Category Archives: Americas

Mexican president says he ordered release of El Chapo’s son

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Ovidio Guzmán was briefly captured in October only to be let go hours later as security was overwhelmed by cartel forces

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on Friday said he personally ordered the release of one of the sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, after his brief detention during a military operation.

Scenes of mayhem during the operation caused López Obrador’s government considerable embarrassment in October as security forces briefly captured Ovidio Guzmán only to let him go hours later as the security forces were overwhelmed by cartel forces.

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Brazilian mayor censured over ‘racist’ coronavirus ban

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Fredson de Silva, mayor of Pau d’Arco, issued decree locking down only indigenous people

Local authorities in the Brazilian Amazon have been accused of racism after locking down a string of indigenous villages and banning indigenous people from entering a local town because of a coronavirus outbreak.

Federal prosecutors on Friday called for the mayor of Pau D’Arco in the Amazon state of Pará – population 6,000 – to revoke the decree, which he said had been issued to protect public health.

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Canada’s failed UN security council bid exposes Trudeau’s ‘dilettante’ foreign policy

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Second failed attempt to win seat raises questions about messaging and clarity in Canada’s foreign policy, experts say

When Justin Trudeau was first elected in 2015, he promised that his victory would help Canada vault back on to the world stage, and reclaim a global influence that had eroded in previous years.

“To this country’s friends all around the world, many of you have worried that Canada has lost its compassionate and constructive voice in the world,” Trudeau told a raucous crowd on election night. “Well, I have a simple message for you. On behalf of 35 million Canadians: we’re back.”

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Argentina’s president enters voluntary isolation amid coronavirus surge

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The sudden spike in cases has also struck a number of current and former senior politicians

Argentina’s president Alberto Fernández has gone into voluntary isolation amid growing concerns over a surge of coronavirus infections, including several cases among the country’s political elite.

The decision to quarantine the president – whose popularity is riding high on his no-nonsense response to the pandemic – was taken due to the “significant increase in the circulation of the virus,” presidential doctor Federico Saavedra said in a statement on Wednesday.

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Americans reportedly find ‘loophole’ to violate Canada’s Covid-19 border closure

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Officials investigating reports that US citizens are crossing border on pretext of visiting Alaska, only to stay in Canada

For some Americans, the prospect of visiting the Rocky Mountains without hordes of visitors cramming its picturesque trails and alpine towns, is so tempting that they’re prepared to risk arrest.

Canadian officials are investigating reports that American tourists are making covert forays into the country, violating a border closure imposed to slow the spread of coronavirus.

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Mexico’s secret churches: invitation-only Catholic masses defy Covid-19 rules

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‘They call you and tell you the place and the date’ – but there are risks, with about 20 praying elderly women busted in one police raid

The invitations arrive via text message or social media. “They ask you for a kind of password to let you in,” said Jesús Preciado, whose father has attended the secretive gatherings in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

Diego Martínez, whose mother has attended the backstairs events, said they were off-limits to anyone not in the know. “It’s invitation-only,” he said. “They call you and tell you the place and the date.”

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Diego the tortoise, father to hundreds and saviour of his species, finally retires

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Giant tortoise, whose reproductive efforts almost single-handedly saved his species, has been moved to an uninhabited island

Diego, the giant Galápagos tortoise whose tireless efforts are credited with almost single-handedly saving his once-threatened species, has been put out to pasture on his native island after decades of breeding in captivity, Ecuador’s environment minister said.

Diego was shipped out from the Galápagos national park’s breeding program on Santa Cruz to the remote and uninhabited Española.

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Coronavirus live news: Beijing locks down 10 residential compounds amid new outbreak

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WHO warns UK not to lift lockdown; Iran deaths top 100 for first time in two months; cases worldwide near 7.9m. Follow the latest updates

The number of confirmed Covid-19 infections has passed 25,000 in Afghanistan while a key testing laboratory paused work due to lack of kits.

The health ministry has detected 761 new cases from 1,551 tests in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 25,527.

Norway will halt its Covid-19 track and trace app, and delete all data collected so far, after criticism from the Norwegian Data Protection Authority.

The app was introduced by some Norwegian authorities to limit the transmission of the coronavirus.

We don’t agree with the DPA’s evaulation, but feel it is necessary to delete all data and put work on hold as a result of this.

We will as a result weaken an important part of our preparedness against a spread in infection, as we now lose time for development and testing of the app.

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Global report: China detects highest daily case rise in months

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Partial quarantine remains in Beijing; European countries continue to open borders to neighbours

China detected its highest number of daily coronavirus cases in months on Sunday, locking down parts of Beijing in a warning of the difficulties of avoiding a resurgence of the pandemic as Europe prepared to open more borders and loosen restrictions this week.

A wholesale food market in the Chinese capital, where traces of the virus were detected, was closed at the weekend. Nearby housing estates were also placed under quarantine after authorities detected 36 new coronavirus cases in the city and another 19 across the country.

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‘The country is adrift’: echoes of Spanish flu as Brazil’s Covid-19 catastrophe deepens

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A century after the 1918 pandemic, South America’s largest country has passed Britain to claim the world’s second-highest death toll

As a child growing up in 1940s São Paulo, Drauzio Varella remembers his grandmother’s tales of how the Spanish flu ravaged the blue-collar immigrant community they called home.

“So many people died that families would leave people outside on the pavements, and early each morning the carts would come by to collect them and take them off to burial in mass graves,” remembered Varella, who would go on to become Brazil’s best-known doctor.

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Chile’s health minister quits over government response to Covid-19

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Country has one of the highest numbers of daily coronavirus cases relative to population size

A steep rise in coronavirus cases in Chile has plunged the government into crisis and prompted intense criticism of its management of the pandemic.

Divisions between the government and sectors of the medical community led to the resignation of the health minister, Jaime Mañalich, on Saturday, shortly after 234 deaths in 24 hours had been confirmed, the highest daily toll to date. Chile is among the countries with the highest number of daily cases relative to population size.

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Global report: China reports most cases since April as pandemic gathers pace in Latin America

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Second wave fears rise in China; Chile health minister resigns; British citizens evacuated from Colombia; European borders reopen

China has reported its highest daily number of new coronavirus cases in months as parts of Beijing remained under lockdown, offering a second-wave warning to the rest of the world as the pandemic rages in South America and global cases approach 7.8 million.

The shock resurgence in domestic infections on Sunday has rattled China, where the disease emerged late last year but had largely been tamed through severe restrictions on movement that were later emulated across the globe.

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Death of young footballer shot by police sparks outrage in Mexico – video

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Hundreds of people bade farewell to a 16-year-old Mexican-American boy who was shot dead by police in southern Mexico. Alexander Martínez was laid to rest in a funeral that reflected his passion for football – friends brought his coffin to a local football pitch so that he could 'score' a final goal. 

Martínez was shot in the head by police on Tuesday night and another teenager was also wounded in the incident and later died in hospital. The case, which is still under investigation, has sparked outrage in Mexico with protests planned in Acatlán de Pérez Figueroa, Martínez's home town 

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Global report: New Beijing cases spark second wave fear as India and Brazil struggle with first

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São Paulo to dig up cemeteries to clear spaces for coronavirus deaths; new rise of infections in Darfur, Sudan; New Zealand goes 22 days with a new case

A cluster of dozens of new coronavirus cases in Beijing has prompted authorities to lock down parts of the city again after nearly two months without any new local infections.

The outbreak has affected dozens of people, most of whom are asymptomatic, and raises concerns about how the virus might re-emerge, even in places where it appeared to be under control.

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Argentina pastor turns church into bar in protest at uneven coronavirus restrictions

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Pastor plans a drive-in worship event next in protest at limits on church services as bars and shops open

An evangelical church in Argentina has reopened as a bar in protest against the lockdown on religious services that remains in place despite the gradual opening up of other activities around the country.

Bar tables were placed inside the church and pastors dressed as waiters carrying bibles on their trays in a mock service as part of call for religious services to be allowed during Argentina’s coronavirus lockdown.

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Outrage after Venezuelan racehorse stolen and butchered

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Horse owners say theft is becoming an increasingly common crime in nation where many are going hungry

In his prime, the coffee-hued Venezuelan racehorse known as Ocean Bay thundered down tracks and snatched up the nation’s most prestigious titles.

His end this week has outraged many: the stallion was stolen and butchered in what horse owners say it becoming an increasingly common crime in a nation where many are going hungry amid a severe economic contraction.

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First Nations chief shown being punched by Canadian police in video

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Chief Allan Adam of Fort Chipewyan First Nation alleges police assaulted him in parking lot in March

Canadian police tackled and punched a prominent First Nations chief in the parking lot of a casino as they accused him of resisting arrest.

On Saturday, Chief Allan Adam of Fort Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta alleged he was assaulted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) during the incident in early March. It began over an allegation of an expired licence plate but quickly escalated into what Adam claims was a clearcut instance of excessive force.

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Five-year-old’s fatal plunge provokes hard questions about Brazil’s racism

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Miguel Otávio Santana da Silva fell nine storeys after being left alone by his mother’s employer, one of many richer white Brazilians employing black domestic workers

Mirtes Santana weeps when she remembers finding her son dying on the pavement outside the luxury seaside apartment block where she worked in north-eastern Brazil.

“I can’t bear it,” said the 33-year-old domestic worker. “It breaks my heart.”

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Herbal cures and no sanitation: the Lima residents battling Covid alone – in pictures

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Over 70% of the indigenous Peruvian community of Cantagallo Island have tested positive for coronavirus. This is how they are surviving lockdown

• All photographs by Florence Goupil, who received a grant from the Covid-19 National Geographic emergency fund for journalists

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Bolsonaro supporter desecrates Brazil beach memorial for 40,000 coronavirus victims

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A man vandalized a mock cemetery of 100 graves and crosses representing people who have died from Covid-19

A supporter of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has desecrated a beachside memorial to Covid-19 victims as the country’s coronavirus death toll rose above 40,000.

Activists from civil society group Rio de Paz dug 100 symbolic shallow graves on Copacabana beach before dawn on Thursday to represent the Brazilian lives lost.

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