A government official in Ecuador has accused protesters of attempting to attack President Daniel Noboa, alleging that a group of approximately 500 people surrounded his vehicle and threw rocks.
The attack, which unfolded in the south-central province of Canar, took place as Noboa arrived in the canton of El Tambo for an event about water treatment and sewage.
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Environment and Energy Minister Ines Manzano said Noboa’s car showed “signs of bullet damage”. In a statement to the press, she explained that she filed a report alleging an assassination attempt had taken place.
“Shooting at the president’s car, throwing stones, damaging state property — that’s just criminal,” Manzano said. “We will not allow this.”
The president’s office also issued a statement after the attack on Tuesday, pledging to pursue accountability against those involved.
“Obeying orders to radicalise, they attacked a presidential motorcade carrying civilians. They attempted to forcibly prevent the delivery of a project intended to improve the lives of a community,” the statement, published on social media, said.
“All those arrested will be prosecuted for terrorism and attempted murder,” it added.
Five people, according to Manzano, have been detained following the incident. Noboa was not injured.
Video published by the president’s office online shows Noboa’s motorcade navigating a roadway lined with protesters, some of whom picked up rocks and threw them at the vehicles, causing fractures to form on the glass.
A separate image showed a silver SUV with a shattered passenger window and a shattered windscreen. It is not clear from the images whether a bullet had been fired.
Noboa, Ecuador’s youngest-ever president, was re-elected in April after a heated run-off election against left-wing rival Luisa Gonzalez.
May marked the start of his first full term in office. Previously, Noboa, a conservative candidate who had only served a single term in the National Assembly, had been elected to serve the remainder of Guillermo Lasso’s term — a period of around 18 months — after the former president dissolved his government.
Combatting crime has been a centrepiece of Noboa’s pitch for the presidency. Ecuador, formerly considered an “island of peace” in South America, has seen a spike in homicide rates as criminal organisations seek to expand their drug trafficking routes through the country.
Ecuador’s economy has also struggled to recover following the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Noboa has faced multiple protests since taking office.
In recent weeks, for example, he has faced outcry over his decision to end a fuel subsidy that critics say helps lower-income families.
Noboa’s government, however, has argued that the subsidy drove up government costs without reaching those who need it. In a presidential statement on September 12, officials accused the subsidy of being “diverted to smuggling, illegal mining and undue benefits”.
The statement also said that the subsidies represented $1.1bn that could instead be used to compensate small farmers and transportation workers directly.
But the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the country’s most powerful Indigenous advocacy organisation, launched a strike in response to the news of the subsidy’s end.
It called upon its supporters to lead protests and block roadways as a way of expressing their outrage.
Nevertheless, on Tuesday, the group denied that there had been an organised attack on Noboa’s motorcade. Instead, CONAIE argued that government violence had been “orchestrated” against the people who had gathered to protest Noboa.
“We denounce that at least five comrades have been arbitrarily detained,” CONAIE posted on X. “Among the attacked are elderly women.”
It noted that Tuesday marked the 16th day of protest. “The people are not the enemy,” it added.
CONAIE had largely backed Noboa’s rival Gonzalez in the April election, though some of its affiliate groups splintered in favour of Noboa.
This is not the first time that Noboa’s government has claimed the president was the target of an assassination attempt.
In April, shortly after the run-off vote, it issued a “maximum alert” claiming that assassins had entered the country from Mexico to destabilise his administration.
At the time, the administration blamed “sore losers” from the election for fomenting the alleged plot.
Trump had imposed a 40 percent US tariff on Brazilian goods in July on top of a 10 percent one earlier even though the United States has a trade surplus with Brazil.
Published On 6 Oct 20256 Oct 2025
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Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has asked United States President Donald Trump to lift the 40 percent tariff imposed by the US government on Brazilian imports.
The leaders spoke for 30 minutes by phone on Monday. During the call, they exchanged phone numbers in order to maintain a direct line of contact, and President Lula reiterated his invitation for Trump to attend the upcoming climate summit in Belem, according to a statement from Lula’s office.
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Shortly after, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he had had a good conversation with Lula.
“We discussed many things, but it was mostly focused on the Economy, and Trade, between our two Countries,” Trump said.
He added that the leaders “will be having further discussions, and will get together in the not too distant future, both in Brazil and the United States”.
The Trump administration had imposed a 40 percent tariff on Brazilian products in July on top of a 10 percent tariff imposed earlier. Lula reminded Trump that Brazil was one of three Group of 20 (G20) countries with which the US maintains a trade surplus, according to the Brazilian leader’s office.
The Trump administration has justified the tariffs by saying that Brazil’s policies and criminal prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro constitute an economic emergency.
Earlier this month, Bolsonaro was convicted of attempting a coup after losing his bid for re-election in 2022, and a panel of the Supreme Court sentenced him to 27 years and three months in prison.
In September, Trump and Lula had a brief encounter at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, with Trump hailing their “excellent chemistry”.
During Monday’s call, Lula also offered to travel to Washington to meet with Trump, his office said.
In a phone call to his Venezuelan counterpart, Yvan Gil, on Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov condemned the attack, which took place in international waters.
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“The ministers expressed serious concern about Washington’s escalating actions in the Caribbean Sea that are fraught with far-reaching consequences for the region,” said a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry following the conversation.
“The Russian side has confirmed its full support and solidarity with the leadership and people of Venezuela in the current context.”
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News in an interview on Sunday that he had “every authorisation needed” to conduct military strikes on vessels off the coast of Venezuela. He did not provide more details about what the authorisation granted his office permission to do.
In a post on X following Friday’s strike, Hegseth claimed the vessel was transporting “substantial amounts of narcotics — headed to America to poison our people”.
“These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!,” he said.
In a nearly 40-second video of the strike shared by Hegseth, a vessel can be seen moving through the water before a web of projectiles falls on the boat and the surrounding water, causing the boat to explode on impact.
He claimed that the intelligence “without a doubt” confirmed that the vessel was carrying drugs and that the people on board were “narco-terrorists”. He disclosed neither the amount nor the type of alleged drugs aboard, and he did not release any evidence to support his assertion that the targets of the strike were drug smugglers.
US war against drug cartels
The latest strike brings the number of such United States attacks to at least four, leaving at least 21 people dead.
US President Donald Trump notified Congress on Thursday that his administration had determined that members of drug cartels are “unlawful combatants” with whom the US is engaged in “non-international armed conflict”.
Trump on Sunday told reporters at the White House that the US military build-up in the Caribbean had halted drug trafficking from South America. “There’s no drugs coming into the water. And we’ll look at what phase two is,” he said, without providing more details on his plans.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly alleged that the US is hoping to drive him out of power. Venezuelan Defence Minister General Vladimir Padrino said on Thursday — when the country blasted an “illegal incursion” near its borders by US warplanes — that US attacks were “a vulgarity, a provocation, a threat to the security of the nation”.
Washington has cited the US Constitution, war powers, designation of drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations”, the right to self-defence and international law on unlawful combatants as the legal basis for the strikes.
Some legal experts and lawmakers argue that using military force in international waters against alleged criminals bypasses due process, violates law enforcement norms, lacks a clear legal foundation under US and international law, and is not justified by the cartels’ “terrorist” designation.
About 70 percent of the Nukak population remains displaced from their ancestral lands, according to the FCDS.
Most families have been pushed into sedentary lifestyles, settling in makeshift camps on the edge of towns, where addiction and child sexual exploitation became widespread.
Others have settled on small plots in rural areas, where tensions with settlers flared over land disputes.
“The settlers took over the land as if it were vacant. They say there were no Nukak, but what happened was that the Nukak got sick and left,” said Njibe.
In the most remote reaches of the Amazon, where the Nukak reservation is located, the Colombian government has little presence.
The Nukak, therefore, have few legal protections from settler violence when they try to reclaim their lands.
A Nukak elder teaches her granddaughter, Linda Palma, how to make a bracelet from palm fibres [Alexandra McNichols-Torroledo/Al Jazeera]
But in recent years, Nukak members like Njibe, tired of waiting for government action, resolved to return on their own.
The idea gained traction in 2020, when several clans retreated into the jungle for fear of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But after returning to their relative isolation, the clans considered staying for good. They called on nongovernmental organisations like FCDS for support.
At that time, Njibe was living on a small farm inside the limits of the Nukak Maku reservation.
Even within the reservation, decades of colonisation had razed large swaths of the forest. Grassy pastures dotted with cows had replaced the Amazon’s towering palm trees.
Deforestation had increased in the wake of a 2016 peace deal between the government and the FARC. The rebel group previously limited deforestation in the Amazon in order to use its dense canopies as cover against air surveillance.
But, as part of the deal, FARC — the largest armed rebel group at the time — agreed to demobilise. A power vacuum emerged in its place.
According to FCDS, powerful landowners quickly moved into areas formerly controlled by the FARC, converting the land into cattle pastures.
Armed dissident groups who rejected the peace deal also remained active in the area, charging extortion fees per cow.
“The colonisation process has caused many [Nukak] sites to be either destroyed or absorbed by settler farms,” said a FCDS expert who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.
Two Nukak children play in the waters of the Amazon rainforest [Alexandra McNichols-Torroledo/Al Jazeera]
Still, in 2022, the FCDS forged ahead with a pilot programme to support seven Nukak communities as they settled deeper into the reservation, where the lush forest still remained. There, the Nukak hoped they could revive a more traditional, if not completely nomadic, way of life.
But many of the expeditions to identify permanent relocation sites failed.
Initially, Njibe hoped to move to a sacred lake inside the reservation that he recalled from his childhood, but once he arrived at the site, he found that it was now part of a ranch.
When he asked the settler who ran the ranch for permission to stay there, the rancher rejected his request, and Njibe was forced to choose another place to live.
He considered returning to a forested area — about 24 hectares (59 acres) wide, roughly the size of 33 football fields — that he considered his childhood home.
But that too lay within a ranch. This time, however, the settler in question, who Njibe said was more sympathetic to his land claims, allowed him to stay.
Venezuelan government calls on US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to cease ‘thrill-seeking and warmongering posture’.
Published On 3 Oct 20253 Oct 2025
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Venezuela’s government has blasted an “illegal incursion” near its borders by United States warplanes and accused the US of “military harassment” and threatening the “security of the nation”.
Venezuelan Defence Minister General Vladimir Padrino said on Thursday that at least five F-35 fighter jets had been detected, in what he describes as a threat that “US imperialism has dared to bring close to the Venezuelan coast”.
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“We’re watching them, I want you to know. And I want you to know that this doesn’t intimidate us. It doesn’t intimidate the people of Venezuela,” Padrino said, speaking from an airbase, according to the Agencia Venezuela news outlet.
“The presence of these planes flying close to our Caribbean Sea is a vulgarity, a provocation, a threat to the security of the nation,” Padrino said.
“I denounce before the world the military harassment, the military threat by the US government against the people of Venezuela, who want peace, work and happiness,” he said.
The presence of the US combat planes was detected by the country’s air defences, air traffic control systems at Maiquetia international airport, which serves the capital Caracas, as well as a commercial airliner, Venezuelan authorities said.
In a joint statement, Venezuela’s foreign and defence ministries said the US combat planes were detected 75km (46.6 miles) “from our shores”. If the planes came no closer than the distance mentioned by Venezuelan authorities, then they would not have violated the country’s airspace, which extends about 12 nautical miles, or 22km, off the coast.
Still, the ministries accused the US of flouting international law and jeopardising civil aviation in the Caribbean Sea.
Venezuela “urges US Secretary of War Peter Hegseth to immediately cease his reckless, thrill-seeking and warmongering posture”, which is disturbing the peace of the Caribbean, the statement added.
Venezuela denuncia incursión ilegal de aviones de combate de EEUU en sus costas: «Provocación que amenaza la soberanía nacional» (+Comunicado)https://t.co/GnR4wLRDzz
The Pentagon has yet to respond to requests for comment from media organisations.
US media reported earlier on Thursday that President Donald Trump has notified Congress that the US is now engaged in “non-international armed conflict” against drug cartels, members of which would now be considered “unlawful combatants”.
Trump’s move to a more formal war footing follows on from the US administration’s rebranding of Latin American drug cartels as “narco-terrorists” who are seeking to destabilise the US by trafficking illegal drugs across US borders.
The move follows weeks of tension with Venezuela after Trump dispatched US F-35 stealth fighter jets to Puerto Rico, a US territory in the Caribbean, as part of the biggest military deployment in Latin America in decades and which has already seen air attacks on boats off the Venezuelan coast that the US president alleged were involved in drug trafficking.
So far, 14 people have been killed in the US attacks off Venezuela that officials in Caracas and several independent experts have described as extrajudicial killings.
Eight US warships and a nuclear submarine have also been deployed to the region as part of Trump’s so-called operation to combat drug trafficking, but which Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro says is a covert bid to bring about regime change in his country.
The congressional setback arrives as Milei’s political party faces slumping popularity headed into a midterm election.
Published On 2 Oct 20252 Oct 2025
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Argentina’s struggling President Javier Milei has suffered a new setback as Congress overturned his vetoes of laws increasing funding for public universities and for paediatric care.
On Thursday, senators invalidated both vetoes, which had already been rejected by the Chamber of Deputies, bringing to three the number of laws upheld by Congress despite vehement opposition from the budget-slashing Milei.
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Milei, who has implemented deep austerity policies to reduce the size of government, had said the new spending would jeopardise Argentina’s fiscal balance.
The Senate’s vote comes as the United States-backed Milei struggles to end a run on the national currency, the Argentinian peso, in the run-up to the crucial October 26 midterm elections.
The 54-year-old right-winger, in power since December 2023, has been on the ropes since his party’s trouncing by the centre-left in Buenos Aires provincial polls last month.
Those elections, seen as a bellwether ahead of the midterms, shredded his aura of political invincibility and sent markets into a tailspin.
“There’s a sensation of disenchantment and anger with the impact of the cutbacks,” said Sebastian Halperin, a political consultant in Buenos Aires.
He added that Milei had failed to build alliances with governors who influence how their province’s legislators vote in Congress.
Last week, the US government announced it was in talks with Argentina on a $20bn swap line aimed at shoring up the peso.
US President Donald Trump sought to buoy his close ally at talks in New York last week, saying: “He’s doing a fantastic job.”
The two are expected to meet in October as Milei seeks to secure a credit swap line from the US.
Analysts say, however, the president still needs a strong result in the midterms to avoid compromising the progress he has made in steadying Argentina’s economy.
After rallying briefly, the peso slumped again this week over market uncertainty about the amount and extent of the US financial help on offer.
Protesters in cities around the world have condemned Israel’s interception of the humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza and the detention of activists in international waters.
Police in Peru say they have arrested the main suspects in the murders of two women and a girl whose torture was streamed live on social media in Argentina, prompting outrage and mass protests.
The United Nations Security Council has voted to expand an international security force deployed to Haiti and transform it into a so-called “Gang Suppression Force”.
The resolution passed by the council on Tuesday provides a clear mandate for the force to work with local authorities to “neutralise, isolate, and deter” gangs, secure infrastructure, and seek to secure institutional stability. It would raise the personnel ceiling from 2,500 in the current mission, first approved in 2023, to 5,550 personnel.
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The resolution also requests that the UN secretary-general establish a UN Support Office in Haiti to provide increased logistical support amid the Caribbean nation’s overlapping security, humanitarian and political crises.
“The result today allows us to have the necessary reconfiguration on the ground in order to face the gangs and, therefore, address the insecurity situation in the country,” Panama’s Representative to the UN Eloy Alfaro De Alba said following the vote.
“Today, we say to Haiti that, once and for all, you are not alone,” Alfaro De Alba said.
Panama and the United States first introduced the latest resolution in August. It passed on Tuesday with 12 votes in favour and none against. Permanent Security Council members China and Russia, along with rotating member Pakistan, abstained from the vote.
Following the vote, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia said “the tools of international assistance to Haiti” previously approved by the Security Council had “failed to produce any sustainable results”.
He criticised the resolution for having a “virtually unrestricted mandate to use force against anyone and everyone labelled with the vague term ‘gangs’”, while further calling the plan “ill-conceived and rushed”.
Haiti has a controversial history when it comes to foreign intervention, particularly in light of rampant sexual abuses committed by peacekeepers deployed in the wake of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake. The forces were also responsible for a cholera outbreak that killed about 10,000 people.
But speaking last week, during the United Nations General Assembly General Debate, Laurent Saint-Cyr, the current chairman of the Transitional Presidential Council of Haiti, voiced support for a new force, noting that the Kenyan-led security support mission deployed for more than 15 months in the country remains woefully understaffed and underfunded.
Fewer than 1,000 police officers have been deployed under the mission, which is officially set to end on October 2, despite an initial pledge of 2,500. Nearly all of the capital, Port au Prince, remains under the control of powerful gangs.
“It is a war between criminals who want to impose violence as the social order and an unarmed population struggling to preserve human dignity,” Saint-Cyr said.
According to the UN, at least 1.3 million Haitians remain internally displaced due to violence, with 5.7 million facing food insecurity. At least 3,100 people have been killed in violent incidents between January and June 2025. At least 2,300 grave violations against children have been recorded.
The country is also in the midst of a political crisis that began with the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021. A general election has been repeatedly postponed amid the unrest.
On Tuesday, acting Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime hailed the resolution’s passage.
“This decision marks a major step forward in the partnership between Haiti and the international community,” he said.
Rights observers have also offered tentative support for a renewed international mission to Haiti, with Human Rights Watch saying any operation must have adequate funding and human rights protections.
The resolution passed on Tuesday does not provide specific details on such safeguards, including clear rules of engagement, saying instead that parties must work to establish those rules in line with “Haiti’s sovereignty and in strict compliance with international law”.
Like the Kenyan-led mission, the new Gang Suppression Force will also mostly rely on often unpredictable voluntary contributions from UN members.
In a statement following the vote, Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said: “After months of reckless inaction, the UN Security Council has finally taken a step to respond to Haiti’s devastating crisis”.
“For the newly created ‘Gang Suppression Force’ to be effective and avoid repeating past abuses, it should have sustained and predictable funding, sufficient personnel, and robust human rights safeguards,” Goebertus said.
Drug gang suspected in torture and murder of two young women, and a 15-year-old girl, in crime that shocks Argentina.
Clashes have erupted between demonstrators and police as thousands protested in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, to demand justice over the torture and killing of two young women and a teenager, which was livestreamed on social media by a purported drug gang.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets on Saturday to denounce the killings that shocked Argentinians after it was revealed that the murders were perpetrated live on the Instagram platform and watched by 45 members of a private account, officials said.
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The bodies of Morena Verdi and Brenda del Castillo, cousins aged 20, and 15-year-old Lara Gutierrez were found buried on Wednesday in the yard of a house in a southern suburb of Buenos Aires, five days after they went missing.
Investigators said the victims, thinking they were going to a party, were lured into a van on September 19, allegedly as part of a plan to “punish” them for violating gang code and to serve as a warning to others.
Police discovered a video of the triple murder after a suspect in the disappearance of the three revealed it under questioning, according to Javier Alonso, the security minister for the Buenos Aires province.
In the footage, a gang leader is heard saying: “This is what happens to those who steal drugs from me.”
Argentinian media reported that the torturers cut off fingers, pulled out nails, and beat and suffocated the victims.
While most of the protesters who took part in the demonstration on Saturday marched peacefully, some confronted police who responded by aggressively pushing them away using their batons and shields, according to video clips and images posted by the La Izquierda Diario online news site.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Buenos Aires on Saturday to denounce the killings of Morena Verdi and Brenda del Castillo, cousins aged 20, and 15-year-old Lara Gutierrez, by a suspected drug gang [Luis Robayo/AFP]
As they marched towards the Argentinian parliament with thousands of supporters, family members of the victims held a banner with their names, “Lara, Brenda, Morena”, and placards with the images of the three.
“Women must be protected more than ever,” Brenda’s father, Leonel del Castillo, was quoted by the AFP news agency as telling reporters at the protest. He had earlier said he had not been able to identify his daughter’s body due to the torture she had endured.
“It was a narco-femicide!” read a sign at the protest. Another declared, “Our lives are not disposable!”
The protesters also banged on drums as they marched and denounced the “inaction” of the administration of President Javier Milei against what they called the growing “narco” influence in the country.
An image posted on social media showed protesters burning an image of Milei and other political allies of his administration.
Antonio del Castillo, the grandfather of the slain 20-year-old cousins, was in tears, calling his granddaughters’ killers “bloodthirsty”.
“You wouldn’t do what they did to them to an animal,” he said.
On Friday, Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich announced the arrest of a fifth suspect in the case, bringing the total to three men and two women. The fifth suspect, accused of offering logistical support in the killing by providing a vehicle involved in the crime, was arrested in the Bolivian border city of Villazon .
Authorities have also released a photograph of the alleged mastermind, a 20-year-old Peruvian, who remains at large.
Meta, the parent company of Instagram, has disputed that the livestream occurred on its platform, according to the AFP, citing a company spokesperson.
The Colombian leader was filmed joining thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters outside UN headquarters in New York.
Published On 27 Sep 202527 Sep 2025
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The United States Department of State has said it will revoke the visa of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, citing his “reckless and incendiary actions” in relation to a speech he gave to protesters outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City on Friday.
“Earlier today, Colombian president [Gustavo Petro] stood on a NYC [New York City] street and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence,” the department said in a post on X.
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The post did not provide specific details on Petro’s alleged offence, but footage circulated on social media showed the Colombian leader joining thousands of pro-Palestine protesters outside the UN building in Midtown Manhattan.
In one video clip, Petro can be heard saying his country plans to present a resolution to the UN seeking to establish an “army for the salvation of the world”.
In an unofficial translation of his speech to protesters, Petro said that world nations will contribute soldiers to the army, which will “enforce the orders of international justice” and must be “larger” than the US military.
“I ask all of the soldiers of the army of the US not to point their guns at humanity. Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity,” the Colombian leader said.
Earlier today, Colombian president @petrogustavo stood on a NYC street and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence.
We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions.
Huge protests took place outside the UN headquarters on Friday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the fourth day of the UN General Assembly’s General Debate.
The Israeli leader delivered a bombastic speech as he told world leaders Israel must be allowed to “finish the job” in Gaza, where the Israeli army has been accused of perpetrating genocide, and lambasting Western states for their “disgraceful decision” to recognise a Palestinian state.
Petro’s office and Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the visa revocation from the Reuters news agency.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Petro also hit out at US President Donald Trump, saying the US leader was “complicit in genocide” in Gaza and called for “criminal proceedings” over US air attacks on boats in Caribbean waters that Washington has accused of trafficking drugs.
Petro’s social media profile on Friday showed he had reposted several video clips of himself speaking to the pro-Palestinian protesters in New York.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil Pinto has told the United Nations General Assembly that the United States has an “illegal and completely immoral military threat hanging over our heads”, as reports emerge that the US is planning to escalate attacks on the South American country.
Pinto told the gathering of UN member states on Friday in New York that his country was grateful for the support of governments and people “that are speaking out against this attempt to bring war to the Caribbean and South America”.
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The minister claimed US threats towards his country were aimed at allowing “external powers to rob Venezuela’s immeasurable oil and gas wealth”.
He also accused Washington of using “vulgar and perverse lies” to “justify an atrocious, extravagant and immoral multibillion-dollar military threat”.
Earlier on Friday, US broadcaster NBC News reported that US military officials are drawing up plans to “target drug traffickers inside Venezuela” with air attacks, citing two unnamed US officials.
US President Donald Trump said last week that US forces had carried out a third strike targeting a vessel he said was “trafficking illicit narcotics”. At least 17 people have been killed in the three attacks.
Experts have cast doubt on the legality of US attacks on foreign boats in international waters, while data from both the UN and the US itself suggest that Venezuela is not a major source of cocaine coming into the US, as Trump has claimed.
In an address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump said of drug smugglers: ” To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence.”
By contrast, Colombian President Gustavo Petro used his UNGA address to call for a “criminal process” to be opened against Trump over the attacks on vessels in the Caribbean, which had killed Venezuelans who had not been convicted of any crime.
The US has so far deployed eight warships to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35 fighter jets sent to Puerto Rico, in what it calls an anti-drug operation.
Washington has also refused an appeal for dialogue from Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, whom the Trump administration has accused of drug trafficking – a claim Maduro has strenuously denied.
Maduro and his late predecessor, Hugo Chavez, had once been regular presences at the annual UNGA meetings taking place in New York, but Maduro did not come this year, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio describing him as a fugitive from justice over a US indictment on drug-trafficking allegations.
Back home in Venezuela, Maduro has called for military drills to begin on Saturday, to test “the people’s readiness for natural catastrophes or any armed conflict” amid US “threats”.
‘Our fishermen are peaceful’
Venezuelan fishers who spoke to the AFP news agency said that the US strikes on Venezuelan boats have made them fearful to venture too far from shore.
“It’s very upsetting because our country is peaceful, our fishermen are peaceful,” Joan Diaz, 46, told AFP in the northern town of Caraballeda.
“Fishermen go out to work, and they [the US] have taken these measures to come to our … workplace to intimidate us, to attack us,” he said.
Diaz said most fishers stay relatively close to shore, but that “to fish for tuna, you have to go very far, and that’s where they [the US forces] are.”
A fisherman holds his catch at a harbour in Caraballeda, La Guaira State, Venezuela, on Wednesday [Federico Parra/AFP]
Luis Garcia, a 51-year-old who leads a grouping of some 4,000 fishermen and women in the La Guaira region, described the US actions as “a real threat”.
“We have nine-, 10-, 12-metre fishing boats against vessels that have missiles. Imagine the madness. The madness, my God!” he exclaimed.
“We keep contact with everyone … especially those who are going a little further,” he said.
“We report to the authorities where we are going, where we are, and how long our fishing operations will last, and we also report to our fishermen’s councils,” Garcia said.
But, Garcia added, they would not be intimidated.
“We say to him: ‘Mr Donald Trump, we, the fishermen of Venezuela … will continue to carry out our fishing activities. We will continue to go out to the Caribbean Sea that belongs to us.’”
Haiti’s transitional leader Laurent Saint-Cyr told the 80th UNGA Haiti faces a “modern-day Guernica,” with rampant killings, rapes, and mass hunger. He urged urgent, large-scale international action to defend democracy, protect children, and secure Haiti’s right to peace.
101 East investigates whether China is using alleged criminals to win over Taiwan’s sole South American ally, Paraguay.
Paraguay is one of just 12 countries that maintains diplomatic ties with Taiwan, not China.
But is Beijing using unofficial channels to extend its influence into the South American nation?
In our three-year undercover investigation, we meet a shadowy Chinese businessman who says he is a proxy for Beijing, a claim that China denies.
Our undercover researchers reveal that the alleged middleman has his own agenda.
He is plotting to build a secret scam compound near the Paraguayan capital, a safe haven for Chinese crime bosses fleeing crackdowns in Southeast Asia.
In a special exclusive report, 101 East investigates China’s Paraguay connection.
You can read the full statements given to 101 East below:
MEXICO CITY — To help justify a sweeping deportation campaign, an extraordinary U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean and unprecedented strikes on boats allegedly trafficking drugs, President Trump has repeated a mantra: Tren de Aragua.
He insists that the street gang, which was founded about a decade ago in Venezuela, is attempting an “invasion” of the United States and threatens “the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.” Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump described the group as “an enemy of all humanity” and an arm of Venezuela’s authoritarian government.
According to experts who study the gang and Trump’s own intelligence officials, none of that is true.
While Tren de Aragua has been linked to cases of human trafficking, extortion and kidnapping and has expanded its footprint as Venezuela’s diaspora has spread throughout the Americas, there is little evidence that it poses a threat to the U.S.
“Tren de Aragua does not have the capacity to invade any country, especially the most powerful nation on Earth,” said Ronna Rísquez, a Venezuelan journalist who wrote a book about the gang. The group’s prowess, she said, had been vastly exaggerated by the Trump administration in order to rationalize the deportation of migrants, the militarization of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, and perhaps even an effort to drive Venezuela’s president from power.
“It is being instrumentalized to justify political actions,” she said of the gang. “In no way does it endanger the national security of the United States.”
Before last year, few Americans had heard of Tren de Aragua.
The group formed inside a prison in Venezuela’s Aragua state then spread as nearly 8 million Venezuelans fled poverty and political repression under the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Gang members were accused of sex trafficking, drug sales, homicides and other crimes in countries including Chile, Brazil and Colombia.
As large numbers of Venezuelan migrants began entering the United States after requesting political asylum at the southern border, authorities in a handful of states tied crimes to members of the gang.
It was Trump who put the group on the map.
While campaigning for reelection last year, he appeared at an event in Aurora, Colo., where law enforcement blamed members of Tren de Aragua for several crimes, including murder. Trump stood next to large posters featuring mugshots of Venezuelan immigrants.
“Occupied America. TDA Gang Members,” they read. Banners said: “Deport Illegals Now.”
Shortly after he took office, Trump declared an “invasion” by Tren de Aragua and invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used 18th century law that allows the president to deport immigrants during wartime. His administration flew 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they were housed in a notorious prison, even though few of the men had documented links to Tren de Aragua and most had no criminal records in the United States.
In recent months, Trump has again evoked the threat of Tren de Aragua to explain the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops and a small armada of ships and warplanes to the Caribbean.
In July, his administration declared that Tren de Aragua was a terrorist group led by Maduro. That same month, he ordered the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American cartels that his government has labeled terrorists.
Three times in recent weeks, U.S. troops have struck boats off the coast of Venezuela that it said carried Tren de Aragua members who were trafficking drugs.
The administration offered no proof of those claims. Fourteen people have been killed.
Trump has warned that more strikes are to come. “To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence,” he said in his address to the United Nations.
While he insists the strikes are aimed at disrupting the drug trade — claiming without evidence that each boat was carrying enough drugs to kill 25,000 Americans — analysts say there is little evidence that Tren de Aragua is engaged in high-level drug trafficking, and no evidence that it is involved in the movement of fentanyl, which is produced in Mexico by chemicals imported from China. The DEA estimates that just 8% of cocaine that is trafficked into the U.S. passes through Venezuelan territory.
That has fueled speculation about whether the real goal may be regime change.
“Everybody is wondering about Trump’s end game,” said Irene Mia, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank focused on global security.
She said that while there are officials within the White House who appear eager to work with Venezuela, others, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are open about their desire to topple Maduro and other leftist strongmen in the region.
“We’re not going to have a cartel operating or masquerading as a government operating in our own hemisphere,” Rubio told Fox News this month.
Top U.S. intelligence officials have said they don’t believe Maduro has links to Tren de Aragua.
A declassified memo produced by the Office of Director of National Intelligence found no evidence of widespread cooperation between his regime and the gang. It also said Tren de Aragua does not pose a threat to the U.S.: “The small size of TDA’s cells, its focus on low-skill criminal activities and its decentralized structure make it highly unlikely that TDA coordinates large volumes of human trafficking or migrant smuggling.”
Michael Paarlberg, a political scientist who studies Latin America at Virginia Commonwealth University, said he believes Trump is using the gang to achieve political goals — and distract from domestic controversies such as his decision to close the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Tren de Aragua, he said, is much less powerful than other gangs in Latin America. “But it has been a convenient boogeyman for the Trump administration.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro told the UNGA the world must end the “genocide in Gaza,” blasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the US, and Europe as genocidal. He also tied US strikes on Caribbean boats to wider abuses driven by racism and domination.
President Donald Trump has urged pregnant women to avoid taking Tylenol, pointing to an unproven claim that links the painkiller to autism.
Speaking from the Oval Office with Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump claimed that acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol – also known as paracetamol in most parts of the world – was “no good” and should only be used in pregnancy when there’s a high fever.
He then outlined steps his administration would take to restrict the use of the drug during pregnancy, in comments laced with unproven – and, in some cases, false – claims.
Here is what he said, and what the facts say, about the drug, autism and whether Cuba, as Trump claimed at one point, does not have autism.
What did Trump announce?
Trump opened the event by calling autism a “horrible, horrible crisis”.
“The meteoric rise in autism is among the most alarming public health developments in history. There’s never been anything like this,” Trump said, even though experts point out that the data on autism only captures increased diagnoses – not necessarily a rise in the incidence of autism itself.
Trump then laid out his administration’s plans to tackle the “crisis”.
“First, effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians that the use of a – well, let’s see how we say that acetaminophen – is that OK? Which is basically commonly known as Tylenol during pregnancy, can be associated with a very increased risk of autism,” he said.
He went on to warn that Tylenol use during pregnancy should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
“So taking Tylenol is not good. All right. I’ll say it. It’s not good. For this reason, they are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary. That’s, for instance, in cases of extremely high fever, that you feel you can’t tough it out. You can’t do it. I guess there’s that.”
US President Donald Trump, next to US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr, makes an announcement linking autism to childhood vaccines [Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]
Trump then shifted to his broader concerns about vaccines, arguing against combination shots – like the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella – even though they have been proven to be safe in multiple rounds of research.
He also questioned giving newborns the hepatitis B vaccine.
“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s almost just born, hepatitis B. So I would say, wait till the baby is 12 years old and formed and take hepatitis B.”
Finally, Trump repeated a claim that countries without Tylenol, like Cuba, have little or no autism – framing it as evidence.
“I mean, there’s a rumour, and I don’t know if it’s so or not, that Cuba, they don’t have Tylenol because they don’t have the money for Tylenol. And they have virtually no autism, OK. Tell me about that one.”
As with Trump’s other claims at the event, his assertion about Cuba doesn’t stand up to scrutiny – as we’ll get to in a bit.
But first …
What is autism?
Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a developmental condition that’s experienced by people in many different ways. In the United States, it’s recognised as a form of neurodivergence and disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), autism can shape how someone communicates, learns, and interacts with the world, often in ways that are simply different from most people.
Children diagnosed with autism can also have difficulties with social, emotional and communication skills. This can develop into traits that can affect interaction with others and difficulty in learning.
What causes autism?
Autism has been linked to a complex mix of genetic and developmental factors, and it looks different for every individual. Scientists have identified hundreds of genes that can play a role, either passed down from parents or appearing as new mutations during early brain development.
According to the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, certain environmental influences may increase autism risk, including:
Advanced parental age
Prenatal exposure to air pollution or certain pesticides
Maternal obesity, diabetes or immune system disorders
Extreme prematurity or very low birth weight
Birth complications leading to periods of oxygen deprivation to the baby’s brain.
Is autism on the rise in the US?
At first look, that’s what the numbers would suggest.
Figures from the CDC show that in 2022, 1 in 31 eight-year-old children were identified with autism in the US, up from 1 in 149 in 2000.
According to the CDC, the condition is also about three times more common in boys than in girls.
Globally, estimates vary. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported in 2021 that about 1 in 127 people worldwide were living with autism. Similarly, a 2022 review of 71 studies found an average prevalence of about 1 percent.
These numbers have been cited by some, like supporters of US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, to argue that the US faces a particularly acute challenge with autism, and have been used to justify crackdowns on drugs like Tylenol.
But experts warn that the data might not necessarily agree with these assertions and the measures that the Trump administration is taking.
Why are the numbers going up?
First, say experts, comparing autism rates across countries is problematic because of differences in diagnostic practices, awareness and access to healthcare – all of which affect how prevalence is measured and reported.
The increased numbers in the US, they point out, only demonstrate a sharp rise in diagnoses – not necessarily a rise in the incidence of autism itself.
According to experts, there are two main factors behind the rise in autism diagnoses. First, the definition of autism has broadened as scientists have recognised its wide spectrum of traits and symptoms. This has led to updated diagnostic criteria and better screening tools.
At the same time, growing awareness has meant that more parents are seeking evaluations.
What about acetaminophen?
Acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol) is one of the most widely used over-the-counter pain relievers and fever reducers.
For more than a decade, researchers have studied whether acetaminophen use during pregnancy is linked to developmental disorders. Findings have been mixed: Some studies reported associations with autism, while a 2025 Mount Sinai review suggested evidence for broader neurodevelopmental risks.
But association is not the same as causation. The largest and most rigorous study to date, published in 2024, found no link between prenatal acetaminophen use and autism, ADHD, or other learning or developmental disorders. Experts note that the best-quality studies so far show no evidence of harm from acetaminophen.
According to the Autism Science Foundation, claims of a connection remain “limited, conflicting, and inconsistent”.
“The big reveal about autism was a total bust full of misinformation,” Arthur L Caplan, an American ethicist and professor of bioethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told Al Jazeera.
“There is no data to show Tylenol causes autism and lots of data to show that fever in pregnant women harms the fetus,” he added.
To be sure, even without a Tylenol-autism link, most doctors “will probably tell pregnant women they should always be careful about medication”, Catherine Lord, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA who specialises in autism, told Al Jazeera.
But those doctors will likely also caution women not to avoid taking medicines when they have a fever during pregnancy, she said. “They also need to realise that having a high fever or being in pain is not good for a growing baby, either, so they should consult their doctor,” she added.
Have there been other claims about what causes autism?
Over the years, autism has been wrongly linked to many supposed causes. The most notorious was the false vaccine-autism link from a 1998 study, now fully debunked. That study claimed an association between the MMR vaccine – the same one that Trump targeted on Monday – and autism. The Lancet, the highly respected British journal that published that study, retracted it 12 years later, in 2010.
Other debated factors include prenatal medications or antidepressants, environmental toxins, and diet, but the evidence is weak or inconsistent. Earlier, the discredited “refrigerator mother” theory blamed parents who were perceived to lack adequate emotional warmth with their children for higher risks of autism.
And finally, is it true, as Trump claims, that autism does not exist in Cuba?
It’s untrue – and if anything, Cuba undercuts Trump’s argument.
Cuba officially recognises autism spectrum disorder (ASD). There are multiple specialised schools and paediatric clinics that provide diagnosis and therapy for children with autism.
In Cuba, acetaminophen is generally known as paracetamol and is sold in government pharmacies. In other words, it is very much available and used as in other parts of the world.
According to a 2022 study, Cuba had an autism incidence of about 2 to 4 per 10,000 children in some settings. While research on autism diagnoses in Cuba is much more limited than in the US, the data from the 2022 study shows a far lower rate of recognised cases than in the US – despite the presence of acetaminophen.
