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
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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
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- ‘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.
Continue reading...British Columbia sees 195% increase in sudden deaths during Canada heatwave
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.
Continue reading...Latest First Nations discovery reveals 182 unmarked graves at Canada school
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.
Continue reading...Covid tourism freeze could cost global economy $4tn by year end
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.
Continue reading...Bolsonaro fires health official who reportedly asked for vaccine deal bribe
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.
Continue reading...My relatives went to a Catholic school for Native children. It was a place of horrors | Nick Estes
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
Continue reading...Fears for Chilean indigenous leader’s safety after police shooting
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.
Continue reading...Calls to cancel Canada Day after graves found: ‘Indigenous people paid with their lives’
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.
Continue reading...Record-breaking heatwave sweeps Canada – in pictures
A searing heatwave that settled over western Canada has been blamed for contributing to the deaths of dozens of people in the Vancouver area
Continue reading...Offsets being used in Colombia to dodge carbon taxes – report
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.
Continue reading...Honduran state responsible for trans woman’s murder – court
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.
Continue reading...Canada has lost its halo: we must confront our Indigenous genocide | Tara Sutton
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.
Continue reading...Former Peru dictator’s spymaster reappears in alleged plot to swing recount
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.
Continue reading...Brazil could have stopped 400,000 Covid deaths with better government response, expert says
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.
Continue reading...The children’s graves at residential schools in Canada evoke the massacres of Indigenous Australians | William Pengarte Tilmouth
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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