The death toll from a prison riot in western Venezuela has risen to at least 47, with 75 wounded, an opposition politician and prisoners’ rights group said Saturday.”At the moment we have been able to confirm 47 dead and 75 wounded,” deputy Maria Beatriz Martinez, elected from Portuguesa state where the Los Llanos prison is located, told AFP.The Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP) rights group also gave the same tally.The initial toll Friday from the riot at the prison in the city of Guanare was 17 dead and nine wounded.
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Inmates at a prison in Manaus, a Brazilian city deep in the Amazon that has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, have taken seven prison guards hostage, the local prison authority told Reuters on Saturday, underlining the endemic violence that has plagued the region’s jails in recent years.The reason for the rebellion at the Puraquequara Penitentiary was not immediately clear, but local television stations cited a video allegedly recorded by an unidentified inmate, who complained of sweltering heat and a lack of electricity in the prison.In a statement, the prison authority in the state of Amazonas, where Manaus is located, said the prisoners were demanding the presence of the press and human rights groups. They had no information on possible deaths.The rebellion came as the coronavirus outbreak has overwhelmed public services in Manaus, with authorities burying victims in mass graves and warning residents of a shortage soon of coffins.Violence is rife in Brazil’s prisons, where organized crime groups often exercise de facto control. Overcrowding is also common, and rights groups call conditions medieval, with food scarce and cells so packed that prisoners have no space to lie down.In January 2017, almost 150 prisoners were killed as organized crime groups battled each other in several prisons in north and northeastern Brazil. In one particularly violent incident in Manaus, 57 inmates were killed, some of whom were decapitated and thrown over prison walls.Last year, over 50 inmates were strangled or stabbed to death as rival gangs battled each other in four separate Manaus jails.Various police units have been deployed and were already beginning negotiations as of Saturday morning, the Amazonas secretary of prisons said in its statement.
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In Brazil’s bustling Amazon city of Manaus, so many people have died within days in the coronavirus pandemic that coffins had to be stacked on top of each other in long, hastily dug trenches in a city cemetery. Some despairing relatives reluctantly chose cremation for loved ones to avoid burying them in those common graves. Now, with Brazil emerging as Latin America’s coronavirus epicenter with more than 6,000 deaths, even the coffins are running out in Manaus. The national funeral home association has pleaded for an urgent airlift of coffins from Sao Paulo, 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles) away, because Manaus has no paved roads connecting it to the rest of the country.  The city of about 2 million people carved from the jungle has been overwhelmed by death in part because it’s the main site where those from remote Amazon communities can get medical services, according to Lourival Panhozzi, president of the Brazilian Association of Funeral Service Providers. As of April 30, Brazil’s Health Ministry said that there were over 5,200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Amazonas state and 425 deaths, although there are concerns that inadequate testing for the virus has meant that the numbers may be much higher. A funeral worker wearing protection gear prepares a coffin to remove the body of Raimundo Costa do Nascimento, 86, who died at home amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Sao Jorge, Manaus, Brazil, April 30, 2020.Before the outbreak, the city of Manaus, the capital of the state, was recording an average of 20 to 35 deaths a day, according to the mayor. Now, it is recording at least 130 a day, data from the state’s health secretary show. People in the region also have been widely ignoring isolation measures.  There also are signs in the much larger cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo that suggest authorities may not be able to handle a huge increase in the death toll. A field of fresh graves that was dismissed in April by President Jair Bolsonaro as excessive has since been filled.  Latin America’s grimmest scenes occurred last month in Ecuador’s city of Guayaquil, where residents said they had to leave bodies on the street after morgues, cemeteries and funeral homes were overwhelmed. Many in Brazil fear the rising deaths will hit hardest in the favelas, the vast neighborhoods of the poor that are well-known in Rio and Sao Paulo but which also exist in most big Brazilian cities and even in smaller ones. “There is a great fear that uncontrolled contamination will happen there,” said Panhozzi, whose group represents Brazil’s 13,400 private funeral companies. In Rio’s Complexo do Alemao cluster of favelas, the body of Luiz Carlos da Rocha, 36, lay untouched for more than 12 hours Tuesday. Relatives didn’t know why he died but said he had epilepsy. The state’s military police, which normally picks up bodies found outside, no longer does so for nonviolent deaths, said an officer at the scene who would not give his name. He said without elaborating that the policy change was due to the coronavirus. The military police press office did not respond to requests for comment. FILE – Relatives mourn at the site of a mass burial at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery, in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, April 21, 2020.The next day at Rio’s Hospital Salgado Filho in a lower-middle class neighborhood, Clovis de Castro, whose ailing sister Genina had just died, found himself helping out in the hospital’s morgue. He waited six hours to sort out death certificate paperwork in what he described as a chaotic scene in the morgue, with grieving relatives arriving to identify bodies and only one worker available to move corpses. At one point, he was asked to lend a hand. “I had to help a person to put a body in a coffin,” de Castro said, adding that the experience made him “realize that people need help, the hospital needs help, the country needs help.” De Castro left with a death certificate saying his sister’s cause of death was undetermined. He was angry that no autopsy was conducted that might have confirmed his suspicion she died of COVID-19 or complications from the disease. “Why hide this stuff?” he asked. Sao Paulo director of ambulance services Francis Fuji blamed a recent surge of deaths in homes on coronavirus patients who were discharged from hospitals with mild symptoms, only to have their conditions deteriorate rapidly. FILE – Health professionals hold up photos of people they say were their colleagues who died of COVID-19, as they protest outside “Pronto Socorro 28 de Agosto” Hospital, in Manaus, Brazil, April 27, 2020.Paramedics don’t have the training to identify COVID-19 as a cause of death, he said, and many relatives have lied about their loved ones’ symptoms to avoid the corpses being handled as though they were contagious. “They think that if they get that diagnosis, then their loved one will be removed in a sealed plastic bag, they’ll never see him or her again, and they won’t even have a funeral,” Fuji said. Authorities in Sao Paulo dug hundreds of graves last month in anticipation of a rise in deaths. Bolsonaro has likened the coronavirus to “a little flu” and insists that sweeping state measures to close all but essential business are more damaging than the illness. On April 2, he questioned whether photos by The Associated Press of the new graves were “fake news” or “sensationalism.” By Thursday, all those graves were filled with the dead, as were dozens of other new ones, according to images by the AP photographer who took the original photos and revisited the site on Sao Paulo’s eastern region. Refrigerated trucks to hold overflows of bodies are now seen outside hospitals and cemeteries.  In Manaus early Thursday, Raimundo Costa do Nascimento, 86, died of pneumonia in his home. Funeral workers were so swamped that his relatives had to wait 10 hours for someone to retrieve his body. A week after Panhozzi’s association appealed for the coffins for Manaus, he said the request is still being considered. “That won’t work,” he said. “I need it now.”  
 
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday a ban on assault-style weapons following the slaying of 22 people in the worst mass shooting in the country’s history.In his announcement broadcast on Canadian television, Trudeau said the ban applied to 11 categories of assault rifles and other weapons, saying they “were designed for one purpose and one purpose only:  to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time. There is no use and no place for such weapons in Canada.”He said the ban would take effect immediately.The action followed last month’s shooting rampage in Nova Scotia. While government officials said the move had been planned for some time and was not a direct response to that incident, Trudeau mentioned the victims, who included a police officer, in his remarks.“Their families deserve more than thoughts and prayers,” he said, “Canadians deserve more than thoughts and prayers.”Officials said the ban would apply to about 125,000 weapons.
 
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Well-known Mexican protest singer Oscar Chavez has died at the age of 85, one of the latest casualties of the coronavirus pandemic.Mexico Cultural Secretary Alejandra Frausto confirmed Chavez’s death Thursday, just two days after he was admitted the hospital Tuesday, with symptoms of COVID-19.Frausto posted a tweet which said Chavez was worthy of his life’s journey. She also expressed condolences to his family and those who joined in the campaign for personal rights through songs.Chavez last performed in public in 2019.Mexico has confirmed 19,224 coronavirus cases and 1,859 deaths. 
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Argentinians staged loud protests in Buenos Aires on Thursday evening, banging pots from balconies in a show of opposition to the government’s release of prisoners to slow the spread of the coronavirus.The protests across the capital were promoted by lawmakers critical of the government of President Alberto Fernández.Since Monday, more than 1,000 prisoners have been released in Argentina after Fernández said the government should consider granting house arrest to inmates who are at risk of contracting COVID-19.A week ago, the first confirmed COVID-19 cases inside an Argentine prison included prisoners and guards.Shortly afterwards, local media say prisoners at Devoto prison in Buenos Aires set fires, demanding the release of some prisoners over fears of contracting the coronavirus.Argentina has confirmed at least 4,415 COVID-19 cases and 215 deaths linked to the virus. 
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Street performers in Mexico City marched through the Mexican capital Thursday to showcase their request for the government’s financial help after being sidelined for more than a month by restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus.The performers dressed as superheroes and clowns made their pitch before a supportive audience as Mexico celebrated Children’s Day.Jose Amado Villegas, a professional clown, made an affectionate appeal for public  support in getting the government to act on their behalf, saying to all the children who did not see clowns in their schools, who did not see clowns in parks, who did not see clowns at the national level, “we are here to give joy to all children.”There was no immediate government response to the street performers’ appeal.Meantime, the performers could be heading into tougher days ahead, with health authorities anticipating the month of May to be the most difficult in the pandemic for Mexico, possibly reducing their chances of resuming their livelihoods.So far, Mexico has reported 19,224 COVID-19 cases and 1,859 deaths. 
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A man armed with an assault rifle was arrested after opening fire outside the Cuban Embassy in Washington early Thursday, his bullets tearing holes into the walls and pillars near the front entrance in what authorities suspect was a hate crime.The gunfire broke out around 2 a.m. outside the embassy in northwest Washington. Metropolitan Police Department officers were called to the scene after neighbors reported hearing gunshots, authorities said. No injuries were reported.Officers found the man, Alexander Alazo, 42, of Aubrey, Texas, armed with an assault rifle, and they and took him into custody without incident, police said.A police report obtained by The Associated Press describes the shooting as a “suspected hate crime” and says Alazo “knowingly discharged multiple rounds from an AK-47 rifle into the Cuban Embassy.” But the report also says Alazo’s motivation is unknown.Officers recovered the rifle, ammunition and a white powdery substance that was found in a small baggie after Alazo’s arrest, according to the report.Alazo was arrested on charges of possessing an unregistered firearm and ammunition, assault with intent to kill and possessing a high-capacity magazine, a U.S. Secret Service spokeswoman said.Alazo remained in custody Thursday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he had a lawyer.Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that embassy staff members were “safe and protected” but that the shooting caused “material damage” to the building. Photos showed large holes left in the building’s facade near the front door and in pillars outside the building.The Cuban government didn’t know the suspect’s potential motives, the statement said, adding that the State Department was aware of the incident.”It is the obligation of States to adopt appropriate steps to protect the premises of diplomatic missions accredited to their country against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity,” the statement said.Photos from the scene posted to social media showed a group of police officers outside the embassy after the shooting and investigators searching through an SUV parked there. Other images showed investigators surveying the damage in front of the ornate embassy in Washington’s Adams-Morgan neighborhood, including a bullet hole in a window over the front door and damage to a flagpole and a column flanking a statue of Cuban independence hero José Martí.Officers from the Metropolitan Police Department and the Secret Service were investigating. 
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Brazil’s virtually uncontrolled surge of COVID-19 cases is spawning fear that construction workers, truck drivers and tourists from Latin America’s biggest nation will spread the disease to neighboring countries that are doing a better job of controlling the coronavirus.  
Brazil, a continent-sized country that shares borders with nearly every other nation in South America, has reported more than 70,000 cases and more than 5,000 deaths, according to government figures and a tally by Johns Hopkins University — far more than any of its neighbors.
The true number of deaths and infections is believed to be much higher because of limited testing.
The country’s borders remain open, there are virtually no quarantines or curfews and President Jair Bolsonaro continues to scoff at the seriousness of the disease.  
The country of 211 million people surpassed China — where the virus began — in the official number of COVID-19 deaths this week, prompting Bolsonaro to say: “So what?”
“I am sorry,” the far-right president told journalists. “What do you want me to do?”
In Paraguay, soldiers enforcing anti-virus measures have dug a shallow trench alongside the first 800 feet (244 meters) of the main road entering the city of Pedro Juan Caballero from the neighboring Brazilian city of Punta Porá, to prevent people from walking along the road from Brazil and disappearing into the surrounding city.  
Paraguay has fewer than 250 confirmed coronavirus cases and its borders have been closed since March 24, with enforcement particularly focused on the largely open frontier with Brazil.  
Argentine officials say they are particularly worried about truck traffic from Brazil, their top trading partner. In provinces bordering Brazil, Argentina is working to set up secure corridors where Brazilian drivers can access bathrooms, get food and unload products without ever coming into contact with Argentines.  
“Brazil worries me a lot,” Argentine President Alberto Fernández told local news outlets Saturday. “A lot of traffic is coming from Sao Paulo, where the infection rate is extremely high, and it doesn’t appear to me that the Brazilian government is taking it with the seriousness that it requires. That worries me a lot, for the Brazilian people and also because it can be carried to Argentina.”  
One of eight known cases in the Argentine state of Misiones is that of a 61-year-old truck driver who apparently caught the disease in Sao Paulo and then returned to Argentina, where he died after infecting his wife. Argentina has about 4,000 cases and more than 200 dead, according to the Johns Hopkins tally.  
Even officials in the United States, which has registered more than 1 million cases and more than 60,000 deaths, have expressed concern about Brazil.  
Florida, which has a large population of people of Brazilian heritage, could face a threat of air travelers from Brazil carrying the coronavirus to the state, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis told President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday.
“We could be away on the other side doing well in Florida, and then you could just have people kind of come in,” DeSantis said.
The governor said Trump’s ban of flights from China helped control the virus in the western U.S. Trump asked him if that meant “cutting off Brazil.”
DeSantis replied that one possibility was “not to necessarily cut them off” but to require airlines to test passengers before they board planes bound for Florida.
Authorities in Colombia are also worried, said Julián Fernandez Niño, an epidemiologist at National University in Bogota.  
“In a globalized world, the response to a pandemic can’t be closed frontiers,” he said. “Brazil has great scientific and economic capacity, but clearly its leadership has an unscientific stance on fighting coronavirus.”
In Uruguay, President Luis Lacalle Pou said the spread of the virus in Brazil was setting off “warning lights” in his administration and authorities are tightening border controls in several frontier cities.
 
Thirty workers recently crossed from Brazil to the Uruguayan border city of Rio Branco to help build a cement plant. Four tested positive for the virus, prompting Uruguay to place the whole crew in quarantine.
Officials in some Uruguayan border towns have discussed setting up “humanitarian corridors” through which Brazilians could safely leave the country.
Even socialist Venezuela, where the health system has been in a yearslong state of collapse, has said it’s worried about neighboring Brazil.
 
“I’ve ordered the reinforcement of the frontier with Brazil to guarantee an epidemiological and military barrier,” President Nicolás Maduro said on state television last week.
Bolivia’s government, a right-wing ally of Bolsonaro’s, declined to comment on its neighbor’s anti-virus measures, but Defense Minister Fernando López promised this month to strongly enforce the closure of the border.  
“If we keep being flexible on the border, our national quarantine will be useless,” he said. 
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The Brazilian army, in conjunction with the country’s prison administration, conducted a large-scale disinfection operation to slow the spread of the coronavirus at the Gericinó Prison Complex in Rio de Janeiro. A prison spokesman said Wednesday, soldiers outfitted in full body protection suits and face masks cleaned the infirmary, coronavirus isolation cells, administrative areas and visitor sections of the prison. Colonel Rego Barros of the army’s East Joint Command said the proactive measures were taken after seeing situations in which inmates became infected by COVID-19 in other states. So far, Brazil has reported at least 78,000 covid-19 cases and more than 5,400 deaths. Peru has the second highest coronavirus case total in Latin American behind Brazil. On Monday, Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute confirmed reports of inmates setting fires and demanding to be freed, as more prisoners become infected with the disease. Reuters news agency says human rights groups are calling on the Peruvian government to allow house arrest during the pandemic.   
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Chile will begin opening malls to the public for the first time on Friday, three months after imposing a nationwide lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic.People going to malls must wear face masks, allow their temperature to be taken, and not gather in groups.On Wednesday, Joaquin Lavin, the mayor of Las Condes municipality, began a measured approach to reopening, beginning with workers testing sanitary and safety protocols.He said on Thursday they will bring in people to see how the measures work and close on Friday to evaluate what occurred.  Lavin said a decision to open up malls to the public will be based on the results of the trial opening.When the malls open, social distancing is still required and stores will only permit a limited number of people inside the stores at one time.Chile plans to reopen more than 100 malls over the coming weeks as it relaxes restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus.Also on Friday, jurisdictions viewed as being a moderate to low risk in spreading COVID-19 will be placed under a general community quarantine that is less restrictive.So far, Chile has 14,885 COVID-19 cases and 216 virus-related deaths.  
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Mexican news agencies say the Ministry of Health confirmed 32 people in the state of Jalisco were poisoned recently and half of them died after drinking a name brand cane alcohol. Authorities suspect the 96-proof brand of El Chorrito was tainted with high levels of methanol during the production process. Authorities were alerted to the first victims on Saturday in Mazamitla and Tamazula.  A 66-year old woman died and another woman was hospitalized. The 30 other victims are men in their 20’s to early 80’s. The state prosecutor’s office says it will launch an investigation into the poisonings, including a review of El Chorrito’s parent company, Grupo Sáenz. Last year in Costa Rica at least 20 people died from drinking methanol laced Alcohol. 
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Authorities in Peru say nine prisoners were killed earlier this week when a protest demanding better healthcare amid the coronavirus outbreak turned violent. Inmates at the Miguel Castro prison rioted Monday after two fellow inmates died of COVID-19, which has spread unchecked through Peru’s notoriously overcrowded prisons. At least 13 inmates have died from the disease, out of a total of 600 infections. Over 100 prison workers have also been diagnosed with COVID-19. Inmates gather around the corpses of other inmates during a prison riot in Miguel Castro Castro prison, in Lima, Peru, Monday, April 27, 2020.Along with better healthcare, the inmates were also calling on President Martin Vizcarra to grant them humanitarian pardons.   Earlier this week, President Martin Vizcarra extended a national quarantine until May 10 following a surge in COVID-19 cases, but no plan was unveiled for inmates. Reuters news agency is reporting that the total number of COVID-19 infections in Peru has gone over the 30,000 mark, the second highest total in Latin America after Brazil, with 782 people deaths. 
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday named a family friend to head the federal police, days after his justice minister quit and accused the president of meddling in law enforcement for political motives. The controversy over the appointment and allegations by outgoing minister Sergio Moro of improper interference in the police force triggered talk of impeachment and a criminal investigation approved by the Supreme Court, distracting from the coronavirus epidemic that has killed 5,017 people in Brazil, hundreds more than in China. The government’s official gazette confirmed the appointment of new federal police chief Alexandre Ramagem, 48, who took charge of the president’s security after he was stabbed on the campaign trail in 2018. The selection comes amid investigations of alleged wrongdoing by Bolsonaro’s sons. FILE – Alexandre Ramagem, general director of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN), speaks during his inauguration ceremony, in Brasilia, Brazil, July 11, 2019.Ramagem, who joined the federal police in 2005, has the fewest years of service of any officer tapped to lead the force. He has run the Brazilian Intelligence Agency since July. On Friday, Justice Minister Sergio Moro alleged in a stunning televised address that Bolsonaro had repeatedly said he wanted a “personal contact” in the top police job “from whom he could get information, intelligence reports.” Brazil’s Supreme Court on Monday gave the green light for the top public prosecutor to investigate the allegations against Bolsonaro of interfering in law enforcement. Justice Celso de Mello gave the federal police 60 days to carry out the investigation requested by Brazil’s chief public prosecutor Augusto Aras. Based on the results of the police investigation, the public prosecutor will decide whether to press charges against the president. An indictment would have to be approved by the lower house. The biggest political storm since Bolsonaro took office last year came during Brazil’s worst public health crisis. The Health Ministry reported that a record 474 people died from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 5,017. Confirmed cases have risen at 5,000 a day in the last 48 hours, to 71,866. On Tuesday, the opposition Democratic Labor Party asked the Supreme Court to block Ramagem’s nomination, alleging an abuse of power. The affair has sparked talk in Congress of impeachment, just four years after such proceedings toppled former President Dilma Rousseff. However, a poll by Datafolha published on Monday evening showed Brazilians divided on impeachment, with 45% supporting the move and 48% against. Crucially, Bolsonaro appears to be keeping core supporters, the poll showed, with 33% of those surveyed saying they thought he was doing a good or excellent job. Political interference FILE – Brazil’s Justice Minister Sergio Moro attends a news conference in Brasilia, Brazil, April 13, 2020.Still, the accusations from the popular “super minister” Moro, who locked up scores of powerful politicians and businessmen as a judge, has dented Bolsonaro’s corruption-fighting image, which was central to his 2018 campaign. Moro said he had never seen political interference of the kind sought by Bolsonaro over Brazil’s federal police, even under previous governments whose officials and allies were convicted of participating in sweeping corruption schemes. A New Year’s party photo on social media of Ramagem grinning beside the president’s son Carlos Bolsonaro, a Rio de Janeiro city councilman, circulated widely on Tuesday, emphasizing the close ties between the family and the new top cop. FILE – Flavio Bolsonaro, left, and Carlos Bolsonaro, sons of Brazil’s President-elect Jair Bolsonaro (not pictured), are seen in Brasilia, Brazil, Dec. 10, 2018.Carlos Bolsonaro is the subject of a Supreme Court probe looking at his role in disseminating “fake news,” according to newspaper Folha de S.Paulo. His brother, lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, was accused in a congressional investigation of participating in a “fake news” scheme. Their eldest brother, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, is also being investigated by state prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro over alleged money laundering and misuse of public funds. All three have denied any wrongdoing. They and the president have decried the probes as politically motivated attacks. Over the weekend, Bolsonaro took to Facebook to defend Ramagem, after word of his nomination leaked to the press. “So what? I knew Ramagem before he knew my children. Should he be vetoed for that reason? Whose friend should I pick?” the president said in a post.
 
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The most popular leader in Latin America is a slender, casually dressed millennial with an easy manner on Twitter and a harsh approach that critics call increasingly frightening.
As his first year in power comes to a close, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is fighting both the coronavirus and the country’s powerful street gangs with tactics that some say are putting the young democracy at risk.
Bukele’s tough policies have been praised for driving down crime dramatically. The government reported 65 homicides in March, an average of 2.1 a day in a country that once saw more than 20 daily slayings.
Last weekend, however, there were 60 killings — a surge in violence allegedly directed from gangs in prison. His government reacted by releasing photos of hundreds of imprisoned gang members stripped virtually naked and stacked against each other as punishment.  
“The gangsters that committed those killings, we’re going to make them regret it for the rest of their lives,” Bukele, 38, tweeted Monday.  
Along with the humiliating photos, he said he had authorized the use of lethal force against gangs and ordered that their members be put in the same prison cells, creating the potential for more bloodshed.
When the coronavirus appeared, Bukele closed the borders and airports and imposed a mandatory home quarantine for all except those working in the government, hospitals, pharmacies or other designated businesses. People were allowed out only to buy groceries. Violators were detained, with more than 2,000 being held for 30-day stints.
The Supreme Court ruled these detentions unconstitutional without the legislative assembly passing a law establishing due process.  
Bukele has ignored the court. The judges’ most recent decision revealed their exasperation, saying court decisions “are not petitions, requests nor mere opinions subject to interpretation or discretionary assessment by the authorities they are addressed to, but rather orders that are obligatory and must be carried out immediately.”
Bukele seemed especially displeased by an April 17 TV report in the city of La Libertad, which showed people on crowded buses and walking with groceries despite the quarantine. Except for the face masks, it could have been a normal day.
In a series of tweets, Bukele condemned the action and ordered a 48-hour cordon on the city of more than 36,000. By evening, police and soldiers had locked it down, with all businesses closed. Military vehicles with machine guns blocked the city’s entrances.
“If that behavior continues, it is practically assured that the virus will spread and more than one of your relatives is going to die,” he scolded via Twitter.
Bukele said he hoped he would not have to take similar action elsewhere.
“Not being able to go out to buy food is not a good situation for people,” he wrote on Facebook. “But if they don’t want to save themselves from death, we’ll have to save them.”
Last week, the attorney general said his office was investigating whether the cordon was unconstitutional.
A poll this month by CID Gallup found 97% of Salvadorans approve of Bukele’s handling of the pandemic, giving him little incentive to back down. The firm surveyed 1,200 people April 13-19, and the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.  
Figures from Johns Hopkins University said 345 people have been infected and eight have died in the country of 6.7 million, based on government reports.
U.S. President Donald Trump called Bukele on Friday to affirm his support for El Salvador, noting it had assisted in controlling illegal immigration and saying the U.S. would help it get breathing machines.  
“Bukele, ever since he came into office, frankly has been enormously popular; he’s a tremendously effective communicator,” said Geoff Thale, president of the Washington Office on Latin America. “The president has over time, in part buoyed by his popularity, increasingly tried to concentrate authority in his own hands and to ignore the separation of powers and the appropriate roles of other constitutional bodies.”
A former San Salvador mayor, Bukele was elected in 2019, easily defeating candidates from the two dominant parties, which had alternated in power for the three decades since the end of El Salvador’s devastating civil war. Corruption characterized those administrations and left a vacuum in which street gangs grew in power.
Bukele had come from the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front party but was expelled for constantly criticizing its leaders.
His victory left the FMLN and conservative Arena parties directionless and incapable of mounting strong opposition. His apparent lack of ideology beyond a personal brand of populism has infuriated both the left and right.  
His only obstacles have been the legislative assembly, where his coalition holds few seats, and the Supreme Court.
In February, Bukele sent soldiers into the legislative assembly because it balked at approving a security funding-related measure. He withdrew them only after he said God had asked him to be patient. Local and legislative elections are scheduled for next year, and there is concern his supporters could take control of the legislature.
Bukele has repeatedly ignored the orders of the five-member Constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court to stop detaining people found breaking quarantine. He not only rejects the constitutional arguments, but accuses the judges of trying to kill fellow citizens.
“Five people are not going to decide the death of hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans,” Bukele tweeted. “No matter the ink and seals they have.”
Human Rights Watch Americas director José Miguel Vivanco tweeted Monday that with the authorization of lethal force against the gangs “Bukele is trying to give carte blanche to members of public forces to kill.”
There is a growing clamor for the international community, in particular the Organization of American States, to break its silence. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet urged authorities to investigate all alleged human rights violations and to immediately release those detained arbitrarily.
Bukele’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Valentín Padilla, a 62-year-old San Salvador retiree, noted Bukele’s success amid the conflicts.
“What the president has done is working, but every day there are fights. The (legislators) say one thing and the president answers them. Better if they think of the people and work together,” he said. 
Tomás Sevilla, a 42-year-old auto mechanic, said Bukele’s steps seemed to be working, although he had heard the criticism. He said was following the quarantine, “but we also need to work to be able to buy food.”
Eduardo Escobar, director of the nongovernmental organization Acción Ciudadana, acknowledged Bukele’s measures had slowed the virus but said he was “showing an authoritarian profile” and his disobedience of the court “is a dangerous declaration because ultimately it means he is going to concentrate power in his hands. He is going to execute, he is going to legislate and he is going to judge.”
He said Bukele has succeeded by using fear and positioning himself as the country’s savior.
“He has managed to establish that the people who are with the government are on the side of God, are battling the epidemic to save the people,” Escobar said. “And those who criticize him are against the people, in favor of the virus and calling for the death of the population.”
 
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Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness says his administration is shifting its attention to restarting the economy hampered by the COVID-19 outbreak. Holness announced Monday night, the formation of a COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force, which is charged with outlining how the country can gradually resume business activities. Holness made a point to emphasize the task force is charged with developing a plan of action in conjunction with concerns from the ministry of health and wellness. Jamaica currently has 364 coronavirus cases. So far, seven people have died of the disease. Additionally, Jamaica’s minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade, Kamina Johnson Smith, announced new strict protocols for Jamaicans wishing to return home during the COVID-19 crisis, including abiding by a 14-day quarantine.  She said the government does not have the resources to pay for charter flights to bring people home, and each person will have to make their own arrangements after getting travel authorization from the government. 
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Tensions remain high at Peru’s Miguel Castro and Huancayo prisons following a day of riots and protests by inmates over the government’s coronavirus response on their behalf.  Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute confirmed Monday’s uprising, with reports of inmates setting fires and demanding to be freed, as more inmates become infected with the disease. Reuters news agency says human rights groups are calling on the Peruvian government to allow house arrest during the pandemic. Earlier this week, President Martin Vizcarra extended a national quarantine until May 10 following a surge in covid-19 cases, but no plan was unveiled for inmates. Peru has confirmed 28,699 cases of the coronavirus, the second highest total in Latin America after Brazil. So far, 782 people have died of the coronavirus in Peru. 
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Argentina on Monday banned all commercial flight ticket sales until September, one of the toughest coronavirus travel bans in the world, prompting an industry outcry that the new measure will put too much strain on airlines and airports.While the country’s borders have been closed since March, the new decree goes further by banning until Sept. 1 the sale and purchase of commercial flights to, from or within Argentina. The decree, signed by the National Civil Aviation Administration, said it was “understood to be reasonable” to implement the restrictions, without elaborating.Many countries in South America, including Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, have banned all commercial flights for the time being, but none have extended their timeline as far out as Argentina. The United States, Brazil and Canada have imposed restrictions, but not outright bans.FILE – Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez talks during a press conference at the presidential residence in Olivos, Buenos Aires, March 19, 2020.”The problem was that airlines were selling tickets without having authorization to travel to Argentine soil,” a spokesman for President Alberto Fernandez said.The ban would put a strain on LATAM Airlines Group, which has a significant domestic operation in Argentina, and has been seeking help from multiple governments. Argentina’s largest carrier, Aerolineas Argentinas, is state-owned and could survive as long as the government is willing to subsidize it.The ban would also affect smaller ultra low-cost carriers that have grown rapidly in Argentina with the support of former President Mauricio Macri, such as FlyBondi domestically, and SkyAirlines and JETSmart, which fly internationally.Argentina has been a difficult market for carriers in recent years, with Norwegian Air Shuttle and an affiliate of Avianca Holdings shutting down short-lived domestic operations before the coronavirus crisis hit.Industry unhappyArgentina’s decision prompted industry groups including ALTA, which lobbies on behalf of Latin American airlines, to warn that the decree represented “imminent and substantial risk” to thousands of jobs in Argentina.”The resolution … was not shared or agreed with the industry and, furthermore, runs counter to the efforts of all the actors in the sector,” the groups said in the statement.The presidential spokesman, however, said the decision resulted from a “consensus between the government and the airline sector.”The Sept. 1 timeframe was arranged with the airlines, the spokesman said. In the interim, the focus of the government would be on bringing back Argentines who were abroad in an “orderly” and “sanitary” manner, he added.Argentina has been under a national lockdown since March 20. The government, over the weekend, extended the quarantine until May 10, but said it had been successful in slowing the rate at which new cases double.The country has 3,892 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 192 deaths. 
 
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The spreading specter of the new coronavirus is shaking Latin America’s notoriously overcrowded, unruly prisons, threatening to turn them into an inferno.
The Puente Alto prison in downtown Santiago, Chile, had the largest of Latin America’s largest prison virus outbreaks so far, with more than 300 reported cases. The prison’s 1,100 inmates are terrified. Social distancing is hard to practice in jail.
“They are all in contact with each other,” said prison nurse Ximena Graniffo.
Latin America’s prisons hold 1.5 million inmates, and the facilities are often quasi-ruled by prisoners themselves because of corruption, intimidation and inadequate guard staffs. Low budgets also create ideal conditions for the virus to spread: There is often little soap and water and cell blocks are crowded.
So far, national officials have reported close to 1,400 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among inmates and prison staff. The worst hit has been Peru, with 613 cases and at least 13 deaths, though the extent of testing to determine the full scale of infections differs from country to country. When the Dominican Republic tested more than 5,500 inmates at the La Victoria prison, which has been producing protective face masks for the public, officials reported at least 239 tested postive.
Perhaps the most complete testing appears to be taking place in Puerto Rio, where the Department of Corrections said Friday it will test all the nearly 9,000 inmates being held across the U.S. territory, as well as 6,000 employees, including prison guards.
Fear of the virus itself already has proven deadly. There have been 23 deaths in prison riots in Colombia since the pandemic started. More than 1,300 inmates have escaped prisons in Brazil after a temporary release program wa scancelled due to the outbreak, and more than 1,000 have been on hunger strikes in Argentina.
All over the region, the demands are the same: protection against contagion. With most family visits cancelled, inmates feel exposed, vulnerable, alone — and exploited.
Inmates report that prices at informal and formal prison stores have increased during the pandemic, and relatives can no longer bring them food and hygiene items from the outside.
“Right now, a bag of soap powder costs 29 pesos ($1.20) , when before it was 20 (80 cents)” said a prisoner in Mexico, who lives in a 12 foot by 12 foot (4 meters by 4 meters) cell with a dozen others. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was using a banned cellphone.
Human Rights Watch says conditions are even worse in countries like Haiti, Bolivia or Guatemala.
U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile, has called sanitary conditions in the region “deplorable” and called for releases of less dangerous inmates.
Countries like Chile and Colombia have already released about 7,500 inmates and Mexico’s Senate last week approved a measure to free thousands, though Brazil has not yet acted.
Regional security analyst Lucía Dammert says releasing a few thousand inmates won’t significantly reduce the threat of contagion, however, and some urge more sweeping releases.
“Prisoners have been sentenced to loss of liberty, not to death, and the state has to take measures at its disposal,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director for Human Rights Watch. And in many countries, such as Bolivia, most of those behind bars have not yet been sentenced or are awaiting trial.
In Chile, the head of the prison guard system, Christián Alveal, said the prisoners’ fears “are totally reasonable,” and he said officials are working “to minimize the worries of the inmates.”
Some prisons have tried to do that by allowing prisoners more calls to relatives, and Argentina, with 13,000 prisoners, has allowed videocalls. Buenos Aires has even allowed prisoners to use cellphones, which are normally banned because they are sometimes used in extortion schemes.
Inmates at the San Pedro prison in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, have taken their own measures against contagion. While inmates elsewhere have rioted over bans on family visits, the Bolivian inmates themselves decided on such a ban. And they turned what are normally punishment cells into 14-day quarantine lockups for newly arrived prisoners.
Ximena Graniffo, the nurse at Puente Alto, seemed resigned to a struggle. “You do what you can with what you have,” she said.
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As the Trump administration increases pressure on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, the socialist leader has turned to Iran for help jump starting an aging refinery to prevent the South American nation with the world’s largest oil reserves from running out of gasoline, The Associated Press has learned.
On Thursday, the second flight by Iranian airline Mahan Air arrived at a town in western Venezuela delivering key chemical components used for producing gasoline, two oil industry people familiar with the operation told The Associated Press. They insisted on speaking anonymously to discuss the rescue plan because they were not authorized to talk about it.
One said 14 more flights are expected in the coming days, some of them carrying Iranian technicians. The website FlightRadar24, which tracks international flights, showed the plane’s routes.  
Drivers in recent weeks have started lining up at gas stations for days even in the capital of Caracas, the nation’s political center that has long been immune to long waits, even as strict coronavirus quarantines have limited movement. 
Both antagonistic to the U.S., the governments of Venezuela and Iran have each been hit hard by U.S. sanctions aimed at ending what the White House considers repressive regimes.  
The Trump administration has recently led a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at ousting Maduro, considering opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the nation’s legitimate leader. The U.S. and a coalition of nearly 60 nations say Maduro clings to power following a 2018 election that critics consider a sham because the most popular opposition politicians were banned from running.  
Venezuela’s Ministry of Communications didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request from AP seeking comment.
The U.S. sanctioned Mahan Air in 2011 for its work in ferrying fighters from the Revolutionary Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force, as well as Hezbollah, into Syria to support embattled President Bashar Assad.
Since the coronavirus pandemic began, Mahan Air continued to fly passenger trips into China while other international carriers stopped, according to the State Department and FlightRadar24. Experts believe this offers Iran’s Shiite theocracy and the Guard hard currency amid the U.S. sanctions campaign targeting the country’s vital oil industry. Iran and Mahan Air have denied the flights took place.
Iran itself does not produce enough of the catalysts locally for its own demand, said Mohammad Rezaei, director for research and technology of Iran’s National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Co. A January report by the Oil Ministry’s SHANA news agency quoted him as saying local catalyst production couldn’t cover for Iran’s nine active domestic refineries.
Iran likely receives the rest of its catalysts from China, which has maintained a business relationship with Tehran despite American sanctions.
Both Mahan and Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the flights to Venezuela. 
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More than 200 doctors from Cuba have arrived in South Africa to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
The doctors, including community health and infectious disease specialists, arrived early Monday morning and were welcomed by military and health authorities.
South Africa requested assistance from the Cuban government, which is sending more than 1,000 doctors to 22 countries, including Togo, Cap Verde and Angola in Africa.
South Africa has reported the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 infections in Africa, with at least 4,546 cases and 87 deaths.
Some of the Cuban doctors have been “in the frontline of fighting other outbreaks in the world such as cholera in Haiti in 2010, and Ebola in West Africa in 2013,” said South African health minister Zweli Mkhize.
Cuba’s government supported the African National Congress in its fight against South Africa’s apartheid system of racist minority rule. Now the ANC is South Africa’s ruling party and has good relations with Cuba.
South Africa’s first black president Nelson Mandela was known to be close to former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The two countries cooperate in the health sector, with hundreds of South African medical students studying through scholarships in Cuba.
The Cuban medical personnel will stay in a two-week quarantine before starting work. They have arrived as South Africa is increasing community testing, especially in poor, crowded neighborhoods.
In the economic hub of Gauteng province, which includes South Africa’s largest city Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria, mass screening and testing is scheduled to take place throughout the week.
The screening and testing will also concentrate on the Western Cape province, which includes the city of Cape Town and which has largest number of COVID-19 cases. 
South Africa has conducted nearly 170,000 tests. The country has 28,000 experienced community health workers who track contacts of people who test positive to help contain the spread of the disease.
 
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Mexico has almost entirely cleared out government migrant centers over the past five weeks to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, returning most of the occupants to their countries of origin, official data showed on Sunday. In a statement, the National Migration Institute (INM) said that since March 21, in order to comply with health and safety guidelines, it had been removing migrants from its 65 migrant facilities, which held 3,759 people last month. In the intervening weeks, Mexico has returned 3,653 migrants to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador by road and air, with the result that only 106 people remain in the centers, it said. The institute’s migrant centers and shelters have a total capacity of 8,524 spaces, the INM said. Victor Clark Alfaro, a migration expert at San Diego State University, said the announcement went hand in hand with the Mexican government’s readiness to keep migrant numbers in check under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. “Today, Mexico’s policy is to contain and deport,” he said. There are dozens of other shelters run by a variety of religious and non-governmental organizations throughout the country that continue to harbor migrants. Among those who remained in the INM centers were migrants awaiting the outcome of asylum requests or judicial hearings, and others who had expressly sought permission to stay, a migration official said. The vast majority of those sent back were migrants detained by authorities because they were in Mexico illegally, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Some no longer wished to stay in centers because of the risk of coronavirus infection, the official added. Most of the migrants passing through Mexico to reach the U.S. border are from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. More than 80 Guatemalan migrants deported to their homeland from the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus.
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Argentina is extending its coronavirus lockdown until May 10, excluding towns of under 500,000, where the question is up to provincial authorities.President Alberto Fernandez made the announcement Saturday, as the nationwide mandatory quarantine instituted March 20 was to expire Sunday.Fernandez loosened some restrictions, saying people will be allowed to go out daily for recreational purposes, but only within a 500-meter radius of their homes, and not for exercises such as running or bicycle riding.Schools and various other activities, however, will remain closed.”We will continue without classes in primary, secondary, and university levels,” Fernandez said. “We will continue without activity in the public administration. We will continue without recreational activity, without restaurants, without hotels.”As of Saturday night, Argentina had reported 3,780 cases of coronavirus infection and 185 deaths. 
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A U.S. federal judge has ordered the release of migrant children who have been detained at the Mexico border, after ruling Friday the Trump administration was again violating an agreement to release them within 20 days.
 
The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law has been challenging the Trump administration’s child detention policies on behalf of plaintiffs who contend the coronavirus pandemic has triggered more delays in the release of the migrant children.
 
The center’s argument against the administration is being made under a 1997 pact known as the Flores agreement, which generally requires minors who have been detained in non-licensed facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border to be released within the 20-day period.
 
The plaintiffs maintain the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) stopped releasing children to their parents or other guardians in California, Washington state and New York to avoid getting involved with the states’ lockdown rules, which have been imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
 
They also allege the administration stopped the release process for some children because their parents or guardians could not easily arrange to be fingerprinted as required for background checks.
 
The plaintiffs argued the delays could expose the children to the coronavirus if it spreads in detention facilities. They cited a non-profit detention center in Texas where a 14-day quarantine order was put into effect.
 
In addition, the plaintiffs accused the government of releasing a teenager who turned 18 while in “quarantine” to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) instead of sending him to family placement program where arrangements had been made to accommodate him.
 
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee, who oversees the case, did not agree with all of the allegations but once more ordered the administration to “expedite the release of the children.”
 
Gee concluded that “ORR and ICE shall continue to make every effort to promptly and safely release” the detained children who are represented by the plaintiffs.
 
In a separate ruling last month, Gee described the immigration detention centers as “hotbeds of contagion.”
 
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