Peru’s indigenous win victory over lands

Peru’s Congress voted overwhelmingly to revoke two decrees that indigenous groups had said would result in the exploitation of their native lands for oil drilling, mining and logging. The 82-14 vote on Thursday with no abstentions came after five hours of intense debate. “Today is a historic day,” said Daysi Zapata, vice president of the Interethnic Association for Development of the Peruvian Jungle, in a statement on the group’s Web site

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Latin America and the U.S. Grapple with the OAS’s Cuba Conundrum

Latin American leaders usually have few qualms about lecturing the U.S. on what they regard as the folly of its Cuba policy, especially of late. Re-integrating Cuba has become a priority issue for many if not most of the region’s governments, who see it as a way to break with the Cold War politics and U.S

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Report: Climate change crisis ‘catastrophic’

The first comprehensive report into the human cost of climate change warns the world is in the throes of a "silent crisis" that is killing 300,000 people each year. More than 300 million people are already seriously affected by the gradual warming of the earth and that number is set to double by 2030, the report from the Global Humanitarian Forum warns. “Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide,” said the forum’s president, former U.N.

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Florida priest removed after beach photos with woman published

An internationally known Catholic priest sometimes called "Father Oprah" has been removed from his posts in Florida after published photos showed him lying down bare-chested in an embrace with a woman on a beach. The Rev. Alberto Cutie (pronounced koo-tee-AYE) — who got the nickname “Father Oprah” because of the advice he gives on Spanish-language media — remains a priest

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Swine Flu: Mexico’s Lost Weekend

Without traffic, the drive to Mexico City from Cuernavaca usually can take just 50 minutes. Weekends are the exception, when the horrendous jams of vehicles returning from a quick trip outside the capital can snarl the highways for up to three hours. The close of this past weekend, however, was ghostly

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