Category Archives: Americas

Pro-Palestinian Canadian students’ post for ‘teach-in’ features masked guerrillas

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Zionist group claims antisemitism as McGill students advertise ‘revolutionary’ summer program at protest camp

A pro-Palestinian student encampment at a prominent Canadian university has announced a “revolutionary youth summer program” with posts featuring photos of masked, armed guerrillas reading communist literature, drawing criticism from a Canadian Zionist organization decrying what it said was metastasizing antisemitism.

The student group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) McGill called for students to sign up for “revolutionary” trainings to be held on the university campus this month. Since April SPHR McGill has been occupying part of the Montreal campus to protest against Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.

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Brazil seeks pro-Bolsonaro rioters who fled to Argentina

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Country asks Argentina to identify rioters’ whereabouts and status before deciding to request extraditions

Brazil has asked Argentina for information about dozens of supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro seeking refuge in the neighboring country to avoid legal consequences for rioting in Brasília last year as part of an alleged coup attempt.

Brazilian police officials said the request was a precursor to possible extradition requests.

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US man dies after being electrocuted in jacuzzi in Mexico resort town

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Death of man and injuries suffered by a woman were due to ‘possible electric discharge’ when both were in the jacuzzi

An American man has died after being electrocuted in a jacuzzi at a resort in Mexico, local officials have confirmed.

The 43-year-old man, identified by police as Jorge N, died after being electrocuted in a jacuzzi he was sharing with a woman. The woman, identified by police as Lizeth N, was taken to the US for medical treatment for her life-threatening injuries.

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Europol smashes Balkan cartel shipping drugs from South America

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Eight tonnes of cocaine seized and 40 people arrested after four-year investigation led by Spain’s Guardia Civil

• How big is Europe’s cocaine problem – and what is the human cost?

Forty people have been arrested and eight tonnes of cocaine have been seized as a result of a four-year international police operation targeting a criminal network that trafficked large quantities of the drug from South America to Europe via west Africa and the Canary Islands.

The long-running investigation – which was led by Spain’s Guardia Civil force and coordinated by Europol’s operational taskforce – discovered that a Balkan cartel was using logistical hubs in west Africa and the Canaries to smuggle cocaine from Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador into EU countries.

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Maya twins myth may have influenced child sacrifices, study suggests

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​DNA testing on 64 skeletons shows related boys were probably chosen as offerings in ancient city of Chichén Itzá

Genetic analysis of the skeletons of 64 infant boys who are thought to have been sacrificed in the ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá more than a thousand years ago may shed light on the symbolic role twins played in the myths and rituals of their civilisation.

In 1967, the remains of more than 100 children were found in a repurposed chultún, or underground cistern, near the sacred sinkhole at the ceremonial centre of the pre-Columbian city, which was one of the largest and most influential Maya settlements between AD600 and 1000.

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Brazil’s devastating floods hit ‘Black population on the periphery’ hardest

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Porto Alegre’s poorest neighborhoods, often closest to rivers and with the worst infrastructure, bore brunt of crisis

It had been raining for nearly a week when the floodwaters first reached Marcelo Moreira Ferreira’s home in Porto Alegre, the capital of Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul.

His wife and their four children left to seek shelter with relatives, but Ferreira, 51, wanted to stay: his father had built the modest one-storey structure and he had lived there his entire life.

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Bear shreds seats then dozes off after breaking into Canadian woman’s car

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Black bear apparently opened the vehicle by lifting door handle with its mouth, after breaking into same car last year

After a string of vehicle break-ins in a north Canadian town, local residents have identified the culprit: a black bear with a taste for upholstery foam.

Awoken by a noise near midnight on 11 June, Kayla Seward, who lives in the Ontario township of Larder Lake, went outside to investigate – and found the sleepy black bear locked inside her car.

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Russian warships arrive in Havana in visit seen as show of strength

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Four vessels, including nuclear-powered submarine and frigate, greeted by sparse crowd upon arrival in Cuba

A fleet of Russian warships has arrived in the bay of Havana, in a visit seen as a show of strength amid tensions with the west over support for Ukraine.

Four vessels, including the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan and the frigate Admiral Gorshkov, entered Havana Bay early on Wednesday, where they offered a 21-gun salute that was reciprocated from the battlements of La Cabaña, the fortress where Che Guevara once had his office.

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Rare birds at risk as narco-gangs move into forests to evade capture – report

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Cocaine traffickers have put two-thirds of Central America’s key habitats for threatened birds under threat, study finds

Cocaine consumption is threatening rare tropical birds as narco-traffickers move into some of the planet’s most remote forests to evade drug crackdowns, a study has warned.

Two-thirds of key forest habitats for birds in Central America are at risk of being destroyed by “narco-driven” deforestation, according to the paper, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Sustainability.

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Rare white grizzly bear and two cubs killed in Canada in separate car strikes

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Cubs killed by cars earlier in the day before spooked Nakoda ran on to highway, where another vehicle struck her

National park staff in Canada are mourning the “devastating” loss of a rare white grizzly bear and her cubs after all three were killed in separate vehicle collisions on the same day.

The bear formally referred to as GBF178 but named Nakoda by locals had in recent months been spotted with her two cubs foraging on spring dandelions along a stretch of highway between Lake Louise and Yoho national parks.

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US banana giant ordered to pay $38m to families of Colombian men killed by death squads

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Landmark verdict against Chiquita marks first time major US company held liable for funding human rights abuses abroad

A Florida court has ordered Chiquita Brands International to pay $38m to the families of eight Colombian men murdered by a paramilitary death squad, after the US banana giant was shown to have financed the terrorist organisation from 1997 to 2004.

The landmark ruling late on Monday came after 17 years of legal efforts and is the first time that the fruit multinational has paid out compensation to Colombian victims, opening the way for thousands of others to seek restitution.

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Battlefield deaths from global conflicts hit 30-year high, study finds

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Since 2021, the overall number of deaths, including of civilians, has risen to the highest level in three decades, Peace Research Institute Oslo reports

Deaths from civil conflicts and battles across the world over the past three years have risen to the highest level in three decades, according to a new report.

Research by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (Prio) showed that while the number of battlefield deaths fell compared with the previous two years, since 2021 the overall number of conflict-related deaths, including of civilians, has risen to the highest level in 30 years.

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Canadian drug advocacy group founders charged with trafficking

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Vancouver’s volunteer-led ‘compassion club’ offered users pure drugs like heroin and cocaine to prevent overdose deaths

Two founders of a drug advocacy group who sold cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin in defiance of Canada’s federal government have been charged with trafficking-related offences.

Police in Vancouver said charges of possession for the purposes of trafficking were approved on 31 May against 28-year-old Jeremy Kalicum and 33-year-old Eris Nyx, co-founders of the Drug User Liberation Front. Kalicum and Nyx were arrested in October, but were only charged recently, and are due to appear in court on 2 July.

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‘Heartbreaking’: fire destroys historic Toronto church and rare paintings

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Destroyed artefacts in St Anne’s Anglican church include unique paintings by Group of Seven art collective

An early morning fire at a Toronto church has destroyed both a historic site and rare paintings by an acclaimed group of Canadian artists, leaving the city reeling from a “heartbreaking” loss.

Fire crews responded on Sunday to a blaze engulfing St Anne’s Anglican church, a national historic site in the city’s Little Portugal neighbourhood.

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Austrian-Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach charged with sexual assault

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Auto parts magnate, 91, arrested over five charges including rape, indecent assault and forcible confinement

Authorities in Canada have charged Austrian-Canadian auto parts billionaire Frank Stronach with sexual assault dating back to the 1980s.

Peel regional police said in a statement that Stronach, 91, was arrested on Friday and charged with five crimes including, rape, indecent assault on a female, sexual assault and forcible confinement.

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US seizes $63m worth of cocaine after dramatic shootout on high seas

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Patrol boat off Venezuelan coast shoots and sinks vessel suspected of carrying drugs as three people go overboard

A high-seas shootout pitting drug runners against the law ended with the smugglers’ boat at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea and the US Coast Guard seizing $63m worth of cocaine, authorities in Florida said on Friday.

The dramatic encounter took place on Tuesday about 25 miles (40km) north of Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, when the coast guard cutter Resolute – patrolling with the Dutch navy ship Groningen – identified a vessel in international waters suspected of carrying narcotics, according to a press release from the USCG south-east region.

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Uruguayan woman given proper burial 47 years after abduction by dictatorship

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Amelia Sanjurjo, a member of Uruguay’s Communist party who disappeared in 1977, was identified and laid to rest

A Uruguayan woman who was abducted by security forces during the country’s military dictatorship has received a proper burial, nearly 50 years after she was forcibly disappeared.

Bone fragments of Amelia Sanjurjo were exhumed exactly a year ago from a military base in a small southern town in Uruguay. She was finally identified last week after investigators took DNA samples from her maternal aunt and nephews in Uruguay, Spain and Italy in hopes of finding a match.

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Argentina’s far-right president poised to shut down anti-gender violence agency

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‘Women at risk’ amid increasing number of femicides but assistance including emergency helpline will be cut

Javier Milei, Argentina’s far-right president, is poised to dissolve the government department responsible for tackling gender violence, prompting a furious backlash from human rights activists.

Claudia Barcia, the head of the undersecretariat for protection against gender violence, resigned on Thursday with a warning that the agency will soon be shuttered. “The Undersecretary of Protection against Gender Violence … will cease to exist,” Barcia wrote on Twitter, later confirming to the Guardian that she had received the news the previous day.

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‘Greed’: John Deere rolls out hundreds of US layoffs and sends work to Mexico

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Agricultural equipment company plans to move production out of the country in move condemned by workers

US workers at John Deere plants have accused the company of acting on “greed” as America’s most famous agricultural equipment company plans to shift more production to Mexico.

The company – famous for its green tractors and leaping deer logo – has announced layoffs of several hundred workers over the last several months with more layoffs planned for later this year.

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Russia to send combat vessels to Caribbean to project ‘global power’, US official says

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Naval exercises spurred by US support for Ukraine are likely to include port calls in Cuba and Venezuela, says official

Russia plans to send combat vessels into the Caribbean region this summer as part of naval exercises that will probably include port calls in Cuba and possibly stops in Venezuela, a senior US official said on Wednesday.

“As part of Russia’s regular military exercises, we anticipate that this summer, Russia will conduct heightened naval and air activity near the United States. These actions will culminate in a global Russian naval exercise this fall,” the official said.

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