This is a story about a bird and a family. But this is no ordinary bird, and this is no ordinary family.

Spix’s macaw, a vivid-blue parrot with elaborate mating rituals, was declared extinct in the wild in 2019. A captive-breeding program has since seen some of the birds reintroduced to their native habitat in Brazil.

For more than two years, officials on three continents have been agitating over why 26 of the creatures ended up at a private zoo in India run by the philanthropic arm of a conglomerate controlled by Asia’s richest family, the Ambanis.

Indian investigators cleared the sanctuary of any wrongdoing this week. But European officials say they are keeping a close watch on any exports to Vantara, while Brazil, Germany and India are working toward a possible resolution at a United Nations-administered body that monitors wildlife trade.

The 3,500-acre Vantara animal rescue and rehabilitation centre in Gujarat state says it is home to some 2,000 species. The venue featured in pre-wedding celebrations last year for the centre’s leader Anant Ambani, the youngest son of billionaire Mukesh Ambani, whose guests included Ivanka Trump and Mark Zuckerberg.

The zoo, adjacent to an oil refinery operated by the Ambanis’ Reliance Industries, was inaugurated in March by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A Reuters analysis of 2,500 commercially available customs records shows that since 2022, the wildlife centre has imported an extraordinary range of exotic species from countries including South Africa, Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the United Arab Emirates.

The haul resembles a modern-day Noah’s Ark: 2,896 snakes, 1,431 tortoises, 219 tigers, 149 cheetahs, 105 giraffes, 62 chimpanzees, 20 rhinoceroses and scores of reptiles, including spiny-tailed lizards and veiled chameleons.

The shipments were recorded with a declared value of $9 million, which a Vantara spokesperson said reflected freight and insurance charges, not payments for wildlife.

“They are not commercial transactions in animals,” the spokesperson said. “There has never been any commercial consideration paid for any animal transferred to Vantara.”

In August, India’s Supreme Court ordered investigators to examine whether Vantara’s acquisitions and treatment of animals complied with Indian laws and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The court this week said investigators found no illegality.

This parrot isn’t dead, it’s in India

The biggest bone of contention has revolved around the Spix’s macaws that the park sourced in 2023 from the Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots (ACTP), a Germany-based non-profit that had partnered with Brazilian authorities to breed the birds, according to customs records, Brazilian officials and CITES documents.

The macaws’ journey is detailed in a customs bill of entry seen by Reuters. It shows the birds were flown to Ahmedabad from Berlin on February 4, 2023, with costs, insurance and freight amounting to $969 per macaw, for a total of $25,194. Customs taxes and local duties of $19,000 were waived in line with Indian practice.

Brazil says it didn’t consent to the parrots’ passage to India, and has raised its concerns at CITES meetings.

“The Vantara zoo has not yet joined the Spix’s Macaw Population Management Program, which is a fundamental condition for the official involvement of this institution in the species conservation effort,” the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, a Brazilian government agency, told Reuters by email on September 8.

“At the moment, no Indian institutions are participating in the program, so there is no reason for Spix’s macaws to be sent to India.”

Brazil ended its agreement with ACTP last year, saying the group had sent Spix’s macaws to other countries in “commercial transactions” without Brazilian consent. The nonprofit has previously denied that the parrots’ transfer was commercial in nature; it didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Vantara spokesperson told Reuters the macaws’ transfer was “entirely lawful, non-commercial, and undertaken as a conservation breeding arrangement with ACTP.”

India’s Central Zoo Authority didn’t respond to queries.

Germany’s federal environment ministry told Reuters it had cleared the 2023 transfer of macaws to Vantara in “good faith”, but didn’t consult Brazil at the time.

Last year, after consulting with Brazilian authorities, Germany rejected an application for a further transfer of Spix’s macaws to Vantara on the grounds that the zoo was “not a participant” in the species’ population management program, a ministry spokesperson said.

“This decision is currently subject to legal proceedings,” the spokesperson added, declining to elaborate.

Popcorn for elephants

In the year ended March 2024, only 20% of the 6,355 animals that reached Vantara came from India, the centre’s annual report shows. Overall, it has imported species from 40 countries.

Vantara developed from barren land in 2020 to an area of manicured lawns and jungle-like greenery, satellite imagery provided by Maxar Technologies shows.

In media tours, Anant Ambani has showcased kitchens stocked with premium products used to prepare fresh juices, sweets, and even popcorn as treats for elephants.

When Modi visited Vantara this year, his office released an eight-minute video of him feeding lion cubs, elephants, rhinos and giraffes. One picture showed a Spix’s macaw perched on a prime ministerial hand.

India’s government defended Vantara at CITES meetings in Geneva in February, saying the facility is a “recognised centre for conservation breeding”, according to a summary published by CITES.

CITES documents published ahead of its next meeting in November show progress in resolving the inquisition. The CITES Secretariat told Reuters there had been consultations involving Brazil, India and Germany, and that Brazilian officials would provide an update.

Still, European officials recently indicated they are keeping an eagle eye on any applications to ship wildlife to Vantara.

In an August 1 response to a lawmaker’s concerns about wildlife trade, European Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall said EU states “will pay particular attention to any export requests directed towards India and the facility in question” and assess them with “increased scrutiny”. Roswall’s action hasn’t been previously reported.

Judges in New Delhi this week released a summary of the Indian investigators’ report.

Among the findings: The export-import permits for Spix’s macaws were in order, and Vantara was now holding direct talks with Brazil about “rewilding”.

“Their deliberations are at a preliminary stage,” it said.

The decision, effective September 29, 2025, is part of Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.

The waiver, issued under the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act (IFCA), had allowed India and other nations to continue working on the port without facing US penalties.

For India, Chabahar holds strategic importance as it offers a trade route to Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan.

In a statement on September 16, the US State Department said the move was “consistent with President Trump’s maximum pressure policy to isolate the Iranian regime.”

It warned that after the revocation takes effect, entities involved in Chabahar Port operations or other IFCA-listed activities could face sanctions.

The department added the step aligns with Washington’s wider efforts to disrupt “illicit financial networks sustaining the Iranian regime and its military activities.”

The decision leaves India in a difficult position. On May 13, 2024, New Delhi signed its first long-term overseas port agreement a 10-year deal with Iran’s Port and Maritime Organisation to operate Chabahar.

Under the deal, Indian Ports Global Limited (IPGL) pledged around $120 million, along with plans to secure $250 million in credit for surrounding infrastructure.

Chabahar is more than a trade hub for India. Initially proposed for development in 2003, it offers access to Afghanistan and Central Asia without reliance on Pakistan and connects to the International North-South Transport Corridor linking India with Russia and Europe.

The port has already been used to send wheat aid to Afghanistan and other vital supplies.

India had managed to keep the Chabahar Port project outside the purview of the sanctions reimposed by President Trump in his first term in 2018.

The Department of State had given ‘exemption’ to certain sanctions concerning the development of Chabahar port and its associated railway, considering its significance to Afghanistan.

But with the US revoking the sanction exemption, India now faces the challenge of protecting its investment and companies involved in the project.

Washington’s latest decision also comes at a sensitive time, as New Delhi tries to balance ties with both the US and Iran while also keeping close relations with Israel and Gulf partners.

Strategically, Chabahar helps India counter China’s growing influence in the Arabian Sea, since the Iranian port lies just 140km from Pakistan’s Gwadar, which is run by Beijing. Losing room to operate here could impact India’s ability to compete in the region.

Bagram Air Base

President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested that he is working to reestablish a US presence at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, four years after America’s chaotic withdrawal from the country left the base in the Taliban’s hands.

Trump floated the idea during a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as he wrapped up a state visit to the UK and tied it to the need for the U.S. to counter its top rival, China.

“We’re trying to get it back,” Trump said of the base in an aside to a question about ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

While Trump described his call for the US military to reestablish a position in Afghanistan as “breaking news,” the Republican president has previously raised the idea.

During his first presidency, Trump set the terms for the US withdrawal by negotiating a deal with the Taliban.

The 20-year conflict came to an end in disquieting fashion under President Joe Biden: The US-backed Afghan government collapsed, a grisly bombing killed 13 US troops and 170 others, and thousands of desperate Afghans descended on Kabul’s airport in search of a way out before the final U.S. aircraft departed over the Hindu Kush.

Biden’s Republican detractors, including Trump, seized on it as a signal moment in a failed presidency.

Those criticisms have persisted into the present day, including as recently as last week, when Trump claimed the move emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine in February 2022.

“He would have never done what he did, except that he didn’t respect the leadership of the United States,” Trump said, speaking of Putin.

“They just went through the Afghanistan total disaster for no reason whatsoever.

We were going to leave Afghanistan, but we were going to leave it with strength and dignity.

We were going to keep Bagram Air Base one of the biggest air bases in the world. We gave it to them for nothing.”

It is unclear if the US has any new direct or indirect conversations with the Taliban government about returning to the country.

But Trump hinted that the Taliban, who have struggled with an economic crisis, international legitimacy, internal rifts and rival militant groups since their return to power in 2021, could be game to allow the US military to return.

“We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us,” Trump said of the Taliban.

The president repeated his view that a US presence at Bagram is of value because of its proximity to China, the most significant economic and military competitor to the United States.

“But one of the reasons we want that base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” Trump said.

“So a lot of things are happening.”

While the US and the Taliban have no formal diplomatic ties, the sides have had hostage conversations.

An American man who was abducted more than two years ago while traveling through Afghanistan as a tourist was released by the Taliban in March.

Last week, the Taliban also said they reached an agreement with US envoys on an exchange of prisoners as part of an effort to normalize relations between the United States and Afghanistan.

The Taliban gave no details of a detainee swap, and the White House did not comment on the meeting in Kabul or the results described in a Taliban statement.

The Taliban released photographs from their talks, showing their foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, with Trump’s special envoy for hostage response, Adam Boehler.

Officials at US Central Command in the Middle East and the Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office, referred questions about reestablishing a presence at Bagram to the White House.

For Americans, the words are practically sacred: the First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech.

But that right is now the subject of bitter debate, following the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

On Thursday, several high-ranking Democrats accused President Donald Trump of waging war on free speech, after he celebrated ABC’s suspension of talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, who accused the political right of using Kirk’s death to score points.

The American Civil Liberties Union, a rights advocacy group, accused the Trump administration of operating outside constitutional safeguards to target its opponents, likening it to the Red Scare of the late 1940 and 1950s under senator Joseph McCarthy.

“This is beyond McCarthyism. Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke,” said Christopher Anders, director of the ACLU’s democracy and technology division.

So what does the First Amendment say? And why is it up for debate?

‘How we identify ourselves’

Ratified in 1791, the Bill of Rights comprises the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, protecting the fundamental rights of Americans.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,” the First Amendment says.

For David Super, a professor at Georgetown University’s law school, the amendment is “really how we identify ourselves as a nation.”

Beyond the varied ethnicities and background of the nation’s 340 million people, “we are thought to be drawn together by a belief in open discussion and a belief that the government can’t shut any of us up,” Super told AFP.

The First Amendment even protects speech that is “morally repulsive,” explained Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Volokh however emphasised that the history of the United States has been marked by attempts to stifle dissident voices.

‘Malicious writings’

In 1798, America’s second president John Adams signed into law the Sedition Act, which forbade “any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States.”

Then during World War I, the expression of pacifist ideology was banned.

From the 1920s to the 1950s, anyone expressing support for communist ideals risked serious repercussions. And in the 1960s, officials in several southern US states battled to silence the civil rights movement.

One of the key pillars of Trump’s political movement has been to eviscerate “cancel culture” — the process of criticising someone for voicing an opinion seen as unacceptable, to the point of that person being ostracised or fired.

Trump has often called “cancel culture” a scourge of leftist progressives, claiming that it has been used to silence conservative pundits and politicians.

But Democrats have turned the tables on Trump, accusing him of doing the same to US media organisations, major universities and, now, Kimmel — a frequent target of Trump’s ire.

“After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level,” Democratic former president Barack Obama wrote Thursday on X.

Conservative push-back

US Attorney General Pam Bondi sparked controversy among conservatives by saying earlier this week that the Justice Department would pursue anyone guilty of “hate speech” linked to the slain influencer.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz quickly countered that the Constitution “absolutely protects hate speech.” Bondi then said she meant to refer to “threats of violence that individuals incite against others.”

Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson called for “civil disobedience” should Kirk’s murder result in an uptick in laws limiting free speech.

And some voices on the far right have criticised a decree signed by Trump in August that makes burning the American flag punishable by up to a year in prison.

The US Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that burning the Stars and Stripes indeed amounted to free speech, and was protected by the First Amendment.

“I would never in a million years harm the American flag,” conservative radio host Jesse Kelly wrote on X.

“But a president telling me I can’t has me as close as I’ll ever be to lighting one on fire. I am a free American citizen. And if I ever feel like torching one, I will.”