Forecasters say Tropical Storm Eta is moving slowly inland, bringing heavy rains that are producing life-threatening flash floods in parts of Central America.At last report Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said the center of the storm was about 95 kilometers west of the coastal Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas and moving west at about 13 kilometers per hour. It had maximum sustained winds of about 60 kph.Eta came ashore late Tuesday as a category 2 hurricane after hovering just off the coast of Nicaragua longer than forecasters expected. The Associated Press reports even before it made landfall, heavy rains were responsible for landslides that killed three people.Nicaraguan officials say Eta uprooted trees and damaged buildings as it moved inland.Forecasters expect it to move over northern Nicaragua, and then move across central Honduras through Thursday morning, carrying heavy rains that are likely to create more landslides in higher terrain, along with flash flooding and river flooding.While Eta is expected to weaken as it moves to the west, the system is forecast to emerge over the northwestern Caribbean Sea Friday. Some models suggest it will re-strengthen and head towards Florida in the southeastern United States. 
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A survey of some 300 members of parliament in 19 countries finds cases of human rights violations, including physical abuse, sexual violence, torture and arbitrary arrest of opposition MPs that are on the rise.In a new report, the FILE – Ugandan musician turned politician, Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, addresses a news conference over the government handling of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Kampala, Uganda June 15, 2020.For example, Ugandan police have arrested and released opposition figure Bobi Wine multiple times, most recently on Tuesday, when police also allegedly threw tear gas in his car. He has denied planning rallies that could disrupt public order.   The IPU has reviewed the cases of nine Ivorian opposition MPs who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained on charges of causing public disorder and spreading fake news. It says there is no evidence proving their guilt and that the charges appeared to be politically motivated in the run-up to elections held on October 31.     The IPU has been monitoring the situation in Venezuela for a number of years. IPU spokesman Thomas Fitzsimons tells VOA the level of intimidation and threats to which opposition MPs are subjected makes it unlikely that parliamentary elections on December 6 will be free and fair.     “The overwhelming majority of those 134 parliamentarians have been attacked, harassed or otherwise intimidated. As I said they can go from social media abuse to actual physical violence abuse,” he said. “So, there are different scales on the different levels on the scale of intimidation. I would say they are all being threatened in some way or other.”    Fitzsimons says a new case of great concern is that of Joana Mamombe, an opposition MP in Zimbabwe. He says she was detained in May after participating in a public protest to gain more protection for the poor during the coronavirus pandemic.   “But the country was in lockdown, so she was arrested on that pretext. And, in prison, the reports that we heard is that she was allegedly tortured, with violence on a sexual nature as well. So, we are very concerned about that report.”     IPU spokesman Fitzsimons says Mamombe has since been released on bail and reportedly re-arrested. He says the constant intimidation of detention, release and re-arrest is a strategy employed by many state authorities to weaken the opposition and stay in power. There was no reaction from any of the countries mentioned.  
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Hurricane Eta continues on a destructive path over the Central American nations of Nicaragua and Honduras hours after making landfall along the Nicaraguan coast. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Eta is moving inland over northeastern Nicaragua carrying maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers an hour.  Forecasters are warning of life-threatening storm surges, damaging winds and flash floods over portions of Central America.   Hurricane Eta made landfall Tuesday near the eastern Nicaraguan coastal town of Puerto Cabezas, carrying maximum sustained winds of 225 kilometers an hour, making it a Category 4 storm on the five-level scale that measures a storm’s potential destructiveness.  At least three people have been killed as a result of Eta. A 12-year-girl in Honduras was killed when her home was buried in a landslide, while two miners were killed in a mudslide in Nicaragua.A general view shows a flooded street as Hurricane Eta approaches, in Tela.Forecasters predict the storm will produce a storm surge that will raise water levels along the coastline from four to more than six meters – and rainfall throughout Central America of 25 to 51 centimeters, with isolated areas receiving more than 63 centimeters. They say flash flooding and landslides in elevated areas are likely. The storm is expected to move slowly through the region in the coming days. Forecasters are watching the potential for Eta to reemerge over the Gulf of Mexico late in the week, becoming a danger once again to areas farther north, though the Hurricane Center noted there is considerable uncertainty regarding its path. Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying the record for the busiest hurricane season ever observed in the North Atlantic Ocean Basin. In 2005, it took until the end of December to arrive at 28 named storms, putting this year nearly two months ahead. 
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Forecasters say Hurricane Eta is due to come ashore in Nicaragua Tuesday as an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane, bringing life-threatening storm surges, catastrophic winds, flash flooding and landslides to central America.
In its latest report, the National Hurricane Center says Eta was about 45 kilometers southeast of Puerto Cabezas on Nicaragua’s eastern coast. The storm has maximum sustained winds of about 230 kilometers per hour, and was moving to the west-southwest at about six kilometers per hour.
The forecasters predict the storm will produce a storm surge that will raise water levels along the coastline from four to more than six meters, and rainfall throughout central America of 25 to 51 centimeters, with isolated areas receiving more than 63 centimeters. They say flash flooding and landslides in elevated areas are likely.
The storm is expected to move slowly through the region over the course of the next several days. Forecasters are watching the potential for Eta to reemerge over the Gulf of Mexico late in the week, becoming a danger once again to areas farther north, though the Hurricane Center stated there is considerable uncertainty regarding that outcome.
Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying the record for the busiest hurricane season ever observed in the North Atlantic Ocean Basin and doing so at a breakneck pace.  
In 2005, it took until the end of December to arrive at 28 named storms, putting this year two months ahead.
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Nicaragua is bracing for the imminent arrival of Hurricane Eta. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the potentially catastrophic hurricane could make landfall early Tuesday, with winds in excess of 248 kilometers per hour.  Thousands of people on Monday began evacuating Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, where a hurricane warning is posted from the Honduras-Nicaragua border to Sandy Bay Sirpi.  The hurricane is located 75 kilometers east of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.  Forecasters warn of flooding and landslides, especially in central and northern Nicaragua and most of Honduras.  Eastern Guatemala, southern Belize and Jamaica are also expected to get heavy rain. Eta is already impacting life in Honduras. Cancellations are said to be coming in ahead of a five-day national vacation aimed at bolstering tourism and bringing some financial help to the pandemic weary economy.  Eta is the eighth Atlantic storm of the hurricane season, which ends November 30. 
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Several executives of a Dominican Republic gas company, including its owner, were arrested Monday in connection with a fire and explosion at the company’s bottling plant in Santiago last month that killed 11 people, including a newborn in a nearby residence.  Several others were injured when a gas leak ignited at the Coopegas liquefied petroleum gas plant on October 3. Prosecutor say the incident involved the mechanical failure of three safety valves intended to prevent the fire.   The Dominican Today newspaper identified the detained executives as Héctor Ramón Vásquez Sandoval, general manager; Aurilio Concepción, president; Roberto Antonio Polanco, operations manager, and Emilio Yan, manager of the affected station.  The paper said the Coopegas executives are accused of negligence and human failure. In another Coopegas matter, a court magistrate allege the company defrauded the government by operating its 20 stations under the rules of a cooperative to avoid paying taxes. 
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Nicaragua is bracing for the imminent arrival of Hurricane Eta. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the potentially catastrophic hurricane could make landfall early Tuesday, with winds in excess of 248 kilometers per hour.  Thousands of people on Monday began evacuating Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, where a hurricane warning is posted from the Honduras-Nicaragua border to Sandy Bay Sirpi.  The hurricane is located 75 kilometers east of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.  Forecasters warn of flooding and landslides, especially in central and northern Nicaragua and most of Honduras.  Eastern Guatemala, southern Belize and Jamaica are also expected to get heavy rain. Eta is already impacting life in Honduras. Cancellations are said to be coming in ahead of a five-day national vacation aimed at bolstering tourism and bringing some financial help to the pandemic weary economy.  Eta is the eighth Atlantic storm of the hurricane season, which ends November 30. 
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Peru’s Congress on Monday approved a motion to initiate a process to remove President Martín Vizcarra from office over corruption allegations, a month and a half after he survived an earlier impeachment trial.Lawmakers approved the measure in a 60-40 vote with 18 abstentions. Vizcarra is set to present his defense before Congress on November 9, with another vote to follow.The move to oust Vizcarra follows media reports that the president allegedly accepted bribes of about 2.3 million soles ($637,000) from two companies that won public works tenders when he was the governor of the southern region of Moquegua. Vizcarra has denied the allegations.Several legislators during the debate said the allegations were serious enough to warrant a trial.”It is the least we should do,” said legislator Diethell Columbus, of the right-wing Popular Force Party of former presidential candidate and Vizcarra political adversary Keiko Fujimori.Peru´s president, who took office in 2018 and is constitutionally barred from seeking a new term, said some lawmakers are seeking only to generate “chaos and disorder” by pushing impeachment just months ahead of a presidential election slated for April 11.”There is absolutely no proof of the charges,” Vizcarra told reporters earlier Monday. “An impeachment trial destabilizes the country.”Vizcarra, who does not have his own party representation in the legislature and whose term ends in July, survived an ouster attempt on September 18 amid political tensions and an economic recession brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Only 32 of Congress’s 130 members voted to remove him.The political turbulence in copper giant Peru comes as the country surpassed 900,000 coronavirus cases and more than 34,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, with one of the highest fatality rates per capita in the world.
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Forecasters say Hurricane Eta is strengthening in the southern Caribbean and could become a major hurricane soon.
In its most recent report, the National Hurricane Center says Eta is about 265 kilometers east-northeast of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua and moving west at about 17 kilometers per hour. It has maximum sustained winds of about 150 kilometers per hour, making it a strong Category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale by which hurricane strength is measured.
The hurricane center is expecting the storm to rapidly intensify over the next 24 hours, saying the system could become a major Category 3 hurricane by the time it reaches Nicaragua early Tuesday.  
The forecasters say the storm’s current track will take in further inland over Central America over the next several days. It is expected to move slowly and could bring 35- to 63 centimeters of rain and life-threatening flash flooding conditions to Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala by the end of the week. Landslides are possible in higher elevations.
Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying a record set in 2005. That year — as was the case this year — the hurricane center ran out of names in the conventional alphabet and had to resort to the Greek alphabet. This is the first year any storm was named Eta.
The hurricane season ends at the end of November.
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The Vatican says Pope Francis’ comments on gay civil unions were taken out of context in a documentary that spliced together parts of an old interview, but still confirmed Francis’ belief that gay couples should enjoy legal protections.  
 
The Vatican secretariat of state issued guidance to ambassadors to explain the uproar that Francis’ comments created following the Oct. 21 premiere of the film “Francesco,” at the Rome Film Festival. The Vatican nuncio to Mexico, Archbishop Franco Coppola, posted the unsigned guidance on his Facebook page Sunday.  
 
In it, the Vatican confirmed that Francis was referring to his position in 2010 when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires and strongly opposed moves to allow same-sex marriage. Instead, he favored extending legal protections to gay couples under what is understood in Argentina as a civil union law.  
 
While Francis was known to have taken that position privately, he had never articulated his support while as pope. As a result, the comments made headlines, primarily because the Vatican’s doctrine office in 2003 issued a document prohibiting such endorsement. The document, signed by Francis’ predecessor as pope, says the church’s support for gay people “cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”
 
The recent uproar gained even more attention because it turned out director Evgeny Afineevsky misled journalists by claiming Francis had made the comments to him in a new interview. A week before the premiere, when he was asked about the civil union comments, Afineevsky told The Associated Press that he had two on-camera interviews with the pope. In comments to journalists after the premiere, he claimed that the civil union footage came from an interview with the pope with a translator present.  
 
It turned out, Francis’ comments were taken from a May 2019 interview with Mexican broadcaster Televisa that were never broadcast. The Vatican hasn’t confirmed or denied reports by sources in Mexico that the Vatican cut the quote from the footage it provided to Televisa after the interview, which was filmed with Vatican cameras.  
 
Afineevsky apparently was given access to the original, uncut footage in the Vatican archives.  
 
The guidance issued by the secretariat of state doesn’t address the issue of the cut quote or the fact that it came from the Televisa interview. It says only that it was from a 2019 interview and that the comments used in the documentary spliced together parts of two different responses in a way that removed crucial context.  
 
“More than a year ago, during an interview, Pope Francis answered two different questions at two different times that, in the aforementioned documentary, were edited and published as a single answer without proper contextualization, which has led to confusion,” said the guidance posted by Coppola.  
 
In the film, Afineevsky recounts the story of Andrea Rubera, a married gay Catholic who wrote Francis asking for his advice about bringing into the church his three young children with his husband.  
 
It was an anguished question, given that the Catholic Church teaches that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” The church also holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman, and as a result, gay marriage is unacceptable.  
 
In the end, Rubera recounts how Francis urged him to approach his parish transparently and bring the children up in the faith, which he did. After the anecdote ends, the film cuts to Francis’ comments from the Televisa interview.  
 
“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis said. “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”  
 
Francis’ comments about gays having the right to be in a family referred to parents with gay children, and the need for them to not kick their children out or discriminate against them, the Vatican guidance said.  
 
Francis was not endorsing the right of gay couples to adopt children, even though the placement of the quote right after Rubera told his story made it seem that Francis was.  
 
The pope’s comments about gay civil unions came from a different part of the Televisa interview and included several caveats that were not included in the film.  
 
In the Televisa interview, Francis made clear he was explaining his position about the unique case in Buenos Aires 10 years ago, as opposed to Rubera’s situation or gay marriage as a whole.  
 
In the Televisa interview, Francis also insisted that he always maintained Catholic doctrine and said there was an “incongruenza” for the Catholic Church as far as “homosexual marriage” is concerned.  
 
The documentary eliminated that context.
 
The Televisa footage is available online, and includes an awkward cut right after Francis spoke about the “incongruity” of homosexual marriage. Presumably, that is where he segued into his position as archbishop in favoring extending legal protections to gay couples.  
Neither the Vatican nor Afineevsky have responded to repeated questions about the cut quote or its origin. Francis is known to hunker down in silence when controversy mounts.
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Tropical Storm Eta strengthened quickly Sunday as it barreled west through the Caribbean en route to Nicaragua and Honduras, which it is expected to pound with potentially deadly wind and rain, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.Eta is forecast to become a hurricane overnight and plow into the northeast coast of Nicaragua and adjacent portions of eastern Honduras early Tuesday, the Miami-based NHC said.Latest projections say Eta will by then be a Category 2 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, blowing winds of up to 177 kph (110 mph). That is stronger than the NHC had earlier predicted.”Once inland, Eta should quickly weaken over the mountainous terrain of Nicaragua and Honduras,” the NHC said.By midafternoon, Eta was 495 km (305 miles) east-northeast of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, moving west at 24 kph (15 mph) and blowing sustained winds of 105 kph (65 mph), the NHC said.Through Friday afternoon, Eta’s rains threaten to cause serious flooding and landslides in Central America. Jamaica, southern Haiti and the Cayman Islands may also be hit.By then, Eta is likely to have dumped 381-640 mm (15-25 inches) of rain on central and northern Nicaragua and much of Honduras, with up to 889 mm (35 inches) in some areas, the NHC said.Nicaragua’s government has issued a hurricane warning from the Honduras-Nicaragua border to Sandy Bay Sirpi. Honduras has put out a tropical storm warning from Punta Patuca to the border with Nicaragua. 
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Police in Quebec City early Sunday arrested a man on suspicion of killing two people and injuring five others in a stabbing rampage on Halloween near the provincial legislature in Quebec City.They say a man in his mid-20s has been arrested in connection with the Halloween night attacks and taken to a hospital.Police had earlier warned residents to remain indoors as they hunted for a man dressed in medieval clothing and armed with a bladed weapon who had left “multiple victims.”Spokesman Etienne Doyon said police were first notified of the stabbings near the National Assembly shortly before 10:30 p.m. Saturday.The five injured victims were taken to a hospital, and a spokeswoman said their lives do not appear to be in danger.There’s no word on a possible motive for the attacks.Doyon declined to offer any information about the two people who were killed, saying only that “Our thoughts are with the family of the people who died today.”Carlos Godoy, who lives in the area, said police K-9 units had searched his backyard as they hunted for the suspect.”It’s a full moon, it’s October 31st. It’s Halloween, and it’s a lockdown weekend. No one should be out on the streets,” Godoy said. “And I’m in an extremely quiet neighborhood because there are no tourists nowadays.” 
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Tropical Storm Eta formed in the Caribbean late Saturday, tying the record for most named storms in a single Atlantic hurricane season.The system reached maximum sustained winds of 65 kph late Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. It’s centered 435 kilometers southeast of Kingston, Jamaica.Forecasters expect Eta to become a hurricane by Monday. The system is forecast to be near the northeastern coasts of Nicaragua and Honduras by Monday night. A hurricane watch was issued for parts of both countries. Eta was moving west at about 24 kph.Eta is the 28th named Atlantic storm this season, tying the 2005 record for named storms. However, this is the first time the Greek letter Eta is being used as a storm name because in 2005, after the season ended meteorologists went back and determined there was a storm that should have gotten a name but didn’t.Hurricane season still has a month to go, ending Nov. 30. And in 2005, Zeta formed in the end of December.
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After the Canadian parliamentary Subcommittee on International Human Rights concluded last week that China’s treatment of the Uighurs in the Xinjiang region amounts to genocide, some experts and international human rights activists say the international community could be entering a new phase of action to hold officials in Beijing accountable.In its Oct. 21 statement, the committee said the detention of nearly 2 million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims, forced labor, “pervasive” state surveillance and repressive control were “a clear attempt to eradicate Uighur culture and religion.”“Based on the evidence put forward during the Subcommittee hearings, both in 2018 and 2020, the Subcommittee is persuaded that the actions of the Chinese Communist Party constitute genocide as laid out in the Genocide Convention,” the committee said in a news release.The U.N. Genocide Convention defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University, said the committee’s move represents the first time a national legislative body has described the treatment of Uighurs in China as genocide.“This will put pressure [on] the executive branch of government to follow suit and respond accordingly,” Matthews told VOA.China has been accused internationally of arbitrary detention, forced indoctrination and torture of over a million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in internment camps in Xinjiang since 2017.Approval by governmentThe committee called on the Canadian government to recognize the campaign as genocide, condemn China, and sanction officials involved in “grave human rights abuses.” It also asked the government to push for international access to the region and support organizations raising awareness on Uighurs.Committee chair Peter Fonseca told VOA that the suggestions included in the statement were “a unanimous proclamation on the part of the multiparty members of the subcommittee.”He said the committee report will be presented to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which can approve or reject its findings.Some experts say the findings are likely to proceed further in the country’s legislative branch and be presented to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet for approval.“The government has often followed the suggestions of the committee,” Ilan Orzy, director of operations at the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, told VOA.Orzy said the Canadian government followed such a proceeding with regard to the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar.Canada recognized the actions by Myanmar authorities against the Rohingya minority as genocide in September 2018.The Canadian government has yet to announce whether it will act on the committee suggestions. In a statement shared with VOA, Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne said his government takes genocide allegations “very seriously.”“We will continue to work in close collaboration with our allies to push for these to be investigated through an international independent body and for impartial experts to access the region so that they can see the situation firsthand and report back,” Champagne said.‘‘We remain deeply disturbed by the troubling reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang and have publicly and consistently called on the Chinese government to end the repression of Uighurs,” he said.‘Vocational training’China rejects the claim that it is running a repressive campaign against Turkic minorities in Xinjiang. Beijing officials say they have sent Uighurs who were “poisoned” by religious extremism or who lagged behind in society to “vocational training centers” to deradicalize them and teach them new work skills.Last Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called the committee’s statement “groundless” and called on Canada to stop interfering in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of Xinjiang-related matters.“The so-called genocide in Xinjiang is a rumor and a farce fabricated by some anti-China forces to slander China,” Zhao said at a press conference.Some observers charge that a possible move by the Canadian government to approve the committee findings and recognize the Uighur genocide could encourage other countries to follow suit.U.S. stanceLast Friday, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Foreign Relations Committee member, urged the U.S. government to formerly recognize the issue as genocide.Tuesday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a resolution to declare the Uighur campaign genocide.Peter Irwin, a senior program officer at the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, told VOA that those resolutions show the international community is ready to go beyond condemnation of China’s policies in Xinjiang toward holding party officials accountable.“The Canadian [parliamentary] subcommittee, to their credit, took the time to study the issue intensively, calling witnesses and analyzing reports, and concluded that what’s happening amounts to genocide,” Irwin said.Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, said that discussions of genocide-labeling means those countries understand the severity of the Uighur situation, and their policymakers are willing to adjust their responses to the crisis.“There is growing momentum to recognize the situation as a genocide, and the decision of the subcommittee has greatly contributed to that. It is our hope that this move will be the start of a more meaningful and concrete push by the international community to demand that China stops the Uighur genocide,” Isa told VOA.
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The World Meteorological Organization predicts La Nina will continue through January and is expected to usher in drier and wetter conditions than normal in different parts of the world.The latest seasonal forecasts indicate the La Nina event will cause drier than normal conditions in much of East Africa and lead to increased rainfall in southern Africa. Central Asia is likely to see below normal rainfall earlier than usual.The WMO reports some of the Pacific islands and the northern region of South America will see some of the most significant precipitation anomalies associated with this year’s La Nina event — a cooling of ocean surface water along the Pacific coast of the South American tropics that occurs on average every two to seven years.Some countries and regions are particularly vulnerable to changes in weather patterns.WMO humanitarian expert Gavin Iley told VOA the Greater Horn of Africa was an area of particular concern.“As we know, it is already being beset by problems, with locust infestation,” Iley said. “And generally, the models are suggesting below normal rainfall for quite a large portion of the Greater Horn of Africa. So, obviously that could have a number of impacts … in areas like Somalia. … So, we always need to keep an eye on the latest outlook.”WMO said governments can use weather forecasts to plan ways to reduce adverse impacts in climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture, health, water resources and disaster management.WMO Deputy Director of Climate Services Maxx Dilley said governments can use La Nina forecasting to adapt their strategies to the changing weather patterns.“You can imagine in the agricultural sector that some crops will do well under wet conditions and others will do better under dry conditions,” Dilley said. “And there are agricultural management practices that can be adjusted to take account of whether it is expected to be wet or dry.”Dilley said WMO increasingly is trying to tailor these forecasts to specific concerns, such as food security or human health. For example, he said, wet conditions alone do not provoke outbreaks of dengue fever or malaria. He said temperature, humidity and vegetation create the conditions for mosquitoes to breed.So, rather than just giving a rainfall forecast, he said, meteorologists will provide a forecast that is correlated with these diseases and can be used for dengue fever or malaria control.
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GUERNICA, ARGENTINA — Argentine police clashed with a group of protesters on Thursday while evicting them from makeshift homes on a contested property south of the capital, Buenos Aires. Six police officers were injured and at least 30 people were arrested, according to authorities.  Hundreds of families had been living in shacks on the land in the town of Guernica for more than three months, in a reflection of the growing poverty and lack of housing for many people in Argentina. The pandemic and lockdowns aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19 have aggravated the country’s economic problems.The owners of the occupied land in Guernica had gone to court to reclaim the property.  Many people left peacefully when security forces entered the property early Thursday after negotiations between authorities and the occupants failed. Some resisted, throwing stones at police.  Police then demolished the homes, some of which were made of wood, cardboard and sheet metal.  Some 600 families had previously signed an agreement with authorities to leave the property. In return, they received building materials and money to pay rent.
 
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Peru is extending the restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus for another month. The state-owned Andina News Agency said Wednesday President Martín Vizcarra announced in a television address that the government approved the decree extending the state of national emergency through November. The restrictions include a nighttime curfew, a ban on social gatherings and mandatory wearing of face masks in public. Vizcarra also announced during the address that 4.2 million households are expected to have received their second government stimulus of $223 by next week. Vizcarra said nearly 3 million households have already received their second Universal Family Bonus. 
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Zeta – now a tropical storm – has moved off the northern coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and is likely to restrengthen into a hurricane as it moves out over the Gulf of Mexico later Tuesday.  In its latest report, the hurricane center says Zeta’s maximum sustained winds are at about 100 kilometers per hour (kph), just below hurricane strength. Forecasters expect the storm to move out over the warm waters of the gulf, strengthen later Tuesday, then pick speed as it moves towards the southeastern U.S. coast.The forecasters say on its current trajectory, Zeta will likely come ashore in eastern Louisiana or western Mississippi late Wednesday or early Thursday. The storm is likely to be a category one hurricane by the time it strikes the coast.  If Zeta does come ashore in Louisiana, it will be the third major storm to hit the state this year, following Hurricane Laura in August and Delta earlier this month. The state has spent a cumulative total of at least three weeks in the National Hurricane Center’s forecast zone for a possible hurricane this season.  Hurricane Zeta Makes Landfall on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula  Hurricane Zeta pounds Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula with strong winds and heavy rains    Zeta is the 11th hurricane and record-tying 27th named storm to form this season.  With more than four weeks left in the season, the record may fall. It is only the second time the hurricane center has gone this deep into the Greek alphabet to select names for a storm. The previous Zeta was in 2005 and marked the last storm of that season.
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Authorities in Buenos Aires have loosened coronavirus restrictions, allowing people inside businesses, including restaurants, bars and gyms for the first time in seven months. Under the new guidelines, businesses are allowed up to 25 percent of their capacity, with assurances they provide proper ventilation. The Associated Press reports the easing of restrictions comes as new COVID-19 cases have trended downward in recent months in Argentina’s capital. Authorities say coronavirus cases have not dropped in other areas of the country and people in Buenos Aires are urged to remain vigilant in following safety protocols. Argentina has confirmed more than 1,100,000 coronavirus cases and at least 29,301 deaths. 
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Hurricane Zeta pounded Mexico’s northern Yucatan Peninsula with strong winds and heavy rains late Monday into Tuesday. The U.S.-based National Hurricane Center said Zeta made landfall north of Tulum with maximum sustained winds of 130 kilometers per hour. A hurricane warning is posted for the resort island of Cozumel, and from Punta Allen to Progreso, Mexico. People in the Mexican resort city of Cancun are also bracing for Hurricane Zeta. Forecasters say Zeta is expected to regain strength Tuesday as it moves into the Southern Gulf of Mexico on a northerly pattern toward the United States, where a hurricane watch is in effect for the metropolitan New Orleans area and Morgan City, Louisiana, east  to the Mississippi-Alabama border.   People in the U.S. central Gulf Coast will begin seeing the effects of Zeta by Tuesday night before the storm moves inland toward Georgia Wednesday then into the southern Appalachians Wednesday night and the Mid-Atlantic region on Thursday. Zeta is the second storm to strike Mexico this month. Hurricane Delta hit the Yucatan Peninsula in early October, downing trees and knocking out power to thousands but no reported deaths. Hurricane Delta also made landfall in the U.S. Gulf coast state of Louisiana, where Hurricane Laura hit in late August, killing at least six people. 
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Chileans poured into the country’s main squares on Sunday night after voters gave a ringing endorsement to a plan to tear up the country’s Pinochet-era constitution in favor of a new charter drafted by citizens. In Santiago’s Plaza Italia, the focus of the massive and often violent social protests last year which sparked the demand for a new magna carta, fireworks rose above a crowd of tens of thousands of jubilant people singing in unison as the word “rebirth” was beamed onto a tower above.   With more than three quarters of the votes counted, 78.12% of voters had opted for a new charter. Many have expressed hopes that a new text will temper an unabashedly capitalist ethos with guarantees of more equal rights to healthcare, pensions and education.   “This triumph belongs to the people, it’s thanks to everyone’s efforts that we are at this moment of celebration,” Daniel, 37, told Reuters in Santiago’s Plaza Nunoa. “What makes me happiest is the participation of the youth, young people wanting to make changes.”   Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera said if the country had been divided by the protests and debate over whether to approve or reject plans for a new charter, from now on they should unite behind a new text that provided “a home for everyone.” The center-right leader, whose popularity ratings plummeted to record lows during the unrest and have remained in the doldrums, spoke to those who wanted to keep the present constitution credited with making Chile one of Latin America’s economic success stories.Referendum on a new Chilean constitution, in Santiago, Oct. 26, 2020.Any new draft must incorporate “the legacy of past generations, the will of present generations and the hopes of generations to come,” he said. He gave a nod to fears that the high expectations placed in a new charter cannot be met, saying: “This referendum is not the end, it is the start of a road we must walk towards a new constitution.” As votes were counted on live television around the country, spontaneous parties broke out on street corners and in squares around the country. Drivers honked car horns, some as revelers danced on their roofs, and others banged pots and pans. The flag of the country’s indigenous Mapuche people, who will seek greater recognition in the new charter, was ubiquitous.   Four fifths of voters said they wanted the new charter to be drafted by a specially-elected body of citizens – made up of half women and half men – over a mixed convention of lawmakers and citizens, highlighting general mistrust in Chile’s political class.   Members of a 155-seat constitutional convention will be voted in by April 2021 and have up to a year to agree a draft text, with proposals approved by a two-thirds majority. Among issues likely to be at the fore are recognition of Chile’s Mapuche indigenous population, powers of collective bargaining, water and land rights and privatized systems providing healthcare, education and pensions. Chileans will then vote again on whether they accept the text or want to revert to the previous constitution. The National Mining Society (Sonami), which groups the companies in the sector into the world’s largest copper producer, said it hoped for “broad agreement on the principles and norms” that determine the sector’s coexistence with Chilean citizens and that the regulatory certainty that have allowed the sector to flourish would continue. 
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Newly formed Tropical Storm Zeta strengthened Sunday in the western Caribbean and will probably become a hurricane before hitting Mexico’s resort-dotted Yucatan Peninsula and the U.S. Gulf Coast in coming days.Zeta was the earliest named 27th Atlantic storm recorded in an already historic hurricane season.The system was centered about 275 miles (445 kilometers) southeast of Cozumel island early Sunday evening, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.The storm was nearly stationary, though forecasters said it was likely to shear the northeastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula or westernmost Cuba by late Monday or early Tuesday and then close in on the U.S. Gulf Coast by Wednesday, but could weaken by then.The storm had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), and forecasters said Zeta was expected to intensify into a hurricane Monday.Officials in Quintana Roo state, the location of Cancun and other resorts, said they were watching the storm. They reported nearly 60,000 tourists in the state as of midweek. The state government said 71 shelters were being readied for tourists or residents who might need them.The government is still handing out aid, including sheet roofing, to Yucatan residents hit by Hurricane Delta and Tropical Storm Gamma earlier this month.Zeta may dawdle in the western Caribbean for another day or so, trapped between two strong high pressure systems to the east and west. It can’t move north or south because nothing is moving there either, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.“It just has to sit and wait for a day or so,” McNoldy said. “It just needs anything to move.”When a storm gets stuck, it can unload dangerous downpours over one place, which causes flooding when a storm is over or near land. That happened in 2017 over Houston with Harvey, when more than 60 inches (150 centimeters) of rain fell and 2019 over the Bahamas with a Category 5 Dorian, which was the worst-case scenario of a stationary storm, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.While Zeta was over open ocean Sunday, Jamaica and Honduras were getting heavy rains because the system is so large and South Florida was under a flood watch, McNoldy said.But once Zeta eventually gets moving, it won’t be stalling over landfall, Klotzbach said.The Hurricane Center said Zeta could bring 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain to parts of the Caribbean and Mexico as well as Florida and the Keys before drenching parts of the central Gulf Coast by Wednesday.A 2018 study said storms, especially in the Atlantic basin, are slowing down and stalling more. Atlantic storms that made landfall moved 2.9 mph (4.7 kph) slower than 60 years ago, the study found. Study author James Kossin, a government climate scientist, said the trend has signs of human-caused climate change.Zeta is also in a dangerous place to stall. The western Caribbean is “where storms can cook” and rapidly intensify because of the deep, warm waters, like 2005’s Wilma, Klotzbach said. However, the National Hurricane Center was not forecasting rapid intensification for Zeta.The lack of steering currents also meant wide spread of possible landfalls when Zeta eventually heads north to the Gulf Coast. The hurricane center said it could make landfall anywhere from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards urged his state’s citizens to monitor the storm, and the state activated its Crisis Action Team.On Sunday, a hurricane warning was called for the Yucatan Peninsula from Tulum to Rio Lagartos, including Cancun and Cozumel, while a tropical storm warning was in effect for Pinar del Rio, Cuba.Zeta broke the record of the previous earliest 27th Atlantic named storm that formed Nov. 29, 2005, according to Klotzbach.This year’s season has so many storms that the hurricane center has turned to the Greek alphabet after running out of official names.Zeta is the furthest into the Greek alphabet the Atlantic season has gone. There was also a Tropical Storm Zeta in 2005, but that year had 28 storms because meteorologists later went back and found they missed one, which then became a “unnamed named storm,” Klotzbach said.Additionally, Hurricane Epsilon was moving quickly through the northern portion of the Atlantic Ocean. Forecasters said it would become a post-tropical cyclone later Sunday. Large ocean swells generated by the hurricane could cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions along U.S. East Coast and Atlantic Canada during the next couple of days.
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Amid a year of contagion and turmoil, Chileans turned out Sunday to vote on whether to draft a new constitution for their nation to replace guiding principles imposed four decades ago under a military dictatorship, and early returns gave the “yes” forces a big lead.The country’s conservative government agreed with the center-left opposition to allow the plebiscite after the outbreak of vast street protests that erupted a year ago in frustration over inequality in pensions, education and health care in what has long been one of South America’s most developed nations.The Electoral Service said Sunday evening that of the first 1.3 million ballots counted, 77.5% favored a new charter and less than 22.5% were opposed. Among the 60,000 Chileans living abroad who voted in 65 nations, the vote was 86% for a new constitution and 13% against, officials said. About 15 million Chileans were eligible to vote.Recent polls indicated heavy backing for a new constitution despite opposition from conservative groups., and center-right President Sebastián Piñera said after voting that he assumed the measure would be approved.“I believe the immense majority of Chileans want to change, modify our constitution,” he said.If the measure is approved, a special convention would begin drafting a new constitution that would be submitted to voters in mid-2022.Chile’s current constitution was drafted by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and was sent to voters at a time where political parties had been banned and the country was subject to heavy censorship.It was approved by a 66%-30% margin in a 1980 plebiscite, but critics say many voters were cowed into acceptance by a regime that had arrested, tortured and killed thousands of suspected leftist opponents following the overthrow of an elected socialist government.“I think that many people went to vote out of fear,” said political scientist Claudio Fuentes, who wrote a book about that plebiscite titled, “The Fraud.”“The current constitution has a flaw of origin, which is that it was created during the military dictatorship in an undemocratic process,” said Monica Salinero, a 40-year-old sociologist who supports drafting a new charter.The free-market principles embodied in that document led to a booming economy that continued after the return to democracy in 1990, but not all Chileans shared.A minority was able to take advantage of good, privatized education, health and social security services, while others were forced to rely on sometimes meager public alternatives. Public pensions for the poorest are just over $200 a month, roughly half the minimum wage.Luisa Fuentes Rivera, a 59-year-old food vendor, said hopes that “with a new constitution we will have better work, health, pensions and a better quality of life for older people, and a better education.”But historian Felipe Navarrete warned, “It’s important to say that the constitution won’t resolve the concrete problems. It will determine which state we want to solve the problems.”Claudia Heiss, head of the political science department at the University of Chile, said it would send a signal about people’s desires for change, and for a sort of politics that would “allow greater inclusion of sectors that have been marginalized from politics.”Conservative groups fear the revamp could go too far, and endanger parts of the constitution that have helped the country prosper.“The people have demonstrated saying they want better pensions, better health, better education. and the response of the political class” is a process that won’t solve the problems and will open a period of uncertainty,” said Felipe Lyon, 28-year-old lawyer and spokesman for the group “No, Thanks” that opposes the change.The decision to allow the vote came after hundreds of thousands of Chileans repeatedly took to the streets in protests that often turned violent.The vote was initially scheduled for April, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has killed some 13,800 Chileans, with more than 500,000 people infected by the new coronavirus.Officials trying to ensure voters felt safe barred infected persons or those close to them from the polls, and long lines formed at voting places. Voters had to wear masks — dipping them only briefly for identification purposes — and brought their own pencils.The manner of drafting a new constitution was also on the ballot. Voters were choosing between a body of 155 citizens who would be elected just for that purpose in April, or a somewhat larger convention split equally between elected delegates and members of Congress.
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Chileans will vote on Sunday on whether they want the country’s Pinochet-era constitution torn up and replaced by a fresh charter drafted by citizens, a key demand in protests that erupted last year.The fiery anti-government protests over inequality and elitism in one of Latin America’s most advanced economies broke out last fall and resumed with the easing of coronavirus lockdowns.Voters have 12 hours beginning at 8 a.m. (1100 GMT) to cast their ballot.Citizens can decide whether to approve or reject a new constitution and whether it should be drafted by a specially elected citizens’ body, made up half of women and half of men, and indigenous representatives, or a mix of citizens and lawmakers.Opinion polls suggest a new charter will be approved by a significant margin. All eligible Chileans from the country’s population of 18 million are automatically registered to vote, but voting is optional.People with COVID-19 have been told to stay away from voting stations on threat of arrest and prosecution.Control points have been set up at least 20 meters (22 yards) from polling place entrances where officials will conduct identity spot checks to ensure people are not on the quarantine list.”The right to vote of an infected subject puts at risk the right to health of thousands of people,” Attorney General Jorge Abbott told regional staff in an email.Soldiers, ubiquitous on Chilean streets since the declaration of a state of emergency during the protests last year and again with the outbreak of COVID-19 in March, will oversee the process inside polling stations while police will guard outside.The current constitution was drafted by dictator Augusto Pinochet’s close adviser Jaime Guzman in 1980, and has only been tweaked by successive governments to reduce military and executive power. 
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