Latin America

China has detained nearly 70 Panamanian-flagged ships after a Supreme Court ruling on the Panama Canal, US officials say.

Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States have released a joint statement in support of Panama, while criticising Chinese economic retaliation, after a Hong Kong-based conglomerate lost a legal dispute over the management of ports on the Panama Canal.

Panama’s Supreme Court in late January annulled contracts that had allowed a subsidiary of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison to administer the Balboa and Cristobal port terminals on the Panama Canal after deeming the decades-old agreements unconstitutional.

In their joint statement on Tuesday, the six countries claimed that following the court ruling, China has retaliated against Panama with “targeted economic pressure” on Panamanian-flagged ships.

China detained nearly 70 Panamanian-flagged ships in March, according to the US Federal Maritime Commission, a number “far exceeding historical norms”.

“These actions – following the decision of Panama’s independent Supreme Court regarding the Balboa and Cristobal terminals – are a blatant attempt to politicise maritime trade and infringe on the sovereignty of the nations of our hemisphere,” the signatories said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said separately on X that Washington was “deeply concerned” by China’s economic pressure on Panama.

“We stand in solidarity with Panama. Any attempts to undermine Panama’s sovereignty are a threat to us all,” he said.

China has previously accused the US of “bullying” and trying to smear its reputation in Latin America, while it described the Panamanian Supreme Court ruling as “absurd” and “shameful”.

US Federal Maritime Commission head Laura DiBella said last month that Beijing’s detention of Panamanian ships had repercussions for both Panama and the US.

“These intensified inspections were carried out under informal directives and appear intended to punish Panama after the transfer of Hutchison’s port assets,” DiBella said.

“Given that Panama‑flagged ships carry a meaningful share of US containerised trade, these actions could result in significant commercial and strategic consequences to US shipping,” she said.

‘States know how vulnerable shipping is’

Panama’s decision to invalidate the contracts held by CK Hutchison’s subsidiary Panama Ports Company was made at a time of heightened media attention around the Panama Canal amid threats by US President Donald Trump to seize the strategic waterway.

Trump had made the approximately 80km (49-mile) waterway a focus of his second administration, alleging in his inaugural address in January 2025 that China was “operating” the canal and pledging that the US would “take back” control.

US officials allege that, in addition to targeting Panama and its interests, China has also retaliated against shipping giants Maersk and the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), whose subsidiaries were granted 18-month contracts to administer the Balboa and Cristobal terminals after CK Hutchison was removed.

Representatives of Maersk and MSC were both summoned by China’s Ministry of Transport for “high-level discussions”, the Federal Maritime Commission said in March, while Chinese shipping giant COSCO has suspended operations at the Balboa terminal.

CK Hutchison, through its Panama Ports Company subsidiary, is separately pursuing international arbitration against the government of Panama and seeking more than $2bn in damages.

David Smith, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre, said that the Panama Canal dispute and China’s retaliation were the latest example of how shipping has become a political target, from Latin America to the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea in the Middle East.

“We have taken for granted that the world runs on container ships just freely sailing around the world,” he told Al Jazeera.

“What we’re seeing now is that states know how vulnerable shipping is. They know they can cut shipping lanes off if necessary. It should not surprise us from now on if ships and shipping in general become pawns in international politics.”

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has blamed a ‘narco-terrorist group’ led by a former FARC fighter for the attack.

The death toll from a deadly highway bombing in southwestern Colombia has risen to at least 20, the governor of the Cauca region has said.

Governor Octavio Guzman said on Monday that the death toll included 15 women and five men.

There were also 36 people injured, including three who remained in intensive care as of Monday and “five minors who are out of danger”, Guzman said in an update shared on social media.

Some media reports put the death toll from the lethal explosion, near a tunnel on the Pan-American Highway, at 21 as of late on Monday.

A dozen of the victims were from a village near the town of Cajibio, where hundreds of mourners held a vigil on Monday.

The mourners were dressed in white and waved white sheets or balloons as a sign of peace.

“Please, no more death, no more violence,” Joao Valencia, 42, a relative of a woman killed in the attack, told the AFP news agency, holding up her picture.

“These kinds of women should die of old age, not have their lives taken from them in such a tragic way,” he added.

The bombing was one of the deadliest attacks in Colombia since the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) blew up a Bogota nightclub in 2003, killing 36 people.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said a “narco-terrorist group” was responsible for the attack, specifically naming a group led by Nestor Vera, commonly known as Ivan Mordisco, one of Colombia’s most wanted men.

Mordisco is a dissident former member of FARC, which signed a landmark peace agreement with the government in 2016.

The attack comes just more than a month before national elections, in which voters will pick a successor to President Gustavo Petro.

Security is one of the central issues of the May 31 presidential election, with a suspect recently arrested in the assassination of young conservative presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay last June.

The Mexican military released footage of an operation resulting in the capture of Audias Flores, a high-ranking commander in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Flores was considered a potential successor to former cartel leader El Mencho, who was killed in February.

A highway bomb attack in southwestern Colombia has killed 19 people and injured at least 38, the latest spate of violence ahead of next month’s presidential election.

Buses and vans were left mangled in the blast Saturday on the Pan-American Highway, in the restive southwestern Cauca department.

Several cars were flipped over by the force of the explosion and a large crater was blown out of the roadway.

The department’s governor on Saturday evening provided a death toll of 14, with more than 38 injured, but the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences said Sunday morning it had begun the examination of 19 bodies.

Military chief Hugo Lopez told a news conference on Saturday that the bomb had exploded after assailants stopped traffic by blocking the road with a bus and another vehicle.

The attack comes just over one month ahead of national elections, in which voters will pick a successor to President Gustavo Petro.

Petro blamed the bombing on Ivan Mordisco, the South American country’s most-wanted criminal, whom the president has compared to late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.

The violence came after a bomb attack on Friday on a military base in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, injured two people and set off a string of attacks in the Valle del Cauca and Cauca departments.

According to Lopez, 26 attacks have been recorded in the two departments over the past two days.

Authorities have boosted military and police presence in the areas, Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez said.

Security is one of the central issues of the May 31 presidential election. Political violence was brought into sharp focus last June, when young conservative presidential frontrunner Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot in broad daylight while campaigning in the capital Bogota and later died from his wounds.

Leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda, an architect of Petro’s controversial policy of negotiating with armed groups, is ahead in polls.

He is trailed by right-wing candidates Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, both of whom have pledged to take a hard line against rebel groups.

All three have reported receiving death threats and are campaigning under heavy security.

Authorities in Cauca region demand ‘decisive’ government action after deadly explosion on Pan-American Highway.

At least seven people were killed, and 20 were wounded following a suspected explosive attack in the southwestern province of Cauca, Colombia, according to regional authorities.

Governor Octavio Guzman said that an explosive was detonated on the Pan-American Highway in the El Tunel sector of Cajibio on Saturday. He condemned what he called an “indiscriminate attack” against the civilian population.

“There are not sufficient words for the pain we feel,” Guzman said in a social media post, demanding a “decisive, sustained” response from the government against the “terrorist escalation”.

A video shared by the governor appeared to show the aftermath of the bombing, with ambulances on site and mangled vehicles and debris covering the road.

“Cauca cannot continue facing this barbarity alone,” he added, stating that other actions had also been carried out in El Tambo, Caloto, Popayan, Guachene, Mercaderes, and Miranda.

The deadly incident comes after a series of attacks on Friday, attributed to criminal groups formed by dissident members of the FARC rebel group, who split with the group following a landmark peace agreement with the government in 2016.

On Saturday, Minister of Defence Pedro Sanchez was convening a security council in Cali to assess the regional security situation when the latest attack occurred.

President Gustavo Petro responded to the deadly explosion by saying that powerful criminal groups are seeking to control the population through fear.

While details of the attack are still emerging, Petro appeared to blame a drug trafficker and FARC dissident leader known by the alias Ivan Mordisco.

“I want the maximum worldwide pursuit against this narco-terrorist group,” Petro said.

Defence lawyers had asked for case to be thrown out, claiming Maduro’s rights were violated following US abduction.

The United States has agreed to ease certain sanctions on Venezuela in order to allow the country’s government to cover the legal fees for ex-president Nicolas Maduro, who is on federal trial in New York City for drug trafficking charges after being abducted by US forces in January.

Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, had asked the Manhattan-based US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to toss out the case in February, arguing that a prohibition on the government in Caracas paying the legal fees constituted a violation of Maduro’s legal right to the counsel of his choice.

In a court filing, US Department of Justice lawyers agreed to modify US sanctions so that the Venezuelan government could pay Maduro’s defence lawyer. They said the change makes the defence’s motion to throw out the case “moot”.

The pivot is the latest update in a closely watched trial that has raised a series of legal questions based on Maduro’s status as a former head of state and how he was taken into US custody.

Critics have condemned the proceedings as fundamentally illegitimate, pointing to the extraordinary US military operation to abduct Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from Venezuela. Legal experts have called the raid a blatant violation of international law.

The Trump administration has maintained that the abduction was a law enforcement operation supported by the military. It has argued that Washington does not recognise Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela following several contested elections.

Under the international law concept of “head of state immunity”, sitting world leaders are typically granted immunity from foreign national courts.

After being spirited to the US, Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty and remain jailed in Brooklyn, New York. Maduro has rejected the US charges as a false pretext for seizing control of the South American country’s natural resources.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire for foreign companies to access Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

During a hearing on March 26, Judge Hellerstein did not signal that he would throw out the trial, but did question whether the sanctions preventing the Venezuelan government from covering Maduro’s legal fees were a violation of constitutional rights.

All criminal defendants in the US have constitutional rights, regardless of whether or not they are US citizens.

Prosecutors, at the time, argued that the sanctions were based on national security interests and asserted that the executive branch, rather than the judiciary, oversees foreign policy.

They further argued that Maduro and Flores could use personal funds to pay for a lawyer of their choice.

“The defendant is here, Flores is here. They present no further national security threat,” said Hellerstein.

“The right that’s implicated, paramount over other rights, is the right to constitutional counsel.”

Anticorruption police gathered material from the homes of election officials including former office leader Piero Corvetto.

Police in the Peruvian capital of Lima have raided a home belonging to the former head of its national election agency, amid growing frustration in the aftermath of the country’s presidential election.

As of Friday, results still had not been finalised for the presidential race, which took place on April 12.

Delays in ballot deliveries forced the voting in some areas to be extended by an extra day, and the slow vote count has led to accusations of wrongdoing. But the European Union’s election mission to Peru found no indication of fraud.

Law enforcement was seen entering the home of Piero Corvetto, the former head of Peru’s National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), on Friday as part of a judicial warrant.

The officers with the local anticorruption police unit were tasked with removing mobile phones, laptops and documents, according to local broadcaster RPP.

The homes of five other officials were also targeted by police raids, as were offices belonging to Galaga, a private company that transports election ballots.

Corvetto resigned on Tuesday, though he denied any wrongdoing or irregularities in the election process. In a statement, he said he hoped his departure would boost public confidence.

On Friday, his lawyer, Ricardo Sanchez Carranza, told the news agency Reuters that a judge authorised the raid but denied prosecutors’ request to put Corvetto in preliminary detention.

But one of the leading presidential candidates, Lima’s former far-right mayor, Rafael Lopez Aliaga, has accused Corvetto of being a “criminal” and pledging to pursue him “until he dies”.

Lopez Aliaga is currently in a narrow race for second place in the presidential election.

With 95 percent of the ballots tallied, right-wing candidate and former First Lady Keiko Fujimori is in first place with 17 percent of the vote. She is all but assured of proceeding to the run-off on June 7.

Lopez Aliaga, meanwhile, is in third place with 11.9 percent, behind left-wing Congress member Roberto Sanchez at 12.03 percent.

Roughly 20,000 votes separate Sanchez from Lopez Aliaga, who has increasingly denounced the election as illegitimate, though he has yet to provide evidence to support that claim. Still, he has called the vote tally an “electoral fraud unique in the world”.

The final results are expected on May 15.

Judge had previously blocked move to end temporary legal status for those who entered US via Biden-era application.

The administration of President Donald Trump plans to again end the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of people who applied for asylum in the United States via the CBP One app.

The plan was detailed in a court filing in Boston, Massachusetts, and comes after a judge ruled that Trump’s earlier effort to terminate the legal status of those individuals was unlawful.

Under US President Joe Biden, individuals who registered for an appointment with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were preliminarily vetted and granted temporary legal status in the US as their asylum cases were adjudicated.

About 900,000 people were granted so-called humanitarian parole under the programme.

But in April of last year, just months after Trump took office for a second term, many of those individuals received emails saying their status had been terminated.

The message told its recipients it was “time for you to leave the United States”.

Federal Judge Allison Burroughs subsequently ruled that the Department of Homeland Security did not follow the proper procedures in terminating the legal status immigration status of CBP One users.

The US Department of Justice, in the new filings, told Burroughs that the Trump administration was complying with ⁠her order.

However, the department said the administration would begin issuing new parole termination notices, pursuant to a Tuesday memo from CBP’s head, Rodney Scott.

The memo is not public, but according to the Justice Department, Scott provided ‌an explanation for why, in his opinion, “parole is no longer appropriate for those aliens”.

Lawyers for Democracy Forward and Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, which represent the individuals whose status faces termination, urged Burroughs in a subsequent filing to prevent what they called a “deliberate attempt to evade compliance with the court’s order”.

The next hearing was set for May 6.

During his second term, Trump has pursued a hardline immigration policy that has included staunching nearly all asylum claims at the southern border.

Shortly after taking office, Trump’s officials also dissolved the CBP One app and relaunched it as CBP Home, a tool for self-deportation.

His administration has claimed there was an “invasion” at the border that constituted a “national emergency”, thereby allowing Trump to bypass legal requirements to allow individuals seeking asylum into the country.

Asylum, however, is a right enshrined both in domestic and international law, to protect people fleeing persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.

Separately, on Friday, a federal appeals court ruled against the Trump administration’s ban on asylum at the southern US border, potentially clearing the way for applications to once again be processed.

The administration is expected to appeal the decision.

Press freedom advocates have warned of hostile rhetoric towards journalists and increasingly restrictive policies under Milei.

The administration of Argentina’s Javier Milei has restricted access to the presidential palace, the Casa Rosada, as part of an escalating feud with the country’s journalists.

Accredited journalists reportedly arrived at the Casa Rosada on Thursday and attempted to enter the building through fingerprint scanning, as they usually would.

But they were unable to pass the scan. As confusion hit the news corps, the head of Argentina’s Secretariat of Communication and Press issued a clarification that their press accreditation had not been revoked.

“The decision to remove the fingerprints of journalists accredited to the Casa Rosada was taken as a preventive measure in response to a complaint filed by the Military Household regarding illegal espionage,” Secretary Javier Lanari wrote on social media.

“The sole objective is to guarantee national security.”

Lanari’s post cites an incident wherein two journalists from the Argentinian channel TN were accused of secretly filming inside the government palace.

After their report was broadcast, the Milei administration accused the journalists of endangering government security by showing parts of the Casa Rosada that were reportedly off limits.

On Wednesday, Milei himself took to social media to call the journalists “repugnant trash”. He then challenged other members of the news media to justify their actions.

“I would love to see that filthy scum — the 95% who carry press credentials — come out and defend what these two criminals did,” Milei wrote on X.

Since then, the president has repeatedly reposted messages critical of the news media, often accompanied by the acronym “NOLSALP” or “NOL$ALP”. It stands for: “We don’t hate journalists enough.”

“Someday, that filthy journalistic scum (95%) will have to understand that they are not above the law. They abused legal precedent. It does not come without a price,” Milei added in one of his posts on Thursday, as he continued to slam the news media.

This week’s actions are the latest in a series of policy changes under Milei designed to tighten restrictions on journalists.

Last year, for instance, his government capped entry to certain rooms in the Casa Rosada and placed other areas out of bounds.

Critics say the policies are part of a wider broadside against journalism in Argentina. The media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said that, since Milei took office in 2023, the country has seen “a sharp decline in press freedom”.

And PEN International, an organisation for writers, warned last year of a “serious deterioration” in free-speech rights.

It pointed to legislation that further restricted which government documents could be made public and to Milei’s dismantling of public media, as well as the installation of a “mute” button to silence journalists during news conferences.

Already, the decision to bar journalists from entry into the Casa Rosada has faced pushback, including from Argentinian lawmakers.

Marcela Pagano, a former journalist turned deputy in Argentina’s legislature, announced on Thursday that she had filed a criminal complaint against Milei.

“The Casa Rosada is not private property,” Pagano wrote in a statement.

“Still less does a head of state — or his henchmen officials — have the authority to decide whether the press may access the building.”

She called Thursday’s incident “an unprecedented occurrence since the return of democracy” in Argentina in 1983.

“Prohibiting journalists from exercising their freedom of expression is the first step toward silencing any dissenting voice — a situation that we in Argentina have experienced during our country’s darkest moments,” she added. “THEY WILL NOT SILENCE US.”

Two cabinet-level ministers in Peru have resigned after interim President Jose Maria Balcazar announced he would defer a decision to buy F-16 fighter jets from the United States company Lockheed Martin.

Defence Minister Carlos Diaz and Foreign Minister Hugo de Zela cited their opposition to the move in their resignation letters on Wednesday.

“A strategic decision has been taken in the area of national security with which I have a fundamental disagreement,” Diaz wrote.

The fighter jets have long been a source of controversy in Peru, where critics have questioned whether the purchase is a sign of deference to US President Donald Trump.

Last week, the left-wing Balcazar — Peru’s ninth president in a decade — announced he would leave the decision about whether to invest $3.5bn in the purchase to the country’s next elected leader.

Balcazar himself had only been in office since February, selected by Congress to replace the latest in a string of impeached presidents.

Last week, he abruptly cancelled a signing ceremony for the F-16 deal, which would have seen an initial batch of 12 new planes added to Peru’s ageing air force. The country aims to acquire 24 jets overall.

Balcazar explained he was not pulling out of the deal, but that he felt the next presidential administration should be involved in making such a hefty financial commitment.

“For us to commit such a large sum of money to the incoming government would be a poor practice for a transitional government,” Balcazar said at the time.

“We remain firm in respecting all agreements that may have been reached at the level of the armed forces, or in this case, with the relevant ministry of the air force, to carry out the corresponding negotiations.”

His decision, however, was met with pushback, both domestically and from the US. The US ambassador to Peru, Bernie Navarro, responded on April 17 with a warning posted on social media.

“If you deal with the U.S. in bad faith and undermine U.S. interests, rest assured, I, on behalf of
[President] Trump and his administration, will use every available tool to protect and promote the prosperity and security of the United States and our region,” Navarro wrote.

Critics of the deal, however, have argued that Peru has received more competitive offers from French and Swedish aircraft makers like Dassault Aviation and Saab AB, respectively.

But Navarro on Wednesday denied that the US had been outcompeted. In a statement, he wrote that the “bid was made at a high level of competitiveness” and called the plane fleet “the most technically advanced fighter jets ever built”.

He also denounced the delay as an unreasonable stoppage on a deal he characterised as already signed.

“In planning the delivery of a product of this calibre, there is no such thing as an inconsequential delay,” he wrote.

“Every delay results in significant costs. The same package cannot be available in a couple of months, or even weeks.”

The decision to spend the $3.5bn on 24 fighter jets was made in 2024 under former President Dina Boluarte. The purchase was to be financed by $2bn in domestic borrowing in 2025 and $1.5bn in 2026.

In September, the US Department of Defense approved a potential sale of F-16s to Peru.

But Boluarte was removed from office in October, and her successor, Jose Jeri, lasted just four months in office before he too was impeached.

The instability in Peru’s presidency comes at a time when the Trump administration is seeking greater influence over Latin America, as part of what the US president has called his “Donroe Doctrine”.

Already, the Trump administration has pushed Peru to distance itself from Chinese investment. In February, for instance, it publicly protested against Chinese ownership in the Pacific port of Chancay.

“Peru could be powerless to oversee Chancay, one of its largest ports, which is under the jurisdiction of predatory Chinese owners,” the Trump administration wrote in a social media post.

“We support Peru’s sovereign right to oversee critical infrastructure in its own territory. Let this be a cautionary tale for the region and the world: cheap Chinese money costs sovereignty.”

Just this week, one of Trump’s allies, Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, warned that the Chinese-owned port was a danger to the US.

“That’s a direct threat in our hemisphere, right in the country of Peru,” she told a congressional committee. “For that reason, the new Peruvian government, which will be elected next June, must take it back.”

She added that, if the Peruvian government responded accordingly, “the United States will help them under the Trump administration”.

The country, however, is enmeshed in a messy presidential race replete with vote-counting delays and accusations of malpractice.

Election experts have said there is no evidence of voter fraud. But the slow vote count has left the race’s outcome undetermined, more than a week after the ballots were cast on April 12.

Right-wing leader and former First Lady Keiko Fujimori is all but assured of progressing to a run-off in June. But who will join her is uncertain.

Left-wing Congress member Roberto Sanchez is currently in the lead in the race for second place, with 12 percent of the votes tallied, but far-right candidate Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a former mayor, is close behind with 11.9 percent. Lopez Aliaga has been a vocal supporter of the Trump administration.

The final vote count for the first round of the election is expected to be delivered in May.

Traditionally, Peru’s new president should be sworn in on July 28, the country’s independence day.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the federal government was not informed about the inclusion of CIA officers in an operation targeting a drug lab in the country’s north, adding that she is demanding answers from the US ambassador and state officials.

With 50 days to go until the World Cup kicks off, FIFA and the tournament’s host nations face criticism over wide-ranging social, political and logistical issues surrounding the global event.

Canada and Mexico will cohost the tournament with the United States, which, alongside Israel, launched a war on World Cup participant nation Iran on February 28. While the war is currently under a fragile temporary ceasefire, Iran’s participation in the tournament remains uncertain.

Fans across the three host countries are in uproar over exorbitant ticket prices, which have affected sales and interest in the world’s most popular quadrennial sporting event.

Local politicians and the public have also raised concerns over the hike in transport fares on routes connecting match venues in the US.

Al Jazeera Sport takes a look at the growing concerns in the run-up to the tournament, which begins on June 11 with the opening fixture between Mexico and South Africa:

What’s the latest on Iran’s participation in the World Cup?

Iran’s football team is preparing for the championship. However, officials say a final decision on the team’s participation will be taken by the government and the National Security Council after they review the players’ safety in the US.

Iran had said last month that it would not participate in the tournament amid the war, especially if the host nation could not guarantee players’ security. It followed a social media post from President Donald Trump, where he suggested that the Iranian team’s safety and security could not be guaranteed in the US, where Iranians are scheduled to play all their games.

The Iranian football federation then asked FIFA to relocate its games from the US to Mexico. FIFA rejected the request.

FIFA chief Gianni Infantino said last week that Iran “has to come” to the tournament.

Iran will play all their group stage matches on the US West Coast. Should they advance to the knockouts, the remaining games would also be held in the US.

Outrageous commuter fare prices in US host cities

Fans can expect to pay nearly 12 times the regular $12.90 fare for a round-trip train ride from Manhattan’s Penn Station to the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, venue of the World Cup final and seven other major fixtures.

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill and FIFA have chided each other on the $150 price tag for a roughly 15-minute, 14km (9-mile) ride; Sherrill said FIFA should bear the costs, while the global body hit back, saying it is not obligated to do so.

Train commutes to Gillette Stadium in Boston’s suburbs cost roughly four times the regular price ($20), while round-trip bus fares to Foxborough cost $95.

Host cities Los Angeles and Philadelphia have pledged to keep their transit fares unchanged, while Kansas City is offering a $15 round-trip fare to Arrowhead Stadium. Houston said it has added buses and train cars to serve fans but intends to keep fares at current levels: $1.25 for buses and light rail trains, and park-and-ride options ranging from $2 to $4.50.

High prices, low demand for match tickets

Sky-high ticket prices have left fans outraged at what they say is pricing that excludes supporters from the tournament. A lag in ticket sales for blockbuster matches, including hosts USA vs Paraguay, seems to be a testament to the high price tag.

FIFA put tickets on sale in December at prices ranging from $140 for Category 3 in the first round to $8,680 for the final. Later, it raised prices to as high as $10,990 when sales reopened on April 1.

The North American bid had initially promised tickets would be available for as little as $21; however, the cheapest ticket has been priced at $60. Most tickets cost at least $200 for matches involving higher-ranked teams.

FIFA announced another round of ticket sales on Wednesday to coincide with the 50-day countdown. Tickets will be available across categories 1 to 3 for all 104 matches on a first-come, first-served basis.

Pushback against immigration raids during World Cup matches

The Trump administration’s push for mass deportation and its efforts to tighten legal immigration pathways have spurred concerns about whether the World Cup’s international audience might be targeted by US immigration authorities.

Infantino was approached last week to pressure Trump to avoid immigration raids at this year’s tournament. Reporters suggested that agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were present at last year’s FIFA Club World Cup matches, though the Trump administration denied conducting enforcement efforts.

A report by The Athletic explained that FIFA executives have framed the possibility of an immigration moratorium as a potential public relations boon for the Trump administration. It also indicated that the executives hoped Infantino would leverage his friendly relationship with Trump to assuage any immigration-related fears.

Violence in Mexico raises fears over tournament security

World Cup cohost Mexico is also under the spotlight due to concerns for fan safety after a lone attacker opened fire on tourists near the country’s capital on Monday.

The accused opened fire on top of one of the Teotihuacan pyramids — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Mexico’s most frequented tourist attractions — and killed one Canadian tourist and injured 13 others.

It raised questions about security protocols taken by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government in the run-up to the global football tournament.

Sheinbaum said Mexico will beef up security ahead of the World Cup.

“Our obligation as a government is to take the appropriate measures to ensure that a situation like this does not happen again. But clearly, we all know — Mexicans know — that this is something that had not previously taken place,” she said on Tuesday.

Ballot delivery delays and other missteps on election day have contributed to frustration with electoral authorities.

The head of Peru’s election authority has resigned from his role amid widespread anger over the country’s chaotic general election earlier this month, with vote counting still under way.

Piero Corvetto said in a social media post on Tuesday that he was stepping down as head of the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), a government body tasked with organising elections in Peru.

In a letter to the National Board of Justice (JNJ), Corvetto denied that irregularities had taken place, as some politicians have alleged.

But he explained that he was leaving in a bid to increase public confidence, ahead of an anticipated second round of voting in the presidential race on June 7.

The first round of the election, held on April 12, was marred by logistical issues that led to the extension of voting hours around the capital Lima and elsewhere.

Election observers have acknowledged missteps with the electoral process but cautioned that there is no firm evidence of fraud.

Peru’s National Jury of Elections (JNE) said the voting results will be finalised no later than May 15, with the top two presidential candidates advancing to the final round.

Right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori leads with about 17 percent of the vote and is likely to advance to the run-off.

But who will face her remains a mystery. Left-wing Congressman Roberto Sanchez and Lima’s former far-right mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga remain virtually tied, with 12 percent and 11.9 percent respectively.

The hectic first round of voting could deepen dissatisfaction with the country’s political system at a time of protracted instability and sloping trust in government institutions.

Even before the April election, about 68 percent of Peruvians said that they had little to no trust in the country’s election authorities, according to a poll conducted by the Institute for Peruvian Studies (IEP) and the Institute Bartolome de las Casas (IBC).

Some presidential candidates, including Lopez Aliaga, have pushed unconfirmed claims of fraud and have called for the first round of voting to be nullified.

Election authorities have begun to review thousands of contested ballots that were challenged due to inconsistencies, missing details or tally sheet errors.

A group of hikers were forced to flee as Guatemala’s Santiaguito Volcano erupted, throwing rocks into the air around them. Santiaguito is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, featuring frequent, often daily, explosive eruptions and pyroclastic flows.

A Cuban Foreign Ministry official said the exchange with Washington was ‘respectful and professional’ and devoid of threats.

The Cuban government has confirmed that it held recent talks in Havana with officials from the United States, as tensions remain high between the two countries over Washington’s energy blockade of the Caribbean country.

Alejandro Garcia del Toro, deputy director general in charge of US affairs at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Monday that the US delegation included assistant secretaries of state, and the Cuban delegation included representatives at the level of deputy foreign minister.

Garcia de Toro said that the US delegation did not issue any threats or deadlines as had been reported by some US media outlets.

“The entire exchange was conducted with respect and professionalism,” he said.

In comments reported by Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper Granma, Garcia del Toro emphasised that ending the three-month-old US oil blockade was “a top priority” for the Cuban government in the talks, and accused Washington of “blackmail” for threatening countries that export oil to Cuba with tariffs.

“This act of economic coercion is an unjustified punishment for the entire Cuban population,” he said.

“It is also a form of global blackmail against sovereign states, which have every right to export fuel to Cuba, in accordance with the principles of free trade,” he added.

US news outlet Axios reported on Friday that officials from US President Donald Trump’s administration held multiple meetings in Havana on April 10, including with Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, grandson of former President Raul Castro. The meetings marked the first time that American diplomats had flown into Cuba since 2016 in a new diplomatic push.

According to reports, US officials laid out several conditions for negotiations with Cuba to continue, including the release of prominent political prisoners, an end to political repression, and liberalising the island’s ailing economy.

The Reuters news agency said that US proposals for Cuba also include allowing Elon Musk’s Starlink internet terminals into the country and providing compensation for Americans and US corporations for assets confiscated by Cuba after the 1959 revolution. Washington is also concerned about the influence of foreign powers on the island, a US official told the news agency.

Trump has hinted at military intervention in Cuba and warned of tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba. The fuel blockade has aggravated Cuba’s economic and energy crisis, leading to warnings of a humanitarian disaster.

Cubans have also braced for a possible attack following Trump’s repeated warnings that the country will be “next” after his war on Iran and the US military’s abduction of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro in January.

Last week, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said that his country was prepared to fight if the US carried through on its threats.

The leaders of Mexico, Spain and Brazil on Saturday voiced concern over the “dramatic situation” in Cuba and urged “sincere and respectful dialogue”.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday there was no evident justification for the US to attack Cuba.

“The ability to defend oneself does not mean the right to intervene militarily in other states when their political systems do not match what others might have in mind,” he said.

First all-women cohort of winners hails from Colombia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, the UK and the US.

This year’s prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize has been awarded to six grassroots environmental activists from around the world for their efforts to fight climate change and save biodiversity.

For the first time since the prize was created in 1989 by philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman, all recipients of the award are women: Iroro Tanshi, from Nigeria; Borim Kim, from South Korea; Sarah Finch, from the United Kingdom; Theonila Roka Matbob, from Papua New Guinea; Alannah Acaq Hurley, from the United States; and Yuvelis Morales Blanco, from Colombia.

Sometimes described as the “Green Nobel”, the Goldman Prize recipients are chosen from each of the world’s six primary regions. They each receive $200,000 in prize money.

“While we continue to fight uphill to protect the environment and implement lifesaving climate policies – in the US and globally – it is clear that true leaders can be found all around us,” said John Goldman, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation.

“The 2026 Prize winners are proof positive that courage, hard work, and hope go a long way toward creating meaningful progress.”

Morales Blanco, the winner for the region of South and Central America, fought some of the world’s biggest oil companies to successfully stop the introduction of commercial fracking into Colombia.

The 24-year-old grew up in a family of fishermen along the banks of the Magdalena River in the Afro-Colombian community of Puerto Wilches. “We had nothing but the river – she was like a mother who took care of me,” she said.

She began organising protests after a major oil spill in 2018, which forced the relocation of dozens of local families and killed thousands of animals. Her activism, which made her a target for intimidation and forced her to temporarily relocate, helped halt projects and elevate fracking as an issue in Colombia’s 2022 election.

Two of the other five recipients of this year’s prize have also focused their efforts on fighting fossil fuels, which are causing both global climate change and more localised pollution around the world.

Borim, the winner for Asia who started the Youth 4 Climate Action organisation, won a ruling from South Korea’s Constitutional Court that the government’s climate policy violated the constitutional rights of future generations, the first successful youth-led climate litigation in the continent.

Finch, Europe’s winner, told The Times newspaper she will use her prize money to keep fighting fossil fuels.

Together with the Weald Action Group, she fought oil drilling in southeastern England for more than a decade, securing the “Finch ruling” from the Supreme Court in June 2024, stating that authorities must consider fossil fuels’ impacts on the global climate before granting permission to extract them.

Two other recipients have fought against the destructive environmental impact of mining projects.

Papua New Guinea’s Roka Matbob, winner for Islands and Island Nations, led a successful campaign that saw the world’s second-largest mining company, Rio Tinto, agree to address environmental and social devastation caused by its Panguna copper mine, 35 years after it was closed following an uprising.

And the award recipient for North America, Acaq Hurley, from the Yup’ik nation in the US, successfully fought alongside 15 tribal nations to stop a mega- copper and gold mining project that threatened ecosystems in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, including the largest wild salmon runs in the world.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Tanshi, Africa’s winner, rediscovered the endangered short-tailed roundleaf bat and has been working to save its refuge, the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, from human-induced wildfires.

Madrid, Spain – Venezuela’s opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is aligned with Spain’s main right-wing party on its economic visions, but they are divided by social issues such as abortion, analysts say.

On a visit to Spain this weekend, Machado chose to snub an invitation to meet Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and the left-wing coalition government officials.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner said she had chosen not to meet Sanchez because he was hosting a summit of left-wing leaders from Latin America in Barcelona.

“What has transpired in the past few hours at the meeting held in Barcelona with various political leaders from different countries is proof that such a meeting was not advisable,” Machado told a meeting in Madrid on Saturday.

Instead, she held a series of meetings with leaders from the opposition conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party.

Machado received a rapturous welcome from Alberto Nunez Feijoo, the PP party leader and Venezuelan emigres in Madrid, on Friday.

On Saturday, the Venezuelan opposition leader met Isabel Diaz Ayuso, the populist conservative Madrid regional leader, one of Sanchez’s fiercest critics and a possible rival to Feijoo.

Ayuso presented Madrid’s gold medal to Machado, while Madrid’s Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida – also of the PP – handed her the keys to the city before a rally with Venezuelan supporters.

Machado also met Santiago Abascal, the leader of Vox, in the Spanish capital.

Feijoo praised how Machado had championed freedom even at the cost of going into hiding in Venezuela away from her family.

“Spain knows well the value of freedom; it cost us dearly to obtain it. The generations of our parents and grandparents know what it is to live without freedom. That is why we cannot look the other way,” Feijoo said.

What divides Venezuela and Spain’s opposition?

Despite the cordial welcome, there are significant differences between Machado and Feijoo, commentators said.

A liberal conservative, who has said she is an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, Machado has been dubbed Venezuela’s “Iron Lady”.

She moved from the right politically to the centre-ground during the 2024 presidential campaign to attract voters in the middle ground.

As a conservative, Machado heads a Venezuelan opposition that is split and which also contains more liberal factions.

In contrast, Feijoo heads a well-organised conservative political party, which has only recently suffered divisions after the formation of the hard-right Vox party in 2013, analysts said.

Carlos Malamud, an expert on Latin America at the Real Elcano Institute, a think tank in Madrid, said the structure of both opposition groups was different.

“Machado is the leader of a small, disorganised opposition, while Feijoo is the head of the PP, which is a well-organised national political party,” he told Al Jazeera.

Malamud said Machado did not demonstrate the traits of a would-be Venezuelan president by refusing to see Sanchez.

“If Machado wants to be the president of Venezuela next year, she needs to be prepared to meet the head of the Spanish government, whoever that may be,” he explained.

“Perhaps the Venezuelan opposition sees the Spanish Socialist Party as being allied to (former Spanish prime minister) Jose Rodriguez Zapatero.”

Zapatero has played a controversial role in acting as a mediator between Spain and the government of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was abducted by the United States in January.

Maduro faces charges of narcoterrorism, conspiracy to commit narcoterrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption, which he denies.

Machado ‘more conservative’ on social issues

Malamud said one factor which unites Machado and Feijoo is that they came from political systems which suffered from polarisation.

“Venezuelan politics is the same as Cuban politics, or like Spanish. They all suffer from the same degree of polarisation,” he added.

Ana Ayuso, an investigator in Latin American affairs at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, said Machado shared the liberal economic theories of Feijoo, but they differed on social issues.

“She is in favour of freedom of trade and a small state, so she is quite liberal on economic affairs like Feijoo,” Ayuso told Al Jazeera.

“She is also closer to Isabel Diaz Ayuso in terms of economics, in terms of free trade and the participation of the state.”

“However, she is more conservative when it comes to social issues. Machado is against abortion, and religious affairs are important to her. She is close to the [Roman] Catholic Church. Feijoo supports the right to abortion.”

In an interview in 2024 with Spanish newspaper El Pais, Machado said she was against abortion but in favour of changing the law in Venezuela to allow abortion in cases of rape.

At present, the law in Venezuela allows abortion only when there is a risk to the life of the mother or child. Otherwise, it is illegal and can carry a jail sentence of up to two years.

“Machado does not have any similarities with Vox. Venezuela does not have a problem with immigration. Emigration is the problem,” added Ayuso.

She said the Venezuelan opposition leader had initially been a staunch supporter of US President Donald Trump, but he had shunned her in support of Delcy Rodriguez, the acting Venezuelan president.

Machado was now closer to Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, who supported her cause within the MAGA movement, she added.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei has reaffirmed strong alignment with the US and Israel during a visit to Jerusalem, backing their war on Iran.

His visit with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu included new agreements and closer ties.

The EU’s election observer said the vote met democratic standards despite fraud allegations.

Peru’s presidential election result will not be finalised until mid-May, with challenged ballots from last Sunday’s vote still being reviewed, says the electoral authority.

With 93 percent of ballots counted, right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori leads with 17 percent, according to officials.

Under Peru’s electoral system, the top two candidates advance to a second-round runoff. A close contest has emerged for second spot between left-wing candidate, Roberto Sanchez on 12 percent, and ultra-conservative Rafael Lopez Aliaga close behind on 11.9 percent.

The margin between the two widened slightly on Saturday to about 13,600 votes.

Yessica Clavijo, secretary general of the National Jury of Elections (JNE), said the delay was due to the review of more than 15,000 challenged ballots. About 30 percent concern the presidential race, the rest relate to legislative elections.

Lopez Aliaga, a former mayor of the capital Lima, has been the most vocal critic of the delay. He has alleged fraud without presenting evidence and called for the election to be annulled. He urged supporters of his Popular Renewal Party to protest on Sunday.

Sanchez also criticised the election process, telling reporters: “These serious organisational issues must be investigated and there must be appropriate sanctions”.

A record 35 candidates ran for president in Peru, a country that has faced years of political instability. Four of its last eight presidents have been impeached by Congress.

Voting was disrupted by delays in the delivery of election materials, forcing authorities to extend polling into Monday in parts of Lima.

Despite the setbacks, the European Union’s election observer mission said the vote met democratic standards. On Friday, prosecutors raided a warehouse belonging to the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), the body responsible for organising the election. Four officials have been reported to the JNE over alleged offences linked to voting rights.

Maria Corina Machado gave Trump her Nobel Peace Prize after the US leader captured Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuela’s main opposition leader Maria Corina Machado says she has “no regrets” about giving US President Donald Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal.

Machado, the 2025 recipient of the prestigious prize, presented the medal that accompanies the prize to Trump when she met him at the White House in January, two weeks after he ordered US special forces to seize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas.

Trump’s military operation to remove Maduro, who is currently detained in the US facing drug trafficking charges, is “something we Venezuelans will never forget”, she was quoted by AFP news agency as saying at a conference in Madrid on Saturday.

“There is a leader in the world, a head of state in the world, who risked the lives of his country’s citizens for Venezuela’s freedom,” she said.

Trump, who has long publicly coveted the Nobel Peace Prize, called Machado’s presentation of the medal at the time a “wonderful gesture of mutual respect”.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which honoured Machado for her tireless campaign to restore democratic rights in Venezuela and her struggle to achieve a peaceful transition from authoritarian rule, made clear after the handover that the prize is nontransferable and cannot be revoked, shared or transferred to others.

Machado, who had been living in hiding before leaving Venezuela in December to collect her prize in Oslo, said she was coordinating her return to the country with Washington.

US key to ‘democratic transition’

“I am speaking with the US government, and we are working in coordination, with mutual respect and understanding,” she said, adding that she believed Washington was “key to advancing a democratic transition” in Venezuela.

Trump has, however, publicly questioned Machado’s standing, calling her a “very nice woman” but saying she lacks “respect” within Venezuela. He has instead backed Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, as the country’s interim leader.

Venezuela’s opposition last week called for presidential elections. Machado, who was banned from running in the disputed 2024 vote that returned Maduro to power, has not yet said whether she would stand in a future poll.

While in Spain, Machado declined a meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, citing his hosting of a progressive leaders’ summit in Barcelona as proof the meeting was “not advisable”. Sanchez had said he was willing to meet her at any time.

This snub comes in contrast to her frequent encounters with Sanchez’s right-wing opponents.

The vote count continues to determine who will join conservative Keiko Fujimori in Peru’s presidential run-off in June.

Calls to remove the head of Peru’s electoral authority have intensified as delays and alleged irregularities clouded the presidential vote count.

As of Friday, no clear challenger has emerged to face conservative frontrunner Keiko Fujimori in the June 7 run-off.

The general election was held on Sunday, but an extension was granted to accommodate for the difficulties in ballot distribution.

Pressure has mounted against the head of Peru’s National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), Piero Corvetto. Complaints over errors and logistical problems during Sunday’s election have been compounded by a slow tally that has rattled investor confidence and heightened uncertainty.

According to the ONPE, leftist Roberto Sanchez and ultraconservative former Lima Mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga remain locked in a close battle for second place, separated by about 13,000 votes as of Friday.

With 93.3 percent of the ballots counted, Sanchez held 12.0 percent of the vote and Lopez Aliaga 11.9 percent.

Fujimori, meanwhile, remained firmly in first place with 17 percent, positioning her for the run-off. Final results could take up to two weeks, according to local election-monitoring group Transparencia.

The vote counting has been further delayed by the roughly 5 percent of ballots that were identified for review due to missing information or errors in polling station records, according to ONPE data. Those ballots will be reviewed by a special electoral jury before being included in the final count, officials said.

Business leaders and lawmakers from across the political spectrum have called on Corvetto to step down, arguing that a replacement should oversee the second round.

“Errors this serious have consequences,” Jorge Zapata, head of business chamber CONFIEP, told local radio station RPP.

Earlier this week, Corvetto acknowledged that there had been some logistical delays that forced voting to be extended by a day, mainly in Lima. Those delays triggered fraud allegations, notably from Lopez Aliaga, who has called for counting to be suspended. Corvetto has denied that any irregularities took place.

Even so, Peru’s top electoral court, the National Jury of Elections, filed a criminal complaint with prosecutors against Corvetto, citing alleged offences, including violations of voting rights. Representatives for Corvetto did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

An investigation is also under way after materials from four polling stations were found on a public road in Lima on Thursday, the police said. ONPE said on the social media platform X that the votes from those stations had already been recorded for counting.

European Union election observers said this week that they found no evidence of fraud.

Miguel Diaz-Canel marks anniversary of socialist revolutionary declaration under threat of US attacks.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has said that his country does not seek conflict with the United States but is prepared to fight if necessary, as Cuba marks the anniversary of its socialist revolutionary character amid the threat of US attacks.

Diaz-Canel struck a defiant tone on Thursday in remarks before a crowd marking the 65th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s declaration of the socialist nature of the Cuban Revolution and the failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs by forces aligned with the US the day after.

“The moment is extremely challenging and calls upon us once again, as on April 16, 1961, to be ready to confront serious threats, including military aggression,” Diaz-Canel said. “We do not want it, but it is our duty to prepare to avoid it and, if it becomes inevitable, to defeat it.”

President Donald Trump has threatened that the US could overthrow the Cuban government, a longtime source of ire for Washington, and has ratcheted up energy restrictions meant to squeeze the island’s economy.

“We may stop by Cuba after we finish with this,” Trump said earlier this week, stating that his attention could turn to Cuba after the end of the US-Israel war on Iran.

A US energy blockade and an end to oil shipments from Venezuela after the US abducted former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January have caused deteriorating conditions on the island. Fuel shortages and energy blackouts have roiled the island for weeks, heaping strain on workers and businesses.

Even before those increased restrictions, Cuba’s economy had suffered from decades of economic embargo from the US, along with economic mismanagement and political repression that prompted many Cubans to leave the country.

A vote at the United Nations in 2025 demanding an end to the US embargo passed with 165 votes in favour and seven against, including the US, Israel, Argentina, and Hungary. The resolution has been passed annually for more than 30 years.

“Cuba is not a failed state. Cuba is a besieged state,” Diaz-Canel said on Thursday. “Cuba is a state facing multidimensional aggression: economic warfare, an intensified blockade and an energy blockade.”