Category Archives: Americas

Canadian city pulls bison sculpture in row over representation of colonialism

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Edmonton decided Ken Lum’s paired figures of a bison and fur trader could ‘cause harm and induce painful memories’

A Canadian city has pulled a public art project over fears that a pair of towering bronze statues could be seen as an endorsement of colonialism – the exact opposite of the work’s intended meaning, according to the artist.

The work, which cost C$375,000 (US$285,000), comprises two large bronze figures which were intended to stand on either end of a pedestrian bridge in Edmonton. On one end, a 13ft bison was to stare out over the water. At the other, a colonial fur trader, measuring 11.5ft, would sit atop a pile of bison pelts.

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Cristina Fernández de Kirchner: arrest after attempted shooting of Argentina vice-president

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Fernández de Kirchner was greeting supporters when man approached her and raised handgun to her face

A man has been arrested after a handgun was aimed at point-blank range at Argentina’s vice-president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, in an apparent assassination attempt.

Fernández de Kirchner survived only because the pistol – which was loaded with five bullets – did not fire, President Alberto Fernández said.

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Top corruption prosecutor held in jail as Guatemalan elite bids to purge foes

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Virginia Laparra detained in conditions ‘bordering on torture’, which critics say is retaliation for her efforts to fight corruption

A Guatemalan anti-corruption prosecutor has been locked up for six months in conditions “bordering on torture”, as the country’s ruling elite pursues a strategy to purge the justice system and derail corruption investigations against their allies.

Virginia Laparra, 42, a senior anti-corruption prosecutor, was accused of abuse of authority in apparent retaliation for reporting her suspicion that a judge had leaked sensitive details from a sealed corruption case to a colleague in 2017.

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Canada: police trio charged with manslaughter over shooting death of 18-month-old

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Jameson Shapiro killed by police gunfire after officers called to domestic dispute in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario, in November 2020

Three police officers in Canada have been charged with manslaughter in the death of an 18-month-old boy, nearly two years after he was killed by police gunfire.

Ontario’s police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, announced the charges on Wednesday afternoon.

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Shamima Begum ‘smuggled into Syria for Islamic State by Canadian spy’

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Canada and UK accused of covering up involvement of double agent in British teenager’s recruitment for IS

Shamima Begum was smuggled into Syria for Islamic State at the age of 15 by a Canadian spy whose role was covered up by the police and Britain’s security services, it has been claimed in a book out this week.

Begum, along with her schoolfriends Kadiza Sultana, then 16, and Amira Abase, then 15, were met at Istanbul bus station for their onward journey to Syria by a man called Mohammed al-Rashed.

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Freeland ambush highlights growing threats to women in Canadian public life

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Trudeau warns of increasingly toxic atmosphere in politics and journalism, with robust debate replaced by slurs and harassment

Justin Trudeau has warned of an increasingly toxic atmosphere in Canadian public life, amplified by the anonymity of social media and disproportionately targeting women and visible minorities in politics and journalism.

Encounters with disgruntled constituents have long been accepted as a reality of Canadian politics, but the tradition of friendly debate has increasingly been replaced by racial slurs, threatening phone calls at night and fears for the safety of politicians’ families.

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Prankster seizes Bolsonaro website and turns president into ‘snake-tongued liar’

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Anonymous objector commandeers bolsonaro.com.br domain name and creates devastating takedown of far-right leader

An internet prankster has hijacked a website long used to glorify Brazil’s far-right president and turned it into a devastating online excoriation of Jair Bolsonaro’s “clownish”, “neo-fascist” government.

Bolsonaro and his three politician sons have reportedly used the bolsonaro.com.br domain as an official mouthpiece since the early 2000s.

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Misinformation abounds as Chile prepares to vote on new constitution

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Chileans will cast ballots on Sunday to approve or reject a progressive document to replace the Pinochet-era constitution

Chile is heading towards a historic plebiscite on a new constitution to replace the document drawn up during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, but the vote will take place amid a climate of uncertainty driven by a storm of falsehoods and divisive campaigns.

For weeks, television advertising spots, street canvassers and social media campaigns have attempted to sway opinion towards the two options which will appear on the ballot this Sunday: “approve” or “reject”.

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Canada’s deputy prime minister called traitor in ‘disgusting display of abuse’

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Incident in which Chrystia Freeland is subjected to foul-mouthed tirade at city hall meeting in Alberta is being investigated

Canadian police are investigating after the deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, was subjected to a foul-mouthed tirade at city hall meeting.

A video posted on Twitter shows a large man approach Freeland during the session in Grande Prairie, Alberta, swearing at her and calling her a “traitor″.

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Bolsonaro under fire over claims family paid for 51 properties in cash

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Brazilian president must ‘explain the origins of this money’, says reporter behind seven-month investigation

Jair Bolsonaro’s murky family finances have come under renewed scrutiny after claims the Brazilian president and close relatives used cash to pay for more than 50 properties worth millions of dollars.

The allegations – the result of a seven-month investigation by the Brazilian news group UOL – suggest that between 1990 and 2022, members of the Bolsonaro clan repeatedly used large sums of cash to pay for flats, houses and plots of land in cities including Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

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Canada invokes treaty with US in push to keep cross-border pipeline open

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Canada warns of ‘significant’ economic damage in the event of a shutdown of Line 5, which travels through Michigan

Canada has once again invoked a longstanding treaty with the US as it seeks to keep a controversial cross-border pipeline open, warning of “significant” economic damage to both countries in the event of a shutdown.

Canada’s foreign minister said Line 5, a pipeline operated by Calgary-based Enbridge, was a critical source of energy security.

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El Alto: graphic novel depicts Bolivia city’s future as Indigenous and robotic

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Altopía imagines the bustling working-class city that overlooks neighbouring La Paz in 2053 – with coca-chewing cyborgs and minibuses with legs

Travellers flying into the Bolivian capital of La Paz land in El Alto: a working-class, Indigenous city of countless terracotta houses. Most visitors pay it little attention as the taxi whisks them down to La Paz.

But this one-time satellite city has now outgrown the political capital – and many see it as a symbol of the country’s future.

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Weather tracker: Atlantic hurricane season may finally be starting to stir

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Lack of activity has confounded forecasts so far but a cluster of thunderstorms could change that

The Atlantic hurricane season has so far confounded forecasts of an active year, with only three named storms so far, none of which were hurricane strength. In fact, until now this August joins 1997 and 1961 in having no named storms.

However, there are three months left of the season and activity is starting to stir in the tropics. A cluster of thunderstorms in the central Atlantic has the potential to organise sufficiently to become the first named storm since Colin in early July. Should this occur, it may move westwards and approach the Leeward Islands, bringing the threat of heavy rainfall towards the end of this week, but there is little suggestion it will develop into a significant storm at this stage.

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Amazon activists mourn death of ‘man of the hole’, last of his tribe

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Man resisted all attempts to contact him, laying traps and firing arrows at anyone who came too close

An unidentified and charismatic Indigenous man thought to have been the last of his tribe has died in the Brazilian Amazon, causing consternation among activists lamenting the loss of another ethnic language and culture.

The solitary and mysterious man was known only as the Índio do Buraco, or the “Indigenous man of the hole”, because he spent much of his existence hiding or sheltering in pits he dug in the ground.

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Latest death by Indigenous tribe highlights rising tensions in Peru

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Gean del Aguila’s body was recovered after he disappeared last Sunday when he encountered the Mashco-Piro tribe while fishing

The death of a logger who was shot with arrows has cast a spotlight on the growing conflict around an Indigenous reserve occupied by an Indigenous tribe that has long lived in voluntary isolation on Peru’s south-eastern Amazon border with Brazil.

The body of Gean del Aguila, 21, was recovered on Thursday after a four-day hunt by a search party of police, Indigenous guides and company workers.

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Six of 43 missing Mexican students were kept alive in warehouse for days

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Students were then turned over to commander of the local army base who ordered their killings

Six of the 43 Mexican students forcibly disappeared in 2014 were allegedly kept alive in a warehouse for days, and then turned over to the commander of the local army base who ordered their killings, the Mexican government official leading the Truth Commission said Friday.

The interior undersecretary, Alejandro Encinas, made the revelation with little fanfare during a lengthy defense of the commission’s report, first released a week earlier. At that time, despite declaring the disappearances a “state crime” and saying that the army watched it happen without intervening, Encinas made no mention of six students being turned over to Col José Rodríguez Pérez.

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36,000km in three days: $8,000 car rental charge shocks Canadian woman

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Giovanna Boniface received an $8,000 bill from Avis after driving roughly 300km around Toronto and surrounding area

Car rental companies have long earned a reputation for gouging customers, penny-pinching on frills and finding new and unscrupulous ways to charge for add-ons.

But a Canadian woman says she was billed thousands in extra mileage after a rental company claimed she drove a distance nearly the circumference of the Earth over a three-day period.

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Colombia’s leftwing government unveils tax-the-rich plan to tackle poverty

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President Gustavo Petro’s proposed legislation could raise $11.5bn a year with measures including wealth tax and levy on oil exports

Colombia’s new leftist government has proposed an ambitious plan to tax the rich in an effort to combat poverty in one of the most unequal countries in the Americas.

If implemented, the Piketty-esque legislation proposed by President Gustavo Petro could raise more than $11.5bn annually to fund anti-poverty efforts, free public university and other social welfare programs.

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US to extradite Canadian writer accused of faking own death and kidnapping son

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Dawn Walker, who says she fled domestic abuse, is arrested and accused of stealing friend’s identity to cross border

An acclaimed writer who says she fled Canada to escape domestic abuse is to be extradited from the US, amid accusations she faked her own death, kidnapped her son and illegally crossed the American border.

Dawn Walker, an Indigenous author from Okanese Cree Nation in the province of Saskatchewan, was due to be driven to the border on Wednesday by US officials and handed over to Canadian police, more than a month after she first went missing.

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Canada refuses to extend bilingual bonus to Indigenous-language workers

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Government pays stipend to employees who speak French and English but Treasury Board says it has no plans to expand scheme

Canada’s federal government says it will not expand the scope of a program that pays an annual bonus to bilingual employees, excluding hundreds of government workers who speak an Indigenous language on the job.

Since the late 1970s, the federal government has paid a bonus of C$800 (US$617) to workers who use English and French, the country’s two official languages. But Canada has more than 60 Indigenous languages, and about 500 federal employees frequently speak an Indigenous language on the job.

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