World: Latin America

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Rivals for power in Honduras held to their conflicting and seemingly intractable positions on Friday as hopes faded for a quick negotiated solution to the crisis triggered by last month's coup.

COLONIA LEBARON, Mexico (Reuters) - Hundreds of mourners attended a funeral on Thursday for two American Mormons murdered in a northern Mexican community by drug hitmen for denouncing cartel kidnappings, and the FBI offered to aid a police probe.

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's Attorney General's Office said Thursday it is launching a federal investigation into the killing of a Mormon anti-crime activist, calling it a high-impact crime that appears related to the arrest of a gang of gunmen.

MORELIA, Mexico - Police in western Mexico found four mutilated bodies in plastic bags on the side of a highway Thursday.

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez's government is imposing new regulations on cable television while revoking the licenses of more than 200 radio stations, the top telecommunications official said Thursday.

SAN JOSE (AFP) - Delegates for ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and his country's interim leader were due to hold a second day of crisis talks Friday with both sides said to be digging in their heels.

GUATEMALA CITY - An appeals court found insufficient evidence to warrant the trial of a Guatemalan whose Twitter message led to his arrest on charges of inciting financial panic.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela is taking dozens of radio stations off the air and putting stricter rules on cable and satellite television, a minister said on Thursday, part of President Hugo Chavez's battle with private media firms.

MIAMI - Leaders of Cuban and Venezuelan communities across the U.S. have become among the loudest supporters of the military ouster of Honduras' president because they see it as a strike against socialist influence in Latin America.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - Interim Honduran leader Micheletti in Costa Rica for coup talks; says he comes in peace.

LIMA, Peru - Peru's government doesn't provide adequate care for pregnant women in the impoverished highlands and jungle, a failure reflected in one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the hemisphere, a human rights group said Thursday.

MEXICO CITY - Mexico reacted to the slaying of an anti-crime activist with outrage Wednesday: Congress called for a minute of silence, television commentators demanded justice and activists pledged to step up their fight against crime despite persistent threats.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said on Wednesday a lack of cooperation between Haitian politicians, aid groups and business leaders was hurting efforts to help the impoverished Caribbean nation.

CARACAS, Venezuela - The mayor of Venezuela's capital ended a hunger strike Wednesday after the head of the Organization of American States agreed to meet with him and other opposition leaders to discuss moves by the government they say erode their authority.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - A lack of coordination among aid groups and Haitian leaders is hurting efforts to ease poverty in the Caribbean nation, Bill Clinton said Wednesday as he wrapped up his first trip here as a special U.N. envoy.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — All but invisible in Latin America a decade ago, China now is building cars in Uruguay, donating a soccer stadium to Costa Rica and lending $10 billion to Brazil's biggest oil company.

WASHINGTON - A Nobel Peace Prize-winner is taking on the formidable challenge of trying to forge a diplomatic solution to the leadership crisis in Honduras.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - The foreign relations minister in Honduras' interim government says he has sent a letter to Barack Obama apologizing for a racial comment he made about the U.S. president.

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - Interpol has issued arrest warrants for nine fugitives wanted in Mexico for a daycare fire that killed 48 children in June, justice officials said.

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine President Cristina Fernandez reshuffled her cabinet on Tuesday, but the shake-up suggests few policy changes as she attempts to shore up her government after a crushing defeat in a mid-term vote.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - An anti-crime activist and a neighbor, both members of the pacifist Mennonite community in northern Mexico, were killed Tuesday by gunmen believed linked to a drug cartel, a local legislator said.

MORELIA, Mexico - Call it the case of the dead cells — both telephones and the ones in the brain.

LEPAGUARE, Honduras - Luis Perez voted for Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in 2005. Now, he wishes he hadn't.

GONAIVES, Haiti - Bill Clinton paused during an aid mission to Haiti on Tuesday to honor Michael Jackson for helping the Democratic Party raise cash at a crucial time.

WASHINGTON - The United States intensified efforts Tuesday to restore ousted Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya to his presidency.

MOSCOW - President Barack Obama is reiterating his support for efforts to restore Manuel Zelaya to Honduras' presidency _even as he points out that Zelaya has strongly opposed American policies.

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - Midterm elections in Mexico, which dealt a heavy blow to President Felipe Calderon's conservative ruling party, marked the resurgence of the leftist opposition that ruled the country for most of the last century.

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party promised Monday it has learned from the past and changed its ways, a day after midterm elections made it the largest force in Congress again.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A worse-than-expected congressional election defeat for Mexico's ruling conservatives has left President Felipe Calderon's economic reform agenda firmly in the hands of the opposition.