Press secretary voices concern over widely shared images as more than 6,000 migrants removed from Texas encampment
The White House on Monday responded critically to widely shared images of US border patrol agents in Texas rounding up Haitian migrants on horseback.
Related: Haitian migrants intend to remain at Texas border despite plan to expel them
Continue reading...Forensic necropsy of a female grizzly bear suggests she was killed by a goat, after the horns pierced the bear’s armpits and neck
With their long, sharp claws and frightening speed, few predators in Canada’s wild hinterlands attack as mercilessly as a hungry grizzly bear.
But in a rare turn of events, park officials say a mountain goat not only defended itself from becoming a meal, but was able to kill the attacking bear with its “dagger-like” horns.
Continue reading...Post-vaccination election gamble may backfire as parties face off in tightly contested vote battle
As Canadians head to the polls on Monday, prime minister Justin Trudeau will be watching nervously to see if his gamble to call an election will win his party more power in parliament – or leave him with even fewer seats and rivals sensing a growing political weakness.
But in a tightly contested election marred by a public health crisis and concerns over delays in ballot counting, it could take days to learn the winner.
Continue reading...Thousands seeking to escape poverty and hunger in their own country remain encamped under and near a bridge in Del Rio
Haitian migrants seeking to escape poverty, hunger and hopelessness in their home country said they would not be deterred by US plans to swiftly send them back, as thousands remained encamped on the Texas border.
Related: How thousands of Haitian migrants ended up at the Texas border
Continue reading...Plan will likely involve five to eight flights a day, with San Antonio potentially among departure cities
The Biden administration on Saturday was working on plans to send many of the thousands of Haitian immigrants who have gathered in a Texas border city back to their homeland, a swift response to the huge influx of people who suddenly crossed from Mexico and congregated under and around a bridge.
Related: ‘A forgotten disaster’: earthquake-hit Haitians left to fend for themselves
Continue reading...The country’s greatest living writer feels ‘surprised, bewildered and assaulted’ after the president issued a warrant for his arrest and seized copies of his new novel about the 2018 uprising
Sergio Ramírez, Nicaragua’s best-known living writer, hero of the Sandinista revolution, and former vice-president of the volcanic Central American nation, has lived through both tougher times and duller publicity tours.
Even so, the past few days have been – as he puts it, with a degree of understatement – “an odd experience”.
Continue reading...Campaigners fear ban emboldens anti-choice governments as more aggressive opposition, better organised and funded, spreads from US
The new anti-abortion law in Texas is a “terrifying” reminder of the fragility of hard-won rights, pro-choice activists have said, as they warn of a “more aggressive, much better organised [and] better funded” global opposition movement.
Pro-choice campaigners have seen several victories in recent years, including in Ireland, Argentina and, most recently, Mexico, where the supreme court ruled last week that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. Another is hoped for later this month when the tiny enclave of San Marino, landlocked within Italy, holds a highly charged referendum.
Continue reading...Canada already shares intelligence with Australia, the UK, the US and New Zealand but was not included in Aukus pact
Justin Trudeau is facing harsh criticism from political rivals after Canada was excluded from a new international defence pact, days before the country votes in a federal election.
Australia, the United Kingdom and the United State on Wednesday announced a new intelligence sharing agreement meant to counter Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Continue reading...Absence of a firm decision by Peru’s new leftist government has sown doubts about the cabinet’s willingness to act
Nearly a week after the death of Abimael Guzmán, the messianic leader of Peru’s Shining Path insurgency which killed tens of thousands of people in the 1980s and 90s, the country remains gripped by the debate over what to do with his remains.
At least one local media outlet reported that the cabinet voted on Wednesday 13 to 5 to reject a proposal for a supreme decree that would lay the legal framework to cremate the remains of the former guerrilla leader, who died on Saturday in a maximum-security prison aged 86.
Continue reading...Residents of Shoal Lake 40 can drink from taps thanks to a new water treatment facility but dozens of communities lack access
Residents of a First Nations community in Canada, who were deprived of clean drinking water for nearly a quarter of a century, can now drink from their taps after a water treatment facility became fully operational earlier this week.
Shoal Lake 40, a community on the Manitoba-Ontario border, has been under drinking water advisory since 1997.
Continue reading...Premier Jason Kennedy admits ‘we were wrong –and, for that, I apologize’ as he warns ICU beds may run out in 10 days
Alberta’s premier has announced sweeping new restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus, admitting the Canadian province was gripped by a “crisis of the unvaccinated”.
The new measures marked a major reversal from Jason Kenney’s hands-off approach to the pandemic previously, and come amid warnings from frontline medical workers that the province’s healthcare system is on the verge of collapse.
Continue reading...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.’”
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