Category Archives: Americas

El Salvador rape victim acquitted over stillbirth murder charge

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‘Resounding victory for rights of women’ after retrial overturns conviction of Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez

A young rape victim who was suspected of having an abortion and charged with homicide after having a stillborn child has been acquitted by a judge at a retrial in a case that attracted international attention to El Salvador’s strict abortion laws.

Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez, now 21, had served 33 months of a 30-year prison sentence when her conviction was overturned in February for lack of evidence and a new trial was ordered. Prosecutors had asked for a 40-year sentence.

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Reports of secret US-Venezuela talks to oust Maduro draw skepticism

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Claims that Nicolás Maduro’s number two official is working with the US are an attempt to ‘stoke paranoia’, experts say

He is one of the most influential and infamous figures in Venezuelan politics – a hardcore Chavista who uses his weekly talkshow to preach permanent revolution and excoriate the evil empire up north.

But two reports in the American media now suggest Diosdado Cabello, Nicolás Maduro’s number two official, has been engaged in “secret communications” with United States officials designed to force Hugo Chávez’s successor from power.

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‘A second Trump’: Bolsonaro’s offensive rhetoric adds to Brazil’s discomfort

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Supporters say his tendency to speak freely is sincere – but detractors call it a PR disaster

He parleyed his way to Brazil’s presidency with a vote-winning barrage of scaremongering and bombast.

But eight months into Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right tenure, there is growing discomfort over the president’s inability – or refusal – to mind his mouth, and the impact this is having on Brazil’s place in the world.

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Jack Letts stripped of British citizenship

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Canada accuses UK of ‘offloading responsibilities’ over dual-national Isis recruit

Jack Letts, who left his home in Oxfordshire to join Isis five years ago, has been stripped of his British citizenship while being held in a Syrian prison.

The move sparked a diplomatic row as Canada – where Letts qualifies for a passport through his father – accused the UK government of “offloading its responsibilities”.

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Plunging peso, grinding poverty: Argentina hears echoes of 2001 crisis

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Fiery ex-president Cristina Kirchner is making a comeback as the number two on a resurgent centre-left ticket

Father Guillermo Torre, known as Willy to his parishioners, has been through this before. “I arrived here 20 years ago in 1999, right before the economic collapse of 2001,” he said.

“Here” is Villa 31, a giant slum that sprawls beside the luxurious Recoleta and Retiro neighbourhoods of central Buenos Aires, a city within a city of which Torre is the parish priest. “Back then Villa 31’s population was 12,500; now it is 45,000,” he says, accepting a constant stream of greetings and hugs from recuperating addicts arriving at his drug rehabilitation centre.

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Norway halts Amazon fund donation in dispute with Brazil

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International concerns grow over deforestation surge since Jair Bolsonaro took power

Norway has followed Germany in suspending donations to the Brazilian government’s Amazon Fund after a surge in deforestation in the South American rainforest. The move has triggered a caustic attack from the country’s rightwing president.

Related: Bolsonaro rejects 'Captain Chainsaw' label as data shows deforestation 'exploded'

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‘It can happen again’: America’s long history of attacks against Latinos

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Last year marked a century since another Texas massacre, part of a legacy of racist violence leading up to El Paso

“It can happen again.” That’s what Arlinda Valencia said last year, at a ceremony in Texas marking the 100th anniversary of the massacre of 15 Mexicans and Mexican-Americans by a group of white men.

Valencia’s great-grandfather was one of the 15 unarmed men and boys who were woken up in the middle of the night in Porvenir, Texas, in 1918, taken outside, and shot to death. The slaughter, which was carried out by white Texas Rangers, US soldiers, and local vigilantes, was justified by labeling the Mexican American families “bandits” and criminals.

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British woman dies in Barbados after being set alight in her bed

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Killer’s identity not known, say police, as ‘devastated’ family raise funds to bring body home

A British woman has died in Barbados after being doused with a flammable substance and set alight as she lay in bed.

The family of Luton-born Natalie Crichlow said they were “shocked and devastated” by her death.

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El Salvador rape victim who suffered stillbirth faces murder retrial

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Evelyn Beatríz Hernández Cruz gave birth in a toilet and was initially jailed for 33 months before successful appeal

A rape victim who delivered a stillborn baby as a teenager is facing decades in prison for aggravated homicide as prosecutors in El Salvador seek to prove she deliberately induced an abortion.

On Thursday, Evelyn Beatríz Hernández Cruz, 21, from a poor rural family in Cojutepeque, will go on trial for the second time in a case that highlights the aggressive criminal persecution of Salvadoran women who suffer obstetric complications.

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Canada murders: teenage suspects died by apparent suicide, police say

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Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky were wanted over the killing of three people and the subject of a weeks-long manhunt across Canada

Canadian police say they believe two fugitives suspected of killing an American woman and her Australian boyfriend as well as another man died in what appears to be suicides.

The Manitoba Medical Examiner completed the autopsies and confirmed on Monday that the bodies found last week were indeed 19-year-old Kam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky. Both were found in dense bush in northern Manitoba.

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Ricardo Martinelli: former Panama president not guilty of spying

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Prosecutors had sought a 21-year prison term for alleged spying on at least 150 people and misuse of public funds

A Panamanian court has cleared the former president Ricardo Martinelli of political espionage during his administration and ordered him released from house arrest.

The three-judge panel declared Martinelli not guilty on Friday of charges stemming from the purported spying on the communications of at least 150 people and of the alleged misuse of public funds to purchase the equipment to carry out the intercepts during his 2009-2014 administration.

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Canada announces regulations to cut price of prescription drugs

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  • Move hailed as ‘crucial step to lower prescription drug costs’
  • New rules were resisted by pharmaceutical companies

The Canadian government has announced regulations to reduce patented drug prices it said would save Canadians C$13.2bn (US$10bn) over a decade, overriding heavy opposition from pharmaceutical companies.

The changes are the biggest reform to Canada’s drug price regime since 1987. They will save money for patients, employers and insurers including the government at the expense of drug company profits. They also could eventually cut the earnings of drugmakers in the United States, the world’s largest pharmaceutical market.

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Chase Bank cancels all credit card debt for Canadian customers

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Clients ‘over the moon’ at US lender’s move as it withdraws from market

Chase Bank is forgiving all outstanding debt owed by customers of its two Canadian credit cards as it exits the country’s market.

Customers using the Amazon.ca Rewards Visa and the Marriott Rewards Premier Visa were pleasantly surprised to find the balance on their credit cards had been wiped clean.

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Pair face jail over leaked Emiliano Sala mortuary images

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Sherry Bray and Christopher Ashford admit accessing CCTV of postmortem examination

Two people are facing prison sentences after they admitted accessing footage of the footballer Emiliano Sala’s postmortem examination.

The Argentinian’s body was recovered from a plane wreck on 6 February, two weeks after it crashed into the Channel.

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Bolsonaro has blessed ‘brutal’ assault on rainforest, sacked scientist warns

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In interview with the Guardian, Ricardo Galvão says if the far-right leader doesn’t change tack the Amazon will be ruined

Illegal loggers are ramping up a “brutal, fast” assault on the Brazilian Amazon with the blessing of the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, the sacked head of the government agency tasked with monitoring deforestation has warned.

Speaking to the Guardian five days after his dismissal, Ricardo Galvão said he was “praying to the heavens” the far-right leader would change tack before the Amazon – and Brazil’s international reputation as an environmental leader – were ruined.

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Mexico cartel hangs bodies from city bridge in grisly show of force

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  • Jalisco New Generation cartel claims 19 deaths in Uruapan
  • Drug gangs believed to be fighting for control of avocado trade

The merciless dogfight between Mexican drug cartels has produced its latest macabre spectacle with the discovery of 19 mutilated corpses – nine of them hung semi-naked from a bridge – in a city to the west of the capital.

Related: 'Can't fight evil with evil': life in Mexico's most murderous town

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Thousands forced to flee as rights group warns of ‘war’ in Colombia border area

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Three groups are fighting over drug routes and coca plantations as 40,000 have fled their homes, says Human Rights Watch

Illegal armed groups have forced about 40,000 people to flee their homes as they fight for control of drug trafficking routes in Colombia’s Catatumbo region bordering Venezuela, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.

The 64-page report highlights the significant security challenges that Colombia still faces after the government signed a 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group. That deal and a weak state presence has left a void in Catatumbo and other remote areas that has been filled by smaller armed groups, which are unleashing a new wave of drug-fueled violence.

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Canada manhunt: police searching for teen fugitives find two bodies

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Bodies found in northern Manitoba thought to be teenagers suspected of three killings

The bodies of fugitives Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, are believed to have been found in northern Manitoba, Canadian police have announced.

At a Wednesday afternoon press conference, Manitoba Royal Canadian Mounted Police assistant commissioner Jane MacLatchy told reporters that two male bodies believed to be those of Schmegelsky and McLeod were found at 10am by RCMP officers.

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