If Copenhagen needs a model, this is the most eloquent I know, a visionary example of reforestation and the long term benefits it brings. While the rest of the world is ripping up forests in the name of minerals and wood, Cuba has been replanting its tropical forests in the name of jobs, the environment and a lush holiday destination for decades. This policy has worked so well that in 1984 Unesco gave biosphere status to 26,686 hectares of forest in the western region of Pinar del Río, where I am heading to stay at Las Terrazas, 50km from Havana.

Our journey has taken us along an empty motorway, past plains with grazing cattle and sugar cane fields. Few Cubans can afford the petrol to make trips out here. Those who live here survive on smallholdings down dirt tracks that wind into the forest or in villages where the main employment comes from tourism at Las Terrazas.

Everybody knows that Colombia would have a more fluid relation with the United States if Senator John McCain had won the presidency last year. With the Democratic Party in control of both Congress and the White House, Colombia’s close partnership with the United States is sadly losing its shine.

Think for a minute: the Free Trade Agreement signed in 2006 is still waiting to be ratified by Congress. Speaker Nancy Pelosi put the FTA in her freezer at the beginning of her tenure, and there are no signs that she is taking it out of there any time soon. Also, no senior US official has explicitly come out in support of Colombia in its row with Venezuela over the base deal with the United States. As Hugo Chavez talks about war and keeps blowing bridges along the border, Democrats in Washington think the situation is not something that concerns them at all.

The group issued a statement Tuesday in Estoril, Portugal, after taking part in an annual Ibero-American summit of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking nations. However, the participants did not say whether the group recognized Sunday’s Honduran elections in which conservative Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo claimed victory.

The group’s remarks come one day before Honduran lawmakers are scheduled to vote on whether to reinstate Mr. Zelaya to complete his term, which ends in January.

Mr. Zelaya was deposed in a military-backed coup in June and sent into exile. He made a surprise return to Honduras September 21 and has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa since then.

Photos show the half-burned bodies lying in a street in the western city of Solola.

Police say the three were taken into custody for allegedly shooting to death the bus driver and wounding 2 passengers.

National Police spokesman Donald Gonzalez says about 400 residents later showed up at the police station, set fire to three patrol cars and forced the outnumbered officers to turn over the suspects.

The mob then beat the trio unconscious, doused them with gasoline and set them alight on Friday.

Venezuela’s main opposition political parties condemned the Iranian president’s visit before he arrived late Tuesday, saying in a statement that President Hugo Chavez is developing a “dangerous alliance” with Tehran.

Chavez’s enthusiastic embrace of Iran, which shares his hostility toward the U.S. and Israel, has made Venezuela a gateway for the Iranian government to make diplomatic inroads in Latin America.

In Bolivia on Tuesday, Ahmadinejad signed an agreement with leftist President Evo Morales committing Iran to help his country do research on exploiting lithium, the lightweight metal used in electric cars and other batteries. Bolivia possesses half the world’s known lithium reserves.

In Venezuela, Iran has already helped set up factories that assemble cars, tractors and bicycles, and Iranian businesses have sent crews to build public housing under contracts with Chavez’s government.

The announcement came from the armed forces themselves, not the president’s office.

In his capacity as commander-in-chief, Lugo named replacements for the heads of the army, air force and navy, according to a statement from the armed forces.

One day earlier, Lugo had addressed — and dismissed — reports of a possible coup.

“In recent days rumors have surfaced about the placement of bombs, new kidnappings, assaults, coup d’etats,” Lugo said at a news conference Tuesday.

Outbreaks of bloodshed are hardly uncommon in the hillside slums – or favelas – of Rio de Janeiro, already recognised as one of the most deadly cities in the world. Urban violence has been a feature of life there for decades. Last year saw over 6,000 murders in Rio, most related to drug-gang feuds.

But Saturday’s spasm was unusually intense, sending dense plumes of black smoke into the sky and forcing government officials to issue words of reassurance about the games. It was only two weeks ago that the Brazilian city was chosen over Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo to stage the games after London. It was hailed as a breakthrough for South America, which has never hosted an Olympics.

Plus the rebels offered him new clothes and a cellphone.

So three years ago the indigenous youth found himself in the Sixth Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which patrols the mountains of Cauca state. Two months later, chafing under strict rules and horrified by the killing of a childhood friend and fellow recruit by Colombian soldiers, he fled the rebel ranks.

“I was just a mule forced to carry water to the camps, look for firewood and move things to keep a step ahead of the army. All you do is obey orders,” said Jerson, now a 17-year-old high school student in Toribio, a town 150 miles southwest of Bogota, the capital. “But I couldn’t forget how my friend was killed. I knew death was waiting for me if I stayed.”

As well as coming to the aid of hundreds of holidaying Britons, the genteel 65-year-old had served as a magistrate in St James, his well-heeled rural neighbourhood on the outskirts of the country’s tourism capital, and worked for a succession of charities, including a support group for the mentally ill.

But a team of detectives were yesterday investigating whether Mr Terry’s visitor that night, far from being a beneficiary of the honorary consul’s help, was in fact his murderer and a killer driven by the homophobia that plagues the country which the father-of-two had grown to love so much that he made his life there.