Cuban President Raul Castro Tuesday railed against U.S. spying as he opened a summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders, a group set up by Venezuela's late anti-Western leader Hugo Chavez to counter U.S. influence.

The meeting -- which began with a moment of silence for the late leader -- was hosted by Chavez's closest ally, communist Cuba, in a major diplomatic coup for a country Washington has tried to isolate through a five-decade-old trade embargo.

A Venezuelan school bus crashed into a lamp post and burst into flames on a busy street, killing six children and the driver, authorities said Tuesday.

Three others on board were injured in the accident, which happened in the city of Valencia, according to broadcaster Globovision.

Venezuela urged police Saturday to report corruption in their ranks seen as part of the violent crime crisis, after a famous ex-beauty queen was slain.

In this violent crime-wracked nation, Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez gave out his cellular number during an address and asked police to call him to report corruption.

A single bullet killed former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear in the assault that also claimed her partner's life, her manager said Wednesday after a murder that exposed the country's crime epidemic.

President Nicolas Maduro called a meeting of mayors and governors Wednesday to draw an emergency anti-crime plan after Spear, 29, and British-born Thomas Henry Berry, 39, were murdered in front of their five-year-old daughter, who was wounded.

A former Miss Venezuela and her British-born partner were shot dead while their five-year-old daughter was wounded during a suspected roadside robbery that shocked the nation, authorities said Tuesday.

Monica Spear, a 29-year-old soap opera star, and Thomas Henry Berry, 39, were killed after their car broke down on a highway in northwestern Venezuela late Monday, prosecutors said in statement.

A bomb threat that forced the evacuation of an Air France jet in Caracas was a false alarm, Venezuelan authorities said Sunday.

Air France flight 385 was scheduled to take off for Paris at 2355 GMT Saturday night but was abruptly cancelled after French security services warned there might be a bomb on board.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared victory in local elections as his ruling Socialists won a majority of votes nationwide, even though they lost to the opposition in five key cities.

The Sunday polls did not turn out to be the referendum on Maduro -- heir to leftist icon Hugo Chavez -- that the center-left opposition had hoped for.

President Nicolas Maduro survived the first ballot box test of his rocky presidency Sunday, as candidates for his ruling Socialist coalition maintained control of most of Venezuela's municipalities.

The vote, seen as a referendum on Maduro's presidency amid soaring crime, high inflation and a floundering economy, confirmed the Socialists as the top political force of the land.

Venezuela's embassy in Kenya used diplomatic bags to smuggle drugs, a witness in a trial over the murder of the mission's ambassador told a Nairobi court Wednesday.

"I am aware that the embassy was used to traffic drugs using the diplomatic bag," former embassy driver Kevin Lameck told the court in the Kenyan capital.

Caracas and other cities in Venezuela plunged into darkness Monday night as a power cut hit just as the president was speaking on TV and radio, with local elections five days away.

President Nicolas Maduro, who was elected in n April after the death of Hugo Chavez, later blamed the backout on the "fascist right."