Category Archives: Americas

Harry Styles stadium show falls foul of football fans in Bogotá

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Bid to move pop star’s Colombian tour date to capital’s biggest venue has united supporters of clubs who play there

Rival Colombian football fans, more used to hurling insults at each other on the terraces, have united against a common enemy: Harry Styles. At stake is what takes place at Bogotá’s football stadium on 27 November: either the Colombian football championship final, or the latest leg of the British pop star’s world tour.

Styles had been scheduled to play in the car park of an amusement park in the capital city, but fans started a social media campaign for the concert to be moved after pop star Dua Lipa’s show there last weekend was plagued by logistical and technical problems.

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‘How are we not included?’: rural Puerto Ricans struggle to get help after hurricane

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Fema makes individual assistance available to only 55 of the 78 municipalities on the island, leaving some feeling ignored

Six days after Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico, Alexiz and Roberto Núñez still don’t know where their next meal is coming from.

The couple, whose home in Arecibo flooded during the storm, is relying on a neighbor’s cooking and some canned goods delivered by the government to get by.

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Post-tropical cyclone Fiona hits eastern Canada with hurricane-force winds

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Storm surges and heavy rainfall expected before weather event gradually weakens this weekend, say meteorologists

A powerful storm has hit eastern Canada with hurricane-force winds nearly a week after devastating parts of the Caribbean.

The US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said the centre of Fiona, which transformed from a hurricane into a post-tropical cyclone late on Friday was crossing eastern Nova Scotia, bringing high winds and heavy rains.

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Puerto Rico power outage continues as Hurricane Fiona heads north

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Nearly a million customers lack power but restoration is proceeding faster than after Hurricane Maria

An estimated 928,000 homes and businesses were still without power in Puerto Rico on Friday morning after Hurricane Fiona hit on Sunday, causing an island-wide power outage for its roughly 3.3 million people.

Hurricane Fiona was passing Bermuda heading towards Nova Scotia in Canada, classed as a major hurricane with winds of up to 125mph (200km/h). The storm has killed at least eight people.

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Weather tracker: storms batter Alaska, Caribbean and Japan

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Hurricane causes blackout across Puerto Rico while typhoon forces 8m to flee homes in Japan

It has been very active across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in recent days with more than five storms officially named.

Hurricane Fiona in the Caribbean was the first storm of the tropical Atlantic season to strengthen into a major hurricane. Fiona made landfall on Sunday across south-western Puerto Rico, where it dumped 762mm (30in) of rain with sustained gusts of 115mph.

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At least two dead in Mexico after second earthquake strikes within a week

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Michoacán state suffers another temblor, felt as far away as Colima, Jalisco and Guerrero states

A powerful magnitude 6.8 earthquake has struck Mexico, causing at least two deaths, damaging buildings and setting off landslides.

The earthquake struck at 1.19am on Thursday near the epicenter of a magnitude 7.6 quake that hit three days earlier in the western state of Michoacán. It was also blamed for two deaths.

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Bermuda and Canada brace for Fiona as Puerto Rico counts cost

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At least six municipalities across island have areas cut off by storm which struck as a category 1 hurricane and has since strengthened

Bermuda and the Atlantic provinces of Canada were preparing for a blast from Hurricane Fiona as authorities struggled on Thursday to open roads for people left stranded and without power by the storm in Puerto Rico.

The storm was expected to still be at category 4 force when it passes close to Bermuda overnight and still dangerously potent when it reaches Canada, probably late on Friday, as an extratropical cyclone.

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‘This land belonged to us’: Nestlé supply chain linked to disputed Indigenous territory

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Investigation reveals cattle raised on Mỹky territory ended up in global supply chain including food giant

On one side of the fence, in dense forest, the Mỹky people grow their crops: cassava, pequi and cabriteiro fruit. On the other side, ranchers raise cattle on devastated land. That land is the Mỹky’s, they say.

Xinuxi Mỹky, the village elder, says this region used to be a forest where different villages thrived. Only one now remains and the farms have cut into that land as well. “This pasture, where the whites live, was also our village, but now they are raising cattle. The land belonged to us: Indigenous peoples.”

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Colombian leader’s promise of ‘total peace’ may prove too ambitious

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Little-known militia groups have surfaced to declare their willingness to strike peace deals – and reap ceasefire rewards

The announcement came in a grainy video from the dense jungles of northern Colombia.

A dozen masked men with camouflage uniforms and automatic weapons stand in a cluster, a roaring stream washing over their black combat boots.

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Forbidden fruit trees: Canadian national park urges locals to remove bear-attracting bushes

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Black bears preparing to hibernate have been lured into Jasper townsite by residents’ non-native apple and cherry trees

The waning days of summer and a bounty of ripe fruit have pitted hungry black bears against park rangers in a fight over a Canadian mountain town’s fruit trees.

Residents living in the Jasper national park townsite have been warned that fruit trees on their properties are luring in black bears and need to be removed as soon as possible.

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Indigenous leaders urge businesses and banks to stop supporting deforestation

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Amazon ecosystem is on verge of collapse, leaders tell brands such as Apple and Tesla as UN gathers in New York

Indigenous leaders from the Amazon have implored major western brands and banks to stop supporting the ongoing destruction of the vital rainforest through mining, oil drilling and logging, warning that the ecosystem is on the brink of a disastrous collapse.

Representatives of Indigenous peoples from across the Amazon region have descended upon New York this week to press governments and businesses, gathered in the city for climate and United Nations gatherings, to stem the flow of finance to activities that are polluting and deforesting large areas of the rainforest.

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Bolsonaro tries red scare tactics in Brazil election by raising spectre of Nicaragua

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Brazil’s far-right president claims that leftwing rival Lula will repress clergy like Ortega but so far with little apparent success

More than 4,000km and an ideological abyss separate the capitals of Nicaragua and Brazil, where an acrimonious race for the presidency is under way.

But the Central American country has found itself at the centre of Brazil’s election debate as its far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro seeks to weaponise Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian crackdown on the Catholic church to attack his leftist challenger, the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

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‘Alien goldfish’ may have been unique mollusc, say scientists

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Researchers think they may have solved enduring mystery of where Typhloesus wellsi sits on tree of life

The mystery of a bizarre creature dubbed the “alien goldfish”, which has baffled fossil experts for decades, may have been solved, according to scientists who say the animal appears to have been some sort of mollusc.

Typhloesus wellsi lived about 330m years ago and was discovered in the Bear Gulch Limestone fossil site in Montana in the late 1960s, with the remains of other species subsequently identified.

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Hurricane Fiona batters Turks and Caicos as Puerto Rico fights flooding

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British island territory imposes curfew and urges people to flee flood-risk areas after Category 3 storm lashes Dominican Republic

Hurricane Fiona has blasted the Turks and Caicos Islands as a Category 3 storm after cutting a path of devastation through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico – where most people remained without electricity or running water.

The storm’s eye passed close to Grand Turk, the small British territory’s capital island, on Tuesday morning after the government imposed a curfew and urged people to flee flood-prone areas. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 30 miles (45km) from the center.

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Trudeau’s team defend Bohemian Rhapsody rendition before Queen’s funeral

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Clip of Canadian prime minister singing in London hotel two days before funeral has sparked criticism

A spokesperson for Justin Trudeau has defended the Canadian prime minister over a leaked video that showed him singing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody in a London hotel lobby two days before Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.

The 14-second video clip, viewed more than 1.5m times, shows Trudeau in a T-shirt leaning against a piano at the Corinthia hotel and joining others in a rendition of one of the rock band Queen’s most famous songs.

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Venezuela intelligence agencies guilty of crimes against humanity – UN report

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United Nations mission says President Nicolás Maduro and others ordered ‘grave crimes’ including torture to stifle opposition

Venezuela’s intelligence agencies are committing crimes against humanity as part of a plan orchestrated at the highest level of government to repress dissent, UN experts have concluded.

A team tasked with investigating alleged violations in Venezuela said it had uncovered how members of intelligence services implemented orders by President Nicolás Maduro and others in a scheme to stifle opposition.

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Met handcuff peaceful anti-Bolsonaro protester to delight of Brazil’s far right

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Police accused of unnecessary force as president’s son shares video of detention to show Britons ‘don’t like communists either’

The Metropolitan police have been accused of using unnecessary force and handing a propaganda coup to Brazil’s far right after a peaceful demonstrator was detained and handcuffed during a protest outside the Brazilian ambassador’s London residence.

Ali Rocha, a 50-year-old Brazilian and British citizen, and her flatmate were intercepted by officers on Sunday lunchtime as they joined a protest against Brazil’s radical rightwing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who was in the UK for the Queen’s funeral.

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Major earthquake shakes Mexico on anniversary of two previous tremors

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Quake registered at 7.5 magnitude and struck off the coast of La Placita de Morelos on the anniversary of two devastating tremors

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake has struck western Mexico on the anniversary of two earlier devastating tremors, killing at least one person and causing flooding on the Pacific coast.

The quake hit at 1.05pm local time, striking near the town of La Placita de Morelos in the state of Michoacán at a depth of 15km.

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Puerto Rico battles blackout and lack of safe water in wake of Hurricane Fiona

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Floods and rain wreak havoc as critics say total blackout shows authorities have learnt nothing since 2017 hurricanes

Most of Puerto Rico was still without power or safe drinking water on Monday, with remnants of a category 1 hurricane that struck there a day earlier forecast to bring more heavy rain and life-threatening flooding.

Hundreds of people are trapped in emergency shelters across the Caribbean island, with major roads underwater and reports of numerous collapsed bridges. Crops have been washed away while flash floods, landslides and fallen trees have blocked roads, swept away vehicles and caused widespread damage to infrastructure.

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Spielberg’s The Fabelmans wins Toronto film festival People’s Choice award

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Director’s most autobiographical film to date picks up audience prize generally seen as indicator of awards success to come

Steven Spielberg’s new film The Fabelmans has won the Toronto international film festival’s People’s Choice award, long regarded in the film industry as a key indicator of awards success over the next few months.

The Fabelmans, directed by Spielberg and co-written with Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner, has been hailed as Spielberg’s most autobiographical film and has won generally admiring reviews. The story of a teenage boy coping with his parents’ disintegrating marriage in the 60s midwest, the Guardian described it as a “rare insight into the world’s most famous director who has usually kept us at arm’s length”.

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