Colombia

Leftist Iván Cepeda conceded to far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella who won by razor-thin marginThe defeated leftwing candidate in Colombia’s presidential runoff has conceded to the far-right, Trump-admiring millionaire lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella.Since Sunday night, the preliminary count had already pointed to a De la Espriella victory by a razor-thin margin of less than 1% of the vote. Continue reading...

• Colombia defeated Congo and Cristiano Ronaldo ended his scoring slump to lead Portugal to victory in recent FIFA World Cup action. • England and Harry Kane were held scoreless in a draw against Ghana, while the Netherlands dominated Sweden with a 5-1 win. • Data shows that players from the top three professional leagues in England, Germany, and Spain have scored over half of the tournament's goals, with the English Premier League leading.

Trump-admiring Abelardo de la Espriella has vowed to ‘disembowel’ the left and kill criminals like ‘rats and cockroaches’When more than 20 women accused a Colombian evangelical pastor in 2012 of sexually abusing them, the defendant’s lawyer sought to discredit the allegations by telling the court that they were “trepadoras” – a pejorative term meaning social climbers.He ultimately secured his client’s acquittal – although the case remains under review by the supreme court – but footage of the remark resurfaced during Colombia’s presidential campaign, sparking outrage among many progressive voters. Continue reading...

Leftwing opponent alleges vote count irregularities after Trump-endorsed lawyer secures narrow majorityThe Trump-admiring far-right millionaire lawyer and self-styled “outsider” Abelardo de la Espriella has won Colombia’s presidential runoff, defeating the leftwing senator Iván Cepeda.With 99.65% of ballots counted in the preliminary vote tally, de la Espriella had secured 12.91m votes, or 49.65%, just 248,310 more than Cepeda, who received 12.67m votes, or 48.7%. A further 1.6% of ballots were cast blank. Continue reading...

Frontrunner Abelardo de la Espriella has vowed to return to full-scale military confrontation with armed groups Colombians go to the polls on Sunday in a presidential runoff expected to trigger to a dramatic shift in the country’s decades-long armed conflict, now at its most violent point since the landmark 2016 peace agreement between the government and most of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).Polls show the frontrunner is the Trump-admiring far-right lawyer and millionaire businessman Abelardo de la Espriella, who has vowed to abandon President Gustavo Petro’s “total peace” plan of negotiating the disarmament of all criminal organisations and instead return to full-scale military confrontation with armed groups. Continue reading...

Colombians will choose on Sunday between two men whose lives have been very differently shaped by the militias, and whose visions for the country are poles apartWhoever wins Sunday’s presidential runoff vote in Colombia, the country’s next leader will have a personal history intertwined with one of the criminal forces at the heart of a decades-long armed conflict that claimed nearly half a million lives.The lives of Iván Cepeda and Abelardo de la Espriella have, in very different ways, been shaped by their relationship with Colombia’s paramilitaries – private armies originally established by rightwing landowners, drug traffickers, businessmen, mining magnates and politicians to fight leftwing guerrilla groups. Continue reading...

• In a series of 2026 World Cup matches, England defeated Croatia in Thomas Tuchel’s debut, Colombia beat Uzbekistan, and Ghana secured a win over Panama with a late goal. • Portugal and DR Congo ended their match in a draw, while the four games combined drew a total of 281,223 fans. • This attendance broke a 32-year-old single-day tournament record previously set in the United States on June 28, 1994, with 277,070 spectators.