South America

Brazil Sues Discord Over Children: August 26, 2026

Brazil’s government said Wednesday it had taken Discord to federal court, seeking 500 million reais (about $97 million) over what it calls a failure to protect children on the gaming chat platform. The Associated Press, from São Paulo, said the Solicitor-General’s office for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva filed a 25-page suit that AP obtained. It alleges “direct violations” of Brazilian rules on the safety of children and teenagers, including “severe gaps” in age verification and user protections, and asks for damages for alleged collective psychological harm. Discord in Brazil called the move “disproportionate” and said it “does not accurately reflect Discord’s approach to safety and compliance with Brazilian law.”

The filing follows a July suicide case tied to the platform. Earlier this month the government pressed Discord to suspend live broadcasts over that incident. Brazil’s first lady, Rosângela Lula da Silva, known as Janja, said on August 6 that Discord should be taken offline. Five teenagers were arrested in connection with the death, according to the justice ministry. The solicitor-general also wants the court to order stronger parental controls, more cooperation with local police, and automated tools to find and remove dangerous content. The suit notes Discord already faces cases in U.S. states including Texas, Nevada, and New Jersey. The company says it has more than 90 million active daily users worldwide.

Lula and Brazil’s Supreme Court have been trying, with mixed results, to tighten rules on how minors use the internet, in a year when Australia, Canada, and Indonesia have moved on similar ground. This is not a ban yet. It is the federal government putting a number on the table in Brasília and asking a judge to make Discord change how it works, or pay. Discord says that is the wrong size of stick. The court has the file.

Sources: Associated Press.

Bolivia Deploys Troops Over Diesel: August 26, 2026

Bolivia put soldiers and police on the highway through Yapacaní, in Santa Cruz, on Tuesday to stop a farm blockade over diesel prices — then a deputy minister sat down with the same farmers and talked about tearing the price decree up. EFE, from the town, said the road toward Cochabamba stayed open. Defence Minister Ernesto Justiniano said the overnight deployment was “to prevent the blockade, protect the highway and, above all, avoid clashes.” A 90-day state of emergency, declared on 20 June after weeks of protests demanding President Rodrigo Paz resign, is still in force until 20 September. People can march and meet, Justiniano said. They cannot block roads.

Supreme Decree 5676, issued 17 August, set a reference price of 18 bolivianos a litre (about $1.55) for industry, companies, and other “large consumers,” against 9.80 bolivianos (about $0.84) for public transport and anyone using less than 5,000 litres a month. MercoPress put the increase at 83.7 percent. Producers in Yapacaní, a rice area on the east–west corridor about 131 kilometres from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, say supply has dropped by half. Interior Vice Minister Hernán Paredes and a YPFB official met the Intercultural Federation of Agricultural Producers. Farm leader Juan Cáceres told EFE that Paredes committed to work “so that in 48 hours” the decree would be annulled. “And if this decree is not repealed, the organisations … will unify to see the path to take on mobilisation,” Cáceres said.

Paredes, speaking to EFE, said he shared the farmers’ view that the rule “has not met its original objectives,” because subsidised diesel is still being diverted and is not reaching small producers. He told local media the cabinet wanted the decree repealed, modified, or replaced, and that it “cannot stay as it is.” He talked about letting more sectors import fuel, about YPFB refineries running at 18 to 20 percent of capacity, and about sending tankers to test distribution near the fields. He did not name a new price or a date. As of Wednesday, MercoPress reported, the decree was still on the books and at least ten organisations — mining cooperatives, transport workers, market traders, and coca growers among them — were already defying the emergency rules. Groups aligned with former president Evo Morales were due to meet in the Trópico de Cochabamba to decide on their own measures.

Long lines at service stations have been a fact of life for weeks. The state of emergency was supposed to keep the roads open. Yapacaní is where that promise and the diesel decree met.

Sources: MercoPress; EFE via ABC Color.

World Brief, Evening: August 26, 2026

By evening Wednesday, the Nepal–Tibet flash flood was still the day’s heaviest story, with death and missing counts climbing and foreign ministries counting tourists. Elsewhere the wires kept moving on Hormuz talks, Moscow drones after a CIA stopover, Pakistan’s hospital nursery fire, and Israel’s hold on a seized UNRWA campus—plus a clutch of diplomacy and politics from the Pacific to the Magellan.

1. Nepal–Tibet border / Rasuwa: At least 157 people were dead in Nepal and hundreds more missing after a flash flood and mudslide tore through the Bhote Koshi corridor Wednesday, an area popular with pilgrims and trekkers. Nepal’s tourist board put missing foreigners in the hundreds, including more than 100 from India, 54 from the United States, 34 from Australia, and 33 from the UK, plus more than 100 Nepalis. Chinese state media reported three dead and 265 missing on the Tibet side at Gyirong. Authorities first floated an earthquake; the U.S. Geological Survey said the seismic signal came from a landslide, not a quake. By evening, Nepal’s prime minister’s office said about eight tonnes of relief had gone out by army truck, and the United States pledged $500,000 for shelter and water. The UN secretary-general offered condolences as search teams worked into the night.

2. Strait of Hormuz / Iran–Oman: A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Wednesday that an Iran–Oman deal on the strait “has not been finalised,” hours after an IRGC spokesperson said the two sides had agreed how to share the waterway and its revenues. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi had said Tuesday the temporary transit route would be seven miles wide and was not a full reopening. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, after talks in Tehran, said he hoped soon to announce a temporary corridor and mine-clearance steps. Tehran still ties any opening to U.S. commitments under the frayed June interim ceasefire; Washington is pressing “Operation Economic Outcast” sanctions while oil prices eased on mediation talk.

3. Moscow / Ukraine: Ukrainian drones hit toward Moscow overnight into Wednesday, Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said, hours after CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s unannounced Tuesday visit ended. Ukraine had agreed to a U.S. request not to strike the capital during the trip, a Ukrainian official told ABC News. Sobyanin said at least 10 drones were shot down near Moscow; Russia’s air agency restricted flights at Domodedovo, Zhukovsky, and Vnukovo—where Ratcliffe’s plane had landed—and at several regional airports. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed 426 Ukrainian drones downed overnight across 15 regions and Crimea; Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 162 drones the other way.

4. Islamabad, Pakistan: A fire in the nursery at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences killed 14 newborns Wednesday; one of 15 babies in the ward was rescued. Hospital officials said an air-conditioning unit sparked around 6:38 a.m. and oxygen points spread the blaze within a minute. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif suspended Federal Health Secretary Aslam Ghauri and ordered a probe; a district fact-finding committee has 24 hours to report. By evening, Interior Minister of State Talal Chaudhry said all 14 bodies had been handed to families after identification. Witnesses disputed exit security and response times; the hospital’s executive director told the BBC the ward door was manned, not locked.

5. Qalandia / occupied East Jerusalem: A day after Israeli forces seized UNRWA’s Qalandia Training Centre, the Jerusalem Governorate said Wednesday that troops were reinforced overnight and the Jerusalem municipality sent crews in for “maintenance and renovation” toward a municipal educational complex. Netanyahu said Tuesday the evacuation followed his directive and a 2024 law barring UNRWA in Israel; Itamar Ben-Gvir took part and declared “UNRWA in our hands.” UNRWA and Secretary-General António Guterres called the entry unlawful interference with inviolable UN premises. The 1952 centre trains hundreds of West Bank Palestinians a year; school registration for Sept. 1 was underway when forces entered.

6. Caribbean Sea: U.S. Southern Command said a Tuesday “lethal kinetic strike” on a go-fast vessel along Caribbean narco-trafficking routes killed four people it called “narco-terrorists,” and posted strike video. AP tallied at least 227 dead in 68 boat strikes since the campaign began nearly a year ago; the Caribbean hit came two days after an eastern Pacific strike that killed two. The military cited “confirmed intelligence” but released no public evidence of a drug cargo. UN experts and rights groups have called the boat campaign unlawful extrajudicial killing; France has said the strikes disregard international law.

7. South Africa: In Parliament, President Cyril Ramaphosa vowed that people who attacked foreign nationals would face arrest and charges once police had enough evidence, especially where anyone was hurt or killed. He was answering EFF leader Julius Malema, who said known instigators had acted in front of police and that the violence had damaged Pretoria’s standing with African partners. Ramaphosa said some arrests had already been made, rejected the idea that South Africa was isolated, and pushed a special AU summit on migration’s drivers. Anti-migrant campaigns linked to groups such as March and March have driven mass repatriations earlier this year.

8. Kiribati: Parliament in Tarawa advanced a constitutional bill Wednesday that would limit diplomatic partners to UN members or permanent observers—language that would lock out Taiwan without naming it. President Taneti Maamau backed the measure as continuity for foreign policy after Kiribati’s 2019 switch from Taipei to Beijing. ABC News reported the bill sailed through Wednesday afternoon and now needs a second reading; it failed a two-thirds test in April. ANU’s Graeme Smith called it a message to Beijing that Kiribati will not “flip” again. Carve-outs aim to spare ties with Pacific partners that are not full UN members.

9. Iceland: Three days from Saturday’s referendum on restarting EU accession talks, a Maskína poll of 1,019 people (Aug. 21–25) put “yes” at 51.3% and “no” at 48.7%, Visir reported via Reuters—narrower than an Aug. 13 reading. The ballot is not membership itself; any later deal would need a second vote. Reykjavík suspended talks in 2013; living costs, Ukraine, and Trump’s Greenland talk have revived the debate. A foreign ministry memo estimates talks could start by end-2026 and finish in 18–24 months if voters say yes. Fisheries and the Common Fisheries Policy remain the political tripwire.

10. Strait of Magellan / Chile–Argentina: After Chilean protests over Argentine Air Force chief Gustavo Javier Valverde’s podcast remarks on “Magallanes, the south, and the Drake,” Argentina’s foreign ministry reiterated that its position is the 1881 Boundary Treaty and the 1984 Treaty of Peace and Friendship—instruments it called fully in force and definitive, recognizing Chilean sovereignty over the strait. President José Antonio Kast welcomed the clarification; Interior Minister Claudio Alvarado told Bio Bio the episode was “settled.” Buenos Aires still stressed the strategic weight of the South Atlantic and Antarctica without apologizing for Valverde by name.

Also on the board today (already filed as standalones): Leipzig drone tied to GRU; Tanzania’s VP resignation; Typhoon Saudel over Japan’s southwest islands; PNG parliament and Bougainville; Saudi–U.S. civil nuclear text to Congress; China telling nationals to leave Eswatini; Israeli MK Zvi Sukkot and the Madama memorial; Kocharyan detention in Yerevan; U.S. seizure of Chinese QTFY hacking platforms; Colombia’s 5.1 after the Aug. 10 quake.

New Tremor Hits Colombia After Deadly Quake: August 26, 2026

Colombia shook again on Wednesday, two weeks after the strongest earthquake of the century there. The Colombian Geological Service put a magnitude 5.1 tremor at 11:45 a.m. local time, 149 kilometers down, about 7 kilometers from Los Santos in Santander. The agency’s updated bulletin, posted to its official account, listed coordinates near 6.82 north, 73.11 west, and asked people who felt it to report in. Gestión, citing that bulletin, said the shaking was felt clearly in Bucaramanga and nearby towns, and as far as Cúcuta, Tunja, and Bogotá. Pulzo said disaster agencies were still checking for damage and injuries. Gestión added that as of publication there were no reports of serious damage or victims from Wednesday’s quake.

The nerves are leftover from August 10. That morning a magnitude 7.4 quake struck at 7:34 a.m. near San José del Palmar in the Pacific department of Chocó, at a depth of roughly 110 kilometers. It was the most powerful seismic event in Colombia this century. On Tuesday the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management, UNGRD, raised the death toll to 331. It said 240 people were still missing, 4,449 had been injured, and 364 had been pulled out alive. The agency counted 406,273 people from 188,034 families as affected, across 494 municipalities in 16 of the country’s 32 departments. The figures, it said, were still preliminary.

The August 10 destruction is the reason a 5.1 in Santander empties office stairwells in the capital. UNGRD’s Tuesday tally put 33,275 homes completely destroyed and 185,889 damaged. It listed harm to 376 health centers, 3,819 schools, 4,337 community buildings, 440 roads, 74 vehicle bridges, 17 pedestrian bridges, five airports, and 119 water systems. Los Santos sits on a well-known intermediate-depth nest of earthquakes; a deep 5.1 there is felt over a wide area even when it does not pancake a town. Wednesday’s job for local officials was the unglamorous one: walk the buildings, check the pipes, and tell people in Bogotá and Bucaramanga whether they could go back inside.

Sources: Servicio Geológico Colombiano (via Gestión and Pulzo); Anadolu Agency.

World Brief: August 26, 2026

A Himalayan flood is still unfolding this morning, Hormuz diplomacy is stuck in the same ditch, and a CIA director’s secret Moscow stop was followed by drones. Ten stories as of Wednesday, August 26.

1. Nepal–Tibet border. A wall of mud and rock collapsed into a Himalayan river on Wednesday, sending a flash flood down the Bhote Koshi that has killed at least 95 people in Nepal and left hundreds missing, including foreign tourists. Helicopters could not land in Rasuwa district settlements such as Timure and Syapru Besi; roads, bridges, and hydropower plants were torn out. Across the line in Gyirong, Chinese officials reported people missing after a mudslide hit the border crossing, and Xi Jinping ordered an all-out search. Researchers said an ice-rock avalanche likely dammed a tributary and then released; they also warned a second surge is possible.

2. Strait of Hormuz / Tehran. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday that Tehran and Oman had agreed how to share the strait and its revenues, but a senior Iranian source told Reuters the accord is not finished and talks on the details continue. President Trump, in a brief morning call with Al Jazeera, said he is “not in a hurry” to resume negotiations and has “no time schedule.” The Guards added the waterway will not reopen unless Washington meets Tehran’s conditions, including an end to the U.S. blockade. Oman’s foreign minister, after Tuesday talks in Tehran, said he hoped a temporary corridor would be announced soon.

3. Moscow and Ukraine. Overnight into Wednesday, Ukraine resumed drone attacks toward Moscow hours after CIA Director John Ratcliffe left the Russian capital, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Kyiv had agreed to a U.S. request not to strike Moscow during the unannounced Tuesday visit. The Kremlin confirmed Ratcliffe met Russian intelligence counterparts and did not see Vladimir Putin, who was briefed; spokesman Dmitry Peskov still called U.S.–Russia ties a “profound crisis.” Russia claimed to have intercepted hundreds of Ukrainian drones; Ukraine said Russia launched more than 160 drones at it, with civilian deaths reported in Chernihiv.

4. Islamabad, Pakistan. A fire in the nursery at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences killed 14 of 15 newborns Wednesday morning. Hospital officials said an air-conditioning unit ignited and oxygen connections accelerated the blaze on the third floor of the maternal ward. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif suspended federal health secretary Aslam Ghauri; a fact-finding committee has 24 hours to report on the cause, fire safety, and the emergency response. Families gathered outside; a doctor rescued the one surviving infant.

5. Occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli security forces seized UNRWA’s Qalandia Training Centre, the last of the agency’s facilities still operating in occupied East Jerusalem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered the evacuation, repeating accusations that UNRWA staff took part in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack, which the agency denies. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the raid as a violation of U.N. premises. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir joined the operation and filmed himself in the director’s chair.

6. Caribbean Sea. The U.S. military struck a boat in the Caribbean on Tuesday that it said was being used to smuggle drugs, killing four people. U.S. Southern Command did not release evidence the vessel was carrying narcotics. The campaign, now nearly a year old, has killed at least 227 people in 68 strikes, according to tallies drawn from U.S. statements. Tuesday’s attack came two days after a strike in the eastern Pacific that killed two.

7. South Africa. In Cape Town’s National Assembly, President Cyril Ramaphosa vowed that perpetrators of anti-foreigner violence will be arrested and prosecuted, answering EFF leader Julius Malema, who said the lack of arrests looked like state-sanctioned xenophobia. Ramaphosa said South Africa had not been isolated by other African leaders and called for a special African Union summit on migration’s root causes. Ghana has asked that xenophobic violence in South Africa be put on the next ordinary AU summit agenda.

8. Kiribati. Kiribati’s parliament is due to vote on a constitutional amendment that would limit diplomatic relations to U.N. member states or permanent observers — a move that would lock in recognition of Beijing over Taipei. The Pacific island nation switched from Taiwan to China in 2019; President Taneti Maamau backs the bill, which does not name either government. A similar attempt fell short of a two-thirds majority in April. Taiwan still has a dozen formal diplomatic allies, including three in the Pacific.

9. Iceland. A Maskína poll published Wednesday found 51.3 percent of Icelanders support restarting EU membership talks, with 48.7 percent opposed, ahead of Saturday’s referendum in Reykjavik. The ballot is not a vote on joining; any accession deal would need a second referendum. Talks were shelved in 2013. Cost of living, the war in Ukraine, and Trump’s threats involving Greenland have all been cited as reasons interest has revived.

10. Chile–Argentina (Magellan roundup). Overnight we covered Chile’s protest after Argentine Air Force chief Gustavo Valverde treated the Strait of Magellan and Drake Passage as a sovereignty issue. Buenos Aires moved Tuesday to cool it: the foreign ministry said the 1881 and 1984 treaties remain fully in force and “definitive,” and reaffirmed cooperation with Santiago, including the joint Antarctic naval patrol. Chilean officials had called sovereignty over the entire strait “indisputable.”

Chile-Argentina Magellan Dispute: August 25, 2026

Chile is sending Argentina a formal protest note over comments by the head of the Argentine Air Force, and Buenos Aires spent Tuesday trying to put the treaties back in the window. Brigadier General Gustavo Javier Valverde, speaking Sunday on a YouTube podcast, said “Magellan, the south, the Drake, all of that is sovereignty” and that Argentina needed to “maintain a presence” there because the area is a “bioceanic key” between the Atlantic and the Pacific. He did not name Chile. Santiago heard a claim anyway.

Foreign Minister Francisco Pérez Mackenna, on an official visit to Vietnam, called Chilean sovereignty over the entire Strait of Magellan “indisputable” and grounded in the 1881 Boundary Treaty and the 1984 Treaty of Peace and Friendship. He told foreign officials to be careful with their words. Interior Minister Claudio Alvarado said there is “nothing to discuss.” Lawmakers from more than one party pushed for a protest note, arguing that silence can be read, under international law, as accepting someone else’s claim. A Magallanes deputy called it part of a pattern, not a one-off.

The legal file is not mysterious. The 1881 treaty recognized Chilean sovereignty over the strait and made it permanently neutralized, with free navigation for ships of all nations. The 1984 Vatican treaty, signed after the two countries nearly went to war over the Beagle Channel in 1978, confirmed the southern boundaries. The Drake Passage, further south, is international water between Cape Horn and Antarctica. Together, Magellan and Drake are the main alternative to Panama for ships moving between the oceans.

Argentina’s foreign ministry answered Tuesday without naming Valverde. Both treaties, it said, “remain fully in force and are considered definitive.” The statement then folded the far south into Argentina’s broader case on the Malvinas/Falklands, the South Atlantic, and Antarctica, and pivoted hard into cooperation: mutual recognition of Antarctic rights, joint protected areas, more than two decades of a Combined Antarctic Naval Patrol, and a joint marine protected-area proposal off the western Antarctic Peninsula. In 2025, Milei’s government had already told Chile in writing that a 2021 Argentine decree talking about “joint control” of the strait was a treaty error and would be replaced.

This is the first real diplomatic scrape between Milei and Chile’s President José Antonio Kast, who took office in March. The two men are politically close, and the countries share more than 5,000 kilometers of border. That is why Santiago reacted fast and why Buenos Aires was equally fast to cite the treaties. The Air Force chief still said what he said on tape. The protest note is meant to put Chile’s reading on the record before anyone pretends the comment was just colorful talk about the south.

Brazil Presidential Race: August 25, 2026

A new BTG/Nexus poll out Monday has Brazil’s October presidential race looking like a runoff from here. In a simulated second round, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has 46 percent and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro 45 percent — a one-point gap inside the survey’s two-point margin of error. Latin America’s largest electorate is, for now, split down the middle.

The first-round picture is clearer and still not decisive. Without influencer Pablo Marçal on the ballot, Lula is at 41 percent and Flávio at 37 percent. Former Goiás governor Ronaldo Caiado is on 5 percent; Renan Santos and Romeu Zema are on 3 percent each. Nobody is near 50 percent of valid votes, which is what Brazil requires to skip a second round. A runoff looks like the default, not a surprise.

Nexus interviewed 2,006 voters by phone from August 21 to 23 for Banco BTG Pactual. The survey is registered with the electoral court as BR-09028/2026. Week to week, the movement is small. Folha notes Lula had 47 percent to Flávio’s 44 percent in the previous runoff simulation; this round is 46–45. That is noise, not a reversal. The race was already tight. Monday’s numbers just refuse to loosen it.

Flávio is a senator and the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. Lula is the incumbent. A second scenario that includes Marçal, who has registered a candidacy even as São Paulo’s regional electoral court has already declared him ineligible, drops Lula to 40 percent and Flávio to 34 percent, with Marçal at 4 percent. The national electoral court has already cut him off from public campaign funds, debates and free airtime. The pollsters ran the numbers anyway; the legal fight over whether he belongs on the ballot is still ahead.

One house poll is not a forecast, and October is still weeks away. What Monday’s numbers do is freeze the frame: the country’s two poles are close enough that turnout, the smaller candidates and a handful of undecided voters will matter more than any victory-lap speech. For Latin America’s largest economy, that is the story heading into the first round.

Colombia Orders Deportation of Irregular Migrants: August 24, 2026

Colombia’s new president has told migration officers to start deporting people without regular status, ending — at least in rhetoric — more than a decade in which Bogotá was the main host for Venezuelans fleeing crisis next door.

Abelardo de la Espriella, in office since August 7, gave the order at a Sunday security council in Barranquilla, the government’s alternate seat. A leaked video of the meeting circulated Monday. “The order to Migration is clear: first those committing crimes, second those who have not regularised their status, who in due course will have to be deported,” he said. He added: “I will not accept illegal migration. First Colombians, second Colombians and third Colombians.”

Joint operations by Migración Colombia and the police are supposed to begin this week. The president said the decision is both political and administrative, and that he will “assume” the cost. It is a sharp turn from the Temporary Protection Statute created by decree in March 2021, which offered a free permit and made Colombia an international reference point for regularization. Colombia took in almost a third of the 7.8 million people who have left Venezuela since 2015, under governments of different political stripes.

The numbers in play are large and disputed. The UN refugee agency estimated about three million Venezuelans living in Colombia in 2025. Migración Colombia data from January, cited by La Silla Vacía, put roughly 82 percent of Venezuelan migrants in regular status and close to 500,000 without it. The Venezuela Observatory at Universidad del Rosario has put the irregular figure higher, at 848,000, including 193,000 minors.

Critics moved quickly. Researcher Ronal Rodríguez said a person in irregular status is not a criminal. Congresswoman María Fernanda Carrascal of the Pacto Histórico called the measure “an affront to human rights.” Academic Andrés Sampayo has estimated Venezuelan migrants’ contribution to the Colombian economy at around $3 billion a year in consumption, taxes, and entrepreneurship. Any mass return would also require cooperation from Venezuela, which shares a 2,219-kilometer land border and is in a U.S.-backed political transition under acting president Delcy Rodríguez.

South America

World Brief, Evening: August 26, 2026

World Brief: August 26, 2026

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