Category Archives: Americas

Canadian police seize largest ever weapons cache in terrorism inquiry

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RCMP arrested and charged four people who were trying to form an ‘anti-government militia’ and capture land

Police in Canada have arrested and charged four people, including active military members, who they allege were “planning to create anti-government militia” and to “forcibly take possession of land” in the province of Quebec.

The scope of material uncovered by police, including explosives and assault rifles, marks the largest weapons cache ever seized as part of terrorism investigation.

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Trump ends deportation protections for people from Honduras and Nicaragua

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DHS said it would terminate temporary protected status for an estimated 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans

The Trump administration has ended temporary protections for people from Honduras and Nicaragua in the latest phase of its effort to expel undocumented people from the US.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it would end temporary protected status (TPS) for an estimated 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans in moves that will come into effect in about 60 days.

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Trump says Bolsonaro ‘not guilty of anything’ amid Brazil coup trial

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President Lula rejects foreign ‘interference’ as Trump claims far-right former leader victim of ‘witch-hunt’

Donald Trump has issued his strongest defence to date of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, claiming the far-right leader is the victim of a “witch-hunt” in his home country.

Posting on his social media platform Truth Social on Monday, the US president claimed that Bolsonaro – often dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics” – is “not guilty of anything”, in an apparent reference to the legal cases Bolsonaro is facing in Brazil.

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Man kidnapped by Argentina’s military regime as baby is reunited with relatives

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Forty-nine-year-old is 140th child found by Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who search for people ‘disappeared’ under 1976-83 dictatorship

A man taken from his mother as a newborn by Argentina’s military has been reunited with his relatives after almost 50 years.

The man, 49, whose identity was not disclosed for privacy reasons, was identified after he took a DNA test.

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Bolsonaro wanted to exterminate us, claims Indigenous leader Raoni Metuktire

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Kayapó chief tells in memoir of seeing former president in his dreams and of warning Lula not to repeat past mistakes

Brazil’s most revered Indigenous leader, Raoni Metuktire, has said he believes that one of the former president Jair Bolsonaro’s goals while in office was to “exterminate” the country’s Indigenous peoples.

According to the Kayapó chief, the far-right populist “encouraged invasions, mining and deforestation” in order to hand Indigenous lands over to the kubẽ (non-Indigenous people).

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Boxer Julio César Chávez Jr was a cartel henchman, Mexican prosecutors claim

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Prosecutors say Chávez treated gang rivals ‘like a punchbag’ after Ice arrested the former world champion in California

The Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr was a henchman for the Sinaloa drugs cartel and used his skills to pummel rival gang members “like a punchbag” before his recent arrest in the US, prosecutors in Mexico have alleged.

Chávez, 39, son of legendary world boxing champion Julio César Chávez Sr and himself a former middleweight titleholder, was arrested in California on Tuesday by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents, who cited cartel affiliations, multiple criminal convictions and an active arrest warrant in Mexico for weapons trafficking and organized crime.

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Alleged organiser of shooting of Colombian senator caught by police

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Elder José Arteaga Hernández in custody after the non-fatal attack on Miguel Uribe Turbay in a Bogotá park in June

The alleged mastermind behind the shooting of a conservative Colombian senator and presidential candidate has been taken into custody, almost a month after the attack, law enforcement authorities have said.

Elder José Arteaga Hernández, alias “Chipi” or “Costeño”, was arrested in the north-western part of the capital, Bogotá, on Saturday, national police director Maj Gen Carlos Fernando Triana told reporters. Authorities had previously accused him and other suspects of being near the Bogotá park where Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot on 7 June.

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Allez, allez, allez! Quebec gives go-ahead to cheer ‘go!’ in English at provincial sports games

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Province’s language police had a petite contretemps when it challenged Montreal transit agencies use of word on buses

Quebec’s mercurial and controversial language police have decided that using the word “go” is a legitimate way to cheer on sports teams in the province, paving the way for excited fans – and Montreal’s transit agency - to celebrate without fear of recrimination.

In new guidelines, the Office Québécois de la Langue Française (OQLF, the Quebec Board of the French Language) said that “go” was now “partially legitimized”, according to reporting by the Canadian Press, although the language watchdog says it prefers the French equivalent: allez.

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Suriname expected to elect first female president amid discovery of oil reserves

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Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, 71, will run unopposed as one of the poorest countries in the region eyes billions of dollars

Suriname is expected to elect its first female president this Sunday, the congresswoman and physician Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, 71, who will run unopposed after the ruling party decided not to field a candidate.

Geerlings-Simons will succeed current president Chandrikapersad Santokhi, 66, who has been in office since 2020 and was eligible for re-election – but whose party failed to secure the two-thirds parliamentary majority required in the country’s indirect voting system.

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El Salvador’s president denies that Kilmar Ábrego García was abused in notorious prison

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Nayib Bukele disputed claims of Ábrego García’s lawyers that he was tortured and deprived of sleep while in custody

The president of El Salvador has denied claims that Kilmar Ábrego García was subjected to beatings and deprivation while he was held in the country before being returned to the US to face human-smuggling charges.

Nayib Bukele said in a social media post that Ábrego García, the Salvadorian national who was wrongly extradited from the US to El Salvador in March before being returned in June, “wasn’t tortured, nor did he lose weight”.

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Countries must protect human right to a stable climate, court rules

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Costa Rica-based inter-American court of human rights says states have obligation to respond to climate change

There is a human right to a stable climate and states have a duty to protect it, a top court has ruled.

Announcing the publication of a crucial advisory opinion on climate change on Thursday, Nancy Hernández López, president of the inter-American court of human rights (IACHR), said climate change carries “extraordinary risks” that are felt particularly keenly by people who are already vulnerable.

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Lula visits former Argentinian president under house arrest in snub to Milei

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Brazilian president meets Cristina Fernández de Kirchner at her flat in Buenos Aires after regional summit

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has eschewed a one-on-one meeting with the Argentinian president, Javier Milei, during a trip to Buenos Aires, instead opting to visit Milei’s political rival, former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is under house arrest.

Lula was in the Argentinian capital on Thursday to attend the Mercosur summit.

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Kilmar Ábrego García was tortured in Salvadorian prison, court filing alleges

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New court documents allege physical and psychological torture at Cecot in one of first looks at conditions in prison

Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and detained in one of that country’s most notorious prisons, was physically and psychologically tortured during the three months he spent in Salvadorian custody, according to new court documents filed Wednesday.

While being held at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador, Ábrego García and 20 other men “were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM”, according to the court papers filed by his lawyers in the federal district court in Maryland.

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‘A win for humanity’: Trump’s asylum ban at US-Mexico border ruled unlawful

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President exceeded his authority and his proclamation of an ‘invasion’ at southern border is unlawful, court rules

A federal court has ruled that Donald Trump’s proclamation of an “invasion” at the US-Mexico border is unlawful, saying that the president had exceeded his authority in suspending the right to apply for asylum at the southern border.

As part of his crackdown on immigration, Trump abruptly closed the southern border to tens of thousands of people who had been waiting to cross into the US legally and apply for asylum, signing a proclamation on the day of his inauguration that directed officials to take action to “repel, repatriate, or remove any alien engaged in the invasion across the southern border of the United States”.

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US to breed billions of flies and dump them out of aircraft in bid to fight flesh-eating maggot

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Program mirrors earlier successful mission to fight new world screwworm fly, whose larvae can infest living tissue

The US government is preparing to breed billions of flies and dump them out of airplanes over Mexico and southern Texas to fight a flesh-eating maggot.

That sounds like the plot of a horror movie, but it is part of the government’s plans for protecting the US from a bug that could devastate its beef industry, decimate wildlife and even kill household pets. This weird science has worked well before.

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Judge blocks Kristi Noem from ending temporary protected status for Haitians

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Homeland security secretary attempting to end legal status for approximately 521,000 Haitian immigrants

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s bid to end temporary deportation protections and work permits for approximately 521,000 Haitian immigrants before the program’s scheduled expiration date.

Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded Joe Biden’s extension of temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians through 3 February. It called for the program to end on 3 August, and last week pushed back that date to 2 September.

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White House says Canadian PM ‘caved’ to Trump demand to scrap tech tax

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Trump officials hail U-turn as Mark Carney says decision to rescind digital services tax means revival of trade talks

The United States has said that Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney “caved” to demands from the White House after his government abruptly scrapped their digital services tax on US technology companies, which was set to go into effect on Monday.

“It’s very simple. Prime minister Carney and Canada caved to president [Donald] Trump and the United States of America,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a daily briefing.

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Twenty bodies discovered in Sinaloa as Mexican cartel violence surges

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Grisly finding comes at end of worst month in war between Sinaloa factions as government tries to stop killings

Mexican authorities have found 20 bodies in the state of Sinaloa, a region gripped by a war between factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel that is reaching new heights of violence.

The state prosecutor’s office said on Monday that four of the victims had been decapitated and their bodies had been found hanging from a bridge on a main road near Culiacán, the state capital.

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Chile communist Jeannette Jara to lead beleaguered ruling coalition at election

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Former labor minister, 61, won primary for leftwing parties with over 60% of vote ahead of November election

The Chilean communist Jeannette Jara, the country’s former labor minister, has won the primary election for leftwing parties with surprising ease, beating out a more moderate rival to clinch over 60% of the vote.

The decisive upset makes Jara, 51, the candidate representing Chile’s beleaguered incumbent government in November elections, set to face off against center-right and far-right contenders who have surged in the polls.

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Mexico police discover 381 bodies ‘thrown indiscriminately’ on crematorium floor

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Prosecutor says the bodies in Ciudad Juarez had not been cremated, and that relatives of the dead have been given ‘other material’

Police have found 381 corpses piled up in a private crematorium in northern Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez, the local prosecutor’s office has said , attributing the grisly find to negligence.

“Preliminarily, we have 381 bodies that were deposited irregularly in the crematorium, which were not cremated,” Eloy Garcia, spokesperson for the Chihuahua state prosecutor’s office, told AFP.

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