Hundreds of people gathered at the headquarters of opposition Acción Democrática (Democratic Action) party in Río Caribe, eastern Venezuela, to pay tribute to Mayor Franceschi Enrique Franceschi, killed on Sunday morning at his place. Officers from the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), the Venezuelan Scientific, Criminal and Forensic Investigation Agency (Cicpc), and the National Guard have conducted raids in the area. A special security plan has been in...

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras - They are coming to America because a good job here means sewing underwear in a sweatshop for $47 a week. They are leaving neighborhoods where you can walk down block after block of abandoned houses spray-painted with gang graffiti, with collapsed roofs and jungle plants sprouting in the living rooms. They are traveling 1,400 miles with hardly any luggage from a bus station controlled by an extortion ring and used for trafficking women and contraband cigarettes; last...

Officers used tear gas on crowds in Sao Paulo hours before Brazil's team beat Croatia 3-1 in the opening match. Several people were also injured after scuffles broke out in Rio de Janeiro. Protesters are angry at how much the government has spent on preparations for the World Cup and the Olympics, which Rio will host in 2016. Earlier, striking airport workers in Rio de Janeiro blocked a road outside the airport, demanding a wage increase and a World Cup bonus. The strike was to have lasted...

Protests in Venezuela have led to concerns in Latin American and the Caribbean, according to a report issued on Monday. Most presidents of the region are concern about the situation of the country, which generates uneasiness among opposition parties, mass media, firms, and citizens, the International Prospective Institute (IPI) states in the report, EFE quoted. Venezuela has been facing anti-government protests since February, resulting in more than 40 people dead and hundreds injured. ...

(Bogotá) - Paramilitary successor groups have abducted and disappeared scores, and possibly hundreds, of residents of the largely Afro-Colombian port of Buenaventura, Human Rights Watch said in a report and released today. Thousands of residents have been fleeing their homes in the city each year, making Buenaventura the municipality with the highest level of ongoing forced displacement in today. The 30-page report, “,” documents how many of the city’s neighborhoods...

US Secretary of State John Kerry called on Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro Thursday to “end this terror campaign” against his own people. In one of his strongest statements yet after more than a month of student and opposition protests against Maduro's government, Kerry said the international community needed to “focus on Venezuela appropriately.” “We are engaged now with trying to find a way to get the Maduro government to engage with their citizens, to...

It was a well-publicised event: Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez had previously announced he was prepared to risk and march through the streets of Caracas. On Tuesday he voluntarily handed himself over to police but not before urging tens of thousands of anti-government protesters to remain firm. “Don’t leave the streets…we must take up our right to but we must do it peacefully. Brother, I ask you and every Venezuelan who wants change…we must inform ourselves,...

Mexican armed forces will take over security in a large swath of a western state where shootouts between vigilante groups and drug traffickers erupted over the weekend, a top official has announced. Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, the Mexican interior secretary, said federal forces with support from Michoacán state police would patrol an area in the state known as Tierra Caliente, the home base of the Knights Templar drug cartel. "Be certain we will contain the violence in...

Information published by ABC regarding negotiations between Nicolás Maduro's staff-when he was foreign minister-in an FMLN drug trafficking operation in El Salvador, has corroborated suspicions that existed in Venezuelan political and diplomatic circles. "This news confirms what many already knew about the significant and growing presence of drug trafficking in Venezuela and its important relations with the top echelon in the government and the Armed Forces," former...

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro congratulated his Colombian counterpart, Juan Manuel Santos, and Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for the agreements reached in the peace talks taking place in Havana, Cuba. During a public event the Venezuelan president said he had talked to Santos to congratulate him for the progress made so far, and stressed that Venezuela fully supports Colombia's peace process, AVN reported.