Struggling Spain offers engineers to Brazil

Spain's development minister is urging Brazil to hire some of the engineers that her own economy doesn't have room for.

Truth Commission member, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, speaks during their annual progress report in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 21, 2013. A 1979 amnesty law protects civilians and military personnel from liability for politically motivated crimes committed during the 1964-1985 military regime. But commission's coordinator Rosa Cardoso says they could be tried by the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Brazil commission says abusers could be tried

A Truth Commission investigating human rights abuses under Brazil's military dictatorship says that those it finds guilty of torture could be brought to trial. Photo Gallery Available

Ex-Ford execs charged in Argentine torture cases

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.

FILE - In this Feb. 14, 2012 file photo, a man transports a new Chinese made refrigerator in the trunk of a old car in Havana, Cuba. Cuba has authorized individual imports of appliances such as air conditioners, refrigerators and microwave ovens, lifting a ban imposed in 2005 amid a wave of energy shortages and blackouts. Islanders can now bring up to two such appliances per person into the country for noncommercial purposes, according to a law enacted with its publication Monday, May 20, 2013 in the Official Gazette. The list of approved items includes air conditioners with a capacity of less than 1 ton, ovens that consume less than 1,500 watts and microwaves under 2,000 watts. It also covers things including water heaters, toasters and irons.

Cuba lifts ban on energy-hogging appliances

Cuba has authorized individual imports of appliances such as air conditioners, refrigerators and microwave ovens, lifting a ban imposed in 2005 amid a wave of energy shortages and blackouts.

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.

Soldiers flood western Mexico to protect towns

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." Photo Gallery Available

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.

Guatemala ruling could keep ex-leader from prison

The decision to annul the genocide conviction of Guatemala's former U.S-backed dictator and restart his trial could spawn interminable delays in the effort to see him jailed for the massacre of thousands of Mayans, victims' advocates said Tuesday. Photo Gallery Available

Venezuela opposition: Audio suggest Cuban meddling

Venezuela's opposition has released an audio recording that it says contains a prominent member of the ruling party discussing political strategy with a Cuban intelligence officer.

Large earthquake strikes off coast of Chile

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.

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.

Cartel towns pose challenge for immigration reform

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. Photo Gallery Available

Drug charge for Virgin Islands environment officer

Federal agents have arrested the top enforcement officer for the U.S. Virgin Islands environment agency on drug trafficking charges after he was allegedly caught with a cache of cocaine on a government patrol boat.

Mexico judge orders prison for suspects in killing

A judge on Saturday issued an order for the imprisonment of two waiters accused in the beating death of Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of civil rights activist Malcolm X, the Mexico City attorney general's office said. Photo Gallery Available

Dissident ex-general released in Venezuela

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

FILE - In this March 24, 1977 file photo, Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla is seen commemorating the first anniversary of the military coup in Asuncion, Argentina. 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.

Reporter remembers fear in Videla's Argentina

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. Photo Gallery Available

3 killed, 3 injured in Puerto Rico shooting

Three people have been killed and three others injured during a shooting at a gas station in Puerto Rico.

Brazil beefs up security for Confederations Cup

Brazil is using more than 20,000 troops along its borders with 10 South American nations to reinforce security ahead of the Confederations Cup soccer tournament in June.

In this May 2, 2013 photo, a leatherback turtle heads back into the ocean after burying her clutch of eggs in the sand at daybreak on a narrow strip of beach in Grande Riviere, Trinidad. In years past, poachers from Grande Riviere and nearby towns would ransack the turtles’ buried eggs and hack the critically threatened reptiles to death with machetes to sell their meat in the market. Now, the turtles are the focus of a thriving tourist trade, with people so devoted to them that they shoo birds away when the turtles first start out as tiny hatchlings scurrying to sea.

Sea turtle comeback in a corner of the Caribbean

Giant leatherback turtles, some weighing half as much as a small car, drag themselves out of the ocean and up the sloping shore on the northeastern coast of Trinidad while villagers await wearing dimmed headlamps in the dark. Their black carapaces glistening, the turtles inch along the moonlit beach, using their powerful front flippers to move their bulky frames onto the sand. Photo Gallery Available

Cayman Islands ex-premier denies new allegations

The former premier of the Cayman Islands who faces charges in a corruption probe is denying allegations that he donated $1 million to a Caribbean university to obtain an honorary PhD.

New board to oversee Trinidad's Caribbean Airlines

Trinidad's finance minister has appointed a new interim board to oversee Caribbean Airlines after announcing that the state-owned company posted losses of more than $70 million.

Mexico to create police unit to search for missing

Mexico's government says it will create a special investigative unit to search for the missing, heeding a request by relatives of the disappeared who have been on a hunger strike for nine days.

Gay artist Gilberto Diez, 18, left, a gay transvestite artist known as "Ashenal," tests out some makeup as his companion Ernesto Nogues, 22, sits in a nearby armhair in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, May 16, 2013. A week of drag shows, colorful marches and social and cultural events in Havana culminates Friday with celebrations of the International Day Against Homophobia. Gays were persecuted for decades after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, sometimes sent to grueling rural work camps along with others considered socially suspect by the Communist government. But there has been a gradual shift away from macho attitudes, and Fidel Castro himself has publicly regretted the mistreatment of people seen as different.

AP PHOTOS: Cuba's LGBT community celebrates

A week of drag shows, colorful marches and social and cultural events in Havana culminates Friday with celebrations of the International Day Against Homophobia. Photo Gallery Available

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