CUBA

Fidel Castro spoke on a live television and radio program for the first time since falling ill 14 months ago, sounding lucid and in good humor as he exchanged praise and jokes with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Castro's call came minutes after Chavez, broadcasting his weekly program from Cuba, aired a videotape of their weekend meeting in which he sang revolutionary hymns to Castro.

CENTRAL AMERICA

Crews clean up flooded areas

Emergency officials across Central America worked to clean up towns inundated by deadly floods and landslides, and braced for more bad weather.

At least 20 people were killed and thousands evacuated in the region after days of heavy rain.

The same weather system that killed 23 people in a Haitian village Friday triggered a landslide that buried 14 people in Costa Rica. In Honduras, three children and their mother drowned Saturday when an overloaded boat capsized.

COLOMBIA

15 missing after mine landslide

Searchers used dogs to find bodies buried in a landslide that killed at least 22 people in an open pit gold mine, a Red Cross spokesman said.

The search for 15 workers at the Suarez Gold Mine in the southwest was hindered by the same heavy rains that caused the landslide Saturday.

NAMIBIA

2 Americans ordered deported

Authorities have ordered the deportation of two Americans working for a security firm that was recruiting Namibians to work at U.S. facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, a government minister said.

The Namibian Cabinet also recommended the closure of the local branch of the Nevada-based Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group, which had opened this month, Information Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said.