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Bolivia arrests alleged Uruguayan drug kingpin accused of putting hit on Paraguayan prosecutor

Sebastián Marset, an alleged Uruguayan drug trafficker and one of South America’s most wanted criminals, has been arrested in Bolivia. Marset, 34, is accused of trafficking tonnes of cocaine from South America to Europe, and also of having ordered the murder of a Paraguayan prosecutor who was shot dead as he honeymooned on a Colombian beach in 2022. Marset was also wanted by Washington for allegedly laundering money through US banks, and Bolivia’s interior minister, Marco Antonio Oviedo, said on Friday that he was already being extradited to the US. The arrest marks the end of Marset’s criminal career as the self-anointed “King of the South” – a moniker he had stamped on bricks of cocaine. It also signalled a return to law enforcement cooperation between Bolivia and the US under the centrist government of Rodrigo Paz, almost 20 years after his leftwing predecessor Evo Morales expelled both the US ambassador and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Marset was first arrested for drug trafficking in 2013 and spent years in prison in Uruguay, where he allegedly built connections with Primeiro Comando da Capital – the First Capital Command – one of Brazil’s most powerful organised crime groups, and Italy’s ’Ndrangheta mafia. On his release in 2019 he moved to Paraguay on a fake Bolivian passport in the name of Gabriel de Souza Beuner, where he allegedly built the networks to traffic drugs from Bolivia, which is both a cocaine producer and key transit hub for Peruvian cocaine, and on to Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. In 2021, Marset was detained in Dubai while travelling on a fake Paraguayan passport, only to leave the United Arab Emirates legally within days after Uruguayan authorities issued him a new passport. The resulting scandal led to the resignations of several Uruguayan officials. But as investigators in various countries closed in on him, Marset moved to Bolivia in 2022, now using a Brazilian passport and the name Luis Paulo Amorim Santos. Around this time, Marcelo Pecci, the Paraguayan prosecutor in charge of dismantling Marset’s network in that country, was murdered while on his honeymoon in Colombia. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, accused Marset of having ordered the assassination. Meanwhile in Bolivia, Marset hid in plain sight. He bought a second-division football team and installed himself in its starting lineup, appearing in matches shown on local TV. Yet when Bolivian authorities raided Marset’s mansion in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in July 2023, he was already gone, apparently tipped off ahead of time. Marset had been on the run ever since, periodically posting videos in which he mocked Bolivian authorities, and even once flying a Uruguayan TV presenter in by helicopter to interview him in his hideout. In the end, Bolivian police found him in the same city where he first eluded them two years ago.

Middle East crisis live: More than 100 children killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon, health ministry says

A British counter-drone unit has shot down “multiple drones overnight” following recent strikes on coalition bases in Iraq, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. It comes after a French soldier was killed in a drone attack in Iraq’s Erbil region last night, and a base housing UK and US forces in the area came under attack from an Iranian drone on Wednesday. Overnight, UK Typhoon jets flew air defence operations over Bahrain for the first time, the MoD said in an update shared on X. It added: British Typhoon and F-35 jets are now flying in defence of British interests and allies across Qatar, Cyprus, UAE, Jordan, and Bahrain. UK defences in the eastern Mediterranean now include Typhoon and F-35 jets, air defence and counter-drone units, Wildcat and Merlin helicopters, and a further 400 air defence personnel are currently deployed to protect British lives and interests.

Europe rebukes US for temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian oil

European countries have pushed back against Donald Trump’s decision to ease some US sanctions on Russian oil amid Iran’s blockade of the strait of Hormuz, insisting the international community should maintain pressure on Moscow over its war against Ukraine. The UK has joined Germany, France and Norway in rejecting the move, with the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, decrying what she said was Russia and Iran’s attempt to “hijack the global economy”. Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, described Washington’s move to temporarily waive sanctions on Russian oil stranded at sea as “wrong”, as the Trump administration attempted to counter a surge in oil prices. Merz said: “We believe it is wrong to ease the sanctions. Unfortunately, Russia continues to show no willingness to negotiate. We will therefore, and must, further increase the pressure on Moscow.” The chancellor insisted that support for Ukraine should continue despite the conflict in the Middle East. “We will not allow ourselves to be deterred or distracted from this by the war with Iran,” he said. The decision came as US and Israeli jets continued to pound Iran and Lebanon in a deepening regional conflagration that has choked global oil supplies. The Middle East conflict has all but closed the strait of Hormuz, one of the most important arteries in global trade, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and seaborne gas tankers pass. The pushback from Europe came as Trump admitted for the first time that Russia had been assisting Iran during the conflict, in an interview with Fox Radio. “[Putin] might be helping a little bit, yeah, I guess,” said Trump. “And he probably thinks we’re helping Ukraine, right?” Trump said, referring to reports by several US media outlets that Russia had provided targeting information to Iran for attacking American forces during the ongoing conflict. As the war in the Middle East approached its third week without any signs of de-escalation, Trump added that American forces would continue to strike Iranian targets in the coming days, signalling an intensification of the US-Israeli campaign. “We’re going to be hitting them very hard over the next week.” Merz’s comments follow similar remarks from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who said after a call with other G7 leaders over the economic ramifications of the war in Iran that the paralysis of the strait of Hormuz “in no way” justified lifting sanctions on Russia. Moscow, however, claimed on Friday it was “increasingly inevitable” that Washington would lift the sanctions. The US was “effectively acknowledging the obvious: without Russian oil, the global energy market cannot remain stable”, Russia’s economic envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, wrote on Telegram. Amid rapidly spreading global shocks from the conflict, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Friday that the war in the Gulf was “not good for Ukraine”. “There is nothing good for Ukraine in the war in the Middle East. It’s understandable that the attention of the world moving to Middle East. It’s not good for us,” Zelenskyy told students in Paris. As the Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon was deploying a marine expeditionary unit to the Gulf, Trump’s chaotic geopolitical moves appeared to have left allies increasingly confounded as he also rejected Ukraine’s offer of help in countering Iran’s drones. Brent crude, the international benchmark, remained above $100 a barrel during early trading on Friday, despite this latest measure designed to soothe concerns around the economic impact of the war. While the Trump administration has repeatedly promised to escort vessels through the strait, activity has yet to recover. The Iranian regime has declared that it will not allow “one litre of oil” to be exported from the region while US and Israeli attacks continue. The Trump administration last week permitted Indian refiners to temporarily buy Russian oil for 30 days. A month earlier, Trump claimed India had agreed to stop buying it, in a shift that he said would “help END THE WAR in Ukraine” by cutting off a vital source of funds for Russia. Lloyd’s List, which issues information on global maritime and shipping logistics intelligence, said on Friday that tankers carrying Russian oil were being immediately rerouted to India, due to sanctions having been lifted. Analysts for Lloyd’s List said the Kremlin would benefit financially from the move. The International Energy Agency, the world’s energy watchdog, had already ordered the largest release of government reserves in its history, when its 32 members unanimously agreed to release 400m barrels of emergency crude. But continuing strikes across the Middle East have overshadowed these efforts, as Iran stepped up retaliatory strikes on economic targets in the region. It goaded the US to “get ready for oil to be $200 a barrel” after Trump’s attempt to topple the regime in Tehran. Iran started to lay mines on Thursday in the strait of Hormuz, the New York Times reported, citing US officials. Trump has tried in recent days to play down concerns about high oil prices. “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” he wrote on social media. “BUT, of far greater interest and importance to me, as President, is stoping [sic] an evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons, and destroying the Middle East and, indeed, the World. I won’t ever let that happen!” As November’s midterm elections loom, however, higher fuel prices could pose a challenge for Trump, with his Republican allies defending their small majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives.

UK signs ‘rebooted’ defence agreement to protect Irish waters

The UK has signed a “rebooted” defence agreement with Dublin that could mean the Royal Navy responding to hostile ships and other issues in Irish waters. The deal, announced at the second post-Brexit Ireland-UK summit, held in Cork on Friday, updates a 2016 agreement to include cyber-threats and the sabotage of critical internet and electricity undersea cables. It comes after a series of incidents in the Irish Sea in the last 18 months, including the escorting of a Russian spy ship after it entered and patrolled an area containing critical energy and internet submarine pipelines and cables. In an apparent reference to Russia, the taoiseach, Micheál Martin, said: “We know what’s happened in other seas where there has been interventions, we know that certain elements have been observing the cables and other vital infrastructure, and so that’s the context, and it’s to protect that and to make sure we can respond effectively if an event was to happen.” Asked if it would involve the Royal Navy patrolling Irish waters, he said he “would not get into specifics” but “it’s not patrolling”. The UK defence secretary, John Healey, said: “This rebooted memorandum of understanding modernises our framework for cooperation on areas critical to both our nations’ security, in particular to counter the growing undersea and cyber-threats we share.” Ireland’s poor defence has been the subject of criticism domestically and internationally, partly because 75% of all transatlantic cables go through or close to Ireland, giving it an outsized strategic importance in Europe. Its defence capabilities are also in the spotlight as it takes up the presidency of the EU in July. Ireland is not in Nato, has no submarines and operates a policy of neutrality, with one of the smallest defence forces in Europe. Last month it emerged that Dublin would benefit from enhanced security courtesy of the French during the EU presidency. It also announced it hoped to link up with the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), a UK-led alliance focused on maritime security involving 10 Nato members. The new agreement between the UK and Ireland will mean closer liaison between defence and naval organisations, coupled with a new framework on subsea infrastructure, for a “coordinated response mechanism for addressing major subsea communication cable incidents” that might affect the two countries. The Irish foreign and defence minister, Helen McEntee, said on Friday: “We’re militarily neutral, but we’re not neutral to any of the threats that exist at the moment. “So it’s already the case that we have UK ships, for various reasons, military or otherwise, in our waters. This is about making sure that if there are threats or issues that emerge, we have structures in place that we can work with each other in cooperation.”

Brazilian president says he has ‘forbidden’ Trump adviser from visiting country

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he has “forbidden” one of Donald Trump’s advisers from visiting the South American country in retaliation for his health minister being denied a US visa. Darren Beattie, a far-right political strategist who was recently tapped for a senior advisory role on Brazil, had reportedly hoped to use a trip to the country to visit the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup to stop Lula taking power after the 2022 election. Beattie is a longstanding critic of Brazil’s judiciary and president and once called the moderate leftwing leader a representative of “the most destructive and corrosive version” of communism. On Friday, after a supreme court judge refused Beattie permission to visit the incarcerated politician, Lula announced he had given orders for the Trump aide’s visa to be revoked. “That American guy who said he was coming here to visit Bolsonaro, he’s been barred from visiting and I have forbidden him from coming to Brazil so long as they don’t free up the visa of my health minister, which has been blocked,” Lula said during an event at a trauma centre in Rio de Janeiro. Last year, as Donald Trump piled pressure on Brazil’s government and judiciary over Bolsonaro’s coup trial, the health minister, Alexandre Padilha, was refused a US visa and the minister’s wife and 10-year-old daughter were stripped of theirs. In an interview with the Guardian at the time, Padilha called that decision an “astonishing absurdity” and a “diplomatic abuse”. “You can be sure you’re being protected,” Lula told Padilha on Friday as he announced that he was hitting back by preventing Trump’s aide from flying to Brazil. The move exposed the many frictions that remain between Washington and Brasília, despite the relative rapprochement between Trump and Lula towards the end of last year. Relations plunged to their lowest point in years as a result of Trump’s pressure campaign of tariffs and sanctions targeting officials such as Padilha. But after the two presidents met at the UN last September, the atmosphere improved, with Trump hailing the “‘great chemistry” between them. Lula is due to visit Washington to meet Trump in the coming weeks, although the trip was reportedly pushed back as a result of the US-Israeli attack on Iran. A Brazilian diplomatic source told Agence France-Presse that Beattie’s visa had been revoked on Friday due to “lies about the purpose of the visit”. Bolsonaro was reportedly taken to hospital from prison early on Friday after coming down with pneumonia. Beattie was a White House speechwriter during Trump’s first administration but was reportedly fired after attending a gathering of white supremacists. On the eve of Brazil’s 2022 election, which Bolsonaro lost to Lula and was convicted of trying to rig and overturn, Beattie cast the vote as a battle between “exactly the kind of nationalism that all of us want and support” and Lula’s supposedly “corrosive” brand of communism. “The stakes are incredibly high in this election … it could be a turning point for global politics,” he told Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast.

Trump calls Iran leaders ‘deranged scumbags’ as Middle East violence spirals

Donald Trump has said Iran will be hit “very hard” in the coming days, describing leaders of the regime as “deranged scumbags” who it was a “great honor” to kill, as Tehran residents reported relentless bombing and violence continued to spiral across the Middle East. The US president’s comments, which signaled an intensification of the US-Israeli campaign, came as Israeli and US warplanes launched successive waves of attacks on the Iranian capital and elsewhere on Friday. One strike reportedly hit close to a square near Tehran University where crowds were gathered in support of Iran’s regime. The area is home to many government buildings. Video published by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency showed a plume of grey smoke rising as demonstrators screamed “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!” Across the region, there was more chaos, bloodshed and destruction, with further Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where 800,000 people have been displaced; new missile and drone attacks by Hezbollah and Iran on targets in Israel; and fresh Iranian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Gulf states. The US said six servicemen were killed in an accident involving a tanker plane used for mid-air refuelling, which crashed in Iraq. Also in Iraq, a French soldier was killed in a drone strike by a pro-Iranian militia group. In a post on social media, Trump wrote: “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today … They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!” Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, told a press conference in Washington on Friday that Iranian leaders were “desperate and hiding, they’ve gone underground”. Hegseth said Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who issued a defiant statement on Thursday pledging to continue fighting, had been “wounded and likely disfigured”. “He put out a statement yesterday – a weak one actually – but there was no voice and there was no video. It was a written statement. He called for unity … apparently killing tens of thousands of protesters is his kind of unity,” Hegseth said. Iranian media published videos showing some of the members of the country’s regime at the demonstration in Tehran, including Ali Larijani, who heads the Supreme national security council, and Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, the hardline cleric who heads the country’s judiciary. The foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, was seen walking in the city’s streets. Residents of Tehran said there had not been a “day without the explosions” since the war began with an Israeli strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s ruler for 37 years. “The buildings are shaking … There’s rubble everywhere and people are still risking their lives to go to work,” a 66-year-old retired professor, said. “Please stop this. I am begging the world to act now before the entire city is destroyed. I can’t leave the city, and have sick family members. Even those who want to flee, can’t. They are not giving us enough petrol to even drive far enough. We are trapped.” A shopkeeper from the centre of Tehran said she had counted six explosions within the past hour. “We’ve taped the windows with newspapers. I am hardly even sleeping. They have bombed all night. I am scared to step out. These are some powerful bombs because I don’t even hear the drones any more. That’s how continuous today’s explosions have been. It’s cold and the power keeps going off and on. We won’t have electricity soon I fear,” the 42-year-old said. Israel had earlier announced another wave of strikes in Iran targeting infrastructure, and said its air force had hit more than 200 targets in the past 24 hours, including missile launchers, defence systems and weapons production sites. Hegseth said that more than 15,000 “enemy targets” had been struck, which is more than 1,000 a day since the war began. After steep drops on Thursday, stock markets rallied as oil prices fell slightly. About a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies travel through the narrow strait of Hormuz, which Iran has now in effect blocked by attacking shipping there. The US is “dealing with” Iran’s attacks in the strait of Hormuz, Hegseth said, claiming Iran had not yet mined the crucial waterway. The Financial Times reported that European countries, including France, have opened talks with Tehran seeking to negotiate a deal to guarantee safe passage for their ships through the strait, although Italy denied the report. Iran has responded with daily attacks on oil and other infrastructure around the Gulf region, and on Friday Saudi Arabia said that it had downed nearly 50 drones sent in multiple waves. In Oman, two people were killed when two drones crashed in an industrial area in the region of Sohar, the Oman news agency reported. A building at the Dubai International Financial Center sustained damage when hit with debris from what authorities described as a “successful interception”. DIFC is an economic free zone for banks, capital traders and wealth managers, home to exclusive restaurants and nightclubs. Iran said earlier this week that it would target banks and financial institutions, after an airstrike hit a bank in Tehran, and the Revolutionary Guards announced on Friday that they had launched new salvoes of missiles and drones at Israel in coordination with Hezbollah, which has a close, decades-old relationship with Tehran. The guards said in a statement that the operation was part of their annual al-Quds Day, which is intended to show support for the Palestinian cause. In Lebanon, at least eight people were killed in an Israeli strike on the southern coastal city of Sidon, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Nine others were wounded, the ministry added. Israel’s military also hit the Zrarieh Bridge, spanning Lebanon’s Litani River early on Friday, claiming it was being used by Hezbollah militants to move between Lebanon’s north and south. The military provided no evidence for the claim. Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said the strikes so far were “just the beginning” and that Lebanon’s government would “pay an increasing price for the damage to Lebanese national infrastructure used by Hezbollah”. More than 600 people have been killed in Lebanon since the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants began, the health ministry said. Iranian authorities say that more than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran, and Israel has reported 12 deaths. The US has lost at least 13 service members, while another eight have suffered severe injuries. In northern Israel, nearly 60 people were wounded after Hezbollah said that it fired several rocket salvoes toward the area and at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. Almost all the injuries were described as minor.

Cuban president confirms talks with Trump officials amid US blockade

Cuban officials have held talks with the US government, the country’s president Miguel Díaz-Canel confirmed on Friday, amid growing pain inflicted by a punishing US fuel blockade and frequent power failures. “These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations,” Diaz-Canel said in a pre-recorded statement to senior Communist officials. Those differences are stark and well known: Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state and son of Cuban immigrants, has made it clear he wants regime change in Havana, while Donald Trump this week repeated his calls for a “friendly takeover” – before then telling reporters: “It may not be a friendly takeover.” After the US military’s successful abduction of Venezuelan president and Cuba ally Nicolás Maduro in January, Trump signed an executive order effectively placing the Caribbean island under an oil blockade. Diaz-Canel confirmed on Friday that no fuel has entered for three months. In his remarks to the Communist party leaders, and subsequently to hand-picked reporters, Diaz-Canel was careful not to offer much more information, beyond efforts to increase domestic oil production and keep the electricity grid operating in some form. Recently, large numbers of people have been banging pans on the streets at night to signal their frustration, and a group of students at Havana University staged a sit-in on the university steps. “Whenever we have been in tense situations in relations with the United States, efforts have been made to find channels for dialogue,” Diaz Canel told the reporters. “I believe the most recent example were the talks with President Obama.” Despite the lack of information, there were plenty of signs to read, most notably, the presence of Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the 41-year-old grandson of the 94-year-old former president Raúl Castro, during the statement and the press conference. Rodríguez Castro has no official role in government and until recently, he was best known as a businessman and his grandfather’s head of security. But in the past few weeks it has been widely leaked by Washington that “Raulito”, as he is often known, has been meeting with US officials, including during February’s Caricom meeting of Caribbean leaders in Saint Kitts. Carlos Alzugaray, Cuba’s former ambassador to the EU, said it was a clear message of unity from the Cuban government. “It’s not the narrative that the US state department wants to project,” he said. “That narrative is that this is a government in panic and that the US is in talks with the Castro family – that Raúl Castro is negotiating his exit and is prepared to sacrifice Diaz-Canel. That is clearly not the case. The president made a point to say the talks were directed by Raúl Castro and himself.” Cuba preceded its announcement with news that it will release 51 prisoners in the coming days, under an agreement with the Vatican. As yet, it has not announced who will be included. According to Prisoners Defenders, Cuba is holding 1,214 prisoners of conscience. According to Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, the names will be important, especially if it they include Luís Manuel Otero Alcántara, an artist and dissident who was arrested during protests that roiled Cuba in July 2021, and whose incarceration still offends many Cubans. “That could be taken as a significant adjustment,” he said. “But the conditions under which they are released is important. If they have a Sword of Damocles over their heads and could be sent back to prison at any point that doesn’t really resolve the point.” He also pointed out that the 51 prisoners released are fewer than the 53 Cuba freed during the negotiations with Barack Obama’s administration in December 2014, at the beginning of the Obama’s administration’s thaw in relations. He also suggested that Diaz-Canel blundered in comparing Cuba’s willingness to proceed in these talks with how they handled negotiations with Obama. “If you know nothing else about the Trump administration, you should know the president hates Obama, so if you’re trying to ratchet down the tension, comparing what you’re doing to what you did with Obama, is not the way you want to go.” There was no immediate response to Cuba’s statement from the White House.

Survivors of Ireland’s mother and baby homes will not have UK benefits cut

Survivors of Ireland’s mother and baby homes can continue to receive benefits in the UK after Downing Street agreed to protect payments. Keir Starmer bowed to pressure from campaigners to back a bill known as Philomena’s law, which would ringfence survivors’ benefits if they accepted compensation from Dublin. Up to 13,000 of the survivors who are living in Britain risked losing access to essential means-tested benefits if they accepted compensation, which can range from €5,000 to €125,000 (£4,230 to £105,000) depending on the length of time people were resident. In a joint statement, the British and Irish governments acknowledged the victims’ suffering. “In recognition of the lifelong impact of this, today the UK agrees to disregard payments under Ireland’s mother and baby redress scheme, ensuring that survivors in both countries are treated the same and can receive the compensation to which they are rightly entitled.” The decision followed an Anglo-Irish summit with Starmer and the taoiseach, Micheál Martin. Campaigners including the actors Siobhán McSweeney and Steve Coogan had urged the government to back Philomena’s law, which was introduced in parliament by the Labour MP Liam Conlon. “This was about more than redress payments,” said Conlon, who welcomed the news. “It was also about ensuring that we tackle the stigma and shame that have wrongly followed so many women and their children for so long, and about showing thousands of survivors the kindness and dignity they have so often been denied throughout their lives.” Philomena Lee, a survivor, said no amount of money could undo the pain or give back what was taken from so many women. “But recognition, accountability and redress do matter, and no survivor should ever be penalised for accepting the compensation they are rightfully owed,” she said. Lee’s story of forced separation from – and her later search for her lost son – inspired the Oscar-nominated Philomena starring Coogan and Judi Dench. She thanked Conlon, community organisations and other campaigners. “I hope this moment brings long-awaited justice for survivors living in Britain, and that it also helps shine a light on the legacy of the mother and baby homes.” The Irish government’s redress scheme was introduced after an inquiry detailed the plight of about 56,000 women and about 57,000 children placed or born in homes, mostly run by nuns, between 1922 and 1998. A 2021 report detailed cruelty, neglect and an alarming number of deaths of babies. The scheme started making payments in 2024. But because it considered a recipient’s savings it imperilled means-tested benefits in Britain, such as universal credit or pension credit, and financial support for social care. Councils sent letters to notify people who received payments that they would lose support such as housing benefit, prompting some survivors not to accept Ireland’s compensation offer. Patricia Carey, a campaigner, said the situation had created fear and anxiety. She commended Conlon and his team. Brian Dalton, the chief executive of the group Irish in Britain, said the announcement brought reassurance. “For our member organisations providing vital specialist support, it brings clarity to their work, ensuring survivors’ interests are properly safeguarded.”