标签： South America

A deadly shooting at one of Mexico’s most famous tourist landmarks has left one Canadian woman dead and multiple visitors wounded, Mexican authorities have confirmed. The violent incident unfolded on Monday at the sprawling Teotihuacan archaeological zone, a pre-Hispanic ruin complex located roughly an hour’s drive north of Mexico City that draws millions of domestic and international visitors annually.

Following the attack, the gunman died by suicide at the scene, according to official government statements. Responding law enforcement personnel secured the zone quickly after the violence broke out, and remained deployed across the site on Monday to process evidence. Investigators have recovered a firearm, a bladed weapon and unused live ammunition from the area where the shooting took place.

Among the injured people receiving treatment for their wounds are two Colombian citizens, one Russian national and one additional Canadian, State Security Secretary Cristóbal Castañeda Camarillo confirmed to reporters during a Monday press briefing.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office earlier this year, confirmed she is monitoring the developing situation closely and has maintained direct communication with the Canadian embassy in Mexico City to coordinate updates. In a public statement posted to social media, Sheinbaum said she had directed her full national security cabinet to launch a thorough investigation into the attack, and ordered officials to extend all possible support to those affected by the violence.

“What happened today in Teotihuacan deeply pains us. I express my most sincere solidarity with the affected individuals and their families,” Sheinbaum wrote in her Spanish-language statement.

The Teotihuacan archaeological park is one of Mexico’s crown jewels of cultural heritage, home to the iconic Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon, remnants of a powerful pre-Columbian civilization that flourished centuries before the rise of the Aztec Empire. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, and consistently ranks among the most visited tourist attractions in the country.

The BBC has reached out to officials at the Canadian government for additional comment and further details about the slain victim as the investigation continues. Authorities have not yet released a confirmed motive for the attack, and updates on the case are expected as more information becomes available.

A routine anti-criminal operation in one of Rio de Janeiro’s most well-known favelas turned into a frightening ordeal for roughly 200 sightseeing visitors early one morning, when an exchange of gunfire between police officers and suspected gang members left the group trapped at the peak of a iconic tourist viewpoint. Morro Dois Irmãos, the hilltop site where the incident unfolded, draws hundreds of hikers and casual visitors daily thanks to its sweeping, postcard-perfect views of Rio’s famous Ipanema Beach, with the main hiking trail to the summit starting just east of the Vidigal favela neighborhood.

The operation was a joint effort led by investigators from the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro’s Civil Police force, who launched the raid targeting alleged high-ranking members of the Comando Vermelho criminal gang, a notorious organized crime group that maintains a heavy presence in many of Rio’s informal communities, according to reporting from leading Brazilian broadcaster TV Globo. Law enforcement teams entered the neighborhood believing the targeted gang members were hiding within Vidigal, but a confrontation between officers and the suspects quickly escalated into active gunfire near the entrance to the Morro Dois Irmãos trail. The crossfire blocked the only main access route to the summit, trapping the crowd of tourists who had already climbed to the top to watch the popular sunrise over Ipanema.

Footage of the incident shared widely across social media captures the tense scene: the large group of stranded visitors huddling on the ground at the hilltop as the sun rose over the Atlantic, while a police helicopter circled overhead and the distant echo of gunfire could be heard across the neighborhood. For many of the tourists, the experience was a sudden shock to a planned morning excursion. Matilda Oliveiro, a Portuguese traveler who had climbed the hill with her sister Rita to watch the sunrise, recalled that local trail guides quickly ordered the entire group to take cover once gunfire began. “We had waited for sunrise and, suddenly, the guides asked us to sit down and we started hearing gunshots,” she told TV Globo in an interview after the incident. She added that the guides responded quickly to the crisis, noting “It’s always scary, but it was controlled as much as possible. We passed the police on the way, and the situation was already under control.”

According to local media reports, the entire group of stranded tourists was able to begin descending the hill roughly 30 minutes after the shootout broke out, once police secured the access route and brought the situation under control. Multiple visitors confirmed that local trail guides had received advance notice of the planned police operation, and had coordinated with law enforcement units on the ground to manage the crowd once the confrontation began. Danielly Nobre, a 25-year-old visitor who was part of the stranded group, told Brazilian daily newspaper O Dia that the group was already at the summit when the shooting started, and guides immediately began coordinating to keep everyone safe. “We were caught by surprise. We were already at the top when we started hearing gunshots, and the guides were already telling us what was happening,” Nobre said. She added that guides repeatedly reassured the crowd that the situation was under control, and a passing police helicopter also issued instructions for the group to stay calm and remain in cover. “In the end, everything worked out. Everyone went down in a single file, everyone helping, and we managed to finish the trail, see the sunrise, and experience that adrenaline rush,” Nobre added.

The incident shines a light on the persistent presence of organized crime in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, where groups like Comando Vermelho have evolved far beyond their origins as drug trafficking organizations. Today, these criminal groups enforce strict local rules and hold de facto monopolies over the provision of basic services including residential gas delivery, cable television, internet access and local public transport in the communities they control, making anti-gang operations a frequent but high-risk part of law enforcement work in the city.

On a Saturday gathering of progressive leaders in Barcelona, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum moved to ease longstanding tensions over colonial history, stating publicly that there is “no diplomatic crisis” between Mexico and Spain after years of strained bilateral relations. Her remarks, delivered ahead of a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, came amid a carefully orchestrated rapprochement that ends an eight-year gap in visits by sitting Mexican presidents to the European nation.

The friction between the two countries stretches back to 2019, when Sheinbaum’s predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador publicly demanded a formal apology from Spain for systemic human rights violations committed during the 16th-century conquest of Mexico, a campaign that saw Spanish conquistadors topple the Aztec Empire and leave hundreds of thousands dead from violence and imported disease. When no official apology was forthcoming, Sheinbaum made a sharp diplomatic gesture in 2024 by uninviting Spain’s King Felipe VI from her inauguration, prompting Madrid to recall all official representatives from the event.

In recent months, however, a series of incremental steps have signaled a gradual warming of ties. During a March visit to a Madrid exhibition highlighting Indigenous Mexican women, King Felipe became the first Spanish monarch to openly acknowledge the harm of colonial rule, admitting that “a lot of abuse” occurred during the conquest, and that events judged by modern values cannot be a source of national pride. A month before that public acknowledgment, Sheinbaum had extended an invitation to the king to attend the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which Mexico will co-host alongside the United States and Canada. The Spanish royal palace confirmed Sheinbaum framed the tournament as a chance to highlight the deep, unique bonds between the two nations. This diplomatic shift follows a 2024 statement from Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, who recognized the “pain and injustice” of shared colonial history and won praise from Sheinbaum for his candor.

Following Sheinbaum’s comments in Barcelona, Spanish Economy Minister cast the Mexican president’s attendance at the summit as a “very important and positive sign of rapprochement” between the two nations, while Sánchez himself declined to comment on the current state of bilateral relations.

The Barcelona gathering, formally the fourth edition of the “In Defence of Democracy” summit, brought together left-leaning global leaders to push back against a global surge in illiberal politics and extremist ideology. The event was deliberately convened to counter a parallel far-right rally held the same weekend in Milan, Italy, where leaders of Europe’s most prominent nationalist parties gathered to denounce immigration and European Union bureaucracy.

Opening the summit, co-host Pedro Sánchez warned that democratic norms can no longer be taken for granted. “We are witnessing attacks on the multilateral system, one attempt after another to challenge the rules of international law, and a dangerous normalisation of the use of force,” he told attendees. His co-chair, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, launched a scathing critique of the United Nations Security Council, arguing the body has become dysfunctional under the influence of its five veto-wielding permanent members – the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom – whom he labeled “lords of war.” “No president of any country in the world, however powerful, has the right to keep imposing rules on other countries,” Lula added.

Across the Italian peninsula in Milan, thousands of supporters assembled for a rally organized by Patriots for Europe, the right-wing European Parliamentary grouping. The event featured major far-right figures from across the continent: Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s Rassemblement National and head of Patriots for Europe; Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the rally’s organizer; and Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom. Among the absentees was Hungary’s outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose Fidesz party is part of the Patriots for Europe alliance. Orbán was ousted from power last weekend in Hungary’s general election by Péter Magyar, a former close ally turned political rival.

In his address to the crowd, Bardella said attendees would focus on two core grievances: uncontrolled immigration and the mounting regulatory burden imposed by the European Commission and EU institutions on eurozone industry and national economies. Salvini doubled down on this anti-establishment rhetoric, framing the Patriots for Europe alliance as the only genuine opposition to “Brussels bureaucrats who serve a few businessmen and warmongers.”

BOGOTA, Colombia — As roughly 50 nations prepare to gather for landmark talks focused on phasing out carbon-intensive fossil fuels, Colombia’s top environment official is framing new geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East as a urgent catalyst to speed up the global shift to renewable energy sources including solar, wind and geothermal power.

In an exclusive Thursday interview with The Associated Press, Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres argued that ongoing market volatility sparked by the Iran conflict demonstrates the critical risks of lingering dependence on oil, gas and coal. Instead of allowing instability to slow decarbonization efforts, Vélez says global leaders should use the crisis as motivation to double down on ambitious climate action.

“The war in the Middle East has triggered a full global energy crisis,” Vélez stated. “This turmoil should not push our transition off schedule — it should speed it up. I firmly believe we need to radicalize the global green agenda and accelerate this energy transition now.”

The upcoming summit, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, is scheduled to run April 24-29 in the coastal Caribbean city of Santa Marta. Unlike formal UN climate negotiating sessions that seek binding international commitments, this gathering is designed as an open political space to advance long-stalled conversations about moving beyond fossil fuels — a topic that has consistently deadlocked formal global climate talks for decades.

“We are not here to demand that countries sign on to binding commitments,” Vélez clarified. “Our goal is to move the global debate forward on an issue that has remained gridlocked for far too long.”

Three decades of UN-led Conference of the Parties (COP) climate negotiations have failed to deliver a widespread global agreement on phasing out oil, gas and coal. Critics have labeled this lack of progress a major failure of the formal climate process, and that stalemate was a core motivation for organizing the independent Santa Marta summit.

Colombia itself faces a unique balancing act between economic realities and ambitious climate goals. As one of Latin America’s largest oil producers, the country relies heavily on crude exports to generate government revenue and foreign exchange, with oil and coal still accounting for a large share of public funding for social programs and infrastructure spending. At the same time, Colombia sits at the heart of the Amazon rainforest, a critical global ecosystem that regulates planetary temperatures, but faces ongoing pressure from deforestation, illegal mining and armed activity across large swathes of its territory.

Under President Gustavo Petro’s administration, Colombia has positioned itself as a global leader in climate action, pledging to halt all new oil exploration and calling for a coordinated global phaseout of fossil fuel production. Vélez noted that under Petro’s term, the share of non-hydropower renewables like solar and onshore wind in Colombia’s national electricity mix has jumped from just 1% to 16% — a major expansion that demonstrates the feasibility of a fast transition even for major fossil fuel producers.

The summit convenes at a moment of unprecedented global geopolitical instability that is already reshaping energy policy around the world. The ongoing Iran conflict has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s global oil supplies pass. This disruption has pushed international oil prices higher and created pressure on many governments to expand short-term fossil fuel production to shore up energy security, even as they maintain long-term pledges to cut carbon emissions.

This divide is on clear display between the Colombian and U.S. governments. Under current President Donald Trump, the U.S. has pulled back from international climate commitments and centered its energy policy on expanding domestic oil production. Trump has repeatedly dismissed climate change as a false claim and attacked the global energy transition as what he calls a “Green New Scam,” doubling down on his signature “drill, baby, drill” policy of expanded drilling. Public clashes between Petro and Trump over trade and counternarcotics policy in recent months have underscored these deep divides over climate and energy priorities.

Major divisions are also visible among global oil producers. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, will not send representatives to the Santa Marta summit. Vélez noted that Colombian officials have engaged with Saudi leadership during past UN climate talks, but the kingdom’s deep economic dependence on oil exports leaves it uninterested in discussions of a fossil fuel phaseout. Saudi Arabia has consistently resisted efforts to add stronger language on fossil fuel phaseouts to UN climate agreements, highlighting the persistent rift between major producing nations and countries pushing for a faster transition.

While the Santa Marta summit is being held outside the formal UN climate negotiation framework, Vélez says its outcomes will feed into upcoming global talks, including COP31 scheduled to take place in Turkey later this year.

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