‘A new Chile’: political elite rejected in vote for constitutional assembly

Victories for leftist and independent candidates over rightwingers paves the way for a long-awaited progressive settlement

Chile’s established political elite has been roundly rejected at the polls six months ahead of a pivotal presidential election, as the country turned to a progressive new generation to write the next chapter in its history.

Resounding victories for leftist and independent candidates saw rightwing politicians crash to a dismal electoral defeats alongside those with links to Chile’s transition to democracy.

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‘Covid casino’ case collapses as police in Canada accused of stealing watches

The owner of a mansion allegedly used for illegal gambling during pandemic will not face charges after police accused of theft and planting evidence

A police investigation into an alleged underground casino operating out of a mansion north of Toronto has fallen apart after officers were accused of stealing two luxury watches and planting evidence.

Police in Ontario said in September they had seized more than $10m in assets, firearms, cash and liquor as part of a months-long investigation into illegal gambling.

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Yanomami beset by violent land-grabs, hunger and disease in Brazil

Indigenous people in the grip of a humanitarian crisis as Bolsonaro gives encouragement to wildcat miners with designs on their rainforest territory

A photograph of an emaciated Yanomami girl, huddled listlessly in a hammock beside an empty cooking pot over an unlit fire. Shaky footage of indigenous people screaming as they flee in panic to a soundtrack of gunfire.

Shocking images shared on Brazilian social media this week have cast a spotlight on a spiral of violence, malnutrition and disease that threatens fresh devastation for the Yanomami people and their ancestral territory in the Amazon state of Roraima.

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Mexico faces up to uneasy anniversary of Chinese massacre

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will mark the killings of 303 Chinese people during the revolution that the city of Torreón has tried to forget

The first to die were Chinese agricultural workers, who were killed in the orchards and gardens surrounding the Mexican city of Torreón by advancing revolutionary forces in the early hours of 13 May 1911.

After skirmishes at the outskirts of the city, the outnumbered federal garrison abandoned their positions and slipped away under the cover of darkness.

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‘Beavers are just being beavers’: friction grows between Canadians and animals

Beavers cause internet outages, steal posts and even put 30 sq km of a town underwater – but experts say the animals have a profound effect on ecosystems

At first, the theft of wooden fence posts seemed like a crime of opportunity – amid soaring lumber costs, stacks of wood have gone missing from construction sites across North America.

But officers in the Canadian prairie community of Porcupine Plain, Saskatchewan, soon identified the culprit: local beavers had stolen the posts to build their dam.

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‘A game-changing moment’: Chile constitution could set new gender equality standard

Chileans to elect 155-strong assembly made up of equivalent men and women to set out new framework and enshrine equal rights

Women’s rights activists in Chile say that the country’s new constitution will catalyze progress for women in the country – and could set a new global standard for gender equality in politics.

In a two-day vote this weekend, Chileans will elect a 155-strong citizens’ assembly to write a new constitution for the country – the first anywhere in the world to be written by an equal number of men and women.

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US officials confirm 130 incidents of mysterious Havana syndrome brain injury

US diplomats, spies and defence officials have reported serious symptoms, some within the past few weeks

There have been more than 130 incidents of unexplained brain injury known as Havana syndrome among US diplomats, spies and defence officials, some of them within the past few weeks, it has been reported.

The New York Times said three CIA officers had reported serious symptoms since December, following overseas assignments, requiring outpatient treatment at the Walter Reed military hospital in Washington. One episode was within the past two weeks.

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Violence against women ‘a pandemic’, warns UN envoy

A decade after Istanbul convention was drawn up to end gender-based violence, activists report decline in women’s rights and safety

A decade after the launch of the Istanbul convention, the landmark human rights treaty to stop gender-based violence, women are facing a global assault on their rights and safety, according to campaigners.

This week marked 10 years since the first 13 countries signed up to the convention, seen as a turning point in efforts to address violence against women.

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Chainsaw massacre: tree poaching hits Canada amid lumber shortage

Officials on Vancouver Island say at least 100 trees have been illegally chopped down, leaving one stump with a face carved into it

Two tree stumps signaled to Larry Pynn that something was wrong.

Jutting from a mossy forest floor in western Canada, the fresh stumps were the final remnants of two western red cedars that had been chopped down by chainsaw. Nearby, a set of deep tire tracks ran for nearly a kilometer in the mud before terminating at the main road.

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Brazilian police target indigenous leaders after government criticism

Investigations into leaders closed after judges find no grounds for the cases and describe the situation as an ‘illegal embarrassment’

Human rights activists in Brazil have warned that the country’s authorities are targeting indigenous leaders after police launched investigations into two prominent critics of the government of Jair Bolsonaro.

Sônia Guajajara, the head of Brazil’s largest indigenous organization, the Association of Indigenous Peoples (Apib), and Almir Suruí had been put under investigation last month over social media campaigns raising awareness of the threat that Covid-19 poses to Brazil’s indigenous population.

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Coronavirus live news: jabs like Pfizer and Moderna appear able to ‘neutralise’ Indian variant, says EMA

European medicines watchdog says there is ‘promising evidence’ the vaccines work against variant first encountered in India

Greece is to lift its internal travel restrictions on 14 May, the day it’s tourism season opens, officials have said, whilst retaining health safeguards for the country’s more vulnerable islands.

AFP reports:

For the first time since a second Covid-19 lockdown was imposed in November, Greeks will no longer be required to notify authorities by SMS when leaving their homes. However, anyone travelling to Greek islands by sea or air must show a vaccination certificate or a negative test result, minister Akis Skertsos told reporters.

Officials aim to fully vaccinate at least 35% of island populations by the end of June. Greece is keen to attract crowds of holidaymakers back to its idyllic islands, which are some of its most popular travel destinations, with tourism bringing in as much as a quarter of Greece’s annual income

We now have confirmation that Norway will not resume the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine and has delayed a decision on whether to start using jabs made by Johnson & Johnson, following a press conference led by the country’s prime minister Erna Solberg.

It comes after a government-appointed commission recommended that both vaccines should be excluded from Norway’s vaccination programme due to a risk of rare but harmful side-effects.

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Michigan orders closure of pipeline in escalating dispute with Canada

While the governor says the line is a ‘ticking time bomb’, the company says Line 5 has never experienced a leak

The state of Michigan has told a Canadian energy company it must shut down a controversial oil and gas pipeline by Wednesday amid growing fears that a spill would be catastrophic to the region, in a feud which threatens to strain relations between Canada and the United States.

The company’s refusal to comply with the order, and swift support from top Canadian officials, highlights the politicized nature of pipelines, which campaigners have used as a target in the fight against climate change.

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‘They came to kill’: Rio’s deadliest favela police raid sparks calls for change

Rio’s favelas have suffered countless horrors since the drug conflict began to intensify in the 1980s and the carnage in Jacarezinho has caused a wave of protest

Shaken, shoeless and with a gaping bullet wound to one of his feet, the young man staggered through Flávia Luciana’s front door at around 8am last Thursday as Rio’s decades-long drug conflict plumbed horrifying new depths.

“Help me! For the love of God! Help!” she remembers him pleading as he sought shelter inside.

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Cali is the cockpit of chaos as Colombia protests threaten to spiral out of control

The presence of armed civilians attacking protesters has added a worrying dimension to a wave of unrest that has claimed 47 lives

On a recent evening, Andrés pulled on his gas mask and helmet and headed for the barricades at the entrance to his rundown neighbourhood in Cali, a city which has become the center of Colombia’s anti-government protests.

But as he approached the roadblock of rocks, rubble and barbed wire, he saw a motorcycle speeding towards him. In an attempt to turn the vehicle back, another demonstrator shone a laser pen in the driver’s eyes.

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Refugees and the Armenian genocide: human rights this fortnight in pictures

A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to China

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Mexican president accuses US of interference over funding for NGOs

  • Diplomatic note sent ahead of meeting with Kamala Harris
  • Anti-corruption and press freedom groups draw official ire

Mexico’s populist president has accused the United States of undue interference in the country’s internal affairs just before a virtual meeting with the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, which was expected to focus on slowing Central American migration.

Related: Amlo calls decision to disqualify candidates ‘a blow to democracy’

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‘They can’t take it any more’: pandemic and poverty brew violent storm in Colombia

Demonstrations that began with a general strike on 28 April quickly descended into violence, with as many as 37 protesters killed across the country

Yina Reyes, a 39-year-old nurse from the downtrodden neighbourhood of Siloé in the Colombian city of Cali, knows only too well what Covid-19 can do to a person – and to a community. Her mother was hospitalized with the disease, and came close to death.

As a home care nurse, she has seen patients get sick and neighbours die. In the early days of the pandemic, her husband lost his job as a chauffeur, leaving her to provide for their daughter and his parents, who share their home.

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Cuba during the pandemic – photo essay

Photographer Leysis Quesada Vera describes life during the pandemic in Havana’s Los Sitios neighbourhood. Her work is supported and produced by the Magnum Foundation, with a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. Magnum Foundation is a nonprofit organisation that expands creativity and diversity in documentary photography. Through grant making and mentorship, Magnum Foundation supports a global network of social justice and human rights-focused photographers and experiments with new models for storytelling

Los Sitios lies to the south of Centro, the careworn barrio that gives Havana its coarse voice and whose northern limit is the Malecon, the famous corniche set against the Florida Straits.

The photographer Leysis Quesada Vera describes Los Sitios – her neighbourhood – as home to “people who work with tourists but not in the hotels. They sell cigars, probably illegally, clean the houses where tourists stay, sell souvenirs.”

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At least 25 killed in Rio de Janeiro’s deadliest favela raid – video

At least 25 people have been killed after heavily armed police stormed Jacarezinho, one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest favelas, in pursuit of drug traffickers in what was the deadliest raid in the city’s history. About 200 members of Rio’s civil police launched the raid into Jacarezinho in the early hours despite a 2020 supreme court order outlawing such incursions during the coronavirus pandemic. While police hailed the raid a success, critics said it was a 'massacre'

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Colombia enters second week of violent unrest as police crack down on protests

As many as 37 people have died and at least 89 reported missing since protests began on 28 April

Colombia has entered its second week of violent unrest as riot police continued a brutal crackdown on nationwide protests against poverty and inequality exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Related: ‘No food and no fuel’: Colombia torn by protests and violent crackdown

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