Category Archives: Americas

Economists warn electing far-right Milei would spell ‘devastation’ for Argentina

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More than 100 economists including Thomas Piketty and Jayati Ghosh publish open letter ahead of country’s 19 November election

The election of the radical rightwing economist Javier Milei as president of Argentina would probably inflict further economic “devastation” and social chaos on the South American country, a group of more than 100 leading economists has warned.

In an open letter, published ahead of Argentina’s crunch 19 November election, the economists said they understood the “deep-seated desire for economic stability” among voters, given Argentina’s frequent financial crises and recurring bouts of very high inflation.

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Two with suspected Hezbollah links held in Brazil over alleged terror plot

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Arrests made by police on Wednesday over reported plot to launch terror attacks against Jewish community in Brazil

Brazilian federal police have arrested two men with suspected links to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah who were reportedly plotting to launch terror attacks against the Jewish community in Brazil.

The arrests were made on Wednesday during what police called an operation to “interrupt preparations for acts of terrorism and obtain evidence about the possible recruitment of Brazilians to commit of extremist acts”.

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Chile’s right wing presents draft conservative constitution

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Draft, which some observers consider a step backwards, could threaten rights to abortion and collective strike action

Chile’s radical right wing have presented their conservative vision for the future in a draft constitution that some observers consider a step backwards for the country.

The new draft, which could replace the current Pinochet-era charter, was drawn up by a council led by the far-right Republican party and could threaten access to abortion, curb the right to collective strike action, and would reduce the number of deputies elected to Chile’s congress.

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Canada’s emissions cut plan insufficient to meet targets, official report finds

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Auditor general says key measures to cut emissions by 40-45% to meet Paris accord commitment delayed or not prioritized

Canada’s emissions reduction plan is insufficient to meet its target to cut emissions by 40% to 45% below the 2005 level by 2030, according to a new a report released by the country’s auditor general.

The audit found the government’s plan insufficient because key measures needed to meet the 2030 target were delayed or not prioritized, according to a statement from the office of the auditor general on Tuesday.

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Argentinians urged to reject ‘dictatorial’ Milei by offspring of regime torturers

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Open letter from offspring of officials convicted of crimes against humanity warns that democracy is at risk in presidential election

The offspring of military officials convicted of crimes against humanity and genocide during Argentina’s dictatorship have urged voters not to back the far-right candidate Javier Milei in the imminent election, warning that the country’s very democracy is in danger.

In an open letter published ahead of the 19 November run-off between Milei and his centrist rival, Sergio Massa, the Historias Desobedientes (Disobedient Stories) collective voiced “great concern” that the rightwing radical and his running mate Victoria Villarruel had a chance of winning power.

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Brazil: Lula deploys troops to ports and airports in organised crime crackdown

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Military intervention to last until May and is reportedly designed to cut off key drug and gun smuggling routes

Thousands of troops have taken up position in the ports and airports of Rio and São Paulo and along Brazil’s western border as part of efforts to “asphyxiate” organized crime amid an upsurge in bloodshed and violence.

The military intervention – ordered last Friday by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – will last until next May and is reportedly designed to cut off the drug and gun smuggling routes on which trafficking and mafia groups depend.

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Rebel group claims military action delaying release of Luis Díaz’s father

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  • Liverpool player’s father kidnapped in Colombia
  • Group warns military in local area putting him at risk

The rebel group holding Luis Díaz’s father claims military action in the local area is not only delaying the release of their hostage but putting him at risk. Díaz’s parents were kidnapped more than a week ago – his mother was freed quickly – and despite pledges from the National Liberation Army of Colombia (ELN) to expedite the return of Díaz Sr, it is taking longer than expected.

“On November 2, we informed the country of the decision to release Mr Luis Manuel Díaz, father of the player Luis Díaz,” said a statement, signed by the unit leader, Commander Jose Manuel Martinez Quiroz.

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‘Funk is the reality we live’: Rio show celebrates sound of the favela

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Exhibition puts music previously shunned by elites as ‘stuff of outlaws’ in long tradition of black culture and resistance

Hebert Amorim was eight when he got his first taste of funk carioca (Rio funk): a pirate CD by Mr Catra, a favela MC famed for his ferociously explicit verses about gangs, guns and sex.

“My mum caught me listening to it and went mental,” said the 30-year-old visual artist from Senador Camará, a hardscrabble corner of west Rio de Janeiro where police fear to tread.

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‘The children screamed for hours’: horrors of Hurricane Otis leave devastation for Acapulco’s poorest

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Mexico’s Pacific coast was battered by 165mph winds and torrential rain on 25 October. Thousands lost their homes and many now have too little food or water to survive

In the small hours of Wednesday 25 October, Josefina Maldonado, a grandmother of two in her 60s who lives in the Renacimiento district of Acapulco, watched as the corrugated metal roof of her home flew into the sky, ripped off by 165mph (270km/h) winds. The family home and everything and everyone in it, including two terrified small children, were prey to the torrential rain and the horrors of the hurricane. Most of the furniture, including the beds, was swept away.

“It wasn’t that the wind or the water was stronger. Both were working together,” Maldonado says. “We were up all night trying to save what we could, and the children screamed and cried for hours.”

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Taylor Swift fans have reportedly lined up for five months ahead of Argentina shows

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Pitchfork reports that hundreds of fans are sharing tents on a meticulously planned schedule to ensure they get the best spot when doors open next week

After a whirlwind excursion around the US that has generated billions of dollars in income and broken records for crowd size and seismic activity, Taylor Swift is taking her Eras tour to South America – and fans have reportedly been lining up for five months.

In Buenos Aires, a cadre of Swifties has been sleeping in tents outside River Plate Stadium, where Swift is set to open her Latin American leg with three shows from 9-11 November.

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Buffy Sainte-Marie Indigenous roots controversy rocks Canada First Nations

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New documentary threatens to tarnish folk singer’s reputation as a cultural icon who fought tirelessly for social justice movements

Allegations in a documentary that the popular American folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie misrepresented her Indigenous roots have rattled First Nations communities in Canada, where she claims to have been born, highlighting the complex legacy of an artist whose decades-long career is defined by advocating for Indigenous rights.

Sainte-Marie describes herself as a “Cree singer-songwriter” has long traced her identity to the Piapot First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan, where she claims she was born in 1941. Sainte-Marie says she was taken from her biological mother when she was an infant and raised by a white family in the US.

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South American countries recall ambassadors and cut ties with Israel over war with Hamas

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Bolivia’s leftwing government cuts diplomatic ties with Israel, alleging crimes and human rights abuses in Gaza, as Chile and Colombia recall ambassadors

A number of South American countries have registered diplomatic protests against Israel, in response to its latest conflict with Hamas, with Bolivia’s leftwing government cutting ties entirely and attributing its decision to alleged war crimes and human rights abuses being committed in the Gaza Strip.

The decision by Bolivia was announced at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon by María Nela Prada, a minister in President Luis Arce’s administration. “We demand an end to the attacks on the Gaza Strip which have so far claimed thousands of civilian lives and caused the forced displacement of Palestinians,” the minister told reporters in her country’s de facto capital, La Paz.

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Venezuela primary results suspended in latest blow directed at opposition

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María Corina Machado was overwhelmingly elected to take on Nicolás Maduro in presidential election expected next year

Venezuela’s supreme court has suspended the results of the political opposition’s primaries after María Corina Machado was overwhelmingly elected last Sunday to take on President Nicolás Maduro in a presidential contest expected for 2024.

The court – which is stacked with Maduro’s allies – also ratified bans on running for office which had been slapped on Machado and two others.

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Deforestation has big impact on regional temperatures, study of Brazilian Amazon shows

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Research highlights benefits forests bring surrounding regions in terms of cooler air and more rainfall

Deforestation has a far greater impact on regional temperatures than previously believed, according to a new study of the Brazilian Amazon that shows agricultural businesses would be among the biggest beneficiaries of forest conservation.

The research has important political implications because farmers in Amazonian states have, until now, led the way in forest destruction on the assumption that they will make money by clearing more land.

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Disabled man drags himself off plane after Air Canada fails to offer wheelchair

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Airline was forced to apologize to Rodney Hodgins who flew to Las Vegas with his wife to celebrate their anniversary in August

Air Canada has been forced to apologize after a man with spastic cerebral palsy was forced to drag himself off a plane when the flagship carrier failed to provide a wheelchair for him.

Rodney Hodgins, 49, a hardware salesman from British Columbia who requires the use of a motorized wheelchair, flew to Las Vegas with his wife, Deanna, to celebrate their anniversary in August.

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Acapulco: nearly 100 dead and missing after Hurricane Otis, officials say

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Governor of Guerrero state says 45 confirmed dead and 47 others missing after ferocious storm hit Mexican city on Wednesday

The number of people dead and missing due to Hurricane Otis, a category 5 storm which hammered the Mexican Pacific resort city of Acapulco last week, has risen to close to 100.

Otis battered Acapulco with winds of 165mph (266km/h) on Wednesday, flooding the city, tearing roofs from homes, hotels and other businesses, submerging vehicles and severing communications as well as road and air connections.

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Acapulco death toll rises to 43 after Hurricane Otis batters resort city

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Guerrero state governor says officials assessing damage after unprecedented 165mph storm hit Mexico’s Pacific coast

The death toll from a devastating hurricane that hit the Mexican beach resort of Acapulco last week has risen to 43, the governor of Guerrero state has said.

Evelyn Salgado added that electricity had been restored to 58% of Acapulco and that officials had visited 10,000 families there and the nearby city of Coyuca de Benitez for a census to evaluate damages.

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‘There was no one better’: Peruvian singer finally takes her place among all-time greats

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Lucha Reyes was compared to Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf. Now, fifty years after her death, her songs are released for a new audience

On a late spring morning 50 years ago this week, 30,000 people gathered outside the baroque facade of the church of San Francisco in central Lima to weep, sing and say goodbye to the young woman whose coffin was hoisted on to the crowd’s shoulders and carried, for three hours, to El Ángel cemetery a few kilometres away.

Lucha Reyes, who had died the previous day from a heart attack brought on by diabetes, knew her end was approaching. In keeping with the raw and pained songs and performances that had made her Peru’s darling, the 37-year-old singer had even commissioned a valedictory waltz. Called Mi última canción, or My Last Song, it was written in a funeral parlour.

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Colombian ex-army officer gets life in prison for killing of Haiti president Jovenel Moïse

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Retired army officer Germán Alejandro Rivera García, 45, is second of 11 suspects detained and charged in Miami

A retired Colombian army officer has been sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, which caused unprecedented turmoil in the Caribbean nation.

Germán Alejandro Rivera García, 45, is the second of 11 suspects detained and charged in Miami to be sentenced in what US prosecutors have described as a conspiracy hatched in both Haiti and Florida to hire mercenaries to kidnap or kill Moïse, who was slain at his private home near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on 7 July 2021.

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Buffy Sainte-Marie denies allegations she misled public about Indigenous ancestry

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Singer calls allegations ‘deeply hurtful’ after documentary questions ‘shifting narrative’ surrounding her Cree roots

Folk singer and social justice advocate Buffy Sainte-Marie has denied allegations that she misled the public about her Indigenous ancestry, after a Canadian documentary questioned the “shifting narrative” surrounding her Cree roots.

On Friday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s investigative wing, the Fifth Estate, published an investigation into the singer’s ancestry, alleging her life story is part of a broader narrative “full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies”.

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