Tom Phillips

Rio’s bloodiest day: the untold story of Brazil’s most deadly police raid In interviews with community leaders, lawyers, security specialists and bereaved relatives, the Guardian pieces together how an operation targeting a criminal gang left 122 people dead last October

"In more than two dozen interviews with community leaders, lawyers, security specialists and bereaved relatives, the Guardian pieced together the story of the bloodiest day in Rio’s modern history" www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

The best podcasts of 2025 They cover fake wars, true crimes and chatbot romances

Our @theguardian.com podcast 'Missing in the Amazon' about Bruno Pereira & Dom Phillips is one of the @economist.com's best podcasts of 2025! www.economist.com/culture/2025...

‘Follow the path of exiles’: María Corina Machado’s US-aided escape from Venezuela Nobel peace laureate’s decision to flee on people-smuggling route is highly symbolic, but will her influence wane if unable to return?

“To fulfill her promise of reuniting Venezuela’s families, she first had to follow the path of the exiles who went before her" www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

“This is war”: Is Trump about to invade Venezuela?

For the latest Politics Weekly America, I talk to the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent @tomphillips.bsky.social asking the question: is Trump about to invade Venezuela? open.spotify.com/episode/29Yi...

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

"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...

Talking Venezuela, Latin America & Trump on today's Politics Weekly America podcast with @jonathanfreedland.bsky.social

Trump’s pardon of Honduras’s ex-president shows counter-drug effort is ‘based on lies and hypocrisy’ Why has Trump blown up alleged narco boats in the Caribbean and at the same time decided to let a big time trafficker off the hook?

“It just shows that the entire counter-drug effort of Donald Trump is a charade” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

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.

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...

Why? That’s where it is

‘Foam that’s washed away’: support dissolves as Bolsonaro starts 27-year jail term Brazil shows little sign of feared rightwing rebellion, with only a few die-hards protesting outside prison

“The unexpectedly lethargic response to Jair Bolsonaro’s incarceration has caused some to wonder if his grip over the Brazilian right has been shattered” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Missing in the Amazon: the disappearance – episode 1 – podcast Three years ago British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous defender Bruno Pereira vanished while on a reporting trip near Brazil’s remote Javari valley. The Guardian’s Latin America corr...

If you haven’t listened to it yet you can find Missing in the Amazon here on the Guardian, or wherever you get your podcasts www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

Jair Bolsonaro ordered to start 27-year prison term for plotting Brazil coup Ex-president to start serving term in 12 sq metre bedroom in police base in Brasília after time for appeals elapses

27 years in a 12 sq meter room www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Bolsonaro says he took a soldering iron to his ankle tag out of “curiosity”

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

“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”

meu menor, mas talvez melhor lede, i think : )

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

“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...

Thanks man!

Over the moon that our Bruno and Dom podcast Missing in the Amazon has been nominated for a Rose D’Or! 🙏🏽

‘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

On the eve of Chile's presidential election today, we followed the footsteps of the far-right favorite, José Antonio Kast, to its most northerly village, in the Andes 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

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

“An iron fist! That’s what we need! Like a Bukele!”: the ultra-conservative politician José Antonio Kast closes in on the presidency in Chile with a Trumpian pitch on crime & immigration www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

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

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”

Thousands join protests in Rio favela after deadliest ever police raid Demonstrators demand inquiry after operation on Tuesday in which at least 121 people were killed

“It’s so sad to see what’s happening in our communities. It’s terrible what the people who live there are going through … Those who live in war zones will understand this pain, this despair and this revolt.”

‘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

“In 30 years working in the favelas this is the greatest act of savagery, the biggest massacre I have seen”

Horrifying report from @tomphillips.bsky.social on Rio’s deadliest-ever police raid

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

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...

Brazil: at least 64 reported killed in Rio’s worst day of violence amid police favela raids Governor says city ‘at war’ after gunfights between troops and Red Command drug traffickers who reportedly used weaponised drones

"This doesn’t solve the problem,” said Rene Silva, from @vozdascomunidades.com.br “Rio’s crime problem needs to be combated in other places – not just in the favelas" www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Not AI

That Joe Biden was not Joe Biden? 😬

Brazilian president will seek fourth term at age 80: ‘I’ve got as much energy as when I was 30’ Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who first ran for elected office in 1982, announced he will run again in next year’s election

“He’s not Joe Biden,” Lula’s friend and biographer, Fernando Morais, tells me. “He’s someone who has astounding physical energy, not to mention the energy of his soul”

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

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.