Category Archives: Americas

Colombian president’s allies resign amid illegal wiretapping scandal

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Inquiry reveals phone calls of Gustavo Petro’s aide’s nanny were intercepted in ‘grotesque’ abuse of power

Two of Gustavo Petro’s closest political allies have resigned as the Colombian president’s office was embroiled in a bizarre scandal involving a nanny, illegal wiretaps and a missing briefcase full of cash.

Petro’s closest adviser, Laura Sarabia, and his key political power broker, Armando Benedetti, stepped down on Friday after an investigation by the general attorney into allegations made by Marelbys Meza, the nanny to Sarabia’s son.

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Events in Brazil and UK to celebrate lives of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

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British journalist and Brazilian Indigenous expert were killed a year ago on Monday in remote Amazon region they tried to defend

Friends and admirers of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira are preparing to gather in towns and cities across Brazil as well as London to remember the men and the causes they cherished.

The British journalist and the Brazilian Indigenous expert were shot dead during a reporting trip in the Amazon’s remote Javari valley region one year ago, on 5 June 2022.

If you want to help finish Dom Phillips’s book on the Amazon you can contribute here.

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Lone renter in ‘David and Goliath’ row with Montreal developers

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Carla White’s battle has shone a light on city’s lack of affordable new housing for those on low incomes

A single tenant in a Montreal apartment block has halted a multimillion-dollar development project in a standoff that has focused fresh attention on the lack of affordable housing in major Canadian cities.

Property developer Mondev has been trying for years to persuade Carla White to move from her small C$400-a-month (£238) apartment so it can demolish a row of mostly abandoned buildings and build 176 luxury apartments.

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Montreal: holdout tenant halts developer’s push to force her out

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Focus over affordable housing as Carla White says she will not leave unless Mondev provides similar apartment with cheap rent

A single holdout tenant in a Montreal apartment block has halted a multimillion-dollar development project, in a standoff which has focused fresh attention on the lack of affordable housing in major Canadian cities.

Real estate developer Mondev has been trying for years to persuade Carla White to move from her small, C$400-a-month apartment so it can demolish a row of mostly abandoned buildings and build 176 condominium units.

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US air quality as far south as Virginia affected by Nova Scotia wildfires

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National Weather Service issues air quality alert for Richmond while Maryland, Pennsylvania and other states affected

The historically intense wildfires that battered the Nova Scotia province on the eastern coast of Canada have had a severe effect on air quality as far south as Virginia and Maryland, the US National Weather Service alerted.

Four wildfires have destroyed hundreds of buildings and homes and displaced tens of thousands of people, hitting the Halifax municipality hardest. But the blazes have also sent smoke billowing over New York City, and have prompted officials from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia to report negative effects on their air quality.

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Texas woman dies of infection linked to cosmetic surgery in Mexico

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Family says Lauren Brooke Robinson, who reportedly contracted fungal meningitis, began to feel ill months after February surgery

A Texas woman has died after contracting fungal meningitis in an outbreak that has been linked to a cosmetic procedure performed in Mexico.

Lauren Brooke Robinson, 29, died on Wednesday from a fungal meningitis infection after receiving cosmetic surgery in Mexico, the local TV news station KBMT reported.

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Snow fly in US and Canada can detach its legs to survive, research shows

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Flies chilled to sub-zero temperatures amputate one or more of their six limbs to protect their internal organs

Flightless snow flies in the US and Canada can amputate their legs to survive as they begin to freeze, researchers have discovered.

Lab experiments in which the flies were chilled gradually to sub-zero temperatures revealed they can detach one or more of their six legs, an apparent “last-ditch tactic” to protect their internal organs from the advancing cold.

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Mastermind of assassination of Haiti president sentenced to life by US court

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Rodolphe Jaar, a Haitian-Chilean businessman, conspired with Colombian mercenaries, to kill Jovenel Moïse in 2021

A mastermind of the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse two years ago has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a federal court judge in Florida.

Rodolphe Jaar, a Haitian-Chilean businessman, conspired with a group of Colombian mercenaries to murder Moïse at his home in Port-au-Prince on 7 July 2021. Prosecutors at his sentencing hearing in Miami said Jaar obtained the weapons used in the “commando-style” attack that killed Moïse, 53, and seriously injured his wife.

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Nova Scotia hopes forecast rain will help contain largest wildfire on record

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Huge Barrington Lake fire now considered province’s largest wildfire but wet weather expected from Friday into next week

Rain on Friday and a rainy forecast for the weekend have fire officials hopeful they can get the largest wildfire ever recorded in Canada’s Atlantic coast province of Nova Scotia under control.

That wildfire and three others in the province have prompted air quality warnings in US regions as far south as Virginia and Maryland.

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The multinational companies that industrialised the Amazon rainforest

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Analysis shows handful of corporations extract tens of billions of dollars of raw materials a year – and their commitments to restoration vary greatly

A handful of global giants dominate the industrialisation of the Amazon rainforest, extracting tens of billions of dollars of raw materials every year, according to an analysis that highlights how much value is being sucked out of the region with relatively little going back in.

But even as the pace of deforestation hits record highs while standards of living in the Amazon are among the lowest in Brazil, the true scale of extraction remains unknown, with basic details about cattle ranching, logging and mining hard to establish despite efforts to ban commodities linked to its destruction.

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More than 800m Amazon trees felled in six years to meet beef demand

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Investigation involving Guardian shows systematic and vast forest loss linked to cattle farming in Brazil

More than 800m trees have been cut down in the Amazon rainforest in just six years to feed the world’s appetite for Brazilian beef, according to a new investigation, despite dire warnings about the forest’s importance in fighting the climate crisis.

A data-driven investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), the Guardian, Repórter Brasil and Forbidden Stories shows systematic and vast forest loss linked to cattle farming.

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Nova Scotia: fears extreme heat and strong winds could worsen wildfires

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Officials say combination of high temperatures and stiff breezes could lead to ‘extreme fire behaviour’ in Maritime province

Officials in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia say a day of blistering heat, strong winds and low humidity could lead to “extreme fire behaviour” as they work to control wildfires that have forced more than 20,000 people from their homes.

Fire crews said on Thursday they were concerned about a phenomenon known as “crossover”, which occurs when temperature rises above 30C, humidity drops below 30% and winds exceed 30km/h.

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Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira will not be forgotten, vows Brazil’s Lula

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President says last year’s killings were result of ‘encouragement of anarchy’ in Amazon under Bolsonaro

Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira will not be forgotten, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has vowed, blaming their killings a year ago on the Amazonian “anarchy” unleashed under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.

Phillips, a British journalist, and Pereira, a Brazilian Indigenous expert, were shot dead by a group of illegal fishers on 5 June last year while travelling in the remote Javari valley near Brazil’s border with Colombia and Peru.

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Socialite Jasmine Hartin fined after killing Belize police officer

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Ex-partner of Lord Ashcroft’s son discharged gun at Henry Jemmott in 2021 as the pair drank together

The Canadian socialite and former partner of the son of the billionaire and Conservative party grandee Michael Ashcroft has been fined after killing a police officer in Belize.

Jasmine Hartin, 34, was ordered to pay £30,000 by the supreme court in Belize City for manslaughter by negligence. She must also undertake 300 hours of community service and film a video about the dangers of “drinking and making foolish decisions”.

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Brazilian Amazon at risk of being taken over by mafia, ex-police chief warns

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Alexandre Saraiva gives alert on organised crime in region ahead of anniversary of killings of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

The rapid advance of organised crime groups in the Brazilian Amazon risks turning the region into a vast, conflict-stricken hinterland plagued by heavily armed “criminal insurgents”, a former senior federal police chief has warned.

Alexandre Saraiva, who worked in the Amazon from 2011 to 2021, said he feared the growing footprint of drug-trafficking mafias in the region could spawn a situation similar to the decades-long drug conflict in Rio de Janeiro, where the police’s battle with drug gangs and paramilitaries has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

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Last images of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira found on recovered phone

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Photos and videos on phone found near site of men’s killing show some of their last movements in Brazilian Amazon

Some of the last images of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira have been found after Indigenous activists recovered a mobile phone Pereira was carrying when the two men were killed in the Brazilian Amazon last year.

The phone was found last October when activists from Univaja, the Indigenous association where Pereira worked, returned to a stretch of flooded forest along the Itaquaí River where the men’s bodies were taken after they were shot dead on their boat on the morning of 5 June 2022.

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Canada’s Marineland theme park charged over its handling of black bears

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Park has long been a target of activists who have sought to shut it down over the lack of care given to its captive animals

A theme park in Canada is facing charges for its handling of black bears in captivity, placing fresh scrutiny on a park that animal rights activists have long sought to shut down.

Ontario’s ministry of the solicitor general said on Wednesday it had laid the charges against Marineland, an amusement park on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. The province said the park had failed to comply with an order related to its captive American black bears.

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‘Unprecedented’ Nova Scotia wildfires expected to worsen, officials warn

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More than 18,000 people remain under evacuation order outside Halifax as Canadian PM Justin Trudeau pledges federal assistance

Officials in the province of Nova Scotia say unprecedented wildfires that have forced thousands from their homes will keep growing despite the “water, raw muscle power and air power” deployed by fire crews.

As of Wednesday, more than 20,000 hectares of the Maritime province were burning from 13 wildfires, including three fires that considered out of control. More than 18,000 people remain under evacuation order outside Halifax, the region’s largest city. More than 200 structures, the majority of which are homes, have been destroyed by the fire. No fatalities have been recorded.

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Outrage as Brazil law threatening Indigenous lands advances in congress

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Critics denounced ‘lies, hatred and racism’ as legislation moves to senate after being overwhelmingly endorsed by lower house

Indigenous leaders and environmentalists in Brazil have voiced horror and indignation after lawmakers approved controversial legislation which opponents fear will strike a devastating blow to Indigenous communities and isolated tribes.

Members of Brazil’s conservative-dominated lower house overwhelmingly endorsed bill number 490 on Tuesday night, by 283 votes to 155.

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Erin O’Toole: China targeted me in election, says 2021 rival to Canada’s Trudeau

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Ex-leader of Conservatives says Canadian Security Intelligence briefed him on a ‘Chinese-orchestrated campaign’ to manipulate the vote

Canada’s spy agency told former Conservative party leader Erin O’Toole that China campaigned to discredit him and suppress votes ahead of the 2021 election he lost to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, O’Toole has said.

In a briefing on Friday, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (Csis) informed O’Toole about intelligence saying Beijing had targeted him in 2021, when he was Conservative leader and running to defeat Trudeau.

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