ReportWire

Tag: bolivia

  • Rich Cultural Vacations Await At These Central And South American Countries

    Central and South America are having something of a moment in the travel world. From the elegant sophistication of Buenos Aires in Argentina to the fascinating Indigenous communities hidden away in the mountains of Bolivia and Peru, there are stunning and unusual places to discover from the top to the bottom of Latin America.

    There are plenty of spots in Central and South America that are already world-renowned vacation destinations, but there are also some truly stunning places that are getting more attention this year. Not only are these spots incredibly beautiful, but they also offer a rich, cultural experience that is truly hard to beat. With an extraordinary cultural diversity on show, Latin America provides a unique and fascinating array of traditions, history, art, and culture that makes it one of the world’s best regions to explore.

    We looked at some of the most authoritative travel guides in the world and cross-referenced several Best Travel Destinations for 2026 lists. From these sources, we’ve chosen five of the most exciting countries in South and Central America: Panama, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, and Brazil. These destinations should definitely be on your radar to visit in 2026 for a rich cultural experience.

    Read more: 20 Most Dangerous Islands In The World

    Panama

    Panama City old building at night – angela Meier/Shutterstock

    Panama is sometimes seen as just the country of the Panama Canal and retired expats, but there are a whole lot of other reasons why Panama should be your next travel destination. This small, beautiful, friendly country boasts a fabulous climate, some amazing beaches and rainforests, and stunning colonial relics, and it is a wonderfully affordable place to visit as well.

    One of the emerging places in Panama that is set to be a standout destination for 2026 is the Chiriqui Province, on the Pacific Coast, about 300 miles southwest of the capital, Panama City. It is a fantastically diverse region, offering a combination of stunning natural beauty, fascinating history, and castaway-style vibes. It is one of Panama’s biggest coffee-producing regions, and the Feria de las Flores y Del Café in the picture-perfect town of Boquete is a wonderful way to experience the culture surrounding this industry. Even if you miss the festival, a coffee-tasting at one of the many plantations surrounding the town is a great experience.

    Chiriqui’s natural environment is one of its biggest draws. La Amistad International Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site covering nearly 1 million acres and Central America’s largest nature reserve. The Gulf of Chiriqui National Marine Park is also worth visiting, particularly from July to October during the humpback whale migration. The region is also famous for its farm-to-table cuisine, with spots like Finca Lerida in Boquete serving up fabulous Panamanian flavors using local organic produce.

    Colombia

    A wide view of the city of Medellin, Columbia in the valley of the mountains during a colorful sunset

    A wide view of the city of Medellin, Columbia in the valley of the mountains during a colorful sunset – Matt Lavigne/Getty Images

    For many years, Colombia has had a reputation as one of the most dangerous South American destinations to visit, but the last few years have seen it shake off this image, and there are some excellent destinations set to be huge in 2026. The vibrant city of Medellin is emblematic of Colombia’s evolution, having gone from the narco capital of the country to one of the most exciting food cities in South America in just two decades. Famed for its buzzy nightlife and ingenious urban sprawl, the cluster of hillside communities that make up this vibey city is filled with incredible places to eat and drink, and the arrival of the $100-million Wake development is set to turbo-charge this foodie atmosphere.

    Colombia’s rich cultural offerings continue in the fortified seaside city of Cartagena de Indias. With its wonderfully preserved stone walls, charming historic city center, gorgeous Spanish colonial architecture, and magnificent museums, it is a treasure trove of historical and cultural experiences. Don’t miss the Museo de Oro Zenú and the Museo Histórico de Cartagena for a chance to explore Colombia’s varied and at times dark past.

    Brazil

    Pampulha Lagoon, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais

    Pampulha Lagoon, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais – Ribeirorocha/Getty Images

    Brazil is hardly a hidden gem in South America. From the endless white-sand beaches and vibrant nightlife of Rio de Janeiro to the lush Amazonian rainforests, Brazil has been a bucket list destination for many travelers for years. But there are still plenty of undiscovered gems in this vast country ready to be discovered.

    One spot that is being heralded as a breakout star for 2026 is Minas Gerais. One of the largest states in Brazil, it has been overlooked by international tourists for years but is an astonishingly rich and diverse region with a wonderful gastronomic culture, beautiful colonial architecture, and vibrant boteco nightlife. Its capital, Belo Horizonte, is sophisticated and lively in equal measures, with an astonishingly hip and forward-thinking dining scene boasting a series of young, talented chefs like Caio Soter and Bruna Rezende. It is one of the best places in Brazil for contemporary art, with spots like Mercado Novo, Albuquerque Contemporânea, and the recently-opened Galeria Ficus in the city itself, and Inhotim, Latin America’s largest open-air art museum, just over 30 miles out of town.

    Another fantastic yet underappreciated gem in Brazil is the lush, stunning wetlands of the Pantanal. The world’s largest tropical wetland, this enormous region has a truly staggering variety and amount of wildlife, from jaguars, capybaras, and giant otters to caimans, tapirs, and the legendary hyacinth macaws. A seasonal floodplain of epic proportions, it is exceptionally remote and quite a challenge to visit, but this makes it all the more worthwhile.

    Chile

    Guanaco with a mountain in the background in Chilean Patagonia

    Guanaco with a mountain in the background in Chilean Patagonia – Espiegle/Getty Images

    Chile is an extraordinary country. A long sliver of land sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and Argentina, it runs around half the length of South America, bordering Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru. Often overlooked in favor of its more famous neighbors, it offers an astounding variety of landscapes, ecosystems, and cultures, from incredible wines and gaucho culture to the wide-open skies of the Atacama Desert and the soaring peaks of the Andes.

    Right at the southern tip of the continent, Patagonia is a famous destination for adventure travelers, with Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park a favorite. But recently, the lesser-known delights of the north of the region have begun to gain popularity, thanks to its unspoiled natural beauty, incredible wildlife, and magnificent hot springs.

    Another relatively underexplored spot in Chile that is primed for a huge 2026 is the Colchagua Valley, Chilean wine country. Chilean wine is often slept on, overlooked in favor of its noisier Argentinian cousin, but the Colchagua Valley boasts some of the world’s most impressive wineries, as well as being the center of Chilean cowboy culture. With 2026 marking the 30th anniversary of the inauguration of Chile’s Wine Route, it is looking like it will be a big year for this area in particular.

    Bolivia

    Cityscape of Potosi with the red mountain Cerro Rico in the background

    Cityscape of Potosi with the red mountain Cerro Rico in the background – Rchphoto/Getty Images

    Bolivia is one of South America’s true hidden gems. Known by international tourists and photography fans primarily for the bizarre and beautiful shimmering bone-white landscape of Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world, the rest of the country is far less explored. But there’s a tremendous amount to discover, and 2026 might be the year it gets the recognition it deserves.

    Potosí is the region that surrounds the otherworldly expanse of Salar de Uyuni and has plenty of other attractions to recommend it to adventurous tourists. The capital city, Potosí, has an extraordinary history intertwined with the silver mines of the Cerro Rico, and popular legend has it that at least one street in the city was literally paved with silver! A UNESCO World Heritage site, the city boasts some truly gorgeous Mestizo-Baroque houses, churches, and theaters, as well as the Casa Real de la Moneda, the former mint now converted into a museum.

    The rest of the region is splendidly weird, from the looming summit of Cerro Rico (known as the mountain that eats men due to the vast number of people who died working in its mines) to the crimson waters of the Laguna Colorada. One of the main attractions is the bubbling thermal springs that pop up from the volcanic energy below the surface of the Earth, like the Termas de Polques and the mythical Ojo del Inca, usually known as Laguna Tarapaya.

    Methodology

    Lake Pehoe in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile

    Lake Pehoe in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile – Aoldman/Getty Images

    To curate this list, we looked at lists of travel destinations for 2026 from authoritative sources, searching for compelling arguments in favor of particular countries or destinations. We prioritized popular countries with regions or cities that have, up to now, been underexplored or overlooked, as well as places that have a particular anniversary or occasion that would suggest increased tourist interest in 2026. Other considerations were areas that offered specific experiences that were similar to those elsewhere in the country but with fewer visitors.

    Ready to discover more hidden gems and expert travel tips? Subscribe to our free newsletter for access to the world’s best-kept travel secrets. You can also add us as a preferred search source on Google.

    Read the original article on Explore.

    Source link

  • Get the Facts: Is Venezuela a primary drug trafficker to the United States?

    Get the Facts: Is Venezuela a primary drug trafficker to the United States?

    OK, thank you very much. This is big stuff. And we appreciate you being here. Late last night. And early today. At my direction, the United States armed forces. Conducted an extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela. Overwhelming American military power, air, land and sea was used to launch *** spectacular assault. And it was an assault like people have not seen since. World War II. It was *** force against *** heavily fortified military fortress in the heart of Caracas. To bring outlaw dictator Nicolas Maduro to justice. This was one of the most stunning. Effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence. In American history. And if you think about it, we’ve done some, Other good ones like the, Attack on Soleimani. The attack on al-Baghdadi. And the Obliteration and decimation of the Iran nuclear sites. Just recently. In an operation known as Midnight Hammer. All perfectly executed and done. No nation in the world could achieve what America achieved yesterday or frankly in just *** short period of time. All Venezuelan military capacities were rendered powerless as the men and women of our military working with US law enforcement successfully captured Maduro in the dead of night. It was. Dark, the, uh, lights of Caracas were largely turned off. Due to *** certain expertise that we have. It was dark and it was deadly. But captured along with his wife. Celia Flores. Both of whom now face American justice. Maduro and Flores have been indicted in the Southern District of New York. Jay Clayton for their campaign of deadly narco-terrorism against the United States and its citizens. I want to thank the men and women of our military who achieved such an extraordinary success overnight. With breathtaking speed, power, precision, and competence. You rarely see anything like it. You’ve seen some raids in this country that didn’t go so well. They were an embarrassment. If you look back to Afghanistan or if you look back to The Jimmy Carter days, they were different days. We’re *** respected country again like maybe like never before. These highly trained warriors operating in collaboration with US law enforcement caught them in *** very ready position. They were waiting for us. They knew we had many ships out. In the sea we just sort of waiting. They knew we were coming, so they were in *** ready, what’s called *** ready position. But they were completely overwhelmed and very quickly incapacitated. If you would have seen what I saw last night, you would have been very impressed. I’m not sure that you’ll ever get to see it, but it was an incredible thing to see. Not *** single American service member was killed and not *** single piece of American equipment was lost. We had many helicopters, many planes, many. Many people involved in that fight. But think of that not one piece of military equipment was lost, not one service member was more importantly killed. The United States military is the strongest and most fearsome military on the planet by far, with capabilities and skills, our enemies can. Scarcely begin to imagine we have the best equipment anywhere in the world. There’s no equipment like what we have, and you see that even if you just look at the boats, you know, we’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by sea. 90%. Each boat kills 25 on average 25,000 people. We knocked out 97%. And those drugs mostly come from *** place called Venezuela. We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do *** safe, proper, and judicious transition, so. We don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years, so we are going to run the country until such time as we can do *** safe, proper, and judicious transition, and it has to be judicious. Because that’s what we’re all about. We want peace, liberty and justice for the great people of Venezuela. And that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country, it’s their homeland. We can’t take *** chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind. Had decades of that. We’re not going to let that happen. We’re there now, and what people don’t understand, but they understand as I say this, we’re there now, but we’re. Going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place, so we’re going to stay until such time as we’re going to run it essentially until such time as *** proper transition can take place. As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been *** bust, *** total bust for *** long period of time. They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could. have been pumping and what could have taken place. We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure. And start making money for the country. And we are Ready to stage *** second and much larger attack if We need to do so, so we were prepared to do *** second wave. If We needed to do so. We actually assumed that *** second wave would be necessary, but now it’s probably not. The first wave, if you’d like to call it that, the first attack was so successful we probably don’t have to do *** second, but we’re prepared to do *** second wave, *** much bigger wave actually. This was pinpoint, but we have *** much bigger wave that. Probably won’t have to do this partnership of Venezuela with the United States of America, *** country that everybody wants to be involved with because of what we were able to do and accomplish, will make the people of Venezuela rich, independent, and safe, and it will also make the many, many people from Venezuela that are living in the United States extremely happy. They suffered. They suffered. So much was taken from them. They’re not going to suffer anymore. The illegitimate dictator Maduro was the kingpin of *** vast criminal network responsible for trafficking colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the United States. As alleged in the indictment, he personally oversaw the vicious cartel known as Cartel de las Solis. Which flooded our nation with lethal poison responsible for the deaths of countless Americans, the many, many Americans, hundreds of thousands over the years of Americans died because of him. Maduro and his wife will soon face the full might of American justice and stand trial on American soil. Right now they’re on *** ship they’ll be heading to ultimately New York and then *** decision will be made, I assume between New York and. Miami or Florida. But we have People where the overwhelming evidence of their crimes will be presented in *** court of law, and I’ve seen it. I’ve seen what we have. It’s It’s both horrible and breathtaking that something like this could have been allowed to take place. For many years after his term as president of Venezuela expired, Maduro remained in power and waged *** ceaseless campaign of violence, terror, and subversion against the United States of America, threatening not only our people but the stability of the entire region. And you also, in addition to trafficking gigantic amounts of illegal drugs. That inflicted untold suffering and human destruction all over the country, all over, in particular the United States. Maduro sent savage and murderous gangs, including the bloodthirsty prison gang Tren de Arragua, to terrorize American communities nationwide, and he did indeed. They were in Colorado. They took over apartment complexes. They cut the fingers of people if they call police. They were brutal. But they’re not so brutal now? And I just have to Congratulate our military, Pete and everybody in our National Guard. Because the job that they’ve done, whether it’s in Washington DC where we have *** totally safe city where it was one of the most unsafe cities anywhere in the world, frankly, and now we have no crime in Washington DC. We haven’t had *** killing. We had the terrorist attack *** few weeks ago. Uh, *** little bit of *** different kind of ***, *** threat, but we haven’t had *** killing in *** long period of time, 67 months, we used to have 2, on average 2 *** week in Washington, our capital. We don’t have that anymore. The restaurants are opening. Everyone’s happy. They’re going, they’re walking their daughters, they’re walking their children, their wives, they walk to restaurants. Restaurants are opening all over Washington DC. So I want to thank the National Guard. I want to thank our military, and I want to thank law enforcement. It’s been amazing. And they should do it with more cities. We’re doing it, as you know, and uh we’re doing it in Memphis, Tennessee right now, and crime is down. We’ve just sort of started *** few weeks ago, but crime is down now 77%. And uh the governor of Louisiana called, great person. And he wanted us to help him, as you know, in *** certain very nice part of Louisiana, and we have done that and it’s *** rough, it was *** rough, rough section and we have climbed down. I, I understand it’s down to almost nothing already after 2.5 weeks. New Orleans, it’s down to almost nothing, and we’ve only been there for 2.5 weeks. Can’t imagine why governors wouldn’t want us to help. We also helped, as you know, in Chicago, and crime went down *** little bit there. We did *** very small help because we had no, no. We had no working ability with the governor. The governor was *** disaster and the mayor was *** disaster, but it knocked down crime. But we’re pulling out of there when they need us, we’ll know. You’ll know. You’ll be writing about it. And likewise Los Angeles, where we saved Los Angeles early on where the. Head of the police department made *** statement that if the federal government didn’t come in we would have lost Los Angeles. That’s after long after the fires. That’s when they had the riots in Los Angeles. We did *** great job. We got no credit for it whatsoever, but that’s OK. It doesn’t matter. We don’t need the credit. But we’ll be pulling out when they need us. They’ll call or we’ll go back if we have to. We’ll go back, but we did *** great job in various cities. But the thing, the place that we’re very proud of is Washington DC because it’s our nation’s capital. We took it from being *** crime ridden mess to being one of the safest cities in the country. But the gangs that they sent raped, tortured, and murdered American women and children. They were in all of the cities I mentioned, Trendaragua. And they were sent by Maduro to terrorize our people and now Maduro will never again be able to threaten an American citizen or anybody from Venezuela. There will no longer be threats. For years I’ve highlighted the stories of those innocent Americans whose lives. We’re so heartlessly robbed by this Venezuelan terrorist organization, really one of the worst, one of the worst, they say the worst. Americans like 12 year old Jocelyn Nungary from Houston. Beautiful Jocelyn. Nungarary, what happened to her? They, uh, as you know, they kidnapped, assaulted and murdered by Trende Aragua. Animals they murdered Jocelyn. And Left her dead under the bridge. There was *** bridge. *** bridge that will never be the same to so many people after seeing what happened. As I’ve said many times, the Maduro regime emptied out their prisons, sent their worst and most violent monsters into the United States to steal American lives, and they came from mental institutions and insane asylums. They came from prisons and jails. The reason I say both, they sound similar actually. Prisons, *** little bit more. *** little bit more hostile, *** little bit tougher. *** mental institution isn’t as tough as an insane asylum, but we got them both. They sent from their mental institutions. They sent from their jails, prisons. They were drug dealers. They were drug kingpins. They sent everybody bad into the United States. But no longer, and we have now *** border where nobody gets through. In addition, Venezuela. Unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets, and American platforms, costing us billions and billions of dollars. They did this *** while ago, but we never had *** president that did anything about it. They took all of our property. It was our property. We built it. And we never had *** president that decided to do anything about it. Instead they fought wars that were 10,000 miles away. We built Venezuela oil industry with American talent, drive and skill, and the socialist regime stole it from us during those previous administrations, and they stole it through force. This constituted one of the largest thefts of American property in the history of our country, considered the largest theft of property in the history of our country. Massive oil infrastructure was taken like we were babies, and we didn’t do anything about it. I would have done something about it. America will never allow foreign powers to rob our people or drive us back into. And out of our own hemisphere, that’s what they did. Furthermore, under the now deposed dictator Maduro, Venezuela was increasingly hosting foreign adversaries in our region. And acquiring menacing offensive weapons that could threaten US interests and lives, and they used those weapons last night. They used those weapons last night, potentially in league with the cartels operating along our border. All of these actions were in gross violation of the core principles of American foreign policy dating back more than two centuries. And uh not anymore all the way back it dated to the Monroe Doctrines. And the Monroe Doctrine is *** big deal, but we’ve superseded it by *** lot. By *** real lot. They now call it the Don Ro document. I don’t know. It’s, uh, Monroe Doctrine, we sort of forgot about it. It was very important, but we forgot about it. We don’t forget about it anymore. Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again. Won’t happen. So just in concluding, for decades other administrations have neglected or even Contributed to these growing security threats in the Western Hemisphere. Under the Trump administration, we are reasserting American power in *** very powerful way. In our home region. And our home region is very different than it was just *** short while ago. The future will be, and we did this in my first term. We had great dominance in my first term, and We have far greater dominance right now. Everyone’s coming back to us. The future will be determined by the ability to protect commerce and territory and resources that are core to national security. These are core to our national security. Just like tariffs are, they’ve made our country rich and they’ve made our national security strong, stronger than ever before. But these are the iron laws that have always determined global power. And we’re going to keep it that way. We will secure our borders. We will stop the terrorists. We will crash the cartels, and we will defend our citizens against all threats, foreign and domestic. Other presidents may have lacked the courage or whatever to defend America, but I will never allow terrorists and criminals to operate with impunity against the United States. This extremely successful operation should serve as *** warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives. Very importantly, the embargo on all Venezuelan oil remains in full effect. The American. Armada remains poised in position, and the United States retains all military options until the United States demands have been fully met and fully satisfied. All political and military figures in Venezuela should understand. What happened to Maduro can happen to them, and it will happen to them. If they aren’t just fair, even to their people, the dictator and terrorist Maduro. is finally gone in Venezuela. People are free. They’re free again. It’s been *** long time for them, but they’re free. America is *** safer nation. This morning It’s *** prouder nation this morning because it didn’t allow. This horrible person and this country that was Doing very bad things to us, it didn’t allow it to happen, and the Western Hemisphere is right now *** much safer place to be. So I want to thank everybody for being here. I want to thank General Raisin Kane. He’s *** fantastic man. I’ve worked with *** lot of generals. I worked with some I didn’t like. I worked with some I didn’t respect. I worked with some that just weren’t good. But this guy is fantastic. I watched last night one of the most precise. Attacks on sovereignty. I mean it was an attack for justice and I’m very proud of him and I’m very proud of our Secretary of War Pete Hegseth who I’m going to ask to say *** few words. Thank you very much.


    Data Visualization Journalist

    The Trump administration has set its sights on Venezuela in its latest campaign against illegal drugs, but data shows that the country is responsible for just a sliver of drug trafficking directly to the United States. The Get the Facts Data Team analyzed data on cocaine and fentanyl trafficking. While Venezuela is a player in cocaine manufacturing and trafficking, drug seizure data shows that it’s not as prominent a supplier of cocaine to the U.S. as other South American and Latin American countries. There is also no evidence that any significant level of illegal fentanyl — the primary killer in U.S. overdose deaths — is produced in South America, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).UNODC analyzes global drug trafficking based on reporting from its member states, open sources and drug seizure information.Most illegal fentanyl enters the U.S. from Mexico, per UNODC and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Illicit fentanyl can also be diverted, or stolen, from legal sources as medical professionals use the drug.Yet President Donald Trump has linked his administration’s attacks on drug vessels in Latin America to the fentanyl crisis, among other drugs.After the Sept. 19 attack on a boat in the Caribbean that killed three people, Trump posted on Truth Social, claiming that the boat was carrying drugs and headed for America. “STOP SELLING FENTANYL, NARCOTICS, AND ILLEGAL DRUGS IN AMERICA,” his post said. The next day, in a speech, Trump said that thousands are dying because of “boatloads” of fentanyl and drugs. He’s also repeatedly said that each boat strike would save 25,000 lives.As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes was 35, and the number of people killed stands at least 115, according to the Trump administration.Previously, Trump said that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has justified the boat strikes as necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S. Hearst Television’s partner PolitiFact labeled that 25,000 number mathematically dubious.Maduro’s capture on Jan. 3On Saturday, the Trump administration struck Venezuela in a new, stunning way, capturing its leader, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife. Both are being taken to the United States to face charges related to drug trafficking.The strike followed a monthslong Trump administration pressure campaign on the Venezuelan leader, including a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America and attacks on boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean accused of carrying drugs. Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began strikes in September.Venezuela’s role in cocaine traffickingVenezuela is not among the primary direct traffickers of cocaine to the U.S. Like fentanyl, most cocaine enters the U.S. from Mexico and typically gets to Mexico via maritime transportation on both the Pacific and Caribbean sides, according to UNODC research officer Antoine Vella. Some also arrives in Mexico via land transportation.While the Trump administration’s early September attacks targeted Venezuelan boats, there is no known direct cocaine trade route from Venezuela to the U.S. via sea. The only known direct Venezuela to U.S. trafficking route is via air, according to drug seizure data from UNODC. Cocaine could still arrive from Venezuela to the U.S. through intermediary countries.Colombia, Ecuador and Panama are among the main direct traffickers of cocaine to the U.S. via boat. From harvest to productionCoca, the plant that cocaine is made from, is grown primarily in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Once coca is harvested, the cocaine in the leaf needs to be extracted. That processing occurs at illegal manufacturing facilities around the globe.The three coca-growing countries also have the most illegal processing facilities. Colombia had by far the most of any country at about 26,400 detected and dismantled from 2019 to 2023, according to UNODC data. It’s followed by about 3,200 processing facilities in Bolivia and 2,400 in Peru. Venezuela, which neighbors Colombia, had about 260 illegal processing facilities detected and dismantled from 2019 to 2023, according to UNODC data. It’s ranked fifth among countries with the most processing facilities.”Every country that borders Colombia has an issue with cocaine in terms of cocaine trafficking,” Vella said. PHNjcmlwdCB0eXBlPSJ0ZXh0L2phdmFzY3JpcHQiPiFmdW5jdGlvbigpeyJ1c2Ugc3RyaWN0Ijt3aW5kb3cuYWRkRXZlbnRMaXN0ZW5lcigibWVzc2FnZSIsKGZ1bmN0aW9uKGUpe2lmKHZvaWQgMCE9PWUuZGF0YVsiZGF0YXdyYXBwZXItaGVpZ2h0Il0pe3ZhciB0PWRvY3VtZW50LnF1ZXJ5U2VsZWN0b3JBbGwoImlmcmFtZSIpO2Zvcih2YXIgYSBpbiBlLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdKWZvcih2YXIgcj0wO3I8dC5sZW5ndGg7cisrKXtpZih0W3JdLmNvbnRlbnRXaW5kb3c9PT1lLnNvdXJjZSl0W3JdLnN0eWxlLmhlaWdodD1lLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdW2FdKyJweCJ9fX0pKX0oKTs8L3NjcmlwdD4=

    The Trump administration has set its sights on Venezuela in its latest campaign against illegal drugs, but data shows that the country is responsible for just a sliver of drug trafficking directly to the United States.

    The Get the Facts Data Team analyzed data on cocaine and fentanyl trafficking. While Venezuela is a player in cocaine manufacturing and trafficking, drug seizure data shows that it’s not as prominent a supplier of cocaine to the U.S. as other South American and Latin American countries.

    There is also no evidence that any significant level of illegal fentanyl — the primary killer in U.S. overdose deaths — is produced in South America, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

    UNODC analyzes global drug trafficking based on reporting from its member states, open sources and drug seizure information.

    Most illegal fentanyl enters the U.S. from Mexico, per UNODC and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Illicit fentanyl can also be diverted, or stolen, from legal sources as medical professionals use the drug.

    Yet President Donald Trump has linked his administration’s attacks on drug vessels in Latin America to the fentanyl crisis, among other drugs.

    After the Sept. 19 attack on a boat in the Caribbean that killed three people, Trump posted on Truth Social, claiming that the boat was carrying drugs and headed for America. “STOP SELLING FENTANYL, NARCOTICS, AND ILLEGAL DRUGS IN AMERICA,” his post said.

    The next day, in a speech, Trump said that thousands are dying because of “boatloads” of fentanyl and drugs. He’s also repeatedly said that each boat strike would save 25,000 lives.

    As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes was 35, and the number of people killed stands at least 115, according to the Trump administration.

    Previously, Trump said that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has justified the boat strikes as necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S. Hearst Television’s partner PolitiFact labeled that 25,000 number mathematically dubious.

    Maduro’s capture on Jan. 3

    On Saturday, the Trump administration struck Venezuela in a new, stunning way, capturing its leader, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife. Both are being taken to the United States to face charges related to drug trafficking.

    The strike followed a monthslong Trump administration pressure campaign on the Venezuelan leader, including a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America and attacks on boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean accused of carrying drugs. Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began strikes in September.

    Venezuela’s role in cocaine trafficking

    Venezuela is not among the primary direct traffickers of cocaine to the U.S.

    Like fentanyl, most cocaine enters the U.S. from Mexico and typically gets to Mexico via maritime transportation on both the Pacific and Caribbean sides, according to UNODC research officer Antoine Vella. Some also arrives in Mexico via land transportation.

    While the Trump administration’s early September attacks targeted Venezuelan boats, there is no known direct cocaine trade route from Venezuela to the U.S. via sea. The only known direct Venezuela to U.S. trafficking route is via air, according to drug seizure data from UNODC. Cocaine could still arrive from Venezuela to the U.S. through intermediary countries.

    Colombia, Ecuador and Panama are among the main direct traffickers of cocaine to the U.S. via boat.

    From harvest to production

    Coca, the plant that cocaine is made from, is grown primarily in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

    Once coca is harvested, the cocaine in the leaf needs to be extracted. That processing occurs at illegal manufacturing facilities around the globe.

    The three coca-growing countries also have the most illegal processing facilities. Colombia had by far the most of any country at about 26,400 detected and dismantled from 2019 to 2023, according to UNODC data. It’s followed by about 3,200 processing facilities in Bolivia and 2,400 in Peru.

    Venezuela, which neighbors Colombia, had about 260 illegal processing facilities detected and dismantled from 2019 to 2023, according to UNODC data. It’s ranked fifth among countries with the most processing facilities.

    “Every country that borders Colombia has an issue with cocaine in terms of cocaine trafficking,” Vella said.

    Source link

  • Bolivia President Removes Fuel Subsidies

    LA PAZ, ‌Dec ​17 (Reuters) – Bolivian ‌President Rodrigo ​Paz, who ‍took office ​last ​month, announced ⁠his government would remove long-standing fuel ‌subsidies in a ​bid ‌to shore ‍up public ⁠accounts.

    “This does not mean abandonment (by the ​government), it means order, justice; redistribution that’s real, clear and transparent,” he said in a ​nationwide address.

    (Reporting by Daniel Ramos; Editing ​by Jacqueline Wong)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

    Reuters

    Source link

  • Gideon Sa’ar congratulates new Bolivian president, shares hope to renew Israel ties

    A Foreign Ministry infographic displaying a phone call between Foreign Minister Gideon Sa

    Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar congratulated Bolivia’s president-elect Rodrigo Paz, saying Israel aims to open a “new chapter” in bilateral relations after two decades of strained ties.

    Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called Bolivian President-elect Rodrigo Paz on Monday, congratulating him on his election victory, and stating that Israel will send a representative to Paz’s inauguration ceremony.

    Sa’ar noted in a post on X/Twitter that “Bolivia has a long history of friendship with Israel and the Jewish people.”

    Israel looks forward to “opening a new chapter in our bilateral relations and advancing cooperation in a wide range of fields for the benefit of both nations,” Sa’ar added.

    Sa’ar said that Israel is interested in turning a new page and fully renewing diplomatic relations between the countries. Paz said that he intends to lead Bolivia to reopen to the world and renew relations with Israel.

    “Now, after two decades of bad relations, it is time to put good relations back on track, Sa’ar said.

    “We extend our warm wishes to the Bolivian people for their democratic process and their choice for renewal,” he stated.

    Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar speaking in Jerusalem, September 15, 2025. (credit: DEBBIE HILL/Pool via REUTERS)

    Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaking in Jerusalem, September 15, 2025. (credit: DEBBIE HILL/Pool via REUTERS)

    When discussing the content of the phone call in a summary post on X, Sa’ar wrote that they “recalled in our conversation the history of relations between Israel and the Jewish people with Bolivia. After two decades of strained ties, the time has come to put our good relations back on track.”

    “At the center of our conversation was the mutual interest in opening a new chapter and renewing diplomatic relations between our countries,” he added.

    How did Paz win the election?

    Centrist Rodrigo Paz won Bolivia’s presidential runoff on Sunday, defeating conservative rival Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, as the country’s worst economic crisis in a generation helped propel the end of nearly two decades of leftist rule.

    Paz, a senator from the Christian Democratic Party, won 54.5% of the vote, beating Quiroga’s 45.5%, according to early results from Bolivia’s electoral tribunal. But Paz’s party does not hold a majority in the country’s legislature, which will force him to forge alliances to govern effectively.

    The new president takes office on November 8.

    “We must open Bolivia to the world,” said Paz during his victory speech from La Paz, after Quiroga conceded defeat.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    Source link

  • Who Is Bolivia’s New President, Rodrigo Paz?

    By Monica Machicao and Lucinda Elliott

    LA PAZ (Reuters) -Bolivia’s president-elect Rodrigo Paz, who claimed victory in Sunday’s presidential runoff, is the son of a former president of the Andean nation who was born in exile from its military dictatorship and schooled in the U.S.

    Paz, 58, of the Christian Democratic Party, defeated conservative rival Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in Sunday’s presidential runoff to end nearly two decades of leftist rule.

    Paz’s moderate platform resonated with voters disillusioned by the ruling Movement to Socialism (MAS) party, founded by former President Evo Morales, amid a deepening economic crisis.

    “This is a new stage for Bolivian democracy in the 21st century,” Paz said in an interview with Reuters two days before the election at his family’s ranch in the southern gas-producing region of Tarija.

    Paz, who takes office on November 8, reiterated plans to open up parts of the economy to private investment and close loss-making state firms, while maintaining cash transfers to vulnerable groups.

    “The state is an obstacle,” he said. “There are freeloaders earning salaries (from the state) without doing anything.”

    Paz was born in Santiago de Compostela, Spain during his family’s exile under Bolivia’s military dictatorship. Throughout his childhood he studied at various Jesuit schools, later graduating from the American University in Washington. His father is former President Jaime Paz Zamora, who ruled Bolivia from 1989 to 1993.

    His father was the sole survivor of a plane crash in Bolivia — an incident later revealed to be a targeted attack ahead of the country’s 1980 coup. His mother also survived a mysterious car crash while in exile, episodes that he said marked his formative years and political ambition.

    When his family eventually returned to Bolivia in the 1980s, Paz began his political career in Tarija, gradually advancing from city councilor to senator. He has aligned himself with parties from across the political spectrum over the years, ranging from his father’s Revolutionary Left Movement to right-leaning alliances.

    During this election, Paz positioned himself as a centrist candidate, pledging to maintain social programs for the poor while promoting private-sector-led growth. His economic plan includes tax incentives for small businesses and the self-employed, and greater fiscal autonomy for regional governments.

    “Ideologies don’t put food on the table,” he said.

    Like his opponent Quiroga, he has said he wants to improve diplomatic ties with Western countries, including the U.S., after years where Bolivia had aligned itself with Russia and China.

    Paz expressed concern over the country’s rising external debt obligations, which he said required urgent renegotiation. He confirmed meeting with representatives from the Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in Washington last month.

    “Debts are a deal that we are renegotiating,” he said.

    PROMISES TO KEEP BENEFITS

    To win over left-leaning voters who abandoned the socialists but were wary of cost-cutting pledged by Quiroga, Paz had adopted a more populist tone than in the first round. 

    “From day one, we will have fuel, we will have tax incentives,” Paz said in a televised debate on October 12. “All social benefits will be respected.”

    Opponents said those promises were unrealistic, and economists warned that whoever won the vote will have their work cut out for them.

    “The fiscal hole is immense,” said Jonathan Fortun at the Institute of International Finance. “The question is not whether adjustment comes, but how fast and how disruptive it will be.”  

    Among the incoming government’s immediate challenges is a fragmented legislature to push through necessary reforms. No single party holds a majority in either house, meaning Paz will need to forge alliances to govern effectively. Paz’s Christian Democratic Party won 49 of 130 seats in the lower house and 16 of 36 in the Senate in August, making them the largest minority group.

    (Reporting by Lucinda Elliott in Montevideo and Monica Machicao in La Paz. Additional reporting by Daniel Ramos in La Paz and Brendan O’Boyle in Mexico City. Editing by Christian Plumb, Rosalba O’Brien and Lincoln Feast.)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

    Reuters

    Source link

  • The fish that eats piranhas for breakfast

    The fish that eats piranhas for breakfast

    Guillermo Otta Parum has been fishing in the Bolivian Amazon his whole life, for more than 50 years.

    At first, Guillermo was catching native fish, such as the various kinds of catfish which inhabit the river.

    But then a giant freshwater fish arrived, known locally as paiche or Arapaima gigas, to give it its scientific name.

    “I thought this creature was a water snake, that it would attack everything, that eating it would be bad for you, that it might be poisonous,” he recalls.

    In fact, it is one of the biggest freshwater fishes in the world, growing up to 4m in length and weighing 200kg (440lb) or more.

    Guillermo Otto Parum with a paiche

    Guillermo Otta Parum has been a fisherman for 50 years

    It is estimated that every year, the paiche spreads another 40km deeper into the rivers of the Amazon basin.

    Federico Moreno, director of the Beni Autonomous University’s Centre for Aquatic Resources Research, says its size and appetite make it a serious threat to native fish stocks.

    “It is a territorial fish, it takes over a body of water and scares off the native species. [That] is one of the serious problems. The other species flee from the predator and enter other bodies of water much further away, more remote and difficult to access.”

    No one really knows the exact year that the paiche first appeared in Bolivia.

    It is generally believed its arrival was the result of a breach of a paiche fish farm in Peru, where the fish are native. From there, they spread into Bolivia’s rivers.

    Fernando CarvajalFernando Carvajal

    Biologist Fernando Carvajal has spent years studying the Paiche

    Fernando Carvajal is a biologist and expert on the paiche. He says they are a ravenous species.

    “During the first years of life, the paiche grows at the rate of 10kg a year. That means the paiche is eating a lot of fish.”

    Unlike other predatory fish like piranha, it only has small, not particularly sharp teeth.

    But its lack of impressive teeth does not stop it from eating piranha and a host of other fish, along with plants, molluscs and birds, all of which it hoovers up like a giant vacuum cleaner.

    It also frightens off any fish which tries to eat the paiche’s young.

    Fernando Carvajal says there is no firm data about the impact of the paiche, but he says that anecdotally, fishermen are reporting that the numbers of some native species are dwindling.

    “In the next one or two decades, the paiche is going to spread to all the potential areas where this species can live,” he warns.

    “We know that around the world, most invasive cases are bad for nature. Invasive species are considered the second-biggest reason for the loss of biodiversity after habitat destruction.”

    However, for local fishermen, the arrival of the paiche has been a boon. Having been initially afraid of it, it did not take long for fishermen to realize its potential, says Guillermo Otta Parum.

    Fishing boat on Yata RiverFishing boat on Yata River

    Paiche fishing boat on the Yata River in the Bolivian Amazon

    “When I brought the first fish, I would give the customers small pieces as a gift for them to try so they would get a taste for it.”

    Some fishermen even pretended it was a type of catfish to overcome people’s suspicions about eating such a huge specimen.

    Now paiche are eaten across Bolivia.

    Edson Suzano runs a paiche-processing plant in Riberalta, a town in north-east Bolivia close to the Brazilian border.

    Edson Suzano at his paiche processing plantEdson Suzano at his paiche processing plant

    Edson Suzano (left) says the paiche is affordable

    “We sell it everywhere – supermarkets, markets. There are different cuts, so it is affordable. We buy and process around 30,000kg per month,” he says.

    The challenge for the fishermen is trying to find the paiche in the huge expanse of the Amazon.

    The fish has a lung-like organ and has to come up for air regularly to breathe and so likes calmer water. It prefers to live in lakes and lagoons, but migrates when it feels it is in danger.

    The paiche swimming in the Amazon basinThe paiche swimming in the Amazon basin

    The paiche migrates when it feels it is in danger

    Most of the fish Edson Silvano processes used to arrive by boat.

    Now the fishermen travel to ever more remote areas to catch the paiche and have to transfer from boats to canoes, on journeys of up to two weeks. This is putting them in conflict with indigenous communities.

    These communities have been given land titles to many of the remote lagoons where paiche are now to be found and have themselves started fishing for and selling the fish.

    Fishmonger prepares PaicheFishmonger prepares Paiche

    Paiche being prepared for sale at Riberalta’s fish market

    Now commercial fishermen have to obtain special licences to work in these areas. But fishermen like Guillermo Otta Parum say that even when they have the correct paperwork, they are often turned away.

    The indigenous communities argue that they are only trying to protect the resources which the Bolivian government has recognised they have a right to control.

    Fisherman Juan Carlos Ortiz ChavezFisherman Juan Carlos Ortiz Chavez

    Juan Carlos Ortiz Chavez is a paiche fisherman who belongs to the Alto Ivon Tco Chacobo indigenous community:

    Juan Carlos Ortiz Chávez belongs to the Alto Ivon Tco Chacobo indigenous community.

    He says that in the past, indigenous people were scared of commercial fishermen. “But this new generation of young people has changed, because we have made our rules so that people can’t come and take from us any more,” he explains.

    Scientists such as Federico Moreno hope that fishing generally, whoever is doing it, will keep paiche numbers in check.

    “Keep hunting them, keep fishing for them all the time and that could keep a balance between the different species.”

    To hear more about the paiche, listen to Assignment on the BBC World Service

    Source link

  • Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba

    Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba

    Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, was arrested in Florida and is accused of spending decades spying for Cuba. Manuel Bojorquez reports.

    Be the first to know

    Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.


    Source link

  • Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba

    Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba

    Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, was arrested in Florida and is accused of spending decades spying for Cuba. Manuel Bojorquez reports.

    Be the first to know

    Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.


    Source link

  • Former U.S. ambassador Manuel Rocha arrested, accused of serving as agent of Cuba, sources say

    Former U.S. ambassador Manuel Rocha arrested, accused of serving as agent of Cuba, sources say

    A former American diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested in a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation, accused of secretly serving as an agent of Cuba’s government, The Associated Press has learned.

    Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in Miami on Friday on a criminal complaint and more details about the case are expected to be made public at a court appearance Monday, said two people who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing federal investigation.

    One of the people said the Justice Department case accuses Rocha of working to promote the Cuban government’s interests. Federal law requires people doing the political bidding of a foreign government or entity inside the U.S. to register with the Justice Department, which in recent years has stepped up its criminal enforcement of illicit foreign lobbying.

    The Justice Department declined to comment. It was not immediately clear if Rocha had a lawyer and a law firm where he previously worked said it was not representing him. His wife hung up when contacted by the AP.

    Rocha’s 25-year diplomatic career was spent under both Democratic and Republican administrations, much of it in Latin America during the Cold War, a period of sometimes heavy-handed U.S. political and military policies. His diplomatic postings included a stint at the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba during a time when the U.S. lacked full diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro’s communist government.

    Born in Colombia, Rocha was raised in a working-class home in New York City and went on to obtain a succession of liberal arts degrees from Yale, Harvard and Georgetown before joining the foreign service in 1981.

    He was the top U.S. diplomat in Argentina between 1997 and 2000 as a decade-long currency stabilization program backed by Washington was unraveling under the weight of huge foreign debt and stagnant growth, triggering a political crisis that would see the South American country cycle through five presidents in two weeks.

    At his next post as ambassador to Bolivia, he intervened directly into the 2002 presidential race, warning weeks ahead of the vote that the U.S. would cut off assistance to the poor South American country if it were to elect former coca grower Evo Morales.

    “I want to remind the Bolivian electorate that if they vote for those who want Bolivia to return to exporting cocaine, that will seriously jeopardize any future aid to Bolivia from the United States,” Rocha said in a speech that was widely interpreted as a an attempt to sustain U.S. dominance in the region.

    The gambit angered Bolivians and gave Morales a last-minute boost. When he was finally elected three years later, the leftist leader expelled Rocha’s successor as chief of the diplomatic mission for inciting “civil war.”

    Rocha also served in Italy, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and worked as a Latin America expert for the National Security Council.

    Rocha’s wife, Karla Wittkop Rocha, would not comment when contacted by the AP. “I don’t need to talk to you,” she said before hanging up.

    Following his retirement from the State Department, Rocha began a second career in business, serving as the president of a gold mine in the Dominican Republic partly owned by Canada’s Barrick Gold.

    More recently, he’s held senior roles at XCoal, a Pennsylvania-based coal exporter; Clover Leaf Capital, a company formed to facilitate mergers in the cannabis industry; law firm Foley & Lardner and Spanish public relations firms Llorente & Cuenca.

    “Our firm remains committed to transparency and will closely monitor the situation, cooperating fully with the authorities if any information becomes available to us,” Dario Alvarez, CEO of Llorente & Cuenca’s U.S. operations, said in an email.

    XCoal and Clover Leaf Capital did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Foley & Lardner said Rocha left the law firm in August.

    Source link

  • Amazon nations launch alliance to protect rainforest at key summit

    Amazon nations launch alliance to protect rainforest at key summit

    Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela sign declaration to safeguard the Amazon.

    Eight South American countries have agreed to launch an alliance to protect the Amazon, pledging at a summit in Brazil to stop the world’s biggest rainforest from reaching “a point of no return”.

    Leaders from South American nations also challenged developed countries to do more to stop the enormous destruction of the world’s largest rainforest, a task they said cannot fall to just a few countries when the crisis has been caused by so many.

    The closely-watched summit of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) adopted on Tuesday what host country Brazil called a “new and ambitious shared agenda” to save the rainforest, a crucial buffer against climate change that experts warn is being pushed to the brink of collapse.

    The group’s members – Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela – signed a joint declaration in Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River, laying out a nearly 10,000-word roadmap to promote sustainable development, end deforestation and fight the organised crime that fuels it.

    But the summit attendees stopped short of agreeing to the key demands of environmentalists and Indigenous groups, including for all member countries to adopt Brazil’s pledge to end illegal deforestation by 2030 and Colombia’s pledge to halt new oil exploration. Instead, countries will be left to pursue their individual deforestation goals.

    Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has staked his international reputation on improving Brazil’s environmental standing, had been pushing for the region to unite behind a common policy of ending deforestation by 2030.

    The two-day summit opened on the same day the European Union’s climate observatory confirmed that July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. Lula emphasised the “severe worsening of the climate crisis” in his opening speech.

    “The challenges of our era and the opportunities arising from them demand we act in unison,” he said.

    “It has never been so urgent,” he added.

    Colombian President Gustavo Petro urged a radical rethink of the global economy, calling for a “Marshall Plan”-style strategy in which developing countries’ debt is cancelled in exchange for action to protect the climate.

    “If we’re on the verge of extinction and this is the decade when the big decisions have to be made… then what are we doing, besides giving speeches?” he said.

    The failure of the eight Amazon countries to agree on a binding pact to protect their forests was greeted with disappointment by some.

    “The planet is melting, we are breaking temperature records every day. It is not possible that, in a scenario like this, eight Amazonian countries are unable to put in a statement – in large letters – that deforestation needs to be zero,” said Marcio Astrini of the environmental lobby group Climate Observatory.

    Beyond deforestation, the “Belem Declaration”, the gathering’s official proclamation issued on Tuesday, also did not fix a deadline on ending illegal gold mining, although leaders agreed to cooperate on the issue and better combat cross-border environmental crime.

    Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor Lucia Newman, reporting from the summit in Belem, said Lula da Silva had hoped for a strong commitment from peers at the summit to end deforestation in the Amazon.

    “Critics say the final document was full of good intentions but short on deadlines,” Newman said.

    “Nevertheless, there did seem to be a greater sense of urgency among the eight Amazonian nation leaders. Deforestation of the world’s largest rainforest has already reached 17 percent and, according to scientists, the tipping point is almost here,” Newman said.

    Home to an estimated 10 percent of Earth’s biodiversity, 50 million people and hundreds of billions of trees, the vast Amazon is a vital carbon sink, reducing global warming.

    Scientists warn the destruction of the rainforest is pushing it dangerously close to a “tipping point” beyond which trees would die off and release carbon rather than absorb it, with catastrophic consequences for the climate.

    Seeking to pressure the gathered heads of state, hundreds of environmentalists, activists and Indigenous demonstrators marched to the conference venue, urging bold action.

    This is the first summit in 14 years for the eight-nation group, set up in 1995 by the South American countries that share the Amazon basin. The summit is also being seen as a dress rehearsal for the 2025 United Nations climate talks, which Belem will host.

     

    Source link

  • Why Latin America still won’t condemn Putin’s war in Ukraine

    Why Latin America still won’t condemn Putin’s war in Ukraine

    Press play to listen to this article

    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    The ghosts of colonial history returned to haunt European and Latin American leaders at their summit in Brussels.

    For the guests, four hundred years of European colonial rule, economic exploitation and slavery was front of mind. For the hosts, it was Russia’s war on Ukraine in the here and now. 

    The divergence in views was so profound that the two sides struggled to align their thinking at their first summit in eight years — especially to find words to condemn Russia’s war of aggression in their closing communiqué.

    That made the two-day gathering frustrating for all concerned — but especially for leaders of the EU’s newest member states from Eastern Europe, which have their own bitter memories of Soviet imperial rule and Russian aggression.

    “It is actually a war of colonization,” Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš said of the 16-month-old Ukraine conflict. 

    “There is a former colonizer, Russia, and a former colony, Ukraine. And the former overlord is trying to take back their one-time possession. I think that many countries around the world can relate to that.”

    Despite the pre-summit rhetoric highlighting the two continents’ shared values, EU leaders struggled to persuade the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) — which includes traditional allies of Moscow such as Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela — to clearly condemn Russia’s war.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — a regular guest in Brussels — wasn’t invited this time. Wrangling over the wording in their joint declaration delayed the end of the meeting by hours as leaders sought to bridge the gaps. In the end, only Nicaragua dissented.

    “No one intends to lecture anyone,” said European Council President Charles Michel, seeking to placate his guests. “This is not how it works, we have a lot of respect for those countries, for the traditions, for the culture, and the idea is always to engage in a spirit of mutual respect.”

    Four hundred years

    Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, has its eyes on Latin America and likes to emphasize the close cultural and linguistic ties between the two. 

    But those links hark back to Spain — and Europe’s — colonial past. The Spanish kingdom colonized much of Latin America starting in 1493 and, over the next 400 years, acquired vast wealth by exploiting its lands and people. The European slave trade also forcibly transported millions of Africans into slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean.

    While European leaders hoped to ease geopolitical tensions, their Latin American counterparts came to the table with a clear message: Defining relations today means addressing and rectifying past injustices — especially as the EU looks once again to the resource-rich region, this time to power its green transition.

    Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves | Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP via Getty Images

    The prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines — a small island state that heads up the 33-nation group — called for talks on economic reparations for colonization and enslavement. 

    “Resources from the slave trade and from slavery helped to fuel the industrial revolution that has laid the basis for a lot of the wealth within Western Europe,” Ralph Gonsalves told a small group of reporters on Tuesday.

    This was part of his argument for a plan to “to repair the historical legacies of underdevelopment resulting from native genocide and the enslavement of African bodies,” as he said on Monday ahead of the summit.

    Trade tensions

    Trade talks between the EU and Mercosur — which groups four of Latin America’s big economies — also reflected the broader tensions over what it really means for Europe to start afresh in a relationship of equals.

    Beyond a cursory mention of a Mercosur deal in the final statement, talks with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay were kept on the sidelines despite previous hopes that the summit could inject new energy into negotiations on wrapping up a trade deal.

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen did, however, say after the summit that “our ambition is to … conclude [at] the latest by the end of this year.”

    Industry and civil society have fundamentally different interpretations around how much — or how little — the deal would help put the countries on equal footing with their European partners.

    For businesses, the deal needs to happen to ensure the region remains on the EU’s political and economic map. 

    “For us, the [trade] agreements are important. We need stability and don’t want to be at the mercy of political changes,” said Luisa Santos of the industry lobby group BusinessEurope.

    But NGOs don’t see it that way. “Any proposal that leaves the region as a mere provider of natural resources for the benefit of the one percent in the region, big corporations and rich countries is business as usual,” said Hernán Saenz from the NGO Oxfam.

    Resource craze

    Sealing the Mercosur deal has gained importance for the EU, which is banking on the resource-rich region to power the wind turbines and electric vehicles it needs to meet its climate targets. 

    Brazil is the largest exporter of strategic raw materials to the EU by volume, while the “lithium triangle” spanning Chile, Argentina and Bolivia hosts about half of the world’s lithium reserves. As part of the summit, Brussels and Chile signed a new memorandum of understanding on raw materials. 

    Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (left) and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (right) in Brussels | Dati Bendo/EC

    But the EU’s new appetite for those metals and minerals evoques those dark memories of Spanish conquistadors who set out to dominate large parts of South America — in the name of god, glory and, not least, gold, fueling an economic boom back home while stripping Latin America of its riches.

    While von der Leyen on Monday announced Brussels will pump over €45 billion into the region through its Global Gateway program — for infrastructure projects that, at least in part, will also benefit the EU’s private sector — Europe is coming late to the party in a region where China has already expanded its influence.

    And raw materials partnerships today, the region’s countries emphasized, cannot be based on a model where resource-rich countries mine the valuable resources — often under poor environmental and working conditions — only for them to be shipped abroad for processing and manufacturing, making them reliant on imports for finished products. 

    “This was the first time that we had the opportunity to discuss in such clear terms a mechanism that would take us away from extractivism in Latin America,” Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández said after the summit.

    “It took five centuries, but we managed it — I’m saying that half in jest, but we have at last succeeded.”

    Camille Gijs and Barbara Moens contributed reporting.

    Sarah Anne Aarup and Antonia Zimmermann

    Source link

  • Vatican sends priest’s diary to Bolivia amid sex abuse scandal

    Vatican sends priest’s diary to Bolivia amid sex abuse scandal

    The late priest Alfonso Pedrajas is accused of sexually abusing children while working in Bolivian boarding schools.

    A sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church has gripped Bolivia, prompting the Vatican to send a key piece of evidence back to the South American country.

    On Thursday, the Society of Jesus of Bolivia acknowledged that it had received a copy of the diary belonging to the late Alfonso Pedrajas, a Jesuit priest accused of abusing dozens of minors. The diary was then turned over to prosecutors in the city of Cochabamba.

    The contents of the diary were first brought to light in the Spanish newspaper El País in April, as part of its ongoing investigation into the Spanish Catholic Church.

    Pedrajas, originally from the Spanish city of Valencia, had kept detailed accounts of the child sexual abuse he committed in Bolivia, dating as far back as the 1970s. He died of cancer in 2009.

    According to El País, the priest’s nephew Fernando Pedrajas discovered a print-out of the diary in an attic and ultimately turned it over to the newspaper.

    In its pages, the priest Pedrajas wrote lines like: “I hurt so many people (85?). Too many.”

    The newspaper published excerpts from the diary, prompting an outcry in Bolivia and an official Vatican response. Pope Francis promised to ensure “the full cooperation of the Church to work alongside the government” as it investigates the allegations.

    He also expressed sorrow over the ongoing revelations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, calling them “deplorable”.

    Bolivian President Luis Arce, for his part, has called on his country to “strengthen controls to prevent foreign priests with a history of sexual crimes from entering the country”.

    The public prosecutor’s office is investigating the abuse claims. Priest Jordi Bertomeu, a sex-crime investigator from the Vatican, also arrived in Bolivia in May to gather information about prevention efforts being undertaken within the church to stop sexual abuse. He had previously conducted investigations into church officials in Chile and Paraguay.

    Pedrajas, known as Father Pica, was placed in the 1970s at Jesuit boarding schools for impoverished youth, primarily in Cochabamba.

    At one point, according to his diary, Pedrajas told a Jesuit colleague about the abuse, only to be advised not to mention it in future confessions.

    The investigation into Pedrajas joins at least 12 other ongoing judicial probes into allegations of clergy sex abuse in Bolivia. The Bolivian Episcopal Conference has said one priest has already received a 10-year sentence for rape.

    Another priest, Milton Murillo, was sent to pre-trial detention for three months in May. New testimony against Murillo emerged in the wake of the Pedrajas scandal, as prosecutors called on survivors to step forward.

    Since April, more than 200 people in the country have expressed that they too suffered abuse at religious-run schools.

    Source link

  • Study: Don’t blame climate change for South American drought

    Study: Don’t blame climate change for South American drought

    Climate change isn’t causing the multi-year drought that is devastating parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Bolivia, but warming is worsening some of the dry spell’s impacts, a new study says.

    The natural three-year climate condition La Nina – a cooling of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide temporarily but lasted much longer than normal this time – is the chief culprit in a drought that has devastated central South America and is still going on, according to a flash study released Thursday by international scientists at World Weather Attribution. The study has not been peer reviewed yet.

    Drought has hit the region since 2019 with last year seeing the driest year in Central Argentina since 1960, widespread crop failures and Uruguay declaring an agricultural emergency in October. Water supplies and transportation were hampered, too.

    “There is no climate change signal in the rainfall,” said study co-author Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College in London. “But of course, that doesn’t mean that climate change doesn’t play an important role in the context of these droughts. Because of the extreme increase in heat that we see, the soils do dry faster and the impacts are more severe they would have otherwise been.”

    The heat has increased the evaporation of what little water there is, worsened a natural water shortage and added to crop destruction, scientists said. The same group of scientists found that climate change made the heat wave last December 60 times more likely.

    And cutting down trees in the southern Amazon in 2020 reached the highest rate in a decade and that translates to less moisture being available farther south in Argentina, said study lead author Paola Arias, a climate scientist and professor at the Environmental School of the University of Antioquia in Colombia.

    The team of scientists at World Weather Attribution use observations and climate models to see if they find a climate change factor in how frequent or how strong extreme weather is. They compare what happened to how often it happened in the past, and they run computer simulations that contrast reality to what would have happened in a world without human-caused climate change from burning of fossil fuels.

    In this drought’s case, the models actually show a slight, not significant, increase in moisture from climate change but a clear connection to La Nina, which scientists say is waning. It will still take months if not longer for the region to get out of the drought — and that depends on whether the flip side of La Nina — El Nino — appears, said study co-author Juan Rivera, a scientist at the Argentine Institute for Snow Research, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences.

    In the past, the team of scientists has found no obvious climate change connection in some droughts and floods, but they do find global warming is a factor in most of the severe weather they investigate.

    “One of the reasons why we do these attribution studies is to show what the realistic impacts of climate change are. And it’s not that climate change makes everything worse,” Otto said. “Not every bad thing that’s happening now is because of climate change.”

    ___

    See more of AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

    ___

    Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    Source link

  • Bolivia: Opposition blockades push for leader’s release

    Bolivia: Opposition blockades push for leader’s release

    SAN CARLOS, Bolivia (AP) — Outside Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s most populous city, the highway starts to resemble a parking lot with dozens of cargo-laden trucks stopped in a long line as exhausted-looking drivers wait by the side of the road. Wet clothing hangs from the windows of some trucks.

    The vehicles are blocked by large mounds of sand piled on the highway as it passes through the town of San Carlos, 68 miles (110 kilometers) from Santa Cruz. No cars or trucks pass the mounds, only motorcycles transporting people.

    “This measure is to make the government realize that they can’t live without Santa Cruz,” said Micol Paz, a 32-year-old activist with Santa Cruz Gov. Luis Fernando Camacho’s Creemos political party.

    The detention on terrorism charges in December of Camacho, the country’s most prominent opposition leader, sparked a series of protests in this eastern region that is Bolivia’s economic engine and farming hub. Road blockades demanding his release, like the one in San Carlos, have thrown the distribution chain into chaos, caused prices to surge and worsened tensions between the leftist government in capital of La Paz and right-wing opposition based in Santa Cruz.

    Camacho’s arrest stems from the protests that led to the 2019 resignation of then-President Evo Morales. Morales’s party, which has since returned to power, accuses Camacho of orchestrating the protests and calls them a coup. The unrest resulted in 37 deaths,

    Camacho’s supporters say the protests were a legitimate response to fraudulent elections that were set to keep Morales in power and that his arrest constitutes a kidnapping.

    The governor, who placed third in Bolivia’s 2020 presidential election, is spending his days in a maximum security prison outside La Paz after a judge ordered him held for four months of pretrial detention, agreeing with prosecutors that he was a flight risk.

    Caught in the middle of the dispute are the truckers and consumers hit by rising prices.

    Edgar Quispe Solares was visibly angry as he sat in his semi-trailer that was transporting cars.

    “We’ve been without basic services for a week. We can’t shower, we can’t buy anything,” Quispe, 47, said while he anxiously watched activists apparently getting ready to move the blockade to a nearby town, a sign he might be able to move his trailer for the first time in eight days.

    Rómulo Calvo, the head of the powerful Civic Committee for Santa Cruz that called for the blockades, says that while the protests are to continue until Camacho’s release he can’t guarantee that that will really happen.

    “The blockades will last for as long as people who are taking the action can continue,” Calvo said, acknowledging there is fatigue after a 36-day strike against the government last fall to demand a national census that would likely give the region more tax revenue and legislative representation.

    Santa Cruz plays an outsized role in Bolivia’s economy, making up around one-third of its economic activity while 70% of the country’s food comes out of the eastern region that is the center of agribusiness.

    “Santa Cruz is a fundamental bastion of the Bolivian economy and that is why it has the power to flex its muscles against the government,” Jaime Dunn, an economic analyst in La Paz, said.

    It’s difficult to quantify the direct economic effect of the protests, in part because some trucks are managing to skirt the blockades.

    “You won’t necessarily see the impact monetized in terms of amounts, but you will in prices and diminishing Central Bank reserves,” Dunn said.

    In markets in La Paz, customers are sparse as the price of chicken has soared 29% while beef increased 8% since the blockade started, according to Marina Quisbert, a leader in a grouping of butchers at the Rodríguez Market.

    It isn’t just meat.

    “Even the prices of vegetables have increased, if I used to spend 100 pesos, now I have to spend 120,” said Rubén Mendoza, a 65-year-old retired teacher.

    The administration of leftist President Luis Arce has played down talk of the economic impact of the blockades with Economy Minister Marcelo Montenegro telling journalists this week that prices have increased due to “speculation and profiteering.”

    Amid the discussion over how the blockades could affect the economy, thousands took to the streets in the capital cities of eight of the country’s nine regions on Tuesday to demand the release of Camacho as well as other opposition leaders who have been imprisoned. Smaller counter-protests supporting his detention also took place.

    “I feel impotence more than anything, because any of us could be sent to jail for not agreeing with the government,” Karine Flores Mendez, a 49-year-old executive assistant, said as she joined protesters in Santa Cruz.

    Some also spoke out against law enforcement officers who have clashed with protesters during the frequent nightly demonstrations in downtown Santa Cruz.

    “They send police to tear gas us,” Pablo Vaca, a 37-year-old retail worker, said.

    Arce’s administration has accused the nightly protesters of fomenting violence and burning vehicles as well as public offices.

    Some people who agree with the aim of the protests say the blockades go too far, including Elvis Velázquez, a doctor who lives near San Carlos and works in Yapacani, around 65 kilometers (40 miles) away. He is affected by the highway closure.

    “I support some measures but the blockades aren’t productive because they paralyze us as citizens,” Velázquez said as he rushed to board a minivan to Yapacani after crossing the blockade on foot. “They cut us off from each other.”

    ————-

    Associated Press Journalist Paola Flores contributed from La Paz, Bolivia.

    Source link

  • Bolivian opposition leader held on ‘terrorism’ charges

    Bolivian opposition leader held on ‘terrorism’ charges

    Prosecutors in Bolivia are seeking six months of pre-trial detention in the case of Luis Fernando Camacho, the governor of Santa Cruz and prominent right-wing leader whose sudden arrest on Wednesday sparked allegations of kidnapping.

    Camacho is being held in the political capital of La Paz on charges of “terrorism”, prosecutor Omar Mejillones confirmed in a statement on Thursday.

    The Santa Cruz governor also faces ongoing investigations into his role during Bolivia’s 2019 political crisis, which led to the departure of then-President Evo Morales. Among the charges being considered are breach of duty, misuse of influence and attacking the president and high-ranking officials.

    Camacho – a former presidential candidate who heads the powerful Christian conservative coalition Creemos – had been a leader during the 2019 protests that helped to remove Morales, the country’s first Indigenous president, from office.

    In a statement, Camacho rejected the accusations, saying they lacked credibility.

    The 2019 political crisis saw Morales seeking a fourth consecutive term as president, a move his critics denounced as unconstitutional. Morales had successfully appealed to the Supreme Court to abolish term limits after voters refused to do so in a 2016 referendum.

    Morales successfully won his fourth term in October 2019 but the election was mired in allegations of fraud and protests erupted contesting Morales’s leadership. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights estimates 36 people lost their lives in the crisis. With an international audit under way and violence in the streets, Bolivia’s military called on Morales to resign.

    He did, leaving office in November 2019, but condemned the conflict as a “coup”. On Thursday, Morales applauded Camacho’s arrest with a post on Twitter.

    “Finally, after three years, Luis Fernando Camacho will answer for the coup d’etat that led to robberies, persecutions, arrests and massacres of the de facto government. We trust that this decision will be upheld with the firmness demanded by the people’s clamour for justice,” Morales wrote.

    Camacho’s allies, meanwhile, have called the arrest a “kidnapping”, organised by Morales’s Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) political party.

    In a statement posted on Camacho’s social media on Thursday, his legal team said Bolivia’s judiciary had “practically closed the doors” against their legal actions to free the governor and was continuing to “violate [his] constitutional rights”.

    Camacho’s arrest and subsequent jailing have heightened existing tensions between Bolivia’s left-wing government and conservative-led Santa Cruz, the largest of the country’s nine departments.

    Following the prosecutor’s announcement on Thursday, the right-wing Pro-Santa Cruz Committee – a civic group of which Camacho was once president – announced it would lead a general strike on Friday as well as blockades on the department’s highways.

    Already, protesters have taken to the streets in Santa Cruz to block roads. The local prosecutor’s office was reportedly set on fire. And on Wednesday, amid reports Camacho was being flown to La Paz to face charges, protesters entered two Santa Cruz airports in an apparent attempt to stop his transport.

    Bolivia’s public works minister Edgar Montano took to Twitter on Thursday to say his house in Santa Cruz had been targeted and burned, “violating the integrity and safety of my family”. He blamed Camacho and the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee for the attack.

    “They are not going to intimidate us with criminal acts such as burning my home and calls on social networks to loot institutions and homes belonging to other officials”, he tweeted, adding: “#SantaCruz is not an independent country.”

    A protester outside the state attorney’s office in La Paz, Bolivia, cries out for the release of Santa Cruz governor Luis Fernando Camacho [Claudia Morales/Reuters]

    Earlier this year, the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee led widespread protests after current President Luis Arce, a member of Morales’s Movement Towards Socialism party, announced plans to postpone Bolivia’s census.

    The census, originally scheduled for this year, was expected to show population growth in Santa Cruz, a soy-growing department rich in agriculture that also houses the country’s largest city. That, in turn, would have resulted in more government funding allocated to the department, as well as greater representation in Congress.

    Prosecutors have promised to seek the “harshest punishment” for any violence stemming from this week’s protests. Meanwhile, Bolivian politicians representing Camacho’s Creemos party have called on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to protect Camacho’s “safety and integrity”.

    A spokesperson for the United States State Department told Reuters: “We encourage observance of international norms and reliance on democratic institutions. We urge all parties to resolve this issue peacefully and democratically.”

    Source link

  • Bolivian police detain country’s main opposition leader

    Bolivian police detain country’s main opposition leader

    LA PAZ, Bolivia — Police on Wednesday detained Luis Fernando Camacho, the main opposition leader in Bolivia who is also governor of the Santa Cruz region, a dramatic action that quickly led to renewed social unrest.

    Camacho was detained as part of a case in which he is accused of leading what the government characterizes as a coup in 2019, the Chief Prosecutor’s Office said. Opposition leaders challenge the coup label, arguing those events were only protests that led to the resignation of then-President Evo Morales.

    The governor’s allies quickly took to the streets, blocking roads in Santa Cruz as well as a highway that joins the region with the rest of the country. Photos posted on social media showed long lines at gas stations amid worries the renewed unrest could lead to shortages.

    It took several hours for any official word on what charges led to the detention of Camacho, whose region is Bolivia’s wealthiest and a stronghold of the opposition.

    Earlier, Government Minister Carlos Eduardo del Castillo wrote on social media only, “We inform the Bolivian people that police have fulfilled a detention order against Mr. Luis Fernando Camacho.”

    Shortly after the action, the Santa Cruz governorship said in a news release that Camacho was “kidnapped in an absolutely irregular police operation and was taken to an unknown location.”

    Camacho was detained near his home, the news release said.

    Several opposition leaders also quickly spoke up against the detention, including former President Carlos Mesa, who called it a “violent and illegal kidnapping.”

    The Chief Prosecutor’s Office denied the detention was anything of the sort or political persecution, saying it was done under an order issued in October and stemmed from proceedings that began in 2020 with the “full knowledge” of the governor.

    Camacho has repeatedly denied all accusations against him, saying he is the victim of political persecution. He has refused to undergo questioning by prosecutors, saying there is a lack of guarantees of fair treatment.

    Video of the arrest posted on social media showed the conservative Camacho handcuffed on the side of the road alongside law enforcement officers holding firearms.

    Martín Camacho, the governor’s lawyer, told the local newspaper El Deber that his client was being taken to the capital of La Paz to answer questions in cases opened against him.

    Video posted on social media showed dozens of his supporters descending on two local airports to try to impede the governor’s transfer, although it was unclear whether he was still there.

    The government has launched several judicial actions against Camacho, including one for having called for a strike against the national administration of President Luis Arce in November, which lasted 36 days. He is facing accusations of sedition, treason and corruption, among others.

    Camacho is the leader of the opposition alliance Creemos (“We Believe”).

    His role as head of the opposition was cemented in November, when he led the strike against the government. The action pressed demands that a national census be carried out in 2023, which would likely give Santa Cruz more tax revenue and seats in Congress and therefore more influence in the country’s political decisions.

    Camacho was also a leader in the big protests in 2019 that forced Morales from power following elections that the Organization of American States said were marred by fraud. Morales was seeking his fourth consecutive reelection.

    The 2019 protests led to social unrest that resulted in 37 deaths and pushed Bolivia into its most serious institutional crisis of recent years.

    ———

    Politi reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

    Source link

  • Wells are running dry in drought-weary Southwest as foreign-owned farms guzzle water to feed cattle overseas | CNN

    Wells are running dry in drought-weary Southwest as foreign-owned farms guzzle water to feed cattle overseas | CNN


    La Paz County, Arizona
    CNN
     — 

    Workers with the water district in Wenden, Arizona, saw something remarkable last year as they slowly lowered a camera into the drought-stricken town’s well: The water was moving.

    But the aquifer which sits below the small desert town in the southwestern part of the state is not a river; it’s a massive, underground reservoir which stores water built up over thousands of years. And that water is almost always still.

    Gary Saiter, a longtime resident and head of the Wenden Water Improvement District, said the water was moving because it was being pumped rapidly out of the ground by a neighboring well belonging to Al Dahra, a United Arab Emirates-based company farming alfalfa in the Southwest.

    Al Dahra did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

    “The well guys and I have never seen anything like this before,” Saiter told CNN. The farm was “pumping and it was sucking the water through the aquifer.”

    Groundwater is the lifeblood of the rural Southwest, but just as the Colorado River Basin is in crisis, aquifers are rapidly depleting from decades of overuse, worsening drought and rampant agricultural growth.

    Residents and farms pull water from the same underground pools, and as the water table declines, the thing determining how long a well lasts is how deeply it was drilled.

    Office manager Brianna Davis, left, chats with manager Gary Saiter, right, at Wenden Domestic Water Improvement District.

    Now frustration is growing in Arizona’s La Paz County, as shallower wells run dry amid the Southwest’s worst drought in 1,200 years. Much of the frustration is pointed at the area’s huge, foreign-owned farms growing thirsty crops like alfalfa, which ultimately get shipped to feed cattle and other livestock overseas.

    “You can’t take water and export it out of the state, there’s laws about that,” said Arizona geohydrologist Marvin Glotfelty, a well-drilling expert. “But you can take ‘virtual’ water and export it; alfalfa, cotton, electricity or anything created in part from the use of water.”

    Residents and local officials say lax groundwater laws give agriculture the upper hand, allowing farms to pump unlimited water as long as they own or lease the property to drill wells into. In around 80% of the state, Arizona has no laws overseeing how much water corporate megafarms are using, nor is there any way for the state to track it.

    But rural communities in La Paz County know the water is disappearing beneath their feet.

    Shallow, residential wells in the county started drying up in 2015, local officials say, and deeper municipal well levels have steadily declined. In Salome, local water utility owner Bill Farr told CNN his well – which supplies water to more than 200 customers, including the local schools – is “nearing the end of its useful life.”

    And in Wenden, water in the town well has been plummeting. Saiter told CNN the depth-to-water – how deep below the surface the top of the water table is – has dropped from about 100 feet in the late 1950s to about 540 feet in 2022, already far beyond what an average residential well can reach. Saiter is anxious the farms’ rapid water use could push the water table too low for the town well to draw safe water from.

    La Paz County supervisor Holly Irwin told CNN getting the state to act on – or even acknowledge – the region’s dwindling water supply has been a “frustrating” yearslong battle which has left her community feeling “forgotten.”

    Middle East agriculture companies “have depleted their [water], that’s why they are here,” Irwin said. “That’s what angers people the most. We should be taking care of our own, and we just allow them to come in, purchase property and continue to punch holes in the ground.”

    In 2018, Saudi Arabia finalized a ban on growing thirsty crops like alfalfa and hay to feed livestock and cattle. The reason was simple: the arid Middle East – also struggling with climate change-fueled drought – is running out of water, and agriculture is a huge consumer.

    But vast dairy operations are a point of national pride in the Middle East, according to Eckart Woertz, director of the Germany-based GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies. So, they needed to find water somewhere else.

    “They have all their cows there and they need feeding. That feedstock comes from abroad,” Woertz told CNN.

    Groundwater gushes into a cement canal near the Fondomonte farm in Vicksburg, Arizona.

    Valued at $14.3 billion, the Almarai Company – which owns about 10,000 acres of farmland in Arizona under its subsidiary, Fondomonte – is one of the biggest players in the Middle East’s dairy supply. The company also owns about 3,500 acres in agriculture-heavy Southern California, according to public land records, where they use Colorado River water to irrigate crops.

    Woertz said while most of the company’s cattle feed is purchased on the open market, Alamarai took the extra step of buying farmland abroad, as part of a growing trend in foreign-owned farmland in the US. Foreign-owned farmland in the West increased from around 1.25 million acres in 2010 to nearly three million acres in 2020, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture. In the Midwest, foreign-owned farmland has nearly quadrupled.

    “It gives you that sense you’re closer to the source,” Woertz added. “The sense that you own land or lease land somewhere else and have direct bilateral access [to water] gives you a sense of maybe false security.”

    In the high desert of Arizona, emerald-green fields stretch for miles alongside dry tumbleweeds and Saguaro cactus.

    The Fondomonte-owned Vicksburg Ranch near Salome is massive. The company spent $47.5 million to buy nearly 10,000 acres of land there in 2014, and it leases additional farmland from the state.

    Bill Farr, owner of Salome Water Company, looks at his water pump and water storage tank. Farr supplies water to the entire town of Salome and has since 1971.

    Hay bales are stored at Al Dahra Farms in Wenden.

    Huge storage facilities were erected to hold the harvests. Rows of small houses were built for the farm’s workers, all surrounded by flowering desert shrubs. Tractor trailers filled with bales of alfalfa hay rumble down the highway, which local officials told CNN they had to repair because of the increased agricultural traffic.

    The alfalfa on the trucks is eventually shipped to feed cattle in Saudi Arabia.

    “They’ve definitely increased production,” Irwin said. “They’ve grown so much since they’ve been here.”

    Almarai was transparent about why it wanted the land, according to an article on the purchase from Arab News: The transaction was part of “continuous efforts to improve and secure its supply of the highest quality alfalfa hay from outside the Kingdom to support its dairy business.”

    “It is also in line with the Saudi government direction toward conserving local resources,” Arab News added.

    Representatives of Fondomonte declined an interview request for this story, but Jordan Rose, the company’s Arizona attorney, provided a statement: “Fondomonte decided to invest in the southwest United States just as hundreds of other agricultural businesses have because of the high-quality soils, and climatic conditions that allow growth of some of the finest quality alfalfa in the world.”

    Rose added the farm installed “the most technologically advanced conservation oriented watering systems available on the market.”

    Cacti dot the hillsides outside of Salome, Ariz. on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022.

    Indeed, there is nothing illegal about foreign-owned farming in the US. And many American farmers use the West’s water to grow crops which are eventually exported around the globe.

    But amid the worst drought in centuries, residents and officials have questioned the merit of allowing countries, which themselves are running out of water, unlimited access to a resource as good as gold in the Southwest.

    Cynthia Campbell, water resources management adviser for the city of Phoenix, has been watching the La Paz County water situation with frustration.

    Phoenix currently gets most of its water from local rivers and the Central Arizona Project, which diverts Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson. But it could use rural groundwater as a safety net in the coming years if the city’s primary sources are further restricted.

    That is, if there is any groundwater left by then.

    “We are literally exporting our economy overseas,” Campbell said. “I’m sorry, but there’s no Saudi Arabian milk coming back to Southern California or Arizona. The value of that agricultural output is not coming through in value to the US.”

    Despite the ever-looming water crisis, people are still drawn to small Southwest towns like Wenden and Salome because of the low home prices and the freedom of desert living.

    While housing costs in the country rocket upward, rural Arizona has remained a stubbornly affordable place to live. Homes cost between $30,000 and $40,000, and residential taxes paid to the county are below $300 per year, Saiter, the head of Wenden’s water district and a longtime resident, told CNN.

    “People are able to afford to live here, versus Phoenix,” Gary’s wife, De Vona Saiter, told CNN. Median incomes in the county are low, “but you can still have a beautiful life.”

    The Saiters’ house and rental properties around town – as well as De Vona’s mother Gloria Kaisor’s home down the street – are decorated with hand-drawn art, gardens and antiques.

    Kaisor is a longtime resident who first moved to Wenden with her family in the 1960s. After living in Phoenix for years, she gravitated back to the rural area.

    “This is home,” Kaisor said. “You don’t hear a noise. It’s quiet. I don’t want to be around a lot of people. You can do whatever you want.”

    Yet the impacts of living near a corporate farm are starting to pile up.

    Kaisor’s home was inundated with silty, wet mud this summer. Rainfall runoff from a recent monsoon flood carried it from the farm right into Wenden. Gary Saiter believes Al Dahra farm staff have rerouted natural waterways, forcing the rainfall into town rather than out into the desert washes.

    Kaisor and her neighbors’ fences are reinforced with sheet metal to try to stop mud and water from coming into their houses, but Kaisor was trapped in her house during a storm earlier this year.

    “The whole property was full of mud,” De Vona Saiter said.

    Saiter speaks with his neighbors in Wenden in late October.

    Hard mud remains caked onto paved streets, a remnant of the August flood that saw silt from Al Dahra fields wash into Wenden.

    Al Dahra did not respond to CNN’s questions for this story, including questions about its water usage, the uptick in residential flooding and potential rerouting of natural waterways.

    The company did provide a statement to the Arizona Republic for a story published in 2019: “Water resources in Arizona must be managed wisely in order to preserve our quality of life and to protect the state’s economic health,” Al Dahra said. “The company is fully committed to Arizona and plans to remain here for the long-term.”

    Living near the Al Dahra farm also brings more frequent and alarming drought-related impacts.

    When it gets windy, a “dirt wall” of soil and dust whips up from the alfalfa fields, exacerbating the Saiters’ allergies. And most noticeably, the ground is literally sinking as the water below the surface gets pumped out.

    The floor in De Vona’s shop has sunk a couple inches, she said, and the ground around one well casing has sunk about a foot; so much the wellhead needed to be cut and resized.

    With all of this, Gary Saiter doesn’t care if the farm is owned by a company overseas. The way he sees it, it doesn’t make much of a difference who owns the farm; he just wishes they were better neighbors.

    “I am kind of ambivalent about the Saudis,” Saiter said. “You can’t control where people sell stuff, and it’s going to go somewhere.”

    “I just don’t like the crops they’re growing and the water they’re pumping,” he added.

    Evidence of a sinking floor due to excessive groundwater pumping at Mas Paz, De Vona's shop.

    Kari Avila, superintendent and athletics director for Salome High School, believes the farms are providing local economic benefits. Rose, Fondomonte’s Arizona attorney, told CNN in an email the company is the fourth-largest employer in the county.

    “They employ a lot of people,” Avila told CNN. “If they weren’t farming it, someone else would be. A lot of people are upset it’s not Americans farming.”

    Avila praised the farms for their internship programs and career fairs. Last year, Al Dahra donated an irrigation pump and generator to water Salome’s high school fields, which had been drying up. Avila said the pump installation for the field was fast and took just a few weeks.

    But even as the companies are trying to invest in the area, many still question whether those benefits are worth it as water disappears.

    “It’s great,” Irwin, the La Paz County supervisor said, “but if you can’t turn your faucet on in five years, that sh*t’s not going to matter.”

    The reason some rural residents feel powerless about the fate of their groundwater is because they say Arizona’s state lawmakers have thus far not acted to protect it.

    The last time the state passed regulations around groundwater was in 1980, with a law creating certain zones in mostly urban areas, where officials had to ensure they were replenishing underground aquifers and not pumping them dry.

    The laws governing the so-called active management areas, or AMAs, are strong compared to groundwater laws in other Southwest states, said Kathleen Ferris, a former top state water official and senior researcher at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy.

    But “outside of the AMAs, not so much,” Ferris told CNN.

    About 80% of the state falls outside the active management areas, with no restrictions on how much groundwater can be pumped and no way to monitor it.

    “It can’t get any worse” than Arizona’s lack of regulation on rural groundwater, Ferris said. “Let’s put it that way.”

    High desert landscape next to to Al Dahra Farms in Wenden.

    Groundwater overflow from afternoon irrigation puddles on Al Dahra farmland.

    Water officials can measure whether water levels in the aquifers are going up or down, but because groundwater is so lightly regulated in rural areas, they don’t have enough data to answer a crucial question: Exactly how much water is left?

    “That is one of the challenges of our state; you can’t manage what you don’t measure,” said top Arizona water official Tom Buschatzke, the director of the state’s Department of Water Resources. “We do the best we can with the data and estimated data that we have, but it really begs questions about how much benefit we can really provide.”

    As the West’s water crisis grows more intense, groundwater reform has become a flashpoint in this year’s election campaigns.

    Arizona attorney general candidate Kris Mayes, a Democrat, has seized on the state’s practice of leasing public land to corporate farms, including more than 6,000 acres leased to Fondomonte, according to the state land department.

    A recent investigation by the Arizona Republic found Fondomonte – the second-largest agricultural lessor of Arizona land – is paying the state a heavily discounted rate which does not take their water usage into account.

    Mayes said she thinks the leases violate the state constitution and has vowed to cancel them if she’s elected.

    “It shouldn’t have happened in the first place,” Mayes told Irwin in September, standing outside Fondomonte’s farm. “We can get these leases canceled, and we should. We are essentially giving our water away for free to a Saudi corporation, and that has to come to an end.”

    Irrigation systems run as the sun sets near Salome.

    The Arizona State Land Department is studying the state’s water resources in western Arizona, department spokesman Bill Fathauer told CNN. But he added it does not have the authority to implement additional groundwater restrictions.

    “The comprehensive data determined from these studies will allow the Department to make an informed decision about not only future land use in these areas but also help determine what the future value of the land is as well,” Fathauer said in an email.

    The kind of sweeping water reforms Arizona needs must ultimately come from the state legislature, says outgoing state House member Regina Cobb, a Republican.

    For years, Cobb tried to advance bills to allow local officials to regulate their aquifers. The bills never got a committee hearing, Cobb said, never mind making it to the floor for a vote. CNN reached out to Gov. Doug Ducey and top Arizona lawmakers in the state House and Senate for comment; none responded.

    As the Colorado River shrinks and Arizona’s share of the water continues to be cut, Cobb told CNN the state’s approach to groundwater has been unthinkable.

    “Why are we allowing a foreign company to come into Arizona – which is drought-stricken right now – and have a sweetheart deal [on leases], when we are trying to conserve as much water as we can?” she asked.

    “It boggles my mind.”

    Read more:

    The Colorado River provides drinking water and electricity to 40 million people. As its supply dwindles, a crisis looms

    As California’s big cities fail to rein in their water use, rural communities are already tapped out

    The West’s historic drought is threatening hydropower at Hoover Dam

    Source link