Category Archives: Americas

Panama Papers ‘tightened the noose’ on offshore assets of Maduro’s inner circle

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In the wake of the scandal, it became harder to launder money through investment in Panamanian real estate for Venezuelans who grew rich on the back of their political connections

On Avenida Balboa, Panama City’s premier seafront avenue, the 50 story tower blocks form a near continuous wall of glass to the Pacific Ocean. At night, however, most of the luxury apartments remain in darkness and the basement casinos are eerily deserted.

Panamanian real estate was a favourite investment of the boliburgues, Venezuelans who grew rich on the back of their political connections to the late president Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro.

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Study of Brazil favela stricken by Zika shows dengue may protect against virus

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Analysis of community where 73% of residents contracted Zika in 2015 offers new clues about epidemic

Scientists studying the 2015 Zika outbreak in Brazil have discovered that people previously exposed to dengue may have been protected from the virus.

Three-quarters of the inhabitants of a favela in the country’s north-east caught the mosquito-borne Zika virus during the epidemic. The outbreak left more than 3,000 babies across Brazil with microcephaly, a birth defect caused by mothers catching the virus during pregnancy.

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Colombia’s homemade prosthetics – in pictures

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Since 1992, more than 11,500 Colombians have been killed or injured by landmines, a legacy of more than 50 years of internal conflict. Many impoverished amputees without access to the healthcare system have resorted to making homemade prosthetics from wood, leather, metal and plastic bottles

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Protests erupt in Brazil after death of black teenager who was restrained

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Campaigners say Black Lives Matter movement is emerging after action in five major cities

Brazilian activists have taken to the streets in five major cities after the death of a young black man who was restrained by a supermarket security guard.

Campaigners said the protests are feeding a nascent Black Lives Matter movement in Brazil, where nearly three-quarters of all homicide victims are black.

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US aid for Venezuela arrives in Colombia, but delivery uncertain

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Juan Guaidó calls on military to let supplies in, but President Maduro denies any crisis

A US military transport plane carrying humanitarian aid meant for Venezuela has landed in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta, where food and medicine is being stored amid uncertainty over how and where aid will be distributed.

The shipment on Saturday is the second arrival of large-scale US and international aid for Venezuelans, many of whom have scant access to food and medicine, since the opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president last month in defiance of the socialist president, Nicolás Maduro.

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Cancún shooting: five people gunned down in Mexico’s tourist hotspot

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Bar attacked near hotel zone amid rising drug-related violence in the Caribbean resort city

Five people have been shot dead and five more wounded in Cancún after gunmen burst into a bar in the Mexican resort city and opened fire.

Quintana Roo state prosecutors said the attack on Saturday took place in a club called La Kuka, on a main avenue in central Cancún about 6km (4 miles) away from the Caribbean resort city’s seaside tourist hotel zone, situated on the Yucatán Peninsula.

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Roma: Yalitza Aparicio says she is proud of her roots after actor’s racist slur

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Aparicio, the first indigenous woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, responds to Sergio Goyri’s ‘fucking Indian’ remark

The Oscar-nominated Mexican actor Yalitza Aparicio, who stars in the critically acclaimed film Roma, said on Saturday she was proud of her indigenous roots, after a soap opera star used a racial slur to describe her.

Related: Why Roma should win the best picture Oscar

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Tricked, abducted and killed: the last day of two child migrants in Mexico

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The deaths show the vulnerability of migrants forced to ‘remain in Mexico’ under new US policy for asylum seekers

On a Saturday afternoon in December, three Honduran boys walked out through the gates of the blue stucco YMCA shelter for unaccompanied child migrants in Tijuana, and turned past the gas station next door on to Cuauhtémoc Boulevard for a walk.

Their destination was a sports centre-turned-migrant camp to visit people they’d met travelling north with a caravan of other Central Americans.

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Trump declares national emergency to build US-Mexico border wall

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Plan may divert billions from projects such as counterdrug efforts, has been condemned by Democrats and activists

Donald Trump has defied fierce criticism to announce that he is using emergency powers to bypass Congress and pursue the building of a wall on the US-Mexico border.

At a combative, rambling and at times incoherent press conference in the White House, the US president insisted he had no choice but to declare a national emergency to stop illegal immigrants spreading crime and drugs.

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Canada police rebuke public for complaining about late-night alert on murdered girl

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An emergency mobile phone alert about an abducted child resulted in a barrage of angry calls to police

Police in Canada have issued a rare rebuke to the public after a late-night emergency mobile phone alert about an abducted child prompted widespread complaints.

At 11.36pm on Thursday night, police in Ontario issued an amber alert for Riya Rajkumar, 11, after police feared the girl’s father had kidnapped her.

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Venezuela: Juan Guaidó denies bid to unseat Maduro has failed

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Opposition leader believes movement for change in the country is irreversible

The Venezuelan opposition leader spearheading efforts to unseat Nicolás Maduro has rejected his rival’s claim that his campaign has failed but admitted the “trickle” of military defections to his side had so far been insufficient to force change.

In an interview with the Guardian, Juan Guaidó – now recognised as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president by more than 50 governments – insisted his country’s march into a new political era was unstoppable and Maduro’s “cruel dictatorship” doomed.

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Vogue Brazil director resigns over birthday photos evoking slavery

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Images show Donata Meirelles, who is white, sitting on a throne-like seat flanked by four black women dressed in white

The fashion director of the Brazilian edition of Vogue has resigned after photos from her 50th birthday party drew criticism for evoking colonial depictions of slavery.

Images from the party showed Donata Meirelles, who is white, sitting on a throne-like seat flanked by four black women dressed in white at the celebration in Bahia, Brazil’s blackest state.

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New drug raises hopes of reversing memory loss in old age

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Toronto researchers believe the drug can also help those with depression, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s

An experimental drug that bolsters ailing brain cells has raised hopes of a treatment for memory loss, poor decision making and other mental impairments that often strike in old age.

The drug could be taken as a daily pill by over-55s if clinical trials, which are expected to start within two years, show that the medicine is safe and effective at preventing memory lapses.

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Haiti in disarray as anti-government protests lead to prison breakout

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Demonstrations over missing $4bn in development funds leave police overstretched, allowing 78 inmates to escape

The impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, hit by days of violent demonstrations that have claimed four lives, has suffered a mass prison breakout after 78 inmates escaped while police were dealing with protesters.

The demonstrations, the culmination of months of anti-corruption protests over the fate of almost $4bn (£3.1bn) in missing funds earmarked for social development – delivered via a controversial deal for Venezuelan petrol – have swelled in recent days under the slogan: “Kot kòb Petrocaribe a?” (“Where’s the Petrocaribe money?”).

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Nicolás Maduro claims foes ‘totally failed’ to topple him as efforts falter

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The US conceded it was ‘impossible to predict’ how long Maduro will remain in power

Venezuela’s embattled leader, Nicolás Maduro, has claimed he has seen off a dramatic opposition challenge to his rule, as those efforts appeared to falter and the United States conceded it was “impossible to predict” how long he might remain in power.

In an interview with Euronews, Maduro boasted that his political foes had “failed totally” in their quest to topple him. Opponents “could march every single day of their lives” and achieve nothing, Maduro said.

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‘If it gets me, it gets me’: the town where residents live alongside polar bears

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Residents of Churchill, Canada share their streets with the largest land carnivore in the world as their isolated town’s identity faces a reckoning: a revitalized port

Spend enough time in Churchill, and you will hear the stories.

Of hearing a noise outside, pulling open the drapes and seeing a polar bear looking in through the window.

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Will El Chapo’s conviction change anything in the drug trade?

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The nearly half a century old ‘war on drugs’ shows no sign of ending, and neither does the illegal drug trade

Standing on the steps of the Brooklyn courthouse amid flurries of sleet and snow, US attorney Richard Donoghue hailed the conviction of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán as a famous victory in America’s longest conflict.

“There are those who say the war on drugs is not worth fighting. Those people are wrong,” he said.

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Brazil environment minister’s dismissal of slain Amazon defender stirs outrage

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Ricardo Salles’ comments fuel criticism of administration’s stance, which environmentalists say is excessively pro-business

Brazilian environmental groups have blasted Jair Bolsonaro’s environment minister after he dismissed the murdered Amazon rain forest defender Chico Mendes as “irrelevant”.

Related: Climate change a 'secondary' issue, says Brazil's environment minister

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‘Venezuela doesn’t want you’: protesters intensify mutiny against Maduro

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Thousands of demonstrators marched across the country as rebellion enters its fourth week and Maduro clings to power

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have poured back on to the streets of Caracas and towns and cities across Venezuela to intensify their mutiny against Nicolás Maduro.

Related: ‘Maduro, our amigo’: loyalists in Venezuela cling to their man

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Door slams on guilty El Chapo after old mob pals line up to squeal

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Guzman’s dramatic trial showed how the cartels that traffick most of the world’s drugs today do not honour the mafia code of omertà

When Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is sentenced on 25 June, he will most likely be sent to US maximum-security prison from which there will be no more tunnels and no more escapes.

Guzmán was convicted on all 10 charges after years of painstaking behind-the-scenes work by US Department of Justice prosecutors who cut deals with captive drug traffickers to get their man.

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