Unjabbed supporters of President Bolsonaro are banned from some pubs – but elsewhere fans can buy pizza named after him
Jana Santos has an unambiguous message for Jair Bolsonaro-supporting anti-vaxxers who want to sup a Moscow Mule or Caipirinha at her bar in south Brazil.
“Don’t come. We don’t want you here,” said the mixologist and bar owner who recently placed a placard at its entrance instructing unvaccinated Bolsonaristas to steer clear.
Continue reading...The ‘big, beautiful wall’ has kept US citizens away from the no man’s land it created – and in effect ceded territory to Mexico
Several miles south of the small town of San Juan, Texas, beyond acres of onion fields, orange groves and other cash crops sits a historic cemetery and the site of the beginning of a slow decay of American soil.
I hadn’t been to this area for more than a year because of the pandemic, and I was startled at how different this remote part of Texas had become. The most obvious change is the steel 18ft-high bollard fencing, among the last vestiges of Donald Trump’s glorious border wall with Mexico.
Continue reading...Bolsonaro said he was discharged on Wednesday, two days after being admitted with intestinal obstruction
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been discharged from hospital, two days after being admitted with an intestinal obstruction, his latest health complication from a 2018 stabbing.
“Being discharged now. Thank you all,” Bolsonaro posted on Twitter on Wednesday morning alongside a religious message and a photo of himself and his doctors giving a thumbs up.
Continue reading...Forced from their homes by missionaries, the Ayoreo cling on in the Chaco. Now the Bioceanic Corridor cuts through the fastest-vanishing forest on Earth, refuge of some of the Americas’ last hunter-gatherers
In 1972, Catholic missionaries entered the Chaco forest of northern Paraguay and forced Oscar Pisoraja’s family, and their nomadic Ayoreo people, to leave with them. Many perished from thirst on the long march south. Settled near the village of Carmelo Peralta on the Paraguay River, dozens more died from illnesses. Still, the survivors kept up some traditions – hunting for armadillos; weaving satchels from the spiky caraguatá plant. “We felt part of this place,” says Pisoraja, now 51.
Today, his community – and other indigenous peoples across the Chaco, a tapestry of swamp, savanna and thorny forest across four countries that is South America’s largest ecosystem after the Amazon – are confronting a dramatic new change.
Mario Abdo Benítez, Paraguay’s president, and Reinaldo Azambuja Silva, governor of Mato Grosso do Sul state in Brazil, at the site of a new bridge across the Paraguay River, due to be completed in 2024
Continue reading...The island nation struggles to keep the lights on but has inoculated 90% of population with home-developed vaccines
General Máximo Gómez, a key figure in Cuba’s 19th-century wars of independence against Spain once said: “Cubans either don’t meet the mark – or go way past it.”
A century and a half later, the aphorism rings true. This downtrodden island struggles to keep the lights on, but has now vaccinated more of its citizens against Covid-19 than any of the world’s major nations.
Continue reading...Canada has reached an in-principle agreement totalling C$4bn (US$31.bn) to compensate First Nations children who were taken from their families and put into the welfare system, a major step toward reconciliation with the country's Indigenous people. David Sterns, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said: ‘This settlement is the largest class action settlement in Canadian history and it is believed to be one of the largest anywhere in the world.' The agreement includes C$2bn for potentially hundreds of thousands of First Nations children who were removed from their families. Another C$2bn is to reform the system over the next five years
Continue reading...Half of total to be offered in compensation to 200,000 individuals and families who suffered from discriminatory system
A C$40bn agreement-in-principle has been reached in Canada to reform the child welfare system for First Nations people and compensate more than 200,000 individuals and families who suffered because of it.
At the heart of the deal is a legacy of discrimination in child welfare systems that saw many children removed from their homes and placed in state care, and others who were denied adequate medical care and social services because of their Indigenous identity.
Continue reading...Júlio Lancellotti is an outspoken champion of homeless people – a cause that makes him unpopular with Brazil’s authorities
In 2017, most Brazilians were still unfamiliar with the name Jair Bolsonaro. But for Júlio Lancellotti, there was already cause for concern in the reactionary rhetoric of the man who would be elected president two years later under the slogan: “Brazil above everything, God above everyone.”
“I am astonished that a homophobic person like Bolsonaro appears on the presidential ballot,” said the priest during mass on 7 March of that year at St Michael the Archangel parish in São Paulo’s East Zone. The sermon, in which he also preached against rape culture and sexism, was typical of the man who has devoted his life to fighting injustice, often finding himself targeted by conservative politicians as a result.
Continue reading...Civil lawsuit was filed against Iran and other officials the family members believe were to blame for the incident
A court in Ontario, Canada, has awarded C$107m ($83.94m), plus interest, to the families of six people who died when the Iranian Revolutionary Guards downed a Ukraine International Airlines plane near Tehran two years ago.
Iran shot down the airliner in January 2020. All 176 people on board were killed, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.
Continue reading...Leader admitted with intestinal blockage but is in stable condition, hospital says
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been taken to hospital with an intestinal blockage but is in a stable condition, according to the hospital.
Bolsonaro said in a Twitter post that his doctors were evaluating potential surgery on his intestine, adding that he was using a nasogastric tube.
Continue reading...Brigitte Baptiste has a high profile as a transgender Colombian woman and an ecologist – in a country where both are targeted
When Brigitte Baptiste walks on to the 10th floor of Bogotá’s Ean University at 9.45am in a plunging dress, knee-high cheetah-print boots and a silvery wig, the office comes to life. She examines some flowers sent by the Colombian radio station Caracol to thank her for taking part in a forum, her co-worker compliments her on her lipstick, and she settles in for a day of back-to-back meetings, followed by a private virtual conversation with the UN secretary general, António Guterres. Later that evening, she flies to Cartagena for a conference on natural gas.
The 58-year-old ecologist is one of Colombia’s foremost environmental experts, and one of its most visible transgender people, challenging scientific and social conventions alike. An ecology professor at the Jesuit-run Javeriana University for 20 years, she has written 15 books, countless newspaper columns, and won international prizes for her work. Most recently, she was appointed chancellor of Ean University, a business school, as part of its push for greater sustainability.
Continue reading...In one of the world’s most dangerous regions for environmental and human rights activists, La Siguata offers a safe space for women suffering trauma as a result of their work
A milky-white and sky-blue stone hangs from a red string around Ethels Correa’s neck, and every so often she rubs it between her fingers.
“When I feel anger, I grab this stone and I begin to relax, because they taught me how to breathe, to relax the body and to relax the mind,” she says. “I carry it with me all the time.”
Continue reading...Until 1984, the prison on the island of Gorgona off Colombia’s Pacific coast was a place where political prisoners and dangerous criminals served their sentences. Now it is a national natural park of coral reefs, dense jungle and exuberant fauna
Continue reading...Sharing soup joumou on 1 January represents what Haitians bring to the world – but remembering that inequality prevails is arguably more important
Whispers. Curfews. Never-ending military parades and shows of arms. Opponents’ bodies exposed for children to see as some sort of macabre art. And always, that nasal voice of “Papa Doc”, François Duvalier, chanting on all radio stations. Those were the days of my childhood under a dictator in Haiti.
But on 1 January, Independence Day, there were three things that made a difference.
Continue reading...Nicaragua trumpets ‘ideological affinity’ with Beijing and seizes Taipei’s former embassy and diplomatic offices
China has opened an embassy in Nicaragua for the first time since 1990, less than a month after the central American country cut ties with Taiwan.
The Nicaraguan foreign minister, Denis Moncada, said there was an “ideological affinity” between the two countries and thanked China for donating 1m doses of the Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine.
Continue reading...Canadian province’s government says measure will be required if staffing levels become too low during Covid surge
Quebec healthcare workers exposed to Covid-19 may have to go to work sooner than expected if staffing levels in the Canadian province’s facilities reach a critical point.
Quebec’s health minister, Christian Dubé, made the announcement earlier this week, explaining that in a worst-case scenario the province would have no choice but to insist that isolating employees return to work.
Continue reading...Mahé Elipe captures the visceral anger as International Women’s Day protests turned into a violent clash with police
On 8 March 2021, women across the world took part in protests to mark International Women’s Day. In Mexico, there is an added poignancy to the annual event, as at least 10 women are murdered in the country each day; in 2021 the date was was marred by additional violence.
In the runup to the day fences were erected around the national palace in Mexico City’s main square, where thousands of women were due to gather.
Continue reading...Declared extinct in the wild in 2003, species has been reintroduced to its native river after being bred in Chester
A “charismatic little fish” declared extinct in the wild has been reintroduced to its native Mexico after being bred in an aquarium at Chester zoo.
The tequila fish (Zoogoneticus tequila), which grows to no bigger than 70mm long, disappeared from the wild in 2003 owing to the introduction of invasive, exotic fish species and water pollution.
Continue reading...Coastal communities in Mexico, Bangladesh and Somalia are struggling to adapt to the climate crisis. Many people have already lost livelihoods and homes to rising waters
Continue reading...In a country dominated by gangs, photographer Rodrigo Abd’s images show both armed gangsters and the residents they terrorise
The two images are as stark as what they represent: the cause and effect of Haiti’s increasing woes. In one, a masked and armed gangster keeps lookout on a Port-au-Prince rooftop, just a few blocks from the presidential palace. In the other, a family recently displaced by gang violence takes shelter in a school that now houses dozens of families, a stone’s throw from their homes.
“Port-au-Prince is almost entirely controlled by gangs, and we wanted to show the efforts of people that are running businesses to survive,” says Rodrigo Abd, 45, an Argentinian staff photographer with the Associated Press who took the images. “But I was also trying to show another side to Haiti, to avoid the stereotypes that we always repeat, to show the violent without the violence, or the poor without the poverty.”
Continue reading...