International
Petro considers that the ELN attack in Arauca “closes a peace process with blood”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro condemned the attack of the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas against a military base in Puerto Jordán, in the department of Arauca (east), which left two soldiers dead and 27 injured, and assured that “it is an action that closes a peace process with blood.”
“The consequences of the actions and the flow of history today bring us a dramatic and repeated event in our last years, a dump loaded with explosives that injures 27 young people and kills two, within the data I have, put by the ELN with whom we were talking about peace,” said Petro the inauguration of magistrate Claudia Regina Expósito as a member of the Superior Council of the Judiciary.
The president compared the attack to the attack against the Colombian Police Cadet School in Bogotá, which in January 2019 left 20 dead and 68 injured, including an Ecuadorian cadet, and which put an end to the dialogue that the Government was maintaining with that guerrilla at that time.
“And obviously, as happened that time in another place near here, at the Police School, because many police officers died, ensigns who were studying there, because it is practically an action that closes a peace process with blood,” he added.
The Colombian Government and the ELN began a new peace negotiation in November 2022 in Caracas that, however, stalled at the beginning of this year due to the demands of the guerrilla that the Executive remove them from the list of terrorist groups and abandon regional dialogues such as the one it maintains in the department of Nariño (southwest) with Comuneros del Sur, supposedly split from the ELN.
During the negotiations in Caracas, Havana and Mexico City, the parties agreed to a one-year bilateral ceasefire, the longest agreed with that guerrilla, which ended on August 3, after which the ELN resumed its attacks against public force and infrastructure in different parts of the country, especially in Arauca, where it is particularly strong.
“And it’s like an eternal becoming, to silence a part of the people and continue in wars, killing each other again and again as if that were our story,” the president lamented.
The Minister of the Interior, Juan Fernando Cristo, also expressed himself in this line: “You cannot follow a negotiating table in the midst of the blood of our wounded soldiers, of the civilian population. The ELN did not understand the message (…) has lost a historic opportunity to negotiate peace; it insists on violence, it insists on harming Colombians.”
“The ELN, definitely, was left by the train of history,” Cristo concluded.
The mayor of Bogotá, Carlos Fernando Galán, considered that “the decision of the National Government to end the peace process is the right one.”
“Colombia cannot negotiate with those who have not given any demonstration of having a will for peace,” Galán said in his X account, in which he regretted “the attack that claimed the lives of two soldiers and injured another 27 in Jordán, Arauca.”
The action was at the Puerto Jordán military base, in Arauca (east), which “was attacked with improvised explosive devices thrown from a dump mantip.”
According to figures provided by the Ministry of Defense, 27 soldiers were injured, “of which 20 have splinters” and seven are “seriously injured.”
Last Sunday, two soldiers died in a rural area of Tame (Arauca) in an attack attributed to the ELN that shot them while they were at a checkpoint.
This terrorist escalation also includes attacks on the Caño Limón-Coveñas and Bicentenario pipelines, two of the most important in the country.
The Caño Limón-Coveñas pipeline, 770 kilometers long, transports oil from the Arauca wells to Coveñas, a Colombian port in the Caribbean Sea.
International
Trump signs order to end federal funding for NPR and PBS
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to halt federal funding for two public media outlets, PBS television and NPR radio, accusing them of being biased.
NPR and PBS are partially funded by American taxpayers but rely heavily on private donations.
Trump has long maintained a hostile relationship with most media outlets, which he has referred to as the “enemy of the people.”
An exception is the conservative Fox News channel, some of whose hosts have played important roles in the administration of the Republican magnate.
“National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) receive taxpayer funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB),” Trump said.
“Therefore, I direct the CPB board and all executive departments and agencies to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS,” he added.
The Republican leader argued that “neither of these entities provides a fair, accurate, or impartial portrayal of current events to the taxpayer citizens.”
At the end of March, Donald Trump called on Congress to end public funding for these two “horrible and completely biased networks.”
International
Man arrested after deliberately driving into seven children in Osaka
Japanese police arrested a man on Thursday after he rammed his car into a group of seven schoolchildren in an apparent deliberate attack in the city of Osaka.
The children, who were on their way home from school, sustained injuries and were taken to the hospital. All seven remained conscious, according to local authorities.
An Osaka police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the suspect is a 28-year-old man from Tokyo. The officer shared statements the man made after his arrest: “I was fed up with everything, so I decided to kill people by driving into several elementary school children,” the suspect reportedly said.
The man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
The injured children, aged between seven and eight, included a seven-year-old girl who suffered a fractured jaw. The six other children—all boys—suffered minor injuries such as bruises and scratches and were undergoing medical evaluation.
Witnesses described the car as “zigzagging” before hitting the children. One witness told Nippon TV that a girl was “covered in blood” and the others appeared to have scratches.
Another witness said the driver, who was wearing a face mask, looked to be in shock when school staff pulled him from the vehicle.
Violent crimes are rare in Japan, though serious incidents do occur from time to time. In 2008, Tomohiro Kato drove a two-ton truck into pedestrians in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, then fatally stabbed several victims. Seven people were killed in that attack.
Internacionales
Clashes erupt during may day protests across France amid calls for better wages
May Day protests in France were marked by a heavy police presence and clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement in several cities.
In Paris, Lyon, and Nantes, thousands took to the streets to demand better wages, fairer working conditions, and to voice their dissatisfaction with President Emmanuel Macron’s government.
While the majority of the demonstrations remained peaceful, isolated confrontations broke out in some areas. Protesters threw objects at the police, prompting the use of tear gas and resulting in several arrests.
Videos showing police crackdowns circulated widely on social media, drawing criticism from labor unions and human rights advocates, who denounced the authorities’ response to the protests.
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