South America

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s economic collapse has left most homes without reliable running water, so Caracas resident Iraima Moscoso saw water pooling inside an abandoned construction site as the end of suffering for thousands of her poor neighbors.

Workers had long ago stopped building a nearby highway tunnel through the mountain above them. Yet, spring water continued to collect inside the viaduct and then stream past their homes, wasted. The construction firm had also left behind coils of tube.

SAO PAULO, June 25 (BBB-AGENCIES) — Researchers in Brazil began administering an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University to volunteers, the Federal University of Sao Paulo said.

The vaccine, developed together with pharmaceuticals group AstraZeneca, is one of the most promising of the dozens that researchers worldwide are racing to test and bring to market.

Known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, it is already being tested in volunteers in Britain, and is due to start being administered this week in South Africa, as well.

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Brazil reached more than a million confirmed coronavirus cases and 50,000 deaths over the weekend as throngs of people swarmed Rio de Janeiro beaches, but the World Health Organization said that even more cases were likely going uncounted.

On Sunday, swimmers and sunbathers packed Rio’s famous beaches, with many neither wearing masks nor respecting the WHO’s guidance to maintain one metre of distance between people.

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 22 (NNN-CMA) – Brazil’s death toll from COVID-19 climbed to 50,617, after 641 patients died in the previous 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Sunday.

Over the same period, tests detected 17,459 new cases of infection, raising the total to 1,085,038.

The rates of infection and mortality ranked Brazil as having the second-largest outbreak in the world, after the United States.

21 June 2020; MEMO: On 19 June, Brazil voted against a UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution which demanded accountability for severe violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian territories. The resolution also called for the criminal prosecution of those found responsible for crimes and recognized the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the territories.

BRASILIA, June 20 (NNN-CMA) – Brazil’s Education Minister, Abraham Weintraub, announced that, he was leaving the post and heading to the World Bank as one of its directors.

He made the announcement in a video posted on Twitter, in which he appeared standing next to President Jair Bolsonaro.

“I am leaving the MEC (Ministry of Education) and I am beginning the transition now … to the provisional or definitive minister, who will replace me,” he said.

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina will extend a deadline for $65 billion debt restructuring talks by more than a month, the country’s economy ministry said late on Friday, after negotiations with creditors stalled this week leaving a deal hanging in the balance.

The extension to July 24 comes with creditors and the government at an impasse, with one bondholder group slamming the negotiations this week as a “failure”. Reuters reported that the Friday deadline would be pushed back.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s government confirmed on Friday that the country has risen above 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, second only to the United States.

The country’s health ministry said that the total now stood at 1,032,913, up more than 50,000 from Thursday. The ministry said the sharp increase was due to corrections of previous days’ underreported numbers.

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian police on Thursday arrested a former aide to President Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son in a graft investigation threatening to undermine his campaign promises to crack down on corruption.

Fabricio Queiroz, who worked with Senator Flavio Bolsonaro when he was a Rio de Janeiro state lawmaker, was arrested outside of Sao Paulo in a home owned by a personal lawyer for the Bolsonaro family, according to prosecutors.

LIMA, June 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Peru topped 240,000 total cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, surpassing hard-hit Italy, government data showed, even as the pace of infections has begun to moderate in the South American nation.

Peru moved quickly to lock down its citizens as the pandemic took hold in early March. But cases nonetheless exploded in May, reaching a peak of more than 8,000 per day late in the month.

More than 7,000 Peruvians have died from the disease, the government reported.