South America is a continent situated in the western hemisphere and, mostly, the southern hemisphere, bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean; North America and the Caribbean Sea lie to the northwest.

As part of the Americas like North America, South America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, who was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a New World unknown to Europeans.

South America has an area of 17,840,000 km² (6,890,000 sq mi), or almost 3.5% of the Earth's surface. As of 2005, its population was estimated at more than 371,000,000. South America ranks fourth in area (after Asia, Africa, and North America) and fifth in population (after Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America).

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L.A. Times - Latin America

French strike over plan to raise retirement age
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700
More than a million take to the streets to protest the move, which Sarkozy says is needed to reduce the country's deficit.More than 1 million people went on strike and into the streets of France on Tuesday to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's proposal to raise the legal retirement age.
3 Pakistani men charged in failed Times Square bombing
Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700
The three are accused of helping Faisal Shahzad get Taliban training and giving him money as he prepared for a car-bomb attack.Pakistani authorities have charged three men with terrorism-related of Subscribe to South_America RSS feed