The populist leaders of Brazil and Mexico have come under fire after publicly thumbing their noses at growing fears over the spread of the coronavirus.
Related: Trump 'offers large sums' for exclusive access to coronavirus vaccine
Continue reading...Canada has unveiled aggressive new measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak, shutting down parliament and advising against foreign travel, even as Justin Trudeau urged citizens to remain calm in a national address delivered from self-imposed quarantine.
“We have an outstanding, we have outstanding public health authorities who are doing an outstanding job. We will get through this together,” said the prime minister, who has been in self-isolation after his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday.
Continue reading...Royce Phillips sentenced to 25 years for running gang that groomed and abused young girls from district in Quito
An American man has been sentenced to more than 25 years in prison for leading a sex trafficking ring in Ecuador that was connected to the murder of a 15-year-old girl and the rape, sexual and physical abuse of dozens more.
Royce Phillips, 66, from Texas, and four Ecuadorean co-defendants, were jailed on Wednesday for 25 years and four months, the maximum sentence for people trafficking with the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Continue reading...Alberta officials suggest major changes, saying the current system punishes people but they ‘continue to drive impaired’
A proposal to change to drunk driving laws in a Canadian province has reignited a fierce debate over the best way to prevent alcohol-related deaths on the country’s roads.
Officials in Alberta suggested that major changes are coming to the province’s laws on the issue and have even raised the possibility of the decriminalisation of drunk driving.
Continue reading...Justin Trudeau’s wife and diplomat at the UN test positive as Australian Grand Prix is cancelled and Arsenal and Chelsea teams affected
The coronavirus has reached the highest levels of government and the sporting world, with Canada’s prime minister isolating himself when his wife tested positive, the Arsenal manager and a Chelsea player being diagnosed and the Australian Grand Prix cancelled just hours before the event was due to start.
On Thursday night, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, Justin Trudeau’s wife, announced she had been diagnosed with Covid-19 after returning from the UK. Her symptoms were mild and she began two weeks of isolation. Her husband also began isolation and was “in good health with no symptoms”.
Continue reading...Royal expert sounds alarm after Prince Harry seemingly duped into thinking he was talking to Greta Thunberg
Russian hoaxers who apparently tricked Prince Harry into offering help to take penguins to the North Pole have raised serious questions over security and screening measures for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as they leave the royal fold, a royal expert said.
Posing as the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and her father, hoaxers Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov managed to reach Harry on his landline at his rented Vancouver Island mansion on New Year’s Eve and on 22 January, it has been reported.
Continue reading...Ottawa judge to hear case of Elena Crenna, who denies allegations she shared classified information with Russian officials
A woman at the centre of a three-decades-old Russian “sex spy” scandal is fighting her deportation from Canada, denying allegations she ever shared classified information with Russian officials.
An Ottawa judge was due on Wednesday to hear the case of Elena Crenna, a Russian American woman who married the former Canadian civil servant David Crenna.
Continue reading...Exodus expected to continue from Central American country, amid fears of repeat of state and police repression
More than 100,000 people have fled persecution in Nicaragua, with numbers set to rise, two years after the country was plunged into social and economic crisis, the UN’s refugee agency warned.
Even after a violent crackdown against nationwide anti-government protests in April 2018 had subsided, Nicaraguan students, human rights defenders, journalists and farmers have continued to seek asylum abroad at the rate of 4,000 a month.
Continue reading...A day after thousands protested against the murder of women and girls, López Obrador said he would ‘reinforce the same strategy’
A day after Mexico’s women collectively shut down the country in an eruption of fury over gender violence, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has insisted that he will not try a new strategy to stop femicides.
Thousands of women went on strike on Monday, in a historic protest against the murder of women and girls – and the failure of successive governments’ efforts to stop a crisis in which around 10 women are murdered every day.
Continue reading...Residents of riverside communities in the state of Pará are unconvinced by the Bolsonaro government’s claims of jobs and other benefits that a dramatic extension of a trans-Amazon highway would bring
From the veranda of her wooden home, Joaci da Silva looked out across her garden towards the waters of the River Amazon, and shuddered as she considered the future.
“Today we live in a paradise,” she said.
Continue reading...Washington DC-based bank grants funds to redraft south American state’s oil laws by lawyers linked to oil giant
The World Bank is to pay for Guyana’s oil laws to be rewritten by a legal firm that has regularly worked for ExxonMobil, just as the US producer prepares to extract as much as 8bn barrels of oil off the country’s coast.
The World Bank has pledged not to fund fossil fuel extraction directly, but it is giving Guyana millions of dollars to develop governance in its burgeoning oil sector, as the south American country prepares for an oil rush led by ExxonMobil and its partners.
Continue reading...As the country grapples with a worsening crisis, the revolt among a new generation of feminists is picking up steam: ‘It’s our last resort’
Dalilah Loza is 15 and dreams of being an orthodontist, or an economist - perhaps even a photographer.
But most of all she wants to be the voice of her mother.
Continue reading...Football star detained in police station in Asunción shortly before planned flight back to home town of Rio
Football star Ronaldinho has been arrested in a hotel in Paraguay’s capital after authorities said he entered the country with falsified documents.
The 39-year-old Brazilian and his brother, Roberto Assis, were taken to a police station in Asunción shortly before 10pm local time on Friday, Paraguay’s prosecutors office said in a statement.
Continue reading...In 1983 ministers of the revolutionary Sandinista government lined up on the tarmac to welcome Pope John Paul II on his first visit to Nicaragua. Moments later, TV cameras showed the pontiff wagging a finger at the kneeling Ernesto Cardenal, priest and minister of culture, admonishing him for mixing religion and politics.
But for Cardenal, who has died aged 95, there was no distinction between the two. His beliefs as a Roman Catholic growing up in Central America in the 1940s and 50s led him to seek social justice in a country that had for many years suffered under the dynastic rule of the Somoza family. His faith also meant he could not avoid political responsibility if it was thrust upon him.
Continue reading...A Chilean man was arrested after he drove a truck into one of the famous Easter Island statues and toppled it. The mayor of Easter Island has called for vehicle restrictions to be introduced around its archaeological sites after the truck caused 'incalculable' damage
Continue reading...Mayor calls for vehicle restrictions around famous structures after Chilean man causes ‘incalculable’ damage
The mayor of Easter Island has called for vehicle restrictions to be introduced around its archaeological sites after a pickup truck hit one of the famous stone statues, causing “incalculable” damage.
A Chilean man who lives on the island, in Polynesia, was arrested after the incident on Sunday and has been charged with damaging a national monument, according to the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio de Valparaíso. The platform on which the statue stood was also damaged in the crash, it reported.
Continue reading...The former New York mayor has endorsed Joe Biden after suspending his 2020 Democratic presidential campaign. Addressing his supporters, the billionaire candidate said he got into the race ‘to defeat Donald Trump’ and was leaving for the same reason.
Bloomberg added: ‘I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it. It is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American Joe Biden’
Continue reading...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...