(Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co Ltd's <7201.T> U.S. arm said on Thursday it plans to lay off up to 700 contract workers at its Mississippi assembly plant, citing slowing sales of its vans and Titan pickup trucks.

LIMA (Reuters) - Qatar's Nasser Al-Attiyah became a three times Dakar Rally winner on Thursday, taking no risks on the last stage to Lima and finishing with a 46-minute lead, while Australian Toby Price took the motorcycle crown.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's government is evaluating selling as much as an 8.9 percent stake in state-run oil firm Ecopetrol to fund spending this year, the finance minister said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had planned to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan and receive security and intelligence briefings, her spokesman said after President Donald Trump pulled the military plane that was to take her there.

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's economic team wants trade to account for 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)by the end of his four-year term, a senior administration source said on Thursday, adding that growing commerce was a priority.

BRASILIA (Reuters) - A retired Army officer who last year advised a Canadian company seeking to mine gold in the Amazon returned to the head of Brazil's indigenous rights agency on Thursday, vowing to improve the lives of the country's native peoples.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded at a police academy in Colombia's capital Bogota on Thursday, killing at least nine people and wounding over 20 in an attack that prompted fears of a return to the country's violent past.

BOGOTA, Jan 17 (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded at a police academy in Colombia's capital Bogota on Thursday, killing at least nine people and wounding over 20 in an attack that prompted fears of a return to the country's violent past.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government may have separated "thousands" more immigrant children from their parents than previously known but inadequate record-keeping means the exact number is still unclear, an internal watchdog said on Thursday.