Category Archives: Americas

Could Guyana’s Exxon ruling scare big oil off risky exploration?

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Ruling requiring ‘unlimited guarantee’ from oil firms to cover costs of spills could change offshore drilling throughout region

A ruling from Guyana’s high court could change the face of offshore oil drilling throughout the Caribbean, according to financial and legal analysts.

The ruling ordered the country’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require an independent liability insurance policy from Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) and an “unlimited guarantee” from its parent company, ExxonMobil, in the case of any damage caused by the company’s oil and gas development in the country.

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Fowl play: errant chicken delays Mexico City metro service

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The latest transit system mishap comes after a series of incidents that city officials have claimed were sabotage

Service was temporarily halted on one of Mexico City’s metro system this week after a chicken got loose on the tracks.

Video posted by the Metro on Tuesday showed maintenance personnel and civil defense officers in hard hats chasing the errant fowl around the tracks with brooms, gloves and a trash bag.

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Canada: dry weather and shifting winds threaten to spread Alberta wildfires

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Province has 90 actives blazes, 23 of which are out of control, with thousands evacuated and oil and gas production hit

Tinder-dry weather and shifting winds in western Canada have elevated the risk of spreading wildfires in the province of Alberta where thousands have already been forced from their homes.

About 90 wildfires are active in Alberta, with 23 out of control, according to the provincial government. At one point the fires pushed more than 30,000 people out of their homes while oil and gas producers shut in at least 319,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, or 3.7% of national production.

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Toronto mayor’s race draws more than 100 candidates – including one dog

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Former police chief, comedian and rescue dog Molly among those vying to replace John Tory, who resigned in February over an affair

More than 100 candidates, including a former police chief, a comedian and a dog, are all vying for the chance to be mayor of Canada’s largest city.

One hundred and two prospective mayors formally registered before Friday’s deadline as candidates in the mayoral byelection at the end of June.

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Weather tracker: Cyclone Mocha batters Bangladesh and Myanmar

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Refugee camps bear brunt of deadly category-5 storm, while temperature divide is expected in North America

Cyclone Mocha brought strong winds and torrential rain to parts of Bangladesh and Myanmar on Sunday, with refugee camps bearing the brunt of the category-5 storm, leaving at least five dead and causing half a million people to be evacuated.

The region was rocked by sustained winds of more than 160mph as Mocha made landfall, whipping up gusts closer to 200mph and a storm surge of up to 4 metres. The world’s largest refugee camp, Cox’s Bazar, was badly hit and more than 1,300 shelters were destroyed. Heavy rain triggered landslides and floods.

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Vice files for bankruptcy protection amid cut-price sale to consortium

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Digital publisher and owner of Vice News and Vice TV was once valued at $6bn but has agreed sale for $225m

Vice, the once high-flying media startup that reached a peak valuation of nearly $6bn (£5bn), has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US as the digital publisher engineers a cut-price sale to a group of lenders.

The company, whose assets include Vice News, Motherboard, Refinery29 and Vice TV, has agreed a sale to a consortium that includes Fortress Investment Group, Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital for $225m in the form of a credit bid for its assets as well as assuming Vice’s “significant liabilities”.

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US senator denounced as ‘profoundly ignorant man’ over remarks on Mexico

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John Kennedy’s comments about Mexicans ‘eating cat food’ came as he urged the US military to enter country to ‘stop the cartels’

Mexicans “would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback” Steakhouse restaurant if it were not for their nation’s proximity to the US, and their country should be invaded because of the presence of drug cartels there, the US senator John Neely Kennedy said.

The Louisiana Republican’s racist remarks drew a strong condemnation from Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, who called Kennedy “a profoundly ignorant man”. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, meanwhile, urged the 37 million Americans of Mexican descent – along with other Latinos in the US – “not to vote for people with this very arrogant, very offensive and very foolish mentality” in the future.

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Unaccompanied Honduran teen dies in US custody as Title 42 expires

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Investigators trying to determine cause for teen’s death, which occurred in a Florida shelter on Wednesday

An unaccompanied 17-year-old migrant from Honduras died in a shelter in Florida on Wednesday, according to authorities.

Investigators on Friday were still trying to determine a cause for the teen’s death, which came as the US lifted immigration restrictions stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Title 42: Biden officials press on with deportation plans and warn those crossing unlawfully face tougher consequences – as it happened

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Officials stress hardline approach as American Civil Liberties Union files lawsuit, saying new rules close off safe routes for people seeking asylum

In El Paso, the Texas city this home to one of the major crossing points from Mexico, the Associated Press reports on how the city’s faith leaders are navigating an influx of migrants that’s expected to grow in the days to come.

Here’s more from their story:

As changing policies, rampant misinformation and exasperated, fearful crowds converge in this desert city, faith leaders are striving to provide shelter and uplift.

Along with prayers, they are counseling migrants about the daunting challenges that await them on U.S. soil, with enormous backlogs in asylum hearings and the Biden administration’s newly announced measures that many consider stricter than the existing ones known as Title 42.

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Canada: extreme ‘heat dome’ temperatures set to worsen wildfires

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System – extremely rare for this time of year – likely to fuel fires that have already displaced tens of thousands of residents

Western Canada is bracing for a “heat dome” weather system that will push temperatures to new records over the weekend, and is likely to worsen wildfires that have already displaced tens of thousands of residents.

Seventy-five active wildfires burned in Alberta on Thursday, with 23 listed as out of control. In some areas, oil and gas production, which typically resists weather-induced shutdowns, was briefly shuttered.

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US authorities ‘seeing large numbers of migrants at border’ before Title 42 expiration – as it happened

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Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warns people against crossing border illegally in White House briefing

We’re a few minutes away from the daily White House press briefing, where homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will appear ahead of the midnight expiration of Title 42, the rule put in place under Donald Trump that has allowed US authorities to turn away most asylum seekers over the past three years.

Immigration authorities and some communities at the border are bracing for a potential surge of new migrants once the measure expires, and Mayorkas is likely to use his appearance to warn people against trying to cross into the US illegally, and outline steps Washington will take to stem the flow. He may also be asked about the possibility Republicans will follow through on their threats to impeach him over the situation at the border.

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Supreme court rules in favor of trans woman who fled violence in Guatemala

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Estrella Santos-Zacaria will have another chance to seek asylum from sexual assault and death threats after being deported in 2008

The US supreme court ruled on Thursday in favor of a transgender Guatemalan woman fighting deportation on the grounds that she would face persecution if returned to her native country.

The unanimous decision in favor of Estrella Santos-Zacaria gives her another chance to argue that immigration officials were wrong to reject her bid to remain in the US.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html.

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Canada: images of felled ancient tree a ‘gut-punch’, old-growth experts say

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Shocking photos of chopped-down tree in western Canada highlights flaws in plan to protect forest from loggers, activists say

Stark images of an ancient tree cut down in western Canada expose flaws in the government’s plan to protect old-growth forests, activists have said, arguing that vulnerable ecosystems have been put at risk as logging companies race to harvest timber.

As part of an effort to catalogue possible old growth forests, photographer TJ Watt and Ian Thomas of the environmental advocacy group Ancient Forest Alliance travelled to a grove of western red cedars on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. But then they arrived to the forest in Quatsino Sound, they found hundreds of trees that has recently been logged.

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Outrage over plans to build highway over site of Canada’s deadliest rockslide

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Controversial expansion prompts worry and frustration from residents that a ‘sacred place’ could soon be destroyed

Before sunrise on the morning of 29 April 1903, a deep rumble echoed through Crowsnest Valley in western Alberta, Canada. The peak of Turtle Mountain had collapsed, sending a block of limestone nearly 1km wide and weighing 110m metric tonnes hurtling towards the town of Frank, a coalmining community of 600 people.

In less than two minutes, 100 people are believed to have been killed in what remains Canada’s deadliest rockslide. A dozen bodies were recovered, but the vast majority of victims remain buried under boulders the size of vehicles.

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Venezuelan migrants in Texas start car-wash business after mass killing horror

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Group tell of determination to fulfil American dream after compatriots were killed when SUV driver drove into bus stop

After a tragic start to the week and a night of thunderstorms, a group of migrants in south Texas woke up newly determined to fulfill their American dream.

Equipping themselves with soapy water, buckets, rags and a lot of spirit, about 30 Venezuelan men on Tuesday began operating a donation-based car washing service in a gas station right next to the border that divides Brownsville, Texas, from Matamoros, Mexico.

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Rita Lee, Brazil’s undisputed Queen of Rock, dies aged 75

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Tributes pour in for founder of Os Mutantes, who sardonically named her tumour after far-right president Jair Bolsonaro

Rita Lee, the legendary Brazilian musician, composer and founder of the trailblazing band Os Mutantes, has died at 75, prompting emotional tributes to Brazil’s undisputed “Queen of Rock”.

Rita Lee was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2021, memorably nicknaming her tumour “Jair” – a sardonic reference to Brazil’s widely loathed then president, Jair Bolsonaro.

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Some of the first humans in the Americas came from China, study finds

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New genetics study finds some of the first arrivals came during the last ice age, and shortly after, in two distinct migrations

Some of the first humans to arrive in the Americas included people from what is now China, who arrived in two distinct migrations during and after the last ice age, a new genetics study has found.

“Our findings indicate that besides the previously indicated ancestral sources of Native Americans in Siberia, the northern coastal China also served as a genetic reservoir contributing to the gene pool,” said Yu-Chun Li, one of the report authors.

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David Miranda, campaigner and former Brazilian congressman, dies aged 37

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Lula celebrates ‘extraordinary trajectory’ of favela-born politician and Guardian columnist who played key role in Snowden leaks

Brazilian politicians, celebrities and social activists have paid tribute to the vivacious, loving and combative former congressman and campaigner David Miranda who has died in Rio de Janeiro aged 37.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva celebrated the “extraordinary trajectory” of the favela-born politician who served in the country’s congress between 2019 and 2022 and was a powerful voice of resistance during the far-right administration of Jair Bolsonaro.

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‘There’s no water’: migrants stranded in Chilean desert as Peru closes border

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Hundreds, mostly Venezuelans, hope to cross into Peru to flee harsh immigration protocols and growing xenophobia in Chile

The wind sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean buffets makeshift tents made of blankets and scraps of fabric, as sheltering migrants peer out, squinting against the whipped-up sand and fierce sun overhead.

This desolate stretch of the Atacama desert has been home for days – and in some cases weeks – to hundreds of migrants, mostly Venezuelans, fleeing harsher immigration protocols and growing xenophobia in Chile and hoping to cross its northern border into Peru.

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Canada won’t be intimidated by China’s retaliatory expulsion of consul, Trudeau says

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China’s foreign ministry said it would expel Canadian envoy for Ottawa’s ‘unreasonable action’ of ejecting Chinese diplomat

Canada will not be intimidated by China’s tit-for-tat expulsion of a Canadian consul in retaliation for Ottawa’s ejection of a Chinese official, Justin Trudeau has said.

Canada expelled the Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei on Tuesday over allegations he tried to intimidate a Canadian lawmaker critical of China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority. Hours later, China’s ministry of foreign affairs said it would expel a Canadian diplomat from Shanghai in retaliation for what it called Ottawa’s “unreasonable actions”.

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