New clue in sub search:

Lat/Am

Ships and planes hunting for a missing Argentine submarine with 44 crew members will return to a previously search area after officials said Wednesday that a noise made a week ago in the South Atlantic could provide a clue to the vessel’s location.

The Argentina navy spokesman, Capt Enrique Balbi, said the “hydroacoustic anomaly” was determined by the United States and specialist agencies to have been produced Nov. 15, just hours after the final contact with the ARA San Juan and could have come from the sub.

The sound originated about 30 miles north of the submarine’s last registered position, he said.

“It’s a noise. We don’t want to speculate” about what caused it, Balbi said.

He said Argentine navy ships as well as a US P-8 Poseidon aircraft and a Brazilian air force plane would return to the area to check out the clue, even though the area already was searched. (AP)

Lat/Am most violent for women:

Latin America and the Caribbean is the most violent region in the world for women, the United Nations said Wednesday, highlighting Central America and Mexico as particularly dangerous.

In a report presented in Panama, UN Women and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) found assaults on women persisted in the region despite severe laws aimed at curbing the phenomenon. “The issue of violence against women in Latin America is critical. It’s the most violent region in the world against women outside of conflict contexts,” Eugenia Piza-Lopez, head of UNDP’s gender mission in Latin America, told AFP. (AFP)