Search

The article reports on an investigation by the U.S. attorney in Miami, Florida into five men officials say were part of a plot by the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to influence the presidential election in Argentina. The case began when Venezuelan-American businessman Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson was found at an airport to have a suitcase full of cash.

The article discusses consumer discontent with electricity bills in Illinois. The state removed a 10-year-old rate cap in 2006, and rates for some customers increased 100%-200%. As utility bills are getting higher, the electric power industry is warning of an energy crisis if higher fuel and plant construction costs can not be passed on to consumers.

The article reports on an increase in the significance of ethanol as a fuel alternative to petroleum. According to the piece, the interest in ethanol would receive a boost when president George W. Bush calls for an increase in the amount of the substance mixed with gasoline. He was expected to make that announcement in the 2007 State of the Union address. The growing political power of the ethanol lobby in Washington D.C. is assessed.

The author reflects on the annual summer boat party held on Lake Michigan in Chicago, Illinois. The event is sponsored by "Chicago Scene" magazine. According to the author, daytime parties have become a magnet for club owners and promoters who use the gatherings to draw people to their establishments after the sun sets.

The article presents that author's views on the recent collapse of global world trade talks. The author suggests that the break down of the talks proved that a small number of farmers in the United States, Europe, Japan, India and other trading partners have the power to resist lower agricultural tariffs and subsidies even though a global trade deal might ultimately benefit most of them. Comments from Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, are included.

The author reports that entrepreneurs are placing big bets that global aviation is ready for the concept of the air taxi. According to the author, their idea is to offer faster, more convenient air travel that is priced somewhere between private jets and commercial airlines. The author reviews how Eclipse Aviation Corp. will soon begin building a six-seat plane.

Reports the increase in the prices of gasoline in the U.S. Automation in the gasoline market; Discussion of the cost-cutting strategy employed in the gasoline market; Management of petroleum refineries.

IT can seem hard to believe, but there was a time when people didn't value Central Park for its views. In the late 1800s, after the park was created, most buildings were still no more than five stories high, residents often decorated with heavy curtains, and an infestation of malaria-carrying mosquitoes was a cause for alarm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THE residents of Manhattan's most expensive luxury building -- 15 Central Park West -- include celebrities like Denzel Washington and Sting, not to mention financiers from hedge funds and Wall Street firms. But fewer people know the name of Barbara Bradley Baekgaard, a co-founder of Vera Bradley, a billion-dollar apparel company based in Fort Wayne, Ind., famous for its colorful handbags. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CORRECTION APPENDED MIAMI POWERBOAT tours of Star Island here offer a pretty good bang for the buck, especially if you love hearing about celebrities and their homes on the renowned enclave for the jet set, or if you want to feel like Sonny Crockett for a day, bouncing over the waves, reliving some ''Miami Vice'' moment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

CORRECTION APPENDED IT was billed as ''A Double Feature of Never Before Seen Paintings,'' starring Eve Plumb, a k a Jan Brady, of ''Brady Bunch'' fame. That may sound like a set-up for a ''Saturday Night Live'' skit (cue the theme song from the iconic 1970s show), but this was the big draw for an event in Chelsea on Wednesday night. Ms. Plumb, blond and charming in her black dress, was flitting about, explaining the inspiration for her artwork. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

DOMINIQUE BENZ and her husband are looking forward to hosting a Brazilian barbecue on their downtown Manhattan deck sometime later this year. Their ambitions for the affair won't be constrained by space. Last year, the Sao Paulo couple bought two adjoining apartments at the Caledonia in Chelsea. They plan to combine them, creating a 2,800-square-foot deck -- one of the largest private outdoor spaces downtown, brokers said. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SHIVERING in the chilly nighttime desert air of Chile in late 2010, I was among the throng of reporters and locals who felt relief and elation as the Phoenix capsule lifted the first of the 33 trapped miners to safety. The two-month-long saga was a roller-coaster of raw and elemental emotions -- hope, fear, courage and ingenuity to overcome the cruel dangers of sending men to work nearly a half-mile underground. With my foreign posting over, I've recently returned to New York to cover high-end real estate. And although no lives are at stake (that I know of, anyway), it is a world where the emotions of buyers, sellers and brokers can seem just as raw. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

e-mail: bigdeal@nytimes.com [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BUENOS AIRES -- Three fans of the soccer club San Lorenzo de Almagro slipped past security guards after a closed-door practice last month and berated players on the field for their recent losses. Jonathan Bottinelli, a star defender, told the men to leave. One of them lunged at Bottinelli and punched him in the face. Another hit him from behind. A few teammates rushed in to stop the fight, Bottinelli and other players said, but the beating continued, leaving Bottinelli, a club fan since childhood, with doubts about ever again pulling on the red-and-blue San Lorenzo jersey. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Hugo Chavez said he would host a ''cancer summit'' meeting in early 2012 for South American leaders who, like himself, have been treated for the disease. Mr. Chavez, left, who said he had surgery in June to remove a malignant tumor, said he would invite President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil; her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who began treatment for throat cancer late last month; and President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay. ''There will be no cancer or force that can hold us back because Latin America is experiencing a rebirth,'' Mr. Chavez told Venezuelan state television on Sunday. He said would wait to hold the summit meeting until after Mr. da Silva completed his chemotherapy. After several rounds of chemotherapy, mostly in Cuba, Mr. Chavez, 57, said last month that he was cancer-free. Ms. Rousseff, 63, received a diagnosis of lymphatic cancer in 2009 before her election, and doctors have said she is currently free of cancer. Mr. Lugo, 60, who was found to have lymphatic cancer in August 2010, has undergone treatment in Brazil and has also been declared cancer-free. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

BUENOS AIRES -- Brazil's embattled sports minister resigned on Wednesday amid accusations of corruption. He is the sixth minister to step down in disgrace since President Dilma Rousseff took office in January. The sports minister, Orlando Silva, a holdover from the previous government, was pressured to resign after accusations that he took kickbacks from nongovernmental groups chosen to work on sporting events. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

BUENOS AIRES -- President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina cruised to re-election on Sunday, riding a wave of economic prosperity in her quest to continue the political dynasty begun by her late husband, former President Nestor Kirchner. As recently as two years ago, Mrs. Kirchner had seemed a long shot to win a second four-year term. Her combative style, highlighted by a heated dispute over agricultural export taxes, sent her approval ratings below 30 percent. Economists predicted doom for the subsidy-heavy economic model first orchestrated by Mr. Kirchner to help the country recover from its economic collapse in 2001; rising inflation and accusations of doctored economic statistics clouded her prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

COPIAPO, Chile -- After his dramatic rescue from a mine last year, Jimmy Sanchez traveled the world, cruising the Greek islands, visiting Britain, Israel, Los Angeles, Disney World -- all paid for by people who were moved by the Chilean miners' story of courage and perseverance. But today Mr. Sanchez, like many of the 33 miners who survived 69 days nearly a half-mile underground, is jobless and at wits' end. Twice a month, he boards a bus to Santiago, Chile's capital, traveling 11 hours each way for a short visit with a psychiatrist. He is one of nine miners receiving sick-leave pay for prolonged post-traumatic stress; a handful of others say they are seeing private therapists. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Sebastian Pinera sent a bill to Congress Tuesday night calling for a strengthening of Chile's penal code, a move aimed at further repressing large student protests that have led his government's popularity to plummet. The bill, which is expected to face a stiff challenge from the opposition Concertacion coalition, would set prison sentences of up to three years for anyone who occupied public or private institutions like schools or universities, and it would also penalize other forms of demonstration. Since May, students have occupied more than 200 institutions of learning. They are demanding a range of reforms, chief among them a return to widely available free public college education that existed before the 17-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BUENOS AIRES -- President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner unveiled a 10-story-high tribute to Evita Peron last month, dedicating the forged-steel portrait on the side of a government building to the memory of a woman she has often invoked in speeches to supporters. ''Let the symbol of Evita be a symbol for the unity of all Argentines,'' Mrs. Kirchner said at the unveiling of the portrait, which was her idea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- A virus that has killed millions of salmon in Chile and ravaged the fish farming industry there was probably brought over from Norway, a major salmon producer has acknowledged. Cermaq, a state-controlled Norwegian aquaculture company that has become one of the principal exporters of salmon from Chile, has endorsed a scientific study concluding that salmon eggs shipped from Norway to Chile are the ''likely reason'' for the outbreak of the virus in 2007, according to Lise Bergan, a company spokeswoman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SAO PAULO, Brazil --President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela returned home from Cuba late Saturday after completing a second phase of cancer treatment and said that his doctors in Cuba had not detected any malignant cells in his body. Speaking in Caracas, the capital, on Sunday, Mr. Chavez said he received chemotherapy all week in Cuba and had been subjected to ''rigorous examinations.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SANTIAGO, Chile -- For Ana Maria Silva, what began as purchases of perfume and two pairs of shoes spiraled into a credit card nightmare, as her debt multiplied tenfold in five years -- and not all because of her spending. Ms. Silva was among 418,000 clients in Chile who fell behind on their payments and had their debts repackaged by the retailer La Polar, which raised interest rates and extended loan terms without their knowledge. In early June, it came to light that executives at La Polar had been unilaterally renegotiating clients' debts for more than six years. The news stunned Chileans and has become one of the biggest financial scandals of Chile's 20-year economic boom. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- A new autopsy has determined that President Salvador Allende of Chile killed himself with an assault rifle, Chilean officials said Tuesday, dispelling doubts that have persisted for 37 years about the exact circumstances of his death, including whether troops storming the presidential palace had murdered him. The forensic analysis, overseen by a team of Chilean and international experts, did not find any evidence that others were involved in Mr. Allende's death, concluding that the head injuries he sustained were consistent with bullets fired from a single AK-47 assault rifle. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Former President Juan Maria Bordaberry of Uruguay, who as president participated in a coup in 1973 that ushered in a 12-year military dictatorship, died Sunday in Montevideo. He was 83. His death was announced by his son Pedro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela boarded a plane bound for Cuba on Saturday to receive more treatment for a cancer whose details still remain a mystery to the outside world. Just one day after reports were swirling that Mr. Chavez was headed here to Sao Paulo for chemotherapy treatment at one of the most renowned cancer-treatment hospitals in Latin America, the Venezuelan leader announced late Friday that he was flying to Cuba instead. That choice underscored Mr. Chavez's unyielding faith in Cuba's leader, Fidel Castro, even in a possible fight for his life and the legacy of his 12-year-rule in Venezuela. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Hugo Chavez said Friday that he would return to Cuba to begin a new phase of cancer treatment including chemotherapy. Mr. Chavez, 56, said he would go to Havana on Saturday ''to begin what we've called the second phase.'' He had surgery in Cuba last month to remove a cancerous tumor from his pelvic region. He acknowledged Wednesday that he required further treatment for cancer but has not said what kind of cancer he has. On Friday, he said he was sending a letter to the president of the National Assembly to secure authorization for his trip, as required by the Constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- The resignation this week of yet another minister in the government of Dilma Rousseff, the president of Brazil, may have added to the tumult of her nascent presidency, but it is also showing that her managerial push for efficiency could make it tougher for corruption to persist in her administration, analysts said. The resignation of Alfredo Nascimento, the transportation minister, is giving Ms. Rousseff a chance to distance herself from the government of her mentor and predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

CORRECTION APPENDED BUENOS AIRES -- A decade ago, as Argentina slid toward financial collapse, banks barricaded themselves behind sheet metal to keep out protesters demanding access to their life savings. ''Thieves!'' some yelled, banging hammers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Chilean appeals court on Monday suspended a plan to build five dams and hydroelectric plants in the country's Patagonia region. The court ruling came in response to actions filed by environmental groups and legislators arguing that the government commission that approved the $3.2 billion dam project last month had not taken into account a technical review. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SANTIAGO, Chile -- A white gas mask hanging from her neck, Paula Banados strode side by side with 30,000 other marchers through this capital one recent Friday, a determined look on her face. ''Patagonia without dams!'' Ms. Banados, 19, shouted with the others, pumping a fist in the air. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- The resignation of the top adviser to President Dilma Rousseff under scandal-clouded circumstances has called into question the strength of her government and her own political judgment just six months after she took over. The adviser, Antonio Palocci, resigned late Tuesday as chief of staff, ending weeks of growing rancor over suspicions that he illegally enriched himself through consulting contracts while a federal legislator and coordinator of Ms. Rousseff's presidential campaign. It was the second time Mr. Palocci had been forced from government; he resigned in 2006 amid corruption allegations while serving as finance minister for former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- A top cabinet official in the government of President Dilma Rousseff resigned Tuesday amid reports that he had enriched himself while a federal lawmaker, deepening the first political crisis for Ms. Rousseff since she took office in January. Opposition leaders in the Senate had been calling for the resignation of the official, Antonio Palocci, who was Ms. Rousseff's chief of staff, even after Brazil's federal prosecutor-general on Monday shelved an investigation into accusations that Mr. Palocci had increased his personal wealth twentyfold as a corporate consultant while he was a congressman and the coordinator of Ms. Rousseff's 2010 presidential campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Brazil's environmental agency gave final approval on Wednesday for a giant hydroelectric power plant in the Amazon rain forest that has been at the center of a protracted battle between the government and environmentalists over the fate of indigenous people. After three decades of planning, the environmental agency, Ibama, granted a license to the North Energy consortium for the dam, which will be the world's third largest, capable of producing 11,200 megawatts of electricity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- The World Bank signed an agreement on Wednesday with mayors from 40 of the world's biggest cities to work on technical and financial assistance for projects to minimize the effects of climate change. The deal, announced at the C40 large cities climate meeting here, will ease access to financing for climate-change-reduction projects. It was hailed by many of the mayors, including Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City, and by former President Bill Clinton, who attended the event as part of a new partnership with Mr. Bloomberg. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

URUACU, Brazil -- When the Chinese came looking for more soybeans here last year, they inquired about buying land -- lots of it. Officials in this farming area would not sell the hundreds of thousands of acres needed. Undeterred, the Chinese pursued a different strategy: providing credit to farmers and potentially tripling the soybeans grown here to feed chickens and hogs back in China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Brazil's lower house of Congress overwhelmingly approved revisions to a key environmental law that would open up land in the Amazon rain forest for agriculture and grant amnesty to producers who deforested protected areas. The Senate still must vote on the measure, which conservationists say could accelerate the pace of deforestation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Isabel Allende long ago accepted that her father, former President Salvador Allende, took his own life with an assault rifle just minutes before troops stormed the presidential palace in a coup on Sept. 11, 1973. Even as leftist supporters like Fidel Castro declared that Mr. Allende had died in a gun battle, his suicide became a source of pride, rather than shame, for the surviving family members, she said. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- In a decade working as a nanny, Andreia Soares finally clambered up the ladder into Brazil's middle class. With the money she saved, she bought a two-bedroom apartment with granite kitchen countertops and a small veranda, a house for her mother, a plot of land for her brother and a Louis Vuitton purse from Paris that she proudly pulls from a closet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazilian government officials said Wednesday that they would crack down on cattle ranchers in the Amazon after new data showed that deforestation there had increased by 26 percent in the nine months that ended in April, compared to with the same period a year before. The data showed to that about 710 square miles had been deforested in that time. Izabella Teixeira, Brazil's environment minister, called the jump ''unacceptable'' and vowed to seize the cattle of farmers who are practicing deforestation to cultivate new pastureland. Ibama, Brazil's environmental protection agency, more than doubled police operations this year intended to deter deforestation. Despite those efforts, Mato Grosso, Brazil's leading soybean-producing state, saw a 43 percent increase in deforestation in the nine-month period that ended in April, compared to with the same period last year. Leading environmentalists said some farmers had cut down trees because they expected they would be allowed to do so anyway under a bill being considered in Brazil's Congress to ease restrictions on the amount of land that needed to remain forested. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Brazil's Congress fiercely debated changing a cornerstone environmental law on Wednesday night, a move conservationists warned could roll back one of the most effective pieces of legislation protecting forests and biodiversity in Brazil and undermine the country's efforts to slow greenhouse gas emissions. The debate pitted powerful agribusiness interests and the government's own plans for infrastructure projects against scientists and environmentalists concerned that the Brazilian Amazon, one of the world's largest forests, could be reaching a tipping point in its deforestation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Officials in Chile have approved a huge hydroelectric project in the heart of Patagonia, setting off protests by environmentalists in several cities. The Environmental Assessment Commission of Coyhaique, a regional government commission in southern Chile, approved on Monday the $3.2 billion project, which involves a series of five dams in the sparsely populated region of Aysen, which is dotted with nature reserves. Government officials say the HidroAysen project is needed to help stave off an energy squeeze in Chile, which imports about 70 percent of its energy. Environmentalists say it will flood thousands of acres of largely undeveloped territory and damage ranching and tourism. The police arrested at least 60 people late Monday in Santiago at a downtown protest that attracted thousands. Hundreds of demonstrators also took to the streets in at least four other Chilean cities. Opponents, including some members of Chile's Congress, said Tuesday that they would appeal in court, while opposition legislators said they would request a congressional investigation into irregularities in the project's approval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Ernesto Sabato, an acclaimed Argentine novelist who led a commission that investigated crimes committed by the nation's military dictatorship, died Saturday at his home in the Santos Lugares neighborhood of Buenos Aires. He was 99. The cause was complications of bronchitis, said Elvira Gonzalez Fraga, his companion and collaborator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BUENOS AIRES -- A former member of the Chilean secret police who was involved in killing a former Chilean army chief during that country's dictatorship was found stabbed to death in his apartment in Argentina, Argentine officials said Friday. Enrique Arancibia, 66, had been convicted of murder for the car-bomb killing of Carlos Prats, a retired general, and his wife in Buenos Aires in September 1974. General Prats, the former chief of the Chilean Army, had been an outspoken opponent of the Chilean dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- A missing witness to the death of a Roman Catholic bishop during Argentina's military dictatorship was found safe early Thursday after unknown people took him hostage and warned him to back down from testifying in an inquiry into the death, the witness's lawyer said on Thursday. The witness, Victor Martinez, 52, had been missing since Monday afternoon and the Argentine president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, had ordered the country's security forces to try to find him, fearing he could be killed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The police in Santiago have raided the home and offices of a lawyer representing a Roman Catholic priest found guilty by the Vatican of sexually molesting boys. The authorities seized documents related to the church case for a criminal investigation, a police spokeswoman, Lorena Quiroz, confirmed Tuesday. A judge ordered the raid after Juan Pablo Bulnes, the lawyer for the priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, above, refused to turn over documents. Mr. Bulnes on Tuesday called the action an ''abuse'' of his right to lawyer-client confidentiality. He said Chile's bar association has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the seizure. An appeals court voted last month to reopen a criminal case into charges of sexual abuse after the Vatican found Father Karadima guilty of abusing minors. The Vatican ordered the priest to retire to a ''life of prayer and penitence.'' He has appealed the Vatican's decision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IGARAPE DO COSTA, Brazil -- Along the rivers of the Amazon rain forest, people still recount legends in which pink dolphins are magical creatures that can turn into men and impregnate women. Brazilian musicians write songs about them, singing lovingly about the ''eye of the river dolphin.'' But for Ronan Benicio Rego, a fisherman in this tiny settlement, pink dolphins are both rival -- and prey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]