Category Archives: Americas

Canada rejects request to protect northern spotted owl habitat

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One wild-born owl remains in British Columbia, where logging concerns have destroyed the species’s old-growth forest home

Canadian cabinet ministers have rejected a plea by the country’s environment minister to save an endangered owl, casting doubt on the species’ survival in the coming years.

The Wilderness Committee environmental advocacy group announced on Wednesday that federal ministers had rejected a request for an emergency order to protect the northern spotted owl – a request submitted by environment minister Steven Guilbeault.

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Lula urges end to ‘insanity of war’ as Latin Americans killed in Hamas attack

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Brazil president calls for humanitarian aid to protect Israeli and Palestinian citizens, while Latin Americans also taken hostage

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has called for an end to “the insanity of war” as it emerged that more than a dozen Latin Americans were killed during Hamas’s assault, with citizens of Brazil and Argentina taken captive in the Gaza Strip.

By Wednesday morning, Latin American government and media reports had confirmed the deaths of seven Argentinians, two Brazilians, two Peruvians, one Colombian and one Paraguayan. At least 15 Argentinians, three Peruvians, two Mexicans and one Brazilian remain missing.

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Top Mexican court to give new life to controversial Trump-era border policy

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‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, which forces people seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while US claims are processed, set to be revived

The Mexican supreme court is poised to give new life to a controversial US-Mexico border policy at a time when both countries are looking for ways to slow the flow of migrants heading north.

The “Remain in Mexico” policy, officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols, is a Trump-era policy that forced people seeking asylum in the US to wait out their legal proceedings in Mexico for months or even years. The government of Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador accepted the arrangement and allowed thousands of asylum seekers to be sent back to the country from the US.

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Politicians, not public, drive U-turns on green agenda, says UN biodiversity chief

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People are ahead of governments, says David Cooper, who blames backtracking on parties seeking ‘wedge issues’ for electoral gain

Government backtracking on environmental promises is being driven by politicians and vested interests, not the public, the acting UN biodiversity chief has said, as he called for greater support for those experiencing short-term costs from green policies.

David Cooper, acting executive secretary for the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD), told the Guardian he believed the public mood was not moving against greater environmental protections, and that vested interests opposed to action on the climate crisis and nature loss were trying to frustrate progress.

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Revealed: thousands who bought ‘golden passports’ through Dominica’s $1bn scheme

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Former Afghan spymaster, convicted millionaire and former Libyan colonel among those who became Dominican citizens

The Caribbean state of Dominica has sold citizenship to thousands of individuals including a former Afghan spymaster, a Turkish millionaire convicted of fraud and a former Libyan colonel under Muammar Gaddafi, the first detailed examination of the country’s controversial “golden passports” scheme has found.

The findings are from Dominica: Passports of the Caribbean, an investigation by the Guardian and 14 other international news organisations, in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

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Luxury rooms and a swim-up bar: hotel with funding from Dominica’s golden passport scheme

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Former Afghan spy chief among those to gain citizenship though investment in Caribbean island

Nestled in a valley formed by an extinct volcano on the Caribbean island of Dominica, the InterContinental Cabrits resort has 101 luxurious rooms overlooking an emerald bay. Its website invites guests to “explore and unwind in paradise while discovering the pristine island”.

But waterfront views and a swim-up rum bar are not the hotel’s only attraction: for the wealthy investors who helped fund the project, it was also a route to another nationality.

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Canada: police open criminal inquiry into billion-dollar green belt scandal

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Ontario premier Doug Ford’s office to ‘fully cooperate’ with investigation into scandal that has forced number of resignations

Canada’s federal police have opened a criminal investigation into a controversial plan to allow construction on greenbelt lands in Ontario, escalating a political scandal that has gripped the province and already forced a number of high-profile government resignations.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced on Tuesday that its sensitive and international investigations unit would investigate the C$8.3bn ($6.10bn) deal.

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Human emissions made deadly South American heat 100 times more likely

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Research shows climate crisis by far main cause of recent unseasonable temperatures in southern winter and early spring

The deadly heat in central South America over the past two months was made 100 times more likely by human emissions that disrupted the climate, scientists have shown.

Temperatures have exceeded 40C in late winter and early spring in the southern hemisphere, affecting millions and leading to heat-related deaths.

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Climate crisis is ‘not gender neutral’: UN calls for more policy focus on women

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Only a third of countries with climate crisis plans include access to sexual, maternal and newborn health services, UNFPA report finds

Only a third of countries include sexual and reproductive health in their national plans to tackle the climate crisis, the UN has warned.

Of the 119 countries that have published plans, only 38 include access to contraception, maternal and newborn health services and just 15 make any reference to violence against women, according to a report published by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and Queen Mary University of London on Tuesday.

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Dozens of Malaysians rescued in Peru after being trafficked to commit online fraud

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Malaysian foreign ministry says 43 of its citizens were freed in Lima after being forced to take part in ‘Macau scam’

More than 40 people from Malaysia have been rescued by police in Peru after they fell victim to a human trafficking syndicate operating a telecommunication fraud.

The Malaysians were forced to participate in the so-called “Macau scam”, making calls to companies in Malaysia and Taiwan to demand money while posing as banks, police or justice officials.

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Court blocks Kenya from deploying police officers to Haiti to fight gangs

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Order comes after UN approved mission to send Kenya-led police officers to help Haiti combat rampant gang violence

A Kenyan court temporarily blocked the government from deploying hundreds of police personnel in Haiti in a UN-approved mission aimed at helping the Caribbean nation tackle rampant gang violence.

The court order issued on Monday is valid until 24 October and followed a petition jointly filed by one of the opposition political parties and two Kenyans who say the decision to deploy the police officers outside the east African country is illegal.

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Border walls and deportations: Biden’s migrant plans prompt outrage

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The president decried Trump’s migration approach but a series of recent steps, critics say, are barely different from his predecessor

As a candidate in the 2020 election, Joe Biden assailed Donald Trump over what he cast as his rival’s ineffective and un-American approach to immigration – one that undermined the nation’s long history of welcoming those seeking refuge in the United States.

Now as president, facing a migrant crisis that is straining resources at the border and feeding into major US cities, Biden has taken a series of steps that critics on his left say are hardly distinguishable from his predecessor.

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Six suspects in murder of Ecuador presidential candidate killed in prison, authorities say

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The six Colombians had been arrested on the day Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead in August

Six men suspected of involvement in the August murder of Ecuador’s anti-corruption presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio have been killed in prison, the prisons agency has said, barely a week before a crucial run-off election.

The killings took place on Friday in a penitentiary in Guayaquil, the South American country’s largest city, the attorney general’s office announced earlier.

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Guatemala president-elect’s supporters block roads to protest party suspension

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Demonstrations surge after court upheld suspension of Bernardo Arévalo’s party over alleged voter registration fraud

Thousands of protestors have blocked roads across Guatemala in surging demonstrations to support the president-elect, Bernardo Arévalo, after the country’s highest court upheld a move by prosecutors to suspend his political party over alleged voter registration fraud.

Arévalo, an anti-corruption crusader who won a landslide victory in the August election, has denounced the suspension as a “coup” aimed neutralizing him before he takes office in January, and his supporters are demanding the resignation of the prosecutors responsible. Street blockades that started this week grew from 14 on Monday to 58 road and highway blockages Friday.

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AOC slams sanctions against Venezuela and deportation flights

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said US measures to pressure Maduro’s government contribute to exodus of people from that country

Left-wing congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the US was “contributing to the destabilisation that drives migration” with measures such as sanctions on Venezuela and Thursday’s decision to resume deportation flights to the South American country.

She also demanded that Joe Biden reverse his recent decision to expedite border wall construction.

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New Mexico footprints are oldest sign of humans in Americas, research shows

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Fossil footprints date back to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, upending previous theory that humans reached continent later

New research confirms that fossil human footprints in New Mexico are probably the oldest direct evidence of human presence in the Americas, a finding that upends what many archaeologists thought they knew.

The footprints were discovered at the edge of an ancient lakebed in White Sands national park and date back to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, according to research published on Thursday in the journal Science.

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Top grain traders ‘helped scupper’ ban on soya from deforested land

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Cargill and ADM led push to weaken new protections for threatened ecosystems in South America, report says

Cargill and ADM, two of the world’s leading livestock feed companies, helped to scupper an attempt to end the trade in soya beans grown on deforested and threatened ecosystem lands in South America, a new report alleges.

Soya is one of the cheapest available types of edible protein, and is in huge demand for feed for animals around the world; as our consumption of meat and dairy has risen globally, the need for soya has soared too.

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‘Bear attack bad’: final message of Canadian couple killed by grizzly

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Officials say can of bear spray was emptied before attack in Banff national park in which Doug Inglis and Jenny Gusse, both 62, died

The final text message contained just three words: “Bear attack bad.”

Sent from a satellite device to family and rescue teams, it signalled that an autumn camping trip in Banff national park had gone terribly wrong.

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US set to resume deportation flights for Venezuelan migrants

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Officials tell AP process expected to begin shortly but decline to provide more details before announcement of government plan

The Biden administration is going to resume deporting migrants to Venezuela, two US officials told the Associated Press on Thursday.

The process is expected to begin shortly, the officials said, though they did not provide specific details on when the flights would begin taking off. The officials were not authorized to publicly disclose details of the government’s plan ahead of an official announcement and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

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Three doctors shot dead in Brazil in suspected politically motivated attack

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Among the dead is a brother of a lawmaker belonging to the same party as Marielle Franco, Rio politician shot dead in 2018

Three doctors have been killed and another wounded in a beachside shooting in Rio de Janeiro, which Brazilian officials believe may have been a politically motivated attack.

Security camera footage obtained by local newspaper O Globo showed a group of black-clad gunmen emerging from a car and running up to the victims’ table in the Barra da Tijuca neighborhood and opening fire.

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