Announcement comes weeks after the Australian state of Victoria pulled out of hosting the 2026 Games
The province of Alberta has withdrawn its support for a bid centred around Calgary/Edmonton to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games, weeks after the Australia state of Victoria pulled out of hosting the 2026 Games.
Alberta’s tourism minister, Joseph Schow, said that cost was behind the decision.
Continue reading...Buenos Aires records hottest start to August in 117 years, Chile sees highs towards 40C and Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil also bake
Now should be South America’s bleak midwinter, but several parts of the continent are experiencing an extraordinary unseasonal heatwave that scientists believe offers a disturbing glimpse of a future of extreme weather.
Argentina’s riverside capital, Buenos Aires, this week recorded its hottest 1 August in 117 years.
Continue reading...EU’s climate monitor tracks fire emissions as wildfires are expected to continue to burn for weeks or even months
Huge wildfires in Canada have already spewed out twice the smoke emissions than the previous whole-year record, the EU’s climate monitor said on Thursday, with the blazes expected to continue to scorch their way through forests for weeks or even months.
The devastating wildfires have burned some 30m acres (12m hectares) this year so far, incinerating an area larger than the size of Cuba or South Korea.
Continue reading...Abortion rights group says bill targeting violence against pregnant victims was attempt to shift narrative on fetuses
A vote on a controversial bill meant to expand “fetal rights” in Canada has left the country without a single pro-choice Conservative MP, according to an abortion watchdog organization.
This week, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) placed the last remaining 15 Conservatives on its list of anti-choice MPs after they voted in support of Bill C-311, dubbed the Violence Against Pregnant Women Act.
Continue reading...UN Refugee Agency and IOM urge steps – including more legal pathways for migrants – to curb humanitarian crisis
International bodies have called for urgent intervention in the Darién Gap to prevent a further escalation of a humanitarian crisis as new figures showed that record numbers of people are risking their lives to cross the lawless 100-mile stretch of rainforest between Panama and Colombia.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) also called for the creation of more legal pathways to migrate to the US in order to help reduce irregular migration.
Continue reading...Texas government installed barrier to deter migrants – Mexican and US governments want it removed as dangerous and illegal
A body has been found stuck in a floating barrier installed by Texas authorities in the Rio Grande river on the US border, Mexico’s foreign ministry has said
Authorities were working to identify the body found in the river and determine the cause of death, said Mexico’s foreign ministry, as it reiterated safety concerns.
Continue reading...Ten people were killed in Rio favela and 19 people reportedly died in state of Bahia, while death toll rose to 16 in São Paulo region
At least 45 people have been killed in a string of police operations across three Brazilian states, in a particularly bloody week even for Brazil – a country notorious for its police violence.
Ten people were killed during an operation by civil and military police against drug traffickers into the Complexo da Penha favela in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday morning, with residents saying that heavy gunfire began at 3am.
Continue reading...Canadian PM’s office says in statement that pair ‘remain a close family’ and have signed a legal agreement
Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, are separating, the couple have announced on Instagram, with a statement that appeared to mark the end of their 18-year marriage.
Trudeau, 51, and Grégoire Trudeau, 48, were married in late May 2005.
Continue reading...Marina Silva welcomes progress but says climate crisis means upcoming regional summit needs to produce real action
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by at least 60% in July compared to the same month last year, the environment minister, Marina Silva, has told the Guardian.
The good news comes ahead of a regional summit that aims to prevent South America’s largest biome from hitting a calamitous tipping point.
Continue reading...Fossils found in Peru from extinct species show it may have had body mass of 85-340 tonnes – heavier than blue whales
The fossilised bones of an ancient creature that patrolled coastal waters 40m years ago belong to a newly discovered species that is a contender for the heaviest animal ever to have existed on Earth.
Fossil hunters discovered remnants of the enormous and long-extinct whale in a rock formation in the Ica desert of southern Peru. Fully grown adults might have weighed hundreds of tonnes, researchers believe.
Continue reading...Six months after Lula’s government cracked down on garimpeiros, a legacy of malnutrition and malaria is taking its toll on Yanomami
Six months after the Brazilian government launched an operation to turf out illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous reserve, the Yanomami population there continues to live in fear, battling a legacy of violence, destruction and disease.
A new report released by three Indigenous organisations on Wednesday, applauds the success of the government’s crackdown but highlights the challenges that lie ahead in fully addressing the humanitarian crisis caused by the invasion of wildcat miners during the Jair Bolsonaro years.
Continue reading...Four men traveled about 5,600km before being rescued by Brazilian federal police in south-eastern port of Vitória
On their 10th day at sea, the four Nigerian stowaways crossing the Atlantic in a tiny space above the rudder of a cargo ship ran out of food and drink.
They survived another four days, according to their account, by drinking the sea water crashing just meters below them, before being rescued by Brazilian federal police in the south-eastern port of Vitória.
Continue reading...Move comes in response to Canadian legislation requiring internet giants to pay news publishers
Meta has begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada, the company said on Tuesday.
The move comes in response to legislation in the country requiring internet giants to pay news publishers.
Continue reading...Fines of up to £55,000 could be imposed on musicians who sing songs deemed to promote violence against women
Authorities in the north-western Mexican state of Chihuahua have banned artists from singing misogynist lyrics in live music venues.
Chihuahua, the capital city of the state, which borders the US, has passed a measure to prohibit musicians from performing songs that promote violence against women.
Continue reading...Brazil authorities call for investigation after hundreds of police officers were deployed in response to the killing of an officer
Authorities in Brazil have called for an investigation after a police operation on the coast of São Paulo state left at least eight people dead, in an apparent act of retaliation.
About 600 police officers have been deployed across the Baixada Santista region in response to the killing of an officer by drug traffickers in the city of Guarujá last Thursday.
Continue reading...Nicolás Petro held as part of investigation into funds he allegedly collected from drug traffickers during 2022 election campaign
The son of the Colombian president has been arrested as part of a high-profile money-laundering investigation into funds he allegedly collected from convicted drug traffickers during last year’s presidential campaign.
The president, Gustavo Petro, a former rebel who rose through Colombia’s political ranks as an anti-corruption crusader, said he would not interfere with the investigation.
Continue reading...Data counts 1.3m quilombola, historically excluded population whose communities were founded by fugitive enslaved people
More than 1.3 million Brazilians who identify as descendants of Africans who escaped slavery have finally gained recognition in official statistics, marking a victory for this historically excluded population.
The groundbreaking data was released on Thursday as part of Brazil’s 2022 census, during which the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) for the first time counted and mapped the country’s quilombola population – members of often remote Afro-Brazilian communities that were traditionally founded by fugitive slaves.
Continue reading...Congress passes bill that could allow 900 people to be tried together if they are accused of being in the same criminal group
Nayib Bukele’s government has already locked up 2% of El Salvador’s adult population and built the largest prison in the Americas to house the 70,000 alleged gang members he has imprisoned.
Now the populist leader has cleared the way for mass trials of hundreds of people at a time as he steps up his year-long crackdown on the country’s gangs which critics say is eroding the rule of law and leading to many innocent people being wrongly jailed.
Continue reading...Country failed to collect and share data, masking issues and inequalities, according to editorial in British Medical Journal
Prominent public health experts have called on Canada to launch an inquiry into its Covid response, arguing that the country’s failure to collect and share data masked issues and inequalities that – if properly addressed early on – could have saved lives.
The call to action came alongside a scathing editorial in the British Medical Journal, titled “The world expected more of Canada”, which argues that Canada’s “overall impression of adequacy” conceals important inequalities.
Continue reading...President Lasso imposes 60-day order and authorizes armed forces to retake control of country’s violence-plagued prisons
Ecuador’s president, Guillermo Lasso, has declared a 60-day state of emergency throughout the country’s prisons and authorized the armed forces to retake control of jails, following violence in the country’s most notorious prison that left 18 dead and a string of protests in which inmates took nearly 100 guards hostage.
The measure – the second state of emergency that Lasso has ordered in less than 24 hours – will be in effect for 60 days and orders the immediate mobilization of the military and police in an effort to regain control of the prisons.
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