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US embassy issues warning after US citizens died in Medellín following suspected drugging and robbing on app-arranged datesForeign visitors to Colombia should take serious caution when using dating apps after a spate of suspicious deaths in the South American country, the US embassy in Bogotá has warned.In the last two months of 2023, eight US citizens died in the city of Medellín, in incidents...

Daniel Noboa designates nearly two dozen gangs as terrorist groups after wave of violence across countryEcuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, said on Wednesday that his country was “at war” with drug gangs who are holding more than 130 prison staff hostage and who briefly captured a TV station live on air, in a wave of violence that has left city streets deserted.At least 10 people...

President declares state of ‘internal armed conflict’ as gang leader escapes from jail and gunmen invade TV studioGang storms Ecuador’s TC Televisión studioFew Ecuadoreans were prepared for just how swiftly and steeply the security situation in their country could plummet. Murder and violence linked to drug trafficking has soared, as the country has become one of the most dangerous in Latin America.Until just a...

Ecuador’s president has declared a state of “internal armed conflict”. How did the country find itself in the grip of armed gangs?• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. At about 2pm local time yesterday, a live news broadcast on an Ecuadorian TV channel was interrupted by a group of masked men carrying guns, grenades, and dynamite. The intruders pointed guns...

Lt Col Carlos Luis Malatto fled Argentina in 2011 and will be tried in Rome for premeditated killing of eight people in last military dictatorshipA judge in Rome has ordered Lt Col Carlos Luis Malatto, a former Argentine army officer accused of murder and forced disappearances during Argentina’s 1976-83 military dictatorship, to stand trial in Italy for the premeditated killing of eight people.The former...

Gangsters unleashed wave of terror following move by President Daniel Noboa in response to gang leader’s prison escape‘We should treat it as a war’: Ecuador’s descent into drug gang violenceHeavily armed gangsters have stormed the studio of a major television station in Ecuador during a live broadcast, prompting the country’s president to declare a state of “internal armed conflict” amid a series of seemingly...

Maria Kartasheva’s in-absentia conviction over blogposts about Ukraine war threatened application for Canadian citizenshipCanada has reversed course after initially blocking a Russian anti-war activist from receiving citizenship because she had run afoul of Moscow’s harsh laws criminalizing dissent over the invasion of Ukraine.Maria Kartasheva’s plight had baffled immigration lawyers and exposed the confusing reality of Canada’s immigration bureaucracy. Last year, the 30-year-old was charged...

Brazil president hosts summit amid criticism that easing of crackdown had allowed outsiders to return to forest areasThe Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has insisted his government must not lose the “war” against the environmental criminals devastating Indigenous lands in the Amazon after claims that thousands of illegal miners were resisting eviction from the country’s biggest such territory.After taking power last January,...

Arctic Ice argues its rare, pure product can be part of Greenland’s green transition and greater independenceFrozen daiquiri anyone? Drinking a cocktail on top of a Dubai skyscraper may seem decadent enough, but a Greenland entrepreneur wants to add ancient glacier ice scooped from the fjords to the glass, for the ultimate international thrill.Arctic Ice harvests ice from the fjords of Greenland, and then...

Huge manhunt under way after Adolfo Macías of Los Choneros disappears from cell and guards taken hostage amid prison riotsEcuador has declared a state of emergency after one of the country’s most dangerous criminals vanished from his cell and prison guards were overpowered and taken hostage amid riots at prisons across the country.A huge manhunt was under way on Monday as thousands of soldiers...

Brazilian leaders mark first anniversary of insurrection in Brasília that saw Bolsonaristas attempt to topple new governmentBrazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has hailed the “victory of democracy over authoritarianism”, one year on from the 8 January insurrection in Brasília in which supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings in an attempt to topple the newly inaugurated leftist government.Several hundred people...

The new president’s rightwing supporters are targeting journalists and women’s rights activists – but the fight goes onFemale journalists who write about gender issues say they are having to deal with a toxic wave of threats against them in Argentina. Some are fighting back, others are lying low and one has gone into self-imposed exile for her safety.“We are facing a witch-hunt from the...

Temperatures could be 10-15C below seasonal average in some areas, with Calgary and Edmonton experiencing low of -30CArctic air will sweep across western Canada and parts of the US early this week, leading to a cold snap that will probably last through the rest of this week and possibly beyond.By Wednesday, temperatures in western Canada could be as much as 10-15C below the seasonal...

Liz Oliva Fernández says the sanctions, imposed 60 years ago and upheld through Biden, have led to a ‘desperate situation’A Cuban journalist is looking to spread awareness of the US trade embargo in two illuminating documentaries arriving in early 2024.Liz Oliva Fernández says whenever she covered news or events on the island, be it the push for democratic reforms, or the private businesses springing...

Pedro, five, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma; a fund has been set up so that his family can afford expensive chemotherapy drugLeading artists, Indigenous activists and politicians across Brazil are urging people to contribute to a fund to help the son of the slain Amazon activist Bruno Pereira, who has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.Pedro Pereira, five, the son of anthropologist Beatriz...

State will be first to import drugs under federal program that Florida governor says could save consumers $150m in first yearA public health policy that won rare backing from both the Biden and Trump administrations looks ready to open a flow of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada to Florida, ending a decades-long block on the importation of certain pharmaceuticals to the US.The federal Food...

Criminal group charged $20-$30 a month to about 5,000 people as gangs diversify into sectors other than the drug tradeA cartel in the embattled central Mexico state of Michoacán set up its own makeshift internet antennas and told locals they had to pay to use its wifi service or they would be killed, according to prosecutors.Dubbed “narco-antennas” by local media, the cartel’s system involved...

Exclusive: Evidence found by Hannah Durkin includes ships landing in Cuba in 1872, and people held in Benin in 1873Historians have generally assumed that the transatlantic slave trade ended in 1867, but it actually continued into the following decade, according to new research.Dr Hannah Durkin, an historian and former Newcastle University lecturer, has unearthed evidence that two slave ships landed in Cuba in 1872....