Iran's president on Tuesday lauded his country's newly launched Spanish-language satellite TV channel, saying it would deal a blow to "dominance seekers" - remarks that were an apparent jab at the U.S. and the West. The launch is Tehran's latest effort to reach out to friendly governments in Latin America and follows Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's four-nation tour of the region earlier in January, which included stops in Cuba and visits to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador. It also comes...

Iran 's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has officially launched a Spanish-language satellite TV channel, saying it would deal a blow to "dominance seekers" - remarks that were an apparent dig at the US and the west. Iran's broadcasting company said Hispan TV, the first Spanish-language channel airing from the Middle East, will broadcast news, documentaries, movies and Iranian films 24 hours a day. The launch is Tehran's latest effort to reach out to friendly governments in Latin...

Thanks to a wave of demonstrations and protests in Santiago the government has abandoned plans to force journalists to hand over images to police under controversial new legislation sponsored by interior minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter, who announced on 18 January that he would withdraw that section of the bill. “Congress has been instructed not to approve it,” Mauricio Weibel, president of the association of foreign correspondents in Chile, confirmed to Reporters Without Borders. ...

Argentina has captured a three-man Iranian-Hizballah cell and is hunting for the rest of the network, according to exclusive debkafile sources. Its counter-terror police were a step ahead of attacks plotted against several of the 10 Habad centers in the country, part of a worldwide joint terrorist offensive against Israeli and Jewish targets. Two strikes were thwarted earlier this month in . The three-man cell was captured in the Argentine resort town of San Carlos de Bariloche, 1,680...

Will the Inter-American human rights system survive beyond January 25? This is one of the decisions that will be put to the meeting of ambassadors to the Permanent Council of the Organization of Americans States on that day. Far from being a organizational tweak, the proposed overhaul of the way the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) functions would ratify a disgraceful political offensive by certain member states against one of its components, an important mechanism in the...

Russia seeks to sign weapon sales agreements with Latin American countries, particularly Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, said Sergei Chemezov, the CEO of Russian state-owned corporation Rostekhnologii. Chemezov said that "no new contracts are expected soon" with Venezuela, the biggest purchaser of Russian weapons in Latin America. "We have signed many contracts with Venezuela that must be fulfilled," he added. According to several sources, Russia has sold USD 5...

NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the Venezuelan government's policies to control the independent media and to subdue the judiciary power in order to silence opposition. During the presentation of its World Report 2012, Emma Daly, the Communications Director at Human Rights Watch, complained that Venezuelan media are "vulnerable" and judiciary authorities "support" government interests. Although there are elections in Venezuela, "democracy requires not...

Venezuelan authorities must adopt the "necessary measures" to protect the life and physical integrity of Rocío San Miguel, the head of NGO Control Ciudadano (Citizen's Oversight for Security, Defense and Armed Forces) and her daughter, as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) ordered the State of Venezuela to do so. The commission, which is an independent branch of the Organization of American States (OAS), set a 15-day deadline to receive information about...

Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, (2002-2010) asked authorities to prevent rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) from taking "refuge" in Venezuela, and follow instead the same path as ETA, the armed Basque separatist movement. Uribe expressed this opinion in a message posted on Twitter. The former Colombian Head of State highlighted France's cooperation with Spain in the fight against the Basque terrorist group ETA, and compared this policy...

“We’ll skin you alive, bitch!” With these words the independent journalists and human rights campaigner Itsmania Pineda Platero was threatened on 6 January, then again in three similar calls - once more on the same day, and on 8 and 9 January. During one of the calls, there was the sound of a gun being loaded in the background. Reporters Without Borders holds the Honduran authorities responsible for the safety of the journalist, who walked at the head of the...