Dwight Sagaray was given 20-year sentence after being stripped of diplomatic immunity following the crime
A Kenyan court has sentenced a former Venezuelan diplomat to 20 years in jail over the 2012 murder of the Latin American nation’s acting ambassador at her home in an upmarket Nairobi neighbourhood.
Dwight Sagaray, who was the first secretary at the embassy, was convicted in January, along with three Kenyan nationals, over the murder of the ambassador Olga Fonseca.
Continue reading...Beloved musician Elis Regina died aged 36 in 1982 but a new Volkswagen commercial shows her duetting with her daughter
The premature death in 1982 of one of Brazil’s most treasured musicians left her homeland reeling. “Brazil without Elis,” mourned one front page after the legendary singer Elis Regina unexpectedly died at the age of 36.
So when Elis Regina recently re-emerged, performing a soul-stirring duet with her daughter, the Grammy-winning singer Maria Rita, there were similarly charged scenes of catharsis and nostalgia.
Continue reading...Prosecutor suspends Movimiento Semilla after Bernardo Arévalo unexpectedly reached second round
Guatemala’s presidential election has been thrown into confusion after the country’s top prosecutor moved to suspend the party of a centre-left anti-corruption candidate who unexpectedly made it to the second round and officials from the attorney general’s office raided the headquarters of the electoral authority.
Observers had voiced fears that the Central American country’s political establishment might try to force Bernardo Arévalo from August’s runoff after he unexpectedly came second in last month’s vote.
Continue reading...Another 14 wounded after seven improvised devices set off in attack by organized crime group in Tlajomulco, Jalisco state
Four police officers and two civilians have been killed by bombs planted in a road in western Mexico that officials said were an ambush set by a drug cartel.
The attack late on Tuesday appeared to mark the first time that Mexican criminals have successfully targeted law-enforcement personnel with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in the latest example of the brazen military challenge posed by organized crime groups in the country.
Continue reading...Scientists studied jewelry made from now extinct creatures and theorize that humans arrived in Americas 27,000 years ago
New research suggests humans lived in South America at the same time as now extinct giant sloths, bolstering evidence that people arrived in the Americas earlier than once thought.
Scientists analyzed triangular and teardrop-shaped pendants made of bony material from the sloths. They concluded that the carved and polished shapes and drilled holes were the work of deliberate craftsmanship.
Continue reading...Mexican authorities will seek to extradite Bryant Rivera of the Los Angeles area for the death of Angela Carolina Acosta Flores
US authorities have arrested a California man accused of killing three women in the Mexican border city of Tijuana and crossing back and forth across the international line after each of the deaths, which occurred over the course of nearly a year starting in 2021.
According to US court records, 30-year-old Bryant Rivera, a resident of the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, was arrested on 6 July on a femicide charge in the strangulation death of Angela Carolina Acosta Flores, whose body was found in a hotel room in Tijuana on 25 January 2022.
Continue reading...Products include ‘party kits’ with hats, cake decorations and banners bearing Brazilian ex-president’s face
Some politicians go on lucrative speaking tours when their days in power are done. Others start foundations, distill whiskey, raise cattle or buy luxury sheds.
Jair Bolsonaro has chosen a different path and opened a shop where, for the price of a hardback, you can order a Bolsonaro-themed birthday pack complete with party hats, cake decorations and a plastic banner carrying a festive message from Brazil’s former president.
Continue reading...Barbers on Strike, author Michelle Recinos’s collection of short stories, has apparently upset strongman president Nayib Bukele
First the soldiers came for those with mohawks. Then they came for the hairdressers themselves.
“They were good kids,” quips the narrator in one of the latest tales by the Salvadorian author Michelle Recinos, “although I’d never trusted them with my hair.”
Continue reading...Country suffering its worst drought in 74 years, with government even mixing saltwater into drinking supply
A plan to build a Google data centre that will use millions of litres of water a day has sparked anger in Uruguay, which is suffering its worst drought in 74 years.
Water shortages are so severe in the country that a state of emergency has been declared in Montevideo and the authorities have added salty water to the public drinking water supplies, prompting widespread protests.
Continue reading...Country’s top cop said 90% of miners despoiling Yanomami land had been expelled, though experts say they are only displaced
Brazil’s top federal police chief for the Amazon has celebrated the government’s success in driving thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous territory but warned the “war” against environmental criminals is not yet over.
Speaking during a visit to the Amazon city of Belém, Humberto Freire estimated environmental and police special forces had expelled 90% of the 20,000 miners who had been devastating the protected Yanomami territory, since launching their clampdown in February.
Continue reading...Phenomenon is forecast to expand as it strengthens, triggering conditions of more than 30C in parts of Europe
Parts of southern and western Europe have been experiencing unusually high temperatures. Areas of Spain and Portugal have recorded daily maximum temperatures in the high 30s celsius for more than a week, exceeding 40C in parts of southern Spain on Sunday. Italy, France, Germany and the Benelux region also reached the low- to mid-30s celsius in places at the weekend.
The heat is caused by a large area of high pressure that is stagnating over Europe and preventing the usual pattern of low pressure systems moving eastwards into Europe from the Atlantic. This is known as a blocking high and results in very dry and stable conditions, as the fronts associated with more dynamic weather patterns are forced away by the high pressure.
Continue reading...La Jornada said the body of Luis Martín Sánchez Iñiguez was found on the outskirts of Tepic, capital of the coastal state
A journalist from Mexican national newspaper La Jornada has been found dead in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, the publication has said.
La Jornada reported on Saturday the body of Luis Martín Sánchez Iñiguez was found on the outskirts of the state capital, Tepic.
Continue reading...More than 9m hectares of country had burned, federal data shows, shattering 34-year record
Canadian officials have warned that the country faces a “long, tough summer” of wildfires as the current season shatters previous records and forecasts predict even hotter temperatures to come.
Federal data showed that on Friday more than 9m hectares (22.2m acres) of the country had burned, shattering a 34-year record.
Continue reading...The judge rejected Serge Paincahud’s ‘scared’ defense to fire at a black bear while illegally carrying a shotgun on a trail
A Canadian man, who had pleaded guilty to shooting a black bear in a national park, will pay a fine of C$7,500 after the judge rejected his “fear” of the predator as justification for bringing a loaded firearm on a popular hiking trail.
Serge Painchaud, 42, was this week fined for violating a hunting restriction under the National Parks Act.
Continue reading...Government data shows marked reduction against same period last year, reversing trend of destruction during Bolsonaro reign
After four years of rising destruction in Brazil’s Amazon, deforestation dropped by 33.6% during the first six months of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s term, according to new government satellite data.
From January to June the rainforest had alerts covering 2,650 sq km (1,023 sq miles), down from 4,000 sq km –during the same period last year under former president Jair Bolsonaro. This year’s data includes a 41% plunge in alerts for June, which marks the start of the dry season when deforestation tends to jump.
Continue reading...Gabriel Barajas and Malea Tribble thought ‘it was all over for us’ – but marine expert suggests shark was merely being ‘inquisitive’
A pair of paddleboarders raising money for charity had a frightening encounter with a hammerhead shark that circled them near Florida’s coast – and the entire incident was caught on video.
Gabriel Barajas and Malea Tribble were paddling from Florida to the Bahamas, an 80-mile journey, to raise money for cystic fibrosis awareness, WJZY reported.
Continue reading...A Saskatchewan court rules emoji is just as valid as a signature and orders a farmer to pay $61,442 for unfulfilled contract
A Canadian judge has ruled that the “thumbs-up” emoji is just as valid as a signature, arguing that courts need to adapt to the “new reality” of how people communicate as he ordered a farmer to pay C$82,000 ($61,442) for an unfulfilled contract.
In a recent case the Court of King’s Bench in the province of Saskatchewan heard that a grain buyer with South West Terminal sent a mass text message to clients in March 2021, advertising that the company was looking to buy 86 tonnes of flax at a price of C$17 ($12.73) per bushel.
Continue reading...Captain of tourist boat from Baja California, Mexico, says grey whales return repeatedly for ‘grooming’
Grey whales have learned to approach whale-watching boats to have parasites removed by human beings, it has been claimed.
Video footage documenting the behaviour in the Ojo de Liebre lagoon, off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, shows a grey whale having whale lice picked off its head by the captain of a small boat. “I have done it repeatedly with the same whale and others,” Paco Jimenez Franco told a US news site. “It is very exciting for me.”
Continue reading...Frontrunner Sandra Torres alleged votes were manipulated after centrist Bernardo Arevalo claimed surprise runner-up spot
The US has issued a warning over possible efforts to interfere with Guatemala’s presidential election result, after the country’s top court ordered ballots from the first-round vote be reviewed, setting up the potential for a recount.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said Washington had endorsed findings from observers over the vote’s validity, and said undermining the outcome would be a “grave threat to democracy with far-reaching implications”.
Continue reading...Rising temperatures in north Atlantic and drop in Antarctic sea ice prompt fears of widespread damage from extreme weather
“Very unusual”, “worrying”, “terrifying”, and “bonkers”; the reactions of veteran scientists to the sharp increase in north Atlantic surface temperatures over the past three months raises the question of whether the world’s climate has entered a more erratic and dangerous phase with the onset of an El Niño event on top of human-made global heating.
Since April, the warming appears to have entered a new trajectory. Meanwhile the area of global sea ice has dropped by more than 1 million sq km below the previous low.
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