central

DAKAR, Senegal — In Miami, Daniela Fuentes styled hair for clients and performed in drag at a nightclub called Azúcar. She wore her blond wig in public and dressed as the woman she had known herself to be since adolescence in Cuba.

Now, more than 6,000 miles away in the Central African Republic, she wears men’s clothes, lowers her voice and tries not to draw attention to the breasts she developed after beginning hormone treatment as a teenager. As part of U.S. efforts to deport people to countries other than their own, authorities sent her Aug. 29 to a place where she has no ties and where advocacy groups have reported arbitrary detention, torture, and other rights violations of sexual and gender minorities.

“Everything is difficult here because I have to hide who I am,” said Fuentes, a 32-year-old transgender woman living on a compound she rarely leaves, sharing a room with four Cuban men also deported from the U.S. “I don’t know this place, the people or the language, and I have no idea what will happen to me.”

The Central African Republic — one of the world’s poorest countries, a place with a history of conflict that the U.S. State Department advises American travelers to avoid — is one of at least 12 African nations that signed agreements to accept “third-country” deportations, a policy the U.S. Supreme Court last month allowed to continue, at least temporarily.

In the Central African Republic — where transgender people have little to no legal protections and are marginalized in much of society — Fuentes dons her wig only in the privacy of her bathroom. She described disguising herself as protection, first in U.S. detention and now in a country she first heard of when she was already headed there on a deportation flight.

“My whole life, my whole identity, was taken away from me,” Fuentes said.

Public records say a judge ordered Fuentes to leave the U.S. but offer no other information. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not reply to emailed questions.

Tens of thousands of people have been deported to “third countries”

Fuentes’ compound in the capital, Bangui, is an apartment complex where the government houses male deportees.

Fuentes said she can leave but that officials have advised her and others to avoid it — they have no identification, which could lead to issues with the police. It also means they can’t work, she said, and she’s waiting on travel documents that would allow her to leave the country. The International Organization for Migration, an agency associated with the United Nations, has provided food, and the migrants say they’ve crowdsourced for donations to buy groceries.

The U.S. — via agreements often not made public — has deported about 25,000 people to more than two dozen countries that aren’t their own, the vast majority to Mexico, according to a tally by Third Country Deportation Watch, a partnership of Refugees International and Human Rights First. The U.S. has not released numbers or details.

From January 2025 to August 2026, more than 500 were sent to countries in Africa, according to a Human Rights Watch report published Thursday — including at least 12 people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and were deported to places that criminalize same-sex relations or public same-sex romantic conduct. Some advocates say the number is likely higher.

“These are not bureaucratic errors or isolated incidents,” said Bridget Crawford, of the group Immigration Equality. “They are the predictable result of policies that purposefully abandon our legal and moral obligation to protect LGBTQ+ immigrants fleeing persecution.”

The U.S. government says the policy is lawful and that receiving governments provide assurances deportees won’t be persecuted or tortured.

Daniela Fuentes says ICE detained her with men before deportation

Fuentes grew up in La Lisa, on Havana’s outskirts, and said she understood from childhood that she was different. She began living as a woman in adolescence and started taking hormones at 18.

She ran a salon from her home, coloring and cutting hair. She said she was harassed because of her gender identity and attacked at least twice, leaving scars on her arm and head. Police also questioned her about operating a private business, she said — though housefront businesses are common in the area.

In 2023, Fuentes sold her home and left amid a deepening economic crisis and a crackdown on dissent — even as Cuba, one of Latin America’s most progressive countries for LGBTQ+ rights, adopted new inclusion laws. Making her way to the U.S., she said, she presented as a man traveling through Central America; she believed it was safer.

After seven months in Mexico, she said, she entered the U.S. through Texas via CBP One, a President Joe Biden-era online appointment system that allowed migrants to live in the country for two years on humanitarian grounds. Then she went to Miami.

There, she began living openly as a woman again. She found work styling hair and performed at Azúcar. Though she lacked permanent legal status, Fuentes said Miami offered something she’d rarely experienced: the freedom to move through daily life as herself.

That ended when officers encountered her outside a motel. Fuentes said they learned she had missed an immigration court hearing in Texas. She said she asked that the case be moved to Florida but received no response.

Fuentes said she was taken into custody and later placed in immigration detention with men. Officials confiscated her wig and gave her a male detainee’s uniform, she said.

Such treatment is in line with a January 2025 executive order directing officials to exclude transgender women from women’s prisons and detention centers.

“When I learned that they were going to put me with men, I almost fainted,” Fuentes said.

Deportees said they boarded a flight without knowing the destination

Fuentes was held at two detention facilities in Florida, then transferred to Texas. When armed officers arrived there, she said, she suspected she was facing deportation, but they didn’t reveal she was being sent to Africa until about five hours into the flight.

Other deportees on the flight told AP they also weren’t told the destination until they were on the plane. Dozens have been sent to the Central African Republic, including an Iranian woman facing persecution in her home country and an Afghan whose brothers worked with the U.S. military.

Fuentes said she does not understand why she was sent to Africa rather than Cuba. She told AP she has no lawyer.

The U.S. does repatriate Cuban citizens, as part of agreements to resume deportation flights in 2023, despite tensions in relations between the countries. Charter flights have arrived in Havana regularly.

Yasmany Moreno, another Cuban deportee in Bangui, said that upon arriving, the group had no visas or documents establishing their legal status in the country. Officials spoke of providing assistance for 90 days, he said, but the deportees didn’t know what would happen afterward or where they would live.

Several told AP their longer-term status remained unclear and that U.S. authorities had taken their identity documents.

A policy officer at the Central African Republic’s Foreign Ministry said the deportees are in “good hands” and are being monitored by the International Organization for Migration. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The U.S. this year committed to $85 million in funding to IOM for Central African Republic operations including “assistance to migrants” and “community stabilization.”

IOM says migrants can seek asylum in the country, request assistance to return home or get help traveling to another place they’re authorized to enter. It referred questions about the deportees’ status and individual cases such as Fuentes’ to Central African Republic officials. A government spokesperson didn’t reply to phone calls and text messages seeking comment.

Human Rights Watch’s report says some people deported to third countries face detention, abuse and the prospect of persecution. Eswatini has held deportees in a maximum-security prison without charges. Equatorial Guinea has held them against their will at a hotel owned by the president’s family.

“Several of these African governments are not only complicit in U.S. abuses but have violated the human rights of these deported people themselves,” Michael Garcia Bochenek, of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Fuentes and other deportees say they can’t work, with most days spent at the compound

Fuentes said the Cuban men in her room know she is a woman and look out for her. She rarely feels safe enough to leave. Once, at a supermarket, workers pointed at her breasts and initially refused to sell her fruit, she said. Other people in Bangui have mocked her and pointed at her.

“My personal appearance is awful,” she said. “I look like a different human being.”

Moreno described restrictions on the group’s movements, saying officers accompanied them to the market and on occasional outings but restricted them from going out at night.

Fuentes and Moreno said they have no passports or other identification and cannot work. Most days, Fuentes remains at the compound, looking at her phone and waiting for travel documents.

She said Cuba has agreed to accept her return — a Cuban embassy document shows she is authorized.

But Fuentes said she hopes to seek asylum elsewhere, possibly Canada.

“The harassment and economic hardship that caused me to flee still remain,” she said.

Banchereau writes for the Associated Press. Jean Fernand Koena in Bangui, Central African Republic; Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis; and Cristiana Mesquita in Havana contributed to this report.

Countries in Central Asia have begun buying oil from Iran as the Russian fuel supplies they have long depended on run dry amid Ukraine’s mounting attacks on Russian energy infrastructure to degrade Moscow’s war effort.

In August, Tajikistan announced it was receiving oil and petroleum products from Iran as Dushanbe faces uncertainty over its fuel supply from Russia. Tehran also agreed to establish a joint refinery in Kyrgyzstan in August, and supply the country with crude oil.

Moscow has been facing fuel shortages due to Ukrainian drone strikes on its refineries as Russia’s war on its neighbour continues to rage.

Can the Russian fuel crisis give Iran a new oil opening in Central Asia?

Here’s what we know:

Which Central Asian countries have been affected by Russia’s fuel crisis?

Ukraine’s offensive against Russian energy infrastructure has caused panic across Central Asian countries like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which are dependent on Moscow for oil and petroleum products.

Tajikistan has traditionally sourced up to 80 percent of its petroleum products from Russia. Kyrgyzstan also relies on petroleum product imports, sourcing more than 90 percent of its petrol from Russia.

“They’ve been hurt the most,” Galiya Ibragimova, a Moldova-based expert on Central Asia with Carnegie Politika, which has its headquarters in Berlin, told Al Jazeera in an interview in August.

Kyrgyzstan is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, the free trade bloc of five former Soviet nations dominated by Russia and the Kremlin’s political decisions.

Tajikistan is not a member of the group, but it bought discounted Russian fuel as “payment for political loyalty, not because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is so kind”, Ibragimova added.

Kazakhstan, meanwhile, boasts three giant, Soviet-era oil refineries. Still, fuel prices in the country have increased by 15.6 percent this year, the UlusMedia website reported on July 10.

Uzbekistan, on the other hand, is less dependent on Russian energy, with domestic production capable of reaching 100,000 tonnes of petroleum products per month, satisfying most of the country’s needs. But due to the increase in oil demand from its regional neighbours, Uzbekistan has also been forced to diversify its imports and has begun striking deals with countries like Georgia and Iraq.

Why is there a fuel crisis in Russia?

Russia has been facing a severe fuel deficit as Kyiv’s drone strikes – launched in an effort to degrade Moscow’s ability to maintain its ongoing invasion of Ukraine – have knocked out an estimated quarter to half of its total oil refining capacity.

To tackle the problem, Russia has imposed fuel rationing. Sales are often limited to about 20-30 litres (about 5-8 US gallons) per vehicle, and drivers must pump fuel strictly into vehicle tanks. Filling jerry cans is largely prohibited.

Earlier, the government banned petrol and jet fuel exports. Officials are now weighing a ban on diesel exports, too. Authorities have loosened fuel-quality regulations, temporarily allowing lower-grade fuel for the domestic market.

A state of emergency has also been declared in Russian-occupied Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. A Russian-owned oil firm in India, Nayara Energy, has reportedly sold petroleum to Russia.

While Russian President Putin acknowledges the crisis, he appears reluctant to end the war on Ukraine and insists the situation is under control.

“These attacks on our facilities certainly create problems – that is obvious. We are currently seeing a certain shortage, though I would say it is not critical,” he said earlier this year.

“First and foremost, we have to rapidly and significantly increase production of air defence systems that are most in demand. We must also continue to improve them… Repairs at refineries must be completed more quickly.”

So, how is Iran helping Central Asia?

Amid Russian fuel shortages, Central Asian countries like Tajikistan have begun striking deals with Iran.

In August, Tajikistan’s Energy and Water Resources Ministry told the Asia-Plus news agency that the country is receiving oil and petroleum products from Iran. The ministry has not disclosed the route used to transport the products, but Tajikistan expects to receive 2.55 million tonnes of oil and petroleum products from Iran.

Besides Tajikistan, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian welcomed a proposal from Kyrgyzstan in August to establish a joint refinery in the Central Asian country, according to a report by Iran’s Tasnim news agency,

Under the agreement, Pezeshkian said, “The crude oil needed by the refinery can be supplied by Iran, and the products can be divided between the two sides.”

Will exporting oil to Central Asian countries help Iran?

The United States and Israel’s war on Iran has affected Tehran’s oil revenues. Data released by the government-administered Statistical Center of Iran in September showed that gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 10.1 percent year-on-year between March 21 and June 20, the first quarter of the Persian calendar.

Tehran’s ability to sell crude has also been dramatically curtailed by the US naval blockade of Iran’s ports, imposed for most of the war, which began in late February.

Iranian crude and condensate loadings collapsed from about two million barrels per day (bpd) in March to roughly 740,000bpd in July and just 220,000-255,000bpd in August, according to estimates from Kpler and Vortexa.

TankerTrackers.com told the Reuters news agency in September that 29 tankers, carrying 36.11 million barrels of crude, were trapped in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, Vortexa estimated that total Iranian crude afloat had fallen from 135 million barrels at the end of July to 107 million barrels by late August.

Amid these challenges, Iran has been scrambling to find new countries to trade oil with. Russian fuel shortages have opened up new opportunities for Iran in Central Asia, at least in the short term, according to analysts.

How does Iranian oil reach Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan?

Iran does not share a border with either country.

To get to Tajikistan, Iranian “oil and refined products have to cross Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan by rail”, said Frederic Schneider, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs.

To get to Kyrgyzstan, Iranian oil would also need to pass through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Is trading oil with Iran logistically sustainable for Central Asia?

It is unlikely, Schneider said.

“This opportunity [for Iran] depends on Ukraine continuing to hit Russian refineries, which seems unlikely, both given the waning of Ukraine’s strike capability and the US government’s demand to stop the attacks as they put too much strain on global oil markets,” he told Al Jazeera.

He noted that US President Donald Trump has pressed his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, repeatedly in September for an “energy truce” with Russia, since diesel prices have become a political problem for Trump ahead of the November midterm elections in the US.

“Those truces have so far collapsed within hours, but the direction is clear. Once the strikes stop, or once Russia repairs its plants, Russian fuel will come back to Central Asia duty-free under Eurasian Economic Union arrangements, and Iran will struggle to compete on price,” he said.

Logistics also favour Russia with respect to importing oil to countries like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, he said.

Unlike Iran, Russia shares a border with both.

“Tajikistan’s own request [for oil] would need around 51,000 rail tank cars, and its main refinery at Dangara has never operated commercially at scale. Russia, by contrast, has decades’ worth of logistics infrastructure, pipelines, rail links, and supply contracts into the region,” Schneider said.

Is Central Asia a big enough market to compensate for Iran’s Hormuz losses?

No, according to Schneider.

Tajikistan’s total demand, Schneider said, was about 50,000bpd.

That is a drop in the ocean compared with the 1.7 million bpd Iran exported by sea a year ago. China reported $9.96bn in two-way trade with Iran in 2025, a figure that does not include some $31.2bn in Iranian oil shipments, according to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

“This suggests that Central Asia can be a useful outlet for Iranian diesel and gasoline, but it cannot replace the Chinese market,” Schneider said.

For Tehran, Central Asia’s importance depends on how the US-Israel war on Iran develops, he said, adding that Tehran also needs to stay on good terms with Russia, with which it has a deep strategic partnership.

“Iran cannot afford to be seen as poaching Russian customers too aggressively, so it will present itself as a stopgap supplier, which, again, limits how much it can earn there,” he said.

What other risks does Central Asia face in buying Iranian oil?

Schneider warned that Central Asian nations could be hit with Washington’s secondary sanctions on Iran.

“Legally, US secondary sanctions apply to any foreign company or bank that conducts a significant transaction in Iranian petroleum, wherever it is based, and the Treasury expanded the list of sanctionable conduct in August. A Treasury official has already warned publicly that anyone in this trade ‘incurs that risk themselves’,” he noted.

But Schneider said that, politically, the US sanctioning Central Asian governments is unlikely.

“Central Asia is the arena of a new ‘Great Game’ between Russia, China and the United States, and Washington is courting the region harder than at any point since the 1990s, chiefly for its critical minerals. Kazakhstan alone holds about half of the minerals the US classifies as critical, including uranium and tungsten,” he said.

“Sanctioning a Central Asian government for buying fuel from Iran would push them straight back into closer ties to Russia and China,” he noted.

“What I would expect instead are targeted designations of individual traders, rail and logistics operators and smaller banks, combined with quiet pressure on the region’s correspondent banks. That alone is enough to raise the cost and slow the trade, but will come at the price of these countries redoubling their efforts to decouple economically and financially from the US.”

CENTRAL Cee has shared a cryptic response after buying Love Island’s Yasmin Hadlow a £7k Chanel handbag.

It was revealed on Tuesday that he splashed the cash on the designer purchase as he continues to woo her.

The Sun’s Bizarre revealed the news of Cench’s date with Yasmin at 77 London on Friday night and then told of a Harrods trip before.

Now the 28-year-old has taken to his Instagram stories to share a mysterious picture.

In the snap, his pals Ruby Lyn and Lily Chee are seen covering their faces with designer handbags as they sit in a luxury store.

The two girls are pictured surrounded by the different coloured bags as Cench played up to the rumours about him and Yasmin, 23.

CEE-ING STARS

Love Island’s Yasmin flaunts £7k Chanel bag bought by Central Cee on spend up

LOVE LANGUAGE

How Central Cee is pulling out all the stops to win over Love Island’s Yasmin

The pair enjoyed a cosy date on Friday night at 77 London.

Before their evening out, the musician treated the reality star to the Chanel bag as well as some designer heels.

A source said that the Doja htimaker – real name Oakley Caesar-Su, told Yasmin to “buy whatever she wanted”.

Central Cee first revealed his crush on Yasmin last month during an interview.

While speaking on 60 Seconds with Missy, he expressed: “I do have one, I’ve got one I’m sure. Yasmin from Love Island.”

When asked about Cee at the National Television Awards, Yasmin replied coyly: “No comment… Watch this space.” 

Fans were recently left confused about his equation with Yasmin after he was previously rumoured to be dating Ruby.

She even posted a video of him on her social media of him walking Burberry’s catwalk on Monday night.

However, those rumours have been debunked.

A source said: “Cench and Ruby are just friends. No one knows where this comes from. He’s very much single and free to date Yasmin.”

She split from Tommy Stagg just weeks after coming out of the villa.

The pair were at the centre of plenty of speculation after they weren’t spotted together and didn’t post each other on social media.

CENTRAL Cee and Yasmin Hadlow’s romance has ramped up a notch – as insiders tell me he’s going all out to make her his girlfriend.

Just weeks after revealing he fell for Yasmin, 23, after watching her cracking on inside the Love Island villa, the Sprinter star, 28, is using every tool in his armoury to get her interested.

And the first is his bank balance.

Onlookers spotted the London-born rapper, real name Oakley Caesar-Su, in a very select part of Harrods on Friday with Yasmin, where he was overheard telling her: “Buy whatever you want.”

An onlooker said: “Cench seems he knows how to treat the ladies and Yasmin is no exception.

“Before they went on a date to his party at 77 London, he had organised a shopping experience for her.

“He had it all arranged to go to the private area of the store and told her to spend whatever she wanted and he’d pick up the bill.

“Cench wanted Yasmin to choose whatever she wanted for the date and more.

“She absolutely loved it. It seemed like no one had ever done anything like that for her before.

“You could tell he’s really into her because he was happy to spend thousands on her to make her feel special.

“They’re not officially dating but it seems like Cench was making a heavy play for her to want to see him as boyfriend material.”

We first revealed they were hooking up last week, after Yasmin was seen on a date with the Cee.

He made a move on Yasmin earlier this summer while she was still dating her villa co-star Tommy Stagg.

When asked if he had a celebrity crush, on 60 Seconds With Missy, Cench replied: “I do have one, I’ve got one I’m sure. Yasmin from Love Island.”

Helpfully, Yasmin and Tommy split not long after flying back from Mallorca – and Cee made his move.

Confirming their break up, Yasmin said: “Me and Tommy aren’t together anymore.

“It ended up being… It was just a lot to adjust to on the outside.

“We just ended up saying that we’ve got a lot going on. Our lives essentially weren’t aligning on the outside, but we’re still friends.”

Insiders said it was still early days between the pair but admitted Cee was smitten.

“He’s acting like he’s won the jackpot,” a source told me.

“Cench really fell for Yasmin after seeing her on the show and then on social media.

“Now he’s managed to get her on a date he is going all out to show Yasmin how special he thinks she is.

“It’s early days between them but Cench is absolutely mad for Yasmin.”

Europe’s central banks now have a working bridge into tokenised markets.

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Launched on Monday, Pontes lets wholesale transactions in tokenised assets, meaning stocks, bonds and other instruments recorded as digital tokens on distributed ledgers, to settle in the safest form of money available — reserves held at the central bank itself.

It matters because the absence of a risk-free settlement asset has been one of the main barriers holding blockchain technology back. Without it, tokenised trades have typically settled in commercial bank money or stablecoins, carrying credit risk that large institutions are reluctant to accept.

“The Eurosystem is working to enable a more integrated, innovative and resilient European financial market in the digital age,” said ECB President Christine Lagarde.

Thirteen institutions have completed onboarding and are ready to use the system immediately, including Deutsche Bank, Santander, Société Générale, KfW and the European Investment Bank, alongside four ledger operators including Clearstream.

The ECB also intends to become a user itself.

In a separate announcement, it said it has begun preparatory work to invest a small portion of its own funds in tokenised securities, with purchases settled through Pontes.

The initial focus will be euro-denominated debt issued by euro area governments, regional authorities, agencies and European supranational institutions.

The own-funds portfolio sits outside monetary policy and generates income to cover the bank’s running costs. No amount was specified, and the Executive Board will decide on timing once the groundwork is done.

“Pontes brings tokenised markets another step closer to the core of the euro area’s financial infrastructure,” said Richard Baker, founder and CEO of Tokenovate, which builds technology to help financial institutions automate post-trade processing, collateral management and tokenised settlement.

Baker noted the service will initially run within existing market hours, but that “the longer-term opportunity is to support more continuous, potentially 24/7, settlement.”

That gap is where Europe is playing catch-up.

American markets have moved faster as the New York Stock Exchange is building a blockchain-based venue for trading tokenised shares and funds around the clock, and BlackRock has run a tokenised money market fund since 2024.

Pontes itself will only reach full capability, with longer operating hours and enhanced features, by 2028.

The two sides are also taking different routes.

Washington, under US President Donald Trump, abandoned plans for a Federal Reserve digital currency and backed privately issued stablecoins instead. On the other hand, Frankfurt is betting that public central bank money should sit at the centre.

Where the digital euro stands

Pontes is aimed at banks and markets, not consumers. The retail equivalent, the digital euro, would let the public make everyday payments directly in central bank money.

That project is further from reality.

The European Parliament’s economic committee approved its position in June, opening negotiations with member states, and final legislation is targeted for the end of this year.

If that holds, a pilot involving 36 payment providers will begin in September 2027, with first issuance possible in 2029.

The country has battled multiple wildfires amid record-breaking temperatures fueled by El Nino and intense drought conditions.

A massive wildfire has broken out in central Colombia, threatening the popular tourist town of Villa de Leyva, according to local officials.

The forest fire is near the Andean town in the Boyaca department, with flames engulfing the San Marcos hillside above the colonial architecture and cobblestone streets that attract more than a million visitors annually. 

The blaze has already consumed 40 hectares of native forest, sending massive plumes of smoke that are visible from the town’s central square, according to Colombian authorities.

On Saturday night, Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella posted on X that “Villa de Leyva is not alone”, pledging to mobilise all state resources to fight the fire and protect “this historical jewel” and “beautiful city that is the pride of Colombia”.

To combat the flames, the Boyaca department government said it is dispatching two aircraft. A military helicopter will also join the effort, along with firefighters from the capital, Bogota, Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara said.

The mayor of Bogota, Carlos Fernando Galan, will be sending a team of firefighters to join local crews from Tunja and Boyaca, reinforcing containment efforts and securing the urban centre, Lara said.

In the equatorial Andes, forest fires peak during the dry season, but this year they are fuelled by a severe El Nino weather pattern. Record high temperatures and lack of moisture have turned vast expanses of the Andean vegetation into tinderboxes. That has intensified a crisis that has already started 18 active wildfires across the country, according to the latest official data from Colombia’s National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD).

The impacts of El Nino, a natural weather pattern, are felt globally and do not affect the entire South American continent in the same way, inducing extreme droughts in some regions and torrential flooding in others. This year, it comes supercharged by the effects of climate change, which is worrying many scientists, governments and aid workers.

The warming of the adjacent Pacific has triggered catastrophic flash floods and landslides in countries such as Peru and Ecuador.

Unlike in the southern part of the continent, where countries including Argentina, Chile and Uruguay have been expecting unseasonably heavy rainfall, El Nino has the opposite effect in the northern part of the continent. A significant reduction in rainfall leads to severe drought conditions which can suppress cloud formation and displace normal rain patterns, driving average temperatures well above normal.

The soaring heat rapidly evaporates moisture from the ground and water basins, leaving countries such as Colombia with extended periods of drought and critically low precipitation.

“El Nino can bring devastating climate extremes on its own, but it’s unfolding today on a much warmer planet, increasing the likelihood that heat, drought, floods and fires will push communities and ecosystems beyond anything they have experienced before,” said Stephanie Roe, lead climate scientist with the World Wildlife Fund.

Central banks’ record, price-insensitive gold buying is a more credible signal of the dollar’s structural trajectory than this year’s currency markets, because FX markets are structurally bad at pricing the discontinuous, wartime-style tail risk central banks are actually hedging — so this autumn’s calmer dollar should not reassure anyone that de-dollarization has stalled.

In June, the European Central Bank made an announcement most people missed: gold has overtaken US Treasuries as the world’s single largest reserve asset. Central banks bought 289 tonnes of it in the second quarter alone — a record for that quarter and five times Q1’s pace — with Poland’s central bank openly telling investors it was “buying the dip.” Here is the part that should stop you: gold’s price fell 22% between January and September. Central banks were never more convinced buyers of an asset than while it was crashing. Either the reserve managers are wrong, or currency markets — which show none of this urgency — are the ones asleep at the wheel.

Gold peaked at $5,589 an ounce on 28 January, the same month the dollar index hit a four-year low of 95.5 and the dollar’s share of global reserves fell toward its lowest level since 1995. Both moves reflected the same story: Fed rate cuts through 2025, a US debt load past $37 trillion, and BRICS states settling more trade outside the dollar. Then the picture split. Kevin Warsh, confirmed as Fed chair in May, signalled a hawkish pivot in August; the Iran war pushed oil and inflation higher through September, and markets began pricing a rate hike rather than a cut. The dollar index clawed back to 99.46. Gold fell to $4,330. Central-bank buying did not follow the price down — Poland alone added 82 tonnes this year toward a 700-tonne target, and a World Gold Council survey found a record 45% of central banks plan to buy more within twelve months.

State the gap plainly. Two signals, same underlying question — is the dollar-centred monetary order changing — and they disagree by a wide margin. The buying signal says yes, decisively: record quarterly purchases, gold displacing Treasuries at the ECB’s own reckoning, 74% of surveyed reserve managers expecting the dollar’s reserve share to keep falling over five years, and buyers adding tonnage through a 22% drawdown rather than fleeing it. The price signal says not yet: the dollar just posted one of its sharper rallies of the year, gold is down sharply from its high, and nothing in currency markets shows the kind of stress a genuine regime shift would produce.

The strongest objection to trusting the buying signal is a good one, and it needs to be taken seriously rather than waved away: foreign exchange is the deepest, most liquid market in the world, turning over more than $7 trillion a day. A few hundred tonnes of central-bank gold buying — perhaps $30–40 billion a quarter — is a rounding error against that. If professional currency traders, sitting on far more capital and far better short-term information than a handful of reserve managers, saw a serious de-dollarization story unfolding, it would already be in the price. Instead the dollar just rallied. On this view, central banks are not seeing something markets are missing; they are pattern-matching off 2022, when Russia’s $300 billion in reserves was frozen overnight, and over-hedging a tail risk that has not recurred and mostly will not.

That objection assumes FX markets and central-bank reserve committees are pricing the same kind of risk, on the same time horizon, and they are not. Currency markets are exceptionally good at pricing continuous, high-frequency variables — rate differentials, growth surprises, this week’s inflation print — because that is what moves flows daily. They are structurally poor at pricing discontinuous, low-probability events until those events occur: equity volatility did not price 2008 in 2007; sovereign spreads did not price the Russia reserve freeze in the weeks before it happened. A reserve freeze, a secondary-sanctions campaign, or exclusion from SWIFT-style settlement infrastructure is exactly that kind of event — binary, rare, and catastrophic for whoever it hits — which is precisely why Poland’s central bank governor, Adam Glapiński, described his buying not as a trade but as insurance: reserves that keep the state secure “under all circumstances, including wartime, which of course we’re not expecting.” That is not the language of someone chasing momentum. It is the language of someone who manages the one asset class that keeps its value if their country is ever cut off from the dollar system, and who would rather hold it and be wrong for a decade than not hold it and be wrong once.

The buying pattern itself supports that reading. Momentum money sells into a 22% drawdown; insurance money adds to it. Central banks did the latter through the first half of this year, which is the behavioural signature of a structural reallocation program with a fixed multi-year target — Poland’s is explicit, 700 tonnes — not speculative flow riding gold’s rally. Meanwhile the dollar’s autumn recovery has an identifiable, largely cyclical cause: a new, more hawkish Fed chair and a war-driven oil shock forcing a rate-hike repricing. Neither event reverses the debt trajectory, the BRICS settlement trend, or the reserve-freeze precedent that pushed the dollar to a four-year low in January. A rally built on this year’s Fed chair and this year’s war is not proof that last year’s structural story is over; it is evidence that a cyclical force is currently strong enough to mask it.

The Scenarios

Base case (55%): The gap persists rather than resolves. The dollar holds most of its autumn gains through the current rate-hike cycle, gold range-trades below its January peak, and central banks keep buying at a steadier, slower pace toward stated targets like Poland’s 700 tonnes. Nobody is “proven right” on any particular Tuesday, because reserve diversification is a decade-scale hedge, not a trade with a catalyst date. This is the least satisfying outcome for anyone wanting a verdict, and the most likely one.

Downside case (for dollar holders): A discrete trigger — a fresh reserve-freeze or secondary-sanctions episode, plausibly connected to the still-live US-Iran war spilling into action against a third country’s assets, or a shock to Fed independence under a more political Warsh chairmanship — crystallizes the exact tail risk central banks have been hedging. Gold spikes back through its January high, the dollar index breaks below its 95.5 low, and the gap closes in weeks rather than years, vindicating the reserve managers all at once and catching FX markets flat-footed exactly as the theory predicts.

Upside case (for the dollar): The Iran war resolves, Warsh’s rate hikes cool inflation without a recession, US fiscal metrics stabilize, and BRICS local-currency settlement growth stalls on friction between its own members. Central-bank gold buying does not reverse but plateaus as reserve managers hit conventional diversification ceilings — most target 15–20% of reserves in gold, not open-ended accumulation. The gap closes gradually as price drifts up toward the buying signal over several years, with no crisis required to force the reconciliation.

The Takeaway

The dollar’s calmer autumn is not evidence the de-dollarization hedge was a mistake; it is evidence that currency markets and central-bank reserve committees are pricing two different things on two different clocks, and only one of those clocks rings in a crisis. Central banks bought through a 22% drawdown because the point of the position was never this quarter’s return.

Watch for: the World Gold Council’s Q3 2026 Gold Demand Trends report, expected in early November. A third consecutive quarter of buying that ignores price direction will confirm this is policy, not opportunism — and the moment currency markets have to agree with that policy will not be a quiet one.

DELANO, Calif. — The rows of candies and nuts at the Guadalajara Meat Market — tamarindo con chile, seasoned pistachios, spicy paletas — sat mostly untouched as customers filtered through this carniceria in the late afternoon heat.

“You see a lot of people consuming the minimum, what they need to get by through the week,” said owner Carina Murillo, 31, as she checked out customers on a recent weekday. “Instead of buying six items, they’re buying three items.”

While customers bypass extras, like the snacks at the front counter, Murillo’s costs have gone up. Imported goods from Mexico and Canada have become more difficult to source and sometimes carry tariffs, she said. Transportation fees have risen as diesel prices respond to the war in Iran. The market’s insurance costs have risen by about a third. All of it has forced Murillo to increase prices.

“You see a lot of people consuming the minimum,” says Carina Murillo, owner of Guadalajara Meat Market. “Instead of buying six items, they’re buying three items.”

As the area struggles, Murillo, a college graduate who years ago felt motivated enough to door-knock for political causes, is among those who have become disillusioned. Those in Washington, she said, don’t understand the lives of the working people who keep the country running.

There have been “years where I feel completely overpowered to the point where I’m not motivated to take part,” said Murillo, who didn’t vote in 2024 but plans to do so in November. “That’s what happens when you feel discouraged or like nothing’s going to change.”

The economic strife plaguing Americans is clear in this rural, majority-Latino Central Valley congressional district, home to the state’s most competitive House race, the closely watched contest between Republican Rep. David Valadao and Democrat Randy Villegas.

Democrats hope the national economic angst will translate into big turnout in the midterm elections, but some in this region worry that years of financial struggle may depress voters’ desire to participate rather than motivate them.

Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) presides over a congressional hearing in March. The Republican is in a race against Democrat Randy Villegas that is considered a toss-up.

(Allison Robbert / Associated Press)

And Republicans, who rely on their party turnout beating that of Democrats in rural areas, also face the risk that frustration with the current political climate could dampen enthusiasm.

“Before they can think about Valadao, before Trump or Gavin Newsom or who’s going to run, families are concerned with the immediate: paying the rent, having the food on the table,” said Eliseo Gamiño, who heads the Central Valley Leadership Round Table, a coalition of Latino community leaders and elected officials. “You can’t be thinking about voting when your kids are hungry.”

Few voters who spoke to The Times in this swing district were decided on which party to support in November — or whether to vote at all. Such undecided voters will likely decide the election outcome, and persuading them is the key challenge for both parties as November nears.

Alexa Lopez sweeps up at closing time on a slower than usual Friday that saw one dress sold at Christina’s Fashion in Delano.

In a district that is the third-youngest in population in the country, the simmering uncertainty among Gen Z and millennial voters in particular could affect turnout or results.

Thirty-one percent of its voting-age population is 29 or younger, according to the Tufts University research center CIRCLE, which tracks youth civic engagement, making it among the top swath of House races in which young people could swing the outcome.

California’s swingiest district

The 22nd District, carved from the state’s agricultural epicenter, is one of fewer than two dozen toss-up races nationwide that will likely determine which party controls the U.S. House in the second half of President Trump’s current term. It is also among several high-stakes races nationwide that will test progressive candidates.

Valadao’s seat has long been considered a vulnerable one; Democrats added about 100,000 Fresno residents to the district under Proposition 50’s new map in a bid to help their chances. The boundaries include swaths of Kern, Kings and Tulare counties, along with a very small piece of Madera County.

“It’s going to be crucial in an area that is more purple, more bipartisan, where it’s very clear it can go either way … that these candidates make an effort to get those voters on their team,” said Brittany Martinez, a California-based Republican strategist.

Valadao, 49, who comes from a dairy farming family, is well known in the district and has repeatedly secured victory in close races, retaking the seat in 2020 after losing it in 2018’s blue wave. He saw a close race in 2022, then won by nearly seven percentage points in 2024, outperforming Trump.

His biggest vulnerability this time around may be his vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included steep cuts to Medicaid. Local hospitals are bracing for funding cuts, though a carve-out may keep many valley residents from losing coverage. The district has the highest proportion of Medi-Cal recipients of any in the state, with 67% of residents enrolled as of 2025, according to the California Health Care Foundation.

Valadao spent part of the August recess touring the Central Valley for private meetings with local entities including a hospital, a housing program, a sawmill and a school district, and held a telephone town hall last week. Democrats have criticized him for not holding face-to-face voter events, including public town halls.

Democratic candidate Randy Villegas chats with residents during an August town hall in Hanford.

Villegas, 31, a professor and school board member who was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and is aligned with the Working Families Party, bested a Democrat backed by the party’s House campaign arm to win the nomination.

Villegas has banked on a more public-facing approach to win over swing voters — recently handing out popsicles from a pushcart he wheeled around a Labor Day event in Bakersfield, for instance — a strategy his campaign calls “going everywhere.” Republicans have criticized his record as too far left for the moderate district.

Both candidates have attempted to lean away from partisan narratives. Valadao rarely mentions Trump on social media and did not attend the president’s Republican convention in Dallas last week; Villegas has worked to frame the progressive issues he champions as an effort to help Central Valley voters rather than an ideology.

Trump carried the district as drawn now by less than 2 percentage points in 2024. Since then, residents say they have felt squeezed by housing, gas and grocery prices. The war in Iran has pinched Central Valley farmers — already struggling with water supply and other issues — by driving up fertilizer prices.

Ailyn Flores, center, picks up balloons for a party at Big Delano Discount store.

Tyler Stidham, 28, and her husband recently moved back to Lemoore from San José with their 1-year-old in order to live with family because they could no longer afford their own place.

“Rent got too high and having a family is expensive,” she said as the couple waited for their order from a food truck at the Hanford farmers market on a recent Thursday evening. They have cut out family trips and started meal-planning and budgeting to save money.

Stidham said she is planning to vote and hoping government leaders can make life more affordable. Her husband recalled a favorable impression of Valadao after once meeting him. Stidham isn’t sure who she’ll be casting her vote for.

“I haven’t done my research [yet],” she said.

Young voters said they felt frustrated waiting for a better economy that has yet to materialize.

“I feel like the government is playing in our face. I feel like everything is a show,” said Emma Woodward, 23, of Hanford.

The Sierra movie theater has closed down in Delano, Calif.

(Gary Kazanjian / For The Times)

A store manager at a coffee chain, Woodward bought a house last year to avoid throwing money at increasingly high rent payments, but it has been “hard to survive.” She got a roommate to help with costs, but the two of them sometimes find themselves using food drives for groceries. She has cut out “fun spending,” including concerts and travel.

Woodward said she wanted to vote in order to send the message to Congress that the economy needs improvement. She, too, wanted to research the candidates further; she leaned toward Villegas but was not yet convinced.

‘Whatever happens happens’

Valadao and Villegas must also battle to reach apathetic voters — those who may sit the election out or who are fed up with both parties. In one indication of voter fatigue, local organizers have found it a challenge to register new voters this year.

Dresses on display at Christina’s Fashion store after closing time on a quiet Friday night in Delano, Calif.

People who are unregistered often express mistrust in the government and the feeling that “nothing’s going to change,” said Biviana Camacho, 23, civic engagement program manager for Loud for Tomorrow, a youth organizing group based in Delano that runs voter registration events.

“A lot of folks have been in survival mode for such a long time,” she added, as the group worked on planning a fall event series on a recent afternoon. Their goal: 20 to 25 new registrations per event.

The group’s head of membership, Rosanai Paniagua, 28, agreed. “Here, there’s not a lot of hope because people haven’t seen what good policy could do for them,” she said. “A lot of apathy, for sure, because change hasn’t really happened here.”

Marco Estrada, 20, taking a break outside the Main Street barbershop where he works in Delano, said he wasn’t sure he could imagine anything Congress could do for him. He’s never voted and doesn’t plan to in November. His two co-workers said the same.

“Whatever happens happens,” Estrada said.

Valeria Valdez, a College of the Sequoias freshman, said she was planning to vote in her first election and said the government should help lower gas prices. The 18-year-old wasn’t sure, though, whether she would make a decision in the House race.

“It feels pretty far away from me, to be honest,” she said. “I just want to do what I can for our community and not focus on how corrupt the government is.”

That sentiment is part of what Villegas is aiming to target as he meets voters.

“It’s easy to feel cynical and apathetic in a moment where so many things seem stacked against us,” Villegas said in an interview. “But I tell people that … their vote and their voices do matter, otherwise we wouldn’t have billionaires and corporations spending millions of dollars trying to influence these election outcomes.”

A spokesperson for Valadao did not respond to a request for comment. Valadao said on a Washington Sun podcast in January that he “absolutely” worries about Republican voter enthusiasm, but noted it was a problem on both sides of the aisle. Earlier this month, he conveyed confidence about his race.

“I’ve won in these types of races. I can win again,” he told the Associated Press. “I think we should be fine.”

Inside Murillo’s market, business picked up as 5 o’clock neared. Murillo rang up tortillas, cuts of meat, and three-liter Mexican soda bottles. She advised a customer about treating a bug bite, helped a man wire money and cajoled a city worker about getting a sidewalk repair.

Congress should “definitely” be helping communities like hers, she said. She plans to research her voting options so she can participate in November. But trusting political candidates, she mused, can feel like a risk for voters.

“Whether they execute what they promise or not,” she said, “that’s shown with time.”