Half of Guantanamo detainees on hunger strike

US military to send more medical personnel to prison camp as 84 of 166 inmates are refusing meals. Last Modified: 23 Apr 2013 03:26

Lawyers for prisoners say the protest reflects frustration with the failure to resolve their fate [GALLO/GETTY]

More than half of the men held at the Guantanamo detention camp have joined an escalating hunger strike to protest their open-ended detention, a camp spokesman has said. The US military counted 84 of the 166 prisoners as hunger strikers and was force-feeding 16 of them liquid meals through tubes inserted in their noses and down into their stomachs. Six were hospitalised for observation, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House, a spokesman for the detention operation at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base, said on Monday.. Hunger strikes have occurred at the facility in southeastern Cuba since shortly after the US began detaining suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban captives there in January 2002. The current hunger strike began in early February, after guards seized photos and other belongings during a cell search. Prisoners said the guards had also mistreated their Qurans during the search, which the US military denies. Medical reinforcements House said the US military is sending additional medical personnel to the prison camp as a consequence of the increasing number of detainees on hunger strike. He said the new arrivals, numbering under 40, would include a doctor, nurses, corpsmen and medics, who will supplement the 100 medical personnel already on duty. Forty-three prisoners had joined the hunger strike by April 13, when guards in riot gear swept through a communal prison and forced the detainees into one-man cells where they could be better monitored. Camp officials said the detainees had covered the security cameras and windows, blocking guards' view. The number refusing meals has grown steadily since then, and two prisoners tried to kill themselves by making nooses with their clothing, House said. Though the cell search was the immediate trigger, military officials and lawyers for the prisoners have said the protest generally reflects frustration with the failure to resolve the inmates' fate. Most have been held for more than a decade without charge or trial and President Barack Obama has blamed Congress for preventing the closure of the prison. "It's escalated because the men are desperate and they've hit a breaking point," said Carlos Warner, a federal public defender from Ohio who is part of a team representing 11 Guantanamo prisoners. "Really what is behind all this is the president abandoned his promise to close Guantanamo. The men know that, they're desperate."

Tobacco magnate wins Paraguay election

Horacio Cartes defeats Liberal Party rival to fill post left vacant by President Fernando Lugo's impeachment last year. Last Modified: 22 Apr 2013 13:45

Paraguayans have elected Horacio Cartes, leader of the Colorado Party and one of the country's richest men, to the post left vacant by President Fernando Lugo's impeachment last year. The millionaire businessman won a five-year term with 46 percent of the vote over 37 percent for Efrain Alegre of the ruling Liberal party, the Electoral Court announced after most votes were counted. Five other candidates trailed far behind. Cartes, 56, had never voted before he joined the Colorado Party four years ago. He pledged to reform his party, which was tainted by corruption during its 60-year reign until 2008. "I'll need help from all the Paraguayans to govern in the next five years," Cartes said on Sunday night. "Poverty, the lack of jobs for young people and international issues await us." 'Nothing more to say' The UN estimates that more than half of Paraguayans live in poverty. Paraguay's census bureau puts the number at 39 percent in a country which is South America's third-biggest producer of soy, corn and sunflower seeds. The president-elect owns controlling shares in banks, investment funds, agricultural estates, a soda makerand tobacco plantations. Cartes is well-known in Paraguay as president of Libertad, the club that won last year's national football championship. Alegre, 50, a lawyer and career politician, recognised his defeat despite saying earlier that he might challenge the outcome. "The Paraguayan people have spoken. There's nothing more to say," he said in a brief concession speech. Alegre's Liberal Party took over the presidency after withdrawing support for Lugo and clearing the way for his impeachment in June. Congress removed Lugo, a leftist and former Roman Catholic bishop, after finding him guilty of mishandling a botched land eviction in which 17 police officers and peasant farmers were killed. Some of Paraguay's neighbours compared the two-day trial to a coup and imposed diplomatic sanctions on the South American nation. Sex scandal The leftist coalition that swept Lugo to power has since split, although the former president was again on the ballot, this time as a Senate candidate. Lugo's administration was rocked by a sex scandal, after he admitted to having fathered two children out of wedlock while he was still a priest, and he faces at least two other as-yet unresolved paternity suits. Many Paraguayans hope this election will encourage other countries to restore full relations. Paraguay's serving president, Federico Franco, is barred by the constitution from running for re-election even though he is just serving out what remained of Lugo's five-year term. He will hand over the presidency in August. Disillusioned voters Rivals have tried to link Cartes to drug running and money laundering, but he has never been charged with those crimes. "The accusations made during this campaign have no truth to them, and personally I am very serene," Cartes said on Sunday. Al Jazeera's Mariana Sanchez, reporting from Asuncion on Sunday, said many voters told her they were disillusioned by Lugo and wanted the Colorado Party to return to power. "I talked to many people here who wanted change and since they were disillusioned by Lugo, they said change meant going back to the very conservative Colorado Party," she said. Alegre had led corruption investigations in Congress, but his reputation as an honest administrator was undermined by an investigation into whether he misappropriated state funds while serving as Lugo's public works minister. Paraguay's 3.5 million voters also cast ballots on Sunday for the country's legislature, 17 governors, local authorities and members of Congress.

Venezuela to audit remaining electronic votes

National election watchdog says it audit 46 percent of machines that were not checked immediately after Sunday's vote. Last Modified: 19 Apr 2013 09:55

Venezuela's electoral council has said it will audit the voting machines that were not audited on election night in an apparent rejection of the opposition's demand for a full vote-by-vote recount. Tibisay Lucena, the National Electoral Council (CNE) president, said on Thursday night that it would audit the 46 percent of the machines that were not audited immediately after Sunday's vote. Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles has presented a series of allegations of vote fraud and other irregularities to back up his demand for a vote-by-vote recount for the presidential election. "We do this [expand the audit] in order to preserve a climate of harmony ... and isolate violent sectors that are seeking to injure democracy,"  Lucena said in a televised speech. Venezuela's opposition leader Henrique Capriles said on Thursday he accepted the election authority's decision to audit the rest of the electronic votes, and said he believed his team would be vindicated. "We can show the country the truth ... with this, we're where we want to be," Capriles told reporters after the CNE announcement. Ruling party candidate Nicolas Maduro, the handpicked successor of the late Hugo Chavez, was declared the winner by 262,000 votes out of 14.9 million cast.

Corruption charges dropped against retired Mexican general

(CNN) -- A imprisoned former Mexican general has been released for lack of evidence nearly a year after his arrest on corruption charges.

Retired Gen. Tomas Angeles Dauahare, along with three other high-ranking military leaders, was accused of ties to drug traffickers. He was arrested in May and formally charged in August.

The arrests shook confidence in the military, which under former President Felipe Calderon had done the heavy lifting in the offensive against drug cartels. The military was chosen to go after the cartels because it was seen as less corruptible than local and state forces.

At the time of the arrests, lawmakers lamented what they said could be one of the highest-level corruption cases in Mexico's recent history.

Manual recount not possible in Venezuela, chief justice says

Caracas, Venezuela (CNN) -- A manual recount of votes isn't possible in Venezuela, the head of the country's Supreme Court said Wednesday, suggesting there is no legal basis for the opposition's push for a ballot-by-ballot audit of the narrow presidential election results.

In nationally televised remarks, Venezuelan Chief Justice Luisa Estella Morales said Venezuela's 1999 constitution eliminated manual recounts in favor of a "system audit."

"In Venezuela the electoral system is completely automated. Therefore, a manual count does not exist. Anyone who thought that could really happen has been deceived," she said. "The majority of those who are asking for a manual count know it and are clear about it. Elections are not audited ballot by ballot but through the system."

Why Venezuela is so divided

Caracas, Venezuela (CNN) -- As if on cue, Ermelinda Briceno entered the makeshift shrine to Hugo Chavez and shed a tear. This place of reverence to "el Comandante," the president of Venezuela for 14 years, popped up in this poor neighborhood after Chavez's death last month.

Briceno said her devotion to Chavez is unshakable. But she understands why even some who supported the late president were reluctant to vote for his handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro.

"I think a lot of people didn't know Maduro so they didn't vote (for him) but here we are, it was very close," Briceno said.

Hugo Chavez's political heir Nicolas Maduro named Venezuela's president-elect

(CNN) -- Election authorities proclaimed Hugo Chavez's handpicked successor Venezuela's president-elect Monday, despite his challenger's demand for a recount.

"It was a result that was truly fair, constitutional and popular," Nicolas Maduro said, criticizing his opponent's refusal to concede.

Maduro secured 50.8% of votes in Sunday's election, while opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski won 49.0%, Venezuela's National Electoral Council said Monday.

The South American country's top election official certified the results at a ceremony in Caracas, saying Venezuela's voting system had worked perfectly.

37 years in prison, but was he sentenced?

Lima, Peru (CNN) -- An elderly man's brain languishes. His body languishes, too, in prison. No one seems to know he's there.

Before a sudden turn of events this month, this was the story of Juan Navarro, who spent nearly 37 years inside the tough San Pedro prison in the Lima neighborhood of San Juan de Lurigancho.

To be precise, before being released this week, Navarro spent 36 years and eight months in prison. The exactness of this number is important because it is one of the few facts that he has certainty about.

He doesn't know how old he is. He doesn't remember if he ever appeared before a judge. He can't recall if he was convicted.

Colombian authorities row over Farc jail terms

Peace talks between the Farc and the government are continuing in Cuba

the rebel group Farc could escape jail terms should a peace deal be struck.

Eduardo Montealegre was reacting to earlier suggestions that Colombia could become a "rogue state" if an agreement allowed rebels to walk free.
Mr Montealegre said no Farc activists had yet been found guilty of crimes against humanity.
This week, thousands of people marched in support of the peace talks in Cuba.
The demonstrations, on Wednesday, came as Mr Montealegre announced that arrest orders against six Farc members had been suspended as part of the negotiations.
The activists are said to be part of Farc's negotiating team taking part in the talks aimed at ending five decades of violence.
'Inadmissible'
But Colombia's inspector-general, Alejandro Ordonez, spoke about "impunity" and said that the country would be in breach of international law if ever a peace deal allowed Farc members to walk free.
"It's inadmissible that those responsible for crimes against humanity, of war, genocides and displacements are not going to spend even a day in jail," he told reporters.
The attorney-general, however, said that kidnappings, the recruitment of under age "soldiers" and other crimes Farc members have already been found guilty of, were internationally recognised as human rights crimes but not as crimes against humanity.
He added that "transitional justice" was not the same as impunity.
Mr Montealegre maintained that there were other forms of punishment than jail and that a deal did not stand in the way of future investigations about crimes against humanity.
The negotiations launched last October in Norway by President Juan Manuel Santos are the first direct talks in a decade.
A month later, the meetings started in the Cuban capital, Havana.
But the issue is controversial with sectors of the armed forces and the police - who have fought Colombia's largest rebel group since the 1960s - and with supporters of former President Alvaro Uribe.
Official figures say at least 600,000 people have died and more than three million have been displaced by the conflict.

Chile ex-president launches election campaign

Chile's former president has launched her campaign for November's presidential election.
Michelle Bachelet kicked off the campaign on Saturday, saying she will use a second term to reform taxes and education and to fight Chile's huge income inequality.
"We must guarantee everyone a public education system that integrates them at all levels, ends profit and advances toward universal gratuity," she said.
"It's the desire of most Chileans."
Bachelet, 62, begins her campaign for the November 17 election as the front-runner.
The daughter of a general tortured to death for opposing General Augusto Pinochet's 1973 military coup, Bachelet herself was arrested along with her mother in 1975 and went into exile to Australia and the former East Germany.
She left office four years ago with soaring popularity ratings and was was unable to seek immediate re-election as  Chile's constitution bans consecutive terms.
But she conceded many issues were left unsolved during her presidency, key among them education reform and the sharp income inequality that has marred the country's economic growth.
"Combatting inequality is what gives us a purpose to be here," Bachelet said.
"It's the fine print that affects millions of consumers who are in debt. It's the salary gap between men and women and the inability of workers to negotiate collectively," the moderate Socialist Party member told a cheering crowd of about 5,000 people at the Caupolican theatre in downtown Santiago, the capital.

'Universal gratuity'
Bachelet, who has spent the last two years heading the UN agency for women, promised to push for tax reform so that "those who earn more, contribute more" to fund deep changes to Chile's troubled education system.
"We must guarantee everyone a public education system that integrates them at all levels, ends profit and advances toward universal gratuity," she said.
"It's the desire of most Chileans."
Student protests demanding free education marked the final years of her term and worsed during the administration of her conservative successor, Sebastian Pinera.
Pinera's popularity has plunged to the lowest level of any Chilean leader since the end of Pinochet's dictatorship in 1990.
Tens of thousands of students flooded the streets of Chile on Thursday to demand free education, showing the continuing strength of the student movement in an election year.
Bachelet's opponent from the conservative governing coalition is likely to be either Andres Allamand, former defence minister, or Laurence Golborne, the former public works minister who led the 2010 rescue of 33 miners trapped deep underground in the Atacama desert

Detainees, U.S. guards clash at Guantanamo Bay

By Greg Botelho and Barbara Starr, CNN

updated 5:34 AM EDT, Mon April 15, 2013

 

(CNN) -- Guantanamo Bay detainees wielding "improvised weapons" clashed Saturday with guards, an episode that occurred amid simmering tensions at the U.S. military base.

The U.S. guards responded by firing "four less-than-lethal rounds," the military's Joint Task Force Guantanamo said in a statement. No guards or detainees suffered "serious injuries" at the facility in Cuba.

The incident, which happened in Camp VI at the detention center, comes as some inmates have waged a weeks-long hunger strike in protest of their treatment, guards searching through Qurans and other issues.

Since 2002, the Guantanamo detention center -- where people have been held in a range of conditions, from communal living to lone, maximum-security cells -- has held people captured outside the United States in counterterrorism operations. As of November 2012, there were 166 detainees in the facility, according to a Carlos Warner, a U.S. lawyer representing some of those detainees, told CNN late last month detainees have become increasingly frustrated with "very dire, dire conditions" and their sense that the current legal process leaves them in limbo indefinitely.

"It leaves them with the prospect of the only way we leave Guantanamo is death," Warner said. "Unfortunately, I think the men are ready to embrace this."

Early Saturday, the commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo ordered all inmates in Camp VI moved into individual cells. The reason, the military explained, was "to ensure the health and security of those detainees."

The clashes occurred while guards tried to move inmates.

Capt. Robert Durand, a Guantanamo spokesman, said the decision was made after detainees starting in February -- about the same time as latest hunger strike -- began obstructing surveillance cameras, windows and glass partitions. These actions, which Durand described as "non-compliant" and "unacceptable," made it difficult for guards to do "round-the-clock monitoring" throughout the facility.

"Suspending the detainees' communal living privileges was in response to a coordinated effort by detainees to create an unsafe situation and limit the guard force's observation," the military spokesman said.

"... The ability to continuously monitor detainees is the only way we can provide for their health and security. We should have gone in earlier."

Warner, the public defender for some Guantanamo detainees, has said frustrations have grown since a change in command last year, which was followed by a number of new policies.

The lack of action in closing Guantanamo Bay -- as President Barack Obama signed on to -- is furthering resentment that those held have no recourse or hope, the lawyer said.

"It was designed ... to be exactly what it is, a legal no man's land," Warner said. "Where there's one way in and the only way out is in a box."

An Argentine Tradition Threatens to Crumble With City Architecture

BUENOS AIRES — As Concepción Martínez, her husband and two daughters pulled into the last subway station here, cheers and clapping erupted from the throngs of people, some wearing turn-of-the-20th-century dress, waiting on the platform.

Camera flashes lighted the tunnels as passengers took their final rides in the saloonlike wagons — with their wooden benches, frosted glass lamps and manually operated brass doors — of South America’s first subway line.

“Every day, I ride this train into work, so this is a kind of goodbye,” Ms. Martínez said.

The antique Belgian-built cars, a symbol of Buenos Aires’s early-20th-century wealth, were taken out of service this year, and their retirement is a poignant example of the city’s struggle to preserve its physical history as some of its icons and infrastructure crumble.

An audit last fall cautioned that much of Buenos Aires’s underground transit system was in a dangerous state of disrepair, and that the city’s oldest line — linking the presidential mansion, the Casa Rosada, and the Constitución regional train station — should be removed from service immediately.

Victory Proves Gloomy for Venezuela’s New Leader

CARACAS, Venezuela — It hardly seemed like a victory celebration. Nicolás Maduro stepped onto a stage here Sunday night after being declared the winner by a narrow margin in the presidential election to replace his mentor,Hugo Chávez, but his supporters were already streaming away in droves. The long faces told the story.

“It’s not the same coming here and not seeing Chávez,” said Octavio Fuentes, 35, a government worker, walking out early. “We won, but you can’t compare Maduro with Chávez.”

Mr. Maduro was supposed to ride Mr. Chávez’s immense popularity and the wave of mourning over his death last month to a resounding victory that would ratify the leader’s idiosyncratic revolution.

Instead he squeaked by, with 51 percent of the vote, compared with 49 percent for the opposition leader,Henrique Capriles Radonski, according to an updated vote count released by electoral authorities. They reported that Mr. Maduro had gotten about 262,000 more votes out of more than 14.8 million cast.

The result is politics turned on its head in Venezuela, with an election winner who appears weakened and a loser who seems strengthened. Now, the country seems headed toward a high stakes political showdown.

The Electoral Council, which has a majority of government loyalists, certified the voting results on Monday even though Mr. Capriles, claiming he is the winner, had asked for a recount. as did the Organization for American States, through its secretary general, José Mighel Insulza.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Patrick Ventrell, said a recount was “an important, prudent and necessary step to ensure that all Venezuelans have confidence in these results.”

Denied the recount, Mr. Capriles called on his supporters to protest. As the
Electoral Council head, Tibisay Lucena, read the official certification, hundreds of demonstrators, most of them young people, faced off with National Guard troops in Altamira, a middle-class section of Caracas that is an opposition bastion. They burned rubbish and blocked a highway, as National Guard soldiers fired tear gas and anti-riot projectiles.

Some in the growing crowd demanded a recount. Others chanted, “Fraud! Fraud!” And as Mr. Maduro gave a speech broadcast nationally on television and radio, opponents in cities around the country banged pots and pans and honked car horns in a traditional sign of protest.

Chile’s Bachelet to run for re-election

© AFP

Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet on Wednesday announced her candidacy in presidential elections to be held on November 17. The country’s first female leader, who governed from 2006 to 2010, is widely tipped as favorite to win the race.

By News Wires (text)

 

Popular former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet announced late Wednesday that she is running in November 17 election.
Bachelet, the country's first female president 2006-2010, made the announcement at a public event in a southern Santiago neighborhood where she grew up.
Polls show that Bachelet, 61, is the runaway favorite in the race, even though she first has to win a June primary election against three largely unknown candidates.
The ex-president arrived in Santiago late Wednesday after three years living in New York, where she became the first head of UN Women, an office that supports the rights of women worldwide, when it was created in 2010.
"We knew there were things still to be done" when her leftist coalition left office, Bachelet said, "especially to improve the levels of income disparity."
A socialist, agnostic, single mother, Bachelet was a strange choice to lead staunchly Roman Catholic Chile, but her informal political style and personal touch led her to being dubbed "the mother of Chileans."
She left office with an approval rating of 84 percent, despite criticism over the response to Chile's massive February 2010 earthquake, and left behind a legacy of mostly successful efforts to improve the lot of Chilean women.
Born in September 1951 in Santiago, Bachelet studied medicine and joined the Socialist Youth as a teenager.
Her father, an Air Force general, was a close adviser to president Salvador Allende, and was imprisoned and tortured after Augusto Pinochet toppled the socialist leader on September 11, 1973. Bachelet's father died six months later.
Secret police whisked Bachelet and her mother to a torture center in January 1975. The two women were eventually freed, and fled first to Australia and then to East Germany, where Bachelet completed her medical studies.
Bachelet, already the mother of a young son, returned to Chile in 1979 but was prevented from practicing as a doctor by the dictatorship.
She continued studying, specializing in pediatrics and public health and in 1984 gave birth to a daughter. Her third child, Sofia, was born nine years later.
Bachelet studied military strategy in Santiago and later in Washington, and in 2000 was appointed health minister with a mandate to reform the sector. She later became minister of defense.

Men found guilty of Brazil activists' murder

Two men convicted of killing environmentalists Jose Claudio da Silva and his wife Maria do Espirito Santo in 2011. Last Modified: 04 Apr 2013 22:35

Two men have been found guilty of killing a couple who campaigned against illegal logging in the BrazilianAmazon. Jose Claudio da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espirito Santo, had for years campaigned against loggers and ranchers who force slave labour to clear-cut large swaths of the Amazon. The couple were killed in a May 2011 ambush near the Amazonian town of Maraba. Jose Rodrigues Moreira, the alleged mastermind of the attack, was found not guilty. "This is a clear defeat for the families of the victims," Al Jazeera's Gabriel Elizondo, reporting from the court, said. "There are about 100 people outside the court, family members, friends, acquaintances. They're all chanting 'justice' and 'crime'. Even though two people were found guilty, the person they wanted to go to jail was found not guilty." Rodrigues Moreira and the two alleged perpetrators, Lindonjonson Silva Rocha and Alberto Lopes do Nascimento, were arrested in a jungle hideout 300 kilometres from Maraba in the northern state of Para after the attack. The murder was the first in a series of 10 over a three-month period in the Amazon, most of them in Para, one of the Brazilian states hardest hit by violence by local loggers and ranchers against rural workers and their supporters. A report by the CPT said big land owners in the area often enjoy "total impunity". At the time of the killing of da Silva and his wife, Amnesty International, the London-based rights watchdog, had called on Brazilian authorities to end these killings as well as "the impunity enjoyed by those who incite this violence".

Maduro opens campaign in Chavez's hometown

Interim leader vows to "fulfil the will and legacy" of the late president as he calls for support in the April 14 vote. Last Modified: 03 Apr 2013 04:50

Maduro, centred, told his supporters he was committed to building 'socialism to its last consequences' [Reuters]

Nicolas Maduro, the acting president of Venezuela, has officially opened his campaign to succeed Hugo Chavez, vowing to carry on his mentor's socialist legacy in the late leader's hometown ahead of the April 14 election. The short presidential campaign formally kicked off on Tuesday, almost one month after Chavez died in cancer on March 5. Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver and union leader, was accompanied by hundreds of supporters, government officials and Chavez relatives as he visited the late president's childhood home in Sabaneta, now a local ruling PSUV socialist party headquarters. "We will fulfil the will and legacy of President Chavez," the handpicked successor said, describing the house as the "cradle of the Bolivarian revolution". "We feel comandante Chavez within us, like a father. We come to make a commitment with this land that saw his birth, pledge to never fail him and build socialism to its last consequences," he said. Al Jazeera's Lucia Newman, reporting from Sabaneta, said the acting president already had an edge over opposition rival Henrique Capriles. "He has so many advantages [that] it would be very difficult for his challenger to beat him," our correspondent said. "He's riding very much on the wave of emotion and the electoral victories that the ruling party has had." Media role questioned Maduro and Capriles have traded barbs and wooed voters, as Venezuelans go to the polls for the second time in six months. The opposition candidate, who lost to Chavez in the last October elections, has accused his rival of unfairly using state media and money in his campaign. "The state media have become a propaganda wing of a political party," Capriles alleged, referring to the socialist party of Maduro. In free and fair balloting, candidates are supposed to have the same access and the same rights, Capriles told a news conference. He urged the National Electoral Council to be impartial and enforce campaign rules ahead of the April 14 vote. But a communications minister said Capriles's campaign had received publicity from state media. Ernesto Villegas wrote on Twitter that state television had broadcast Capriles's press conference live "despite his orders to prevent access for journalists" from state media. Villegas also again invited Capriles to be interviewed on state television, after the opposition candidate denied an earlier request, saying state media was biased against him. Insecurity On Monday night, Capriles joined a march against insecurity in the country, railing against the government for failing to address the pressing issue. "There is not a single proposal for the government to defeat violence and give peace to Venezuelans," Capriles said before a crowd of hundreds of thousands. Chavez, who came to embody a resurgent Latin American left while channelling Venezuela's vast oil wealth into social programmes for the poor, died after a long battle with cancer. During his 14 years in power Chavez developed a vast media apparatus consisting of at least five television broadcast channels, two newspapers and dozens of local radio stations carrying the government's message.

4 charged in deadly Brazil nightclub fire

(CNN) -- Prosecutors this week indicted four people connected to a deadly blaze at a Brazilian nightclub that left hundreds dead.

The four suspects now face homicide and attempted homicide charges in connection with the January inferno at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, Brazil, prosecutors said.

The suspects were identified as club owners Elissandro Spohr and Mauro Hoffman, vocalist Marcelo de Jesus dos Santos, and show producer Luciano Bonilha.

The musicians are accused of using pyrotechnics that they knew were for outdoor use to save money, prosecutors said. The club owners are accused of allowing an overcrowded, dangerous environment that added to the deadly outcome, prosecutors said.

The nightclub was filled well beyond its legal capacity with the crowd of 2,000 people, who packed the club to hear the band play.

When the fire raged the crowd panicked, broke into a stampede, and clogged the club's the only exit.

Authorities have said that at least 235 people died in the blaze and many others were critically injured.

Dozens killed in Argentine storm, floods

Deadly floods in Argentina

(CNN) -- Argentina's president declared three days of national mourning Wednesday after heavy rains claimed dozens of lives.

At least 48 people were killed in La Plata, outside Buenos Aires, officials said Wednesday.

"In 12 hours it has rained what it normally rains in the entire month of April," Santiago Martorelli, cabinet chief of the city, told the state-run Telam news agency. The rainfall in that period was 13 inches, he said.

"This storm is a catastrophe without precedent," Martorelli said.

Some 3,000 residents of La Plata have evacuated due to the rain, officials said.

Earlier, eight storm-related deaths were reported in Buenos Aires, the capital.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner toured some of the most heavily damaged areas Wednesday evening.

"I have come to see what happened with this disaster," she said as she entered a flooded home, according to Telam. "I am not going to leave you alone."

Police patrols in the area will increase, she said, due to residents' concerns for their safety.

"People told me that they are afraid," she said, "beyond what they've lost."

Uruguay's senate approves same-sex marriage bill

Gay couples observe the Senate's discussion of a bill on same-sex marriage in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Tuesday.

Montevideo, Uruguay (CNN) -- Uruguayan senators voted overwhelmingly in favor of a same-sex marriage measure Tuesday -- a key step that puts the South American nation on the path to becoming the 12th country to approve such a law.

Senators approved the marriage equality bill 23-8. Next week, lawmakers in the lower house, which approved a different version of the legislation late last year, are expected to vote on the senate's version.

If approved and signed by President Jose Mujica, who has indicated he supports the measure, the proposal would make Uruguay the second country in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage. Neighboring Argentina legalized such marriages in 2010.

It's an issue that's sparked debate and impassioned demonstrations from supporters and opponents in many countries.

Legislators in France and the United Kingdom are among lawmakers worldwide weighing proposals to legalize same-sex marriage. In the United States, the question of same-sex marriage went before the Supreme Court last week, and justices are now deliberating over the matter.

The first same-sex couples walked down the aisle in the Netherlands in 2001. Since then, almost a dozen countries have passed laws allowing same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships, including Canada, South Africa, Belgium and Spain.

In Argentina, the push to legalize same-sex marriage met with fierce opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, with Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio -- then the archbishop of Buenos Aires and now the pope -- engaging in a notorious war of words with the government over the issue.

In Uruguay, the church has taken a similar tack, with officials describing the measure as a harsh blow to the institutions of marriage and the family.

"Why make relative or devalue an institution that is already so injured, like the family, introducing deep modifications that are going to confuse more than clarify?" the Rev. Pablo Galimberti, bishop of Salto, wrote in a recent post on the website of the Uruguayan Bishops Council.

Uruguay's Broad Front, a coalition of left-wing political parties, backs the measure. On Tuesday, the group's president stressed that the proposed law change a civil institution and has nothing to do with the church.

"Here we are speaking about RIGHTS, with capital letters. Rights that were denied and repressed for a long time, and which a society that is trying to be modern and inclusive necessarily must recognize, to advance in equality," wrote Sen. Monica Xavier. "Rights that are inherent to people, that are not a legislative creation, but something that the law must recognize."

For years, it was rare to see gay rights issues gaining traction in Latin American countries.

Not anymore, Javier Corrales, a professor of political science at Amherst College in Massachusetts, told CNN in 2010.

"Latin America currently has some of the most gay-friendly cities in the developing world," said Corrales, who ranked cities' gay-friendliness in a book he co-edited, "The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America."

In 2009, Uruguay was the first Latin American country to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. It was also one the first Latin American countries to allow same-sex civil unions.

The measure approved by Uruguayan senators Tuesday removes the words "man" and "woman" from the country's civil code and replaces them with the word "spouse," CNN affiliate Teledoce reported.

Brazil police make 3rd arrest in rape of American woman

Sao Paulo, Brazil (CNN) -- Police in Brazil have arrested a third person in connection with the rape of an American woman on a minibus in Rio de Janeiro.

Carlos Armando Costa dos Santos was arrested Monday night, police said.

The woman boarded the minibus with another tourist in the Copacabana beach district in Rio de Janeiro early Saturday. Three men subsequently boarded the minibus and forced off all the other passengers, police said.

The woman was raped, and the other tourist, a man, was held captive and robbed, authorities said.

Their credit cards were used at multiple locations inside and outside of Rio de Janeiro over a span of hours, the police said in a statement.

According to Brazilian newspapers, the man was handcuffed and beaten, while the woman was repeatedly raped. The two were dumped in Itaborai, a city more than 30 miles (about 50 kilometers) away, after six hours, O Globo newspaper said.

Earlier, police arrested two men, both in their early 20s. They are Jonathan Foudakis de Souza and Wallace Aparecido Souza Silva.

The U.S. Consulate is in contact with the victim and is providing all appropriate consular assistance, said a State Department official, who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to talk about the case

The rape highlights security concerns in the Brazilian city that will host matches in the 2014 World Cup and will put on the Summer Olympics two years later. '

As more women come forward saying they were victims of similar attacks, Rio de Janeiro's Civil Police Chief Martha Rocha issued a written apology. She also fired two police officers responsible for handling rape cases.

Rio has gone a long way toward cleaning up its image as one of Latin America's most violent cities. But Brazilian media already are drawing parallels between this attack and the infamous gang rape of a young woman on a bus in India.

A grisly crime surges into spotlight as Mexico shifts drug war strategy

(CNN) -- It was a staggering sight, even in a Mexican city that has seen its share of violence in recent years as drug-related crimes surged.

Seven bodies sat slumped in white plastic chairs placed near a central plaza in Uruapan, Mexico.

Local media reported messages were left behind, written on poster board and pinned to some of the victims' bodies with icepicks.

The men appeared to have been killed by gunfire, and investigators believe organized crime groups are to blame, Mexico's state-run Notimex news agency said. Investigators haven't provided details about who they suspect was responsible or why they targeted the men -- windshield washers and farm workers, according to Notimex.

Uruapan, a city of a quarter million people in the western state of Michoacan, made headlines in 2006 when members of a drug cartel -- La Familia Michoacana -- hurled five decapitated heads of rival gang members onto a dance floor there.