Latin America News

MEXICO CITY - Hurricane Norbert strengthened into a powerful Category 2 storm over the Pacific Ocean and forecasters warned that it could reach Mexico's Baja California peninsula by the weekend.

VERACRUZ, Mexico - Tropical Storm Marco roared ashore on Mexico's Gulf coast with near-hurricane force winds on Tuesday, prompting a shutdown of some oil platforms and forcing the evacuation of some 3,000 people.

LA PAZ, Bolivia - The U.S. is set to suspend a trade deal with Bolivia that is worth 20,000 Bolivian jobs and $150 million a year, but President Evo Morales says South America's poorest country shouldn't worry.

GUATEMALA CITY - Mexico extradited former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo on Tuesday to face corruption charges, and the ex-leader told a judge there is no evidence to support the allegations against him.

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's powerful drug cartels are buying drugs directly from Colombia's main rebel group, a senior Colombian defense official said Tuesday at a hemispheric meeting on crime.

GUATEMALA CITY - An armed man in a jealous rage took 42 hostages in a Guatemala City call center on Monday and released them unharmed and turned himself to police after a five-hour standoff, police said.

MEXICO CITY - The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Norbert has formed far off Mexico's Pacific coast.

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands - Lawyers for three U.S. Virgin Islands men accused of beating and stabbing to death a 21-year-old Pennsylvania man argued Monday that media pressure pushed prosecutors to pin their clients with false charges.

ACAPULCO, Mexico - The party that governed Mexico for 71 consecutive years has rebounded in local elections, returns showed on Monday, and a poll had it jumping into the lead for next year's national congressional vote.

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico - Five state police officers were arrested in southern Mexico on Sunday in connection with a deadly raid to dislodge protesters from a Mayan archaeological site.

BRASILIA, Brazil - Isolated shootings in Brazil soured Sunday's municipal elections that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's allies hope will give them a leg up on 2010's presidential vote.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican authorities say they have seized 7 million pills of pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient used to make methamphetamine, at the Guadalajara airport.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Bureaucrats in oil-rich Venezuela can look forward to fewer expensive SUVs, top-of-the-line mobile telephones and whiskey-fueled parties next year.

TIJUANA, Mexico - Police have found nine more bodies dumped around the Mexican border city of Tijuana, where nearly 50 people have been killed in a week of violence related to the drug trade.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Give up your gas-guzzler and get a free car. That's President Hugo Chavez's offer to Venezuelans.

LA PAZ, Bolivia - President Evo Morales said Saturday that Bolivia does not need U.S. help to control its coca crop, stepping up his anti-Washington rhetoric days after rejecting an American request to fly an anti-drug plane over the South American nation's territory.

CARACAS, Venezuela - A former Venezuelan defense minister who has become a prominent critic of President Hugo Chavez was detained by military prosecutors on suspicion of mismanaging government funds during his command.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The Pentagon on Friday denied military prosecutors' request to seek the death penalty in the trial of a Guantanamo detainee charged in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania, according to military documents.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The official death toll from four storms that ravaged Haiti this summer has nearly doubled to some 800 people, authorities said Friday.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Authorities in the Dominican Republic have issued an arrest warrant for New York Mets pitcher Ambiorix Burgos after a crash involving his SUV that killed two women.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A lawsuit filed by Antigua's ousted police commissioner shows it's not always a tropical idyll when a veteran officer from Britain or Canada chooses to spend the twilight of his career working in the Caribbean.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. economy got a US$700 billion shot in the arm Friday — and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands got a shot of assistance from rum.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela's state-owned bank says it will not be affected by the U.S. financial crisis.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Latin American stocks were mostly lower Friday after U.S. lawmakers approved a bailout plan for financial institutions amid concerns it won't be enough to prevent a global economic slowdown.

MERIDA, Mexico - Placido Domingo's concert at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza on Saturday night is being billed as "the world's greatest tenor at one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World," a claim few lovers of opera or history would dispute.

SANTIAGO, Chile - The Chilean government says the cost of living rose by 7.6 percent during the January-September period this year, compared with 7.3 percent during the same period in 2007.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican soldiers have found five small planes that were stolen after they were seized in an anti-drug operation.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Soldiers from both Cambodia and Thailand were wounded Friday in a brief clash along their volatile border, officials from the two countries said.