The members of the Madrid Forum, an international alliance of conservative parties, leaders and organizations, right and far-right organizations of Spain and Ibero-America, said today that their goal is to win the seven general elections planned in Latin America for this year and next, as they proclaimed at the closing of the meeting held yesterday and today in Asunción.
Participants in the IV Regional Meeting of the Madrid Forum, inaugurated this Thursday by Paraguayan President Santiago Peña, assured that conservative and ultra-conservative options have a great opportunity to win the elections that will take place between now and the end of 2026.
“For the first time in many decades there is a real possibility of opening a new era of freedom and prosperity with the defeat of socialism in the region and throughout the West,” said the project coordinator of Foro Madrid, Edmaly Maucó, when reading the declaration approved at the end of the meeting held this Thursday and Friday in Asunción.
This year there will be general elections in August in Bolivia, and in Honduras and Chile in November, while in 2026 elections will be held in Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru and Brazil.
According to the final declaration of the meeting, the countries of the region have suffered “in their own flesh the ravages” of left-wing governments, and “have understood that socialism corrupts societies, destroys the economy, destroys freedoms.”
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“From Asunción we send to the entire region and the world a message of optimism and hope: the triumph of freedoms, democracy and the rule of law in Ibero-America is possible and is within the reach of all our peoples,” says the text.
They also announced that they will continue to “denounce and strengthen the political struggle” against what they considered “dictators of Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as against all those who support them.”
The Madrid Forum is promoted by the Disenso Foundation, the laboratory of ideas of the Spanish far-right party Vox, whose leader, Santiago Abascal, participated yesterday, Thursday, in the opening of the meeting, together with the president of Paraguay, Santiago Peña.
The director of Foro Madrid, Eduardo Cader, said this Friday that the right-wing forces can return to power unless, according to him, “the left resorts to fraud” or the disqualifications of the adversary candidacies.
“Every choice will be a battle, and every victory will require courage, strategy and, above all, unity,” he emphasized.
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Cader charged against what he called “soft right”, to which he attributed the claim of “managing what the left built”, avoiding conflict and not offering resistance.
The forum praised the figures of Argentine President Javier Milei; Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
MEPs of the right-wing group ‘Patriots for Europe’ participating in the meeting questioned the role of the European Commission, chaired by Ursula von der Leyen, which they called a “mega-state” that makes decisions on issues such as immigration, placing itself, in their opinion, above the will of European countries.
Hungarian MEP Enikó Gyóri said that “there is clearly a turn to the right in Europe” and stressed that in the last elections to the European Parliament, held on June 9 last year, the far-right parties reached approximately 22% of the vote, which is equivalent to about forty million people.
Those voters are “those who think that the European Union would have to be as the founding fathers founded it, and not this new Europe that wants to exist above the nations, dictating things that perhaps they do not even want to do,” said the Hungarian MEP.
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Also MEP Jorge Martín Frías, director of the Dissenso foundation, said that everyone supports the European Union, but criticizes the role of the European Commission, he considered that “it has made a misrepresentation and has distanced itself from the initial European project”.
The members of the Madrid Forum, which has also been held in Bogotá (2022), Lima (2023) and Buenos Aires (2024), promised to intensify “political cooperation to achieve electoral victories,” with special emphasis on “the seven electoral appointments that are coming”, to – as they said – “reach a continent free of socialism.”
WMO predicts 55% chance of weakened La Niña impacting global weather this winter
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported on Thursday that there is a 55% chance that the La Niña phenomenon, typically associated with cooler temperatures, will affect global weather between December and February, though in a weakened form.
In its update released Thursday, the WMO clarified that while La Niña is usually linked to a temporary drop in average global temperatures, some regions could still experience warmer-than-normal conditions.
As 2026 progresses, the WMO expects the planet to shift toward neutral conditions, neither influenced by La Niña nor by its opposite, El Niño, which is associated with increased temperatures. The likelihood of neutral conditions is expected to rise to 75% between February and April, according to the agency’s regular bulletin on these phenomena.
La Niña occurs due to cooling of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean waters and is also linked to changes in tropical atmospheric circulation, including wind and rainfall patterns. The opposite phenomenon, El Niño, has not been observed by experts since 2024, which currently remains the warmest year on record.
Spain’s PSOE summons Mark Zuckerberg over alleged mass surveillance on Android users
The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) requested on Wednesday that the Congress of Deputies summon Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, to explain the alleged mass surveillance of Facebook and Instagram users via Android devices without consent.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had previously indicated that his party would demand answers from the tech company’s executives for allegedly tracking the web activity of millions of people in Spain and across Europe without authorization. Meta responded in a statement to EFE, saying it is willing to “cooperate constructively with authorities on this matter.”
In addition to Zuckerberg, the PSOE has also requested the appearance of Javier Oliván, Meta’s Chief Operating Officer, and José Luis Zimmermann, Director of Public Affairs for Spain and Portugal. The socialists expect them to appear before the Congress’ Committee on Economy, Trade, and Digital Transformation, alongside independent experts.
The investigation is based on findings from European academic institutions such as IMDEA Networks (Spain), the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), and Radboud University (Netherlands). These studies revealed that Meta implemented a hidden mechanism to track users’ browsing activities through its apps—even in incognito mode or when using virtual private networks (VPNs).
“In Spain, the law is above any algorithm or tech giant, and those who violate our rights will face consequences,” warned Prime Minister Sánchez.
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According to the technical report, the system reportedly operated for nearly a year and allowed web activity to be directly linked to users’ personal profiles on Facebook and Instagram. The PSOE described these practices as “silent espionage without any explicit consent.”
If confirmed, Meta would have violated key European Union regulations, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the ePrivacy Directive, the Digital Services Act (DSA), and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The tech giant is already facing class-action lawsuits in Germany, the United States, and Canada for similar cases.
New York Times sues Pentagon over new press restrictions, citing First Amendment violations
The New York Times announced on Thursday that it has filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon over new restrictions imposed on the press when reporting on the U.S. military.
The newspaper stated on its website that the Pentagon’s policy is “exactly the type of restrictive scheme on freedom of speech and the press” that the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit Court have recognized as violating the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment protects fundamental rights such as freedom of the press and expression.
On October 16, the deadline to accept the new rules, major U.S. media outlets—including journalists with more than thirty years of experience as Pentagon correspondents—returned their credentials in protest.
The lawsuit, filed by the NYT in the U.S. District Court in Washington, argues that the purpose of the policy is “to shut the doors of the Pentagon—areas that have historically been open to the press—to news organizations, like the plaintiffs, that investigate and report without fear or favoritism on the department’s actions and leadership.”
The newspaper is requesting that the court issue an injunction preventing the Pentagon from enforcing the press policy, along with a declaration that the provisions restricting First Amendment rights are unlawful.
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The NYT noted that Pentagon officials have said that access to military facilities is a privilege subject to regulation, and that the new guidelines aim “to prevent leaks that could harm operational security and national safety.”
This past Tuesday, during the first press briefing held by the Pentagon since restricting access for most accredited national and international media following near-universal rejection of the new rules, influencers, bloggers, and reporters from so-called “new media” occupied the press room.
Several of the newly accredited journalists, such as Lance Johnston of the right-wing organization Fearless Media, boasted on social media that the desks “now belonged” to them—desks that had been used for decades by representatives of outlets like The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN.
