Category World News

Peru has declared Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum a “persona non grata” who is unable to enter the country, days after severing ties with Mexico amid an escalating diplomatic dispute.

Peru’s Congress voted 63 to 34 on Thursday in favour of symbolically barring Sheinbaum from the country after her government granted asylum to former Peruvian Prime Minister Betssy Chavez, after she fled to the Mexican embassy in Peru’s capital Lima.

The designation of “persona non grata” is typically reserved for foreign diplomats and compels them to leave a host country, and is seen as a rebuke to their government.

President of Peru’s Congress Fernando Rospigliosi said the move was a show of support for the government and its decision to break off relations with Mexico, according to Mexico’s El Pais newspaper.

During a debate on Thursday, Ernesto Bustamante, an MP who sits on Peru’s Congressional Foreign Relations Committee, also accused Sheinbaum of having ties to drug traffickers.

“We cannot allow someone like that, who is in cahoots with drug traffickers and who distracts her people from the real problems they should be addressing, to get involved in Peruvian affairs,” Bustamante said, according to El Pais.

Chavez, who is on trial for her participation in an alleged 2022 coup attempt, earlier this week fled to the Mexican embassy in Lima, where she was granted political asylum.

Peru’s Foreign Minister Hugo de Zela called the decision by Mexico City an “unfriendly act” that “interfered in the internal affairs of Peru”.

Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has maintained that it was acting in accordance with international law, and the move in “no way constitutes an intervention in Peru’s internal affairs”.

Lima has yet to offer safe passage for Chavez to leave the embassy and travel to Mexico.

Chavez, a former culture minister, briefly served as prime minister to President Pedro Castillo from late November to December 2022.

Charges against the former minister stem from an attempt by President Castillo in December 2022 to dissolve the Peruvian Congress before he was quickly impeached and arrested.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa joined world leaders at the United Nations COP30 summit in Brazil, pledging his commitment to global efforts to limit climate change, in the latest sign that the war-torn country is returning to the international fold.

Al-Sharaa told the Brazil summit on Thursday that his country was fully on board with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and invited investments in renewable energy as part of his country’s “ambitious” plans for reconstruction and recovery.

The president acknowledged the complex challenges faced by Syria after the 14-year civil war that finally toppled longtime president Bashar al-Assad last December, in a definitive lightning offensive led by al-Sharaa, while underlining the urgency of tackling climate change, which hit Syria hard this year with “a drought unlike any it has seen in over six decades”.

He called on nations to strengthen “bonds of cooperation from the Amazon to the Barada and Euphrates rivers, within a framework of strong inter-state collaboration and in support of the growing role of developing nations”.

His visit to the Amazon came before talks with United States President Donald Trump in Washington. The White House declined to send high-level officials to the summit after Trump told the UN General Assembly (UNGA) this year that climate change is the world’s “greatest con job”.

On Thursday, the UN Security Council voted to remove sanctions imposed on al-Sharaa and his Interior Minister Anas Khattab, marking yet another step out of the international isolation that marked the al-Assad years.

The resolution, championed by the US, was seen as a largely symbolic move as sanctions were waived every time al-Sharaa needed to travel outside Syria anyway. He was the first Syrian head of state to attend the annual UNGA gathering in September in almost six decades, where he called for a lifting of all sanctions against his country.

An assets freeze and arms embargo will also be lifted.

Al-Sharaa led opposition fighters who overthrew President Bashar al-Assad’s government in December.

His group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), began an offensive on November 27, 2024, reaching Damascus in only 12 days, resulting in the end of the al-Assad family’s 53-year reign.

Police have arrested 11 people during heated demonstrations in advance of the politically charged Europa League match between Aston Villa and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv in Birmingham.

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli supporters gathered outside the stadium to protest on Thursday evening, but despite the tensions, the game went ahead without major disruptions.

The match, in which the hosts beat Maccabi Tel Aviv 2-0, at Villa Park in Birmingham, was held under an enormous security operation.

West Midlands Police (WMP) said in a statement after the game that those arrested were all men and boys aged between 17 and 67. The majority were arrested for racially aggravated public offences.

Other arrests included a 21-year-old who tried to throw fireworks into the stadium and another person suspected of possessing drugs with the intent to supply. Police also detained a 21-year-old who refused to remove a face covering when ordered to do so, and a 17-year-old who ignored a dispersal order.

More than 700 officers from WMP and 25 other forces across the United Kingdom were deployed in the city for the match, which kicked off at 20:00 GMT – alongside police horses, dogs, drones and road units.

We’ve arrested six people tonight:

🔴 A man, 21, for failing to comply with an order to remove a face mask
🔴 A boy, 17, for failing to comply with a dispersal order
🔴 Three people arrested for racially aggravated public order offences
🔴 One person for a breach of the peace pic.twitter.com/Ia3CL7EgjJ

The atmosphere inside the stadium was relatively quiet, with large sections of empty seats.

Aston Villa announced last month that Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters would not be permitted to attend the match, a decision made by Birmingham’s Safety Advisory Group based on intelligence provided by police.

Sky News reported on Thursday that police had banned Maccabi supporters due to “significant levels of hooliganism” in the fan base, which threatened safety around the match, rather than over threats to Israelis attending the game.

“I’m aware there’s a lot of commentary around the threat to the (Maccabi) fans being the reason for the decision. To be clear, that was not the primary driver,” West Midlands Police Chief Superintendent Tom Joyce told Sky.

“We have intelligence and information that says that there is a section of Maccabi fans, not all Maccabi fans, but a section who engage in quite significant levels of hooliganism,” Joyce said.

Maccabi supporters draw attention

Fan bans are uncommon in European football and are usually imposed only when there is a history of violence between rival supporters. In this case, there have been no previous incidents involving fans of Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

However, Maccabi supporters have drawn increasing attention over the past year, partly due to tensions surrounding Israel’s war in Gaza. Most notably, violent clashes broke out between Maccabi fans and residents in Amsterdam last season during a Europa League match against Ajax.

More than 60 people were arrested, and five were taken to hospital following a night of unrest.

Police said anti-Israeli gangs on scooters chased and beat Maccabi fans.

However, verified video footage from the Reuters news agency showed Maccabi fans in Amsterdam chanting anti-Arab slogans in the days leading up to the game. Police reported that the team’s supporters also burned a Palestinian flag, tore down another, and vandalised a taxi. The city’s mayor later announced she would not host the Maccabi team again.

Football expert Nicholas Blincoe said the risk of unrest during the Aston Villa-Maccabi Tel Aviv game was also linked to what he described as the “racist” history of Maccabi supporters.

“These [Maccabi] ultras have become increasingly right-wing, nationalistic, and explicitly racist,” he told Al Jazeera.

Japan has restarted seafood exports to China after Beijing lifted a two-year ban, which was implemented over the contentious release of treated radioactive wastewater from the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said on Friday that 6.6 tonnes of scallops were shipped to China on Wednesday, marking the first such delivery since Beijing banned Japanese seafood in August 2023.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant suffered triple meltdowns following a huge earthquake and tsunami in 2011, causing huge leaks of radioactive wastewater that needed to be stored in tanks.

More than 18,000 people perished in the initial disaster, and some 2,300 have died from deaths related to the aftermath in the region.

Japan started releasing treated radioactive water from the plant into the Pacific Ocean in August 2023, despite concerns among neighbouring countries. In response, Beijing banned seafood imports from Japan, citing the risk of radioactive contamination.

Tokyo said the release of the water was safe and supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog. It criticised China for spreading “scientifically unfounded claims”.

China announced it would lift the ban in June, following repeated negotiations between the two sides.

‘A positive move’

The agreed deal laid out several new procedures for Japan, whose fish processing facilities are required to register with China. Exporters also need to include certificates of inspection, guaranteeing that seafood has been checked for radioactive material.

The Chinese ban had inflicted a major blow on Japan’s seafood industry, especially scallop and seafood cucumber exports, with China the biggest overseas market for Japanese seafood.

“The government takes the development as a positive move,” said Kihara.

The scallops exported this week were harvested in Hokkaido prefecture, although Beijing is maintaining a ban on seafood from Fukushima and nine nearby prefectures.

Kihara said Japan will continue to urge Beijing to lift the remaining bans and resume importing Japanese beef.