Yehude Simon replaces outgoing Cabinet chief Jorge del Castillo, who stepped down late last week after audiotaped conversations surfaced that apparently revealed members of his political party taking bribes to steer business to a Norwegian oil company.

The entire Cabinet resigned en masse.

Garcia was also swearing in the other 16 Cabinet ministers on Tuesday. Ten of the ministers will keep their posts.

The 61-year-old Simon is a widely popular independent governor of Lambayeque province who was imprisoned for alleged ties to a leftist rebel group during the 1990s.

Venezuela: Man's assets frozen

CARACAS — Venezuela's government has ordered local banks to freeze the assets of a businessman who is testifying against four men accused of illegally acting as Venezuelan agents in the United States.

Witness Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson is cooperating with prosecutors in Miami who accuse the defendants of attempting to cover up the source of a cash-filled suitcase seized last year in Argentina.

U.S. prosecutors allege the $800,000 in the suitcase came from Venezuela's state oil company and was intended for the campaign of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez. Venezuela and Argentina deny it.

El Salvador: Funds to fight gangs

SAN SALVADOR — The U.S. government on Tuesday pledged to give El Salvador $2.6 million to fight violent gangs known as Maras.

The money will be used over the next year to help authorities investigate the gangs, contain their recruiting and improve the country's prison system.

U.S. Ambassador Charles Glazer and Public Safety and Justice Minister Rene Figueroa announced the aid at a news conference in San Salvador.

Figueroa described the money as "another very significant step toward creating a regional anti-gang strategy."

Central American immigrants living in the U.S. in the 1980s started the Mara gangs, which spread to Central America in the 1990s as the U.S. began massive deportations of convicted criminals.

Glazer said rising crime and violence are harming ordinary people in this Central American nation and is a cause of migration.

Authorities estimate there are some 70,000 Mara gang members in Central America, Mexico and the U.S. who are involved in crimes such as drug trafficking, people smuggling, kidnapping and extortion.

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