Tom Phillips
Latin America correspondent for the @guardian based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 🇧🇷 via London 🇬🇧, Beijing 🇨🇳 and Mexico City 🇲🇽 Say hello: tom.phillips@theguardian.com
- 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...
- “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...
- Reposted by Tom PhillipsFor 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...
- "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
- 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...
- “It just shows that the entire counter-drug effort of Donald Trump is a charade” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
- Reposted by Tom PhillipsExclusive: 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...
- “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...
- Over the moon that our Bruno and Dom podcast Missing in the Amazon has been nominated for a Rose D’Or! 🙏🏽
- 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...
- 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”
- “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”
- “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...
- 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...
- Reposted by Tom Phillips3/ 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...
- “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...
- 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”
- “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.”
- Reposted by Tom Phillips“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...
- 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 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
- “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”
- 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.
- Reposted by Tom PhillipsKeir Starmer will attend Cop30 in Brazil, No 10 confirms
- Reposted by Tom PhillipsEntrevista do diretor Kleber Mendonça Filho para o The Guardian @kmendoncafilho.bsky.social @theguardian.com VIVA O CINEMA NACIONAL
- “I am very proud of what is happening in Brazil,” @kmendoncafilho.bsky.social tells me as his incredible new film The Secret Agent hits the big screen www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...
- “I am very proud of what is happening in Brazil,” @kmendoncafilho.bsky.social tells me as his incredible new film The Secret Agent hits the big screen www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...
- “I just want to know why Donald Trump killing poor people just so,” Joseph’s uncle, known only as “Dollars”, said. “Just because he going after the people gas and their oil. He going after people riches and killing poor people children.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
- “Since Milei took office & slashed spending, traffickers are taking advantage of rising needs, according to priests & community leaders. Gang bosses support soup kitchens, run events for children & offer jobs & loans in drive to expand their control of poor areas” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
- Reposted by Tom PhillipsIn Venezuela’s ‘darkest hours’, will peace prize boost opposition or backfire?
- “Would receiving the prestigious prize advance Machado’s tenacious campaign to unseat Maduro, or could it backfire and lead to greater repression from the autocrat’s feared security forces?”
- “It caught her totally by surprise” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
- “The remark went viral and unleashed a torrent of criticism, with many comparing it to Bolsonaro’s callous and incompetent response to Covid, which killed more than 700,000 Brazilians.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
- 🤦🏽♂️
- The Oregon Republican Party tried to help Donald Trump make the case for military intervention in Portland with an image of a fiery protest — but since Portland is calm, they had to fabricate one by merging old photos of police in Ecuador and protesters in Brazil www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
- “Many observers suspect Trump’s counter-narcotics crusade is really a pretext to depose Maduro, either by sparking an internal rebellion against Hugo Chávez’s authoritarian heir or perhaps through direct military intervention within Venezuela itself” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
- "I had a great talk with the president of Brazil. He's a good man ... Yeah, we'll start doing business" - Trump on Lula just now 👀
- “We exchanged numbers”
- Reposted by Tom PhillipsNo Guardian: "Animais selvagens são apanhados no fogo cruzado do Rio. De macacos-prego a gaviões-pombos, o Instituto Vida Livre trata de uma miríade de animais abatidos numa cidade devastada pela criminalidade com armas de fogo" www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
- "Not even animals escape the extreme barbarity we’ve been living through" 😥 www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
- “A final decision has not yet been taken on the prime minister’s attendance at Cop30, which will begin with a leaders’ summit in Belém, on the mouth of the Amazon, led by Brazil’s president, Lula”
- 'Yu used ancient Chinese water systems to reimagine modern architecture, building systems to help cities conserve and re-use rainwater. "It’s important to make friends with water,” he once said.' www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
- 👀👀
- What a lovely man with a big heart. I miss our conversations about China, from which I always learned so much. RIP.
- Trump on Lula: "He seemed like a very nice man, actually ... at least for about 39 seconds we had excellent chemistry - it's a good sign."
- “Huge crowds packed the squares and beaches of some of Brazil’s biggest cities to voice their opposition to rightwing endeavors to help Bolsonaro escape jail for his failed power grab”
- Even on dry land, clambering into a transatlantic narco-sub is NOT a fun experience www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
- Today’s podcast on the downfall of Jair (with the brilliant @helenpidd.bsky.social) www.theguardian.com/world/audio/...
- Reposted by Tom PhillipsExclusive: Sadiq Khan has accused Donald Trump of doing more than anyone else to encourage the intolerant far right across the globe as the US president arrives in the UK. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
- "ANALYSIS-Brazil's Bolsonaro is going to prison. Here is how he can get out..." explains @reuters.com Dig a tunnel? Climb a wall??
- Reposted by Tom PhillipsNo Guardian: "Ministro brasileiro fala da revogação do visto de sua filha de 10 anos pelos EUA. O pai de Alexandre Padilha fugiu da ditadura para os EUA e agora, a família do ministro da Saúde é alvo das táticas de intimidação de Trump" www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
- “When Alexandre Padilha’s father most needed help during the dictatorship, the US took him in. So more than 5 decades later, it came as a nasty surprise when Padilha’s 10-year-old daughter became the youngest victim of Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against Brazilian authorities.”
- Brazil must read of the weekend, by @ceclynch.bsky.social
- Reposted by Tom PhillipsEXC - Keir Starmer condemns far right racism and violence at yesterday's march Says there will be "no surrender" of British flag to those who promote hate Our story here - www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
- Rest in Peace, Hermeto Pascoal, you genius. It was an absolute pleasure to meet you and your cuddly toys in Curitiba back in the day www.theguardian.com/music/2011/n...
- “For nearly 50 years, his fate has remained a mystery, sparking desperate searches, raising suspicions of government complicity, and inspiring international documentaries. Now the mystery has been solved,” writes @harrietbarber.bsky.social
