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Turkish court rules to remove head of main opposition party

A Turkish court has issued a ruling that effectively removes the head of the country’s main opposition party, in the latest blow to challengers of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The ruling, issued by an appeals court in Ankara on Thursday, annulled a 2023 leadership contest within the Republican People’s party (CHP), deposing the party’s leader, Özgür Özel. Özel, 51, has become the face of Turkey’s opposition, seen as responsible for the rejuvenation of the CHP as well as being one of few remaining figures from within the party who has avoided charges that could land him in detention. The court ordered that Özel be replaced by his predecessor, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who lost a pivotal general election to Erdoğan in 2023 despite a groundswell of opposition to the Turkish president’s two decades in power. Özel’s election as party leader pre-empted Turkish local elections in 2024 where the CHP swept Erdoğan’s Justice and Development party (AKP) from power in municipalities and mayoralties across the country. Earlier this week, another Ankara court ordered Özel to pay the president 300,000 lira (£4,900) in damages due to his remarks about Erdoğan, which include calling him an “oppressor”. Özel also gave a speech calling on Erdoğan to “leash your dogs”, in a criticism of a sweeping crackdown on Turkey’s opposition. In response, Erdoğan called Turkey’s main opposition leader “delusional”, saying: “We have to protect the reputation of politics in the face of attacks.” Erdoğan has frequently lashed out at the CHP in public, accusing the party of a series of accusations including acting as “puppet of terrorists seeking to undermine this state”. The court case that ultimately unseated Özel was widely criticised as an effort to subdue Turkey’s largest opposition party and reinstall a leader who is more amenable to Erdoğan’s rule. Kılıçdaroğlu, who has called for the “purification” of his own party, was sanguine in his response to the ruling when speaking to the pro-government channel TGRT Haber, saying he hoped it would prove “beneficial to Turkey and the CHP”. The ruling jolted Turkey’s struggling economy amid fears of further instability: trading was briefly suspended on the stock market in Istanbul amid a sharp 6% drop after the CHP ruling. Since the 2024 elections, observers have denounced a fresh crackdown targeting opponents of Erdoğan’s rule, primarily opposition mayors and local officials from the CHP. More than 20 CHP mayors have been detained in a wave of corruption, bribery and terrorism-related charges that has unseated mayors and municipal officials from towns and cities across the country and landed many in detention. The arrest of Istanbul mayor and likely CHP presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu last year represented a watershed for the party and for the country’s beleaguered opposition. Thousands took to the streets of Istanbul to protest against the detention of Erdoğan’s primary challenger, who once ruled the largest city in the country. İmamoğlu has spent the intervening year in a maximum security facility near Istanbul. Earlier this year he was among 400 defendants who took the stand in a mass trial, all accused of taking part in a sprawling corruption scheme allegedly tied to his office as mayor. Human Rights Watch called the trial part of a broad effort to weaponise the criminal justice system against the CHP. Many other CHP municipal officials across Turkey have been accused of graft charges similar to the accusations against İmamoğlu: five officials from the Beşiktaş municipality were taken into custody as part of a bribery investigation earlier this week. CHP officials have indicated they are keen to fight a presidential election expected next year, amid speculation that they could seek to run the jailed former mayor as a candidate. Özel told the Guardian in an interview last year that the party had prepared plans for İmamoğlu to be the candidate even if he remained in detention, adding that he was prepared for the Turkish authorities to seek his arrest if Erdoğan “can’t cope politically like what happened with İmamoğlu”. The upcoming election, he said, represented a referendum on whether there would be “autocracy or democracy in Turkey”.

Israel deports foreign Gaza-bound flotilla activists after global outcry

Israel has said it has deported all the foreign activists it seized from a Gaza-bound flotilla, after a global outcry over their treatment in custody that led the UK to join other countries in summoning Israeli diplomats for a formal dressing down. More than 430 activists from countries around the world had been placed in detention in Israel after they were intercepted at sea on Monday while making the latest in a string of attempts to break the blockade of the Palestinian territory. Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, sparked widespread condemnation and diplomatic backlash on Wednesday by posting a video showing the detained activists with their hands tied and foreheads on the ground as he taunted them. The UK has summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires, and Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said on Thursday he had askedthe EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, to discuss sanctions on Ben-Gvir, “for the unacceptable acts committed against the flotilla, seizing the activists in international waters and subjecting them to harassment and humiliation, in violation of the most basic human rights”. Alessandro Mantovani, an Italian journalist detained with the flotilla activists and deported before the others, told reporters at Rome’s Fiumicino airport on Thursday that he and others had been “taken to Ben Gurion airport in handcuffs and with chains on our feet and put on a flight to Athens”. “They beat us up. They kicked us and punched us and shouted ‘Welcome to Israel’,” he said of his treatment by Israeli security forces. Another Italian activist, Dario Carotenuto, a lawmaker from the Five Star Movement, said he had been punched in the eye and kicked while detained. Miriam Azem, from the Israeli rights group Adalah, said: “One of the activists was forced to strip naked and run while guards were laughing.” She added that Israeli authorities had fired rubber bullets that hurt some activists as they intercepted the flotilla. The Israel Prison Service dismissed Adalah’s allegations as false and designed to portray systematic unlawful conduct. Poland’s foreign ministry said it was calling for a ban on Ben-Gvir entering the country over the video showing the far-right minister taunting detained flotilla activists who were handcuffed and kneeling. Britain’s Foreign Office issued a statement denouncing the treatment of the arrested activists. “This behaviour violates the most basic standards of respect and dignity for people. We are also deeply concerned by the detention conditions depicted and have demanded an explanation from the Israeli authorities. We made clear their obligations to protect the rights of all those involved,” it said. Human rights groups have documented widespread, systemic torture and abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and detention centres during Israel’s war in Gaza, prompted by the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023. But the humiliating treatment of the Gaza flotilla activists has drawn unusually strong international condemnation of Israel, reflecting growing frustration with the country’s policies in Gaza, Lebanon and in its joint war with the US against Iran. Greece on Thursday also called on Israel immediately to release its nationals, the government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said. The European Council president, António Costa, said he was “appalled” by the way Ben-Gvir had treated aid flotilla members attempting to enter Gaza. “This behaviour is completely unacceptable. We call for their immediate release,” he said. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, demanded an apology for the activists’ treatment and what she called Israel’s “total disrespect” for Italy’s requests. Turkey said on Thursday it was sending planes to retrieve its citizens and others who participated in the flotilla, Hakan Fidan, the Turkish foreign minister, said. About 85 Turkish nationals took part in the latest flotilla, according to local media. The backlash has also prompted criticism within Israel and from the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who defended the interception of the flotilla but said Ben-Gvir’s treatment of the activists was “not in line with Israel’s values and norms”. Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he had instructed that the activists be deported “as soon as possible”. Despite Netanyahu’s comments, Israel has a history of intercepting vessels at sea trying to reach Gaza, including with lethal force. In 2010, nine activists on the MV Mari Marmara were killed when Israeli commandos stormed the ship. A 10th person later died of their wounds. On Wednesday Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, criticised Ben-Gvir over the treatment of the activists, saying he had harmed Israel in a “disgraceful display” and undermined the work of Israeli soldiers and diplomats. “No, you are not the face of Israel,” Saar wrote on X. The US’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee – usually an uncritical supporter of Israel – also made a rare criticism of Ben-Gvir, saying that while the flotilla was a “stupid stunt”, Ben-Gvir had “betrayed the dignity” of Israel. The Israel-based legal advocacy group, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, also known as Adalah, said on Thursday that all of the international activists were in transit to a civilian airport near the southern Israeli city of Eilat for deportation. The group said one participant, Zohar Regev, was in a court hearing in the southern city of Ashkelon on charges of illegal entry into Israel and unlawful stay. Regev, who holds Israeli citizenship, has taken part in previous flotillas to Gaza. Ben-Gvir was appointed security minister by Netanyahu despite a number of convictions, including for incitement to racism and support for a proscribed Jewish terrorist organisation. The activists’ boats set sail from Spain to Gaza in April, with organisers saying they wanted to draw renewed attention to the conditions for nearly 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel stopped 20 vessels from the group on 30 April near the southern Greek island of Crete and forced most of its activists to disembark there.

Many Nato countries not spending enough to support Ukraine, says Rutte – as it happened

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! Russia has doubled down on threats against the Baltic countries alleging they were working with Ukraine to launch drone attacks from their territory (11:22), singling out Latvia in particular – despite repeated denials from EU (15:21), Nato (12:42) and regional leaders (16:23). EU defence commissioner Andrius Kubilius accused the Kremlin of using intimidation tactics against Baltic nations to test their commitment to supporting Ukraine (15:21). Latvia was forced to issue a third drone alert in three days after “at least one unmanned aerial vehicle” was detected in its airspace (10:08, 10:59), just a week after a previous incident led to a government crisis in the country, with Lithuania also sending a drone alert to its population, for the second day in a row. Estonia summoned the most senior diplomat at the Russian embassy in Tallinn to protest against what it said was Moscow’s “continued disinformation campaign” against the Baltic country (16:43). The Czech president, Petr Pavel, warned that “peace in Europe can no longer be treated as the default state of affairs” (9:30), as he stressed that “many assumptions for old security architecture are no longer valid” (9:22). In other news, German chancellor Friedrich Merz has called for Ukraine to gain “associate membership” of the EU to aid the process of fully joining the bloc and bolster peace talks (13:53), as Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said the allies should spend more to help Ukraine (12:44). Hungary’s new government, led by Péter Magyar, has put forward a constitutional amendment that would limit prime ministers to a maximum of eight years in office, in effect barring Viktor Orbán from returning to the role. A Paris appeals court has found Airbus and Air France guilty of corporate manslaughter over the 2009 Rio-Paris plane crash that killed 228 passengers and crew. If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Cubans outraged at US charges against Raúl Castro but view military strikes as serious possibility

A new question in being asked in Havana as people digest the news that the US has brought criminal charges against Cuba’s 94-year-old former president, Raúl Castro: who’s your neighbour? If you happen to live near a senior figure in Cuba’s government or armed forces, others suck their teeth in an expression of concerned sympathy. For the first time, US military strikes on the island are being considered a serious possibility. There is also anger at Washington, from a population that had previously lost its faith in its own government. “How dare they?” said a teacher in Havana, who was considering attending a march against the indictment on Friday morning. “I’d never normally go to something like that, but it’s despicable. Who are they to threaten us in such a way?” It’s now 30 years since Cuban fighter jets shot down two unarmed Cessna planes belonging to the exile group Brothers to the Rescue in international airspace just north of Havana. Four people died. At the time, it was seen not only as an atrocity, but a terrible strategic error. Now the incident is at the heart of the US indictment of Castro. What is less remembered is that it wasn’t a surprise. I covered the story from Miami, where Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo – the first rebel leader to enter Havana under Fidel Castro but by then living in exile – told me: “Everybody here knew something was going to happen to the planes.” Brothers to the Rescue was a group originally founded by a Bay of Pigs veteran José Basulto to spot Cuban refugees trying to reach the United States on makeshift rafts. By the mid-90s, it had turned to provocation by buzzing Cuba itself and dropping leaflets – something Fidel Castro himself said the US would never tolerate over its own capital, according to the book Back Channel to Cuba, by William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh. “Their most provocative act in 1995 came on July 13, when Basulto’s Cessna Skymaster buzzed Havana, raining down thousands of religious medallions and leaflets reading ‘Brothers, Not Comrades’,” they wrote. Despite pleas from the Cuban government, the US continued to tolerate the flights and eventually the Cuban leadership snapped. “Fidel was trying to find a diplomatic solution, he had sent several messages to Bill Clinton saying, ‘You have to stop this, we cannot stand it,’” said Carlos Alzugaray, who was Cuba’s ambassador to Brussels at the time. The pressure the Cuban government was facing then, however, was nothing to what it is now. Wednesday’s indictment follows weeks in which surveillance aircraft have circled the island, suspect intelligence reports have suggested that Cuba has drones and therefore poses a threat to the US, the CIA director landed in Havana to tell Cuban officials to stop cozying up to Russian and China, and the aircraft carrier group Nimitz entered the Caribbean. In a speech directed to the Cuban people, Marco Rubio, the Cuban American US secretary of state, said: “You, who call the island your home, are going through unimaginable hardships. Today I want to tell you what we, in the US, are offering to help you not only alleviate the current crisis, but also to build a better future.” He blamed the Cuban government for the 22-hour blackouts Cubans are enduring, despite the four-month US oil blockade – and nearly 70-year embargo. But he also cleverly played to Cuban concerns about the proportion of the economy controlled by the Cuban military. “They buy fuel for their generators and their vehicles while the people are asked to sacrifice,” he said. It was widely seen in Cuba as a clever and well-informed speech. Recently Rubio had offered Cuba $100m in aid, which on Thursday he said had been accepted, but he did not confirm whether Washington would agree to Havana’s terms. Alongside such efforts to make Cuba dependent, US sanctions have been effective in driving out non-US businesses operating in Cuba. On Thursday, World2Fly, a Spanish charter airline joined the many others that have stopped flying to the island. Donald Trump has repeatedly made clear he wants to “free” Cuba for his Cuban American friends in Miami. Concerns that this will involve creating an American protectorate, were not helped by a Bloomberg report on Wednesday that revealed the Canadian nickel miner Sherritt, a major force in the Cuban economy, is in talks with Ray Washburne, a former Trump adviser, to hand over a controlling stake. “I think this is a pretty good introductory course to the sort of barefaced corruption that would accompany any sort of US control over Cuba,” said a European businessman who works in Cuba. It was such overweening US control that originally led to the Cuban revolution. Perhaps the most inevitable part of the story is that one of the Cuban MiG pilots alleged to be involved in shooting down the planes arrived in the US in 2024 as part of a wave of immigration that has seen Cuba lose 20% of its population since 2021. Luis González-Pardo Rodríguez, already facing charges of immigration fraud, was indicted on Wednesday alongside Raúl Castro. “The indictments should have happened – not in the US, but in a post-Castro Cuba. All these crimes – including many we don’t know about – will come out and it should be for the Cuban people to decide whether there are trials or a process of reconciliation and forgiveness,” said Manuel Barcia, a Cuban who is now pro-vice-chancellor at the University of Bath. Whether the US will now try to abduct Castro, as it did Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, remains to be seen. “How far do they want to go with this?” asked the former ambassador Carlos Alzugaray. “Are they really going to come in and abduct a 94-year-old guy?”

Oil markets nearing ‘red zone’ as Iran crisis continues, warns IEA chief

Oil markets will enter the “red zone” by July and August as stocks dwindle before the summer travel season amid a shortage of fresh oil exports from the Middle East, the executive director of the International Energy Authority warned on Thursday. Fatih Birol added that the most important solution to the Iran war energy shock was a full and unconditional reopening of the strait of Hormuz. Speaking to the London thinktank Chatham House, Birol said it was open to IEA members to release more strategic oil reserves as they had previously in March, and said the IEA stood ready to coordinate. As much as 80% of IEA’s collective reserves have not been released. He warned that while stocks were eroding, no new oil was coming from the Middle East and the demand was increasing, mainly caused by the travel season. “This may be difficult and we may be entering the red zone in July-August if we don’t see some improvements,” Birol said. Adding that he had “never seen the dark and long shadow of geopolitics so dominant in the energy sector”, Birol also said he feared extremist parties in Europe may opportunistically abuse the coming inflation to argue it represents the failure of existing political systems when, in truth, the price of oil is set internationally. Birol also said that Iran did not have endless storage capacity and its industry would face difficulties. The IEA chief has already warned that he regards the oil shock as more dramatic than three previous oil shocks: in 1973, 1979, as well as the 2022 crisis caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He said 14m barrels of oil a day were missing from the market because of the disruption. He saw no prospect of oil production recovering fully for at least a year, including in the United Arab Emirates, and said that some countries heavily dependent on oil revenues to fund their budget, such as Iraq, could find it impossible to reinvest in oil production for many years. Overall, the reputation of the Middle East as a secure supplier of energy had been damaged, he said, predicting that countries would pay a premium for supplies from secure sources and for renewable energy. Birol predicted that governments around the world would review their energy strategies in the next few years and “look for new options” for fuel imports. He added that countries would also turn to other energy sources, including renewables, nuclear – and, to a lesser extent, coal – and that domestically, energy production “that makes economic sense will get a push”. His warning came as Pakistan, the mediator in the talks between Iran and the US, hit difficulties after claims were made that a breakthrough was imminent. Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, reaffirmed that Iran would not allow its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium to be exported to a third country, such as Russia. That stance does not rule out the stockpile being downblended to much lower levels of purity under the administration of the UN nuclear inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Donald Trump has been making typically contradictory noises about the need for the stockpile to be exported, and how he will react if no agreement is reached with Iran. Pakistan’s interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, is still in Tehran on his second visit of the week, underlining the severity of the crisis. It has been expected that Pakistan’s military chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, would visit Tehran on Thursday to try to narrow the gaps between the two sides, but a postponement of his visit suggested Pakistan’s efforts to narrow the gap between the two sides was not bearing fruit. Trump recently downplayed the importance of the export of the enriched uranium, saying last Thursday on Fox News that the US wanted the enriched uranium “more for public relations than it is for anything else”. At least half of the enriched uranium, central to building a nuclear bomb, is believed to be buried at the bombed Isfahan nuclear facility. He elaborated: “We have nine cameras on that site, on those three sites, 24 hours a day,” Trump said. “We know exactly what’s happening. Nobody’s even gotten close to it.” Still, the president said, he ultimately would rather get the material out of the country. “I just feel better if I got it, actually,” Trump said. “But it’s, I think it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else.” Iran has 440.9kg (972lb) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, which is a short, technical step away from weapon-grade levels of 90%, according to the IAEA. Separately, Iran announced the boundaries of the proposed Persian Gulf Strait Authority, the body it has established to oversee the movement of commercial shipping through the narrow strait on Iran’s southern coast. The United Arab Emirates’ senior diplomatic adviser, Anwar Gargash, described the map showing the boundaries as a fantasy. He said: “After the brutal Iranian aggression, Tehran’s regime was attempting to solidify a new reality born out of an obvious military defeat.” Gargash added that attempts to control the strait or infringe upon the UAE’s maritime sovereignty were unrealistic and “a fantasy”.

Hungary to limit PMs to eight years in office, warding off any Orbán comeback

Hungary’s new government, led by Péter Magyar, has put forward a constitutional amendment that would limit prime ministers to a maximum of eight years in office, in effect barring Viktor Orbán from returning to the role. The draft amendment was submitted on Wednesday, just over a week after the new government took office. It marked Magyar and his Tisza party’s first step in dismantling a constitution that was unilaterally rewritten and amended more than a dozen times as Orbán and his Fidesz party worked to turn Hungary into what they called a “petri dish for illiberalism”. During Magyar’s more than two years on the campaign trail, he repeatedly promised to bring in term limits, describing them as part of a wider push to restore the country’s democratic checks and balances. As his party celebrated its landslide victory in last month’s election, analysts were swift to say the new government faced a formidable task in rebuilding crumbling public services and a stagnant economy, one compounded by the many Fidesz loyalists who remain in the state, media and judiciary. The draft amendment appears to be an attempt to ward off the threat of Orbán seizing on the situation to mount a comeback, stating that term limits are “essential” to restoring the rule of law. “A person who has served as prime minister, for a total of at least eight years, including any interruptions, may not be elected as prime minister,” it says. The calculation would apply to all prime ministerial terms held since the country’s democratisation in 1990, meaning that Orbán, who had served five terms as prime minister since 1998, totalling 20 years in power, would be barred. The amendment is far from foolproof, however, as any future leader with a two-thirds or supermajority could submit an amendment to extend their time in power. Another line in the draft amendment, which is expected to pass given Tisza’s own supermajority in parliament, paves the way for the dissolution of the controversial sovereignty protection office. Launched during Orbán’s last years in power, the office was widely accused of seeking to quell critics of his government by allowing Hungary’s intelligence services to access information on individuals and organisations without judicial oversight. As the new government races to unlock billions in frozen EU funds, the draft amendment also addresses a longstanding point of friction with the bloc by reclaiming the foundations that, during Orbán’s time, were used to maintain nearly two dozen universities and thinktanks such as the Mathias Corvinus Collegium. Under the previous government, the foundations’ board of trustees, many of them stacked with Orbán loyalists, were handed complete control over these assets. This “eliminated democratic control” over these public assets and resulted in an “abuse of legislative power”, the draft amendment states. The proposal sets out that the state could dissolve these foundations. “The amendment makes it clear that although the foundations … are private entities, their assets are national assets,” it says. The draft amendment is expected to be discussed next week when the national assembly convenes. In the weeks since his election victory, Magyar has sought to emphasise his government’s break from the past, vowing to suspend broadcasts from state media that functioned as Orbán mouthpieces, calling on Orbán-era appointees to resign, and apologising to the teachers, journalists and public figures who were maligned by the state during Orbán’s time in power. His government has also made clear that this stark shift also applies to foreign relations. In mid-May the new foreign minister, Anita Orbán, said she had summoned Russia’s ambassador to Hungary over a massive drone attack in Ukraine, marking a reversal of her predecessor’s seemingly servile relations with Moscow. She said on social media: “I told the Russian ambassador that it was completely unacceptable for Hungary that they were now attacking Transcarpathia, home of the Hungarian minority. I stressed that Russia should do everything for an immediate ceasefire and a peaceful and lasting end to the war as soon as possible.”

Record 274 climbers summit Everest from Nepalese side in single day

A record 274 climbers have reached the summit of Mount Everest from the Nepalese side in a single day after a spring season that started late because of the threat of ice fall on the normal tourist route. The climbers took advantage of the clear weather on Wednesday, said Rishi Ram Bhandari, of the Expedition Operators Association Nepal. “This is the highest number of climbers in a single day so far,” Bhandari told Reuters, referring to the Nepali record, adding that the number could rise as some climbers who had summited might not have informed the base camp yet. All but one of the climbers reached the summit assisted by Sherpa guides and using supplementary bottled oxygen. The Ecuadorian climber Marcelo Segovia summited while climbing independently and without oxygen. Mountaineering experts often criticise Nepal for allowing large numbers of climbers on the mountain, which sometimes leads to risky jams or long queues in the “death zone” area below the summit, where the level of natural oxygen is below what is required for human survival. The large convergence on a single day appears to have occurred as climbers who had been waiting in higher camps for better wind conditions were joined by climbers from lower camps, with some reporting queues and a slow pace of ascent. The 8,849-metre (29,032ft) peak can be scaled from either the southern side in Nepal or the northern face in China’s Tibet. On 22 May 2019, Nepal’s side had 223 and the Chinese side had 113 climbers on the summit. Chinese authorities, however, have closed the route this year. This week, the veteran mountain guide Kami Rita Sherpa scaled the peak for the 32nd time, breaking his own record for the most summits of Everest. His closest rival, Pasang Dawa Sherpa, scaled the peak for the 30th time this week. Also, Lhakpa Sherpa scaled Everest for the 11th time, topping her own record for the most summits by a female climber. This year’s Everest climbing season began late because of the risk from a huge serac, glacial ice cliff, hanging over the key route to the summit. There are 494 climbers and an equal number of Sherpa guides expected to attempt to scale the mountain by the end of May, when the climbing season on the peak ends. Thousands of people have climbed Everest since it was first scaled on 29 May 1953 by Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and the New Zealander Edmund Hillary. A Department of Tourism official, Himal Gautam, said he had ‌received preliminary ⁠information that more than 250 people climbed the peak on Wednesday. “We wait for climbers to return, give us photographs and other evidence to prove their ascents and provide them with climbing certificates,” Gautam told Reuters. “Only then we will be able to confirm the numbers.” Nepal has issued 494 permits to climb Everest this year, each costing $15,000. Reuters and AP contributed to this article

Colombia’s climate crossroads: Trumpism casts shadow over presidential battle

Several hours after dark in a quiet Caribbean neighbourhood, a cluster of environmental activists gather on plastic chairs between a mango tree and a courtyard wall emblazoned with the words “Colombia, respira!” (Breathe, Colombia). So many people have turned up that some have to stand. That is because tonight’s speaker is Susana Muhamad, one of the most admired socio-environmental campaigners in the world, and this is a moment of profound historical significance. This month’s presidential election will decide whether Colombia remains a global leader on the climate and exemplar of “popular environmentalism”, or whether it switches to the side of fracking, mining and other forms of fossil fuel extractivism. In other words, whether it will change from green to grey. The movement is braced for a struggle. President Gustavo Petro, of Pacto Historico, is constitutionally barred from serving a consecutive second term, so the party has selected Iván Cepeda to run for president and continue his policies. The far-right candidate, Abelardo de la Espriella, and the centre-right candidate, Paloma Valencia, are both enthusiastic about reopening the oil spigot and fracking. US interference is a big concern, with Donald Trump, talking of military intervention in Colombia. Muhamad, a former environment minister, tells the attenders: “We must win in the first round because the future of Colombia will be decided here, in this very complicated international context. If we don’t win, our country will be another in Latin America aligned with Donald Trump. We have to win. Otherwise, everything we’re talking about will be completely suspended for four years. Goodbye.” Muhamad speaks of the progress Colombia has made in declaring its part of the Amazon rainforest a fossil fuel-free zone, how Petro has tried to curtail mining, protect people from pollution and realise the country’s potential as a “great power for life”. She contrasts this to what is happening in Bolivia, where the pro-business government has sold off tracts of the Junín River basin to a lithium mining company, and to Ecuador, where the far-right president, Daniel Noboa, is trying to weaken Indigenous land defenders and open up protected lands for mineral exploitation and to allow a US military base on the Galápagos Islands. Colombia plays an outsized role in the push for climate justice. In recent years, Muhamad has become a familiar face on the international stage, notably as a leading advocate for the transition away from fossil fuels at the Cop29 climate conference in Dubai, and then as president of the biodiversity Cop16 in Cali, Colombia. Muhamad is by no means a lone voice for the environment in the Pacto Historico government. Francia Márquez, the vice-president of Colombia, won the Goldman environmental prize for her campaign to halt illegal goldmining in her ancestral community of La Toma. The environment minister, Irene Vélez Torres, has just co-chaired the world’s first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, involving an alliance of countries that want to accelerate the energy transition rather than be held back by the consensus-based UN system and the vetoes of big oil producers. Petro demonstrated his commitment at that conference in Santa Marta with a call for Colombia to set an example of how to mobilise the population to overcome the “suicidal” economics and “fascistic” politics of the fossil fuel industry. The leadership demonstrated by Petro’s government has moved the phaseout of oil, gas and coal from the margins into the centre of global diplomacy, according to Tzeporah Berman, the founder and chair of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative. As a result, she said, this month’s presidential ballot will make international waves. “The implications of this election reach far beyond Colombia. At a moment of escalating climate disasters and geopolitical instability, the world is watching whether this leadership continues, or whether political pressure from the fossil fuel industry succeeds in pushing countries backward.” Environmentalists in Colombia believe the national commitment draws its force from grassroots activists. Colombia is one of the world’s deadliest countries for environmental defenders. As Juan David Amaya, a 19-year-old climate activist and founder of the pan-Latin American youth organisation Life of Pachamama, put it, the main difference between activists in Colombia and those in Europe is that “there, they don’t kill you”. After a campaign against oil palm plantations in his home region of San Carlos de Guaroa, Amaya has received numerous death threats. “In Colombia, doing this is an act of rebellion born from hope, born from love. But it also comes at a very high cost,” he said. “Colombia has made significant progress over the last four years in political discourse and action, which has mobilised many governments around the world. Today, governments like Panama, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia stand out for their ambition, their political leadership, and once again for telling the world: we must take action.” Paula Andrea Hernández, a Pacto Historico campaign manager, says: “We call it popular environmentalism because it comes from peasants and fishermen. We have suffered severe extractivism, often arm in arm with illegal militias, for so long that people realise the fight for territory and environment needs to be about power.” Domestically, climate and environment are rarely mentioned directly in campaign debates but shape the context of hot-button issues such as security and health: drug trafficking often overlaps with illegal mining and forest clearance, and shortcomings in medical provision are shown up by water contamination, rising temperatures and floods. “The environment has become a central issue,” observed Leon Valencia, a political analyst. It is not straightforwardly binary: “There are sectors on the left that favour oil exploitation, and sectors on the right that defend conservation and green markets. What both sides have agreed upon is that the relationship with nature has become a strong political identity … Colombia is experiencing a progressive environmentalisation of public opinion.” Some campaigners complain that the Petro government’s rhetoric is not always matched by actions. Deforestation of the Amazon has slowed since the Pacto Historico came to power but it continues and illegal gold mining is widespread. Many parts of Colombia are virtually ungovernable because they are controlled by armed groups. There has been political opposition in Bogotá, the world’s third highest capital city, where the business lobby in Congress has blocked the government’s most ambitious moves to restrict mining. Rightwing commentators said Colombia’s first leftwing government would be an economic disaster, especially when Petro promised to replace fossil fuels with avocados. In fact, GDP growth has remained positive for the past four years. Julia Miranda, a lower house deputy from the New Liberal party and an advocate for nature, insisted the Petro administration had proved ineffective domestically despite talk in the international arena of Colombian environmental leadership. “It is a false discourse – mere rhetoric while their environmental policies have been a failure,” she said. Miranda supports Valencia, but on the question of phasing out fossil fuels she sees room for compromise. “Colombia needs to work with complete seriousness and consistency on the energy transition, but in the meantime we need to use our resources, for example gas.” That would be a setback for the transition and could mean Colombia pulls out of or weakens its commitment to the global “coalition of the willing” that it helped to form in Santa Marta last month. But those goals are still to be fought for. With 10 days until the election on 31 May, the outcome remains unclear. Polls suggest Cepeda, Petro’s successor as the Pacto Historico candidate, will lead in the first round but fall short of the 50% needed for an outright victory. If there is a runoff, either one of his two rightwing challengers would be favourite. “That would be an abysmal setback” said Renzo García, a biologist and congressman. “A victory by Paloma Valencia or Abelardo de la Espriella would mark a return to an extractivist model, where we hand the country over to the economic interests of the world’s elites and serve as a pantry for minerals, oil and agribusiness without taking into account the rights of nature.”