Category Archives: Americas

Supporters of Bolivian ex-president Evo Morales take about 20 soldiers hostage

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Morales and current president are locked into a standoff for ruling party’s nomination in next year’s presidential contest

Supporters of Bolivia’s ex-president Evo Morales stormed a barracks in the central Chapare region and took about 20 soldiers hostage, military sources said on Friday, marking a dramatic escalation in their standoff with the state.

The hostage situation comes nearly three weeks after backers of Morales – the country’s first Indigenous leader – began blocking roads to prevent his arrest on what he calls trumped-up rape charges aimed at thwarting his political comeback.

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Marielle Franco murder: ex-police jailed for decades over crime that shook Brazil

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Ronnie Lessa and Élcio de Queiroz sentenced to 78 and 59 years over 2018 murder of prominent Rio city councillor

Two former police officers who confessed to the murder of Rio city councillor Marielle Franco have been sentenced to decades in prison for their part in a crime that shook Brazil and cast a harsh spotlight on the links between politics and organised crime.

Ronnie Lessa admitted to firing 14 shots in the 2018 drive-by shooting that killed Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes, 39, and was sentenced to 78 years and nine months. Élcio de Queiroz, who confessed to driving the getaway car, was sentenced to 59 years and eight months.

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Authorities in Mexican state warn residents to avoid Halloween costumes

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In Sinaloa state, police have asked for security measure so revelers aren’t mistaken for criminals amid cartel violence

Authorities in the Mexican state of Sinaloa have ordered residents not to don masks or costumes for Halloween to avoid being confused with criminals amid a worsening cycle of cartel violence.

Home to the powerful Sinaloa cartel, the north-western state has been wracked by deadly infighting between factions of the group following the arrest of one of its leaders, drug trafficker Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, in the United States in late July.

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Canada judge halts medically assisted death of woman in rare injunction

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Court order blocks Vancouver physician Ellen Wiebe from euthanizing Alberta resident due to lack of physical ailment

A British Columbia judge has issued a rare, last-minute injunction barring a woman from accessing euthanasia after physicians in her home province refused to approve the request.

The injunction, granted to the woman’s common law partner, blocks the Vancouver physician Ellen Wiebe, or any other medical professional, from “causing the death” of an Alberta woman within the next 30 days.

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Almost two dozen countries at high risk of acute hunger, UN report reveals

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Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Palestine and Haiti rated at level of highest concern in latest six-monthly analysis

Acute food insecurity is expected to worsen in war-stricken Sudan and nearly two dozen other countries and territories in the next six months, largely as a result of conflict and violence, an analysis by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme has found.

The latest edition of the twice-yearly Hunger Hotspots report, published on Thursday, provides early warnings on food crises and situations around the world where food insecurity is likely to worsen, with a focus on the most severe and deteriorating situations of acute hunger.

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UN rules forcible sterilizations of women in Peru ‘crime against humanity’

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Country ordered to compensate victims of programme that affected more than 300,000 women in 1990s

A UN committee has urged Peru to compensate women who were forcibly sterilised in the 1990s, ruling that the state policy could constitute a “crime against humanity”.

Forced sterilisation was part of a programme implemented by Peru’s then president Alberto Fujimori during the final four years before he left office in 2000 after a decade in power.

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Scientists discover oldest ever giant tadpole fossil in Argentina

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Tadpole that wriggled around 160m years ago surpasses previous record holder by about 20m years

Scientists have discovered the oldest-known fossil of a giant tadpole that wriggled around over 160m years ago.

The new fossil, found in Argentina, surpasses the previous ancient record holder by about 20m years.

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Canada alleges Indian minister behind plot to target Sikh separatists

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Parliamentary committee told of Narendra Modi ally’s alleged role in campaign of violence and threats

The Canadian government has publicly alleged that India’s home affairs minister, Amit Shah, the prime minister, Narendra Modi’s, closest political ally, was behind a recent series of plots to murder and intimidate Sikh separatists on Canadian soil.

Testifying before a parliamentary committee, the Canadian deputy foreign affairs minister, David Morrison, acknowledged he had leaked information to the Washington Post about Shah’s alleged role in a campaign of violence and threats against the Sikh diaspora over the last few years.

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Racist jokes about Puerto Rico at rally bring anger and disgust: ‘Truly how the Trump party sees us’

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Tony Hinchcliffe’s series of racist jokes at Donald Trump’s rally on Sunday were widely condemned

Some Americans, particularly those of Puerto Rican descent, said that the racist remarks aired at Donald Trump’s Sunday night rally at Madison Square Garden in New York helped them decide who to vote for.

The speaker and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe took aim at Puerto Rico, in a series of racist jokes including one in which he called it “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean”.

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Lost Maya city with temple pyramids and plazas discovered in Mexico

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Archaeologists draw on laser mapping to find city they have named Valeriana, thought to have been founded pre-AD150

After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have stumbled on a lost Maya city of temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir, all of which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.

The discovery in the south-eastern Mexican state of Campeche came about after Luke Auld-Thomas, an anthropologist at Northern Arizona University, began wondering whether non-archaeological uses of the state-of-the-art laser mapping known as lidar could help shed light on the Maya world.

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Puerto Rico Republican chair demands Trump apology for rally’s racist remarks

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Angel M Cintrón, party’s chair on island, says he will not vote for Trump unless he says sorry for speaker’s comments

The president of the Republican party’s branch in Puerto Rico has said he will not vote for Donald Trump unless he apologises for racist remarks made at his rally referring to the US island territory as a “floating island of garbage”.

Outrage even among fellow Republicans is continuing to mount after the racist insult at the Republican nominee’s rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, with the podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe coming under fire for his inflammatory comments made about Puerto Rico in the opening speech.

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Trudeau facing ‘iceberg revolt’ as calls grow for embattled PM to step down

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The scale of what lurks beneath the surface could be vast – can the Liberal leader defy the odds and win a fourth term?

Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds – and a bitter public – to win a rare fourth term.

The Canadian prime minister appears to have ignored both the demands of a handful of his own MPs calling for him to resign and threats from a separatist party looking to unravel his party’s tenuous hold on power.

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Bolivian minister accuses Evo Morales of ‘staged’ assassination attempt

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Interior minister ridicules ex-president’s claim that government tried to kill him by firing shots at his car

Bolivia’s government has accused former president Evo Morales of staging an attempt on his own life, saying that shots fired at his car on Sunday came after he tried to run a police checkpoint.

“Mr Morales, nobody believes the theater you have staged,” the interior minister, Eduardo del Castillo, told a news conference.

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Uruguay presidential election heads to runoff with center-left candidate in lead

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Yamandú Orsi came out ahead of two conservative rivals as voters rejected a controversial pension reform plan

Uruguay is heading for a tight presidential election runoff next month after a center-left candidate came out ahead of two candidates who split the conservative vote in Sunday’s first round.

Voters also rejected a controversial pension reform plan in one of two plebiscites.

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Evo Morales accuses Bolivian government of trying to kill him

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Ex-leader implicates former ally Luis Arce after his vehicle hit by gunfire amid rising unrest in country

Bolivia’s former leader Evo Morales has accused the government of his one-time ally Luis Arce of trying to kill him after his car was struck by bullets in an early-morning ambush on Sunday, threatening to ignite a political crisis in the Andean nation.

Morales, whose supporters have been organising road blockades for weeks to support the legally embattled former president, posted a video on Facebook that showed him in the front passenger seat and bullet holes in the car’s windshield.

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Crash between cargo truck and bus in Mexico kills 19 and injures six

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Collision occurred when a container filled with corn fell off truck, causing bus carrying 25 people to overturn

A cargo truck collided with a passenger bus in northern Mexico on Saturday, leaving at least 19 people dead and six injured, authorities said.

Officials adjusted the death toll after initially reporting 24 deaths, citing information from first responders.

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‘There is no money’: Cuba fears total collapse amid grid failure and financial crisis

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Repeated blackouts leave residents concerned about food, water supply and Cuba’s future

Maria Elena Cárdenas is 76 and lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana’s colonial old town. The building has an elegant past, but for the last few days Maria has been cooking with sticks she had found on the street.

“You know, we Cubans manage the best we can,” she said. She lives in the shelter because her home collapsed, a regular occurrence in the poorest, oldest parts of the beautiful city.

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Venezuelan opposition says detained activist has been murdered

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VP party holds Maduro regime responsible for death of Edwin Santos who had been picked up by security officials

A major Venezuelan opposition party has said that one of its activists was murdered this week after being detained by security officials in the western state of Apure.

Edwin Santos “was murdered after being abducted by members of the state security forces” on Wednesday, Voluntad Popular (VP) party said, blaming the iron-fisted regime of the leftwing president, Nicolás Maduro.

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Legal bid for Ecuador forest to be recognised as song co-creator

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Petition to Ecuador’s copyright office is first legal attempt to recognise an ecosystem’s moral authorship

A forest in Ecuador could be recognised as the co-creator of a song under a groundbreaking legal proposal.

A petition is to be submitted to Ecuador’s copyright office to recognise the Los Cedros cloud forest as the co-creator of the composition Song of the Cedars. The action by the More Than Human Life (Moth) project is the first legal attempt to recognise an ecosystem’s moral authorship of a work of art.

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Argentinian police raid hotel where singer Liam Payne fell to his death

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Special investigation unit seized hard drives and camera footage on orders from the public prosecutor’s office

Argentinian police have raided the Buenos Aires hotel where ex-One Direction singer Liam Payne stayed before dying last week after falling from a third-floor balcony.

A police special investigations unit went to the Casa Sur hotel late on Wednesday on orders from the public prosecutor’s office. Officers seized items including computer hard drives and footage from hotel cameras, said a government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

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