Category Archives: Americas

‘Culture is language’: why an indigenous tongue is thriving in Paraguay

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The Paraguayan Guaraní language is a rare regional success story. But its own popularity is a problem for smaller languages

On a hillside monument in Asunción, a statue of the mythologized indigenous chief Lambaré stands alongside other great leaders from Paraguayan history.

The other historical heroes on display are of mixed ancestry, but the idea of a noble indigenous heritage is strong in Paraguay, and – uniquely in the Americas – can be expressed by most of the country’s people in an indigenous language: Paraguayan Guaraní.

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Coronavirus curfew in Havana, Cuba – in pictures

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Cuban authorities have launched a strict 15-day lockdown of Havana to try to stamp out the low-level but persistent spread of coronavirus. In addition to a curfew, most stores are barred from selling to shoppers from outside the immediate neighbourhood to prevent people from moving around the city

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Amazon ‘condemned to destruction’ as fires proliferate across Brazil

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The vast rainforest is experiencing a repeat of last year’s devastating blazes and critics say Bolsonaro bears ultimate responsibility

Jair Bolsonaro smiles down from a propaganda billboard at the entrance to this scruffy Amazon outpost, welcoming travelers to his “route to development”.

But 20 months into Bolsonaro’s presidency – and a year after a devastating outbreak of Amazon fires caused global outrage – the fires are back, and many fear Brazil’s leader is instead steering his country towards environmental ruin.

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Amazon tragedy repeats itself as Brazil rainforest goes up in smoke

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The vast rainforest is experiencing a repeat of last year’s devastating fires and critics say Bolsonaro bears ultimate responsibility

Jair Bolsonaro smiles down from a propaganda billboard at the entrance to this scruffy Amazon outpost, welcoming travelers to his “route to development”.

But 20 months into Bolsonaro’s presidency – and a year after a devastating outbreak of Amazon fires caused global outrage – the fires are back, and many fear Brazil’s leader is instead steering his country towards environmental ruin.

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The Mole Agent: the story of the most unusual documentary of the year

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An 83-year-old goes undercover in a Chilean nursing home in a warm-hearted and surprising look at age and intimacy

With The Mole Agent, Maite Alberdi set out to make a film noir documentary about a spy in a nursing home. She did not expect it to transform into an aching meditation on isolation and loneliness.

The Chilean film-maker told the Guardian she was initially toying with genre and form. In early scenes, she makes you question whether you’re even watching a documentary because of the heightened noir aesthetic – venetian blinds and high contrast lighting.

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Venezuela pardons 110 people including Maduro opponents as election nears

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  • Government frames decree as pre-election goodwill gesture
  • Guaidó-led opposition says conditions for vote are not fair

The Venezuelan government has announced pardons for more than 100 people, including political opponents who are in prison, have taken refuge in foreign embassies in Caracas or fled the country.

Related: 'They think they’ll be left to die': pandemic shakes already fragile Venezuela

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Brazil’s island idyll reopens to tourists – as long as they have had Covid-19

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Visitors will have to show test results to enter Fernando de Noronha, which has so far suffered no coronavirus deaths

One of Brazil’s most celebrated tourist destinations, the paradisiacal archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, has announced it is reopening to outsiders – as long as they have had Covid-19.

Tourists have been banned from the Unesco World Heritage site, which Charles Darwin visited in 1832, since late March when the pandemic forced many parts of Brazil into partial shutdown.

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Indigenous tribe in Ecuador appeals for help to deal with coronavirus

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Achuar people blame illegal logging for spread and are asking international community for aid

Climate change and multinational corporations have long posed a threat to the people of the Amazon rainforest. Now, however, the region’s indigenous tribes face an even more immediate danger: coronavirus.

Despite living deep in the heartland of Ecuadorian rainforest, the indigenous Achuar tribal people have fallen victim to the pandemic. Over the last several weeks, Covid-19 has struck at the heart of the Achuar community in Ecuador, which is made up of 13,000 people living in 88 groups over 800,000 hectares (3,000 sq miles) along the Pastaza River basin. A further 15,000 Achuar are based in neighbouring Peru.

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Ecuadorian man and woman become world’s oldest married couple

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Julio Mora, 110, and Waldramina Quinteros, 104, a combined nearly 215 years, received Guinness certification in mid-August

Julio Mora slipped away from his parents to secretly marry Waldramina Quinteros one February day. Both families disapproved.

Seventy-nine years later, they’re still together – he is 110 years of age, and she is 104, both lucid and both in good health, though relatives say they’re a little depressed because they miss their big family get-togethers due to the pandemic.

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‘So much sadness’: more British Columbians dying from overdoses than Covid

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Morgan Goodridge was one of 900 British Columbians to die of an overdose this year, more than four times the number killed by coronavirus

Kathleen Radu thought her son was getting better.

After three stints in private drug treatment programs, Morgan Goodridge was stable again. His prescription drug-replacement treatments seemed to be working. He had just bought his first car, and hadn’t used street drugs in five months.

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Venezuela using coronavirus as cover to crack down on dissent, report claims

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Human Rights Watch says it has found a ‘very, very disturbing’ pattern of intimidation and persecution of government critics

Venezuelan security forces are using the coronavirus pandemic as cover to wage a disturbing “full force” campaign against dissenters, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.

The New York-based human rights group said that dozens of journalists, health professionals, human rights lawyers and government opponents had been arbitrarily detained and prosecuted since President Nicolás Maduro declared a Covid-19 state of emergency in mid-March.

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Colombia sees seven massacres in two weeks as wave of violence grips country

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At least 39 people have been killed in the recent spate of unrest and the country has seen 46 massacres so far this year

A wave of massacres in which dozens of people have been killed across Colombia has prompted fears that the South American nation remains unable to turn the page on its decades-long civil war.

In the latest incident, the bodies of three young men were found late on Tuesday near a road outside Ocaña, a city near the country’s eastern border with Venezuela.

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Chile police using Covid-19 quarantine as pretext to crush protest, activists say

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Demonstrations over hunger by people thrown out of work by the pandemic have been met with violent repression

Violeta Delgado was at a protest over food shortages under Chile’s coronavirus lockdowns when the police arrived and fired off a volley of teargas rounds.

Delgado, who was seven months pregnant, says she put her hands up to show she was unarmed, but was struck by a police vehicle and knocked to the ground.

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Canada: father of woman killed by bear was on phone with her during attack

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Stephanie Blais had called her father due to problems with water supply at remote Saskatchewan cabin

The father of a Canadian woman who was killed by black bear has said that he was on the phone with her at the time of the attack.

Stephanie Blais, 44, was with her husband, Curtis, and two young children at the family’s remote cabin in the province of Saskatchewan. But problems with the water supply prompted her to call her father on a satellite phone.

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‘They think they’ll be left to die’: pandemic shakes already fragile Venezuela

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Venezuela’s official Covid-19 death toll stands just over 300, but hospital employees suggest the true situation may be far worse

As they are hauled into Maracaibo’s University hospital, pale, wheezing and panicked, a recurring cry emerges from the mouths of coronavirus patients in this bedraggled Venezuelan metropolis.

“Save me!” they plead as they enter A&E, according to hospital staff too scared to give their names. “Please don’t let me die!”

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‘It’s terrifying’: can anyone stop China’s vast armada of fishing boats?

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Ecuador stood up for the Galápagos, but other countries don’t stand a chance against the 17,000-strong distant-water fleet

The recent discovery by the Ecuadorean navy of a vast fishing armada of 340 Chinese vessels just off the biodiverse Galápagos Islands stirred outrage both in Ecuador and overseas.

Under pressure after Ecuador’s strident response, China has given mixed signals that it could begin to reel in its vast international fishing fleet. Its embassy in Ecuador declared a “zero tolerance” policy towards illegal fishing, and this week it announced it was tightening the rules for its enormous flotilla with a series of new regulations.

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Brazilian evangelical politician accused of masterminding husband’s ‘barbaric’ murder

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Singer-turned politician known as Flordelis was alleged ringleader of lurid family plot to kill husband, including poisoning him

A gospel-singing Brazilian congresswoman has been accused of masterminding the “barbaric” murder of her preacher husband after at least six failed or aborted attempts to kill him with poison or in staged robberies.

Anderson do Carmo was 42 when he was shot dead in June 2019 as he returned to the home he shared with the church crooner-turned-politician Flordelis dos Santos de Souza.

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Bolsonaro tells journalist he would ‘like to smash their face in’ over corruption claims

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Response came after Brazil’s president was asked a question about mystery payments to his wife

The Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has told a journalist he would like to “smash their face in” after being questioned over reports of a series of mystery payments into his wife’s bank account by a former police officer with alleged links to the Rio de Janeiro underworld.

Reports in the Brazilian media have claimed that between 2011 and 2017 at least 89,000 reais (about £12,000) were paid into the account of Brazil’s first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro.

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Marco and Laura could hit US coast as hurricanes, forecasters say

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  • Louisiana in path of two tropical storms now in Gulf
  • Mississippi governor heralds ‘unprecedented times’

Tropical Storm Marco was swirling over the Gulf of Mexico early on Sunday, heading for a possible hit on the Louisiana coast as a hurricane, while Tropical Storm Laura knocked utilities out as it battered Hispaniola, following a track forecast to take it to the same part of the US coast – also as a hurricane.

Related: Could the US and Caribbean be heading for their worst hurricane season?

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Could the US and Caribbean be heading for their worst hurricane season?

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Experts say they are concerned as two potential hurricanes head north – and coronavirus is complicating matters

Two potential hurricanes are heading towards the northern Caribbean and mainland United States – with a third building in the Atlantic – in apparent confirmation of meteorologists’ predictions that the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season will become one of the worst on record.

Related: US faces threat of two Caribbean storms hitting simultaneously as hurricanes

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