Category Archives: Americas

Global report: Bolivia’s president and Venezuela’s Socialist party leader test positive for Covid-19

Posted on by

Announcements come after Brazil’s president tested positive; South Africa records highest one-day case increase; Australia to limit incoming travellers

Two more leading Latin American politicians – from Bolivia and Venezuela – have said they have tested positive for Covid-19 in the same week Brazil’s president announced he had contracted coronavirus.

Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s number two official and the leader of the Socialist party, announced his diagnosis on social media on Thursday evening and said he was in self-isolation. “We will prevail!!” tweeted the influential Chavista.

Continue reading...

‘The virus can kill anyone’: families condemn Bolsonaro’s claim young people face little risk

Posted on by

Far-right leader is adamant the young can rest easy but 3,500 Brazilians under the age of 40 have already died from Covid-19

Young people should not fret about coronavirus, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro declared on Tuesday as he announced he had contracted the illness.

But Hugo Dutra was youthful and fit: a dance-addicted millennial with no underlying medical conditions. He died in Rio on 18 April, after eight days on a ventilator.

Continue reading...

Indigenous Americans had contact with Polynesians 800 years ago, DNA reveals

Posted on by
  • Study shows groups crossed vast ocean in about the year 1200
  • Proof of encounter found in DNA of present-day populations

Indigenous Americans and Polynesians bridged vast expanses of open ocean around the year 1200 and mingled, leaving incontrovertible proof of their encounter in the DNA of present-day populations, new studies have revealed.

Whether peoples from what is today Colombia or Ecuador drifted thousands of kilometres to tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific, or whether seafaring Polynesians sailed upwind to South America and then back again, is still unknown.

Continue reading...

DNA analysis identifies second Mexican student among 43 disappeared in 2014

Posted on by
  • Christian Rodríguez named after testing at Austrian university
  • 43 Ayotzinapa teachers college students abducted by police

Nearly six years after 43 Mexican students were kidnapped and forcibly disappeared, a new forensic science study has identified the remains of a second member of the missing group.

Omar Gómez Trejo, head of the special unit of the attorney general’s office charged with reinvestigating the case, said on Tuesday that remains found in November were subjected to DNA analysis this year at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

Continue reading...

Coronavirus Brazil: president Jair Bolsonaro tests positive

Posted on by

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has announced live on television he has tested positive for coronavirus.

“It came back positive,” a mask-wearing Bolsonaro told a hand-picked group of reporters on Tuesday lunchtime outside his official residence.

Continue reading...

Replace or reclaim: progressive Brazil divided on fate of famous yellow shirts

Posted on by

Adoption of football jersey by Jair Bolsonaro’s radical right has inspired a campaign for new colours

It is the most recognisable symbol of Brazilian identity: the iconic canary yellow jersey in which footballing giants such as Pelé and Rivaldo have helped the nation win a record five World Cups.

But the world-famous shirt has also become the emblem of President Jair Bolsonaro’s radical right, and a group of sport lovers are now demanding it be abolished and replaced with a less partisan kit.

Continue reading...

Canada: armed man who rammed gate threatened Justin Trudeau, police say

Posted on by
  • Corey Hurren, 46, was carrying multiple firearms, police allege
  • Suspect accused of crashing his truck through gate in Ottawa

A military reservist who allegedly crashed his truck through a gate on the grounds where the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, lives was armed with two shotguns, a rifle and a revolver, and threatened Trudeau, according to prosecution documents made public on Monday.

Police allege that Corey Hurren brought a prohibited M-14 rifle, plus the shotguns and a revolver when he entered the grounds on 2 July. He is also accused of having a prohibited high-capacity magazine.

Continue reading...

Justin Trudeau snubs Nafta meeting with Trump in Washington

Posted on by
  • Mexico’s president to meet Trump on Wednesday
  • Canada PM had spoken of concern about US tariffs on metals

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has declined an invitation to visit the White House this week to celebrate a new North American free trade deal, amid worsening coronavirus figures in the US and lingering tensions with Donald Trump.

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obradoris due to meet Trump in Washington on Wednesday, and had urged Trudeau to attend the meeting.

Continue reading...

Mariachi Mecca: Mexico’s national heritage under threat from Covid-19

Posted on by

The mariachi musicians of Mexico City are struggling to eke out a living during the pandemic. Photojournalist Rubén Salgado has been documenting the community

The Mariachi musician is one of Mexico’s most best-known symbols and Plaza Garibaldi their home in Mexico City’s historic downtown, known as the Mariachi Mecca. Normally the plaza will have hundreds of tourists and locals present to see them perform. With the new government restrictions in place due to Covid-19, there are hundreds of jobless musicians vying for the work that may allow them to feed themselves and their families that day. Dozens of men wait on the main avenue stepping in front of traffic looking for clients.

Continue reading...

‘It’s a tsunami’: pandemic leaves vulnerable Latin America reeling

Posted on by

Years of social progress could be reversed by the virus, amid accusations that politicians have been fatally inept

As coronavirus galloped through Latin America in late April, the mayor of Manaus was in despair. “The outlook is dismal,” Arthur Virgílio admitted as gravediggers in the Amazon’s largest city piled coffins into muddy trenches, Brazil’s death toll hit 5,500, and its president, Jair Bolsonaro, responded with a shrug. “It’s obvious this won’t end well.”

Two months later, Virgílio’s nightmare has come true. Brazil’s death toll has risen to more than 60,000 – the second highest in the world after the United States – with some now predicting it could overtake the US, where 130,000 have died, by the end of July.

Continue reading...

‘An ashram for the hummingbird’: the Trinidad haven for world’s tiniest bird

Posted on by

Theo and Gloria Ferguson have created a garden specially designed to attract hummingbirds – and hundreds visit daily

At the foot of Theo and Gloria Ferguson’s property stands a giant silk cotton tree. Reminiscent of those enchanted species in children’s fables, this ancient sentinel’s huge varicose limbs yawn upwards and outwards, towards a canopy of leaves that scratch the sky. Eight adults linking arms would struggle to encircle its vast girth, proof of the aeons it has stood guarding the edge of Trinidad’s Maracas valley.

Continue reading...

‘Get me back to Caracas’: desperate Venezuelans leave lockdown Bogotá

Posted on by

Their ambitions for a new life in Colombia shattered, migrants are lining up for the bus journey back to an uncertain future

Rosa Vera, a 40-year-old from a small town in crisis-ridden Venezuela, thought moving to Colombia would give her the chance to find work. Five months ago, she left her family and began the arduous journey to Bogotá, the Colombian capital, to look for a job.

Instead, as coronavirus shut down economic life in the city, Vera and more than 400 Venezuelans had no choice but to camp out for a month, waiting for help to get them home.

Continue reading...

Armed man roamed Justin Trudeau’s grounds for 13 minutes after ramming gates

Posted on by

Canadian police confirm man had ‘several’ weapons and will face multiple charges

Canadian police say the armed man who rammed a truck through the gates of the prime minister’s residence was loose for 13 minutes before authorities finally spotted him.

Media reports have identified the intruder as Corey Hurren, a reservist in the Canadian Rangers, a branch of the military that typically operates in remote and coastal regions.

Continue reading...

Bolivia in danger of squandering its head start over coronavirus

Posted on by

Despite imposing an early lockdown, containment may be unravelling amid poverty, an underprepared health system and a bitter political standoff

When Pedro Flores and a group of fellow doctors arrived in the Beni, Bolivia’s tropical northern province, at the end of May, they knew the crisis caused by coronavirus would be severe. But what they found still left them shaken.

“The health system, public and private, collapsed,” said Flores. Many doctors in the regional capital of Trinidad fell ill. Other medical staff, terrified, locked themselves in at home or fled to remote farmhouses. As critically ill patients multiplied, the death toll began to climb.

Continue reading...

$10bn of precious metals dumped each year in electronic waste, says UN

Posted on by

A fast growing mountain of toxic e-waste is polluting the planet and damaging health, says new report

At least $10bn (£7.9bn) worth of gold, platinum and other precious metals are dumped every year in the growing mountain of electronic waste that is polluting the planet, according to a new UN report.

A record 54m tonnes of “e-waste” was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in five years, the UN’s Global E-waste Monitor report found. The 2019 figure is equivalent to 7.3kg for every man, woman and child on Earth, though use is concentrated in richer nations. The amount of e-waste is rising three times faster than the world’s population, and only 17% of it was recycled in 2019.

Continue reading...

Maduro refused control of $1bn in UK vaults by British high court

Posted on by

UK has ‘unequivocally recognised’ rival Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s president, ruling says

A British court has refused to give Nicolás Maduro control of $1bn (£799m) of gold bullion held by Venezuela in the vaults of the Bank of England, ruling the UK government has “unequivocally recognised” his rival Juan Guaidó as president.

The Venezuelan central bank (BCV) – whose board is appointed by Maduro, the successor to Hugo Chávez – took the legal action after its request to release the gold to pass the proceeds to the UN to help combat coronavirus in the country was rejected by the Bank of England on the basis the UK had recognised Guaidó.

Continue reading...

Global report: first tourists arrive in Greece as Brazil passes 60,000 deaths

Posted on by

Spain and Portugal reopen border as global tourism industry predicted to lose up to £2.6tn

The first tourist flights in four months landed on the Greek island of Crete, and Spain and Portugal reopened their land border as European countries continued to ease travel restrictions, as Brazil recorded 60,000 deaths.

A charter plane carrying 172 passengers from Hamburg landed at Heraklion airport on Crete at 8am, minutes after another aircraft had arrived from the Czech Republic, re-establishing the island’s air links with the outside world.

Continue reading...

Brazil’s new education minister resigns amid scrutiny over qualifications

Posted on by

Carlos Decotelli stepped down after five days following reports he lied about his credentials in blow to Bolsonaro

Brazil’s latest pick for education minister has been forced to resign after just five days following reports that he repeatedly lied about his qualifications, the most recent in a series of embarrassing blows for the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Carlos Decotelli, an economist and former navy man, stepped down yesterday after Brazil’s Getúlio Vargas Foundation business school publicly refuted his claims he had worked there as a teacher.

Continue reading...

Three asylum seekers at camp near US border test positive for coronavirus

Posted on by

Advocates have long worried about potential for an outbreak at Matamoros camp, where an estimated 2,000 migrants live

Three asylum seekers have tested positive for coronavirus in a sprawling border encampment, marking the first cases in a settlement that advocates have long viewed as vulnerable amid the pandemic.

Since confirmed cases of coronavirus in Mexico began rising in March, advocates and government officials have worried about the potential for an outbreak in the Matamoros camp, where an estimated 2,000 migrants live in tents on the banks of the Rio Grande river.

Continue reading...