Latin America

Despite government efforts to curb the number of people it puts to death, China continues to execute more people than the rest of the world combined, and corporal punishment remains popular among the citizenry.

As world leaders gather in New York for a high-level conference on HIV/AIDS, United Nations agency heads, goodwill ambassadors and activists alike hope they will remember the virus’s most vulnerable victims: women and girls.

“September 2011 is knocking on our gates,” says an Israeli army officer who, under strict operation procedures, would not reveal his name. He was alluding to the United Nations General Assembly annual meeting expected to resoundingly endorse the Palestinian drive for recognition of statehood.

The United States should seek cooperative relations with Peruvian President-elect Ollanta Humala, a number of Andean specialists urged here Monday.

For the first time in the democratic history of Peru, a left-wing candidate has won the presidency. With the support of an overwhelming majority of voters in the provinces, retired lieutenant colonel Ollanta Humala defeated his right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori, whose strongest backing was in the capital, in Sunday’s runoff.

Last year, the online branding company East-West Communications ranked Mexico 191st out of 200 countries on its Brand Perception Index, which is generated by analyzing buzzwords in the international media’s quarterly and annual coverage of a certain country

Four decades after Washington declared its “war on drugs” and began to spread the doctrine south of the U.S. border, the government of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro decided to shift away from that approach towards a strategy focused on community policing.

The Ecuadorian government sent in the army to shut down illegal gold mining operations in the jungles of the northwest province of Esmeraldas, where the highly polluting activity is associated with drug traffickers and protected by armed militias and hired killers.

After his return to Honduras put an end to two years of exile, former President Manuel Zelaya said the coup in which he was removed on Jun. 28, 2009 was the work of an “international conspiracy” that should be investigated.

Although politicians seem to have put the peace process on ice, there are many different groups in Israel and the Palestinian territories that still believe in reconciliation. They call on the world not to believe in stereotypes. “The minute you choose sides, you become part of the conflict.”