Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has proposed a prisoner exchange with Venezuela, offering to repatriate hundreds of Venezuelans who were deported from the United States in exchange for “political prisoners.”

In a post on X, Bukele offered to exchange 252 Venezuelans currently detained in El Salvador’s mega prison for “an identical number (252) of the thousands of political prisoners” he says Venezuela holds, including family members of opposition leaders.

“Unlike our detainees, many of whom have committed murder, others have committed rape, and some have even been arrested multiple times before being deported, your political prisoners have committed no crime,” Bukele said in the post, which was directed at Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro. “The only reason they are imprisoned is because they opposed you and your electoral fraud.”

The US and El Salvador say most of the deportees locked up in El Salvador’s Cecot prison are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and some are members of the MS-13 Salvadoran gang. But officials have provided scant evidence to show the inmates have ties to those criminal groups.

Venezuela’s leader has described the deportation of the mostly Venezuelan migrants as a “kidnapping,” and denied they are criminals while backing calls for their return.

The Salvadoran leader named some of the “political prisoners” incarcerated in Venezuela, including Rafael Tudares, son-in-law of exiled opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González.

González, who fled the country after claiming to have defeated Maduro in July’s presidential election, said his son-in-law was detained in Venezuela’s capital in early January, just days before Maduro was inaugurated.

He also mentions Corina Parisca de Machado, the mother of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who he says is facing political pressure.

Bukele also proposed swapping four political leaders seeking asylum in the Argentine Embassy in Venezuela. The group has been sheltering at the facility for more than a year, accused of terrorist activities and treason for working with Machado, who says they did nothing wrong.

Also included in Bukele’s proposed agreement are journalist Roland Carreño, lawyer and activist Rocío San Miguel, and nearly 50 detained citizens from other countries, including the US.

Bukele’s proposal comes amid heightened scrutiny about the Salvadoran’s willingness to accept hundreds of migrants who the Trump administration claims are gang members or violent criminals.

One of the region’s most popular leaders, Bukele has called himself “the world’s coolest dictator” and the “philosopher king” as he suspends certain civil liberties to go after his country’s gangs.

That has earned him the ire of international human rights organizations, which allege large-scale abuses in his crackdown on crime. But it has also earned him popularity inside El Salvador; Bukele, 43, won reelection last year by a landslide.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

In the year 2000, over 5,000 barrels of crude oil spilled from a barge into the Marañón River, which runs 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) across Peru, from the snow-capped mountains of the Andes into the mighty Amazon River. A black glaze seeped across its surface, silently causing an ecological disaster – contaminating the river, a key water source for local communities, and killing some of its fauna.

The incident was not the first – nor the last – of the oil spills that have plagued the Marañón River and the people living along its banks. The watercourse, which is a lifeblood of Peru’s tropical rainforests and is home to endangered species like pink dolphins and giant otters, also carves its way through Peru’s oil and gas heartlands.

The Northern Peruvian Oil Pipeline (ONP) runs alongside it. According to the Peruvian agency for investment in energy and mining, Osinergmin, between 1997 and 2022, there were more than 80 oil spills along the pipeline.

While the spill in 2000 was by no means unique, it did spur one woman into action. Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari, of the indigenous Kukama community, who grew up on the banks of the Marañón, set up Asociación de Mujeres Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana (“Hard-working Women’s Association” or “HKK”). The organization, spearheaded by women, has spent the last two decades and more fighting for the river’s protection.

In March last year, their hard work paid off, as Peru’s federal court ruled that the river had legal personhood, granting it the inherent right to remain free flowing and free of environmental contamination. Today, Canaquiri Murayari, now 56 years old, was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work – an annual award given to six grassroots environmental leaders, each working in a different continent.

River spirits

For the Kukama people the Marañón River is sacred, and they believe the spirits of their ancestors reside on the river floor. Canaquiri Murayari says when the oil spills started, the spirit of her dead uncle came to her grandmother one night and warned of the harm the “black gold” would bring.

It started to affect the livelihoods of the Kukama, who depend on the river for transport, agriculture, water and fishing. They have no other water source, says Canaquiri Murayari, and so out of necessity, the community kept eating fish and drinking from the contaminated river.

Members of the community started getting sick too, she says. Studies have shown that communities living near drilling or oil spill sites had high levels of lead in their bloodstream, while higher mercury, arsenic and cadmium levels were detected in the urine of people consuming fish from the river or whose vegetable gardens were close to oil spill sites.

Canaquiri Murayari’s association was motivated to act. It sent letters to authorities, organized marches in the provincial capital Iquitos, and blocked traffic on the river. But to no avail: “The strikes, the mobilizations, the statements, the meetings, the roundtable discussion: none of them have worked … They don’t listen to us,” laments Canaquiri Murayari.

Instead, she started to seek out other methods and in 2014 connected with the Legal Defense Institute (IDL), a Peruvian NGO. Together, they began exploring legal strategies for protecting the Marañón River and became inspired by the burgeoning global rights of nature movement, whereby rivers such as Colombia’s Atrato River, New Zealand’s Whanganui River and Canada’s Magpie River, were granted legal personhood.

In 2021, the HKK, with support from IDL and Earth Law Center, filed a lawsuit seeking recognition of the legal personhood of the Marañón River to protect it from oil spills and other forms of destruction, such as dredging and hydropower projects.

After more than two years of litigation, in March 2024, the federal court ruled in favor of the Kukama, and for the first time in the country’s history, a river was granted legal personhood, giving it the right to exist, to flow free from pollution, and to exercise its essential functions within the ecosystem, among others.

Nature’s rights

He added that the Kukama women are “the protagonists of the legal case” and that their defense of the river has been so strong because “the river is the backbone of their culture.”

However, Canaquiri Murayari says the lawsuit was just the “first step.” The ruling does not immediately prevent oil extraction along the river, but it gives the Kukama the opportunity to challenge ongoing or future activities that infringe on the river’s rights. Together with Earth Law Center and others, she will now work to ensure the government implements the ruling.

This can sometimes be the hardest part. The Atrato River in Colombia, which was granted similar rights in 2016, continues to suffer from pollution from mining activities, with accounts of some of the river’s guardians being too afraid to report an incident, while others cite a “lack of political will.”

But Canaquiri Murayari is confident that with their newfound legal power, they will be able to hold the government and oil companies to account. She also believes it will help to galvanize other indigenous people from around the world to assert their rights.

“This is a door that opens many possibilities for other communities and other rivers and other indigenous leaders,” she says.

As a mother of four, and a grandmother to six, she added: “The work that I’m doing is not only for my community, it’s for the world. Because we need to do something, we need to fight together to leave the world for the next generation.”

Pope Francis, a voice for the poor who overcame fierce resistance to reshape the Catholic Church, has died at 88, the Vatican has announced.

The pope’s death was announced on Monday morning by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo.

“Dear brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis,” a statement from the camerlengo said.

“At 7:35 this morning the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His whole life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and His Church.”

Farrell continued, “He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favour of the poorest and most marginalized.”

“With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the Triune God,” the statement concluded.

The announcement would have come as a shock to many, coming less than a day after the pope made a high-profile appearance in public.

While he did not appear as engaged as usual on Sunday, he still managed to address a huge crowd of worshippers.

Francis gave the traditional Easter blessing from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, in what marked his highest-profile appearance yet since being discharged from hospital.

Just before that, he held a brief meeting with US Vice President JD Vance.

The pope’s tireless advocacy for migrants saw him sharply criticize US President Donald Trump’s immigration deportation policies in the months before his death.

Francis, whose pontificate was a counterweight to the rise of nationalist populism, often found himself under fire from powerful conservative Catholic forces in the US.

Death comes after long hospital stay

The death of Francis, who became the first Latin American pontiff in 2013 and was one of the oldest popes in the church’s history, came weeks after he was discharged from a Rome hospital having battled a life-threatening case of pneumonia in both lungs.

His medical team said his condition had stabilized, allowing for him to continue his convalescence at his Casa Santa Marta residence back at the Vatican.

Two weeks after leaving hospital, he delighted the faithful by making a surprise appearance at St. Peter’s Square.

He has made a number of appearances since then, including spending 30 minutes at a prison in Rome on Thursday and a visit to St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday evening.

His death will open a debate about the future direction of the Catholic Church, with cardinals from across the globe expected to gather in Rome in the coming days to mourn the pontiff and then elect his successor.

An outsider figure and the first non-European pontiff in nearly 1,300 years, Francis championed the poor, migrants and the environment, but divisions over same-sex relationships and how to tackle abuse scandals within the church persisted throughout his pontificate.

The pope’s tireless advocacy for migrants saw him sharply criticize US President Donald Trump’s immigration deportation policies in the months before his death. Francis, whose pontificate was a counterweight to the rise of nationalist populism, often found himself under fire from powerful conservative Catholic forces in the US.

First Latin American and Jesuit to be elected

Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio to Italian migrants in Buenos Aires in 1936, was the first Latin American and member of the Jesuit order to be elected pope in the church’s 2,000-year history. He was also the first pope to call himself Francis.

The Argentinian pontiff quickly gained a reputation as a modernizer, with an outward-facing approach which saw him speak out boldly on humanitarian crises, such as migration, war and climate change.

He sought to reform the church by tackling elitist mentalities among the clergy, demanding a compassionate approach to divorced and gay Catholics and insisting that the church welcome everyone.

He took a series of measures to clean up financial corruption in the Vatican, and to tackle the scourge of clerical sexual abuse, including laws to hold bishops accountable for coverups. Francis also sought an enlarged role for women working in the Vatican and authorized priests to offer blessings to same-sex couples.

He built bridges with the Muslim world, while seeking to play the role of peacemaker in the face of global conflicts, particularly in Ukraine and the Middle East.

His reforms saw him face unprecedented resistance from ultra-conservatives inside the church, although progressive Catholics felt he should have gone further in allowing the ordination of married men as priests, shifting official teaching on homosexuality and giving a greater space for women in ministry.

Despite taking a series of tough measures, Francis also failed to quell the scandal of child sexual abuse and other forms of abuse that have plagued the Catholic Church – a disgrace that he made his personal responsibility to end, but which continued to damage the institutional church in multiple countries throughout his papacy.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The death toll from a boat fire and capsizing in Congo earlier this week rose to 148 with more than 100 people still missing, officials said Friday. About 500 passengers were on board.

The wooden boat capsized Tuesday after catching fire on the Congo River in the country’s northwest, leaving at least 148 people dead and dozens missing, officials said.

The catastrophe began when a fire started as a woman was cooking on board the vessel, Compétent Loyoko, the river commissioner, told The Associated Press. Several passengers, including women and children, died after jumping into the water without being able to swim.

Dozens were saved, with many of the survivors badly burned. The search for the missing included rescue teams supported by the Red Cross and provincial authorities.

The motorized wooden boat caught fire near the town of Mbandaka, Loyoko said. The boat, HB Kongolo, had left the port of Matankumu for the Bolomba territory.

“The death toll among the 500 passengers on board was extremely high,” said Sen. Jean-Paul Boketsu Bofili of Equateur province Friday. “As we speak, more than 150 survivors suffering from third-degree burns are without humanitarian assistance.”

Deadly boat accidents are common in the central African country, where late-night travels and overcrowded vessels are often blamed. Authorities have struggled to enforce maritime regulations.

Congo’s rivers are a major means of transport for its more than 100 million people, especially in remote areas where infrastructure is poor or nonexistent. Hundreds have been killed in boat accidents in recent years as more people abandon the few available roads for wooden vessels packed with passengers and their goods.

“Our magnificent Congo River and the lakes our country abounds in have become huge cemeteries for the Congolese people. This is unacceptable,” said Bofili.

The timing, the brevity, the sudden, unilateral nature of it all. If Ukraine’s allies needed proof of Moscow’s wild cynicism when it comes to peace, the announcement of an immediate truce for Easter provided just that.

It came mere hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and his boss president Donald Trump said they would need in the coming days an urgent sign that the Kremlin was serious about peace.

For Russia’s proponents, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement on Saturday looked like a nod to Trump – but the sudden declaration is so riddled with practical flaws, before it even gets out of the box, that it is likely to be simply used by Putin to support his false notion Kyiv does not want his war to stop.

It will be a logistical nightmare for Ukraine‘s forces to suddenly, immediately stop fighting at Putin’s behest. Some front line positions may be in the middle of fierce clashes when this order comes through, and a cessation of this nature likely requires days of preparation and readiness.

Misinformation is bound to confuse troops about the truce’s implementation, how to report or respond to violations, and even what to do when it comes to an end.

It is possible this moment will prove a rare sign that both sides can stop violence for short period. But it is significantly more likely they will both use violations and confusion to show their opponent cannot be trusted. As of Saturday evening local time, Ukrainian officials said Russian strikes had continued in frontline areas.

The ongoing 30-day truce limited to energy infrastructure was born in conditions of complete chaos. The White House announced that “energy and infrastructure” were covered, the Kremlin said they’d immediately stopped attacks on “energy infrastructure”, and Ukraine said the truce started a week later than the Kremlin did. Its execution has been equally mired in mistrust and accusations of breaches.

Moscow made a similar unilateral declaration in January 2023, calling for a day of peace to allow Orthodox Christians to observe Christmas – a move that Kyiv and Western leaders dismissed at the time as a strategic pause for military purposes.

A genuine truce requires negotiation with your opponent, and preparations for it to take hold. The sudden rush of this seems designed entirely to placate the White House demands for some sign that Russia is willing to stop fighting. It will likely feed Trump’s at times pro-Moscow framing of the conflict. It may also cause complexities for Ukraine when they are inevitably accused of violating what Washington may consider to be a goodwill gesture by Moscow.

Ultimately, this brief, likely theoretical, probably rhetorical and entirely unilateral stop to a three-year war, is likely to do more damage to the role of diplomacy in the coming months than it does to support it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a brief Easter ceasefire in his war with Ukraine, saying “all hostilities” will pause for a two-day period.

There has been no immediate response from Ukraine, but if Kyiv accepts it will be the first pause in the conflict since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion.

Russian fighting will halt between 6 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday (11 a.m. ET) and midnight on Monday (5 p.m. Sunday ET), Putin said.

“We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example,” he added.

The truce will help Russia determine how sincere Kyiv is about wanting to reach a ceasefire, Putin said.

The announcement comes at a pivotal time for the war. On the ground, Russia continues to make gains, claiming the capture of another settlement in the Kursk border region while US-led peace efforts are stuttering.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the US was ready to “move on” from efforts to bring peace to Ukraine within days if there were no tangible signs of progress.

Ukraine has previously been skeptical about such temporary pauses in conflict, having rejected a temporary ceasefire in January 2023 believing that Russia had ulterior motives in calling for a stop to the fighting, such as using the pause to bring in more troops.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue the war in Gaza in the face of growing opposition to Israel’s ongoing military campaign.

In a pre-recorded video Saturday night, Netanyahu said Israel has “no choice” but to keep fighting “for our very own existence until victory.” The long-time Israeli leader called for “perseverance and resilience” in order to destroy Hamas and bring back the remaining 59 hostages.

Netanyahu pointed to Hamas’ recent rejection of an Israeli ceasefire proposal as a reason Israel will continue its bombardment of Gaza. Israel’s proposal called for a disarmament of Gaza and did not include a permanent end to the war, both of which have been red lines for Hamas.

“If we surrender to Hamas’s demands now, all the tremendous achievements gained by our soldiers, our fallen, and our wounded heroes—those achievements will simply be lost,” Netanyahu said.

He argued that allowing Hamas to remain in Gaza means “President [Donald] Trump’s important vision could never be realized.” Trump has called for moving Palestinians out of Gaza to other countries and redeveloping the coastal enclave into a “Riviera of the Middle East.” He has also floated the idea of US ownership of the narrow strip of land, which is home to more than 2 million Palestinians.

The Hostage Families Forum Headquarters criticized the Israeli premier’s taped statement.

“Many words and slogans will not succeed in hiding the simple truth — Netanyahu has no plan,” the forum said. “It’s no surprise there was no time for questions — otherwise, he would have had to answer the most basic one: What exactly is the State of Israel doing to immediately bring back all 59 hostages?”

Netanyahu also mentioned Iran during his statement, just hours after the US and Iran concluded their second round of talks on Tehran’s nuclear program. “I’m committed to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” he said. “I will not give up on this, I will not let go.”

Calls grow to end the war

Netanyahu’s speech comes amid growing protest and opposition to the ongoing military campaign.

Thousands of Israeli military reservists and retirees have signed public letters calling for a ceasefire deal to return all of the hostages, even at the cost of ending the war. The letters have now come from an increasing number of military units, including elite intelligence and commando units, as well as civilian professions.

Many Israelis prioritize a deal to return the hostages, even if it means ending the war, according to recent polling. A poll from Israel’s Channel 12 News, released late-last month, indicated that nearly 70% supported such a deal, while only 21% opposed an end to the war.

A two-month ceasefire that saw 33 Israeli and five Thai hostages released from captivity collapsed on March 18 when Israel renewed its bombardment of Gaza. Israel and the US blamed Hamas for the ceasefire’s end.

Shortly before Netanyahu’s statement, his spokesman, Omer Dostri, said “it’s not possible to bring everyone back,” calling it “a spin.” Speaking to Channel 12 News, Dostri added, “Right now, it’s not possible to make a single ‘all for all’ deal, because Hamas is demanding an end to the war and a withdrawal from Gaza.”

The leader of Israel’s opposition, Yair Lapid, said Dostri’s comments were “an admission that the Israeli government has given up on the effort to bring the hostages home.” Lapid called for Netanyahu to clarify the government’s position. In a statement on social media, he said, “If this is the Prime Minister’s official stance, he should stand up and say it himself. If not, he should apologize on behalf of his spokesperson.”

Netanyahu pre-recorded statement released a short time later did not address his spokesman’s comments.

Hong Kong’s oldest and largest pro-democracy political party is moving to disband as Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on the city leaves even moderate opposition groups with no room to operate.

“The message was that the party has to be disbanded or there will be consequences,” said one of them, Yeung Sum, a former Democratic Party chairman.

Fred Li, a former lawmaker, said a Chinese official told him that the party should not remain until the end of this year, when an election will be held.

Founded by liberal lawyers and academics three years before the former British colony’s 1997 handover to China, the Democratic Party had campaigned for universal suffrage and on matters from labor rights to conservation during a period when such issues were openly discussed in the city.

Widely seen as moderates willing to work with Beijing, Democratic Party leaders had spearheaded a significant voting bloc in the city’s legislature and were regularly afforded space to critique local government policy, until mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 ushered in a new and more restrictive political era.

Beijing’s crackdown in the years since, including the prosecution and jailing of pro-democracy leaders, has left the once-influential party rudderless as it contends with sweeping national security legislation and “patriots only” electoral reforms enacted in 2021 that make it nearly impossible for opposition candidates to stand for the city’s legislature.

Democratic Party chairman Lo Kin-hei told a news conference last Sunday that 90% of about 110 party members had voted to delegate power to a committee to start the dissolution process, adding he hoped a final vote would take place in the coming months.

“I hope Hong Kong’s political parties… will continue to work for the people,” Lo said. “We have always hoped to serve the Hong Kong people, and to do things that are good for society.”

The Democrats’ move to disband demonstrates Beijing’s unwillingness to allow even the mildest of dissenting voices to be heard in Hong Kong, say analysts.

John Burns, emeritus professor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), said the party had “symbolized the promise of some kind of democratic development in Hong Kong, leading to universal suffrage as promised in the Basic Law,” referring to the city’s mini-constitution.

“A dissolution of the party reflects official Hong Kong’s turn away from popular participation, locally accountable government, and increased transparency toward more authoritarian rule,” Burns said.

Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, said the Democrats’ move “shows there are no more feasible ways for groups to exist as an opposition party.”

“It’s self-conflicting for the government to suggest that nothing has changed,” he said.

Criticism of the government remains permitted in Hong Kong, “however strong, vigorous or critical” it may be, so long as it is “based on facts,” the spokesperson said. The Hong Kong government would “continue to resolutely discharge the duty of safeguarding national security,” they added.

No space for compromise

The Democrats had enjoyed relative political freedom following Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule, even holding more seats than any other party in the mostly pro-Beijing legislature until 2004.

The party’s leaders were often the figureheads of major demonstrations, including an annual June 4 vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre and a well-attended pro-democracy march held every July. (Neither event would be permitted on the Chinese mainland, and both are now effectively banned in Hong Kong).

But support for the Democrats plunged in 2010 after its leaders negotiated directly for universal suffrage with officials from Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong – a move seen as a betrayal by other pro-democracy groups.

The party was then pushed further to the sidelines by the emergence of a new generation of pro-democracy leaders and student activists during months-long protests for universal suffrage in 2014.

However, when anti-government demonstrators returned to Hong Kong’s streets en masse in 2019, the Democrats’ popularity resurged as many of its leaders stood on the front lines of the massive – and sometimes violent – protests that rocked the financial hub.

Later that year, the Democratic Party was the biggest winner in local district council elections. But its participation in the protests also drew the ire of Hong Kong authorities and Beijing, paving the way for its demise.

“The party made mistakes when it failed to draw a clear line between itself and radical separatists calling for Hong Kong’s independence from 2014-2020,” said Burns, from HKU. “Authorities have punished the party, jailing and chasing out Democratic Party leaders.”

Over the past five years, the space for the Democrats to maneuver has been increasingly squeezed by Chinese authorities.

In 2020, Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong, introducing the maximum sentence of life imprisonment for four main crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

A year later, the Chinese government rewrote Hong Kong’s electoral rules to require candidates to seek nomination from pro-Beijing groups, essentially excluding the opposition from elections. A legislature filled with Beijing loyalists last year unanimously passed a law expanding the scope of national security offenses.

Beijing and the Hong Kong government argued that the electoral changes had enhanced democracy and have repeatedly defended the security laws as restoring order and returning prosperity to the city. But critics say they have curtailed freedoms and had a “chilling effect” on civil society, including independent institutions and the media.

Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London, said political and social protests seen as challenging state security are “becoming increasingly if not well-nigh impossible.”

“Many other elements of civil rights, including that of speech and organizing political parties have also been severely curtailed,” he added.

Last year, five former Democratic Party lawmakers were among 45 opposition figures sentenced to prison terms of up to 10 years after they were found guilty of subversion for taking part in an election primary in 2020.

National security police have also placed HK$1 million ($129,000) bounties on pro-democracy activists who fled overseas, including an Australia-based former Democratic Party lawmaker accused of secession, subversion and collusion with a foreign country.

Meanwhile, the trial of media tycoon and outspoken democracy supporter Jimmy Lai is ongoing, more than four years after he was detained on charges of colluding with foreign forces, which he denies.

The Democratic Party’s announcement last weekend follows the dissolution of almost 100 civil and pro-democracy organizations in Hong Kong in the wake of Beijing’s crackdown.

The party had tried to survive as a civic group in recent years but struggled to raise funds as multiple private venues canceled their events, often at the last minute.

Former Democratic Party lawmaker Emily Lau said the party’s move to disband was “very sad.”

“I don’t know what they are thinking in Beijing. We have demonstrated, not just words, but by action, that we are reasonable. We are willing to talk, to negotiate, to compromise, reach a deal and go forward.”