Latin America

• Friday, February 22nd 2019 - 21:59 UTC

  “Massive humanitarian implications:” Venezuelan exodus reaches 3.4 million

  

  The larges exodus in Latin America’s history just got larger, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said. UN agencies sounded the alarm on Friday over the humanitarian needs after the number of refugees and migrants from Venezuela reached 3.4 million people.

• Friday, February 22nd 2019 - 10:01 UTC

  Rare giant tortoise surfaces in the Galapagos Islands after a century

  

  Conservationists in the Galapagos Islands have found a giant tortoise from a species thought to have become extinct more than a century ago. The adult female tortoise was found on the island of Fernandina in the west of the Pacific archipelago and is believed to be a Fernandina Giant Tortoise, also known as Chelonoidis phantasticus, a species last sighted in 1906.

• Friday, February 22nd 2019 - 09:48 UTC

  Maduro closes the border with Brazil; Guaidó leads caravan to Colombian border

  

  President Nicolas Maduro ordered the closure of Venezuela's border with Brazil on Thursday in an increasingly fraught power struggle. Guaido set out in a convoy of vehicles to personally pick up US aid being stockpiled on the other side of the Colombian border, defying Maduro's military to stop him.

• Thursday, February 21st 2019 - 09:09 UTC

  Maduro's regime closes air and sea traffic from Caribbean islands to block humanitarian aid

  

  Venezuela’s government said on Wednesday that it was closing its border to air and sea traffic from three Caribbean islands in an effort to block aid shipments to the country organized by the Venezuelan opposition.

• Thursday, February 21st 2019 - 08:34 UTC

  Taiwan to the rescue of “socialist” Ortega with a 20-year US$ 100 million loan

  

  Nicaragua's Congress on Tuesday accepted a US$ 100 million loan offered by Taiwan, giving a line of support to President Daniel Ortega's government, which has become increasingly isolated after a brutal crackdown on protesters last year.

• Wednesday, February 20th 2019 - 09:34 UTC

  Latam Airlines expected to have a 51% controlling interest in Latam Brazil

  

  Chile’s LATAM Airlines Group SA has asked Brazil’s antitrust regulator Cade to boost its voting stake in LATAM Airlines Brazil to 51%, formalizing a controlling interest in Brazil’s No. 2 airline that for years it was unable to achieve because of local restrictions.

• Tuesday, February 19th 2019 - 09:23 UTC

  Trump calls on Venezuelan military to support opposition leader Juan Guaido

  

  President Donald Trump said on Monday that “a new day is coming in Latin America,” as he sought to rally support among the largest Venezuelan community in the U.S. for opposition leader Juan Guaidó. Speaking at Florida International University in Miami before large American and Venezuelan flags, Trump said the U.S. stands behind Guaido, whom the U.S. recognizes as the country's rightful president, and condemns President Nicolas Maduro's government and its socialist policies.

• Tuesday, February 19th 2019 - 09:19 UTC

  Sixteen states sue Trump on his national emergency order to build the wall with Mexico

  

  Sixteen US states sued President Donald Trump's administration on Monday over his decision to declare a national emergency to fund a wall on the southern border with Mexico, saying the move violated the constitution. The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in California, said the president's order was contrary to the Presentment Clause that outlines legislative procedures and the Appropriations Clause, which defines Congress as the final arbiter of public funds.

• Saturday, February 16th 2019 - 16:36 UTC

  US Air Force plane takes off with help for Venezuela

  

  A C-17 cargo plane of the United States Air Force took off Saturday from the Homestead Air Force Base, in Florida, with the Venezuelan-Colombian border as the destination. The aircraft is one of three that will transport 250 tons of food, hygiene kits and nutritional supplements, a congressional aide to the US Congress told the Associated Press (AP).

• Saturday, February 16th 2019 - 10:59 UTC

  US/Mexico Trump challenges Congress and declares a national emergency

  

  President Donald Trump on Friday declared a national emergency in a bid to fund his promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border without congressional approval, an action Democrats vowed to challenge as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.