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?
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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
Continue reading...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
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.’”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms from Thailand to Texas
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...In the developing world most people are not factory farming and livestock is essential to preventing poverty and malnutrition
The pandemic has pushed poverty and malnutrition to rates not seen in more than a decade, wiping out years of progress. In 2020, the number of people in extreme poverty rose by 97 million and the number of malnourished people by between 118 million and 161 million.
Recent data from the World Bank and the UN shows how poverty is heavily concentrated in rural communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America where people are surviving by smallholder farming. This autumn there will be two key events that could rally support for them.
Continue reading...Leaked supply document reveals clauses to protect US pharma company from legal action in the event of serious side-effects
Pfizer has been accused of holding Brazil “to ransom” over demands to shield itself from possible vaccine side-effect lawsuits in its contract to supply the country with 100m Covid jabs.
In its $1bn (£700m) deal with Pfizer Export BV, signed in March, despite its prior complaints, the Brazilian government agreed that “a liability waiver be signed for any possible side-effects of the vaccine, exempting Pfizer from any civil liability for serious side-effects arising from the use of the vaccine, indefinitely”.
Continue reading...Gen Hugo Carvajal, who had defied a Spanish extradition order and disappeared, was arrested on Thursday night
Police in Madrid have arrested a former Venezuelan spymaster on US narcotics charges nearly two years after he defied a Spanish extradition order and disappeared.
Gen Hugo Carvajal, who for over a decade was Hugo Chávez’s eyes and ears in the military, was arrested on Thursday night at a small apartment where he had been holed up.
Continue reading...Canadian PM’s response to Rebel Media goes viral after court victory allows them to attend election debate
Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has slammed a far-right website in the final days of the country’s federal election, accusing it of spreading misinformation about coronavirus vaccines and contributing to the growing number of protests across the country.
After Wednesday night’s French language debate between federal leaders, Trudeau was asked by a member of Rebel News – a website whose contributors have included Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson – if he would continue to exclude the group from covering the election.
Continue reading...Justices decision to decriminalise abortion was based on human rights arguments and will mean fewer criminal investigations
Activists in Mexico have hailed a supreme court decision to decriminalise abortion, saying it would stop the legal prosecution of women who terminate their pregnancies – and those reported to the authorities after suffering miscarriages.
The decision, handed down unanimously on Tuesday, declared that criminal sanctions for abortion in the northern state of Coahuila were unconstitutional. The decision sets precedent, according to lawyers involved in abortion cases, and will be applicable across the country.
Continue reading...The number of children without carers is still not known, leaving them prey to gangs and abuse
Lilian, six years old and alone, still asks when her mother will return from the market on the edge of Les Cayes in southern Haiti.
When last month’s earthquake struck, Lilian was at home, occasionally checked on by her neighbours as her mother, Genieve, was selling fruit a few blocks away. When the ground began to convulse, the market partly collapsed. Genieve was hit by falling concrete and buried under rubble. Her death has left Lilian without anyone to care for her.
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