(Reuters) -Cuba on Tuesday accused the U.S. of seeking a violent overthrow of the Venezuelan government, calling the increased presence of U.S. military forces in the region an “exaggerated and aggressive” threat.
The U.S. overthrowing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government would be extremely dangerous and irresponsible, and would be in violation of international law and the United Nations charter, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said in a statement.
Reuters reported on Saturday that the U.S. was poised to launch a new phase of Venezuela-related operations in coming days, citing four U.S. officials.
The Colombian military said Monday it had opened an investigation into allegations that senior army and intelligence officials advised the leader of an armed drug-trafficking group about how to secretly buy weapons and evade military scrutiny.
The revelations, reported by the major Colombian media outlet, Caracol, have stoked fears that former guerrilla fighters who now smuggle cocaine have infiltrated high levels of the security forces under President Gustavo Petro, a former member of a leftist guerrilla organization. Petro has feuded with President Trump over U.S. airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean and overseen fraying relations with the U.S. over soaring drug-crop cultivation and cocaine trafficking.
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Sunday he had medicine-induced “paranoia” that led him to violate his electronic ankle monitor, a document seen by Reuters showed, one day after the federal police took him into custody as a potential flight risk.
On Saturday, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the detention of the right-wing former leader ahead of a planned supporters’ vigil outside his home, which the judge said could undermine police monitoring of his house arrest. He also noted a police report that Bolsonaro’s ankle monitor was violated.
In a custody hearing following his detention, Bolsonaro denied any intent to escape house arrest or of trying to remove the equipment, the document showed, as he said he had a “hallucination” that there was a wire inside the monitor.
The judge overseeing the hearing decided to maintain the police custody as all legal rules were followed during the former president’s arrest.
(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes; Writing by Fernando Cardoso; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -The European Union would not oppose a proposed deal on the outcome of the COP30 climate talks in Brazil, two sources told Reuters.
“It’s lacking in ambition, it’s lacking in balance, but we won’t oppose,” a EU negotiator said. “Because it will provide much-needed money for adaptation to the poorest and most vulnerable.”
(Reporting by Kate Abnett; editing by William James)
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Lawyers for former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro asked Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to allow him to serve his coup plot sentence under house arrest, according to a document seen by Reuters on Friday.
In the request, the lawyers cited Bolsonaro’s health problems. The former president has had recurring intestinal issues since he was stabbed while campaigning in 2018, including several surgeries, the last one a 12-hour procedure in April.
“It is certain that keeping the petitioner in a prison environment would pose a concrete and immediate risk to his physical integrity and even his life,” the document said, asking for house arrest on “humanitarian grounds”.
Bolsonaro was sentenced in September to 27 years and three months in prison for plotting a coup to remain in power after losing the 2022 election to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The former right-wing leader has already been under house arrest for violating precautionary measures in a separate case, in which he allegedly courted U.S. interference to halt criminal proceedings against him.
(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes and Fernando Cardoso; Editing by Gabriel Araujo)
For more than two decades, a loose-knit group of Venezuelan generals and senior officials has enabled the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine to the U.S. and Europe,
American and Colombian officials say.
While nearly all cocaine is produced in neighboring Colombia, Venezuela plays an important role in allowing the drug to move through its territory and then onto ships and planes that traffic it to Europe, the Caribbean and the U.S., the officials have said.
Wilmer Chavarria was living the good life after faking his own death.
For four years, the Ecuadorean drug boss allied with Mexico’s Jalisco cartel moved among Dubai, Morocco and Spain, allegedly overseeing his drug empire and hit jobs back home—all while staying at the most exclusive hotels, Ecuador’s government said. To avoid detection, he underwent seven surgeries to alter his appearance and changed his name to Danilo Fernández.
Regarding Quico Toro’s essay “
Another U.S. Attempt to Topple Maduro Would Be a Disaster” (Review, Nov. 8): Venezuela’s economic collapse and migratory crisis began in 2013, at least four years before the U.S. imposed broad U.S. sanctions. From 2013 onward, Venezuela experienced the highest inflation rate in the world and a precipitous decline in gross domestic product, driven directly by the devastating economic policies of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, including widespread nationalizations, reckless monetary and fiscal policies and the implementation of universal price and currency controls.
Mr. Toro neglects the consequences of the Biden administration’s policy of accommodation. Far from improving conditions, diplomatic passivity has allowed the government to dig in its heels, intensifying repression and exacerbating the humanitarian crisis.
LONDON (Reuters) -BHP is liable for the 2015 collapse of a dam in southeastern Brazil, London’s High Court ruled on Friday, in a lawsuit the claimants’ lawyers previously valued at up to 36 billion pounds ($48 billion).
Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians, dozens of local governments and around 2,000 businesses sued BHP over the collapse of the Fundao dam in Mariana, southeastern Brazil, which was owned and operated by BHP and Vale’s Samarco joint venture.
Brazil’s worst environmental disaster unleashed a wave of toxic sludge that killed 19 people, left thousands homeless, flooded forests and polluted the length of the Doce River.
Judge Finola O’Farrell said in her ruling that continuing to raise the height of the dam when it was not safe to do so was the “direct and immediate cause” of the dam’s collapse, meaning BHP was liable under Brazilian law.
BHP said it would appeal against the ruling and continue to fight the lawsuit.
BHP’s President Minerals Americas Brandon Craig said in a statement that 240,000 claimants in the London lawsuit “have already been paid compensation in Brazil”.
“We believe this will significantly reduce the size and value of claims in the UK group action,” he added.
CLAIMANTS CELEBRATE MAJOR RULING
Gelvana Rodrigues da Silva, who lost her seven-year-old son Thiago in the flood, said in a statement: “Finally, justice has begun to be served, and those responsible have been held accountable for destroying our lives.”
“The judge’s decision shows what we have been saying for the last 10 years: it was not an accident, and BHP must take responsibility for its actions,” she added.
The claimants’ lawyers accused BHP, the world’s biggest miner by market value, of “cynically and doggedly” trying to avoid responsibility as the mammoth trial began in October.
BHP contested liability and said the London lawsuit duplicated legal proceedings and reparation and repair programmes in Brazil.
In the trial’s first week, Brazil signed a 170 billion reais ($31 billion) compensation agreement with BHP, Vale and Samarco, with BHP saying nearly $12 billion has been spent on reparation, compensation and payments to public authorities since 2015.
BHP said after Friday’s judgment that settlements in Brazil would reduce the size of the London lawsuit by about half.
A second trial to determine the damages BHP is liable to pay is due to begin in October 2026.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin. Editing by Kate Holton and Mark Potter)
The U.S. plans to eliminate tariffs on bananas, coffee, beef and certain apparel and textile products under framework agreements with four Latin American nations, a senior administration official told reporters Thursday.
The expected move—which would apply to some goods from Ecuador, Argentina, El Salvador and Guatemala—is part of a shift from the Trump administration to water down some of its so-called reciprocal tariffs in the midst of rising prices for consumers, as well as legal uncertainty after a Supreme Court hearing this month.
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Iceland has designated the potential collapse of a major Atlantic Ocean current system a national security concern and an existential threat, enabling its government to strategize for worst-case scenarios, the country’s climate minister told Reuters.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, current brings warm water from the tropics northward toward the Arctic, and the flow of warm water helps keep Europe’s winters mild.
But as warming temperatures speed the thaw of Arctic ice and cause meltwater from Greenland’s ice sheet to pour into the ocean, scientists warn the cold freshwater could disrupt the current’s flow.
A potential collapse of AMOC could trigger a modern-day ice age, with winter temperatures across Northern Europe plummeting to new cold extremes, bringing far more snow and ice. The AMOC has collapsed in the past – notably before the last Ice Age that ended about 12,000 years ago.
“It is a direct threat to our national resilience and security,” Iceland Climate Minister Johann Pall Johannsson said by email. “(This) is the first time a specific climate-related phenomenon has been formally brought before the National Security Council as a potential existential threat.”
Elevation of the issue means Iceland’s ministries will be on alert and coordinating a response, Johannsson said. The government is assessing what further research and policies are needed, with work underway on a disaster preparedness policy.
Risks being evaluated span a range of areas, from energy and food security to infrastructure and international transportation.
An Atlantic current collapse could have consequences far beyond Northern Europe. It could potentially destabilize longtime rainfall patterns relied upon by subsistence farmers across Africa, India and South America, according to scientists.
It could also contribute to faster warming in Antarctica, where sea ice surrounding the southernmost continent as well as ice sheets atop it are already under threat from climate change.
Scientists have warned that the world is underestimating the threat that an AMOC collapse could become inevitable within the next couple of decades as global temperatures keep climbing.
The Nordic Council of Ministers funded a “Nordic Tipping Week” workshop in October with 60 experts assessing how societies might be impacted. They are finalizing recommendations from the meeting, organizers said.
“There is tons of research on the likelihood of when exactly things are going to happen,” said Aleksi Nummelin, a physical oceanographer at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. “There is much less on what is the actual societal impact.”
On Monday, scientists from more than 30 universities and international organizations sounded an alarm about the accelerated thawing of Earth’s glaciers, ice sheets and other frozen spaces.
Other climate ministries and meteorological offices across Northern Europe told Reuters they are funding more research while weighing possible risks in their climate adaptation plans.
Ireland’s weather service said its scientists briefed the country’s prime minister last year and a parliamentary committee last month. Norway’s environment ministry said it was “seeking to deepen our understanding of the issue through new research” before determining whether to classify AMOC as a security risk.
Britain said it was following scientific reports that suggested an abrupt collapse was unlikely during this century, while directing more than 81 million pounds into research to understand when the Earth’s climate systems might be pushed to a point of no return.
“The science is evolving quite rapidly and time is running out to do anything about it because the tipping point may well be quite close,” said oceanographer and climatologist Stefan Rahmstorf from Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Iceland is not taking any chances, as the pace of warming speeds up and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.
“Sea ice could affect marine transport; extreme weather could severely affect our capabilities to maintain any agriculture and fisheries, which are central to our economy and food systems,” Johannsson said.
“We cannot afford to wait for definitive, long-term research before acting.”
(Reporting by Ali Withers and Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen; Editing by Katy Daigle and David Gregorio)
BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Some acai berry lovers visiting Brazil for this week’s U.N. climate summit are in for a surprise when they taste the fruit popular around the world in smoothies and breakfast bowls.
Acai bowls served by local vendors in Belem — the city hosting the 30th annual United Nations climate summit, the Conference of the Parties, known less formally as COP30 — are true to the dish’s rainforest roots, served unadulterated and without sugar.
This traditional preparation has been a tough sell for some visitors, used to the frozen and sweetened acai cream sold in other countries and elsewhere in Brazil.
“I can’t say this is bad and I totally respect the cultural importance of it, but I still prefer the ice creamy version,” said Catherine Bernard, a 70-year-old visitor from France, as she tasted a traditional acai berry bowl in downtown Belem on Thursday.
“Maybe if we add a little honey, some banana,” she added.
Acai is put in a blender at a market amid the nearby COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Acai is put in a blender at a market amid the nearby COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Not a dessert
People in the Amazon, where the nutrient-rich berry has been cultivated for centuries by Indigenous populations, don’t treat their acai bowls as a side order or dessert.
It is often the main course for any meal. They don’t add granola, fresh fruit or nuts. Sugar is forbidden. Served at room temperature, the traditional dish is a thick liquid prepared from whole berries and a bit of water, typically sprinkled with tapioca flour.
Locals hope that exposing visitors to this original blend will increase awareness about a fruit facing pressure from tariffs and a changing environment.
“The acai coming from Indigenous people is the food when there’s no food. It was never a drink or an extra. It can be the main course for us,” Tainá Marajoara, an activist and owner of a restaurant, told The Associated Press, wearing an Indigenous headdress.
As Marajoara poured some of the dark liquid into an Amazon bowl called “cuia,” a vessel traditionally fashioned from gourds and now popular throughout Brazil, she said that acai trees need a protected surrounding in the rainforest so they can be at their best.
Acai berries sit in a bowl at a market amid the nearby COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Acai berries sit in a bowl at a market amid the nearby COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
“Acai is also the blood running in the forest,” she added.
Marajoara’s restaurant at the COP30 pavilion charges 25 Brazilian reais ($5) for a bowl, about the same as bowls in other parts of Brazil that use industrially processed and sweetened acai cream, often with toppings.
That version was made popular in the mid-1990s by surfers and jiujitsu fighters in Rio de Janeiro, and then exported around the world as millions of tourists developed a taste for it.
Even in many parts of Brazil, it can be hard to find unsweetened acai. Some Brazilian parents who want their children to have the superfood’s benefits without the sugar look for stores that sell acai cream without added sweeteners. But most popular brands only produce sweetened versions.
Where the world’s acai comes from
Nearly all the acai consumed in the United States originates from Brazil, with the state of Para, whose capital is Belem, accounting for 90% of the country’s total production. Many communities in the Amazon depend on its harvest, which largely goes to the industrialized product.
Prices of acai smoothies look uncertain for U.S. consumers as the product is subject to a 50% tariff imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump on many Brazilian exports.
The harvesting of acai is a physically demanding job that requires workers known as “peconheiros” to climb tall trees with minimal safety equipment to fill baskets and place them carefully in crates.
Acai is served to a kid at a market amid the nearby COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Acai is served to a kid at a market amid the nearby COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
A full crate of acai sells for around $50 at local markets in Brazil, a price that is expected to plummet if U.S. sales slow down. The U.S. is by far the largest acai importer of a total Brazilian output, currently estimated at about 70,000 tons (63,500 metric tons) per year.
In some coastal areas of the Amazon under little environmental protection, erosion is changing the taste of some of the acai, making them saltier and less colorful. That’s why people like Marajoara keep pushing not only for their original bowls during COP30, but also for higher surveillance for acai trees of the region.
“The acai berry that belongs in our food culture comes from flood plain areas, from a healthy ecosystem,” she said. “For acai to be healthy, the rainforest needs to be healthy too.”
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The U.S. appears to be
preparing to attack my country. That’s a sentence nobody wants to write. For us Venezuelans, though, it’s especially bitter. For years, we looked to the U.S. to support our fledgling democracy movement against an authoritarian government happy to rewrite history to suit its political convenience. Now, in a bizarre twist of fate, our country faces an attack by an authoritarian American government that is happy to rewrite our history to suit its own political convenience.
Though President Trump has said in recent days that he doubts the U.S. will go to war with Venezuela, the American military buildup is ongoing, and The Wall Street Journal and other sources have reported on the Pentagon’s efforts to select targets in the country. Trump has said again and again that he is going after Nicolás Maduro because the dictator emptied out Venezuela’s prisons as part of a sinister plan to flood U.S. streets with drug dealers.
MADRID (Reuters) -Police said on Friday they had arrested 13 people accused of belonging to the first cell of Venezuela’s “Tren de Aragua” crime gang detected in Spain, following raids in five cities.
Tren de Aragua, originally formed in Venezuelan prisons, has grown into one of Latin America’s most violent transnational criminal networks, linked to drugs, human trafficking and extortion.
The United States this year designated it as a global terrorist organisation, citing its reach beyond the region.
Police said the arrests took place in Barcelona, Madrid, Girona, A Coruna and Valencia in an investigation into the group’s alleged efforts to expand its operations into Spain, where Venezuelans make up one of the largest immigrant communities.
Officers seized synthetic drugs, cocaine, a marijuana plantation and two laboratories producing “tusi”, also known as pink cocaine, a substance the gang is known to traffic.
The operation follows a 2024 arrest in Barcelona of the alleged gang leader’s brother, who was accused of trying to expand the group into Spain.
(Reporting by Jesus Calero, editing by Andrei Khalip and Alex Richardson)
(Reuters) -The U.S. military killed three men in a strike on a suspected drug vessel in international waters in the Caribbean on Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said.
Hegseth, said in a post on social media website X that the vessel was operated by a “Designated Terrorist Organization” but provided no further evidence. His post included a 20-second video clip, marked unclassified, of a boat in the water that gets struck by a munition and explodes.
The military action was the latest of more than a dozen U.S. strikes since September on vessels near the Venezuelan coast and, more recently, in the eastern Pacific Ocean, that have killed more than 60 people.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
WASHINGTON—President Trump has recently expressed reservations to top aides about launching military action to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, fearing that strikes might not compel the autocrat to step down, according to U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.
The debate underscores that the administration’s Venezuela strategy remains in flux, despite a
buildup of military forces in the region and public threats by Trump to launch attacks.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Top Trump administration officials briefed members of the Senate and House of Representatives on Wednesday about strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats off Venezuela, after frustration in Congress about a lack of transparency about the operation.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth met with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders and senior members of national security committees for about an hour, discussing U.S. strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific that have killed dozens of people since early September.
President Donald Trump’s administration insists those targeted were transporting drugs, without providing evidence or publicly explaining the legal justification for the decision to attack the boats rather than stop them and arrest those on board.
Several senators and House members who attended the briefing said the administration officials said the boats were carrying cocaine, not fentanyl, and explained their legal justification.
Some legal experts say the strikes may violate international law as well as U.S. laws against murder and prohibitions on assassination.
Trump’s fellow Republicans said they were pleased with the briefing.
House Speaker Mike Johnson described the intelligence about the vessels as “exquisite,” although he said the U.S. knew who had been on board the boats “almost to a person.”
Asked to clarify, Johnson said: “What I know from what I’ve learned so far, we have high reliability. These are the cartels. These are the people involved in it. They are doing this deliberately. These are not people who are haphazardly on a boat. They are intending to traffic into the country, and it does great harm to the American people.”
The strikes have raised tensions between Washington and Caracas, more so as Trump ordered a major military buildup in the region and said his administration will carry out strikes against drug-related targets inside Venezuela.
President Gustavo Petro, leader of long-time U.S. ally Colombia, has been feuding with Trump over the strikes, whose victims have included Colombians. Trump has imposed sanctions on him.
Senator Mark Warner, the top Senate intelligence Democrat, said the administration’s failure to publicly explain its actions, including the legal justification, had damaged the confidence of the U.S. public and partners in Latin America.
“Kinetic strikes without actually interdicting and demonstrating to the American public that these are carrying drugs and full of bad guys, I think, is a huge mistake that undermines confidence in the administration’s actions,” Warner said.
Warner last week blasted the administration for holding a briefing on the strikes that excluded Democrats.
Lawmakers from both parties had slammed the Pentagon as recently as Tuesday for not briefing them on national security issues and said at times top defense officials appeared to be undermining Trump’s own policies, in a rare bipartisan show of frustration with the administration.
The Pentagon, which Trump has renamed the Department of War, on Wednesday denied accusations that its top policy official, Elbridge Colby, was not fully briefing Congress on important national security issues, suggesting a widening rift between the agency and senators from both parties.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Bo Erickson; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago—No leader in the Caribbean has embraced the Trump administration’s forceful new military presence in the region like the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who took office in May, has been unwavering in her support for President Trump, cheering airstrikes against alleged drug boats, allowing U.S. military operations in her country’s waters and permitting an American warship to dock at the capital’s main port. On drug smugglers, she has said the U.S. should “kill them all violently.”
Walter Russell Mead is the Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at Hudson Institute, the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal and the Alexander Hamilton Professor of Strategy and Statecraft with the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida.
He is also a member of Aspen Institute Italy and board member of Aspenia. Before joining Hudson, Mr. Mead was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations as the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy. He has authored numerous books, including the widely-recognized Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004). Mr. Mead’s most recent book is entitled The Arc of A Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People.