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May 20, 2013

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World: Latin America

Brazil approves law to modernize ports

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) Brazil's Congress has approved legislation aimed at modernizing and expanding the country's overcrowded ports and attracting private investments in the sector.The legislation approved Thursday night allows the private sector to invest in state-owned ports and lifts restrictions that have hindered ...

Venezuela's military enters high-crime slums

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) Venezuelan soldiers are manning dozens of checkpoints across the country's capital in an effort to control a pandemic of violence.Many residents are weary of being terrorized by armed gangs and welcome the program, even if critics dismiss it as a ...

OAS drug study eyes decriminalization

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) A new Organization of American States study commissioned in response to calls by some Latin American leaders for rethinking the drug war discusses possible decriminalization of consumption of marijuana as part of a public health approach.The $2.2 million study makes ...

Argentine ex-dictator Jorge Videla dies in prison

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) Former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla has died of natural causes while serving life sentences in prison for crimes against humanity.Videla took power in a 1976 coup and led a military junta that killed thousands of his fellow citizens in ...

Bolivia's Morales faces 11th day of protests

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) Hundreds of miners, teachers and other workers have marched in Bolivia's capital on the 11th day of protests called by the country's largest union to demand higher old-age pensions.Miners exploded dynamite and protesters tried to occupy the plaza where Bolivia's ...

Use of Internet and cellphones soars in Brazil

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) A government survey says the number of Brazilians using the Internet and cellphones has soared more than 100 percent since 2005.The IBGE statistics agency says that between 2005 and 2011, the number of people aged 10 or more with access ...

Jamaica woman accused of conning elderly Canadian

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) A Jamaican woman has been charged with fraud after allegedly swindling an elderly Canadian man in a lottery scam.For years, numerous Jamaican fraudsters have conned mostly elderly Americans out of their retirement savings by promising that they've won millions in ...

Puerto Rico faces lowest coffee production ever

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) Coffee production in Puerto Rico has hit the lowest level ever in the island's history, leaving farmers and government officials worried about how to revive a once burgeoning industry.Agriculture Secretary Myrna Comas says farmers produced some 80,000 pounds (36,000 kilograms) ...

Argentina brokers 24 pct wage hikes for millions

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) Two million Argentines will get wage hikes of 24 percent under a deal President Cristina Fernandez brokered with six allied labor unions.Now the government is hoping for similar numbers in next month's salary negotiations with unions aligned with her political ...

Now Venezuela is running out of toilet paper

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities _ toilet paper.Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, the embattled socialist government says it will import 50 million rolls.That was little ...

Colombia court convicts ex-lawmaker in massacre

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) Colombia's Supreme Court has convicted a former longtime congressman of being the mastermind behind the massacre of 43 people by right-wing paramilitary fighters in the north of the country more than two decades ago. It has sentenced him to 30 ...

Agency: Jamaica cops deal poorly with mentally ill

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) An independent agency that investigates abuse allegations against Jamaica's security forces says the island's police need training in how to deal with mentally ill citizens.A report from the Independent Commission of Investigations says 75 percent of police confrontations with mentally ...

Nicaragua extradites US man in $137M fraud case

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) Nicaraguan authorities say they have deported a U.S. man wanted for fraud and money laundering in his home country.Interior Minister Ana Morales says Lawrence Hartman was deported to Florida on Wednesday.She says the 47-year-old lawyer was detained April 25 when ...

Dominican Republic sets crackdown on prostitution

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) Prostitution has long been practiced openly in the Dominican Republic but that could soon change.The Dominican attorney general says clients of prostitutes and anyone who makes money off the work of prostitutes will face arrest in a crackdown on the ...

El Salvador court hears arguments in abortion case

8 hours, 53 minutes ago

(AP) El Salvador's Supreme Court is hearing opening arguments in the case of a woman suffering from kidney problems and lupus who has not been allowed to terminate a pregnancy in which the fetus has almost no chance of surviving.El Salvador's ...

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