Sao Paulo /AFP Brazilians furious at recession and corruption voted on Sunday in municipal elections amid heightened security after a series of murders of candidates. Voting, which is mandatory in Brazil, got underway at 8:00 am (1100 GMT), with long lines immediately forming outside polling stations. Among the first to cast his ballot in the financial capital Sao Paulo …

  Baku / AFP Pope Francis on Sunday called for a “stable peace” as he visited mainly Muslim Azerbaijan, several months after pushing for an end to a festering territorial feud while in arch-foe Armenia. The pontiff met in private with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev — who is accused by rights groups of ruthlessly stamping out dissent in the energy-rich …

  Bogota / AFP Colombians voted in a referendum on Sunday on whether to ratify a historic peace accord to end a 52-year war between the state and the communist FARC rebels. The accord will effectively end what is seen as the last major armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere. The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and …