After being summoned by the Attorney General's Office, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she would appear before authorities despite being "sentenced without a single piece of evidence." Machado added that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has used all the power of the State to "incite hatred" against her. "We support a change within the boundaries of the Constitution. We will move towards democracy. Once again, we have...

Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski claimed on Thursday that a court's decision to put on trial the leader of opposition Voluntad Popular (People's Will) party, Leopoldo López, and students Christian Holdack and Marco Aurelio Coello was hatched by the government. "We saw it yesterday (Wednesday), and the country must reflect about it: justice (in Venezuela) is rotten; it is a dead loss," the opposition leader noted. Capriles opposition leader...

In Mexico, where 32 journalists have been murdered in the last four years and hundreds more live under death threats, the real news would have been if Jorge Torres Palacios had turned up alive. But this was not the case. Torres Palacios, a reporter and government worker for the city of Acapulco, was found dead on Monday after being kidnapped outside his home on Thursday evening. His body was decapitated and dismembered and showed other signs of extreme violence, the local media...

MEXICO CITY - Mexican authorities said on Sunday they had captured one of the top leaders of the Gulf drug cartel who was responsible for a recent wave of shoot outs and massacres in the northern state of Tamaulipas. Juan Rodriguez Garcia was arrested in a wealthy suburb of the northern industrial city Monterrey, National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido told a news conference in Mexico City. Rubido said Rodriguez's struggle to gain control of the Gulf cartel was behind a...

The Washington Post on Friday advocated sanctions against Nicolás Maduro government officials, even though the US administration is reluctant to impose sanctions at this moment. In its editorial entitled "US sanctions against Venezuelan officials may bring them to the table," the US newspaper states that sanctions against Venezuelan officials could eventually make them sit and talk. "For years the Obama administration, like its predecessors, has avoided punitive...

The head of Colombia's FARC marked the 50th anniversary of the guerrilla group's founding Tuesday, expressing hope for an "effective peace" while denouncing the government of President Juan Manuel Santos. In a 30-minute video posted on the Internet, Timoleon Jimenez, alias "Timochenko," warned that the FARC "will do what's necessary if the oligarchy persists in blocking peace." The video celebrating the Marxist rebels' 50 years comes amid intensifying debate in...

Iván Simonovis, a former police chief of the Caracas Metropolitan Police who was sentenced to 30 years in prison over the April 2012 coup, on Tuesday went on a hunger strike to reject the court's delay in deciding whether he will be granted humanitarian release due to his poor health condition, a petition filed by his defense lawyers nearly two years ago. Reading a letter from Simonovis, defense lawyer José Luis Tamayo made the announcement. Tamayo pointed out that the...

The Cuban government has blocked an online newspaper launched by well-known dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez, hours after it went live. Web users in Cuba are being diverted to another website, which accuses Ms Sanchez of having hidden political interests. Ms Sanchez said her website, called 14ymedio, would provide daily news about the communist-run country. She insisted it would not be a platform against the government. But web users in Cuba reported that they were being diverted to a...

Reporters Without Borders is shocked to learn that local radio journalist Fausto Gabriel Alcaraz was gunned down by two individuals on a motorcycle in the eastern border city of Pedro Juan Caballero on 16 May. Alcaraz, who worked for Radio Amambay, was shot 11 times. Senator Robert Acevedo, the station’s owner, said that Alcaraz had often accused people by name of involvement in regional drug trafficking in his radio programme. “It is vital that this murder should not go...

Ties between the Palestinian Authority and Venezuela were strengthened in Caracas on Friday during talks between Mahmoud Abbas and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro that saw both leaders sign in a new accords between the two governments in the areas of energy and finance. Oil-rich Venezuela has been a firm ally of the Palestinian Authority since President Hugo Chavez, who had long criticized Israel and the United States. Abbas thanked his Venezuelan counterpart for standing with the...