Category Archives: Americas

First Yanomami Covid-19 death raises fears for Brazil’s indigenous peoples

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Acutely vulnerable population at risk as wildcat miners in Amazon reserve suspected as source of infection that killed 15-year-old

A Yanomami teenager has reportedly died after contracting Covid-19, further fuelling fears over the disease’s potential to decimate indigenous communities in the Amazon.

The victim – who health authorities named as 15-year-old Alvanei Xirixana – died on Thursday night after spending almost a week in intensive care in Boa Vista, a Brazilian city near the Yanomami’s Portugal-sized reserve.

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Canada could see 22,000 coronavirus deaths even with physical distancing, officials say

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Dropping strict control measures could lead to 300,000 deaths, projections show after country’s deadliest day yet

Canada could suffer as many as 22,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, even with strict physical distancing and the widespread closure of businesses and schools, Canadian public health officials have warned.

Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday that he remained confident that Canadians could continue their “disciplined” behaviour, including staying home and practicing social distancing.

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From blocked-off beaches to bench bans: Easter lockdowns around the world

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Authorities have announced measures ranging from the draconian to the quixotic

Authorities around the world are preparing to use curfews, roadblocks, travel bans, surveillance technology and threats of fines and arrests to deter people from travelling and congregating over Easter.

Many governments have already announced tighter restrictions and increased police enforcement in an effort to sustain lockdowns during a holiday period traditionally associated with trips and socialising.

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President nowhere to be seen as Nicaragua shuns coronavirus curbs

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Daniel Ortega was last seen on 12 March, and his absence has sparked anger and fear as Central America battles pandemic

He was one of the key leaders of Nicaragua’s revolutionary Sandinista movement that drove the dictatorial Somoza clan from power.

But in the battle against coronavirus, Daniel Ortega has been invisible, sparking wild speculation over whether Nicaragua’s septuagenarian leader is self-isolating, bed-bound in hospital – or might even have died.

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Humans living in Amazon 10,000 years ago cultivated plants, study finds

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Findings from Bolivia show plants were domesticated in region shortly after last ice age

The Amazon basin was a hotspot for the early cultivation of plants, with inhabitants having munched on squash and cassava more than 10,000 years ago, researchers have revealed.

The team say the new findings from Bolivia offer direct evidence such plants were grown in south-west Amazonia, meaning the region has a claim to join the Middle East, China, south-west Mexico and north-west South America as locations where wild plants were domesticated shortly after the last ice age. The team say the discovery chimes with other clues.

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Qantas staff ‘incredibly fearful’ about flights to rescue Australians trapped overseas

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Airline turns to New Zealand after failing to get sufficient volunteers from Australia amid coronavirus fears

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    • Qantas is moving to recruit cabin staff from its New Zealand subsidiary to operate scheduled flights to rescue Australians trapped overseas, after it failed to get sufficient volunteers from its Australian cabin staff to operate planned flights.

    Amid news that 50 Qantas and Jetstar staff have contracted coronavirus there has been growing anxiety among Qantas staff about plans to resume flights to Los Angeles, London, Auckland and Hong Kong later this week.

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    Trump and 3M reach deal to allow N95 face masks to be exported to Canada

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    US officials had stopped shipment at 3M factory after Trump invoked Defense Production Act to halt exports to Canada and beyond

    The Trump administration has agreed a deal with the US manufacturer 3M to import more than 166m respirators from China over the next three months and allow 3M to continue exporting its US-made respirators.

    The agreement breaks a deadlock which resulted in Washington stopping nearly three million of the specialized masks from being exported to Ontario, stirring fears that Canada’s most populous province would run out of supplies for medical staff battling coronavirus by the end of the week.

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    Ecuador: cardboard coffins distributed amid coronavirus fears

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    Guayaquil, where mortuaries have been overwhelmed, creates helpline for removal of coronavirus victims

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    • Authorities in Ecuador’s biggest city are distributing thousands of cardboard coffins and have created a helpline for families who need corpses to be removed from their homes.

    Guayaquil has emerged as a regional hotspot for coronavirus, and hospitals and mortuaries have been overwhelmed, forcing some families to store bodies at home.

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    The Observer view on coronavirus, a tragedy for poorer nations

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    If Europe, the US and China are struggling to contain it, what chance for millions of people in less developed countries?

    It is a terrible thing to see a disaster in the making and be unable to prevent it. Yet this is the prospect confronting us if we dare to look beyond the walls and parapets of a Britain besieged by the coronavirus invader. Tens of millions of people in poorer, less developed countries across the world face a looming catastrophe that appears as unstoppable as it is potentially lethal.

    The moment has not quite arrived. But an axe is poised to fall on untold numbers of largely defenceless heads, a massacre almost too appalling to contemplate. As the relatively wealthy countries of the northern hemisphere engage in a noisy struggle to repulse Covid-19, alarm bells are ringing from south Asia to the Middle East and Africa. Mostly they have not yet been heard.

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    Major drug-gang shootout leaves 19 dead in northern Mexico

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    The bloody battle broke out in the border state of Chihuahua, where the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels have been at war

    A major shootout between rival drug gangs has killed 19 people in the northern Mexico border state of Chihuahua, officials say.

    The state prosecutors’ office said on Saturday that 18 corpses, two grenades, vehicles and guns were found at the scene of the clash in the hamlet of Chuchuichupa the township of Madera.

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    Sanctions should not impede coronavirus fight, EU diplomat says

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    Josep Borrell backs UN call for global ceasefire to allow the world to focus on pandemic

    Sanctions should not stop the delivery of medical equipment and supplies to countries trying to contain outbreaks of coronavirus, the EU’s top diplomat has said.

    Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, made his comments in a declaration on Friday in which he backed the UN’s call for an immediate global ceasefire to allow the world to focus on the pandemic.

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    Canada: Ontario warned to expect 15,000 deaths from coronavirus

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    Health officials in Canada’s most populous province say extreme measures have probably prevented far higher death toll

    Health officials in Ontario have warned that as many as 15,000 will die from the coronavirus in Canada’s most populous province in the coming months, but said extreme measures already in place have probably saved many more lives.

    The province released its coronavirus projections on Friday, as it prepares for a surge in cases that could overwhelm the province’s already-strained healthcare system.

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    Mexico murder rate reaches new high as violence rages amid Covid-19 spread

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    • March sees 2,585 homicides – highest monthly figure on record
    • Mexico tries to pour resources into containing coronavirus

    Mexico’s homicide rate raced to a new record in March, as violence raged even as Covid-19 spread across the country and authorities urged the population to stay home and practise social distancing.

    Mexico registered 2,585 homicides in March – the highest monthly figure since records began in 1997 – putting 2020 on track to break last year’s record total for murders.

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    Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro hits out at ‘dictatorial’ Rio beaches ban

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    President again undermines efforts to tackle coronavirus by criticising state’s governor

    The Brazilian president has further undermined efforts to control the spread of coronavirus by criticising what he called “dictatorial” moves to stop citizens going to the beach.

    In an interview on Thursday, Jair Bolsonaro hit out at Rio de Janeiro’s governor, Wilson Witzel, who this week ordered the state’s 17 million citizens to stay at home – and off the sands.

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    ‘They’re leaving us to die’: Ecuadorians’ plead for help as virus blazes deadly trail

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    Dead bodies kept in homes or dumped on roadsides as authorities and hospitals are overwhelmed by Covid-19 in Andean nation’s second city

    Democratic leaders given poll boost for handling of crisis

    It has been three days since Reynaldo Barrezueta passed away at his home in Ecuador’s biggest city – and still his body lies in a coffin on the sitting room floor.

    “The authorities are just leaving us to die,” said his son, Eduardo Javier Barrezueta Chávez, who has spent the last 72 hours pleading with authorities remove his father’s corpse – so far to no avail.

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    Brazil: coronavirus fears weaken Amazon protection ahead of fire season

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    Fewer law enforcement officials going into the field open door for land invasions, indigenous communities and NGOs warn

    The coronavirus pandemic is weakening Brazilian state protection for the Amazon rainforest and its people ahead of this year’s fire season, according to indigenous communities and international NGOs.

    Fewer law enforcement officials are going out into the field and monitoring missions are being scaled back, opening the door for more land invasions and forest clearance, they warn.

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    Canada: suspect arrested over murder of two Indigenous men in Alberta

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    • Anthony Michael Bilodeau, 31, charged with double murder
    • Jake Sansom and Morris Cardinal killed while on hunting trip

    Police in Canada have arrested a suspect in connection with the murders of two Indigenous men gunned down after returning from a hunt in rural Alberta.

    Anthony Michael Bilodeau, 31, has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder over the deaths of Jake Sansom, 39, and Morris Cardinal, 57.

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    The village still suffering from Peru mercury spill fallout – after 20 years

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    When the people of Choropampa saw a bright, silvery liquid on the road, they imagined it was valuable. Two decades on, the toxic truth is all too apparent

    When a truck spilled mercury from a gold mine on the dirt road outside her house, Francisca Guarniz Imelda scooped it up with her bare hands, thinking it had healing powers.

    She took it home to her mud-brick house in Choropampa, in Peru’s northern Cajamarca region. The heat of the day vaporised some of the mercury, contaminating the walls and ceiling with the toxic metal.

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    Brazil confirms first indigenous case of coronavirus in Amazon

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    Positive test for 20-year-old woman from Kokama tribe comes amid fears virus could devastate remote communities

    An indigenous woman in a village deep in the Amazon rainforest has contracted the novel coronavirus, the first case reported among Brazil’s more than 300 tribes, the Health Ministry’s indigenous health service Sesai has said.

    The 20-year-old from the Kokama tribe tested positive for the virus in the district of Santo Antonio do Iá, near the border with Colombia, 880km (550 miles) up the Amazon river from the state capital Manaus, Sesai said in a statement on Wednesday.

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    Canada shocked by double murder of Indigenous hunters

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    Two Métis men were found shot dead in rural Alberta after what police believe was an ambush

    Police in Canada are investigating the murders of two Indigenous men who they suspect were ambushed after returning from a successful hunt in rural Alberta.

    The bodies of Jake Sansom, 39, and his uncle Morris Cardinal, 57, were found early on 28 March beside Sansom’s pickup truck on a country road near Glendon, a farming town 160 miles north-east of Edmonton. Both had gunshot wounds.

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