Peruvians from the Huinchiri community in Cusco region are rebuilding a 500-year-old Incan hanging bridge using traditional weaving techniques. The Q’eswachaka bridge crosses the Apurimac river, connecting communities, but fell into disrepair during the Covid pandemic and collapsed in March. Now, the bridge is being rebuilt by teams of workers across both sides of the ravine who carefully balance on main ropes while weaving
Continue reading...Category Archives: Americas
Home Office abandons plans to deport Osime Brown to Jamaica
Family celebrate success of campaign to halt deportation of 22-year-old, who has autism
A 22-year-old man who has autism and his family are celebrating after the Home Office abandoned plans to deport him to Jamaica.
Osime Brown, who left Jamaica aged four to settle in the UK with his mother, Joan Martin, was facing deportation after being released from prison where he had been serving a sentence for stealing a friend’s mobile phone, though he and others said he did not do it.
Continue reading...Thousands of women and children flee Haiti gang violence, Unicef says
• UN agency says 8,500 abandon homes in Port-au-Prince
• Families ‘caught in crossfire’ sleeping on concrete floors
Escalating gang violence has pushed nearly 8,500 women and children from their homes in Haiti’s capital in the past two weeks, according to Unicef.
Officials say the gangs’ fight over territory in Port-au-Prince has forced hundreds of families to abandon burned or ransacked homes in impoverished communities, with many of them staying in gymnasiums and other temporary shelters that are running out of water, food and items like blankets and clothes.
Continue reading...Nicaragua rounds up president’s critics in sweeping pre-election crackdown
Arrests of opposition figures, including revered former guerrillas, represent ‘last gamble of a dictator’s family’
Nicaragua’s Sandinista rulers have launched an unprecedented crackdown on the country’s opposition, arresting a string of prominent critics of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice-President Rosario Murillo, in an apparent attempt to crush any serious challenge in November’s elections.
Six opposition figures were arrested at the weekend, including revered former guerrillas who fought alongside Ortega during the campaign to topple the dictator Anastasio Somoza and went on to serve in the first Sandinista government.
Continue reading...What’s behind the mass protests in Colombia?
A demonstration against tax rises has morphed into a mass movement against the government, says Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá
An attempt by the Colombian government to introduce sweeping tax changes in response to the coronavirus crisis was met earlier this year by angry protests. Thousands of people flooded on to the streets throughout the country for four consecutive days. It was enough to prompt President Iván Duque to withdraw his tax plans, but by then it was too late to stop the protests.
Ever since, more and more Colombians have been coming out to protest. Joe Parkin Daniels, who has been reporting on the demonstrations for the Guardian for weeks, tells Rachel Humphreys that they now encompass people from all sections of Colombian society, with a multitude of causes. One thing ever present is a fury at the growing inequality that has been exacerbated by the Covid crisis. As police have cracked down hard on the protesters, more than 50 people have died, with no end to the protests in sight.
Continue reading...Canada: suspect faces terrorism charges after Muslim family killed with truck
- Four murder charges against Nathaniel Veltman upgraded
- Three generations died in incident in London, Ontario
Prosecutors in Canada have laid terrorism charges against a man accused of deliberately running over a Muslim family in London, Ontario, killing four members from three generations.
The prosecution said on Monday that Nathaniel Veltman’s four counts of first-degree murder constitute an act of terrorism and prosecutors have upgraded those charges under Canada’s criminal code. Police allege the incident was a planned and premeditated attack targeting Muslims.
Continue reading...Mexico: bone fragments of 17 victims found at suspected serial killer’s house
Investigators have found 3,787 fragments as items in house from people who disappeared suggest killings may go back years
Investigators digging under the house of a suspected serial killer on the outskirts of Mexico City have found 3,787 bone fragments so far, apparently belonging to 17 different victims.
Prosecutors in the state of Mexico, which borders Mexico City, suggested the grisly finds may not end there. In excavations carried out since 17 May, authorities have dug up the floors of the house where the suspect lived. They now plan to extend the search to the soil beneath several other rooms he rented out on the same property.
Continue reading...Obstacles mount in Central America as Biden seeks cooperation over corruption
The post-Trump landscape, geopolitical concerns and an economic paradox pose threat to White House hopes
Standing behind a podium next to the president of Guatemala during her first trip abroad this week, Vice-President Kamala Harris emphasized the renewed commitment of the United States to fighting corruption as part of efforts to confront the root causes driving migration from Central America.
But for many, the man standing beside her, Alejandro Giammattei, embodies the challenge in a region where past and current presidents have been accused of misdeeds ranging from embezzlement and bribery to authoritarianism and drug trafficking.
Continue reading...Thousands march in support of Muslim family killed in Canada truck attack – video
Thousands of people have marched in Canada in support of a Muslim family run over and killed by a man driving a pickup truck. Police have described the incident last Sunday as a premeditated attack motivated by Islamophobia. Crowds in London, Ontario, marched five miles on Friday from the spot where the family was killed to a nearby mosque, the site close to where police arrested the attacker. Candlelight vigils were also held to honour the victims and protest against hatred
Continue reading...Finding fangs: new film exposes illicit trade killing off Bolivia’s iconic jaguar
Undercover documentary investigates the trafficking of Latin America’s big cat to meet demand in China
Elizabeth Unger was a 25-year-old biology graduate working as a PhD research assistant for big cat and climate projects in Latin America when she heard about the Bolivian authorities intercepting dozens of packages containing jaguar fangs sent by Chinese citizens to addresses in China.
“I was really blown away as [the story] was completely under the radar,” she says. Six years later, she is making her directorial debut with a film about the trade, which is contributing to a decline in the population of Latin America’s iconic big cat.
Continue reading...Maradona Jr pleads for DNA donors in search for Argentina’s stolen babies
The son of the footballing legend is carrying on his father’s quest to trace the children taken from parents murdered by the junta
Diego Armando Maradona Jr, son of the late Argentine football legend, is urging Italians to submit DNA to help the Argentinian government trace hundreds of children who were stolen and their parents murdered by the military junta that controlled the country four decades ago.
Maradona Jr is doing radio interviews in Italy and using his 400,000-strong social media following to broaden the search, which has already seen DNA testing programmes rolled out in Madrid and Rome.
Continue reading...Wife of El Chapo admits helping run Mexican drug cartel in US plea deal
- Emma Coronel Aispuro pleads guilty to three counts
- 31-year-old says she conspired in husband’s 2015 prison break
The wife of the Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has pleaded guilty to charges in the US and admitted that she helped her husband run his multibillion-dollar criminal empire.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, wearing a green jail uniform, appeared in federal court in Washington on Thursday and pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiring to distribute illegal drugs, conspiring to launder money and conspiring to assist the Sinaloa drug cartel.
Continue reading...‘Makes you sick’: fury in Rio as pregnant 24-year-old killed amid police raid
Kathlen Romeu’s death marks latest fatality among Black favela residents as police clash with drug gangs
In early June, Kathlen Romeu posted a photo of herself and her boyfriend on a Instagram, with a caption announcing that she was pregnant. “I am discovering myself as a mother, and I am scared thinking about how it is going to be,” the 24-year old interior designer wrote on 2 June. “I laugh, I cry and I am afraid.”
Related: Police killing hundreds in Rio de Janeiro despite court ban on favela raids
Continue reading...World’s biggest meat producer JBS pays $11m cybercrime ransom
Brazil-based giant paid ransom in bitcoin after ransomware attack shut down operations across world
JBS, the world’s biggest meat processor, has paid an $11m (£7.8m) ransom after a cyber attack shut down operations, including abattoirs in the US, Australia and Canada.
While most of its operations have been restored, the Brazilian-headquartered company said it hoped the payment would head off any further complications including data theft.
Continue reading...Uproar after Argentina president says ‘Brazilians came from the jungle’
Misjudged comments to prime minister of Spain sought to play up the South American country’s ties with Europe
Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández, has triggered a Twitter storm and a regional race debate with misjudged comments to visiting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain that sought to play up the South American country’s ties with Europe.
“The Mexicans came from the Indians, the Brazilians came from the jungle, but we Argentines came from the ships. And they were ships that came from Europe,” Fernández said, referring to the many European migrants who arrived in the country. He later apologized for the comments and said his country’s diversity was something to be proud of.
Continue reading...My Amazon rainforest angel: Claudia Andujar’s best photograph
‘When I first visited the Yanomami tribe, they were completely isolated – they hadn’t seen a camera and didn’t know what photography was’
It was 1971 when I photographed the Yanomami tribe of Brazil for the first time. I knew that it would take time to build our relationship, but I wanted to see if we could become friends. For me, the best photographers are those who are truly interested in their subjects.
The Yanomami is a big population of indigenous people who live in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil and southern Venezuela; several thousand live in Brazil alone. A small village can be as few as 40 people, or a big one as many as 200. When I first went to the Yanomami villages, the tribe was completely isolated – some still are today. At that time, 50 years ago, they hadn’t seen a camera and didn’t even know what photography was.
Continue reading...‘Epidemic of violence’: Brazil shocked by ‘barbaric’ gang-rape of gay man
Activists fear that an increase in attacks on the country’s LBGT community is fuelled by a culture of homophobia at the very top
An act of “barbaric” violence where a 22-year-old gay man was gang-raped and tortured has prompted fierce reaction in Brazil and is evidence of a growing tide of hate crime in the country, according to human rights campaigners.
The man, who has not been named, was attacked last week in Florianópolis by three armed men who used sharp objects during the assault and forced him to carve homophobic slurs into his legs, said activists.
Continue reading...‘This is a revolution’: the faces of Colombia’s protests
Fifty-eight people have died in six weeks of unrest, but demonstrators say they are more determined than ever to fight for change
Protests in Colombia that began in late April over a proposed tax hike have morphed into a generational outcry over the country’s deep-rooted inequalities.
Related: ‘They can’t take it any more’: pandemic and poverty brew violent storm in Colombia
Continue reading...AOC condemns Kamala Harris for telling Guatemalan migrants not to come to US
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls comments ‘disappointing’ after vice-president says migrants will not find solace at US border
The progressive New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has criticized Vice-President Kamala Harris for saying undocumented migrants from Guatemala should not come to the US.
On her first foreign trip as vice-president, Harris visited Guatemala on Monday. At a press conference with Guatemala’s president, Alejandro Giammattei, the former California senator spoke about investigating corruption and human trafficking in Central America and described a future where Guatemalans could find “hope at home”.
Continue reading...Relatives of Muslim family killed in truck attack urge Canadians to stand against hate
- Afzaal family killed on Sunday in attack in London, Ontario
- Trudeau: incident was ‘terrorist attack, motivated by hatred’
Relatives of the four Canadian Muslims killed in what police describe as “a hate attack” have described them as a “model family” and called on the country to stand against hate and Islamophobia.
The victims – three generations of the same family who migrated from Pakistan 14 years ago – died on Sunday after a 20-year-old man drove his pickup truck at them in what the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, described as a “terrorist attack, motivated by hatred”.
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