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Colombians vote in runoff election expected to trigger shift in decades-long armed conflict

Colombians are going to the polls 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. De la Espriella’s opponent in the ballot will be Petro’s chosen successor and the main architect of “total peace”, the leftwing senator Iván Cepeda, who argues for the continuation of the plan, with “necessary changes”. Cepeda led the polls throughout most of the campaign but was defeated in the first round three weeks ago and has since struggled to attract centrist voters. At the opening of polling stations, Petro displayed his ballot showing a vote for Cepeda, urged Colombians to “vote, whatever their choice”, and said he rejected “interference by foreign leaders” – a reference to the US president, Donald Trump, who this week again endorsed De la Espriella while describing the progressive candidate as a “radical left Marxist”. Petro also announced that, as he controversially did during the first round, he would not accept the preliminary vote count released by the National Civil Registry, the independent public body responsible for organising Colombia’s elections, which are expected a few hours after polls close at 4pm local time (10pm GMT). Instead, Petro said he would only recognise the outcome of the official scrutiny process, which is expected to take about two more days. Three weeks ago, the president alleged fraud in the preliminary count without presenting evidence, drawing widespread criticism from election experts. Historically, the difference between the preliminary count and the official scrutiny in Colombian elections has been less than 1%. The election, in which more than 41 million Colombians are eligible to vote, is expected to deliver another victory for a far-right candidate advocating an iron-fist approach to crime, after the examples of Keiko Fujimori, who is leading the vote count in Peru, and José Antonio Kast, who won last year’s election in Chile. Amid what many analysts see as a new wave of far-right victories across Latin America, a De la Espriella presidency would leave only Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay and Guatemala under leftwing governments. Sandra Borda Guzmán, an associate professor of political science at Los Andes University in Bogotá, said De la Espriella successfully tapped into two trends that have shaped recent elections around the world: presenting himself as an anti-establishment “outsider” and promising quick solutions to violence. He even promised that, if elected, he would restore state control over territories dominated by criminal groups within 90 days – although he later appeared to backtrack, telling Radio Caracol: “I never said I would solve the security problem in 90 days.” De la Espriella, a lawyer who launched his legal career defending leaders of rightwing paramilitary militias, maintained that his goal during his first three months in office would be to “capture or kill” 10 major narcoterrorist and organised crime leaders. “Between the international trend favouring candidates who present themselves as anti-political figures and Colombia’s domestic security situation, that combination has helped him significantly,” said Guzmán. Although violence remains far below the extraordinarily high levels recorded in the decades before the peace deal with the Farc, the past year has been the most violent since the 2016 agreement. Miguel Bermúdez, a 40-year-old business administrator from the coastal city of Cartagena, said he would vote for De la Espriella largely because he is an “outsider” despite his long history as a lawyer for the rich and powerful. “For a long time, I’ve been looking for something that feels fresh. I’m tired of that same old political narrative,” said Bermúdez. Kátia Outten, a 57-year-old dentist from the island of San Andrés, said she would vote for Cepeda because “he understands the needs of ordinary people”. During his presidency, Cepeda’s backer Petro expanded social programmes and increased the minimum wage. The poverty rate has fallen to its lowest level since records began in 2012. Outten also decided not to vote for De la Espriella because of what she sees as his sexist views, including a radio interview in which he claimed to have won support among female voters because of the size of his penis. “Women make up just over 50% of the population. If we go out and vote with women’s empowerment in mind, we can show that all of that rhetoric has no basis,” she said.

Middle East live: US-Iran peace talks underway as strait of Hormuz remains closed

Israel’s military chief said on Sunday that Hezbollah had suffered a severe blow fighting Israeli forces and was now in a “very difficult position”, as he met with troops in southern Lebanon. “Hezbollah has suffered a severe and significant blow, and we are committed to remaining prepared to continue operating and prevent its rebuilding,” Lieutenant Gen Eyal Zamir said, according to a military statement. “Hezbollah is in a very difficult position.”

France cancels events and restricts alcohol consumption amid brutal heatwave

Authorities in France have placed more than a third of the country under a red heat alert, cancelled some outdoor sports events and restricted alcohol consumption at the nationwide Fête de la Musique event amid a brutal heatwave forecast to push temperatures above 40C. Level 1 or 2 heat alerts were issued on Sunday for about 53 million people, or 76% of the population. A record 35 of the country’s 96 mainland departments were put on danger-to-life red alert, with another 45 under an orange warning. The national weather service, Météo-France, said: “Very high temperatures are setting in for the long term,” with a heatwave of “exceptional severity and duration” likely to break monthly and possibly all-time records. It warned that temperatures could exceed 40C in many places on Sunday, with some areas facing rises to 42C or beyond from Monday. The national heat index, an average of day- and night-time highs at 30 weather stations nationwide, is also expected to hit its highest ever level, the forecasters added. Sunday’s Fête de la Musique is a nationwide summer solstice celebration held every year in which musicians take over the streets with free performances and revellers party into the night. This year’s festival is a particular source of heat-related health concerns, especially in Paris, Lyon and other major cities. France’s culture minister, Catherine Pégard, urged “extreme vigilance” and said it should be up to local authorities to decide whether festivities should be cancelled or take place with suitable precautions. Most have opted for the latter. Several towns have cancelled pre-7pm performances or moved them indoors. Many have introduced alcohol restrictions, with drinking banned on the street and in public spaces in areas on red alert and no alcohol on sale at municipally organised events. In Paris, which is under a red warning, stronger drinks including high-alcohol beers, fortified wines and spirits have been banned along the banks of the Seine and the Canal St-Martin, to reduce the risk of people falling in. However, drinking at licensed bars and cafes and their terraces – where many gigs take place – is permitted. Nearly 5,000 police have been deployed across the capital for the day and evening, as well as 2,500 emergency and health service workers. Paris city hall has installed more than 1,300 free public water fountains, while more than 1,500 local shops have signed up for a scheme promising to fill personal water bottles without charge. France’s prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, convened a government heat crisis meeting on Saturday and planned another on Sunday, ordering ministers to urgently plan for better adapting France to further heatwaves in the future. Scientists have said that as the Earth continues to warm, extreme heat events historically confined to high summer will become more frequent, more intense and last longer, as well as happening earlier and later in the year. The French education minister, Édouard Geffray, said on Sunday that more than 800 schools across the country had already announced they would not open on Monday because of the extreme heat, while another 1,800 were rescheduling classes and end-of-year exams. Jean Castex, the head of the SNCF state rail service, advised “more vulnerable passengers” to avoid taking the train and postpone journeys if possible, warning that air-conditioning systems and other rail infrastructure were being “heavily tested” by the conditions. The heatwave is not confined to France. In Italy, authorities expanded heat warnings for Sunday from seven to eight cities in northern and central parts of the country, out of the 27 cities monitored nationally by the health ministry. In Spain, the national weather agency, Aemet, has issued red warnings for northern regions. Temperatures between 40C and 42C are forecast in the major river valleys and inland areas such as Andalucía and Extremadura, rising to nearly 44C by Tuesday. In the UK, the Met Office said baking heat could last until at least Thursday, sparking health alerts and concerns for vulnerable people. Forecasters have said there is “growing confidence” this week could break the record for the hottest UK June temperature of 35.6C, which was set in Southampton in 1976.

Four months after the horrific Iran school bombing, fears grow that Trump and Hegseth will bury the truth

The attack on a girl’s elementary school in the Iranian town of Minab was one of the US military’s deadliest civilian bombings in decades. But nearly four months on, the Pentagon has produced no answers about why the military fired a Tomahawk cruise missile into a school on the first day of the war, killing at least 175 people, mostly children. Some critics doubt that the Pentagon ever will, or will bury the results under classifications to keep the worst mistakes secret from the public. As the US signs a shaky memorandum of understanding on a ceasefire with Iran, the secretive investigation into the attack has also become a test case for the self-styled secretary of war Pete Hegseth’s new approach to what he calls “warfighting”. As he said in early March, nearly two weeks after the attack, “our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it”. Shortly after the attack, Donald Trump suggested that it was carried out by Iran. When it became clear that the strike used a US-made Tomahawk missile, he suggested that Iran also had access to the cruise missiles. It does not. As he celebrated a ceasefire deal to open the strait of Hormuz last week, Trump signalled he was ready to write off the attack as a mistake. “It’s such a strange question to be asked at this date, because you’re talking about a long time ago,” Trump said when he was asked about the investigation during a press conference at the G7 meeting in Évian-les-Bains, France. “But nobody did that on purpose.” It was at the beginning of what Trump has taken to calling a “little excursion” into Iran that the back-to-back or “double tap” strikes on the school building took place, killing mainly children under the age of 12. Officials have told media anonymously that the site was believed to be an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base. Mohammadreza Ahmadi Tifakani lost two children in the school bombing. His seven-year-old daughter, Hanieh, was killed, along with all of her classmates in the girl’s section of the school, when the first missile hit. According to witnesses, her 10-year-old brother, Sobhan, survived the initial explosion and ran back to look for his sister. He was killed in the second blast. “I personally went to the morgue and identified both of them,” Tifakani told the Guardian in an interview shortly after the attack. “Sobhan was missing an eye, and half of his face was gone. His legs were broken. Hanieh’s skull was fractured but her face was intact. I recognised Sobhan at first glance, even though he was severely injured.” Trump said last week: “Mistakes are made. The war is nasty.” Several former Pentagon and national security officials expressed doubt to the Guardian that the US government would take responsibility for the deaths of the schoolchildren in Minab or even release the full report into the attack. “It’s very rare that you would have a military operation and not have some incidents where there was a mistaken target and civilians are harmed or killed, but then there is a system for investigating, assessing accountability and taking responsibility” in those cases, said one former senior Pentagon official. “Even without the civilian harm mitigation office, there’s a very clear process for this, and I’m very doubtful that the Hegseth Pentagon will follow through,” the former official added. As part of Hegseth’s “anti-woke” crusade at the Pentagon, the military has shuttered or reduced units meant to review civilian casualty incidents and has more broadly indicated that decisions made in combat by “warfighters” would not be subject to such close scrutiny. The reduction in civilian oversight at the Pentagon under Hegseth may make it easier to skirt blame for the incident. The incident is comparable to some of the worst mass-casualty incidents of past US wars, including the 2017 Mosul airstrike that killed at least 105 and perhaps more than 200 civilians, the 2015 Kunduz hospital airstrike that killed 42 people, and the 1991 Amiriyah air raid shelter bombing that killed more than 400 Iraqi civilians who were sheltering during Desert Storm. Trump said last week that the investigation was continuing. US Central Command, when asked about the investigation, gave no new information. “We have no updates at this time,” a defence official wrote. But media reports indicate that the investigation has concluded. Preliminary results said the attack came because of the US using seven-year-old targeting data that failed to indicate that the building next to an IRGC base was in fact a girls’ school. The New York Times reported last week that at least one analyst had alerted a colleague several years ago that the US appeared to be targeting what was now a school in Minab. But the targeting data was not updated, and military officials continued to revalidate the site as a legitimate target for bombing. Tifakani said at the time he had little hope of accountability from US investigations or the world. Asked what message he had for legal institutions or investigators looking into the bombing, he said: “They are witnessing everything themselves. We saw what happened in Gaza and Palestine. Now the same tragedy has befallen our own children. No matter what we say to them, that will not change anything.” Congressional inquiries into the incident have also been stymied. “The US strike in Minab is one of the most horrific episodes of the entire illegal Trump war in Iran,” said Yassamin Ansari, an Iranian-American congresswoman who represents Arizona’s third district. She said she had written to the Trump administration to demand answers about the strike and “gotten little to no response”. “Donald Trump is hiding the truth from the American people and Congress, and deflecting blame to Secretary Hegseth, because he does not want the public to know the true horrors of what he unleashed on the Iranian people with absolutely nothing to show for it,” Ansari said. “I will continue to do everything in my power to get answers for the families of these girls.” Wes Bryant, a former US air force special operations targeting expert and former chief of civilian harm assessments at the Pentagon, said his few remaining colleagues overseeing civilian harm reduction at the Pentagon had been prevented from seeing the preliminary results of the investigation. “I believe Hegseth and Trump are both going to do everything they can to suppress this investigation,” he said. “So, even if there is one really sitting there, it’s not getting out any more, unless we have, you know, a brave whistleblower.” He added: “The amount of people with eyes on that report are going to be very small.” He said strikes in Iran that had killed thousands of civilians were a sign of the rising “aggregate harm” that the US was willing to accept as part of a culture of that pointed to “pure negligence and recklessness, but also to a degradation of culture at senior leadership levels in the military”. Early in his tenure as secretary of defence, Hegseth moved to close down or severely reduce civilian oversight of the Pentagon’s civilian harm mitigation and response, and a report released in May by the department’s inspector general concluded that the US military no longer had the people, tools or infrastructure needed to comply with two federal statutes requiring it to maintain a functioning civilian casualty policy and operate a civilian protection centre of excellence. In September, Hegseth said publicly that he had done away with “stupid rules of engagement” for the US military as part of an anti-woke revamping of the Pentagon. In March, weeks after the strike on the school, as the US campaign against Iran continued at a fever pitch, he boasted: “Warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly.” Observers have said the remarks and shuttering of key offices have limited civilian oversight at the Pentagon, with one former official saying the US “threw in the trash the whole mitigating civilian harm strategy”. Niku Jafarnia, the acting deputy Washington director for Human Rights Watch, said: “Hegseth himself has publicly expressed a lot of his scepticism around the amount of measures that we had in the military previously to mitigate these types of reckless errors and massive civilian harm incidents. “He has publicly expressed scepticism about the value of constraints on fighters, and he has taken actions that have systematically weakened some of these protection measures that are supposed to ensure compliance with the law.” Pointing to Hegseth’s earlier public remarks about “untying the hands of our warfighters” and ignoring “stupid rules of engagement”, she added: “I think we saw the effects of that on day one of the war.”

Sweat, tears and camaraderie as 20,000 runners take on world’s largest ultramarathon

In the early morning dark, thousands of runners waited, jostling with anticipation. South Africa’s national anthem rang out. Then the haunting swell of Shosholoza, first sung by Zimbabwean migrant workers in South Africa’s goldmines. Finally, that unmistakable, spine-tingling piano: Chariots of Fire. Runners gather before the start of the marathon 5am. A cock crowed. A gun fired. The runners streamed across the start line of the Comrades marathon. The Comrades is the world’s oldest and largest ultramarathon. The first race in 1921 took the runners 54.6 miles (88km) from Pietermaritzburg downhill to Durban on the coast. The following year the race was run in reverse, uphill back to Pietermaritzburg, and it has changed direction every year since, pausing only for the second world war and the Covid-19 pandemic. Over its 99 iterations, the route distance has averaged just under 55 miles. L-R clockwise: Athletes gather before the start of the Comrades Marathon in Durban; supporters gathered to watch the start of the 2026 Comrades; the race begins That first year, 34 runners, all white men, lined up for the race, conceived by the first world war veteran Vic Clapham as a way of honouring his fallen comrades. Sixteen of them finished. More than a century later, on 14 June, more than 20,000 people stood outside Durban city hall, hoping to make it to Pietermaritzburg before the 12-hour cutoff. What started as an all-white, all-male test of physical endurance has become part of the fabric of South African life, something so ordinary that you would be hard-pressed to find someone here who does not know a Comrades finisher. Running clubs bus in from all over the country. Security guards and shop workers line up alongside bankers and celebrities. And, for one day, every June, South Africa’s searing racial inequality seems to melt away. Nomusa Shelembe, from the Run Alex team, passes through Pinetown You hear it all around the race: every runner has their reason. William Seleka started running in March 2025, amid a deep depression after the break-up of his marriage. “I thought for me to stay alive, I had to keep myself busy,” he said, as he stretched before a run, outside the single room he rents in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, two weeks before Comrades. Seleka was persuaded to join Run Alex, a local club. Six months later, having never run further than 10km, he finished a 50km ultramarathon, from Johannesburg to Pretoria. “I used to hear people saying, ‘This is Comrades, you are running from Durban to Pietermaritzburg.’ I said, ‘It’s insane, you can’t do that.’ But now we are facing reality – I’m doing that as well,” he said. To train, Seleka ran at least 10km every weekday evening, after a day spent repairing appliances for fridge-maker Smeg. On Saturdays, the 38-year-old would run up to 50km with Run Alex. “Recovery,” he said, was a half marathon. Seleka said he wanted to create a legacy for his 15-year-old son and three-year-old daughter. “I can’t wait to have my red cap and the medal to show my kids.” William Seleka On a Comrades “up run”, runners must climb about 1,800 metres (5,900ft) on their journey to Pietermaritzburg, 650 metres higher than Durban. This year, runners started in three batches, at 5am, 5.15am and 5.30am. About 12 miles into the race, the sun began peeking above the horizon in Pinetown, a suburb above Durban. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” spectators shouted. Seleka appeared up the hill. “Good to see you,” he beamed, sweeping in for a glancing hug. In 1923, Frances Hayward became the first woman to start and finish the Comrades. In 1935, Robert Mtshali was the first black man to complete the race. Nonetheless, with only white men officially allowed to compete, the Comrades seemed fated to stay what most ultramarathons remain today – a niche, elite pursuit. L-R: A runner receives a leg-rub from a volunteer along the route in Camperdown; spectators cheer on the runners in Pinetown That changed in 1975 when the privately run race was desegregated and also opened to women. South Africa at the time had been shut out of all major global sporting events in response to apartheid, driving the sport-obsessed country mad. “Some people in the sporting world in South Africa had the idea that if they start desegregating some minor sports … it’ll show that South Africa is not as backward and racist a place as it’s made out to be,” said Ryan Lenora Brown, a journalist who has been covering the Comrades since 2017. Then there was the introduction of TV in 1976. The single, heavily censored state channel started showing Comrades highlights. In 1986, it broadcast the entire, all-day race in full. South Africans were mesmerised by the sight of delivery driver Hoseah Tjale going toe to toe with Bruce Fordyce, a professional athlete who won eight Comrades in a row from 1981. Runners fill the road from Durban to Pietermaritzburg “You would have these scenes in the 1980s of a white runner sharing a bottle of water with a black runner, which was such a small gesture, but such a huge thing in that society that was so divided,” said Brown. Apartheid had forced black South Africans on to the lowest rungs of society. But Tjale and Sam Tshabalala, the first black man to win Comrades in 1989, were proof that they could do anything. L-R: Supporters take photos with a runner in Pinetown; spectators line the route out of Camperdown As the runners left Durban, they wound their way upwards through lush trees, open fields and small towns. Families braaied by the roadside. Running clubs handed out supplies from gazebos pumping out music. Everybody was cheering the runners, willing them on. By the halfway point, most were walking up each hill. At the Run Alex aid station, Seleka changed into a spare pair of shoes. It was the wrong choice: by 34 miles he was in agony. The only way he could distract himself from the pain was by counting or singing. William Seleka near Camperdown “I’m not a person who goes to church,” he said. “But on that day I started to sing. I don’t know where those songs came from.” Around 46 miles, Seleka found another Run Alex aid station and put on a clubmate’s shoes. He pushed on. The light turned golden. Some runners danced across the finish line, arms outstretched. Some were arm in arm, complete strangers who had become friends on the road. Many stumbled over the line, or collapsed and were carried away on waiting stretchers. Darkness began to fall. Guns were fired for the first 12-hour cutoff, and then the second. Around a third of Comrades runners finish in the final hour. An official prepares to fire the shot to mark the final 12-hour cutoff South Africa’s pacing “buses” are unique in long-distance running for their size and camaraderie, racers singing and chanting, led by a metronomic pacer, known as a bus driver. Perhaps the biggest cheer of the day came when the final 12-hour bus driver, Shahieda Thungo, crossed the line at 11:56:34, carrying dozens of runners home with her. About 91% of runners finished this year, according to The Running Mann blog. L-R: Jenny Da Silva misses the 12-hour cutoff time by seconds; an exhausted runner rests shortly after crossing the finish line in Pietermaritzburg Then there were those who just missed the cutoff. At exactly 5.30pm, a wall of people stepped across the finish line. Two women ran into them, seconds short. One, wearing the green bib of a 10-time finisher, doubled over in anguish, her face in her hands. Seleka cried as he crossed the line at 10:30:49. He was thinking of his sister, whose kidneys failed in 2018. “At the start, everything changed,” he said. “I said this pain today is for my younger sister.” A runner crosses the finish line of the 2026 Comrades Marathon in Pietermaritzburg Everyone needs a reason if they are to finish the Comrades, said Seleka, who was already planning his race next year. “If you’re going through a lot, once you say why, then it’s a mission,” he said. “After Comrades is accomplished, it’s a new chapter again.”

Canada’s policies force asylum seekers into US to face deportation, critics say

It was the threat of gang violence in Honduras that pushed Carlos and Antonia to flee their home. In 2021, with their toddler, Alejandro, and a handful of belongings, the married couple ventured north hoping to reach safety in the US. The journey, through Guatemala and Mexico, was filled with danger and uncertainty. “We were in constant fear, every time we had to cross the border and travel with a young child,” said Antonia. “We were terrified.” Arriving as the US began Donald Trump’s migration purge, their opportunity to make an asylum claim vanished. A lawyer advised them if they appealed, they risked being detained at their migration hearing and deported. Because Carlos has family members in Canada, they pushed farther north. But their arrival at the Fort Erie border crossing did not end of their precarious journey. A Canadian border agent said he would let Carlos and Alejandro in, but Antonia – who did not have family in Canada – would be sent back to the US. Or all three could return to the US and risk detention and deportation. “[I said]: ‘What am I supposed to tell my son about why they’re not going to let his mother come in with us?’ And the border officer just said, ‘That’s your problem, you’ve got 20 minutes to make a decision,’” Carlos later recalled. Antonia began crying. “There was no way I could be separated from my son. I was completely in shock,” she later said. “And then my son started crying, too.” The family, whose names have been changed for safety, opted to stay together. They were sent back to the US – and then deported to Honduras. Their story is central to a court challenge by the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International Canada and the three Hondurans, which argues that Canadian border officials are failing to uphold court-ordered safeguards for asylum seekers before turning them back to the US under the Safe Third Country Agreement. Until 2004, asylum claims could be made at any legal port of entry in Canada, where they would then be processed and claimants admitted if their claim was approved. That changed when Ottawa successfully lobbied for the passage of the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), forcing migrants to make asylum claims in the country where they first arrived. It initially applied to land-based ports of entry – but not to irregular or unofficial crossings. But advocacy groups and legal experts increasingly argue that the US should not be considered a safe third country. They point to the country’s long-term detention of those seeking refuge and threats to deport asylum seekers to countries where they could be harmed or killed. At the same time, Canada is also tightening its own asylum system. New legislation has created further ineligibility rules for refugee claimants, prompting critics to accuse Mark Carney’s government of introducing “Trump-style” immigration policies. Carlos, Antonia and Alejandro – who is now six years old – have gone into hiding in Honduras, over fears of retribution from the same gang they fled. In 2023, Canada’s top court ruled the STCA was constitutional, ending a lengthy legal challenge by advocacy groups such as the Canadian Council for Refugees and Amnesty International Canada, which have long argued the deal violates the rights of asylum seekers. But in its judgment, the court also found that the inclusion of legislative “safety valves” in the agreement, including the discretion to exempt someone from returning to the US on the basis of humanitarian and compassionate grounds, meant the rules align with “the principles of fundamental justice”. Advocacy groups say those “safety valves” only exist in theory, citing the growing number of asylum seekers sent by Canadian authorities to detention in the US. “Every day, people fleeing danger present themselves at the Canadian border expressing grave fears about what will happen to them if they are returned to the US,” Asma Faizi, president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, said in a statement. “While their fears are very real, the ‘safety valves’ supposedly offered by the Canadian government do not in practice exist and refugees’ pleas for protection are ignored.” In court documents, those groups point out that asylum seekers are typically not told they can seek an exemption or give evidence. Instead, often without access to legal counsel, they must make a quick decision that will define their lives for decades to come. Canada’s border agency said in a statement that officers have limited discretion in “exceptional cases only” to delay a removal. A claimant must demonstrate clear and credible evidence they would face death, inhumane treatment or the threat of deportation without due process if sent to the US. But Canada’s federal government has defended the US, saying it continues to meet the legal requirements under the agreement to remain a safe third country. The allegations of the claimants have not been tested in court. A judge must first decide whether to grant leave before the challenge can proceed. “We wish we could show our faces and shout to the world and let everyone know that this is what happened to us. It is just not safe for us. But we are doing what we can to fight this,” said Carlos. “The hardest thing has been trying to explain this all to our son. From one day to the next, everything was turned upside down for him: his world, his community, his space. It’s not easy for a child to compartmentalize. It’s not easy for an adult either.”

An Armenian tycoon has a private zoo. Now he wants the world’s biggest Jesus statue

Behind the walls of a sprawling estate on the outskirts of Yerevan, six tigers prowl behind a fence, three lions pace their enclosures, and alligators bask in the afternoon heat. Further into the compound, more animals appear. Beneath a gilded, hand-painted ceiling, a dining hall houses a taxidermy menagerie: white tigers reared on their hind legs, a stuffed eagle perched atop a table, bear and wolf pelts spread across the floor. All of these, the owner proudly said, had been shot by him. The scene offers a glimpse into the tastes of Gagik Tsarukyan, Armenia’s most flamboyant business tycoon and opposition politician, whose displays of wealth have long been the stuff of local folklore. Having secured less than 4% of the vote in this month’s parliamentary election, Tsarukyan’s chances of ever leading Armenia look slim, but one of Armenia’s richest and most divisive men remains determined to leave his mark on the country. His chosen monument: erecting the world’s tallest statue of Jesus Christ, perched atop a 2,500-metre (8,200ft) mountain overlooking Yerevan. It is, depending on who you ask, either a celebration of the small Caucasian nation’s ancient Christian heritage or the ultimate expression of one oligarch’s appetite for excess. “This will be Armenia’s calling card,” Tsarukyan said during a rare interview at one of his homes in the village of Arinj, where he was born. “Christianity will become Armenia’s new brand.” A former athlete turned businessman and politician, Tsarukyan built his fortune in gambling, alcohol and mining during the turbulent decades that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Dressed head-to-toe in white linen and matching trainers, the barrel-chested one-time arm wrestling champion said the project was designed to resonate with a growing international movement that blends religious faith with nationalism and cultural conservatism – a trend most visible in Donald Trump’s Maga movement and among far-right parties across Europe. “Trump is, of course, invited. We hope he comes,” Tsarukyan said, adding that an unofficial American delegation from the US embassy had already visited the mountain site. Once completed, the 101-metre (331ft) statue will stand atop Hatis, a mountain about 25km (15.5 miles) east of Yerevan, making it visible from much of the Armenian capital. Tsarukyan noted with evident satisfaction that it would dwarf Brazil’s iconic Christ the Redeemer and stand slightly taller than New York’s Statue of Liberty. “We are the oldest Christian nation in the world,” Tsarukyan said. “It only makes sense we should have the biggest Jesus statue in the world.” Although most of its neighbours today are Muslim-majority countries, Armenia is widely regarded as the world’s oldest officially Christian nation, traditionally dating its conversion to AD301. But the Armenian Apostolic church has repeatedly opposed the project, arguing that its mass scale and style sit uneasily with Armenia’s religious and architectural traditions. Church leaders say Armenian Christianity has historically expressed itself through monasteries, churches and khachkars – intricately carved stone crosses unique to Armenia – rather than colossal statues modelled on monuments elsewhere in the world. The proposal has also drawn criticism from environmentalists, who warn that construction could cause lasting damage to the natural landscape of Hatis. Tsarukyan brushed aside the clergy’s and activists’ objections, insisting he enjoyed good relations with the Armenian Apostolic church and pointing to the eight churches he says he has financed across the country. More importantly, Tsarukyan said, the monument was intended to appeal to a far broader audience than Armenia’s faithful alone. He claimed that 10 million tourists a year would eventually visit the site. “There’s nothing else like it in the world. From ocean to ocean, everyone will be talking about it.” At present, however, the monument, which has been under construction on and off since 2022, looks less like the centrepiece of a future pilgrimage site than a giant relic abandoned in a construction yard outside Yerevan, where it is being pieced together before its eventual ascent to the mountain. On the Guardian’s recent visit to the site, Christ’s vast white figure loomed over piles of stone, cranes, and workshop buildings, appearing almost surreal against the sparse landscape. Back at the estate, Tsarukyan appeared tired after a bitter election campaign that had only just ended. Voting results showed his nationalist and Russia-friendly Prosperous Armenia party hovering just below the 4% threshold needed to enter parliament, a result the party was challenging in court. The poor showing continued a reversal for a politician who, for two decades, had been one of Armenia’s most durable power brokers. Tsarukyan built that position on close ties to the former president Robert Kocharyan, expanding his empire as part of a small group of politically connected businessmen who came to dominate much of Armenia’s economy. With his private zoo, marble mansions and fleet of luxury cars, he can seem like a relic of the post-Soviet boom years, when fortunes were amassed at dizzying speed and displayed with little concern for subtlety. That image made him a natural target for the current prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who rose to power in the 2018 Velvet Revolution pledging to dismantle Armenia’s oligarchic system. Pashinyan has repeatedly cast Tsarukyan as a symbol of the country’s corrupt old order, at times reviving dark episodes from his Soviet-era past, including a 1979 gang-rape conviction that was later overturned after Armenia gained independence. In his victory speech on 7 June, Pashinyan further vowed to jail his political opponents, singling out Tsarukyan, Kocharyan and the billionaire businessman Samvel Karapetyan. The following day, investigators arrived at Tsarukyan’s estate to formally charge him with tax-related offences. Local media reported that he had attempted to flee the country before the charges were announced. Tsarukyan rejected the allegation, saying he had merely planned a short trip to the United Arab Emirates but had been prevented from boarding his flight and returned home. Yet Tsarukyan strongly dismissed suggestions that the authorities could derail his construction plans, arguing that the Jesus project had become too significant to abandon and would bring substantial benefits to Armenia’s economy and tourism industry. “How can a man be afraid?” he said. “Why be afraid? What will they put me in prison for?” For now, he said his team appeared more concerned with the practical challenge of getting Christ to the mountaintop. The logistics of building the monument have proved almost as ambitious as the project itself. Tsarukyan said the original plan was to transport sections of the statue by helicopter. The idea was eventually abandoned in favour of a more conventional solution: hauling the enormous pieces up the mountain by truck before assembling them onsite. And the Jesus statue, he insisted, is only the beginning. Construction has already begun on another biblical attraction nearby: a giant Noah’s Ark. Pulling out images of the project on his phone, he described a vessel 134 metres long, 24 metres wide and 18 metres high. The ground floor would house a museum, the first floor a hotel and the second a cafe. “These projects are sacred,” he said. “This is how I will inscribe my name in history, for the world to see during my lifetime and long after.” For now, though, on the hillside above Yerevan, the world’s largest Jesus has yet to rise. In the summer heat, passersby stopped to photograph the towering figure and debate its merits. “It’s beautiful. It will make Armenia known across the world,” said Arman, a 54-year-old taxi driver who had pulled over to admire the statue. “I am really proud of this.” Others were less convinced. “I don’t quite understand why it has to be this big,” said Mariam, a local resident, looking up at the monument. “It’s all a bit crass.”