Shooting of Marcelo Pecci in front of his wife decried by Paraguayan president as ‘cowardly murder’
A Paraguayan public prosecutor who led a string of high-profile cases against organised crime and drug trafficking has been shot dead as he honeymooned on a Colombian beach.
Marcelo Pecci married Claudia Aguilera, a well-known journalist, on 30 April and they were spending their honeymoon at a hotel on the Barú peninsula on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
Continue reading...Critics argue laws are being misused to punish the poor but experts say cases represent country’s failure to care for its most vulnerable citizens
After pleading unsuccessfully for affordable housing to help ease her chronic health condition, a Canadian woman ended her life in February under the country’s assisted-suicide laws. Another woman, suffering from the same condition and also living on disability payments, has nearly reached final approval to end her life.
The two high-profile cases have prompted disbelief and outrage, and shone a light on Canada’s right-to-die laws, which critics argue are being misused to punish the poor and infirm. In late April, the Spectator ran a story with the provocative headline: Why is Canada euthanising the poor?
Continue reading...Activists say case offers a stark warning to women in the US, where the supreme court is considering overturning Roe v Wade
A court in El Salvador has sentenced a woman who suffered a miscarriage to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide, in a case which activists said offers a stark warning to women in the United States, where the supreme court is considering overturning a key ruling which legalized abortion.
The woman, identified only as “Esme”, was sentenced on Monday, after nearly two years under pre-trial detention, following her arrest when she sought medical care in a public hospital.
Continue reading...Former president Juan Orlando Hernández’s also suggests he may seek testimony from Mexican drug lord El Chapo in New York trial
Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández has pleaded not guilty in a New York court to drug and weapons charges as his lawyer pledged to subpoena three former US presidents – and an imprisoned Mexican drug lord – to testify in his defence.
Hernández, who was extradited last month, wore shackles round his ankles at his arraignment in Manhattan on Tuesday, where he pleaded not guilty to three criminal counts, including conspiracy to import cocaine and weapons possession.
Continue reading...Saber Lahmar has been charged with encouraging jihadists to fight for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
An Algerian preacher who spent eight years in the US-run Guantánamo Bay prison has gone on trial in France for allegedly encouraging several young men to join the Islamic State group.
Saber Lahmar, a 52-year-old Algerian released by the US in 2008 and taken in afterwards by France, has been charged with encouraging jihadists to head to Iraq and Syria to fight for the extremist group in 2015.
Continue reading...Liberal Shafqat Ali promises never to repeat ‘this error’ after fellow MP deplores affront to ‘cathedral of Canadian democracy’
A Canadian lawmaker has apologized after he was caught logging on to a closed parliamentary session from a toilet stall.
Liberal party member Shafqat Ali participated in a hybrid session of parliament last Friday, joining with a Zoom-like feed visible only to other parliamentarians. But Conservative members grew suspicious of his surroundings.
Continue reading...The president has been accused of failing to address the wave of violence and has been incessant with his attacks on reporters
The unrelenting slaughter of Mexican journalists has continued after two more newspeople were gunned down by unidentified assassins – taking the 2022 death toll to 11 in what is the deadliest country for media professionals outside a warzone.
Yesenia Mollinedo Falconi and Sheila Johana García Olivera were murdered in the town of Cosoleacaque, about 350 miles east of the capital Mexico City, around 3pm on Monday.
Continue reading...Sixth deadly prison massacre in country fueled by rival drug gangs since the beginning of 2021, bringing death toll to nearly 400
Scores of inmates are feared dead in Ecuador after a deadly prison riot broke out between rival drugs gangs, in the latest bloody episode of a wave of violence that has engulfed the country’s prisons.
Forty-three prisoners were confirmed dead on Monday as more than 200 police commandos retook control of the maximum-security wing of the Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas prison, about two hours drive from the capital Quito, but the death-toll is likely to rise.
Continue reading...Otoniel’s Gulf Clan militiamen shut down northern regions, blocking roads and holding residents hostage in their houses
Jorge, a community activist from Colombia’s conflict-ridden Chocó province, was already traveling to the city of Medellín when he heard news that made him turn back towards home.
Paramilitary militiamen in balaclavas and military fatigues had thrown up a string of roadblocks and declared an “armed strike”, torching vehicles, forcing businesses to close, and stopping all traffic.
Continue reading...Painting by Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis traded for a meal at Irene and Tony Demas’s restaurant could fetch C$35,000
Working out of the kitchen of their small restaurant in Ontario in the 1970s, Irene Demas and her husband Tony soon learned the value of trading their dishes for the talents of local bakers, craftspeople and artisans.
“Everyone supported everyone back then,” said Irene, at the time a bright-eyed chef in her 20s. In exchange for daily fresh flowers, for example, the couple would take soup and a sandwich to the florist next door.
Continue reading...Leftwinger tells rally that public must unite against far-right incumbent’s ‘incompetence and authoritarianism’
Brazil’s former leader Luiz Inació Lula da Silva has kickstarted what he hopes will be a sensational finale to one of Latin America’s most extraordinary political careers, publicly declaring his intention to challenge Jair Bolsonaro for the presidency and urging citizens to unite against the far-right populist’s “incompetence and authoritarianism”.
Speaking at a rally in São Paulo, where the one-time lathe operator began his spectacular rise to power as a union leader more than four decades ago, Lula publicly spelled out his ambition to reclaim the presidency for the first time.
Continue reading...Climate analysts are astounded by such a high reading during the rainy season, and is the third monthly record this year
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon surged to record levels for the month of April, nearly doubling the area of forest removed in that month last year – the previous April record – preliminary government data has shown, alarming environmental campaigners.
In the first 29 days of April, deforestation in the region totalled 1,012.5 square km (390 square miles), according to data from national space research agency Inpe on Friday. The agency, which has compiled the monthly data series since 2015/2016, will report data for the final day of April next week.
Continue reading...Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel says explosion at Hotel Saratoga appears to have been caused by a gas leak
At least 26 people have been killed and a further 74 have been treated in hospital after a powerful explosion tore the façade from a hotel in the Cuban capital, sending plumes of dust into the air and leaving rubble strewn across the street in the historic centre of Havana.
Speaking at the scene soon afterwards, the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, ruled out a bomb and said the blast at the Hotel Saratoga appeared to have been caused by a gas leak.
Continue reading...Homicide investigators are trying to identify the child, whose cause of death is not yet known
Police in Canada are trying to identify a young Black girl whose body was found in a Toronto dumpster, a grim discovery that has shaken the city and seasoned investigators looking into the case.
The Toronto police service announced on Thursday that the body, discovered on Monday in an affluent neighbourhood, was that of a young Black girl, believed to be between the ages of four and seven.
Continue reading...Investigation into the crash at Sioux Lookout revealed two of four passengers were fleeing murder and conspiracy charges
A plane crash in the rugged hinterlands of Canada during seemingly calm weather has prompted a federal investigation into what could have brought down the small aircraft.
But revelations that two of the passengers were fleeing murder and conspiracy charges and had links to organized crime have only deepened the mystery over the doomed flight.
Continue reading...Murder of veteran Luis Enrique Ramírez – found in bag beside road – brings estimated death toll of journalists in president’s term to 34
A Mexican journalist has been found dead in Sinaloa state, authorities say, marking the ninth death of a media worker in a unprecedentedly bloody year for the country which has drawn international scrutiny.
Luis Enrique Ramírez, a veteran journalist and columnist at El Debate, was found dead on the side of a highway, the state’s attorney general said on Twitter.
Continue reading...TV station finds 54% of document was apparently copied but Pedro Castillo calls accusations ‘malicious’
Peruvian prosecutors are investigating President Pedro Castillo and his wife for alleged plagiarism after a local television station said an investigation showed the couple may have copied more than half the master’s thesis they co-authored.
Panamericana television’s Panorama program used a transparency request to obtain the text of the 121-page thesis and submitted it to the plagiarism detection service Turnitin. Panorama said the couple appeared to have plagiarized 54% of it from other authors.
Continue reading...Memoir from ex-defense chief Mark Esper details extraordinary outbursts he says he helped to defuse
In the heated summer of 2020, thwarted in his desire for a violent crackdown on protesters for racial justice, Donald Trump included his vice-president in a complaint that senior advisers were “losers”.
Trump’s second defense secretary, Mark Esper, details the Oval Office outburst in a new book. A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Defense Secretary in Extraordinary Times, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Continue reading...DNA study finds rarest cetacean, only found in Gulf of California, has enough genetic diversity to recover – if gillnet ban is enforced
Scientists studying the DNA of the world’s smallest cetacean and rarest marine mammal, the vaquita porpoise, have made a surprising and bittersweet discovery.
With a tiny population of fewer than 10 individuals left, the mammal was assumed by conservationists to be at a similar risk of harmful mutations and inbreeding as other species with small gene pools.
Continue reading...Victims of paramilitaries demand Dairo Antonio Úsuga come clean about atrocities committed by forces he commanded
The accused head of Colombia’s Gulf Clan cartel is due to appear in a federal court in New York on Thursday, as victims in his home country call for guarantees that he will come clean on atrocities committed by the feared paramilitary fighters he once commanded.
Dairo Antonio Úsuga, who is Colombia’s most wanted drug suspect for nearly a decade, was extradited from Colombia late on Wednesday on cocaine and weapons charges.
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