Global Pulse

分类： politics

  • Brazil’s Lula triggers reciprocity process against US tariffs in effort to show strength

    Brazil’s Lula triggers reciprocity process against US tariffs in effort to show strength

    Diplomatic and trade friction between Brazil and the United States has escalated in recent weeks, with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announcing Friday that his administration has activated a long-standing economic reciprocity law in response to steep U.S. tariffs imposed on Brazilian exports this summer. The move comes as Lula, who is running for re-election this October, frames the dispute as a defense of Brazilian national sovereignty against what he calls politically motivated interference from the Trump administration.

    In July, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration implemented tariffs on hundreds of Brazilian-made products, with some duties climbing as high as 37.5%. U.S. officials have leveled accusations of unfair trade practices against Brazil, claims Lula has repeatedly rejected, arguing the tariffs are a deliberate political tactic designed to influence Brazil’s upcoming general election. Lula’s main challenger in the October race is Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, an open ally of Trump who traveled to Washington just weeks before the tariff announcement to meet with Trump and other senior U.S. officials.

    Speaking in an interview with Brazilian podcasters Friday, Lula emphasized the need for Brazil to command international respect. “Yesterday, we invoked the reciprocity law to show that we are not to be taken lightly,” he said. “We respect ourselves. I am very calm knowing what could happen, and I am prepared to debate the defense of Brazil anywhere in the world.”

    Despite activating the legal mechanism for reciprocal measures, Brazilian officials have signaled they prioritize diplomatic resolution over immediate retaliation. Late Thursday, Brazil’s Foreign Ministry released a statement confirming it has requested formal diplomatic consultations with U.S. counterparts, a step it says reflects Lula’s administration commitment to “privilege dialogue and negotiation in its international relations.” The opening of consultations does not guarantee Brazil will implement counter-tariffs on U.S. imports, officials clarified.

    The trade dispute is not the only source of tension between the two nations ahead of Brazil’s election. Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked the visa of Brazil’s ambassador to Washington, a retaliatory measure after Brazil denied entry visas to two U.S. diplomats who sought to travel to Brazil ahead of the October vote. The U.S. has also accused Brazil of delaying congressional approval for Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Brasilia, while Brazilian counter that Washington violated standard diplomatic protocol by failing to secure the Brazilian government’s informal approval before submitting the nomination for congressional consideration.

    Rubio’s decision to revoke the ambassador’s visa, rather than expel her from the country, signals the Trump administration has no interest in forcing the dispute to spiral out of control, according to senior U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The limited response was intentionally crafted to give Lula’s government time and space to reverse course, the officials said. At the same time, they warned that Washington would move quickly to respond if Brazil chooses to escalate, with declaring the ambassador persona non grata and expelling her as the most likely next step.

    Lula sought to tamp down expectations of a full-blown breakdown in bilateral relations Friday, saying that Trump has “treated him well” in past interactions. But he issued a clear warning to any foreign power seeking to interfere in Brazil’s democratic process: any government “who come here to meddle in the election, will lose.” Lula added that he has no desire for a confrontation with the U.S., saying “unfortunately, they are spreading falsehoods” about Brazil’s trade practices and electoral process.

    Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed reporting from Washington.

  • US aircraft carrier on way to relieve USS Lincoln after issues reported on board

    US aircraft carrier on way to relieve USS Lincoln after issues reported on board

    What was originally planned as a Pacific Ocean patrol for the USS George Washington has taken an unexpected shift in course, with the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier now heading toward the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln’s deployment, which has stretched to nine months—three months longer than the typical six-month rotation—has sparked widespread public and political outrage after families of the 5,000 sailors onboard revealed severe living conditions, including crippling food shortages and deteriorating mental health among crew.

    The USS George Washington departed its home base at Yokosuka, Japan’s naval facility in May to carry out scheduled patrols in the Indo-Pacific, but Pentagon officials confirmed last week it would be rerouted to the Middle East, according to reporting from CBS News, the BBC’s U.S. news partner. As of Thursday, the carrier was operating near Malaysian waters, and analysis from BBC Verify indicates that at its current cruising speed, it is on track to reach Duqm Port in Oman—roughly 500 miles from Iran’s coastline—by around August 22. Once the George Washington arrives in the region, it will join the USS George HW Bush, making three U.S. aircraft carriers deployed in the Middle East, and leaving no U.S. carrier strike groups patrolling the Pacific for the first time in recent years.

    Tracking data from BBC Verify confirms the USS Abraham Lincoln has been continuously at sea since December 11 of last year, with its original end-of-deployment date pushed back from May. Multiple family members of sailors have come forward in recent days to share alarming accounts of life onboard the vessel. Reports from Military Times and Stars & Stripes first broke the story that multiple sailors had considered or attempted to jump overboard to escape the harsh conditions, which include broken plumbing systems, poor sanitation, extremely infrequent port stops, chronic crew exhaustion, and persistent shortages of fresh food and other critical supplies.

    In an anonymous interview with the BBC, one relative of a Lincoln sailor said their family member has lost 29 kilograms (65 pounds) since deployment began, and suffers from constant exhaustion caused by unrelenting aircraft noise and ship vibrations. The source, who requested anonymity out of fear of professional retaliation against the sailor, confirmed multiple crew members had made attempts to jump overboard. Jefferson Kelly, father of sailor Jackson Kelly who is currently serving onboard the Lincoln, told CBS News that his family has grown increasingly desperate after nine months at sea, far longer than the standard deployment length.

    “They should not be deployed this long,” Kelly said. “These are old ships. It’s not like they’re even state-of-the-art. And they take a lot of maintenance, a lot of work. It’s around the clock. I would get on a plane or helicopter tonight if it meant bringing him home to his mom and his siblings and his family.”

    Family members have raised urgent alarms that the prolonged deployment and substandard conditions have triggered a widespread mental health crisis among the crew, but the U.S. Navy has pushed back against those claims. While service officials have acknowledged “supply challenges” onboard the Lincoln, they have repeatedly denied any rise in suicidal behavior or a broader mental health crisis. In a statement, the Navy noted that supply disruptions have been caused by ongoing combat-related activities linked to tensions with Iran. Top congressional Democrats have nonetheless joined families in calling for urgent action.

    In a joint letter dated Wednesday sent to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said that credible reports of shortages and poor living conditions “warrant immediate attention.” The reports, Blumenthal added, also raise broader questions about whether the U.S. Navy can sustain the high operational tempo currently being demanded of its carrier fleet. Hegseth pushed back against the reporting during a press conference Thursday, claiming that many media accounts have been “completely misrepresented.” He told reporters that the U.S. government is committed to ensuring “every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment.”

  • France upholds assisted dying law, strikes down social media ban for children

    France upholds assisted dying law, strikes down social media ban for children

    On Friday, France’s highest constitutional authority delivered a split decision on a wide-ranging legislative package, upholding a historic bill legalizing assisted dying for terminally ill adults while striking down a flagship policy of President Emmanuel Macron that would have banned social media access for children under 15. The mixed ruling creates both a key political win and a major setback for Macron’s administration, as the president pushes forward with his second-term policy agenda.

    The assisted dying legislation, which cleared parliament in July following years of contentious public and legislative debate, marks one of the most significant social reforms in France since the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2012, a campaign promise Macron made after his 2022 re-election. With the Constitutional Council’s approval, France becomes the sixth country globally — joining the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and Luxembourg — to formally legalize assisted dying for eligible patients.

    In a statement following the ruling, the Elysee Palace hailed the decision on assisted dying, noting that it “completes an exemplary democratic debate” and provides “essential safeguards for our fellow citizens.” The council did require minor adjustments to one key provision of the bill: the conscience clause that allows individual healthcare workers to opt out of participating in assisted dying procedures. The council ruled that the exemption must also extend to private healthcare facilities that consider assisted dying fundamentally contrary to their institutional mission, as long as the facility is not the only provider able to meet local end-of-life care needs. This adjustment aligns with a long-held demand from Catholic healthcare institutions across the country.

    Under the final terms of the law, eligibility for assisted dying is restricted to adult French citizens or long-term residents who live with an incurable condition and experience unbearable, treatment-resistant pain — including patients who choose to discontinue palliative or life-sustaining treatment. Patients will primarily self-administer the lethal substance, with exceptions for patients with physical impairments that prevent self-administration, who may receive assistance from a licensed healthcare worker.

    The council’s ruling on the social media provision delivered a far different outcome, striking down the under-15 ban outright in a decision that marked a major blow to Macron’s highly publicized child online protection reform. The court found that the proposed ban violated fundamental rights, arguing the restriction on under-15s’ access to social media was “neither appropriate, necessary, nor proportionate” to the government’s stated goal of protecting child welfare, and infringed on the constitutional rights to freedom of expression and communication for young people. The council also raised serious concerns about the privacy risks posed by the mandatory age verification system that would have been required to enforce the ban, which would have collected user identifying data across all social media platforms operating in France.

    The proposed ban, which was scheduled to go into effect on September 1, would have barred all children under 15 from major platforms including TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. The Macron administration had framed the policy as a critical response to growing global research linking excessive early social media use to rising rates of adolescent anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, and online harassment. Macron publicly praised parliament for passing the legislation in July and pledged to implement it before the start of the school year.

    Following the ruling, the Elysee Palace made clear that Macron has no intention of abandoning the reform, and has tasked Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu with drafting a new “legally robust” version of the child online protection legislation as quickly as possible. The new draft will need to align both with the Constitutional Council’s ruling and existing European Union digital regulatory frameworks, the presidency said, adding that Macron’s “determination to see the reform implemented remains undiminished.”

    Former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, a prominent supporter of the original ban, expressed disappointment with the ruling in a post on X. “We take note of it and respect this decision, which applies to everyone,” he wrote, vowing to continue fighting against what he described as social media being “a deadly poison for our children.”

    Notably, the court did not strike down a separate provision in the same legislative package that bans personal mobile phone use in all French high schools, which is still set to take effect September 1. The ruling comes as a growing number of countries around the world are exploring targeted regulations to limit children’s social media access, amid mounting public health warnings about the impact of unregulated early social media use on adolescent mental health.

  • UK diplomats no longer get hardship bonus for being posted to Buenos Aires

    UK diplomats no longer get hardship bonus for being posted to Buenos Aires

    The UK government has updated its long-running hardship allowance scheme for overseas-based British diplomats, removing eight locations from the list of postings eligible for extra hazard pay and respite breaks, a move that has triggered sharp political debate over the fairness of remaining benefits for civil servants.

    Hardship payments have been offered to Foreign Office staff for 30 years, designed to compensate diplomats and their families for the extra costs, health risks, and reduced quality of life that come with living in challenging postings. Eligibility for the benefit is determined by a range of factors, including security threats, high crime rates, severe pollution, extreme climate, natural disaster risk, geographic isolation, and other impacts on daily life. Payments vary significantly by location, and full breakdowns are not published regularly; the last public disclosure of payment amounts came in 2009, when the highest recorded allowance for a coupled posting reached £26,647 annually in Karachi, Pakistan, compared to £1,517 for Buenos Aires and just £777 for Santiago.

    According to the updated list of eligible postings released last week, eight cities and locations are being stripped of their hardship payment status. These include two South American capitals: Argentina’s Buenos Aires, home to Argentina’s presidential offices in the heart of the city, and Chile’s Santiago. The full list of removed locations also adds Panama City (Panama), Pyongyang (North Korea), Bamako (Mali), and Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

    While the change removes benefits from these eight locations, 144 postings around the world still retain eligibility for hardship payments. This list includes well-known conflict and high-risk zones, but it also features popular international tourist destinations such as Bali in Indonesia and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, alongside other major tourist hubs including Bangkok, Cape Town, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Muscat.

    This overlap has drawn fierce criticism from the UK Conservative Party, which argues that the current scheme wastes taxpayer money. Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake claimed that allowing civil servants to collect extra pay for postings in these popular destinations is fundamentally unfair to UK taxpayers. He argued that at a time when British households and businesses are facing elevated tax burdens to fund current government policy, the public should not be forced to cover what he framed as unnecessary taxpayer-funded perks for civil servants. “This kind of nonsense has no place in government,” Hollinrake stated, pledging that a future Conservative government would downsize the civil service to eliminate such waste.

    Lord Moylan, a Conservative peer in the House of Lords, submitted a parliamentary question pressing the government on the scheme’s arrangements. Responding to the question, Foreign Office minister Lord Wood of Anfield clarified that hardship assessments account for any need for additional respite breaks to protect diplomats’ physical and mental health. He added that the scheme is not a new policy, and has been applied consistently by successive UK governments over decades.

    Defending the framework, a spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office argued that the scheme is a necessary protection for staff serving the UK abroad. “British diplomats serve their country around the globe, including in some of the toughest and most challenging physical and political environments in the world,” the spokesperson said. “We have a duty of care to ensure our staff are properly supported, and compensation and other provisions reflect the circumstances of the posting, as it would be in any private sector job.”

  • What next for Nigel Farage after beating Count Binface to become MP once more?

    What next for Nigel Farage after beating Count Binface to become MP once more?

    Twelve months ago, Nigel Farage stood at the pinnacle of British political influence. As leader of the Reform UK party, his movement commanded commanding leads in national opinion polls, with Farage and his allies dictating the terms of the UK’s national political conversation. Keir Starmer’s governing Labour Party found itself stuck in a reactive posture, and many prominent political commentators openly speculated that a Reform UK general election victory was no longer a question of if, but when.

    Today, that political momentum has vanished entirely, and Farage’s own long-term political future is now hanging in the balance, tied up in a parliamentary ethics investigation over an undeclared £5 million ($6.74 million) gift from Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. To clear his name and put his fate to voters, Farage resigned his seat as the Member of Parliament for Clacton, a coastal constituency in eastern England, last month, triggering a special by-election.

    When votes were counted in the early hours of Friday, official results confirmed Farage had retained the seat with 22,239 votes – a slight increase of 1,000 votes over his 2024 general election majority, secured on a lower overall voter turnout than the previous contest. But what exactly did this win deliver for the veteran Brexit architect?

    From the start of the campaign, the contest followed an unusual path: all major mainstream UK parties, including Labour and the Conservatives, made the decision to boycott the by-election, arguing it was an unnecessary political stunt staged by Farage for personal gain. With no big-party candidates on the ballot, the field swelled to 34 contenders, a chaotic mix of independent candidates, representatives from tiny minor parties, and novelty joke candidates – including three hopefuls from the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, a long-running UK satirical political group.

    Farage’s closest competitor ended up being a novelty candidate who performs under the name Count Binface, a self-described “intergalactic space warrior” who campaigns while wearing a full costume shaped like a waste bin. In a result that stunned many political observers, Count Binface secured 9,455 votes, equal to 26.9% of the total vote share, against Farage’s 63.3% – an unusually strong performance for a satirical candidate.

    That strong showing for a novelty contender has left Farage’s victory ringing hollow. Attempting to spin the result, Farage attempted to frame Count Binface as a proxy for the political “establishment” he has long railed against – a narrative that has gained little traction with the general public. Responding to Farage’s accusation from the vote count, Count Binface delivered a cutting rebuke:

    “Someone who has been an MP, been an MEP, who was one of the chief architects of Brexit and one of the dominant figures in British politics over the last 20 years, and is reputedly a member of the East India gentleman’s club, which apparently does not admit women – I would say that’s arguably slightly more establishment than a lone wolf space warrior with a Ceefax fixation,” he said. “But you know what? It’s up to you.”

    Notably, Farage himself was absent from the official vote count. He claimed police advice over alleged plans to disrupt the result forced his absence, but acting returning officer Ian Davidson clarified that the decision to skip the count was Farage’s personal choice. Political observers have widely speculated Farage avoided the event to avoid being photographed alongside his unlikely rival. Instead of attending the count, Farage appeared at “Farage Fest”, a campaign celebration held on a farm on the outskirts of Clacton complete with festival tents and a ferris wheel, where he hailed the result as a “resounding victory” and claimed “the result in Clacton speaks for itself.”

    But few independent analysts accept that framing. A year on from Farage’s poll peak, the political landscape has shifted dramatically: new Prime Minister Andy Burnham now sets the national political agenda, the Labour government is enjoying a steady boost in national polling, and there is growing speculation Burnham could call an early snap general election this autumn if current polling trends hold.

    Farage is no longer the figure dictating the terms of national political debate; instead, he is clearly on the defensive. To rebuild Reform UK’s political standing and advance its policy platform of national restructuring and mass deportations, Farage will need far more than a by-election win against a field of novelty and minor candidates.

    Worse for Farage, his return to Parliament means the suspended parliamentary investigation into the undeclared £5 million gift has now resumed, and the cloud of ethics scrutiny hanging over his political career has returned. Whether he can survive this controversy politically remains an open question.

    For his part, Count Binface has already claimed a victory of his own: “I came first in the Clacton by-election! Of the candidates who bothered to turn up for the results.”

  • France’s top court blocks social media ban for under-15s

    France’s top court blocks social media ban for under-15s

    A landmark decision from France’s Constitutional Council, the nation’s highest constitutional authority, has overturned a groundbreaking legislative ban on social media use for individuals under the age of 15, ruling that the policy violated fundamental constitutional protections for freedom of expression.

    The controversial bill, which positioned France as the first European nation to enact such a sweeping restriction on minor’s social media access, was approved by national lawmakers in July 2025. Drafted in response to growing public and expert concern over the well-documented negative impacts of unregulated social media use on adolescent mental health, the ban was scheduled to roll out in phases starting this September under a commitment from President Emmanuel Macron’s administration.

    The court’s Friday ruling nullifies the policy entirely. Shortly after the decision was announced, President Macron directed Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to develop a revised draft law that addresses all the constitutional concerns raised by the council. The review of the original legislation was triggered by Lecornu himself, who referred contested portions of the bill to the nine-member Constitutional Council after its parliamentary approval to confirm its alignment with France’s constitution.

    In its official ruling, the council stated that the core first article of the original legislation created an infringement on under-15s’ rights to freedom of expression and communication that was “neither appropriate, necessary, nor proportionate” to the stated goal of protecting youth mental health. The court also highlighted critical flaws in the law’s mandatory age-verification requirement for accessing online platforms, noting that the policy failed to put in place the “necessary legal safeguards” to protect user rights, raising unaddressed privacy concerns.

    Following the ruling, a spokesperson from the Élysée Palace confirmed that the French government will move forward with expedited work on a new bill, emphasizing that President Macron remains fully committed to implementing this reform by the beginning of 2027. The original policy would have barred all users under 15 from creating new social media accounts starting this September, with mandatory age verification for all new accounts, and extended the rule to all existing accounts by January 2026.

    Critics of the original ban had raised a host of concerns long before the court ruling, questioning everything from the technical feasibility of the policy to the privacy risks of widespread age verification. Opponents also argued that young, tech-savvy users would easily bypass verification checks, and that the legislation had been rushed through the legislative process without sufficient scrutiny.

    France’s policy is part of a growing global trend of restricting minor access to social media: Australia became the first nation to implement a national ban in December 2024, barring users under 16 from platforms, though enforcement gaps have left widespread underage use unchanged. Across Europe, momentum for restrictive policies has accelerated in recent months. In May 2025, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed a “social media delay” for children across the European Union, indicating that new bloc-wide legislation could be introduced within months. In the United Kingdom, Labour Party leader and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced a national ban on social media for under-16s set to take effect in January 2027, alongside an optional midnight curfew for 16 and 17-year-old users.

  • France’s top court blocks under-15 social media ban, citing constitutional freedoms

    France’s top court blocks under-15 social media ban, citing constitutional freedoms

    PARIS – In a landmark ruling that has upended a high-profile policy effort to shield minors from digital harm, France’s Constitutional Council announced Friday that a controversial law imposing a national ban on social media use for children under 15 is unconstitutional. The court’s official decision found the sweeping provisions of the ban violated fundamental French legal protections for freedom of expression and communication, noting that the legislation failed to put in place adequate safeguards to preserve these core civil liberties.

    Just one month prior, France made history as the first European Union member state to enact such a blanket restriction on minor social media access, a move that came amid growing global alarm over the well-documented negative impacts of unregulated social media use on children’s mental health, social development, and personal safety. The legislation, which also included a ban on mobile device use in all high school campuses, passed with bipartisan support through both chambers of the French national parliament.

    As one of the final major policy initiatives pushed through by President Emmanuel Macron’s administration before his term concludes in 2025, the law was slated to go into force at the opening of the 2024 academic year in September. However, mandatory constitutional review triggered by the bill’s contested provisions placed its implementation on hold before it could take effect.

    In the wake of the court’s rejection, President Macron reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to delivering a valid, enforceable ban by the spring of 2025. In an official statement released shortly after the ruling, Macron said he has directed Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to expedite work on a revised proposal that addresses the Constitutional Council’s constitutional concerns while also aligning with broader European Union digital regulatory frameworks. “On this framework, it will fall to the President of the Republic, the Government, and Parliament to put in place all the necessary tools and structures to protect our children from the risks of unregulated social media access before the end of the current presidential term,” Macron added.

  • Trump asks Supreme Court to allow ballroom work to continue

    Trump asks Supreme Court to allow ballroom work to continue

    A high-stakes legal battle over a $400 million unapproved ballroom construction project at the White House has reached the U.S. Supreme Court, as President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing emergency action to allow work to continue past an upcoming construction halt deadline.

    The conflict dates back to October of last year, when the Trump administration moved forward with demolition of the White House East Wing to launch the project without securing required congressional authorization or completing mandatory federal historic and land-use review processes. The National Trust for Historic Preservation quickly filed a lawsuit challenging the project’s legality, arguing that skipping the mandatory review — which includes opportunities for public comment and approval from the National Capital Planning Commission and other regulatory bodies — violates federal law.

    Last week, a federal appeals court upheld the lower court’s ruling that ordered construction to pause pending congressional and regulatory approval, with the stop-work mandate set to take effect on August 21. Now, the Trump administration has submitted an emergency application to the Supreme Court, requesting that the construction halt be put on hold while the administration appeals the appeals court’s ruling.

    In the emergency filing submitted Friday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that allowing the stop order to take effect when the project is already 65 percent complete would be deeply inequitable, and framed the paused construction as “dangerous.” Sauer also argued that forcing the president to seek congressional approval to upgrade White House security would give the legislative branch improper, dangerous leverage over executive branch safety. He described the impending halt as “construction-by-injunction,” writing that “With the dangerous injunction poised to take effect for the first time on August 21, its stop-work mandate is even more flagrantly inequitable, if not impossible.”

    President Trump has defended the project from its launch, arguing that the White House currently lacks a sufficiently large venue to accommodate major national and international events, and that the expansion is critical to bolstering on-site national security. Beyond the ballroom, the administration says the project includes new national security and emergency infrastructure, including hardened bomb shelters and on-site medical facilities for use during crises.

    The administration has also pushed back on legal challenges by claiming that no congressional approval is required because the entire $400 million price tag is being covered by private corporate donations, not taxpayer funds.

    This ballroom project is not the only controversial infrastructure initiative tied to Trump’s broader plan to reshape Washington D.C.’s iconic cityscape. The president has also overseen a renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and has proposed building a massive “Arc de Trump,” modeled after Paris’ iconic Arc de Triomphe. All of these projects have faced repeated allegations that the administration skipped legally required public comment and environmental and historic review processes, claims the president has consistently denied.

  • Wife of US soldier is removed from deportation flight and released from federal immigration custody

    Wife of US soldier is removed from deportation flight and released from federal immigration custody

    A months-long nightmare for a military family took an unexpected turn this week, when Maisa Lopes Eliaser, the Brazilian wife of an active-duty U.S. Army soldier, was removed from a deportation flight mid-trip and allowed to return home to Louisiana, after spending more than 30 days in federal immigration detention.

  • Zambia suspends vote counting in election over reports of violence and the theft of ballot papers

    Zambia suspends vote counting in election over reports of violence and the theft of ballot papers

    LUSAKA, Zambia — Zambia’s national electoral governing body has abruptly halted the counting of ballots in the country’s hotly contested presidential election on Friday, responding to widespread reports of physical assaults on polling staff and the unauthorized removal of a number of ballot boxes and papers from counting centers.

    The Electoral Commission of Zambia announced the immediate suspension in an official statement, citing the rapidly deteriorating security landscape and persistent credible threats of violent unrest across multiple counting sites as the core justifications for the decision. According to the commission’s announcement, the halt will remain in place for a 24-hour period, after which electoral officials will re-evaluate the on-ground security conditions to determine whether counting can safely resume.

    The presidential election, held Thursday across the copper-rich southern African nation, has incumbent President Hakainde Hichilema running to secure a second five-year term in office. Hichilema faces competition from 13 opposition challengers, with Brian Mundubile — leader of a unified coalition of major opposition parties — standing out as the incumbent’s most formidable competitor for the presidency.

    While Zambia has built a reputation for holding largely peaceful democratic elections over recent decades, the lead-up to this year’s vote has been marked by rising political tensions. The opposition and independent human rights organizations have levelled criticism at Hichilema’s administration ahead of polling, claiming the government has implemented restrictive measures to suppress dissenting political voices.

    In one high-profile incident in the pre-election period, Mundubile’s opposition coalition accused Hichilema’s government of orchestrating a raid by law enforcement agents on the alliance’s national campaign headquarters just days before voting was scheduled to begin. The coalition has stated that the raid was a deliberate, politically motivated action intended to disrupt its campaign operations and disadvantage its candidates ahead of the poll.

    This development comes as part of ongoing coverage of African political events from the Associated Press, with full updates available via the AP Africa news hub.