Category Archives: Americas

US-Venezuela prisoner swap includes notorious key ally of Nicolás Maduro

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Ten Americans were released in the deal, but critics say release of Alex Saab shows that corrupt Venezuelan officials enjoy impunity

Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, has managed to free a key collaborator from US custody after agreeing to release 10 Americans and 20 Venezuelan citizens from jail.

The Colombian-born businessman Alex Saab – a close Maduro ally whom US prosecutors accused of pilfering hundreds of millions of dollars from Venezuelan social programs as part of a vast money-laundering scheme – was extradited to the US in 2021 after being detained while transiting through Cape Verde.

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Kidnapped former British honorary consul rescued in Ecuador

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Police say Colin Armstrong safe and well after being kidnapped with his partner on Saturday

A British businessman and former UK honorary consul has been released four days after being kidnapped in Ecuador, police have said.

Colin Armstrong, 78, was kidnapped in the early hours of Saturday with a Colombian woman identified as his partner, Katherine Paola Santos, from his home in the town of Baba, according to a police report seen by the Guardian. He was driven away in his own black BMW, which was later found dumped, the report said.

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Ex-Haitian senator gets life in prison for 2021 killing of country’s president

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John Joel Joseph, an opponent of the late president’s party, is third of 11 suspects charged for plotting to assassinate Jovenel Moïse

A former Haitian senator has been sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to kill Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, an assassination which caused unprecedented turmoil in the Caribbean nation.

John Joel Joseph is the third of 11 suspects detained and charged in Miami to be sentenced in what US prosecutors have described as a plot hatched in Haiti and Florida to hire mercenaries to kidnap or kill Moïse, who was 53 when he was shot dead at his private home near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on 7 July 2021.

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Canada to require all new cars to be zero-emission by 2035

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Automakers are pushing back, arguing goal is unrealistic given higher cost of EVs and patchwork nature of charging infrastructure

Canada will require all new automobiles to be zero-emission by 2035 as the country looks to curb its fossil fuel output.

Environment minister Steven Guilbeault outlined the federal government’s plan on Tuesday requiring auto manufacturers to increase the share of fully electric or plug-in hybrids sold in the coming years.

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‘Prison or bullet’: new Argentina government promises harsh response to protest

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President Javier Milei and his allies are preparing new security guidelines in anticipation of protests against currency devaluation

Human rights activists in Argentina have expressed consternation over new security guidelines to crack down on an anticipated wave of protests after the incoming government of libertarian president Javier Milei devalued the country’s currency by more than 50%.

Protesting individuals and organizations will be identified with “video, digital or manual means” – and then billed for the cost of sending security forces to police their demonstrations, said Milei’s security minister, Patricia Bullrich, as she announced the new protocol on Thursday.

“The state is not going to pay for the use of the security forces; organizations that have legal status will have to pay or individuals will have to bear the cost,” Bullrich said.

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‘Dangerous for women’: warning as Chileans vote on new draft constitution

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Children and women to lose out if voters approve new document that critics say reads ‘more like a Republican party manifesto’

Activists and analysts in Chile have warned that swathes of the country’s population stand to lose out should a new draft constitution drawn up by conservative lawmakers be approved in a nationwide referendum on Sunday.

Chileans head to the polls caught between exhaustion and resentment in a compulsory vote to decide whether the 1980 constitution written during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, and since reformed, should be replaced.

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Ecuador: British businessman and former consul Colin Armstrong kidnapped from home

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The 78-year-old was driven away in his own BMW alongside his Colombian partner, according to a police report

A British businessman and the former UK honorary consul in Guayaquil, Colin Armstrong, has been kidnapped by hooded men at his home in Ecuador’s Los Rios province, according to police reports.

Armstrong, 78, was snatched in the early hours of Saturday alongside a Colombian woman identified as his partner Katherine Paola Santos from his home in the town of Baba, according to a police report seen by the Guardian. He was driven away in his own black BMW, which was later found dumped, the report said.

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The Crown promised riches to First Nations in Canada – over 150 years on, they could finally get billions

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In northern Ontario, a dozen First Nations have been left struggling. A court’s attempt at compensation could see them getting up to C$126bn

Only 25 miles of road lie between the northern Ontario town of Terrace Bay and Pays Plat First Nation. But when Raymond Goodchild was growing up, that distance spanned entire worlds.

Terrace Bay in the 1960s was often smothered by a thick smoke billowing from pulp mills. As in much of postwar Canada, industry thrived and jobs were plentiful. Roads and sidewalks were paved, and homes glowed at night with electric lighting.

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Guyana and Venezuela promise not to use force in bitter dispute over oil rich region

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Joint commission composed of foreign ministers of both countries will address the problem, with a report expected within three months

The leaders of Guyana and Venezuela promised in a tense meeting that neither side would use threats or force against the other, but failed to reach agreement on how to address a bitter dispute over a vast border region rich with oil and minerals that has concerned many in the region.

Instead, a joint commission composed of the foreign ministers of both countries and other officials will address the problem, with a report expected within three months.

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Guyana warns Venezuela’s Maduro he risks becoming pariah ahead of talks

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High-level negotiations in St Vincent will discuss Venezuelan president’s claim for two-thirds of neighbour’s oil-rich territory

Venezuela risks becoming an international pariah if President Nicolás Maduro does not de-escalate growing tensions with Guyana, the neighbouring nation’s foreign minister told the Guardian ahead of a high-level meeting between the two countries.

“We’ve seen throughout history what happens to nation states who decide to go it alone … it usually sets the country back decades,” Hugh Todd said ahead of the summit in St Vincent on Thursday.

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Argentina’s new government devalues peso by more than 50%

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Package of spending cuts introduced in attempt to tackle country’s worst economic crisis in decades

Argentina has devalued its currency, the peso, by more than 50% as part of a package of large-scale spending cuts intended to address the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

The plans, introduced under the newly inaugurated administration of Javier Milei, include cutting energy subsidies and cancelling tenders for public works.

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Canada police charge man with 14 counts of murder for mailing poison

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Police say Kenneth Law, 58, sent at least 1,200 packages containing lethal substances to addresses in more than 40 countries

A Canadian man who allegedly helped more than a dozen young people across the province of Ontario kill themselves by mailing them poison has been charged with 14 counts of second-degree murder, police said on Tuesday.

Kenneth Law, 58, had previously been charged with 14 counts of counseling or aiding suicide.

In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Miss Nicaragua pageant director quits after police accuse her of treason

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Karen Celebertti retires weeks after Nicaragua’s contestant, who took part in protests in 2018, was crowned Miss Universe

The director of the Miss Nicaragua pageant has announced her retirement from the organization, nine days after police accused her of “conspiracy” and other crimes.

“The time has come for my retirement,” Karen Celebertti wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “I know that there will always be more opportunities for us.”

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Drug lords hunt corrupt police officers who stole shipment in Tijuana

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Two officers suspected of theft have been killed, prosecutors say, along with at least three others

A recent killing spree in the Mexican border city of Tijuana could have been lifted from a TV script: enraged drug lords hunting down corrupt police officers who stole a drug shipment.

Two of the officers suspected of the theft have been killed, prosecutors say. But so have at least three other officers, according to the city’s former police chief, suggesting the cartel believed to have owned the drugs may have launched a generalized retribution.

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Javier Milei sworn in as president in ‘tipping point’ for Argentina

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Radical libertarian likens his election to fall of Berlin Wall in inauguration speech with strong echoes of Trump’s 2017 address

Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, has vowed to lead his country out of decades of “decadence and decline” but said its punishing economic crisis would intensify over the coming months, as a “who’s who” of the global far right assembled in Buenos Aires to celebrate the radical libertarian’s inauguration.

Addressing tens of thousands of supporters outside Argentina’s turquoise-domed neoclassical congress, Milei – a mercurial former TV celebrity known as El Loco or the Madman – compared his shock election with the start of the Soviet Union’s collapse.

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Clash between criminal gang and villagers leaves 14 dead in central Mexico

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Video of fight shows villagers with sickles and rifles chasing down suspected gang members amid gunfire

A clash between gunmen from a criminal gang and residents of a small farming community in central Mexico left 14 people dead and seven injured, local authorities said on Saturday.

Dramatic video of the fight on Friday posted on social media showed villagers in cowboy hats with sickles and hunting rifles chasing down suspected gang members amid bursts of automatic gunfire.

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Middle-class fear of green policies fuels rise of far right, Colombia’s Petro warns

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Guerrilla leader turned president says, faced with having to reduce their carbon consumption, upper classes fear ‘the barbarians are coming’

Middle-class fears of losing a high standard of living because of green policies is driving the rise of the far right across the world, the president of Colombia has warned.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian at the Cop28 UN climate summit, Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftwing president, said the world had to find carbon-free ways of being prosperous, and that his country’s rich biodiversity would be the basis of its wealth after phasing out fossil fuels.

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US chocolate mogul charged over deaths of Canadian animator and partner in Dominica

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Jonathan Lehrer, 57, and alleged accomplice appear in court after bodies of Daniel Langlois and Dominique Marchand were found

An American chocolatier and his alleged accomplice have been charged in the Caribbean island of Dominica with the murder of a Canadian animation innovator and eco-resort owner and his partner days after their bodies were found in a burned-out car.

Jonathan Lehrer, 57, and Robert Snider appeared in magistrates court in Roseau, the capital, on Wednesday to face charges relating to the murders of Daniel Langlois and Dominique Marchand. They did not enter a plea.

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US to conduct flights within Guyana amid Venezuela territorial dispute

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US and Britain express support for Guyana over Maduro threat to seize a third of its territory while Brazil calls for peaceful solution

The United States has said it would conduct flight operations within Guyana that build on its routine engagement, as Britain and Brazil expressed concerns about growing border tensions between Guyana and Venezuela.

The long-running spat over the oil-rich Essequibo region, which is being heard by the international court of justice (ICJ), escalated over the weekend when voters in Venezuela rejected the ICJ’s jurisdiction and backed the creation of a new Venezuelan state.

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Plant fossils turn out to be turtles in ‘unusual misidentification’

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Re-examination finds what were taken to be veins of leaves are actually bone growth patterns

Two small, oval fossils thought to be prehistoric plants are actually the remains of baby marine turtles, researchers have revealed.

The fossils, found in rocks dating to between 132 and 113 million years ago, were discovered in Colombia in the middle of the 20th century by Padre Gustavo Huerta, a priest with a penchant for fossil plants.

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