Category Archives: Americas

The Guardian view on Barbados and the Queen: it has moved on. Can Britain? | Editorial

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The country became the world’s newest republic this week. While Britain is still racked by arguments over empire, others have already passed judgment

The contrast could hardly be more striking. In Britain, the removal of the statue of a slave trader, name changes for institutions and apologies from some who profited from slavery have produced reams of fevered arguments and fulminations. In Barbados, this week’s removal of the Queen as head of state was as calm and straightforward as the process leading to the change.

Yes, there was a ceremony to swear in the new president, Sandra Mason (at which Rihanna provided rather more excitement than Prince Charles, as the prime minister, Mia Mottley, had savvily realised). But this symbolic moment was not one of high passion or drama.

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‘Heartbreaking’ clean-up of animal corpses as Canada floodwaters ebb

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Floods and landslides in British Columbia devastated livestock in ‘easily the costliest natural disaster in Canada’s history’

Floods and landslides that battered the Canadian province of British Columbia last month killed hundreds of thousands of farm animals and forced nearly 15,000 people from their homes, new figures revealed, as officials described the scope of the devastation – and the challenges of recovery.

As many as 628,000 chickens, 420 dairy cattle and 12,000 pigs were killed by the floods. An estimated 3 million bees in 110 hives were also submerged.

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Remain in Mexico: migrants face deadly peril as Biden restores Trump policy

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The US has struck a deal with Mexico to make asylum seekers wait south side of the border while their applications are processed

The Biden administration’s move to revive Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy will subject thousands of people to “enormous suffering” and leave them vulnerable to kidnap and rape as they languish in dangerous Mexican border cities, migration advocates have warned.

After reaching a deal with Mexico, the US will by 6 December start returning asylum seekers from other Latin American countries to Mexico where they will be obliged to wait while their case is assessed.

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Chilean environmental activist who opposed dam projects found dead

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Javiera Rojas remembered as ‘an emblematic activist who was dedicated to the process of resistance’

Environmental activists in Chile have called for justice after a 42-year-old land defender was found dead with her hands and feet bound.

The body of Javiera Rojas was found buried under a pile of clothes in an abandoned house on Sunday in Calama in the northern region of Antofagasta.

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‘They can’t silence us’: the female lawyers defending Colombia’s environment

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Legal team faces daily threats as it works to protect displaced families from landowners, ecosystems from mining and indigenous groups from oil companies

Julia Figueroa never leaves her house without security. She travels with two bodyguards and an armoured vehicle. Her home and office are watched around the clock. She carefully monitors any devices that might contain compromising information about her clients.

As the director of the Luis Carlos Pérez Lawyers Collective Corporation (CCALCP), threats to her life are a daily occurrence. The all-female group of lawyers provides legal representation to small-scale farmers and indigenous communities affected by the armed conflict in Colombia. Their work includes defending displaced peoples and victims of state crime, but also defending environmental rights, including fighting mining companies that seek to extract resources, often at the expense of the local water supply and the surrounding environment.

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El Salvador ‘responsible for death of woman jailed after miscarriage’

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Inter-American court of human rights orders Central American country to reform harsh policies on reproductive health

The Inter-American court of human rights has ruled that El Salvador was responsible for the death of Manuela, a woman who was jailed in 2008 for killing her baby when she suffered a miscarriage.

The court has ordered the Central American country to reform its draconian policies on reproductive health.

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Gangsters use vehicles to ram into Mexico prison and free nine inmates

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The armed group broke into the jail in Tula and opened fire, injuring a guard and a police officer

Mexican gangsters used a convoy of vehicles – including a truck with homemade armour-plating – to ram their way into a prison before opening fire at guards and rescuing nine inmates.

Several other vehicles were also set on fire in the spectacular plot targeting the jail in the central city of Tula. The escapees include José Artemio Maldonado Mejía, alias “El Michoacano”, the leader of a local crime organisation known as Pueblos Unidos.

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Honduras president-elect’s China pledge puts Taiwan and US on edge

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Xiomara Castro has said she will foster ties with Beijing in what experts see as a move to counter US influence

Xiomara Castro’s victory in the Honduras presidential elections has placed the Central American nation at the heart of an intensifying diplomatic tug-of-war between Taiwan and China.

Honduras is one of only 15 remaining countries that recognizes the sovereignty of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its own territory. But Castro made a manifesto pledge to end that decades-long relationship and establish diplomatic ties with Beijing.

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Activists call for revolution in ‘dated and colonial’ aid funding

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Aspen Institute’s New Voices want donors to exercise humility and trust those receiving grants to know what their communities need

Aid donors are being urged to revolutionise the way money is spent to move away from colonial ideas and create meaningful change.

Ahead of a two-day conference this week, activists from Africa, Asia and Latin America have called on public and private global health donors – including governments, the United Nations, private philanthropists and international organisations – to prioritise funding for programmes driven by the needs of the community involved, rather than dictated by preconceived objectives.

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Prickly present: dancing cactus toy that raps in Polish about cocaine goes viral

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Walmart removes listing by third-party seller after Ontario woman discovers one of toy’s songs is about cocaine and hopelessness

A word of warning before you go toy shopping this Christmas: beware the rapping cactus.

The toy, marketed as educational, may teach your children more than you want them to know, as a woman in Brampton, Ontario, discovered the hard way. The miniature, bright-green dancing cactus Ania Tanner bought sings in English, Spanish and Polish while squirming to the beat. After buying it for her granddaughter, Tanner discovered that one of the songs in its repertoire was an explicit tune about cocaine and hopelessness.

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Average of two girls aged 10 to 14 give birth daily in Paraguay, Amnesty finds

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Longstanding plague of child abuse and extreme abortion laws fuel crisis, report says

An average of two girls between 10 and 14 give birth every day in Paraguay, thanks to a toxic combination of widespread child abuse and draconian abortion laws, according to a new Amnesty International report.

Paraguay has one of the highest rates of child and teen pregnancy in Latin America, a region that, as a whole, has the second-highest rates in the world.

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El Chapo’s wife Emma Coronel Aispuro sentenced to three years in US prison

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Coronel admitted to acting as a courier between Joaquín Guzmán and other members of the Sinaloa cartel while he was in prison

Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of the imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has been sentenced to three years in a US prison, after she pleaded guilty to helping the Sinaloa drug cartel.

Before her sentencing in a federal court in Washington, Coronel, 32, pleaded with US District Judge Rudolph Contreras to show her mercy.

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Mythic white sperm whale captured on film near Jamaica

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Type of whale immortalised in Moby-Dick has only been spotted handful of times this century

It is the most mythic animal in the ocean: a white sperm whale, filmed on Monday by Leo van Toly, watching from a Dutch merchant ship off Jamaica. Moving gracefully, outrageously pale against the blue waters of the Caribbean, for any fans of Moby-Dick, Herman Melville’s book of 1851, this vision is a CGI animation come to life.

Sperm whales are generally grey, black or even brown in appearance. Hal Whitehead, an expert on the species, told the Guardian: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fully white sperm whale. I have seen ones with quite a lot of white on them, usually in patches on and near the belly.”

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Chain reaction: Canadian MP complains about minister’s video bike backdrop

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Conservative Ed Fast was mocked after accusing Steven Guilbeault of making ‘statement about his environmental cred’

A conservative Canadian MP has accused the country’s environment minister of breaching parliamentary protocol after his bicycle appeared on screen during a hybrid session of parliament.

Conservative MP Ed Fast said minister Steven Guilbeault’s purple bicycle, hung on the wall behind him, was a blatant attempt to “make a statement about his environmental cred”.

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Barbados’s icon: why Rihanna’s national hero status is so apt

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Honoured by her newly independent country, Rihanna has always proudly worn her Bajan heritage – broadening her sound from her Caribbean roots, while staying true to them

Rihanna’s designation as a national hero of Barbados, to coincide with the country’s transition to an independent republic, could not be more apt. Not only has she been an official ambassador for culture and youth in the country since 2018, the singer remains the country’s most famous citizen and indeed advocate. She has never softened her Bajan accent, and her music, while tapping into pop, R&B and dance music, has remained rich with her Caribbean heritage.

In her investiture ceremony, the country’s prime minister Mia Mottley addressed the pop singer, fashion icon and hugely successful entrepreneur as “ambassador Robyn Rihanna Fenty: may you continue to shine like a diamond” – a reference to 2012’s global hit Diamonds – “and bring honour to your nation, by your words, by your actions, and to do credit wherever you shall go. God bless you, my dear.”

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Queen congratulates Barbados as it becomes a republic

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Monarch sends message marking ‘momentous’ day and wishing Barbadians peace and prosperity

As Barbados removes the Queen as its head of state and becomes a republic, the monarch has sent her congratulations on the nation’s “momentous” day.

Prince Charles arrived on the Caribbean island on Sunday to join the inauguration ceremony of the president-elect, Sandra Mason, who replaces the Queen as head of state overnight as Barbados sheds the vestiges of a colonial system stretching back 400 years.

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Honduras presidential election: a referendum on the nation’s corruption and drugs

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The next congress will have the opportunity to elect a new supreme court, attorney general and state auditors

Hondurans head to the polls on Sunday in the first general election since US federal prosecutors laid out detailed evidence of intimate ties between drug smugglers and the Honduran state.

The country’s past three presidents, as well as local mayors, legislators, police and military commanders have been linked to drug trafficking in what US prosecutors have described as a narco-state.

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Stowaway survives flight from Guatemala to Miami hidden in plane’s landing gear

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The Guatemalan man was taken to hospital by immigration officials after emerging from the plane on the tarmac

A stowaway hidden in the landing gear compartment of an American Airlines jet survived a flight from his home country of Guatemala to Miami, where he was turned over to US immigration officials and taken to a hospital for evaluation.

The US customs and border protection agency confirmed the incident in a statement initially cited by Miami-based television station WTVJ, which posted video taken of the man at Miami international airport shortly after the plane landed on Saturday.

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Archaeologists unearth mummy estimated to be at least 800 years old in Peru

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Remains found inside an underground structure were tied up by ropes and with the hands covering the face

A team of experts has found a mummy estimated to be at least 800 years old on Peru’s central coast, one of the archaeologists who participated in the excavation said.

The mummified remains were of a person from the culture that developed between the coast and mountains of the South American country. The mummy, whose gender was not identified, was discovered in the Lima region, said archaeologist Pieter Van Dalen Luna on Friday.

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Rio Olympics chief sentenced to 30 years in prison for buying 2016 votes

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  • Ruling against Carlos Arthur Nuzman becomes public
  • Court heard Lamine and Papa Diack were bribed for votes

Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee for more than two decades, has been sentenced to 30 years and 11 months in jail for allegedly buying votes for Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics. The ruling by Judge Marcelo Bretas became public on Thursday.

Nuzman, who also headed the Rio 2016 organising committee, was found guilty of corruption, criminal organisation, money laundering and tax evasion. The 79-year-old will not be jailed until all his appeals are heard. He and his lawyer did not comment on the decision.

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