and ambitious renewable energy goals contrast with its slack environmental protection and a controversial plan… Read more »
The frontrunner for Chile’s presidency, billionaire businessman Sebastian Pinera, faces an array of left-wing parties in this year’s elections but he can expect help from one quarter – low turnout. Recent opinion polls give Pinera, a conservative former president, a commanding lead over his seven mostly left-of-center rivals for the Nov. 19 first round but predict he is unlikely to… Read more »
Rodrigo Londoño, known as Timochenko, signed a peace deal with the Colombian government a year ago. He will run for the party founded by the rebel group. Timochenko, 58, became the leader of Farc rebels in 2011. His chances of becoming president are deemed to be minimal as many Colombians are loath to see a former rebel representing them. Right-wing… Read more »
CARACAS (Reuters) – Prominent Venezuelan lawmaker Freddy Guevara has sought refuge in the Chilean ambassador’s residence in Caracas amid fears he could be jailed, a development that leaves the ailing opposition with even fewer leaders to take on leftist President Nicolas Maduro. Authorities had sought to remove Guevara’s congressional immunity so that he could be tried for instigating violence. The… Read more »
TABATINGA, Brazil (Reuters) – U.S. military personnel are taking part this week in the largest international army operation ever held deep in the Amazon jungle of northern Brazil, in a sign of closer U.S.-Brazil defense ties. Troops from Brazil, Colombia and Peru will set up a temporary military base in their tri-border region for a week-long logistics exercise in humanitarian… Read more »
Sao Bernando do Campo, Sao Paulo – It is here where squatters have built a teeming tent city, named the People without Fear Occupation, in the industrial city of Sao Bernardo do Campo, next to Sao Paulo. The occupation sits on a fenced-off 70 square-kilometre lot – roughly the size of eight soccer pitches – and is overlooked by middle… Read more »
Argentina’s current president Mauricio Macri strengthened his position in congress while also slowing down a comeback from former president Cristina Fernandez. Fernandez nearly bankrupted during her time as president and the new change in presidency has allowed the country to grow. The people of Argentina are tired of all the political corruption and from what can be seen Macri is… Read more »