An underwater gas leak caused a whirling vortex of fire to spew out of the ocean surface west of Mexico's Yucatán peninsula on 3 July. The fire began in an underwater pipeline connected to a platform owned by the state oil company Pemex. The fire took more than five hours to put out and no injuries were reported
Continue reading...Category Archives: Americas
Malawi Pride and press freedoms in Palestine: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Chile to Cambodia
Continue reading...Cuba evacuates 70,000 as Tropical Storm Elsa threatens heavy flooding
- Storm leaves three dead after battering Caribbean
- State of emergency declared in Florida
Cuba evacuated 70,000 people in its southern region on Sunday, amid fears that Tropical Storm Elsa could unleash heavy flooding after battering several Caribbean islands and killing at least three people.
Related: Miami condo collapse: death toll at 24 as search pauses for demolition
Continue reading...Cheek to cheek: keeping the tango alive during Covid in Buenos Aires | photo essay
The dance that depends on what Covid prevents – close physical intimacy – is not only a cultural passion but also now a threatened source of income for many workers. Photographer Anita Pouchard Serra, with support from the National Geographic Society, has been documenting how dancers are surviving the crisis
In a pretty little plaza next to a railway track, there is proof that not even a pandemic can keep us apart.
Five couples lean in, cheek to cheek, marking steps that mirror the circuitous route of life. If there is a map, it rises out of a portable speaker, and the melancholic poetry of a tango.
Continue reading...Burned churches stir deep Indigenous ambivalence over faith of forefathers
After hundreds of unmarked graves were found at Canada’s former Catholic-run residential schools, churches in First Nations territories have been destroyed by suspected arson
For more than a century, the clapboard church set amid rolling hills in western Canada has been a spiritual home to the Upper Similkameen Indian Band.
To build St Anne’s, residents of Chuchuwayha Indian Reserve #2 travelled 40 miles to the closest town, hauling lumber back to their community by horse and wagon.
Continue reading...Three people dead as Tropical Storm Elsa nears Cuba
Storm kills one person in St Lucia and a 15-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman in the Dominican Republic
Cuba prepared to evacuate people along the island’s southern region on Sunday amid fears that Tropical Storm Elsa could unleash heavy flooding after battering several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people.
The government on Sunday opened shelters and moved to protect sugarcane and cocoa crops ahead of the storm, whose next target was Florida, where governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 15 counties, including in Miami-Dade County where the high-rise condominium building collapsed last week.
Continue reading...Private plane crash in Haiti kills all six on board, including two Americans
Six people on board a private plane were killed when the aircraft crashed in Haiti, the identities of the other four people are not known
All six people on board a private plane, including two American missionaries, were killed when the aircraft crashed in Haiti, southwest of capital Port-au-Prince, according to media reports and a missionary group.
The plane went down on Friday evening en route from an airport in Port-au-Prince to the southern coastal city of Jacmel, typically a short flight, reported the Miami Herald, citing a statement by the National Civil Aviation Office (NCAO). Reuters could not independently confirm the report.
Continue reading...Brazilians take to streets to demand removal of Jair Bolsonaro
Calls for president’s impeachment grow amid claims government sought to profit from Covid jabs
Huge crowds of protesters have returned to the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities to demand the removal of a president they blame for more than half a million coronavirus deaths.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators hit the streets of Rio de Janeiro on Saturday morning as calls for Jair Bolsonaro’s impeachment intensified after allegations that members of his government had sought to illegally profit from the purchase of Covid vaccines.
Continue reading...‘We thought it wouldn’t affect us’: heatwave forces climate reckoning in Pacific north-west
Left-leaning states had focused on how global heating would affect others. Then the ‘heat dome’ arrived
The record heatwave in the Pacific north-west is forcing a reckoning on the climate crisis, as many living in the typically mild region consider what rising temperatures mean for the future.
A “heat dome” without parallel trapped hot air over much of the states of Oregon and Washington in the United States, and southern British Columbia in Canada, in past days, shattering weather records in the usually temperate region.
Continue reading...‘Eye of fire’: Gas leak sparks huge blaze on ocean surface off Mexico
Flames that raged near a Pemex oil platform took more than five hours to extinguish
A fire on the ocean surface west of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula has been extinguished, state oil company Pemex said, blaming a gas leak from an underwater pipeline for sparking the blaze captured in videos that went viral.
Bright orange flames jumping out of water resembling molten lava was dubbed an “eye of fire” on social media due to the blaze’s circular shape, as it raged a short distance from a Pemex oil platform early on Friday.
Continue reading...Record heatwave may have killed 500 people in western Canada
British Columbia reports jump in number of ‘sudden and unexpected deaths’ and links them to extreme weather
Nearly 500 people may have been killed by record-breaking temperatures in Canada’s westernmost province, as officials warn the grim toll from “heat dome” could rise again as more deaths are reported.
On Friday, British Columbia’s chief coroner said that 719 “sudden and unexpected deaths” had been reported over the past week – triple the number during a similar period in a typical year.
Continue reading...Deadly British Columbia heatwave sows wildfires across Canada’s west
Residents recovering from record-breaking temperatures face a new threat, with more than 100 fires burning
On the heels of an unprecedented heatwave that left hundreds dead in British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province is now battling a fresh threat.
More than 100 wildfires are burning across the province, as of late on Thursday, 86 of which started in the past two days. Evacuation orders and alerts have gone out in a dozen communities. The province’s premier, John Horgan, suggested that the crisis could become dire enough to see the Canadian military deployed.
Continue reading...Canadian inferno: northern heat exceeds worst-case climate models
Scientists fear heat domes in North America and Siberia indicate a new dimension to the global crisis
If you were drawing up a list of possible locations for hell on Earth before this week, the small mountain village of Lytton in Canada would probably not have entered your mind.
Few people outside British Columbia had heard of this community of 250 people. Those who had were more likely to think of it as bucolic. Nestled by a confluence of rivers in the forested foothills of the Lillooet and Botanie mountain ranges, the municipal website boasts: “Lytton is the ideal location for nature lovers to connect with incredible natural beauty and fresh air freedom.”
Continue reading...Brazilian presidential hopeful Eduardo Leite comes out as gay
But governor who hopes to challenge Jair Bolsonaro next year backed the far-right leader in 2018
One of Brazil’s leading politicians, the presidential hopeful Eduardo Leite, has announced he is gay – a rare move celebrated by many as a triumph over prejudice in a country whose president has declared himself a proud homophobe.
Leite, the 36-year-old governor of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, made the announcement on Thursday night during an interview with the country’s top broadcaster, TV Globo.
Continue reading...Queen Victoria statue toppled in Canada over deaths of indigenous children – video
Protesters in Manitoba have pulled down a statue of Queen Victoria outside the state legislature as outrage grows over the discovery of unmarked graves belonging to indigenous children sent to the country’s notorious residential schools. A smaller statue of Elizabeth II was also toppled on the east side of the grounds. Both royals are seen as representative of the country’s colonial history
Continue reading...Queen Victoria statue toppled in Canada amid anger at deaths of Indigenous children
Smaller statue of Queen Elizabeth also removed in Winnipeg during protest at treatment of Indigenous children in notorious residential schools
A statue of Queen Victoria has been toppled in Canada amid growing outrage over the discovery of unmarked graves belonging to Indigenous children.
A group gathered at the Manitoba legislature pulled down the statue on Canada Day – an annual celebration on 1 July that marks the country’s confederation.
Continue reading...Canada heatwave: resident films escape from wildfire as flames engulf Lytton village – video
Buildings, cars and trees are shown ablaze in footage taken by a resident fleeing a wildfire in the British Columbia village of Lytton. Flames tore through the settlement 95 miles north-east of Vancouver so fast that officials did not even have time to issue evacuation orders. Within hours, most of the village's buildings had been consumed by flames.
A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to help people who have lost their homes
This video has no sound.
- ‘Lytton is gone’: wildfire tears through village after record-breaking heat
- Nowhere is safe, say scientists as extreme heat causes chaos in US and Canada
- British Columbia sees 195% increase in sudden deaths during Canada heatwave
‘Lytton is gone’: wildfire tears through village after record-breaking heat
Officials didn’t have time to issue evacuation orders while dry conditions make suppressing wildfires in Canada impossible
After three days of unrelenting heat, the people in the British Columbia village of Lytton were hoping for a modest respite.
Temperatures which had shattered longstanding national records – at one point reaching a blistering 49.6C (121.28F) – eased slightly on Wednesday, raising hopes that the worst was over.
Continue reading...How residential schools in Canada robbed Indigenous children of their identity and lives – video
In Canada, more than 1,000 unmarked graves have been discovered on the grounds of three former church-run residential schools, where an estimated 150,000 First Nations children were sent as part of a campaign of forced assimilation for more than a century until 1996.
On Wednesday, the remains of 182 people were found at a former school in British Columbia – weeks after 215 unmarked graves were found at an institution in the province and 751 in Saskatchewan.
A historic truth and reconciliation commission was conducted in the 2000s. In 2015 it concluded that the residential school system amounted to cultural genocide and that unmarked graves would be found in the former school grounds, but the recent findings still shocked many Canadians and prompted calls for a new investigation. Leyland Cecco explains how the discovery is just the tip of the iceberg in uncovering Canada's traumatic colonial past
Continue reading...Forget GDP, ‘vulnerability index best gauges aid’ to small islands
Commonwealth research says UVI is better measure of small island states’ aid needs, especially on climate
Small island nations on the climate crisis frontlines have been overlooked in overseas aid, according to a new index.
Urging a move away from the current benchmark of using gross domestic product (GDP) to measure aid allocation, researchers from the Commonwealth secretariat and the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (Ferdi), a French thinktank, have developed the universal vulnerability index (UVI) as an alternative. GDP, they claim, fails to reflect the realities nations face, particularly on climate.
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