Category Archives: Americas

Brazilian federal police arrest Spanish citizen at São Paulo airport for racism

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Woman detained at airport after allegedly making racist remarks directed at workers unloading baggage, police say

Brazil’s federal police have detained a Spanish citizen in São Paulo’s international Guarulhos airport for racism, in the latest of a series of high-profile arrests of foreign tourists on similar grounds.

Brazil has some of the strictest anti-racism laws in Latin America. Insulting a person on the basis of race carries a penalty of imprisonment from two to five years and a fine.

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Colombia’s leftwing candidate concedes election to Trump-endorsed millionaire

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Leftist Iván Cepeda conceded to far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella who won by razor-thin margin

The defeated leftwing candidate in Colombia’s presidential runoff has conceded to the far-right, Trump-admiring millionaire lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella.

Since Sunday night, the preliminary count had already pointed to a De la Espriella victory by a razor-thin margin of less than 1% of the vote.

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Canadian police warn of possible copycat attacks after deadly shootout in Montreal

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Assailant behind shooting that left three people dead wrote ‘incel’-like manifesto that was posted by a far-right outlet

Police in Canada are warning of possible copycat attacks after three people died in a shootout in Montreal and the assailant’s lengthy manifesto, which called for “a new bloodletting”, was posted online by a far-right outlet.

The document contains many of the hallmark grievances of the “involuntary celibacy” – or “incel” – movement in addition racist and misogynistic conspiracy theories.

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Former Pinochet agents convicted over 1976 Washington DC carbomb murder

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Attack targeted former Chile ambassador Orlando Letelier and his US colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt

Fifty years after Gen Augusto Pinochet’s secret police detonated a car bomb in the heart of Washington DC, killing Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean minister and ambassador to the US, and his American colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, a Santiago court has convicted three former agents of Moffitt’s murder.

Judge Paola Plaza, a special minister for human rights in Chile, sentenced Pedro Espinoza, José Zara, and Raúl Iturriaga to 15 years in prison for their roles in the killing of Moffitt, 25.

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Montreal mayor calls for end to random police checks amid racial profiling investigation

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City’s police force faces investigation of 16 officers accused of disproportionately targeting Black and Arab residents

Montreal’s mayor has called for a halt to random police checks as the city’s police force grapples with an internal investigation into racism and racial profiling by 16 officers.

Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada told reporters last week that her husband, who is Black, had been repeatedly stopped by police while driving.

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Canadian healthcare staff decry ‘cruel hoax’ after scam email promises paid day off

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Unions condemn ‘insensitive’ internal cybersecurity test sent to healthcare workers in Newfoundland and Labrador

For years, healthcare staff in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador have felt overworked and underappreciated. Turnover, burnout and thinning resources were pushing workers in the sector to a breaking point.

So when the email titled “June Holiday” arrived in thousands of inboxes, they felt a moment of overdue joy.

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Canada’s policies force asylum seekers into US to face deportation, critics say

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Advocates say the Safe Third Country Agreement forces immigrants to head to an unsafe country: the United States

It was the threat of gang violence in Honduras that pushed Carlos and Antonia to flee their home. In 2021, with their toddler, Alejandro, and a handful of belongings, the married couple ventured north hoping to reach safety in the US.

The journey, through Guatemala and Mexico, was filled with danger and uncertainty.

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Bolivian president declares state of emergency and deploys military to quell anti-government protests

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Bulldozers sent in to clear roadblocks that have stifled the country as farmers and Indigenous groups protest against conservative president

Bolivia’s president declared a state of emergency on Saturday and deployed soldiers and bulldozers to raze anti-government roadblocks that have paralysed the country.

For more than six weeks, unions, Indigenous groups and coca farmers have marched through cities and blocked roads across the country with rubble, logs and debris in protest against the conservative government.

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Barbados prime minister announces manifesto for slavery reparations

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Updated document, which emphasises harm done to African women, is being considered by other Caribbean countries

Barbados’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, has announced a new manifesto from Caribbean leaders asserting the “moral, ethical and legal case” for reparations over damage caused by hundreds of years of enslavement.

Mottley was speaking at a “historic” conference in Ghana to advance the push for reparatory justice after the United Nations adopted a landmark resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.

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Cannabis commercialisation not decriminalisation drives up usage, study finds

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Review reveals rise in users and rates of psychosis in countries where cannabis is sold commercially

Decriminalising the possession of cannabis or strictly regulating access to the drug do not appear to drive up usage, but when the drug is sold commercially the number of users increases and more mental health problems are seen, a review has found.

An international team analysed the dramatic shift in policies on cannabis between 2000 and 2025, including how the numbers of people taking the drug, its potency, and rates of psychosis changed after new rules came in.

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Titan sub: design flaws and company groupthink central to catastrophe, report finds

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Canadian officials find structural defects in material used for hull and say firm failed to fully test ‘novel’ design

Canadian safety officials have issued a damning report on the catastrophic final voyage of the Titan submersible, finding that the US company behind the expedition was overcome by “groupthink” and “confirmation bias” and failed to understand the profound risks confronting their largely untested craft.

The 6.7-metre (22ft) carbon fibre submersible dipped below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean in June 2023 en route to the wreckage of the Titanic ocean liner. But nearly two hours after it departed with five passengers, communications went dark. The disappearance prompted a frantic international search, with Canada and the US marshalling all available resources.

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Ghana to advance reparatory justice at first major gathering since landmark UN resolution

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Heads of state and participants from more than 80 countries at three-day event in Accra to pursue actionable commitments to reconciliation and restitution

Ghana is hosting a conference to advance the continent’s push for reparatory justice after the adoption of the landmark United Nations (UN) resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.

Heads of state and government, ministers, civil society representatives, historians, researchers and legal experts representing more than 80 countries are converging in the capital, Accra, for the three-day event, billed Next Steps, which starts on Wednesday. It is the first major gathering on the issue since the resolution was adopted.

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Brazilian court convicts Jair Bolsonaro’s son of seeking US help for his father

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Supreme court finds Eduardo Bolsonaro tried to get sanctions put on judges trying ex-president over coup plot

A panel of ⁠Brazil’s supreme court has voted ⁠to convict Eduardo Bolsonaro of courting US ⁠interference in the coup plot trial of his father, the former president Jair Bolsonaro.

The panel’s four justices each backed the conviction on Tuesday and were expected to discuss the sentence later in the day.

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Toronto police link dozens of shootings to ‘multilayered’ gun-for-hire network

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Young adults and teens are being recruited through apps like Telegram and paid to carry out attacks, officials say

Police investigators in Toronto have said that dozens of shootings – including one at the US consulate in March – are linked to a “multilayered” gun-for-hire network that is also responsible for attacks on synagogues around Canada’s largest city.

Toronto’s police chief, Myron Demkiw, told reporters on Tuesday that young adults and teenagers are being recruited through encrypted messaging apps such as Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp by “bad actors” and paid by the networks to carry out the attacks. Shooters are required to film their attacks in order to get paid.

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Canada eliminates human rights watchdog that oversees companies operating abroad

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Mark Carney says Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise office hasn’t been ‘effective’ since its 2019 setup

Canada is eliminating a watchdog that investigates alleged human rights violations committed by Canadian companies operating abroad, after Mark Carney said the office hadn’t been “effective” since it was set up in 2019.

The move comes as Canada faces criticism from Donald Trump’s administration over its “unacceptable” efforts to combat forced labour.

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Woman, 21, dies after being thrown from Brazil rope jump bridge without harness

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Instructors hurled Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas into 40-metre abyss without attaching safety equipment

A 21-year-old woman who died when two rope jumping instructors threw her from a bridge without first harnessing her to security equipment, has been buried in Brazil’s São Paulo state.

Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas was rope jumping on Saturday at Ponte do Esqueleto, an abandoned bridge in the municipality of Limeira where tourists practice extreme sports. The young woman, who aspired to become a physical education teacher, had asked to be launched from the bridge airplane style, with two instructors hoisting her above their shoulders as she spread out her arms.

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Argentinian activist who spent 50 years looking for disappeared son dies

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Outpouring of public grief for Lidia ‘Taty’ Almeida, leader of group of mothers that has marched every week since 1977

The human rights activist Lidia “Taty” Almeida – who spent more than half a century searching for her son after he was forcibly disappeared by Argentina’s military junta – has died aged 95, prompting a public outpouring of grief.

Almeida, 95, was the president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, made up of women who have marched around the square outside Argentina’s presidential palace every Thursday since 1977, demanding the return of children who were disappeared during the country’s 1976-1983 dictatorship.

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US musician Oliver Tree, 32, killed in helicopter crash in Brazil

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Alternative singer and internet personality among six who died when two helicopters collided over Rio de Janeiro

The American musician Oliver Tree has died in a helicopter crash in Brazil at the age of 32, according to reports.

Two helicopters collided over Rio de Janeiro on Sunday morning and crashed in the city’s western zone, killing all six people onboard, including Tree, several Brazilian media outlets reported.

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Mother hopes to get justice for murdered daughter in retrial in Dominican Republic

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Shirley Firth is hoping those responsible for Lindsay de Feliz’s death in 2019 will finally be convicted

A Cambridgeshire mother in her 90s is hoping to finally see justice for her murdered daughter when a retrial into her death is due to open in the Dominican Republic this week.

The body of Lindsay de Feliz, 64, a successful author, was found in a shallow grave, close to her home in the north-west of the Dominican Republic, in December 2019.

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Jamaican beach access campaigners go to court to fight privatisation of coast

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Activists are challenging colonial-era law and demanding ‘free, legal, unfettered, forever rights’ to use beaches

Campaigners in Jamaica are heading to court next week to try to prevent the government from cutting off access to more of their beaches.

They argue that ceding their shorelines to big hotel chains enriches private investors and benefits tourists and outsiders while depriving Jamaicans who depend on the sea for their livelihoods, leisure and health.

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