Progressive Conservative premier of Canada’s most populous province retains office and vows to work with all sides of politics in ‘fighting back against Donald Trump’
Doug Ford, the incumbent premier of Canada’s Ontario province, has declared victory in an election returning his Progressive Conservative party to office for a rarely won third term.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) projected a sweeping victory for the Progressive Conservatives, with 43% of the vote.
Continue reading...Prisoners, including Rafael Caro Quintero, extradited as Mexico faces pressure to show it’s tackling fentanyl trafficking
Mexico has extradited 29 high-level organised crime operatives to the US, as it faces intense pressure from the Trump administration to show that it is tackling fentanyl trafficking.
Among the prisoners sent to the US was Rafael Caro Quintero, the drug lord who was convicted of the murder of an undercover US Drug Enforcement Administration agent in 1985.
Continue reading...The PCC – First Capital Command – formed in a Sāo Paulo prison but is now spreading its tentacles around the world
In September 2020, the Australian Border Force intercepted 552kg of cocaine concealed in 2,000 boxes of frozen banana pulp that had arrived at the port of Sydney on a ship from Brazil.
Two years later, a diver was found floating dead next to 52kg of cocaine near the port of Newcastle, in New South Wales, Australia. Police later discovered that he was a Brazilian national who had been attempting to retrieve drugs from a cargo ship’s hull.
Continue reading...Canadian event loses three sponsors who also do business in the US to avoid being seen as supporting LGBTQ+ rights
Pride Toronto, one of the largest celebrations of LGTBQ+ people in North America, is reeling from the loss of three major sponsors who have pulled funding after Donald Trump’s purge of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes in the US.
Kojo Modeste, the executive director of the Canadian event said that the sponsors who also do business in the US are seeking to avoidbeing seen as supporting LGBTQ+ rights.
Continue reading...Tourism and local officials in Mexico deny any knowledge of proposed follow-up to disastrous 2017 event
When tickets to the second Fyre festival went on sale this week, there was just one concrete detail: it would take place on Isla Mujeres, a tropical island off Cancún, Mexico.
But the festival seems to be repeating its own history as an improvised disaster after the local government in Isla Mujeres denied knowing anything about it.
Continue reading...About 112 people held in immigration center deep in the jungle are unable to communicate with their attorneys
Lawyers for immigrants from around the world who were deported from the United States and moved to a remote jungle camp in Panama say they have been unable to communicate with their clients since they arrived there.
About 112 deported people are being held in the “San Vicente” immigration center deep in the dense jungle that separates Panama from Colombia, according to Panamanian authorities. Their future is uncertain as they wait to see whether they will be granted asylum in Panama or elsewhere.
Continue reading...US president also insists delayed tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico will go into effect on 4 March
Donald Trump has threatened China with an additional 10% tariff on its exports to the US, setting the stage for another significant escalation in his trade war with Beijing.
The US president also claimed that he plans to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting next Tuesday, having delayed their imposition last month following talks with his counterparts.
Continue reading...Electricity restored to almost all affected regions as investigation under way into how outage occurred
Power has been restored to most of Chile’s 19 million people after the country’s most disruptive blackout in 15 years, the government said, as authorities lifted a strict curfew imposed when the outage left 98% of the population without electricity.
Chilean interior minister Carolina Tohá said on Wednesday that electricity had largely returned to Chile’s 14 afflicted regions, although 220,000 residents remained without power.
Continue reading...Ruling party was deeply unpopular but threat of US tariffs combined with prospect of new leader spurs rise in polls
Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls.
An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed the left-leaning Liberals have 38% public support and the official opposition right-of-center Conservatives have 36%. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, to Donald Trump.
Continue reading...The Ontario premier says he’s ready to stand up to Trump over tariffs – will that yield a third straight election win?
The day Donald Trump won the United States presidential election was a happy one for Doug Ford.
The conservative politician who oversees Canada’s most populous province – and its largest economy – made the admission to caucus and supporters, in off-the-cuff remarks accidentally caught by a nearby microphone.
Continue reading...Exclusive: The bloody foundering of President Gustavo Petro’s ‘Total Peace’ strategy is a ‘national failure’, says Juan Manuel Santos, who ended war with Farc guerrillas in 2016
Colombia risks sliding back into its violent past as armed groups exploit the stumbling peace strategy of President Gustavo Petro, the architect of its landmark 2016 peace deal has told the Guardian.
In a rare interview, former president Juan Manuel Santos warned that gains from the peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) are quickly being undone as armed factions exploit negotiation efforts to recruit new combatants and seize control of new land.
Continue reading...State of emergency and overnight curfew declared after blackout strands commuters and knocks out traffic lights
Authorities in Chile have declared a state of emergency and overnight curfew after a sweeping blackout stranded commuters, knocked out traffic lights, paralyzed countless businesses and left millions of people in the South American country without electricity.
The National Electrical Coordinator, Chile’s grid operator, said a disruption had occurred in a high-voltage transmission line that carries power from the Atacama Desert of northern Chile to the capital of Santiago in the country’s central valley.
Continue reading...Distinctive, slender deep-sea creature, also known as ‘doomsday’ fish, seen wriggling on Baja California beach
A shimmery, slinky oarfish – a deep-sea creature that is rarely seen near the surface – was spotted in Baja California Sur, along Mexico’s Pacific Coast, this month. A group of people visiting the area noticed the shiny, wriggling fish along the beach, and tried to guide it back into the water.
The slender creatures live at depths between 660 and 3,280ft underwater, and on the rare occasions that they have been seen by humans, they have usually been dead – washed ashore after storms. In Baja California Sur, Robert Hayes of Idaho, who was visiting the beach with his wife, saw a live fish and quickly began filming it.
Continue reading...Parliamentary petition launched due to billionaire’s link to Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to conquer Canada
More than 200,000 people from Canada have signed a parliamentary petition calling for their country to strip Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship because of the tech billionaire’s alliance with Donald Trump, who has spent his second US presidency repeatedly threatening to conquer its independent neighbor to the north and turn it into its 51st state.
The British Columbia author Qualia Reed launched the petition in Canada’s House of Commons, where it was sponsored by the New Democrat parliamentary member and avowed Musk critic Charlie Angus, as the Canadian Press first reported over the weekend.
Continue reading...John Feeley launches stinging critique of US president’s bully-boy approach to Latin America
The former US ambassador to Panama has launched a stinging critique of Donald Trump’s approach towards Latin America, comparing his conduct to that of the ruthless and egotistical fictional mob boss Tony Soprano.
In the first month of his presidency, the US president has shocked some observers with his aggressive focus on a region many expected him to largely ignore. Early steps have included threatening to “take back” the Panama Canal, accusing Mexico’s government of being in cahoots with narco-traffickers, sending an envoy to meet the Venezuelan dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and clashing with Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, over deportation flights.
Continue reading...Cúcuta imposes curfew as National Liberation Army (ELN) clashes with army in province bordering Venezuela
Residents of a violence-torn province in northern Colombia are bracing for further bloodshed as a conflict between rival armed groups spread to a regional capital in scenes residents said they had not witnessed since the cartel unrest of the 1990s.
The mayor of Cúcuta imposed a 48-hour curfew on the population of 1 million inhabitants in the hope of regaining control of the city after combatants of Colombia’s largest armed group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), attacked police stations with assault rifles and grenades and destroyed toll booths with car bombs.
Continue reading...FBI says Aurora Phelps met men online for dating then drugged them and stole cars and money
A woman used online dating apps to lure at least four older men to meet her in person, drugged them with sedatives and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in a “sinister” romance scheme, FBI officials in Las Vegas said on Friday.
Three of the men died, authorities said, and she has been charged in one of their deaths.
Continue reading...Democrat Jasmine Crockett calls it ‘really wild’ that it is foreign leaders who are speaking truth to power
The congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has revealed she is “rooting” for Canada and Mexico over Donald Trump in their attempts to stand up to him, saying it is “really wild” to find herself in that position given he is the president of the US.
“They are really the ones that are speaking truth to power right now,” the Democratic representative from Texas said on Friday on the popular Breakfast Club podcast, alluding to the political feuds Trump has engaged in with the US’s two North American neighbors during the first month of his second presidency. “They can see what it is and they were like, ‘We are not messing with this crazy regime.’”
Continue reading...Charges of criminal negligence dropped against three key defendants over death of British singer in October
A court in Argentina has dropped charges of criminal negligence against three of the five people indicted in connection with the death of Liam Payne, the former One Direction singer who fell from a third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires last October.
In a decision issued Wednesday, the Argentine federal appeals court ordered the other two defendants in the case to remain in custody. They are facing prosecution on charges they supplied the famed British boy band star with narcotics.
Continue reading...Claudia Sheinbaum’s warning follows Washington designating Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations
Mexico will never tolerate an “invasion” of its national sovereignty by the United States, Claudia Sheinbaum has warned after Washington designated Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations.
“This cannot be an opportunity for the US to invade our sovereignty,” the Mexican president said. “With Mexico, it is collaboration and coordination, never subordination or interventionism, and even less invasion.”
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