Category Archives: Americas

Latin America’s rise in tuberculosis linked to imprisonment rates

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Study warns region’s exponential rise in incarceration is fuelling the disease, with cases increasing by 19% between 2015 and 2022

High incarceration rates in Latin America – the region with the world’s fastest-growing prison population – are exacerbating tuberculosis in a region that is bucking the global trend for falling incidents of the disease, experts have warned.

A study published in The Lancet Public Health journal has estimated that, contrary to previous assumptions, HIV/Aids is not the primary risk factor for tuberculosis in the region – as it remains in Africa, for example – but rather imprisonments.

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Two reporters and a police officer killed in shooting at Haiti hospital reopening

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Gunmen target press conference at Haiti’s largest public hospital after street gangs forced its closure earlier this year

Two reporters and a police officer were killed and others injured on Tuesday when armed men opened fire on a group of journalists who gathered for a government press conference scheduled to announce the reopening of Haiti’s largest public hospital.

Street gangs forced the closure of the State University of Haiti hospital early this year and authorities had pledged to reopen the facility in the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Christmas Eve. But as journalists gathered to cover the event, the gunmen opened fire.

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Ex-drug lord Fabio Ochoa walks free in Colombia after 20 years in US prisons

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Victims of Medellín cartel demand justice as some express dismay former mob boss faces no charges in Colombia

The return of the former drug trafficker Fabio Ochoa to Colombia following his deportation from the United States has reopened old wounds among victims of the Medellín cartel, with some expressing dismay at the Colombian authorities’ decision to let Ochoa walk free.

Some of the cartel victims said they were hoping the former drug lord will at least cooperate with ongoing efforts by human rights groups to investigate one of the most violent periods of Colombia’s history and demanded that Colombian prosecutors also take Ochoa in for questioning.

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El Salvador overturns metals mining ban, defying environmental groups

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President Nayib Bukele pushed for the legislation that will grant government sole authority over mining activities

El Salvador’s legislature has overturned a seven-year-old ban on metals mining, a move that the country’s authoritarian president, Nayib Bukele, had pushed for to boost economic growth, but that environmental groups had opposed.

El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban all forms of metals mining in 2017. Bukele, who took office in 2019, has called the ban absurd.

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Mexico announces record drug seizure one week after Trump threatens tariffs

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Soldiers and marines discover drugs in Sinaloa, while separately authorities arrest more than 5,200 migrants

Mexican security forces have impounded more than a ton of fentanyl pills in what officials have called the biggest seizure of the synthetic opioid in the country’s history.

Soldiers and marines found the fentanyl at two properties in the northern state of Sinaloa, late on Tuesday – exactly a week after Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico unless the two neighbouring countries cracked down on the flow of immigrants and drugs across their borders with the US.

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Mexico says Canada wishes it had its ‘cultural riches’ amid tariffs feud

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Leaders cast the other as ill-prepared after Trump threatens to apply 25% taxes on goods from both countries

Mexico’s president has said Canadians “could only wish they had the cultural riches” of her country as tensions mount between the two nations, caught in a feud over tariffs and trade exacerbated by Donald Trump.

The US president-elect threatened in a social media post last week to apply devastating levies of 25% on all goods and services from both countries, and to keep them in place until “such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country!”

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Cuba’s national grid collapses again, leaving millions without power

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Blackouts reported across country as government grapples with economic crisis, fuel shortages and hurricanes

Cuba’s national electrical system collapsed early on Wednesday morning after the country’s largest power plant failed, the government said, the latest of several such failures as the island’s grid falls into disarray amid fuel shortages, natural disaster and economic crisis.

The country’s energy and mines ministry said the Antonio Guiteras power plant in Matanzas, the island’s top electricity producer, had shut down at about 2am, prompting the grid collapse.

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Protection deal for Amazon rainforest in peril as big business turns up heat

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Exclusive: With Brazil’s politicians, agribusiness organisations and global traders piling on the pressure, the highly successful 2006 Soy Moratorium is under threat

One of the cornerstones of Amazon rainforest protection – the Soy Moratorium – is under unprecedented pressure from Brazilian agribusiness organisations, politicians, and global trading companies, the Guardian has learned.

Soy is one of the most widely grown crops in Brazil, and posed a huge deforestation threat to the Amazon rainforest until stakeholders voluntarily agreed to impose a moratorium and no longer source it from the region in 2006.

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Trudeau meets rivals as he seeks united front in face of Trump tariff threat

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Canadian government scrambles to ward off tariffs as prime minister briefs politicians on meeting with Trump

Canada’s federal government has redoubled its efforts to ward off potentially disastrous tariffs from its closest ally, but provincial leaders have hinted at divergent strategies in response to the protectionist threat from president-elect Donald Trump.

Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, convened a rare, in-person meeting with his political rivals on Tuesday to brief them on a surprise meeting with Trump at his Florida resort over the weekend.

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Missing Hawaii woman seen crossing into Mexico, police say

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Hannah Kobayashi disappeared voluntarily as she sought to ‘step away from modern connectivity’, LA police say

A Hawaii woman who vanished after landing in Los Angeles three weeks ago disappeared voluntarily as she sought to “step away from modern connectivity” and was last seen crossing into Mexico, police said at a news conference.

Hannah Kobayashi, 30, appeared unharmed as she walked alone with her luggage into a tunnel at the San Ysidro crossing about 125 miles (201km) south-east of Los Angeles around noon on 12 November the day after her family reported her missing, LA police said Monday. Authorities made the discovery after reviewing surveillance video from the US Customs and Border Protection late on Sunday.

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On the Grenadian island of Carriacou, even the dead are now climate victims

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As ICJ hears landmark climate case, Grenada’s PM says vulnerable nations expect a long, hard fight for aid

It’s a macabre picture: tombs, headstones and wreaths, lovingly selected by family members, floating into the oblivion of the ocean, and with them the remains of loved ones uprooted from their final resting place. Some are dragged back to land, washed up on beaches on the Grenadian island of Carriacou, transforming the beautiful Caribbean shoreline into a chaotic graveyard.

This disturbing reality, says Grenada’s prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, is a poignant example of the gravity of the climate crisis and its impact on his country.

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Trump threat and mounting dangers in Mexico drive migrant rush towards US

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People waiting in Tapachula by Guatemala border fear Trump’s election could worsen crisis and spur northward flight

Outside the migration office, Tito subtly pointed out the watchful human smugglers leaning against a wall.

They had already tried to sell their services to Tito, who was on his way to the US but, like everyone else there, found himself stuck in Tapachula, a town in southern Mexico that has become a global way station.

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Sifting of landfill to begin in search for Manitoba serial killer victims

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Winnipeg effort involves carting waste that may contain remains of First Nations women murdered by Jeremy Skibicki to a purpose-built facility and combing through it by hand

The unprecedented search of a landfill in Canada for the remains of two murdered Indigenous women entered a critical yet “difficult” stage as teams braced for the possibility of finally recovering the victims of a convicted serial killer.

On Monday morning, trucks began carrying excavated material from a Winnipeg landfill, said the Manitoba premier, Wab Kinew, as he outlined the immense scope of a search aiming to bring some closure to grieving families.

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Justin Trudeau promises Trump that Canada will increase border surveillance

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Canadian PM dines with Trump, who vowed tariffs unless country stops migrants and drugs from entering US

Justin Trudeau promised Donald Trump that Canada would increase surveillance over the long undefended joint border, a senior Canadian official said on Sunday. The Canadian prime minister flew to Florida on Friday to have dinner with the US president-elect, who has promised to slap tariffs on Canadian imports unless Ottawa prevents undocumented people and drugs from crossing the frontier.

Canada sends 75% of all goods and services exports to the United States and tariffs would badly hurt the economy.

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More than 600 Brazilians deported by Home Office on three secret flights

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Record number of deportees includes children who may have spent most of their lives in the UK

More than 600 Brazilians, including 109 children, have been secretly removed from the UK – on the three largest Home Office deportation charter flights in history – since the Labour government came to power, the Observer has learned.

The Home Office has never before removed any nationality in such large numbers on individual deportation charter flights. It is thought that children have never before been removed on these flights.

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Trump maintains hard line on Canada after meeting with Trudeau

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Prime minister becomes first G7 leader to visit president-elect amid concerns over tariff threat

Donald Trump said he had a “productive” meeting with Justin Trudeau after the Canadian prime minister paid a surprise trip to his Mar-a-Lago estate amid fears about Trump’s promised tariffs.

Trudeau became the first G7 leader to meet with Trump before his second term amid widespread fears in Canada and many other parts of the world that Trump’s trade policy will cause widespread economic chaos.

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Trudeau in Florida to meet Trump after tariffs threat – reports

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Canada’s PM to dine with US president-elect at Mar-a-Lago resort, news reports say, days after Trump threatens 25% tariff on Canadian imports

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has arrived in Palm Beach, Florida, ahead of a meeting Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, according to media reports, days after the US president-elect threatened the US’s neighbour with import tariffs once he takes office.

The Canadian prime minister’s public itinerary does not list a scheduled visit to Florida. Neither Trudeau’s office nor Trump’s representatives immediately responded to requests for comment.

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Canadian media companies sue OpenAI in case potentially worth billions

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Litigants say AI company used their articles to train its popular ChatGPT software without authorization

Canada’s major news organizations have sued tech firm OpenAI for potentially billions of dollars, alleging the company is “strip-mining journalism” and unjustly enriching itself by using news articles to train its popular ChatGPT software.

The suit, filed on Friday in Ontario’s superior court of justice, calls for punitive damages, a share of profits made by OpenAI from using the news organizations’ articles, and an injunction barring the San Francisco-based company from using any of the news articles in the future.

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Bolivia’s former top anti-drug official to be extradited to US for drug trafficking

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Maximiliano Dávila Pérez, arrested in Bolivia in 2022, was accused of using his position to help transport cocaine

Bolivia’s highest court on Wednesday approved the extradition of the country’s former top anti-narcotics official to the US to face charges of trafficking narcotics.

Maximiliano Dávila Pérez briefly served as Bolivia’s top counter-narcotics official in 2019, before then president Evo Morales resigned. He later served as a police commander in Bolivia under the government of the current president, Luis Arce.

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Silvia Pinal, star of Mexico’s Golden Age of film, dies aged 93

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Over a career that spanned seven decades, Pinal was a muse to director Luis Buñuel, appearing in 60s classics such as Viridiana

Silvia Pinal, an actor from Mexico’s Golden Age of cinema and muse to the director Luis Buñuel, has died aged 93.

Pinal got her start in theatre in the 1940s, working with the director Rafael Banquells – the first of her four husbands. She became a star in 1950 aged 18, when she appeared opposite two of Mexico’s biggest comedic film stars: Germán Valdés (Tin-Tan) in The King of the Neighborhood and Mario Moreno (Cantinflas) in The Doorman. In 1952 she appeared alongside heartthrob Pedro Infante in A Place Near Heaven.

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