After a shocking electoral upset the public is growing increasingly weary of his tenure – and of his Liberal party
A Canadian prime minister who has outstayed his welcome, persistent inflation, a government bumped and bruised by scandal and a fired-up opposition leader itching for a public showdown.
It was against this backdrop, four decades ago, that Pierre Trudeau took his apocryphal “walk in the snow” and decided not to contest the next federal election.
Continue reading...Hopes rise that Edmundo González Urrutia can beat Nicolas Maduro on 28 July and lead the country out of a wretched decade
The road from Caracas to Guatire is lined with propaganda billboards glorifying President Nicolás Maduro and likening his political rivals to gangsters from the country’s most infamous criminal group. “They won’t defeat us,” the slogan declares.
But with less than a month until the economically fractured South American country holds its long-awaited presidential election on 28 July, some people are not persuaded.
Continue reading...Jamaican PM says worst is yet to come as category 4 storm hits southern coast after causing at least seven deaths in region
Hurricane Beryl has hit Jamaica after leaving an “Armageddon-like” trail of devastation in Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) and killing at least seven people across the region.
The category 4 storm hit the island’s southern coast on Wednesday afternoon with maximum sustained winds of 140mph (225km/h), pummeling communities and knocking out communications as emergency groups evacuated people in flood-prone communities.
Continue reading...Homes flattened, apocalyptic scenes and at least four dead as St Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada try to recover
This should have been a week of celebration in the Caribbean country of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). The annual Vincy Mas carnival, which attracts thousands of tourists, had advertised a packed schedule of costume parades, soca competitions, and beauty pageants.
Instead, the Vincentian population is reeling from what the country’s prime minister has described as the “utter devastation” wrought by Hurricane Beryl, which ravaged the multi-island country and its eastern Caribbean neighbour Grenada.
Continue reading...Chart-topping singer cancels remainder of 2024 tour dates but says she hopes to return next year
Ann Wilson, the lead singer of rock band Heart, has announced that she has been diagnosed with cancer.
The 74-year-old wrote in an Instagram post: “I recently underwent an operation to remove something that, as it turns out, was cancerous. The operation was successful & I’m feeling great but my doctors are now advising me to undergo a course of preventive chemotherapy & I’ve decided to do it. And so my doctors are instructing me to take the rest of the year away from the stage in order to fully recover.”
Continue reading...With winds up to 160mph, the monster storm pushed through Grenada and is on track for Jamaica and the Yucatán peninsula
At least four people have died after Hurricane Beryl wreaked “almost complete destruction” on small and vulnerable islands in the Caribbean.
The monster hurricane, which is now barrelling towards Jamaica, has strengthened to category 5 status, which means it can achieve wind speeds of over 157mph (253km/h).
Continue reading...CSIS calls site near Guantánamo a ‘powerful tool’ that will be able to monitor air and maritime activity of US military
Satellite images appear to show that Cuba is building a new radar site likely to be capable of spying on the US’s nearby Guantánamo Bay naval base, in the latest upgrade to the country’s surveillance capabilities long thought to be linked to China.
The base, under construction since 2021 but previously not publicly reported, is east of the city of Santiago de Cuba near the El Salao neighborhood, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report published on Monday and later referenced by the Wall Street Journal.
Continue reading...Turning from his ferocious attacks on domestic opponents, Javier Milei aims his scorn at the heads of Brazil and Bolivia
On the campaign trail, Argentina’s showman president, Javier Milei, brandished a chainsaw to highlight plans for ferocious spending cuts. In office, the rightwinger has apparently decided to take the power tool to foreign relations as well.
In recent days, Milei has busied himself losing friends and alienating people with a series of verbal attacks on the leftwing leaders of Argentina’s two biggest neighbours, Bolivia and Brazil.
Continue reading...Hot sea temperatures are fuelling explosive growth of first ever category 4 storm in June
Hurricane Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early whopper of a storm shows the literal hot water the Atlantic and Caribbean are in – and the kind of season ahead, experts said.
Beryl smashed multiple records even before its major-hurricane-level winds approached land. The powerful storm is acting more like monsters that form in the peak of hurricane season thanks mostly to water temperatures as hot or hotter than the region normally gets in September, five hurricane experts told the Associated Press.
Continue reading...New president José Raúl Mulino has vowed to close the route through which thousands of migrants travel to the US every year
The US will cover the costs of repatriating migrants who enter Panama illegally, under a deal agreed with the Central American country’s new president who has vowed to shut down the treacherous Darién Gap used by people travelling north to the United States.
In his first address as president, José Raúl Mulino promised to seek international assistance to find solutions to what he described as a costly “humanitarian and environmental crisis”.
Continue reading...About 40 passengers taken to hospitals after flight from Madrid to Montevideo forced to make emergency landing
An Air Europa flight from Madrid to Montevideo has been forced to make an emergency landing at a Brazilian airport due to “severe turbulence”, the airline said.
About 40 passengers, mostly with minor injuries, were taken to hospitals in Natal, the capital of Rio Grande do Norte state after the plane was diverted early on Monday.
Continue reading...Jimmy Lippert Thyden González alleges country engaged in plan to steal babies from perceived enemies in 70s and 80s
A Chilean-American man raised in the United States has filed a criminal complaint against the Chilean state, alleging that it engaged in a systematic plan to steal thousands of babies from perceived enemies of the state in the 1970s and 1980s.
The case filed by Jimmy Lippert Thyden González, 43, aims to advance the task of Chilean prosecutors and human rights groups working on accountability for crimes committed under Gen Augusto Pinochet.
Continue reading...Roofs blown off by 150mph winds and thousands hunkered down as hurricane reaches Caribbean island of Carriacou
Hurricane Beryl has made landfall on the Caribbean island of Carriacou after becoming the earliest storm of its strength to form in the Atlantic, fueled by record warm waters.
Carriacou is one of the islands of Grenada, where officials said winds increased up to 150mph (240km/h), blowing off roofs and causing other damage.
Continue reading...State of emergency imposes curfew on young people and gives police powers to detain suspects for up to 90 days
A controversial state of emergency in Belize to crack down on a surge of gang-related murders and other violent crimes has led to the arrest of nearly a hundred people.
The order, announced on Tuesday, gives police the power to search homes without a warrant and detain suspects for up to 90 days. Originally implemented for 30 days, the government announced on Friday that it was increasing its length to maximise its effectiveness.
Continue reading...Opponents say abortive raid on palace by angry ex-army chief was a stunt to bolster support
It was the armoured vehicles circling the Plaza Murillo - the normally tranquil central square in historic downtown La Paz – that initially set Bolivians on edge on Wednesday afternoon. By the time a phalanx of troops had marched on the presidential palace, the sense of collective confusion and shock was at fever pitch.
By 2.30pm, a small tank was repeatedly ramming the gates of the neoclassical building known as Palacio Quemado until troops forced their way in and, in an extraordinary scene, the coup leader – disgruntled former army chief Juan José Zúñiga – faced off against the president, Luis Arce.
Continue reading...Storm is forecast to glance off Barbados on Sunday before heading through Caribbean and toward the Yucatán
Tropical Storm Beryl is forecast to become the first hurricane of the season before skirting the southern tip of Barbados in the south-eastern Caribbean on Sunday.
Beryl currently holds maximum sustained winds of 60mph (95km/h) and is traveling west at 21mph (34km/h), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center.
Continue reading...Juan José Zúñiga Macías has been handed charges of terrorism and armed uprising, says prosecutor, as president again rejects claims of ‘self-coup’ to boost popularity
A Bolivian former army chief accused of leading a failed coup attempt has been given six months “preventive detention”, a top prosecutor said on Friday, as the president again denied the attack was a “self-coup” designed to boost his flagging popularity.
General Juan José Zúñiga Macías has been handed charges of terrorism and armed uprising, state prosecutor Cesar Siles said. Zúñiga has said he was following an order from the president, Luis Arce, following Wednesday’s fleeting insurrection in La Paz. In the moments before he was detained, the ex-army chief claimed: “The president told me the situation was fucked and that he needed something to boost his popularity.”.
Continue reading...Karima Manji, whose daughters accessed over C$150,000 in benefits for Inuit residents, pleaded guilty in February
A Canadian woman who fraudulently claimed her daughters were Inuit has been sentenced to three years in jail, in what is believed to be the first ever custodial sentence for a “Pretendian”.
Karima Manji, whose daughters accessed more than C$150,000 in benefits intended for Inuit, was sentenced on Thursday, after pleading guilty to fraud in February.
Continue reading...Félix-Antoine Hamel ran in federal election to protest the country’s lack of electoral reforms
A Canadian man has made history by receiving zero votes in a contested federal election, after running as part of a protest over the lack of electoral reforms in the country.
“When I saw the result, I was like: ‘Well, I am the true unity candidate. Everyone agrees not to vote for me,’” Félix-Antoine Hamel told CBC News.
Continue reading...Inquiry into possible violations of provincial law after TC Energy executive claims company influenced government
British Columbia’s attorney general has called for an investigation into possible violations of provincial law after a Canadian oil and gas executive claimed the company improperly used political connections to “dramatically’’ weaken the province’s environmental policies.
In leaked audio recordings first published by the Narwhal and heard by the Guardian, the executive, Liam Iliffe, claimed that TC Energy, a Calgary-based pipeline company with operations spanning the continent, had ghostwritten ministerial briefing notes and planted employees “next to the strawberries or the romaine lettuce” at a Costco supermarket to choreograph seemingly impromptu meetings with senior bureaucrats in order to push the company’s agenda.
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