Venezuela’s exiled former presidential candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, returns to South America Friday in a show of defiance as Caracas prepares to inaugurate current President Nicolas Maduro, who has been in office since 2013.

González’s first stop: a meeting with Argentina’s far-right President Javier Milei in Buenos Aires on Saturday. Milei has been a vocal critic of the Venezuelan regime, calling Maduro a “criminal” after Venezuela expelled Argentina’s diplomats in the aftermath of the contentious election, which was marred with allegations of vote rigging.

It is unclear where else González plans on going during his tour; he has previously pledged to return to Venezuela to inaugurate his own government.

The former diplomat fled the country in September and sought asylum in Spain after a warrant was issued for his arrest by Venezuela’s public prosecutor’s office, amid a crackdown on the country’s opposition movement.

The warrant capped off a fractious few months, which saw Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), a body stacked with Maduro allies, formally declare the longtime strongman the winner of the July 28 election -– without providing voting tallies.

The official results attracted widespread skepticism from abroad as the opposition insisted that it had won, releasing tens of thousands of voting tallies gathered from across the country, that they said proved González won by a landslide.

The United States and Argentina, among others, have gone on to recognize González as Venezuela’s rightful president-elect.

But Maduro has repeatedly dismissed claims that the vote was stolen, and says he is ready to begin a new term on January 10.

For González, returning to Venezuela would be filled with risk. On Thursday, Venezuela’s Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigation Corps (CICPC) offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to González’s arrest, it said on Instagram.

CICPC said González is wanted for several crimes, including conspiracy, complicity in the use of violent acts against the republic, usurpation of functions, forgery of documents, money laundering, disregard for State institutions, instigation to disobedience of the law and criminal association.

Transgender dancer Jin Xing’s ascent to the upper echelons of Chinese show business is extraordinary in a nation where it has become increasingly difficult for LGBTQ+ people to live openly.

The 57-year-old has been a transgender icon in China for years, admired by some of the country’s most marginalized as a rare example of both success and acceptance, even within officialdom.

But a recent series of sudden and unexplained cancelations by local authorities of appearances by her dance troupe has sparked fears Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s authoritarian drive is ensnaring the country’s most prominent openly transgender personality.

Transgender people in China often face social stigma and institutional discrimination, facing issues in looking for work or simply walking down the street without being stared at.

Jin, however, has managed to carve out a decades-long career that defies the norm. She sells out concerts, hosts TV talk shows and boasts 13.6 million followers on her Weibo social media account. More remarkably, she has managed over the years to secure the endorsement of Communist Party officials.

Chinese state media have called her one of “10 legendary figures of Chinese modern dance” and frequently publish glowing profiles.

For other transgender people, she embodies the hope that one day China may become progressive enough to accept them, just as it embraces her.

“I find her very admirable,” he said, speaking under an alias for fear of retribution from the Chinese authorities.

But signs suggest official acceptance of Jin could now be waning.

Chinese authorities have ramped up ideological control over what they consider the undue influence of Western values, including a crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community.

Late last year, authorities in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou canceled her Jin Xing Dance Theater’s show, citing insufficient documents. Subsequently, venues in other parts of the country also dropped her shows, without explanation.

Some from the transgender community are now worried that Chinese authorities are trying to send a message.

Sam Winter, an associate professor who specializes in Asian transgender issues at Curtin University in Australia, said Jin managed to rally support from the authorities because of her years of achievement – which was hard for officials to dismiss, and began at a time when China seemed to be liberalizing.

“But things seem to have changed. Maybe the earlier shift towards a more liberal atmosphere was the problem,” he said.

Brush with authorities

China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997, before removing it from its official list of mental disorders in 2001.

Until a few years ago, the LGBTQ+ community was still allowed to hold an annual Pride parade in Shanghai and share snippets of their lives on chat groups run by university students on social media WeChat.

But the movement has faced a mounting crackdown under Xi, who has adopted a more authoritarian, socially conservative and patriarchal vision for the country.

Support groups have been forced to disband, with activists harassed by police, Pride parades canceled and films and TV shows featuring same-sex themes banned.

Jin’s brush with Chinese authorities began in late October when the Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism in Guangzhou canceled her show at the city’s opera house slated for December.

The show was an adaptation of “Sunrise,” a classic play by renowned Chinese playwright Cao Yu, which Jin’s troupe had been staging nationwide for the past four years, she wrote in a now-deleted Weibo post criticizing the cancellation, state-affiliated online news portal The Paper reported.

She went on to demand the official in charge give detailed reasons for the cancellation, warning in the post: “Please don’t abuse your public power!”

Direct challenges to Chinese authorities are rare and risky. After her post, Jin’s subsequent shows in the cities of Foshan, Suzhou and the commercial hub of Shanghai – where her troupe is based – were also called off by the venues without explanation.

In a recent interview with France 24, the dancer said she was puzzled by the authorities’ decision given how she had been allowed to perform “for 40 years in China.”

Some Weibo users have speculated that Jin may have crossed a red line by holding a rainbow flag that read “Love is Love,” during an earlier show.

Chinese authorities view the rainbow flag – a global symbol of the LGBTQ+ community – with suspicion.

Jin acknowledged the political sensitivity involved during the France 24 interview but said she only waved the flag to comfort the fan who passed it to her.

“This thing happened in January (2024). After that I performed all over the country and had no issues at all,” she added. “Even today, I am still questioning why.”

Online discussion on China’s heavily censored internet has been split over Jin’s cancelations, from more nationalist rhetoric describing LGBTQ+ issues as some sort of foreign conspiracy, to others expressing sympathy and admiration for Jin.

From military born to ‘China’s Oprah’

Part of what made Jin’s rise extraordinary was that she was born into a military family. Her father was an army officer and her mother is a Japanese interpreter.

After realizing her passion for dance, her parents sent her to one of the best dance schools run by the People’s Liberation Army at the time, according to an interview she gave to state-affiliated online news platform Shine.

That meant that Jin not only received rigorous ballet training but also did tough military drills from the age of nine.

During her teens, she won dance awards as she rose through the military ranks. She was considered a “national property,” according to Shine.

In 1987, she moved to New York to study modern dance on a scholarship and subsequently worked as a choreographer and dancer in Rome and Brussels, before eventually returning to China, where she underwent gender-affirming surgery at the age of 26.

The procedure left her left leg paralyzed for months, she told China Daily.

But Jin bounced back and founded Jin Xing Dance Theatre in 1999.

Not only did she push boundaries as a transgender woman, she also popularized modern dance in China.

As her fame rose over the years, she was invited to host talk shows and soon became known for her straight-talking humor with guests.

The Hollywood Reporter dubbed her the “Oprah of China” and Jin was able to walk the fine line of providing frank discussion without upsetting central authorities.

“I am myself and represent only myself. I will always be Jin Xing and it has nothing to do with gender,” she wrote in a recent post on Weibo.

Struggle for transgender people in China

While her life has been celebrated as a success by China’s transgender community, it’s a far cry from many people’s lived experience.

Cyan said he felt like he would never be accepted and had to hide his identity.

“In mainland China you feel like a street rat. You can never tell anyone you’re transgender wherever you go,” he recalled.

He moved to Canada two years after undergoing a gender-affirming mastectomy – also known as top surgery.

“Both my parents and I agreed that my life as a trans person in China was going to be quite difficult,” he said, adding many of his transgender friends also struggled to find employment.

Gender-affirming surgery is expensive and hard to find in China, Cyan said, and patients face significant hurdles.

Even if money is not an issue, hospitals offering such services are limited and pre-requisites are harsh. For example, the person must have parental consent, regardless of age, and have no criminal record. For many, it is already a non-starter given their parents will never approve.

At the same time, undergoing a full gender affirmation procedure, including the reconstruction of the genitalia, is the only way a person can change their gender on identity documents in China.

“During the day, they’re men. At night, they become women after work, without telling their families,” she said.

“I know some of my friends wouldn’t dare go out during the day and only go to bars in the evening. But even at bars, some get ignored,” said Yao.

What happened to Jin, the dancer, only makes people like Yao more pessimistic about what is to come.

“I knew things are going to happen this way, that the environment (for LGBTQ+ people) will get worse and worse from now on,” she said.

A group of security forces from Guatemala and El Salvador arrived in Haiti on Friday to reinforce a multinational mission tasked with tackling the country’s rampant gang violence, the Haitian National Police announced.

The 75 Guatemalan and eight Salvadoran troops were greeted on the tarmac of the international airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, by a host of high-ranking officials, video released by the police shows.

The officials included the leader of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council Leslie Voltaire, Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, and the United States Ambassador to Haiti Dennis Hankins.

The troops will join the foreign police force known as the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission — a US and United Nations-backed initiative working with the Haitian police to restore security on the island amid an ongoing battle with the violent gangs.

In a statement, Normil Rameau, the acting director general of the National Police, said a “marriage” of the police with the people of Haiti remains “the most effective way to facilitate the total restoration of security and the establishment of lasting peace.”

Haiti has been ravaged by intensifying gang violence, which the government has struggled to contain in the aftermath of President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination in 2021. The island nation has also grappled with natural disasters and a worsening hunger crisis.

The UN Security Council approved the launch of the MSS in 2023 after repeated pleas for international support from Haiti’s government. The mission received the support of the United States, which offered to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and resources.

However, the mission has not been without trouble. It is helmed by hundreds of Kenyan police officers, but their deployment was repeatedly delayed before eventually arriving in June last year. The officers then did not receive pay for months after their arrival.

Violence has continued to plague the country despite the mission’s presence. In November, the US civil aviation regulator grounded all flights to Haiti for weeks, after three jets from US-based airlines were struck by bullets while flying over Port-au-Prince. In a separate incident in October, gangs targeted US Embassy vehicles with gunfire, later prompting the evacuation of 20 embassy staffers.

Godfrey Otunge, the commander of the Kenyan troops in the MSS, welcomed the Guatemalan and Salvadorian soldiers on Friday while praising their partnership with the Haitian government.

“We don’t take it for granted. We have a prime minister who is also our friend,” Otunge said, according to the police video.

Israel is considering limiting humanitarian aid to Gaza after Donald Trump comes into office later this month in a bid to deprive Hamas of resources, according to an Israeli official familiar with the matter.

Since October 7, Israel has been waging war in Gaza trying to dismantle Hamas militarily, but says the militants retain governing capacity through seizing aid. Such a move risks exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation.

“The humanitarian aid is not reaching the right hands,” the official said, who added it was one of “several” options currently being considered.

Relief organizations have consistently called for an increase in the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into the besieged strip, warning for months of the rising risk of famine for civilians.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update on Tuesday that only 2,205 aid trucks had entered Gaza in the month of December, excluding commercial vehicles and fuel.

Israel disputed that number, saying there is no limit on the amount of aid that can enter Gaza and that over 5,000 trucks had entered over the course of the month, according to a statement from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which manages the flow of aid into the strip.

UN officials say the number of trucks entering Gaza before the war was approximately 500 per day, or 15,000 per month.

An estimated 91% of the territory’s 2.1 million residents are facing high levels of acute food insecurity, according to OCHA.

In October, less than a month before the US presidential election, the Biden administration sent a letter to the Israeli government demanding it act to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within 30 days or risk violating US laws governing foreign military assistance, suggesting US military aid could be in jeopardy.

The list of demands included allowing at least 350 trucks a day to enter Gaza while implementing combat pauses to enhance the flow and security for humanitarian convoys and movements.

A week after Trump won the election and the deadline expired, the Biden administration assessed that Israel was not blocking aid, despite key demands contained within the letter remaining unmet.

The State Department said that while changes were needed, progress had been made – so there would be no disruption to US arms supplies.

Sweden began its annual wolf hunt this week, allowing nearly 10% of the endangered species population to be killed, as conservationists raise concerns about the controversial policy.

Since 2010, Sweden has allowed wolves to be hunted on a licensed quota basis. Conservationists say this goes against European Union law and have filed complaints with the EU Commission, which has previously said it is assessing Sweden’s compliance.

Hunted to the point of extinction by the 1970s, wolves have gradually returned to the northern European country, aided by EU conservation legislation.

But now the government is allowing 30 of the estimated 375 animals there to be culled, citing safety concerns for rural dwellers and livestock owners.

It’s part of the government’s effort to drastically reduce the overall number of wolves in the country – from a previous minimum population of 300 to a new minimum of 170. This minimum number, under Sweden’s Environmental Protection Agency, is referred to as a “favorable reference value.”

This is despite the wolf’s status as “highly threatened” on The Swedish Red List, which monitors the extinction risk of species in the Nordic country.

Conservationists were further alarmed last month when the Council of Europe’s Bern Convention committee, which includes 49 countries and the European Union, voted in favor of an EU proposal to lower the protection status of wolves from “strictly protected” to “protected.” The convention was originally established to protect species and habitats.

“Strictly protected” status meant wolves could not be deliberately killed or captured, but with the downgrading, the Council of Europe says member states will now have “additional flexibility” when managing their local wolf populations.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) responded to the decision, calling the EU’s move to weaken wolf protections “a serious misstep, devoid of any solid scientific foundation.”

Conservationists are concerned that if wolf numbers decline there will be an even greater likelihood of genetic problems within the population.

He accused the Swedish government of having “an anti-wildlife sentiment,” saying it had “a much more aggressive anti-carnivore policy” than previous governments.

But some conservationists think the wolves are being used as a political bargaining chip.

Just 3% of the Swedish population are hunters, according to Widstrand, who says those 300,000 people are “crucially important” to the country’s two main political blocs, who are often neck and neck in the polls.

“The hunting organizations have the ears of the politicians,” said Magnus Orrebrant, Chair of the Swedish Carnivore Association (SCA), which advocates for the coexistence of people and carniverous animals, like wolves and bears.

Wolves in Europe

Anti-wolf sentiment is growing elsewhere in Europe too.

A pony belonging to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s was killed by a wolf in 2022. She made a statement in 2023 saying that “the concentration of wolf packs in some European regions has become a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans,” which prompted several wildlife and conservation charities, including the WWF, to issue a response, calling her words “misleading” and “not based on science.”

Von der Leyen welcomed the news last month that the Bern Convention committee had decided to adjust the protection status of wolves, calling it “important news for our rural communities and farmers… because we need a balanced approach between the preservation of wildlife and the protection of our livelihoods.”

It’s true that the wolf population in Europe has increased over recent years. Wild Wonders’ Widstrand calls it “a major, fantastic comeback conservation story.”

There are approximately 1,500 wolves in Germany and 3,300 in Italy, according to conservation reports. Widstrand notes there are even 120 wolves in Belgium. “These countries are vastly smaller than Sweden and more densely populated,” he pointed out.

Yet rural affairs minister Kullgren says wolves are affecting Swedish society “more significantly than before.”

Kullgren said there were “parents who are afraid of letting their children play in their backyard, farmers who are afraid to let the animals out to graze due to the risk of wolf attacks and dog owners who are afraid that their beloved pets might get attacked while walking on forest paths.”

“The government is very much adding fuel to the polarized debate,” she added.

Orrebrant, chair of the SCA, said that if the EU follows the Bern Convention committee’s decision, which comes into effect on March 7, and decides to downgrade the wolf’s protection status, “that will allow countries like Germany, Italy or Spain to hunt in the same way that Sweden does.”

In parts of northern Europe, self-sufficiency has become increasingly important against the backdrop of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Sweden officially joined NATO last year and just a few months later it joined Norway in distributing booklets to millions of households with guidance on how residents could sustain themselves in the event of war, including details on how to grow food at home.

For livestock farmers involved in food production, this national agenda is further encouragement to lower Sweden’s population of large carnivores.

He believes the licensed wolf hunt is a necessary additional measure in the protection of livestock, adding that it is expensive for smaller farmers to install special, predator-proof fencing.

But Rindevall said that sheep are often used in the argument for wolf culling, even though she says only a tiny fraction of Swedish sheep are killed by wolves.

She is concerned about the message it sends to other countries, that a highly resourced country like Sweden is taking what she considers to be a regressive stance on conservation.

“How can we ask other countries to preserve animals like tigers, lions and elephants when we can’t seem to co-exist with wolves?”