Mexico City publishes its waste bartering calendar

The Mexican capital published provisional dates in 2026 and venues for its trash-for-goods or swap markets where locals bring in recyclable items to receive food or household products. The city was keener to receive PET plastics, paper and cardboard and glass, all cleaned out, for which it would offer items including fresh produce, the daily Excelsior reported on 2 January. The first event was to be in the Bosque de San Juan park near the aiport on 11 January, and residents were asked to take between one and 10 kilograms of recyclables strictly.

Venezuelan vice-president becomes acting president.. amid uncertainties

Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice appointed the country's vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, as acting president on 3 January even as the former president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife Cilia Flores were to face drug trafficking and organized crime charges in a New York court. The two were nabbed by U.S. forces in a ligthning, pre-dawn operation in Caracas that day. U.S. President Donald J. Trump later announced his administration would run Venezuela through an unspecified transition period, apparently dismissing any idea of handing the country over to opposition politicians. While Delcy Rodríguez was reportedly talking to U.S. officials in private, in public she immediately formed a national Defence Council and demanded her predecessor's immediate release as, she insisted, he remained the "legitimate president." Trump told a press conference in Florida that day that it would be "very tough" for Venezuela's leading opponent and Nobel Peace laureate María Corina Machado to lead the country's transition back to democracy, as she lacked the "support... or respect" needed to do so. Machado did receive an early expression of support for her role in the form of a phone call from the French president. Separately in Colombia, a former conservative vice-president, Francisco Santos, suggested, speaking to the private Colombian broadcaster NTN24, that Rodriguez appeared to be a more docile option for the United States at present, adding "I am absolutely certain Delcy handed Maduro" over to the Americans. "It's going to be harder now for María Corina," he added, commenting on the United States' own objectives and business interests in Venezuela.