Minority government benefitted from opposition members voting across the aisle, paving way for billions in spending
Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney’s minority government has survived two confidence votes on its budget, quashing fears – for now – of a winter federal election.
The Liberals managed to pass the second of three votes on the plan on Friday, paving the way for tens of billions in new spending.
Continue reading...Dozens of US state and local leaders will be at talks in Brazil with president’s team expected to send no representatives
The Trump administration appears to be sitting out this month’s United Nations climate talks known as Cop30, telling the Guardian it will not deploy any high-level representatives to the negotiations.
But dozens of US subnational leaders attend to promote their climate efforts.
Continue reading...US strikes have destroyed at least 18 vessels, but Washington has yet to make public any concrete evidence that its targets posed a threat to America
US forces struck another alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean, killing three people, defense secretary Pete Hegseth has said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s controversial campaign to at least 70.
The US began carrying out such strikes – which some experts say amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers – in early September, taking aim at vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
Continue reading...Resolution fails 49-51 with only two Republican senators voting in favor as president increases military buildup
The US Senate on Thursday blocked a Democratic war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to seek congressional approval to launch strikes in Venezuela, allowing the president to remain unchecked in his ability to expand his military campaign against the country.
The 49-51 vote against passing the resolution, mostly along party lines, came a month after a previous effort to stop strikes against alleged drug-trafficking boats in international waters similarly failed, 48-51.
Continue reading...Country’s top court declines to block controversial cull of hundreds of birds amid fears of an avian flu outbreak
Canada’s food inspection agency says it plans to begin a “complete depopulation” of hundreds of ostriches at a farm after the country’s top court declined to block the controversial cull.
On Thursday, the supreme court said it would not take up a case that has catalyzed a fierce protest by the farm owners and protesters – as well as senior figures in the Trump administration, who have decried the public health effort as government overreach.
Continue reading...Empress Zita brought stone to Canada as Nazis took over Europe in 1940s and it remained in bank vault ever since
At the height of the Battle of Britain, when the UK government needed a secret location to store 186,332 gold bars, it turned to Canada.
Shipped across the Atlantic and stored beneath a hastily constructed vault in Montreal, Operation Fish became known both for the vast amounts of gold involved – and the immense secrecy that followed.
Continue reading...Release follows supreme court ruling that overturned Jeanine Áñez’s conviction for allegedly staging coup to seize power
The former interim president who oversaw a bloody crackdown on protesters in Bolivia has been freed from prison after almost five years, following a supreme court ruling that overturned her conviction for allegedly staging a coup to seize power.
Jeanine Áñez, 58, left the Miraflores women’s orientation centre in La Paz on Thursday, saying that “the monster had to go” for her to walk free – a reference to the end of nearly two decades of rule by the leftwing Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas) party.
Continue reading...Winds of Melissa’s strength are now five times more frequent due to the climate crisis, research says
Every aspect of Hurricane Melissa, the most powerful storm ever to hit Jamaica, was worsened by the climate crisis, a team of scientists has found.
Melissa caused widespread devastation when it crunched into Jamaica as a category 5 hurricane on October 28, with winds up up to 185mph (298km/h).
Continue reading...Man tries to kiss and embrace Claudia Sheinbaum, highlighting security risk and harassment women face in Mexico
The Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has been groped by a man as she mingled with citizens on the streets of Mexico City, raising questions about the lack of presidential security and the level of sexual harassment the country’s women face.
A video of the incident on Tuesday shows a visibly drunk man trying to kiss the president on the neck and embrace her from behind, as she removes his hands and turns to face him, before a government official steps in and places himself between them.
Continue reading...Entitled ‘Canada Strong’ the 2025 budget envisions significant new defence spending, a reduction of the civil service and ‘generational investments’
A protracted trade war with the United States and a weakening domestic economy has forced Mark Carney to run a deficit tens of billions larger than initially forecast in his first-ever federal budget.
The spending plan, titled “Canada Strong” envisions significant new defence spending, a reduction of the country’s civil service and “generational investments” that would reshape the nature of the country’s economy.
Continue reading...At least 75 people were confirmed dead across the Caribbean, including 43 in Haiti and 32 in Jamaica
Jamaican prime minister Andrew Holness has said last week’s Hurricane Melissa, the strongest-ever storm to hit the country’s shores, caused damage to homes and key infrastructure equivalent to roughly 28% to 32% of last year’s gross domestic product.
Holness told the Caribbean nation’s lower house the $6bn to $7bn estimate was conservative, based on damages assessed so far, and short-term economic output could decline by 8% to 13%.
Continue reading...Pentagon secretary says two people killed in attack on boat in eastern Pacific, bringing total killed to 66 in 16 strikes
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced yet another deadly strike on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, coming the same day an aircraft carrier began heading to the region in a new expansion of military firepower.
The attack Tuesday killed two people aboard the vessel, Hegseth said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s campaign in South American waters up to at least 66 people in at least 16 strikes.
Continue reading...Brazilian president Lula called police assault on two of Rio’s largest clusters of favelas ‘disastrous’ and a ‘massacre’
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said his government will seek an independent investigation into what he called a “disastrous” police “massacre” that left at least 121 people dead.
Four officers and at least 117 others were killed when police launched a major assault on two of Rio’s largest clusters of favelas, the Complexo do Alemão and the Complexo da Penha, early last Tuesday to execute 100 arrest warrants.
Continue reading...President says she’s repeatedly rejected such offers from Trump for US to confront Mexico’s powerful drug cartels
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has flatly denied reports that the United States is planning to send troops into Mexico to confront the country’s powerful cartels, noting that she had repeatedly rejected such offers from Donald Trump.
“It’s not going to happen,” Sheinbaum said during her daily morning news conference on Tuesday. “We do not agree with any process of interference or interventionism.”
Continue reading...Peru's government has severed diplomatic relations with Mexico over the asylum claim of former Peruvian prime minister Betssy Chávez
Peru’s government has announced the country is severing diplomatic relations with Mexico over the asylum claim of the former Peruvian prime minister Betssy Chávez, who is under investigation for rebellion.
The Peruvian foreign minister, Hugo de Zela, told reporters Mexico’s decision to grant Chávez asylum at its embassy in Peru’s capital, Lima, constituted an “unfriendly act” that added to the existing tensions between the two countries. The office of Peru’s president, José Jerí, issued a statement accusing Mexico’s government of repeated interference in his country’s internal affairs.
Continue reading...Punta Peuco – where military human rights offenders enjoy privileged conditions – set to join public prison network
Inmates at an infamous high-security military prison in Chile, which houses the perpetrators of dictatorship-era human rights crimes, are set to lose their privileged conditions under plans to incorporate the prison into the public prison network.
President Gabriel Boric announced on Monday that Punta Peuco is being transformed into a regular prison to help deal with overcrowding in the penitentiary system.
Continue reading...Country set to unveil PM Mark Carney’s spending plan as it battles trade war with US and protracted cost of living crisis
Canada’s ruling Liberal party has said a budget of “sacrifice” is required to confront both a trade war with the US and a protracted cost of living crisis that threatens to push the country into a recession. But with opposition parties signalling they won’t support the fiscal plans of the prime minister, Mark Carney, a failed parliamentary vote on the budget could plunge the country into another federal election in the coming weeks.
The country’s finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, will on Tuesday unveil a spending plan his government has signalled will include both steep deficits and spending cuts. Few details have leaked ahead of the announcement, which will mark the first substantive look at how Carney plans to avoid a recession while locked in a trade war with the US, Canada’s biggest economic partner.
Continue reading...Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez, who was under police protection, was shot dead in front of dozens of people
A mayor in Mexico’s western state of Michoacán was shot dead in a plaza in front of dozens of people who had gathered for Day of the Dead festivities, authorities have said.
The mayor of the Uruapan municipality, Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez, was gunned down Saturday night in the town’s historic centre. He was rushed to a hospital where he later died, according to state prosecutor Carlos Torres Piña.
Continue reading...Acknowledgment shows shift in tone after six years of diplomatic spats over colonial-era abuses
Spain has acknowledged and expressed regret over the “pain and injustice” suffered by the Indigenous people of Mexico during its conquest of the Americas, heralding a shift in tone after six years of diplomatic spats over the abuses of the colonial period.
In March 2019, Mexico’s then president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote to King Felipe VI and Pope Francis, who was then the leader of the world’s Roman Catholics, urging them to apologise for the “massacres and oppression” of colonialism and the conquest.
Continue reading...Residents of Vila Cruzeiro gather bodies after more than 130 were killed in pre-dawn assault
Day had yet to break over Vila Cruzeiro but already dozens of corpses were splayed out along the favela’s main drag after more than 130 people were killed during the deadliest police operation in Rio’s history: grotesquely disfigured, blood-smeared bodies that had been dragged out of nearby forests and dumped on blue tarpaulins and black plastic sheets covering the street.
“I’ve brought 53 down myself … there must be another 12 or 15 up there in the bush,” said Erivelton Vidal Correia, the head of the local residents’ association, bleary-eyed from a sleepless night spent hauling bullet-riddled local men down from the hills.
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