Category Archives: Americas

Canadian conservation officer fired for refusing to kill bear cubs wins legal battle

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Casavant shot mother black bear under province policy but was suspended and eventually fired for not killing cubs

A conservation officer in Canada who was fired for refusing to kill two black bear cubs has won a protracted legal battle over his termination.

“I feel like the black clouds that have hung over my family for years are finally starting to part,” Bryce Casavant told the Guardian. “But the moment is bittersweet – my firing should have never happened in the first place.”

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Global report: India reports surge in Covid-19 cases as lockdown eased

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Almost 10,000 new cases in India on Thursday as WHO warns situation outside Europe deteriorating

India reported almost 10,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, with hospitals swamped in the worst-hit cities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai, and predictions that the infection rate will not peak before the end of next month.

The country of 1.3bn people now has the fifth highest number of confirmed cases in the world, at 286,579. Over the last 24 hours 357 people have died from the virus, bringing the official toll to 8,102.

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‘I raised hell’: how people worldwide answered the call of World Oceans Day

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From protecting fishing communities to regrowing coral reefs, Guardian readers and environmentalists share how they’re working to defend the ocean

World Oceans Day, which took place on Monday, is marked by hundreds of beach cleans and events globally. Despite Covid-19 restrictions, environmentalists and readers from around the world shared how they are continuing to work to protect the ocean, and told us about the local marine issues that matter to them.

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Mexico: US teenager shot dead by police in Oaxaca

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  • Boy, 16, identified only as Alexander, killed on Tuesday night
  • Details unclear but cousin says teenager was buying soda

A US teenager has been shot dead by local police in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in yet another shocking case of police abuse and brutality.

The 16-year-old victim – identified only as Alexander – was killed on Tuesday night after he went out to buy soda, according to media reports. 

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Coronavirus live news: Argentina records more than 1,000 daily cases for first time

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WHO official walks back asymptomatic transmission comments; world faces worst food crisis in 50 years; UK NHS waiting list could hit 10m

Japan’s lower house of parliament has approved an emergency budget worth nearly over £230bn, doubling the scale of measures to pep up the world’s third-biggest economy after the coronavirus tipped it into recession, AFP reports.

Their raucous clucking deprives residents of sleep. They leave the neighbourhood “wrecked”. And food left out for them attracts “rats the size of cats” to an otherwise peaceful, leafy suburb.

New Zealand’s national lockdown to quell the spread of Covid-19 appears to have vanquished the virus, but it has had one unintended consequence: the re-emergence of a plague – not of frogs or locusts but of feral chickens, a flock of which is once again menacing an area of west Auckland.

Related: 'Like a Stephen King movie': feral chickens return to plague New Zealand village

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Coronavirus live news: Africa passes 200,000 confirmed cases after Burundi president dies of suspected Covid-19

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Asylum applications in Europe fall to lowest level for a decade as borders closed; world faces worst food crisis in 50 years

Louise Taylor and David Conn report:

Premier League clubs should be braced for a collective £500m loss of revenue because of the coronavirus pandemic, Deloitte has warned.

Related: Premier League clubs set for £500m collective loss due to coronavirus

Key developments in the global coronavirus outbreak so far today include:

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Global report: WHO urges Pakistan to return to lockdown as hospitals struggle

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Brazil restores Covid-19 data online; Argentina passes 1,000 daily cases for first time; Fauci says ‘we’re still at the beginning’ of pandemic

The World Health Organization has taken the unusual step of urging Pakistan to return to lockdown, suggesting the country implement restrictions in a cycle of two weeks on, two weeks off.

While Pakistan has relatively low testing rates, one in four people who are tested return a positive result, the WHO said in a letter to Punjab’s provincial health minister, Yasmin Rashid. Prime Minister Imran Khan has resisted a national lockdown, arguing the country cannot afford it, and provinces have instead introduced patchwork lockdowns. Last week Khan said these would be lifted. 

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Canada doubles weapons sales to Saudi Arabia despite moratorium

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  • Canada sells nearly C$3bn of military equipment in 2019
  • Ban on new exports in place over human rights concerns

Canada sold a record amount of military hardware to Saudi Arabia in 2019, despite sharply criticizing its poor human rights record and placing a moratorium on any new exports to the kingdom. 

Newly released figures show Canada sold nearly C$3bn (US$2.2bn) worth of military equipment to Saudi Arabia in 2019 – more than double the total of the previous year, reported the Globe and Mail. The bulk of the exports were light armoured vehicles, part of a deal with the Saudis worth C$14.8bn.

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Judge orders Bolsonaro to resume publishing Brazil Covid-19 data

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Move comes amid accusations government was trying to suppress the scale of the crisis

A Brazilian supreme court judge has ordered Jair Bolsonaro’s administration to resume publishing complete Covid-19 statistics after moves to suppress such information prompted accusations of authoritarian skulduggery designed to cover up the crisis.

The Brazilian government sparked outrage on Saturday by purging the health ministry website of historical data relating to the pandemic and announcing it would stop publishing the cumulative death toll or number of infections.

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Coronavirus live news: claim that asymptomatic transmission ‘very rare’ was ‘misleading’, says WHO official

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WHO expert backtracks after saying asymptomatic transmission ‘very rare’

Here are the latest developments in the world coronavirus outbreak so far on Tuesday:

Germany plans to extend its travel warnings for non-European countries until 31 August, government sources have told the Reuters news agency, adding that Berlin was also strongly advising against any cruises due to the special risks related to the pandemic.

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Sandinista leaders fall victim to coronavirus outbreak they downplayed

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Nicaragua’s government denies community spread in the country but an independent tally says deaths are 20 times the official figure

Earlier this year, as countries enforced strict social-distancing rules to slow the spread of coronavirus, Nicaragua’s Sandinista rulers organized a string of pro-government rallies and marches under the banner “Love Walk in the Time of Covid-19”.

Among those who joined one of those crowds in Managua was Dr Félix Bravo, a doctor in the country’s public health system, whose loyalty to the Nicaraguan government apparently outweighed the World Health Organization’s warnings against large gatherings.

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‘We’ll disappear you’: Mexican protesters recount terror of police abduction

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Five friends were seized en route to a rally against police brutality, which followed the death of a man arrested for not wearing a face mask

Jésus* and four friends were heading to a protest against police brutality when they were seized by a group of plain-clothes officers and forced into an unmarked pickup truck.

They had planned to join a demonstration in Guadalajara, prompted by the case of Giovanni López, a construction worker who was found dead after he was arrested for not wearing a face-mask.

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Brazil stops releasing Covid-19 death toll and wipes data from official site

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Government accused of totalitarianism and censorship after Bolsonaro orders end to publication of numbers

The Brazilian government has been accused of totalitarianism and censorship after it stopped releasing its total numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths and wiped an official site clean of swaths of data.

Health ministry insiders told local media the move was ordered by far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, himself – and was met with widespread outrage in Brazil, one of the world’s worst-hit Covid-19 hotspots, with more deaths than Italy and more cases than Russia and the UK.

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Ex-Salvadoran colonel to be tried over murder of six priests in 1989

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Inocente Orlando Montano accused of planning atrocity aimed at stopping peace talks

A former Salvadoran army colonel who served as a government security minister will appear in court in Madrid on Monday to face trial over the murders of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter in 1989.

The attack, at the Central American University (UCA) in San Salvador, was planned and authorised by senior military commanders and was an attempt to derail peace talks aimed at ending the country’s civil war.

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Canadian First Nations chief says mounted police assaulted him

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Allan Adam claims police attacked him and his wife after he was stopped over licence tag

A prominent First Nations chief in Canada has said he and his wife were assaulted by police officers over an expired licence plate, an incident that came as the country grapples with continued violence against ethnic minorities at the hands of police.

Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, a well-known businessman whose community has extensive operations in Alberta’s oil sands, said he and his wife, Freda Courtoreille, had a violent encounter with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on 10 March that has left the community in anguish. 

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Venezuela’s supreme court rules against opposition in vote setback

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Top court complains opposition-held congress did not name electoral body authorities in time

Venezuela’s government-friendly supreme court has said the opposition-held congress did not name rectors to the South American country’s electoral authority in time, a move denounced by the opposition as an attempt to derail election plans. 

The court declared the national assembly’s decisions null and void shortly after the opposition won control of the body in late 2015. With new legislative elections due by the end of 2020, the decision marked a setback to efforts between the two sides to agree on conditions for the vote. 

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Justin Trudeau takes a knee but is silent on reforms to policing

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Canadian PM attends Ottawa rally but would not be drawn on new policies to tackle racism

Justin Trudeau took a knee in solidarity with anti-racism demonstrators on Friday, but remained silent at the event as his government faces questions over how it plans to address police violence. 

Wearing a black mask and surrounded by bodyguards, the Canadian prime minister made a surprise appearance at the No justice = No peace rally in Ottawa.

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Canada police under scrutiny after two women die after encounters with officers

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Agency faces criticism over its capacity to de-escalate situations involving racial minorities or those with mental health issues

Police in Canada are facing growing scrutiny after two women – both members of ethnic minorities and both suffering mental health problems – died following encounters with officers. 

The deaths come as tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in the US in protest over police violence against racial minorities, prompted by the police killing of George Floyd.

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Meat giants selling to UK linked to Brazil farms in deforested Amazon reserve

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Greenpeace report shows cattle indirectly sold to JBS, Marfrig and Minerva came from protected Serro Ricardo Franco park

Three international meat companies have indirectly sourced cattle from farms that deforested a unique, protected Amazon reserve, a new report from Greenpeace has found – and two of them later sold meat from the area to the UK.

The revelations come as the Brazil-based companies involved, JBS, Marfrig and Minerva, are under increasing pressure to come clean about their Amazon supply chains. They are now known to have broken commitments made to Greenpeace and Brazilian federal prosecutors  more than a decade ago.

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Many of the 300 plants and animals endemic to Canada at risk, report finds

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Ours to Save identified 308 species and subspecies but only 10% considered ‘globally secure’ or ‘apparently secure’

There are few animals more iconically Canadian than the moose and the beaver, and few plants more closely associated with the country than the maple leaf.

But while those species have long considered part of the nation’s ecological identity they are also found elsewhere.

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