World

LA PAZ (Reuters) – Doctors in Cuba removed a benign node from the vocal cords of Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, the Bolivian government said yesterday.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuelan authorities called on the country’s Supreme Court to review its decision this week to annul the opposition-led congress, which critics have decried as a “coup” and a lurch to dictatorship.

ASUNCION (Reuters) – Protesters stormed and set fire to Paraguay’s Congress yesterday after the Senate secretly voted for a constitutional amendment that would allow President Horacio Cartes to run for re-election, a change that will also require approval by the House.

LIMA (Reuters) – Public prosecutors in Peru have opened a preliminary probe into the country’s former President Alan Garcia as part of a far-reaching inquiry into bribes that Brazilian builder Odebrecht SA has acknowledged distributing to win local contracts, a source in the attorney general’s office said Friday.

MOUNTAINS OF CAUCA, Colombia (Reuters) – Former fighters from Colombia’s FARC rebel group are handing over thousands of weapons and other materials to international officials in special camps, as the group’s six-month disarmament process continues.

BURAO, Somalia (Reuters) – Deadly cholera is spreading through drought-ravaged Somalia as clean water sources dry up, a top aid official said, deepening a humanitarian crisis in a country that is on the verge of famine.

(Reuters) – The sight of Venezuela’s National Assembly president tearing up a Supreme Court ruling and warning foreign firms against making deals with the leftist government will no doubt resonate in international boardrooms.

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Agricultural ministers have agreed on a plan to fight the red palm weevil which ravages coconut, date and oil palms, experts said yesterday, describing it as “a global threat”.

LONDON (Reuters) – Campaigners mounting a legal challenge to determine whether Britain’s divorce from the European Union can be reversed said they had filed their written legal case yesterday.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro said yesterday he would resolve within hours controversy over the judiciary’s annulment of congress which has sparked opposition protests and condemnation from around the world.

JOHANNESBURG, (Reuters) – President Jacob Zuma’s midnight sacking of his finance minister shook South African markets today, undermining his authority and threatening to split the African National Congress (ANC) that has governed since the end of apartheid.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Russia mounted a campaign of “propaganda on steroids” seeking to influence the 2016 US presidential election, the top Democrat on the US Senate Intelligence Committee said yesterday, listing several areas of concern about possible links to Republican Donald Trump’s campaign.

DAKAR/TAIPEI (Reuters) – A state-run Taiwanese bank has successfully sued two African countries for $212 million in unpaid loans and brought a claim against a third, court documents showed, in a possible warning to allies who switched sides in Taiwan’s spat with China.

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – A federal court sentenced Brazil’s former speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, to more than 15 years in prison yesterday for corruption, making him the highest-profile political conviction yet in the “Operation Car Wash” scandal.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Opposition leaders branded Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro a “dictator” yesterday after the Supreme Court took over the functions of Congress and pushed a lengthy political standoff to new heights.

JOHANNESBURG, (Reuters) – Jacob Zuma is considering offering to step down next year, at least 12 months before his term as South African president ends, under a deal with opponents in his ruling party that would see Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan leave office now, two senior party sources said.

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Theresa May formally began Britain’s divorce from the European Union yesterday, declaring there was no turning back and ushering in a tortuous exit process that will test the bloc’s cohesion and pitch her country into the unknown.

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) – El Salvador’s Congress yesterday approved a law prohibiting all metal mining projects in a bid to protect the poor Central American country’s environment and natural resources.

ROME (Reuters) – A rubber boat packed with migrants sank in the Mediterranean and the presumed sole survivor – a 16-year-old Gambian boy – told rescuers he believed all other passengers drowned, the International Migration Organization (IOM) said yesterday.

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said on Wednesday that U.N.