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Castro startles Chavez with practical joke Cuban president Fidel Castro reportedly startled his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, with a practical joke when they met in Paraguay. He persuaded a Paraguayan MP to warn Chavez to watch out for an ambush and then jumped out at him from behind a door. It happened after the two presidents arrived in the early hours at Assuncion airport, reports Terra Noticias Populares.. Witnesses said Chavez looked nervous when MP Juaqn Carlos Galaverna told him about the ambush and even more scared when Castro made his sudden appearance. Chavez told the press that he had...

ASUNCION, Paraguay - Cuban leader Fidel Castro drew 10,000 people to a Paraguayan stadium Saturday for a speech blasting the United States. "Fidel! Fidel!" a young and raucous crowd chanted, including admirers and others who simply wanted to see the hemisphere's lone communist leader. Castro attended Friday's inauguration of Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte and made his speech just before he was to return to Cuba. Castro, who turned 77 on Wednesday, at times looked weary and seemed to struggle for words as he attacked U.S. government policies and sought South American support for his communist state. Many cheered at the...

ASUNCION, Paraguay - Key South American leaders applauded Nicanor Duarte's inauguration as Paraguay's 47th president, then joined him in declaring a united front against drug trafficking on the continent. Presidents from Colombia and other countries in the region gave Duarte his first official business Friday as they signed the "Declaration of Asuncion" pledging a political alliance in the war on drugs. The leaders gathered for a day of red carpet pomp as the 47-year-old Duarte began a five-year term by pledging to tackle extreme poverty and endemic corruption in Paraguay, a landlocked nation of 5.5 million people. Fidel Castro...

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay - The expected arrival of Fidel Castro for Friday's presidential inauguration in Paraguay is causing a stir in the tiny South American nation that like Cuba was once ruled for more than three decades by a dictator. Considered a hero in much of Latin America for standing up to the United States, Castro causes commotion nearly anywhere he visits. In Paraguay, where the vice president was assassinated in March 1999 without police ever catching the intellectual author of the crime, Castro's visit has sparked security concerns. AWASH IN RUMORS Paraguay has been awash in rumors about...

<p>RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Brazilian police confirm that accused Al-Qaida terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammad visited their country in the 1990s, and U.S. intelligence suggests he may have hidden out in the region.</p> <p>Mohammad's visit -- the first confirmed Al-Qaida presence in South America -- renews fears that Osama bin Laden's organization may have ``sleeper cells'' in South America. There have been numerous unconfirmed reports of Al-Qaida training camps on Paraguay's border with Brazil.</p>

A notorious Miami computer company executive who became an influential Filipino legislator after fleeing the United States was extradited Thursday to face 4-year-old charges that he made illegal campaign contributions to former President Clinton and the Democratic Party. The indictment accused Jimenez of funneling hundreds of thousands of illegal dollars into the re-election campaign coffers of President Clinton and Democratic Sens. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Robert Torricelli of New Jersey through 23 employee straw donors. Jimenez's fortune helped him gain access to the Clinton White House; he golfed with the president, socialized with the First Lady and even...

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay, Nov. 26 — The economy will contract by 4 percent this year. The national currency has lost 30 percent of its value against the dollar since January. The government does not know whether it has enough cash to pay civil servants their year-end bonuses. In the space of less than a week, the minister of finance and the president of the central bank both resigned. Paraguay is in deep trouble.

<p>A group of Islamic terrorists is said to be working its way toward the United States from South America. The movement was reported within the U.S. intelligence community earlier this month and sent to law enforcement authorities around the country.</p>