It was targeting former interior minister Fernando Londono - but its victims were the driver and a police escort.              

 

The attack has shocked the city and left residents reeling.      

        

Dozens gathered at the site of the blast on Wednesday to condemn the violence and demand peace, including Jesus Calderon, a relative of one of the victims.

 

[Jesus Calderon, Family Member of Bodyguard Killed in Attack]:         

"We have to protest against violence. Yesterday, it was Ricardo (bodyguard killed in attack), tomorrow, who knows how many more. We reject these barbaric acts; we reject violence; that is why we are here."              

              

Colombia has battled both left and right wing militias and drug lords for decades.       

       

But a sustained campaign against revolutionary group FARC and the demilitarization of paramilitaries has reduced the violence in recent years.    

          

No one has yet claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack.              

 

        

This was the latest in weeks of demonstrations, unleashed by government plans to extend their working day from 6 to 8 hours.              

 

More than 30 protesters were hurt when the demonstration turned violent.       

       

[Rolando Azurduy, Department of Health]:         

"We'll continue until they repeal that Presidential Decree 1126 which has damaged our dignity, not just of doctors but of all Bolivians.  Everyone here is supporting us to get the decree repealed.  We want peace; we want them to repeal it—Repeal or death."             

 

Earlier in the day, Bolivia's presidential minister said a new law had been passed to override the original decree at the heart of the dispute.      

        

That's not enough to satisfy the protesters who fear the extended hours could be reintroduced.

 

The government says the issue will be discussed at an impending health summit, leading many to believe the row isn't yet over.              

 

The protests have seen support for President Evo Morales plunge, while violent demonstrations, strikes and road blocks have brought chaos across the country.              

 

The discovery came just hours before another bomb exploded in Bogota, killing at least two people.   

           

Neighbors said they noticed the vehicle after it was apparently abandoned on the street after 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. 

             

Police safely deactivated the bomb using a controlled explosion.  

 

[General Luis Martinez, Commander, Bogota Metropolitan Police]:        

"It had inside approximately 125 or 130 bars of explosives, shrapnel and metal. It was going to be activated via cell phone; it had 3 phones plugged into the explosives. Fortunately, thanks to the expertise and skill of our men, we were able to deactivate it and the situation is under control."

            

Authorities said they had not ruled out the involvement of Colombia's leftist guerrilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. 

 

[Nidia Suarez, Bogota Resident[:           

"We are completely afraid, we have never seen anything like this. I have worked here for many years and this has never happened."

            

 

The tremor struck near Arica in northern Chile near the Peruvian border.              

 

There were no reports of serious damage, but residents in the mining town were evidently shaken. 

 

[Arica Resident]: 

"It was terrible. The lights went out. It almost gave my wife a heart attack. We didn't know what to do. We were completely terrified."       

 

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck at a depth of 61.1 miles, 41 miles east-northeast of Tacna in Peru and 66 miles northeast of Arica - the world's number one copper producer.

           

The director of the region's National Emergency Office of the Interior Ministry says the area is in no danger of a tsunami.   

 

[Franz Schmauck,  Director,  National Emergency Office of the Interior Ministry]:     

"It [the earthquake] measured 6.4 on the Richter Scale, nothing was affected and it did not trigger the need for a tsunami alert off the coast. The information went through the VHF [radio] system quickly, the civil protection system that immediately helps us discard the occurrence of a tsunami on our coasts."

 

Earthquakes are common in Chile. 

 

The country was hit by a devastating 8.8 magnitude quake in early 2010, which triggered a tsunami that battered the central-south coastline, leaving around 500 people dead and many industries ravaged.            

The march was organized by the Bolivian Workers' Center, the country's chief trade union.

 

Miners joined in and set off dynamite in the downtown streets to draw attention to the cause.

 

Police fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators before they reached the Presidential Palace.

 

The leader of the health workers' strike said the group will not back down until President Evo Morales gets rid of a planned law that will increase working hours without providing what they consider appropriate compensation and benefits.

 

Last week, Morales said he will suspend the law, but many protesters say that is not enough and want to see it repealed.

 

The proposed law has provoked violent protests, hunger strikes and road blocks across the country.

 

 

With the help of a government agency designed to ease ex-rebels back into society, Alvaro Perez a former FARC member and  four other former guerrillas started up a clothing line called Chance.

 

Perez said he came out of the FARC camps with a special skill after making uniforms, adding that the freedom to choose clothing is a perk.

 

[Alvaro Perez, Demobilized FARC Member]:

"You have the same clothes; the jacket, camouflage pants, the cap, beret, the pouches, fatigues, tents, everything a guerrilla uses." 

 

Other members of the group also have skills that lend themselves to the clothing line. Ciro Gomez made handbags and other luggage while Jorge Garcia, like many from his native Cordoba province, makes jewelry.

 

[Alvaro Perez, Demobilized FARC Member]: 

"Chance means a new opportunity for people who were in the war. A combatant can change a rifle for clothes to wear and be useful to society."

 

Alvarez, a 58-year-old, put down his guns in 2006. Gomez is 47 and got out of a paramilitary group in 2003. A native of Cudinmarca, he said he joined a paramilitary group because of problems with a neighbor but said he always dreamed of another way of life.

 

[Cicero Gomez, Demobilized FARC Member]: 

"Ever since I started I wanted to have my own [brand] and wanted to form a brand and be able to create jobs for people living within the law, following all the laws. This is what I always wanted." 

 

The men will display their work on Wednesday, May 9 in Bogota at the Circulo de Moda fashion show.

 

But the timing of the advert and its location is stirring controversy with old foe, Britain.

 

Zylberberg was filmed secretly on the disputed Falkland Islands, long governed by Britain.    

                        

Argentina invaded the Falklands 30 years ago claiming sovereignty, sparking a brief but bitter war, which was won by Britain and left 900 dead.                            

 

The advert's slogan reads: "To compete on British soil, we train on Argentine soil' - a sentiment clearly shared by many Argentinians.                            

 

[Unidentified Buenos Aires Resident]:

"I think it's right. We are defending something that is ours with the weapons we have. We know we are inferior to the big powers and we have to use what we have in reach to get something done." 

                           

UK foreign secretary William Hague was less impressed, dismissing the advert as a stunt.  

 

[William Hague, British Foreign Secretary]:

"I think they are now resorting to one or two stunts. I don't think they will win any support for that. Any attempt to misuse the Olympic Games for political purposes isn't going to go down well anywhere in the world."

                            

The advert contradicts a recent claim by President Cristina Fernandez's government that Argentina would not seek political gain from the upcoming London Olympics.

They are promising to expand a truce to help the country cope with a tide of violent crime threatening to sweep the nation.           

   

The détente will prevent gangs from clashing at schools.              

 

[Victor Ceron, Gang Member]:

"With this proposition we confirm our commitment to contributing to a pacification of El Salvador, we have considered a second gesture of good will which declares all school areas of the country, public and private, as areas of peace. These (areas) are not considered zones of territorial disputes." 

             

The announcement adds to an earlier truce, brokered with help from the Catholic Church in March, which has been instrumental in reducing violent crime in the tiny Central American country.        

      

This gang member said his people are under orders not to attack or kill rivals and asked that others follow his example.              

 

Much of El Salvador's rising crime and high murder rate is related to gang violence.              

 

This prompted gangs to enter a period of "reflection" last year and laid the foundations of the March treaty that represents the interests of around 100,000 members.              

 

It features a map of what is known in the UK as the Falklands Islands and the Isla Malvinas in Argentina.

         

During the event, Fernandez lambasted the British government for refusing to open talks on the disputed islands' sovereignty, which both countries lay claim to.

 

[Cristina Fernandez, Argentine President]:            

"To those who don't like talking about Argentine rights, at least let's talk about the dialogue. Because it's certain that the British Foreign Ministry doesn't want to recognize us at all. But we cannot sustain something which has become unsustainable in every part of the world, which is refusal to talk. How can anyone say they are democratic and say 'I'm not going to talk to you about this?"

 

The Argentine president was speaking on the 30th anniversary of the sinking of the Belgrano battleship by Britain during the Falklands war in 1982.

 

Buenos Aires has called for an investigation to be held into the controversial sinking that led to the deaths of 323 Argentine crewmembers.

 

Argentina says the ship was sailing away from battle and was outside an exclusion zone, and Fernandez described the attack as a war crime.

            

 

A video was released showing the "Jetman" preparing for his flight.

 

He is shown jumping out of a helicopter over the Rodrigo de Freitas Lake and circling over Rio in his jet suit.

 

The 51-year-old Swiss adventurer started developing the Jetman project in 1993, completing his first significant flight in 2008 by crossing the English Channel. In 2011, he flew alongside two Albatross jets over the Swiss Alps and rocketed across a portion of the western end of the Grand Canyon.

 

Called an airborne pioneer, Ives Rossy a former fighter pilot, is considered the only man to fly with a rigid wing equipped with four jet engines.

 

Rocketing across Rio's famous landscape, the press release issued by Breitling said Rossy had successfully completed an 11 minutes 35 seconds flight.

 

Rossy passed by the spectacular Christ the Redeemer statue situated on top of the 2,329 ft granite peak of the Corcovado mountain.

 

Rossy the "Jetman" pulled his parachute and landed on target on Copacabana beach where dozens of spectators cheered his arrival.

 

The stunt was sponsored by the Swiss company Breitling.

Local reports said two or more people left a backpack outside the EU's offices just past 2:30 a.m. local time  (05:30 GMT).  

            

The explosion reportedly occurred minutes afterwards, shaking the building and shattering windows. 

             

A security guard from a neighboring building said the EU delegation's security guard was inside the building when the homemade device exploded. 

             

" He just told me that he felt the explosion. He was sitting near the door but didn't hear anything."

 

"Was there just one explosion?"

 

"Yes, yes. Just one explosion."              

 

Minor damage was done to the building and a nearby car.      

              

Romeo Langlois was reporting alongside Colombian security forces when he disappeared after a Saturday gun battle that killed at least four.  

            

Authorities said they don't know where the Frenchman is, and Pinzon said they would take concrete action when they have better knowledge of Langlois' location. 

 

[Juan Carlos Pinzon, Colombian Defense Minister]:        

"Of course there are operations, but we are not doing rescue operations because we do not know where the journalist is. When we get knowledge of his location, it will be time to make some decisions, decisions we would discuss with the French government."    

          

The gunfight reportedly broke out as police and military personnel sought to dismantle drug laboratories in the jungles of Caqueta, southern Colombia.

 

Witness reports say Langlois, who has been in Colombia about 12 years, removed his bulletproof vest and helmet and ran toward the rebels, possibly in a bid to prove he was not a member of the armed forces. 

        

The FARC have kept hostages in the past for political leverage, but said recently they would give up the practice.                       

Student groups said as many as 80,000 students participated in the latest demonstration which was the first official protest of the year organized by the Chilean Student Confederation.

 

Police officials put the number closer to 48,000. 

 

Students held seven months of demonstrations in 2011 protesting center-right President Sebastian Pinera and criticizing the higher education system that students say is geared to generating a profit and not to educating the people.

 

As police tried to break up the crowd and students fired back with rocks and other projectiles, a band of demonstrators apparently separated from the group and set a government security building on fire.

  

The government released a plan on Wednesday that was largely rejected by students and would have kept the university system a for-pay service, but would launch a voucher system that would benefit as many as 90 percent of students.

             

In the Colombian town of La Parada, southwest of the capital Bogota, the Tachira River overflowed its banks and flooded some 200 homes.   

           

Water levels stood nearly five feet deep in homes and streets in La Parada, where hundreds of residents lost nearly all their belongings. 

             

Jose Manrique is a member of the local civil defense crew.  

 

[Jose Manrique, Civil Defense Member]:        

"Because of the winter weather, the river overflowed its banks above a farm and affected the entire area of La Parada."

              

As waters receded, people tried to round up belongings and clean up the streets.              

           

Meanwhile in Tunga, northeast of Bogota, Red Cross volunteers and other local rescue workers evacuated residents in boats. 

 

Local news outlets were reporting three dead, four missing, and 15,000 people affected by flooding in the Boyaca province.  

            

In Peru's Amazon, crops and homes were underwater as the Amazon River and some tributaries flooded. 

 

 

The Chilean Interior Ministry said there had not received any reports of damage to infrastructure despite the powerful magnitude of the quake.  But state television said several thousand homes were without power outside Santiago.

 

The country's main copper mines were unaffected.

 

State emergency office ONEMI said a stretch of coastline was being evacuated as a precaution, but there was no tsunami alert.

 

[Benjamin Chacana, ONEMI Director]:

"With a monitor to have a better view of the field the preventative evacuation remained in effect until we communicated with the municipalities involved and after a partial damage assessment. At about three in the morning [0600 GMT] the preventative evacuation was lifted." 

 

More than 2,000 people, including many families, left coastal regions for safer ground inland making makeshift camps as they waited for the warnings to pass.

 

[Benjamin Chacana, ONEMI Director] :

"Two people have been reported dead as an indirect consequence of the strongest earthquake."

 

One of those victims was an elderly man who died as a result of a heart attack brought on by the quake, but there were no other reports of injuries.

 

Chile is prone to earthquakes, and was hammered by a massive 8.8 magnitude tremor in early 2010, which ravaged the south-center of the country, devastating industries and triggering tsunamis, in a disaster that killed about 500 people.

 

YPF, controlled by Spain's Repsol, has been under intense pressure from the center-left government, as its share price has plunged due to months of speculation about a government takeover.  

            

Fernandez said the government would ask Congress to approve a bill to expropriate 51 percent of the energy company.  

 

[Cristina Fernandez, Argentine President]:           

"Continuing with this policy of emptying out, of not producing, of not exploring for oil would practically make our level of growth not viable for our industry and workers."

             

Of the expropriated shares, the government would hold 51 percent and the country's oil-producing provinces would get the rest.  

            

Fernandez tried to avoid tagging the takeover as "nationalization" and said, if the bill passes, the government will run the company in a "professional way." 

 

[Cristina Fernandez, Argentine President]:        

"The model we have chosen is not a model of nationalization. I want that to be clear. It's a model designed to recover our sovereignty, to control a fundamental instrument but maintain the laws of a public limited companies and private companies. We are going to run the company in an absolutely professional way."              

            

A huge discovery of shale gas in late 2010 made YPF Chief Executive Sebastian Eskenazi the toast of a government eager for good news about the nation's energy resources, which have shrunk over the last decade despite the demands of a fast-growing economy.            

 

Obama, in his opening remarks, made a light-hearted reference to an interview from two days before, when a local news reporter grilled the president on his family’s vacations.

 

“Well, first of all, I want to thank President Santos and the people of Colombia for the extraordinary hospitality in the beautiful city of Cartagena.  We're having a wonderful time.  And usually when I take these summit trips, part of my job is to scout out where I may want to bring Michelle back later for vacation.  So we'll make sure to come back sometime in the near future.”

 

The presidents, in part, discussed how their countries would be participating together in the global economy.

 

This panel was not without its own awkward moment. Matthews asked about how the US would respond to Brazil’s industrialization, suggesting the country was attempting to take advantage of US education in order to compete directly with Obama’s constituents.

 

After the seemingly accusatory remarks, the US president diffused the slight tension with a joke.

 

“Chris, I'm not sure you're characterizing what President Rousseff said, but this is what happens when you get some of our U.S. political commentators moderating a panel.  They try to stir up things that may not always be there.  And Chris is good at it.  He's one of the best.”

 

Obama then continued with an explanation that an improved Brazil economy would therefore bring more customers to US businesses.

 

The Summit of the Americas concluded on Monday.

                      

Around 40 workers from natural gas companies were kidnapped in a jungle region, notorious for drug trafficking.              

 

A female police officer was killed and three others were wounded in an armed encounter, as troops searched for the hostages. 

 

The rebels tried to shoot down a helicopter that was combing the area.              

 

Relatives gathered in the town of Kepashiato, appealed to the government to carry on with negotiations. 

 

Some were against the idea of an attack.              

 

[Unidentified Relative of Hostage]: 

"There are 40 families asking for help. We want them to come and negotiate with those who are holding them and not attack. Because if they attack we don't know who will come out alive."              

 

The family of Miguel Medina, one of the hostages, pleaded for security forces to pull back.

 

[Unidentified Son of Kidnapped Miguel Medina]: 

"I just want my father to be here, for the government to understand our pain and try to negotiate with these bad people who cause us so much pain."              

 

But Interior Minister Daniel Lozada said negotiation is a tricky option.              

 

[Daniel Lozada, Interior Minister]:

"Negotiating with terrorists is very complicated. It would mean giving up some of our position. We don't want to hurt the civilian population, or the hostages."              

 

The rebels have demanded $10 million and dynamite supplies in exchange for the release of the hostages.              

 

This is Peru's biggest hostage crisis in nearly a decade.  

The activists were protesting a Supreme Court decision giving the green light to the controversial mega dam ‘HidroAysen’.        

      

Holding signs saying "No to HidroAysen" and chanting protest songs, the crowd made their way through the city as riot police lined the streets.           

   

As activists set tyres on fire, blocking downtown traffic, riot police rolled out their water tanks to disperse the crowd and kill the flames.      

        

The 3.5 billion dollar dam project is a private venture between 2 of Chile's largest energy companies, HidroAysen and Energia Austral—a unit of mining company, Xstrata Copper. 

 

The companies plan to build five dams on Patagonia's Baker and Pascua Rivers to generate power for Santiago.              

 

However, studies have indicated that the project would have a major impact on the environment.       

       

Both projects are scheduled to start operating in 2019.            

 

 

Cloaked in red blankets and special protective eyewear, the miners were led out by rescuers.  

 

The men had been stuck about 656 feet below ground since the illegal copper-and-gold mine partially collapsed last Thursday. 

 

They had been receiving oxygen and liquids through a giant hose that was in place before the accident.              

 

Miners acknowledged having many anxious moment as they waited for rescuers. 

 

Miner Javier Tapia Lopez:

 

[Javier Tapia Lopez, Trapped Miner]:

"Yes, there was a point when we thought we wouldn't get out."              

 

The incident at the mine - also known as a wildcat mine prompted President Ollanta Humala to call for better conditions.

 

[Ollanta Humala, President]:

"I would invoke across the nation a policy that would help formalize these thousands of Peruvians who live off illegal mining under inferior human conditions where they work without plans and many times in a very amateur way just to make a little bit of money for their families.”

 

Peru's vast informal mining operations generate as much as $2 billion dollars a year in revenue.