Inside South America - McClatchy Newspapers

Colombians celebrated and observers around the world expressed astonishment at the audacious Colombian mission that rescued 15 hostages earlier this month from the FARC. On the night of the mission, President Alvaro Uribe made a point of getting several newly-freed hostages to say that they had not seen any Red Cross insignia on the helicopter that helped trick the FARC into inadvertently turning over the hostages.

I feel like a teenager again where dad has just given me the keys to the car.

I'm at Rio de Janeiro's international airport awaiting a flight to Chicago and then to Beijing, where I'll be covering the Olympic Games.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim meets U.S. chief trade negotiator Susan Schwab in September 2007. (Photo/Agência Brasil)

Driving down the Pacific coast of Chile last weekend, I came across what appeared to be a camp for retired journalists. It was a comforting sight, what with the U.S. news industry in dire straits and journalists being laid off and retired en masse.

Argentine Vice President Julio Cobos handed his own government its biggest defeat yet.

New data released yesterday by Brazil's National Institute of Space Research showed deforestation in the Amazon dropped a bit in May compared to April but was still continuing at an alarming pace.

Construction at the Costanera Center in Santiago, Chile.

Fans of Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet line up to see his body after his death in Dec. 2006.

I had just checked in for my flight at Rio de Janeiro's international airport Sunday night and was headed for immigration when I saw the line of passengers.

Photo/Christof Berger

Photo/AP

Wednesday's rescue of Ingrid Betancourt, three U.S. government contractors and 11 other hostages has been called like something out of a movie and stranger than fiction enough that a docudrama about it is bound to be on the way.

A new study by a union-based research body found that prices for basic food items have jumped by as much as 52 percent in Brazilian cities over the past 12 months, with towns in the country's poor northeast leading the way.

Sucre residents protest against President Evo Morales.

Argentine farm leader Alfredo de Angeli (in gray jacket) poses with well-wishers in Gualeguaychu, Argentina. Photo/Diego Giudice

I read a short article a year ago about a European scientist who was going around the world measuring the blueness of skies in major cities. I don't know why he was doing that, but it's something to do. He concluded that Rio was the world leader in blue skies. The deepest blue skies. The epitome of blue, he said.

In first place: Colombian President Alvaro Uribe

Chaitén in 2007. Photo/betoscopio

Photo/Agência Brasil (Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Fidel_Castro5_cropped.JPG)

Bolivian police stop a crowd of thousands from invading the U.S. embassy in La Paz. Photo/APThis Sunday, a nearly two-month-long round of autonomy referendums comes to a close in Bolivia, and this country is as tense as ever.

This touching scene between Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, happened yesterday, before tens of thousands of people in the country's main square, the Plaza de Mayo.

It's an odd sign of how Argentina's government has operated over the past five years, but yesterday marked a milestone: It was the first time former President Nestor Kirchner ever held a press conference.

"There are four gentlemen who want to earn everything. In Argentina, everyone should benefit."

Piquetero groups march in Buenos Aires. Some such groups act as shock troops for the government.

We drove up to a roadblock in the Argentine countryside behind which dozens of trucks were stranded and asked to speak to the leaders of the protest.

A long weekend is coming up in Argentina, and usually millions of people would hit the roads for the beaches or the countryside. But not this weekend.