Government in Nordelta approves plans to control numbers of world’s largest rodent – but not all are in agreement
A contraception debate is gripping one of Argentina’s most notable luxury neighbourhoods – not for its wealthy residents, but for its original occupants, the capybaras.
In recent years, the lovable rodents have been accused of overrunning the Nordelta, a meticulously landscaped and manicured suburb north of Buenos Aires.
Continue reading...Adrián Simancas encountered a humpback off Chile’s coast – but scientists say he was never at risk of being swallowed
Adrián Simancas had been paddling for two hours in the calm but icy seas of the Strait of Magellan, off the coast of Chilean Patagonia, when something massive emerged from the water and dragged him under.
“I saw dark blue and white colours before feeling a slimy texture brush against my face,” the 24-year-old told the Guardian. “I closed my eyes to brace for impact, but it was soft, like being hit by a wave.”
Continue reading...People from Afghanistan, Iran, China and other countries flown out as Trump’s deportation effort intensifies
The US has sent undocumented immigrants from several Asian countries whose governments have refused to accept them to Panama, in a move signalling an intensification of the Trump administration’s deportation effort.
A military plane carrying 119 immigrants from countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Pakistan flew from California to Panama City on Wednesday in what was expected to be the first of three migrants flights to the country.
Continue reading...Claudia Sheinbaum gives riposte to Trump’s accusation of ‘intolerable alliance’ between Mexican government and gangs
Mexico’s president has accused the US of harboring drug cartels and American citizens of working with organized crime groups in Mexico, in a riposte to Donald Trump’s allegation of an “intolerable alliance” between traffickers and her government.
“There is also organized crime in the United States and there are American people who come to Mexico with these illegal activities,” Claudia Sheinbaum said during her morning press conference on Thursday. “Otherwise who would distribute fentanyl in the cities of the United States?”
Continue reading...Postal Museum says research featured in new exhibition shows how global postal service was ‘tool of empire’
A British shipping company that became the largest in the world at the height of empire continued to use the labour of enslaved people after the abolition of slavery, research has found.
The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSPC), which received a royal charter from Queen Victoria in 1839, used enslaved workers on the tiny island of St Thomas, which was a Danish colony at the time and is now part of the US Virgin Islands.
Continue reading...Program is meant to help the endangered northern spotted owl – and it’s only C$5! – but rat lovers are not amused
Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold. And for an endangered owl breeding program in Canada, it’s also a dish best served dead.
For the price of a coffee, spurned and disgruntled lovers can revel in the satisfaction of having a dead rat named after an ex, before it is fed to a northern spotted owl.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Dozens of congressional Democrats urge president to reconsider threatened import duties on US’s two largest trading partners
Pressing ahead with steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico risks exacerbating the US housing crisis and threatening the broader economy, dozens of congressional Democrats have warned Donald Trump.
The US president, after threatening to hit imports from the US’s two biggest trading partners with a 25% tax, is weighing how to proceed after approving a one-month delay.
Continue reading...The US is targeting its own allies and its withdrawal from the region has left a power vacuum for China to fill in
While Donald Trump and his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, were engaged in a very public row over the deportation of migrants last month, China’s ambassador to Bogotá was enthusiastically tweeting that diplomatic relations between China and Colombia had reached their “best moment”.
After Petro refused to receive a plane from the US carrying handcuffed deported Colombians, Trump retaliated by doubling tariffs and revoking visas for Colombian government officials.
Continue reading...Record highs delay start of classes in Rio Grande do Sul, where floods linked to climate crisis left 180 dead last May
During historic floods last May that left more than 180 dead in Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, the water rose to the ceiling of the Olindo Flores school in the city of São Leopoldo, destroying furniture, books and parts of its infrastructure.
When classes resumed more than a month later, its 500 students had to be relocated to another school for months.
Continue reading...Sixfold rise from days of Peña Nieto suggests Americans have increasingly become pawns for criminal drug gangs
The number of Americans arrested in Mexico for offenses related to organized crime increased by 457% – or nearly sixfold – during the 2018-24 presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador compared to his predecessor, according to a new report.
Since the current president Claudia Sheinbaum took office in September, 185 US citizens have been arrested by the Mexican army on organized-crime related charges – an average of three a day.
Continue reading...Daniel Noboa fails to achieve anticipated victory over leftist rival Luisa González, forcing them to repeat 2023’s election
Ecuador’s conservative president, Daniel Noboa, will face the leftist former congresswoman Luisa González in an election runoff on 13 April after a better than expected first-round performance by his challenger.
With more than 92% of the ballot boxes counted, Noboa was on 44.31%, just ahead of González, with a difference of only 45,000 votes in an electorate of 13.7 million registered voters.
Continue reading...Voters who have become victims of crime wave linked to cocaine trade will determine outcome of presidential election
Ecuadorians are voting in a presidential election that has shaped up to be a repeat of the 2023 race, when they chose a young, conservative millionaire over the former leftist president’s protege.
Luisa González and the incumbent, Daniel Noboa, are the clear frontrunners in the pool of 16 candidates. All have promised to reduce the widespread crime that pushed the country into an unnerving new normal four years ago.
Continue reading...Trump has teased two of the US’s biggest trading partners with levies but has moved the goalpost at least three times in two weeks
Donald Trump was in his element in the Oval Office this week. Surrounded by cameras, flanked by billionaire allies and confronted by a barrage of questions about whether he was really prepared to unleash a trade war on the US’s closest neighbors, the president talked tough.
By his telling, powerful economies were scrambling to bend to his will. Hours earlier, Mexico had announced a series of measures to shore up its border, prompting the White House to hastily postpone the imposition of 25% tariffs on all its goods; Canada would announce similar measures, and receive the same reprieve, later that day.
Continue reading...Corruption in Mexico is a problem, experts say, but any claim the two are linked shows a lack of comprehension
Mexico breathed a sigh of relief this week when Donald Trump delayed his threatened tariffs by a month, apparently swerving away from an economic crisis at the last moment.
But one aspect of the spat still rankles: the Trump administration’s vague but shocking accusation of an “intolerable alliance” between Mexico’s government and organised crime.
Continue reading...Prime minister says US president covets northern neighbour’s vast resources as Canadians rally against threat
Donald Trump’s recent fixation on absorbing Canada is “a real thing”, Justin Trudeau has told business leaders, warning that the US president wants access to his northern neighbour’s vast supply of critical minerals.
The outgoing prime minister was in Toronto for a hastily called summit of business and labour leaders, seeking to coordinate a response Trump’s looming threat of a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports.
Continue reading...US had made inroads against Chinese influence in Panama, but Trump’s demands could help Beijing expand its regional power
When Panama’s then president Juan Carlos Varela was invited to the White House in June 2017, Donald Trump said the Panama canal was doing “pretty well” and described the bilateral relationship as “very strong”.
Just days earlier, Varela had broken ties with Taiwan to establish diplomatic relations with China, but there was no indication that this snub to a key US ally had clouded the meeting.
Continue reading...Residents living near the Sarandí have long complained about pollution in the area
A small river in greater Buenos Aires was dyed a deep and worrying shade of red on Thursday after what is thought to have been a leak of dye from a nearby factory.
The violent hue of the Sarandí, which runs through the municipality of Avellaneda, six miles (9.6km) south of the Argentinian capital, alarmed local residents, who have long complained about industrial pollution in the area.
Continue reading...Nine Venezuelans including children found by police in Alberta with a second group apprehended in Manitoba
More than a dozen people have been caught making the hazardous crossing into Canada, renewing focus on the closely watched – and seasonally perilous – border with the United States.
Police in Alberta this week intercepted two groups attempting to cross into Canada illegally, including one which included five children who were ill-prepared for the cold which can plunge as low as -30C (-22F) at this time of year.
Continue reading...President José Raúl Mulino denies making a deal that US ships can transit the canal free of charge
The president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, has accused the US of peddling a “quite simply intolerable falsehood” about the Panama canal, as Donald Trump’s pledge to “take back” the waterway continued to poison relations between the two countries and cause alarm around Latin America.
The US state department claimed late on Wednesday the Central American country had agreed to no longer charge US government vessels to pass through its canal – a move that would supposedly save Washington millions of dollars a year.
Continue reading...Human rights groups alarmed as Marco Rubio, US secretary of state, meets with Nayib Bukele during overseas trip
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has offered to accept deportees from the US of any nationality and hold them in his jails, including “dangerous American criminals”, Marco Rubio said on Monday.
The US secretary of state, who this week made his first overseas trip as the top US diplomat, visited El Salvador on Monday as part of a wider trip through Central America and the Caribbean.
Continue reading...