Category World News

Brazil’s Bolsonaro accused in spy agency case as coup trial is ongoing

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Brazil’s federal police have formally accused far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro of involvement in an illegal spying network that allegedly snooped on political rivals, journalists and environmentalists during his administration.

Court records allege that under one of Bolsonaro’s aides, Brazil’s spy agency, Agencia Brasileira de Inteligencia (ABIN), ran a “criminal organisation of high offensive capability” from 2019 to 2023, local media reported Tuesday.

According to the police, ABIN used a software called FirstMile, developed by the Israeli company Cognyte.

A Supreme Court document contains the names of several Brazilian public figures who were targets of the snooping operation, including Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, former Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria, and the current head of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies or lower house, Arthur Lira.

The agency was also used to illegally spy on tax auditors who were investigating the president’s eldest son, Flavio Bolsonaro, according to prosecutors. &nbsp, The intention was to find dirt on them to halt a corruption probe from when the younger Bolsonaro was a Rio de Janeiro councilman.

Names of senior officials from the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) were also on the list. As president, Bolsonaro cut the budget of IBAMA by 30 percent between 2019 and 2020, while also cutting funding for other environmental agencies. When he was in office, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged, and Bolsonaro was accused of facilitating this destruction.

Journalists Monica Bergamo of Folha de S Paulo newspaper and Vera Magalhaes of O Globo newspaper were also targeted, the document alleges.

The allegations add to a slew of probes against Bolsonaro, who was rendered ineligible to run for office in 2030 after a&nbsp, failed 2022 re-election campaign. He is also embroiled in a jewellery embezzlement case as well as a case pertaining to him forging&nbsp, his COVID-19 vaccine records.

Last week, Bolsonaro appeared before the Supreme Court for the first time and denied participation in an alleged plot to remain in power and overturn the 2022 election result that he lost to current left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The Supreme Court headquarters in Brasilia was one of the primary targets of a rioting mob of supporters known as “Bolsonaristas”, who raided government buildings in January 2023 as they urged the military to oust Lula, an insurrection attempt that evoked the supporters of Bolsonaro ally United States President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.

Bolsonaro was abroad in Florida in the US at the time of this last-gasp effort to keep him in power after the alleged coup planning fizzled. But his opponents have accused him of fomenting the rioting. Bolsonaro said in his testimony that the rioters were “crazy”, not coup mongers.

“There was never any talk of a coup. A coup is an abominable thing”, Bolsonaro said. “Brazil couldn’t go through an experience like that. And there was never even the possibility of a coup in my government”.

The far-right politician admitted to discussing “possibilities” with the heads of the armed forces following his defeat to Lula, but argued that it had been within constitutional limits.

Real Madrid vs Al Hilal: FIFA Club World Cup – team news, start, lineups

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Who: Real Madrid vs Al Hilal

What: FIFA Club World Cup
Where: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, Florida, United States
When: Wednesday, June 18 – 15:00 EDT local time | 12:00 PST | 19:00 GMT | 21:00 CEST

Real Madrid begin their FIFA Club World Cup campaign against Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal – a team that have aspirations to stand alongside the European giants on the global stage.

For now, the Saudi Pro League club, after finishing second behind Al Ittihad this season, remain the up-and-comers.

That said, this tournament offers a chance not only for Al Hilal but for the country they represent to lay down a marker in their attempt to become one of the world’s most influential domestic leagues.

Al Jazeera takes a look at the meeting between two heavyweights in their respective rights.

What happened the last time Real Madrid and Al Hilal met?

This is only the second meeting between the clubs, but the first was an equally eye-catching affair.

It was the final of the 2023 FIFA Club World Cup – then in its smaller format prior to a rebrand.

Real won 5-3 in a thriller in Rabat, Morocco, as Vinicius Junior scored twice, while setting up another for Karim Benzema.

Al Hilal had beaten Brazilians Flamengo in the semifinals to become the first Saudi side to reach the showpiece finale.

Real beat Egypt’s Al Ahly 4-1 in their last-four match.

Vinicius Junior of Real Madrid scores his side’s fifth goal during the FIFA Club World Cup final against Al Hilal in 2023]Michael Steele/Getty Images]

Is this Xabi Alonso’s debut as Real Madrid manager?

Yes. Alonso took over from Carlo Ancelotti, who was quickly appointed as coach of Brazil, at the end of last season.

The former Real midfielder had been in charge of Bayer Leverkusen, who he led to the German league title in his first season.

Leverkusen were a distant second to Bayern Munich, by 13 points, this year. But Alonso’s link to Real had long been established, especially with his positive brand of football – all while the pressure was mounting on Ancelotti as Real’s league and European defence disintegrated.

New Real Madrid player Trent Alexander-Arnold during the press conference to announce his arrival]Ana Beltran/Reuters]
New Real Madrid player Trent Alexander-Arnold during the press conference to announce his arrival]Ana Beltran/Reuters]

Will Alexander-Arnold start for Real Madrid?

Trent Alexander-Arnold is expected to make his debut for Real against Al Hilal.

The England defender was able to complete his move from Liverpool in time for the competition thanks to a special transfer window for clubs involved in the tournament.

Dani Carvajal, who usually fills the right-back spot that Alexander-Arnold could hold, has returned to training following an ACL injury, but this game comes too soon for a full comeback.

Why are Barcelona not at the Club World Cup with Real?

Despite Madrid’s difficult domestic season, albeit only finishing four points off top spot, they qualified for the tournament on the back of their Champions League and La Liga double-winning season two years ago.

Barcelona’s league title this season ended a run of three titles in five years for Real, where Barcelona only won one. Atletico Madrid, the other Spanish side at the Club World Cup, also lifted the La Liga trophy in that time and have a better UEFA coefficient ranking than Barca in the four-year qualification period.

Real Madrid's Jude Bellingham, Luka Modric, Vinicius Junior and Eder Militao during training ahead of the FIFA Club World Cup match with Al Hilal
New Real Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, second left, watches on as Jude Bellingham, Luka Modric, Vinicius Junior and Eder Militao train ahead of his first match in charge]Hannah McKay/Reuters]

How many Club World Cups have Real Madrid won?

Real Madrid’s win against Al Hilal in 2023 was their fifth Club World Cup in its various previous guises.

That doesn’t include lifting the inaugural FIFA Intercontinental Cup in December when Los Blancos beat Mexico’s Pachuca 3-0 in the final.

That competition in effect replaced the old Club World Cup, but the rebrand has separated the titles.

How did Al Hilal reach the Club World Cup?

The Saudi team have been among the top achievers in their domestic league, despite their second-place finish this season. But it was their 2021 AFC Champions League victory that ensured their Club World Cup place.

Pohang Steelers of South Korea were Al Hilal’s opponents in that final, which the latter won 2-0.

Real Madrid team news

Along with Alexander-Arnold, Dean Huijsen could also make his debut in the centre of defence following his move from Bournemouth.

Brazilian forward Endrick is the only injured absentee, while Antonio Rudiger, Eder Militao, Ferland Mendy and David Alaba have all returned from injury but are unlikely to be deemed ready to start.

Al Hilal team news

Joao Cancelo is the only injury for Al Hilal.

The former Manchester City, Barcelona and Juventus defender is still recovering from a hamstring injury.

Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and Joao Neves will bring a weight of experience to central midfield, while former Fulham striker Aleksandar Mitrovic will prove a fierce target man for Real’s defence to contend with.

Real Madrid predicted lineup:

Courtois, Alexander-Arnold, Asencio, Huijsen, Garcia, Valverde, Tchouameni, Bellingham, Guler, Mbappe, Vinicius Jr

Al Hilal predicted lineup:

One killed in clashes as Kenyans protest death of blogger in police custody

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Hundreds of men on motorbikes, armed with whips and clubs, have attacked protesters in downtown Nairobi while they were demonstrating against alleged extrajudicial killings, following the death of a blogger in police custody.

One person was killed on Tuesday as the assailants violently attacked and dispersed the demonstrators. A Reuters journalist saw the man’s body on the ground with a bleeding head wound. But it was not clear how he had died or who the man was.

The swarm of men on motorbikes could be heard shouting “No protest” in footage shared by local broadcaster NTV.

Amnesty International’s Kenya chapter condemned the attack, writing on X that the “use of militia will escalate confrontation, lawlessness and chaos”.

The incident came more than a week after the death of Albert Ojwang, a 31-year-old teacher and blogger. He died just two days after being arrested in the town of Homa Bay in western Kenya for allegedly criticising Eliud Lagat, the country’s deputy police chief.

A Kenyan police officer has been arrested in connection with Ojwang’s death.

The protests caused by his death reflect a wider concern about police violence. Rights groups say more than 60 people were killed by security forces last year during demonstrations in June and July against a controversial financial bill that would have increased taxes.

‘They cornered us and beat us with whips’

Speaking about the clashes on Tuesday, which also saw police fire tear gas at protesters, Ndungi Githuku, of the civil rights group Kongamano La Mapinduzi, said Kenya was turning into “a lawless country”.

“We see hundreds of paid goons, with whips and weapons, crude weapons, coming to brutalise our people,” he said.

One of the demonstrators, Hanifa Adan, who was a leading voice in last year’s Gen Z-led protests, told AFP that the men on motorbikes had “overwhelmed” her and others.

“They cornered us and beat us with whips and the police were just watching them do it,” she said.

Demonstrations were also held on Tuesday in Kenya’s second-largest city Mombasa, with the crowd holding placards saying “Stop killing us”.

Protesters hold a Kenyan flag as they take cover from tear gas and rubber bullets as clashes erupt between demonstrators and police on June 12, 2025 [Luis Tato/AFP]

Public anger grew after an autopsy revealed that Ojwang had not fatally injured himself by banging his head against a cell wall, as the Kenyan police had originally claimed.

The government’s pathologist found that his injuries, which included blunt force trauma, were “unlikely to be self-inflicted”.

Kenyan President William Ruto admitted on Friday that Ojwang had died “at the hands of the police”, calling his death “heartbreaking and unacceptable”.

The country’s leader promised to “protect citizens from rogue police officers”.

In the past four months, more than 20 people have died in police custody in Kenya, according to the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA).

As part of the investigation into Ojwang’s death, two senior police officers and a civilian have so far been arrested.

Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki volcano erupts, alert at highest level

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Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki volcano in south-central Indonesia has erupted, spewing towering columns of hot ash into the air and prompting authorities to both raise the alert to the highest level and expand the danger zone to 8km (5 miles) from the crater.

The Indonesian Geological Agency said it recorded the volcano unleashing 10,000 metres (32,800 feet) of thick grey clouds on Tuesday afternoon.

The explosion of ash expanded into a mushroom-shaped cloud that could be seen from cities located 90km (56 miles) to 150km (93 miles) from the mountain.

There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. Residents were warned to be vigilant about heavy rainfall triggering lava flows in rivers originating from the volcano.

There were also no immediate reports of cancelled flights after Tuesday’s eruption.

Volcanic smoke billows from Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki [Andre Kriting/AP]

An eruption of Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki in November killed nine people and injured dozens. The 1,584-metre (5,197-foot) mountain is a twin volcano with Mount Lewotobi Perempuan in the district of Flores Timur.

Laki-laki means “man” in Indonesian, while its calmer twin volcano was named after the Indonesian word for “woman”.

Indonesia is an archipelago of 270 million people with frequent seismic activity. It has 120 active volcanoes and sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

Does California have lower homicide rates than some southern US states?

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As protesters in Los Angeles denounced United States President Donald Trump’s deportation policies, sometimes leading to clashes with law enforcement, Republican and Democratic politicians sparred over who has the bigger crime problem: blue states or red states.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, took to X to challenge three elected Republican officials who had offered posts critical of California and Newsom’s handling of the recent protests.

  • On June 9, Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said Los Angeles “looks like a third world country – anarchists are in charge, law enforcement is being attacked, and the rule of law is nonexistent”. Later that day, Newsom posted: “Alabama has 3X the homicide rate of California. Its murder rate is ranked third in the entire country.”
  • On June 10, Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma posted: “America is sick of illegal immigration and weak, lawless liberal leadership.” He called it “rich” that Newsom was suing Trump to reverse the president’s federalisation of California’s National Guard. Later that day, Newsom posted: “If you want to discuss violence, let’s start with your state’s murder rate – which is 40 percent higher than California’s.”
  • Also on June 10, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted: “What’s happening in California would never happen here in Arkansas because we value order over chaos.” The next day, Newsom responded, “Your homicide rate is literally DOUBLE California’s.”

Newsom’s comparisons are close to accurate because he worded his assertions carefully to refer to the homicide rate. California has more homicides than any state, but it also has by far the largest population, and using the rate – which refers to homicides per 100,000 people – makes it possible to compare states on an even footing.

Some Newsom critics replied to his post by arguing that the numbers the governor used are unreliable because California has some of the lowest rates of reporting crimes to the FBI’s data collectors.

But this argument is a red herring: Newsom’s political office confirmed to PolitiFact that his data are from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That means his statistics are not subject to concerns about low reporting rates (a problem that commentators have exaggerated).

California fares less well against these three states when measuring overall violent crime, which includes homicides, rapes, aggravated assaults and robberies.

What does the CDC data show?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes data showing the number of homicides per state as well as the rate of homicides per 100,000 people. The latter metric allows a comparison of bigger states to smaller states.

According to 2022 data, the latest available, Alabama ranks third in the nation for its homicide rate with 14.9 per 100,000 people. (It trails Mississippi and Louisiana and also the District of Columbia, which generally isn’t considered comparable to the 50 states because it is essentially a city rather than a state.)

Arkansas ranks sixth with a rate of 11.8 homicides per 100,000 people. Oklahoma ranks 20th with a rate of 8.3 per 100,000.

And California? It ranks 30th with a rate of 5.9 per 100,000.

Alabama’s rate is about 2.5 times higher than California’s rate; Newsom said it was triple. Oklahoma’s rate is 41 percent higher than California’s; Newsom said it was 40 percent higher. And Arkansas’s rate is double California’s, which is what Newsom said.

California’s homicide rate is lower than Alabama’s, Arkansas’s and Oklahoma’s

“The CDC data are very reliable when it comes to death and mortality data because these come directly from coroners’ records and state health departments,” said Alex R Piquero, a University of Miami criminologist and former director of the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. “They are among the most respected of all health data collections.”

Although the CDC’s data are from 2022, the 2023 FBI data show the same general ranking pattern. The FBI collects data from law enforcement agencies rather than coroners’ offices.

In its statistics, Alabama ranked third among the 50 states with 10.3 homicides per 100,000 people. Arkansas ranked fifth with 9.4 per 100,000, and Oklahoma ranked 16th with 6.1 per 100,000. California ranked 25th with 5 per 100,000.

“There is a lot of research on the variation of homicides across states in the United States, and both the CDC and FBI show” that Newsom is generally accurate, Piquero said.

One technical note: In his posts, Newsom flipped back and forth between referring to the “homicide” rate and the “murder” rate. For the CDC data, he should have exclusively used the term “homicide” because the CDC doesn’t use the term “murder”.

What about violent crime overall?

The data on violent crime are less favourable for California.

The data the FBI collected for 2023 show that Arkansas’s violent crime rate ranked fourth among the states, about 620 incidents per 100,000 people. California ranked sixth with 508 per 100,000 people. That was higher than either Oklahoma (15th with 414 per 100,000) and Alabama (19th with 404 per 100,000).

Our ruling

Newsom said California has lower homicide rates than Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Data for 2022 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which criminologists consider a reliable source, show that California has a lower homicide rate than Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma and roughly in the proportions that Newsom said.

Data from 2023 collected by the FBI generally mirror the CDC data.

Looking at violent crime more broadly – a category that includes rape, aggravated assault and robbery in addition to homicide – California fares less well, notching rates higher than either Oklahoma and Alabama.