Woman in her 20s was assaulted by another passenger in a suspected hate crime last month
A Toronto woman who was set on fire last month on a public bus in a suspected hate crime has died of her injuries, police say.
On 17 June, a woman in her 20s who was travelling to her job as a caregiver, was sitting on an idling bus in the city’s west end when she was assaulted by another passenger.
Continue reading...Police open cases against Leena Manimekalai for ‘hurting religious sentiments’ with short film Kaali
An Indian film director is facing police investigation over the poster for her new film, which depicts the Hindu goddess Kaali smoking a cigarette and clutching an LGBTQ+ flag.
Leena Manimekalai, an Indian film-maker based in Canada, has received thousands of threats of violence after the poster for her short film Kaali, which was aired in the Canadian city of Toronto at the weekend, went viral on social media.
Continue reading...Staff at homeless shelters required to be ‘clean-shaven’ to ensure N95 masks fit but for Sikh facial hair is key expression of faith
More than one hundred Sikh security guards in Toronto have lost their jobs or been demoted after refusing to cut their beards in order to wear a face mask, highlighting a city policy that critics describe as discriminatory and “humiliating”.
Under Toronto’s current rules, staff at homeless shelters and other congregate settings must wear a N95 respirator when exposed to people with Covid-19 or during suspected outbreaks.
Continue reading...Heavily armed 22-year-olds died in shootout that left six police officers injured in Saanich, British Columbia
Police in Canada have identified the heavily armed culprits of a brazen bank robbery last week as twin brothers whose social media posts showed an obsession with guns and fears of government “tyranny”, and an interest in infamous bank heists.
On Saturday, police identified Mathew and Isaac Auchterlonie, 22, as the two men killed after they attempted to rob a bank in the municipality of Saanich, British Columbia.
Continue reading...Brazilian president’s dismantling of environmental safeguards partly to blame, says politician leading inquiry
Jair Bolsonaro’s demolition of Brazil’s Indigenous and environmental protection services and “surrender of the Amazon to crooks” played a direct role in the murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, the politician leading a congressional inquiry into the crime has claimed.
One month after the British journalist and Brazilian Indigenous advocate were killed on the River Itaquaí, three men are in custody: two local fishermen and a third man called Jeferson da Silva Lima.
Continue reading...Virgilio Trujillo Arana, a 38-year-old indigenous Uwottuja man, was shot in the head three times in the city of Puerto Ayacucho
A Venezuelan indigenous leader who was an opponent of armed groups and illegal mining has been shot dead in the Amazonas state capital, a non-governmental organization and three people with knowledge of the case said.
Virgilio Trujillo Arana, a 38-year-old indigenous Uwottuja man, was a defender of the Venezuelan Amazon and had set up community groups to act as guardians of the Autana municipality of Amazonas.
Continue reading...Forest fire broke out on Tuesday and destroyed around 100 acres of land – the equivalent of about 50 football pitches
Peruvian authorities say firefighters have managed to control a forest fire near the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu after three days battling the flames.
The blaze near one of the world’s most famous archaeological sites broke out on Tuesday, destroying around 100 acres of land – the equivalent of about 50 football pitches.
Continue reading...Developing countries’ delegates at UN conference seek recognition of small fisheries’ role in protecting oceans and fighting hunger
Small-scale fishermen and women from coastal nations in the frontline of the “ocean emergency” have accused world leaders and other decision-makers at the UN oceans conference of ignoring their voices in favour of corporate interests.
More than half of the world’s fish caught for human consumption comes from small-scale fishing communities, yet their contribution to food security and ocean protection is not being sufficiently recognised, they say.
Continue reading...Agreement between government and Indigenous leaders includes fuel price cut and mining restrictions
Ecuador’s government and the country’s main Indigenous group have reached an agreement to end 18 days of often-violent strikes that had virtually paralysed the country and killed at least four people.
The deal, which includes a decrease in the price of fuel and other concessions, was signed by government minister Francisco Jimenez, Indigenous leader Leonidas Iza and the head of the Episcopal Conference, Monsignor Luis Cabrera, who acted as mediator.
The agreement on Thursday sets out that gasoline prices will decrease 15c to US$2.40 a gallon and diesel prices will also decline the same amount, from $1.90 a gallon to $1.75.
The deal also sets limits to the expansion of oil exploration areas and prohibits mining activity in protected areas, national parks and water sources.
The government now has 90 days to deliver solutions to the demands of the Indigenous groups.
“Social peace will only be able to be achieved, hopefully soon, through dialogue with particular attention paid to marginalised communities, but always respecting everyone’s rights,” Cabrera said.
He went on to warn that “if state policies do not resolve the problem of the poor, then the people will rise up”.
Twenty hectares near Inca ruins affected in blaze started by farmers burning grass before sowing crops
Peruvian firefighters were fighting to contain a forest fire near the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu as the blaze threatened to close in on the ancient city in the Andean mountains on Thursday.
The fire, which had engulfed an area about half the size of Vatican City, was started on Tuesday by farmers burning grass and debris to prepare to sow crops.
Continue reading...Members of anti-vax convoy have vowed to maintain a presence over the summer initially mingling with the annual celebrations
Residents of downtown Ottawa are bracing for a Canada Day unlike any other, after “freedom convoy” protesters vowed to return to Parliament Hill on 1 July, and maintain a presence over the remainder of the summer.
Every Canada Day, people congregate on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to watch musical performances and fireworks on the anniversary of Canadian confederation. This year, it will probably be difficult for police to distinguish between celebrators and convoy members – which is what protesters are banking on.
Continue reading...Was it a protest by staff or marketing for a change of programming? Listeners to Kiss Radio 104.9 FM had plenty of time to wonder
Early on Wednesday morning, someone at a pop and soft rock station in Vancouver, Canada, began playing the song Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine.
Then they played it again.
Continue reading...Attacks on the press have increased 85% in the three years since president Andrés Manuel López Obrador took power
Yet another Mexican reporter has been shot to death, bringing to 12 the number of journalists killed this year in the country, one of the world’s most dangerous for media workers.
Antonio de la Cruz, 47, was shot on Wednesday as he was leaving his house with his 23-year-old daughter, who was seriously injured, according to state prosecutors and the newspaper that employed him.
Continue reading...Authorities are struggling to identify victims who have no IDs as families in Central America wait in anguish for news
The number of dead migrants found in a stifling trailer in Texas rose to 53 on Wednesday after two more people died, according to the Bexar county medical examiner’s office.
Forty of the victims were male and 13 were female, it said.
Continue reading...Fiasco involves automated system that has led to 200,000 government workers being overpaid, underpaid or not paid at all
A woman in Newfoundland has lost her house after the government of Canada stopped paying her while she was on contract with its own revenue agency.
Joanne Nemec Osmond’s ordeal is the latest case in a debacle surrounding an automated payroll system which has led to 200,000 government workers in the country being overpaid, underpaid – or not paid at all.
Continue reading...President Nayib Bukele vowed to step up its ‘war on gangs’ even as 2% of the country’s population is jailed
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has vowed to escalate his controversial “war on gangs” after three police officers were killed in what appeared to be the first major reaction to a security crackdown that critics have called one of the most dramatic in recent Latin American history.
Bukele’s government claims more than 43,000 Salvadorians have been thrown in jail since it imposed a “state of exception” in late March – leaving almost 2% of the country’s entire adult population behind bars.
Continue reading...Draft shifts country away from Pinochet-era document, enshrining cultural rights and laying out path of autonomy for Indigenous peoples
The process of drafting Chile’s new constitution has come to an abrupt, jubilant end as the final votes were held quickly by the 154-member, gender-equal constitutional convention.
Huddling between the colonnades at the former congress building in Santiago, which has played host to Chile’s constitutional process, the delegates hugged and cheered as the draft was finalised.
Continue reading...Truth commission’s report, touted as a chance to heal after half a century of bloodshed, called for a ‘substantial change in drug policy’
The punitive, prohibitionist war on drugs helped prolong Colombia’s disastrous civil war, the country’s truth commission has found, in a landmark report published on Tuesday as part of an effort to heal the raw wounds left by conflict.
The report, titled “There is a future if there is truth” was the first instalment of a study put together by the commission that was formed as part of a historic 2016 peace deal with the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).
Continue reading...Prisons agency boss says fire broke out after inmates lit mattresses during protest at jail in Tuluá
Fifty-one inmates have died during a riot in a prison in the Colombian city of Tuluá in one of the worst recent incidents of its kind in the country.
The director of the national prisons agency said a fire had started during a protest by prisoners overnight.
Continue reading...Mexican foreign minister mourns ‘huge tragedy’ as US investigates effort to smuggle people across border
Fifty-one people believed to be migrants were found dead and at least a dozen others were hospitalized after being found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer rig on Monday on a remote back road in south-west San Antonio, officials have said.
The discovery in Texas may prove to be the deadliest tragedy among thousands of people who have died attempting to cross the US border from Mexico in recent decades.
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