Rising sea levels are destroying coastal towns in Honduras – and shrimp farms which export to the UK and US are making it worse
Eric Pineda runs a modest beachfront restaurant which serves up plates of fresh fish and rice – and faces imminent destruction.
A recent tidal surge razed the nightclub next door, leaving a pastel pink ruin, and in the past two years, several other businesses between Pineda’s property and the Pacific Ocean have been destroyed by sudden waves.
Continue reading...Mass protests triggered by leaked text messages have led to the resignation of Ricardo Rosselló. Oliver Laughland discusses his time on the island. And: Larry Elliott on why sterling is at a 28-month low
Hundreds of thousands of people have lined the streets of Puerto Rico over the past couple of weeks in some of the largest demonstrations in the US territory’s history. They began in response to hundreds of pages of leaked text messages between the governor, Ricardo Rosselló, and 11 members of his inner circle, which made homophobic and sexist jokes and mocked the victims of Hurricane Maria.
However, the problems go further back than July. The Rosselló administration has been plagued by allegations of corruption and mismanagement during the response to Hurricane Maria. Shortly before the messages were leaked, the FBI arrested five former government officials and contractors accused of misappropriating millions of dollars in federal funds given to the island after the disaster.
Continue reading...Calls for Mexico to crackdown on use of illegal fishing nets after further decline of species
There are fewer than 19 vaquita porpoises thought to be left, according to a study.
In 2016, estimates of the vaquita population stood at just 30, but research published in Royal Society Open Science suggests the figure has fallen further.
Continue reading...Countries focus on increasingly effective encryption of communications
British, American and other intelligence agencies from English-speaking countries have concluded a two-day meeting in London amid calls for spies and police officers to be given special, backdoor access to WhatsApp and other encrypted communications.
The meeting of the “Five Eyes” nations – the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – was hosted by new home secretary, Priti Patel, in an effort to coordinate efforts to combat terrorism and child abuse.
Continue reading...El Salvador will run out of water within 80 years unless radical action is taken, a study found, while corporate interests, corruption and gangs worsen the problem
Just after 6am, Victor Funez fills a three-gallon plastic pitcher with water from a tap in the cemetery, balances it on his head and trudges home, where his wife waits to soak maize kernels so she can make tortillas for breakfast.
Funez, 38, stops briefly to help his daughter with some homework before heading back to the cemetery with the pink urn. This load fills large plastic milk and juice bottles used for drinking throughout the day.
Continue reading...Andrés Manuel López Obrador – who made his name as a protester – backs laws that could see activists jailed for 20 years
Mexico’s president – a man who made his name blockading Pemex petroleum installations in southeastern Tabasco state – has been criticised over his support for a state law prohibiting protests.
On Monday, Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s partisans in Tabasco approved legislation that metes out stiff punishment for protests, including prison sentences of up to 20 years for blocking access to businesses and 13 years for impeding work on public works projects.
Continue reading...Canadian authorities urge people to remain vigilant as search for Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky continues
Canadian authorities have suffered a frustrating blow in their search for two teenage suspects wanted over a series of killing in remote northern Canada.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced late on Monday that a possible sighting of Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, at a garbage dump could not be substantiated after a “thorough and exhaustive search”.
Continue reading...Prisoners decapitated and asphyxiated in city of Altamira, in dispute linked to local drug trade
At least 57 people have been killed in a gruesome gang battle that broke out in an prison in the Brazilian Amazon on Monday morning.
Officials said a local drug gang had invaded the wing controlled by its rivals in the city of Altamira in the state of Pará, decapitated 16 prisoners and set mattresses on fire, with dozens more thought to have asphyxiated in the smoke.
Continue reading...As committed and hardworking supporters of fair trade for almost 30 years, we feel your correspondents (Letters, 27 July) missed the point of “The death of fair trade?” (The long read, 23 July) which showed how large corporations are trying to circumvent fair trade and undermine the highly successful Fairtrade mark with their own “fairly traded” and the like. Rest assured, the Fairtrade mark remains an absolutely trustworthy guarantee of internationally agreed standards.
Tim Gossling blames the EU for “not allowing” the production of Divine chocolate in Ghana. This is not true. The EU is primarily a trading bloc, it imposes tariffs on products from outside that bloc. That’s what trading blocs do. It benefits UK manufacturers and farmers, too. No wonder the TUC, CBI and NFU are all appalled at the thought of similar tariffs being slapped on our products after Brexit.
Continue reading...As part of the Running Dry series, the Guardian looks at how drought and famine are forcing Guatemalan families to choose between starvation and migration
At sunrise, the misty fields around the village of Guior are already dotted with men, women and children sowing maize after an overnight rainstorm.
After several years of drought, the downpour brought some hope of relief to the subsistence farmers in this part of eastern Guatemala.
Continue reading...If there is a glimmer of light amid the darkness of recent reports from the Brazilian Amazon, where deforestation is accelerating along with threats to the indigenous people who live there, it could lie in the growing power of climate diplomacy, combined with increased understanding of the crucial role played by trees in our planet’s climate system. The deal agreed a month ago between the EU and the Mercosur bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (Venezuela is suspended) enhances European leverage with its South American trading partners. Already, the prize of access to EU markets is credited with having convinced Brazil not to follow Donald Trump’s lead by withdrawing from the Paris climate deal. Now the EU must strengthen its environmental commitments, as a letter from 600 scientists demanded before the deal was agreed.
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, made no secret of his plans to promote development, and drew powerful support from Brazil’s agribusiness and mining interests before last year’s election. He scorns conservation and indigenous rights, claiming recently that his foreign opponents want Amazon tribes to live “like cavemen”. Satellite data shows the message is getting through, with clearances up sharply and this month set to be the first in five years in which Brazil has lost an area of forest bigger than Greater London. Illegal gold mining too is spreading. Last week one of the leaders of the Waiãpi people, Emyra Waiãpi, was found stabbed to death on a remote reserve in the state of Amapá, after armed men raided his village.
Continue reading...Brazil’s police have been urged to investigate a ‘very tense situation’ in Amapá state
Dozens of gold miners have invaded a remote indigenous reserve in the Brazilian Amazon where a local leader was stabbed to death and have taken over a village after the community fled in fear, local politicians and indigenous leaders said. The authorities said police were on their way to investigate.
Illegal gold mining is at epidemic proportions in the Amazon and the heavily polluting activities of garimpeiros – as miners are called – devastate forests and poison rivers with mercury. About 50 garimpeiros were reported to have invaded the 600,000-hectare Waiãpi indigenous reserve in the state of Amapá on Saturday.
Continue reading...Police highlight wildlife threat as airforce joins manhunt for Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky
The threat of a polar bear attack has become a reality for the huge Canadian police and military contingent searching for the teenage duo suspected of shooting dead Australian tourist Lucas Fowler, his US girlfriend and a university botanist.
The manhunt for Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, continued on Saturday with the addition of a Royal Canadian Air Force CC-130H Hercules and personnel searching the unforgiving wilderness near Gillam, a remote area in northern Manitoba.
Continue reading...Police being given military air support as authorities scour areas of Manitoba for teenage murder suspects
Canada’s armed forces have been drafted in to provide air support as police go door to door in the search for two teenagers suspected in three killings in the country’s remote wilderness.
Authorities have urged “all Canadians” to be on the lookout for 19-year-old Kam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky, after the fatal shooting of a tourist couple – American woman Chynna Deese, 24, and her Australian boyfriend Lucas Fowler, 23 – and the murder of Vancouver professor Leonard Dyck, 64.
Continue reading...Immigrant rights advocates say the ‘safe third country’ agreement is cruel and unlawful, though it could still be blocked
Donald Trump announced Friday that Guatemala was signing an agreement to restrict asylum applications to the US, a move that immigrant rights advocates said was cruel and unlawful.
The so-called “safe third country” agreement would require migrants, including Salvadorans and Hondurans, who cross into Guatemala on their way to the US to apply for protections in Guatemala instead of at the US border.
Continue reading...Fugitives Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod, wanted in connection with three murders, are believed to be on foot
If they have not already managed to evade a police dragnet, Bryer Schmegelsky,18, and Kam McLeod, 19, are believed to be stumbling around the unforgiving terrain that surrounds the remote Canadian town of Gillam.
Police believe the two fugitives are still close to the sprawling settlement of about 1,300 residents dotted across 2,000 square km. They are not thought to have a vehicle, and there is only one road in and out of town.
Continue reading...Indigenous leaders who say Brazil’s new president is trying to force them from their lands are braced for a new era of ruin
As a blood-orange sunset drifted towards the forest canopy, Raimundo Kanamari sat on the riverbank and pondered the future of his tribe under Brazil’s far-right president.
Related: Video of uncontacted Amazon tribe highlights threat from illegal loggers
Continue reading...At a federal immigration court in El Paso asylum seekers wait in limbo as a result of Trump’s policies
Judge Sunita Mahtabfar, presiding over the El Paso immigration court in south-west Texas, kicked off the hearing by asking the 16 asylum seekers a question.
“Is anyone here afraid to return to Mexico?” she said.
Continue reading...A burned-out vehicle known to have been driven by Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky was found near community of Gillam
Canadian police believe that two men charged with the murder of a Vancouver university professor – and suspected in the murder of a young Australian-American couple – are still on the run in the inhospitable surroundings of a remote town in northern Manitoba.
Authorities have deployed an emergency response team, crisis negotiators and “air service assets” to track the teenagers down, who they believe still on the run in the community of Gillam.
Continue reading...Alan Schmegelsky fears son will go out in ‘blaze of glory’ gun battle as police identify victim as Vancouver man Leonard Dyck
The father of one of the Canadian teenagers suspected of murdering Australian tourist Lucas Fowler and his partner, US citizen Chynna Deese, has voiced fears the manhunt will come to a violent end as police identified a third potential victim.
A distraught Alan Schmegelsky told Canadian Press his son, 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky, was dealing with some “very serious pain” and he expected the search to end in “a blaze of glory” gun battle with police. “He wants his hurt to end,” Alan Schmegelsky said.
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