Category Archives: Americas

Canadian politician faked Twitter posts to conceal Caribbean holiday

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Ontario premier Doug Ford under pressure after he admits knowing about Rod Phillips’s trip for weeks

Ontario premier Doug Ford is under pressure after admitting that he has known for weeks that his finance minister – who faked social media posts to conceal his location – had ignored a coronavirus lockdown to go on holiday in the Caribbean.

Posts on Rod Phillips’s social media accounts suggested that he remained home over Christmas, but it emerged on Tuesday that the minister flew to the island of St Barts in mid-December – despite his own government’s advice to avoid non-essential travel.

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Argentina legalises abortion and pro-choice campaigners erupt in celebration – video

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Argentina has become the largest Latin American country to legalise abortion after its senate approved the law change by 38 votes in favour to 29 against, with one abstention. Elated pro-choice campaigners who had been keeping vigil outside Buenos Aires’s congressional palace erupted in celebration after more than 30 years of activism

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Indigenous environmental defender killed in latest Honduras attack

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  • Félix Vásquez, 60, shot in own home in front of family
  • Killing followed death threats linked to work on environment

Another indigenous environmentalist has been killed in Honduras, cementing the country’s inglorious ranking as the deadliest place in the world to defend land and natural resources from exploitation.

Félix Vásquez, 60, a veteran leader of the indigenous Lenca people, was shot dead at home in Santiago de Puringla, a rural community in the department of La Paz, western Honduras on the night of 26 December – just weeks after reporting death threats linked to his work. His adult children were beaten and threatened by the four armed assailants in balaclavas, but survived the ordeal.

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‘Miners out, Covid out’: threats to indigenous reserve in Brazil grow

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Illegal goldminers supported by Bolsonaro bring environmental destruction and coronavirus to Yanomami communities

A petition with 439,000 signatures demanding “miners out, Covid out” of the Yanomami reserve in Roraima state was handed to Brazil’s congress this month as shamanic images were projected on to the building’s exterior. With Covid-19 ravaging the Yanomami population since the first death from the disease was reported in April, the existence of the “garimpeiros”, or goldminers, has brought even greater threats to the reserve.

The estimated 20,000 miners were already blamed for bringing alcohol and prostitution into the Yanomami reserve, where they have worked illegally for decades, clearing forests and polluting rivers with mercury used in separating out the gold. The destruction wreaked by their work has increased since far-right president Jair Bolsonaro took office – and they have kept working during the pandemic.

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Maradonaland: Naples plans statues and museum to honour ‘Saint Diego’

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City’s murals of Maradona have become pilgrimage sites since footballer’s death in November

A month since the death of Diego Armando Maradona and the southern Italian city of Naples is looking more like a Maradonaland each day.

After renaming Napoli football club’s San Paolo Stadium and a train station in his honour this month, local authorities are planning a large museum, commissioning statues and dedicating an entire square to the Argentinian who took the city’s football team to glory and is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time.

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Covid fatalities soar in Mexico as president condemned for inaction

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As the crisis worsens, Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government has hardly changed its minimal restrictions

When Rufino Pacheco arrived at the hospital, his breath jagged and his legs buckling, a doctor thrust papers at his stepdaughter, asking for her approval to put him on a ventilator. But the elderly patient balked.

Less than 12 hours later, Pacheco died, hooked up to an oxygen tank in his bedroom, as his wife cried out, “Don’t leave me, old man.” Days later, she too fell sick with Covid-19, along with her adult son.

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Rio de Janeiro mayor arrested in corruption investigation

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Marcelo Crivella arrested days before leaving office, in blow to Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro

Police have arrested Rio de Janeiro’s outgoing mayor Marcelo Crivella, an ally of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, in an investigation into alleged corruption at city hall.

Four carloads of police and prosecutors arrived at the mayor’s house in the affluent Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood before 6am, the website of O Globo newspaper said.

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Rio de Janeiro mayor charged with corruption

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Bolsonaro ally Marcelo Crivella accused of leading ‘well-structured and complex criminal organisation’

Rio de Janeiro’s outgoing mayor Marcelo Crivella, an ally of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been arrested and charged with corruption.

Four carloads of police and prosecutors arrived at the mayor’s house in the affluent Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood before 6am.

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Alarm at Colombia plan to exclude migrants from coronavirus vaccine

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President Iván Duque says undocumented Venezuelans will be denied access in a move denounced as unethical and impractical

Colombia will refuse to administer coronavirus vaccines to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan refugees within its borders, President Iván Duque has announced, in a move which stunned public health experts and prompted condemnation from humanitarian groups.

Speaking to a local radio station on Monday, Duque that only Venezuelans with dual nationality or formal migratory status will have access to the vaccine when it is eventually distributed in the country.

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Brazilian woman forced into domestic slavery and marriage freed after 40 years

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Professor and family face up to eight years in prison for their treatment of woman given to them as a child

A Brazilian woman enslaved as a maid from the age of eight for almost four decades and forced into marriage has been rescued in a rare crackdown on domestic slavery.

The 46-year-old was found living in a small room in an apartment in Patos de Minas, in the south eastern state of Minas Gerais. She had worked for the family for most of her life without pay or any time off, according to labour inspectors.

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Ontario announces hard lockdown after Covid cases surge

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Premier of Canadian province says restrictions will last for up to a month and should save thousands of lives

Canada’s most populous province is to enter a “hard lockdown” as Ontario experiences an alarming rate of new coronavirus cases before the Christmas holidays.

“Thousands of lives are at stake now,” said Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, on Monday, as he announced a slate of new restrictions that go into effect on Boxing Day. “If we fail to take action now, the consequences could be catastrophic.

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‘He’s the deer of the year’: Carrot on way to recovery after arrow pulled from head

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  • Whitetail deer made headlines last week for shocking injury
  • Carrot seen alive days after delicate operation to remove arrow

The last thing Carrot the deer probably wanted in 2020 was a hole in his head.

But the Canadian whitetail deer which made headlines last week for his shocking injury no longer has an arrow impaling his head.

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Mexico: assassin shoots former state governor in restaurant bathroom

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Aristóteles Sandoval was shot in the back in bathroom in Puerto Vallarta, and died soon afterwards at local hospital

The former governor of Mexico’s violence-wracked western state of Jalisco has been shot dead in a restaurant bathroom in the popular beach resort of Puerto Vallarta.

Aristóteles Sandoval was dining with four others when at around 1.40 on Friday he got up from the table and went to the toilet, where the killer shot him in the back, said the state attorney general, Gerardo Octavio Solís.

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Not Amazon: Canadian website takes on the online giant

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Ali Haberstroh’s directory lists nearly 4,000 independent businesses in Toronto, Halifax, Calgary and Vancouver

In cities and towns around the world, darkened shopfronts and shuttered businesses have become an all-too-familiar symptom of the economic collapse triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

But while small businesses and local retailers struggle with lockdowns and restrictions, e-commerce giants like Amazon have raked in billions in new profits.

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Carrot the deer found in Ontario with arrow sticking out of his head

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Wildlife photographer Lee-Anne Carver is trying to share Carrot’s plight in hopes of saving injured deer

The Canadian winter can be tough for deer, as temperatures plummet and food becomes scarce. But Carrot, a whitetail buck living in northern Ontario, faces an additional challenge: he has an arrow sticking out of his head.

“It’s been really tough to see,” said Lee-Anne Carver, a wildlife photographer in the city of Kenora, who named the young animal. “I’ve been photographing animals for years and there’s something special about Carrot. He’s unlike any deer I’ve ever met.”

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Canadian cannabis firms Tilray and Aphria reveal £2.8bn merger

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All-share deal will create world’s largest weed company, as industry hopes for further liberalisation in US

Two of the leading players in Canada’s booming cannabis sector have announced merger plans that will create the world’s largest weed company, as the industry hopes for further liberalisation in the US under Joe Biden.

Tilray and Aphria announced an all-share deal giving the new entity a stock market value of C$4.8bn (£2.8bn), with the two companies’ combined revenues over the past 12 months amounting to an industry-leading £507m.

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Mexico: new security law strips diplomatic immunity from DEA agents

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Law also requires foreign officials in the country to share any intelligence they have obtained with Mexican officials

Mexico’s congress has approved a new national security law restricting the activities of foreign law enforcement officers, in a move which critics say will endanger intelligence sources and threaten the future of international anti-narcotics operations.

The law passed on Tuesday strips foreign agents of diplomatic immunity and requires foreign officials in the country to share any intelligence they have obtained with Mexican officials.

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Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygård arrested after US sex trafficking charges

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Designer facing class action lawsuit in US alleging the sexual assault of dozens of women

The fashion mogul Peter Nygård has been arrested in Canada after US authorities charged him with with racketeering and sex trafficking, alleging decades of crimes that left dozens of victims in the United States, the Bahamas and Canada.

Nygård, 79, was arrested in Winnipeg under the Extradition Act on Monday and made an initial appearance in court on Tuesday. He wore a white face mask, a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, with his long white hair pulled back in a bun. He has denied wrongdoing.

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Canadian man found guilty of manslaughter in death of Indigenous woman

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Brayden Bushby hurled metal trailer hitch that hit Barbara Kentner, who later died of complications resulting from trauma

A man who hurled a metal trailer hitch at an Indigenous woman walking along a snowy street in Thunder Bay has been found guilty of manslaughter, in a case widely seen as a grim reminder of the Canadian city’s deadly legacy of racism.

In her ruling Monday afternoon, Justice Helen Pierce found that the actions of Brayden Bushby led to the death of Barbara Kentner, 34, on 29 January 2017.

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‘I speak Italian with a Croydon accent’: reporters on their language skills

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Our foreign correspondents reflect on the practical and cultural importance of fluency in a country’s native tongue

During the worst of the coronavirus outbreak in China, people described to us deeply personal and traumatic experiences – losing their parents, suffering the death of a child, being harassed and intimidated for trying to speak out. Having these conversations in Mandarin was important not just for capturing nuance and detail but for a sense of empathy.

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