A mudslide tears through a small village in southern Chile near a popular national park, leaving five people dead and at least 15 missing after a night of torrential downpours, authorities say.

A team of international scientists says that Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda did not die of cancer or malnutrition, rejecting the official cause of death but not laying to rest one of the great mysteries of post-coup Chile.

Italy has the highest number of Unesco heritage sites in the world. In Asia, China and India house the most heritage sites.

At least 216 people are killed when a powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico, including 21 children crushed beneath an elementary school that was reduced to rubble.

Hurricane Franklin roars ashore on Mexico's central Gulf coast, threatening to pound a mountainous region prone to flash floods and mudslides with torrential rains and heavy winds.

A driver rammed his car through the gates of Brazil's presidential residence and was arrested, security forces say, though President Michel Temer was not inside the building.

Bangladesh Ambassador to Brazil and former foreign secretary Mohamed Mijarul Quayes passes away in Brasilia, Brazil. He was 57.

Rio de Janeiro's famed Carnival bacchanalia hit full stride on Saturday, as hundreds of thousands roared into the streets for one of the city's oldest and by far its biggest "bloco" street party, the Bola Preta.

One of history's best known double acts was temporarily reunited, when Fidel Castro's ashes arrived at a mausoleum housing the bones of his fellow revolutionary, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, part of a three-day cortege for the Cuban leader.

Embracing Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the Non-Aligned Summit in Algiers in 1973, Fidel Castro remarked: "I have not seen the Himalayas. But I have seen Sheikh Mujib. In personality and in courage, this man is the Himalayas. I have thus had the experience of witnessing the Himalayas."

Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States and for five decades defied US efforts to topple him, died on Friday, his younger brother announces to the nation. He was 90.

Brazil go to the top of the South American World Cup qualifying group with a 2-0 win over Venezuela in a match played in torrential rain and halted for almost half an hour when the floodlights failed in Merida.

Argentina, lacking the inspiration of injured captain Lionel Messi, suffer a humiliating setback in their World Cup qualifying campaign when they lose 1-0 at home to Paraguay.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro turns 90 on Saturday in an island transformed from the one he led for half a century. Both loved as a hero and hated as a dictator, Castro is one of the giant figures of modern history.

A sharp increase in police killings has cast "a shadow of death" over Rio de Janeiro as it prepares to host the Olympic Games, Amnesty International claim in a report.

A strong earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Moment magnitude scale struck Ecuador early today, one month after a much larger quake killed some 660 people, the US Geological Survey said.

The Brazilian Senate vows to vote on the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff despite a ruling that a vote in the lower house was flawed.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in his address to the nation today, said he will resign and go home if proven guilty by the Panama Papers probe.

A fresh tremor rattles Ecuador overnight, a 6.1 magnitude jolt that was the strongest aftershock since a lethal earthquake killed hundreds of people on Saturday. There was no immediate report of further damage.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro delivers a valedictory speech Tuesday to the Communist Party that he put in power a half-century ago, telling party members he is nearing the end of his life and exhorting them to help his ideas survive.