Category Archives: Americas

Canada took in more refugees than any other country in 2018, UN says

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Canada resettled 28,100 refugees last year, overtaking the US for the first time since the 1980 Refugee Act, UN report found

Canada took in more refugees than any other country in the world in 2018, according to a United Nations report, knocking the US from its position as global leader in resettling people fleeing war, persecution and conflict.

Canada resettled 28,1000 refugees in 2018, overtaking the US for the first time since the 1980 Refugee Act, said the report from the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) on Wednesday.

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Trudeau approves contentious Trans Mountain pipeline expansion

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Construction to start this year, Canadian prime minister says, despite opposition from environmental and Indigenous groups

Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau has once again approved a hotly contested proposal to expand the crude oil pipeline it bought last year, providing hope for a depressed energy industry but angering environmental and Indigenous groups which have fiercely opposed the project.

Construction on the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline is planned to start this year, Trudeau told a news conference on Tuesday. A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said earlier that Ottawa expected legal challenges to the approval.

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Scientists shocked by Arctic permafrost thawing 70 years sooner than predicted

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  • Ice blocks frozen solid for thousands of years destabilized
  • ‘The climate is now warmer than at any time in last 5,000 years’

Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared.

A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilised the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia.

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Galápagos Islands: outcry after Ecuador allows US military to use airstrip

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Political row sparked after government gave US permission to use island for anti-narcotics flights

The Galápagos Islands are at the centre of political row in Ecuador after the government agreed to allow US anti-narcotics planes to use an airstrip on the archipelago which inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Dozens of people demonstrated outside the main government office in Quito on Monday to protest against a plan they described as a threat to the world heritage site’s unique environment – and an attack on Ecuador’s sovereignty.

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Police say two shot as 1.5m pack Toronto streets for Raptors’ title parade

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  • Police say two people sustained non-life-threatening injuries
  • Raptors became first non-US team to win NBA title last week
  • Police lift fans seeking safety as overcrowding becomes problem

Toronto police say two people were shot as Toronto Raptors fans packed the city’s downtown to watch the team’s NBA title parade. Police said two people had sustained serious but non-life threatening injuries in the incident. They added that two people had been taken into custody, and the parade was resumed after a short delay.

I’m on the roof of city hall and something is happening. People are running including what looks to be cops and security pic.twitter.com/FEbhw88OqI

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Colombia leader hits out at ‘hypocrisy’ of middle-class cocaine users

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Iván Duque decries social acceptability of drug that inflicts environmental and social damage on producers

Middle-class cocaine users are inconsistent hypocrites if they fail to recognise the environmental and social damage their drug use is inflicting on producer countries, the Colombian president has said during a visit to London.

In an interview with the Guardian on Monday, Iván Duque said that cocaine’s social acceptability had to end. “There are many people who present themselves as environmentalists, and if they want to be coherent, they must understand all the environmental damage that is caused by the production of cocaine – not just destroying tropical forests, [but] spreading chemicals in protected areas and destroying human capital,” he said.

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‘I’ll never have another child’: the mothers failed by Mexico’s hospitals

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In one of Mexico’s poorest states, women from minority backgrounds are increasingly at risk of abusive treatment during pregnancy and childbirth

Nancy Martínez was 17 when she went into labour. Though her age meant she was considered a high-risk pregnancy, she was left alone for several hours without monitoring or pain medication.

Nurses told Martínez to be quiet and put up with the pain, while doctors mocked her mother, Nancy Ceron Diaz, denying her information about her daughter’s condition.

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Where does your plastic go? Global investigation reveals America’s dirty secret

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A Guardian report from 11 countries tracks how US waste makes its way across the world – and overwhelms the poorest nations

What happens to your plastic after you drop it in a recycling bin?

According to promotional materials from America’s plastics industry, it is whisked off to a factory where it is seamlessly transformed into something new.

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Millions across South America hit by massive power cut

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Failure leaves people in Argentina and Uruguay without electricity

Tens of millions of people across South America were left without electricity early on Sunday after a massive power failure left Argentina and Uruguay almost completely in the dark.

The Argentine newspaper Clarín said the “gigantic” power collapse – which it called the worst in Argentina’s recent history – had struck at just after 7am local time, affecting virtually the entire country as well as Uruguay, Paraguay and some cities in Chile.

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Bolsanaro stabber absolved for reasons of mental illness

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Judge rules to convert Adélio Bispo de Oliveira’s detention to internment in state medical facility

A man who stabbed the then Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in the torso last year has been absolved after a judge ruled he was mentally ill.

Adélio Bispo de Oliveira has been in police custody since 6 September 2018 when he was accused of stabbing Bolsonaro while he was campaigning in the streets of Juiz de Fora, a city 115 miles (186km) north of Rio de Janeiro. The blade pierced the candidate’s intestine and put his life in danger. The attacker was beaten badly by Bolsonaro supporters after the stabbing.

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Chile bishop resigns after suggesting there is a reason the Last Supper had no women

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Carlos Eugenio Irarrazaval stands down, weeks after appointment by pope to clean up church’s public image

A Chilean auxiliary bishop appointed by Pope Francis less than a month ago has resigned, just weeks after he made controversial comments about the lack of women in attendance at the Last Supper.

Carlos Eugenio Irarrazaval was appointed by the pope in an effort to rebuild the church’s credibility following a pervasive sex abuse scandal that exposed hundreds of allegations now being investigated by Chilean criminal prosecutors.

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‘Drake curse’: Canadian star vindicated after Raptors’ NBA championship win

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Prior to the victory over the Golden State Warriors, many had fallen victim to the music star’s reputation for bringing bad luck

His repeated interactions with athletes before critical games – and their subsequent losses – have earned Drake the unfortunate reputation of bringing bad fortune to teams. But one historic basketball game may have broken the curse.

High-profile victims of the so-called “Drake curse” include Arsenal forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, whose team lost to Everton three days after meeting the Canadian rapper in London, and Paris Saint-Germain, who had their biggest loss in almost two decades after defender Layvin Kurzawa posed for a picture with him.

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Up to four avocado trucks stolen in Mexican state every day

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Packers and exporters took out newspaper adverts to decry situation in Michoacán, a battleground for warring crime factions

Up to four trucks carrying avocados are stolen every day in the violent Mexican state of Michoacán, as organized crime groups seek to take advantage of consumers’ seemingly insatiable appetite for the fruit.

Avocado packers and exporters took out newspaper adverts on Friday to decry a worsening security situation in the state, which has long been a battle ground for warring crime factions.

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UK rights advocate co-owns firm whose spyware is ‘used to target dissidents’

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Exclusive: Yana Peel co-owns NSO Group that licensed Pegasus software to authoritarian regimes

A leading human rights campaigner and head of a prestigious London art gallery is the co-owner of an Israeli cyberweapons company whose software has allegedly been used by authoritarian regimes to spy on dissidents, the Guardian can reveal.

Yana Peel, the chief executive of the Serpentine Galleries and a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, co-owns NSO Group, a $1bn (£790m) Israeli tech firm, according to corporate records in the US and Luxembourg.

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Brazil: Bolsonaro fires key moderate who warned of dangers of ‘extremism’

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  • Government secretary Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz forced out
  • News comes as scandal swirls around justice minister Moro

Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has sacked one of the most prominent moderates in his administration for reportedly failing to ideologically align himself with his commander-in-chief’s radical creed.

Gen Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, Bolsonaro’s secretary of government, had repeatedly locked horns with the president’s crotchety US-based guru, Olavo de Carvalho, and was reportedly relieved of his duties on Thursday afternoon.

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Argentinian ex-army officer accused of murder found on holiday in Sicily

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Reporters discovered Carlos Luis Malatto, accused of five counts of crimes against humanity, in Messina

Human rights groups have expressed outrage after a former Argentinian army officer accused of committing murder and forced disappearances during the 1976-83 military dictatorship was found enjoying a beach holiday in Sicily.

Reporters from la Repubblica discovered Lt Colonel Carlos Luis Malatto in a tourist village in the province of Messina, even though he is currently on trial in Rome for crimes committed in Argentina, which is also seeking his extradition.

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Canadian minister dismisses suggestion to block Huawei CFO’s extradition

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Chrystia Freeland said move would set a dangerous precedent while Meng Wanzhou will challenge extradition request

Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, has dismissed a suggestion that Ottawa block the extradition of a top executive from China’s Huawei to the US, saying it would set a dangerous precedent.

Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested on US fraud charges in Vancouver last December, will challenge Washington’s extradition request at hearings that are set to begin next January.

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Briton mails severed toes to Canada for use in notorious cocktail

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Nick Griffiths sent two digits lost to frostbite to Yukon hotel renowned for Sourtoe special

The amputated toes of a British endurance athlete are to be given new life, as the centrepiece of a notorious Canadian cocktail.

As Nick Griffiths lay in a hospital bed last year after succumbing to frostbite in the Yukon Arctic race in northwest Canada, the world’s coldest ultra-marathon, his mind drifted to an advertisement he had seen earlier in a hotel in the territory.

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Guatemala election: corruption creeps in again four years after uprising

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Backlash against anti-corruption efforts will have real consequences as Guatemala heads to the polls on Sunday

As day broke over Guatemala’s national palace on 3 September 2015, Gabriel Wer celebrated what promised to be a new dawn for Guatemala.

The president, former civil war general Otto Pérez Molina, had – along with most of his government – been forced to resign by an unprecedented wave of weekly anti-corruption protests that morphed into a popular uprising.

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Venezuela: hyperinflation leads to new banknotes for second time in a year

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Banknotes of 10,000, 20,000 and 50,000 bolívar denominations will begin circulating on Thursday, the central bank said

Venezuela is releasing new banknotes for the second time in less than a year, the central bank said on Wednesday, after hyperinflation eroded the effects of an August 2018 monetary overhaul meant to improve availability of cash.

Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, last year cut five zeroes off the currency and prices. The move was supposed to ease shortages of cash that pushed most of the economy toward debit and credit card operations and put heavy strain on digital commerce platforms.

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