There’s a bustling trade in people and goods across the Guatemala-Mexico river border this week. But almost the entire flow of people skirts the route across the road bridge and tries to avoid official eyes by floating across the water.

Makeshift rafts of wood and truck inner tubes carry families across the Suchiate River – most of them getting set to cross yet another country as they aim for the United States and hopes of a better life.

They are part of a continuing surge of travelers impacting towns and cities in Mexico, which announced new measures this month, as well as in the US.

Crossings cost about US$1.50 a person, said Javier Guillen, though rates surge to $20 a head for a more dangerous night-time trip. And sometimes the fares must be paid in US currency.

Guillen, a trained chef, said he felt “a little calmer” having reached Mexico. Marchan added: “We are almost there, but also scared because they say Mexico is a little dangerous.”

The couple, tired but still hopeful of reaching friends living in Alexandria, Virginia, chatted on the dusty Mexican side of the Suchiate where many migrants have made camp.

Laundry washed in the river they had just crossed hangs from string tied between trees, and entrepreneurs arrive to sell food to anyone who still has money.

While they had used the unofficial inner-tube ferries to reach Mexico, they said they would be heading to government offices soon to seek asylum or permission to transit the country to go on to the US.

The migrants from the riverbank will head to Tapachula – an hour’s drive or a day’s walk from the border. Mexican officials estimate there are already 15,000 to 17,000 migrants in Tapachula, waiting for papers or aid to get back on the road north.

Migrant crossings along the US-Mexico border are rising, surpassing 8,600 over a 24-hour period last week, according to a Department of Homeland Security official. That’s up from around 3,500 daily border arrests after the expiration of Title 42 in May triggered new consequences for those who cross the border illegally.

Mexico said about 77,000 migrants applied for asylum there last year and the number could double this year.

The scene at the river supports that expectation. Even as few vehicles used the Rodolfo Robles bridge, the ferrymen went back and forth, back and forth, each time bringing more and more people to Mexico.

A Russian court has rejected an appeal by jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny against a 19-year prison sentence on extremism charges, according to Russian state media RIA, in the latest crackdown on the outspoken Kremlin critic.

Navalny was sentenced in August, after he was found guilty of creating an extremist community, financing extremist activities and numerous other crimes.

He is already serving sentences of 11-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility on fraud and other charges he denies. Navalny appeared at the hearing on Tuesday via video link from a penal colony in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow.

Supporters of Navalny claim his arrest and incarceration are a politically motivated attempt to stifle his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny’s team said the hearing was moved behind closed doors, after a letter from Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs described potential unspecified danger to the participants in an open trial.

“The main reason why these processes are taking place behind closed doors is the restriction of my and Kholodny’s rights,” Navalny told the prosecutor on Tuesday.

Daniel Kholodny, the former technical director of Navalny’s YouTube channel, was sentenced to eight years in August, in the same extremism case.

Navalny has been imprisoned in Russia since returning to the country in January 2021, on charges of violating terms of probation related to a historic fraud case, which he dismisses as politically targeted.

In August 2020, he was taken from Russia to Germany after being poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. Navalny arrived in a coma to a Berlin hospital, following a medical evacuation flight from the Siberian city of Omsk.

Moscow’s clampdown on Navalny precedes the war in Ukraine, but the Kremlin has ramped up measures against internal opposition and free speech since launching its invasion.

Mali’s military junta on Monday said it would postpone February elections for technical reasons, further pushing back a timeline for a return to democratic rule after two coups.

Mali had been expected to hold the first round of the vote on Feb. 4, 2024, and a second round two weeks later, which was already a two-year delay to a timetable originally agreed by the West African country’s interim authorities.

The junta’s statement said the delay would be small and was due to several factors including a dispute with a French firm over a civil registry database. It said it would give a new timeline at a later date.

It accused the French-based international tech company IDEMIA, which provided a civil identification system known as RAVEC to the former government, of holding its database “hostage” since March due to unpaid bills.

The situation makes it impossible to register newly eligible voters and update the voter registry, and is slowing down the roll out of a new biometric identity card, the junta said.

A spokesperson for IDEMIA said the company has no contract with Mali’s interim authorities and confirmed that its service had been shut down because of outstanding invoices.

The junta said it would migrate its current civil identification data to a new system “exclusively under Malian control.”

West Africa’s main political and economic body ECOWAS has not yet commented on the announcement.

The bloc has been leading tense negotiations with Mali and other coup-hit West African nations to restore democratic rule within acceptable timelines.

Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons Anthony Rota resigned his post Tuesday, days after he praised a Ukrainian veteran who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II.

On Friday, following a joint address to parliament by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Rota lauded Yaroslav Hunka, 98, as a Ukrainian-Canadian war hero who “fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russian aggressors then, and continues to support the troops today.”

But in the days since, human rights and Jewish organizations have condemned Rota’s recognition, saying Hunka served in a Nazi military unit known as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS.

“This house is above any of us, therefore I must step down as your speaker,” Rota said in parliament Tuesday afternoon, reiterating his “profound regret for my error.”

“That public recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities, including the Jewish community in Canada and around the world, in addition to survivors of Nazi atrocities in Poland, among other nations,” Rota, who is a member of the Liberal party, added. “I accept full responsibility for my actions.”

Rota’s recognition of Hunka last week prompted a standing ovation. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called the incident “deeply embarrassing.”

The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division was part of the Nazi SS organization declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1946, which determined the Nazi group had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Jewish human rights organization B’nai Brith Canada in a statement condemned the Ukrainian volunteers who served in the unit as “ultra-nationalist ideologues” who “dreamed of an ethnically homogenous Ukrainian state and endorsed the idea of ethnic cleansing.”

Recognizing Hunka was “beyond outrageous,” B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn said, adding, “We cannot allow the whitewashing of history.”

“Canadian soldiers fought and died to free the world from the evils of Nazi brutality,” he said.

Rota apologized in a statement Sunday and on the floor of parliament Tuesday, when he said he had “become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to recognize this individual.”

Rota took full responsibility, saying it was his decision alone to acknowledge Hunka, who Rota said is from his electoral district.

“No one – not even anyone among you, fellow parliamentarians, or from the Ukrainian delegation – was privy to my intention or my remarks prior to their delivery,” he said.

Fears grew of a humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh Tuesday as a senior US official warned of malnutrition among the tens of thousands fleeing the breakaway region for Armenia.

Senior US officials – including US Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power and US State Department acting assistant secretary Yuri Kim – met Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the capital Yerevan Monday.

Power traveled to Yerevan “to affirm US support for Armenia’s sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and democracy and help address humanitarian needs stemming from the recent violence in Nagorno-Karabakh,” the aid agency said in a statement Monday.

The visit came days after Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive and said it had taken back full control of the breakaway region, sparking an exodus of the area’s ethnic Armenian population.

By Tuesday evening, over 28,000 “forcibly displaced” people from Nagorno-Karabakh had arrived in Armenia, the Armenian government announced in a Facebook post.

Speaking from the Armenian village of Kornidzor, near the border with Azerbaijan, Power said, “It is absolutely critical that independent monitors as well as humanitarian organizations get access to the people in Nagorno-Karabakh who still have dire needs.

“The military attacks of last week have made a dire situation even worse,” Power said Tuesday, adding that many of those who had arrived were suffering from “severe malnutrition,” according to doctors at the scene.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been under blockade since December 2022, when Azerbaijan-backed activists established a military checkpoint on the Lachin corridor – the only road connecting the landlocked enclave to Armenia.

The blockade prevented the import of food, fuel and medicine to Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting fears that residents were being left to starve. A former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor said in August there is “reasonable basis to believe that genocide is being committed against Armenians” in the region.

The closure of the Lachin corridor has also prevented international organizations and foreign media from accessing Nagorno-Karabakh. The road was only opened last weekend to allow residents to flee.

“We know that there are injured civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh who need to be evacuated,” Power said, adding that Azerbaijan has a responsibility to facilitate this.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday about the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to a State Department spokesperson.

“The secretary spoke again to President Aliyev today and underscored the urgency of no further hostilities, that there be unconditional protections and freedom of movement for civilians, that there be unhindered humanitarian access to Nagorno Karabakh,” said State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller at a press briefing.

Miller also said that the US expects Aliyev to abide by his commitment to “no further military action.”

Power announced Tuesday that the US would provide $11.5 million in humanitarian assistance to the region.

The European Union also announced 5 million euros (around $5.2 million) in aid.

“This aid will be delivered by various EU humanitarian partners operating in Armenia to reach around 25 000 people,” the EU said in a statement Tuesday. “The priority is to provide cash assistance, shelter, food security and livelihoods assistance.”

Deadly explosion

Azerbaijan’s brief but bloody offensive killed more than 200 people and injured many more, before Karabakh officials agreed to a Russia-brokered ceasefire in which they agreed to dissolve their armed forces.

But as thousands were attempting to flee the enclave on Monday evening, a powerful explosion ripped through a gas station near Stepanakert, where people had been attempting to get fuel before driving to Armenia.

The incident left at least 68 people dead and 290 injured, according to the Nagorno-Karabakh Human Rights Ombudsman. Over 100 people remain missing, the Ombudsman’s office also said.

Videos on social media showed a crowded hospital in the city as medical staff attempted to treat burn patients. “At this moment, we do not have any medical resources left that can help us. In terms of medication, we do not have [anti-burn] antibiotics. We have a very high number of burn patients,” said a member of the medical staff at a hospital in Stepanakert, in a video shared Monday by local journalist Siranush Sargsyan.

The United Nations’ human rights office has criticized the French government for banning French athletes from wearing the hijab at the Paris Olympics next year.

“No one should impose on a woman what she needs to wear, or not wear,” said Maria Hurtado, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, on Tuesday.

“In general, according to the committee on elimination of discrimination against women, any state party of the convention, in this case France, has an obligation to take all the appropriate measures to modify any social or cultural patterns which are based on the idea of inferiority or superiority of either sexes,” Hurtado added.

“Having said that, the discriminatory practices against a group can have harmful consequences. That is why according to international human right standards, restrictions of expressions of religions or beliefs such as attire choices are only acceptable under really specific circumstances that address legitimate concerns for public safety, public order or public health or morals in a necessary and proportionate fashion,” she added.

Hurtado’s comments came after French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra said on Sunday French athletes will not be allowed to wear a hijab at the Paris Olympics next year, arguing in favor of “a strict regime of secularism, applied rigorously in the field of sport.”

“What does that mean? That means a ban on any type of proselytising and the absolute neutrality of the public service,” Oudéa-Castera told state broadcaster France 3.

The ministry said that “in accordance” with that ruling, “French teams are subject to the principle of public service neutrality, from the moment they are selected to this end in all national and international competitions.” “Thus, one cannot wear a headscarf (or any other accessory or outfit demonstrating a religious affiliation) when representing France in a national or international sporting competition,” it added.

She added the rules applying to other athletes will be set by each international federation, under the supervision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

“There will be heterogeneity between sports,” the French minister added.

A floating barrier installed by China to prevent Filipino boats from fishing in a disputed area of the South China Sea has been removed, Philippine authorities said Monday, in the latest flashpoint between Manila and Beijing over their competing maritime claims.

Video released by the Philippine Coast Guard on Monday showed a Filipino diver cut what it said earlier was a 300-meter (984-feet) long string of buoys near Bajo de Masinloc, also known as Scarborough Shoal, a small but strategic reef and fertile fishing ground 130 miles (200 kilometers) west of the Philippine island of Luzon.

The footage showed the diver with a simple mask and snorkel slipping below the waves to use a small knife to cut through rope after reaching the barrier on a rickety fishing boat with a small crew.

The video is a vivid illustration of a fraught power struggle that has been playing out for years in the South China Sea as Manila tries to push back against increasingly assertive claims to the disputed strategic waterway by Beijing.

Philippine authorities claimed Sunday that three Chinese Coast Guard boats and a Chinese maritime militia service boat had installed the barrier following the arrival of a Philippine government vessel in the area.

“The barrier posed a hazard to navigation, a clear violation of international law,” the Philippine Coast Guard said in a statement Monday, adding that it also infringed on Philippine sovereignty.

In a regular press briefing Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said “China is resolved in safeguarding its sovereignty and maritime interests over Huangyan Island,” referring to the disputed shoal by its Chinese name.

“We advise the Philippines not to make provocations or seek troubles,” he added.

Beijing claims “indisputable sovereignty” over almost all of the 1.3 million square miles of the South China Sea, as well as most of the islands and sandbars within it, including many features that are hundreds of miles away from China’s mainland.

Over the past two decades China has occupied a number of reefs and atolls across the South China Sea, building up military installations, including runways and ports, which have not only challenged the Philippines’ sovereignty and fishing rights but have also endangered marine biodiversity in the highly contested resource-rich waterway.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines in a landmark maritime dispute, which concluded that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea.

Beijing has ignored the ruling.

Western marine security experts, along with officials from the Philippines and the United States, have increasingly accused Beijing of using ostensibly civilian fishing vessels as a maritime militia that acts as an unofficial – and officially deniable – force that China uses to push its territorial claims both in the South China Sea and beyond.

The situation comes days after the Philippine Coast Guard accused China’s maritime militia of turning vast patches of coral near the Palawan island chain into a bleached and broken wasteland.

China’s foreign ministry dismissed those allegations as “false and groundless.”

South Korea showcased an arsenal of advanced weaponry in a military parade on Tuesday, rolling tanks and missiles down the streets of its rain-soaked capital during the first event of its kind in a decade.

The parade, held to mark the 75th Armed Forces Day commemorating the founding of the country’s armed forces, comes against the backdrop of rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, as South Korea draws closer to the United States and Japan against the threat of North Korea’s accelerating weapons program.

The event kicked off in the morning with ceremonies and performances at the Seoul Air Base, where President Yoon Suk Yeol delivered an address warning Pyongyang against ever using nuclear weapons.

“If North Korea uses nuclear weapons, its regime will be brought to an end by an overwhelming response from the (Seoul-Washington) alliance,” Yoon said, speaking in the rain.

The parade – a first for South Korea since 2013 – followed in the afternoon, with troops and military equipment rolling through the heart of Seoul, passing by the city hall and historic Gwanghwamun Square. The roads were lined with spectators, many wearing plastic ponchos and holding umbrellas in the rain.

Several thousand South Korean soldiers and more than 300 US troops marched during the event, according to the Ministry of National Defense. Other performances included a military band, flag-bearers, and mascots from each military unit.

On display were a variety of homegrown equipment including drones, tanks and armored personnel carriers. Soldiers in vehicles waved to the crowd as they passed by; several carriers had the South Korean flag affixed to the exterior.

Peter Layton, a visiting fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University, said while the parade served to send “a message to an external audience,” including partners like the United States and regional powers such as North Korea and China, the event “is really about domestic factors.”

The parade and Yoon’s presence “help portray (South) Korea to the Korean people that the country is now an important power on the world stage, a pivotal global power as the current president calls it,” he said. It also boosts public perception of the Korean defense industry, which is “achieving remarkable export success” while other economic sectors fall flat, he added.

Yoon has previously stated his goal to make South Korea one of the world’s top four arms exporters, after the US, Russia and France. While it’s still a few places away in the rankings, the industry has grown rapidly, with $7 billion of defense exports in 2021, according to the Export-Import Bank of Korea.

Layton added that the parade also underscores South Korea’s enduring alliance with the US – with the two countries drawing closer, as well as with Japan, as North Korea ramps up its weapons testing.

International intelligence has also suggested since last year that Pyongyang may be preparing to resume nuclear testing, with satellite imagery showing activity at its underground nuclear test site.

In April this year, Yoon and US President Joe Biden announced a key new agreement that aims to deter North Korean aggression, including a new US commitment to deploy a nuclear-armed submarine in South Korea for the first time since the early 1980s.

Yoon, Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also held a historic summit in August, announcing new military exercises and a hotline for crisis communications. It marked the first time Biden hosted foreign leaders at the Camp David retreat in Maryland, a site of historic diplomatic negotiations for past presidents.

This story has been updated to more accurately describe the weapons on display during the parade.

Burkina Faso’s military junta on Monday suspended the French news magazine Jeune Afrique for publishing “untruthful” articles that reported tension and discontent within the country’s armed forces, it said in a statement.

Jeune Afrique’s suspension marks the latest escalation in a crackdown on French media since the West African country fell under military rule last year.

The statement accused the publication of seeking to discredit the armed forces and of manipulating information to “spread chaos” in the country following two articles published over the past four days.

Jeune Afrique did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

A soured relationship

Relations between Burkina Faso and its former colonizer France have soured since frustrations over worsening insecurity linked to a jihadist insurgency spurred two military takeovers last year.

These tensions have led to expulsion orders for diplomatic officials, including the French ambassador to the country, and fueled a backlash against foreign media.

The junta has already suspended French-funded broadcasters Radio France Internationale and France24 for allegedly giving voice to Islamist militants staging an insurgency across the Sahel region south of the Sahara. Both publications denied the accusations.

French television channel La Chaine Info, of private broadcaster TF1, was suspended for three months in June for airing a report on the insurgency that “lacked objectivity”. TF1 declined to comment at the time.

In April, two French journalists working for newspapers Le Monde and Liberation were expelled from the country.

Liberation said the suspension was unjustified as the two journalists were of “perfect integrity” and had all their paperwork in order.

It’s 6.30 a.m. on a late summer morning in Paris. Amid the rumbling coming from the Stalingrad Métro station, in the northeast of the French capital, hundreds of migrants, mostly men, sleep crammed under an overpass. Some rest on pieces of cardboard and old mattresses behind a urine-doused fence, others lie awake by the side of the street.

Word is spreading that government buses are about to come and collect them. Some wait eagerly, hoping they’ll finally be offered housing, most are confused and fearful, concerned they’ll be forced to leave Paris.

For the past couple of months, the French government has been working to accelerate the transfer of Paris’ homeless to other parts of the country, as part of a plan to relieve some of the pressure on the capital’s emergency shelter services. Each week, between 50 and 150 people are taken to one of 10 locations across France, according to the government.

In spite of the government’s denial of any connection to the Olympics, which Paris will host in the summer of 2024, some non-governmental organizations and elected officials believe the Games are part of the reason why this relocation plan has been recently activated.

Obsa made the perilous journey to France in 2017, traveling from Ethiopia all the way through Sudan and Libya, and then across the Mediterranean to Italy.

He now has a full-time job in Paris but, even after so many years in the city, he has not been able to find permanent accommodation, largely due to extremely high rental costs in the capital and very limited availability of more affordable social housing. Obsa was relying on emergency housing in a hotel but says it kicked him out after his wife joined him. “They just refused. They said: we don’t have room for your wife,” he recalled.

Obsa is not alone in that experience. Ahead of next year’s Olympic Games, hotels in Paris have started canceling their emergency housing contracts with the government to make space for the expected influx of tourists, according to Paul Alauzy from Medecins Du Monde, an NGO that works with homeless migrants.

In any case, the lost hotel rooms are far from being the main problem for France’s homeless population. Around half of the country’s homeless are concentrated in the Ile-de-France region, where they have access to more charities, job opportunities and personal connections.

According to figures from the Ministry of Housing, of the just over 200,000 homeless people housed each night in the country, 100,000 are in the Ile-de-France. Simply put, there are not enough emergency shelter spots in Paris to accommodate everyone.

‘Crucial moment’ for Paris

Staff and volunteers from local humanitarian organizations and the Paris police talk to migrants who appear at a loss about what is happening.

Authorities inform the migrants through a megaphone that they can board one of the buses to go to Marseille or Bordeaux, where they will be housed. Those who wish to stay in the capital are encouraged to show that they have a long-term work contract.

Even then, however, they won’t be guaranteed a roof over their head. “I can’t leave, I have a one-year job contract,” said Obsa, who works as an IT administrator. “I have to at least stay in the Ile-de-France region.”

Some 10 regional temporary shelters, known as SAS, have been set up around the country to welcome the new arrivals outside of Paris, according to the Dihal. Each SAS can accommodate up to 50 people.

“All of this is happening at a crucial moment, when there is also the preparation for the Olympic Games,” said Yann Manzi, founder of Utopia 56, a French NGO that works with homeless migrants, “and the inability of the state to deal with the reality of what is happening on the streets of Paris, which means continuing to leave thousands of people that have arrived on our territory without any support.”

In 2022, France received 155,773 asylum applications, according to the government. The Minister of Interior Gerald Darmanin has said in a number of televised interviews that France would openly welcome political refugees, but that its doors would remain shut to any migrants arriving in the country illegally who were not facing persecution in their home countries. According to government figures, in 2022, close to 20,000 irregular immigrants were deported.

In a televised interview Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron insisted France was doing its part to help the migrants that arrive on Europe’s shores, spending, among other things, around 2 billion euros each year on emergency accommodation for homeless people. He concluded, however, that the country simply “cannot take in all the misery in the world.”

“The situation regarding emergency accommodation in the Ile-de-France region is unfortunately nothing new, and has become more critical in recent months, irrespective of the fact that the region is hosting the Paris 2024 Games next year,” the spokesperson said.

‘We are just moving the problem’

Manzi, of Utopia 56, thinks the relocation effort could be a good idea in principle, but says the problem is that the regional shelters will only house people for three weeks, according to the cities tasked with hosting them, and what happens after that remains uncertain.

In the SAS, some people are helped to find housing and employment for which they may be eligible, based on their legal status, but it doesn’t work out for everyone. “On average, 25 to 30% (of people) go back to the streets,” said Manzi. “They find themselves at the end of these three weeks without any solution, and therefore end up on the sidewalks again.”

According to the Dihal, in recent weeks, the number of people who have left the SAS they were sent to was around 17%.

The other problem is the lack of emergency housing spaces available in the regions where migrants are being transferred to. “So people will find themselves in the streets again, just not in Paris. We remove them from Paris and we put them on the streets elsewhere… we are just moving the problem, without solving it,” said Brice.

“The question of welcoming foreigners is a politically and socially difficult one,” said Brice, referring to migrants. “And so, the government has chosen not to talk about it which, in my opinion, is a mistake.”

Brice believes that sharing reception responsibilities across regions, if done properly, could allow France to offer much more careful, humane and ultimately efficient support to the thousands of migrants who enter the country each year. For the system to work, however, it needs to be well financed and well managed, said Brice. Most importantly, as activists and host cities maintain, all those involved – from the migrants being relocated, to the cities being asked to host them – need to be well informed and actively involved in planning.

“If the government does not take responsibility and does not provide itself with the proper means, it risks defeating the only useful solution for properly welcoming foreigners in this country,” Brice concluded.

No guarantee of long-term housing

Back in the homeless camp under Stalingrad Métro station, 29-year-old Abdullatif, from Afghanistan, looks stressed. “I heard we have to move out of Paris but I don’t want to. I am finally starting training as an electrician and I need to stay here,” said Abdullatif, who would only give his first name. He decides to remain in Paris.

Yet the fate of those who decide to stay in the capital is also uncertain. “You either accept what they offer you or you are back on the streets,” explained Alauzy, from Medecins Du Monde, who has now witnessed several relocation operations.

Abdullatif and Obsa, and others who opted against relocation, are taken aboard a “Paris” bus, the precise destination unknown.

“They told me there is no place for me here, not even in the Ile-de-France region. It is unbelievable… How does an entire region not have space for two people?”