South America

17 December 2019; AFP: An Argentine ex-police officer linked to the murder of hundreds of people during the country's "dirty war" arrived in Buenos Aires on Monday, after France extradited him to face trial over the disappearance of a student.

Mario Sandoval was arrested Wednesday at his home near Paris, after French authorities gave the final go-ahead for his extradition, ending an eight-year legal battle.

SANTIAGO, Dec 14 (NNN-Prensa Latina) — A total of 56 Peruvian, Venezuelan, and Colombian citizens were expelled from Chile for having committed offenses or broken immigration laws, the authorities said.

The migrants, who left the country by plane, include ten Peruvians, five Colombians, and 41 Venezuelans, who will be taken to the capitals of their respective countries as part of a new expulsion process that finalized on Friday.

COROICO (Bolivia), Dec 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — For the coca farmers of western Bolivia’s Las Yungas region, the loss of president Evo Morales – himself a one-time coca grower, and a champion of indigenous rights – is less worrying than the drop in price of their “holy leaf” crop.

And the growers of the coca leaf – the raw material for making cocaine but also a mainstay of pre-colonial life – are warning of “war” if the amount of land under legal cultivation is reduced by the interim government in power since Morales resigned last month.

SAO PAULO, Dec 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon jumped to the highest level for the month of November since record-keeping began in 2015, according to preliminary government data published on Friday.

Destruction of the world’s largest tropical rainforest totalled 563 square km in November, 103 per cent more than in the same month last year, according to the country’s space research agency INPE.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi don’t see eye-to-eye on much these days, but in the throes of impeachment, they’re in lockstep on the desire to close out the year by checking off items on their to-do lists.

13 December 2019; AFP: Chile confirmed Thursday that a military plane with 38 people aboard crashed in the sea, with no hope of finding survivors.

"The condition of the plane wreckage that was found makes it practically impossible that there are survivors from this air accident," Air Force chief Arturo Merino told a news conference in the southern port of Punta Arenas.

BUENOS AIRES, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- Bolivia's ex-President Evo Morales arrived in Argentina on Thursday and will remain in the country under "refugee" status, said the Argentine Foreign Affairs Minister Felipe Sola.

"He has just arrived, he has come to stay. He entered as an asylum seeker, but after entering, he will apply for refugee status," Sola told local news channel TN.

According to Sola, Morales "feels better here" in Argentina as it is closer to Bolivia, and his children have been in Argentina for three weeks.

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile (AP) — Debris believed to be from a military transport plane carrying 38 people that vanished two days ago en route to the Antarctic has been discovered in the frigid, treacherous waters between the icy continent and South America, Chile’s Air Force said Wednesday.

Air Force Gen. Eduardo Mosqueira said “sponge” material, possibly from the plane’s fuel tank, was found floating roughly 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the place the C-130 Hercules last had radio contact.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday called young Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg a “brat” after she expressed concern about the slayings of indigenous Brazilians in the Amazon.

Bolsonaro questioned the coverage news media have given Thunberg, 16, who on Sunday tweeted a link to a story about the murder of two indigenous people in Brazil’s Maranhao state.

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina’s new Peronist leader Alberto Fernandez will assume the presidency on Tuesday, a sharp gear shift from conservative Mauricio Macri as the Latin American country firefights rampant inflation, credit default fears and rising poverty.

The 60-year-old center-left politician will be sworn in by lawmakers in the historic Congress building at around 11 a.m. (1400 GMT) before taking an oath in front of his newly appointed ministers at the Casa Rosada presidential palace.