A group of Brazilian researchers has developed a molecular exam for diagnosing Zika within five hours, a much shorter time than current exams, and the new test will begin being used next week to fa

BOGOTA – Colombia’s government said it would comply with a Constitutional Court ruling that bans all mining activities in the Andean nation’s “paramo,” or alpine tundra, regions.

LIMA – Peru’s Energy and Mines Ministry said it had approved Spanish energy major Repsol’s environmental impact assessment of the Sagari natural gas project, located in the jungles of the southern

BOGOTA – The Colombian national ombudsman’s office said that even as the Andean nation suffers a drought, illegal mining activity annually contaminates 13 billion liters (3.4 billion gallons) of wa

The El Niño weather phenomenon is causing millions of dollars in losses in Cuban agriculture, affecting the island’s crops of sugar cane, tobacco, rice, coffee and vegetables, local experts are rep

RIO DE JANEIRO – The Samarco mine in the southeastern city of Mariana, where last November a huge toxic waste spill caused Brazil’s worst environmental disaster, has had a new spill although no vic

RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil made important progress against poverty and chronic inequality during the decade 2004-2014, but could have done even more before the onset of the current economic crisis, ac

MEXICO CITY – At least six people have died in the cold wave affecting the northern Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, where two cold fronts converged, pushing temperatures below freezing and

RIO DE JANEIRO – The number of Brazilian babies born with abnormally small heads – a condition known as microcephaly – as a result of prenatal infection with the Zika virus rose 7 percent last week

MONTEVIDEO – The number of people forced from their homes by flooding across four northwestern provinces has increased to 21,991 people, Uruguay’s National Emergency System, or Sinae, said on Wedne