Photographer Tasha Hall creates what she calls ‘farmily’ portraits – featuring families and their animals. Hall, from British Columbia in Canada, says she got the idea after wanting to include all her furry friends in a family portrait. She now travels the world capturing other families with their livestock and pets
Continue reading...Category Archives: Americas
Canada pension fund CEO resigns after flying to Dubai for Covid vaccine
Mark Machin steps down from position after traveling for first dose of vaccine while most Canadians wait to receive their first jab
The head of Canada’s largest pension fund has resigned after disregarding public health advice and travelling to Dubai for a dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board announced on Friday that its CEO, Mark Machin, had stepped down from his position, after the Wall Street Journal first reported Machin’s trip late on Thursday.
Continue reading...Pro-choice protests in Warsaw and Myanmar coup: 20 photos on human rights this week
A roundup of the best photography on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Algeria to Uganda
‘A cause for worry’: Mexico’s monarch butterflies drop by 26% in year
Butterflies had bad year after four times as many trees were lost to illegal logging and extreme climate conditions
The number of monarch butterflies that reached their winter resting grounds in central Mexico decreased by about 26% this year, and four times as many trees were lost to illegal logging, drought and other causes, making 2020 a bad year for the butterflies.
The butterflies’ population covered only 2.1 hectares (5.2 acres) in 2020, compared to 2.8 hectares (6.9 acres) the previous year and about one-third of the 6.05 hectares (14.95 acres) detected in 2018, according to government figures.
Continue reading...Canada spy agency unwittingly seeks double agent in Le Carré ad gaffe
CSIS included quote from A Perfect Spy in tweet about job postings, bewildering Twitter users
For an intelligence agency seeking new recruits, the promises of adventure and intrigue found within the pages of famous spy novels might seem like a useful recruiting tool.
But promoting a double agent who lies to his family, betrays his country and ultimately takes his own life, is possibly not a strategy that will produce the best candidates.
Continue reading...Canada’s Covid plan under fire as air passengers evade hotel quarantine
Some arriving passengers are dodging mandatory three-night hotel stay while claims of sexual assault tarnish health plan
Less than a week after the introduction of new rules obliging international air travellers to quarantine at a hotel on arrival in Canada, the plan is facing criticism after allegations of sexual assault and reports that some passengers are ignoring the rules.
Amid growing concern that international travellers could pose a risk of spreading variants of the coronavirus, Canada began requiring anyone arriving from abroad to isolate at a hotel for up to three nights, beginning Monday.
Continue reading...Colombian police killed 86 people in 2020, report reveals
Instances of violence pointed to ‘structural and systematic’ abuses within the police force and sparked calls for reform
Police officers in Colombia killed 86 people last year, according to a local NGO which reported “structural and systematic” abuses in the South American nation’s police force.
Temblores, an non-governmental organization that monitors state violence, also documented 7,992 cases of assault and 30 cases of sexual violence, with migrant communities and Afro-Colombians often the victims.
Continue reading...Man leaves church and reunites with family after years in sanctuary from deportation
Alex García from Honduras sought sanctuary in Missouri church in 2017 under threat of removal from US by Trump administration
After three and a half years living inside a Missouri church to avoid deportation, a Honduran man has finally stepped outside, following a promise from Joe Biden’s administration to let him be.
Alex García, a married father of five, was slated for removal from the US in 2017, the first year of Donald Trump’s administration. Days before he would have been deported, Christ Church United Church of Christ in the St Louis suburb of Maplewood offered sanctuary.
Continue reading...‘My butter seems harder’: spread sparks furore over Canada’s dairy industry
Canadians voice suspicions over palm oil, raising questions over transparency in a powerful industry
It began with an innocent question on Twitter: was butter in Canada becoming more difficult to spread?
“My butter just seemed harder. It was during a very hot period and I noticed it wasn’t behaving right,” said Sylvain Charlebois, a professor of food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University who posted the tweet. “But I thought I was the only one experiencing this.”
Continue reading...Mexican president under fire for defending politician accused of rape
Amlo again clashes with women’s rights activists as he dismisses complaints against Félix Salgado Macedonio, candidate for governor
A growing row over a gubernatorial candidate facing accusations of rape has once again pitted Mexico’s populist president against women’s rights campaigners.
Félix Salgado Macedonio has registered to run for governor in southern Guerrero state with the ruling Morena party, despite accusations of sexual violence and rape by five women dating back as far as 1998.
Continue reading...Justin Trudeau says US leadership has been ‘sorely missed’ during first meeting with Biden
Canadian PM congratulates US president on rejoining Paris accord, saying ‘it’s nice when the Americans are not pulling out all the references to climate change’
Justin Trudeau has praised Joe Biden for rejoining the Paris climate accord during their first bilateral meeting, saying: “US leadership has been sorely missed over the past years.”
The Canadian prime minister added: “And I have to say as we were preparing the joint rollout of the communique on this, it’s nice when the Americans are not pulling out all the references to climate change and instead adding them in.”
Continue reading...Dozens dead after Ecuador prison riots sparked by gang fights and escape bid
At least 62 inmates have been killed in jails in three cities, with 800 police required to quell the violence
Sixty-two inmates have died in riots at prisons in three cities in Ecuador as a result of fights between rival gangs and an escape attempt.
Edmundo Moncayo, director of prisons, said in a news conference on Tuesday that 800 police offices have been helping to regain control of the facilities. Hundreds of officers from tactical units had been deployed since the clashes broke out late Monday.
Continue reading...Colombia’s ‘capital of horror’ despairs amid new wave of gang violence
President urged to act as rival gangs use death and intimidation in their brutal turf war for control of Buenaventura
Clenching a fist, Tatiana Angulo talked about the killings of her neighbours’ two teenage sons.
“They got mixed up in it,” said Angulo, 34, who runs a peace theatre group, reenacting the stories of local victims. “We used to be able to hang out and have a laugh on the street corners, but now that’s where the killings happen.”
Continue reading...Emma Coronel, wife of El Chapo, arrested on drug trafficking charges
Joint US-Mexican citizen has also been charged with conspiring to help arrange her husband’s escape from prison in 2015
Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of Mexico’s most notorious cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, has been arrested in Virginia on drug trafficking charges.
In a statement released on Monday, the US justice department said that Coronel, 31 – who is a joint US-Mexican citizen – was arrested at Dulles international airport and was scheduled to make her initial appearance in federal court on Tuesday via video conference.
Continue reading...‘It’s in our DNA’: tiny Costa Rica wants the world to take giant climate step
President says the time is finally right for international agreement to tackle biodiversity loss and global heating
When it comes to the environment, few countries rival Costa Rica in terms of action and ambition.
The tiny Central American nation is aiming for total decarbonisation by 2050, not just a “net zero” target. It has regrown large areas of tropical rainforest after suffering some of the highest rates of deforestation in the world in the 1970s and 1980s. Costa Ricans play a major role in international environmental politics, most notably Christiana Figueres, who helped to corral world leaders into agreeing the Paris accord.
Continue reading...How Cuba’s artists took to the kitchen to earn their crust in lockdown
As Covid pushed the island’s economy to the brink of collapse, musicians and film-makers found another way to be creative – cooking, baking and selling
Not far from Havana’s Plaza de la Revolucion, where Che Guevara stares out nine storeys high from the side of Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior, Julio Cesar Imperatori perches on the edge of a table in the kitchen of a shuttered restaurant.
“We started to run out of money,” he says of himself and two friends, Osmany and Wilson. “Everyone was closing down. No one was buying pictures. So we decided to do something. We thought, everyone’s gotta eat and my grandmother, Eldia, she has a recipe for pie. And so … the American Pie company.”
Continue reading...Joe Biden to meet Justin Trudeau of Canada after Keystone pipeline order
- Allies seek to turn page on strains of Donald Trump era
- Oil permit revocation and US goods order complicate picture
Joe Biden will hold his first bilateral meeting with the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, on Tuesday, the White House said on Saturday.
Related: Alberta leader says Biden's move to cancel Keystone pipeline a 'gut punch’
Continue reading...New stars on the American flag? Fresh hope as Puerto Rico and DC push for statehood
Five US territories float in constitutional limbo, but impetus is growing to put and end to a ‘fundamental democratic flaw’
One of the most powerful prosecutions of former US president Donald Trump last week came from Stacey Plaskett of the US Virgin Islands, the first delegate from an American territory to hold the position of impeachment manager.
Yet Plaskett’s status meant that she was unable to vote for Trump’s impeachment because she has no vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. The US Virgin Islands has no representation at all in the Senate. Its residents cannot even vote for president.
Continue reading...Eight-year-old boy dies as migrants risk Arctic conditions to cross river into US
Child drowned while crossing the freezing Rio Grande with his family amid unprecedented weather conditions at US-Mexico border
An eight-year-old Honduran boy has become the latest victim in a string of drownings on the US-Mexico border as migrants attempt to cross the Rio Grande in treacherous winter conditions.
The child, who has not been named, drowned on Wednesday while attempting to cross the freezing river with his family amid unprecedented Arctic conditions in the borderlands which have killed more than 30 people and left millions in Mexico and Texas without power, water and food.
Continue reading...Colombia tribunal reveals at least 6,402 people were killed by army to boost body count
The killings, which took place between 2002 and 2008, were declared combat kills in order to boost statistics in war with rebel groups
A special peace tribunal in Colombia has found that at least 6,402 people were murdered by the country’s army and falsely declared combat kills in order to boost statistics in the civil war with leftist rebel groups. That number is nearly three times higher than the figure previously admitted by the attorney general’s office.
The killings, referred to in Colombia as the “false positives scandal”, took place between 2002 and 2008, when the government was waging war against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or Farc), a leftist guerrilla insurgency, which ultimately made peace with the government in 2016. Soldiers were rewarded for the manipulated kill statistics with perks, including time off and promotions.
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