South America

Road accident deaths swell to 1.35 million each year: WHO

by Nina LARSON Agence France-Presse GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Road accidents kill someone every 24 seconds, with a total of 1.35 million traffic deaths around the world each year, the World Health Organization said Friday, demanding global action. The number of fatalities annually has swelled by around 100,000 in just three years, with road accidents now the leading killer of children and young people between the ages of five and 29, the UN health agency […]

Conditions met for Assange to leave Ecuador embassy in London: president

QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Ecuador’s president said Thursday that conditions have been met for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to leave the country’s embassy in London, which would end a six-year standoff with British authorities. “The way has been cleared for Mr Assange to take the decision to leave in near-liberty,” President Lenin Moreno told reporters, explaining that he still had to answer in Britain for violating the terms of his bail. Moreno, however, said Britain […]

China’s Xi in Panama on mission to bolster clout in Latin America

PANAMA CITY, Panama (AFP) — China’s President Xi Jinping and his Panamanian counterpart Juan Carlos Varela signed a string of cooperation agreements Monday as Beijing aims to extend its political and economic influence in Latin America. Xi arrived in the Central American country late Sunday, fresh from striking a 90-day truce deal in the trade war with US President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Argentina. Xi and Varela signed a score of infrastructure, […]

China agrees $9 billion currency swap with Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AFP) — China and Argentina signed a $9 billion currency swap deal to boost the crisis-stricken South American country’s foreign currency reserves, its central bank announced Sunday. Struggling to recover after a currency crisis earlier this year, Latin America’s third largest economy sought the help of the International Monetary Fund — which approved a $56 billion loan package. Now, this latest agreement will “contribute to greater financial stability and also facilitate trade” […]

Saudi prince in Argentina as G20 summit tensions brew

by Denis BARNETT Agence France Presse BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AFP) — World leaders began arriving in Argentina Wednesday ahead of a G20 summit dogged by increasingly strident warnings about the impact on the world economy of threatened US trade tariffs. US President Donald Trump’s trade war with China is a dominant theme at the weekend summit but one sideshow is how leaders deal with the presence of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The de […]

California fire mostly contained, death toll rises to 84

LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — The fire that has ravaged northern California is now almost completely contained, authorities said Thursday as the death toll rose to 84. Rain fell in the first measurable amounts in months in the drought-stricken area and this helped put out hot spots and smoldering fires, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. It said the so-called Camp Fire is now 95 percent contained. The number of people […]

California fire death toll rises to 83

LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — The death toll from the wildfire in northern California rose to 83 Wednesday after crews found two more sets of remains in burned-out buildings, officials said. The number of people listed as unaccounted for in the deadliest and most destructive fire in state history dropped from 870 to 563. This number has been fluctuating wildly amid the confusion of the search for bodies in the town of Paradise, which […]

Ex-Guatemalan soldier gets 5,160 years’ prison for civil war massacre

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (AFP) — A Guatemalan court on Wednesday sentenced a former soldier to 5,160 years in prison for the massacre of 201 peasants during one of the worst atrocities of the Central American nation’s civil war. The court found Santos Lopez “responsible as author” of 171 of the killings and sentenced him to 30 years for each, or 5,130 years in total. He received an additional 30 years linked to the killing of […]

California fire death toll rises to 81

LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — The death toll from the devastating wildfire in northern California rose to 81 Tuesday with the discovery of two more sets of remains, officials said. The number of people listed as unaccounted for in the deadliest and most destructive fire in state history jumped up by nearly 200 to 870. This number has been fluctuating a lot in recent days amid the confusion of the search for bodies in […]

Toll rises to 77 in deadliest California wildfire

PARADISE, United States (AFP) — The toll from the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history rose further on Sunday to 77, the sheriff’s office said. “One human remain was located today,” raising the toll by one in the so-called Camp Fire which broke out 10 days ago in northern California, a statement from the Butte County Sheriff said. The number of people unaccounted for has fallen to 993, down from a peak of […]

Michael Bloomberg donates $1.8 bn for college education

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday he’s giving $1.8 billion for financial aid at Johns Hopkins University, believed to be the largest ever donation to a post-secondary institution. Bloomberg said he was making the gift to help qualified low-and middle-income students more easily afford access to university in a country where post-secondary education fees at elite schools often exceed $50,000 a year, a prohibitive barrier for most […]

Boeing jet crash-lands at Guyana airport, 10 injured

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AFP) —Ten people were injured in scenes described as “chaos” as a Boeing airliner carrying 126 people, most of them Canadians, crash-landed in Guyana’s capital Georgetown on Friday, skidding to a halt just before a steep drop. The Fly Jamaica Airways plane was bound for Toronto when it suffered a hydraulic problem shortly after takeoff and returned to the airport, crashing and careening off the runway, Transportation Minister David Patterson said. “Everyone was going crazy, screaming, […]