Month: March 2023

"Here there's also a split, much more, or as serious as Brazil -- Democrats and Republicans are very split up. Love it or leave it, that's more or less what's going on," he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in Washington, adding that Brazil does not have "a hatred culture."Both Lula and Biden saw government buildings sacked in the aftermath of their presidential elections by far-right elements that have posed huge tests for their respective democracies."Never could we imagine that in a country that was the symbol of democracy in the world -- someone could try to invade the Capitol," he said about the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot in the US. The similarities between the January 8 attack on Brasilia and the US insurrection include former President Jair Bolsonaro's close alignment with former US ...

Six other children were injured when a city bus in Laval, Quebec, crashed into the day care Wednesday. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, attending a community vigil at a church not far from the day care, spoke of the grief the entire country felt along with the families of the children lost."I reflect on the incredible loss the families are feeling right now, on the hundreds of thousands of parents who dropped their kids off at day cares across the country this morning, holding them a little tighter and reflecting on the senselessness of this tragedy," Trudeau said, surrounded by other mourners in front of the church.The province's premier also visited the community to offer aid and condolences Thursday. "Of course it's tough, because we're talking about children and there's nothin...

The authoritarian leader has jailed dozens of opposition figures and activists, particularly in the lead up to the last elections in November of 2021.Judge Octavio Rothschuh Andino announced the release of at least 222 inmates by the Nicaraguan penitentiary system at a press conference on Thursday, saying several were already en route to the US. "The deportees have been found guilty of treason and charged with serious crimes, they are forever banned from public office and from competing in elections," he added. According to US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, the decision to release the individuals, some of whom had spent years in prison, was "a unilateral decision that the Nicaraguan government took."Each of the individuals who left Nicaragua "voluntarily consented to travel," and...

The driver of the bus, whom police said is a city transport employee, was arrested. Prosecutors said 51-year-old Pierre Ny St-Amand now faces two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, two counts of aggravated assault and several counts of assault with a deadly weapon.CNN was not immediately able to identify an attorney for St-Amand.Police in Laval, where the crash happened, said they haven't determined a motive and the investigation is ongoing."We have six kids that have been transported into different hospitals in Montreal and Laval, but unfortunately we have two other kids that died as a result of the accident," Erika Landry, a spokesperson for the police in Laval, said earlier.Hospital officials in Montreal and Laval said the injuries to the six children are not ...

Reuters  —  El Salvador’s government moved thousands of suspected gang members to a newly opened “mega prison” on Friday, the latest step in a controversial crackdown on crime that has caused the Central American nation’s prison population to soar. “This will be their new home, where they won’t be able to do any more harm to the population,” President Nayib Bukele wrote on Twitter. Around 2,000 accused gang members were moved to the 40,000-person-capacity prison, considered to be the largest in the Americas, early Friday morning. In a video posted by Bukele, prisoners stripped down to white shorts, with their heads shaved, are seen running through the new prison into cells. Many bear gang tattoos. ...

The Guerrero Environment Department's Director of Wildlife Fernando Ruiz said in a news conference on Tuesday that records of Zoochilpan Zoo in Chilpancingo misrepresented its number of pygmy goats last summer, and accused former director José Rubén Nava Noriega of having some cooked -- a claim that Nava denied.There were "five females and five males of which the former director had four male specimens for use at the New Year's Eve dinner," Ruiz alleged."That is to say, those four specimens were sacrificed and cooked in the facilities of the same zoo and were used as food in the year-end celebration."He added that the health of those who ate the meal would have been put at risk because the animals were "not suitable for human consumption."In a statement, the Environment Department also det...

The 32,000-ton Sao Paulo carrier had been towed by a tug to Europe but did not get past the Gibraltar straits, and was returned across the Atlantic after Turkey decided it was an environmental hazard.The Navy said in a statement that the ship is taking on water and is at risk of sinking, so it has not been allowed to dock at Brazilian ports.Despite a request by Environment Minister Marina Silva not to sink the carrier, the Navy said it had no choice but to scuttle the ship in water about 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) deep 350 kilometers (217 miles) off-shore within Brazil's exclusive economic zone.The site is far from environmental protection areas and free of undersea communication cables, the Navy statement said."Given its deteriorating floating condition and the inevitability of uncontroll...

CNN  —  Amnesty International has accused Peruvian authorities of acting with “a marked racist bias” in its crackdown on protests that have roiled the country since December, saying “populations that have historically been discriminated against” are being targeted, according to a report released on Thursday. Drawing on data from the Peruvian Ombudsman’s Office, Amnesty says it “found that the number of possible arbitrary deaths due to state repression” were “disproportionately concentrated in regions with largely Indigenous populations.” Amnesty also says that areas with majority indigenous populations have accounted for the majority of deaths since the protests began. “While the regions with majority Indigenous populations represent only...