Last week on location in Mutatá, Colombia, recording an audio documentary for the BBC World Service 🎧 We're exploring one of the most difficult legacies of Colombia’s armed conflict, ten years on from the landmark Colombian Peace Agreement. More to follow.

Gustavo Petro went to the White House as Trump’s South American enemy No 1. But things turned out a little different than expected ✏️ @harrietbarber.bsky.social

In 1988, on the eve of Just Cause, the US indicted Noriega for drug smuggling – just as they have w/ Maduro who recently had a $50m bounty put on his head. “So they’ve established a convenient pretext if they choose to pursue a military route”

Two showmen, $40bn and one very fragile economy: what could possibly go wrong? ✏️ @harrietbarber.bsky.social

I'm on The Guardian's Today in Podcast talking all things Argentina in the run-up to this weekend's midterm elections. Listen here 🎙️ www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

Colombia has condemned US airstrikes on suspected drug boats off the coast of South America, after two new Pacific strikes left five dead, and urged Washington to stop the attacks. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

A Venezuela mission would not be the first in Latin America & the Caribbean conducted by the Night Stalkers, whose pilots specialise in infiltrating and exfiltrating special forces troops – called “customers” – from hostile places, nearly always at night.

From Colombia’s battlefields to Sudan’s war zones: hundreds of Colombian mercenaries are fighting in Sudan, accused of training child soldiers and helping fuel one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

The rebels visited the brothel armed and masked. They would order the women to line up, put their guns in their mouths and rape them. "It was ugly," says Valeria. "A place filled with women and underage girls – all of us tricked and trapped." Report from Cúcuta. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

On 18 March 1976, Tenório Júnior, a Brazilian pianist who had played alongside some of Latin America’s greatest musicians, disappeared from the streets of Buenos Aires. For nearly 50 years, his fate has remained a mystery – until now. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s... @eaafoficial.bsky.social

The bossa nova pianist Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior went out for cigarettes after a concert in Buenos Aires in March 1976 – a forensic team has finally revealed his fate. By @harrietbarber.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

“For nearly 50 years, his fate has remained a mystery, sparking desperate searches, raising suspicions of government complicity, and inspiring international documentaries. Now the mystery has been solved,” writes @harrietbarber.bsky.social

Millions of years ago, Panama emerged from the sea, connecting North and South America and birthing astonishing biodiversity: 1,000 bird species, hundreds of mammal species, and habitats including lush cloud forests, mangroves and vibrant seas. My latest in @thenewworldmag.bsky.social.

Turned away at US border, Venezuelans languish in Panamanian purgatory. My report from Miramar.

As many as 96 people are now thought to have died in Argentina after being treated with medical-use fentanyl that was tainted with bacteria. Investigators warn the number may continue to rise. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a... @theguardian.com

Peru has enacted a sweeping amnesty law in Peru, shielding military and police from prosecution over human rights abuses committed between 1980 and 2000. Rights groups say it will deny justice to thousands of victims. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a... @dancollyns.bsky.social

🗞️ Our latest issue is on sale - Look who’s back! 👀 Featuring Matthew d’Ancona, @sonia-sodha.bsky.social, @alastaircampbell2.bsky.social, @harrietbarber.bsky.social, @jamesrball.com and more Subscribe for £1: buff.ly/zwIwzGA

‘A whole spectrum of hatred’: women face increased violence in Milei’s Argentina as rights are eroded

Javier Milei’s government has dismantled Argentina’s gender ministry, cut services for abuse survivors and plans to strike femicide from the penal code. Rights groups warn changes are already impacting protections and could worsen violence against women. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Javier Milei vowed to take a “chainsaw” to Argentina’s state. Inflation is down – but inequality is deepening and unemployment rising. My analysis for The New World on the president’s high-stakes gamble. 🔗 www.thenewworld.co.uk/harriet-barb...

Twenty-five more bodies have been recovered from Neiva Cemetery, thought to be victims of Colombia's decades-long armed conflict. I was on site with the forensic scientists in July. Read my report about the search for the missing here. www.thetimes.com/world/latin-...

Colombian senator and 2026 presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe, who shot in the head at a campaign rally in June, has died today after nine weeks in intensive care and multiple surgeries. Latest at @theguardian.com. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Argentina is building its largest crude export port on Patagonia’s coast, near a UNESCO marine sanctuary home to whales, penguins & sea lions. Scientists warn spills could devastate wildlife. My report for @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/global-devel... @andreinetto.bsky.social

Argentina’s dictatorship disappeared 30,000 people and kidnapped hundreds of babies of its opponents. For nearly 50 years the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo have searched for the missing grandchildren. My interview with Buscarita Roa, one of the last surviving Abuelas. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

An emerging threat that is transforming the transnational criminal landscape: the unmanned narco sub. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Gangs in Colombia are increasingly recruiting children into their ranks, with a notable number coerced over TikTok and Facebook, the United Nations has warned. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

The attempted assassination of a Colombian presidential hopeful has reignited fears of a return to a bloody past when organized crime and rebel groups murdered candidates, journalists, judges with impunity. Latest for the @theguardian.com. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Miguel Uribe Turbay, the rightwing Colombian presidential candidate who was shot at a campaign rally on Saturday, has reportedly shown little response to medical interventions and needs “a miracle” to survive, his wife has said. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j... @theguardian.com

Colombia’s female prison population has increased more than fivefold since 1991, largely driven by drug laws that disproportionately punish women. Now Colombia is attempting a new approach – pivoting from punishment to rehabilitation. www.theguardian.com/global-devel... @mickessler.bsky.social

During the 1990s, Peru’s govt carried out a ruthless campaign of forced sterilisation, depriving thousands of women of the right to bear children. Now, for the first time, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has held a public hearing on the abuses. www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...

Argentina is being used as a “testing ground” for stripping back abortion rights internationally as the state cuts funding for contraceptives and ends the distribution of abortion pills, Amnesty has warned. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

The Gran Chaco forest is South America’s second largest after the Amazon. But vast green expanses – home to jaguars, giant armadillos and howler monkeys – have been turned to fields of dust as loggers plunder its trees. Dispatch 👇 www.theguardian.com/environment/... @tessairini.bsky.social

Before he left Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio would visit the country’s villas miserias, not in a car flanked by security guards, but by bus – this is what his people remember. “He would come here, kiss our feet,” said Aida Bogarin. “It was everything to us.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

‘He listened to everyone’: Buenos Aires remembers pope as voice for the poor. By @harrietbarber.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

"I became like a slave, without any capacity to think or act or do.” 43 women in Argentina have accused Opus Dei – a secretive Catholic group – of coercing them as children and adolescents into a life of domestic servitude. This is their story. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported from the US to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center due to an “administrative error”, is “alive and secure”, the US has confirmed. www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2...

Two Russian ballistic missiles struck the city of Sumy yesterday, killing 34 and injuring a further 99. One of the missiles hit a trolley bus full of passengers, with footage showing plumes of smoke, burning cars and scattered corpses. At least two children were among the dead.

🚨 NEW: The number of Russian drone strikes targeting Ukraine has surged by more than 50 per cent since US-led peace talks began in mid-February w/ @harrietbarber.bsky.social telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2... 1/10

Against the pounding of drums, dozens of women jumped, hands pumping in the air, to a football chant they had adapted for the occasion. “Those who don’t jump, voted for Milei,” the women sang. They were all jumping. My column for @theneweuropean.bsky.social www.theneweuropean.co.uk/harriet-barb...

At a pensions protest in Argentina on Wednesday the retirees thrusting their walking sticks in the air were joined by scores of football fans — many wearing the image of Maradona. As the footballer’s doctors go on trial over his death, his legacy lives on. www.thetimes.com/world/latin-...

Argentina minister urged to quit after police violence at pensioner protest, reports @harrietbarber.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

The violent repression of Argentine pension protestors left scores injured and a photojournalist fighting for his life on Wednesday evening. Preliminary figures suggest more than 500 people were injured. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

Wild. "A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém." By @ionewells.bsky.social www.bbc.com/news/article...

In October 2020, the lights went off for thousands of families in Cañada Real, Europe's largest shantytown. They lit candles and waited. But the hours turned into days, and then weeks, and now, more than four years and five biting winters later, they still do not have power. My latest report👇

Rescue teams in Argentina are searching for two girls, aged one and five, who were swept away by severe floods that ripped through Buenos Aires province, killing at least 16 people. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

International Women's Day march in Buenos Aires on Saturday. Hours before, Milei's govt released a video which said it “combats woke ideology head on.”

The security guarantees offered to Kyiv will have to be sufficient to deter Putin from breaking any ceasefire arrangement. British and French officials believe this starts with building up Ukraine’s armed forces to create an effective deterrence. With @joebarnes.bsky.social & James Crisp.

The Council of Europe has ruled that Spain has violated human rights in Cañada Real, Europe's largest slum, after thousands of people have been cut off from electricity since 2020. "We're completely isolated here," a resident told me when I visited in February - report coming soon.

I'm starting an email newsletter about wildlife trafficking and environmental crime. It's called Wild Crime and you can subscribe for free here if that sounds interesting! sammeadows.substack.com?r=2lotne&utm...

Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze will lead to a decline in the number of independent media outlets across the world, causing a surge in misinformation and playing into the hands of state propagandists, media organisations have warned. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...