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”.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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'
Continue reading...The illustrated city: Its main arts institution may be sinking, but the city’s influence on artists and thinkers from Carrington to Trotsky cannot be so easily erased
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Puerto Rico’s supreme court on Wednesday overturned the swearing-in of Pedro Pierluisi as the island’s governor less than a week ago, clearing the way for the justice secretary, Wanda Vázquez, to take up the post after weeks of turmoil. The unanimous ruling said Pierluisi must step aside immediately.
The high court’s decision, which cannot be appealed, was expected to unleash new demonstrations and deepen the tumult because many Puerto Ricans have said they do not want Vázquez as governor.
Continue reading...Data says 2,254 sq km cleared in July as president says Macron and Merkel ‘haven’t realized Brazil’s under new management’
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon “exploded” in July it has emerged as Jair Bolsonaro scoffed at his portrayal as Brazil’s “Captain Chainsaw” and mocked Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel for challenging him over the devastation.
Speaking in São Paulo on Tuesday, Brazil’s president attacked the leaders of France and Germany – who have both voiced concern about the surge in destruction since Bolsonaro took office in January.
Continue reading...The brazen theft of more than 1,500 ‘centenarios’ in Mexico City comes amid alarm at rising crime
Armed robbers have stolen more than $2m worth of gold coins from a vault that had been left open at a mint in Mexico City.
The daylight robbery was the latest high-profile crime to hit the capital city amid record levels of lawlessness across the country.
Continue reading...Turning Villa 31 into a barrio will bring greater stability and prosperity, say city authorities, but the plan is stirring deep resentments about ownership and identity
For many Argentinians, especially those from Buenos Aires, Villa 31 is a household name. It is the most famous – and notorious – slum in Buenos Aires, synonymous with poverty and violence (it has the second-highest murder rate in the city), and with the narcotráficantes (organised drug gangs) and paco, a cocaine paste that destroys communities in Argentina.
As inflation climbed to 55% last year and the national poverty rate crept to 32%, the neighbourhood lurched further into the grip of gangs, such as the Sampedranos. Murder stories from the villa dominate headlines, the most recent one being the discovery of a woman’s dismembered corpse in March.
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