Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in Venezuela on the latest stop of a regional tour aimed at boosting ties with supporters of Iran's controversial nuclear program. Mr. Ahmadinejad arrived in Caracas late Tuesday and was welcomed at the airport by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro. The Iranian president and his Venezuelan ally, President Hugo Chavez, are due to meet Wednesday. Both leaders are known for their anti-American rhetoric. They are expected to discuss business...

Iran's President Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Bolivia Tuesday evening and was warmly welcomed by his counterpart Eva Morales. According to IRIB, the two presidents are to hold a meeting behind the close doors and then the negotiations between the two countries' high-ranking officials will begin. It is expected that some cooperation agreements will be signed during the president's stay in Le Paz on the third leg of his tour to African and Latin American states. He is also to visit...

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says Iran should negotiate with the West for a "just" solution to the country's controversial nuclear program. The Brazilian leader made his comments Monday as he welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Brasilia. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said Iran is engaging in what he called "subversive activity" in Latin America. Iran has rejected Western charges that it is using a civilian nuclear program as a...

Protests greeted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Brazil at the start of a South American tour intended to bolster the Iranian president's legitimacy and ease his country's international isolation. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro on the eve of Ahmadinejad's arrival to denounce his record on human rights, homosexuality and Israel. The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was expected to welcome the visitor with red carpet pomp in the...

Elections scheduled for December 6 will mark the official end of the Bolivian democracy.A dictatorship that fosters the production and distribution of cocaine is not apt to enjoy a positive international image. But when that same government cloaks itself in the language of social justice, with a special emphasis on the enfranchisement of indigenous people, it wins world-wide acclaim. This is Bolivia, which in two weeks will hold elections for president and both houses of congress. The...

BUENOS AIRES - Israel President Shimon Peres predicts the people of Venezuela and Iran will make their leaders disappear before too long. Speaking at a forum in Argentina Tuesday, Peres said both Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have gone crazy over oil, which he says is not bad to sell but "really dangerous if you swallow it." He said both leaders are headed for a fall. "They won't hold, not because any of us is going to kill them; their own people are getting tired...

TAMPA - Keith Stansell and two other men who were held hostage in Colombia for more than five years are suing FARC, the Colombian paramilitary group that held them. Stansell, of Manatee County, Marc Gonsalves and Thomas Howes were captured Feb. 13, 2003, when their drug-surveillance plane crashed in the Colombian jungle after being hit by machine gun fire. They were captured by FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a leftist guerrilla group that wants to overthrow the Colombian...

The Peruvian Navy expressed interest in the acquisition of Argentine manufactured missiles currently under development, basically a version of the sea air Aspide, according to a Monday release from the Argentine Defence ministry. “We have an interest in the possibility of acquiring naval missiles manufactured by the Argentine defence industry”, said the commander of the Peruvian Navy Admiral Rolando Navarrete Salomón currently visiting Argentina. During a meeting with...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez specifically ordered Ortega Díaz and the Supreme Justice Tribunal to “comply with their duty” and called on officialdom to be “agile” in acting against media organizations that were “poisoning” the population. That was what they were there for, Chavez said, and if not “they should resign so that somebody with courage takes over.” CARACAS - Both sides in the clash between the government and...

The Spanish government wants to help "to ease tensions" between Caracas and Bogotá about the use of Colombian bases by US troops, said on Tuesday Juan Pablo de Laiglesia, the Secretary of State for Ibero-America. The government of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero responded this way, the official said, to a request made by Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe. Spain is working to calm down tension between the two Latin American countries...