Category Archives: Americas

British Columbia sees 195% increase in sudden deaths during Canada heatwave

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Chief coroner says more than 300 deaths could be attributed to the extreme temperatures

At least 486 sudden deaths were reported over five days during British Columbia’s unprecedented heatwave, suggesting the extreme weather that affected western Canada in recent days was far deadlier than initially believed.

Typically, 165 sudden deaths would occur in the province over that period, the province’s chief coroner said, suggesting more than 300 deaths could be attributed to the heat. The new tally, announced on Wednesday, marks a 195% increase over normal years.

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Latest First Nations discovery reveals 182 unmarked graves at Canada school

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Lower Kootenay Band finds human remains at former residential school in British Columbia – the third such discovery in weeks

A First Nations community in western Canada has discovered the remains of nearly 200 people on the grounds of a former residential school, adding to the growing tally of unmarked graves across the country.

The Lower Kootenay Band said on Wednesday that ground-penetrating radar had revealed 182 human remains at St Eugene’s Mission residential school, near the city of Cranbrook, British Columbia. Some of the remains were buried in shallow graves only three and four feet deep.

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Covid tourism freeze could cost global economy $4tn by year end

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Turkey, Ecuador and South Africa will be among hardest hit as pandemic-related losses reach $2.4tn, says UN report

The cost to the global economy of the tourism freeze caused by Covid-19 could reach $4tn (£2.9tn) by the end of this year, a UN body has said, with the varying pace of vaccine rollouts expected to cost developing nations and tourist centres particularly dear.

Nations including Turkey and Ecuador will be among the hardest hit by the severe disruption to international tourism, with holiday favourites such as Spain, Greece and Portugal also badly affected. Pandemic-related losses have reached up to $2.4tn this year, according to a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad). The potential lost tourism-related income in 2021 is equivalent to the effect of switching off 85% of the UK economy, while projected losses over 2020 and 2021 could equate to removing Germany from the global economy for two years.

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Bolsonaro fires health official who reportedly asked for vaccine deal bribe

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Brazil suspended contract on Tuesday for Covid vaccine deal from Bharat Biotech after allegations of undue pressure within ministry

Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has fired a health ministry official who reportedly asked for a bribe in a vaccine deal, the latest graft accusation to rock the government amid investigations of its pandemic response.

With over half a million Covid-19 deaths and more new cases daily than any other country, anger is mounting in Brazil over missed opportunities to buy coronavirus vaccines. Accusations of corruption undercutting efforts have poured fuel on the fire, triggering new calls for Bolsonaro’s impeachment.

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My relatives went to a Catholic school for Native children. It was a place of horrors | Nick Estes

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After the discovery of 751 unmarked graves at the site of a former school for Native children in Canada, it is time to investigate similar abuses in the US

There is so much mourning Native people have yet to do. The full magnitude of Native suffering has yet to be entirely understood, especially when it comes to the nightmarish legacies of American Indian boarding schools. The purpose of the schools was “civilization”, but, as I have written elsewhere, boarding schools served to provide access to Native land, by breaking up Native families and holding children hostage so their nations would cede more territory. And one of the primary benefactors of the boarding school system is the Catholic church, which is today the world’s largest non-governmental landowner, with roughly 177 million acres of property throughout the globe. Part of the evidence of how exactly the church acquired its wealth in North America is literally being unearthed, and it exists in stories of the Native children whose lives it stole, which includes my own family.

The full magnitude of Native suffering has yet to be entirely understood, especially when it comes to the nightmarish legacies of American Indian boarding schools

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Fears for Chilean indigenous leader’s safety after police shooting

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Alberto Curamil, an award-winning environmental activist, was seriously injured during a protest against the burning of a Mapuche home

Former recipients of a prestigious environmental award, together with Amnesty International and the lawyer of indigenous land rights defender Alberto Curamil, have launched an appeal for Curamil’s safety after he was seriously injured in a shooting by police.

Curamil, an indigenous Mapuche leader who in 2019 won the Goldman Environmental Prize (GEP), also known as the “green Nobel”, was left with 18 riot shotgun pellets embedded in his body after police chased his truck and opened fire after a protest against an arson attack on a Mapuche home on contested land in southern Chile.

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Calls to cancel Canada Day after graves found: ‘Indigenous people paid with their lives’

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Two grim discoveries on the grounds of former residential schools have shifted country’s mood as national day looms

Indigenous groups have called for Canada’s national celebration to be cancelled over the discovery of nearly 1,000 unmarked graves, most of which are believed to belong to Indigenous children.

July 1 marks 154 years since Canada became a country – and until recently, festivities in cities across the country were expected, amplified by the arrival of summer and the pent-up excitement of a country emerging from the coronavirus pandemic.

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Offsets being used in Colombia to dodge carbon taxes – report

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Fossil fuel levy can be avoided by buying carbon offsets that may have no benefit for climate

Forest protection carbon offsets that may have no benefit to the climate have been used by polluters to avoid paying carbon taxes in Colombia, according to a report.

In 2016, a levy of about $5 (£3.60) was introduced in the South American country to cover the use of some fossil fuels. However, companies that emit carbon dioxide can avoid paying the tax by buying carbon offsets from Colombian emission reduction projects, including those that conserve threatened natural carbon banks such as peatlands, forests and mangrove swamps.

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Honduran state responsible for trans woman’s murder – court

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Landmark ruling orders state to pay reparations, protect trans people and legalise gender change

In a landmark ruling for transgender rights, the Honduras government has been found responsible for the 2009 murder of the trans woman and activist Vicky Hernández. The ruling, at the inter-American court of human rights, was published on the 12th anniversary of Hernández’s death, and marks the first time the highest regional human rights court has held a state accountable for failing to prevent, investigate and prosecute the death of a trans person.

The court has ordered Honduras, which has the world’s highest rate of murders of trans people, to pay reparations to Hernández’s family and implement a sweeping range of measures designed to protect trans people, including anti-discrimination training for security forces and state collection of data on violence against LGBTQ+ people.

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Canada has lost its halo: we must confront our Indigenous genocide | Tara Sutton

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Hundreds of unmarked graves, and testimonies of countless horrors, belie our angelic self-image

It’s not often that Canadians have to apologise for their country. I’ve travelled the world reporting on conflict and human rights and am always greeted positively when I say I’m Canadian. “It is a beautiful country,” I am told. “Your country cares for its citizens.” In Canada, people make sympathetic noises when I retell whatever tragic story I have been working on. “We are so lucky to live in Canada,” they say.

Canadians like the idea of a “good” country full of “good” people. There’s even a name for it: “the angel complex”. Look at all the immigrants and refugees we welcome here, goes the doctrine – we’re not like those American racists, or those European xenophobes. Canada see itself as proudly multicultural, tolerant, peace-loving and polite. A beacon of light to the world.

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Former Peru dictator’s spymaster reappears in alleged plot to swing recount

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Vladimiro Montesinos secretly recorded apparently suggesting bribes be paid to secure election for Keiko Fujimori

He was known as the Peruvian Rasputin, the spymaster of one of the country’s most corrupt and brutal regimes.

Vladimiro Montesinos masterminded a network of political espionage, mining state coffers to control the military top brass, the courts, and the media, until he was brought down by one of his own videotapes, which showed him bribing politicians.

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Brazil could have stopped 400,000 Covid deaths with better government response, expert says

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Epidemiologist behind study on scale of disaster says Jair Bolsonaro’s government is ‘entirely’ responsible

Brazil could have saved 400,000 lives if the country had implemented stricter social distancing measures and launched a vaccination programme earlier, according to an eminent epidemiologist who is leading the first study to quantify the scale of the country’s Covid disaster.

Such policies would have prevented 80% of the half a million Covid deaths registered in one of the hardest-hit countries in the world, said Pedro Hallal, a professor at the Federal University of Pelotas.

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The children’s graves at residential schools in Canada evoke the massacres of Indigenous Australians | William Pengarte Tilmouth

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Until there is truth-telling in Australia about the colonisation process, reconciliation remains superficial

First Nations people across Australia are mourning with Canadian First Nations families as evidence mounts of hundreds of deaths of children at residential schools.

We are standing with our Canadian First Nations brothers and sisters on these recent horrific discoveries.

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‘You can’t cancel Pride’: the fight for LGBTQ+ rights amid the pandemic

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Lockdown hit LGBTQ+ communities hard but even as Pride events are called off there is hope and a promise that the parades will return

This month, for the second year in a row, there was no Pride parade in San Francisco, arguably the city most laden with history and symbolism for the LGBTQ+ community.

It is a decision Fred Lopez, who took over as executive director of San Francisco Pride at the beginning of last year describes as “heartbreaking”.

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Mexico supreme court strikes down laws that ban use of recreational marijuana

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Adults will be able to apply for permits to grow and consume cannabis after decision that moves country toward legalisation

Mexico’s supreme court has struck down laws prohibiting the use of recreational marijuana, moving the country toward cannabis legalisation even as the country’s congress drags its feet on a legalisation bill.

In an 8-3 decision on Monday, the court ruled that sections of the country’s general health law prohibiting personal consumption and home cultivation of marijuana were unconstitutional.

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Canada: two more Catholic churches on First Nations reserves destroyed by fire

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  • Investigators treating fires in British Columbia as suspicious
  • Anger over church’s historical role in forced assimilation

Two more Catholic churches on First Nations reserves in western Canada have been destroyed by fires that investigators are once again treating as suspicious.

Over the weekend, crews in southern British Columbia responded to early morning blazes at St Ann’s Church on Upper Similkameen Indian Band land, and the Chopaka Church on the lands of the Lower Similkameen Indian Band. Both churches, built from wood and more than 100 years old, were burned to the ground.

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Canada hits record temperature of 46.1C amid heatwave

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British Columbian village sets new record, with most of western Canada subject to heat warning

Canada has set its highest temperature on record after a village in British Columbia reached 46.1C (115F) on Sunday.

The temperature in Lytton, in the south of Canada’s western-most province, surpassed the previous national high of 45C (113F), set in Saskatchewan in 1937.

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