Category Archives: Americas

World’s oldest recorded tortoise prepares for 190th birthday party

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Jonathan, Seychelles giant tortoise given to Saint Helena in 1882, is also oldest known living land animal

If there is a party animal at large this weekend, Jonathan is it: the Seychelles giant tortoise is about to celebrate his 190th birthday with a three-day bash.

Living on Saint Helena since 1882, when he arrived as a gift to the governor of the small south Atlantic island, he is no stranger to fame, having scooped awards from the Guinness World Records for being the oldest known living land animal and the oldest chelonian – an order comprising tortoises, turtles and terrapins – ever recorded.

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‘Rage, despair, disgust’: Canada reels from killings of Indigenous women

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Serial killing of four women prompts anger at failure of politicians to keep promise to protect Indigenous women and girls

The arrest of an alleged serial killer who targeted Indigenous women in central Canada has prompted fresh anger and despair that the country has once again failed in its promises to protect vulnerable women and girls.

Police in Winnipeg announced late on Thursday they had charged Jeremy Skibicki, 35, with the murder of Morgan Beatrice Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, of Long Plain First Nation, months after he was accused of killing Rebecca Contois, 24, from O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation.

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‘We’re losing hope’: Honduras anger as first female president fails to fulfil women’s rights pledge

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Xiomara Castro unable to make good on promises in country with highly restrictive abortion and contraception laws

At her inauguration earlier this year, Xiomara Castro, the first female president of Honduras, ended her speech with a message to women.

“Honduran women, I will not fail you, I will defend your rights, all your rights, count on me,” said Castro, whose resounding election victory ended a dozen years of conservative rule and generated high hopes for change in a country with one of the highest rates of femicide and most restrictive laws against reproductive rights in Latin America.

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Canada accused of putting its timber trade ahead of global environment

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Weeks before Cop15 in Montreal, leaked letter to EU shows host tried to water down deforestation regulations

The Canadian government has been accused of putting its domestic timber industry ahead of the global environment, following a leaked attempt to water down the world’s most ambitious regulations on deforestation-free trade.

Weeks before the United Nations biodiversity conference, Cop15 in Montreal, the host nation sent a letter to the European Commission asking for a reconsideration of “burdensome traceability requirements” within a proposed EU scheme that aims to eradicate unsustainably sourced wood products from the world’s biggest market.

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Canadian man charged with murdering four Indigenous women

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Two of the women killed around the same time as Rebecca Contois are also Indigenous, and the third is believed to be

A Canadian man previously charged with murdering an Indigenous woman has been accused of killing three other women – two also confirmed to be Indigenous and one believed to be.

Jeremy Skibicki was charged 18 May and kept in custody after the partial remains of Rebecca Contois, 24, were found in a garbage bin near an apartment building. Contois lived in Winnipeg but was a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, also known as Crane River.

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Quebec moves to end Canadian elected officials’ oath to King Charles

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‘It is a relic from the past’: strong opposition to oath from three political parties of French-speaking province

Quebec’s premier, François Legault, said that his government would introduce legislation next week to end elected officials’ required oath to Britain’s King Charles, as pressure mounts in the Canadian province to cut such ties with the monarchy.

Fresh legislation from the governing Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) follows a separate bill introduced on Thursday by the left-leaning Québec Solidaire party that would allow elected officials to just take an oath to the people of Quebec.

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Canada issues ‘cease and desist’ warning to China over ‘police stations’ in Ottawa

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China accused of illegal activities but Beijing embassy says locations are merely ‘service stations’ to renew driver’s licenses

Canada has summoned Beijing’s ambassador following reports of a network of illegal Chinese “police stations” in the country, after warnings that Ottawa is prepared to take more action if China refuses to “cease and desist” from its alleged activities.

Speaking to the Canada-China committee on Tuesday evening, Weldon Epp, director general of north Asia for Canada’s foreign ministry, said he knew of “several engagements” by the federal government with China, including repeatedly summoning the ambassador, Cong Peiwu.

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Colombia police used torture and sexual harassment to quell protests – Amnesty

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Police accused of gender-based rights violations against women and LGBTQ+ people as they cracked down on protests in 2021

Colombian police used sexual harassment, torture and forced nudity to target women and LGBTIQ+ people as they cracked down on a nationwide wave of protests in 2021, a report by Amnesty International has found.

National and anti-riot police units committed hundreds of acts of gender-based human rights violations in its response to protests, the Amnesty investigation revealed.

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Third Islamic State leader killed in battle

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White House welcomes news of Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi’s death

The Islamic State jihadist group said its leader has been killed in battle, the third head of the violent extremist faction to have met a violent death.

A spokesperson for the group said Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, an Iraqi, was killed “in combat with enemies of God”, without elaborating on the date of his death or the circumstances.

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Air pollution linked to almost a million stillbirths a year

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First global analysis follows discovery of toxic pollution particles in lungs and brains of foetuses

Almost a million stillbirths a year can be attributed to air pollution, according to the first global study.

The research estimated that almost half of stillbirths could be linked to exposure to pollution particles smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5), mostly produced from the burning of fossil fuels.

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Canada won’t compromise values in relations with China, says foreign minister

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Exclusive: as the two nations prepare to co-host Cop15, Mélanie Joly discusses Canada’s long-awaited Indo-Pacific strategy

Canada will work with China when needed – but challenge it when necessary, the country’s foreign minister said, as the two nations prepare to co-host a major environmental summit despite years of diplomatic tensions.

Speaking to the Guardian after her government released its long-awaited “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, Mélanie Joly said that Canada will “promote and defend” its national interests in a region where nations are jockeying for influence and power.

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Canadian man arrested for 1983 killings of two women after DNA breakthrough

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Police announce arrest of suspect in pair of 40-year-old sexual assaults and slayings in Toronto

A 61-year-old Canadian man has been charged in the cold case killings of two women who were found dead in their Toronto homes within months of each other almost four decades ago.

The Toronto police chief, James Ramer, said Joseph George Sutherland, of Moosonee, Ontario, was arrested on Thursday and charged with first-degree murder in the killings of Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice in 1983.

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Mexico requests extradition of American charged in tourist death

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Shanquella Robinson reportedly died while on holiday after viral video shows her being beaten, apparently by an American woman

The US is weighing an extradition request from Mexico after authorities in the country charged an American woman with murdering another US woman shown being beaten while they vacationed in a viral video.

Prosecutors in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur have not named the suspect in the death of North Carolina’s Shanquella Robinson, who reportedly died of a severe spinal cord or neck injury while on holiday in Mexico on 29 October.

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Tories will not reach ‘embarrassingly poor’ nature targets by 2030, Labour says

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Opposition to unveil plan to reverse biodiversity loss rather than simply halting it, which is government’s current target

The government will not be able to achieve its nature targets by 2030, even though they are “embarrassingly poor”, the shadow environment minister and leading wildlife groups have said.

Next week at the Cop15 biodiversity conference in Montreal, Alex Sobel will be discussing Labour’s “science-led, joined-up plan to tackle the climate and ecological emergency”. The plan will aim to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, rather than simply halting it, which is the government’s current target.

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Barbados plans to make Tory MP pay reparations for family’s slave past

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Richard Drax reported to have visited Caribbean island for meeting on next steps, including plans for former sugar plantation

The government of Barbados is considering plans to make a wealthy Conservative MP the first individual to pay reparations for his ancestor’s pivotal role in slavery.

The Observer understands that Richard Drax, MP for South Dorset, recently travelled to the Caribbean island for a private meeting with the country’s prime minister, Mia Mottley. A report is now before Mottley’s cabinet laying out the next steps, which include legal action in the event that no agreement is reached with Drax.

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‘The sheer scale is extraordinary’: meet the titanosaur that dwarfs Dippy the diplodocus

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One of the largest creatures to have walked the Earth is to become the Natural History Museum’s new star attraction

It will be one of the largest exhibits to grace a British museum. In spring, the Natural History Museum in London will display the skeleton of a titanosaur, a creature so vast it will have to be shoehorned into the 9-metre-high Waterhouse gallery.

One of the most massive creatures ever to have walked on Earth, Patagotitan mayorum was a 57-tonne behemoth that would have shaken the ground as it stomped over homelands which now form modern Patagonia. Its skeleton is 37 metres long, and 5 metres in height – significantly larger than the museum’s most famous dinosaur, Dippy the diplodocus, which used to loom over its main gallery.

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Canadian pop star Kris Wu sentenced to 13 years in jail for rape in China

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Beijing court finds Chinese-born singer raped three women in November and December 2020

A Beijing court has sentenced the Chinese-born Canadian pop star Kris Wu to 13 years in jail after finding him guilty of crimes including rape, just over a year after his arrest in China, where he was born and built a lucrative career.

The court in Chaoyang district said investigations showed that from November to December 2020, Wu, also known as Wu Yifan, raped three women.

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Long-lost ancient mural rediscovered in northern Peru after more than a century

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Student archaeologists unearth Huaca Pintada, described as ‘the most exciting and important find of recent years’

A team of student archaeologists has rediscovered a 1,000-year-old multicoloured mural depicting a deity surrounded by warriors which was last seen a century ago in northern Peru.

Known as the Huaca Pintada, the 30-metre-long wall painted with fantastical images depicting mythical scenes was first found in 1916 by a band of treasure-hunting tomb raiders in Illimo near the city of Chiclayo.

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Brazil judge fines Bolsonaro allies millions after ‘bad faith’ election challenge

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Head of Brazil's electoral court rejects claim from outgoing president’s coalition that said voting machines malfunctioned

The head of Brazil’s electoral court has rejected an attempt by outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro’s party to overturn the results of October’s run-off election, which he lost.

Alexandre de Moraes, a supreme court justice, also fined the parties in Bolsonaro’s coalition 22.9m reais ($4.3m) for what the court described as bad faith litigation.

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Canadian paramedic who tried to save crash victim learns it was her daughter

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Jayme Erickson could not recognise girl at scene and only found out her identity at end of her shift

A Canadian paramedic who responded to a road crash last week and worked to help a teenage casualty was unknowingly treating her own daughter.

When Jayme Erickson arrived at the scene of the crash on an icy stretch of Alberta highway on 15 November, she found a teenage girl with severe injuries that Erickson knew were probably fatal. Owing to the severity of the girl’s injuries, Erickson could not recognise her.

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