Category Archives: Americas

Easter Island looks for help to save statues from ‘leprosy’

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White spots eating away at the sculptures are softening them to a clay-like consistency and deforming their features

Within a century the emblematic stone figures that guard remote Easter Island could be little more than weathered rectangular blocks, conservation experts are warning – but Britain could be part of the fix.

The giant heads, carved centuries ago by the island’s inhabitants, represent the living ancestors of Easter Island’s Polynesian people – the Rapa Nui – and have brought it Unesco world heritage site status in its Pacific location more than 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile.

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Forget tango: the murga of Buenos Aires is a riot of sequins and salvation

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Freelance photographer Kate Stanworth has been following a Buenos Aires murga group for 10 years, as they perform in an energetic street carnival that is little known beyond Argentina

Argentina’s charismatic capital, Buenos Aires, might be more famous for tango, steak and football than colourful carnival parades. However, murga – a feisty, home-grown form of street dance and percussion performed during carnival season, once unfairly thought of as only performed by drop-outs and drunks – has flourished in recent years, providing a source of pride, happiness and salvation for the predominantly working class families that dedicate their lives to it.

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Girl, 11, gives birth to child of rapist after Argentina says no to abortion

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Campaigners condemn authorities who ignored girl’s plea ‘to remove what the old man put inside me’

An 11-year old girl who became pregnant after being raped was forced to give birth after Argentine authorities refused to allow her the abortion to which she was entitled.

The authorities ignored repeated requests for an abortion from the child, called “Lucía” to protect her identity, as well as her mother and a number of Argentine women’s right activists. After 23 weeks of pregnancy, she had to undergo a caesarean section on Tuesday. The baby is unlikely to survive.

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Justin Trudeau refuses to resign over claims officials interfered in bribery prosecution

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  • Jody Wilson-Raybould: I was ‘barraged’ by senior officials
  • Former justice minister testifies on Canadian bribery scandal
  • PM says staff acted properly

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has rejected calls to resign over a scandal that is engulfing his administration, saying he and his staff always acted properly and that Canadians will get to have their say on the matter at the federal election in October.

His comments came after Canada’s former minister of justice and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould described a consistent, sustained and inappropriate effort by senior officials close to the prime minister who were attempting to dissuade her from prosecuting a Canadian engineering company accused of bribery.

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Venezuela blocks off second bridge to Colombia as Guaidó flies to Brazil

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  • Shipping containers positioned across Simón Bolívar bridge
  • Guaidó travels to Brazil to try to ramp up pressure on Maduro

Venezuelan authorities have blockaded a second bridge to Colombia amid fresh skirmishes between protesters and security forces loyal to embattled leader Nicolás Maduro.

Related: Venezuela: US increasingly isolated as allies warn against use of military force

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Infant mortality in Venezuela has doubled during crisis, UN says

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UN security council officials clash over ‘politicised’ aid to troubled country as peace-building chief warns of ‘grim realities’

Infant mortality in Venezuela has soared by roughly 50% during the prolonged political crisis in the country.

Briefing the UN security council, the UN’s political and peace building chief, Rosemary DiCarlo, depicted a devastating collapse in Venezuela’s health system. She warned that 40% of medical staff had left the country and said hospital stocks of medicine had dwindled to 20% of the required level.

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The pioneering ex-minister at the centre of a Canadian scandal

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Jody Wilson-Raybould, Canada’s first indigenous attorney general, will testify over claims Trudeau aides pressured her to let a firm escape prosecution

In recent weeks, an archival clip from a 1983 constitutional conference on indigenous rights has circulated widely in Canada. The footage shows the Kwakwaka’wakw lawyer Bill Wilson sitting across from the then prime minister, Pierre Trudeau – the father of the country’s current leader.

Wilson tells Trudeau that both of his daughters want to become lawyers – and even prime minister. The audience – and Trudeau – laugh.

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Outrage after Brazil ministry asks schools to read aloud Bolsonaro slogan

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New education minister admits ‘mistake’ after asking schools to film students singing the national anthem and as slogan is read

Brazil’s new education minister has been forced into a humiliating retreat after he asked schools in the country to film students singing the national anthem in front of a Brazilian flag and being read the campaign slogan of new far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.

“I recognised the mistake,” Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez said on Tuesday, a day after the education ministry emailed his instructions to schools across the country – and provoked a storm of outrage.

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Univision’s Jorge Ramos detained in Venezuela after Maduro interview, network says

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Anchor, who has reportedly been released, asked question embattled leader did not approve of, according to Univision executive

The Univision anchor Jorge Ramos has been detained in the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, the network announced on Monday evening.

The Mexican-born journalist was interviewing Venezuela’s embattled president Nicolás Maduro when he and his crew were detained after asking a question the combative Maduro did not approve of, according to a tweet by the network’s US president, Daniel Coronell. The team’s equipment had also been confiscated, Coronell said.

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Venezuela: US increasingly isolated as allies warn against use of military force

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Mike Pence says ‘all options are on the table’ in effort to oust Maduro while key allies warn they would oppose sending troops

US vice-president Mike Pence has repeated a veiled threat of military intervention in Venezuela, but Washington appeared increasingly isolated in its willingness to contemplate using force to oust President Nicolás Maduro.

Both European powers and some of Donald Trump’s key Latin American allies – all of whom have recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader – warned that they would oppose sending troops into the country.

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Ex-campaign staffer says Trump kissed her without consent – live updates

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Alva Johnson files lawsuit alleging Trump kissed her in August 2016 outside rally in Tampa, and says ‘I immediately felt violated’

Donald Trump has complained about a “racist hit” he said Spike Lee carried out on him at the Oscars.

The film-maker, 61, won his first competitive Academy Award, best adapted screenplay, for his film BlacKkKlansman, which was also nominated for best picture. Lee received an honorary Oscar in 2015.

A former staff member of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has filed a federal lawsuit against the president, claiming he kissed her without consent.

Alva Johnson, who served as Trump’s campaign’s director of outreach and coalitions in Alabama in 2016, told the Washington Post that Trump “grabbed her hand and leaned in to kiss her on the lips”, as the then-candidate exited an RV at a rally in Tampa on August 24 2016.

Johnson said she turned her head and the unwanted kiss landed on the side of her mouth, which she called “super-creepy and inappropriate.”

“I immediately felt violated because I wasn’t expecting it or wanting it,” she said. “I can still see his lips coming straight for my face.”

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Spain would ’roundly condemn’ use of force in Venezuela

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Spanish foreign minister says Madrid would not support military action to oust Nicolás Maduro

Spain has warned that it will not back any military intervention in Venezuela after the South American country’s opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, urged other nations to consider “all options” to remove the president, Nicolás Maduro, from power.

Guaidó is due to meet the US vice-president, Mike Pence, in Colombia on Monday amid ongoing speculation that the Trump administration could use force to oust Maduro.

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Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth

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After water, concrete is the most widely used substance on the planet. But its benefits mask enormous dangers to the planet, to human health – and to culture itself

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, the global building industry will have poured more than 19,000 bathtubs of concrete. By the time you are halfway through this article, the volume would fill the Albert Hall and spill out into Hyde Park. In a day it would be almost the size of China’s Three Gorges Dam. In a single year, there is enough to patio over every hill, dale, nook and cranny in England.

After water, concrete is the most widely used substance on Earth. If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world with up to 2.8bn tonnes, surpassed only by China and the US.

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Juan Guaidó: ‘keep all options open’ to remove Venezuela’s Maduro from power

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  • Opposition leader set to meet Vice-President Mike Pence
  • Comments come a day after clashes that left four people dead

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó is set to meet US Vice-President Mike Pence on Monday, after asking other countries to consider “all options” to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power.

Related: 'Venezuelan blood is being spilled': tension flares near border with Brazil

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‘Venezuelan blood is being spilled’: tension flares near border with Brazil

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While the world watches supporters of Guaidó and Maduro at the Colombian frontier, a remote region sees days of drama and fear

On Saturday, presidents, music stars and activists backing the Venezuelan opposition’s attempt to break a government blockade and bring food and medical supplies into the country, and most of the journalists covering the showdown, clustered around the border with Colombia.

Related: Juan Guaidó: 'keep all options open' to remove Venezuela's Maduro from power

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Cuba’s evangelical alliance leads crusade against gay marriage

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Conservative Christianity becomes a political force in referendum on state’s new constitution

A thousand parishioners gathered in the Methodist church in the Vedado district of Cuba’s capital on a recent Sunday morning. After the revival music and conga drums had faded, the dancers had come off stage and the faithful had lowered outstretched arms, Pastor Lester Fernández rounded off his sermon on the ruinous consequences that the legalisation of gay marriage would bring.

“The Cuban church, as an essential part of society, is worried, and therefore has a right to a public voice,” he hollered into his microphone. “Amen,” replied the flock.

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Venezuela: at least four dead and hundreds injured in border standoff

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Presidential challenger Juan Guaidó says he will urge foreign leaders to keep ‘all options open’ at a meeting on Monday

At least four people have been killed and hundreds injured in a wave of violence that convulsed Venezuela’s border regions on Saturday, as opposition activists tried to defy a government ban and bring food and medical supplies into the country.

After the failed attempt to breach government blockades, opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared the fight would continue, and said “we must keep all our options open for the liberation of our homeland”.

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Thousands mourn seven Syrian siblings killed in Canada fire

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Refugee children from four months to 15 years old perished in as-yet unexplained blaze at their home in Halifax

Around 2,000 mourners attended the funeral on Saturday of seven children from a Syrian refugee family who died earlier this week in a house fire in Halifax, eastern Canada.

Ahmad Barho and siblings Rola, Mohammed, Ola, Hala, Rana and Abdullah – whose ages ranged from four months to 15 years – all perished in the as-yet unexplained blaze at their home on Tuesday.

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Venezuela: police and protesters clash as border tensions rise – video report

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Tensions have been rising at the Venezuelan border with Colombia amid president Nicolás Maduro's ban on aid entering the country.

Dozens of Venezuelans and Colombians gathered at the Simón Bolívar bridge connecting the countries to urge authorities to allow humanitarian aid to enter Venezuela, while in other areas on the border Venezuelan soldiers defected and violent protests broke out between police and demonstrators

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