Category Archives: Americas

Argentine prosecutors investigate death of Diego Maradona

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Officials order searches of home and office of footballer’s personal doctor, Leopoldo Luque

Argentine justice officials are investigating the death of the footballer Diego Maradona and ordered the search of properties of his personal doctor on Sunday, a local prosecutor’s office said.

Maradona died at age 60 of a heart attack on Wednesday. The search order was requested by prosecutors in the affluent Buenos Aires suburb San Isidro and signed by a local judge, according to a statement issued by the prosecutor’s office.

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Diego Maradona’s personal doctor denies responsibility for death

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Leopoldo Luque in tears after officials search his home and office in Buenos Aires

Diego Maradona’s personal physician has denied responsibility for the former footballer’s death after police raided his home and surgery on Sunday, seizing laptops, medical records and mobile devices.

Argentinian media reported that police were trying to establish if there was negligence in Maradona’s treatment and that searches of premises belonging to the neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque were carried out as part of an investigation into involuntary manslaughter.

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Jamaicans who came to UK as children will be left off deportation flight

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Exclusive: Home Office quietly agrees deal with Jamaica amid outcry over charter plane

A deal has been quietly agreed between the Home Office and Jamaica not to remove people who came to the UK as children on a controversial charter flight to the Caribbean island this week, its high commissioner has said.

Seth Ramocan told the Guardian that following diplomatic overtures to the Home Office, officials agreed not to deport Jamaicans who came to Britain under the age of 12. The Home Office has declined to comment and there has been no public announcement.

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Voters set to punish mayor who ‘made Rio de Janeiro miserable’

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A landslide in Sunday’s election is predicted to sweep away the city’s ‘disastrous’ conservative leader

Tarcísio Motta is one of Rio’s best-known lefties – but when the city elects its new leader on Sunday, he’ll be voting for the right.

“We’ve got a mayor who’s an enemy of the city, and this can’t go on. It’s ludicrous,” complained the socialist councillor, one of millions of exasperated locals desperate to evict the neo-Pentecostal bishop Marcelo Crivella from city hall after what is widely regarded as a dismal four-year reign.

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Director Asif Kapadia: ‘Diego and Maradona were two different people’

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Film director recalls the long and rocky road to meeting the mercurial subject of his film

Football is a huge part of my life. I was 14 when Diego Maradona scored the two goals against England – the hand of God and the wonder goal. Despite the first goal, I always thought he was the best player in the world. I’ve always been a fan of outsiders, rebels.

Everyone wanted to be Maradona. He was the global phenomenon. The pope wanted to meet him. Fidel Castro would sit and listen to Diego tell a story.

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‘A precarious point’: Covid cases surge in Canada’s Prairies after relaxed approach

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Infections rising in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, exposing failures in strategy and accusations that officials squandered valuable planning opportunities

When an elderly couple with Covid-19 were admitted to her hospital’s intensive care unit, Laura Marie and her team made sure they were put in the same room.

“They were so sweet,” said the nurse, who works in the Canadian province of Alberta. “But they were so scared.”

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The mystery epidemic striking Nicaragua’s sugar cane workers – a photo essay

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In Chichigalpa, kidney failure accounts for half of all male deaths over the last decade. Could industry changes be the key to saving lives?

  • Photographs by Ed Kashi

For decades, a mystery epidemic has plagued young male labourers toiling in Nicaragua’s sugar cane plantations. The men start their work fit and strong, but after repeated harvests chopping cane under the tropical sun, they begin to suffer from nausea, back pain and exhaustion, get such severe muscle weakness that they can no longer earn a living, then end up dying of kidney failure, despite many being only in their 20s and 30s.

In Chichigalpa, the centre of Nicaragua’s sugar cane industry, the mysterious illness accounts for half of all male deaths over the last decade. Just outside this “town of city and rum”, as it is known, one rural community has earned itself the moniker “La Isla de Viudas” – the Island of Widows.

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‘Immense suffering’: older people worldwide being failed by aid agencies – report

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‘It’s much easier to get funding for children’ says one charity, as 11-country survey finds systematic failings ‘tantamount to neglect’

Older people around the world are being “systematically failed” by aid agencies, leaving them unable find enough food or access medicine, research has found.

Interviews with almost 9,000 older people affected by natural disasters, conflict or socio-economic crises in 11 countries, including Yemen, South Sudan and Venezuela, found a “one size fits all” aid approach which leaves out older people, according to a joint report published on Thursday by HelpAge International and Age International.

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Toronto police identify ‘person of interest’ in murders of billionaire couple

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  • Barry and Honey Sherman found dead at their home in 2017
  • ‘Person of interest’ identified but not arrested, police confirm

Toronto police have identified a person of interest in the high-profile murders three years ago of a Canadian pharmaceutical billionaire couple, but had not made an arrest.

Barry Sherman and his wife Honey were found dead at their Toronto mansion in late 2017. Police initially said they were treating the case as a “targeted” double murder, but since then has been little news on the investigation.

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Diego Maradona: the achingly human superstar who embodied Argentina | Marcela Mora y Araujo

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Maradona was a perfect representation of the human ability to be contradictory, to convey ugly and beautiful at once

“A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possesses at least two things besides: gratitude and purity” – Friedrich Nietzsche, on love, perseverance, and moving beyond good v evil.

Diego Maradona said that when you’ve been to the moon and back, things get difficult. “You become addicted to the moon and it’s not always possible to come back down.”

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Revealed: UK supermarket and fast food chicken linked to deforestation in Brazil

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Tesco, Lidl, Asda, McDonald’s and Nando’s all source chicken fed on soya from Cerrado tropical biome region

Supermarkets and fast food outlets are selling chicken fed on imported soya linked to thousands of forest fires and at least 300 sq miles (800 sq km) of tree clearance in the Brazilian Cerrado, a joint cross-border investigation has revealed.

Tesco, Lidl, Asda, McDonald’s, Nando’s and other high street retailers all source chicken fed on soya supplied by trading behemoth Cargill, the US’s second largest private company. The combination of minimal protection for the Cerrado – a globally important carbon sink and wildlife habitat – with an opaque supply chain and confusing labelling systems, means that shoppers may be inadvertently contributing to its destruction.

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‘The people are not afraid any more’: young Peruvians rise up to demand change

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After a tumultuous week, Peru’s burgeoning grassroots movement says it will not accept a return to business as usual

After a tumultuous week in which Peru saw three presidents – and a brutal police backlash against massive pro-democracy protests – a nascent youth movement has emerged with a clear message to the country’s politicians.

Under the rallying cry “They messed with the wrong generation”, the non-partisan group is warning Peru’s elected representatives that they will not tolerate a return to the business-as-usual world of dirty tricks and backroom deals.

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‘Structural racism’: UN urges reforms in Brazil after deadly beating of black man

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Days of protests erupted after video showed Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas, who later died, being attacked by white security guard

The UN has said that the deadly beating of a black man by white guards in Brazil exemplified “structural racism”, and called for an independent investigation and urgent reforms in the country.

Several days of protest erupted in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, after video footage last week showed 40-year-old welder Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas being punched in the face and head by a supermarket security guard while another guard held him. Freitas later died and the two men who attacked him are currently being investigated for homicide.

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Indigenous man and granddaughter, 12, handcuffed after trying to open bank account

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Maxwell Johnson, of the Heiltsuk Nation, launches two human rights complaints after arrest at Vancouver bank in December

An Indigenous man in Canada has launched two human rights complaints after he and his 12-year old granddaughter were arrested and handcuffed as they tried to open a bank account.

Related: UK and Canada to trade on EU terms after Brexit transition

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Guatemala protesters set congress on fire – video report

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Hundreds of protesters broke into Guatemala’s congress and set fire to part of the building amid growing protests against education and health budget cuts.

They are calling on the president, Alejandro Giammattei, to step down and were angered after legislators approved almost £50,000 to pay for meals for themselves, but reduced spending on coronavirus patients and human rights agencies

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Guatemala protesters set congress on fire during budget protests

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Public anger targets President Alejandro Giammattei over cuts to education and health

Hundreds of protesters broke into Guatemala’s congress and burned part of the building amid growing demonstrations against President Alejandro Giammattei and the legislature for approving a budget that cut educational and health spending.

The incident on Saturday came as about 10,000 people were protesting in front of the National Palace in Guatemala City against corruption and the budget, which protesters say was negotiated and passed by legislators in secret while the Central American country was distracted by the fallout of back-to-back hurricanes and the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Protesters set fire to Guatemala’s Congress building

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7,000 demonstrate against health and education cuts amid Covid and hurricane crises

Hundreds of protesters broke into Guatemala’s Congress and burned part of the building on Saturday amid growing demonstrations against president Alejandro Giammattei and the legislature for approving a budget that cut educational and health spending.

The protest came as about 7,000 people were demonstrating in front of the National Palace in Guatemala City against the budget, which protesters say was negotiated and passed by legislators in secret while the Central American country was distracted by the fallout of back-to-back hurricanes and the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Protests erupt in Brazil after black man dies after being beaten outside supermarket

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João Alberto Silveira Freitas was allegedly attacked by security guards at a Carrefour store in Porto Alegre

A black man who died after being beaten by supermarket security guards in the city of Porto Alegre on the eve of Black Consciousness Day has sparked outrage across Brazil after videos of the incident circulated on social media.

Footage showed João Alberto Silveira Freitas being punched in the face just outside the doors of a Carrefour supermarket, late on Thursday. Other clips showed Freitas’ being kneeled on.

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Violence erupts in Brazil after a black man is beaten to death outside supermarket – video

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A black man has died after being beaten by supermarket security guards in the city of Porto Alegre on the eve of Black Consciousness Day. Videos of the incident circulated on social media and have sparked outrage and protests across Brazil, with people entering Carrefour supermarkets and demanding justice for Freitas

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