The Rio Times

A Havana court convicted the Cuban content creator Anna Bensi and her mother on 1 October for posting a video of a police officer, sentencing each to two years of restricted liberty, a non-custodial penalty.

GuaraníSat-2, Paraguay’s second satellite and the first designed and assembled in the country, has been placed in orbit on a SpaceX rideshare mission.

Honduras’s telecoms regulator Conatel says a draft cybersecurity law could reach Congress by the end of 2026, alongside a planned state centre to respond to cyber attacks and a push to join the Budapest Convention.

A Guyanese court has charged a 33-year-old man with abducting two Surinamese men who vanished after setting out for Guyana by boat on 29 August.

A Spanish judge released José Walther Manrique, a suspect in Ecuador’s Progen blackout-contracts case, a day after his Interpol arrest.

Four members of one family, including two children, died when a landslide buried their home in a rural community of Siuna, in Nicaragua’s North Caribbean Coast region, early on 1 October.

Fuel-price protests in northern Honduras now affect the distribution and sale of goods beyond transport, the civil-society group ASJ warned on 1 October, as Congress opened new talks and the fuel subsidy passed double its 2026 budget.

S&P Global’s Mexico manufacturing PMI edged up to 50.3 in September from 49.8, helped by orders and slower deliveries, while output fell for a 27th month.

Russia’s embassy rejected spying claims against Sergei Vagin, whom Colombia’s president ordered expelled on 30 September 2026.

Uruguay's current account swung to a US$460 million deficit in the second quarter of 2026 from a US$42 million surplus a year earlier.

Guyana's agriculture minister says the sector grew 11.5 per cent in 2025.

Argentina Week Paris produced about US$10.5 billion in new or enlarged energy and mining pledges, plus a 26 November decision date for the US$51 billion Argentina LNG project.

Uruguay's goods trade balance swung to a US$42.8 million deficit in August 2026 from a US$322.5 million surplus a year earlier.

Liabilities funded about 59% of Ecopetrol’s asset growth from 2015 to 2025, according to Iara Consulting Group.

Two Dominican legal groups demanded independent investigations of police killings on 1 October, after Diario Libre found only three of at least 182 people killed this year on the police’s public fugitive list.

An army-only commission has begun reviewing the military’s role in the killing of eight people in Huité, Guatemala, after President Arévalo confirmed army units took part, but the Defence Ministry has named no unit, commander or deadline.

Guyana's public works ministry began load-testing the new US$35 million four-lane bridge across the Demerara River at Linden, which is due to open by 5 October and replace a single-lane bridge from the 1960s.

Elisa Carrió filed a criminal complaint against Argentina’s President Javier Milei on 1 October, accusing him of abuse of authority and gender violence over posts calling journalist Maru Duffard ‘corrupt trash’ and a ‘filthy leftie’.

Chile’s teachers’ union has called the police response to Thursday’s student march in Santiago “brutal and unjustified”.

Mexico City’s Congress voted 46 to 17 to move the election of the capital’s remaining judges and magistrates from 2027 to the first Sunday of June 2028.

Argentina’s tax revenue rose 38.3% in September to 21.36 trillion pesos (about US$14.0 billion), an estimated 3.7% above inflation, ARCA said on 1 October.

Venezuela coffee growers in Portuguesa and Lara say roasting companies pay up to US$80 a sack less than the prices agreed with the authorities in August, and below their production costs.

Rio's 28th film festival opened with a Lorca-inspired Spanish gala at the Cine Odeon.

Ecuador’s National Electoral Council plans to rent generators and buy backup power units for the 29 November local and citizen-council elections, as a dry season drains the hydropower dams that supply most of the country’s electricity.

ArcelorMittal plans more than US$1.9 billion of new investment in Brazil after anti-dumping duties cut steel imports, its Brazil chief told Folha.

About 30 staff at a public secondary school in La Unión, Cartago, stopped teaching on 1 October.

Germany’s parliamentary state secretary for economy and energy, Stefan Rouenhoff, says lithium from Peru’s Puno region could interest German carmakers through direct investment or long-term purchase contracts.

Bruce Mac Master resigned as president of ANDI, Colombia’s main industry lobby, on 1 October 2026, saying multiple pressures had hurt its ability to act freely after weeks of conflict with the government.

Bolivia's Ombudsman's Office has counted 120 deaths in Potosí's mines so far in 2026, most of them young day labourers with no benefits or health insurance.

Trinidad and Tobago's lower house voted 23–10 to raise the age for alcohol and tobacco to 21 and for cannabis and gambling to 25.

The IMF board approved two overdue reviews of El Salvador’s US$1.4 billion loan on 1 October, releasing about US$138 million, as growth beats expectations but net foreign investment fell 92% in the second quarter.

Peru’s electoral court has set 29 November for runoffs in regions where no candidate for governor wins 30% on Sunday.

Venezuela's power deficit is about 3,000 megawatts, roughly a fifth of demand, two engineers told El Nacional.

Fired on 24 September, Costa Rica’s former foreign minister Manuel Tovar no longer has ministerial immunity.

The national strike at Caixa Econômica Federal reached its 22nd day on 2 October, the final Friday before Brazil votes, with no new offer on the table.

The IMF Executive Board is expected to decide on 2 October on Bolivia's US$1.9 billion loan, the centrepiece of President Paz's crisis programme.

TV Globo cancelled Brazil's final presidential debate hours before airtime on 1 October, after court rulings, Lula's no-show and Flávio Bolsonaro's walkout.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress on 21 September 2026 that human-rights conditions on US$320 million of Egypt's military aid are waived.

Eritrea severed all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia on 1 October 2026, hours after Addis Ababa closed its embassy in Asmara and expelled 10 diplomats.

Brazil’s President Lula has signed a measure granting women under a protective order up to six months of paid leave, funded by the INSS, without a new medical assessment.

Nigeria’s public sector unions have called a three-day warning strike from Friday, 2 October, over petrol prices, a wage award and a new minimum wage.

Mexico PMI from IMEF rose to 50.0 in September 2026 from 49.9, the neutral line after months of contraction, while services stayed weak at 49.2.

Rio Times · Africa Intelligence Brief October 1, 2026 — Ethiopia and Eritrea sever diplomatic ties; explosions heard in Addis Ababa after a drone ban; at least 52 civilians dead around Alamata; Tinubu declares an age of prosperity; Mali begins its school…

Rio Times · Asia Intelligence Brief October 1, 2026 — South Korea posts record exports of US$120.9 billion on US$60.3 billion of chips; Lee Jae Myung offers the North talks and promises nuclear submarines; Japan's Tankan hits an eight-year high; India's s…

Rio Times · Europe Intelligence Brief October 1, 2026 — Two drones hit a Kyiv bridge and the grounds of a nuclear institute; UK gilt yields touch 6 per cent; Germany's inflation reaches 3.3 per cent; France's €54 billion (about US$61 billion) budget meets…

Rio Times · USA & Canada Intelligence Brief October 1, 2026 — The 10-year Treasury yield reached 5.342 per cent, its highest since 2002; Carney and Smith named the Pacific Link pipeline Canada’s first national-interest project; seven states sued over about

Ethiopia and Eritrea cut ties, Nigerian unions answer Independence Day with a strike call and Zambian fuel jumps 24%: the mood across Africa on Thursday.

Morocco's MASI fell 0.87% to 17,579.17 points on Thursday after a positive open, as TGCC dominated trading and the dirham eased against the US dollar.

Safaricom lifted Nairobi on Thursday, pushing the NSE All Share Index up 0.5% to 246.82 while the shilling held steady at 129.71 per US dollar.

The rand weakened 1.5% to about R16.67 per dollar on Thursday, pulling Johannesburg bank shares lower while gold miners gained and factory data improved.