Category Archives: Americas

Stray bullets and closed schools: Rio’s kids suffer as police crack down on gangs

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Thousands of schoolchildren in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas miss classes and risk violence as Brazil’s police battle drug gangs

Textbooks and marker pens are not all that science teacher Roberto Brandão, 54, takes with him each morning when he sets off for work in a school in one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest favelas. He also carries a first-aid kit in case he or any of his students is hit by a bullet.

“I always have it in my backpack because I could be shot at any time,” he said, displaying the red waterproof bag after attending a seminar on how police operations are affecting children’s learning in Maré.

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Maduro regime accused of kidnapping lawyer as Venezuela braces for protests

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A month on from disputed election, Perkins Rocha detained in crackdown that opposition fears will intensify

The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has accused Nicolás Maduro’s regime of “kidnapping” one of her key allies as protesters took to the streets to mark one month since the allegedly stolen presidential election and a cabinet reshuffle left government opponents fearing an upsurge in repression.

Activists say more than 1,600 people have been detained during the post-election crackdown ordered by Venezuela’s authoritarian president. On Tuesday, one of the opposition’s most important figures, the lawyer and spokesperson Perkins Rocha joined their ranks after being captured on the streets of Caracas, seemingly by Maduro’s secret police.

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Canada to follow US lead in imposing 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles

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Trudeau also announces 25% tariff on imported steel and aluminum and says ‘China is not playing by the same rules’

Canada, following the lead of the United States, on Monday said it would impose a 100% tariff on the import of Chinese electric vehicles and also announced a 25% tariff on imported steel and aluminum from China.

The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said Ottawa was acting to counter what he called China’s intentional, state-directed policy of over-capacity. But he did not specify whether tariffs would be softened or would be the same on Tesla, whose shares were down over 3% on Monday after the announcement.

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Brazil minister declares ‘war’ with fire as smoke cloaks Brasília and São Paulo

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Environment minister suggests criminal actions behind spike in wildfires closing schools and grounding flights

Brazil’s environment minister has declared her country “at war” with fire after a historic surge in blazes – from the depths of the Amazon to the rural south-east – cloaked Brasília and São Paulo with smoke, grounded flights and forced schools to close.

Speaking after an emergency meeting with the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on Sunday, Marina Silva called the sudden spike in wildfires in São Paulo state’s countryside “unusual” and said federal police were investigating the causes. Three people have been arrested.

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Historian hails Trinidad plan to remove Columbus ships from coat of arms

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PM’s proposal to replace ships with steelpan wins applause from his party but some in capital voice opposing views

The government of Trinidad and Tobago wants to remove a depiction of three ships used by Christopher Columbus from its coat of arms, in a move hailed by a historian as important in addressing historical inaccuracies and shrugging off colonial identities.

The Caribbean country’s prime minister, Keith Rowley, announced a plan on 18 August to replace the ships with a representation of Trinidad and Tobago’s national instrument, the steelpan.

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Killer asks to return to UK to help find victim’s body 55 years after murder

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Nizamodeen Hosein was deported following 20 years in prison for 1969 murder of Muriel McKay

The chilling words of a convicted murderer will soon be heard, peeling back the decades to a winter’s night in 1969, in a revelatory new recorded interview with one of the two brothers who kidnapped and killed Muriel McKay. “Maybe the only solution is to get on the spot. To be there again, I’ll have to retrace my steps,” Nizamodeen Hosein will say.

The notorious killer at the centre of a police hunt that dominated the news 55 years ago has suggested that a trip back from Trinidad and Tobago, where he was deported in 1990 after 20 years in prison, might jog his fading memory about the location of the body of the 55-year-old woman he abducted from her Wimbledon home in an extraordinary case of misidentification.

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US and 10 Latin American states reject Nicolás Maduro’s vote certification

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‘I have no doubt this election has been stolen,’ says Chile’s leftwing president after Venezuelan supreme court ruling

Ten Latin American governments and the US have said they “categorically reject” the Venezuelan supreme court’s decision to confirm Nicolás Maduro’s widely contested claim to have won re-election, with Chile’s president declaring: “I have no doubt this election has been stolen.”

Thursday’s verdict from Venezuela’s top court, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, has been widely questioned internationally from across the political spectrum.

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Canadian government moves to ends nationwide rail strike

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Staff to return to work and trains expected to start running in days after ministers intervene

Canada’s federal government has moved to end a nationwide rail strike that threatened to grind supply chains to a halt, less than a day after it began.

With the government saying it would force the union and rail companies into binding arbitration, picket lines came down and workers at Canadian National Railway (CN) were ordered to return to work on Friday, the Teamsters union said.

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Five children a week killed or injured in Haiti’s gang warfare

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Analysis of UN data shows rising toll on children who are being caught in the crossfire, as well as recruited to kidnap, loot and murder, say aid groups

Five children have been killed or injured in Haiti for every week of the first six months of 2024, caught in the crossfire of warring gangs.

At least 131 children have been killed or injured so far this year, according to analysis of UN Data by Save the Children – up 47% on the final six months of 2023 when 89 cases were documented.

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Pressure grows on Maduro after top court endorses Venezuela election win

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Chile’s leftwing president accuses supreme court of ‘consolidating the fraud’ after Brazil and Colombia stop short of supporting result

Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro is facing a growing chorus of international outrage after the government-controlled supreme court endorsed his disputed claim to have won the presidential election.

Venezuela’s opposition has claimed Maduro tried to steal the 28 July election and has produced compelling evidence that its candidate, Edmundo González, was the winner.

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Meth worth nearly $6m found in fake watermelons at US-Mexico border

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Imitation fruits and vegetables are the latest ‘sophisticated’ tactic for Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs into the US

Everyday fruit and vegetables are some of the latest methods Mexican cartels are using to smuggle drugs into the US, recent seizures of methamphetamine suggest.

Around 2 tonnes of the powerful stimulant known colloquially as crystal meth was discovered recently in packages designed to look like bright green watermelons at the San Diego, California, port of Otay Mesa, according to US Customs and Border Patrol Protection officials.

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Could a £2-a-day basic income be the key to protecting rainforests?

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Pilot scheme in Amazon communities of central Peru aims to help people choose a more sustainable way of living

“At the beginning, there was a lot of fear and disbelief,” said Ketty Marcelo. “There was a perception from the communities that this was another scam, that it was only looking to steal information or our integrity.”

Indigenous communities in the Amazon have grown weary of people coming in from outside with plans that could mean them losing their land or way of life. When a team from Cool Earth, a climate action NGO, came to the Amazon communities of central Peru in October 2022, local people were hesitant. “These fears caused some families not to participate,” Marcelo said. “And we, as an organisation, were afraid this would be another project that would seek to impose activities without respecting the autonomy of the communities.”

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Caribbean nations still facing humanitarian crisis weeks after Hurricane Beryl destruction

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Category 4 hurricane that devastated the islands of St Vincent and the Grenadines when it hit the Caribbean last month has left many traumatised

From the outside, it looks like a typical primary school in the multi-island Caribbean nation of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), with children’s voices echoing behind the distinctive green walls. But inside, washing lines sag with the weight of towels and clothes, and there are people of all ages: a baby frets on her mother’s hip, children squeal as they chase each other, teens play basketball, and elderly people sit on classroom chairs chatting.

This school in the district of Calliaqua is one of 20 on the country’s mainland, St Vincent, which were converted into shelters for those displaced by Hurricane Beryl, the category 4 storm which tore through the region in early July with winds of up to 120mph (193km/h).

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Union dispute shuts down Canadian freight rail amid fears for US trade

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Nearly 10,000 workers locked out at Canada’s two major rail freight firms in dispute over working conditions

Both of Canada’s major rail freight companies have shut down their rail networks in the country and locked out nearly 10,000 workers after unsuccessful negotiations with a major union.

The decision, confirmed by the Teamsters union, sets the stage for an unprecedented rail stoppage that could badly damage the Canadian economy and have a significant effect on cross-border trade with the US.

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US military announces $20m grant to build cobalt refinery in Canada

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Pentagon investment would make North America’s first cobalt sulfate refinery as US looks to diversify supply chain

The US military has made its largest investment in Canada’s mining sector in decades, spending millions amid a looming battle among nations to control the supply of cobalt.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced a $20m grant to help build a cobalt refinery in the province of Ontario, saying the investment will “create a more robust industrial base capable of meeting growing demand across both the defense and commercial sectors”.

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Prehistoric humans may have stuck pikes in ground to kill mammoths, say experts

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People of ancient Clovis culture could have impaled huge animals on pikes rather than throwing spears, finds study

When it came to taking down giant animals, prehistoric hunters would quite literally have faced a mammoth task. Now researchers have shed fresh light on how they might have done it.

Experts studying sharp stone points made by the Clovis people, who lived in the Americas from about 13,000 years ago, say that rather than hurling spears at enormous animals such as giant bison, mammoths or ground sloths, the tribes could have planted their weapons point-up in the ground to impale charging creatures.

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Mpox: Argentina quarantines cargo ship over suspected case of virus

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The ship was near the port of Rosario and authorities were alerted that a crew member was showing ‘cyst-like lesions’

Argentine authorities have quarantined a cargo ship in the Parana River over a suspected case of mpox onboard, the government said on Tuesday, as global public health authorities remain on alert for a new faster-spreading variant of the virus.

The ship near Argentina’s inland grains port of Rosario alerted authorities that “one of its crew members of Indian nationality showed cyst-like skin lesions predominantly on the chest and face,” the ministry said in a statement.

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Backlash as Canada conservatives’ ‘our home’ video features other countries

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Party deletes video after viewers list gaffes, including scenes of US, Serbia and Slovenia – plus Russian jets

Canada’s Conservative party has deleted a social media campaign video with a heavily nationalist message after much of the video featured scenes from other countries, including Ukrainian farmers, Slovenian homes, London’s Richmond Park and a pair of Russian fighter jets.

The video, titled “Canada. Our Home” was initially posted to X on Saturday, with various scenes overlaid by a speech from the party leader, Pierre Poilievre. The Conservatives, who lead the governing Liberals in the polls, are preparing for what is widely expected to be a bitterly contested federal election.

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Canadian export agency ‘hit by big losses after lending to Thames Water’

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State-backed body EDC has reportedly sold at deep discount two loans made to debt-ridden UK utility

Canada’s state-backed export credit agency is reportedly nursing steep losses after lending debt-ridden Thames Water hundreds of millions of pounds.

The British utility, which has said it could run out of cash by next June, received two loans from Export Development Canada (EDC) in 2018 and 2019 at the behest of the Canadian pension fund Omers.

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Fierce seas in US north-east as Ernesto regains hurricane strength over Atlantic

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Forecasters warn of life-threatening surf and rip tides: ‘It’s going to be really dangerous out in the water today’

Tropical Storm Ernesto became a hurricane again on Sunday as it churned away from Bermuda and headed further out in the Atlantic, sending powerful swells toward the US east coast, generating rip currents associated with at least one death and prompting many rescues.

The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said Ernesto’s maximum sustained winds were 75mph (120km/h), just barely category 1 strength.

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