Latin America

• Wednesday, August 28th 2019 - 09:50 UTC

  Peru and Colombia propose an emergency Amazon basin summit

  

  Peru and Colombia proposed on Tuesday an emergency Amazon summit for countries in the region in order to coordinate a strategy to protect the vast rainforest currently blighted by numerous fires. The Amazon is known as the “planet's lungs” but is suffering from its worst outbreak of fires in years, which has sparked a global outcry.

• Wednesday, August 28th 2019 - 09:34 UTC

  Bolivian president Morales welcomes the G7 tiny contribution to preserve the Amazon rainforest

  

  Bolivia's president Evo Morales gave a half-hearted welcome on Tuesday to a G7 pledge of US$20 million to fight the Amazon wildfires, describing it as “tiny.” An underwhelmed Morales said the aid from the most industrialized countries was part of the world's “obligation” to preserve the Amazon rainforest.

• Wednesday, August 28th 2019 - 09:15 UTC

  Archeologists in Peru find 227 bodies of pre Columbian sacrificed children

  

  Archeologists in Peru say the 227 bodies they have unearthed from a site used by the pre-Columbian Chimu culture is the biggest-ever discovery of sacrificed children. Archeologists have been digging since last year at the huge sacrificial site in Huanchaco, a beachside tourist town north of the capital Lima.

• Tuesday, August 27th 2019 - 08:59 UTC

  Venezuelan migrants will be provided with a regional vaccination card

  

  Venezuelan migrants will be provided with a regional vaccination card beginning in October, health officials from 10 countries agreed on Monday in an effort to ensure they receive needed vaccines and are not given double doses. More than 4 million Venezuelans have fled an economic and political crisis in their home country that has caused widespread shortages of food and medicine.

• Tuesday, August 27th 2019 - 08:30 UTC

  Argentine court rejects request to throw out a corruption case against ex president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

  

  An Argentine court rejected on Monday a request from lawyers to throw out a corruption case against former president and current vice-presidential candidate Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

• Monday, August 26th 2019 - 18:18 UTC

  Morales suspends re-election campaigning and calls for aid to fight blazes in the Bolivian Amazon

  

  Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Sunday he is open to international aid to fight the blazes that have engulfed rural villages and doubled in size since Thursday. Morales is also suspending his campaign for re-election for at least a week, just two months from election day, to focus on the wildfires.

• Monday, August 26th 2019 - 17:56 UTC

  New fires raging in the Amazon; agriculture sector warns Bolsonaro: “nationalistic bravado will not win the game”

  

  Hundreds of new fires are raging in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, official data showed, as thousands of troops were made available to help fight the worst blazes in years following a global outcry. Multiple fires billowing huge plumes of smoke into the air were seen across a vast area of the northwestern state of Rondonia.

• Friday, August 23rd 2019 - 09:40 UTC

  Forest fires in Bolivia: half a million hectares, 1.700 fighters and a Super tanker

  

  Bolivian authorities warned this week that 70% of the department of Santa Cruz — where more than a quarter of the country's population lives — is under “extreme risk” from forest fires. According to the government, nearly 500,000 hectares of forest have now been turned into ashes.

• Thursday, August 22nd 2019 - 09:56 UTC

  Bolsonaro suggests green groups started the blaze in the Amazon to blame him

  

  Wildfires in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil have ignited a firestorm on social media, with President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday suggesting green groups started the blazes. Images of fires purportedly devouring sections of the world's largest rainforest have gone viral on Twitter.

• Thursday, August 22nd 2019 - 09:54 UTC

  Tougher rules at US borders: no limit for migrant children's detention and an end to birthright citizenship

  

  President Donald Trump's administration announced on Wednesday that it would remove tough legal limits on how long migrant children can be detained as part of its broader crackdown on undocumented immigrants.