Colombians vote in a stark choice between left and right

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Hello and welcome to News Hour. From the BBC World Service coming to you live from London, I'm Julian Mori. We begin the programme in Columbia, one of South America's most populous nations, rich in natural resources, but which has been blighted over decades by violence and conflict involving armed groups and drug cartels. Today, people there are having to make a stark choice between two very different visions for the country's future.

Colombians have been closely following two huge contests this week, one taking place in a stadium in Mexico, the other taking place at the ballot boxes. But in the election the choice Polarizing.

Seba for president, Fiscal says. We need security for the country. We know who that means. El Tigre.

y pues ya sabemos quién es ese voto.

On the one hand there's the right wing firebrand, Avalado de la Esprea, an admirer of Donald Trump and El Salvador's president Bukele. He calls himself El Tigre, the Tiger, and wears the national football shirt to rallies, which his critics accuse him of politicizing. He's pledged a military crackdown on armed groups and cartels and to build ten mega prisons in the jungle.

I tell armed groups, I declare you a military target and I will be able to do that.

On the other hand, Ivan Cepeda, a left wing senator whose father was killed by government aligned paramilitaries in Colombia's decades long internal conflict between the state and rival armed groups. He's an ally of the current President Petro and has pledged to continue his strategy of prioritising negotiation with armed groups over military action to reduce the loss of life.

Fuerza Radica. lies in the fact that we trust the people, we believe in our social movements. the community organizations in the social en las lideresas y los líderes sociales.

For many Colombians, the stakes couldn't be higher. Those competing visions for tackling violence will have a huge impact on many people's lives and futures.

Chips.

Yn ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â phobl. by Colombia's internal armed conflict and people here are desperate for change.

Thank you.

Tengo un hermano por parte de padre.

I have a half brother on my father's side who was taken by the four guerrillas. We never heard from him again.

que desplazarnos. We had no choice but to displace ourselves.

Yeah.

I have a brother who was murdered for not paying an extortion threat in front of his children.

Espre has retained support in the Caribbean coastal region where he grew up, while Cepeda has had a lead among young voters.

Yo pienso que eso es lo que hoy necesitamos de

Luisa Sanchez, a childhood family friend of Espreya's, says he has the character, courage, what we need for Colombia. A person who has his pants on, who's tough on drug trafficking, tough on guerrillas.

The crowd here are ecstatic, a win for Colombia. People are cheering, singing, couldn't be

Yeah.

This is a moment that briefly is uniting the

Country.

But the election result is going to be a lot more polarizing and we see it. Don't know who's gonna be celebrating them.

That was Ioni Wells reporting and we can speak to Ioni Live now in the coastal city of Barranquilla. Um Ioni, what's your assessment of the day so far?

Well, uh my journey to Barranquia from Bogota i I could have mistaken for being a a journey en route to a World Cup football match. Almost everybody uh on that plane was wearing the yellow football jersey. Now while some might have been wearing that uh in support of the the the national football team, I think it is fair to say that the right wing candidate Esprayer certainly has huge

Uh and is there any acknowledgement on either side of the risks that that polarizan polarization poses going beyond the result of this election?

I think there is there is real concern among supporters. I mean uh certainly both candidates are going into this election adamant that they're the one that's going to win. I think one thing that's definitely concerned people is what does the current President Gustavo Petro do after this result? Because after the first round of the election when Espreya came out of that first round with a pretty significant lead. Uh Gustavo Petro was very quick to dismiss this result and uh even make

And what of the nearest neighbors to Colombia and indeed further afield the United States? How how closely are they watching all of this?

The US is is watching this very closely. Donald Trump has made no secret of who he is backing. He is firmly backing Espreya, saying that he will restore order to the country and even said that US support will come flowing to Colombia if Esprea wins, essentially making support conditional uh on the right wing candidate winning, something which the left has

Ioni Wells, in Columbia. Thank you very much.

Now it's been a day of direct talks about the conflict in the Middle East between US and Iranian officials in Switzerland. They followed the signing of an interim deal last Wednesday by Presidents Trump and Pezesh Kian. That deal included a commitment for the two sides to reach a final agreement within sixty days, a task made more challenging by continuing fighting between the Israeli military and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

What the President has asked us to do is turn over a new leaf, to transform our relationship with the people of Iran and to extend an outstretched hand. That says to the people of Iran that if your leadership is willing to give up being a driver of regional instability, If they are willing to give up nuclear weapons ambitions for the long term, then the United States is willing to fundamentally transform our relationship with that country.

Well Sorab Amari is the US editor of the British magazine Unheard and he's on the line from the venue where those talks are taking place. Uh JD Vance talks of progress, uh Sorab. What's your sense of what's happened?

Hi Julian. Yeah, I think that's accurate. This is a uh set of talks that's been marked by people here and what they'll tell you, um, obviously on background is that it's been productive and cordial. Um, I've heard things like that all over the place. Of course we don't know what's go uh us reporters don't know what's going on in the rooms. Um and there are the main kind of issues of contention of course are the nuclear dossier ongoing for for years and years.

Uh and those questions, I mean, they aren't really being meaningfully addressed just yet.

Well it di it depends on what you mean by that. I mean there's a broad agreement codified in that memoranda of unders of understanding, so what this talk and what will go on for the next sixty days aims at accomplishing is putting technical meat on that skeleton. So the You have the broad outlines, but then the question is, okay, like what does it mean for Iran not to seek nuclear weapons? What does it mean for disengagement from Lebanon, et cetera?

You know J D Vance. Um what would be a good outcome for him here?

Well look, I think politically speaking, uh it's no secret that the Vice President was one of the more skeptical voices on the in the administration. uh when it came to this intervention in the first place. But I think uh as a politician, obviously he would love to put a bow on it and say that, you know something like although

And after today, briefly, what's next? I mean what is what is scheduled in the coming days and weeks?

Well I we don't know. W w I was on the tarmac when the Vice President uh took off, he left before the the press pool did. and he told us uh at the time to expect to be there maybe a day or two. Uh I don't know and I don't think it's clear yet to anyone whether or not there'd be some kind of definitive uh milestone that's expected out of this particular meeting. Maybe uh the Pakistani Prime Minister suggested that there's a gonna there's gonna be a document, but I haven't heard that from others.

Sorab, thank you very much. Uh Sorab Aramari, the US editor of the British magazine Unheard.

Coming up a tribute to the Lebanese conservationist Mona Halil, who died in southern Lebanon in an Israeli attack.

I think I called her at least, at least once a week begging her. Just begging her to leave and she would say, No, this is the nesting season, this is where my turtles need me. I'd rather die protecting them. I just can't leave now.

A reminder of our headlines, the Iranian delegation has reportedly broken off peace talks in Switzerland after President Trump again threatened to bomb the country hard. His Vice President, J.D. Vance, had earlier said there'd been great progress. Colombians are voting in a presidential election runoff with a stark choice between left and right wing candidates, and the party of the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed has won an overwhelming victory in a general election.

This is Julia Morrika with NewsHour live from the BBC in London.

हांची तरतो है क्योंकि एक बार तो पहली पेपर लिक हो गया

Thank you.

There is a fear of another leak because the question paper has leaked once already. This is not a one off thing, it happens every year. This time the authorities just got to know about it and are holding the exam again, which is in a way a good thing because the students who worked hard should get fair results. But it's difficult to prepare and redo these exams.

Well Anita Rampal is a former Dean of the Faculty of Education at Delhi University. I asked her to explain this test.

Uh this is the national eligibility in entrance examination for the medical uh stream to go in for a medical college. And this has become very, very competitive because now one, it has become centralized. Earlier different states, you know, we got different states in the country, or different colleges would take their own exams. But some years back.

Just to go back to May first of all, what went wrong with this exam, this this time round

It came out that the paper had been legal. So students across the country knew what the questions were going to be. And this came out uh someone complained who saw this, who got a paper, he complained to the police and the police then later on when the investigations happened, they found that there was a large network in the social media.

Hence the need for them to retake now. Um The issues that you also raised um were with regard to the fact that the system is now centralized where it once wasn't. Why do you think that's a bad thing?

For two reasons. One, because when it's centralized and the questions become something which are completely made only for a machine scorable format. Students cannot be preparing this by themselves. So they need to go to tu coaching industries and tuition classes which give them the pattern of the questions and which drill them into Almost without thinking. And that's why people don't have the money for that.

Typically, uh what's the percentage of students who would normally pass this exam?

The chance to get in is small, it's probably one percent sometimes, even less.

This all makes for an enormously pressurized situation for the young people who want to get into the medical profession, doesn't it? I mean I suppose it's also an indication as to how much people still want to do that as a job in India.

Because there are no there are very few jobs coming in. I mean, so this is like an aspirational project for the whole family. People sell their land, people take loans, uh just because they think if one child gets into this, it'll change the entire uh, you know, the scope of what not just one child but the whole family.

Anita Rampau, former Dean of the Faculty of Education at Delhi University.

Now today is Father's Day in many countries across the world, including the United States, India, Canada, and the UK. It's a day for celebrating and honoring Fathers. And there's a new book out by Darby Saxby outlining how fatherhood might have a positive effect on men, physically, psychologically, and emotionally. The book is called Dad Brain The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men's Lives, well she's been speaking to my colleague Paul Henley.

It's an interesting irony because the majority of biomedical research actually focuses on men. So we know more about the male body than we do about the female body, including the male brain, and even our lab animals have predominantly been male. So you often hear calls for more research on women, and yet if you dig into the parenting research, you see the opposite trend. So when I looked for studies on fathers, I found almost a nine to one ratio.

And if I were to summarise your findings, could I say that fatherhood is mentally all really good news for a male?

I would say it's mostly good. It's actually a bit of a mixed bag. So we find that the brain actually shrinks. it loses gray matter volume across the transition to fatherhood. And that is something we see in mothers as well. And it's theorized to increase efficiency and make us process information.

Right, physical decline is part of fatherhood, dad bod is a thing, but broadly speaking, dad mind is pretty much a wonderful thing.

Yes, it is a mind that can be more empathetic and that can process social information more efficiently. So dads are more attuned to the needs of their children when they're getting more practice. in parenthood and their neurobiology is adapting to suit their new role.

And that was Darby Saxby, she's the author of that newly published book. Uh, the title, Dad Brain, The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men's Lives. She was talking there to my colleague, Paul Henley. Or with News Hour from the BBC World Service, the latest news headlines coming up in just over a minute's time.

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You're listening to Newshour from the BBC World Service, Britain's Prime Minister Sakir Starmer may not have long left in his job. Several of his ministers have reportedly urged him to lay out a timetable for his departure. This follows a by election win last Thursday for the man thought most likely to succeed him, the former mayor of Greater Manchester in Northern England, Andy Burnham.

Uh very much so, and certainly to the Labour politicians that I've been speaking to and BBC colleagues and other political correspondents have been speaking to, they think that the end is very much nigh for Sakir Starmer that it could come in the next few hours and days a and for the simple reason, Julian, that while Keir Starmer himself is absolutely he would love to stay, he thinks it's crazy for him to lose his job, but it's about numbers and essentially

Even though two years ago he won a landslide in a general election.

Yes, absolutely true. But we are living in a different time in British politics. We're living in the era of volatility this last decade. since the Brexit referendum. And I think it's worth pointing out as well, Julian, that it was always a bit loveless towards Keir Starmer. He wasn't swept into power in twenty twenty four with the same enthusiasm that greeted Tony Blair after he'd ended uh a a long period of Conservative government. So he he wasn't that popular to start with and

Well, I mentioned Andy Burnham, who is likely uh I wouldn't go any further than that to succeed him. He's talking about change as well, isn't he?

He he he is, but I I think there's a great deal of scepticism about that. I mean it's certainly true that they would be very different as personalities where Sakir Starmer is certainly in public at least a rather sort of joyless, dower character. Uh Andy Burnham is much more likable, I I suppose you could say, uh r relatable, sort of easier to laugh.

Rob, thank you. Rob Watson on British Policy.

No matter what happens in the Toby. With an agreement, without an agreement. I pledge to you that Iran, as long as I'm Prime Minister, will never have a nuclear weapon.

Never

As long as we need to protect our people, we will remain in the security zone in South Lebanon. And the reason the reason is perfectly understood. No country would be asked to do otherwise.

Well there has been a lot of talk about the diversions uh divergence there is between the US and Israel on how to approach Iran and This is part of a bigger question about Washington's ability to shape the international order on its own terms, and whether that ability has taken a severe knock in recent months.

Well it does feel a little bit different right now. On the one hand, you still have the use of American power and clearly the whole world is kind of watching, waiting, holding their breath. uh but we also clearly can't seem to shape things quite the way we want. Uh and part of that is uh a Trump administration that

I mean you mentioned the Trump administration, which is clearly key to what's happening Now, but if there has been a a diminution of America's ability to shape the international order as you describe, has that not been a more gradual thing? Could you not point to other recent events? pre President Trump, where again that level of influence was to a degree limited.

Well, as the world has become more more multilateral as there are m more powers who also can compete with the United States and and we move from we had a bipolar world to a unipolar world to a multipolar world, almost by definition the United States is not gonna have the same leverage that it once had. Still, in terms of military power, economic power, no one is more able to affect the international environment and that ability to affect the international environment

Um you're there in Israel at the moment. Um on a specific point. Uh how do Israeli American relations look to you just now and where do they go potentially from here?

More complicated. More complicated than we've seen them. That's a diplomatic term. Uh the reality is that uh the Trump uh Netanyahu relationship perceived to be what it was, but also there's a public attitudes in the United States have been changing. It'll be very interesting to see. We're gonna have an election in Israel. by the end of October, before the end of October. It'll be very interesting to see if there is a change in in government.

And what of the traditional Gulf allies of the United States, many of whom have been on the receiving end of attacks from Iran since this war began?

I think that they will hedge bets in a lot of ways. They will obviously make their own kinds of quiet deals with the Iranians, but that those will stay within bounds. They'll try to have certain understandings, but they their trust level of Iran is probably lower than it's ever been, but also a recognition of the trouble that Iran can cause is also acute. So they'll they'll make their own kinds of accommodations in within bounds.

Dennis Ross, former US Envoy to the Middle East.

Now the number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo is approaching a thousand. As of Saturday evening, the government said that there'd been two hundred and forty-seven deaths. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak of public health emergency of international concern in mid May, and now there's growing concern about the number of cases at a camp for displaced people in Bunia, in northeastern Congo.

Our hospital has lost two of our staff members, one doctor and one nurse, and then the brother of our medical director died several days ago. And but then there's so many people in the community. I spoke to one of my Congolese friends the other day and asked him how many people he knew personally that had died and this was about a week ago and he said thirty and his wife had the day prior knew eight people that died that day. So the scale of death, you know, whole families have I have died.

I wanted to ask you about the situation in Bunia, uh the Kigonzi camp for displaced people there. Um what's the latest you are hearing on that?

There's now a lot of transmission in Bunya and I think the the concern in these displaced camps is that I think there's there's fifteen thousand people or so in the Kikoonze camp. They're living very close to each other. Water is always a problem. Sewage is a problem. Families are very close together. Some of these communities have expectations that you will honor the body by touch. Also, when you're sick, you go to the hospital with lots of people.

Uh we should complete your story. You were evacuated to Prague and quarantined in Prague. J just describe that that situation in terms of how you were looked after there.

I was very well taken care of. Thankfully I didn't require too much care. I never got sick. So the concern was that I w I had a high risk exposure. and that I might become sick, but I did not. I did receive an experimental monoclonal antibody that will hopefully soon be available in Congo in clinical trials. And uh so perhaps that protected me from the disease. But I was isolated in a uh what they call a bio box for twenty one days.

Mm. I I mean you you hinted at this in what you said a moment ago, that there clearly is a stark contrast, isn't there, between what you were able to receive by way of treatment and what people back in in DR Congo have available. That's not a criticism of you, but I wonder what your reflections are on that.

It's absolutely true and it's it's painful to see. I think living in Congo long term, I think you have to become somewhat accustomed to those contrasts because you know that if you for instance, if you don't go out on vacation, you will burn out and you will not last eleven years there. And so you have to find certain ways to stay stay healthy as an expat. It's an amazing thing To invest so much in the care of one patient, to value the life of one person so much.

And do you want to go back yourself?

I I do, very much so. On the other hand, I I've already been separated from my kids for a month. But it it's hard to be away when you see your friends suffering, when you see them working so hard. And one thing I've been trying to do from afar is to encourage people to trust my Congolese colleagues and the response because the the resistance and the fears are such a huge barrier to getting this outbreak under control.

That was Patrick La Rochelle, who was a medical missionary in the Democratic Republic of Congo until May he was speaking to me from uh his home back in the United States. You're with News Hour from the BBC World Service.

This is Julia Morrika with NewsHour, live from the BBC in London.

Now I'm living my life. What I like to do. What makes me feel strong? What makes me feel good? This protecting Mother Nature I'm a fighter.

Mona Halil. Well I've been speaking to one of Mona's friends, Monique Basila, also Lebanese, met Mona on the beach and became her friend.

I had three kids and I was desperate to show them something related to nature because my husband and I we really love animals and we wanted to teach our kids how to respect nature. So uh a friend of mine told me about this wonderful lady who lives in the south of Lebanon and who has a bed and breakfast and she teaches people about uh protecting the sea turtles.

What was she like in that environment? What was she like on that beach uh when the turtles were there?

She would clean the beach, that was the most important thing for her, and look for anything that can disturb the the turtles like plastics and at night that no one would come near the beach so the turtles are not disturbed. She was like the guardian of this. Beach. And during the nesting season in May and June, she would search for the nests, counted the eggs, protect them from predators. And uh rising water. So if the nest is close to the water she would uh put it somewhere else uh carefully.

I mean it's extraordinary dedication. What was it about those creatures, do you think, that that gave them a special appeal for her?

Well I don't know really what happened to her. I know that she Muna lost lost her son when he was young, for she never discussed why and how. Then she moved to Netherland to live there for twenty years to recover from this shock in her life. And when she came back in nineteen ninety nine she was at this beach which is

You mentioned the Netherlands, you know. Uh she painted her house orange, didn't she? Yes. In recognition of that.

Yes. She is very, very grateful for the Netherlands because she says that they helped her a lot uh recover from this shock and uh to be able to continue in her life.

How well known did she become in in Lebanon for the work that she was doing?

Well, she was very well known, but not enough. Uh uh, because you know, this situation was not helping. We had a lot of war, we had a lot of conflict. She spent a lot of time educating children. That was her main, main concern. She would say that I wanna educate the children because these are the future, they are the future. They will help me continue my uh my mission. So she she would kill herself. Actually she died because of this.

When you think about the risk that she she was living through because of the war that was going on around her, I mean, were you one of those who perhaps said to her have you thought about moving away? Have you thought about going somewhere safer?

Well, since March when this last conflict started, I think I called her at least at least once a week, begging her. just begging her to leave and she would say, No, this is the nesting season, this is where my turtles need me. I'd rather die protecting them I just can't leave now. And she was alone. Like she was she thought that if she is alone in this house, in the orange house, and I would like to say that the orange house was

I I sense from the way you describe her that she was a very determined, a very single minded person. I i is that fair?

She's so unique. I mean Muna has a very, very strong character. She would fight leaders in Lebanon when they had like a a resort that might have lights that disturbed the the turtles. I mean the biggest leaders that no one can can even say a word to them. She would do as much as possible so they can turn off the lights at night to protect the sea and to make sure that the turtle can come at night to lay its eggs.

And what now? I mean the legacy is obviously there because of the work she's done. But how is the work maintained from here, I wonder?

Well Julian, and it's so sad to tell you that we have no more Orange House. The whole Orange House house is on the floor and Mona is gone. I have no idea what's next. I don't know if we're gonna be able ever to go back to her place. We have no idea what the future is holding for us. But I know for a fact that you can't even say the word sea turtle in Lebanon without A person thinking about Mona Khalil.

Monique Basila speaking to me uh about the life and work of the marine conservationist Mona Halil in southern Lebanon. And that's it for this edition of NewsHour. Thank you very much for listening. Stay tuned to the BBC World Service. The latest news is next.

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