Tom Phillips

@tomphillips.bsky.social

Latin America correspondent for the @guardian based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 🇧🇷 via London 🇬🇧, Beijing 🇨🇳 and Mexico City 🇲🇽 Say hello: tom.phillips@theguardian.com

"The last thing we want is for South America to become a war zone – and a war zone that would inevitably not just be a war between the US and Venezuela. It would end up having global involvement and this would be really unfortunate" www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

US attack on Venezuela risks ‘Vietnam-style’ regional conflict, warns Lula adviser

Brazil aide says Trump’s closure of Venezuelan airspace amounts to an ‘act of war’ that could escalate

theguardian.com

Exclusive: Hegseth ordered everyone killed in the first alleged drug boat strike on Sept. 2, prompting a second hit to finish off survivors in the water in a mission led by SEAL Team 6. Ordering no quarter could legally perilous www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order to kill all crew members in the Sept. 2 strike on a suspected drug boat. Navy SEALs fired a second missile.

washingtonpost.com

“Moraes said Bolsonaro’s electronic ankle monitor had been tampered with at 12.08am on Saturday. That suggested “the convict had planned to break the ankle monitor in order to ensure the success of his escape, aided by the confusion caused by the protest”

Brazilian police arrest Bolsonaro amid suspicions he was about to flee

Politician reportedly taken from his villa into custody at a federal police base about 7 miles from presidential palace

theguardian.com

“Nobody wants Bolsonaro to be put in a dungeon. Nobody wants Bolsonaro to be put in solitary confinement or for him to have to sleep on the floor. We want him to receive dignified treatment – but dignified treatment in prison,” said ⁦‪@reimont.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Jailhouse shock: Brazil coup monger Bolsonaro finally faces life behind bars

The former president’s far-right supporters have discovered a new interest in prison conditions as incarceration looms

theguardian.com

3/ José Antonio Kast is polling second behind Jara, and is the likely winner of a runoff. He has campaigned on vilifying migrants, calling immigration an invasion, and proposing deportations and building barriers on the border. @tomphillips.bsky.social reports: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

‘We need an iron fist’: the Trump-inspired favourite to win Chile’s election

José Antonio Kast, 59, is appealing to voters with a hard-right pitch on crime and immigration

theguardian.com

In 1988, on the eve of Just Cause, the US indicted Noriega for drug smuggling – just as they have w/ Maduro who recently had a $50m bounty put on his head. “So they’ve established a convenient pretext if they choose to pursue a military route”

US military buildup off Venezuela coast stirs echoes of 1989 Panama invasion

Some see anti-Noriega operation as model for deposing Maduro but others say US-orchestrated military coup is more likely option

theguardian.com

Between 4.15am and 9am, when government body collectors finally arrived, the Guardian witnessed pick up trucks delivering dozens of corpses to a square in Vila Cruzeiro named after Saint Luke the Evangelist. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

‘This was a slaughter, not an operation’: the favela reeling from Rio’s deadliest police raid

Residents of Vila Cruzeiro gather bodies after more than 130 were killed in pre-dawn assault

theguardian.com

A Venezuela mission would not be the first in Latin America & the Caribbean conducted by the Night Stalkers, whose pilots specialise in infiltrating and exfiltrating special forces troops – called “customers” – from hostile places, nearly always at night.

US ‘Night Stalkers’ seen in Caribbean as fears of regime change rise in Venezuela

Elite helicopter unit’s part in military deployment comes as Donald Trump ramps up pressure on Nicolás Maduro

theguardian.com