In the 1500s, the Catholic Church classified the capybara as a fish, so its meat could be eaten on Fridays during Lent. If you’re not familiar with the capybara, it is the largest rodent in the world and certainly not a fish.

Indigenous Amazon leader Nemonte Nenquimo won the Goldman Environmental Prize for her organizing work to save Ecuador’s rainforests.

A fungus that devastates banana plants has now arrived in Latin America, the Colombian government confirms.

A UN report has detailed the extrajudicial executions of thousands of young men by special forces. The report says that the death squads are carrying out President Maduro's strategy for neutralizing political opponents.

The estimated 1 million Venezuelan refugees who have flooded Colombia alone in recent years is expected to double over the next year there and in other Latin American countries.

Boarded ships, terrorized fishermen and lawless coastlines. It’s a 21st-century version of an old menace.

Ernesto Benavides hangs out of choppers to document the devastation of Peru's rainforest.

The country's senate has pased a bill to ban the use of plastic bags in stores.

Rio de Janeiro: In a rare move, Brazil is providing armed back-up to indigenous people protecting the world's most threatened tribe from illegal loggers, a decision that campaigners lauded as a "landmark" in efforts to halt deforestation in the Amazon.

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire at a building in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil May 1, 2018. A 22-story abandoned office building occupied by hundreds of squatters was engulfed in flames and collapses.

The Panamanian border with Colombia is the demarcation between North and South America. The boundaries between the continents of Earth are generally a matter of geographical convention. Several sli…

The trains seem to never stop.

How can Venezuelans possibly go on?

To survive hyperinflation it is better to hold almost any asset than money because assets hold their value and money doesn't.

The Taushiro tribe vanished into the jungles of the Amazon basin in Peru generations ago. Amadeo García García is now the last native speaker of their language.

For five months, The New York Times tracked 21 public hospitals in Venezuela. Doctors are seeing record numbers of children with severe malnutrition. Hundreds have died.

A crusading Argentine judge has ordered the arrest of the country’s former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner on charges of “treason against the fatherland,” accusing her of covering up Iranian involvement in the country’s worst-ever terrorist attack. The 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish cultural centre, AMIA, killed 85 people. No one has ever been successfully prosecuted for the crime.

China, Russia and the International Monetary Fund are among those contemplating a Venezuela bailout. But help for this debt-stricken nation seems far from assured.

Two Venezuelan opposition leaders, Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma, have been re-arrested in a move condemned internationally. They were under house arrest after accusations of inciting violence during anti-government protests in 2014. The two have been taken to Ramo Verde military jail, family members say.

A candidate in Sunday's assembly elections and an opposition activist have been killed in Venezuela. The killings took place before voting started to elect a new assembly with powers to rewrite the constitution. The opposition says it is a power grab by President Nicolás Maduro and is boycotting the vote.