World
Seven stories that shaped the Americas in 2024, beyond Trump’s return
The presidential election in the United States has dominated global headlines for much of the past year.
From opinion polls to rallies and the barbs traded on the campaign trail, all eyes were turned to the showdown between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump on November 5.
Since Trump’s decisive victory, much of the world has shifted its focus to analysing what the former US president has planned for his second term in office, set to begin in January.
But 2024 has not only been about Trump and American politics.
The past year saw a slew of critical developments in countries around the world, from Israel’s deadly bombardment of the Gaza Strip to the devastating war in Sudan and the recent ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In the Americas region, 2024 was marked by changing political landscapes, crackdowns on dissent, deadly violence and the effects of a worsening climate crisis.
Here’s a look at seven stories that shaped the Americas this year.
Venezuela’s disputed election
Mass protests broke out in Venezuela after longtime President Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of a third term in the country’s July 28 presidential election.
With the government refusing to release the usual voting tallies, the opposition published its own documents that it said proved Maduro had claimed victory through fraud.
Public anger at the results spilled into the streets for weeks after the race was called. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse thousands of demonstrators in the capital, Caracas, and other cities.
Human Rights Watch reported that at least 23 protesters or bystanders, as well as one National Guard member, were killed in the government crackdown. Thousands of Venezuelans also were arrested.
Maduro blamed the protests on his political opponents and foreign powers, accusing them of seeking to destabilise the South American country. He has promised to release full vote tallies but has yet to do so.
In early September, a Venezuelan judge issued an arrest warrant for opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who had gone into hiding following the vote. Gonzalez has since fled to Spain, where he requested political asylum.
“We are witnessing an intensification of the state’s repressive machinery in response to what it perceives as critical views, opposition or dissent,” Marta Valinas, chair of a United Nations fact-finding mission on Venezuela, said in a report on September 17.
Haiti gang violence soars
Over the past 12 months, Haiti has experienced a deepening political, security and humanitarian crisis as authorities struggle to stem a wave of deadly gang violence.
In late February, the situation deteriorated when powerful armed groups launched coordinated attacks on prisons and other state institutions in the capital, Port-au-Prince. The gang leaders demanded the resignation of unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Henry stepped down in March, and a transitional presidential council was formed with the goal of leading Haiti’s political transition and organising elections. The council then named an interim prime minister, Garry Conille, in May.
But the violence continued across Port-au-Prince, forcing tens of thousands of Haitians to flee their homes in search of safety. Access to adequate food, healthcare and other services was severely restricted, and reports of massacres, rape and other violence were frequent.
The deployment of a UN-backed, Kenyan-led police mission has done little to halt the gangs, which are now believed to control about 85 percent of the Haitian capital. Observers say the deployment is understaffed and lacks resources.
Meanwhile, political infighting between the transitional presidential council and Conille’s interim government led to the prime minister’s ouster in November. An interim prime minister, Alix Didier Fils-Aime, was appointed in his stead.
Brazilian police say Bolsonaro involved in coup attempt
In November, police in Brazil announced bombshell allegations against former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
The case centres on an alleged conspiracy to overturn Bolsonaro’s narrow defeat in the 2022 election.
Police accused Bolsonaro of taking part in a failed scheme aimed at preventing his left-wing rival, current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, from taking office following their closely fought race in 2022.
They said in a statement that Bolsonaro and 36 other people, including some of the ex-president’s aides and former government ministers, had planned the “violent overthrow of the democratic state”.
Bolsonaro, a former Brazilian army captain who served as president from 2019 to 2022, has denied any wrongdoing and said he is the victim of a political witch hunt. He has promised to mount a legal “fight” in his defence.
Sinaloa violence surges after cartel boss’s arrest
It was a big year in Mexican politics, as the country held the largest election in its history and Claudia Sheinbaum became its first female president.
But the election was also one of Mexico’s bloodiest – in part because of the influence of the country’s prominent drug-smuggling cartels.
One state where the violence continues to rage is Sinaloa, in the northwestern part of the country. There, rivals within the Sinaloa Cartel have been battling to fill the power vacuum left after co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia’s arrest.
US authorities detained Zambada on July 25 along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of the sons of another co-founder of the cartel, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Zambada has said he was kidnapped and taken against his will to the US, where he pleaded not guilty to a slew of criminal charges, including murder and drug trafficking.
The deteriorating situation in Sinaloa has posed one of the first major challenges to Sheinbaum since she took office in early October, succeeding her mentor and fellow Morena Party leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Jacobo Quintero, a restaurant owner in Culiacan, the state capital, told Al Jazeera in September that the city had been brought to a standstill as residents were afraid to leave their homes amid the violence.
“We’ve got about 15 percent of our usual customers,” he said. “People don’t want to come out because there are risks. They’re scared.”
Energy crises hit Ecuador, Cuba
Ecuador, which has long grappled with a surge in violence linked to drug trafficking, faced another dangerous threat this year: the effects of climate change.
A regional drought worsened by the El Nino weather phenomenon forced Colombia to cut off electricity exports to the country in April, spurring a crisis for Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa.
The situation further deteriorated as record wildfires broke out near the capital, Quito, as well as in other parts of the country. In November, Ecuador declared a 60-day state of emergency to help mobilise funds to respond to the blazes.
The drought — widely viewed as the worst to hit Ecuador in decades — has hampered water levels at the hydroelectric dams that power much of the country. The authorities have ordered hours-long daily power cuts as they urge residents to conserve electricity.
A similar crisis has unfolded in Cuba, where authorities have imposed rolling daily blackouts in an effort to shore up dwindling supplies of electricity on the Caribbean island.
Cuba’s national power grid collapsed several times in 2024, leading to a number of nationwide blackouts over several weeks between October and early December.
The country’s power plants are ageing, and the Cuban authorities have struggled to get enough oil to keep them running amid shrinking imports from Russia, Venezuela and Mexico.
Powerful storms also knocked out the grid in October and November as they lashed Cuba with strong winds and storm surges.
Canada accuses Indian agents of being involved in Sikh activist’s killing
A simmering diplomat row between Canada and India reignited in October when Canadian officials said they had evidence showing Indian government agents took part in activities that threatened Canadian national security.
The federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it had found evidence Indian agents participated “in serious criminal activity in Canada”, with links “to homicides and violent acts” and interference in democratic processes, among other things.
Ties between Ottawa and New Delhi soured in 2023 after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada was investigating possible ties between India and the killing of a prominent Canadian Sikh separatist leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The allegations sent shockwaves across the country and spurred an angry response from New Delhi, which rejected them outright.
After the latest accusations were made public in October, Canada ordered the expulsion of six Indian diplomatic and consular staff. Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said the individuals were considered “persons of interest” in Nijjar’s case.
In a tit-for-tat move, the Indian government also ordered six Canadian consular staff to leave.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs vehemently rejected Canada’s allegations, saying in a statement that “on the pretext of an investigation, there is a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains”.
Argentina’s poverty rate soars
Poverty has soared in Argentina over the past year as far-right President Javier Milei — sworn in at the end of 2023 — pursued his libertarian economic agenda and slashed government programmes.
“This is very hard. Before, we had a home. We had access to subsidies. But [the government] suddenly took everything away,” Marianela Abasto, 24, recently told Al Jazeera at a soup kitchen in the capital, Buenos Aires. “I don’t know what we are going to do.”
Milei’s hardline reforms have drawn major protests nationally, with thousands taking to the streets in June over planned austerity measures.
Yet despite the pushback, the Argentinian president has retained his supporters, and he continues to be held up as a success symbol for the global far right.
Sombr was mid-performance at the Brit Awards when a random man bumrushed the stage and pushed the singer off the platform, leaving him stunned — only it was all planned, says his rep.
The singer-songwriter, who was nominated for international artist and international song, was at the end of his smash single “Undressed” when a man joined him on the podium and shoved him hard. Security guards aggressively removed the man from the stage, and Sombr returned to the microphone to segue into his next song.
Shortly after the performance came to a close, Sombr’s rep confirmed to Variety that the whole thing was part of the act. Fans were already split online over whether the incident was staged or real. Naysayers noticed that the offender was wearing a shirt that read “Sombr is a homewrecker” — a nod to his latest single “Homewrecker,” which some claimed was a dead giveaway. But others weren’t necessarily convinced it was a stunt, considering how hard he was pushed and how additional security guards came to his rescue.
Brits host Jack Whitehall remarked on the incident after Sombr’s performance concluded. “Such a shame we didn’t have the security ready,” he said.
The incident took place just days after Britain’s BAFTA Awards last Sunday, when John Davidson, the Scottish Tourette’s syndrome activist and real-life inspiration for the film “I Swear,” disrupted that ceremony with an outburst of racial slurs that occurred as “Sinners” stars Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were onstage. “I can’t begin to explain how upset and distraught I have been as the impact from Sunday sinks in,” Davidson told Variety earlier this week.
Whitehall made a joking reference to that incident — which was not bleeped from the initial BAFTA broadcast and was audible to viewers — at the top of the Brits, saying “We’ve got the best in the business on the bleep button.”
Sombr is coming off a red-hot year that saw his various singles “Undressed,” “Back to Friends” and “12 to 12” impact the charts. He recently performed at the Grammy Awards, where he was nominated for best new artist alongside Addison Rae, Alex Warren, the Marías, Leon Thomas, Lola Young, Katseye and Olivia Dean, who ended up taking home the award.
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Iran was plunged into an internet blackout Saturday after Israel and the U.S. launched military strikes around the country, according to a global internet monitor.
Within hours of the strikes — which officials said targeted infrastructure and killed dozens of senior regime figures at a compound in Tehran— NetBlocks CEO Alp Toker confirmed connectivity started “flatlining.”
“We’re tracking the ongoing blackout, but our assessment is that this is straight out of Iran’s wartime playbook and consistent both technically and strategically with what we saw during the 2025 Twelve-Day War with Israel,” Toker told Fox News Digital.
“Iran’s internet connectivity is now flatlining around the 1% level, so the original blackout the regime imposed during the morning has been consolidated,” he confirmed.
“The blackout was imposed just after 7:00 UTC, not long after the attack on the Iranian regime compound,” Toker clarified, adding that Iran had been largely offline for approximately 12 hours following the attack.
“At 06:10 UTC, there is the main compound strike; at 07:10 UTC, telecoms disruption starts; at 08:00 UTC, the blackout is largely in effect; and by 08:30 UTC, connectivity flatlines.”
“Wartime national blackouts are exceedingly rare around the world, and it’s something we’ve only really seen at this scale in Iran,” he said.
President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Iran following an Israeli strike in Tehran on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (@WhiteHouse/X)
In the wake of the attack, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the “heavy and pinpoint” bombing in Iran “will continue uninterrupted throughout the week or as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”
He claimed Iranian security forces and members of the regime’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were already seeking immunity. He urged them to “peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots.”
“We are hearing that many of their IRGC, Military, and other Security and Police Forces no longer want to fight and are looking for Immunity from us,” Trump said in the post. “As I said last night, ‘Now they can have Immunity; later they only get Death!’”
Toker argued the timing of the blackout suggested it was imposed deliberately as the regime sought to secure communications amid fears of further targeting.
TRUMP TELLS IRANIANS THE ‘HOUR OF YOUR FREEDOM IS AT HAND’ AS US-ISRAEL LAUNCH STRIKES AGAINST IRAN
TEHRAN, IRAN – FEBRUARY 28: Smoke rises over the city center after an Israeli army launches 2nd wave of airstrikes on Iran on February 28, 2026. (Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images) (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The Iranian regime will have deployed this new blackout to counter potential cyberattacks during their own military operation, but also to avoid leaking the locations of senior regime figures through metadata and user-generated content,” he said.
“Communications would have been limited, and Iran’s leadership would have proceeded with the assumption that all communications, including satellite or whitelisted networks, carry risks,” he said before claiming that “paranoia would be well grounded at this point, with the blackout a belated but direct response to that.”
“Those participating directly would already know to avoid technology that could betray their whereabouts,” Toker said.
“However, the metadata may well have played a part in determining that the meeting of regime leaders was being held at the Tehran compound, who was in attendance, and at what time.”
DID THEY GET HIM? KHAMENEI’S FATE REMAINS UNKNOWN AFTER ISRAEL-US STRIKE LEVELS HIS COMPOUND
In this handout image provided by the Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addresses the nation in a state television broadcast on June 18, 2025 in Tehran, Iran. (Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran via Getty Images)
Toker revealed that the broader network around the regime leaders and around the compound wouldn’t have had the same strict restrictions.
“This kind of adjacent ‘background noise’ can be correlated against other intelligence sources to build an understanding of activity on the ground,” he added.
“Smartphones are a readily available, almost ‘free’ source of intelligence, and even when locked down, they eventually connect to international online services and generate insights that can be used to pinpoint regime figures,” Toker said.
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“In the aftermath of Saturday’s strike, this concern will have been high on the remaining Iranian leadership’s minds, especially if they didn’t have a clear and specific understanding of how the meeting was compromised.”
Iran has previously imposed sweeping internet shutdowns during periods of domestic unrest, including nationwide protests in January, which saw thousands killed, often seeking to curb the spread of information and restrict coordination.
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Women’s rights groups and activists hailed the European Commission’s decision on accessible abortion across Europe, calling it a “historic” move for women’s rights and European democracy.
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The move marks an unusual step taken by the European Union, as healthcare policy is typically determined at a national level.
On Thursday, the European Commission confirmed member states can use an EU social fund to provide access to safe and legal abortion for women who are barred from doing so in their home country.
Member states can make use of the bloc’s existing European Social Fund Plus (ESF+), which contributes to social, education, employment and healthcare policies, voluntarily and in accordance with their domestic laws to provide such support.
“We were very aware of the competence that the European Union has in this area, which is restricted,” Europe’s Associate Director for the Center for Reproductive Rights Katrine Thomasen told Euronews, pointing to the fact that the bloc can support, coordinate or supplement the actions of members states, but cannot impede on national laws, such as healthcare policies.
The Commission stopped short of creating a new funding mechanism, which was requested by the European Parliament in a non-binding resolution adopted in December.
Critics argued that by declining to establish a dedicated fund and instead referring to an existing one, the EU was effectively failing to act and rejecting the proposal.
However, women’s rights organisations say the decision affirms that the EU has the competence to act on sexual and reproductive heath and creates a pathway towards accessible abortion.
“It was previously not clear that member states could use EU funding to provide abortion care to women facing barriers,” Thomasen said, “the Commission’s decision is really the first time that it is affirming and deciding that EU funds can be used in this way”.
Member states that wish to benefit from the ESF+ to offer accessible abortion services will now need to establish programmes and define how patients can benefit from it.
‘My Voice, My Choice’
The Commission’s decision came in response to a call made by the citizens’ initiative “My Voice, My Choice” for the creation of an EU solidarity mechanism to guarantee safe and affordable access to abortion for all women.
“My Voice, My Choice” is a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), a mechanism that allows citizens to call on the European Commission to propose new legislation.
If an initiative gets the support of at least one million people across at least seven EU countries, it must be discussed by the European Parliament, while the European Commission has a timeframe to either set out legislative measures or provide justification for not doing so.
“My Voice, My Choice” collected 1,124,513 signatures across all 27 countries.
“My Voice, My Choice started on the streets, it started with a group of women who had had enough that women are secondary citizens,” the initiative’s coordinator Nika Kovač told Euronews.
“We decided to take action and we brought something to the table. We brought our own chair to the places where we usually don’t have the chairs,” Kovač added.
The movement gained cross-border momentum, with women’s rights activists mobilising across Europe. With over one million followers on Instagram, “My Voice, My Choice” also built a strong online presence.
Dutch journalist Belle de Jong campaigned for the initiative in Malta, where abortion remains criminalised and heavily restricted. She described the challenges of organising on the ground, noting that many women were reluctant to take to the streets because of stigma and fear of legal consequences.
De Jong told Euronews that the campaign’s success in Malta was largely because it was online, “so people didn’t have to go out into the streets or show their face,” she said, adding that she collected more than 4,000 signatures for Malta, more than double she expected.
“Thanks to My Voice, My Choice, we no longer have an excuse to prosecute women for accessing healthcare, because we’re paying for them to go abroad with this EU mechanism. So it really begs the question: when are we going to decriminalise it? That will be our next fight in Malta,” she added.
The decision sparked a range of reactions from politicians
Several members of the European Parliament have expressed satisfaction after the Commission’s statements.
“For the first time the Commission has confirmed that countries can use EU funds to support access to abortion care. This is a victory for European women”, said Slovenian Socialist MEP Matjaž Nemec, who penned a letter to the Commission ahead of the decision.
Valérie Hayer, President of Renew Europe, said the decision “marked real progress for women’s rights,” underlining that the Commission had never before stated so clearly that EU funding can support access to safe abortion.
Other MEP’s, including Emma Fourreau from the Left group and French MEP Mélissa Camara from the Greens/EFA group considered the move a step forward, but would have liked to see a dedicated budget.
On the other side, far-right Spanish party Vox claimed that the Commission has rejected the “My Voice, My Choice” initiative, as there will be no specific fund to finance abortions abroad. “The Commission is just trying to politically save the initiative by pointing out existing instruments,” a press release from the party states.
The Italian anti-abortion association “Pro Vita & Famiglia” (Pro Life and Family) also considered that the initiative was rejected, while criticising its opening up to the use of ESF+ money to finance reproductive healthcare. “We ask the Italian government not to use this money to promote abortions”, said spokesperson Maria Rachele Ruiu.
Abortion policies across the European Union
Some EU countries have highly restrictive laws on abortion rights. A total ban is in force in Malta, where abortion is not allowed under any circumstances, while in Poland it is permitted only when conception follows sexual violence or when there is a risk to the woman’s health.
In January 2021, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal banned abortions in cases of fetal malformation, which until then had been the most frequent reason for terminating pregnancies in the country.
Several EU countries have taken steps to guarantee the right to safe abortions. France, for instance, made it a constitutional right, while Luxembourg and the Netherlands have removed mandatory waiting periods.
Sweden, France, and the Netherlands rank best in the European Union for abortion rights, according to the European Abortion Policies Atlas 2025. Malta and Poland remain at the bottom of the ranking, along with Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco.
Some countries have more relaxed laws, but they lack legal protections that fully decriminalise abortion, wide service availability, national health coverage, or government-led information on the matter.
Other member states have recorded new restrictions, increased harassment of abortion providers, and the spread of disinformation on the topic.
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