May 24, 2013

Latin America

  • Ex-Guatemala president extradited to US - May 24 2013 18:49

    Former president of Guatemala, Alfonso Portillo, left, speaks to the press as he is led by police to an aircraft that will fly him to the United States from Guatemala City, Friday, May 24, 2013. Portillo was extradited to the United States to face charges of laundering $70 million in Guatemalan funds through U.S. bank accounts. (AP Photo)GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo was extradited on Friday to the United States to face charges of laundering $70 million in Guatemalan funds through U.S. bank accounts.


  • Barrick fined $16m for Pascua-Lama violations - May 24 2013 15:35

    Mining machinery and barrels with chemicals sit on the facilities of Barrick Gold Corp's Pascua-Lama project in northern Chile, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Chile's environmental regulator has stopped construction and imposed sanctions on Barrick Gold Corp.'s $8.5 billion Pascua-Lama project, citing "serious violations" of its environmental permit. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)VALLENAR, Chile (AP) — Chile's environmental regulator blocked Barrick Gold Corp.'s $8.5 billion Pascua-Lama project on Friday and imposed its maximum fine on the world's largest gold miner, citing "very serious" violations of its environmental permit as well as a failure by the company to accurately describe what it had done wrong.


  • Venezuela to create new workers militia - May 24 2013 12:25

    Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro arrives to attend President Rafael Correa's swearing-in ceremony in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, May 24, 2013. Correa is starting a third term as president. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's president has ordered the creation of a new workers' militia to defend the country's "Bolivarian revolution" at a time when the government faces economic problems and political turmoil.


  • Chile blocks world's highest mine project - May 24 2013 09:11
    VALLENAR, Chile (AP) — Chile's environmental regulator has stopped construction and imposed sanctions on Barrick Gold Corp.'s $8.5 billion Pascua-Lama project, citing "serious violations" of its environmental permit.
  • Cayman opposition will lead coalition gov't - May 23 2013 10:10
    GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (AP) — Election officials in the Cayman Islands say the opposition party has won nine of 18 seats, one short of a majority needed to control the British territory's legislature.
  • Canada businessman's corruption trial on in Cuba - May 23 2013 09:53

    Canadian businessman Sarkis Yacoubian, center, goes to court for the start of a corruption trial in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, May 23, 2013. The trial of Yacoubian, who was president of import company Tri-Star Caribbean which was shuttered in July 2011, is under way nearly two years after he was detained. The anti-graft drive has swept up a number of foreign business executives and Cuban officials at major state-run companies. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)HAVANA (AP) — A Canadian businessman caught up in a corruption probe in Cuba apparently went on trial Thursday, nearly two years after he was detained and his import company, Tri-Star Caribbean, was shuttered.


  • Mexico cartel dominates, torches western state - May 22 2013 16:07

    In this May 20, 2013 photo, an armed man belonging to a local self-defense group patrols from the back of a pick-up truck in the town of Buenavista, Mexico. Self-defense groups started to spring up in February to fight back the Knights Templar drug cartel which is extorting protection payments from cattlemen and lime growers, butchers and even marijuana growers. The federal government sees both the self-defense forces and the cartel as dangerous enemies. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)LA RUANA, Mexico (AP) — The farm state of Michoacan is burning. A drug cartel that takes its name from an ancient monastic order has set fire to lumber yards, packing plants and passenger buses in a medieval-like reign of terror.


  • Ex-Ford execs charged in Argentine torture cases - May 21 2013 16:10
    BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Three former Ford Motor Co. executives were charged Tuesday with crimes against humanity for allegedly targeting Argentine union workers for kidnapping and torture after the country's 1976 military coup.
  • Soldiers flood western Mexico to protect towns - May 21 2013 14:23

    Mexican army soldiers enter the town of La Ruana, Michoacan, Mexico, Monday, May 20, 2013. Residents of western Mexico towns who endured months besieged by a drug cartel are cheering the arrival of hundreds of Mexican army troops. Hundreds of people in the state of Michoacan have taken up arms to defend their villages against drug gangs, a vigilante movement born of frustration at extortion, killings and kidnappings in a region wracked by violence. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)COALCOMAN, Mexico (AP) — Mexico's top security officials promised Tuesday that a new federal offensive to rescue towns besieged by the Knights Templar drug cartel in western Michoacan state would stay "until there is security and peace for all state residents."


  • Troops flood western Mexico to protect towns - May 21 2013 12:17

    Mexican army soldiers enter the town of La Ruana, Michoacan, Mexico, Monday, May 20, 2013. Residents of western Mexico towns who endured months besieged by a drug cartel are cheering the arrival of hundreds of Mexican army troops. Hundreds of people in the state of Michoacan have taken up arms to defend their villages against drug gangs, a vigilante movement born of frustration at extortion, killings and kidnappings in a region wracked by violence. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)COALCOMAN, Mexico (AP) — Mexico's top security officials gathered Tuesday in the western state of Michoacan to launch a campaign with thousands of army troops to rescue towns besieged, sometimes for months, by the powerful Knights Templar drug cartel.


  • Guatemala top court overturns genocide conviction - May 20 2013 23:06

    FILE - In this Friday, May 10, 2013 file photo, Guatemala's former dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt wears headphones as he listens to the verdict in his genocide trial in Guatemala City. Guatemala's top court has overturned the genocide conviction of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt's and ordered his trial to resume. Constitutional Court secretary Martin Guzman says the trial needs to go back to where it stood on April 19 to solve several appeal issues. Monday's ruling comes 10 days after a three-judge panel convicted the 86-year-old Rios Montt of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in massacres of Mayas during Guatemala's civil war. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala's top court has thrown another curve into the genocide case of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, overturning his conviction and ordering that the trial be taken back to the middle of the proceedings.


  • Besieged Mexican town cheers arrival of soldiers - May 20 2013 21:37

    Mexican army soldiers enter the town of La Ruana, Michoacan, Mexico, Monday, May 20, 2013. Residents of western Mexico towns who endured months besieged by a drug cartel are cheering the arrival of hundreds of Mexican army troops. A growing number of people in the state of Michoacan have taken up arms to defend their villages against drug gangs, a vigilante movement born of frustration at extortion, killings and kidnappings in a region wracked by violence. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)LA RUANA, Mexico (AP) — Residents of a western Mexico area who endured months besieged by a drug cartel cheered the arrival of hundreds of Mexican soldiers Monday.


  • Cartel towns pose challenge for immigration reform - May 20 2013 07:36

    The Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, right, a Catholic priest visiting from southern Mexico, stands outside the migrant shelter in Matamoros, Mexico on April 8, 2013. After gunmen kidnapped 15 people from the shelter it began encouraging migrants to go into the streets during the day to become more difficult targets for organized crime. (AP Photo/Christopher Sherman)MATAMOROS, Mexico (AP) — Just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, stands a dormitory-style shelter filled with people recently deported from the U.S. and other migrants waiting to cross the border.


  • Large earthquake strikes off coast of Chile - May 20 2013 06:16
    SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A magnitude-6.5 earthquake struck off the coast of Chile on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but Chilean officials said it was not felt on land and discarded the possibility that it might unleash a tsunami.
  • Reporter remembers fear in Videla's Argentina - May 18 2013 16:57

    FILE - In this March 24, 1976 file photo, Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla, center, is sworn-in as president at the Buenos Aires Government House accompanied by Adm. Emilio Massera, second from left, and Brig. Orlando Agosti, second from right, members of the junta that overthrew President Isabel Peron. The former Argentine dictator died of natural causes Friday, May 17, 2013, while serving life sentences at the Marcos Paz prison for crimes against humanity. Videla took power in a 1976 coup and led a military junta that killed thousands of his fellow citizens in a dirty war to eliminate "subversives." He was 87. (AP Photo/Eduardo Di Baia, File)BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — 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.