
United States Congress would deliver a great blow to Peru, Panama and Colombia, as well as damage U.S. interests in Latin America, if it fails to pass free-trade agreements with the three countries, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday.

Uruguay will ban Argentine activists who oppose a pulp mill in Fray Bentos, from marching or organizing concentrations so as to avoid provocations, announced Minister of Interior Daisy Tourné.

The United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) awarded Honduras sovereignty over four cays in the Caribbean Sea and delineated its maritime boundary with Nicaragua as part of a ruling on the long-running border dispute between the two Central American countries.

President Michelle Bachelet opened the 8th annual Biarritz Forum Monday with a speech urging unity across Chile's social and political sectors. The President welcomed business leaders and government officials from across Latin America and Europe to the annual conference, held this year at the Casa de Piedra in Santiago's Vitacura borough.

A court in Argentina on Tuesday sentenced a former Roman Catholic police chaplain to life imprisonment for collaborating in murders during the country's military dictatorship. Christian Von Wernich, 69, was convicted for involvement in seven murders, 42 abductions and 31 cases of torture during the 1976-83 Dirty War.

Costa Rica's president Oscar Arias declared victory Sunday in his drive to join a free trade deal with the United States, announcing on television that voters had backed it in a referendum.
Chilean government spokesperson Ricardo Lagos Webber denied Sunday allegations that the government was deliberately persecuting Augusto Pinochet's widow and five children. His remarks come after Pinochet's eldest daugherâ€who, along with her four siblings, was released on bail Fridayâ€charged that the family had been held in the so-called Riggs Bank case as political prisoners.

It's been 40 years since the militant revolutionary was executed in a Bolivian schoolhouse. To leftist governments across Latin America, he's still a beloved icon. It was a long fight, but the Cubans have finally conquered this forlorn Andean hamlet, four decades after Ernesto Che Guevara was executed in the adobe schoolhouse.

United States Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez arrived Monday in Uruguay as part of a regional visit that also includes Brazil, with the purpose of further promoting greater bilateral trade, economic growth and greater commercial cooperation.

The United Nations Fourth Committee, the Special Political and Decolonization, meets this Monday for an opening session under the Chairmanship of Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad from Sudan.