It would be tempting for Washington to dismiss Sunday morning's military overthrow of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya as just a minor banana-republic convulsion. But the Obama Administration doesn't have that luxury. Zelaya is a member of the left-wing club of Latin American leaders — and its honcho, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, has already deemed this a hemispheric crisis that will challenge the new north-south bonhomie Obama established two months ago at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad. Less ...

The reorganized Chrysler Group LLC postponed the annual press preview of new cars at its proving ground near Chelsea, Mich. — all part of the production stoppage while the company waited out bankruptcy proceedings. But even during that downtime, Chrysler's American engineers and designers were busily exchanging notes with their counterparts at Fiat, just as they have been doing for the past six months. What will come of all this cross-fertilization With the Supreme Court blessing of the deal that released Chrysler from bankruptcy, ...

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. She repeated the group's call this week to ...

The chairman of Tennessee's Democratic Party wants a Republican legislative aide fired for sending out a "reprehensible" e-mail depicting President Obama as two cartoonish white eyes peering from a black background. Two officials with Venezuela's Conatel agency, which regulates the nation's telecommunications, served the papers at Globovision's station in Caracas. CNN affiliate Globovision aired the proceedings live. Venezuela's government said in Tuesday's complaint that the station broke the law of "social responsibility" on some programs on certain dates. ...

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. hegemony that burdened the region in the 20th century. Calls for Washington to lift its 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba have rarely been louder, especially since President ...

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 ...

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom should leave office during the investigation into whether he was connected to three recent slayings, his 2007 presidential opponent said Thursday. Retired Gen. Otto Perez Molina, who lost to Colom in a runoff, said Guatemala is suffering its worst crisis since the democratic process began in 1985 after years of civil war. Demonstrations will continue and anger will mount unless Colom temporarily steps out of the way to allow an unblemished probe, he said. "We want ...

When Rodrigo Rosenberg turned up dead on Mother's Day in an upscale neighborhood in Guatemala City, his murder was seen as little more than another execution-style shooting in one of Latin America's most dangerous countries. Now, after a video emerged in which Rosenberg accused Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom of orchestrating the murder, the killing has sparked civic unrest that threatens to topple the President of this fledgling democracy. Thousands of protesters have demonstrated daily in front of the presidential ...

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. But he was relieved Tuesday of his duties at St. Francis De Sales Church in Miami Beach, Florida, and at ...

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. The late afternoon drive on Sunday took only 45 minutes. Barely anyone was on the road. It was, of course, the weekend that saw the swine flu panic grip ...