Charles Steele runs against estranged brother Bill in Port Colborne mayoral race – but siblings keep mum on source of conflict
When Charles Steele stepped on to a debate stage last week, it was the first time since the election campaign began that he’d confronted his lone opponent in a bitterly contested race to become mayor of a small Canadian town.
The encounter also marked the first time he’d spoken to his brother Bill – the incumbent mayor – in more than 30 years.
Continue reading...A dozen people were rescued from burning homes after a tanker truck crashed into a railway overpass in the central town of Aguascalientes
A huge blaze erupted in central Mexico after a fuel tanker truck crashed into an overpass by a rail line, scorching homes, engulfing the area in thick smoke and leading to a mass evacuation, but causing no fatalities, authorities said.
Video footage of the fire on social media showed a cargo train hurtling through the flames after Thursday’s accident in the city of Aguascalientes, as stunned drivers at the scene retreated from their cars holding children close.
Continue reading...Survivors of St Anne’s Indian residential school allege government withheld key evidence in determining compensation for victims
Canada’s supreme court has declined to hear an appeal brought by a group of Indigenous residential school survivors, dealing a major blow to their decade-long fight against federal government over thousands of unreleased documents.
Survivors of St Anne’s Indian residential school had hoped the country’s top court would take their case, which alleges Canada’s federal government withheld key evidence in determining compensation for victims of abuse at the school in northern Ontario.
Continue reading...Musician was found guilty earlier this year for sexually assaulting an Ottawa woman in a ‘particularly degrading rape’
Jacob Hoggard, the front man for the Canadian band Hedley, has been sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday after he was found guilty earlier this year of sexually assaulting an Ottawa woman in what the presiding judge called a “particularly degrading rape”.
Ontario superior court justice Gillian Roberts said she accepted the woman’s testimony in its entirety and said it involved “gratuitous degradation” and “gratuitous violence”.
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 802 9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Continue reading...Heavy rain and rising waters continue to take a deadly toll in countries including Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam
It has been a drenched 2022 for many parts of the world, at times catastrophically so. A year of disastrous flooding perhaps reached its nadir in Pakistan, where a third of the country was inundated by heavy rainfall from June, killing more than 1,000 people in what António Guterres, the UN secretary general, called an unprecedented natural disaster.
While floods are indeed natural phenomena, a longstanding result of storms, the human-induced climate crisis is amplifying their damage. Rising sea levels, driven by melting glaciers and the thermal expansion of water, are increasingly inundating coastal areas, while warmer temperatures are causing more moisture to accumulate in the atmosphere, which is then released as rain or snow.
Continue reading...Loblaw Companies says it will lock in prices of ‘no name’ amid looming parliamentary investigation into the food retail industry
Canada’s largest grocer has announced a price freeze on its low-cost product line, amid accusations of profiteering a worsening cost of living crisis – and a looming parliamentary investigation into the food retail industry.
Inflation figures on Wednesday showed that grocery prices in the country rose 11.4% over last month, continuing a surge not seen in more than four decades.
Continue reading...Global Witness produced – and withdrew – purposely misleading ads that were all approved by YouTube, and half by Facebook
YouTube and Facebook are allowing disinformation to be spread about Brazil’s election campaign, adding to the bitterness in an already polarised and violent election, according to a new report by the human rights organisation Global Witness.
The NGO produced a series of purposely misleading ads during an election season that has been dominated by the bitter race between far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and his leftist challenger, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Continue reading...Mining co-ops – with oversize influence in the government – are moving into the Amazon’s Madidi national park
The footage is jerky, perhaps shot covertly. It shows a river running through a jungle: on the far side there is still thick forest, but the near bank is a mess of churned earth and muddy tracks – yet more evidence that gold miners have moved into the Madidi, Bolivia’s most famous national park.
Such mining provides a living for hundreds of thousands of people. But as miners push into the Amazon and other protected areas, the Bolivian government’s support of the industry sits awkwardly with its environmentalist rhetoric.
Continue reading...Lack of rainfall takes toll on Canada’s ‘wet coast’ as experts warn of further extreme weather events fueled by climate change
Nearly a year ago, flood waters inundated swaths of south-western British Columbia. Mudslides destroyed sections of highways and swollen, turbid rivers washed away houses and bridges.
Now, the region has the opposite problem: months of drought have begun to take a toll on what was once dubbed Canada’s “wet coast”.
Continue reading...Group including children and pregnant women became stranded while piled in yolas, rickety homemade boats smugglers use
US authorities are trying to rescue more than 100 migrants stranded on an uninhabited island near Puerto Rico during a human smuggling operation.
The nationality of the migrants awaiting help on Mona Island wasn’t immediately known, although officials believe the majority are Haitian, said Jeffrey Quiñones, spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection in Puerto Rico.
Continue reading...Haitians currently facing series of crises that are becoming deadlier by the day with gangs, hunger and cholera outbreak
NGOs operating in Haiti warn that the chaos engulfing the country has become so total and the social fabric so torn that the country is on the verge of collapse, as discussions continue at the UN security council on how to restore order.
Haitians are currently facing a series of overlapping crises that are becoming deadlier by the day as heavily armed gangs continue to blockade the country’s principal port and fuel terminal.
Continue reading...Rio’s heavily armed paramilitary groups have exploded in influence in recent years to wield power over dozens of communities
The theme from Mel Gibson’s Braveheart filled the air as the man accused of helping spawn Rio’s paramilitary mafia movement was lowered into the soils of a graveyard called the Garden of Longing. Fireworks exploded overhead.
“My brother was a noble man with a magnificent heart,” said the dead man’s sibling, Natalino Guimarães, as he and hundreds of mourners prepared to say their last goodbye.
Continue reading...Scheduled session brought forward in view of dire conditions – rampant gang violence, a cholera outbreak and escalating famine
The US and Mexico have proposed the deployment of a multinational force in Haiti to help break the stranglehold of gangs over the distribution of fuel, water and other basic goods.
Presenting a resolution at a special session of the UN security council on Monday, the US envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, called for “a limited carefully-scoped non-UN mission led by a partner country with the deep, necessary experience”.
Continue reading...At least two people dead on Greek island after torrential rain. Elsewhere, cold snap grips swathe of US
At least two people have been killed and more injured after torrential rain hit the popular holiday destination of Crete on Saturday morning. Heavy, thundery rain turned streets into rivers. The worst effects were felt in the Heraklion part of the island where there was huge damage. Cars were washed into the sea while beaches were covered in all sorts of debris, with the resort of Agia Pelagia on the north coast particularly affected.
An area of low pressure moving south-eastwards from Italy brought torrential downpours and thunderstorms to the island, which continued through the afternoon and evening in places before easing. Northern and eastern parts of the island received the highest rainfall totals, with 130mm recorded in 30 minutes and about 300mm seen within three hours.
Continue reading...Leftist challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva calls incumbent Jair Bolsonaro a ‘shameless liar’ who ‘fooled around’ with Covid causing huge fatalities
The leftist frontrunner to become Brazil’s next president branded the far-right incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, “a tiny little dictator” and “the king of fake news and stupidity” during a television debate that will help define the political future of one of the world’s biggest democracies.
Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who nearly beat Bolsonaro in the presidential election’s first round in September, admonished his opponent over his handling of Covid and soaring Amazon deforestation during the feisty two-hour encounter.
Continue reading...TV images show bus flipping over between south-western cities of Pasto and Popayán
At least 20 people were killed and at least 14 injured after a bus crashed on a road in Colombia on Saturday, police said.
Images on Colombian television showed the bus flipping over in the early morning incident between the south-western cities of Pasto and Popayán, which authorities said may have been caused by a mechanical fault.
Continue reading...Spokesperson confirms plan to continue with immigration stunts which have attracted investigations and lawsuits
The Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, plans to continue flying undocumented migrants to Democratic strongholds, his spokeswoman said on Saturday, a day after released records showed the state paid nearly $1m to arrange two sets of flights to Delaware and Illinois.
Documents released on Friday showed that the planned flights will transport about 100 migrants. They were scheduled for before 3 October but were halted or postponed. The contractor hired by Florida extended the window for the trips until 1 December, according to memos released by the state transportation department.
Continue reading...Alok Sharma’s intervention puts pressure on Trump-appointed Bank chief who faces calls to resign
The UK has joined calls for sweeping reforms to the World Bank, to focus much-needed funding on the climate crisis, saying that its current structures are not working.
The intervention from Alok Sharma, the current president of the UN climate talks, heaps further pressure on beleaguered World Bank chief, David Malpass. He has faced calls to resign over an apparently climate-dismissing stance, and the Bank’s perceived failures to deliver climate finance.
Continue reading...Scammers posing as immigration lawyers targeted Facebook groups with tens of thousands of users, new report reveals
Scammers posing as Canadian immigration lawyers have targeted Facebook groups with tens of thousands of users, a new report reveals.
The posts, documented in a new report by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), the research arm of watchdog group the Campaign for Accountability, have been flagged as potentially fraudulent by Latin American and Canadian authorities but continue to proliferate.
Continue reading...Exclusive: halt to production of Shanchol vaccine alarms WHO amid ‘unprecedented’ global outbreaks
The manufacturer of one of only two cholera vaccines for use in humanitarian emergencies is to halt production at the end of this year, just as the world faces an “unprecedented” series of deadly outbreaks, the Guardian has learned.
Shantha Biotechnics, a wholly owned Indian subsidiary of the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi, will stop production of its Shanchol vaccine within months and cease supply by the end of 2023, causing alarm among health officials.
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