World
El Salvador vows harsh response after slaying of police officer
Thousands of soldiers and police have encircled the city of Nueva Concepcion after the killing of a police officer.
The government of El Salvador has deployed thousands of soldiers and police officers to a small town in a show of force after a police officer was killed by an alleged gang member.
More than 5,000 soldiers and 500 police officers encircled the northern city of Nueva Concepcion on Wednesday, with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele saying that they would seek out those responsible.
“They will pay dearly for the murder of our hero,” Bukele said in a Twitter post, adding that forces would seek out “the entire gang structure and collaborators still hiding in that place”.
The Bukele government has launched a nationwide crackdown on the country’s gangs over the last year, winning widespread support from the public but sparking concerns about systematic human rights abuses.
The government declared a “state of exception”, suspending key civil liberties in March 2022 after gangs were blamed for a spate of killings.
The government has extended the order to keep those powers in place 14 times since, and human rights organisations and media outlets have documented cases of torture, disappearances and innocent people arbitrarily detained in prison.
Neighbourhoods once dominated by gangs have become safer for residents, who have largely expressed support for the government’s heavy-handed policies after years of violence and exploitation at the hands of the gangs.
But some experts and human rights groups have questioned how sustainable the public safety gains will prove in the long term.
Ante el homicidio ocurrido ayer, de un agente de nuestra @PNCSV, por parte de pandilleros que aún se encuentran en algunos sectores de nuestro país, escondidos, huyendo del Régimen de Excepción…
Desde esta madrugada, establecimos un cerco de seguridad alrededor del municipio de… pic.twitter.com/6r8BxuLBDb
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) May 17, 2023
Wednesday’s troop deployment to Nueva Concepcion is not the first time that the government has taken part in a large display of force. Last October, 2,000 soldiers and police officers surrounded the city of Comasagua, about 30km (20 miles) southwest of the capital of San Salvador, detaining 50 people in two days.
And in December, the government sealed off the neighbourhood of Soyapango, a suburb of the capital, with about 10,000 soldiers and police as government forces swept through the area detaining suspects.
More than 68,000 suspects have been detained since last year as part of the continuing crackdown, many of whom have been transferred to a new “mega-prison” opened in February, designed to incarcerate approximately 40,000 people total.
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World
Israel moves towards ceasefire deal with Hezbollah: reports
Israel is reportedly moving towards a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah in Lebanon after nearly a year of fighting escalated into an all-out war in September.
Israeli media outlets including YNET and Haaretz have reported that Israel has tentatively agreed to a U.S.-backed proposal for a ceasefire. No final deal has been reached, according to the reports.
Lebanon and the militia group Hezbollah reportedly agreed to the deal last week but both sides need to give the final okay before it can materialize.
The reported ceasefire deal comes after Hezbollah launched one of its largest rocket attacks on Israel in exchange for Israeli forces striking Hezbollah command centers in Beirut.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
World
Yamandu Orsi wins Uruguay’s run-off presidential election
Yamandu Orsi, the candidate for the left-wing Broad Front coalition, is projected to emerge victorious in Uruguay’s run-off election for the presidency.
He bested Alvaro Delgado of the ruling National Party to win the tightly fought race, though public opinion polls showed the two candidates in a dead heat in the lead-up to Sunday’s vote.
Orsi’s supporters took to the streets in the capital of Montevideo, as the official results started to show the former mayor and history teacher surging ahead.
Many waved the party banner: a red, blue and white striped flag with the initials FA for “Frente Amplio”, which translates to “Broad Front”.
“Joy will return for the majority,” the coalition posted on social media as Orsi approached victory. “Cheers, people of Uruguay.”
Orsi’s win restores the Broad Front to power in the small South American country, sandwiched on the Atlantic coast between Brazil and Argentina.
For 15 years, from 2005 to 2020, the Broad Front had held Uruguay’s executive office, with the presidencies of Jose Mujica and Tabare Vazquez, the latter of whom won two non-consecutive, five-year terms.
But that winning streak came to an end in the 2019 election, with the victory of current President Luis Lacalle Pou, who led a coalition of right-leaning parties.
Under Uruguay law, however, a president cannot run for consecutive terms. Lacalle Pou was therefore not a candidate in the 2024 race.
Running in his stead was Delgado, a former veterinarian and Congress member who served as a political appointee in Lacalle Pou’s government from 2020 to 2023.
Even before the official results were announced on Sunday, Delgado had conceded, acknowledging Orsi’s victory was imminent.
“Today, the Uruguayans have defined who will hold the presidency of the republic. And I want to send here, with all these actors of the coalition, a big hug and a greeting to Yamandu Orsi,” Delgado said in a speech as he clutched a large Uruguayan flag in his hand.
He called on his supporters to “respect the sovereign decisions” of the electorate, while striking a note of defiance.
“It’s one thing to lose an election, and another to be defeated. We are not defeated,” he said, pledging that his right-wing coalition was “here to stay”.
The outgoing president, Lacalle Pou, also reached out to Orsi to acknowledge the Broad Front’s victory.
“I called [Yamandu Orsi] to congratulate him as president-elect of our country and to put myself at his service and begin the transition as soon as I deem it pertinent,” Lacalle Pou wrote on social media.
Orsi had been considered the frontrunner in the lead-up to the first round of the elections.
Originally from Canelones, a coastal regional in the south of Uruguay, Orsi began his career locally as a history teacher, activist and secretary-general of the department’s government. In 2015, he successfully ran to be mayor of Canelones and won re-election in 2020.
In the 2024 presidential race, Orsi – like virtually all the candidates on the campaign trail – pledged to bolster Uruguay’s economy. He called for salary increases, particularly for low-wage workers, to grow their “purchasing power”.
He also called for greater early childhood education and employment programmes for young adults. According to a United Nations report earlier this year, nearly 25 percent of Uruguay’s children live in poverty.
But the economy was not the only issue at the forefront of voters’ minds. In a June survey from the communications firm Nomade, the largest share of respondents – 29 percent – identified “insecurity” as Uruguay’s “principal problem”.
That dwarfed the second-highest ranked topic: “Unemployment” was only picked by 15 percent of respondents.
As part of his platform, Orsi pledged to increase the police force and strengthen Uruguay’s borders, including through the installation of more security cameras.
As he campaigned, Orsi enjoyed the support of former President Mujica, a former rebel fighter who survived torture under Uruguay’s military dictatorship in the 1970s and ’80s.
Mujica remains a popular figure on Uruguay’s left, best known for his humble living arrangements that once earned him the moniker of the “world’s poorest president”.
In the first round of voting, on October 27, Orsi came out on top, with 44 percent of the vote to Delgado’s 27 percent. But his total was far short of the 50 percent he needed to win the election outright, thereby triggering a run-off.
The race got tighter from there forward. Only two candidates progressed to the run-off – Delgado and Orsi – and Delgado picked up support from voters who had backed former Colorado Party candidate Andres Ojeda, a fellow conservative who was knocked out in the first round.
Nevertheless, Orsi quickly pulled ahead after the polls closed for the run-off election on Sunday.
“The horizon is brightening,” Orsi said in his victory speech. “The country of freedom, equality and also fraternity triumphs once again.”
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