Canada: at least 160 more unmarked graves found in British Columbia

  • Penelakut Tribe says graves found close to ex-residential school
  • Kuper Island school run by Catholic church closed in 1975

A First Nations community in western Canada has announced the discovery of at least 160 unmarked graves close to a former residential school – the latest in a series of grim announcements from across the country in recent weeks.

Members of the Penelakut Tribe in south-western British Columbia said in a statement late on Monday that the graves had been discovered near the site of the Kuper Island industrial school on Penelakut Island, nearly 90km north of the provincial capital Victoria.

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Weatherwatch: fog traps capture water in Atacama desert

A nanofiber mesh makes the traps more efficient and could help provide clean drinking water

Chile’s Atacama desert is famously dry, with virtually no measurable rainfall. It is coastal though, with a sea breeze blowing inland. New technology could help draw precious water from the sea air.

Fog traps are mesh screens that capture droplets of fog; when enough water accumulates it runs down into a collector. Fog traps have been used on a small scale since the 1960s, with a square metre of mesh collecting enough drinking water for one person.

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Cuban president claims protests part of US plot to ‘fracture’ Communist party

Cuban officials blame the US for Sunday’s demonstrations as Biden calls on island’s leaders to hear citizens’ ‘clarion call for freedom’

The Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has attacked the “shameful delinquents” he claimed were trying to “fracture” his country’s communist revolution after the Caribbean island witnessed its largest anti-government protests in nearly three decades.

As Cuban officials blamed the US for Sunday’s demonstrations, Joe Biden called on the island’s leaders to hear its citizens’ “clarion call for freedom”.

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Thousands join rare anti-government protests in Cuba – video

The biggest mass demonstrations for three decades have rippled through Cuba, as thousands took to the streets in cities throughout the island, demonstrating against food shortages, high prices and communist rule. President Miguel Díaz-Canel blamed the unrest on foreign influence and said that ‘destabilisation in our country’ would be met with a ‘revolutionary response’. Cubans are living through the gravest economic crisis the country has known for 30 years

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Haiti president’s assassination: what we know so far

Only a few things are known for sure about the killing of Jovenel Moïse, with many unanswered questions

There are few things that can be said with absolute certainty about the assassination save for the fact that at some point during the night of Wednesday 7 July, the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, was shot and killed at his private residence in the hills above the capital, Port-au-Prince, during an attack in which his wife, Martine, was also severely injured. Although the official account of the attack places it at about 1am, even that timeline has been questioned.

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Haiti police say murder suspect is middleman living in Florida

Items found at Christian Emmanuel Sanon’s house include bullets, gun parts and US drug agency hat

Police in Haiti say the latest suspect arrested in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse is a Haitian living in Florida who acted as a middleman between the alleged hitmen and the plot’s unnamed masterminds.

The suspect was identified by police as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian in his 60s living in Florida who describes himself as a doctor and has accused his homeland’s leaders of corruption.

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Thousands march in Cuba in rare mass protests amid economic crisis

US sanctions and coronavirus crisis lead to food shortages and high prices, sparking one of the biggest such demonstrations in memory

The biggest mass demonstrations for three decades have rippled through Cuba, as thousands took to the streets in cities throughout the island, demonstrating against food shortages, high prices and communist rule.

The protests began in the morning, in the town of San Antonio de los Baños in the west of the island, and in the city of Palma Soriano in the east. In both cases protesters numbered in the hundreds.

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Haiti crisis deepens as alleged hitman’s sister vows to clear his name

Duberney Capador, killed after assassination of Jovenel Moïse, was hired by security firm to protect ‘important people’, says sister

The sister of one of the alleged Colombian hitmen accused of assassinating Haiti’s president has insisted he is innocent and vowed to clear her dead brother’s name, as a potentially destabilising power struggle gripped the Caribbean country.

Duberney Capador, a retired member of Colombia’s special forces, was one of two Colombians reportedly killed by Haitian security forces last week after the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in Port-au-Prince. More than a dozen citizens of the South American country have so far been arrested, as well as two Haitian Americans.

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Top rightwing Brazil newspaper demands removal of Bolsonaro

Call comes as outrage over Covid and corruption drags president’s ratings to lowest ever level

One of Brazil’s leading conservative newspapers has demanded the removal of the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, as public outrage over his coronavirus response and corruption dragged the rightwing populist’s ratings to their lowest ever level.

“Jair Bolsonaro is no longer in a position to remain in the presidency,” O Estado de São Paulo declared on Sunday as polls showed that for the first time a majority of citizens backed impeachment and considered their leader incapable of governing.

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Jovenel Moïse obituary

Haitian president whose five-year rule was mired in allegations of corruption and brutality

The five-year rule of the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, who has died aged 53 after being assassinated at his home, was dominated by allegations of corruption and brutality. At the time of his death there was a dispute about the handover of power, and Moïse, who last year had dissolved the country’s parliament, was essentially running Haiti by decree, much as Napoleon had done more than 200 years before.

In 2016, Moïse inherited a country still trying to recover from the 2010 devastating earthquake as well as Hurricane Matthew, which had hit just a month before. However, under his presidency, Haitians endured worsening living standards, including rampant unemployment, in a nation where more than half the population live below the poverty line. Inflation spiralled upwards and food and fuel became scarcer.

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Widow of Haitian president releases first statement since assassination – audio

The hospitalised wife of Haiti's assassinated president, Jovenel Moïse, has given her first public statement since being wounded in the attack that killed him, accusing enemies of wanting 'to kill his dream, his vision, his ideology'. But fresh questions have been raised over Haiti’s official narrative for the assassination, as uncertainty gripped the Caribbean country and the streets of the capital remained eerily quiet amid fears Haiti is lurching into a new phase of political and social upheaval

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Haitian leader’s widow blames political enemies as power struggle intensifies

A voice recording on Martine Moïse’s Twitter page accuses enemies of trying to stop democratic change

The widow of the murdered Haitian president Jovenel Moïse has accused shadowy enemies of organising his assassination to stop democratic change, as a struggle for power intensified in the Caribbean nation.

Haiti has been reeling since Moïse was gunned down early on Wednesday at his home in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Martine Moïse, who was wounded in the attack, said her husband was targeted for political reasons.

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Doubts raised about who was behind the assassination of Haiti’s president

Police claims that Jovenel Moïse was killed by a mainly Colombian hit squad thrown into doubt

Questions have been raised over Haiti’s official narrative for the assassination of its president, Jovenel Moïse, who was gunned down at his mansion in Port-au-Prince last Wednesday.

Haitian police and the politicians who stepped into the political vacuum created by Moïse’s killing have claimed he was shot at about 1am by members of a predominantly Colombian hit squad who had stormed the president’s hillside residence. “Foreigners came to our country to kill the president,” police chief Léon Charles alleged after the shooting.

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Vancouver judge’s decision over Huawei finance chief may deepen US-China row

Judge refuses to admit new evidence that might have helped Meng Wanzhou avoid extradition to US

The prospect of a deepening diplomatic row between the US and China has grown after a Canadian judge refused to admit new evidence that might have helped the Huawei chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, avoid extradition to the US.

The arrest of Meng, the daughter of the Chinese telecommunication company’s billionaire founder, has prompted a sharp deterioration in relations between Canada, the US and China. Soon after Meng’s detention in Vancouver in December 2018, China arrested two Canadians in China: Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.

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Haiti requests US troops to protect infrastructure after assassination

• Elections minister calls for US help amid political instability

• Previous foreign interventions have proved controversial

Haiti’s government has requested that the United States send troops to protect key infrastructure following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse this week, the elections minister, Mathias Pierre, said on Friday.

Related: Why were Colombian guns for hire allegedly key to Haiti assassination plot?

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Why were Colombian guns for hire allegedly key to Haiti assassination plot?

The hit squad that killed President Jovenel Moïse is alleged to be largely drawn from veterans of Colombia’s civil conflicts

When Manuel Antonio Grosso Guarín jetted into Punta Cana’s tourist-clogged airport early last month on Avianca Flight 252, immigration officials are unlikely to have given the 41-year-old Colombian a second glance. Visitors from around the globe flock to this Dominican resort town each week in search of sun, sea and Caribbean sands.

Grosso appears to have had rather different plans, though: to sneak over the border into neighbouring Haiti and help assassinate that country’s president.

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Haiti: crowds protest after arrest of Jovenel Moïse assassination suspects – video

Crowds gathered outside police headquarters, demanding information, after the arrest of 17 men believed to be involved in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on Wednesday. 

Police say they believe a heavily armed commando unit composed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans assassinated Moïse, as the search for the rest of the group continues

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Florida entrepreneur accused by Haiti of taking part in Jovenel Moïse killing

James Solages is one of two Haitian Americans the government said it arrested in connection with the killing at the presidential residence

The Haitian government has accused a Florida entrepreneur and former security guard of being involved in the assassination of Jovenel Moïse.

James Solages is one of two Haitian Americans the government said it arrested in Port-au-Prince in connection with Wednesday’s killing at the presidential residence. The other was named as Joseph Vincent, but there is little known about him.

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Haiti president assassination: 26 Colombians, two US-Haitians took part in Jovenel Moïse killing, police say

Seventeen captured men paraded in front of journalists, as police chief says another three were killed and eight remain on the run

A heavily armed commando unit that assassinated Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, was composed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, authorities have said, as the hunt goes on for the masterminds of the killing.

Moïse, 53, was fatally shot early on Wednesday at his home by what officials said was a group of foreign, trained killers, pitching the poorest country in the Americas deeper into turmoil amid political divisions, hunger and widespread gang violence.

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The Guardian view on the heat dome: burning through the models | Editorial

Politicians must respond to the latest warnings that climate science has underestimated risks

Last week’s shockingly high temperatures in the northwestern US and Canada were – and are – very frightening. Heat and the fires it caused killed hundreds of people, and are estimated to have killed a billion sea creatures. Daily temperature records were smashed by more than 5C (9F) in some places. In Lytton, British Columbia, the heat reached 49.6C (121F). The wildfires that consumed the town produced their own thunderstorms, alongside thousands of lightning strikes.

An initial study shows human activity made this heat dome – in which a ridge of high pressure acts as a lid preventing warm air from escaping – at least 150 times more likely. The World Weather Attribution Group of scientists, who use computer climate models to assess global heating trends and extreme weather, have warned that last week exceeded even their worst-case scenarios. While it has long been recognised that the climate system has thresholds or tipping points beyond which humans stand to lose control of what happens, scientists did not hide their alarm that an usually cool part of the Pacific northwest had been turned into a furnace. One climatologist said the prospect opened up by the heat dome “blows my mind”.

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