Global Pulse

分类： politics

  • Colombia’s presidential election pits outgoing leader’s ally against pro-Trump candidates

    Colombia’s presidential election pits outgoing leader’s ally against pro-Trump candidates

    BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA – On a watershed Sunday for the South American nation, millions of Colombian voters headed to polling stations for the first round of a deeply consequential presidential election, where competing visions for national peace have split the country decades after a brutal, interminable armed conflict.

    This contest, widely framed as a public verdict on the policies of departing President Gustavo Petro, arrives exactly one decade after Colombia signed what was billed as a historic peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as FARC. The 2014 pact once raised bold hopes that Colombia could finally escape its generations-long cycle of clashes between state forces and rebel insurgencies, but widespread violence has reemerged in the years that followed, reaching a fever pitch in the months leading up to this election. Organized criminal factions have stepped up coordinated drone attacks, political campaigning has been repeatedly disrupted by armed assaults, and last June, a 39-year-old sitting politician and presidential aspirant, Miguel Uribe Turbay, was assassinated in a shooting at a public campaign rally.

    For Colombia, where the pursuit of peace has long anchored the national political identity, the core question of how to resolve persistent conflict has once again driven a sharp wedge through the electorate. Though 14 candidates appear on the official ballot, the race has narrowed to a tight three-way contest between three contenders with fundamentally opposing approaches to the nation’s security crisis.

    Leading in pre-election opinion polls is Senator Ivan Cepeda, a veteran peace activist and close ally of the outgoing Petro administration. Cepeda has pledged to continue building on Petro’s flagship “total peace” initiative, which seeks to open negotiations with all remaining active rebel and armed criminal groups to negotiate new ceasefires and lasting peace accords that address the roots of the ongoing violence. Critics point out that the existing peace strategy has largely fallen short of its goals: criminal networks have exploited government ceasefires to expand their territorial control and operations. Even so, Cepeda and Petro retain solid support from large swathes of the electorate thanks to progressive domestic reforms enacted under Petro, including a significant increase to the national minimum wage.

    Challenging Cepeda from the right are two candidates, Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, both of whom have campaigned on promises of far harsher, military-first crackdowns on armed groups.

    De la Espriella, a brash celebrity lawyer known by his nickname “The Tiger,” has seen his support surge in recent weeks. He has positioned himself as a political outsider who aims to replicate the hardline gang crackdown that El Salvador’s government carried out in recent years. That campaign succeeded in sharply lowering gang-related homicide rates but has drawn widespread international condemnation for systematic human rights abuses and extrajudicial detentions.

    Valencia, meanwhile, is widely recognized as the political protégé of former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe, the influential hardline leader who held office from 2002 to 2010. Uribe’s government launched a massive military offensive that defeated large swathes of the FARC insurgency, but the campaign also resulted in thousands of civilian casualties. Both de la Espriella and Valencia have openly voiced their admiration for former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has advocated for far more aggressive pressure on Latin American nations to crack down on transnational criminal groups than most modern U.S. administrations.

    Under Colombian electoral rules, a candidate must win an absolute majority of 50% of the vote to claim victory in the first round – an outcome that is almost unheard of in the nation’s modern electoral history. If no candidate hits that threshold, the top two finishers will advance to a head-to-head runoff election scheduled for June.

    The deep divide over security policy is reflected clearly in the views of ordinary Colombian voters, who carry varying personal experiences of the nation’s long-running conflict. Maria Eugenia, a 57-year-old seamstress working in downtown Bogotá, told reporters she supports a full-scale military offensive against growing criminal groups, even if it comes with human rights tradeoffs. While she applauded Petro’s investments in improving Colombia’s public medical infrastructure, she said she is voting for de la Espriella because violence in rural regions of the country has spun out of control.

    “Of course, whenever you take a hard line, there’s always going to be debate,” she said. “But some people are going to have to fall to clean up what needs to be cleaned.”

    Just steps from her workshop, 26-year-old Cristian Morales offered a sharply contrasting view. He acknowledged that Petro’s peace plan has fallen short on many of its core promises, but argued that incremental reform of a strategy aimed at ending cycles of violence is far preferable to swinging to the opposite extreme of harsh military confrontation. Morales said he plans to cast his vote for Cepeda, pointing to the candidate’s commitments to protecting Colombia’s unique biodiversity and expanding public access to education as priorities, alongside his peace agenda. He argued that bold promises to fully uproot Colombia’s deeply entrenched conflict in a single four-year presidential term are unrealistic.

    “The solution to this conflict isn’t aggressive confrontations. It will only end in more bloodshed,” Morales said. “It’s so difficult because it’s either dialogue or arms, and an internal conflict isn’t good for anyone.”

  • Ethiopia is heading to the polls, but not everyone can vote

    Ethiopia is heading to the polls, but not everyone can vote

    Ethiopia is set to hold its seventh general election on Monday, but the vote will be marred by widespread armed conflict across multiple regions and the total exclusion of millions of voters in the conflict-ravaged northern Tigray region. This poll comes 35 years after the 1991 collapse of the country’s military regime, a shift that paved the way for Eritrea’s secession just two years later. Today, tensions between Ethiopia and its northern neighbor have once again reached dangerous heights, casting a long shadow over the electoral process.

    Unlike executive-presidential systems, Ethiopian voters do not directly elect a head of government. Instead, they cast ballots for 547 parliamentary seats, with the party securing a 274-seat majority earning the right to form a five-year national government. The election is widely viewed as a referendum on the tenure of 49-year-old Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who rose to power in 2018 amid widespread mass protests against the Tigray-dominated ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which had governed the country since 1991. Shortly after taking office, Abiy dissolved the EPRDF and launched his own centralised, less federally oriented political bloc, the Prosperity Party.

    When Abiy first assumed office, he was celebrated globally as a beacon of democratic reform: he released hundreds of imprisoned opposition politicians and journalists, and earned the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for ending a 20-year military stalemate with Eritrea. Seven years later, that reputation has been all but erased. Critics now accuse his administration of widespread suppression of dissent, forcing opposition leaders into exile and arresting political rivals. The Tigray War, a two-year conflict that began in 2020, killed an estimated 600,000 people per African Union mediation estimates and pushed the entire region to the brink of famine before a 2022 peace deal. Today, press freedom remains severely constrained: major international outlets including the BBC have been denied press accreditation for the election. Ethiopia ranks 148th out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ 2025 World Press Freedom Index, and Human Rights Watch condemned the government in 2025 for arbitrary arrests of journalists and ongoing harassment of independent media. After the government revoked press credentials for three Reuters reporters in February 2026, the Committee to Protect Journalists documented a clear “troubling pattern of repressive regulatory action against international and independent press in Ethiopia.”

    Supporters of Abiy’s administration point to tangible economic and infrastructure progress, most visible in the capital Addis Ababa, where large-scale “Corridor Development” and “Riverside” projects have driven rapid urban transformation. These initiatives, aimed at upgrading transportation networks and public spaces, have nevertheless faced fierce criticism for mass demolitions that displaced tens of thousands of low-income residents. Economically, Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous nation with 135.9 million people, and one of the continent’s fastest growing economies, per World Bank data. GDP per capita is projected to hit $1,133 in 2026, up from just $641 a decade earlier. Abiy’s reform agenda has also garnered backing from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, contingent on continued liberalization of the country’s foreign exchange market and debt management—Ethiopia’s total public debt stood at $36.5 billion in 2024, per the World Bank. Even so, the country continues to grapple with crippling inflation that has driven up everyday costs for citizens, alongside persistent insecurity across multiple regions.

    Beyond the total exclusion of Tigray, two of Ethiopia’s most populous regions—Amhara and Oromia—have faced years of violent insurgency that has disrupted preparations for the vote. Fano militias in Amhara, which fought alongside the federal government during the Tigray War, refused a 2023 government order to disband, arguing the move would leave their region vulnerable to cross-border attacks. In Oromia, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), labeled a terrorist organization by Ethiopia’s parliament, has waged an insurgency demanding greater autonomy for the Oromo people, the country’s largest ethnic group, who have long complained of systemic political marginalization. Conflict tracking organisation Acled recorded more than 9,400 conflict-related deaths in the two regions in 2024 alone, and hundreds of thousands of residents have been displaced from their homes. While the federal government claims 97% of polling areas in Amhara and Oromia are ready for voting, the united opposition bloc, the Coalition for Ethiopian Unity, disputes this. Spokesperson Mistreselasie Tamrat told BBC Amharic that the coalition cannot campaign freely in either region due to a lack of secure conditions for political activity. Already, 30 of 137 constituencies in Amhara have cancelled voting.

    Veteran opposition politician Prof Merera Gurdina of the Oromo Federalist Congress called this election the least competitive in Ethiopia’s recent modern history. His party is only participating to avoid forced deregistration, he said: “We are participating symbolically because the law says you cannot boycott elections consecutively.”

    Tigray, home to roughly 6 million people, has been under an interim administration since the November 2022 Pretoria peace deal between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Tensions have escalated rapidly in recent weeks after the TPLF rejected Abiy’s unilateral reappointment of the interim administration leader without consultation, and moved to re-install former Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael—who led the region through the 2020-2022 war when the TPLF was labeled a terrorist organization. Disputes over electoral rules have left the TPLF effectively banned: Ethiopia’s election board ordered the TPLF to re-register as a new political party, a requirement the group rejected, leading to its legal status being revoked. The TPLF also accuses the federal government of reneging on key terms of the Pretoria accord, most notably the return of territory including western Tigray that the region lost during the war. Around 1 million people fled western Tigray during the conflict and currently live in poor conditions in makeshift displacement camps across the region. Earlier this month, the election board confirmed that no voting will take place in any of Tigray’s 38 constituencies, leaving millions of voters completely disenfranchised.

    Tensions have also been stoked by shifting relations with Eritrea, which gained independence in 1993 and has controlled Ethiopia’s entire former Red Sea coastline, leaving Ethiopia landlocked. Eritrea fought alongside Abiy’s government during the Tigray War, but relations between Asmara and Addis Ababa have since soured, largely over Abiy’s ambition to secure Ethiopian access to a Red Sea port. Recent reports of Eritrea building closer ties with the TPLF have further escalated tensions between the federal government and Tigray’s leadership, raising fears of a return to full-scale civil conflict.

    International Crisis Group Horn of Africa expert Magnus Taylor notes that while Abiy is all but guaranteed to secure a new term, the simultaneous presence of deep insecurity and unaddressed political grievances creates significant long-term risk. “Prime Minister Abiy will be confident that he will be re-elected. This shouldn’t obscure the fact that there are various internal insecurity issues, insurgencies and a risk of a new war in the north. The two things can exist at the same time,” Taylor explained. He added that regional mediation is urgently needed to open communication channels between the federal government and Tigray’s leadership to prevent miscalculation and encourage negotiated solutions to outstanding disputes.

    Even amid widespread political uncertainty, many of the 50.5 million registered voters—especially young first-time voters—hold out hope the election will deliver long-overdue stability. Fenet Dereje, a young resident of Addis Ababa, told the BBC that a negative outcome would have severe personal consequences: “If the outcome of the election is not positive, I think it will affect my daily life economically and politically. If instability arises, I may not be able to continue my education and it could be harder to move around.”

    Abiy’s Prosperity Party won a landslide majority in the 2021 election. Speaking to local media in March, Deputy Prime Minister Temesgen Tiruneh struck a conciliatory tone, saying the ruling party “did not want to win everything” this cycle. “We have ministers who are members of opposition parties. This trend will continue. We do not want to win 100% of the votes. We want to see our competitors claim victory because we want to accommodate diverse voices,” he said.

  • How Putin became master of the image

    How Putin became master of the image

    For more than a quarter of a century at the helm of Russian politics, Vladimir Putin has held an unwavering understanding of one core truth of modern governance: visual imagery shapes public perception, and public perception consolidates power. This instinct stretches back decades before his 1999 rise to the presidency, and it has evolved alongside his grip on Russia, transforming from a carefully curated brand to a tool that now underpins an increasingly authoritarian regime.

    In the very first BBC interview with Putin in 2001, moments before cameras went live, a member of his entourage rushed in and removed the small water glasses placed on the interview table. When asked why, the aide offered two reasons: no one should be allowed to misinterpret the glasses as holding vodka, and a spilled glass on live television was an unacceptable risk. “Television is a nuclear bomb when it comes to publicity,” the aide explained. Political analyst and author Peter Pomerantsev notes that this small incident reveals a widespread understanding among Russia’s political elite, particularly Putin, that controlled television imagery was the key to unifying and holding power in post-Soviet Russia.

    Putin’s journey to the center of Russia’s political stage began far from the limelight. Growing up in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) as a child of the Soviet television age in the 1960s and 70s, he drew early inspiration from the tough, stoic spy heroes that dominated popular Soviet film and television series. By his own admission, these portrayals of agents fighting enemies of the state convinced him to pursue a career with the KGB, the Soviet Union’s notorious intelligence service. For decades, he operated in the shadows: as a KGB operative, he avoided public attention, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he rebranded himself as a quiet, loyal, and efficient bureaucrat, first in St. Petersburg’s city government, then in Boris Yeltsin’s Moscow presidential administration. Photos from this era consistently show him positioned at the back or edge of group shots, never looking directly at the camera, never claiming center stage. Nina Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, recalls that in 1990s KGB circles, Putin was nicknamed “the moth” — a man who could blend into any background and operate unseen.

    When Yeltsin unexpectedly catapulted Putin to the role of acting president in 1999, and he won election months later, Putin and his PR team immediately set to work constructing a public persona that would stand in stark contrast to his unpopular, ailing predecessor. Yeltsin’s public struggles with alcohol had become a source of national embarrassment for Russians, so the first step of image-building was to frame Putin as a disciplined, almost complete teetotaler. At annual meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, where foreign experts are served fine wines, Putin sticks to a single cup of tea with honey. Even when he does drink in private settings, his minders go to great lengths to keep the information hidden. On one occasion, a local museum custodian who shared vodka-infused Russian pancakes with Putin begged a BBC correspondent not to report the interaction, warning that strict rules meant he could face severe punishment for the disclosure.

    Beyond framing himself as sober and disciplined, Putin set out to project an image of youthful, decisive masculinity — a sharp rebuke to the perception of Russia as a weak, declining state after the Soviet collapse. He posed for photos flying a fighter jet, released footage showcasing his competitive judo skills, and beginning in 2007, a series of viral images cemented this brand: bare-chested Putin riding a horse through Siberia, fly fishing in remote mountain rivers, or swimming laps to display his physical strength. Pomerantsev explains that this calculated visual messaging worked for two distinct audiences: for younger, media-savvy Russians, the stunts had a knowing, ironic edge that felt current; for traditionalist voters, they reinforced the narrative that Russia needed a hard, strong leader to return the country to great power status. “Putin was playing a very traditional Soviet leadership role, but he was doing it in the era of reality TV, MTV, and modern celebrity culture,” Pomerantsev notes. Fiona Hill, a leading Russia scholar and former advisor to multiple U.S. presidents, calls Putin a pioneer: “He shaped the image of the first populist president, the first acclaimed strongman of the 21st Century.”

    These over-the-top public stunts served multiple purposes beyond projecting strength abroad. Some, from scuba diving to “discover” pre-placed ancient relics in the Black Sea to flying a motorized hang glider alongside endangered Siberian cranes to petting a captive Siberian tiger cub, read as the fulfillment of childhood fantasies for a former Leningrad schoolboy who spent decades operating in the shadows. When he stepped down from the presidency to serve as prime minister between 2008 and 2012, the continued stream of attention-grabbing photos sent a clear signal: he, not sitting president Dmitry Medvedev, remained the ultimate center of power in Russia. Even the obvious effort behind the image hints at underlying insecurity, analysts argue: the relentless focus on physical fitness and strength is as much about reassuring Putin himself as it is about reassuring the Russian public that he remains the undisputed “main man” in the country.

    2011 marked a pivotal visual and political turning point for Putin. When he reemerged to run for a new presidential term, his face looked noticeably fuller, puffier, and far less expressive than before — sparking widespread speculation about undisclosed health issues, cosmetic treatments to reverse aging, or both. After his predictable election victory, he appeared at an open-air victory rally with streaks of tears running down his altered face. While the BBC correspondent who observed the scene concluded the tears were genuine, born of relief after widespread anti-Putin protests challenged his bid to return to power, some analysts argue the moment was yet another calculated performance, designed to evoke religious imagery of a weeping icon and frame Putin as Russia’s divinely anointed savior.

    Whatever the truth of that moment, it marked a clear shift in Putin’s rule. After 2012, his grip on Russian society tightened dramatically: what was once subtle discouragement of dissent became outright criminalization, political opposition was almost entirely eliminated, the national parliament was reduced to a rubber-stamp body that approved Putin’s every policy, and control over media and public expression became near-total. Nadya Tolokonnikova, a founding member of protest group Pussy Riot who was jailed and labeled a foreign agent for anti-Putin activism, calls this the turning point that created the Putin the world knows today: “Putin got obsessed with placing himself in history as the saviour, not just of Russia, but of the entire world.”

    Now aged 73, and more than 25 years after he first took power, Putin’s public image has shifted again, shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He appears far less frequently in public, and every on-camera appearance is heavily scripted and choreographed, with Putin deliberately keeping distance from most people. Hill argues this new approach reflects growing paranoia: “He obviously wants to be careful that people can’t necessarily track him down. It shows someone who’s paranoid about his personal safety – from germs or assassination attempts.”

    Today, the war in Ukraine sits at the center of Putin’s public identity. Veteran Russian journalist Mikhail Fishman argues that after returning to the Kremlin in 2012, Putin still lacked a clear defining mission — the war gave him that purpose. But after more than four years of full-scale conflict, the war has become a trap. Ending the war carries huge political risks for Putin, but continuing it imposes growing costs on Russia’s economy and political system. The resulting portrait of Putin today is a far cry from the dynamic, action-oriented sportsman he once worked so hard to project: he is a remote, inflexible leader, trapped in the authoritarian system and cult of personality he spent a quarter-century building.

    This analysis is adapted from BBC InDepth, a series offering in-depth reporting and fresh perspective on global current affairs. The documentary *Putin: In Ten Pictures* is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.

  • Cafe owner says UK police tried to recruit him to spy on Palestine Action

    Cafe owner says UK police tried to recruit him to spy on Palestine Action

    A Manchester-based cafe owner and prominent pro-Palestine activist has brought serious allegations against British law enforcement, claiming officers offered him financial incentives and informal leniency for minor offenses in exchange for spying on the banned advocacy group Palestine Action. Shams Sadiq, 51, who owns two local cafes, shared his account with The Guardian, detailing that the improper offer was made when he attended a police station in Ashton-under-Lyne on May 15 to recover electronic equipment police had seized following his 2023 arrest over alleged ties to the group.

    During the private meeting described as a “man to man” discussion, two officers told Sadiq they had examined his confiscated devices and concluded he had deep connections to Palestine Action. Instead of moving forward with charges related to his 2023 arrest, however, they presented him with an under-the-table deal. According to Sadiq, the officers explicitly stated there would be tangible benefits for cooperating with their investigations. When Sadiq pressed to confirm the incentives included financial support, the officers confirmed they could assist with expenses such as his tax obligations, and added that they would be willing to overlook certain low-level offenses. When Sadiq asked if the deal could cover his existing speeding tickets, the officers replied that minor infractions like speeding were of no concern to them in this arrangement.

    Sadiq says he understood the request to be a demand for him to provide intelligence on Palestine Action members and activities. He added that officers specifically noted his standing in the local Muslim community, leading him to believe they also wanted him to report on community members at his local mosque who they labeled as holding extreme views. This is not the first recent interaction law enforcement has had with Sadiq: just four days before the May 15 police station meeting, he was detained and questioned for three hours under Schedule 7 of the UK’s Terrorism Act at Manchester Airport. Though he was not arrested during that stop, officers again seized his electronic devices, which were only returned days later. During the airport questioning, Sadiq says he was interrogated about his connections to Palestine Action, his personal finances, and his views on Iran, as well as asked how he would respond to someone with extreme views at his mosque. Sadiq remains under active investigation for a separate alleged offense linked to Palestine Action that dates to 2024.

    Sadiq has long been a visible local figure for pro-Palestine advocacy, and has already been targeted for his activism: last year, vandals placed Israeli flags on the door of one of his cafes. After rejecting the officers’ offer, Sadiq chose to go public with his account as a safety measure. He told The Guardian that officers attempted to reassure him by offering protection for his family and did not pressure him for an immediate answer, instead leaving a private phone number for him to text if he changed his mind.

    Sadiq’s lawyer, Simon Pook, is preparing to file a formal complaint against Greater Manchester Police over the incident. Pook drew a parallel between the alleged conduct and the controversial informancy practices the British state employed during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, noting that “We’re unhappy that he was put in that position and offered inducements to work for the state.” Pook also raised questions about the legality of the airport detention under Schedule 7, arguing that if the stop was only a pretext to set up the later inducement offer, the use of the anti-terrorism powers was unlawful. Schedule 7 is legally only permitted to be used when authorities have reasonable suspicion that a person is involved in terrorism or terrorist planning.

    To date, Greater Manchester Police has declined to issue any comment on the allegations. The case comes amid growing controversy over the UK government’s 2023 decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, a move that came after group members carried out a break-in at a British military air base. The ban makes membership in or public support for Palestine Action a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years of imprisonment. Since the proscription went into effect, hundreds of people have been arrested and charged on grounds of supporting the group, including high-profile Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who was detained in December for holding a sign stating her support for Palestine Action prisoners and opposition to what she calls genocide in Gaza.

    The ban has also drawn sharp international criticism from human rights officials. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk publicly condemned the proscription last July, arguing that UK authorities were misusing counter-terrorism legislation to suppress activities that amount to the legitimate exercise of fundamental civil and political rights. Turk called the decision “disproportionate and unnecessary.”

  • Ecuador accused of meddling in Colombian election with tariff vow

    Ecuador accused of meddling in Colombian election with tariff vow

    As Colombia prepares to select a new president in Sunday’s highly contested general election, a major diplomatic dispute has erupted between Bogotá and Quito, after Colombia’s foreign ministry formally accused Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa of deliberate interference in the country’s domestic democratic process.

    The controversy centers on a meeting Noboa held Friday with right-wing Colombian presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, during which Noboa announced he would roll back all tariffs on Colombian imports starting June 1. Noboa framed the conversation as a dialogue with an incoming administration, claiming the pair had secured formal agreements on bilateral trade coordination and cross-border security cooperation, including the repatriation of Ecuadorian fugitives hiding in Colombian territory.

    Colombia’s foreign ministry rejected Noboa’s framing of the tariff rollback as a goodwill gesture in a Saturday statement, calling the action blatant meddling that violates core international principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention. “This interference by a foreign leader in the democratic process of another nation is a clear violation of non-intervention norms, a direct threat to our national sovereignty, and an attack on our democratic system,” the statement read.

    The origins of the tariff dispute stretch back to January 2026, when Ecuador began progressively implementing import tariffs on Colombian goods, arguing that Bogotá had failed to effectively secure their shared 700-kilometer border. Ecuador’s strategic location, wedged between Colombia and Peru — the world’s two largest cocaine producers — has turned the country into a major transit hub for illicit drug shipments, making cross-border cartel activity a top political priority for Noboa’s administration. The Petro government in Bogotá has denied the border security allegations and previously retaliated with reciprocal economic measures after the tariffs were first imposed.

    Sunday’s election comes at a moment of deepening political polarization in Colombia, after the election of left-wing President Gustavo Petro, the first leftist head of state in modern Colombian history, broke decades of dominance by centrist and conservative technocratic leadership. Petro is constitutionally barred from seeking re-election, and the race has narrowed between his chosen successor, left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda, and de la Espriella, the leading right-wing contender. Most pre-election polling puts Cepeda narrowly ahead, but no candidate is projected to win an outright majority on Sunday, forcing a run-off vote scheduled for June 21.

    The election outcome is expected to reshape Colombia’s international alliances and its national strategy to combat rising gang-related violence, which has reached multi-decade highs across the country. Cepeda has pledged to continue Petro’s flagship “total peace” policy, which seeks negotiated political settlements with armed insurgent and drug-trafficking groups, though the talks have stalled in recent months as violence has reignited across rural and urban areas. By contrast, de la Espriella and other right-wing candidates have promised a full military crackdown on cartels, mirroring the hardline approach Noboa has adopted in Ecuador. Noboa deployed 75,000 police officers to Ecuador’s four most violence-plagued provinces in March, but the policy has so far coincided with a sharp spike in the country’s national murder rate.

    The diplomatic row also lays bare deep ideological divides across Latin America. Noboa is a close ideological and political ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, and has joined the U.S.-led regional alliance targeting transnational drug cartels. Petro, by contrast, has had repeated high-profile clashes with the Trump administration over issues including drug policy and U.S. intervention in the region. Following the U.S. capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January 2026, Petro remains one of the few remaining left-wing leaders in the region unaligned with the Trump administration’s ideological agenda.

    Both Trump and Petro have publicly acknowledged the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Colombia after Trump revived the Monroe Doctrine, claiming the U.S. should hold sole decision-making power over Western Hemisphere affairs. Trump has since shifted his focus to Cuba, openly discussing plans to topple the country’s communist government, which he has claimed is “ready to fall”.

    Colombia’s election campaign has already been marred by violence: one candidate was assassinated in a shooting last summer, and last week de la Espriella addressed a rally in Medellín while standing behind bulletproof glass, a stark reminder of the security risks facing candidates. While Cepeda has echoed Petro’s stance that Colombia should not become a “vassal state” to the U.S., observers note that long-standing bilateral anti-drug cooperation between the two nations has persisted even through the height of diplomatic tensions between the Petro and Trump administrations.

  • Venezuela’s opposition candidate Edmundo González calls for presidential elections

    Venezuela’s opposition candidate Edmundo González calls for presidential elections

    CARACAS – Five months after Delcy Rodríguez took office as Venezuela’s interim president following a U.S. military intervention that removed longtime leader Nicolás Maduro from power, former opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González has publicly called for the immediate organization of fully free and credible national presidential elections.

    The 76-year-old former diplomat, who first entered the national political spotlight as a last-minute replacement for barred opposition leader María Corina Machado in the July 2024 presidential vote, was formally recognized as the legitimate election winner by multiple sovereign nations. The opposition contested the official results of the 2024 vote, leveling widespread allegations of electoral fraud, while independent international observers have verified that unsealed electoral records confirm González won a majority of votes against Maduro.

    In a public statement shared across major social media platforms Saturday, González argued that the current moment demands urgent action to lay the groundwork for new presidential elections that give Venezuelan citizens a direct voice in shaping the country’s future. He stressed that such a vote would act as a critical catalyst for restoring stable democratic institutions and establishing a functional, long-term national government.

    González laid out non-negotiable preconditions for any legitimate electoral process: the vote must be overseen by independent electoral regulators, include both national and independent international observation missions, guarantee participation for all political factions, release all citizens detained for political reasons, and put a permanent end to targeted political persecution of opposition figures.

    The former candidate framed himself as the committed guardian of the 2024 electoral mandate, through which Venezuelan voters chose freedom for their nation. Since September 2024, González has lived in exile in Spain, after Maduro’s ousted administration issued an arrest warrant accusing him of conspiracy, falsification of public documents and usurpation of power – all charges he has repeatedly and emphatically denied.

    González’s call for new elections comes just days before the five-month anniversary of Rodríguez assuming the interim presidency on January 5. Rodríguez, who was once a political ally of Maduro, took power after Maduro and his wife were arrested and transported to the U.S. to face ongoing criminal prosecution. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump formally recognized Rodríguez as Venezuela’s only legitimate head of state, and since her appointment, the two nations have made significant progress on a range of bilateral agreements. These include the full lifting of longstanding U.S. economic sanctions, new negotiations on expanded cooperation in the oil and energy sectors, and the full normalization of diplomatic relations between Caracas and Washington.

    U.S. recognition of Rodríguez has allowed her administration to reconnect with major Western financial institutions and open the country back up to U.S. investors. As of yet, neither the Venezuelan interim government nor U.S. officials have signaled that new presidential elections will be held in the near future.

    Machado, the original opposition candidate who was barred from running in 2024, recently gathered with other prominent opposition leaders in Panama to push for a full democratic transition in Venezuela. She has publicly confirmed her plan to return to Venezuela before the end of 2025 to run in the presidential election González is calling for.

  • Colombia accuses Ecuador of ‘deliberate interference’ in general elections

    Colombia accuses Ecuador of ‘deliberate interference’ in general elections

    BOGOTA – A sharp diplomatic dispute has erupted between neighboring Andean nations Colombia and Ecuador just 24 hours before Colombians head to the polls to choose their next president, with Bogota formally rejecting Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s recent pledge to scrap tariffs on Colombian imports as a blatant violation of international sovereignty.

  • Medical or a PR exercise? Why presidents get annual check-ups

    Medical or a PR exercise? Why presidents get annual check-ups

    For decades, the annual physical examination of the sitting U.S. president has evolved into far more than a routine health check—it is a tightly choreographed political ritual that sits at the intersection of public accountability, national security, and perceptions of executive power.

    Today, amid the election of two of the oldest presidents in American history back-to-back, public and political scrutiny of these check-ups has reached a fever pitch. The conversation traces back to a long-running tradition: every modern U.S. president makes the short trip from the White House to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a yearly physical, a practice as much about projecting political vitality as it is about tracking personal health. “Americans historically have wanted masculine, vigorous presidents,” explained Dr. Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. A clean bill of health, released publicly, is one of the most visible ways a commander-in-chief can demonstrate they are physically and mentally capable of holding the most powerful office on Earth.

    This dynamic has been central to former president Donald Trump’s public image, even as he approaches his 80th birthday. Just weeks out from turning 80, Trump completed his 2026 annual physical, and the White House subsequently released a memo from his personal physician declaring the president in “excellent health” with strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological and overall physical function. The document confirmed Trump is “fully fit to carry out all duties of the commander-in-chief and head of state”, though it did include a recommendation that he increase regular exercise and adjust his diet to lose weight. The memo also publicly released Trump’s full vital statistics: standing 75 inches (191cm) tall, he weighs 238 pounds (108kg), has a resting heart rate of 73 beats per minute, and a blood pressure reading of 105/71 mmHg. It addressed recent public speculation about visible bruising on Trump’s hand, attributing the marks to minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and his daily aspirin use for cardiovascular prevention, and noted Trump’s lifelong abstinence from tobacco and alcohol. Shortly after the results were released, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that “everything checked out perfectly.”

    Even so, questions about the transparency and reliability of presidential health disclosures have persisted for more than a century, long before the current era of advanced age in the Oval Office. Unlike many public officeholders, U.S. presidents face no legal requirement to release full medical records, and they are protected by the same federal health privacy laws that apply to all American citizens. This has allowed for deliberate concealment of serious health crises throughout history: in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a devastating stroke that left him largely incapacitated for the final year of his term, with his wife effectively stepping in to make major presidential decisions while his physician and staff covered up the full severity of his condition. Decades later, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s paralysis from polio was consistently downplayed by White House officials, who hid his reliance on a wheelchair from the public until his death in office in 1945.

    It was not until the 1960s, during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, that any U.S. president formally publicly announced the results of a routine physical. That shift came in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and amid rising Cold War tensions, when questions about a leader’s fitness to govern took on new urgency. In the 1970s, President Gerald Ford went a step further, overruling his own physician’s objections to release partial medical details to the public. “I feel fit as a fiddle. Getting healthier every day,” Ford told reporters after his 1976 check-up, noting he swam daily to maintain his physical condition. Still, gaps in transparency have continued to spark controversy decades later: President Ronald Reagan only publicly announced his Alzheimer’s diagnosis five years after leaving office, leading to widespread ongoing speculation about his cognitive state during his second term in the White House.

    Medical ethicists argue that even modern disclosures cannot be taken at face value, because presidents are free to select which information to release to the public. “If I were the public, I would ignore that information (released by the White House) entirely,” said Dr. Jacob Appel, a medical ethicist at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital and presidential health historian. “The president can cherry pick what looks good, and what doesn’t look good.” Beyond political posturing, Appel notes that full transparency also carries national security risks: any health details released to the American public are also accessible to foreign adversaries, giving potential opponents insight into a sitting president’s vulnerabilities.

    In recent years, the conversation around presidential health has been drastically amplified by the trend of older leaders holding office. After a generation of relatively young commanders-in-chief—Bill Clinton was 46 at inauguration, George W. Bush was 54, and Barack Obama was 47—the U.S. has elected two of the oldest presidents in its history in rapid succession. Trump was 70 when he first took office in 2017, and 78 when he began his second term in 2025. Joe Biden, who held office between Trump’s two terms, was 78 when he was inaugurated and 82 when he left office, making him the oldest sitting president in U.S. history. During his 2024 annual physical at age 81, Biden joked with reporters, when asked if there were any concerning health issues the public should know about: “Well, they think I look too young.”

    That era of older presidents has “turbocharged” public interest in annual physical results, Dallek said. “The scrutiny of Biden and Trump because of their age operates in a totally different plane. The concerns in the media, in the public, the debates that happen about whether they’re fit to serve, those debates get intensified.” Biden’s declining fitness became a central issue during the 2024 presidential campaign, ultimately forcing him to drop out of the re-election race. After Trump took office for a second term, Trump and congressional Republicans seized on a new tell-all book that alleged Biden White House staffers covered up the true state of Biden’s health to push claims of a deliberate cover-up. A Biden spokesperson pushed back at the time, arguing “evidence of aging is not evidence of mental incapacity.”

    Now, Trump faces the same level of public scrutiny over his own advancing age. Polling conducted before his 2026 physical shows a majority of Americans harbor doubts about his health and cognitive fitness. A Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll released in early May found that 59% of respondents do not believe Trump has the mental acuity to serve as president, while 55% doubt his physical health is sufficient for the role. A separate poll from the Economist and YouGov found that nearly half of all Americans believe Trump is too old to hold the Oval Office.

  • Tens of thousands march in support of Turkey’s deposed opposition leader

    Tens of thousands march in support of Turkey’s deposed opposition leader

    On a tense Saturday in Turkey’s capital Ankara, tens of thousands of supporters of the recently deposed leader of the country’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) took to the streets to protest a court ruling that removed him from office, escalating a political standoff that has already shaken the nation’s democratic landscape.

    Ozgur Ozel, 51, who was formally elected to lead the CHP during a 2023 party congress, was ousted from his position via court order on May 21. The appellate ruling nullified the results of the 2023 congress vote, citing unproven allegations of procedural irregularities, and reinstalled Ozel’s 77-year-old predecessor Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who held the CHP leadership for 13 years of largely muted opposition to long-serving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    The demonstration began with a rally at Guven Park, located in central Ankara, where Ozel addressed the assembled crowd to condemn his ousting. He framed the court decision as nothing less than a deliberate power grab by the ruling government. “They are attempting to replace the CHP’s elected chairman and appoint a hand-picked trustee,” Ozel told his cheering supporters. “Today is the day to restart our march to power. I wish this were an internal party matter. This is not an internal matter for the CHP. This is a matter between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the nation.”

    Following the rally, Ozel led the crowd in an unplanned march to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, a symbolic site widely tied to the nation’s secular and democratic founding principles.

    Many political observers and opposition supporters widely view the court ruling as a politically motivated maneuver designed to weaken the CHP ahead of a potential early national election. Recent polling puts the CHP neck-and-neck with Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and while the next scheduled general election is not set to take place until 2028, widespread speculation suggests Erdogan may call for a vote earlier to capitalize on current political momentum.

    Ozel, who led the CHP to major gains in the 2024 municipal elections, solidified and expanded the party’s control of critical major cities including Istanbul and Ankara that the opposition first flipped in 2019, dealing a significant public rebuke to the AKP. The party’s most high-profile rising star, Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, is widely seen as the strongest potential challenger to Erdogan, who has held Turkey’s presidency since 2003. However, Imamoglu has remained in prison since March 2024, facing a series of criminal charges that could result in decades of prison time if he is convicted. Supporters universally dismiss the charges as a fabricated political attack designed to remove Erdogan’s most formidable rival from the electoral landscape.

    The ousting of Ozel is far from an isolated incident, Ozel argues: it is the latest in a sweeping pattern of legal pressure targeting the CHP and its members across the country. To date, hundreds of elected CHP officials and party activists have been detained, with most cases centered on unproven corruption allegations targeting municipalities run by the opposition. Last Sunday, just days before the mass march, Turkish police stormed CHP headquarters in Ankara to forcibly remove Ozel and his allies from the building.

    In a striking parallel development on Saturday, Kilicdaroglu held a separate, rival gathering for his own supporters at the CHP headquarters, where he used the event to accuse the prior Ozel-led party administration of widespread corruption. Kilicdaroglu’s event drew a far smaller crowd than the mass march led by Ozel.

    Turkish government officials have repeatedly pushed back against allegations of political interference in the judiciary, insisting that the country’s courts operate independently and free from political pressure. However, critics warn that the cumulative series of legal actions against opposition figures has eroded public trust in the impartiality of Turkey’s judicial system, deepening political polarization in the country ahead of what is already shaping up to be a contentious election cycle.

    This political upheaval comes as the Turkish opposition holds unprecedented momentum after its strong showing in 2024 municipal elections, turning the conflict over the CHP leadership into a flashpoint for the broader struggle over the future of Turkish democracy.

  • Ukraine keeps up assault on Russian oil infrastructure as Kyiv braces for more strikes

    Ukraine keeps up assault on Russian oil infrastructure as Kyiv braces for more strikes

    Overnight attacks carried out by Ukrainian drones have ignited large blazes at key Russian energy sites, marking the latest escalation in Kyiv’s campaign targeting Moscow’s oil infrastructure that funds its ongoing invasion, Russian regional officials confirmed Saturday.

    Two separate regions across southern Russia reported drone-related fire incidents at oil storage and logistics hubs. In the Rostov region, falling debris from a downed Ukrainian drone sparked a blaze at an oil depot located in the port city of Taganrog, damaging the storage facility and a parked oil tanker. Just across the regional border in Krasnodar, local authorities recorded a second fire at another oil depot in Armavir, also caused by falling drone wreckage.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly acknowledged the attack in a post on social media platform X Saturday, highlighting that the Armavir facility sits more than 500 kilometers from Ukraine’s official border. “We are rightfully bringing the war back to where it came from,” Zelenskyy wrote, framing the strikes as a legitimate retaliatory measure against Russian aggression.

    The coordinated attacks come as Ukraine has steadily expanded its mid- and long-range strike capacity over the course of the four-year full-scale invasion, leveraging domestically developed drone and missile systems to target Russian assets deep behind front lines. Strikes on critical oil infrastructure — a core revenue stream for Moscow that funds its military operation in Ukraine — have grown into a near-daily occurrence in recent months.

    This latest wave of attacks also unfolds against a backdrop of escalating Russian strikes on Ukrainian critical infrastructure, and growing international concern over the war spilling beyond Ukraine’s borders. Just one day prior, a Russian drone launched in an attack on Ukraine strayed off course and slammed into an apartment building in eastern Romania, a NATO member state. The incident wounded two civilians, drew widespread condemnation from European capitals, and amplified fears that the conflict could draw in the entire transatlantic military alliance.

    For its part, Russia has repeatedly launched large-scale barrages of long-range ballistic missiles against Ukraine’s national power grid and urban population centers in recent months. The Kremlin’s Foreign Ministry confirmed earlier this week that Moscow plans to launch new “systemic strikes” against the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, leaving local authorities and military units bracing for imminent heavy bombardment. On Thursday, Zelenskyy stated that he has repeatedly and forcefully urged the United States to deploy additional Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine, which Kyiv views as critical to intercepting Russia’s destructive ballistic missile attacks.