South America

CARACAS, Sept 9 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Venezuela’s National Assembly gave the green light for President Nicolás Maduro to leave the country on an international tour of “friendly” nations, it was reported in Caracas.

The Legislative Branch unanimously approved a request for the head of state to be absent for more than five days on a State visit to the People’s Republic of China and other friendly countries “in representation of the highest interests of the nation,” according to Congress Speaker Jorge Rodríguez.

LIMA, Sept 7 (NNN-ANDINA) – Peru’s President, Dina Boluarte, yesterday unveiled changes to six cabinet posts, an unexpected cabinet shuffle that came just four months since the last shake-up.

The changes reassigned Daniel Maurate from heading the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, a job he assumed in Apr, to heading Labour and Employment Promotion. Eduardo Arana, a lawyer from the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega University, took over Maurate’s previous position.

SAO PAULO, Sept 5 (NNN-CMA) – At least four people died yesterday, after an extratropical cyclone triggered floods and landslides in the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, authorities said.

A man was electrocuted when his home was inundated, while another young man and a couple died when their cars were swept away by floods.

The storms caused floods in more than 15 cities in the state that borders Argentina and Uruguay, including the state capital, Porto Alegre.

In June, 16 people died in the state after an extratropical cyclone made landfall.

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Men walk through a lush plantation between Ecuador ’s balmy Pacific coast and its majestic Andes, lopping hundreds of bunches of green bananas from groaning plants twice their height.

Workers haul the bunches to an assembly line, where the bananas are washed, weighed and plastered with stickers for European buyers. Owner Franklin Torres is monitoring all activity on a recent morning to make sure the fruit meets international beauty standards — and ever more important, is packed for shipment free of cocaine.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — If a baby was taken from their parents four decades ago during Argentina’s military dictatorship, what would that person look like today?

Argentine publicist Santiago Barros has been trying to answer that question using artificial intelligence to create images of what the children of parents who disappeared during the dictatorship might look like as adults.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuadorian authorities announced Friday the release of 50 guards and seven police officers who were taken hostage for more than a day, in what the government described as a response by criminal groups to its efforts to regain control of several large correctional facilities in the South American country.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador’s fragile security situation was underscored Thursday by a series of car bombings and the hostage-taking of more than 50 law enforcement officers inside various prisons, just weeks after the country was shaken by the assassination of a presidential candidate.

Ecuador’s National Police reported no injuries resulting from the four explosions in Quito, the capital, and in a province that borders Peru, while Interior Minister Juan Zapata said none of the law enforcement officers taken hostage in six different prisons had been injured.

30 August 2023; MEMO: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that the world with its different blocs and powers “will not be the same after the expansion of the BRICS group” during the recent South African summit. President da Silva, otherwise known simply as Lula, made his comment in a weekly video presenting the most prominent local developments, Anadolu has reported. 

SAO PAULO/MONTREAL, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Russia has informed Brazil's aircraft investigation authority that it will not probe the crash of the Brazilian-made Embraer (EMBR3.SA) jet that killed mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin under international rules "at the moment", the Brazilian agency told Reuters on Tuesday.

Prigozhin, two top lieutenants of his Wagner Group and four bodyguards were among 10 people who died when the Embraer Legacy 600 crashed north of Moscow last week.

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuadorian voters looking for a new leader to help curb the country’s unprecedented violence will have to head to the polls again in October for a runoff that is likely to see the ally of a convicted former president vie against the principal heir of a banana growing and exporting empire.