Category Archives: Americas

Climate crisis is ‘not gender neutral’: UN calls for more policy focus on women

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Only a third of countries with climate crisis plans include access to sexual, maternal and newborn health services, UNFPA report finds

Only a third of countries include sexual and reproductive health in their national plans to tackle the climate crisis, the UN has warned.

Of the 119 countries that have published plans, only 38 include access to contraception, maternal and newborn health services and just 15 make any reference to violence against women, according to a report published by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and Queen Mary University of London on Tuesday.

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Dozens of Malaysians rescued in Peru after being trafficked to commit online fraud

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Malaysian foreign ministry says 43 of its citizens were freed in Lima after being forced to take part in ‘Macau scam’

More than 40 people from Malaysia have been rescued by police in Peru after they fell victim to a human trafficking syndicate operating a telecommunication fraud.

The Malaysians were forced to participate in the so-called “Macau scam”, making calls to companies in Malaysia and Taiwan to demand money while posing as banks, police or justice officials.

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Court blocks Kenya from deploying police officers to Haiti to fight gangs

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Order comes after UN approved mission to send Kenya-led police officers to help Haiti combat rampant gang violence

A Kenyan court temporarily blocked the government from deploying hundreds of police personnel in Haiti in a UN-approved mission aimed at helping the Caribbean nation tackle rampant gang violence.

The court order issued on Monday is valid until 24 October and followed a petition jointly filed by one of the opposition political parties and two Kenyans who say the decision to deploy the police officers outside the east African country is illegal.

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Border walls and deportations: Biden’s migrant plans prompt outrage

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The president decried Trump’s migration approach but a series of recent steps, critics say, are barely different from his predecessor

As a candidate in the 2020 election, Joe Biden assailed Donald Trump over what he cast as his rival’s ineffective and un-American approach to immigration – one that undermined the nation’s long history of welcoming those seeking refuge in the United States.

Now as president, facing a migrant crisis that is straining resources at the border and feeding into major US cities, Biden has taken a series of steps that critics on his left say are hardly distinguishable from his predecessor.

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Six suspects in murder of Ecuador presidential candidate killed in prison, authorities say

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The six Colombians had been arrested on the day Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead in August

Six men suspected of involvement in the August murder of Ecuador’s anti-corruption presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio have been killed in prison, the prisons agency has said, barely a week before a crucial run-off election.

The killings took place on Friday in a penitentiary in Guayaquil, the South American country’s largest city, the attorney general’s office announced earlier.

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Guatemala president-elect’s supporters block roads to protest party suspension

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Demonstrations surge after court upheld suspension of Bernardo Arévalo’s party over alleged voter registration fraud

Thousands of protestors have blocked roads across Guatemala in surging demonstrations to support the president-elect, Bernardo Arévalo, after the country’s highest court upheld a move by prosecutors to suspend his political party over alleged voter registration fraud.

Arévalo, an anti-corruption crusader who won a landslide victory in the August election, has denounced the suspension as a “coup” aimed neutralizing him before he takes office in January, and his supporters are demanding the resignation of the prosecutors responsible. Street blockades that started this week grew from 14 on Monday to 58 road and highway blockages Friday.

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AOC slams sanctions against Venezuela and deportation flights

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said US measures to pressure Maduro’s government contribute to exodus of people from that country

Left-wing congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the US was “contributing to the destabilisation that drives migration” with measures such as sanctions on Venezuela and Thursday’s decision to resume deportation flights to the South American country.

She also demanded that Joe Biden reverse his recent decision to expedite border wall construction.

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New Mexico footprints are oldest sign of humans in Americas, research shows

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Fossil footprints date back to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, upending previous theory that humans reached continent later

New research confirms that fossil human footprints in New Mexico are probably the oldest direct evidence of human presence in the Americas, a finding that upends what many archaeologists thought they knew.

The footprints were discovered at the edge of an ancient lakebed in White Sands national park and date back to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, according to research published on Thursday in the journal Science.

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Top grain traders ‘helped scupper’ ban on soya from deforested land

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Cargill and ADM led push to weaken new protections for threatened ecosystems in South America, report says

Cargill and ADM, two of the world’s leading livestock feed companies, helped to scupper an attempt to end the trade in soya beans grown on deforested and threatened ecosystem lands in South America, a new report alleges.

Soya is one of the cheapest available types of edible protein, and is in huge demand for feed for animals around the world; as our consumption of meat and dairy has risen globally, the need for soya has soared too.

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‘Bear attack bad’: final message of Canadian couple killed by grizzly

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Officials say can of bear spray was emptied before attack in Banff national park in which Doug Inglis and Jenny Gusse, both 62, died

The final text message contained just three words: “Bear attack bad.”

Sent from a satellite device to family and rescue teams, it signalled that an autumn camping trip in Banff national park had gone terribly wrong.

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US set to resume deportation flights for Venezuelan migrants

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Officials tell AP process expected to begin shortly but decline to provide more details before announcement of government plan

The Biden administration is going to resume deporting migrants to Venezuela, two US officials told the Associated Press on Thursday.

The process is expected to begin shortly, the officials said, though they did not provide specific details on when the flights would begin taking off. The officials were not authorized to publicly disclose details of the government’s plan ahead of an official announcement and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

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Three doctors shot dead in Brazil in suspected politically motivated attack

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Among the dead is a brother of a lawmaker belonging to the same party as Marielle Franco, Rio politician shot dead in 2018

Three doctors have been killed and another wounded in a beachside shooting in Rio de Janeiro, which Brazilian officials believe may have been a politically motivated attack.

Security camera footage obtained by local newspaper O Globo showed a group of black-clad gunmen emerging from a car and running up to the victims’ table in the Barra da Tijuca neighborhood and opening fire.

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Indigenous party says it is barred from running in Nicaragua elections

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Banning of Yatama party leaves ruling Sandinistas unchallenged in upcoming elections

Nicaraguan electoral authorities have barred an Indigenous party that has clashed with President Daniel Ortega in the past, leaving the ruling Sandinistas with no opposition in upcoming local elections in two regions.

The Yatama party has been disqualified from participating in all future elections, including a local vote scheduled for March, according to a Facebook post by Sammy Allen Cubero, a Yatama youth leader.

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US representative files resolution decrying rightwing calls for invasion of Mexico

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Joaquin Castro urged fellow House members to reject Republican calls for US military action to stem flow of fentanyl from Mexico

A progressive US congressman from Texas has asked his legislative colleagues to join him in condemning some American conservatives’ calls to invade Mexico – ostensibly to do battle with drug cartels there.

Joaquin Castro says he intends to file a resolution in the US House as soon as Friday reaffirming the federal government’s “commitment to respecting the sovereignty of Mexico and condemning calls for military action without Mexico’s consent and congressional authorization”.

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Paddington in Peru films in Colombia – sparking row over legislation in Peru

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Peruvian film-makers outraged over legislation to revitalise industry after film chooses Colombia as shooting location

New legislation to revitalise Peru’s film industry has been proposed after the makers of the British comedy Paddington in Peru chose Colombia as the filming location for the section of the movie in which the bear finally returns to his home country.

The initiative, put forward by rightwing lawmaker Adriana Tudela, cited the “lack of incentives and the high number of national and local bureaucratic barriers to filming in Peru” as the principal obstacle to the mislocation of the third Paddington movie due out in 2024.

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Bolivian president expelled from own party amid political feud

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Conflict erupted after Luis Arce and ex-president Evo Morales both showed interest in the party’s presidential nomination

Bolivia’s president Luis Arce has been expelled from his own party, amid a bitter struggle with the former president, Evo Morales, to lead the party into the 2025 election.

According to a resolution passed at the congress of the Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas) on Wednesday, Arce “expelled himself” from the party by not appearing at the meeting yon Tuesday in the department of Cochabamba.

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Canada’s first First Nations premier elected in Manitoba province

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Voters elect Wab Kinew, 41-year-old leader of the leftwing New Democratic party and a former rapper and broadcast journalist

The Canadian province of Manitoba has elected the country’s first First Nations premier, handing the progressive leader a legislative majority following a contentious election campaign.

Wab Kinew, the 41-year-old leader of the leftwing New Democratic party, has led the province’s party since 2017. A former rapper, broadcast journalist and university administrator, Kinew said his newly-elected government will focus on re-opening three emergency rooms shuttered in recent years. He also said the province would invest in more social housing.

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India orders Canada to remove 41 diplomats from Delhi embassy

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Relations between countries continue to fracture over alleged assassination of Sikh separatist in British Columbia

India has told Canada it must remove 41 diplomats from its embassy in Delhi amid a continuing diplomatic spat over Canadian accusations that India may have been involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader.

According to officials who spoke to the Financial Times, the Indian foreign ministry has given Canada a week to repatriate two-thirds of its diplomats stationed in India, reducing the number to 21. India’s ministry of external affairs declined to comment. An official familiar with the matter confirmed the report to the Associated Press.

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Brazil expels illegal settlers from Indigenous lands in Amazon

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Thousands affected as government vows to stamp out land grabs in protected areas

Brazil’s government has begun removing thousands of non-Indigenous people from two native territories in a move that will affect thousands who live in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

The Brazilian intelligence agency ABIN said in a statement that the goal was to return the Apyterewa and Trincheira Bacaja lands in Para state to the original peoples. It did not say whether or not the expulsion of non-Indigenous people had been entirely peaceful.

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UN votes to send Kenyan-led security force to Haiti to combat gangs

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Security council approves mission but UN faces concerns over outside force with its own record of abuses

The UN security council has voted to send a Kenyan-led multinational security force to Haiti to help its government combat violent gangs, which have driven the Caribbean country into anarchy.

A US resolution to approve the force, six years since the closure of a previous UN stabilisation mission, drew 13 votes in favour with Russia and China abstaining.

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