Category Archives: Americas

‘A feeling of deja vu’: author Sergio Ramírez on ex-comrade Ortega and Nicaraguan history repeating

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The country’s greatest living writer feels ‘surprised, bewildered and assaulted’ after the president issued a warrant for his arrest and seized copies of his new novel about the 2018 uprising

Sergio Ramírez, Nicaragua’s best-known living writer, hero of the Sandinista revolution, and former vice-president of the volcanic Central American nation, has lived through both tougher times and duller publicity tours.

Even so, the past few days have been – as he puts it, with a degree of understatement – “an odd experience”.

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Texas anti-abortion law shows ‘terrifying’ fragility of women’s rights, say activists

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Campaigners fear ban emboldens anti-choice governments as more aggressive opposition, better organised and funded, spreads from US

The new anti-abortion law in Texas is a “terrifying” reminder of the fragility of hard-won rights, pro-choice activists have said, as they warn of a “more aggressive, much better organised [and] better funded” global opposition movement.

Pro-choice campaigners have seen several victories in recent years, including in Ireland, Argentina and, most recently, Mexico, where the supreme court ruled last week that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. Another is hoped for later this month when the tiny enclave of San Marino, landlocked within Italy, holds a highly charged referendum.

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Trudeau lambasted over exclusion from US-led military alliance as election nears

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Canada already shares intelligence with Australia, the UK, the US and New Zealand but was not included in Aukus pact

Justin Trudeau is facing harsh criticism from political rivals after Canada was excluded from a new international defence pact, days before the country votes in a federal election.

Australia, the United Kingdom and the United State on Wednesday announced a new intelligence sharing agreement meant to counter Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

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Peruvians split on how to handle Shining Path leader’s remains

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Absence of a firm decision by Peru’s new leftist government has sown doubts about the cabinet’s willingness to act

Nearly a week after the death of Abimael Guzmán, the messianic leader of Peru’s Shining Path insurgency which killed tens of thousands of people in the 1980s and 90s, the country remains gripped by the debate over what to do with his remains.

At least one local media outlet reported that the cabinet voted on Wednesday 13 to 5 to reject a proposal for a supreme decree that would lay the legal framework to cremate the remains of the former guerrilla leader, who died on Saturday in a maximum-security prison aged 86.

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‘About damn time’: First Nation gets clean water after 24-year wait

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Residents of Shoal Lake 40 can drink from taps thanks to a new water treatment facility but dozens of communities lack access

Residents of a First Nations community in Canada, who were deprived of clean drinking water for nearly a quarter of a century, can now drink from their taps after a water treatment facility became fully operational earlier this week.

Shoal Lake 40, a community on the Manitoba-Ontario border, has been under drinking water advisory since 1997.

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Alberta reverses hands-off approach to Covid to tackle ‘crisis of unvaccinated’

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Premier Jason Kennedy admits ‘we were wrong –and, for that, I apologize’ as he warns ICU beds may run out in 10 days

Alberta’s premier has announced sweeping new restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus, admitting the Canadian province was gripped by a “crisis of the unvaccinated”.

The new measures marked a major reversal from Jason Kenney’s hands-off approach to the pandemic previously, and come amid warnings from frontline medical workers that the province’s healthcare system is on the verge of collapse.

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Which countries are enforcing mandatory Covid jabs – and how?

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Joe Biden has introduced a vaccine mandate affecting millions, but some countries have gone further

Following the decision by the US president, Joe Biden, to introduce a vaccine mandate for millions of workers, and the UK government’s decision to row back on its push to require vaccine passports for nightclubs and other crowded events, where does the issue of insisting on vaccination stand globally?

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Nicki Minaj claim that Covid vaccine can cause impotence dismissed by Trinidad and Tobago

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Minister says health officials found no evidence that any patient reported such side effects: ‘We wasted so much time running down this false claim’

Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister has dismissed claims by the rapper Nicki Minaj that a cousin’s friend had become impotent after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine, saying that health officials in the Caribbean country had found no evidence that any patient had reported such side-effects.

“As we stand now, there is absolutely no reported side effect or adverse event of testicular swelling in Trinidad … and none that we know of anywhere in the world,” the minister, Terrence Deyalsingh, said in a press conference on Wednesday.

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Canada: Alberta healthcare system on verge of collapse as Covid cases and anti-vax sentiments rise

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A province that has long boasted of its loose coronavirus restrictions has also been the site of North America’s highest caseloads

A surge in coronavirus cases has pushed the healthcare system in the Canadian province of Alberta to the verge of collapse, as healthcare workers struggle against mounting exhaustion and a growing anti-vaccine movement in the region.

The province warned this week that its ICU capacity was strained, with more people requiring intensive care than any other point during the pandemic – nearly all of them unvaccinated.

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Haiti prosecutor calls for prime minister to be charged over president’s killing

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Ariel Henry, 71-year-old neurosurgeon, became country’s leader in July, two weeks after assassination of Jovenel Moïse

The investigation into the assassination of the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse has taken a sensational turn after the country’s chief prosecutor asked a judge to charge Haiti’s prime minister in connection with the crime.

Ariel Henry, a 71-year-old neurosurgeon, became Haiti’s principal leader in July, two weeks after Moïse was killed at his home in the capital Port-au-Prince.

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Cuban scientists say ‘Havana Syndrome’ theories ‘violate laws of physics’

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A 20-member panel questioned whether a single explanation fitted all symptoms and raised possibility of psychological suggestion

Cuba has issued its most detailed report to date from prominent local scientists criticizing allegations that US and Canadian diplomats were subject to mysterious attacks while posted on the island and developed health problems.

Related: Microwave weapons that could cause Havana Syndrome exist, experts say

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Sebastião Salgado receives Praemium Imperiale 2021 award – in pictures

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The Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado has been named as one of four winners of a £400,000 award given by the Japan Art Association. Amazonia, an exhibition by Salgado, opens at the Science Museum in London from 13 October. An exhibition of collectors prints, organised by the Photographers’ Gallery, is on show at Cromwell Place Art Centre from 20 October

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Trudeau energized by anti-vaccine protests in Canada election few wanted

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The prime minister trails the Conservatives in polls but has found new impetus in pursuit of a third term to secure his legacy


When he was pelted with a handful of gravel by anti-vaccine protesters last week, the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, joined an illustrious list of political leaders who have had things hurled at them by disgruntled citizens. His father, former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, had rocks (and tomatoes and eggs) thrown at his train car in the early 1980s.

But the gravel incident – which led to charges of assault with a weapon against the protester – has thrust the image of a prime minister on the defensive to the forefront of an election that, for many, is unwanted and has so far lacked a coherent theme.

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Weatherwatch: Venezuela’s varied climate

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Country’s topography means local variations in temperature and rainfall can be very pronounced

The most northerly country in South America, Venezuela is also the sixth largest – roughly one-and-a-half times the size of France or Texas. It is very varied topographically, from the northernmost part of the Andes mountains in the west, via the Orinoco River, which runs across the country towards its coastal delta, to the Guiana Highlands in the east.

Being so close to the equator, there is very little variation in temperature from month to month: the capital, Caracas, has typical daily maxima in the mid-20s, and night-time temperatures in the mid-teens, throughout the year. It is noticeably cooler than coastal cities because of its higher altitude: roughly 1,050 metres (3,420ft) above sea level.

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Alanis Morissette says she was victim of multiple statutory rapes as a teenager

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Canadian music star says in new documentary: ‘I would always say I was consenting, and then I’d be reminded … you’re not consenting at 15’

Speaking in a new documentary, Alanis Morissette has said she was the victim of multiple statutory rapes as a teenager.

The documentary, Jagged, is screening at the Toronto film festival this week. The Washington Post has reported that Morissette describes the attacks during the film. “It took me years in therapy to even admit there had been any kind of victimisation on my part,” she says. “I would always say I was consenting, and then I’d be reminded like ‘Hey, you were 15, you’re not consenting at 15.’ Now I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, they’re all paedophiles. It’s all statutory rape.’”

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Jagmeet Singh: the ex-lawyer and TikTok star who could topple Trudeau

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The New Democratic party’s leader is riding high in the polls – and could be the kingmaker in next week’s election

He’s the most-liked national political leader in Canada, wears sharply tailored suits, has graced the pages of a men’s fashion magazine and is followed by starstruck fans on social media. And he’s not Justin Trudeau.

With Canada heading to the polls after a snap election controversially called by Trudeau, Jagmeet Singh, leader of the progressive New Democratic party (NDP), has quickly emerged as the most affable politician in Canada – and a powerful figure who is unlikely to become prime minister.

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‘What I saw that night was real’: is it time to take aliens more seriously?

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The Pentagon has been quietly investigating unidentified flying objects since 2007. The fact that they think they might exist is good news to those who claim to have seen them

In June, the US government published a long-awaited report into UFOs. Although the report did not, as many had hoped, admit to the existence of little green men, it did reveal that not only were objects appearing in our skies that the Pentagon – which controls the US military – could not explain, but some clearly pose “a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to US national security”.

The Pentagon also revealed that it has been taking UFOs so seriously that in 2007 it discreetly set up the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which has been gathering data on Unexplained Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) ever since.

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Abimael Guzmán, leader of Peru’s Shining Path, dies aged 86

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Founder of Maoist insurgents that terrorised Peru in 1980s and 1990s dies in military prison where he was serving life sentence

Abimael Guzmán, the founder and leader of the Shining Path, the Maoist insurgents which terrorised Peru in the 1980s and 1990s, has died in military hospital aged 86, the Peruvian government has said.

After nearly 30 years serving a life sentence in a maximum-security prison inside a naval base, Guzmán died at 6.40am on Saturday due to “health complications”, Peru’s prison service confirmed.

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The disappeared in Mexico, Afghan female footballers and a giant puppet: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms from Thailand to Texas

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Indigenous warrior women take fight to save ancestral lands to Brazilian capital

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Jair Bolsonaro is backing a legal move to open up large tracts of indigenous territory to commercial exploitation that tribal members call an ‘extermination effort’

More than 5,000 indigenous women have marched through Brazil’s capital to denounce the historic assault on native lands they say is unfolding under the country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Female representatives of more than 170 of Brazil’s 300-plus tribes have gathered in Brasília in recent days to oppose highly controversial attempts to strip back indigenous land rights and open their territories to mining operations and agribusiness.

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