Category Archives: Americas

Six soldiers in Guyana injured in clash with suspected Venezuela-based gang

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Guyana plans to ‘take all necessary measures’ for security as tensions likely to further rise between the two countries

Six soldiers in Guyana have been injured after armed men in neighboring Venezuela opened fire, in an attack expected to further heighten tensions between the two South American countries.

Two of the soldiers are in critical condition following Monday’s attack, according to the head of Guyana’s army, the chief of staff Brig Gen Omar Khan, who blamed suspected gang members.

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New footage shows Delta plane flipping over in fiery crash landing in Toronto

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Accident at Pearson, Canada’s busiest airport, sent 21 to hospital including three in critical condition on Monday

Footage has emerged of the fiery plane crash at Toronto’s Pearson airport on Monday, showing the Delta Air Lines jet skidding along the runway and then flipping over, as a wing rips off and the tail is engulfed in flames. The crash, which occurred at Canada’s busiest airport, sent 21 people to the hospital, including three in critical condition.

Soon after the crash, mobile phone clips captured the harrowing moments when passengers escaped through the plane’s upside-down doors and into the bitter cold. Blasts of fire retardant hung in the air and some of the passengers stood dazed in the snow. Others unleashed a string of expletives as they processed the unfolding chaos.

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Brazil mayor was shot in ‘fake attack’ for election boost – but still lost in landslide

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José Aprígio da Silva was seriously hurt in October by assailants with assault rifles but police say it was faked

As campaign strategies go it was unorthodox and illegal: buy an AK-47, hire a pair of phony hitmen, and stage a fake assassination attempt against the mayor that would generate public sympathy and help him win a second term in power.

That, Brazilian police claim, was the gameplan last October when, on the eve of the local election, an armoured vehicle carrying José Aprígio da Silva came under fire in Taboão da Serra, a town on the outskirts of São Paulo.

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Argentina opposition calls for impeachment of Javier Milei after cryptocurrency collapse

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President endorsed $Libra crypto token on Friday before it collapsed, leading some to call it a financial ‘rug pull’

Opposition politicians in Argentina have called for the impeachment of president Javier Milei after he touted a cryptocurrency which quickly collapsed and reportedly led to millions of dollars in losses this weekend.

Milei endorsed the little-known cryptocurrency token $Libra on Friday evening, announcing on X that the project was “dedicated to boosting the growth of the Argentine economy by funding small businesses and entrepreneurs”. His post linked to a website where the digital coin could be bought, the domain name of which included Milei’s popular catchphrase “long live freedom”.

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Brazil asks UN to ditch proposed levy on global shipping

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Those supporting the deal hope it will raise billions to help poor countries deal with climate breakdown

Brazil has asked the UN to throw out plans for a new levy on global shipping that would raise funds to fight the climate crisis, despite playing host to the next UN climate summit.

The proposed levy on carbon dioxide emissions from shipping will be discussed at a crunch meeting of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) that begins on Monday. Those supporting the deal, including the UK, the EU and Japan, are hoping the levy will raise billions of dollars a year, which could be used to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate breakdown.

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Shakira cancels Lima concert after being hospitalised during global tour

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The Colombian star went to the emergency room in Peru’s capital on Saturday night, days after launching her first worldwide tour in seven years

Shakira cancelled her concert in the Peruvian capital on Sunday after being hospitalised with abdominal pain, a setback that comes days after she launched her first worldwide tour in seven years.

The 48-year-old Colombian star posted on her social media accounts that she had gone to the emergency room on Saturday night and remained in hospital.

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Contraception for capybaras: Buenos Aires suburb’s rodent plan stirs debate

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Government in Nordelta approves plans to control numbers of world’s largest rodent – but not all are in agreement

A contraception debate is gripping one of Argentina’s most notable luxury neighbourhoods – not for its wealthy residents, but for its original occupants, the capybaras.

In recent years, the lovable rodents have been accused of overrunning the Nordelta, a meticulously landscaped and manicured suburb north of Buenos Aires.

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‘I closed my eyes to brace for impact’: the man who escaped a whale’s mouth

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Adrián Simancas encountered a humpback off Chile’s coast – but scientists say he was never at risk of being swallowed

Adrián Simancas had been paddling for two hours in the calm but icy seas of the Strait of Magellan, off the coast of Chilean Patagonia, when something massive emerged from the water and dragged him under.

“I saw dark blue and white colours before feeling a slimy texture brush against my face,” the 24-year-old told the Guardian. “I closed my eyes to brace for impact, but it was soft, like being hit by a wave.”

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US deports 119 immigrants of varying nationalities to Panama

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People from Afghanistan, Iran, China and other countries flown out as Trump’s deportation effort intensifies

The US has sent undocumented immigrants from several Asian countries whose governments have refused to accept them to Panama, in a move signalling an intensification of the Trump administration’s deportation effort.

A military plane carrying 119 immigrants from countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Pakistan flew from California to Panama City on Wednesday in what was expected to be the first of three migrants flights to the country.

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Mexican president blasts US for harboring drug cartels

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Claudia Sheinbaum gives riposte to Trump’s accusation of ‘intolerable alliance’ between Mexican government and gangs

Mexico’s president has accused the US of harboring drug cartels and American citizens of working with organized crime groups in Mexico, in a riposte to Donald Trump’s allegation of an “intolerable alliance” between traffickers and her government.

“There is also organized crime in the United States and there are American people who come to Mexico with these illegal activities,” Claudia Sheinbaum said during her morning press conference on Thursday. “Otherwise who would distribute fentanyl in the cities of the United States?”

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UK shipping firm used enslaved workers in Caribbean after abolition, study finds

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Postal Museum says research featured in new exhibition shows how global postal service was ‘tool of empire’

A British shipping company that became the largest in the world at the height of empire continued to use the labour of enslaved people after the abolition of slavery, research has found.

The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSPC), which received a royal charter from Queen Victoria in 1839, used enslaved workers on the tiny island of St Thomas, which was a Danish colony at the time and is now part of the US Virgin Islands.

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Love rats: Canadians get chance to feed rodents named after old flames to owls

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Program is meant to help the endangered northern spotted owl – and it’s only C$5! – but rat lovers are not amused

Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold. And for an endangered owl breeding program in Canada, it’s also a dish best served dead.

For the price of a coffee, spurned and disgruntled lovers can revel in the satisfaction of having a dead rat named after an ex, before it is fed to a northern spotted owl.

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Canada and Mexico tariffs risk inflating US housing crisis, Trump is warned

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Exclusive: Dozens of congressional Democrats urge president to reconsider threatened import duties on US’s two largest trading partners

Pressing ahead with steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico risks exacerbating the US housing crisis and threatening the broader economy, dozens of congressional Democrats have warned Donald Trump.

The US president, after threatening to hit imports from the US’s two biggest trading partners with a 25% tax, is weighing how to proceed after approving a one-month delay.

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Trump’s disdain for South American allies is China’s gain

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The US is targeting its own allies and its withdrawal from the region has left a power vacuum for China to fill in

While Donald Trump and his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, were engaged in a very public row over the deportation of migrants last month, China’s ambassador to Bogotá was enthusiastically tweeting that diplomatic relations between China and Colombia had reached their “best moment”.

After Petro refused to receive a plane from the US carrying handcuffed deported Colombians, Trump retaliated by doubling tariffs and revoking visas for Colombian government officials.

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Intense heatwave in southern Brazil forces schools to suspend return

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Record highs delay start of classes in Rio Grande do Sul, where floods linked to climate crisis left 180 dead last May

During historic floods last May that left more than 180 dead in Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, the water rose to the ceiling of the Olindo Flores school in the city of São Leopoldo, destroying furniture, books and parts of its infrastructure.

When classes resumed more than a month later, its 500 students had to be relocated to another school for months.

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US arrests in Mexico for cartel-related crimes soared under Amlo, study finds

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Sixfold rise from days of Peña Nieto suggests Americans have increasingly become pawns for criminal drug gangs

The number of Americans arrested in Mexico for offenses related to organized crime increased by 457% – or nearly sixfold – during the 2018-24 presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador compared to his predecessor, according to a new report.

Since the current president Claudia Sheinbaum took office in September, 185 US citizens have been arrested by the Mexican army on organized-crime related charges – an average of three a day.

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Ecuador’s presidential election goes to runoff after ‘statistical tie’

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Daniel Noboa fails to achieve anticipated victory over leftist rival Luisa González, forcing them to repeat 2023’s election

Ecuador’s conservative president, Daniel Noboa, will face the leftist former congresswoman Luisa González in an election runoff on 13 April after a better than expected first-round performance by his challenger.

With more than 92% of the ballot boxes counted, Noboa was on 44.31%, just ahead of González, with a difference of only 45,000 votes in an electorate of 13.7 million registered voters.

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Ecuador goes to the polls amid rise in drug-related gang violence

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Voters who have become victims of crime wave linked to cocaine trade will determine outcome of presidential election

Ecuadorians are voting in a presidential election that has shaped up to be a repeat of the 2023 race, when they chose a young, conservative millionaire over the former leftist president’s protege.

Luisa González and the incumbent, Daniel Noboa, are the clear frontrunners in the pool of 16 candidates. All have promised to reduce the widespread crime that pushed the country into an unnerving new normal four years ago.

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Why Trump blinked before imposing his ‘beautiful’ tariffs on Canada and Mexico

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Trump has teased two of the US’s biggest trading partners with levies but has moved the goalpost at least three times in two weeks

Donald Trump was in his element in the Oval Office this week. Surrounded by cameras, flanked by billionaire allies and confronted by a barrage of questions about whether he was really prepared to unleash a trade war on the US’s closest neighbors, the president talked tough.

By his telling, powerful economies were scrambling to bend to his will. Hours earlier, Mexico had announced a series of measures to shore up its border, prompting the White House to hastily postpone the imposition of 25% tariffs on all its goods; Canada would announce similar measures, and receive the same reprieve, later that day.

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Trump’s claim that Mexican cartels and government are allied is not reality

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Corruption in Mexico is a problem, experts say, but any claim the two are linked shows a lack of comprehension

Mexico breathed a sigh of relief this week when Donald Trump delayed his threatened tariffs by a month, apparently swerving away from an economic crisis at the last moment.

But one aspect of the spat still rankles: the Trump administration’s vague but shocking accusation of an “intolerable alliance” between Mexico’s government and organised crime.

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