Latin America News

KOUROU, French Guiana - Officials have postponed the rocket launch of a military observation satellite for France's defense ministry. Full Story »

NOVO PROGRESSO, Brazil - Drawing his .40-caliber pistol, Severiano Pontes dashes across the steaming, muddy jungle floor, a hunch telling him what he would find around a bend. Full Story »

CARACAS, Venezuela - A Venezuelan court has issued a warrant for the arrest of an ally-turned-critic of President Hugo Chavez. Full Story »

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A decade has passed since the federal government began returning endangered Mexican wolves to their historic range in the Southwest. It hasn't worked out — for the wolves, for ranchers, for conservationists or for federal biologists. Full Story »

MANAUS, Brazil - Brazil's president said Thursday that "gringos" should pay Amazon nations to prevent deforestation, insisting rich Western nations have caused much more past environmental destruction than the loggers and farmers who cut and burn trees in the world's largest tropical rain forest. Full Story »

ASUNCION, Paraguay - When he was a Roman Catholic bishop, Fernando Lugo taught liberation theology to uplift the poor. Now president, he is in the uncomfortable position of sending special forces into Paraguay's northern forests to hunt kidnappers whose leaders include a former student and his former altar boy. Full Story »

MONTERREY, Mexico (AFP) - Fourteen people were killed in northern Monterrey, including 11 drug traffickers and a woman passerby in a shootout with police, and two police officers during a prison breakout, state officials said. Full Story »

MANAUS, Brazil - Brazilian diplomats denied Thursday that there is a crisis in relations with the U.S., while acknowledging differences with the government of President Barack Obama on issues such as Iran's nuclear ambitions and relations with post-coup Honduras. Full Story »

MEXICO CITY - More than 100 kidnapping victims freed from a rehab center said Friday they were snatched from the streets and held in slave-like conditions — beaten, robbed and forced to work 18 hours a day making clothespins and shopping bags destined for a department store. Full Story »

SAO BERNARDO DO CAMPO, Brazil - Brazilians will be seeing a whole lot more of the student whose short pink dress got her booted from college: She's agreed to march in the nation's famously flesh-baring Carnival parades. Full Story »

LIMA, Peru - Peru's military is close to a deal to buy tanks from China, the defense minister said Tuesday. Full Story »

MEXICO CITY - Foreign migrants caught while in Mexico illegally can now at least fight boredom while mourning their bad fortune. Full Story »

BRASILIA (AFP) - Italian ex-militant Cesare Battisti ended an 11-day hunger strike as he anticipated President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's verdict on his extradition to Italy. Full Story »

TIJUANA, Mexico (AFP) - Gunmen shot and killed a former police commander and opposition politician in his office in the Mexican border town of Tijuana, officials said. Full Story »

BRASILIA, Brazil - Rio de Janeiro's posh beach neighborhoods lost power for hours in sweltering summer weather Tuesday, prompting restaurants to toss out spoiled food and business owners to send employees home. Full Story »

MIAMI (Reuters) - A U.S. judge Tuesday reduced the prison terms of two convicted Cuban spies in the latest twist of a high-profile espionage case that has strained already hostile ties between Havana and Washington. Full Story »

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican police freed 107 people on Thursday who were imprisoned and forced to work in a clandestine factory in the capital, the prosecutor's office said. Full Story »

CARACAS, Venezuela - A group of college students ended a hunger strike after 17 days following a meeting Tuesday with Organization of American States representatives to air their concerns about human rights in Venezuela. Full Story »