South America News

Tom McNichol / special to The Star Members of the Brazilian Rotary Group Study Exchange Team arrived in Shelby May 17.

It was just about a day after Argentine strongman Jorge Rafael Videla had seized power in March of 1976, and the bloodletting was already beginning.

Local laws punish drug trafficking more severely than human trafficking. The sale of drugs carries penalties of between five and 15 years, while trafficking of persons for sexual exploitation is punished with a maximum sentence of eight years, with work release allowed.

Prime Minister Freundel Stuart made this assertion on Tuesday when France's Ambassador to Barbados, Jacques Sturm , paid him a courtesy call at Parliament Buildings.

A COLOMBIAN thief had a miraculous escape following a botched robbery caught on video at a Bogota bus station.

Colombian authorities announced Monday they will begin investigating "sex roulette," a newly discovered sex game played by minors that got a 14-year old girl accidentally pregnant.

Argentinian and Iranian representatives had already inked a memorandum of understanding on the "truth commission" to investigate the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

Bolivia has passed a controversial law which paves the way for President Evo Morales to be elected for a third time.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos hinted on Friday that he would seek re-election next year to ensure continuity of his policies - including peace talks with Marxist FARC rebels - though he did not explicitly announce his candidacy.

If you're traveling in Brazil, pop in a DVD and find yourself crazing pizza, then Domino's has you right where they want you.

With Colombia's oil reserves stretching to less than seven years, its biggest challenge is boosting exploration and attracting fresh investment to uncap a "world of discovery" in shale oil, the energy minister said.

An American Airlines Boeing 777-200, registration N772AN performing flight AA-234 from Sao Paulo Guarulhos,SP to Miami,FL with 218 passengers and 14 crew, was enroute at FL380 about 75nm westnorthwest of Oranjestad when the crew reported smoke in the cockpit and diverted to Aruba's Reina Beatrix Airport for a safe landing on runway 11 about 19 ... (more)

A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck off the coast of Chile on Monday, the US Geological Survey said, but Chilean emergency authorities said they saw no prospect that the tremor would generate a tsunami.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- Guyana is examining a proposal by Venezuela to set up a PetroCaribe Economic Zone , which was proposed at the recently concluded ministerial meeting of PetroCaribe and the summit of heads.

Venezuelan authorities have released a dissent ex-general who was jailed on charges of inciting unrest after the country's disputed presidential election.

On the blog section [es] of Chilean newspaper El Mercurio [es], columnist Leila Guerrero analyzes the meaning of prestige [es] and notes: Rock musicians have been smart: 'rock star' is one of the few jobs where a loss of prestige means an increase of quotation.

A Venezuelan movie about a young deaf woman who is sexually abused by her stepfather, "Brecha en el silencio" , took top prize at the second Colombia-Venezuela film festival.

Binational kidnapping gangs made up of Colombians and Venezuelans are spreading from the border states into central Venezuela, fuelling a trend that has seen Venezuela overtake Colombia as a kidnapping hotspot.

A Colombian thief badly botched his getaway after stealing a woman's mobile phone in a Bogota bus station.

While Kirchner has ruled out any devaluation of the Argentine peso while she's president and dismissed as election-year politics a growing scandal over money laundering, her popularity in the polls has dropped dramatically.