South America

RAPOSA SERRA DO SOL INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil (AP) — On his first trip to Indigenous land in the Amazon rainforest since taking office, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed support for creating new territories for those communities, but stopped short of announcing any demarcations.

Wearing white cap and dark shirt in the heat, Lula addressed some 2,000 Indigenous people who painted their faces, wore traditional feather headdresses and sang songs to welcome him Monday to the Raposa Serra do Sol region bordering Venezuela and Guyana.

CARACAS, March 12 (NNN-XINHUA) — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro expressed his optimism about integrating Latin America and the Caribbean and affirmed his country’s commitment to various regional cooperation mechanisms.

“We are experiencing a second progressive wave in Latin America. We are very attentive to the evolution of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the reactivation of the Union of South American Nations,” Maduro wrote Saturday on Twitter after an interview with Radio La Pizarra.

ASUNCION, March 12 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Paraguayan health authorities confirmed 43 people had died nationwide of chikungunya, while the total number of cases rose to 11,467 over the past three weeks.

Eight of the victims were children under one year of age, while 35 others were adults aged over 30, according to the latest epidemiological report released by the General Directorate of Health Surveillance. “The mortality rate is 0.6 per 100,000 inhabitants and the case fatality rate is 0.1 %,” the document read.

SAO PAULO (AP) — When rioters stormed Brazil’s top government buildings in January to dispute the outcome of the presidential election, many soldiers stood by as far-right protesters broke windows, defecated in offices and destroyed valuable art.

The images from Brasilia that day still haunt the left-leaning government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He has strived ever since to ensure that military leaders defend South America’s largest democracy and stay out of politics.

10 Mar 2023; MEMO: The New Development Bank, the multilateral bank set up by the BRICS states, said on Friday it had agreed to elect a new Brazilian Head at the request of the government of Brazil's new President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Reuters reports.

QUITO, Mar 9 (NNN-XINHUA) – Ecuador registered 2,958 dengue cases and two related deaths this year, mainly in the coastal provinces of Guayas, El Oro and Manabi, the Public Health Ministry said, yesterday.

There has been an increase in the number of cases in recent weeks, due to the floods in tropical provinces, said Francisco Perez, undersecretary of national health surveillance of the Ecuadoran Health Ministry, at a virtual press conference.

“However, this dengue outbreak is not any bigger than previous years. It’s within expectations,” Perez said.

BRASILIA, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Brazil received 868,587 foreign tourists in the first month of 2023, 14.7 percent more than before the COVID-19 pandemic and the highest number in the last four years, the Ministry of Tourism reported Tuesday.

January's figure exceeded by over 100,000 tourists in comparison with the numbers for the same month in 2019 and 2020, while almost tripling that in 2022, according to data from the Federal Police immigration service.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Dressed in camouflage, Zulma Stefania Perez reflected on her first weeks of training at a military base in the capital — and on her life as one of Colombia’s first female recruits in more than two decades.

“The physical drills we must endure are the same” as those for men, she said. “Being women doesn’t make us less capable. In fact, there are many skills and strengths we have that men may not have.”

BRASILIA, March 6 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's financial market slightly upgraded its economic growth forecast for 2023, from 0.84 percent to 0.85 percent, the Central Bank of Brazil said Monday.

It was the third time in a row that top financial analysts surveyed by the bank for its weekly report upgraded their growth forecast for this year, though they maintained their 2024 forecast at 1.5 percent.

Last week, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) said the country's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 2.9 percent in 2022, after rising 5 percent in 2021.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro has asked prosecutors to investigate accusations against his brother and one of his sons that could deal a blow to his presidency and undermine his plans for peace and to fight corruption.

Petro, a former guerrilla who was elected as Colombia’s first leftist president last year, has promised to battle endemic corruption and bring “total peace” to the South American country which only recently, in 2016, signed a peace pact largely ending decades of internal war.