Category Archives: Americas

‘We’ll keep fighting’: search persists for priest thought to be murdered on Pinochet torture ship

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No trace has ever been found of Michael Woodward, but almost two years since Chile assumed responsibility for finding victims, cautious progress is being made

In the weak winter sunshine forensic investigators in white suits cast long shadows as they stepped between gravestones at Playa Ancha cemetery in the Chilean coastal city of Valparaíso.

But as the rhythmic click of spades and the throb of an excavator faded, a third search for the remains of Michael Woodward reached a frustrating conclusion.

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Sinaloa cartel hacked security cameras to track and kill FBI informants, US says

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Hacker working for cartel run by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was also able to access phone records of an FBI legal attaché at the US embassy in Mexico City

A hacker working for the Sinaloa drug cartel was able to obtain an FBI official’s phone records and use Mexico City’s surveillance cameras to help track and kill the agency’s informants in 2018, according to a new US justice department report.

The incident was disclosed in a justice department inspector general’s audit of the FBI’s efforts to mitigate the effects of “ubiquitous technical surveillance”, a term used to describe the global proliferation of cameras and the thriving trade in vast stores of communications, travel, and location data.

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Former Venezuelan intelligence chief pleads guilty to US drug charges

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Hugo Carvajal faces narco-terrorism and weapon charges amid accusations he helped lead a drug-trafficking group

A former top Venezuelan military intelligence chief has pleaded guilty in a Manhattan federal court to narco-terrorism conspiracy, drug-trafficking and weapons charges, piling further US pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro.

Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, AKA “El Pollo” or “The Chicken”, was the director of Venezuela’s military intelligence under presidents Hugo Chávez and Maduro. On Wednesday, days before his trial was set to begin, he pleaded guilty to four federal counts, related to accusations that he helped lead a drug-trafficking group within the Venezuelan government.

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US says Haitians can be deported – days after ruling Haiti unsafe for Americans

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Trump administration revokes temporary protected status for citizens of country racked by deadly violence

More than half a million Haitians are facing the prospect of deportation from the US after the Trump administration announced that the Caribbean country’s citizens would no longer be afforded shelter under a government program created to protect the victims of major natural disasters or conflicts.

Haiti has been engulfed by a wave of deadly violence since the 2021 murder of its president, Jovenel Moïse. Heavily armed gangs have brought chaos to its capital, Port-au-Prince, since launching an insurrection that toppled the prime minister last year. On Tuesday, the US embassy in Haiti urged US citizens to abandon the violence-stricken Caribbean country. “Depart Haiti as soon as possible,” it wrote on X.

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University of Toronto agrees to host Harvard students facing Trump visa restrictions

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Pact will help international students finish their studies amid Harvard’s legal battle with Trump administration

Harvard University and the University of Toronto and have announced a plan that would see some Harvard students complete their studies in Canada if visa restrictions prevent them from entering the United States.

The pact between the two schools reflects the tumultuous and “exceptional” politics of the postsecondary world during the second term of Donald Trump.

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Ottawa ‘urgently seeking more information’ about death of Canadian citizen in Ice custody

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Johnny Noviello was detained by US immigration in Florida over a 2023 conviction and died while awaiting deportation

Authorities in Canada are seeking information about the death of a 49-year-old Canadian man who died while in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody in Florida this week.

In a statement, Ice, part of the Department of Homeland Security, said Johnny Noviello, 49, died on 23 June after being found unresponsive at a federal detention center in Miami, where he was being detained “pending removal proceedings” from the US.

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Wreckers, money woes and mutirão: 10 things we learned about Cop30 from Bonn climate talks

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Key takeaways from two weeks of negotiations aimed at setting out stall for November’s Cop30 in Brazil

Two weeks of negotiations on the climate crisis have just concluded in Bonn in preparation for the Cop30 summit taking place in Brazil this November. What did we learn?

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Lalo Schifrin, composer of Mission: Impossible theme and more than 100 film and TV scores, dies aged 93

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The Argentinian composer also wrote the scores for Cool Hand Luke and Dirty Harry, and wrote one of the biggest-selling works in the history of classical music

Lalo Schifrin, the composer who wrote the endlessly catchy theme for Mission: Impossible and more than 100 other arrangements for film and television, has died aged 93.

Schifrin’s sons, William and Ryan, confirmed the composer died on Thursday of complications from pneumonia.

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Jamaica to ask King Charles to refer issue of reparations for slavery to UK’s privy council

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Hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans were shipped to the Caribbean island when it was a colony of the UK

Jamaica will ask King Charles to request legal advice on the issue of slavery reparations from the judicial committee of the privy council, the final court of appeal for UK overseas territories and some Commonwealth nations.

Under the Judicial Committee Act of 1833, the king, who remains Jamaica’s head of state after the country gained independence from Britain in 1962, has the authority to refer matters to the council for consideration.

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Man wrongfully deported to El Salvador must be returned to US, court rules

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White House must return Jordin Melgar-Salmeron, who was deported less than 30 minutes after his removal was barred

An appeals court has ordered the Trump administration to return a man wrongfully deported to El Salvador to the US and to explain how it is complying in a ruling apparently designed to break a pattern of apparent government defiance of judicial orders.

The US court of appeals for the second circuit in New York also required the government to provide a declaration of the current whereabouts and custodial status of Jordin Melgar-Salmeron, who was deported on 7 May less than half an hour after the court had expressly barred his removal.

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Canada and EU sign defence pact amid strained US relations and global instability

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Amid Trump’s disrespect of old allies, EU and Canada vow more support for Ukraine and joint work on climate crisis

Canada has signed a wide-ranging defence pact with the EU, as Donald Trump and global instability prompt traditional US allies to deepen their alliances.

Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, on Monday joined European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and head of the European Council, António Costa, in Brussels, where they signed a security and defence partnership, pledged more support for Ukraine, as well as joint work on issues from the climate crisis to artificial intelligence.

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‘Handcuffed like we’re criminals’: Ohio teen soccer star recounts deportation

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Emerson Colindres reflects on ‘traumatizing’ ordeal after Ice sent him to Honduras despite having no criminal record

The Ohio high school graduate and soccer standout who was recently deported from the US to Honduras despite having no arrest record has described being “handcuffed like we’re some big criminals” for the entirety of his deportation flight.

“To me, it was kind of more traumatizing because I haven’t been to my birth country in years,” Emerson Colindres, 19, who was brought from Honduras to the US by his family at age eight, said to the Cincinnati news station WCPO in an interview over the weekend.

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Brazil hot-air balloon crash kills at least eight people amid ‘desperate’ scenes

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Witnesses say some of those onboard hurled themselves out to escape flames as reports say fire started from torch in balloon’s basket

At least eight people have died after a hot-air balloon carrying more than 20 people caught fire and plunged through the sky in Brazil’s deep south.

Footage posted on social media showed the moment the multi-coloured aircraft fell to earth, engulfed in flames, in the state of Santa Catarina on Saturday morning. At least two of the balloon’s occupants can be seen plummeting to the ground as the fire spreads. “My God!” one witness can be heard gasping as the basket hurtles towards the ground.

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Two hikers killed by major rockfall on popular trail in Canada

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‘Basically a whole shelf of a mountain came loose’ said one person who fled the scene in Banff National Park

Two people have been killed and another three injured when a major rockfall crashed onto a group of hikers on a popular Rocky Mountain trail in western Canada.

The accident happened on Thursday near the Bow Glacier Falls in Banff National Park, about 225km (140 miles) north-west of Calgary, Alberta. The area is known for its natural beauty and is particularly busy in summer.

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Canada poised to pass infrastructure bill despite pushback from Indigenous people

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Bill prioritizes ‘nation-building’ pipelines and mines, causing concern that sped-up approvals will override constitutional rights

Canada’s Liberal government is poised to pass controversial legislation on Friday that aims to kick-start “nation building” infrastructure projects but has received widespread pushback from Indigenous communities over fears it tramples on their constitutional rights.

On its final day of sitting before breaking for summer, parliament is expected to vote on Bill C-5. The legislation promised by Mark Carney, the prime minister, during the federal election, is meant to strengthen Canada’s economy amid a trade war launched by Donald Trump.

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Expedition to ‘real home of the pirates of the Caribbean’ hopes to unearth ships and treasure

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Exploration of Bahamas seabed will be first time notorious New Providence hideout has been searched

The Pirates of the Caribbean is a $4.5bn swashbuckling film franchise and Blackbeard and Calico Jack Rackham are among marauding buccaneers who have captured imaginations over the centuries.

But almost nothing is known about the life and times of actual pirates.

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New Rio de Janeiro law requires public hospitals to display anti-abortion signs

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Opponents view the controversial act as part of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict abortion access

A new law has just come into force in Rio de Janeiro requiring all public hospitals and clinics run by the municipal government to display anti-abortion signs bearing messages such as: “Did you know that the unborn child is discarded as hospital waste?”

Reproductive rights activists view the act as the latest example of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict access to abortion in a country that already has some of the world’s most restrictive laws.

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Canadian intelligence accuses India over Sikh’s killing as Carney meets Modi

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Killing of Canadian national was ‘significant escalation in India’s repression efforts’ but leaders shake hands at G7

Canada’s spy agency has warned that the assassination in British Columbia of a prominent Sikh activist signaled a “significant escalation in India’s repression efforts” and reflects a broader, transnational campaign by the government in New Delhi to threaten dissidents.

The report was made public a day after Mark Carney shook hands with Narendra Modi at the G7 and pledged to restore diplomatic relations in a very public attempt to turn the page on the bitter diplomatic row unleashed by the murder of the Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

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Former Argentinian president Cristina Fernández allowed to serve corruption sentence at home

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Judge rules Cristina Fernández de Kirchner can serve six-year sentence in apartment, citing age and security reasons

A federal court in Argentina has granted former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s request to serve a six-year prison sentence for corruption at her home in Buenos Aires.

Judges ruled that Fernández, 72, can serve time in the apartment, where she lives with her daughter and her granddaughter, citing her age and security reasons. Fernández was the victim of an attempted assassination three years ago.

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New charges accuse Bolsonaro of running spy ring from Brazil’s presidential palace

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Former president has denied wrongdoing as federal police accuse him of overseeing a spy network targeting rivals

Federal police have formally accused Brazil’s former far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, of presiding over an illegal spying network which allegedly snooped on political rivals, journalists and environmentalists during his administration.

Bolsonaro is already facing the prospect of jail time over his alleged role in masterminding a military coup plot designed to help him keep power after losing the 2022 election to the leftwing veteran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There is broad consensus among analysts that Bolsonaro’s conviction is a foregone conclusion and the 70-year-old populist is expected to face arrest in the coming months once a supreme court trial concludes.

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