Concerns have been raised about a ‘humanitarian organisation’ that flew people from Gaza to South Africa. Inquiries into Al-Majd Europe revealed a website based in Iceland, crypto payments and AI images showing ‘executives.’ The company didn’t respond when asked to comment.
The Vatican has handed back 62 Indigenous artefacts to Canada’s Catholic bishops, framing the move as “a concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity” after years of pressure from Indigenous communities seeking the return of cultural heritage removed under colonial rule.
The items were formally transferred on Saturday during a meeting at Vatican City between Pope Leo and representatives of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, including its president, Bishop Pierre Goudreault.
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The bishops said they would pass the artefacts “as soon as possible” to Canada’s National Indigenous Organisations, which will then oversee their return to their communities of origin.
The objects were sent to Rome nearly a century ago for a vast 1925 Vatican exhibition curated by Pope Pius XI, who sought to display the reach of Catholic missions and the cultures they encountered. Many pieces later became part of the Missionary Ethnological Museum before being absorbed into the Vatican Museums in the 1970s.
The Vatican maintains the items were “gifts” to Pius XI.
But Indigenous groups and historians have long disputed that claim, arguing that such offerings could not be deemed voluntary in an era when Catholic missionaries held immense influence over Indigenous lives.
In those years, Catholic religious orders were helping to enforce the Canadian government’s forced assimilation policy of eliminating Indigenous traditions, which Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called a “cultural genocide”.
Part of that policy included confiscating items used in Indigenous spiritual and traditional rituals, such as the 1885 potlatch ban that prohibited the integral First Nations ceremony. Those confiscated items ended up in museums in Canada, the United States and Europe, as well as private collections.
Momentum for the objects’ return grew after the late Pope Francis met Indigenous delegations in 2022 and delivered a historic apology for the church’s role in residential schools.
During that visit, Indigenous leaders viewed several items in the Vatican’s collection, including wampum belts, an Inuit kayak, masks and weapons, and requested their return. Francis later said he supported returning such objects “where it’s necessary to make a gesture”.
The Vatican’s handover marks a century since the 1925 exhibition that first brought the items to Rome.
Video shows the moment of a massive explosion at an industrial park in Argentina. The blast happened at warehouses housing agricultural chemicals, south of the capital Buenos Aires. Firefighters battled to control fires ignited by the explosion. At least 22 people were injured.
Tehran, Iran – The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has confirmed Western intelligence reports that it intercepted a Cyprus-registered tanker that transited through the Strait of Hormuz.
The Marhsall Islands-flagged Talara was confiscated on Friday morning while carrying 30,000 tonnes of petrochemicals, Iran’s powerful military and political organisation said in a statement carried by state media.
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“This operation was carried out successfully in accordance with legal duties and for the purpose of safeguarding the national interests and resources of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and under the orders of judicial authorities,” the IRGC said, alleging that the vessel committed a “violation for transporting unauthorised cargo”.
Unnamed officials with the administration of United States President Donald Trump told media outlets that the IRGC took over the vessel as several Western intelligence agencies confirmed the report.
Talara, operated by Cyprus-based Columbia Shipmanagement, had departed a port in the United Arab Emirates for Singapore.
The company said it lost contact with the vessel, adding it is working with maritime security agencies and the vessel owner as it prioritises crew safety. It said the cargo was high-sulfur gas oil, which is, among other things, used as fuel for marine vessels.
British security agencies also said they were tracking the incident.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) identified the location of the incident at 20 nautical miles (equivalent to 37km) east of the Emirati city of Khor Fakkan, and said “state activity” was behind it.
Security agency Ambrey said three small boats approached Talara as it was heading south through the Strait of Hormuz, with the ship later deviating from its route in the Gulf of Oman to steer towards Iran.
Flight-tracking data analysed by The Associated Press on Friday showed a US Navy MQ-4C Triton drone loitering for hours over the area during the seizure.
US Central Command, which oversees Washington’s military deployment in the Middle East, Central Asia and parts of South Asia, said in a statement on Friday that it was “aware of the incident” involving Talara and was “actively monitoring the situation”.
“Commercial vessels are entitled to largely unimpeded rights of navigation and commerce on the high seas,” it said, without assigning blame.
This is the first such interdiction by Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz in more than a year.
In July 2024, the IRGC seized a Togo-flagged, UAE-managed products tanker some 61 nautical miles (113km) southwest of Iran’s port of Bushehr in an operation it said was carried out based on a judicial order to intercept the vessel “systematically engaged in fuel smuggling”.
IRGC commandos in April 2024 rappelled down from a helicopter onto the deck of a Portuguese-flagged containership linked with an Israeli billionaire. That incident came shortly after Israel bombed Iran’s consulate in Syria, killing seven IRGC members, including two top generals.
Another Israeli-linked container ship was attacked and damaged by a drone in the Indian Ocean in November 2023, an attack the US blamed on Iran. The US, UK and Israel said Iran was responsible for a drone attack off the coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea that killed two European crew members in 2021.
In May 2022, Iran took two Greek tankers and held them until November that year to secure the release of an Iranian-flagged tanker seized in Greece as a result of US sanctions.
Washington also accused Iran of orchestrating a string of attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz in 2019, including using limpet mines, which led to increased maritime insurance costs and forced reroutes for some vessels.
The strategic waterway is where about 20 percent of the global oil trade and roughly one-third of global liquefied natural gas is exported through. Tehran has long threatened to shut it off in reaction to rising external pressure.
All the maritime incidents occurred after Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and imposed stringent sanctions that have only expanded since.
The US also assassinated Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani during the tenure of the first Trump administration in 2020, and, together with Israel, bombed Iran’s top nuclear facilities during a 12-day war in June.
The seizure of Talara on Friday came as Iran’s authorities opened an exhibition in Tehran to display a variety of missiles, drones and other military capabilities.
When Gabriel Boric was sworn in as president of Chile in 2022, his victory was heralded by supporters as the beginning of a new era in the country’s political history.
The leftist leader, only 36 at the time, was swept into power by a wave of protests focused on cost-of-living issues.
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He also promised to oversee the rewriting of the Chilean Constitution, created during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and famous for locking the country into a pro-market model.
But several years later, after a series of failed efforts to replace the old constitution, Chile is on the verge of a sharp about-face. Boric is limited to one term at a time in office, and the country’s political right sees an opening to return to power, particularly as concerns rise over crime and immigration.
Sunday marks the first round of voting in Chile’s 2025 presidential race. But the race is likely to progress to a run-off, with Jeannette Jara, the nominee for Boric’s coalition, leading a packed field of conservative rivals.
That fractured right-wing base, however, is likely to consolidate into a formidable force by the second round of voting.
Who are the main candidates on Sunday’s ballot? Which issues are front and centre? And what do polls tell us about the first round of voting? We answer those questions and more in this brief explainer.
The first round of voting takes place on November 16, with 50 percent of the vote needed for a candidate to win outright.
If no candidate reaches that threshold, a second round of voting will take place on December 14.
The November 16 vote will, however, be crucial for deciding the composition of the country’s legislature, with all 155 seats in the Chamber of Deputies up for grabs, as well as 23 out of 50 seats in the Senate.
Mandatory voting is returning to Chile’s presidential elections for the first time since 2012.
That means participation rates are likely to increase. During the first round of the 2021 election, for instance, only about 47 percent of eligible voters participated.
During obligatory voting in constitutional referendums, that figure has risen higher than 80 percent.
There were 15,450,377 registered voters in Chile as of 2024, according to the government’s electoral agency.
Boric cannot seek re-election, but his governing coalition, Unity for Chile, has placed its hopes on Jeannette Jara, 51.
Unity for Chile, which comprises eight parties, held a primary in June that Jara handily won, with 60 percent of the vote.
As a labour minister under Boric, Jara led an effort to reduce the work week from 45 hours to 40. She has campaigned on affordability, pledging to increase Chile’s minimum wage and make housing more affordable.
Her candidacy is considered historic in contemporary Chilean politics, in part because of her working-class background and in part because she represents the Communist Party, which has not seen such broad support since Chile’s return to democracy.
Jara has sought to project stable and experienced leadership on the campaign trail. She has also put forward a public safety plan that would train more police and expand the country’s prison system.
While the governing leftist coalition held a primary in June, parties on the centre-right and far-right declined to do so, leading to multiple candidates on November’s presidential ballot.
The frontrunner on the right is Jose Antonio Kast, a 59-year-old former congressman running for the Republican Party.
The far-right Kast previously lost to Boric in the 2021 presidential election, but this time around, he is projected to do well, particularly if he reaches the second round of voting.
There, he is likely to consolidate the support of other right-wing candidates who fail to advance to the final ballot.
During his campaign, Kast has laid out a hardline vision on issues such as crime and immigration, pointing to the strongman leader of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, as an inspiration.
He has pledged to carry out a campaign of mass deportation, slash government spending and seek greater incentives for companies to invest in Chile.
Kast has also expressed support for the dictatorship of the late military leader Augusto Pinochet, who oversaw the torture, disappearance and killing of dissidents while in power from 1973 to 1990.
Another candidate running on a hard-right platform is Johannes Kaiser, a 49-year-old former YouTuber and a member of the Chamber of Deputies who is running with the National Libertarian Party.
Kaiser has promised deeper pro-market reforms than Kast, as well as an end to Chile’s involvement in international agreements on climate change and human rights. He has also staked out right-wing positions on public safety, calling for the use of the death penalty and greater access to firearms.
Other candidates include Franco Parisi, a former radio host and economist running as an independent, and Evelyn Matthei, a pro-business, centre-right politician.
According to polling averages from the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA), the left-wing nominee Jeannette Jara is currently leading the race. She earns about 25 percent of voter support in most prominent polls.
Her closest rival is Jose Antonio Kast, the far-right candidate, with about 20-percent support.
Libertarian Johannes Kaiser and independent Franco Parisi have seen slight upswings in support for their campaigns. Each has between 10 and 14 percent support.
Centre-right candidate Evelyn Matthei has seen a small decline but is polling in the same range, between 11 and 14 percent.
As voters head to the polls, a handful of issues are top of mind. An October poll from the research firm Activa shows that crime and immigration dominate as areas of concern, with unemployment and health tied for third.
Chile remains a relatively safe country compared to others in Latin America, with some of the lowest rates of violent crime in the region.
But it is partly due to the expectation of lower crime that a recent surge in organised criminal activity, corruption and theft has been so disorienting for voters.
“I had to install remote surveillance cameras [and] chain the tables, and on weekends I hired a security guard to help keep watch,” Leidy Paredes, the owner of a nightclub in the capital of Santiago, told The Associated Press news service.
Chile is not the only country in South America to see an uptick in crime. Over the last several years, a surge of violence in Ecuador has likewise helped propel candidates promising “mano dura” or “strong hand” policies, although experts note that tackling crime is a multifaceted endeavour and force alone is rarely the answer.
In Chile’s presidential race, right-wing candidates like Kast have promised an “iron-fisted approach to crime”.
While left-wing contenders like Jara have accused their rivals of scaremongering, they too have been pushed to take a harder line on crime and public safety. Jara, for instance, has promised to build more prisons.
There has also been a public backlash to immigration in the country, following a substantial increase in migrants and asylum seekers, many of them fleeing economic and political turmoil in Venezuela.
A report from two of the country’s immigration agencies found that migration to Chile increased by 46.8 percent between 2018 and 2024. From 2022 to 2024, the increase was a much lower 4.5 percent.
Around the world, immigrants are frequently targets for concerns about crime and economic stagnation, forming a convenient scapegoat for politicians. Candidates like Kast have promised a campaign of mass deportation, while Jara has proposed creating a temporary registration system to keep track of undocumented arrivals.
Palestinians, especially those in the Gaza Strip, must be wary of networks that seek to remove them from their homes in line with Israeli interests, the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned.
The warning came a day after 153 Palestinians, who left Gaza without knowing their final destination and without proper paperwork, arrived in South Africa on board a flight from Kenya on Friday and were held up for 12 hours as authorities investigated the issue.
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South Africa, which is advancing a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), gave the war-ravaged Palestinians 90-day visas.
The Palestinian ministry on Saturday expressed “deep appreciation” for the support from the South African authorities and people, as well as the decision to grant temporary visas for the people who it said departed from Ramon airport in southern Israel.
The Palestinian embassy in Pretoria said it is working to assist the travellers who have “endured over two years of Israeli genocidal war, killing, displacement, and destruction”.
But it warned that companies, unofficial entities and unregistered intermediaries inside Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory are trying to mislead Palestinians and incite them towards leaving.
“The ministry calls upon our people, especially our people in the Gaza Strip, to exercise caution and not fall prey to human trafficking, to merchants and companies of blood, and to agents of displacement,” it said.
According to South Africa’s Border Management Authority, 130 Palestinians ended up entering the country, while 23 were transferred from South Africa to other destinations from the airport itself. Most are expected to apply for asylum.
A South African humanitarian aid organisation, Gift of the Givers, said it was committed to accommodating the visitors during their stay.
Charity founder Imtiaz Sooliman told public broadcaster SABC that he did not know who had chartered the aircraft, and that the first plane carrying 176 Palestinians had landed in Johannesburg on October 28, with some of the passengers departing for other countries.
He said accounts from the Palestinian arrivals indicate that Israel appears to be removing people from Gaza and putting them on a plane without stamping their passports, in order to leave them stranded in third countries.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office have not reacted to the incident, but Israel and the United States have repeatedly pushed to move as many Palestinians out of Gaza as possible, holding negotiations with many countries over this.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli military organisation in charge of the Gaza border crossings, was quoted as saying by Israeli media that it received approval from a third country to receive the Palestinians as part of an Israeli government policy allowing Gaza residents to leave. The third country was not named.
After facing nonstop bombing and famine in Gaza, the Palestinians were told to leave behind all their belongings and hop on a flight to an unknown destination.
Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, a book about Israel’s arms and surveillance industry, said the transit scheme could have been operating weeks or months before being noticed.
He told Al Jazeera from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta that there have been rumours about companies making such flights, which apparently “requires Israeli permission as well as other countries’ permissions”.
“This is the concept of people making money out of other people’s misery,” he said, also pointing to the murky operations and website of the company that ran the scheme.