Category Archives: Americas

Yellowknife wildfire: communication issues and Facebook news ban hamper evacuation efforts

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Canada’s ongoing fight with social media company Meta and the resulting ban has led to difficulties with staying on top of information

Communication issues, fast-spreading rumours and a Facebook news ban have all disrupted evacuation efforts by residents of Yellowknife, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, as they race to leave the city before an out-of-control wildfire hits in the coming day or so.

On Wednesday night, officials told the city’s 20,000 residents they had to be out by Friday at noon (1900 BST) before a massive wildfire gets any closer.

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Yellowknife wildfire: traffic clogs road out of town as residents race to evacuate

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More than 20,000 residents given until noon on Friday to leave home in face of advancing wildfire that could arrive by weekend

Long lines of traffic have clogged the only road out of the Canadian city of Yellowknife, after authorities ordered the first ever evacuation of a capital in the face of an advancing wildfire.

More than 20,000 residents – the entire population – have been given until noon on Friday to leave their homes, as water bombers flew throughout the night and authorities warned that the fire could reach the city by the weekend.

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Hurricane Hilary heads towards Mexico after strengthening from tropical storm

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Storm moves toward Baja California and could bring high winds, surf and rain to southern California

A storm located about 300 miles off the coast of Mexico was upgraded to a hurricane overnight as it heads toward Baja California, potentially bringing heavy rain and winds to the region and the south-western United States this weekend.

Hurricane Hilary formed as a tropical storm about 470 miles off the coast of Manzanillo, Mexico. It is currently about 320 miles (515km) south-west of Manzanillo and is moving about 13mph west-north-west. It is expected to turn north-west on Friday morning.

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Haiti gang leader vows to fight any foreign armed force if it commits abuses

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Jimmy Chérizier, ex-police officer known by nickname ‘Barbecue’, also urges Haitians to mobilize against government

Haiti’s most powerful gang leader has warned that he and his gunmen would fight any international armed force deployed to the Caribbean country if it committed any abuses.

Jimmy Chérizier, a former police officer known by his nickname “Barbecue”, also urged Haitians to mobilize against the government. “We are asking the population to rise up,” he said at a news conference.

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The narco-highway creating chaos in a Honduran rainforest

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If cutting continues along its current pace, most of the Moskitia forest – and the way of life it sustains – could be lost by 2050, much sooner for many parts

Several hours down a clandestine road that slithers through the rotting remains of what was once protected rainforest in north-eastern Honduras, a rusted bulldozer overgrown with vines and a locked gate appeared ahead.

A vinyl banner hanging from a wooden fence advertised the sale of cattle for breeding. Behind, a palm tree stood above an empty corral like a watchtower. The driver got out to retrieve a key, a pistol tucked inside his belt.

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‘Real threat to city’: Yellowknife in Canada evacuates as wildfire nears

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20,000 residents of capital of Northwest Territories ordered to leave after forecast that wildfire 11 miles away could arrive by the weekend

An evacuation order has been issued for Yellowknife in the north-west of Canada as a wildfire comes closer, with a local minister saying: “The fire now represents a real threat to the city.”

Shane Thompson, the environment and climate change minister for the Northwest Territories, said on Wednesday night that the fire could reach the outskirts of Yellowknife by the weekend and was about 17km (11 miles) away.

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Canada calls gender violence an epidemic after triple femicide inquest

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Exclusive: government’s response also indicates Canada intends to criminalise coercive control, a form of intimate partner violence

Gender-based violence is an “epidemic” that “has no place in our country”, Canada’s new justice minister has said in a letter delivered in response to a public inquest into a triple femicide in rural Ontario.

The six-page letter dated 14 August – the federal government’s official response to last summer’s inquest – also indicates Canada intends to pursue the criminalisation of coercive control, a form of intimate partner violence intended to isolate, intimidate and control victims.

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Brazil inquiry into alleged Bolsonaro-era pilfering of official gifts widens

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Close associates of ex-president – and possibly Bolsonaro himself – have been accused of selling off expensive gifts

“Every Rolex tells a story,” the luxury watchmaker once claimed.

Brazilian police believe that slogan is particularly true when it comes to the diamond-set timepiece at the centre of an investigation into the suspected pilfering of high-priced official gifts by close associates of Jair Bolsonaro – and possibly the former president himself.

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Dominican Republic explosion death toll rises to 10 with another 11 missing

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Four-month-old among victims and over 50 people also injured in explosion at commercial center in San Cristóbal

The death toll from a powerful explosion near the capital of the Dominican Republic has risen to 10 as firefighters searched through smoldering rubble, authorities said.

More than 50 people also were injured in Monday’s explosion at a bustling commercial center in the city of San Cristóbal, said Joel Santos, minister of the presidency. At least 36 of the injured remained hospitalized, Santos said.

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Third politician in a month killed in Ecuador

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Citizen Revolution party’s Pedro Briones fatally shot less than a week after assassination of presidential candidate

The unprecedented violence shaking Ecuador has claimed the life of another political leader, bringing the number of politics-related killings in the last four weeks to three, including that of a presidential candidate.

The fatal shooting of Pedro Briones a organiser for Citizen Revolution, the party of the former president Rafael Correa, was confirmed by Luisa González, the frontrunner in Sunday’s special presidential election and a member of the same party.

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‘There’s no police or state’: Haitians helpless as violence and brutality soars

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Human Rights Watch says country unable to protect citizens from killing and rape by armed gangs, and floats overseas peacekeepers

Human rights abuses in Haiti are soaring while the Haitian state is almost nonexistent and unable to protect its people from the brutality of armed gangs, Human Rights Watch has warned in a new report.

Rival criminal factions now have such a tight grip over the country that international security forces could be necessary to restore order, the rights groups said.

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Long delays at Panama Canal after drought hits global shipping route

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Number of vessels able to pass through each day limited because lower availability of water

Commercial ships are facing long queues and delays to travel through the Panama Canal as a lengthy drought in the Central American country has led to a cut in the number of vessels able to pass through one of the world’s most important trading routes.

In a fresh demonstration of the impact of the climate crisis on global business and trade, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), which manages the waterway, introduced restrictions on the number of transiting vessels as a result of the drought.

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Far-right outsider takes shock lead in Argentina primary election

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Former tantric sex coach and Donald Trump admirer Javier Milei has said he thinks the climate crisis is ‘a socialist lie’

A former tantric sex coach who plans to do away with Argentina’s public health and education systems, disband the central bank, dollarise the economy and allow people to sell their organs has moved a step closer to becoming the next president of Argentina after a landslide win in open primaries.

In a surprise result that has upended Argentina’s political universe, the libertarian candidate Javier Milei took 30% of the vote on Sunday with his Liberty Advances party, outpacing the hard-right candidate Patricia Bullrich of United for Change, who came second with 28%.

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‘The state is murderous’: Brazilians vow justice for 13-year-old boy shot by police

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Thiago Menezes Flausino, who dreamed of becoming a footballer, was the ninth child to die in a shooting this year in Rio

Those who knew Thiago Menezes Flausino described him as a boy with dreams. These were brutally shattered by several police bullets this week, when the 13-year-old became one of the latest victims of state violence in a Rio de Janeiro favela.

“He dreamed of becoming a professional footballer. He’d passed tryouts for a bigger team and was going to start playing on the day he was killed,” said his aunt Nataly Bezerra Flausino, standing outside the evangelical church where her nephew’s funeral was being held on Tuesday, mere months after his baptism.

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‘I’m not afraid’: Ecuador’s assassinated presidential candidate who fought the cartels

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Killing of Fernando Villavicencio ahead of elections comes as country struggles with surge in drug-related violence

Millions of Ecuadorians will have seen the phone camera footage showing the last seconds before presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was killed, shot through the windows of a white pickup truck after being escorted by unarmed policemen who were helpless to save him.

The images that followed showed panic and chaos as the burst of gunfire sent screaming supporters to the ground. Another clip filmed inside the campaign meeting, which Villavicencio had just left, showed panicked followers fleeing or ducking for cover and bloodstains on the tiled floor.

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Andrea González picked to replace Ecuador’s assassinated presidential candidate

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Fernando Villavicencio fatally shot last week after leaving a campaign event in capital, Quito

The political party of Ecuador’s assassinated presidential hopeful, Fernando Villavicencio, picked its vice-presidential candidate to replace him on Saturday, just a week before the election.

Villavicencio’s Build party, or Construye in Spanish, announced on social media that Andrea González was replacing the 59-year-old as its presidential candidate in the 20 August vote.

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Peru announces air security pact with US in bid to stop drug planes

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Deal revives agreement from 20 years ago and will allow intelligence and training support for Peru’s air force

Peru announced an air security agreement with the US on Saturday in what the government described as a push to stop planes belonging to drug gangs from entering the South American country’s airspace.

The deal revives a bilateral security cooperation pact with the US from 20 years ago, according to a government statement, and will permit new intelligence and training support to flow to Peru’s air force.

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‘Huge’ coral bleaching unfolding across the Americas prompts fears of global tragedy

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Scientists stunned by unprecedented heat-stress event say they can only hope it ‘motivates and unites people’

Corals across several countries are bleaching and dying en masse from unprecedented levels of heat stress, prompting fears that an unfolding tragedy in Central America, North America and the Caribbean could become a global event.

US government scientists have confirmed reefs in Panama, Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Mexico and six countries in the Caribbean, including the Bahamas and Cuba, are suffering significant bleaching, alongside corals in Florida that began turning white almost a month ago.

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Ecuador’s descent into violence reaches new low with candidate’s assassination

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Shock and horror after Fernando Villavicencio, who campaigned on tough-on-crime platform, killed in burst of gunfire in Quito

Ecuador’s terrifying descent into violence and criminality has reached a new low with the assassination in broad daylight of a presidential candidate campaigning on a tough-on-crime and anti-graft platform.

Fernando Villavicencio, a former journalist who had collaborated with the Guardian, was shot and killed in a burst of gunfire on a street in Quito as he left a campaign rally on Wednesday evening. Gunfire broke out as the candidate approached his car, sending supporters screaming and diving for cover.

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Quebecers take legal route to remove Indigenous governor general over lack of French

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Court rules judge can hear case that alleges appointment of Mary Simon violates constitutional rules for bilingualism

A group of Quebecers have cleared a major hurdle in their efforts to have Canada’s governor general removed because she does not speak French.

A Quebec superior court judge ruled that it could hear the case, which asserts that Queen Elizabeth II’s 2021 appointment of Mary Simon – Canada’s first Indigenous governor general – violates constitutional rules for bilingualism.

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