Human Rights Watch says 138 Salvadorans were murdered from 2013 to 2019 and 70 others were abused or sexually assaulted
At least 200 Salvadoran migrants and asylum seekers have been killed, raped or tortured after being deported back to El Salvador by the United States government which is turning a blind eye to widely known dangers, a new investigation reveals.
Related: How the US helped create El Salvador’s bloody gang war
Continue reading...Federal court of appeals in a 3-0 decision rejected four challenges from First Nations to government’s approval of the project
Canada’s federal court of appeal has dismissed legal objections to the contentious Trans Mountain pipeline expansion that would nearly triple the flow of oil from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific coast.
In a 3-0 decision, the court rejected four challenges from First Nations in British Columbia to the federal government’s approval of the project.
Continue reading...Boeing 767-300 suffers engine and tyre damage on takeoff from Barajas airport
An Air Canada Boeing 767 with 128 passengers onboard has made an emergency landing in Madrid due to technical problems after taking off from the city’s Barajas airport.
The Toronto-bound flight AC837 departed from the Spanish capital early on Monday afternoon but had to request an emergency return after one of its two engines was damaged and a tyre ruptured during takeoff. There was no immediate information as to what had caused the malfunction.
Continue reading...The city’s theatre is emotional, indignant and polemical finds our critic on a whirlwind trip through a dozen shows
The sparky young performers on stage thank us for coming out tonight. There are so many other things we could have been doing, they tell us, before launching into their show, Too Much Sexual Freedom Will Turn You Into Terrorists. “Burning subways” gets the biggest laugh. We are, after all, in Santiago, where only three months ago people took to the streets and did exactly that. Even now, in spite of soaring summer temperatures, Chileans continue to protest every weekend. Their list of complaints ranges from inadequate private pensions to an out-of-touch president.
The graffiti creeping across every surface calls for an end to police violence, for the renationalisation of water and for the indigenous Mapuche people to fight back. Sprayed everywhere is the figure 6% – President Sebastián Piñera’s popularity rating.
Continue reading...Ostentatious wedding to groom with underworld links is seen as reminder of bride’s family’s power
It was the society wedding of the year in Mexico’s drug cartel heartland: Alejandrina Gisselle Guzmán, daughter of the convicted kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, tied the knot with the kin of another member of Mexico’s underworld.
And in the ostentatious style of a family accustomed to getting its way, they were married in a closed-door ceremony in the cathedral of Culiacán – the city at the centre of the Sinaloa cartel’s criminal empire.
Continue reading...Efforts to recover the 19th-century regalia of a Blackfoot Nation leader began in 2008
A British museum is resisting attempts from Canada to secure the repatriation of sacred relics of a 19th-century indigenous chief because the centre where his descendants want to locate them is not an accredited museum, but the final decision lies with local councillors in England.
In an increasingly acrimonious dispute, backers of the campaign to repatriate regalia belonging to Crowfoot of the Blackfoot Nation were told by officials at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter that “no one wants to get their hands dirty” when it came to the sensitive question of repatriating looted artefacts held in UK arts institutions.
Continue reading...Citizens post video appealing for evacuation from city at centre of coronavirus outbreak
Brazilian citizens trapped in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak, have issued an urgent plea to their president, Jair Bolsonaro, for them to be evacuated.
In a six-minute YouTube video the Brazilians noted how other countries – including the US, the UK, France, Japan and Italy – had already taken steps to rescue their citizens from the city.
Continue reading...Thirty tortoises partially descended from extinct species found, including one of same species as famed individual
Conservationists working around the largest volcano on the Galápagos Islands say they have found 30 giant tortoises partially descended from two extinct species, including that of the famed Lonesome George.
The Galápagos national park and Galápagos Conservancy said one young female had a direct line of descent from the Chelonoidis abingdonii species of Pinta island. The last of those tortoises was Lonesome George, who died in June 2012 and was believed to be more than 100 years old.
Continue reading...The boyfriend of a murdered Salvadoran journalist has been found guilty of femicide and given the maximum 50-year prison sentence on Friday, a rare conviction in the deadly gender violence that often goes unpunished in the Central American nation.
Mario Huezo was convicted by a judge of killing Karla Turcios, with whom he lived and had a child with, after a nine-day trial in a court that hears gender violence cases in San Salvador.
Continue reading...Six indigenous people have been killed and other 10 kidnapped after scores of armed men raided an isolated Nicaraguan nature reserve in an attack linked to raging land disputes.
About 80 attackers stormed a Mayangna commune about 500km (310 miles) north of capital Managua, deep in the north-central Bosawás Biosphere Reserve, the second-largest rainforest in the Americas after the Amazon.
Continue reading...A Mexican environmental activist who fought to protect the wintering grounds of the monarch butterfly has been found dead in the western state of Michoacán, two weeks after he disappeared.
Homero Gómez González, a former logger who managed El Rosario butterfly reserve, vanished on 13 January. His body was found floating in a well on Wednesday, reportedly showing signs of torture.
Continue reading...Political party of Los Israelitas wins second largest share in new congress, and prompts concern over their fundamentalist views
In a country that takes pride in its colourful folklore, Los Israelitas – a religious sect whose members dress in flowing biblical robes – were regarded as just one more strand in Peru’s cultural tapestry.
That was until their political party became an unexpected winner in parliamentary elections on Sunday.
Continue reading...Steel panels being installed between Calexico and Mexicali are part of the US president’s attempt to enhance the border barrier
A section of Donald Trump’s much-vaunted border wall between the United States and Mexico has blown over in high winds, US border patrol officers have been reported as saying.
The steel panels, more than nine metres (30ft) high, began to lean at a sharp angle on the border between the Californian town of Calexico and Mexicali in Mexico amid gusts on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Demagogues rely on fear to consolidate power. But courage is contagious – that’s why we must join hands and fight back
Substantial media coverage over the last year, within Brazil and internationally, has been devoted to threats and attacks we each received, separately and together, due to our work – David’s as a congressman and Glenn’s as a journalist. These incidents have been depicted, rightfully so, as reflective of the increasingly violent and anti-democratic climate prevailing in Brazil as a result of the far-right, authoritarian, dictatorship-supporting movement of President Jair Bolsonaro, which consolidated substantial power in the election held at the end of 2018.
There was much discussion when David entered congress in early 2019 after the only other openly LGBTQ+ congress member, Jean Wyllys, fled his seat and the country in fear of his life. As a longtime LGBTQ+ celebrity and sole LGBTQ+ member of congress, Wyllys had endured constant death threats and even bullying from fellow members of congress. His multiple fights with Bolsonaro and his sons made him a particular object of contempt by that movement. That they now occupied full-scale power made his remaining in Brazil untenable.
Continue reading...Hearing on teen who later killed herself could lead to first standard for protection from sexual violence at schools in Latin America
An international court hearing that involves the alleged sexual abuse of an Ecuadorian schoolgirl between the age of 14 and 16 by her deputy head could transform girls’ rights across Latin America.
In a region where 30% of students between 13 and 15 claim to have experienced sexual harassment while at school, it is hoped that the case, heard on Tuesday at the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR) in Costa Rica, will establish the first international standards to protect girls from coercion and sexual violence in school.
Continue reading...A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake has struck in the sea south of Cuba, shaking a vast area from Mexico to Florida and beyond, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage.
Tsunami warnings for Cuba, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands were issued but lifted shortly afterward with no reports of major damage.
Continue reading...Storms have submerged entire neighborhoods and sent homes tumbling down hillsides, causing more than 30,000 to flee
More than 30,000 people have been displaced by heavy rains in south-east Brazil that have killed 54 people and left 18 missing.
The storms have caused floods and landslides, submerging entire neighborhoods and sending homes tumbling down hillsides in the states of Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro. Rains subsided by Monday, but were expected to resume later this week in some areas.
Continue reading...The fast-growing religious right – both Catholic and Protestant – see the president’s exit as a first step in transforming the country, leaving many indigenous Bolivians horrified
Some blame the defenestration of Evo Morales on a racist, rightwing coup. Others credit a popular revolt against a leader who had overstayed his welcome.
Related: Bolivia's Evo Morales lands in Argentina after being granted asylum
Continue reading...Officials announce new measures to contain disease, including wildlife trade ban and bus suspensions, as confirmed death toll reaches 56
Jonathan Ashworth, the UK’s shadow health secretary, urged the government to reassure the public it is sufficiently prepared as the NHS is already struggling in the flu season.
He told the Guardian:
The NHS is currently under immense strain this winter with staff already working flat out and hospitals overcrowded. We need urgent reassurance from ministers they have a plan to ensure we have capacity in place to deal with Coronavirus should we need to,
Continue reading...In Brazil’s largest indigenous reserve thousands of saplings have been planted as an alternative to profits from illegal gold mining
The villagers walk down the grassy landing strip, past the wooden hut housing the health post and into the thick forest, pointing out the seedlings they planted along the way. For these Ye’kwana indigenous men, the skinny saplings, less than a metre high, aren’t just baby cacao trees but green shoots of hope in a land scarred by the violence, pollution and destruction wrought by illegal gold prospecting. That hope is chocolate.
Continue reading...