Amnesty international has criticised the Cuban authorities for not allowing an independent journalist to leave the country to collect an international freedom award. Guillermo Fariñas, was awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament last October and, although his passport and visa are in order, Cuban authorities have failed to grant him the exit permit needed to travel outside the country. “The Cuban government should have allowed...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez asked parliament Tuesday to grant him sweeping legislative powers, for the fourth time since he took office in 1999. The request comes just weeks before a new national assembly with a much greater opposition presence is due to be inaugurated. Opposition leaders slammed the move and said the government was using the current flood disaster, which has affected hundreds of thousands of people, as an excuse to concentrate yet more power in the presidency. ...

Muhammad Hussain (real name Antonio Martinez), a 21-year-old naturalized citizen from Mexico, was arrested December 8, 2010 on charges of attempted murder and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against property used by the United States. His intended target was a military recruiting center. According to a court affidavit and media accounts, he was a frequent visitor to the website of the New York based Islamist group Revolution Muslim, where he viewed videos by Al-Qaeda, including...

Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe told a U.S. navy admiral that he would allow troops to enter Venezuela to capture FARC guerrillas, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks. Uribe said to Admiral Mike Mullen that he was "prepared to authorize Colombian forces to cross into Venezuela, arrest FARC leaders, and bring them to justice in Colombia," according to a cable dated January 18, 2008. In March 2008 Colombia carried out a bombing raid on a FARC camp over the Ecuadorean...

Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on western information sources[1], according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, of November 25, 2010. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit o Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on October19, 2010. The previously undisclosed contract provides for the establishment of a jointly operated military base in Venezuela, and the joint development of...

Between 1995 and August 2010, 258 journalists were killed - or kidnapped and assumed killed - in Latin America, but only 59 of those cases have been successfully prosecuted. These numbers from the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) back up a new analysis from journalist Tyler Bridges who in his report referred to the “worst wave of violence against journalists ever in Latin America." This is the setting which prompted IAPA to develop the Impunity Project. The $7.6 million...

U.S. Embassy officials met with a 14-year-old boy accused of being a drug cartel assassin to check on his welfare and provide him with information on a lawyer in case it turns out he is American, a spokesman said Tuesday. Mexican officials and his family say the boy, who became a kind of urban legend in Mexico before his capture and claims he carried out at least four executions, was born in the United States even though he spent much of his childhood in Mexico. But Embassy spokesman...

Russia gave Venezuela a $4 billion credit to buy weapons when President Hugo Chavez visited Moscow last month, adding to billions the socialist leader has already spent on re-equipping the army. Venezuela and Russia have forged deep ties in energy and defense, with Russian investment flowing into the OPEC member's oil fields at the same time as Chavez has become one of Moscow's most important weapons customers. Washington views with suspicion Chavez's purchases of tanks, fighter jets and air...

Brazil's government is investigating a group of about 20 Brazilians who are suspected of having received training and money from Islamic organizations for terrorist activity in the country, Folha de S. Paulo reported without saying how it obtained the information. They traveled to Iran in 2008 sponsored by Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad to learn how to develop political and armed cells, the Sao Paulo newspaper said, without citing the source. The country's federal police opened an inquiry to...

Shots were fired with a big-calibre firearm at Radio FM Cerrillos, a local station based in San José de los Cerrillos, in the northern province of Salta, on 26 November but no one was injured although it is located in the house where station’s owner and his family live. The unidentified gunmen fled immediately after the shooting. Luisa Tilca, the wife of owner Carlos Villanueva, was hosting the morning programme when three shots were fired at the door to the radio station and one...