MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says his country is waiting for the second Russian aircraft that will deliver medical supplies to Venezuela to help it fight COVID-19.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US State Department has refused to reveal its intentions regarding sanctions placed on the Rosneft company after the Russian oil giant announced the sale of its assets in Venezuela on Saturday.

This weekend marks the beginning of the start of the War of the Triple Alliance, which wiped out 90 percent of Paraguay's men. But how did it start and how does the map of South America look different from how it did before the war began?

The South American continent which has been engulfed by public protests since last year is now bracing for the Covid-19 pandemic. Professor Heinz Dieterich has given his prognosis on how the coronavirus outbreak may affect the balance of power in Latin America.

On Thursday, the US Department of Justice announced indictments against several senior Venezuelan officials, including President Nicolas Maduro, alleging that much of the top level of the government in Caracas engages in “narco-terrorism” while facilitating drug trafficking into the United States.

A former Venezuelan general has surrendered to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) just a day after being indicted by US federal prosecutors and having a $10 million reward posted for his capture.

In 2018, the US introduced economic sanctions against Caracas in attempt to oust President Nicolas Maduro. This development and global price-related factors had a dramatic effect on the country’s oil industry, which now has stored an excessive amount and is approaching capacity.

Despite offering support for US-anointed ‘interim president’ Juan Guaido in his bid to oust the Venezuelan government, the European Union has softened its position on the Latin American country amid the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting Caracas’ request for $5 billion in assistance from the International Monetary Fund.

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has refuted the US accusations that the government of the Bolivarian Republic has links to drug trafficking.

The United States on Thursday charged Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro with "narco terrorism", offering a $15 million reward for his arrest. The Trump administration ceased its recognition of Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela, following accusations of election fraud and human rights abuse.

BUENOS AIRES (Sputnik) - Five inmates have died in two Argentine prisons after violence broke out over fears that guards had been breaking coronavirus quarantine rules, media said Tuesday.

The Covid-19 outbreak will drastically hit Brazil's workers and the poorest sections of the population, predicts Gustavo Guerreiro, executive editor of the journal World Tensions, explaining how the Bolsonaro government's neoliberal policies may deal a further blow to the president's plummeting popularity.

Notorious drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who was shot dead in late 1993, kept four hippos at his private menagerie at Hacienda Nápoles in Colombia. Left to roam free after his death, the animals have since grown in numbers, with scientists and locals branding them as pests that shouldn't be running wild.

During the Cold War the CIA was obsessed with keeping communism out of Latin America. In the 1970s and 1980s the agency backed right-wing regimes in Guatemala which carried out genocidal attacks in indigenous groups which supported left-wing rebels.  

Seven prison guards were among those injured in the riot, two of whom are in critical condition, according to the country's justice minister.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Ecuador's Minister of Health Catalina Andramuno and Minister of Labour Andres Madero have stepped down as the rate of the country's coronavirus infections increased by over 400 cases in a week to a total of 532, the presidential press service.

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - The number of people infected with the novel coronavirus in Mexico has increased by 48 to a total of 251 over the past day in addition to 697 suspected cases, the Mexican Health Ministry said on Sunday.

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - The Mexican Secretariat of the Navy (SEMAR) has informed of a Black Hawk helicopter crash in the country's southern state of Veracruz that left one person dead and nine others injured.

The total quarantine was ordered earlier by the Bolivian government, as the new coronavirus disease has already spread to more than 180 countries.

On 18 March, the nation's President Ivan Duque ordered mandatory preventive self-isolation at home for citizens aged 70 and older over the coronavirus outbreak. On Friday, it entered into force.