Grappling with Alzheimer’s, Leila Bell decided to end her life. She used her final days to call on Canada to change its rules
Leila Bell, an 85-year-old great grandmother in Vancouver, decided the circumstances of her death warranted one last act of advocacy.
She told a handful of close friends, her psychologist and her doctor about her plan. Her long-time confidante Sarah Townsend made the arrangements.
Continue reading...Juan Orlando Hernández allegedly took $25,000 in 2013 in exchange for protecting trafficker from law enforcement
US prosecutors have said that the president of Honduras met a drug trafficker in around 2013 and took $25,000 in exchange for protecting the trafficker from law enforcement.
The US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York issued a statement referring to President Juan Orlando Hernández only as a “high-ranking Honduran official” or as “CC-4”, a co-conspirator.
Continue reading...Investigation traces meat sold to JBS and rival Marfrig to farm owned by man implicated in Mato Grosso killings
A new investigation has linked the world’s biggest meat company JBS, and its rival Marfrig, to a farm whose owner is implicated in one of the most brutal Amazonian massacres in recent memory.
The report by Repórter Brasil comes as JBS faces growing pressure over transparency failings in its Amazon cattle supply chain.
Continue reading...As they endure a political crisis that has led millions to flee, Venezuela’s musicians are striving to make life worth living
‘Everything here happens at gunpoint,” someone tells me when I arrive in Caracas. Venezuela is in crisis, suffering from a lack of power, water and basic supplies and enduring widespread violence on the streets: the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence estimates that the country has the world’s highest murder rate at 81.4 per 100,000 people. According to the UN, around 4.5 million people have fled since 2015, escaping an economy in a state of hyperinflation and the authoritarian rule of president Nicolás Maduro.
The chaos has intensified recently, as opposition leader Juan Guaidó – recognised as the true president by more than 50 countries – was forced to storm a barricade of riot police to gain access to the country’s national assembly. Donald Trump has now rolled out economic sanctions to try to squeeze Maduro out of power – but they will squeeze an already embattled Venezuelan public, too.
Continue reading...Canadian Humanitarian members deny distributing expired medication or acting without approval
Authorities in Ethiopia have detained 13 Canadian healthcare workers and volunteers, alleging the group were improperly practising medicine in the country.
Canadian Humanitarian, a non-profit organisation based in the province of Alberta, confirmed the detentions but denied allegations it had distributed expired medication or was offering medical services without prior approval.
Continue reading...Resolution follows days of intense negotiation but falls short of agreement over controversial natural gas pipeline
Indigenous leaders in Canada have reached a “milestone” agreement with government officials in a land dispute that has sparked widespread protests and railway blockades throughout the country.
The tentative resolution follows three days and nights of intense negotiations between hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en nation in British Columbia and federal and provincial ministers – but falls short of addressing concerns over a controversial natural gas pipeline project.
Continue reading...PM maintains that NHS is not on the table and animal welfare standards won’t drop
Boris Johnson has said he will drive a hard bargain as the UK outlined its negotiating objectives for the forthcoming trade talks with the US.
Despite fears that disagreements between London and Washington could obstruct the launch of the negotiations, a government press release claimed the prime minister wanted to open up opportunities for British businesses and investors while also ensuring the NHS was not for sale via the desired free trade agreement.
Continue reading...President Alberto Fernández says he intends to put a bill before congress in next 10 days
Argentina is on track to become the first major Latin American country to legalise abortion.
Its president, Alberto Fernández, said on Sunday that he intends to send a legal abortion bill to congress in the next 10 days.
Continue reading...Researchers enter row over legitimacy of ex-Bolivian president, who quit after violent protests
A row over the legitimacy of Bolivia’s longest-serving leader, Evo Morales, has been reignited after researchers in the US questioned allegations that fraud was used to help the country’s leader of 14 years win the last election.
Writing in the Washington Post, the researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s election data and science lab have entered what has become a fraught debate about Morales’s legacy and whether he was forced to step down due to an attempt to manipulate the vote or, rather, pushed out as part of a military coup.
Continue reading...High street coffee shop giant Starbucks has been caught up in a child labour row after an investigation revealed that children under 13 were working on farms in Guatemala that supply the chain with its beans.
Channel 4’s Dispatches filmed the children working 40-hour weeks in gruelling conditions, picking coffee for a daily wage little more than the price of a latte. The beans are also supplied to Nespresso, owned by Nestlé. Last week, actor George Clooney, the advertising face of Nespresso, praised the investigation and said he was saddened by its findings.
Continue reading...Vincent Brown’s military history sheds precious light on a brutally suppressed revolt which paved the road to abolition
By 1690, Jamaica was the jewel of Britain’s American possessions. An economy largely based on the production of sugar brought wealth and led to the beginnings of an imperial system.
Related: Another Mother review: Jamaica memoir skips island's darker history
Continue reading...Case brought by three Eritreans against Nevsun Resources can continue as companies operating overseas face new legal risk
A Vancouver-based mining company can be sued in Canada for alleged human rights abuses overseas including allegations of modern slavery, Canada’s supreme court has ruled.
The decision means three Eritreans who filed a civil suit against Nevsun Resources in British Columbia can continue their case in a lower court.
Continue reading...An unprecedented movement has been triggered by police raids on Indigenous land – and dialed up the pressure on Justin Trudeau
Since a police raid on an Indigenous territory at the start of February, a wave of civil disobedience has surged over Canada.
Mohawks in Ontario and Quebec have erected rail blockades that paralyzed passenger and freight travel on some lines. Other protesters – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – have followed suit, blockading tracks across the country. Thirty-seven people were arrested in Toronto this week for standing on commuter tracks during evening rush hour, paralyzing the city’s Union Station.
Continue reading...Scheme provides clean water and helps foster trust between indigenous groups
Romelia Mendúa was handing out plantain drinks served in aluminium bowls. Guests were seated in a hammock and on the bare wooden floor. Beyond the window was the lush vegetation of Ecuador’s north-eastern Amazon.
Chocula, as the drink is called, is made by mashing plantains into water, and is a common refreshment in the Amazon. But the water in Mendúa’s chocula was no ordinary water. It came through a tap in her kitchen connected to two tanks outside collecting and filtering rainfall.
Continue reading...My friend Jenny Vernon, who has died aged 75, was a museum curator who worked at Gainsborough Old Hall in Lincolnshire and later became keeper of Lincoln Castle. But she also had a keen interest in, and knowledge of, Arctic Canada, which she nurtured throughout her adult life.
Jenny was born in Bromley, Kent, to George Vestey, a metallurgist, and Violet (nee Grant), a clerical worker. She spent most of her childhood in Hertfordshire, where she went to school in St Albans. After studying geography at Manchester University she landed a job in 1966 as a geographer with the Canadian government, carrying out field work in the maritime provinces and publishing reports on settlement patterns.
Continue reading...Jair Bolsonaro’s apparent endorsement of protests designed to cow Brazil’s democratic institutions has sparked outrage across the political spectrum with one lawmaker warning of a return to the dark days of dictatorship if the demonstrations are not opposed.
Hardcore supporters of Brazil’s far-right president are planning nationwide protests on 15 March and have been flooding social media with propaganda videos and fliers attacking members of Congress – and even proposing a return to military rule under Bolsonaro.
Continue reading...The group played a key role in the election of the country’s far-right president and have become increasingly assertive
With drummers pounding out samba rhythms through the rain, this might almost have been just another one of the hundreds of street parties of Rio’s world-famous carnival.
But nobody at the I’m Full of Love Samba Street Party on Copacabana Beach was drunk or in costume, few bystanders were dancing – and the group on the sound truck was singing about Jesus.
Continue reading...The carnival in Coyolillo, a town in the coastal state of Veracruz in Mexico, dates back more than 100 years. This non-religious festival includes parades, dances, music and feasting and is the heritage of sugar cane workers and slaves of African origin freed from farms. The event is known for the colourful robes, capes and animal masks – of bulls, deer, goats and cows – worn by participants. As such, the carnival is a unique expression of African-Mexican folk art
Continue reading...A Costa Rican indigenous defender has been killed by an armed mob while trying to reclaim ancestral land – the latest in a spate of violence targeting native communities in Central America’s safest country.
Yehry Rivera, 45, from the Brörán community in Térraba, was shot dead around 11pm on Monday after being surrounded by a group of angry locals armed with sticks, machetes, stones and at least one gun.
Continue reading...Proposal would include for the first time people who are not in immediate risk of dying
Canada’s government has proposed broadening a 2016 law on medically assisted death to include for the first time people who were not at immediate risk of dying.
Ottawa made the announcement after a court in the province of Quebec last September said part of the law on physician-assisted suicide was too limited and should therefore be considered unconstitutional.
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