South America

PORTO ALEGRE (Brazil), Dec 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A Brazilian court convicted four people for their role in a nightclub fire that left 242 people dead nearly a decade ago, handing down sentences of up to 22 years.

  The 2013 fire at the nightclub in the southern town of Santa Maria started when members of a musical band playing that night lit flares that set fire to the ceiling.

  Two owners of the Kiss night club and two members of the Gurizada Fandangueira band were found guilty of murder and attempted murder of the victims, mostly young university students.

BRASILIA, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Brazil's health ministry said its website was hit on Friday by a hacker attack that took several systems down, including one with information about the national immunization program and another used to issue digital vaccination certificates.

The government put off for a week implementing new health requirements for travelers arriving in Brazil due to the attack.

ASUNCION, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Paraguay remains resolute about maintaining diplomatic relations with Taiwan despite Nicaragua's decision to shift its allegiance to China, the top adviser to the South American country's President Mario Abdo told Reuters on Friday.

China and Nicaragua re-established diplomatic ties on Friday after the Central American country broke relations with Chinese-claimed Taiwan, boosting Beijing in a part of the world where the United States has strong influence.

BRASILIA, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has so far been detected in the Americas in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico and the United States, but it is just a matter of time before it circulates in more countries, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned on Wednesday.

The regional health agency said coronavirus infections have turned up in Canada and parts of Mexico, such as Baja California. Except for Panama, Central America is experiencing a steep decline in cases.

SANTIAGO, Dec 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A total solar eclipse plunged Antarctica from summer into darkness early Saturday in a rare astronomical spectacle witnessed by a handful of scientists and thrill-seekers — and countless penguins.

“The visibility was excellent,” said Raul Cordero of the University of Santiago de Chile (USACH), who was on site to witness “totality” at 0746 GMT, with the “ring of fire” phase lasting just over 40 seconds.

CARACAS, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Julio Borges, the politician who serves as foreign minister for Venezuela's U.S.-backed interim government, said on Sunday he would leave his post, further weakening the opposition just weeks after it was routed in regional elections.

The United States and dozens of other countries recognize the interim government, led by Juan Guaido and formed at the beginning of 2019, and consider the 2018 re-election of President Nicolas Maduro to be fraudulent.

BARINAS, Venezuela (AP) — About 500 supporters of a Venezuelan gubernatorial opposition candidate who was retroactively disqualified as the vote count showed him ahead in the home state of the late President Hugo Chávez protested Saturday against a decision that has become emblematic of what opponents say are unfair election conditions.

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — A justice of Brazil’s top court ordered on Friday that President Jair Bolsonaro be investigated for comments linking COVID-19 vaccines to AIDS — an assertion rejected by doctors and scientists.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes instructed the country’s top prosecutor, Augusto Aras, to look into the accusation raised by a pandemic inquiry conducted by Brazil’s Senate.

QUITO, Nov 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ecuador’s president on Monday renewed for one month a state of emergency aimed at restoring calm in the country’s prisons, where riots have left more than 300 inmates dead this year.

   President Guillermo Lasso signed a decree that allows for mobilization of police and armed forces to “re-inforce and re-establish order and control” in Ecuador’s overcrowded, violence-wracked jails.

ALPERCATA, Brazil, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Amid tearful goodbyes, Ana Paula Souza, her husband and their infant son set off for the United States, one of hundreds of families to depart the small Brazilian town of Alpercata in recent months.

Nestled in the hills of southeastern Minas Gerais state, Alpercata has been sending its townspeople north for decades. But as locals grapple with a pandemic that has killed jobs, battered Brazil's currency and sparked double-digit inflation, a piecemeal migration from this poor, okra-farming area has become an exodus.