Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Luxurious plane will be returned to Mexico after a year on sale in the US where it piled up $1.5m in maintenance costs
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has made selling off the luxurious presidential jet a centerpiece of his austerity program, but there’s just one problem: nobody wants to buy the white elephant.
López Obrador said on Tuesday the Boeing Dreamliner will be returned to Mexico after a year on sale in the United States, where it piled up about $1.5m in maintenance costs.
Colombia was the bloodiest nation with 103 murders and the Philippines was second, followed by Brazil, Honduras and Mexico
More than 300 human rights defenders working to protect the environment, free speech, LGBTQ rights and indigenous lands in 31 countries were killed in 2019, a new report reveals.
Two thirds of the total killings took place in Latin America where impunity from prosecution is the norm.
This was an unacceptable breach of the Vienna convention and it needs to be investigated. We are seeking full assurances from the Iranian government that this will never happen again. The FCO has summoned the Iranian ambassador today to convey our strong objections.
In a series of viral tweets, the head of a Canadian packaged meat company has lashed out at Donald Trump, suggesting the US president bears culpability for Iranian missiles that brought down Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 last week. Most of the 167 passengers on board were bound for Canada.
“U.S. government leaders unconstrained by checks/balances, concocted an ill-conceived plan to divert focus from political woes. The world knows Iran is a dangerous state, but the world found a path to contain it; not perfect but by most accounts it was the right direction,” wrote Michael McCain, the chief executive of Maple Leaf Foods, calling Trump a “narcissist”who has destabilised the Middle East.
I’m Michael McCain, CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, and these are personal reflections. I am very angry, and time isn’t making me less angry. A MLF colleague of mine lost his wife and family this week to a needless, irresponsible series of events in Iran...
Only 15 giant Española tortoises were left in the wild before one male sired 800 offspring in a wildly successful breeding program
The Galápagos National Park has announced it is ending a captive breeding program for giant Española tortoises, after one tortoise produced more than 800 offspring, helping save the species.
Emotional prime minister tells Edmonton gathering that Canada ‘will not rest until there are answers’
Justin Trudeau, his voice sometimes breaking, has told a vigil for some of those killed in an Iranian plane disaster that he would “pursue justice and accountability” for what happened.
A magnitude 6.0 earthquake shook Puerto Rico on Saturday, causing further damage on the island’s southern coast, where recent quakes have toppled homes and schools.
The US Geological Survey said the 8.54am quake hit eight miles south of Indios at a shallow depth of six miles.
A statement carried on Iran’s official IRNA news agency on Saturday morning said the military had made an “unforgivable mistake” in targeting Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 shortly after it took off from Tehran’s international airport on Wednesday. It was followed by condolences from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and an apology from the country’s president, Hassan Rouhani.
Canadian officials to travel to Tehran to investigate crash
Iran denies one of its missiles brought down Ukrainian jet
Calls for justice have continued to grow in Canada amid repeated denials from Iran that its missiles brought down a passenger jet which crashed near Tehran, killing 176 people – most of whom were traveling to Canadian cities.
Canadian officials and members of the country’s transportation safety board are due to travel to Tehran to investigate the crash, although it remained unclear how much access they would be granted to the site.
As president and foreign minister, we always advocated peace. In war, all victories are pyrrhic ones
The assassination of Qassem Suleimani by drone bombs, at the express request of the president of the United States, has thrown the Middle East – and the world – into the most serious global security crisis since the end of the cold war. By unilaterally ordering the execution of a senior Iranian military on Iraqi soil, Donald Trump violated international law and took a reckless and dangerous step in escalating conflict, with potential impact all over the planet.
Fallout continues over royal couple’s decision to ‘step back’ from monarchy
The Duchess of Sussex was back in Canada on Friday as royal officials tasked with hammering out new roles for her and Prince Harry were said to be “progressing well”.
As Meghan turned to her friends for support, the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge were said to be adopting a pragmatic approach to the couple’s bid to become hybrid royals.
Rio judge’s ruling follows complaint that the ‘honour of millions of Catholics’ was hurt by The First Temptation of Christ
A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ordered Netflix to stop showing a Christmas special that some called blasphemous for depicting Jesus as a gay man and which prompted a bomb attack on the satirists behind the programme.
The ruling by a Rio de Janeiro judge, Benedicto Abicair, responded to a petition by a Brazilian Catholic organisation that argued the “honour of millions of Catholics” was hurt by the airing of The First Temptation of Christ. The special was produced by the Rio-based film company Porta dos Fundos, whose headquarters was targeted in the Christmas Eve attack.
In Venezuela, hospitals lack the basics and medicine shortages are common, forcing humanitarian groups to pick up the slack
Feliciano Reyna masterminds a drug running network that spans Venezuela. His organisation moves substances through ports, trucks them across the country, and deliver them into customers’ hands. But he is not on any DEA watchlist.
“I am the biggest dealer in Venezuela,” says Reyna – though he is quick to qualify the remark – “If we’re talking about legal drugs.”
Homes collapsed, power was knocked out and at least one person died after Tuesday’s 6.4-magnitude quake and powerful aftershocks. The south of the island was worst hit
Island rocked by hundreds of earthquakes in recent weeks, killing at least one person and prompting power and water outages
Puerto Rico’s governor, Wanda Vázquez, declared a state of emergency and activated the national guard on Tuesday after a series of earthquakes including one of magnitude 6.4 that was the most powerful to strike the Caribbean island in 102 years.
The quakes killed at least one person, provoked a protective power outage across the entire island and cut off drinking water to 300,000 customers, Vázquez told a news conference.
She was ignored for decades, but now Suter has been rediscovered as a pioneering eco-artist. We meet her, and her 97-year-old collagist mum, in the wilds of Guatemala
A large dog romps across a blue and white canvas, leaving a trail of brown paw prints. “Oh well,” shrugs Vivian Suter. “They’re part of the work now. I don’t think anyone will mind.” I realise Bonzo – one of three Alsatian crossbreeds that shadow the artist wherever she goes in her Guatemalan home – has just put the finishing touches to an artwork that will shortly be on public display thousands of miles away.
The painting lies on the floor of her “laager” – a storage barn open to the elements, apart from a metre-high stone wall, which you have to clamber over with the help of a rickety chair. The wall is to guard against mudslides, she explains, gesturing at a ghostly tideline that rings the interior. Most of her works hang from a rack; the piles on the floor are for three upcoming exhibitions in Berlin, London and Madrid. Having just opened a 53-piece installation at Tate Liverpool, Suter is halfway through choosing the 200 works that will feature in her Camden Arts Centre exhibition, which opens next week.
Venezuela also in top five as IRC’s David Miliband warns of devastating impact from war, floods, droughts and disease
Yemen has topped an annual watchlist of countries most likely to face humanitarian catastrophe in 2020, for the second year running.
Continued fighting, economic collapse and weak governance mean that more than 24 million Yemenis – about 80% of the population – will be in need of humanitarian assistance this year, according to analysis by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which found that another five years of conflict could cost $29bn (£22bn).
Mexican authorities admit the number is far higher than previously estimated as murders continue to rise
The devastating human toll of Mexico’s security crisis was laid bare on Monday as authorities admitted nearly 62,000 people had vanished since the start of its catastrophic war on drugs in 2006.
The figure – far higher than a previous estimate of about 40,000 – spoke to the scale of the challenge facing Mexico’s leftist leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took power in December 2018 vowing to pacify his country.
Troops blocked presidential rival from entering the parliament building in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas
Venezuela’s opposition has accused president Nicolás Maduro of masterminding an illegal parliamentary “coup” after an apparent bid to decapitate the challenge from his presidential rival Juan Guaidó by replacing him as head of the country’s opposition-controlled parliament.
Guaidó shot to international prominence last January after he was elected president of Venezuela’s national assembly and used that position to declare himself the country’s legitimate interim leader.
From space, the Amazon rainforest resembles a giant dark-green lung veined with blue rivers that is steadily succumbing to the disease-like spread of grey fires, orange roads and square-cut farms. What the satellite images cannot show is how most of the remaining bands of verdant, healthy foliage are defended on the ground by forest dwellers who act as antibodies to drive out malignant invaders.
Among the most impressive of these is the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve in the state of Para in northern Brazil, where residents are trying to bolster their economic resistance with a series of new agro-forestry and solar power projects.