http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/index.html http://media.miamiherald.com/images/logos/rss_sitelogo.gif http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/index.html 140 25 News, sports and entertainment from MiamiHerald.com en-us Copyright 2010 MiamiHerald.com Americas 60 Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:46:29 EST http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss McClatchy Interactive's PubSys miamifeedback@miamiherald.com http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1471803.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1471803.html Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:00 EST A Cuban political prisoner who has been on a hunger strike since December is ``worsening slowly'' despite a hospital's decision to feed him through intravenous tubes, relatives and others said Tuesday. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1470013.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1470013.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:00 EST As Haiti begins digging out from under 60 million cubic meters of earthquake wreckage, U.S. firms have begun jockeying for a bonanza of cleanup work. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1470006.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1470006.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:00 EST Laura Chinchilla has been called tough, intelligent, funny and honest.<p/> Late Sunday, Costa Ricans added another description: first female president. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1468711.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1468711.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:00 EST Costa Rica's governing party candidate took a commanding lead when vote counting began Sunday and swept toward an election victory that would make her the first woman president in this Central American nation. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1467206.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1467206.html Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:00 EST Marking 11 years in power this week and with a decisive Parliamentary election scheduled for late September, President Hugo Chávez faces his greatest crisis since the brief coup against him in 2002. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1471814.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1471814.html Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:00 EST When the earthquake struck, Marie Yvelene Boisdefer was at the soccer stadium, teaching a group of young women a dance routine they were going to debut during Haiti's pre-Lenten carnival festivities. http://www.miamiherald.com/1051/story/653894.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1051/story/653894.html Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:18 EDT Our prize-winning columnist also answers your questions online Thursdays at 1 p.m. http://www.miamiherald.com/1051/story/653899.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1051/story/653899.html Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:22 EDT <!--#include virtual="/static/blog_includes/cuban_colada.html" --> http://www.miamiherald.com/1051/story/653900.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1051/story/653900.html Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:24 EDT In-depth reports from the Americas http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1465831.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1465831.html Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:00 EST One child died and the condition of critically ill children from Haiti's earthquake worsened amid stricter rules over medical flights to Miami hospitals and others in the United States, doctors and patients say. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1461762.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1461762.html Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:00 EST For some human rights activists, the new face of violence in Colombia comes with a familiar mask.<p/> While a female activist was providing assistance to a woman victim of the paramilitaries at the victim's home in Antioquia, five men wearing balaclavas broke into the house, raped both women and warned the rights defender to stop doing human rights work. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1459854.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1459854.html Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:00 EST In 1995, only months after U.S. soldiers ejected military rulers from Haiti, then-U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., surveyed the decimated nation and warned: ``The international community has a one-year plan and a 10-year challenge.'' http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1459831.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1459831.html Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:00 EST A few blocks from where men lined up for backbreaking jobs digging corpses from the rubble for about $3 a day, a hotel was selling a ham sandwich for five times that amount. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1458779.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1458779.html Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:32 EST The U.S. government is asking a Miami federal judge to clear the way for former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to be extradited to France on money-laundering charges. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1458055.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1458055.html Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:00 EST René Préval had hoped the defining moment of his five-year reign over the crippled nation of Haiti would be this: building new roads, creating a stronger government and stabilizing the political landscape. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1455798.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1455798.html Sun, 31 Jan 2010 12:42 EST Three children in critical need of care were airlifted out of Haiti on Sunday morning to a hospital in Philadelphia -- on privately arranged flights -- five days after U.S. military medical evacuations were halted from this earthquake-ravaged nation. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1455518.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1455518.html Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:00 EST Sara C. Babún has spent most of her life in the ocean shipping business on the Miami River. As president and CEO of Antillean Marine Shipping, she has seen tons of cargo headed for Haiti. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1455513.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1455513.html Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:00 EST Hours after the earthquake in Haiti, South Florida emerged as a natural staging area for an epic relief effort to a nation now tragically defined by loss. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1455505.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1455505.html Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:00 EST The key issue that led to the halting of the military airlift that was bringing critically injured Haitians to the United States for treatment is cost. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1455493.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1455493.html Sat, 30 Jan 2010 01:00 EST Argentina's Central Bank chief resigned Friday, saying he could do no more to protect the nominally independent institution from the president's efforts to control its dollar reserves. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1454479.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1454479.html Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:52 EST South Florida hospital spokespeople strongly denied Saturday that their facilities are refusing to take more trauma patients from Haiti, leaving them to die at field hospitals in the earthquake-ravaged country. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1453994.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1453994.html Sat, 30 Jan 2010 01:00 EST In post-earthquake Haiti, theirs is perhaps the most important and grisliest of professions: body hunters for hire. <p/> They dig through the rubble looking for corpses. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1454027.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1454027.html Sat, 30 Jan 2010 01:00 EST The last time Marguerite Nelsie Leconte saw her husband, Ruben Leconte, was Jan. 10 when she drove him to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to catch a flight to Haiti, where he ran a private university. http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/906862.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/906862.html Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:21 EST Read The Miami Herald's full coverage of the key vote, and its aftermath http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/818585.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/818585.html Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:36 EST In this four-part series, The Miami Herald explores the impact of a changing immigration landscape on illegal immigrants, their families and their communities, from South Florida to Latin America and the Caribbean http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/797806.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/797806.html Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:30 EST Read all of The Miami Herald's Staff coverage of the malnutrition crisis faced by Haitian children http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/768141.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/768141.html Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:51 EST The Miami Herald's coverage of the 2008 Americas Conference, which drew hundreds of participants from the hemisphere. http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/704813.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/704813.html Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:36 EDT For generations, Vodou practitioners in rural Haiti have sworn by the mystic qualities of Jatropha, an indigenous plant believed to purge evil spirits and release the trapped souls of the dead. But the shrub may soon be in bigger demand as a source of biofuel http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/675722.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/675722.html Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:38 EDT The titles of her songs speak volumes: Wicked Men, Low Blow, Pure Pain and Hypocrite. Then there's her mega hit: Two-Legged Rat. Rife with tales of abusive husbands, impotent lovers and cheating boyfriends, these lyrics have made Francisca Viveros Barradas -- better known as Paquita la del Barrio -- much more than an artist. She has become a sociological phenomenon. http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/406087.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/406087.html Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:38 EST With oil enriching Venezuela's coffers, President Hugo Chávez is lavishing billions on other countries, boosting his socialist-tinged image. http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/39816.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/39816.html Tue, 13 Mar 2007 03:01 EDT The illegal battery smelter so contaminated children here that some of them have been found with what are supposed to be fatal levels of lead in their blood. But they are alive -- many of them with eye problems, seizures, severe learning deficiencies and blank stares like Johan's. http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/503497.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/503497.html Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:37 EDT The roots of this country's food crisis lies next to Mesidor Sagesse's humble field, where large-scale farming was long ago abandoned in favor of imported ''Miami'' rice. http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/899710.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/899710.html Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:56 EDT Click on the SPECIAL REPORTS tab on the green MULTIMEDIA line to see more in-depth reports by The Miami Herald http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/899711.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/899711.html Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:58 EDT More Miami Herald Cuba coverage http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/899717.html http://www.miamiherald.com/americas-special/story/899717.html Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:00 EDT More Miami Herald coverage of Haiti and the Caribbean http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1471803.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1471803.html Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:00 EST A Cuban political prisoner who has been on a hunger strike since December is ``worsening slowly'' despite a hospital's decision to feed him through intravenous tubes, relatives and others said Tuesday. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1459862.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1459862.html Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:15 EST Former Polish President and Nobel Peace Laureate Lech Walesa, a key player in helping bringing down communism in Eastern Europe, said Tuesday that there will soon be a political change in Cuba. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1454253.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1454253.html Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:00 EST An Obama administration that made several friendly gestures toward Cuba, hoping to at least warm 50 years of enmity, wound up its first year with mostly harsh retorts from Havana. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1454248.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1454248.html Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:00 EST Although there has been less of a public outcry than in the past, the return to Miami of controversial Cuban musicians like Los Van Van and Omara Portuondo is resurrecting some of the difficult questions that have long marked their U.S. performances. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1452245.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1452245.html Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:01 EST It is not that Juan Formell, the leader of Los Van Van, Cuba's most famous dance band, doesn't have any political views. It is just, he says, that he doesn't come to the United States - or to Miami, where Los Van Van play Sunday night - to promote them. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1448341.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1448341.html Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:47 EST The president of the Cuban American National Foundation and a director of the Cuban Liberty Council ridiculed a three-day conference that opens Wednesday in Havana and has drawn about 450 Cuban expatriates from around the world, including several from South Florida. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1445931.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1445931.html Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:00 EST The U.S. government's Cuba democracy programs are all but paralyzed, facing political, safety and bureaucratic hurdles that critics and backers agree could end up halting their more aggressive features. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1441144.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1441144.html Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:00 EST With a fractured leg on the verge of infection, Keder Chery could not afford the luxury of worrying on Friday about whether the Cuban doctors treating him at the La Renesans clinic were orthopedists or ophthalmologists. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1441048.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1441048.html Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:00 EST The U.S. government has offered medical supplies to Cuban doctors in earthquake-devastated Haiti, but the Cubans have not yet formally agreed to accept the aid, the State Department said Friday. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1436912.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1436912.html Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:00 EST Cuba's Raúl Castro may try to ``institutionalize the revolution'' before he leaves power by strengthening the military and legislature and ``revising'' the communist ideology, according to one scenario crafted by a Cuba expert at the University of Miami. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1426342.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1426342.html Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:00 EST At least 20 patients in a Cuban mental hospital died from hypothermia during the cold snap this week, said human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez, who branded it a case of ``criminal negligence by a government characterized by its general inefficiency.'' http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1424148.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1424148.html Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:00 EST A U.S. government subcontractor jailed in Cuba and branded as a spy was helping Jewish groups get ``unfiltered'' Internet access to sites like Wikipedia, sources said Wednesday. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1416767.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1416767.html Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:00 EST Cuban-born Latin pop legend Emilio Estefan has been on the red carpet plenty.<p/> But on this night at the Eden Roc Renaissance hotel in Miami Beach, the spotlight wasn't focused on Estefan's more famous Grammy-winning wife, Gloria, nor his Miami Sound Machine band, which helped push the Latin music beat into mainstream USA. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1415001.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1415001.html Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:17 EST This much is certain about the U.S. contractor arrested in Cuba last month: He gave civilian groups communications gear.<p/> But the specific nature of the equipment, which remains a mystery, threatens to complicate his legal case in Cuba -- and some experts say it could bolster the Castro government's contention that he was a spy on a mission to destabilize the regime. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1471814.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1471814.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:00 EST When the earthquake struck, Marie Yvelene Boisdefer was at the soccer stadium, teaching a group of young women a dance routine they were going to debut during Haiti's pre-Lenten carnival festivities. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1471521.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1471521.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:59 EST The tale seems dubious: that a rice vendor survived 27 days trapped under the rubble of a flea market following Haiti's devastating earthquake. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1471490.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1471490.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:45 EST Parents of some of the children who 10 U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after its catastrophic earthquake told a judge Tuesday that they freely handed over their kids, the Americans' lawyer said. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1471395.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1471395.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:40 EST Haiti's government has raised the death toll for the Jan. 12 earthquake to 230,000 from 212,000 and says more bodies remain uncounted. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1471365.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1471365.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:16 EST A look at the latest developments in Haiti on Tuesday, 28 days after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1470012.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1470012.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:00 EST The U.S. Agency for International Development has given two assignments for Haiti-related work to two beltway firms involved in international development: Washington, D.C.-based Chemonics International and Bethesda, Md.-based Development Alternatives Inc. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1470013.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1470013.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:00 EST As Haiti begins digging out from under 60 million cubic meters of earthquake wreckage, U.S. firms have begun jockeying for a bonanza of cleanup work. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1470002.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1470002.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:18 EST The United Nations warned Monday that it will cut off shipments of free medicine to Haitian hospitals that charge patients, saying it had learned some are levying fees for drugs. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1469807.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1469807.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:53 EST Fourteen-month-old Abigail Charlot survived Haiti's cataclysmic earthquake but not its miserable aftermath. Brought into the capital's General Hospital with fever and diarrhea, little Abigail literally dried up. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1469548.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1469548.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:06 EST A lawyer for 10 U.S. missionaries detained in Haiti says parents of the children they're suspected of kidnapping told a judge they freely handed over their kids. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1469424.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1469424.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:21 EST More than five dozen Haitian migrants detained as they sailed north through the Bahamas will be returned directly to the earthquake-ravaged country, the Bahamian prime minister said Monday. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1468728.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1468728.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:30 EST With schools in Haiti's capital city closed since last month's catastrophic earthquake -- and unlikely to open for several months -- informal classes have begun springing up in the streets. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1468714.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1468714.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:00 EST Haiti's criminal justice system was brought to a standstill by last month's earthquake, which leveled the capital city's courthouse. But crime did not stop, and that has left police commanders with jail cells full of frustrated inmates who have not been given a chance to go before a judge. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1468000.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/1468000.html Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:33 EST Survivors of Haiti's catastrophic earthquake have had one saving grace: There's been no significant rain since the disaster. But that won't last. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1471468.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1471468.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:25 EST Legislators allied with President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday they plan to adopt rules that will punish any lawmaker who abandons the socialist leader. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1469830.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1469830.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:03 EST President Hugo Chavez has signed a decree declaring an energy emergency in Venezuela to facilitate his government's efforts to ease severe energy shortages. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1469809.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1469809.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:53 EST Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has launched a new radio program in which he can take to the airwaves at any time of the day or night. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1463358.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1463358.html Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:56 EST Police used tear gas, plastic bullets and water cannons to scatter hundreds of students protesting against the government Thursday, while President Hugo Chavez's supporters celebrated the 18th anniversary of his failed coup as an army officer. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1461862.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1461862.html Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:04 EST President Hugo Chavez has turned to his friends in Cuba for help in tackling Venezuela's energy crisis, drawing criticism for seeking advice from the communist-led island that has struggled with its own electricity woes. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1459409.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1459409.html Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:54 EST The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights raised concerns Tuesday over clashes between supporters and opponents of President Hugo Chavez that have killed two people and injured dozens more. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1459119.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1459119.html Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:42 EST Venezuela deported alleged major drug traffickers to the U.S. and France on Tuesday, the country's top security official said. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1451702.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1451702.html Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:50 EST Venezuela denies one of its military helicopters strayed into Colombia's airspace this week. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1451212.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1451212.html Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:25 EST Police fired tear gas to chase off thousands of students demonstrating in the capital Thursday, a fifth day of protests against President Hugo Chavez for pressuring cable and satellite TV providers to drop an opposition channel. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1449727.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1449727.html Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:30 EST Colombia claims a Venezuelan military helicopter violated its airspace, and the government of President Alvaro Uribe wants an explanation from its South American neighbor. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1407170.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1407170.html Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:00 EST A multimillionaire Venezuelan businessman, currently jailed in Caracas on bank fraud charges, had been sent to Cuba by President Hugo Chávez to help the country recover from its economic slump and also to spur economic growth on the island after Fidel Castro dies, according to former employees. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1369229.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1369229.html Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:32 EST (AP) -- The brother of an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is being investigated for alleged links to a banking scandal that prompted the government takeover of several banks. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1245122.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1245122.html Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:26 EDT Authorities began opening tombs Monday to identify the remains of dozens of people killed during riots more than two decades ago and look for evidence against police and soldiers responsible for slayings during the unrest. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1235647.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1235647.html Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:02 EDT Hugo Chávez wants to join the nuclear-energy club and is looking to Russia for help.<p/> The Venezuelan leader is dismissing concerns over his nuclear ambitions, offering assurances that his aims are peaceful and that Venezuela will simply be following other South American nations in using nuclear energy. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/1218573.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/1218573.html Sat, 05 Sep 2009 08:37 EDT Olga Lucía Castillo could never bring to justice the men who raped her in Bogotá when she was pregnant with her daughter. Twelve years later, she is putting up the fight of her life to have a U.S. Army officer and a Mexican-born contractor indicted because, according to her, they raped her daughter at the military base in Melgar. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/1139341.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/1139341.html Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:19 EDT Ecuador today will begin imposing stiff tariffs on hundreds of Colombian imports, the latest round in a festering dispute between the neighbors. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/1072113.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/1072113.html Fri, 29 May 2009 15:33 EDT The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the oldest and strongest terrorist group in North or South America, turns 45 this week -- that's 45 years of kidnappings, murders, bombings and drug trafficking. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/1057063.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/1057063.html Wed, 20 May 2009 08:06 EDT Authorities in neighboring Colombia contend that the Ecuadorean border town of Puerto Nuevo is the thriving nerve center for an elite Colombian rebel unit that helps keep a 44-year-old insurgency alive by trafficking cocaine through Ecuador's ports. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/1053707.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/1053707.html Mon, 18 May 2009 07:47 EDT For weeks after the news broke, Colombians knew only that the secret police had spied on Supreme Court judges, opposition politicians, activists and journalists. Suspicions swirled that the orders for the wiretapping, as well as general surveillance, had come from the presidential palace. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/963414.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/963414.html Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:40 EDT What happened in northwestern Colombia more than a decade ago might easily have been forgotten. Illegal militias forced poor black farmers off their land, which politically connected businessmen then seized http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/951779.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/951779.html Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:50 EDT Whether they criticize President Uribe or his opponents, bloggers from Bogotá and other cities employ irreverent humor—borrowing from the British and Argentine traditions—to illustrate Colombia's political tensions. “Behind the liberty that their pseudonyms give them, (the bloggers) loosen the reins of their political passions," the weekly magazine Semana says. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/940780.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/940780.html Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:51 EDT Programs that help former FARC rebels and paramilitary troops reenter society is seen as crucial to the nation's long-term peace. The U.S. is on board, checkbook in hand. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/932061.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/932061.html Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:30 EST The murder of the president and the Army chief on Monday raises questions about the nature of the instability in the African nation. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/920972.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/920972.html Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:32 EST El ex director de Inteligencia del Ejército ecuatoriano Mario Pazmiño confirmó hoy a Efe que informes y fotografías que señalaban la presencia de la estudiante mexicana Lucía Morett en varios campamentos de las FARC el año pasado están documentados en la Dirección de Inteligencia Militar. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/902752.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/902752.html Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:33 EST Aware that law enforcement agencies of poor West African nations are no match for drug cartels using the region as a major transit hub, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the European Commission have launched a program to offer training in operations and intelligence gathering, as well as the chance to network with agents from other countries. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/899217.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/899217.html Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:14 EST Human rights groups Tuesday called on the Colombian government to investigate the disappearance and slayings of members of an indigenous community in southwestern Colombia. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/888265.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/888265.html Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:08 EST The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which has funded its war against the government with drug trafficking and kidnappings for ransom, has released four hostages: three police officers and a soldier. Two more are to be released in coming days, according to a senior rebel leader, as a gesture of goodwill. But the time for gestures is long past. If the FARC's aim is political credibility, it needs to demonstrate a complete rejection of lawless behavior and release the hundreds of other captives it still holds in the jungle. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/862406.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/colombia/story/862406.html Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:20 EST Colombian military officials say the 20% increase in FARC desertions last year from the 2007 level is compelling evidence of their increasing battlefield dominance over the FARC, which the military has been fighting for more than 40 years. http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1142392.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1142392.html Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:20 EDT De facto, interim or congressionally installed -- no matter the qualifier -- Roberto Micheletti is not the president of Honduras. Manuel Zelaya is, and like him or not, the man who was ousted in a military-civilian coup on June 28 should be returned to Tegucigalpa to finish the last months of his term http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1142364.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1142364.html Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:53 EDT In a perfect world former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya would be in jail in his own country right now, awaiting trial. The Honduran attorney general has charged him with deliberately violating Honduran law and the Supreme Court ordered his arrest in Tegucigalpa on June 28. http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1139368.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1139368.html Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:31 EDT As the Obama administration and a host of Latin American governments campaigned to reverse the coup in Honduras, another democratically elected Latin leader embarked on a lonely effort to draw attention to the double standard that has lately governed violations of political and human rights in the region. http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1134041.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1134041.html Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:56 EDT The Perils of Latin America's Oversized Militaries http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1134039.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1134039.html Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:51 EDT The best way to defeat deposed president Manuel Zelaya lies in allowing his return. http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1124605.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1124605.html Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:24 EDT A few weeks ago, Normando Hernandez Gonzalez got the kind of news that usually prompts cheers and emotion-filled toasts. The Cuban journalist and poet had been awarded the annual Freedom of Expression award by the Norwegian Writers’ Union. A delegation traveled from Oslo to the island nation to present the award, which included a prize of 100,000 kroner (about $15,775). http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1119210.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1119210.html Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:08 EDT Bill Clinton and George W. Bush recently had a face-to-face debate in Canada to discuss current affairs. The only Latin American nation mentioned in their conversation? Cuba. http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1119208.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1119208.html Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:04 EDT The Obama administration has made an excellent first step to eliminate some restrictions on travel to Cuba, to loosen constraints on remittances, and to re-engage in migration talks. Positive, multiple lines of engagement are clearly the way forward. Broader contact and leverage with Cuba through additional commercial and people-to-people contacts will in time help promote a more pluralistic, less impoverished, and more open society. http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1097153.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1097153.html Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:27 EDT As the Obama administration slowly inches towards normalizing its relations with Cuba, pressure is mounting on the new president to lift the decades-old, and universally acknowledged, anachronistic embargo http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1090542.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1090542.html Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:42 EDT What does Venezuela's Hugo Chavez call a nation that develops peacefully, embraces markets, promotes property rights, pursues free trade and has no use for his revolution? A target. Welcome to Peru. http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1090435.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1090435.html Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:03 EDT In all my years as an observer of international affairs, I have seldom seen the Organization of American States (OAS) so energized by a single issue. If only that issue were the humanitarian tragedy of Haiti, or the defense of democracy in those member countries where it is under siege--such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1088819.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1088819.html Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:03 EDT In a post-bubble world that vilifies the private sector and elevates government as humanity's best hope, two events in Latin America last week deserve attention. The first was a meeting of the Organization of American States in Honduras. The OAS voted to lift the 1962 ban on Cuba's membership. The second was the 25th anniversary celebration of the Venezuelan, pro-liberty think-tank Cedice Libertad in Caracas. http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1087208.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1087208.html Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:01 EDT THE INVITATION to membership extended to Cuba Wednesday by the Organization of American States was long overdue. The United States' effort to continue Cuba's exclusion from the OAS was at best a historical anomaly, at worst a blunder that isolated not Cuba but the United States. http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1081198.html http://www.miamiherald.com/294/story/1081198.html Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:52 EDT For 50 years, the Cuban people have suffered under Fidel Castro’s, and now Raúl Castro’s, repressive rule. But Washington’s embargo — a cold war anachronism kept alive by Florida politics — has not lessened that suffering and has given the Castros a far-too-convenient excuse to maintain their iron grip on power. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1142483.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1142483.html Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:35 EDT To many poor Hondurans, deposed president Manuel "Mel" Zelaya was a trailblazing ally who scrapped school tuitions, raised the minimum wage and took on big business. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1142398.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1142398.html Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:26 EDT Allen Andersson made a bundle, then made things happen -- for a while -- in Honduras http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1129064.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1129064.html Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:43 EDT Bayonet-wielding soldiers are not the biggest threat to democracy in Latin America, where more than a dozen presidents have been removed prematurely since 1990. In recent years, a crop of elected, authoritarian-minded leaders has packed courts with supporters, held dubious elections and curtailed press freedoms. Legislatures have also pushed the boundaries of democratic order, giving legal cover to "civilian coups" in which protest groups have forced the ouster of presidents. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1128653.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1128653.html Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:11 EDT Honduras' new leadership ignores OAS deadline to restore Manuel Zelaya, and threatens to arrest him if he returns. The coup has brought deep divisions in Honduras to the fore. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1119427.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1119427.html Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:53 EDT When he was finally caught, Rosalio Reta told detectives here that he had felt a thrill each time he killed. It was like being Superman or James Bond, he said. “I like what I do,” he told the police in a videotaped confession. “I don’t deny it.” http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1101381.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1101381.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:11 EDT Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera has become a narco folk hero, and each year that Mexico is unable to catch "El Chapo" his legend grows. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1099434.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1099434.html Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:45 EDT Remittances sent home by Mexicans in the United States are the second-largest source of legal foreign revenue in the country. Last year, according to the Bank of Mexico, migrants sent home $25 billion. But the remittances have been falling steadily since the end of 2007, when construction, manufacturing and service industries began to sputter. These sectors employ a disproportionate percent of the almost 12 million Mexicans living in the United States, most of them illegally. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1099427.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1099427.html Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:40 EDT Assailants have been targeting addicts in Ciudad Juarez for the past year. In August, eight men were killed and five wounded by unknown attackers as they gathered for prayer at a treatment facility in this border city. Last week, a man was executed at a third rehabilitation center. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1097180.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1097180.html Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:54 EDT Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent troops into his home state of Michoacan in 2006 to fight drug traffickers, U.S. and Mexican officials have described a growing free-for-all between warring cartels in the state where 10 mayors were recently detained and are being investigated for alleged ties to drug traffickers. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1097171.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1097171.html Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:45 EDT The reminders of Nuevo Laredo’s violent days still mar its streets — bullet holes and the impacts of grenades where drug traffickers once flaunted their power, boarded-up buildings of merchants who fled the lawlessness, and until they were leveled by the government a few weeks ago, garish roadside shrines to Santa Muerte, the saint of death. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1094019.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1094019.html Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:06 EDT In recent weeks, officials in Venezuela -- where the government controls a media apparatus devoted to glowing coverage of the president -- have appeared increasingly obsessed with Globovision, the 24-hour, all-news station. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1092170.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1092170.html Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:22 EDT Yuri Melini was shot seven times by an assailant nine months ago. The outspoken champion of environmental causes has made many enemies, and gained recognition too. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1090488.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1090488.html Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:36 EDT After declaring independence from the rest of Nicaragua in April, a group of indigenous activists from the Mosquito Coast readied a grand celebration to commemorate the occasion. Their feast would be ruined, however, when the regional government sent in the police to seize the main course. http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1088766.html http://www.miamiherald.com/1320/story/1088766.html Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:54 EDT Cliff divers, all-night discos, towering hotels on the sand — that is one side of Acapulco. But a four-hour gun battle over the weekend between soldiers and suspected drug traffickers made clear that the popular beach resort has a dark side and that no part of Mexico may be completely immune from the continuing drug war. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/1472447.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/1472447.html Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:33 EST Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner has left the hospital three days after emergency surgery on an artery that feeds blood to his brain. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/1472317.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/1472317.html Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:58 EST A television news helicopter crashed near a busy highway in Brazil's largest city Wednesday, killing the pilot and seriously injuring a cameraman onboard. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/1471652.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/1471652.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:07 EST President-elect Sebastian Pinera named a Cabinet of technocrats Tuesday to run his government, calling more on political independents than members of the Chilean conservative parties that made him their standard-bearer. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/1471630.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/1471630.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:57 EST A governing party candidate in Bolivia is making 1,000 adobe bricks as part of a drunk-driving sentence handed down under the community justice system backed by the country's pro-indigenous government. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/1471610.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/1471610.html Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:42 EST Just a few weeks ago, the two officers were lauded as part of a new breed of honest cop, elevated to become key players in a drive to overhaul one of Mexico's most notorious police forces.