Category Archives: Americas

Brazil lifts ban on X after Elon Musk complies with court demands

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Social platform was blocked after tech billionaire failed to name local representatives and pay fines

Brazilians are set to regain access to X after a supreme court judge lifted a ban introduced nearly six weeks ago as a result of Elon Musk’s failure to comply with the South American country’s laws.

X was blocked in Brazil, where it had more than 22 million users, at the end of August in what was the culmination of a months-long arm wrestle between the network’s billionaire owner and the Brazilian supreme court.

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Anger and disgust in Mexico over beheading of newly sworn-in city mayor

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Country’s new president to set out public security plans after murder of Alejandro Arcos Catalán in Chilpancingo

Mexico’s new government has been shaken by the murder of a city mayor who was attacked and beheaded days after taking office.

Alejandro Arcos Catalán was sworn in as the mayor of Chilpancingo, the capital of the southern state of Guerrero, on 30 September, a day before Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, took power herself.

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Floridians warned ‘you are going to die’ if they don’t evacuate as Milton nears

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Thousands of evacuees clog highways as storm projected to hit Tampa Bay on Wednesday restrengthens to category 5

Florida’s western coast was making emergency preparations on Tuesday for the impact of Hurricane Milton, with thousands of evacuees clogging highways, contending with fuel shortages, and the mayor of Tampa warning residents bluntly “you are going to die” if they stayed behind.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Milton would retain major hurricane status and “expand in size” as it approached Florida after passing the Mexican city of Mérida before swerving north towards the US.

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UK ‘resolutely committed’ to its overseas territories, says foreign minister

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Stephen Doughty’s remarks come as Argentina vows to gain ‘full sovereignty’ of Falkland Islands

The UK is “resolutely committed” to all of its overseas territories, the responsible foreign minister said, after Argentina vowed to gain “full sovereignty” of the Falkland Islands.

Stephen Doughty said on Saturday that the sovereignty of the territories is “not up for negotiation”.

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Canada’s carbon tax is popular, innovative and helps save the planet – but now it faces the axe

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As prime minister Justin Trudeau trails in polls, opposition seek to persuade voters environmental policy is a burden

Mass hunger and malnutrition. A looming nuclear winter. An existential threat to the Canadian way of life. For months, the country’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has issued dire and increasingly apocalyptic warnings about the future. The culprit? A federal carbon levy meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

In the House of Commons this month, the Tory leader said there was only one way to avoid the devastating crisis: embattled prime minister Justin Trudeau must “call a ‘carbon tax’ election”.

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US supreme court will rule on $10bn suit Mexico filed against US gun makers

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Mexico argues negligence from makers such as Colt and Glock has led to gun trafficking to drug cartels and criminals

The US supreme court said on Friday it will decide whether to block a $10bn lawsuit Mexico filed against US gun manufacturers and distributors that argues that their negligent and illegal commercial practices have unleashed bloodshed in the country.

The lawsuit, filed in Boston in August, names Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Beretta, Colt and Glock, as well as Boston-area wholesaler Interstate Arms.

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Argentina’s Javier Milei accused of plagiarising UN speech from West Wing

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Populist leader alleged to have ‘copied word for word’ a monologue by TV show’s fictional president Jed Bartlet

Argentina’s rightwing populist president, Javier Milei, has been accused of plagiarising a chunk of his recent speech to the United Nations general assembly from the political drama The West Wing.

“It seems like fiction, but it isn’t,” the left-leaning Buenos Aires newspaper Página 12 reported on Friday, claiming Milei had “copied, word for word, a monologue” by the television show’s fictional president, Josiah “Jed” Bartlet.

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Jamaica welcomes US move to clamp down on gun trafficking to Caribbean

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Horace Chang, deputy PM of country with highest homicide rate, praises US attorneys generals’ support for legislation

Jamaica’s deputy prime minister has welcomed a campaign by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, to push through new measures and legislation to tackle gun trafficking from the US to the Caribbean.

Horace Chang, who is also Jamaica’s minister of security, praised a coalition of 14 US attorneys general, led by James, that is backing the passing of the Caribbean Arms Trafficking Causes Harm Act. Introduced in both houses of the US Congress earlier this year, the act aims to help curb illicit arms trafficking from the United States to the Caribbean.

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Quebec separatist leader holds Trudeau to ransom: ‘We saw an opportunity’

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Yves-François Blanchet says Liberals must pass legislation or lose support of party propping up government

The leader of the Quebec independence party propping up the government of Justin Trudeau has insisted that the political lifeline depends on the quick passage of two pieces of legislation, and warned Canada’s embattled prime minister that he remains “very vulnerable”.

The Bloc Québécois leader, Yves-François Blanchet, told the Guardian the Liberals must act swiftly to enshrine protections for dairy farmers and boost payments to seniors to stave off a fatal vote of non-confidence. He warned that unless both pieces of legislation are passed into law by 29 October, his party would begin discussions with other parties to trigger a federal election.

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Christmas Caracas: early festivities are no joke as Maduro tightens grip

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Venezuela’s president attempts to move on from bitterly disputed election result by declaring Christmas in October

’Twas 85 nights before Christmas when the decorations went up – at least in Venezuela, where President Nicolás Maduro has decided festivities should start early in an apparent attempt to lift spirits and distract minds after the recent election scandal.

A month after Maduro announced that Christmas 2024 would begin in October, residents of Caracas left home on Tuesday to find the capital’s boulevards and plazas decked with LED light strings and sculptures declaring: “Feliz Navidad.”

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Gang violence leaves Haiti facing ‘worst hunger emergency in the western hemisphere’

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Half the country’s population now struggling to find food as lawlessness and inflation cause ‘full-blown crisis’, say aid agencies

Half of all Haitians are struggling every day to find food as rampant gang violence and lawlessness are causing “the worst hunger emergency in the western hemisphere”, a report has found.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) and its partner organisations estimate that 5.4 million Haitians are now regularly finding it hard to get enough to eat, a record for the Caribbean nation and the largest proportion of acutely food insecure people anywhere in the world, WFP said. The figure suggests another 600,000 people have fallen into “crisis” level hunger since the previous peaks recorded earlier this year and in 2023.

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Justin Trudeau survives a second parliamentary confidence vote

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House of Commons defeats oppositional Conservative party’s bid to topple Canadian prime minister’s reign

Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, has survived a second parliamentary confidence motion in less than a week after opposition parties vowed to keep his minority Liberal government alive for now.

Legislators in the House of Commons voted 207-121 to defeat a bid by the official opposition Conservative party to topple Trudeau, who faces increasing voter fatigue after almost nine years in power.

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Parrots overwhelm Argentinian town with screeching, poo and power outages

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Birds outnumber residents in Hilario Ascasubi, after deforestation leads them to seek food, shelter and water

The town of Hilario Ascasubi near Argentina’s eastern Atlantic coast has a parrot problem.

Thousands of the green, yellow and red birds have invaded, driven by deforestation in the surrounding hills, according to biologists. They bite on the town’s electric cables, causing outages, and are driving residents around the bend with their incessant screeching and deposits everywhere of parrot poo.

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‘Do they take us for fools?’: Argentina vice-president lambasts Falklands pact

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Victoria Villarruel breaks ranks to claim confidence-building deal signed with UK offers only ‘crumbs’

Argentina’s vice-president has lambasted a new UK-Argentina Falkland Islands agreement, saying her nation had been offered “crumbs”.

The pact, announced last week, includes resuming flights to the islands, restarting negotiations on a humanitarian project plan, and organising a trip for relatives of fallen soldiers of the Falklands war to visit their graves.

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At least 64 dead and millions without power after Helene devastates south-eastern US

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Flooding and landslides strike southern Appalachians after hurricane pummeled region and wreaked havoc

At least 64 people have been confirmed dead and almost 3.5 million were without power on Saturday, after strong winds and torrential rain from Hurricane Helene wreaked unprecedented havoc across large swathes of the south-eastern United States.

Historic flooding continued over parts of the southern Appalachians on Saturday, as first responders worked to reach stranded communities in trying conditions while local authorities began to assess the scale of the damage and displacement.

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At least 22 reported dead as storm John weakens over Mexico

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Residents from Michoacán to Oaxaca evacuate after storm ravages Pacific coastline, bringing floods and landslides

Residents in south-western Mexico on Saturday evacuated from homes flooded by the remnants of Hurricane John that ravaged the Pacific coastline for a week, bringing deadly floods and landslides that left 22 people reported dead.

In Guerrero, the worst-hit state and one of Mexico’s poorest, 18 people were killed, according to local media, many due to mudslides that crushed houses. To the south, local media reported three deaths in Oaxaca, and a young boy died in a river to the north in Michoacán state.

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Poverty in Argentina soars to over 50% as Milei’s austerity measures hit hard

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Far-right president has been battling inflation by imposing steep cuts in spending, resulting in widespread poverty

Argentina’s poverty rate has soared to almost 53% in the first six months of Javier Milei’s presidency, offering the first hard evidence of how the far-right libertarian’s tough austerity measures are hitting the population.

The new poverty rate, reported by the government’s statistics agency on Thursday, is the highest level for two decades, when the country reeled from a catastrophic economic crisis, and means 3.4 million Argentinians have been pushed into poverty this year.

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São Paulo election ‘a horror show’ as candidates trade blows and insults

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Two televised debates ahead of 6 October mayoral election turn physically violent, with participants treated in hospital

Brazilians call overcast São Paulo their country’s “land of drizzle”.

But in recent months it has been raining punches not precipitation as Latin America’s largest city endures what observers call the most violent and unruly election in its history.

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Weather tracker: Flooding in Mexico and India as Europe prepares for cold spell

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Hurricane John is moving along Mexico’s north-east coast, while India experiences monsoon levels of rainfall

On Monday, Hurricane John hit the southern Pacific coast of Mexico, having intensified from a tropical storm to a category 3 hurricane in less than 24 hours.

John made landfall with sustained winds of 120mph, causing destructive storm surges. However, it quickly weakened back to a tropical storm, with sustained winds falling to 50mph by Tuesday morning. John moved relatively slowly, leading to more than 400mm of rainfall in a few days. This rain brought widespread flooding, leading to mudslides in which two people are reported to have died.

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‘Zombie’ storm Hurricane John regains strength as it returns to coastal Mexico

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South-western Mexico has seen mudslides, closures and at least five deaths before the storm’s return

Hurricane John has strengthened once again, hurling rain at Mexico’s south-western coast dotted with ports and tourist hotspots, an area already soaked by the slow-moving storm system over the past several days.

John has churned menacingly near the stretch of coastline since Monday, weakening and strengthening again as it affected major cargo ports, temporarily shutting local airports as well as claiming at least five lives, mostly due to mudslides.

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