Category Archives: Americas

Mexico’s president won’t congratulate Biden on election win until legal challenges over

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Andrés Manuel López Obrador will wait for courts to rule on Trump lawsuits in bid to avoid friction

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said on Saturday he would not congratulate a winner of the US presidential election until legal challenges are concluded, in an apparent bid to avoid friction with Washington during the transition.

Democrat Joe Biden won the election on Saturday after a victory in the battleground state of Pennsylvania put him over the threshold of 270 electoral college votes.

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Green groups denounce Brazil’s ‘sham’ Amazon tour for foreign diplomats

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Campaigners say visit was ‘media propaganda’ as officials failed to stop at any devastated rainforest areas

Environmentalists have criticised a three-day tour of the Amazon that the Brazilian government staged for foreign ambassadors as a “sham” and “media propaganda” after it failed to stop at any environmentally devastated areas.

The tour ended on Friday and focused on better-protected areas of the northern Amazon. “The government prepared an itinerary that does not show the reality of the Amazon – the abandonment of indigenous peoples, the land grabbing, the illegal mining and the uncontrolled deforestation. It is a sham,” said Marcio Astrini, executive director of the Climate Observatory, an umbrella group of environmental NGOs.

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Storm Eta death toll rises to 100 after devastating mudslides

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Rescuers reach remote mountain village in Guatemala where people were buried in their homes

The death toll from the calamitous Storm Eta in Central America soared on Friday after the Guatemalan military reached a remote mountainous village where torrential rains had triggered devastating mudslides, killing about 100 people.

Many of the dead were buried in their homes in the remote village of Quejá in the central region of Alta Verapaz, where about 150 houses had been swallowed by mudslides, said army spokesman Rubén Téllez.

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Deadly Storm Eta lashes Central America – video report

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Storm Eta has unleashed torrential rain, causing catastrophic landslides and flooding in Central America. Dozens of people have been killed and more than 300,000 displaced after raging torrents tore through cities.

Eta, one of the fiercest storms to hit Central America in years, struck Nicaragua as a category 4 hurricane on Tuesday with 150mph (241kph) winds, before weakening as it moved inland and into neighbouring Honduras

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‘What a spectacle!’: US adversaries revel in post-election chaos

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From Iran to Venezuela to Russia, once-chided national leaders enjoy the sight of US democracy in action

Rivals and enemies of the US have come together to revel in the messiest US election in a generation, mocking the delay in vote processing and Donald Trump’s claims of electoral fraud in barely veiled criticisms of Washington’s political activism abroad.

“What a spectacle!” crowed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “One says this is the most fraudulent election in US history. Who says that? The president who is currently in office.”

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‘Prevent, discourage, confront’: South American states tackle Chinese trawlers

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Huge fleets’ intrusions into Pacific fishing territory prompt Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru to join forces

Related: 'It's terrifying': can anyone stop China's vast armada of fishing boats?

Four South American countries have joined forces in a bid to combat illegal fishing by huge Chinese fleets off their coasts.

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Prosecutors in Brazil file embezzlement charges against Jair Bolsonaro’s son

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Flávio Bolsonaro accused of siphoning off employees’ publicly funded wages

Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son has been formally accused of embezzlement, money laundering, misappropriation of funds and directing a “criminal organisation” as sleaze allegations continue to swirl around the family of Brazil’s far-right president.

Prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro announced late on Tuesday that they had filed the charges against Flávio Bolsonaro, 39, a senator whose affairs have been under the spotlight since the eve of his father’s January 2019 inauguration.

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Canada makes plan to evacuate its citizens from Hong Kong

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Consul general in territory says contingency arrangements in place to bring 300,000 home

Canada has drawn up plans to evacuate hundreds of thousands of its citizens from Hong Kong if necessary, but officials have cautioned they can do little for pro-democracy activists seeking refuge from the Chinese authorities.

Jeff Nankivell, Canada’s consul general in Hong Kong and Macao, told a parliamentary committee the federal government had drafted plans to assist nearly 300,000 Canadians living in in the territory if the security situation deteriorated.

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Hurricane Eta lashes Nicaragua, raising fears of disastrous floods

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Many thousands evacuated as storm moves inland, wrenching roofs off houses, downing trees and severing power lines in Puerto Cabezas

Hurricane Eta, an unusually powerful storm, has slammed into Nicaragua, bringing potentially disastrous flooding to one of the country’s poorest regions.

The heart of the storm begin to move inland on Tuesday, wrenching roofs off houses and causing rivers to overflow. In Puerto Cabezas on the Atlantic coast,trees were torn down and power lines were severed, plunging much of the city into darkness. About 10,000 people were in shelters in the city and an equal number in smaller towns across the region, according to city officials.

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Global coronavirus report: WHO chief self-isolates as Germany starts ‘wave breaker’ lockdown

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New restrictions have begun across Europe, many greeted by protests

The head of the World Health Organization has gone into self-quarantine after someone he had been in contact with tested positive for Covid-19.

With the virus again spreading rapidly across Europe and elsewhere, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is based in Geneva, made the announcement by Twitter late on Sunday night, but stressed he had no symptoms.

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Tropical storm Eta expected to become hurricane and heads to Central America

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System formed in the Caribbean and tied record for most named storms in a single Atlantic hurricane season

Forecasters said they expected the newly-formed Tropical storm Eta to become a hurricane by Monday, shortly after the system formed in the Caribbean and tied the record for most named storms in a single Atlantic hurricane season.

Related: Is climate change making hurricanes worse?

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Mexicans celebrate restricted Day of the Dead amid coronavirus upheaval

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With tens of thousands dead, the commemoration of lost family members has rarely been more relevant as rituals of mourning have been disrupted

José Porfirio Martínez Castro and his wife Nery Urioles Nájera were tidying up their family tomb at the municipal graveyard in Morelia. They built a small altar for two of José’s siblings and adorned it with marigolds, sugar skulls and tiny bottles of Coca-Cola – his sister’s favourite drink.

Normally, they would spend the night of 1 November here, lighting candles and remembering their loved ones. But this year the cemetery will be closed because of Covid-19 restrictions, so they made their visit a few days early.

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Quebec City stabbing: man charged with two murders after Halloween sword attack

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Suspect was dressed in medieval clothing and wielded a Japanese sword, police said, in attack that killed two and wounded five

A 24-year-old man has appeared in court via video link charged with murdering two people with a sword in Quebec City, Canada on Halloween night.

Two people were killed and five wounded after being stabbed by a man dressed in medieval clothes and wielding a sword, Quebec police said on Sunday, noting the attack appeared to be driven by personal motives and not linked to any terror group.

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Brazil names Nice knife attack victim as Simone Barreto Silva

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Silva, 44, had lived in France for three decades and worked as carer for elderly people

The 44-year old victim of the Nice knife attack who told paramedics “tell my children I love them” as she died of stab wounds has been named Simone Barreto Silva, who worked as a carer for elderly people.

Silva, who was born in the Brazilian state of Bahia, was a citizen of France, where she had reportedly lived for about 30 years.

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Hurricane Zeta kills at least six as 100mph winds race through south

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More than 2.6 million without power in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, with life-threatening weather to continue

More than 2.6 million customers were without power on Thursday morning across several southern states and at least six people had been killed after Hurricane Zeta howled ashore in Louisiana with winds over 100mph then weakened to a tropical storm and raced through the region.

According to the website PowerOutage.us, shortly after dawn at least 2 million were without electricity in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, and the number grew from there. Georgia has the most outages, with more than 800,000 people in the dark.

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Almost 60 bodies found in pits at property in Mexican town

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Search teams believe locals must have known about site in Salvatierra, Guanajuato state

Search teams are excavating a site in the central Mexico state of Guanajuato where 59 bodies have been found in clandestine graves in the past week.

The striking aspect of the discovery is that the site is not a desolate area far out in the countryside, but the town of Salvatierra.

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‘We have a right to be at the table’: four pioneering female peacekeepers

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Twenty years after a landmark UN resolution, leading figures share insight on women’s vital role in mediating conflict

In October 2000, the UN security council adopted resolution 1325 – the first resolution that acknowledged women’s unique experience of conflict and their vital role in peace negotiations and peacebuilding. Twenty years on, we speak to four women helping keep the peace around the world.

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US steps up deportation of Haitians ahead of election, raising Covid fears

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The Trump administration justifies the expulsions under a public health law but critics say they risk spreading coronavirus in the Caribbean nation

US immigration authorities have radically stepped up deportation flights to Haiti in the weeks before the election, raising concerns over returned migrants’ safety on their return home and the risks of spreading coronavirus in the impoverished Caribbean state.

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Canadians increasingly open to welcoming immigrants and refugees – study

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Canadians positive even as millions remain out of work and country faces grim economic projections due to pandemic

Despite a global pandemic that has destroyed economies and fanned nationalism around the world, Canadians say they are increasingly open to welcoming immigrants and refugees.

A new study from the polling firm Environics Institute found that attitudes among Canadians have become increasingly positive, even as millions remain out of work and the country faces grim economic projections.

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Justin Trudeau offers blunt assessment of global pandemic: ‘It really sucks’

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PM’s message a stark contrast to dismissive or overly optimistic tone set by some other world leaders, such as Donald Trump

As countries around the world contemplate fresh lockdowns, spiraling caseloads and the inexorable surge of new Covid-19 deaths, leaders have at times struggled to capture the frustration and despair brought on by the crisis.

Related: A Trump win or a disputed result are Canadians' worst fears

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