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

Alan Bersin is at home on a daunting frontier
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800
The nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection sees an opportunity for 'huge change' even though Mexico's drug war has dramatically heightened tensions along the border. Alan Bersin is back at the border and on the move.
Margot Benacerraf's film 'Araya' returns
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800
Her 1959 work about an isolated community of salt harvesters on Venezuela's Caribbean coast emerges from a cultural black hole. When director Margot Benacerraf set out to film an isolated community of salt harvesters on Venezuela's Caribbean coast 50 years ago, she said, "I wanted to do more than a simple documentary."
Brazil raises cane over U.S. ethanol tariff
Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800
Brazilian sugar producers say sugar-based fuel is more environmentally sound than electricity or corn ethanol as an alternative for powering cars. But the odds are long for a change. Who could resent the attention being showered on electric cars? Stylish and clean, they're the darling of the renewable-energy crowd, which is hailing the scheduled rollout of several e-powered models next year as a major blow against global warming.
Peru's Nazca culture was brought down with its trees
Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800
Deforestation left nothing to hinder ancient floodwaters on the desert plain, researchers find. Modern Peru could learn from the civilization's collapse, they say. The Nazca people of Peru -- famous for their huge line drawings on an arid plateau that are fully visible only from the air -- set the stage for their demise by deforesting the plain, allowing a huge El Niño-fueled flood to ravage the Ica Valley about AD 500, researchers have found.
U.S. official on panel for Honduras
Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800
The U.S. secretary of Labor and a former Chilean president were named Sunday to a commission to monitor the creation of a power-sharing government in Honduras, under a U.S.-brokered agreement to end the nation's 4-month-old political crisis.
Toxic waste trickles toward New Mexico's water sources
Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0700
Radioactive debris has been found in canyons that drain into the Rio Grande, but officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory say there's no health risk. More than 60 years after scientists assembled the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lethal waste is seeping from mountain burial sites and moving toward aquifers, springs and streams that provide water to 250,000 residents of northern New Mexico.

UN News Centre - Americas

Top UN human rights official to embark on first official visit to Brazil
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500
The United Nations human rights chief will begin her first official visit to Brazil on Saturday during which she will discuss a range of issues with Government officials, members of civil society and others in three major cities.
Latin America making important progress towards development, UN official says
Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500
The head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has spotlighted the slow global progress towards reducing gender inequality and violence against women on the first day of a three-day official visit to Chile.
John Lennon's sons and Yoko Ono revive ‘Give Peace a Chance' to help UN
Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of John Lennon and Yoko Ono recording the anti-war anthem Give Peace a Chance with the Plastic Ono Band, the United Nations announced today that the proceeds from the release of a commemorative single will garner funds for its peacebuilding efforts in countries emerging from conflict.

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