Nicolas Maduro vows to attend Summit of Americas – Al Jazeera Venezuela’s president vowed on Thursday to show up at the Summit of the Americas in Peru in April after he was told this week not to bother coming. Maduro has accused conservative governments in Latin America – specifically Argentina, Colombia and Peru – of siding with the United States… Read more »
Guatemala ex-president, ministers arrested over graft – Al Jazeera Guatemala‘s fight against corruption has intensified with the arrest of a former president and nine of his ex-ministers. Alvaro Colom and members of his former cabinet are suspected of having embezzled funds and committing fraud while helping set up a public bus system in Guatemala City in 2010. Ivan Velasquez, head… Read more »
UPDATE 1-Venezuela removes U.S.-sanctioned Zerpa as PDVSA CFO – CNBC CARACAS, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Venezuela state oil company PDVSA has removed Chief Financial Officer Simon Zerpa, who was sanctioned by the United States last year, a personnel move that could facilitate crude exports and bond renegotiations. Venezuela’s official gazette on Thursday said Zerpa was replaced by Iliana Ruzza, who… Read more »
Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro ‘not welcome’ in Peru – BBC Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has said that Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro is “not welcome” at a regional summit to be held in the Peruvian capital, Lima, in April. Just last week, Venezuelan officials had confirmed that President Maduro would attend the summit. Mr Kuczynski cited “a rupture in the… Read more »
Haiti’s historic Port-au-Prince Iron Market ravaged by fire – BBC A fire ripped through the historic Iron Market in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince on Monday night, destroying one of the city’s major tourist attractions. The Marche en Fer, or Iron Market, had been rebuilt following the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The building also suffered heavy damage in a fire in 2008. Traders… Read more »
Due to the crumbling of the Venezuela Economy under President Maduro, hundreds of thousands of refugees are fleeing into the neighboring country of Colombia. Over the past 6 months, immigration, mostly illegal, has almost doubled. Though the accepted number is that about 600,000 Venezuelan refugees have entered Colombia, border immigration centers have estimated the number to be much more; the… Read more »
http://www.france24.com/en/20180210-colombia-border-venezuela-migrants-surge Colombia will tighten control of over its porous border with Venezuela as thousands of migrants fleeing a rapidly deteriorating political and economic crisis escape into the neighboring Andean nation. In a visit to a border city at the epicenter of Colombia‘s mounting migration crisis, President Juan Manuel Santos on Thursday announced new measures that could make it more difficult… Read more »
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-43044542 The ex-president of a fourth division football club in Paraguay has been accused of sexually abusing players, which he denies. At least two players have come forward to say they were abused by Antonio González, who until recently ran Rubio Ñu club in the city of Luque. The allegations against Mr González were made after an intimate photo of… Read more »
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-43030778 Two members of a special investigative police force who disappeared in Mexico a week ago have been shown in a video posted on YouTube. The two agents from the Criminal Investigation Agency appear sitting in front of five masked men who force them at gunpoint to read a statement. The armed men are believed to be members of the… Read more »
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/13/americas/guatemala-public-bus-corruption-probe/index.html Former Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom and a former finance minister who is now Oxfam International’s chairman were detained Tuesday in a corruption investigation involving a public bus deal, the office of Guatemala’s attorney general said. Colom was detained on corruption charges along with nine other people, including Juan Alberto Fuentes Knight, chairman of Oxfam International. The arrests come as… Read more »