A new species of living cat has been identified for the first time in more than a century. Found in Bolivia’s Yungas forest, it is smaller than a regular house cat, weighing just around 3 pounds and measuring 18 inches long. Known locally as Tilcayo, it belongs to the group of tiger cats.
Published On 18 Sep 202618 Sep 2026
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Leopardus tilcayo is the first new living cat species named and described in more than a century.
Published On 18 Sep 202618 Sep 2026
A tiny wild cat that lives in Bolivia’s lush cloud forests has been identified as a previously unknown species, marking the first time in more than a century that a new living feline species has been formally named and described.
Called “tilcayo” by local communities, the cat is part of a group called tiger cats, which are found across much of South America.
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It was discovered in the Yungas forest, a mountainous region where forests are often covered by clouds and surrounded by high humidity, according to the researchers.
Given the scientific name Leopardus tilcayo, the cat measures 46cm (18 inches) long and weighs about 1.4kg (3 pounds), making it smaller than an average domestic cat.
“Its fur is light brown … with irregularly shaped rosettes across its body,” according to Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a National Geographic Explorer and one of the authors of the study describing the newly identified species published on Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
Little is known about the cat’s biology and lifestyle. Remains of small rodents in scat samples suggest they may form part of its diet, while camera-trap evidence indicates it could be more active at night, Nogales-Ascarrunz said.
Tiger cats are so-called cryptic species, meaning they cannot easily be distinguished merely by appearance, evolutionary biologist and study co-lead author Jonas Lescroart of the University of Antwerp in Belgium said.
![National Geographic Explorer Paola Nogales Ascarrunz, who led the research that identified Leopardus tilcayo as a new species, observes the cat at the Senda Verde animal refuge in the Yungas region, in Bolivia, September 1, 2026 [Fernando Faciole/Handout via Reuters]](https://i0.wp.com/occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/2026-09-17T154150Z_381273466_RC2N9NAU7NUJ_RTRMADP_3_SCIENCE-CAT-1789702964.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
Observing the Bolivian cat drew interest because “its characteristics did not match the descriptions, most of them based on Brazilian cats”, Nogales-Ascarrunz said. “This made us wonder, what tiger cat do we actually have in Bolivia?”
The team analysed DNA from 38 cats sampled across several South American countries, including eight museum specimens. The study found that tiger cats are in fact five genetically distinct species.
“We never expected this Bolivian tiger cat to be a separate species, and no one had ever proposed it as a different animal, subspecies or otherwise,” Jonas Lescroart said.
Genetic analysis suggested that the tilcayo lineage separated from other tiger cats about 1.4 million years ago.
The research team also described a new tiger cat subspecies in Peru’s Yungas, naming it Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo, after Antisuyu, the region of the old Inca Empire that included the area it inhabits.
Lawyers criticised mass arrests under emergency powers that allowed authorities to detain people without charge.
Published On 17 Sep 202617 Sep 2026
The Caribbean country of Trinidad and Tobago has ended a state of emergency that granted the government extraordinary powers to combat crime, including the ability to imprison people without charge.
The country’s prime minister told parliament on Wednesday that the government would not extend the state of emergency. One was issued in 2024 and another in 2025, with extensions lengthening both. Instead, the government would seek a “permanent legal framework”.
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“The proposed legislation will establish a permanent legal framework for targeted operations against violent crime, gangs, illegal weapons and the criminal networks that finance them, while providing safeguards for law-abiding citizens, judicial oversight and parliamentary accountability,” Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said in a social media post.
The government had faced criticism for a campaign of mass arrests that suspended key civil liberties in what it said was in the name of cracking down on crime and those the government deemed threats to security. A prominent businessman and his wife were among those arrested over alleged involvement in a plot to assassinate the prime minister, but were never charged and later released.
The measures were last extended in June, with the prime minister stating that more than 5,800 people have been arrested since a March extension. About 2,250 of those have yet to be charged, and it remains to be seen whether they will be released now that the state of emergency has ended.
Lawyer Criston Williams told The Associated Press news agency that he expects some of those detained without charge to bring lawsuits against the government and called for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate possible abuses by the government.
“They are transported to us blindfolded, shackled, hands behind their backs, a gray knapsack over their heads,” he said, adding that meetings with lawyers took place in the presence of five armed men from law enforcement, “who refer to themselves as operator one, two, three, four, five. There’s a camera above, so guess what, there’s nothing like attorney-client privilege.”
Police reported a record 624 killings in the country of about 1.4 million people in 2024, a figure that police say dropped to 369 in 2025. Police state that 255 killings have been recorded this year, compared with 268 over the same period in 2025.
Brazil has opened the UN’s General Debate for decades, with the US traditionally second in line as the host country. Here’s how that tradition began and how the rest of the speaking order is decided.
Al Jazeera’s Farah Samir explains.
Published On 17 Sep 202617 Sep 2026
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The symbolic move comes as Argentina escalates its claim over the British-administered territory.
Published On 17 Sep 202617 Sep 2026
An Argentinian judge has ordered the suspension of a British-Israeli oil project near the Falkland Islands in a purely symbolic move as Argentina escalates its claim over the British-administered territory.
Wednesday’s interim ruling issued by a court in Argentina’s southernmost province, Tierra del Fuego, follows a lawsuit filed by 1982 war veterans and environmental lawyers earlier this month.
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The plaintiffs sought to block Britain’s Rockhopper Exploration and Israel’s Navitas Petroleum from the Sea Lion oilfield, located about 220km (137 miles) from the islands.
The judge ordered the companies to “refrain from initiating, pursuing, carrying out or having carried out any material actions” that would involve drilling, installing infrastructure or extracting hydrocarbons, according to a ruling seen by the AFP news agency.
Additionally, the suspension applies “until such time as the environmental impact assessment procedure has been conducted before the national authority competent in environmental matters”.
The judge gave the parties 10 days to provide information, including details about the status of the project, its contractors and its financiers.
President Javier Milei’s administration has also taken legal action against the project, arguing it violates a United Nations resolution calling for both sides to desist from unilateral actions in the islands until their dispute is resolved.
The court order comes just a day after Argentina announced it would file further legal complaints against companies exploring for oil near the islands, intensifying its campaign against businesses operating in the British overseas territory.
Britain and Argentina fought a brief but bitter 10-week war in 1982 over the South Atlantic islands, known to Argentines as the Malvinas.
The 1982 war ended with an Argentinian surrender after 74 days of conflict that killed 649 Argentines and 255 British troops, as well as three Falkland Islanders.
Buenos Aires has doubled down on its claim over the Falkland Islands after US President Donald Trump said Washington was open to reviewing its historically neutral stance on the territory.
London maintains the islands are British and rejects the jurisdiction of Argentinian courts in the Falklands.
The islanders themselves voted overwhelmingly in 2013 to remain British.
But Argentina rejects that outcome, arguing that the principle of self-determination does not apply to a population it considers implanted by Britain after 1833.
Holbox could be considered for the top ranking on its own strength. But in a year when disasters tore at our city, honoring the power of community feels more urgent than ever. Cetina’s seafood counter doesn’t thrive in a vacuum. Holbox resides inside the Mercado La Paloma in South L.A. The mercado is the economic-development arm of the Esperanza Community Housing Corp., a nonprofit organization founded in 1989 that counts affordable housing and equitable healthcare among its core missions. When the mercado was in the incubation stage, Esperanza’s executive director Nancy Ibrahim interviewed would-be restaurateurs about their challenges and hopes in starting a business. Among the candidates was Cetina’s father, Gilberto Sr., who proposed a stall serving his family’s regionally specific dishes from the Yucatán. Their venture, Chichén Itzá, was among the eight startups when the mercado opened in a former garment factory nearly 25 years ago, in February 2001.
Step into the 35,000-square-foot market today, and the smell of corn warms the senses. Fátima Juárez chose masa as her medium when she began working with Cetina at Holbox in 2017. Komal, the venue she opened last year with her husband, Conrado Rivera, is the only molino in L.A. grinding and nixtamalizing heirloom corn varieties daily. Among her deceptively spare menu of mostly quesadillas and tacos, start with the extraordinary quesadilla de flor de calabaza, a creased blue corn tortilla, bound by melted quesillo, arrayed with squash blossoms radiating like sunbeams.
Wander farther, past the communal sea of tiled tables between Holbox and Komal, to find jewels that first-timers or even regular visitors might overlook.
Taqueria Vista Hermosa, run by Raul Morales and his family, is the other remaining original tenant. Order an al pastor taco, or Morales’ specialty of Michoacan-style fish empapelado smothered in vegetables and wrapped in banana leaf. The lush, orange-scented cochinita pibil is the obvious choice next door at still-flourishing Chichén Itzá, but don’t overlook crackling kibi and the brunchy huevos motuleños over ham and black bean puree. The weekends-only tacos de barbacoa de chivo are our favorites at the stand called Oaxacalifornia, though we swing through any time for the piloncillo-sweetened café de olla and a scoop of smoked milk ice cream from its sibling juice and snack bar in the market’s center. Looking for the comfort of noodles? Try the pad see ew at Thai Corner Food Express in the far back.
The everyday and the exquisite; the fast and the formal (just try to score a reservation for Holbox’s twice-a-week tasting menu); a food hall and sanctuary for us all. Mercado La Paloma embodies the Los Angeles we love.
Prosecutors said that the group worked on behalf of Russian intelligence services to carry out attacks and murders around the world.
Published On 16 Sep 202616 Sep 2026
Five people have been charged over alleged Russian intelligence-linked plots involving surveillance, recruitment and planned killings, according to an indictment unsealed by the United States Department of Justice.
Prosecutors said on Tuesday that the group worked on behalf of Russian intelligence services to carry out attacks and murders internationally, including within the US, and that all five remain at large.
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The defendants were identified as Russian national Yuri Khrameev, 63, his son Kirill Khrameev, 27, Cubans Oemis Romagoza Durruthy and Yaidel Delgado Suarez, both 35, and 22-year-old Venezuelan Angel Eduardo Castro.
All five were charged with conspiring to finance terrorism, while Khrameev, Suarez and Castro face additional charges of conspiring to commit murder for hire.
At a news conference, Attorney General Todd Blanche said the plots included attempts to kill a Russian dissident believed to be living in the Washington, DC area.
Justice Department officials said the network had recruited several people in the US to carry out surveillance on Russian dissidents, targeting individuals both domestically and in Lithuania.
In one instance, a recruit was reportedly promised $40,000 to make a US-based target “disappear”. A separate recruit was allegedly offered $25,000 the previous year to kill someone in Lithuania.
Russia’s embassy in the US has not commented on the case. Moscow has consistently rejected accusations that it has orchestrated assassination operations on foreign soil, including in the US.
Chavez’s eyes still gaze from walls across Caracas. So too do the eyes of other figures, like Maduro and independence leader Simon Bolivar. Some images are faded. Others are accompanied by slogans like “To doubt is treason”.
Forastero has worked on government projects, including under Rodriguez. But he is critical of some of the newer images. He remembers a time when he painted murals of Chavez playing with children or riding a bicycle, not slogans.
“When Chavez was alive, people painted Chavez because we loved him very much. It’s as simple as that,” he said.
In recent decades, he argues that Venezuela’s public art has fallen increasingly under government control, with murals commissioned to carry explicitly political messages.
“Muralism is a story told on a wall,” Forastero said. “What we really see on the walls now are propaganda posters. I’m a chavista, and I’m disgusted by it.”
Still, the removal of the artwork is another form of propaganda, in Forastero’s eyes. He believes the Rodriguez government is seeking to project a more “neutral” appearance to better appeal to the US.
He also accuses Rodriguez of abandoning ideals key to the chavismo movement: namely, anti-imperialism and revolution. He pointed to the US’s role in shaping Venezuelan policy.
“The United States is forcing our government to behave this way,” Forastero said.
Rafael Araujo, a Venezuelan activist, has a different view of the changing landscape.
To him, there was something “jarring” about seeing chavista figures plastered across city walls, especially the leaders who have caused the country so much pain.
During their time in power, Chavez and Maduro both faced allegations of overseeing human rights abuses, including through the violent suppression of dissent. Venezuela’s last two presidential elections have been widely denounced as illegitimate.
Known in Caracas as Senor Papagayo, Araujo has used colourful, handmade kites to protest against government violence and economic policy.
He sees the Chavez murals as a form of oppression, an ever-visible reminder of a repressive government apparatus.
His kites are a way of sending a different message. His favourite carries aloft a single word: “Freedom”.
“Freedom is what all countries need. Democracy is the most balanced system a citizen can live under,” Araujo said.
MEXICO CITY — He’s been called the “MAGA man” of Latin America, a brash political provocateur whose social media assaults boosted right-wing campaigns from his native Argentina to Central America.
His career as political consultant and co-founder of an ultra-right online outlet made him a rich man and helped elect Trump-aligned politicians across the region. The Economist gave him the “MAGA Man” label, while political commentators gave him another nickname — the “Steve Bannon of Latin America” — a nod to the longtime Trump ally and advisor.
Now, however, Fernando Cerimedo, 45, sits in a maximum-security prison in Bolivia, accused of masterminding a murder-for-hire plot: The attempted femicide of his pregnant mistress, Nadia Beller, 33, a Bolivian lawyer and activist.
It’s a stunning collapse for a onetime ad man with a dodgy reputation who rose to become the go-to digital campaign guru for Latin America’s ascendant right wing. Cerimedo’s signature boasts, exaggerations and peddling of false election-fraud narratives reflected those of his political model, President Trump.
Cerimedo also is another example of how right-wing political operatives outside the United States — as recently in Colombia and Germany — have adopted Trumpian tactics and messaging.
The fall of the “King Midas of the Latin American right,” said Daniel Matamala, a prominent Chilean journalist, stunned “the ecosystem of fake news, bots, trolls and disinformation that has taken this region by storm in recent years.” Speaking on his podcast, Matamala added, “The name of Cerimedo looms like a ghost over the summit of the radical right.”
The Aug. 17 attack on Beller was a seemingly well-planned ambush that was captured by security cameras, the grainy images widely disseminated on social media.
One of two would-be assassins dressed as fast-food deliverymen pulled out a pistol and shot Beller point blank outside a hotel in the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz. She fell to the ground and, according to her account, feigned death. The next day, at dawn, Cerimedo was arrested as he was about to board a plane to Buenos Aires.
Cerimedo set up the hit, prosecutors charge, in a nefarious attempt at damage control. Beller had threatened to expose his alleged criminal behavior and physically abusive behavior toward her while revealing Cerimedo, a married man with two children, as the father of her unborn child.
Cerimedo is also under investigation for alleged illegal enrichment and potential links to cocaine trafficking.
He has denied any wrongdoing.
Even before Cerimedo’s arrest, Latin American journalists had begun unmasking Cerimedo as a prodigious purveyor of fake news — about himself. New reports revealed that his frequent boasts about U.S. connections — that he attended Harvard, trained with U.S. Navy SEALs, worked in the Obama White House — were fanciful.
“He certainly exaggerated things,” said Damian Merlo, a Miami-based consultant who worked with Cerimedo on the 2023 campaign of Argentine President Javier Milei, a Trump favorite. “I never really got the impression that Cerimedo was ‘MAGA’s man in Latin America.’ The guy could hardly speak English! But that’s how he sold himself.”
Many times, the sales pitch worked. It was Cerimedo who helped broker then-candidate Milei’s celebrated 2023 interview with Tucker Carlson, at the time a Trump confidant, an appearance that thrust Milei into the international spotlight.
Like Milei, Cerimedo seemed to relish any proximity to Trump-land.
In February, at the inaugural “Hispanic Prosperity Gala” — a right-wing pep rally held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate — Cerimedo was honored as “Hispanic Political Consultant of the Year.’” From the podium, he spoke of Latin America’s “culture war” and the need to ensure that “the left never again returns” to governments that have elected conservative leaders.
Switching to heavily accented English, Cerimedo gave a shout-out to Brad Parscale, Trump’s former campaign manager, whom Cerimedo thanked for “believing [in] me all the time and giving me your technology.”
Parscale declined to comment.
Fernando Cerimedo, an advisor to the National Party, points at a map of Honduras on Dec. 1, 2025, one day after voters went to the polls to elect Nasry Asfura president.
(Moises Castillo / Associated Press)
Both Cerimedo and Parscale were involved in last year’s campaign that resulted in the election of Honduran President Nasry Asfura, whom Trump backed publicly.
Last year, Cerimedo was a key player in the election of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, the center-right, U.S.-educated son of a former president who transitioned from Marxist firebrand to moderate. The ascension of Paz broke almost two decades of leftist rule by the Movement for Socialism party of ex-President Evo Morales.
Cerimedo had no official capacity in Paz’s government, but he enjoyed insider status. He accompanied Paz in March to Trump’s anti-narco “Shield of the Americas” summit, a confab of mostly conservative leaders at Trump’s Doral resort in south Florida.
Among the items found in searches of Cerimedo-linked properties, authorities say, was a business card listing him as Paz’s “chief adviser” — a nonexistent post.
“Mr. Cerimedo never had the authorization to represent … the presidency, the government or my family,” a deeply discomfited Paz said in Facebook message last month.
How exactly Cerimedo got into politics — and how he became a right-wing rabble-rouser — remains somewhat opaque. According to media accounts, he worked a series of uninspiring jobs — including stints as a taxi driver, a schoolteacher and an employee of insurance and computer firms — before veering into advertising. In 2019, he assisted the campaigns of several leftist Peronist candidates in provincial races in Argentina, and later founded his own consultancy, Numen.
Cerimedo first gained prominence in neighboring Brazil. That’s where he championed false election-fraud narratives following the narrow reelection defeat in 2022 of President Jair Bolsonaro — a MAGA stalwart — in his reelection bid against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist. Cerimedo’s “Brazil Was Stolen” livestream exacerbated the sense of outrage among Bolsonaro loyalists, who took to the streets in mass protests.
The Brazil exposure helped catapult Cerimedo into successful presidential campaigns in Argentina (Milei), Honduras (Asfura) and Bolivia (Paz). His arrest prompted Chilean lawmakers to create a commission to investigate Cerimedo’s possible role in that nation’s recent electoral shift to the right.
With Cerimedo’s name now toxic, Paz, Milei and other former allies have distanced themselves.
Also ditching Cerimedo was his close partner, Javier Negre, a right-wing Spanish media entrepreneur who, in 2024, purchased 50% ownership of Cerimedo’s La Derecha Diario (The Daily Right), an online, Spanish-language MAGA megaphone. The site strongly backed Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella — who had Trump’s support — during his tight campaign this summer.
Following Cerimedo’s arrest, Negre announced that he had bought out his former partner in La Derecha Diario.
In Bolivia, the Cerimedo scandal has taken on the character of a Latin American telenovela.
A recovering Beller, shot three times in her upper body, granted interviews from her hospital bed, dishing on her lover’s alleged brutality and criminality.
According to Beller’s testimony to authorities, Cerimedo tricked her into the near-fatal rendezvous outside the hotel. He told her that a source was waiting to share details about the purported rape of a 13-year-old, she said. The supposed rapist? Bolivian ex-President Morales — a despised figure on the Latin American right.
The case has seen the once high-flying Cerimedo reduced to a slumping presence in a hoodie as authorities have shuffled the baldish, heavyset figure to hearings and lockups. Last week, he was transferred while awaiting trial to Bolivia’s maximum-security Chonchocoro prison, infamous for its high-altitude, ill-heated confines.
“I want to see my children!” a sobbing Cerimedo declared at one point in earshot of the media.
His legal team has pushed back. A defense lawyer, Margarita Arce, questioned whether Cerimedo had impregnated Beller and asserted to reporters that Beller staged a “self-inflicted attack” to smear Cerimedo and undermine the Bolivian government.
But prosecutors have sided with Beller, who told the Argentine daily Clarín: “Fernando Cerimedo wanted to kill me because I can tell everything that I know.”
Times staff writer Ana Ceballos in Washington and special correspondents Andrés D’Alessandro in Buenos Aires and Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City contributed to this report.
United States President Donald Trump has made no secret of his hostility towards BRICS.
Last year, he threatened an additional 10 percent tariff on any country aligning itself with what he called the bloc’s “anti-American policies”. Since then, his administration has continued to wield tariffs aggressively against trading partners, including BRICS members such as Brazil, India and China.
The message appears straightforward: Countries that challenge US economic power should expect to pay a price.
But coercion has consequences. And as BRICS leaders meet in New Delhi today, Trump may be strengthening the very incentives that made the bloc attractive in the first place. The more Washington demonstrates its willingness to use access to its markets, its financial system and the dollar as instruments of political leverage, the more reason other countries have to reduce their exposure to them.
This does not mean BRICS is becoming an anti-US alliance. Far from it.
The bloc’s 11 members – Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates – have enormous political and economic differences. Together, they account for nearly half the world’s population and about 40 percent of global gross domestic product, but they do not share a common ideology, security policy or even geopolitical orientation.
Recent events have made those divisions impossible to ignore. Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE find themselves on opposite sides of a growing regional conflict. In May, Iranian and Emirati representatives clashed during a foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi. India and China have had a heated border dispute that led to deadly skirmishes in 2020-2021; only in the past two years have their relations gradually stabilised.
So Trump is not producing a united geopolitical front against Washington.
He may, however, be giving countries with otherwise divergent interests a common reason to cooperate economically: Protection against vulnerability to US power.
For countries outside the Western core, dependence on US-centred economic infrastructure carries risks.
The dollar’s centrality gives the US enormous structural advantages. International transactions pass through financial institutions subject to US jurisdiction; access to US markets can be restricted; sanctions can isolate governments and companies from parts of the global financial system.
BRICS’s efforts to diminish dependence on the US financial system do not mean the dollar is about to lose its position as a global reserve currency. This claim is often made around BRICS summits, usually accompanied by breathless predictions of a new BRICS currency. The evidence does not support it.
The dollar remains overwhelmingly dominant. According to the International Monetary Fund, it accounted for 57.1 percent of global foreign-exchange reserves in the first quarter of 2026. The Chinese renminbi accounted for just 2 percent. Indeed, the dollar’s share rose slightly during the quarter.
But replacing the dollar and reducing dependence on it are two very different things.
BRICS countries are already experimenting with the latter. South Africa has connected to China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, allowing transactions with China to be settled directly in renminbi. Brazil and China are increasingly using their own currencies in bilateral trade, while India and the UAE have settled transactions in rupees and dirhams. China and Russia have shifted much of their bilateral trade into their national currencies.
BRICS itself is also moving cautiously towards greater financial connectivity.
Last year, its leaders called for continued work on a cross-border payments initiative and greater interoperability among members’ payment systems. In August, Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra confirmed that BRICS countries are discussing linking their fast-payment networks and potentially their central bank digital currencies. India itself is also encouraging greater use of the rupee in international trade.
The New Development Bank offers another example. Established by the original BRICS countries as an alternative source of development finance, it has made lending in members’ currencies an explicit strategic objective. Its current strategy targets 30 percent of financing in local currencies, partly to reduce borrowers’ exposure to foreign-exchange risks and costly currency swaps; the number could increase to 40-50 percent for the next cycle, 2027-2031.
None of this amounts to a rival global financial system. Much of it remains experimental, bilateral or limited in scale.
But that is precisely why the fixation on whether BRICS can “replace” the dollar misses what is happening. The more significant development is the gradual construction of options that allow governments and businesses to conduct a number of transactions without relying on the dollar and Western-dominated financial infrastructure.
Trump’s policies give this process additional urgency.
Consider Brazil. Washington imposed a new 25 percent tariff on a range of Brazilian products in July, affecting billions of dollars in exports, despite running a trade surplus with the country. The Trump administration has also scrutinised Brazil’s hugely successful Pix instant-payment system, which competes with established card-payment networks.
Sanctions demonstrate the same vulnerability more dramatically. Russia and Iran have been pushed towards alternative payment and trading arrangements precisely because their access to Western financial networks has been restricted. Washington is now considering further measures that could penalise countries heavily reliant on Russian energy, including China and India.
No BRICS member needs to sympathise with Moscow or Tehran to understand what this implies.
US financial power depends not simply on possessing the world’s largest economy or issuing its dominant currency. It also depends on other countries continuing to regard participation in a US-centred system as more advantageous than the alternatives.
The more frequently Washington turns that system into an instrument of coercion, the stronger the incentive to construct escape routes from it.
That said, most BRICS countries do not appear eager to exchange dependence on Washington for dependence on Beijing.
India maintains extensive relations with the US while buying Russian energy and pursuing closer economic cooperation within BRICS. Brazil has long sought greater autonomy without becoming a Chinese satellite. Saudi Arabia and the UAE remain deeply intertwined with Western economies while expanding their relationships with China.
Their objective is less likely to be replacing one hegemon with another than increasing their ability to manoeuvre between competing centres of power.
That distinction matters. A trade transaction settled in rupees, a loan denominated in renminbi or rand, or a payment made through a system that does not depend on the same Western intermediaries will not overthrow dollar dominance.
But multiply such arrangements across countries and over time, and they begin to reduce the costs of saying no to Washington.
This is why portraying BRICS simply as an anti-US threat risks becoming self-defeating. Punishing countries for seeking alternatives gives them another reason to develop those alternatives.
Trump wants to make challenging US power costly. Instead, he may be making dependence on US power costlier still.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Protesters and police have clashed in Chile, as the country marked 53 years since Augusto Pinochet overthrew President Salvador Allende in a US-backed coup. Many Chileans say the current far-right government is trying to rehabilitate Pinochet’s image.
Published On 12 Sep 202612 Sep 2026
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Members of the high court have exchanged accusations after one justice was accused of involvement in a bank scandal.
By AFP and The Associated Press
Published On 11 Sep 202611 Sep 2026
Brazil’s Supreme Court has cancelled a second straight day of deliberations as suspicions of corruption, political bias and police interference loom over several of its members.
Cancellations are rare at the high court. But on Thursday, Chief Justice Luiz Edson Fachin nixed a second consecutive session, calling for the court to reconvene on Tuesday instead.
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The decision was spurred by an ongoing crisis among the court’s members.
The divisions emerged on September 1, when one justice, Andre Mendonca, unsealed a series of federal police documents that appeared to show a disgraced banker, Daniel Vorcaro, seeking advice from another justice, Alexandre de Moraes.
De Moraes has rocketed to prominence in recent years for his roles in high-profile cases.
He presided over the trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro after prosecutors accused the far-right leader of plotting a coup following his 2022 election defeat. De Moraes also oversaw suspensions of platforms like X and Rumble for failing to abide by court orders, making him a target for Brazil’s right wing.
The document release authorised by Mendonca, a Bolsonaro appointee, contains roughly 30 text messages sent to a phone number associated with de Moraes, allegedly from Vorcaro.
In response, de Moraes has accused Mendonca of abusing his authority on the court for political gains. He requested a probe into whether Mendonca interviewed Vorcaro without the presence of police or prosecutors.
Tuesday’s session will involve the full Supreme Court bench, and 10 of the justices will discuss whether the 11th member, de Moraes, should be investigated over the text messages.
The tit-for-tat on Brazil’s high court is the latest fallout from the Banco Master corruption scandal.
Vorcaro, the head of the Banco Master financial institution, was arrested in November 2025 on accusations he defrauded investors of billions in lost funds, in one of the biggest banking scandals in the country’s history.
The collapse of Banco Master’s private banking arm left behind more than $7bn in debt.
Lawmakers from across the political spectrum have become embroiled in the unfolding scandal as new details emerge.
The turmoil risks affecting October’s general elections, including a pivotal presidential election.
Left-wing incumbent Lula Inacio Lula da Silva is set to compete for the presidency against Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.
Both Lula and Senator Bolsonaro have called for investigations into the Supreme Court justices.
The Bolsonaro family itself has been dragged into the Banco Master scandal. In May, the publication Intercept Brasil released a report showing that Senator Bolsonaro petitioned Vorcaro for funds to finance a film about his ex-president father, who is now serving a 27-year prison sentence.
Senator Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing, claiming he did nothing more than seek private sponsorship for the film, entitled Dark Horse.
But on Thursday, Brazilian police executed dozens of raids related to the Banco Master scandal, including some that targeted two figures involved in the film: Karina Gama, the head of a production company, and Congressman Mario Frias, who served as executive producer.
Senator Bolsonaro has called the probes “attempted political interference” ahead of the elections.
Venezuela’s former first lady, Cilia Flores de Maduro, has asked a judge to release her from federal detention in the United States, citing a worsening heart condition.
In an application for pre-trial release on Wednesday, her legal team asked for the court to allow Flores to await trial under home confinement in Manhattan.
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It described her declining health since US military operation on January 3 that resulted in her abduction from Caracas and imprisonment in New York, as well as that of her husband, former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
“Prior to the United States’ military invasion of Venezuela, Ms. Flores de Maduro was physically healthy and took no ongoing medication, other than a monthly injection to help control her mitral valve prolapse,” the legal filing said.
“Now she is prescribed four medications, maintains nitroglycerin by her side in the event of a potential heart attack, and grapples with the continued medical advice suggesting coronary exploration and surgery.”
Flores was a prominent figure in her husband’s government, serving as first lady since his inauguration in 2013.
Prior to Maduro’s first inauguration, she was also a leading member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the country’s dominant political movement, leading the National Assembly for more than four years.
But Maduro had long clashed with the administration of US President Donald Trump, who accused Venezuela of sending drug-traffickers into the US. Both Maduro and Flores have also faced allegations of participating in human rights abuses, including the violent suppression of political dissent.
After launching a one-day military operation to abduct Maduro and Flores, the Trump administration charged them both with drug- and weapons-related charges. They are currently awaiting trial in New York City.
But Flores’s health has been in doubt since her forced removal from Venezuela, according to her legal team.
After consulting outside medical experts, Flores’s lawyers said they believe she may have suffered a minor heart attack on July 29 while in US custody.
They also questioned whether she was receiving the appropriate medical care for her mitral valve prolapse, a condition affecting one of the heart’s valves.
Since her imprisonment, her lawyers said Flores has not received the monthly injection she needs to manage the condition.
Instead, she has reportedly been prescribed baby aspirin, a statin, diltiazem and nitroglycerin to use when she experiences chest pain.
Doctors have recommended that she undergo a cardiac procedure, which could result in additional heart operations. If she undergoes such treatment, Flores “will need adequate time to recover from any procedures in a setting conducive to restoring her health”, her lawyers said.
Thursday’s filing acknowledges that Flores does not “dispute that she has received excellent care” from medical professionals. But it argues that “a detention centre lacks the conditions needed for such a recovery”.
Her lawyers proposed moving Flores from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to a residence within the Manhattan federal court district, where she and Maduro are due to go on trial next June.
Under home detention, Flores would be subject to round-the-clock armed monitoring, with visits restricted to people approved by the court and federal prosecutors. Her home would also be monitored by video and her phone calls recorded, according to the filing.
Judge Alvin K Hellerstein has yet to rule on the application.
Flores, 69, and Maduro, 63, have been held in US custody since the January raid on their home in Caracas. Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges of participating in a conspiracy to traffic cocaine into the US.
As their customer base grows fast, fintechs across the region are looking to become banks in the full regulatory and economic sense.
This article appears in the September 2026 issue of Global Finance Magazine.
After nearly a decade of explosive growth, Brazil’s fintech industry has crossed a threshold that once looked unthinkable; a digital bank now counts more customers than any of the country’s storied private lenders.
According to recent data from the Central Bank of Brazil, nearly 60% of the nation’s adults now hold an account with Nubank, making it Brazil’s largest private financial institution by customer count, albeit still far from the largest by assets. Similarly, 55% of banked Brazilians primarily identify as customers of a digital bank or fintech, according to research organization Instituto Locomotiva.
“The fintech market has decidedly moved beyond access and into becoming the central piece of the Brazilian banking economy, also from the population’s perspective,” said Álvaro Machado Dias, associate director of Instituto Locomotiva.
The Brazilian experience reflects a broader shift across Latin America. Having secured a competitive customer base, the region’s fintechs are now seeking the licenses, deposits, and balance sheets that could allow them to become the banks they once set out to disrupt.
In Argentina, digital wallets have overtaken every other payment instrument, with 70% of consumers using them over the past six months compared with 52% for cash, according to Mastercard. Nu Mexico reaches roughly 15% of the adult population just seven years after entering the market, while Mercado Pago, the fintech arm of now-Montevideo-headquartered MercadoLibre Inc., now has 83 million monthly active users across eight countries, up 29% over the past year.
The shift is also changing how consumers transact. Sixty-one percent of Brazilian and 47% of Mexican consumers used a mobile device for their latest retail purchase, according to PYMNTS Intelligence’s Global Digital Shopping Index.
Having crossed that threshold with customers, the fintechs are now moving to the next stage: becoming banks in the full regulatory and economic sense. Nubank agreed in July to acquire Banco Porto Real de Investimentos S/A, enabling it to obtain a Brazilian banking license, while its Mexican unit began operating as a bank last month, becoming the first Mexican popular financial society (SOFIPO) authorized to convert.
Mercado Pago is close behind, with its own application reportedly first in line at Mexico’s banking regulator and an ambition to build the country’s largest digital bank. Mexican fintech Plata secured its license in February, while Argentina’s Ualá Bank SAU already holds a full banking license at home and in Mexico and a financing company license in Colombia.
The economics of the transition are straightforward. As fintechs scale, the limitations of lighter regulatory charters become increasingly binding. Nu Mexico’s SOFIPO status, for example, allows deposit insurance of just 25,000 UDIs (Mexico’s inflation-indexed units of accounts) per client; a full banking license raises that ceiling sixteenfold. Banks can also compete for payroll accounts, held by only about a third of Mexican adults and concentrated largely among four incumbent institutions.
Most important, a banking license gives fintechs access to the deposits that provide the cheapest funding for a growing loan book.
Nu Mexico already holds $5.9 billion in deposits, which makes the ability to gather and deploy them at scale an increasingly important side of its business.
“Once a digital bank holds the same license, follows the same rules, and funds itself the same way, it stops being essentially different from a traditional bank,” said Reginaldo Nogueira, national director of Brazil’s Ibmec business and economics school. “The difference shifts to technology, efficiency, and customer experience.”
Accompanying that strategic shift is a much larger investment commitment. Founder David Vélez paired Nubank’s Mexican license with a projected $4.2 billion investment in the country through 2030.
The fintechs’ current profile marks a striking reversal from where the industry began. A decade ago, they were outsiders challenging Latin America’s established banks to control the region’s customers, branches and balance sheets. Today, they have crossed the most important threshold on the customer side. The next step is to acquire the regulatory privileges and funding advantages that underpin the banking business itself.
Thomas Monteiro is a contributing writer based in Spain.
Allegations of misconduct between two justices threaten to pull court into political battles ahead of upcoming election.
Published On 8 Sep 20268 Sep 2026
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Andre Mendonca has ordered the suspension of federal police chief Andrei Rodrigues and the force’s intelligence chief Leandro Almada amid growing divisions that have tested the credibility of the country’s highest court.
The suspensions were announced on Tuesday. Mendonca, appointed by former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, has accused Rodrigues and Almada of producing six illegal reports on the activities of justices.
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The move was backed by a majority on one of the high court’s five-member panels.
But it is likely to be challenged by the government, possibly pulling the administration of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva into a political battle ahead of October’s presidential election.
“Investigating possible evidence of crimes is correct,” Institutional Relations Minister Jose Guimaraes, a top aide to Lula, said in response to the decision on social media. “But this measure smells electoral to me. That cannot happen.”
Polls show Lula and Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, in a tight race ahead of the first round of voting on October 4.
The Supreme Court has been roiled by mutual accusations of wrongdoing between Justice Alexandre de Moraes, appointed under centre-right President Michel Temer, and Mendonca, a Bolsonaro appointee.
De Moraes has become a prominent target of right-wing criticism, particularly after he oversaw the case against Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup after the 2022 election.
A report detailing possible links between de Moraes and disgraced banker Daniel Vorcaro was made public by Mendonca last week.
De Moraes, however, responded by accusing Mendonca of abusing his power, citing federal police intelligence reports and urging the court to investigate him. Mendonca has now challenged the legality of those reports.
The Vorcaro corruption scandal has widened to include powerful political figures on both the left and right.
Vorcaro was arrested in 2025 for allegedly overseeing one of the largest bank fraud schemes in the history of Brazil, leaving billions in owed money.
Flavio Bolsonaro has also faced scrutiny for his ties with Vorcaro, after he approached the banker for assistance in funding a film about his father. Jair Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence.
The right-wing senator used Tuesday’s suspension to push his claim that the prosecution of his father was a political “witch-hunt”. The Federal Police had recommended charges be brought against the elder Bolsonaro in November 2024.
“Lula’s special group in the Federal Police officially unmasked,” Senator Bolsonaro wrote in a social media post. “May the honourable and glorious Federal Police regain its autonomy to go after criminals, and not Lula’s political adversaries.”
William Marcel Murad, the federal police’s executive director, released a statement saying that Rodrigues has the agency’s “full confidence” and that agents “will not be shaken by attacks”.
Jamaica petitions the British monarch over questions about the legality of the transatlantic slave trade.
Jamaica’s campaign for reparations from the United Kingdom is part of a broader push for countries to pay for their roles in the transatlantic slave trade and hundreds of years of slavery.
Momentum is building. In March, a United Nations resolution said the claims represent a step towards a remedy for the descendants of enslaved people. Most Western countries abstained from the vote, and the United States opposed it.
In June, African and Caribbean nations met in Ghana – where hundreds of thousands of people were forced onto slave ships. They put together a plan for reparatory justice, which would include debt relief and other support for African nations.
Last month, a UN committee said governments are obliged by law to consider paying damages.
So, will the legal argument boost the case for reparations?
Presenter: Dareen Abughaida
Guests:
Hilary Beckles – vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies and chairman of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) Reparations Commission
Lawrence Goldman – emeritus fellow in history at St Peter’s College, University of Oxford, and former editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Patrick Vernon – British historian and social commentator knighted in 2026 for his services to racial equality and social justice
Published On 8 Sep 20268 Sep 2026
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By Matthew Lee and Astrid Suárez
MIAMI — Secretary of State Marco Rubio begins a three-nation tour of Latin America on Tuesday, visiting U.S.-aligned conservative leaders as the Trump administration steps up military operations to combat drug trafficking and seeks further inroads in the Western Hemisphere aimed at improving America’s energy standing and combating illegal migration.
Just a week after sealing a massive oil deal with Venezuelan leaders after a U.S. military operation in January deposed then-leader Nicolás Maduro, Rubio was traveling to neighboring Colombia to meet President Abelardo de la Espriella. Colombia’s new leader has embraced President Trump’s policies on issues ranging from drugs to immigration and energy.
De la Espriella is one of a new generation of right-wing conservatives to win election and show support for Trump’s muscular approach to a region that had tilted leftward in recent decades.
In announcing the trip last week, which also will take Rubio to Ecuador and Peru, the State Department said Rubio and all three leaders would be discussing “enhanced cooperation in the shared fight against narcoterrorism, which threatens our hemisphere.”
The trip comes a day after U.S. forces intercepted and sank another Ecuadorian vessel that Washington accuses of links to the criminal group Los Choneros.
It was the latest action by the U.S. against boats and vessels in Latin America that it says are involved in drug trafficking. Expanded operations in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean began a year ago, coinciding with an extreme crackdown on migrants in the U.S. illegally, many of them from Latin America.
The vessel sunk Monday was the fifth targeted by U.S. forces in the region in less than two weeks — in most cases with the cooperation or at least tacit support of the conservative leaders with whom Rubio will meet.
But unlike strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in Latin American waters that began in September 2025, those on board the vessel were removed and transferred to Ecuadorian authorities. It appears to be a shift after a series of strikes on boats over the year have killed at least 227 people, which the Trump administration accuses of being “narcoterrorists” but without providing evidence.
The U.S. military carried out at least two of those deadly strikes last month before starting to intercept floating refueling stations that it says support illicit drug trafficking operations at sea.
Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bula said in a video released Tuesday that Rubio’s visit marks the beginning of “rebuilding a strategic alliance with the United States, our main partner in the region.” He affirmed that Colombia will focus on discussing security, which includes combating drug trafficking, trade, and the defense of “shared values.”
De la Espriella has promised to take a hard line against drug traffickers and pledges to deport thousands of migrants who are in Colombia without residence permits, mainly Venezuelans, as he tries to make significant changes to the nation’s immigration policies that he says will reduce crime.
After taking office last month, De la Espriella brought Colombia into the Americas Counter Cartels Coalition and strengthened long-standing security cooperation with the United States, following strained relations during the 2022-2026 administration of progressive Gustavo Petro.
In just a month in office, De la Espriella has carried out at least three bombings against illegal armed groups and increased military operations. However, several minors have died during the bombings, which has drawn criticism from opposition leaders.
As part of his security strategy, he has focused his efforts on showcasing the results of military operations. However, there was criticism from the opposition and the state-run Ombudsman’s Office after De la Espriella displayed the bodies of alleged criminals wrapped in white bags on the ground alongside seized ammunition.
After winning the election, De la Espriella identified several leaders of Colombia’s illegal armed groups as “military targets.” Last week, he announced that the first of these, Naín Andrés Pérez Toncel, alias “Bendito Menor,” one of the leaders of the Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada, an illegal armed group in the north of the country, had been killed by police.
Nicknamed “El Tigre,” or The Tiger, the president has shifted the country’s security policy, closing the peace negotiations initiated by Petro during his administration, which he considers a failed effort that only increased violence in Colombia.
Colombia grapples with illegal armed groups vying for control of territories strategically important for drug trafficking and illegal mining, despite the fact that a decade ago the state signed a historic peace agreement with the FARC rebel group.
After meeting De la Espriella in Barranquilla on the Caribbean, where he will sign a civil nuclear cooperation deal and a critical minerals agreement, Rubio will make a brief stop in Quito.
He will meet Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa whose government has steadily increased counternarcotics operations conducted with the U.S. military.
Rubio will round out the visit with a stop in Lima, Peru, where he will meet new President Keiko Fujimori — the daughter of former leader Alberto Fujimori — as the government also has taken a rightward turn.
Lee and Suárez write for the Associated Press. Suarez reported from Bogota, Colombia.
Reports are emerging from the powerful explosion at a military barracks in Bolivia that killed at least nine people. President Rodrigo Paz declared a period of national mourning, with the initial investigation suggesting the blast was an accident.
Published On 8 Sep 20268 Sep 2026
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Rightward shift in Latin America comes as Washington pledges to grow influence, take militaristic approach to cartels.
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio is travelling to three South American countries whose recently elected leaders have closely aligned with President Donald Trump’s administration.
Rubio will travel to Colombia on Tuesday to meet with newly elected President Abelardo de la Espriella. He will then visit Ecuador to meet with President Daniel Noboa before going to Peru, where he will meet with another newly elected leader, Keiko Fujimori.
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The State Department has not yet released a more in-depth agenda for the trip, saying only that Rubio will discuss “US support for Colombia’s earthquake response; enhanced cooperation in the shared fight against narcoterrorism, which threatens our hemisphere; and the benefits of deeper commercial relationships between our countries”.
The trip comes amid a rightward shift in Latin America that has seen several Trump-aligned leaders take office. Beyond the three countries, Trump also backed Honduran President Nasry Asfura, who won the presidency in November, and Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz, who won in October.
Beyond the new leaders, Trump has also closely aligned with Argentina’s Javier Milei, who took office in 2023, and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, who became the leader in 2019.
Rubio’s visit comes as the Trump administration has pledged to assert more influence over the Western Hemisphere in what Trump has referred to as the “Donroe Doctrine”, a reference to the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine that opposed European interference in the Americas.
It has shifted to a militaristic approach to security in Latin American countries, while broadly reframing efforts to combat drug trafficking as a war against “narco-terrorists”.
In August, Colombia’s de la Espriella upped cooperation with the US by joining the Trump administration’s so-called “Shield of the Americas”.
The 19 members of the group have jointly pledged a “commitment to using lethal military force to destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks”.
Unlike his predecessor, leftist Gustavo Petro, de la Espriella has also praised US military strikes on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. At least 227 people have been killed in those strikes, in what rights groups have condemned as extrajudicial killings.
Family members of those killed have charged that the targets were fishermen, not drug smugglers.
The US has proven a major supporter for de la Espriella in the wake of a devastating earthquake in Colombia last month in which at least 330 people were killed and thousands left homeless.
In March, the US military announced it was collaborating with Ecuador, under Noboa’s leadership, to target drug trafficking groups in the country.
Ecuador’s Interior Minister John Reimberg defended the US strikes on vessels allegedly carrying drugs in an interview with broadcaster Teleamazonas last week.
Peru’s Fujimori, the daughter of former leader Alberto Fujimori, who notoriously dissolved the country’s Congress and Supreme Court to consolidate power during his government from 1990 to 2000, has also pledged closer ties with the US and a military crackdown on criminal groups.
Rubio’s visit comes after the US announced a controversial agreement with Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez. The deal, struck in the wake of the January 3 US abduction of Venezuela’s ex-President Nicolas Maduro, grants US companies access to 65 billion barrels of crude oil reserves over the next 100 years.
It also comes as Washington has continued to up its pressure campaign against Cuba, with Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez on Monday rejecting any talks with the US despite its ongoing fuel blockade of the island.
Brazil and Mexico remain the only regional powers with leftist leaders. Rubio has called the region’s conservative lurch an “extraordinary achievement”.
The shift has accompanied the strengthening of ties between Israel and several Latin American countries since Trump took office.
Brazilians will go to the polls in October, when Flavio Bolsonaro, a son of former right-wing leader Jair Bolsonaro, seeks to unseat Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Trump has remained a staunch ally of the elder Bolsonaro, who has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for leading a conspiracy to hold onto power.
The US president has also shown strong support for the younger Bolsonaro, including inviting him to the White House in May.
Petition to King Charles questions the legality of slavery under English law and UK’s responsibility for reparations.
Published On 7 Sep 20267 Sep 2026
A Jamaican delegation to the United Kingdom has said it will file a petition addressed to King Charles III to seek legal guidance on the question of slavery reparations.
This is the first time a British Commonwealth state will use this legal route “for the cause of reparatory justice”, the Jamaican delegation said, as the visit to London kicks off Monday.
Jamaica’s Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport said its minister, Olivia Grange, will lead the delegation “to advance Jamaica’s push for reparations for the African ancestors who suffered under hundreds of years of enslavement”.
The ministry added that it will meet with the British Museum to discuss “the repatriation of cultural artefacts taken from Jamaica”.
The petition will ask the king, Jamaica’s head of state, to answer three questions on the transatlantic slave trade to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the Caribbean island’s highest court of appeal based in London.
Under the Judicial Committee Act of 1833, the UK monarch has the authority to refer legal matters to the court for an advisory opinion.
The questions include: whether the enslavement of Africans in Jamaica was legal under English common law, whether it violated international law, and whether the UK has a legal obligation to provide a remedy for the harm caused by slavery.
![Jamaica's Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, Olivia Grange attends the AIPS and Laureus Press Celebration 'Champions in Sport for Good' during day six of the 12th IAAF World Athletics Championships at Casa Italia, Hotel Ellington on August 20, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. [Mark Dadswell/Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/getty_6a9e04d05e-1788740816.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
Grange said she would not speculate on whether Jamaica was asking the UK to pay reparations for the slave trade.
“We want the answers. Once we get the answers, or once we get a response to those questions, then the next steps will be determined,” she said.
“We understand the Jamaican government is seeking a petition to be heard before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,” a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said in response to Jamaica’s inquiry.
The palace acknowledged the king’s constitutional role in the petition as Jamaica’s head of state but said he had no role in deciding the substance of the claim.
British merchants enslaved and forcibly transported 600,000 to 1 million Africans to Jamaica between the 17th century and the early 19th century.
Shortly after abolishing slavery in 1833, the UK paid slave owners $27m in compensation, amounting to 40 percent of the Treasury’s annual income. To raise the cash, the government took out considerable loans, finally paying off its debts in 2015.
The Jamaican government estimates that the country is owed about $10bn, but the UK has repeatedly refused to pay for historical slavery.
President Javier Milei says sovereignty over the islands remains a national objective.
It has been dormant for decades, but the row between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands has been revived.
It started with a joint British-Israeli oil exploration project off the archipelago’s north coast, to which Buenos Aires vehemently objected.
President Javier Milei has now threatened to sanction companies operating there.
His push to reclaim the islands was bolstered by United States President Donald Trump’s comment that he may reconsider Washington’s position on the territory.
Britain and Argentina went to war over the islands more than four decades ago.
Could the dispute escalate into another armed confrontation?
Presenter: Cyril Vanier
Guests:
Diego Guelar – Former Argentinian ambassador to the US, European Union and China
Christopher Sabatini – Director of the Latin America programme at Chatham House
Javier Farje – Journalist and historian specialising in Latin American affairs
Published On 5 Sep 20265 Sep 2026
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Colombian authorities blame ELN rebel group for attack that reportedly included drones dropping explosives on compound.
Published On 5 Sep 20265 Sep 2026
Colombian authorities have said that at least three soldiers have been killed and several more injured after an attack on a military compound by an armed group that included drones used to drop explosives.
The Colombian army said on Saturday that the attack had been carried out by the rebel National Liberation Army (ELN) the night before in the municipality of Ocana, which is in the area bordering Venezuela. Two soldiers were killed in the clashes, along with a third who died after receiving medical attention. Four were injured.
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“To the ELN I say with absolute clarity: for every police officer or soldier you kill, I will bring down on you the full weight and legitimate force of the State,” President Abelardo de la Espriella said in a statement on social media condemning the attack.
Authorities said that drones dropped explosives onto the compound in the department of Norte de Santander before fighting took place within the facility. The news service AFP reported that at least 20 drones loaded with explosives were utilised in the attack, citing an unnamed security official.
De la Espriella won office pledging to return Colombia to militarised confrontation with armed groups and criminal organisations that have jostled for influence across the country, despite concerns that it could lead to surging violence and possible rights abuses.
Deadly attacks by armed groups have continued to rattle the country since his inauguration.
The attack on Friday took place in the northeastern Catatumbo region, where the ELN is based and where the government has carried out military raids against armed groups.
De la Espriella has also promised closer ties with the United States, which has sought to expand its military involvement in the region under the so-called “Shield of the Americas” initiative.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to meet with de la Espriella, a former lawyer who previously represented leaders of paramilitaries, in the Caribbean city of Barranquilla next week.