South America

BRASILIA, Jan 16 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) – Brazil made significant progress, in meeting the requisites to become a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro, said.

The government, said Bolsonaro, will continue to strive to meet the demands of the organisation.

Brazil’s membership depends on how the country adopts recommendations established by the OECD.

The United States on Tuesday announced, it plans to recommend Brazil, to be the next country to be accepted as a full member.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — With two men claiming the presidency for nearly a year, Venezuela’s political landscape has been messy for a while now. But it is set to become flat out chaotic, with confusion over who is in charge of the National Assembly and plans for the opposition-controlled assembly to meet Wednesday in a building just across from where a rival pro-government legislature - the National Constituent Assembly - will be meeting.

CARACAS, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- President of Venezuela's National Assembly Luis Parra on Monday denounced U.S. sanctions against the newly-elected members of the legislative body's board of directors.

"We energetically and categorically reject the sanctions against deputies of the National Assembly of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, who represent the people as a whole," Parra said in a statement on Twitter.

"It is unacceptable for foreign governments to presume to determine the actions ... of our legislators," he said.

BOGOTA, Jan 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Colombian police thwarted an assassination attempt against Rodrigo Londono, former commander of the demobilized FARC rebels better known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, a senior official said.

General Oscar Atehortua, director of Colombia’s national police, said officers killed two men who planned to commit the attack, which was ordered by commanders of dissident rebels who decided to return to conflict last year.

SAO PAULO, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- Brazil is set to reopen its Antarctic research station, which was destroyed by fire in 2012 and rebuilt by the China National Electronics Import and Export Corporation (CEIEC), Vice President Hamilton Mourao said on Sunday.

The Comandante Ferraz station on King George Island will be re-inaugurated on Tuesday, Jan. 14.

"We are going to give scientific research in the Antarctic a new impetus," said Mourao, who plans to travel to the region on Monday for the opening ceremony.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido on Saturday called for more protests against the government of President Nicolas Maduro in the wake of a failed attempt by the ruling Socialist Party to install allied leadership in congress.

Guaido held his first rally since troops six days ago blocked his access to congress long enough for the Socialist Party to declare an allied legislator as head of parliament.

Opposition legislators in a separate session on Jan. 5 re-elected him anyway, and they later returned to the legislative palace to hold session.

ANTIAGO, Jan 11 (NNN-Prensa Latina) — The Communist Youth of Chile (JJCC) described OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro as an accomplice to serious human rights violations in Chile.

The youth branch of the Communist Party of Chile (PC) argued that Almagro defended President Sebastian Piñera’s actions against the widepread popular demonstrations in the country, even ignoring the denunciations from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHRC), which is attached to the Organization of American States (OAS).

BOGOTA, Jan 11 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Colombia, a top source of coca, the base ingredient in cocaine, eradicated more than 100,000 hectares of the crop last year, President Ivan Duque said.

The Andean country has come under repeated pressure from the United States, an important destination for cocaine shipments, to reduce coca cultivation, especially as crop figures shot up in recent years.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has praised Duque’s stepped-up eradication efforts. The Colombian government set out to eradicate 80,000 hectares last year.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats know they don’t have the votes to convict President Donald Trump when the Senate convenes as the Court of Impeachment. So they are pursuing the case in the court of public opinion.

It became a defining moment, one that stunned Washington, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to immediately transmit the charges to the Senate after the House impeached Trump.

The abrupt move vexed the president and his party, annoying some, angering others, and caused a political firestorm as the days turned to weeks. It’s now approaching a month.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 9 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) – Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro, will not attend the upcoming World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, presidential spokesperson, Otavio Rego Barros, said.

“The President and his assistants, analysed a series of aspects — economic, security, political. And those aspects, together, allowed the President to evaluate that he should not participate in this forum at this moment,” Rego Barros, said.

Bolsonaro mentioned the possibility of not attending the summit earlier this week, citing security reasons.