Latin America

The storm could grow into a hurricane by Friday and a major one by the late weekend.

Tropical Storm Melissa is threatening the Caribbean Sea islands with dangerous landslides and life-threatening flooding, as officials urge residents of flood-prone areas to seek higher ground and shelter.

Jamaica’s eastern region could see up to 12 inches (300mm) of rain. “Now that is significant rainfall, and that is the main thing that we should be mindful of at this time,” Evan Thompson, director of Jamaica’s Meteorological Service, said.

Similar rainfall amounts were expected for southern Haiti and the southern Dominican Republic through Saturday, with even more rain possible locally, depending on Melissa’s path later in the week.

Heavy rain was also forecast for western Jamaica, southern Hispaniola, Aruba and Puerto Rico.

Melissa had maximum sustained winds of 50mph (85km/h) and was moving west at 2mph (4km/h) late on Wednesday night, according to the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The slow-moving storm was centred about 335 miles (535km) south-southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and some 295 miles (475km) south-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica.

The NHC said the storm could strengthen gradually in the coming days and grow into a hurricane by Friday and a major hurricane by the late weekend.

Heavy rains in the Dominican Republic have already disrupted traffic and led to the cancellation of sports events.

Melissa is the 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, and the first named storm to form in the Caribbean this year.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season – which runs from June 1 to November 30 – with 13 to 18 named storms.

Of those, five to nine were forecast to become hurricanes, including two to five major hurricanes, which pack winds of 111mph or greater.

Cars slogged through the flooded streets of Santo Domingo as Tropical Storm Melissa dumped heavy rain and wind gusts up to 80 kilometres per hour. The stom, which also drenched Haiti, is expected to strengthen into a hurricane by Friday.

The state of emergency lifts constitutional rights, including the right to protest, amid popular unrest over the rise in extortion and killings.

Peru’s Interim President Jose Jeri has declared a state of emergency in the capital, Lima, to stem a wave of protests that contributed to the recent downfall of his predecessor.

In a televised message on Tuesday, Jeri said the emergency in the city would last 30 days.

“Wars are won with actions, not words,” the president said, adding that he is planning a new approach to fighting crime that he described as going “from defence to offence”.

Under the state of emergency, the government can send the army to patrol the streets and restrict freedom of assembly and other rights.

Al Jazeera’s Mariana Sanchez, reporting from Lima, said the announcement comes after six days of uncertainty over whether the interim government would push ahead.

In the decree formally declaring the emergency, the government did not mention how it intended to gather critically needed intelligence to curb extortion cases, which are estimated at 18,000 this year, up 30 percent from last year, Sanchez said.

The rise in extortions has also led to an increase in killings in recent years. Between January and September, police authorities reported 1,690 homicides, compared with 1,502 during the same period of 2024.

“The state of emergency will lift constitutional rights and people will not be able to protest,” Sanchez said.

Dina Boluarte was removed as president by Peru’s Congress on October 10 after an impeachment during which lawmakers said she had been unable to tackle the crime wave. Jeri, the parliament speaker, replaced her immediately and will serve as interim president until July next year.

Peru has been roiled by weeks of antigovernment protests over corruption and organised crime led by Gen-Z activists.

On Thursday, protests to demand Jeri’s resignation turned violent. One person was killed and about 100 were injured, including police officers and some journalists.

Jeri has said he will not resign.

Earlier, Boluarte had declared a 30-day state of emergency in March following the murder of a famous musician, but the move did little to reduce crime.

Paul Flores, a well-known cumbia singer, was killed when assailants attacked the bus he was travelling on in an apparent attempt to extort the operator.

Peru’s interim president Jose Jeri has declared a 30-day state of emergency in the capital Lima and nearby Callao, saying the decision was to tackle surging crime. Anti-government protests last week left one person dead and over 100 injured.

The central bank said deal was part of a comprehensive strategy to help it respond to forex and capital markets volatility.

The Central Bank of the Argentinian Republic (BCRA) said it has signed a $20bn exchange rate stabilisation agreement with the United States Treasury Department, six days ahead of a key midterm election.

The central bank’s statement on Monday said the agreement sets forth terms for bilateral currency swap operations between the US and Argentina, but it provided no technical details.

The central bank said: “Such operations will allow the BCRA to expand its set of monetary and exchange rate policy instruments, including the liquidity of its international reserves”.

The Argentinian peso closed at a record low, down 1.7 percent on the day to end at 1,475 per dollar.

The BCRA said the pact was part of a comprehensive strategy to enhance its ability to respond to foreign exchange and capital markets volatility.

The US Treasury did not immediately respond to a request for details on the new swap line and has not issued its own statement about the arrangement.

US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said last week that the arrangement would be backed by International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights held in the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund that will be converted to dollars.

Bessent has said that the US would not put additional conditions on Argentina beyond President Javier Milei’s government continuing to pursue its fiscal austerity and economic reform programmes to foster more private-sector growth.

He has announced several US purchases of pesos in recent weeks, but has declined to disclose details.

Midterm vote

Argentinian Minister of Economy Luis Caputo said last week that he hoped the swap deal framework would be finalised before the October 26 midterm parliamentary vote, in which Milei’s party will seek to grow its minority presence in the legislature.

Milei, who has sought to solve Argentina’s economic woes through fiscal spending cuts and dramatically shrinking the size of government, has been handed a string of recent political defeats.

US President Donald Trump said last week that the US would not “waste our time” with Argentina if Milei’s party loses in the midterm vote. The comment briefly shocked local markets until Bessent clarified that continued US support depended on “good policies”, not necessarily the vote result.

He added that a positive result for Milei’s party would help block any policy repeal efforts.

Colombia announced the move after US President Donald Trump called President Gustavo Petro an ‘illegal drug leader’.

Colombia has said it has recalled its ambassador to the United States, after US President Donald Trump threatened to cut off aid and made disparaging remarks about the Colombian president over the weekend.

The South American country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday that Ambassador Daniel Garcia-Pena had already arrived in Bogota to meet with President Gustavo Petro, whom Trump called an “illegal drug leader” on Sunday.

The growing feud between the two countries has centred on US strikes in the Caribbean on vessels that the Trump administration alleges are transporting drugs, mostly from Venezuela. Those strikes, which have killed dozens of people and are widely viewed as a violation of US and international law, have drawn strong criticism from Petro.

In a social media post on Sunday, Trump said aid to Colombia would be cut off and threatened that if Petro did not take more steps to combat the drug trafficking in the country, the US would do the task itself, “and it won’t be done nicely”.

Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti said on Monday that he viewed those remarks as “a threat of invasion or military action against Colombia”.

“I can’t imagine closing down some hectares [of drug production sites] unless it’s in that way, unless it’s by invading,” he added.

The US also announced over the weekend that it had struck a vessel from Colombia on Friday, alleging that it was helmed by a left-wing rebel group involved in the transport of drugs. The Trump administration has not provided evidence regarding those claims.

Petro responded in a series of social media posts, stating that one of those killed in the attack was a Colombian fisherman named Alejandro Carranza, who did not have any ties to drug trafficking.

“US government officials have committed murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” he wrote.

Paz, the son of a former president, promises ‘capitalism for all’ as election ends 20 years of socialist government.

Bolivians have elected Rodrigo Paz of the centre-right Christian Democratic Party (PDC) as their new president, ending almost 20 years of governance by the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party.

With 97 percent of ballots counted, Paz had won 54.5 percent of the vote in Sunday’s run-off race, well ahead of right-wing former interim President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, with 45.4 percent of the vote, according to the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE).

Paz, 58, followed his father, former left-wing President Jaime Zamora, into politics.

After studying economics in the United States, Paz returned home to Bolivia, where he went on to become a city councillor and mayor of the southern city of Tarija, before becoming a senator for the region in 2020.

He has pledged a “capitalism for all” approach, promising tax cuts, tariff reductions, and the decentralisation of the national government.

After the results were announced, Paz’s vice-presidential running mate, Edmand Lara, made a call for “unity and reconciliation”.

“We must ensure the supply of diesel and gasoline. People are suffering. We need to stabilise the prices of the basic food basket, and we must put an end to corruption,” Lara said.

Sunday’s run-off came after the incumbent MAS party suffered a major defeat in August’s preliminary election, after former left-wing President Evo Morales was barred from running and outgoing President Luis Arce, who had fallen out with Morales, opted out of the race.

Courts had ruled against Morales’s candidacy over term limits and technicalities related to party affiliation.

The division within their left-wing coalition, along with the country’s deep economic crisis, meant few expected MAS to return to power.

Outside of the National Congress, the new president will still face stiff opposition from Morales, who remains popular, especially among Indigenous Bolivians.

On Sunday, Morales told reporters that the two candidates each represented only “a handful of people in Bolivia”.

“They do not represent the popular movement, much less the Indigenous movement,” he said.

Arce is due to leave office on November 8 after serving a single presidential term that began in 2020. Bolivia’s constitution allows for two terms, but he did not seek re-election.

Economic woes

The Andean country has been struggling through an economic crisis, including annual inflation of almost 25 percent and critical shortages of US dollars and fuel.

Bolivians took to the streets to protest high prices and hours-long waits for fuel, bread and other basics in the lead-up to the August 17 general election.

Bolivia had enjoyed more than a decade of strong growth and Indigenous upliftment under Morales, who nationalised the gas sector and ploughed the proceeds into social programmes that halved extreme poverty during his stint in power between 2006 and 2019.

But after Morales, who was outspoken on environmental issues and climate change, chose not to expand the country’s gas sector, energy revenues fell from a peak of $6.1bn in 2013 to $1.6bn in 2024, seeing the government run out of foreign exchange needed to import fuel, wheat and other foodstuffs.

Meanwhile, Paz has been unclear about whether he plans to continue a fuel subsidy that has cost the government billions of dollars, at times saying he will restrict it to “vulnerable sectors” of the population.

US leader says suspected drug traffickers to be sent to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia.

President Donald Trump says two surviving “narcoterrorists” from a semi-submersible vessel destroyed by the US military in the Caribbean will be sent to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia.

“It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday.

He said that US intelligence has confirmed the vessel was carrying fentanyl and other narcotics.

The vessel was targeted on Thursday in what Trump described as a strike aimed at disrupting a major drug trafficking route.

Two crew members were killed, he said, while two others survived and were airlifted by US forces in a helicopter rescue operation to a nearby US Navy warship.

The US military held the survivors on board at least until Friday evening.

The press office for Ecuador’s government said it was not aware of the plans for repatriation. There was no immediate comment from Colombian authorities.

At least six vessels, most of them speedboats, have been targeted by US strikes in the Caribbean since September, with Venezuela alleged to be the origin of some of them.

Washington says its campaign is dealing a decisive blow to drug trafficking, but it has provided no evidence that the people killed were drug smugglers.

With Trump’s confirmation of the death toll on his Truth Social platform, that means US military actions against vessels in the region have killed at least 29 people.

The president has justified the strikes by asserting that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. He is relying on the same legal authority used by the administration of former President George W Bush when it declared a war on terrorism after the September 11 attacks on the US. This includes the ability to capture and detain combatants and use lethal force to take out their leadership. Trump is also treating the suspected traffickers as if they were enemy soldiers in a traditional war.

Previous similar strikes have raised concerns from Democratic lawmakers and legal experts who argue that such operations may exceed accepted wartime authority and risk violating international law.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Trump said the latest targeted vessel had been “built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs”.

US military buildup

The mission comes amid a sharp US military buildup across the Caribbean, involving guided missile destroyers, F-35 fighter jets, a nuclear-powered submarine and about 6,500 troops. The escalation has fuelled accusations that Washington is inching towards direct confrontation with Venezuela.

On Wednesday, Trump confirmed that he had authorised the CIA to carry out covert operations inside Venezuela, intensifying fears in Caracas that the US is attempting to topple President Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro has repeatedly denied involvement in drug trafficking and accused Washington of fabricating a narco-terrorism narrative as a pretext for trying to change the government. He condemned the recent maritime strikes as “a violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty and international law”.

Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations, Samuel Moncada, has formally requested the UN Security Council to issue a determination that the US strikes are illegal and to reaffirm Venezuela’s sovereign rights.

The United States Treasury has sanctioned two Haitians, one a former police officer and the other an alleged gang leader, for their affiliation with the Viv Ansanm criminal alliance.

On Friday, a Treasury news release accused Dimitri Herard and Kempes Sanon of colluding with Viv Ansanm, thereby contributing to the violence wracking Haiti.

The sanctions block either person from accessing assets or property in the US. They also prohibit US-based entities from engaging in transactions with the two men.

“Today’s action underscores the critical role of gang leaders and facilitators like Herard and Sanon, whose support enables Viv Ansanm’s campaign of violence, extortion, and terrorism in Haiti,” Bradley T Smith, the director of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement.

Since taking office for a second term, US President Donald Trump has sought to take a hardline stance against criminal organisations across Latin America, blaming the groups for unregulated immigration and drug-trafficking on US soil.

Trump has termed their actions a criminal “invasion”, using nativist rhetoric to justify military action in international waters.

Viv Ansanm has been part of Trump’s crackdown. On his first day in office, on January 20, Trump issued an executive order setting the stage for his administration to label Latin American criminal groups as “foreign terrorist organisations”.

That process began several weeks later. In May, Viv Ansanm and another Haitian criminal organisation, Gran Grif, were added to the growing list of criminal networks to receive the “foreign terrorist” designation.

Since the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in 2021, a power vacuum has formed in Haiti. The last national elections were held in 2016, and its last democratically elected officials reached the end of their terms in 2023.

That has created a crisis of public confidence that criminal networks, including gangs, have exploited to expand their power. Viv Ansanm is one of the most powerful groups, as a coalition of gangs largely based in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

In July, Ghada Waly, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, warned that the gangs now have “near-total control of the capital”, with 90 percent of its territory under their control.

Nearly 1.4 million people have been displaced in the country as a result of the gang violence, a 36 percent increase over 2024. Last year, more than 5,600 people were killed, and a further 2,212 injured.

In Friday’s sanctions, the US Treasury accused Herard, the former police officer, of having “colluded with the Viv Ansanm alliance”, including through training and the provision of guns.

It also noted that Herard had been imprisoned by Haitian authorities for involvement in the Moise assassination. He later escaped in 2024.

Sanon, meanwhile, is identified as the leader of the Bel Air gang, part of the Viv Ansanm alliance. The Treasury said he “played a significant role” in building Viv Ansanm’s power, and it added that he has been implicated in killings, extortion and kidnappings.

The UN Security Council echoed the US’s sanctions against Sanon and Herard, designating both men on Friday. It also agreed to extend its arms embargo on Haiti, which began in 2022.

In September, the UNSC also approved the creation of a “gang suppression force”, with a 12-month mandate to work with Haitian police and military. That force is expected to replace a Kenyan-led mission to reinforce Haiti’s security forces, and it is slated to include 5,550 people.

But on Friday, the Trump administration said that the UN had not gone far enough in its efforts to combat Haiti’s gangs. It called for more designations against individual suspects.

“While we applaud the Council for designating these individuals, the list is not complete. There are more enablers of Haiti’s insecurity evading accountability,” an open letter from US Ambassador Jennifer Locetta read.

“Haiti deserves better. Colleagues, we will continue pressing for more designations through the Security Council and its subsidiary bodies to ensure the sanctions lists are fit for purpose.”

As voters in Bolivia prepare to go to the polls for the final round of the country’s presidential election, there is no left-wing candidate on the ballot for the first time in nearly two decades.

Since the last election, the current governing party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), has suffered an implosion, with party leaders splintering off and attacking one another.

Amid the fracas, MAS failed to advance a candidate to the run-off election, meaning its leadership — nearly uninterrupted since 2006 — is slated to come to an end.

A centrist and a right-wing candidate are now facing off in Sunday’s highly anticipated run-off.

But the election is unlikely to smooth over the divides that have fractured and destabilised Bolivian politics in recent years, with a severe economic crisis spurring continuing unrest.

Who are the candidates? What issues are front and centre for voters? And what challenges could the new government face in the months ahead? We answer those questions and more in this brief explainer.

When does voting take place?

The run-off vote will take place on October 19, with the winner of the election inaugurated on November 8.

What was the result of the first round?

The final stage of the election is itself a sign of the shifting and unpredictable state of the country’s politics.

Rodrigo Paz, one of the two final candidates, was the surprise victor in the first round of voting despite registering less than 10 percent in early polling. He carried more than 32 percent of the votes in the August 17 general election.

His rival is Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, a former president who came in second place with nearly 27 percent of the vote.

Neither met the threshold to win the presidency outright, which would have required winning 50 percent of the vote, or 40 percent with a 10-point margin over the nearest competitor.

Who is Rodrigo Paz?

Paz is a senator and the son of the former left-wing President Jaime Zamora.

Though he has aligned himself with various parties throughout his career, in this election, he is representing the centre-right Christian Democratic Party.

Paz has pitched himself as a more moderate voice who will embrace pro-market policies while taking a cautious approach to austerity measures. “Capitalism for All” is his campaign slogan.

His running mate, meanwhile, is Edman Lara, an evangelical Christian and former police officer who resigned from his position and became a popular figure on social media for his outspoken criticism of corruption.

Who is Jorge Quiroga?

Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga is a businessman and former president.

Early in his career, he worked in Texas for the multinational tech company IBM. But his interests shifted to politics, particularly in the 1990s, and he even worked under Paz’s father as Bolivia’s finance minister.

In 1997, Quiroga ran as the running mate on the successful presidential ticket of Hugo Banzer, who led a military dictatorship in the 1970s. But when Banzer was diagnosed with cancer and resigned in 2001, Quiroga succeeded him as president, serving the remainder of his term.

Quiroga’s subsequent bids for the presidency have fallen short: He lost in 2005, 2014 and 2020.

In this election, he is running on a stridently pro-market platform as the head of a right-wing coalition, the Libre Alliance.

Quiroga’s running mate is Juan Pablo Velasco, a 38-year-old tech entrepreneur.

What do the polls say?

Polling currently shows Quiroga with a slight advantage, but analysts have pointed out that polling before the first round of voting failed to detect support for Paz.

A poll taken between October 1 and 6 by the research firm CB Consultora found that Paz has an approval rating of 42.5 percent. Quiroga, meanwhile, leads with 56.7 percent approval.

While 75 percent of respondents said they would vote in the run-off, CB Consultora said protest votes — with ballots intentionally left blank or spoiled — are expected to increase.

What happened to Bolivia’s left?

Under the presidency of Evo Morales from 2006 to 2019, the left-wing MAS party oversaw a period of strong economic growth while simultaneously decreasing inequality, a rare feat.

That translated into electoral dominance for Morales, who is considered the country’s first Indigenous president.

But an electoral crisis in 2019 resulted in Morales fleeing the country after seeking a contested fourth term, in circumstances that his supporters have characterised as a coup.

The crisis caused a brief interruption in MAS leadership, and the post-election period saw turmoil and widespread protests, with the short-lived right-wing government overseeing a deadly crackdown.

In 2020, the left returned to power when Morales’s finance minister became the current president, Luis Arce. But internal divides have critically weakened MAS, leading to Morales leaving the party.

Courts have barred Morales, who faces an arrest warrant for alleged statutory rape, from seeking a fourth term. But Morales has persisted in his efforts, characterising the ban on his candidacy as an assault on his rights.

He has called upon his followers, many of whom are rural and Indigenous voters, to boycott the vote.

What issues are front and centre?

For many Bolivians, concerns about the economy and the cost of living are top of mind as they head to the polls.

High inflation and fuel shortages, along with dwindling foreign currency reserves, have been a source of hardship.

“People are waiting in line for hours at a time for gasoline,” said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a Bolivia-based group that promotes human rights. “Diesel, which is important for the transportation of other goods, is even worse.”

Polling compiled by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (ASCOA) shows that 24 percent of Bolivians consider the economy their primary concern this election season. Another 17 percent cited price increases as a top concern, and fuel shortages were at 14 percent.

What controversies have defined the election?

Velasco, Quiroga’s vice presidential running mate, has faced scrutiny over a series of racist social media posts he made in the past, celebrating violence against the country’s Indigenous population.

The posts, some of which are nearly 15 years old, were initially unearthed by an Argentinian social media figure. Bolivian fact-checking agencies have since verified the posts.

Velasco responded by denying that he authored the posts. He has also attacked the fact-checkers, prompting the Bolivian press association to release a statement in support of the fact-checking agencies.

What policies have the candidates proposed?

Both Quiroga and Paz are promising pro-market policies and a departure from the left-wing programme that has dominated Bolivian politics for the last two decades.

Where the two candidates differ is over how quickly to implement those economic changes.

Quiroga has said that he will cut spending on social programmes and fuel subsidies, privatise state enterprises, and seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Paz has been more hesitant when it comes to embracing calls for austerity and steep cuts to social programmes, although he has also said that he would cut fuel subsidies.

He has also suggested that Bolivia could lower tariffs to help import goods that the country does not produce itself and expressed interest in greater integration into regional trade blocs, such as MERCOSUR.

What will the election mean for relations with the United States?

The administration of US President Donald Trump has expressed approval over the prospect of a right-wing government in Bolivia.

Bilateral ties under MAS leadership had been strained over conflicting policies towards growing coca, a major crop in Bolivia and the raw ingredient for cocaine.

On October 14, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the election outright, calling it “important”.

“Later this month, there’ll be an election in Bolivia,” Rubio said. “After 25, 30 years of anti-American, hostile governments, both of the candidates running in that election, in the run-off election, want strong and better relations with the United States. Another transformative opportunity there.”

Morales, a firm critic of the US “war on drugs”, expelled the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 2008 and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2013, alleging it was working to influence Bolivian politics.

“There was a great deal of frustration in Washington, DC, because this was a refutation of the idea that, to govern successfully, you need cooperation and funding from the US,” said Ledebur.

Both Paz and Quiroga have said that they will seek closer ties with the US. Quiroga, in particular, has been a critic of left-wing governments in Latin America, including in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, with which MAS had cultivated ties.

That shift comes at a moment when the Trump administration is taking on a more aggressive stance in Latin America, pushing a highly militarised approach to combating drug trafficking and using US influence to assist right-wing allies in countries such as Argentina and Brazil.

What’s next for the Bolivian left?

After years of dominance, Bolivia’s political left is preparing for a period in the political wilderness.

The candidate for MAS, Eduardo del Castillo, won just 3.2 percent in the first round of voting in August. A former MAS member, Andronico Rodriguez, won approximately 8 percent of the vote.

Many former MAS supporters have turned to Paz due to his populist stance and softer approach towards economic austerity, and Ledebur says that the once-powerful left will have to mend internal rifts and find a new path forward.

But the forces that have powered the Bolivian left for decades, such as Indigenous and rural voting blocs, are likely to remain a formidable force, even if MAS finds itself out of power.

Ledebur says that efforts to implement harsh austerity measures could spark strong backlash and protests.

She predicts that conflict with the new government could help unite the left around a common cause, but that doing so will take time.

“The left will definitely have to change something after its defeat in the election,” she said. “There will be a reconfiguration, but it could take a long time.”

In the early days of President Trump’s second term, the U.S. appeared keen to cooperate with Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian leader. Special envoy Ric Grenell met Maduro, working with him to coordinate deportation flights to Caracas, a prisoner exchange deal and an agreement allowing Chevron to drill Venezuelan oil.

Grenell told disappointed members of Venezuela’s opposition that Trump’s domestic goals took priority over efforts to promote democracy. “We’re not interested in regime change,” Grenell told the group, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.

But Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of State, had a different vision.

In a parallel call with María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, two leaders of the opposition, Rubio affirmed U.S. support “for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela” and called González “the rightful president” of the beleaguered nation after Maduro rigged last year’s election in his favor.

Rubio, now also serving as national security advisor, has grown closer to Trump and crafted an aggressive new policy toward Maduro that has brought Venezuela and the United States to the brink of military confrontation.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio whispers to President Trump during a roundtable meeting at the White House on Oct. 8, 2025.

(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

Grenell has been sidelined, two sources told The Times, as the U.S. conducts an unprecedented campaign of deadly strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug boats — and builds up military assets in the Caribbean. Trump said Wednesday that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert action in the South American nation, and that strikes on land targets could be next.

“I think Venezuela is feeling the heat,” he said.

The pressure campaign marks a major victory for Rubio, the son of Cuban emigres and an unexpected power player in the administration who has managed to sway top leaders of the isolationist MAGA movement to his lifelong effort to topple Latin America’s leftist authoritarians.

“It’s very clear that Rubio has won,” said James B. Story, who served as ambassador to Venezuela under President Biden. “The administration is applying military pressure in the hope that somebody inside of the regime renders Maduro to justice, either by exiling him, sending him to the United States or sending him to his maker.”

In a recent public message to Trump, Maduro acknowledged that Rubio is now driving White House policy: “You have to be careful because Marco Rubio wants your hands stained with blood, with South American blood, Caribbean blood, Venezuelan blood,” Maduro said.

As a senator from Florida, Rubio represented exiles from three leftist autocracies — Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — and for years he has made it his mission to weaken their governments. He says his family could not return to Cuba after Fidel Castro’s revolution seven decades ago. He has long maintained that eliminating Maduro would deal a fatal blow to Cuba, whose economy has been buoyed by billions of dollars in Venezuelan oil in the face of punishing U.S. sanctions.

In 2019, Rubio pushed Trump to back Juan Guaidó, a Venezuelan opposition leader who sought unsuccessfully to topple Maduro.

Rubio later encouraged Trump to publicly support Machado, who was barred from the ballot in Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election, and who last week was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her pro-democracy efforts. González, who ran in Machado’s place, won the election, according to vote tallies gathered by the opposition, yet Maduro declared victory.

Rubio was convinced that only military might would bring change to Venezuela, which has been plunged into crisis under Maduro’s rule, with a quarter of the population fleeing poverty, violence and political repression.

But there was a hitch. Trump has repeatedly vowed to not intervene in the politics of other nations, telling a Middle Eastern audience in May that the U.S. “would no longer be giving you lectures on how to live.”

Denouncing decades of U.S. foreign policy, Trump complained that “the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand.”

To counter that sentiment, Rubio painted Maduro in a new light that he hoped would spark interest from Trump, who has been fixated on combating immigration, illegal drugs and Latin American cartels since his first presidential campaign.

Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, right, and opposition leader María Corina Machado greet supporters during a campaign rally in Valencia before the country’s presidential election in 2024.

(Ariana Cubillos / Associated Press)

Going after Maduro, Rubio argued, was not about promoting democracy or a change of governments. It was striking a drug kingpin fueling crime in American streets, an epidemic of American overdoses, and a flood of illegal migration to America’s borders.

Rubio tied Maduro to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang whose members the secretary of State says are “worse than Al Qaeda.”

“Venezuela is governed by a narco-trafficking organization that has empowered itself as a nation state,” he said during his Senate confirmation hearing.

Meanwhile, prominent members of Venezuela’s opposition pushed the same message. “Maduro is the head of a narco-terrorist structure,” Machado told Fox News last month.

Security analysts and U.S. intelligence officials suggest that the links between Maduro and Tren de Aragua are overblown.

A declassified memo by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence found no evidence of widespread cooperation between Maduro’s government and the gang. It also said Tren de Aragua does not pose a threat to the U.S.

The gang does not traffic fentanyl, and the Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that just 8% of cocaine that reaches the U.S. passes through Venezuelan territory.

Still, Rubio’s strategy appears to have worked.

In July, Trump declared that Tren de Aragua was a terrorist group led by Maduro — and then ordered the Pentagon to use military force against cartels that the U.S. government had labeled terrorists.

Trump deployed thousands of U.S. troops and a small armada of ships and warplanes to the Caribbean and has ordered strikes on five boats off the coast of Venezuela, resulting in 24 deaths. The administration says the victims were “narco-terrorists” but has provided no evidence.

Elliott Abrams, a veteran diplomat who served as special envoy to Venezuela in Trump’s first term, said he believes the White House will carry out limited strikes in Venezuela.

“I think the next step is that they’re going to hit something in Venezuela — and I don’t mean boots on the ground. That’s not Trump,” Abrams said. “It’s a strike, and then it’s over. That’s very low risk to the United States.”

He continued: “Now, would it be nice if that kind of activity spurred a colonel to lead a coup? Yeah, it would be nice. But the administration is never going to say that.”

Even if Trump refrains from a ground invasion, there are major risks.

“If it’s a war, then what is the war’s aim? Is it to overthrow Maduro? Is it more than Maduro? Is it to get a democratically elected president and a democratic regime in power?” said John Yoo, a professor of law at UC Berkeley, who served as a top legal advisor to the George W. Bush administration. “The American people will want to know what’s the end state, what’s the goal of all of this.”

“Whenever you have two militaries bristling that close together, there could be real action,” said Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at the think tank Chatham House. “Trump is trying to do this on the cheap. He’s hoping maybe he won’t have to commit. But it’s a slippery slope. This could draw the United States into a war.”

Sabatini and others added that even if the U.S. pressure drives out Maduro, what follows is far from certain.

Venezuela is dominated by a patchwork of guerrilla and paramilitary groups that have enriched themselves with gold smuggling, drug trafficking and other illicit activities. None have incentive to lay down arms.

And the country’s opposition is far from unified.

Machado, who dedicated her Nobel Prize to Trump in a clear effort to gain his support, says she is prepared to govern Venezuela. But there are others — both in exile and in Maduro’s administration — who would like to lead the country.

Machado supporter Juan Fernandez said anything would be better than maintaining the status quo.

“Some say we’re not prepared, that a transition would cause instability,” he said. “How can Maduro be the secure choice when 8 million Venezuelans have left, when there is no gasoline, political persecution and rampant inflation?”

Fernandez praised Rubio for pushing the Venezuela issue toward “an inflection point.”

What a difference, he said, to have a decision-maker in the White House with family roots in another country long oppressed by an authoritarian regime.

“He perfectly understands our situation,” Fernandez said. “And now he has one of the highest positions in the United States.”

Linthicum reported from Mexico City, Wilner from Dallas and Ceballos from Washington. Special correspondent Mery Mogollón in Caracas contributed to this report.

State of emergency to be declared in capital as protests that led to last week’s ouster of former president intensify.

Peru’s new president, Jose Jeri, is refusing to resign amid Gen Z antigovernment protests, inflamed by the death of a popular rapper, as crime grips the nation.

The government said late on Thursday that a state of emergency would be declared in the capital, Lima, as the prosecutor’s office announced it was investigating the previous day’s killing of 32-year-old protester and hip-hop singer Eduardo Ruiz in a mass demonstration.

Peru’s police chief, General Oscar Arriola, said that Luis Magallanes, a member of the force, was believed to have fired the bullet and had subsequently been detained and dismissed from his job. Arriola added that Magallanes was being treated in hospital after being physically assaulted.

Ruiz was the first person to die in the protests, which began a month ago with calls for better pensions and wages for young people and later became a lightning rod for broader frustrations with crime and corruption, culminating in the ouster of former President Dina Boluarte last week.

On Wednesday, thousands massed around the country, with hundreds clashing with police outside Congress in Lima, as they called on recently appointed Jeri, the seventh president in less than a decade, to resign.

“My responsibility is to maintain the stability of the country; that is my responsibility and my commitment,” Jeri told the local media after visiting Peru’s parliament, where he said he would request powers to combat crime.

Jeri expressed regret over Ruiz’s death in a post on X, saying the death would be “objectively” investigated. He blamed violence on “delinquents who infiltrated a peaceful demonstration to sow chaos”.

“The full force of the law will be on them,” he wrote.

Reporting from Lima, Al Jazeera’s Mariana Sanchez said that Ruiz’s death had “added another layer to the ongoing political crisis” in the country and had “angered even more Peruvians who are frustrated with the corruption, with the insecurity in the country”.

“He was peacefully hanging out with his friends. Unfortunately, the bullet hit his chest. We want justice for him,” activist Milagros Samillan told Al Jazeera.

The prosecutor’s office wrote on X that it had ordered the removal of Ruíz’s body from a Lima hospital and the “collection of audiovisual and ballistic evidence in the area where the incident occurred, in the context of serious human rights violations”.

Newly appointed interior minister, Vicente Tiburcio, said that 89 police and 22 civilians had been injured during Wednesday’s protest and 11 people were detained.

Jose Raul Mulino says the visa-removal policy is ‘not coherent’ with the ‘good relationship’ he hopes to have with the US.

Panama President Jose Raul Mulino said that someone at the United States Embassy has been threatening to cancel the visas of Panamanian officials.

His statements come as the administration of US President Donald Trump pressures Panama to limit its ties to China.

Responding to a reporter’s question at his weekly news conference, Mulino said — without offering evidence — that an official at the US Embassy is “threatening to take visas”, adding that such actions are “not coherent with the good relationship I aspire to maintain with the United States”. He did not name the official.

The US Embassy in Panama did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration has previously declined to comment on individual visa decisions.

But in September, the US Department of State said in a statement that the country was committed to countering China’s influence in Central America. It added that it would restrict visas for people who maintained relationships with China’s Communist Party or undermined democracy in the region on behalf of China.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration revoked the visas of six foreigners deemed by US officials to have made derisive comments or made light of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last month.

Similar cases have surfaced recently in the region. In April, former Costa Rica President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias said the US had cancelled his visa. In July, Vanessa Castro, vice president of Costa Rica’s Congress, said that the US Embassy told her her visa had been revoked, citing alleged contacts with the Chinese Communist Party.

Panama has become especially sensitive to the US-China tensions because of the strategically important Panama Canal.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Panama in February on his first foreign trip as the top US diplomat and called for Panama to immediately reduce China’s influence over the canal.

Panama has strongly denied Chinese influence over canal operations but has gone along with US pressure to push the Hong Kong-based company that operated ports on both ends of the canal to sell its concession to a consortium.

Mulino has said that Panama will maintain the canal’s neutrality.

“They’re free to give and take a visa to anyone they want, but not threatening that, ‘If you don’t do something, I’ll take the visa,’” Mulino said Thursday.

He noted that the underlying issue — the conflict between the US and China — “doesn’t involve Panama”.

From the air, it looks like a city erased. Entire neighbourhoods have vanished from the map two years since Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza began. What were once homes, schools, hospitals, factories and power plants have been reduced to debris and dust. Thousands of Palestinians are now returning to ruins or rubble in a place that has lost the very fabric of daily life.

Economists estimate the cost of rebuilding at tens of billions of dollars – far beyond the capacity of Gaza’s shattered economy.

What is behind the $20bn lifeline to Argentina?

Plus, the European Union invests $13bn in South Africa.

The stench of decay extends miles beyond Poza Rica in one of the regions most devastated by last week’s torrential rains that inundated central and eastern Mexico.

By Wednesday, the official death toll had reached 66, with the number of missing people increasing to 75. Nearly 200 communities remain isolated — predominantly in Hidalgo’s central mountainous region, where persistent cloud cover has hindered helicopter access.

A persistent dust cloud hangs over the main avenue of Poza Rica, a gulf-adjacent oil-producing city, where soldiers laboured continuously. To the east, near the overflowed Cazones River, numerous streets remained submerged under 3 feet (about 1 metre) of water and mud, covered by an additional 6 feet of accumulated rubbish, furniture, and debris.

“A week later, this looks horrible — worse. You can’t even cross the street,” lamented Ana Luz Saucedo, who escaped with her children when water rushed in “like the sea”.

She now fears disease because a decomposing body near her home remains uncollected. “The dead body has already started to rot, and no one has come for him.”

The impact of last week’s catastrophic rains, floods, and landslides continues to unfold as Mexico’s government proceeds with rescue and recovery operations.

Officials attribute the disaster to multiple converging weather systems — two tropical systems colliding with warm and cold fronts — arriving as an unusually intense rainy season concluded, leaving saturated rivers and unstable hillsides.

Residents like Saucedo believe warnings were insufficient, particularly in Poza Rica.

“Many people died because they didn’t give notice — really, they didn’t warn us,” she said. “They came only when the river was already overflowing … not before, so people could evacuate.”

President Claudia Sheinbaum explained that alert systems for such events differ from hurricane warnings. She acknowledged the need to review river maintenance and emergency protocols after the crisis to determine “what worked, what we need to improve and whether there are better alert mechanisms”.

Military, naval, and civilian emergency teams continue operating across affected states, supplemented by hundreds of volunteers.

In Poza Rica, women from Veracruz distributed clothing and 1,000 pots of homemade tamales to flood victims.

Meanwhile, authorities work to clear blocked roadways, restore electricity, and monitor dams — many now at maximum capacity.

United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday confirmed that he has authorised the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.

He added that his administration was also mulling land-based military operations inside Venezuela, as tensions between Washington and Caracas soar over multiple deadly US strikes on Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean Sea in recent weeks.

On Wednesday, Trump held a news conference with some of his top law enforcement officials, where he faced questions about an earlier news report in The New York Times about the CIA authorisation. One reporter asked directly, “Why did you authorise the CIA to go into Venezuela?”

“I authorised for two reasons, really,” Trump replied. “Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America.”

“The other thing,” he continued, was Venezuela’s role in drug-trafficking. He then appeared to imply that the US would take actions on foreign soil to prevent the flow of narcotics and other drugs.

“We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela,” Trump said. “A lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.  So you get to see that. But we’re going to stop them by land also.”

Trump’s remarks mark the latest escalation in his campaign against Venezuela, whose leader, Nicolas Maduro, has long been a target for the US president, stretching back to Trump’s first term in office.

Already, both leaders have bolstered their military forces along the Caribbean Sea in a show of potential force.

The Venezuelan government hit back at Trump’s latest comments and the authorised CIA operations, accusing the US of violating international law and the UN Charter.

“The purpose of US actions is to create legitimacy for an operation to change the regime in Venezuela, with the ultimate goal of taking control of all the country’s resources,” the Maduro government said in a statement.

Earlier, at the news conference, reporters sought to confront Trump over whether he was trying to enforce regime change in Caracas.

“Does the CIA have authority to take out Maduro?” one journalist asked at the White House on Wednesday.

“Oh, I don’t want to answer a question like that. That’s a ridiculous question for me to be given,” Trump said, demurring. “Not really a ridiculous question, but wouldn’t it be a ridiculous question for me to answer?”

He then offered an addendum: “But I think Venezuela’s feeling heat.”

Claiming wartime powers

Trump’s responses, at times meandering, touched on his oft-repeated claims about Venezuela.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has sought to assume wartime powers – using laws like the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 – by alleging that Venezuela had masterminded an “invasion” of migrants and criminal groups onto US soil.

He has offered little proof for his assertions, though, and his statements have been undercut by the assessments of his own intelligence community.

In May, for example, a declassified US report revealed that intelligence officials had found no evidence directly linking Maduro to criminal groups like Tren de Aragua, as Trump has alleged.

Still, on Wednesday, Trump revisited the baseless claim that Venezuela under Maduro had sent prisoners and people with mental health conditions to destabilise the US.

“Many countries have done it, but not like Venezuela.  They were down and dirty,” Trump said.

The authorisation of CIA operations inside Venezuela is the latest indication that Trump has been signing secret proclamations to lay the groundwork for lethal action overseas, despite insisting in public that he seeks peace globally.

In August, for instance, anonymous sources told the US media that Trump had also signed an order allowing the US military to take action against drug-trafficking cartels and other Latin American criminal networks.

And in October, it emerged that Trump had sent a memo to the US Congress asserting that the country was in a “non-international armed conflict” with the cartels, whom he termed “unlawful combatants”.

Many such groups, including Tren de Aragua, have also been added to the US’s list of “foreign terrorist organisations”, though experts point out that the label alone does not provide a legal basis for military action.

Strikes in the Caribbean Sea

Nevertheless, the US under Trump has taken a series of escalatory military actions, including by conducting multiple missile strikes on small vessels off the Venezuelan coast.

At least five known air strikes have been conducted on boats since September 2, killing 27 people.

The most recent attack was announced on Tuesday in a social media post: A video Trump shared showed a boat floating in the water, before a missile set it alight. Six people were reportedly killed in that bombing.

Many legal experts and former military officials have said that the strikes appear to be a clear violation of international law. Drug traffickers have not traditionally met the definition of armed combatants in a war. And the US government has so far not presented any public evidence to back its claims that the boats were indeed carrying narcotics headed for America.

But Trump has justified the strikes by saying they will save American lives lost to drug addiction.

He has maintained the people on board the targeted boats were “narco-terrorists” headed to the US.

On Wednesday, he again brushed aside a question about the lack of evidence. He also defended himself against concerns that the bombings amount to extrajudicial killings.

“When they’re loaded up with drugs, they’re fair game,” Trump told reporters, adding there was “fentanyl dust all over the boat after those bombs go off”.

He added, “We know we have much information about each boat that goes. Deep, strong information.”

Framing the bombing campaign in the Caribbean as a success, Trump then explained his administration might start to pivot its strategy.

“ We’ve almost totally stopped it by sea. Now, we’ll stop it by land,” he said of the alleged drug trafficking. He joked that even fishermen had decided to stay off the waters.

“ We are certainly looking at land now because we’ve got the sea very well under control.”

A car exploded outside a shopping mall in Ecuador’s largest city Guayaquil, killing at least one person and injuring several more. Authorities say the blast was a deliberate act by criminal groups as police hunt for those responsible.

The news comes just days after Maria Corina Machado was announced the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.

Venezuela says it will close its embassy in Norway, just days after Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was announced the winner of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.

A Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson told the Reuters news agency that the Venezuelan embassy did not give a reason for shutting its doors for its decision on Monday.

“It is regrettable. Despite our differences on several issues, Norway wishes to keep the dialogue open with Venezuela and will continue to work in this direction,” the spokesperson said.

The ministry also stressed that the Nobel Committee overseeing the prize is an independent body from the Norwegian government.

Corina Machado, who has been in hiding since 2024, was declared the Nobel Peace Prize winner on Friday for her “extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times”.

She was barred from standing in last year’s election in Venezuela, which was won by President Nicolas Maduro in a widely disputed result.

Corina Machado dedicated her Nobel Prize win to United States President Donald Trump and the “suffering people of Venezuela”.

Venezuela has also decided to shutter its embassy in Australia, in addition to Norway.

Instead, it plans to open two new embassies in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe, countries it described as “strategic allies in the anti-colonial fight and in resistance to hegemonic pressures”.

Neither Norway nor Australia has an embassy in Venezuela, and consular services are handled by their embassies in Colombia.

Both countries are longtime allies of the US, which, under Trump, has launched an official war against Latin American drug cartels like Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua.

The US military has since September carried out at least four strikes on boats operated by alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean under orders from the White House.

Maduro has accused Washington of trying to instigate regime change in Venezuela and called for the United Nations Security Council to take action.

The majority of the deaths have occurred in the states of Veracruz and Hidalgo.

At least 64 people have died in Mexico after heavy rains and flooding hit five states last week.

The National Civil Protection Coordination (CNPC) chief, Laura Velazquez Alzua, speaking during President Claudia Sheinbaum’s daily news briefing on Monday, said another 65 people were still missing.

The state of Veracruz on the country’s southeastern coastline has confirmed 29 deaths, followed by 21 in Hidalgo, 13 in Puebla and one in Queretaro, Alzua said.

Forty-three people are also reported missing in Hidalgo, along with 18 in Veracruz and four in Puebla.

Thousands of military troops have been deployed to offer assistance across the five affected states, and governors are also working together to coordinate support, Sheinbaum said.

Early estimates show that about 100,000 houses have been affected, she added, with some near rivers having “practically disappeared”.

Facing questions about Mexico’s alert system, Sheinbaum said there were no meteorological signs “that could have indicated to us that the rain was going to be of this magnitude”.

Meteorologists have said the rains occurred thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Priscilla and Tropical Rainstorm Raymond, which caused rivers to rapidly rise, leading to flooding and landslides.

The heaviest rainfall was reported on Wednesday in Veracruz’s city of Cerro Azul and Puebla’s Cuetzalan del Progreso, which saw 280mm and 286mm of rain, respectively, Alzua said.

The Mexican Army, Air Force and National Guard have jointly implemented response efforts, distributing food and clean water, sometimes by air, to locations otherwise made inaccessible by landslides and road closures.

Nearly 400 repair workers have restored more than 80 percent of the electricity supply across the five states, where about 263,000 users lost power, electricity officials said during the briefing.

Hunger is neither a natural condition of humankind nor an unavoidable tragedy: it is the result of choices made by governments and economic systems that have chosen to turn a blind eye to inequalities – or even of promoting them.

The same global order that denies 673 million people access to adequate food also enables a privileged group of just 3,000 billionaires to hold 14.6 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP).

In 2024, the wealthiest nations helped drive the largest surge in military spending since the end of the Cold War, reaching $2.7 trillion that year. Yet they failed to deliver on their own commitment: to invest 0.7 percent of their GDP in concrete actions to promote development in poorer countries.

Today, we see situations not unlike those that prevailed 80 years ago, when the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations was created. Unlike then, however, we are not only witnessing the tragedies of war and hunger feeding into each other, but also facing the urgent climate crisis. And the international order established to address the challenges of 1945 is no longer sufficient to address today’s problems.

Global governance mechanisms must be reformed. We need to strengthen multilateralism, create investment flows that promote sustainable development, and ensure that states have the capacity to implement consistent public policies to fight hunger and poverty.

It is essential to include the poor in public budgets and the wealthy in the tax base. This requires tax justice and taxing the superrich, an issue we managed to include for the first time in the final declaration of the G20 Summit, held in November 2024, under Brazil’s Presidency. A symbolic but historic change.

We advocate for this practice around the world — and we are implementing it in Brazil. Our Parliament is about to approve substantial tax reform: for the first time in the country, there will be a minimum tax on the income of the wealthiest individuals, exempting millions of lower-income earners from paying income tax.

During our G20 Presidency, Brazil also proposed the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty. Although recent, the initiative already has 200 members — 103 countries and 97 partner foundations and organisations. This initiative is not just about exchanging experiences, but about mobilising resources and securing commitments.

With this alliance, we want to enable countries to implement public policies that truly reduce inequality and ensure the right to adequate food. Policies that deliver rapid results, as seen in Brazil after we made the fight against hunger a government priority in 2023.

Official data released just a few days ago show that we have lifted 26.5 million Brazilians out of hunger since the beginning of 2023. In addition, Brazil has been removed, for the second time, from the FAO’s Hunger Map, as laid out in its global report on food insecurity. A map we would not have returned to if the policies launched during my first two terms (2003-10) and President Dilma Rousseff’s (2011-16) had not been abandoned.

Behind these achievements lie a set of coordinated actions on multiple fronts. We have strengthened and expanded our national income transfer programme, which now reaches 20 million households and supports 8.5 million children aged six and below.

We have increased funding for free meals in public schools, benefitting 40 million students. Through public food procurement, we have secured income for small-scale family farmers, while offering free, nutritious meals to those who truly need them. In addition, we have expanded the free supply of cooking gas and electricity to low-income households, freeing up room in family budgets to strengthen food security.

None of these policies, however, is sustainable without an economic environment that drives them. When there are jobs and income, hunger loses its grip. That is why we have adopted an economic policy that prioritises wage increases, leading to the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded in Brazil. And to the lowest level of per capita household income inequality.

Brazil still has a long way to go before achieving full food security for its entire population, but the results confirm that state action can indeed overcome the scourge of hunger. These initiatives, however, depend on concrete shifts in global priorities: investing in development rather than in wars; prioritising the fight against inequality instead of restrictive economic policies that for decades have caused massive concentration of wealth; and facing the challenge of climate change with people at its core.

By hosting COP30 in the Amazon next month, Brazil wants to show that the fight against climate change and the fight against hunger must go hand in hand. In Belem, we aim to adopt a Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and Climate that acknowledges the profoundly unequal impacts of climate change and its role in worsening hunger in certain regions of the world.

I will also take these messages to the World Food Forum and to the meeting of the Council of Champions of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, events I will have the honour of attending today, the 13th, in Rome, Italy. These are messages that show that change is urgent and possible. For humanity, which created the poison of hunger against itself, is also capable of producing its antidote.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.