Latin America

Drilling has begun for a rescue shaft to reach the 33 trapped miners at the San Jose mine in Copiapó, Chile. Photograph: Felix Alonso/AP

The miners trapped underground in Chile will have to move up to 4,000 of tonnes of rock that will be sent crashing into their tunnel by the drill that last night began boring a rescue shaft to save them.

Pictured: A special drill, theXtrata 950, which will create a 66 cm diameter escape hole for the 33 miners who are trapped underground in a copper and gold mine, arrives outside the mine at Copiapo some 725 km (450 miles) north of Santiago, August 24. (Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

Crews have begun boring a rescue shaft to reach the 33 miners who have been trapped underground in Chile for more than three weeks, according to CNN Chile.

PRESIDENT ALAN GARCÍA is certainly used to being unpopular.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez greets supporters during a rally with United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)supporters in Barinas August 21, 2010.  The PSUV party is campaigning ahead of legislative polls to be held on September 26. The banner in the background reads "to the assembly".

Pictured: Relatives and co-workers set Chilean flags outside a collapsed mine where about 33 miners have been trapped for over a week in Copiapo, Chile, Friday, Aug. 13, 2010.

Chile's mining minister says rescuers hope that probes they are drilling will reach 33 trapped miners by Monday.

Paraguay's president says he feels renewed by his first session of cancer treatments and that he is ready to serve out his term, which ends in 2013.

A former prison director in Guatemala accused of participating in the killings of 10 inmates turned himself over to police Friday, authorities said.

U.S. military officers were flying in Sunday to serve as jurors in war-crimes proceedings as the Guantanamo tribunal system geared up for one of its busiest weeks under President Barack Obama.

Juan Manuel Santos, sworn in Saturday as Colombia's 59th president, vowed to cement security gains but declared himself open to dialogue with rebels in hopes of ending the Western Hemisphere's only armed conflict.

Cardinal Norberto Rivera sharply criticized Mexico's Supreme Court on Sunday for upholding a law allowing homosexuals to marry in the capital, calling the ruling "aberrant" and "immoral."

President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to cut off oil sales to the United States if Venezuela is attacked by its U.S.-allied neighbor Colombia in a dispute over allegations that Venezuela gives haven to Colombian rebels.

It would be easy for Raul Castro to make headlines in a major Revolution Day speech in this central Cuban city Monday. All he has to do is bring up the 52 political prisoners he has agreed to release, or discuss plans to open the island's communist economy.

A police officer looks on as people hold portraits of family members who were dissidents killed during the dictatorship of former Gen. Augusto Pinochet

Chile's conservative president rejected a proposal by the Roman Catholic Church for sweeping pardons of elderly and sick prisoners that would have freed military officers convicted of human rights violations during the Pinochet dictatorship.