WORLD
April 7, 2012 | By Vincent Bevins, Los Angeles Times
SAO PAULO, Brazil - If you plan to fly somewhere in Brazil on a busy weekend, you'd better be prepared to wait. At some airports, up to a third of the flights can be canceled or delayed. If you choose to drive, you'll sit in traffic. The 50-mile trip from Sao Paulo to nearby beaches for the Carnaval holiday this year took as long as five hours. If you're counting on the planned bullet train between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, good luck with that. It won't be ready when Brazil hosts soccer's 2014 World Cup. In fact, the transportation minister said recently that it won't be operating until 2022, at the earliest.
WORLD
April 3, 2012 | By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times
MEXICO CITY - Mexico picks a president in July, and the winner would be smart to study the lessons of a new film depicting public schools in the country as a giant factory of failure. Classrooms that are crumbling. Pupils who don't understand what they read. Parents who aren't involved. Teachers, often inept, who are protected by a powerful union boss and the politicians who fear her. If this were science class, Mexico's education system might be floating in a jar of formaldehyde, a sorry specimen of how not to prepare young people for the 21st century.
WORLD
March 8, 2012 | By Brian Bennett, Los Angeles Times
Despite intensified counter-narcotics efforts over the last five years, the military's ability to stop drug smuggling into the U.S. from Latin America has declined as planes and ships have been diverted to combat operations around the globe, according to a senior military officer. As a result, the Navy and Coast Guard are stopping one of three suspected seaborne drug shipments headed to American shores, Gen. Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, told reporters Wednesday.
WORLD
February 19, 2012 | By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times
"I will be the first woman president of Mexico. " Thus declared Josefina Vazquez Mota on the night this month when she was officially crowned the incumbent party's candidate in upcoming national elections. A former congresswoman and education minister, Vazquez Mota, 51, has eagerly embraced her historic position as Mexico's first female presidential candidate for a major political party. In a contest where she trails the leader by a wide margin, she does not hesitate to play the so-called gender card at chosen moments.
WORLD
February 9, 2012 | By Adriana Leon and Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times
At first, Lima taxi driver Mario Segura was disgusted by the thought of buying a Chinese-made car. He had doubts about the vehicles' durability, service and resale value. But favorable word of mouth, assurances that spare parts are plentiful and, of course, unbelievably low prices won him over. "Little by little, I heard favorable comments," said Segura, speaking in a Chery showroom in the Surquillo district. He had just plunked down $12,000 in cash for a new Fullwin XR sedan, half the cost, he said, of a comparable Fiat or Renault.
NEWS
January 27, 2012 | By Seema Mehta
Courting two critical constituencies in the days before the Florida primary, Newt Gingrich reached out to Jewish and Latino voters on Friday and pledged to chart a more aggressive course in the Middle East and Latin America. Addressing a mostly white-haired crowd at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Delray Beach, Gingrich said the United States and Israel would not be safe until Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was no longer in power in Iran. "I believe we need a profoundly new approach to the Middle East," he said.