Category Archives: Americas

Columbia’s most-wanted drug lord, Otoniel, captured by armed forces

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The leader of the powerful Clan del Golfo, who had a $5m bounty on his head, was seized in a raid by military and police

Dairo Antonio Úsuga, known as Otoniel, Colombia’s most sought after drug trafficker and leader of the Clan del Golfo, has been captured at his jungle hideout by the country’s armed forces.

Colombia had offered a reward of up to 3bn pesos (about $800,000) for information concerning Otoniel’s whereabouts, while the United States government had put up a reward of $5m for help locating him.

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Californian blogger among two tourists killed in shootout at Mexico’s Tulum

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The two women killed and three tourists injured were believed to have been caught in crossfire of clash between drug gangs

A Californian travel blogger was one of two foreign tourists killed at a restaurant in Mexico’s Caribbean beach resort of Tulum during a shootout between suspected gang members.

The two women killed were identified as Anjali Ryot, an Indian national who lived in San Jose, and German national Jennifer Henzold, though no hometown was immediately available for her. Two German men and a Dutch woman were also injured during the shootout late on Wednesday, the district attorney’s office in Quintana Roo state said.

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‘I was terrified’: the vet sterilizing Pablo Escobar’s cocaine hippos

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The progeny of animals brought illegally to Colombia and kept in the drug lord’s private zoo must now be put on birth control

When Gina Paola Serna studied to become a biologist and veterinarian in Colombia, she never expected to one day be tasked with neutering an invasive herd of hippos that once belonged to Pablo Escobar.

When they were smuggled into the drug lord’s private zoo in the 1980s, there were just four hippos. But in the 26 years since Escobar’s death, their numbers have steadily grown : the herd now includes about 80 animals – threatening to disrupt ecosystems in Colombia. So now, Serna spends her days tracking and sterilizing the hulking riverine mammals.

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Aid to Haiti sent by sea to bypass rising gang violence, UN food agency says

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World Food Programme scrambles to provide relief through air and sea to earthquake victims as local violence soars

The World Food Programme (WFP) is now using seafaring barges to ship supplies to earthquake victims in southern Haiti, after escalating gang violence made overland journeys unsafe for aid convoys.

Since the 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck the country’s southern peninsula in August, thousands of survivors have been sporadically cut off from Port-au-Prince, the capital, by roadblocks set up by warring gangs, leading relief workers to employ novel workarounds, including shifting aid to barges and helicopter airlifts.

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Top Saskatchewan health official moved to tears by unchecked Covid spread

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Dr Saqib Shahab, the Canadian province’s chief medical officer, spoke of grief and frustration at deaths despite vaccine availability

A senior health official in western Canada has made an emotional plea for people to get vaccinated against coronavirus and observe social distancing recommendations, highlighting the grief and frustration felt by health workers in a country where Covid deaths continue despite the availability of vaccines.

Saskatchewan’s chief medical officer, Dr Saqib Shahab, was brought to tears during a briefing on Wednesday, as he presented new data showing the continuing pressure on the province’s hospitals and intensive care units.

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Global heating ‘may lead to epidemic of kidney disease’

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Deadly side-effect of heat stress is threat to rising numbers of workers in hot climates, doctors warn

Chronic kidney disease linked to heat stress could become a major health epidemic for millions of workers around the world as global temperatures increase over the coming decades, doctors have warned.

More research into the links between heat and CKDu – chronic kidney disease of uncertain cause – is urgently needed to assess the potential scale of the problem, they have said.

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‘You shouldn’t work if your kidneys are failing – but people can’t afford not to’

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Global heating is having a deadly impact on Nicaragua’s sugar cane workers, who toil in temperatures of up to 45C

At the Sacuanjoche clinic in Chinandega, the largest city in Nicaragua’s sugar cane-growing region, nephrologist Nelson Garcia does the rounds of his patients. Many are suffering from chronic kidney disease (CKD); most fell ill while working long hours under the beating sun in the nearby sugar cane fields, and now have damaged and failing kidneys.

“People arrive with a host of symptoms here; some are really nauseous, or vomiting, or have severe diarrhoea,” Garcia says, adding that although unsure exactly how many people he has treated for heat stress and related kidney diseases this year, he knows it is a lot. “Others are physically weakened, tired, or have nasty muscular cramps, while others complain about having no appetite or libido – there really are so many symptoms.”

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Solar storm confirms Vikings settled in North America exactly 1,000 years ago

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Analysis of wood from timber-framed buildings in Newfoundland shows Norse-built settlement 471 years before Columbus

Long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, eight timber-framed buildings covered in sod stood on a terrace above a peat bog and stream at the northern tip of Canada’s island of Newfoundland, evidence that the Vikings had reached the New World first.

But precisely when the Vikings journeyed to establish the L’Anse aux Meadows settlement had remained unclear – until now.

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Bolsonaro should be charged with crimes against humanity, Covid inquiry finds

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Brazilian president savaged for ‘macabre’ and ‘slovenly’ response to pandemic and ‘deliberate neglect’ of indigenous people

Jair Bolsonaro should be charged with crimes against humanity and jailed for his “macabre” reaction to a Covid outbreak that has killed more than 600,000 Brazilians, including a disproportionate number of indigenous citizens, a congressional inquiry has found.

Two of the most dramatic accusations against the Brazilian president – murder and genocide of the country’s indigenous populations – were removed from a previous draft of the report on Tuesday night after talks between opposition senators serving on the inquiry.

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‘Haitians are kidnapped every day’: missionary abductions shed light on growing crisis

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Kidnappings of 16 Americans and a Canadian in Port-au-Prince come as hundreds of local residents face similar targeting, with at least 628 abductions so far this year

Firel Joseph was driving through Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, one evening this year when he noticed a white Toyota Land Cruiser with official license plates trailing close to his rear bumper. Assuming the other driver wanted to overtake him, the 44-year-old development worker gave way. Then things took a hellish turn.

The car skidded to a halt in front of Joseph, while another vehicle appeared behind, boxing him in. Six men, wearing flak jackets and armed with rifles, piled out of the Land Cruiser, moving with military discipline.

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Charge Bolsonaro with murder over Covid toll, draft Brazil senate report says

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Draft text says neglect, incompetence and opposition to science fueled ‘stratospheric’ death toll

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, should face murder charges for his role in the country’s “stratospheric” coronavirus death toll, a draft report from a senate inquiry into Brazil’s Covid crisis has recommended.

The 1,078-page document, published by Brazilian media on Tuesday afternoon, is not due to be voted on by the commission until next week and could yet be modified by senators.

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Haitian gang demands $17m ransom for kidnapped missionaries and children

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Authorities are negotiating for their release but reluctant to pay money that will be used for ‘more guns and more munitions’

A Haitian gang that kidnapped a group of American and Canadian missionaries has demanded a $17m ransom for their release, according to the country’s justice minister.

Liszt Quitel told the Wall Street Journal the FBI and Haitian police were in contact with the kidnappers from the 400 Mawozo gang, who seized the missionaries at the weekend outside the capital, Port-au-Prince.

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Colombia found responsible for 2000 kidnap and torture of journalist

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Inter-American court of human rights rules Colombia was ‘internationally responsible’ for violation of Jineth Bedoya’s rights

The Colombian state has been found responsible for the kidnap, torture and rape of a prominent journalist who was abducted while reporting on her country’s civil war, in a landmark ruling from the inter-American court of human rights.

Jineth Bedoya, who has been pursuing justice for over 21 years and now campaigns against sexual violence, was recognised by the court on Monday as having suffered “grave verbal, physical and sexual aggressions” for which the state was responsible. Before now, only three of her attackers had faced justice, receiving sentences in Colombian courts in 2019.

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Haitian prime minister forced to flee official ceremony after armed gangs appear

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The incident highlights the deteriorating security conditions in Haiti’s capital

The deteriorating security situation in Haiti was starkly underlined on Sunday when the country’s prime minister and his security detail were forced to flee an official commemoration in the capital by heavily armed gang members who then paraded in the delegation’s place.

A day after a dozen US missionaries and their children were kidnapped in a brazen attack to the east of the capital Port-au-Prince, video circulating on social media and reports in the Haitian media showed the country’s most notorious crime boss, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, officiating at the ceremony to commemorate the assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one of Haiti’s revolutionary founding fathers.

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A nurse’s journey from treating Covid in Brazil to death in the US desert

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Lenilda dos Santos left her home in rural Amazonia, part of a South American exodus driven by a coronavirus-era depression

As coronavirus tore through the Valley of Paradise, a farm-flanked backwater in the Brazilian Amazon, Lenilda dos Santos, a nurse technician, stood on the frontline clutching hands most feared to touch.

“She was a warrior during the pandemic,” said Lucineide Oliveira, a friend and colleague at the town’s small, understaffed hospital. “She’d say: ‘If we have to die, we’ll die. But we must fight.’”

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Chinese military condemns US and Canada over warships in Taiwan Strait

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Countries ‘colluded to provoke and stir up trouble’ in region that China claims as its territory

The Chinese military has condemned the United States and Canada for each sending a warship through the Taiwan Strait last week, saying they were threatening peace and stability in the region.

China claims democratically ruled Taiwan as its own territory, and has mounted repeated air force missions into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) over the past year, provoking anger in Taipei.

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Kidnap of foreign missionaries confirms the power held by gangs in Haiti

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Analysis: about half the capital, Port-au-Prince, is controlled by criminals, many of whom do dirty jobs for business and politicians

The kidnapping of 17 foreign missionaries in Haiti marks the latest escalation in a wave of criminality in the impoverished and politically fragile Caribbean state, which has long seen waves of gang-related crime coincide with heightened political turmoil.

According to some estimates, Haiti’s powerful gangs, numbering about 90 criminal organisations in total, control territory amounting to half of the sprawling capital of Port-au-Prince and cost the country over $4bn a year.

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Group of 17 missionaries and family members kidnapped in Haiti

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Five children were among group of 16 US citizens and one Canadian abducted by gang members after orphanage visit

A group of 17 missionaries, including five children, have been kidnapped by an armed criminal gang in Haiti.

The group – 16 Americans and one Canadian citizen – were on their way home from building an orphanage, according to a statement from the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, which supports 9,000 children in Haitian schools and sent out a message asking supporters to pray for its members.

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