Fishing village of Labodrie reportedly set on fire after killing of a gang leader in sign of rising violence outside capital
The UN secretary-general has condemned the reported killing of at least 40 people during an attack by armed gangs in a fishing village north of Haiti’s capital.
Media in Haiti widely reported that the attack took place on Thursday night in Labodrie. It is another sign of escalating gang violence that has spread outside the capital.
Continue reading...Indigenous groups and other minorities praise verdict while US officials issue warnings of possible sanctions
• Operation World Cup: the murder plot at the heart of Brazil’s trial of the century
• Bolsonaro sentenced to 27 years for plotting military coup in Brazil
Thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets to rejoice at Jair Bolsonaro’s conviction for plotting a coup, as progressive politicians celebrated the historic move and rightwing figures linked to Donald Trump responded with anger and threats.
Chile’s leftwing president, Gabriel Boric, led regional congratulations of the decision to jail Bolsonaro for 27 years for leading a criminal organisation that sought to seize power after the far-right populist lost the 2022 election.
Continue reading...With widespread support at home and from Trump, his heir will take the fight to Lula in the 2026 presidential election
Four years have passed since Jair Bolsonaro laid out three possible denouements for his extraordinary political career, during which the oft-ridiculed fringe politician rose to become one of leading lights of the global populist right alongside Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump.
“Going to jail, being killed or victory,” predicted Brazil’s then president as he grappled with a deluge of political crises in August 2021.
Continue reading...Interior minister says ‘murder has been committed’ while US Congress demands justification for attack
None of the 11 people killed in a US military strike on a boat in the Caribbean last week were members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s interior minister has said, while US media reported the attack came after the vessel had turned around and was heading back to shore.
The administration of Donald Trump has said the boat was transporting illegal narcotics, but has provided little further information about the incident, even amid demands from members of the US Congress for a justification for the action.
Continue reading...Former president sought to ‘annihilate’ country’s democracy after losing 2022 election
Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to more than 27 years in prison for plotting a military coup and seeking to “annihilate” the South American country’s democracy.
Justices Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha and Cristiano Zanin ruled on Thursday that Bolsonaro – a former paratrooper who was elected president in 2018 – was guilty of seeking to forcibly cling to power after losing the 2022 election, meaning four of the five judges involved in the trial had found Brazil’s former leader guilty.
Continue reading...List leaves out oil pipelines and focuses on LNG expansion, mines and nuclear power as it fends off US trade war
Canada’s Liberal government has said that a liquefied natural gas facility, critical mineral mines, a nuclear reactor and port expansion will mark the first wave of major national projects to “turbocharge” the country’s economy as it fends off a trade war with the United States.
Notably, the list unveiled by the prime minster, Mark Carney, on Thursday does not include any new oil pipelines – projects which have proven to be deeply divisive and politically fractious in recent years.
Continue reading...Far-right ex-president was found to have led a ‘criminal organisation’ to try to stay in power
Brazil’s supreme court has made Jair Bolsonaro the first former president in the country’s history to be convicted for attempting a coup.
The 70-year-old far-right leader claims he is the victim of political persecution, but three out of five judges concluded on Thursday that it was sufficiently proven that Bolsonaro and his close allies attempted to overturn the 2022 election, which he lost to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Continue reading...Rights group also finds rise in openly gay, bisexual and transgender people running for office in 36 countries
Politicians in at least 51 countries used homophobic or transphobic rhetoric during elections last year, from depicting LGBTQ+ identity as a foreign threat to condemning “gender ideology”, according to a new study of 60 countries and the EU.
However, there were also gains for LGBTQ+ representation in some countries. Openly gay, bisexual and transgender people ran for office in at least 36 countries, including for the first time in Botswana, Namibia and Romania – albeit unsuccessfully – according to the report by Outright International. The number of LGBTQ+ elected officials doubled to at least 233 in Brazil.
Continue reading...Actor promoting his directorial debut California Schemin’ at the city’s film festival is reported to have been punched by another drinker
The actor James McAvoy was assaulted in a bar in Toronto, it has been reported.
According to People magazine, McAvoy was “sucker punched” by another visitor to Charlotte’s Room bar on Monday evening, two days after the premiere of his directorial debut, California Schemin’, at the Toronto film festival.
Continue reading...Cheap ultra-processed food behind rise in overweight children, with one in 10 now obese globally, says Unicef
More children around the world are obese than underweight for the first time, according to a UN report that warns ultra-processed junk food is overwhelming childhood diets.
There are 188 million teenagers and school-age children with obesity – one in 10 – Unicef said, affecting health and development and bringing a risk of life-threatening diseases.
Continue reading...Three more supreme court justices to cast their votes in coming days, with verdict expected by Thursday
Jair Bolsonaro led a criminal organisation that sought to plunge Brazil back into dictatorship with a murderous power grab involving special forces assassins and a vast disinformation campaign, the supreme court judge presiding over the former president’s trial has claimed as he voted for Bolsonaro’s conviction.
Alexandre de Moraes was the first supreme court justice of five to announce his decision on Tuesday, as the trial of Bolsonaro and seven alleged co-conspirators – including four senior members of the military and the former head of Brazil’s answer to MI6 – entered its final stretch.
Continue reading...Raids by rival hives aren’t rare after a dry, hot summer, but Christine McDonald was surprised to find her store besieged
A Canadian beekeeper has described fending off thousands of “robber bees” as they raided her shop in a brazen attempt to steal honey.
Christine McDonald, who owns Rushing River Apiaries in the British Columbia city of Terrace, said she entered her shop to find it overrun by the swarm.
Continue reading...Johnson’s office sent invoice to hedge fund manager, which was paid, weeks after meeting Venezuelan leader last year
From a private jet somewhere over the Caribbean Sea in February last year, Boris Johnson called his old political adversary David Cameron, then the foreign secretary, to notify him of a visit.
Johnson had taken a day out from a family holiday in the Dominican Republic for an unlikely meeting with the leftwing president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, a man whom Johnson, when in office, had likened to a “dictator of an evil regime”.
Continue reading...Rand Paul decries ‘thoughtless’ comment after vice-president defends strike against alleged drug traffickers
The Republican senator who heads the homeland security committee has criticized JD Vance for “despicable” comments apparently in support of extrajudicial military killings.
“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” the vice-president said in an X post on Saturday, in defense of Tuesday’s US military strike against a Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean Sea, which killed 11 people the administration alleged were drug traffickers.
Continue reading...LGBTQ+ people in the US contemplate heading north as they wrestle with the president’s assault on the community
The number of LGBTQ+ Americans inquiring about moving to Canada has soared since Donald Trump’s re-election, campaigners have said, as people across the US wrestle with the fallout of rising anti-gay rhetoric, anti-trans executive orders, and the more than 600 bills targeting LGBTQ+ rights.
“So much is happening in the US right now and a lot of it is terrifying,” said Latoya Nugent of Rainbow Railroad, a North American charity that helps LGBTQI+ individuals escape violence and persecution in their home countries.
Continue reading...Homeland security had tried to end temporary protected status granted by the Biden administration
A federal judge on Friday ruled against the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States.
The ruling by US district judge Edward Chen of San Francisco for the plaintiffs means that 600,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protections expired in April or whose protections were about to expire on 10 September have status to stay and work in the United States.
Continue reading...Move comes after accusing Venezuela of buzzing US warship and a deadly US missile strike in Caribbean Sea
Donald Trump is sending 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico to bolster US military operations against drug cartels in the Caribbean region, it was reported on Friday.
If follows a deadly US missile strike on Tuesday on a boat in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration insisted was carrying 11 Venezuelan drug traffickers, and comments by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Wednesday that such attacks “will happen again”.
Continue reading...Prime minister cautions Canadians as Ottawa moves to curb spending to balance near-record military expenditures
Mark Carney has told Canadians to prepare for austerity measures and his finance minister warned of “tough choices” in the coming months, as the government attempts to balance near-record defence spending, cuts to government programs and a trade war with the United States.
Carney, the former central banker and economist turned politician, has been meeting senior ministers before the fall budget, and hinted cuts were coming to the federal bureaucracy.
Continue reading...Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the suspect who attacked Hollow Water First Nation has also died
One person has been killed and six others injured in a mass stabbing in an Indigenous community in central Canada, according to federal police who said that the the suspect also died in the incident.
The violence occurred in Hollow Water First Nation, a remote community with about 1,000 residents, 217km (135 miles) north of Manitoba’s provincial capital, Winnipeg, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told AFP.
Continue reading...Report links Arizona-Sonora smuggling to rising homicide and overdose deaths in both countries
A new “golden triangle” of fentanyl and gun trafficking between Mexico and the US ties together the homicide and overdose crises of the two countries, according to a a new study.
The triangle spans Baja California, Sinaloa and Sonora – the three states where almost all fentanyl seizures in Mexico take place – and connects to Arizona through a quieter part of the US-Mexico border that has become a hotspot for trafficking in both directions.
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