Outrage at president’s response to news that more than 5,000 people have lost their lives
More than 5,000 Brazilians have lost their lives to the coronavirus – even more people than in China, if its official statistics are to be believed.
But on Tuesday night Brazil’s president shrugged off the news. “So what?” Jair Bolsonaro told reporters when asked about the record 474 deaths that day. “I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?”
Continue reading...Schools in Turkey to stay shut until end of May; Germans urged to stay home; Vietnam says it has had no domestic transmission for two weeks
Another 31 people have died in Ireland and 376 more cases have been diagnosed, the country’s chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan has said.
One of the deaths reported on Wednesday involved a person in the 15-24 age group, the second in this category. Dr Holohan warned the number in intensive care units was too high as the prospect of a rapid easing of movement restrictions dwindles.
That is simply too high and we need to get that down further not only because it is about protecting occupancy but the lower the figure is it is a reflection of better protection of the public and lower levels of spread of the infection.
Bolivia will extend its lockdown against the pandemic until 10 May, the government has announced, though it is planning to relax rules in less affected parts of the country from the following day.
The president Jeanine Áñez has said Bolivia will move to a “dynamic” or “less rigid” quarantine on 11 May, allowing some people to return to work.
Opening the quarantine a little or closing it completely will depend on how the pandemic is being controlled in each region. The Ministry of Health will evaluate every seven days how the pandemic evolves in each region. On that basis, decisions will be taken to relax or harden the quarantine.
Continue reading...French has become a collateral victim of the coronavirus pandemic in Canada, forcing the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to defend failures to uphold laws requiring labels and services in both official languages.
Canada is officially bilingual, but the government has allowed the sale of imported disinfectants labelled only in English because of “the extreme situation in which we find ourselves”, Trudeau said on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Hardest-hit region in Canada with over 1,600 deaths plans to reopen elementary schools and childcare facilities on 11 May
Justin Trudeau has urged caution as Canada’s most populous provinces announce plans to ease their lockdown measures, highlighting the challenge of balancing public health recommendations with a growing pressure to loosen coronavirus restrictions.
“The measures we’ve taken so far are working. In fact, in many parts of the country the curve has flattened,” Trudeau said on Tuesday. “But we’re not out of the woods yet. We’re in the middle of the most serious public health emergency Canada has ever seen and if we lift measures too quickly, we might lose the progress we’ve made.”
Continue reading...Brazil’s top court approves investigation into explosive allegations against president
The political whirlwind convulsing Brazilian politics has intensified with the supreme court approving an investigation into explosive allegations that the president, Jair Bolsonaro, illegally attempted to interfere in the federal police.
“The president of the republic … is also subject to the laws, just like any other of the country’s citizens,” the supreme court judge Celso de Mello noted in his decision on Monday night.
Continue reading...WHO clarifies ‘immunity passport’ advice; global deaths pass 200,000; Russia case tally passes 80,000; Sweden’s deputy prime-minster admits problems with strategy. This blog is now closed.
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Here a few key developments of the past few hours at a glance:
Continue reading...‘Maximum emergency’ to allow police investigate highest single-day homicide tally
The Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, late on Friday ordered a 24-hour lockdown of prisons containing gang members, and said their leaders would be sent into solitary confinement after a sudden spike in homicides during the day.
“No contact with the outside world. Shops will remain closed and all activities are suspended until further notice,” Bukele tweeted shortly before midnight. “Gang leaders will go into solitary confinement.”
Continue reading...The coronavirus was probably brought to Brazil by rich returning holidaymakers but it is threatening to explode in marginal communities
In many ways, Washington Castro was a typical resident of Rocinha, the immense redbrick favela that towers over Rio de Janeiro’s Atlantic coast.
Industrious, God-fearing and the offspring of migrants from Brazil’s parched and impoverished north-east, he supported two young children by working two separate jobs and wore a suit and tie when attending his local church.
Continue reading...President Jair Bolsonaro denies he sought to influence federal police inquiries
Brazil’s government has been plunged into turmoil after the resignation of one of Jair Bolsonaro’s most powerful ministers sparked protests, calls for the president’s impeachment and an investigation into claims he had improperly interfered in the country’s federal police.
In a rambling televised address late on Friday, Brazil’s embattled president denied claims from his outgoing justice minister Sérgio Moro that he had sought to appoint a new federal police chief in order to gain access to secret intelligence reports – for reasons that remain murky.
Continue reading...Gabriel Wortman also beat and handcuffed his girlfriend before the shooting, police said, which might have been ‘the catalyst’
The Nova Scotia gunman used his replica police cruiser to flag down motorists before murdering them, and also targeted passersby who offered to help and a lone walker out for a Sunday morning stroll.
Gabriel Wortman – who killed 22 people on Saturday and Sunday – also stole weapons from a police officer he murdered, switched vehicles and changed clothes to elude capture during his 12-hour killing spree.
Continue reading...30 British attendees at Panama event criticise embassy and say they fear being stuck for months
It must have seemed like a dream adventure: a two-week festival on a beach in central America, camping out under the stars at night in what organisers called “paradise on Earth”.
But because of the coronavirus outbreak, a group of 30 British workers and volunteers at the festival are stranded in a makeshift camp facing nonstop rain, a difficult relationship with the British embassy, and a sewage problem.
Continue reading...Doctors and nurses have been assaulted, thrown off buses and barred from their homes, accused of spreading coronavirus
Jovanna was walking home after a morning of hospital consultations when she heard a shout behind her. As she turned to look, she felt something wet in her face. Within seconds, her vision went cloudy and she smelled bleach.
“They picked me out because I was wearing scrubs,” said the ear, nose and throat doctor from the Mexican city of Guadalajara, as she described the attack which left her with conjunctivitis and burns on her skin. “I didn’t see anything – I don’t know who it was, but I know they attacked another doctor on the same day.”
Continue reading...Residents say emergency alert during shooting spree could have saved lives as gunman drove around the province for over 12 hours
As Canada reels from mass shooting that killed at least 22 people, residents in Nova Scotia have asked why authorities failed to send an emergency alert as a gunman posing as a police officer drove around the province for more than 12 hours.
A week before Canada’s worst-ever mass shooting, all residents of the province received a mobile phone alert asking them to remain at home due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many argue that a similar warning during the shooting spree could have saved lives.
Continue reading...Exploratory talks emerged from concerns over Covid-19 spread, hyperinflation and growing fuel shortages
Allies of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and his bitter foe, the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, have secretly begun exploratory talks as concerns grow about the possible impact of the spread of the coronavirus, according to sources on both sides.
The discussions emerged from concerns about Covid-19, hyperinflation and growing fuel shortages – as well as worries among some members of the ruling Socialist party about how to ensure their political survival under a possible change of government as Washington tightens sanctions, the sources said.
Continue reading...Portraits of those killed emerge while police search 16 crime scenes across Canadian province
Police in Canada have updated the death toll of the country’s worst mass shooting to 22, as more victims from the gun rampage in Nova Scotia were publicly identified.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had previously warned the death toll would increase as investigators combed through several homes intentionally set ablaze by the gunman in a 12-hour rampage that started late on Saturday in the town of Portapique. On Tuesday, 16 separate crime scenes were being examined across the province.
Continue reading...Families struggle to maintain coronavirus restrictions as they seek to stay afloat: ‘My fear is my children going hungry’
Leaders across Latin America have ordered their citizens indoors as they struggle to tame the coronavirus.
But for Liliana Pérez, an Argentinian single mother of six, staying at home is a pipe dream.
Continue reading...Eighteen people were murdered in a handful of tightlyknit communities in the hours-long shooting spree
Flags have been lowered to half mast across Canada, as friends and families paid tribute to the victims of the country’s worst ever mass shooting
Related: Nova Scotia shooting death toll rises as Trudeau calls on Canadians to stand united
Continue reading...Far-right president deemed ‘deplorable’ for flouting social distancing rules again – while coughing repeatedly – to bolster protests amid coronavirus
Former presidents, politicians and newspaper editorial boards have lined up to denounce the “moronic” and “anti-democratic” behaviour of Brazil’s far-right leader after he hit the streets to egg on protesters demanding a return to military dictatorship.
As the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 rose to nearly 2,500 on Sunday, Jair Bolsonaro left his presidential palace in Brazil’s capital, Brasília, to fraternize with flag-waving radicals.
Continue reading...Close to 200 active criminal groups act as guardians and protectors of communities while using extortion, kidnapping, and violence
Men with assault rifles stand guard as their colleagues hand out plastic bags of groceries from a pick-up truck to a crowd of mostly older women.
Off-screen, the man recording the mobile phone footage announces that the aid packages come from a local crime boss “who runs things here”, in the city of Apatzingán in Mexico’s western state of Michoacán.
Continue reading...Gilberto ‘Fuminho’ Aparecido dos Santos arrested in international sting operation
Mozambique has expelled one of Brazil’s most wanted criminals, an alleged drug lord who has been on the run for two decades.
Gilberto “Fuminho” Aparecido dos Santos was sent home on a Brazilian air force plane that left Maputo at 1.30am on Monday with dozens of police officers onboard, the authorities said.
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