South America

BUENOS AIRES, October 15. /TASS/: Venezuelan authorities have selected volunteers to take part in clinical trials of the Russian coronavirus vaccine dubbed Sputnik V, the trials are underway, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Wednesday.

"The Russian vaccine is already in Venezuela, the trials are already starting, there are 2,000 volunteers," he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett returns to Capitol Hill for a third day of confirmation hearings as senators dig deeper into the conservative judge’s outlook on abortion, health care and a potentially disputed presidential election — the Democrats running out of time to stop Republicans pushing her quick confirmation.

CALI (Colombia), Oct 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Thousands of indigenous people demonstrated in southwestern Columbia on Monday demanding an end to violence, on the day commemorating Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas.

Dressed in green and red and carrying traditional sticks, the demonstrators converged on the city of Cali where they hope to meet President Ivan Duque.

SANTIAGO, Oct 13 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — The Chilean government is keeping close tabs on a large fleet of Chinese fishing vessels that has stirred up controversy further north along the Pacific coast of South America, Foreign Minister Andres Allamand said.

Allamand said Chile´s Defense Ministry and Navy were monitoring the advance of the fleet in order to protect the “sovereignty” of the country´s exclusive economic zone.

The fleet consists of some 300 ships that frequent the Pacific Ocean, often around Peruvian waters, Allamand said.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s count of COVID-19 deaths surpassed 150,000 on Saturday night, despite signs the pandemic is slowly retreating in Latin America’s largest nation.

The Brazilian Health Ministry reported that the death toll now stands at 150,198. The figure is the world’s second highest behind the United States, according to the tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A judge on Saturday lifted a house arrest order against former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who is under investigation for alleged witness tampering.

Uribe has been held under the order since August.

The decision is the latest twist in a long-running legal battle and is likely to disappoint Uribe’s detractors, who had hailed the house arrest as a triumph of judicial independence.

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Argentina has become the first country to approve the growth and consumption of genetically modified wheat, the country’s agriculture ministry announced.

The ministry’s scientific commission said in a statement released in Buenos Aires that it had approved a drought-resistant variety of wheat in the world’s fourth-largest exporter of the crop.

“This is the first approval in the world for drought-tolerant genetic transformation in wheat,” the National Commission for Science and Technology (CONICET) said in a statement.

Rio De Janeiro, Oct 9 (AP/PTI) Dozens of people converged on the cobblestone streets of downtown Rio de Janeiro for its traditional Pedra do Sal samba party the first since the pandemic began and it seemed Brazil was returning to normal.

Among those dancing Monday were Luana Jatob and two friends, all of whom overcame COVID-19. As a nurse technician caring for coronavirus patients, she knows better than most that occupancy rates at Rio's intensive-care units have surged as the city's seven-day average number of cases reaches its highest level since June.

PAMPLONA, Colombia (AP) — Eleazar Hernández slept on a sidewalk amid a light drizzle, temperatures that dipped close to freezing and the roar of passing trucks.

The 23-year-old Venezuelan migrant was trying to make it to the Colombian city of Medellin with his wife, who is seven months pregnant.

SAO PAULO, Oct 8 (NNN-CMA) – Brazil said, 31,553 COVID-19 cases were reported over the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide total to 5,000,694. And 734 more patients died of the disease, raising the national death toll to 148,228.

On Feb 26, Brazil reported its first case and also the first in Latin America, in the city of Sao Paulo, South America’s largest city.

Brazil has the world’s second-highest death toll, after the United States, and is the third worst hit by the pandemic after the United States and India.