Latin America

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has denied reports that her government is teaming up with the United States for a “major new initiative” to combat drug-trafficking cartels.

In her Tuesday morning news conference, Sheinbaum addressed the initiative, dubbed “Project Portero”, which was touted in the US as an effort to “strengthen collaboration between the United States and Mexico”.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had unveiled the initiative only one day prior.

“I want to clarify something. The DEA put out a statement yesterday saying that there is an agreement with the Mexican government for an operation called Portero,” Sheinbaum said.

“There is no agreement with the DEA. The DEA puts out this statement, based on what we don’t know. We have not reached any agreement; none of the security institutions [have] with the DEA.”

Sheinbaum emphasised that only her administration, not individual government agencies, would be announcing such an agreement on behalf of Mexico.

She also emphasised that the DEA needed to follow established protocols for making joint announcements.

Project Portero is part of an ongoing push under US President Donald Trump to stamp out cross-border drug trafficking and aggressively pursue the cartels and criminal networks that profit from such trade.

In its statement on Monday, the DEA called Project Portero its “flagship operation” aimed at shutting down drug-smuggling corridors along the border.

It described its partnership with Mexico as “a multi-week training and collaboration program” that would bring Mexican investigators together with US enforcement officials at an intelligence site on the southwest border.

Part of their task, the statement said, was to “identify joint targets” for the two countries to pursue.

“Project Portero and this new training program show how we will fight — by planning and operating side by side with our Mexican partners,” DEA administrator Terrance Cole said in the statement

“This is a bold first step in a new era of cross-border enforcement.”

But Sheinbaum said no such bilateral action was planned, though she speculated that the DEA might be referring to a small training exercise involving four Mexican police officers.

“The only thing we have is a group of police officers from the Secretariat of Citizen Security who were conducting a workshop in Texas,” she explained.

She did, however, point out that her government was actively working with the Trump administration to cement a border security agreement, based on mutual acknowledgements of sovereignty and respectful coordination.

Since taking office for a second term in January, Trump has repeatedly pressured the Sheinbaum government to stem the flow of immigrants and drugs across their countries’ shared border.

That includes through the threat of tariffs, a kind of tax imposed on imports. In late July, Trump announced he would keep tariffs on Mexican products at their current rate for 90 days.

Previously, he had threatened to hike the tariff rate to 30 percent on the basis that fentanyl was still reaching US soil.

“Mexico still has not stopped the Cartels who are trying to turn all of North America into a Narco-Trafficking Playground,” Trump wrote in a letter to Sheinbaum earlier that month.

Even with the 90-day pause, Mexico still faces a 25-percent tax — which Trump calls a “fentanyl tariff” — on all products that do not fall under the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement (USMCA).

Still, Trump has expressed warmth towards Sheinbaum, and the Mexican leader has largely avoided public confrontations with the US since taking office in October 2024.

Recently, Sheinbaum’s government coordinated with Trump’s to transfer 26 high-profile drug-trafficking suspects to the US for prosecution.

In February, she made a similar deal, sending 29 alleged cartel leaders from Mexican prisons to the US shortly before Trump threatened to impose tariffs on her country’s imports. It was Mexico’s largest prisoner transfer to the US in years.

But Sheinbaum has also faced scrutiny over her handling of Trump’s aggressive foreign policy platform.

Earlier this month, for instance, Trump’s State Department issued travel warnings for 30 of Mexico’s 32 states, warning Americans of “terrorist” activities in those areas.

Trump has also designated multiple Latin American criminal groups as “foreign terrorist organisations”, and he reportedly signed an order authorising military action to combat them.

Critics fear that order could translate into a military incursion on Mexican soil. But Sheinbaum has repeatedly downplayed those concerns, saying, “There will be no invasion of Mexico.”

Still, she has nevertheless asserted that any unauthorised US action on Mexican land would be considered a violation of her country’s sovereignty.

Boluarte, Peru’s first female president, has faced investigations into protest-related deaths and alleged illicit enrichment.

The Constitutional Court of Peru has paused investigations into Dina Boluarte until her term ends in 2026, citing her position as the country’s sitting president.

On Tuesday, the court suspended probes led by the public prosecutor’s office that looked into alleged misconduct under Boluarte.

“The suspended investigations will continue after the end of the presidential term,” the ruling explained.

One of the most significant probes had to do with Boluarte’s response to the protests that erupted in Peru in December 2022, after the embattled president at the time, Pedro Castillo, attempted to dissolve Congress.

Instead, Castillo was impeached, removed from office and imprisoned, with critics calling his actions an attempted coup d’etat.

His removal, in turn, prompted months of intense public backlash: Thousands of protesters blocked roads and led marches in support of the left-wing leader.

Boluarte, who took over the presidency, declared a state of emergency in response, and the subsequent clashes between the police and protesters killed more than 60 people and left hundreds injured.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that, in certain parts of the country, “the disproportionate, indiscriminate, and lethal use of force was a major element of the State response to the protests”.

It noted that “a significant number of victims were not even involved in the protests”.

In January 2023, Attorney General Patricia Benavides launched a probe into the actions of Boluarte and her ministers. By November of that year, Benavides had filed a constitutional complaint, accusing Boluarte of causing death and injury to protesters.

The public prosecutor’s office later set aside part of the investigation, which delved into whether Boluarte’s actions amounted to “genocide”.

Boluarte has denied any wrongdoing and instead called the protest probe a distraction from the attorney general’s own public scandals.

But Boluarte has continued to face probes into other aspects of her presidency.

Police in 2024 raided her home and the presidential palace as part of the “Rolex case”, an investigation prompted by media reports that Boluarte owned multiple luxury watches and high-end jewellery that were beyond her means to purchase. Critics have accused her of seeking illicit enrichment.

Boluarte, however, said her hands were “clean”, and Congress denied motions to impeach her over the “Rolex case”.

Another investigation looked into her absence from office in 2023, when Boluarte said she had to undergo a “necessary and essential” medical procedure on her nose — though critics have said it was a cosmetic procedure.

Her absence, they argue, was therefore a dereliction of duty, done without notifying Congress. In that case, too, Boluarte has denied the charges.

Peru has weathered much instability in its government: Boluarte is the sixth president in seven years, and virtually all of Peru’s presidents have faced criminal investigations, if not convictions, in the last quarter century.

Boluarte, however, had petitioned the Constitutional Court to stop the investigations until her term is over.

She is set to exit her office on July 28, 2026, after calling for a new general election in March. She has faced public pressure to resign since taking over for Castillo in December 2022.

Son of a legendary former world champion boxer, Julio Cesar Chavez is deported by the US, facing charges of arms trafficking and organised crime in Mexico.

Former champion boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr has been detained in Mexico after being deported by the United States to face drug trafficking-related charges, Mexican authorities said.

Chavez, the son of legendary boxer Julio Cesar Chavez, was handed over at midday on Monday and transferred to a prison in Mexico’s northwest Sonora state, according to information published Tuesday on the country’s National Detention Registry.

“He was deported,” President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters, adding that there was an arrest warrant for him in Mexico.

She previously said there was a warrant for his arrest for charges of arms trafficking and organised crime, and that prosecutors were working on the case.

The Mexican attorney general’s office declined to comment.

Chavez Jr, the son of a legendary former world champion boxer, Julio Cesar Chavez, was detained by US immigration authorities shortly after losing in a sold-out match to American influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul.

Mexican prosecutors allege he acted as a henchman for the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, which Washington designated a “foreign terrorist organisation” earlier this year.

Chavez Jr’s lawyer and family have rejected the accusations.

Mexico’s national registry showed that the boxer was arrested at a checkpoint in the Mexican border city of Nogales at 11:53am (18:53 GMT) and transferred to a federal institution in Sonora’s capital of Hermosillo. Chavez Jr was wearing a black hoodie and red sneakers, it said.

Chavez Jr won the World Boxing Council middleweight championship in 2011, but lost the title the following year.

His career has been overshadowed by controversies, including a suspension after testing positive for a banned substance in 2009, and a fine and suspension after testing positive for cannabis in 2013.

The number of political prisoners in Venezuela reached its highest point following protests against Nicolas Maduro’s controversial re-election in July 2024. Alfredo Romero, a lawyer and the executive director of Foro Penal, brings hope to detainees and their families by providing pro bono legal and humanitarian assistance.

Prisoners face charges such as incitement to hatred, terrorism, and conspiracy. They’re often denied communication and access to legal defence. With a rebellious spirit rooted in his youth as a punk rocker and driven by a desire for social change, Alfredo must reinvent the ways in which Foro Penal works to free those unjustly imprisoned.

Venezuela’s Fight for Justice is a documentary film by Luis Del Valle.

Early results showed centrist Rodrigo Paz take the lead, with 32.8 percent of the vote, in surprise outcome.

Bolivia is heading to a presidential run-off between a centrist and right-wing candidate, confirming the end of two decades of government by the Movement for Socialism (MAS), according to the South American country’s electoral council.

With more than 91 percent of the ballots counted on Sunday night, preliminary results showed centrist Rodrigo Paz of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) in the lead, with 32.8 percent of the vote.

Conservative former interim President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, of the Alianza Libre coalition, was in second place, with 26.4 percent of the vote, meaning he will face Paz, the son of former left-leaning President Jaime Paz, in a run-off election on October 19.

Candidates needed to surpass 50 percent, or 40 percent with a 10-point margin of victory, to avoid a run-off.

Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor Lucia Newman, reporting from Bolivia’s Santa Cruz de la Sierra, said the early results confirmed that MAS, which has governed the country since 2005, is “out of the picture”.

But the “biggest surprise”, Newman said, is “that the frontrunner is none other than somebody who was polling between fourth and fifth place up until now”.

Paz is “more to the centre” than his father, Newman added.

Eight presidential candidates were in the running in Sunday’s presidential election – from the far-right to the political left.

Pre-election polls had shown Samuel Doria Medina, a wealthy businessman and former planning minister, as one of two frontrunners alongside Quiroga, who served as interim president and vice president under former military leader President Hugo Banzer.

Former leftist President Evo Morales was barred from running, and the outgoing socialist President Luis Arce, who had fallen out with Morales, opted out of the race.

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

Official results are due within seven days. Voters will also elect all 26 senators and 130 deputies, and officials assume office on November 8.

Spiralling inflation

The Andean country has been struggling through its worst economic crisis in a generation, marked by annual inflation of almost 25 percent and critical shortages of US dollars and fuel.

Bolivians repeatedly took to the streets to protest rocketing prices and hours-long waits for fuel, bread and other basics in the lead-up to Sunday’s election.

Bolivia 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 a lack of new gas projects under Morales, who was outspoken on environmental issues and climate change, has seen gas revenues plummet from a peak of $6.1bn in 2013 to $1.6bn last year.

With the country’s other major resource, lithium, still underground, the government has nearly run out of the foreign exchange needed to import fuel, wheat and other foodstuffs.

People in Bolivia are headed to the polls to elect the next president as well as the members of the Congress, with the governing socialists expected to lose power after almost 20 years due to a deep economic crisis and division within the leftist coalition.

Ballot stations opened on Sunday at 8am (12:00 GMT) and will close at 4pm (20:00 GMT), with initial results expected after 9pm (01:00 GMT on Monday).

The election is also the first time in almost two decades that polling indicates Bolivia’s incumbent Movement for Socialism, or MAS, could face defeat. MAS-affiliated and other left-leaning candidates trail the right-wing opposition by about 10 percent, according to the latest August Ipsos MORI survey.

Eight presidential candidates are in the running – from the far-right to the political left. But two candidates appear to have a comfortable lead: Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, who served as interim president and vice president under former military ruler Hugo Banzer, and Samuel Doria Mediana, a wealthy businessman and former planning minister.

Medina, 66, and Quiroga, 65, are neck-and-neck, according to the polling survey.

Former leftist President Evo Morales has been barred from running, and the outgoing socialist President Luis Arce, who had fallen out with Morales, opted out of the race.

Divided left

Eduardo del Castillo, who is backed by outgoing President Arce, is the official MAS party candidate. Andronico Rodriguez, who has distanced himself from the MAS party, is running as an independent.

Morales, Bolivia’s undisputed left-wing leader for the last 15 years, is holed up in his tropical stronghold, where he still leads the coca growers union. He has asked his followers to cast invalid votes.

“Brothers, we are on the right track. Absenteeism, blank ballots, undecided voters, all of it,” Morales told Radio Kawsachun Coca, his media outlet in the Bolivian jungle of Chapare, where he has been holed up for months among fiercely loyal coca-growing labour unions.

If Morales leaves his tropical stronghold, he risks arrest on charges related to statutory rape. He denies the allegations.

Official results are due within seven days. Voters will also elect all 26 senators and 130 deputies, and officials assume office on November 8.

A run-off will take place on October 19 if no candidate wins an outright majority.

‘Worst crisis in a generation’

The Andean country is struggling through its worst crisis in a generation, marked by annual inflation of almost 25 percent and critical shortages of dollars and fuel.

The two frontrunners have pledged significant changes to Bolivia’s big-state economic model if elected.

Doria Medina, a millionaire former planning minister, made a fortune in cement before going on to build Bolivia’s biggest skyscraper and acquire the local Burger King franchise.

Seen as a centrist, he has promised to halt inflation and bring back fuel and dollars within 100 days, without cutting anti-poverty programs.

“We will change everything, absolutely everything after 20 lost years,” said the tough-talking Quiroga, who trained as an engineer in the United States, during his closing rally in La Paz on Wednesday.

Bolivia 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 underinvestment in exploration has caused gas revenues to implode, falling from a peak of $6.1bn in 2013 to $1.6bn last year.

With the country’s other major resource, lithium, still underground, the government has nearly run out of the foreign exchange needed to import fuel, wheat and other foodstuffs.

Bolivians have repeatedly taken to the streets to protest rocketing prices and hours-long waits for fuel, bread and other basics.

Supreme Court will rule on ex-president’s fate in case dividing nation that could result in lengthy prison term.

Brazil’s Supreme Court says it will hand down a verdict and sentence in former President Jair Bolsonaro’s coup trial early next month, in a case that has polarised the country and drawn in the ex-leader’s ally, United States President Donald Trump.

The court announced on Friday that the five-justice panel overseeing the proceedings will deliver decisions on the five charges between September 2 and 12. A coup conviction carries a sentence of up to 12 years.

Bolsonaro, under house arrest since August 4, is accused of orchestrating a plot to cling to power after losing the 2022 presidential election to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He denies the allegations.

Prosecutors allege Bolsonaro led a criminal organisation that sought to overturn the election results.

The case includes accusations that the plot involved plans to kill Lula and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is presiding over the trial. They have presented messages, handwritten notes and other material they say document the conspiracy.

Defence lawyers counter that no coup attempt was carried out and that Bolsonaro allowed the presidential handover to take place, undermining claims he tried to block it.

The five charges against Bolsonaro include attempting a coup, participation in an armed criminal organisation, attempted violent abolition of the democratic order, and two counts linked to destruction of state property.

Two separate five-justice panels operate within Brazil’s top court. Justice de Moraes, a frequent target of Bolsonaro’s supporters, sits on the panel hearing the case. Although Bolsonaro appointed two justices during his 2019–2022 presidency, both serve on the other panel.

Separately, right-wing Brazilian lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro said on Friday that he met with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent this week as part of his campaign to secure sanctions against officials linked to the trial of his father, Bolsonaro.

In a post on X, Bolsonaro said the meeting took place on Wednesday, the same day Bessent had been expected to hold talks with Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad.

Haddad told journalists earlier in the week that the US Treasury cancelled his meeting without offering a new date.

The younger Bolsonaro has been vocal in defending his father and calling for sanctions on his own country following his father’s alleged coup attempt.

The Supreme Court headquarters in Brasilia was one of the targets of a rioting mob of supporters known as “Bolsonaristas”, who raided government buildings in January 2023 as they urged the military to depose Lula, an insurrection attempt that evoked Trump supporters on January 6, 2021.

The rioting also prompted comparisons to Brazil’s 1964 military coup, a dark era that Bolsonaro has openly praised.

The trial has captivated Brazil’s divided public. Tensions deepened when Trump linked a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian imports to his ally’s legal battle, calling the proceedings a “witch hunt” and describing Bolsonaro as an “honest man” facing “political execution”.

The Trump administration has also sanctioned Justice de Moraes and imposed further trade restrictions on Brazil, a move widely criticised in the country as an assault on national sovereignty.

A recent Datafolha poll found more than half of Brazilians support the decision to place Bolsonaro under house arrest, while 53 percent reject the idea that he is being politically persecuted.

The operation, on paper, appeared to be a typical government crackdown on drug traffickers.

In late 2024, more than two dozen masked officers descended on an alleged narcotics lab on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where they found materials for processing cocaine and automatic weapons.

There was only one problem: The evidence, including the firearms and cocaine, seems to have disappeared from the public record.

That is according to a Honduran prosecutor specialising in cases of state corruption who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, for fear of professional reprisal.

The prosecutor believes there is a strong possibility the police may have kept the weapons and drugs to resell them on the black market.

Experts say questions of corruption and abuse have come to typify Honduras’s “state of exception”, an emergency declaration that has suspended certain constitutional rights while granting greater powers to the military and police.

Such measures are meant to be temporary. The state of exception was first declared in December 2022, in the name of fighting drug traffickers and gangs.

But it has been extended at least 17 times since, often without the explicit approval of Honduras’s Congress.

For human rights observers, the continued renewals have raised alarms over whether the state of exception is being used as a shield for law enforcement excesses.

In May, for instance, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) urged the Honduran government to “put an end” to the state of exception, citing systematic abuses at the hands of security forces.

“The implementation of the state of exception has led to serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and raids without judicial oversight,” the UN office wrote.

It added that Honduras’s National Commission for Human Rights (CONADEH) had arrived at similar conclusions.

Joaquin Mejia — an investigator with the Team for Reflection, Investigation and Communication, a Honduran human rights advocacy group — believes such abuses are a trend under the state of exception.

“The biggest negative effect is what the National Commission for Human Rights registered: that, from December 2022 to December 2024, 798 complaints at the national level over human rights abuses are attributed to state security forces,” Mejia said.

Heavy rains are forecast to start with the storm expected to become a major Category 3 storm over the weekend.

Hurricane Erin has formed in the Atlantic Ocean as it approaches the northeast Caribbean, as forecasters warn of possible flooding and landslides in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

The storm is expected to remain over open waters, although tropical storm watches were issued for Anguilla and Barbuda, St Martin and St Barts, Saba and St Eustatius and St Maarten.

Heavy rains were forecast to start late on Friday in Antigua and Barbuda, the US and British Virgin Islands, and southern and eastern Puerto Rico. Up to 10cm (four inches) are expected, with isolated totals of up to 15cm (six inches), according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Forecasters also warned of dangerous swells.

The storm was located about 835km (520 miles) east of the Northern Leeward Islands. It had maximum sustained winds of 110km/h (70mph) and was moving west-northwest at 28km/h (17mph).

Erin is forecast to become a major Category 3 storm late this weekend.

The hurricane centre noted that “there is still uncertainty about what impacts Erin may bring to portions of the Bahamas, the east coast of the United States, and Bermuda in the long range.”

Fifth named storm

Dangerous surf and rip currents are expected to affect the US East Coast next week, with waves reaching up to five metres (16.4 feet) along parts of the North Carolina coast that could cause beach erosion, according to Accuweather.

“Erin is forecast to explode into a powerful Category 4 hurricane as it moves across very warm waters in the open Atlantic. Water temperatures at the surface and hundreds of feet deep are several degrees higher than the historical average,” Alex DaSilva, Accuweather’s lead hurricane expert, was quoted by The Associated Press news agency.

Erin is the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

This year’s season is once again expected to be unusually busy and potentially perilous. The forecast calls for six to 10 hurricanes, with three to five reaching major status with winds of more than 177km/h (110mph).

Former president denies involvement in alleged effort to overturn his loss in the 2022 election.

Lawyers have submitted a final statement on behalf of Brazilian ex-President Jair Bolsonaro in a trial focused on his alleged role in a plot to stay in power despite losing the 2022 election.

In a statement submitted on Wednesday evening, Bolsonaro’s legal representatives denied the charges against him and said that prosecutors had presented no convincing evidence.

“There is no way to convict Jair Bolsonaro based on the evidence presented in the case, which largely demonstrated that he ordered the transition … and assured his voters that the world would not end on December 31st,” the document states.

The right-wing former president faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted of attempting to mount a coup after losing a presidential election to left-wing rival and current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro, who raised alarm in the months leading up to the election by casting doubt on the voting process, has denied involvement in the plot, which allegedly included plans for Lula’s assassination.

The former leader’s legal representatives say the fact that he authorised the transition contradicts the coup allegations.

“This is evidence that eliminates the most essential of the accusatory premises,” they said.

Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet submitted final arguments in July, citing handwritten notes, digital files, message exchanges, and spreadsheets that he said show details of a conspiracy to suppress democracy.

Following Bolsonaro’s election loss, crowds of his supporters gathered outside of military bases, calling on the armed forces to intervene and prevent Lula from taking office. A group of Bolsonaro’s supporters also stormed federal buildings in the capital of Brasilia on January 8, 2023. Some drew parallels to a military coup in the 1960s that marked the beginning of a decades-long period of dictatorship, for which Bolsonaro himself has long expressed fondness.

Bolsonaro and his allies, including United States President Donald Trump, have depicted the trial as a politically motivated “witch hunt”.

A recent survey conducted by Datafolha, a Brazilian polling institute, found that more than 50 percent of Brazilians agree with the court’s decision to place Bolsonaro under house arrest in August. The survey also found that a majority believe that Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a frequent target of right-wing ire and central figure in the trial, is following the law.

Respondents also largely disagreed with the claim that Bolsonaro was being persecuted for political reasons, with 39 percent in agreement and 53 percent in disagreement.

Speaking from the White House on Thursday, Trump said Bolsonaro was an “honest man” and the victim of an attempted “political execution”.

The Trump administration has mounted a pressure campaign to push the court to drop Bolsonaro’s case, sanctioning De Moraes and announcing severe sanctions on Brazilian exports to the US. That move has met anger in Brazil and been depicted as an attack on Brazilian sovereignty.

Negotiations to secure a global treaty to combat plastic pollution were in limbo as talks entered their final day after dozens of countries rejected the latest draft text.

With time running out to seal a deal among the 184 countries gathered at the United Nations in Geneva, the talks’ chair, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, produced a draft text based on the few areas of convergence, in an attempt to find common ground.

But the draft succeeded only in infuriating virtually all corners, and the text was immediately shredded as one country after another ripped it to bits.

For the self-styled ambitious countries, it was an empty document shorn of bold action like curbing production and phasing out toxic ingredients, and reduced to a waste management accord.

And for the so-called Like-Minded Group, with Gulf states leading the charge, it crossed too many of their red lines and did not do enough to narrow the scope of what they might be signing up for.

The talks towards a legally binding instrument on tackling plastic pollution opened on August 5 and were scheduled to close on Thursday, the latest attempt after five previous rounds of talks over the past two and a half years which failed to seal an agreement.

Valdivieso’s draft text does not limit plastic production or address chemicals used in plastic products, which have been contentious issues at the talks.

About 100 countries want to limit production as well as tackle cleanup and recycling. Many have said it’s essential to address toxic chemicals. Oil-producing countries only want to eliminate plastic waste.

The larger bloc of countries seeking more ambitious actions blasted what they consider a dearth of legally binding action. But oil-producing states said the text went too far for their liking.

Lowered ambition or ambition for all?

Panama said the goal was to end plastic pollution, not simply to reach an agreement.

“It is not ambition: it is surrender,” their negotiator said.

The European Union said the proposal was “not acceptable” and lacked “clear, robust and actionable measures”, while Kenya said there were “no global binding obligations on anything”.

Tuvalu, speaking for 14 Pacific island developing states, said the draft risked producing a treaty “that fails to protect our people, culture and ecosystem from the existential threat of plastic pollution”.

Britain called it a text that drives countries “towards the lowest common denominator”, and Norway said it was “not delivering on our promise … to end plastic pollution”.

Bangladesh said the draft “fundamentally fails” to reflect the “urgency of the crisis”, saying that it did not address the full life cycle of plastic items, nor their toxic chemical ingredients and their health impacts.

Oil-producing states, which call themselves the Like-Minded Group – and include Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran – want the treaty to focus primarily on waste management.

Kuwait, speaking for the group, said the text had “gone beyond our red lines”, adding that “without consensus, there is no treaty worth signing”.

“This is not about lowering ambition: it’s about making ambition possible for all,” it said.

Saudi Arabia said there were “many red lines crossed for the Arab Group” and reiterated calls for the scope of the treaty to be defined “once and for all”.

The United Arab Emirates said the draft “goes beyond the mandate” for the talks, while Qatar said that without a clear definition of scope, “we don’t understand what obligations we are entering into”.

India, while backing Kuwait, saw the draft as “a good enough starting point ” to go forward on finalising the text.

The draft could now change significantly and a new version is expected on Thursday, the last scheduled day of the negotiations.

With ministers in Geneva for the final day of negotiations, environmental NGOs following the talks urged them to grasp the moment.

The World Wide Fund for Nature said the remaining hours would be “critical in turning this around”.

“The implications of a watered-down, compromised text on people and nature around the world is immense,” and failure on Thursday “means more damage, more harm, more suffering”, it said.

Greenpeace delegation chief Graham Forbes called on ministers to “uphold the ambition they have promised” and address “the root cause: the relentless expansion of plastic production”.

The Center for International Environmental Law’s delegation chief David Azoulay said the draft was a “mockery”, and as for eventually getting to a deal, he said: “It will be very difficult to come back from this.”

More than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year, half of which is for single-use items.

Nearly half, or 46 percent, ends up in landfills, while 17 percent is incinerated and 22 percent is mismanaged and becomes rubbish.

The United States has announced it is revoking the visas of Brazilian, African and Caribbean officials over their ties to Cuba’s programme that sends doctors abroad, which Washington has described as “forced labour”.

The US named two Brazilian Ministry of Health officials, Mozart Julio Tabosa Sales and Alberto Kleiman, who have had their visas revoked for working on Brazil’s Mais Medicos, or “More Doctors” programme, which was created in 2013.

In a statement on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said sanctions were imposed on officials “involved in abetting the Cuban regime’s coercive labour export scheme”, which he claimed “enriches the corrupt Cuban regime and deprives the Cuban people of essential medical care”.

“The Department of State took steps to revoke visas and impose visa restrictions on several Brazilian government officials, former Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) officials, and their family members for their complicity with the Cuban regime’s labour export scheme in the Mais Medicos programme,” Rubio said.

In an earlier statement, Rubio also announced visa restrictions for African officials, without specifying the countries involved, as well as the Caribbean country Grenada, for the same reasons.

The Cuban government has called Washington’s efforts to stop its medical missions a cynical excuse to go after its foreign currency earnings.

Cuba’s deputy director of US affairs, Johana Tablada, said its “medical cooperation will continue”.

“[Rubio’s] priorities speak volumes: financing Israel genocide on Palestine, torturing Cuba, going after health care services for those who need them most,” Tablada wrote on X.

Cuba’s international missions are sold to third countries and serve as a main source of foreign currency for the economically isolated nation, which has been subject to decades-long crippling sanctions by the US.

Havana’s international medical outreach goes back to the years following the 1959 Cuban Revolution, as Fidel Castro’s communist government provided a free or low-cost medical programme to developing nations as an act of international solidarity.

It is estimated that Havana has sent between 135,000 and 400,000 Cuban doctors abroad in total over the past five decades.

Brazilian Minister of Health Alexandre Padilha said his government would not bow to what he called “unreasonable attacks” on Mais Medicos.

Cuba’s contract in the programme was terminated in 2018 after then-President-elect Jair Bolsonaro questioned the terms of the agreement and Cuban doctors’ qualifications.

Washington is already engaged in a heated diplomatic row with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government after imposing sanctions on Brazilian officials involved in Bolsonaro’s ongoing trial over his alleged coup plot in 2022.

Cuba’s healthcare system is public and meant to be universally accessible. But decades of sanctions and a downturn in tourism due to Trump’s travel ban mean the one-party state is no longer medically self-sufficient.

Since returning to the White House, the Trump administration has resumed its “maximum pressure” campaign against Cuba that typified his first term.

Last year, the island nation of 9.7 million people could not afford the $300m needed to import raw materials to produce hundreds of critical medicines.

In July, Trump imposed sanctions against Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Alvaro Lopez Miera, and Minister of the Interior Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas for their “role in the Cuban regime’s brutality toward the Cuban people”.

Earlier, the Trump administration also signalled its intention to tighten visa restrictions on Cuban and foreign officials linked to Havana’s medical missions around the globe.

Rubio described the medical programme as one where “medical professionals are ‘rented’ by other countries at high prices”, but “most of the revenue is kept by the Cuban authorities”.

In 1999, after Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, Cuba sent medical staff and educators to the country. In return, Cuba bought Venezuelan oil at below-market prices, developing the idea of Havana exporting medical professionals as a source of revenue.

Some 30,000 Cuban medical workers were sent to Venezuela in the first 10 years of the “Oil for Doctors” programme.

Cuba later received hard currency to set up permanent medical missions in countries including South Africa, Brazil, Ecuador and Qatar.

Martin Vizcarra will become the fifth Peruvian ex-president jailed in recent years amid period of political turbulence.

A judge in the South American nation of Peru has ordered the country’s ex-president, Martin Vizcarra, to be held in pre-trial detention over bribery allegations.

In a hearing on Wednesday, Judge Jorge Chavez ordered Vizcarra jailed for five months, saying he is a flight risk. He stands accused of accepting bribes during his tenure as governor of the Moquegua region 11 years ago.

Vizcarra is the fifth ex-president to be detained in Peru, which has been rocked by numerous scandals and political crises over the last several years. Peru has had six presidents since 2018.

For his part, Vizcarra has denied the charges against him, stating that they are a form of political persecution. He had planned to run for president again in 2026.

A judge had turned down a previous request to detain him in June, but the public ministry insisted that he was a flight risk and appealed the decision. His lawyers have said that he will seek to appeal his detention.

Three other ex-presidents, Alejandro Toledo, Ollanta Humala and Pedro Castillo, are currently being held in a special facility built for former leaders of the country in a police base in the capital of Lima.

Vizcarra, who was investigated and removed from office by Congress in 2020, will likely join them there. Critics have accused Peru’s Congress of launching scurrilous impeachment efforts against political rivals, using vague charges such as “moral incapacity”.

The facility first housed former President Alberto Fujimori, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2009 for human rights abuses committed during his period of dictatorial rule. He was controversially pardoned in 2023, in defiance of an order from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and died of cancer the following year.

President Dina Boluarte, who came into office after former President Castillo was imprisoned after trying to dissolve Congress, signed a law earlier today offering amnesty to government security officials and aligned groups who committed rights abuses during the decades-long campaign against the Shining Path armed group.

Rights groups condemned the amnesty bill as a form of impunity for serious abuses.

Possible ways to mitigate the risk include armouring the coastline and building breakwaters to relocating the monuments.

The Journal of Cultural Heritage has published a new study indicating that rising sea levels could push powerful seasonal waves into Easter Island’s 15 iconic moai statues, in the latest potential peril to cultural heritage from climate change.

“Sea level rise is real,” said Noah Paoa, lead author of the study published on Wednesday and a doctoral student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. “It’s not a distant threat.”

About 50 other cultural sites in the area are also at risk from flooding.

Paoa, who is from Easter Island – a Chilean territory and volcanic island in Polynesia known to its Indigenous people as Rapa Nui – and his colleagues built a high-resolution “digital twin” of the island’s eastern coastline and ran computer models to simulate future wave impacts under various sea level rise scenarios. They then overlaid the results with maps of cultural sites to pinpoint which places could be inundated in the coming decades.

The findings show waves could reach Ahu Tongariki, the largest ceremonial platform on the island, as early as 2080. The site, home to the 15 towering moai, draws tens of thousands of visitors each year and is a cornerstone of the island’s tourism economy.

Beyond its economic value, the ahu is deeply woven into Rapa Nui’s cultural identity. It lies within Rapa Nui National Park, which encompasses much of the island and is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The roughly 900 moai statues across the island were built by the Rapa Nui people between the 10th and 16th centuries to honour important ancestors and chiefs.

The threat isn’t unprecedented. In 1960, the largest earthquake ever recorded – a magnitude 9.5 off the coast of Chile – sent a tsunami surging across the Pacific. It struck Rapa Nui and swept the already-toppled moai further inland, which damaged some of their features. The monument was restored in the 1990s.

While the study focuses on Rapa Nui, its conclusions echo a wider reality: Cultural heritage sites worldwide are increasingly endangered by rising seas. A UNESCO report published last month found that about 50 World Heritage sites are highly exposed to coastal flooding.

A UNESCO spokesperson told The Associated Press news agency that climate change is the biggest threat to UNESCO’s World Heritage marine sites. “In the Mediterranean and Africa, nearly three-quarters of coastal low-lying sites are now exposed to erosion and flooding due to accelerated sea level rise.”

Possible defences for Ahu Tongariki range from armouring the coastline and building breakwaters to relocating the monuments.

Paoa hopes that the findings will bring these conversations about now, rather than after irreversible damage. “It’s best to look ahead and be proactive instead of reactive to the potential threats.”

The plan, called ‘Sovereign Brazil’, will include credit for businesses that rely on exports.

The Brazilian government has unveiled a plan to support local exporters impacted by the 50 percent tariff imposed by the United States.

Officials announced what has been dubbed “Sovereign Brazil”, a credit lifeline of 30 billion reais ($5.5bn) on Wednesday.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva described the plan, which includes a bill to be sent to Congress, as a first step to help local exporters.

Congressional leaders attended Wednesday’s ceremony, a first in months, in a sign of growing political support for the leftist leader in response to US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Other measures announced by the Brazilian government include postponing tax charges for companies affected by US tariffs, providing 5 billion reais ($926,000) in tax credits to small and medium-sized companies until the end of 2026 and expanding access to insurance against cancelled orders. The plan also incentivises public purchases of items that could not be exported to the US.

The measures take effect immediately, but will only stay in place for four months unless Congressional leaders act.

“We cannot be scared, nervous and anxious when there is a crisis. A crisis is for us to create new things,” President Lula said. “In this case, what is unpleasant is that the reasons given to impose sanctions against Brazil do not exist.”

The tariffs have drastically weighed on sectors across the South American nation, including the beef industry. In July, when Trump first announced the plan, Robert Perosa, president of industry trade group Brazilian Beef Exporters Associations (ABIEC), said that the tariffs would make it  “economically unfeasible” to continue to export to the US market.

Trump has directly tied the 50 percent tariff on many imported Brazilian goods to the judicial situation of his embattled ally, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently under house arrest.

In late July, the White House said that the order to impose this rate of tariffs is because of “the Government of Brazil’s politically motivated persecution, intimidation, harassment, censorship, and prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and thousands of his supporters are serious human rights abuses that have undermined the rule of law in Brazil”.

The former Brazilian leader is accused of trying to facilitate a coup after losing the election in 2022.

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte has signed into law a controversial piece of legislation that would shield the military, police and other government-sanctioned forces from prosecution for human rights abuses committed during the country’s decades-long internal conflict.

On Wednesday, Boluarte held a signing ceremony at the presidential palace in Lima, where she defended the amnesty law as a means of honouring the sacrifices made by government forces.

“This is a historic day for our country,” she said. “It brings justice and honour to those who stood up to terrorism.”

But human rights groups and international observers have condemned the bill as a violation of international law — not to mention a denial of justice for the thousands of survivors who lived through the conflict.

From 1980 to 2000, Peru experienced a bloody conflict that pitted government forces against left-wing rebel groups like the Shining Path.

Both sides, however, committed massacres, kidnappings and assaults on unarmed civilians, with the death toll from the conflict climbing as high as 70,000 people.

Up until present, survivors and family members of the deceased have continued to fight for accountability.

An estimated 600 investigations are currently under way, and 156 convictions have been achieved, according to the National Human Rights Coordinator, a coalition of Peruvian human rights organisations.

Critics fear those ongoing probes could be scuttled under the wide-ranging protections offered by the new amnesty law, which stands to benefit soldiers, police officers and members of self-defence committees who face legal proceedings for which no final verdict has been rendered.

The legislation also offers “humanitarian” amnesty for those convicted over the age of 70.

Peru, however, falls under the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which ordered the country’s government to “immediately suspend the processing” of the law on July 24.

The court ruled against past amnesty laws in Peru. In cases of severe human rights violations, it ruled that there can be no sweeping amnesty nor age limits for prosecution.

In 1995, for instance, Peru passed a separate amnesty law that would have prevented the prosecution of security forces for human rights abuses between 1980 and that year. But it was greeted with widespread condemnation, including from United Nations experts, and it was eventually repealed.

In the case of the current amnesty law, nine UN experts issued a joint letter in July condemning its passage as a “clear breach of [Peru’s] obligations under international law”.

But at Wednesday’s signing ceremony, President Boluarte reiterated her position that such international criticism was a violation of her country’s sovereignty and that she would not adhere to the Inter-American Court’s decision.

“Peru is honouring its defenders and firmly rejecting any internal or external interference,” Boluarte said.

“We cannot allow history to be distorted, for perpetrators to pretend to be victims, and for the true defenders of the homeland to be branded as enemies of the nation they swore to protect.”

Peru’s armed forces, however, have been implicated in a wide range of human rights abuses. Just last year, 10 soldiers were convicted of carrying out the systematic rape of Indigenous and rural women and girls.

Drawing from Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, the human rights group Amnesty International estimates that the country’s armed forces and police were responsible for 37 percent of the deaths and disappearances that happened during the conflict.

They were also credited with carrying out 75 percent of the reported instances of torture and 83 percent of sexual violence cases.

Francisco Ochoa, a victims’ advocate, spoke to Al Jazeera last month about his experiences surviving the 1985 Accomarca massacre as a 14-year-old teenager.

He had been in the corn fields preparing to sow seeds when soldiers arrived and rounded up the residents of his small Andean village.

Despite having no evidence linking the villagers to rebel groups, the soldiers locked many of them in their huts, fired into the structures and set them ablaze.

As many as 62 people were killed, including Ochoa’s mother, eight-year-old brother and six-year-old sister.

“The first thing I remember from that day is the smell when we arrived,” Ochoa, now 54, told journalist Claudia Rebaza. “It smelled like smouldering flesh, and there was no one around.”

When asked how he and other survivors felt about the amnesty law, Ochoa responded, “Outraged and betrayed”.

We say we care about privacy, but this episode examines whether our actions reflect that.

In The Privacy Paradox, we unravel the disconnect between our stated values and our digital behaviour.

From mindless clicks to routine app permissions, this episode exposes how everyday online habits feed a vast, invisible data economy, often without our knowledge or consent.

The extradition agreement comes as Mexico continues to cooperate with the Trump administration despite its tariff threats.

Mexico has expelled 26 alleged high-ranking cartel members to the United States, in its latest deal with the administration of President Donald Trump.

The transfer was confirmed by a joint statement from the Mexican attorney general’s office and its security ministry on Tuesday.

The statement said that the US Justice Department had sought the extradition and that it had given guarantees that the death penalty would not be levied against any of those prosecuted.

The transfer comes as the Trump administration continues to exert pressure on Mexico to take more action against criminal gangs involved in drug smuggling and human trafficking.

Part of that pressure campaign has come in the form of tariffs, with certain Mexican exports to the US now taxed at a higher rate.

Trump has described the import tax as necessary to hold Mexico “accountable” for the “extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs”.

In response, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has struck a careful balance when dealing with Trump, cooperating on some security issues, while drawing clear lines when it comes to her country’s sovereignty. That has included vehemently opposing any US military intervention on Mexican soil.

Still, US media reported last week that Trump has secretly signed an order directing the military to take action against drug-smuggling cartels and other criminal groups from Latin America, which could presage the deployment of US forces both domestically and abroad.

The move on Tuesday was the second time in recent months that Mexico has expelled alleged criminal gang members wanted by the US.

In February, Mexico extradited 29 alleged cartel figures, including Rafael Caro Quintero, who is accused of killing a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent in 1985.

That deal came as Trump threatened to impose blanket 25-percent tariffs on Mexican imports, but the scope of that tariff threat was later pared down.

Currently, the US imposes a 25-percent tariff on Mexican-made cars and products not covered under a pre-existing free trade accord, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Mexico also faces a 50-percent tax on its steel, aluminium and copper products.

But at the end of July, Trump agreed to extend a tariff exemption for goods that fall under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement for 90 days.

The Associated Press news agency reported that Abigael González Valencia, the leader of “Los Cuinis”, a drug-trafficking group closely aligned with the notorious Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG), was among those expelled to the US in the latest deal.

The Trump administration took the unorthodox move of designating the CJNG and seven other Latin American crime groups as “foreign terrorist organisations” upon taking office.

Valencia is the brother-in-law of CJNG leader Nemesio Ruben “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, who is considered one of the most wanted people in Mexico and the US.

Valencia was arrested in February 2015 in Mexico and had since been fighting extradition to the US.

Another individual, Roberto Salazar, stands accused of participating in the 2008 killing of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, a source told the news agency.