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Pope Leo calls for leaders to reject polarisation as he begins Spanish tour

Pope Leo has urged political leaders to seek unity, rather than divide their populations for political gain, and said they must fight for peace, in the opening speech of his tour in Spain. The pope has made the marginalised a focus of his visit – his first tour of an EU country, apart from Italy – including meeting homeless people in Madrid and migrants in the Canary Islands. The pope, who has clashed with the US president, Donald Trump, over his immigration policies and war with Iran, said his visit was aimed at setting an example of respecting “every human being”. He was also due to meet survivors of sexual abuse by clergy in the Spanish Catholic church – an institution that is only now confronting its history of papered-over abuse. Leo said he would meet a few survivors, admitting that “abuses are still an open wound”. Thousands of people gathered in the streets of Madrid to greet the pontiff, who toured the city in the popemobile. It is the first time a pope has visited Spain since 2011. There has been a resurgence over recent years in Spain in the number of those who identify as Catholics, with 28.8% of young people identifying as such in 2025, compared with 17.6% in 2010. The pope is scheduled to give 20 speeches during his tour, with themes emphasising empathy for migrants, anti-demagoguery, and acknowledging what Leo said was a world crying “from its depths for peace”. “Today, the temptation to gain popularity by fanning the flames of polarisation seems to have grown rather than diminished, and human dignity continues to be violated,” he said in a speech attended by King Felipe VI at the royal palace in Madrid. “I invite everyone to set aside the divisive and polarising narratives of your societal reality and history so as to overcome sterile simplifications through the fruitful appreciation of complexity.” He suggested that technology and social media were playing a role in deepening divisions and preventing societal introspection. Leo recently released a letter focused on the dangers of artificial intelligence, suggesting that humanity was at a moral crossroads as AI technology rocketed forward. He pointed towards Spain as a country with a history of coexistence between different religions, referencing how Christians, Muslims and Jews lived together peacefully in medieval times and how they cooperated in their respective languages to advance knowledge. “Your own history suggests that a culture of encounter, not confrontation, is what fosters stability and prosperity. In reality, the message of peace, which at present, unfortunately, strikes some as naive and others as confrontational, is welcomed by those who do not shut themselves off in preconceived ideologies, but are rather open to the truth,” he said. Spain, under its socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has launched a mass amnesty programme providing about half a million immigrants with a pathway to legal residency. Spain’s policies are a contrast to much of Europe and the wider western world, which have seen a rise in xenophobia and anti-migration policies in recent years. In addition to meeting migrants in the Canary Islands, he will meet survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. Spain’s human rights ombudsman estimated in a 2023 report that there were hundreds of thousands of survivors of abuse over past decades. King Felipe told Leo, in an apparent reference to a recently launched church-state reparations system for some survivors of clerical abuse: “Your clarity and firmness, which I also wish to acknowledge, are essential in the process of healing and repairing the harm inflicted. They are essential for the victims, for the faithful, for the church and for society.” The Spanish church also suggested that the pope might meet the Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny, who is in the middle of a 10-date run of performances in Madrid. Leo joked that he faced an uphill battle when it came to competing with the pop star for young people’s interest. “If they were confronted with the question: do they want to see Bad Bunny or do they want to see the pope, I think many will go to see Bad Bunny,” he said on his flight from Rome, before adding: “But I think there will also be a few here to see the pope.”

Colombian far-right candidate is latest Trumpian figure in Latin America to ride anti-incumbent wave

Abelardo de la Espriella, the far-right lawyer who is leading the polls ahead of Colombia’s presidential runoff election, has marketed his rum, wine and menswear brands – as well as his novels and albums on which he croons popular classics – under the label “De la Espriella Style”. His shift from business suits to T-shirts, baseball caps and a meticulously trimmed beard suggest the influence of El Salvador’s populist autocrat Nayib Bukele. But the similarities go further than just appearances. Like many far-right politicians in Latin America, De la Espriella has also vowed to follow Bukele’s mano dura (iron fist) approach against crime: the Salvadorian leader has imprisoned at least 2% of the adult population in his country as part of a controversial crackdown on gangs. De la Espriella has promised to end Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict in just 90 days, building private “mega prisons” and “wiping out” criminals “like cockroaches and rats”. On 21 June, he will face the leftwing senator Iván Cepeda in the runoff. Backed by the current president, Gustavo Petro, Cepeda advocates continuing the government’s “total peace” plan of negotiating the dismantling of all criminal groups, which has so far failed to stem rising levels of violence. De la Espriella is a criminal lawyer with a lavish lifestyle who has never held public office, gives military salutes despite never having served in the armed forces and has filed more than 100 lawsuits against journalists. Analysts interpret his lead in the polls as the latest example of a wave of far-right admirers of Bukele and Donald Trump who have been winning elections across Latin America in recent years. While comparisons to Bukele are the most obvious, De la Espriella appears to have taken notes from each of his neighbours’ playbooks. Following Trump, who this week granted him his “complete and total endorsement”, the lawyer delivers speeches exclusively behind bulletproof glass and has promised to sink vessels suspected of being used for drug trafficking – echoing the US airstrikes that have recently killed more than 200 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Echoing Argentina’s Javier Milei, De la Espriella has promised to adopt a “chainsaw” austerity plan of deep cuts to federal spending (although not to military spending); copying Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, he intends to embrace the use of states of emergency to crack down on gangs; and, inspired by Brazil’s Bolsonaro family, he has turned Colombia’s national football shirt into a symbol of the far right. But according to Tiziano Breda, a senior analyst for Latin America and the Caribbean at the NGO Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (Acled), De la Espriella has clearly modelled himself on El Salvador’s self-styled “world’s coolest dictator”. “He wants to be a Bukele,” said the analyst. But hoping to become Bukele and actually becoming him are two different things, Breda said, noting that, unlike the Salvadorian autocrat, who has a grip on his congress, De la Espriella – whose party will hold only four of the Colombian Senate’s 108 seats and just one of the lower house’s 188 seats – “would not have the legislative majority that allowed Bukele to dismantle the rule of law and concentrate power in the executive”. Even so, Breda believes the lawyer’s election could pose risks to Colombian democracy, as he has shown little regard for democratic checks and balances – or for human rights in general. “I fear that security operations could become more lethal, with little impact on armed groups but serious consequences in terms of retaliation and civilian exposure to the conflict,” said the analyst, who recently published a report showing that US pressure on Latin American and Caribbean countries to embrace the “war on drugs” drove an 18% increase in clashes between security forces and armed groups in 2025 – something he believes could intensify under De la Espriella. Breda said De la Espriella’s lead, more than a far-right groundswell, was part of an “anti-incumbent wave” that is removing from power leftwing presidents who, when elected four or five years ago, were seen as part of a leftist “pink tide”. There is also, he added, a “general dissatisfaction towards the political party system”, which tends to favour candidates who present themselves as “outsiders”, as well as increasing pressure from the US, which is “making clear that closer ideological alignment to Washington comes with rewards, such as economic assistance in Argentina or security cooperation in Ecuador”. Colombia is one of the few Latin American countries still governed by the left, alongside Mexico, Uruguay and Brazil. Peru, now under an interim president, will hold its runoff on Sunday between the far-right Keiko Fujimori and the leftwing Roberto Sánchez. Brazil will hold elections in October, in which the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will face the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro. Last week, Flávio held a video call with De la Espriella. The lawyer has secured the endorsement of the third-place candidate, Paloma Valencia, as well as Trump. In Argentina, the US president’s endorsement – and his threat to withdraw a promised bailout – were seen as decisive in securing a win for Milei’s party in Argentina’s midterm elections last year, although the White House’s backing recently failed to help Viktor Orbán secure re-election in Hungary. Meanwhile, Cepeda’s first steps towards winning over voters were to initially amplify Petro’s allegations of electoral fraud, which have already been widely debunked, and to criticise De la Espriella’s use of the national football shirt. The political analyst Gabriel Cifuentes said Petro was “doing considerable damage to Cepeda” by acting as “his campaign chief”, even though electoral law prohibits a sitting president from openly participating in campaigns. “Cepeda’s campaign has made clear that it will not challenge Petro, but by failing to distance itself from him, they’re alienating important centrist sectors that see each of the president’s interventions as an authoritarian gesture,” he said.

Planned Parenthood to offer ‘just in case’ abortion pills at some US clinics

Planned Parenthood clinics in Washington and Hawaii will now offer “just in case” abortion medication, bringing wider attention to the option of receiving the pills in advance of pregnancy amid growing challenges to access. Leaders at the organization hope their name recognition will help community members understand their options for accessing care despite federal, state and personal challenges to getting abortion care. “It’s more than just an opportunity. It really is an obligation,” said Colleen McNicholas, chief of clinical transformation and medical affairs for Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky. “We need to be doing everything we can at this moment, and that means more than just holding the line – it means finding ways to expand access.” The announcement means abortion medication in advance has “gotten a lot of visibility,” said Amy Merrill, co-founder of Plan C, an organization that offers information about medication abortion, including on pills in advance. “It makes it more known, it makes it more normal, it destigmatizes it.” Some 41 states have banned or restricted abortion, and the US Food and Drug Administration is conducting a review of mifepristone, an abortion medication, with the possibility of restricting it nationally. Yet abortion in the US has largely remained steady because of telehealth and travel to states where abortion is still protected. Having abortion pills on hand prior to becoming pregnant can further ease challenges to accessing abortion, including geography, interpersonal dynamics, money, work and other obstacles, Merrill said. Getting an abortion in the US is frequently “confusing” and “chaotic”, she said. People facing intimate partner violence may struggle to get to the clinic in time; teenagers may not have their parents’ permission; others face challenges taking time off work, finding childcare and getting appointments with providers in time. “This movement is trying to think about how to ease the burden of this basic need in the face of so many existing challenges – political, but also logistical and financial and interpersonal,” Merrill said. It can be challenging to find timely, appropriate care even in states that protect access to abortion, McNicholas said. “Even if you are in a haven state or a protected state, that doesn’t necessarily mean access is easy for you.” “Needing an abortion is time-sensitive for patients,” Rebecca Gibron, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky. “Especially in parts of Washington and Hawaii that are very rural, where it is hard for folks to access timely sexual and reproductive healthcare and abortion care, offering this option to our patients really ensures their autonomy and their ability to have an abortion when they need it.” The Washington and Hawaii clinics are the first Planned Parenthood organizations to offer just-in-case medication, though other abortion providers have also offered pills in advance. “I think it’s super important for us to enter this space, because Planned Parenthood really is a household name, and we are trusted by millions of people across this country,” said Gibron, who was a Planned Parenthood patient as a teenager and is now a mother and grandmother from Idaho. “Our aim in launching this is really to ensure that more patients know this option is available to them.” The clinics will provide in-person and telehealth services to residents of Hawaii and Washington, but they won’t remotely prescribe to patients in other states. “We are making this service available in Hawaii and Washington specifically because of the state laws that support this model of care,” Gibron said. “We will continue working on the regulatory environment in other states where abortion is legal, so that we can offer this service there too.” Some other providers provide telehealth to patients in states with restrictions, using shield laws to protect them from liability, McNicholas said. They frequently refer patients across state lines to Plan C, which offers a state-by-state directory for providers. “The announcement that they were going to start with the states that they operate in made sense, and it doesn’t mean that people in restricted states don’t have options,” Merrill said. “They absolutely do if they want to get pills in advance.” Planned Parenthood has a “broad platform” and name recognition, “but also over the years they have built a trust – they have built themselves as an organization that is established to serve people’s health needs, that’s going to show up for people”, Merrill said. “They’re not saying, ‘Go get the pills, and if and when you need to use them, just figure it out.’ They’re saying: ‘We’re here for you all along the way.’”

Palestinian baby shot dead by Israeli troops in occupied West Bank

Israeli troops killed a seven-month-old Palestinian baby in the occupied West Bank and injured one of the child’s parents after opening fire on the family’s car, despite it having complied with an order to stop. Soldiers opened fire on Friday on a car carrying the infant and his parents in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron. The seven-month-old, Sam Fahd Abu Haikal, was critically injured, evacuated in critical condition to a hospital, where he later died. His parents were also injured. The Israeli military said troops had fired at a vehicle they believed was moving towards them, but an initial inquiry found those injured were uninvolved civilians. In an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the father, Fahd Abu Haikal, a lecturer at Bethlehem University, said that “a bullet passed through his hand and struck his son, Sam, who was being held by his mother in the back seat”. Abu Haikal said the family, which also included the couple’s 11-year-old son and Abu Haikal’s mother, had been driving through Hebron on Friday evening when soldiers signalled for the vehicle to stop, he said. He said it was still daylight and that the soldier who opened fire could clearly see the occupants were a family. “The soldier signalled me to stop. I brought the car to a complete halt and raised my hands on the steering wheel. Immediately afterwards, they opened fire on the vehicle,” he told Haaretz. The Israel Defense Forces said its troops “perceived a vehicle accelerating toward them” and one of the soldiers “responded with single shots toward the vehicle”. “As a result, three Palestinians were injured and evacuated for medical treatment,” the IDF said, adding that “the incident is under review” and expressed “deep sorrow for any harm caused to uninvolved individuals”. Abu Haikal rejected the military’s account. “The soldier was about 10 metres away from me. He saw me, he saw my wife and the children,” he told Haaretz. ‘‘The windows were not tinted, it was broad daylight and everything was clear. You can’t say he didn’t see that it was a family. “I stopped as I was instructed to, and then they simply shot at the car,” he added. “There was no clear checkpoint, just soldiers standing in the street. I stopped when I was asked to, and then the shooting started,” he said. Abu Haikal called for an investigation and said the soldier responsible should be held to account. “I demand and expect, if there is any conscience, any law, any morality, that the soldier who fired the shots will be held accountable for his actions. This case must not be closed without an investigation and without accountability. At the very least, I do not intend to give up.” In a similar incident, Israeli troops operating in Tamoun, in the northern Jordan valley, opened fire on a vehicle travelling through the village on 15 March, killing a Palestinian couple and two of their children. The victims were identified as Ali Bani Odeh, 38, his wife, Waad Bani Odeh, 36, and their sons Othman, six, and Mohammad, five. According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, soldiers removed two other children from the vehicle, Khaled, 11, and Mustafa, eight, both of whom suffered minor shrapnel injuries. The organisation said the troops then subjected Khaled to a violent interrogation at the scene. B’Tselem said the military initially prevented ambulances from reaching the area and allowed medical teams access only after a delay. The organisation added that soldiers later confiscated the family’s vehicle, which it said was riddled with bullet holes. The UN said last month that more than 1,000 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the war began, at least 240 of them children, and 49 people have been killed this year.

Kuwait and Bahrain targeted by Iran after exchange of fire with US

Bahrain has said Iran fired ballistic missiles and drones at it and Kuwait, hours after the US and Iran exchanged strikes over the Gulf, the latest in a series of flare-ups that threatened to break the fragile ceasefire. Air raid sirens rang out on Saturday in Bahrain and people were told to move to a safe location and await further instructions. Kuwait’s military said it was intercepting drones and missiles launched at the country. The Kuwaiti foreign ministry condemned the attacks, calling them a “serious escalation” and a “flagrant violation of its sovereignty”, and said it reserved the right to defend its country. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it was targeting the Ali al-Salem airbase in Bahrain, where the US navy’s 5th fleet is located, according to Iranian media. The attacks came after the US military said it had shot down four Iranian drones launched toward the strait of Hormuz and struck Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites in response. Iran followed hours later, saying it had targeted US bases in the region, with Kuwait and Bahrain both issuing air raid alerts. It was the latest in a series of back-and-forth attacks that have strained the tenuous ceasefire in the war and harmed efforts to reach a deal to extend the truce. US-Iran efforts to find a permanent end to the war have dragged on, extending regional instability and throwing the global economy into disarray. The World Food Programme (WFP) said millions of people were being pushed into hunger due to the knock-on effects of the Iran war, primarily due to soaring energy and food prices. US central command (Centcom) said early on Saturday that Iranian attack drones “posed an immediate threat to regional maritime traffic”, while the strikes on radar installations were to “defend against further attacks”. The US military is enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports in response to Tehran’s chokehold on the strait – a crucial corridor for global oil and natural gas shipments – which has sent energy prices spiking. Hours later, the IRGC said it had targeted “enemy bases” in the Gulf after the US strikes on Sirik and Qeshm Island. “Iran fired seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain,” Centcom said, adding that six were intercepted and a seventh did not reach its target. “There are currently no reports of harm to US personnel, and Iranian claims of damaging US 5th fleet headquarters in Bahrain are false.” Earlier on Friday, Donald Trump told reporters that “the situation with Iran seems to be going quite well”. At an event with farmers in Wisconsin, Trump said: “We’re going to come out of Iran very quickly and it’s going to be very strong one way or the other, whether it’s a piece of paper or the very tough way. Your fertiliser prices are going to go way down, just like they were four months ago.” Trump is under pressure to find a way out of the war, which has shocked markets and proved unpopular at home as midterm elections loom. US and Iranian negotiators have for weeks been working to extend the ceasefire by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear programme. But both sides have continued to call for changes in the deal, with neither appearing ready to compromise. Asked on Friday why it was taking so long, Trump told NBC it was because it was “a very hard thing” for Iran, citing its “great independence”. “There are things they never thought they’d be doing that they’re going to have to do. They’ve got no choice, and it takes a little while,” he said in the interview. In other comments on Friday, Trump said Iran still had more than 20% of its missiles left, a figure for the stockpile that was higher than the 18% that Trump gave last month. He has often claimed to have completely destroyed Iran’s ability to wage war. Trump told NBC News: “They still have capacity. They have some missiles, they have some drones. I would say, percentage wise, maybe 21, 22% of their missiles.” His administration has also touted the latest ceasefire agreed to this week by the Lebanese government and Israel after US-brokered talks in Washington. That’s despite Iranian-backed Hezbollah – who were not party to the talks – rejecting the agreement and new attacks being launched by both sides. Israeli airstrikes killed nine people in Lebanon on Saturday, including three Lebanese army soldiers in their vehicle. The Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, called the strike on its army a “flagrant violation to Lebanese sovereignty and international law”. The Israeli military said the vehicle was “moving suspiciously” towards Israeli soldiers in an area where Hezbollah operated and that it would review the incident. Israel has killed several Lebanese army soldiers and state security forces, despite the Lebanese state not being a party to the Hezbollah-Israel war. The fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, also threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the strait of Hormuz. Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. On Friday, Aoun criticised Iran for opposing this week’s ceasefire deal, accusing the country of fighting its wars in Lebanon and using it as a bargaining chip in negotiations. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, responded to the accusation on Saturday by saying that “one would think it’s Iran that has occupied a fifth of Lebanon, displaced a quarter of Lebanese and is bombing his country on daily basis”. “Had Lebanon been a bargaining chip for Iran, we’d have a deal long ago. Save Lebanon from your real foe, Mr President,” Araghchi said in a post on X. With the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

Inside the adult Swedish prison preparing to house children as young as 13

Inside H block, staff at Sweden’s largest jail are preparing for the arrival of the first child prisoners in the institution’s 60-year history. New furniture has been ordered, extra beds have been removed from what were previously double-occupancy adult cells and classrooms are under construction. There are plans to repaint the walls from red to a shade of light green. In a matter of weeks, Kumla, a high-security prison on the edge of a small town in central Sweden, is expected to start receiving boys as young as 13. The Swedish parliament has already voted through plans for 15- to 17-year-olds convicted of serious crimes to serve their sentences in prison, which will come into force in July. And in June, it is expected to also vote to lower the criminal age of responsibility from 15 to 13 for crimescarrying a minimum sentence of four years’ imprisonment. Sweden faces “an emergency situation that we need to manage”, the justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, said, referring to the gang violence that has flared up across the Nordic country in the past decade, with criminal networks active in drug dealing, large-scale fraud and robbery. Like most experts consulted on the plan, the Kumla prison chief, Jacques Mwepu, is against putting children in prison. But now he and other critics have been overruled and the government is going ahead, he wants to “do as much as we can” to help them feel comfortable. “Here it should look just like a home environment,” Mwepu said on a tour of the new facilities, over the sound of whirring power tools. Currently, under-18s in Sweden serve sentences for serious crimes such as murder, rape, kidnap and weapons offences largely in secure care homes run by the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care (Statens institutionsstyrelse, or SiS). The homes have come in for heavy criticism for their security and management. The changes, which will come into effect as politicians go into campaign mode before the general election in September, are part of a wider push by Ulf Kristersson’s centre-right minority-run coalition government to take action on gang crime. Fatal shootings appear to have fallen, with five in the first quarter of this year. But experts say gangs are grooming increasingly young and vulnerable children to commit violent crime for money. The prison population has almost doubled in the past decade, and Sweden has gone from closing prisons to building them, largely as a result of increased sentences. There are plans to expand prison places from 12,000 today to 19,500 by 2035. According to Council of Europe figures, the average age of Sweden’s population in penal institutions last year was 34 – among the lowest in the continent. The decision to incarcerate children, which marks the biggest change to the Swedish justice system in decades, has been condemned by researchers, lawyers and NGOs including Unicef and Save the Children. The Swedish prison and probation service has also warned of potentially negative consequences. The move represents a big shift in Swedish society, which has long prided itself on being a leader for children’s rights and is often held up for its humane approach to criminal justice. Opponents have decried it as a kneejerk, ill-considered response to crime, driven largely by the pressure exerted on the government by the far-right Sweden Democrats, upon whose support the Kristersson cabinet relies. The UN convention on the rights of the child and the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) stipulate that child imprisonment should only be used as a “last resort”, while the UN says children who are detained should be treated “in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age”. Li Melander, a children’s rights lawyer for Unicef Sweden, said it was a “very big setback for children’s rights”. Peter Helenius, the head at Eknäs SiS home in north-east of Kumla, said the decision to place children in prisons was purely a “political decision”. Thirteen-year-olds, he said, “have no place in a prison”, and added: “Science says a 13-year-old’s brain is not developed in such a way that they can take responsibility in the same way as an adult.” It was also unlikely to work as a deterrent, he said, because that age group did not yet have the capacity to consider the consequences of their actions. Children at Kumla will be locked up separately from the rest of the prison population, in individual 11 sq metre cells containing a shower, toilet, desk and TV. There is a small gym on the corridor and at the entrance is a dayroom and kitchen area. Unlike the adults, who work in the prison laundry, children will be required to go to school in classrooms being built upstairs, as well as to structured activities and treatment. Each unit has capacity for eight children, with the potential to expand to 32 places overall if they reduce the prison’s adult population. However, like many Swedish prisons, Kumla is already stretched. Since 2020 the prison’s population has almost doubled, from 432 to 757, meaning that many of the prisoners are now in double cells. Compared with the existing SiS system, Kumla would implement “much more boundary setting”, said Mwepu, and place more demands and conditions on child offenders. Staff would work with them on small behaviour changes, he said, in an attempt to stop children from “thinking criminally”. What was often missing from public debate, he said, was that children caught up in crime were often victims as well as perpetrators. “There are two dimensions to those children. That complicates the handling of them. Many of them are victims of big criminals who exploit them,” he added. “They have gone through a lot, pressures, risk of death if they don’t do what they should do, they have been abused sometimes, there has been trauma.” This went against the popular belief of who a victim could be, said Mwepu, which was usually “somebody who is well behaved and who has been attacked”. A recent report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) found that nine in 10 children under the age of 15 who were investigated for serious crimes were already known to social services and close to half had a previous psychiatric diagnosis. Interventions needed to be made much earlier in life, it said. The justice minister, Strömmer, who has twice visited Kumla, acknowledged that some children might be victims as well as perpetrators, but also suggested that some children sought out criminal gangs. The SiS system had “seriously failed with children who commit serious crimes”, he said, referencing statistics showing that 90% of those with connections to gangs returned to serious crime. If he were asked for recommendations by the minister, Mwepu says he would advise against putting 13-year-olds in prison at all and instead look at alternatives. But now it is on the verge of happening, he is resigned to it. “I say it is not a good idea but what I am saying now has no meaning. Now that it has been decided we must make sure that they have as good conditions as possible,” he said. “It is very important for society that we succeed with this.”

Blackouts, hyperinflation, dissent: Iran considers perilous prospect of peace

Iran is already preparing for the perilous transition from wartime unity to a fractious peace marked by hyperinflation, a 10% contraction in the economy, power cuts and calls for a triumphalist government to end its unprecedented hunting down of dissent. With peace not yet secured, the debates within the regime about Iran’s future are only just starting to emerge but its rulers are clearly thinking about how after surviving the war, they can survive the peace. Open discussions on channels such as Azad are heard on alternative future postwar directions for the country. There are advocates of greater openness, and others such as Saeed Ajorlou, close to the Iranian negotiating team, who say, now the myth of a weak Iran has been shattered in western minds, the country must seek development through autonomy. Much will depend on whether Donald Trump is really willing to lift the economic blockade on Iran by reducing sanctions and ending asset freezes, but few Iranian economists think the relief will be more than a small fraction of the estimated $270bn (£200bn) losses inflicted on the economy including its infrastructure, schools, energy, steelworks and housing. Iranian commentators such as Fuad Habibi, a sociology professor at the University of Kurdistan, are wary of terms such as social collapse but are very open that the conditions that led to the bloody protests in January have not been solved, and indeed made worse by war. He said: “Economic crises and livelihood dissatisfaction have clearly increased, even without precise statistics. We are witnessing a rare increase in prices due to the naval blockade and the consequences of the war. The internet blockade has also led to direct or indirect unemployment of at least 2 million. “Since we do not have a society in which protests are expressed through official channels such as parties, guilds and unions, you will always be surprised.” The current so-called cohesion is due to the existence of an external factor because, in the face of bombing and destruction by an enemy, internal solidarity is created. But as Hegel said, the moment a front wins is the moment a split begins within it. If a deal does happen to end the war, the Iranian economy would enter peacetime facing food inflation at its highest since the second world war, with the annual food inflation in May at 130% according to the Statistical Centre of Iran. Inflation for meat and chicken reached 176%. Health experts even warn of an increase in malnutrition, osteoporosis and growth stunting, due to the way in which Iranians are having to eradicate dairy products from their diet. The former communications minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi wrote on his Telegram channel: “Trump and Netanyahu’s next bomb may not be gunpowder; it may be inflation. The battlefield is the people’s table, housing rent, and … gentlemen in charge, are you aware of the accumulation of dissatisfaction? Is the country’s economic defence ready, or, God forbid, will we be surprised again?” The president, Masoud Pezeshkian, appears to have been deputed to keep the domestic wheels of government working, and has been repeatedly warning of hard times ahead, and the need to maintain social cohesion. The ministry of energy was forced to deny controlled two-hour blackouts would start as early as next month despite the damage to infrastructure. Arash Najafi, the head of the energy commission of the Iranian chamber of commerce, had warned this week: “To maintain production, people must prepare themselves for two hours of daily shutdowns.” Incentives such as 30% price discounts are being offered to those who cut their energy consumption by 10%. The sense of hardship is starting to emerge as internet censorship is slowly lifted, a decision so controversial that it has led to hardliners in the parliament trying to impeach the communications minister. Rahim Ghomeishi, a political activist, wrote this week: “We had been thrown out of a broken boat. Fear of bloodthirsty whales, fear of terrible waves had taken over our entire being. Now that we have returned to the boat, we cannot be content just because we have been rescued. “Poverty was not supposed to become normal in the country. We were not supposed to wake up to news of executions every morning. Most people were not supposed to be strangers unable to decide about their own lives and destinies, the most important concern in life was not supposed to be filling our stomachs.” Although much of the domestic political debate turns on the wisdom of negotiating with America, or an arcane battle about how long Iran should renounce a currently theoretical right to enrich uranium, many believe the true prize from the war will be the end of the economic straitjacket. But the sums likely to be involved are not a bonanza. Albert Baghzian, a professor of economics at the University of Tehran, told Khabar Online: “In an economy of the size of Iran’s economy, with this level of efficiency in the policymaking sector, it is wrong to think that the influx of $12bn or $24bn will lead to a major opening. In our economy, figures higher than this have been brought in many times, but because we had not planned properly, resources were wasted, we ended up where we are today.” But debates about how the economy could be reorganised and corruption tackled come up against the power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The senior Iranian economist Mousa Ghaninejad hinted at the problem this week: “The main issue in the Iranian economy is the dominance of command-based governance over rule-based governance, meaning that decisions are made in many cases not based on stable and transparent rules, but rather on short-term expediency and political considerations.” Ever since the January protests, the repression has grown worse, reflected in new espionage laws, asset seizures of dissidents, executions and denunciations of dissidents in the nightly rallies. The national parliament is still banned from meetings in person. This drove the Islamic National Unity party, one of the leading reformist parties, this week to publish an open version of a letter sent privately to Pezeshkian urging him to stop executions, which only fuel internal divisions, do not meet the fundamental requirements for a fair trial and “tarnish the country’s image at a time of moral superiority during the war”. At least 22 political prisoners were executed between 17 March and 27 April. But the chances of pluralism are slim. It took the hospitalisation this week of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister, who has been under house arrest since 2011 and whose home was bombed in the war, for the president to feel emboldened to intervene with the security forces. Extraordinarily, Trump seems to be content to coexist with this enemy. He said this week he had a good call with the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, and he would be honoured to meet Khamenei, the new supreme leader. “In some circles he has a good reputation,” Trump mused. The IRGC and political leadership showed in the period between the 10-day war of 2025 and the renewed war in February 2026 that they could reorganise for battle. But the test is imminent whether they can reorganise for peace by addressing the problems, domestic and international, that hold the country back. If, after the end of the war, the economic blockade of Iran continues and there is no opening in international relations for the entry of capital, technology, raw materials and resources necessary for reconstruction, the devastation will not be repaired, but will become part of everyday life. The destruction will turn from a temporary incident into a permanent social condition, a situation in which people are forced to live in a context of scarcity, exhaustion and instability.

Armenia heads to polls amid Russian pressure and threat of ‘Ukrainian scenario’

The bottling line at the Abovyan cognac factory in Armenia is running at full tilt. Women in white coats and hairnets work the conveyor with practised speed – labelling, stacking, loading pallets – racing to fill a truck. The spirit’s destination is Russia. But it probably won’t make it there. Last month, Moscow announced a ban on imports from Abovyan, alongside two other leading producers of Armenian cognac – the name under which Armenian brandy is sold in Russia. The official reason for the move was sanitary concerns, but it was widely viewed as political pressure aimed at discouraging the country’s westward tilt ahead of parliamentary elections on Sunday. It was the latest in a long line of recent trade restrictions – affecting everything from flowers and fish to fruit and its famed brandy – that the Kremlin has imposed on a nation of 3 million people that sends roughly 40% of its exports to nearby Russia. “We just hope this all blows over,” said Samvel Goroyan, Abovyan’s director, in his office on the outskirts of the capital, Yerevan. “All our cognac is sold in Russia, 7m bottles a year,” he shrugged. “We have nowhere else to go.” For most of its post-Soviet existence since 1991, Armenia was Moscow’s closest ally in the South Caucasus, which bridges eastern Europe and west Asia. It hosted Russian troops, bought Russian weapons and integrated with Kremlin-led political and economic structures. But the relationship has slowly unravelled under the current prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, whose Civil Contract party came to power on the back of a popular revolution in 2018. His push to reorient Armenia towards Europe represents its most significant foreign policy shift since independence, and Sunday’s vote will be a test of that policy, which Pashinyan is pursuing despite the reality of his country’s deep economic dependence on Russia. “Moscow feels it is losing Armenia, that the country has got a bit too big for its boots,” said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow with global analysts Carnegie Europe. “So Moscow is trying to force Pashinyan to make a choice – for Russia.” Last month, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, warned that Armenia could face a “Ukrainian scenario” if it continued its European integration aims. Dmitry Medvedev, the hawkish deputy chair of Russia’s powerful security council, has meanwhile hinted that Pashinyan could suffer the ⁠fate of the Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky, whom Joseph Stalin had killed with an ice pick. Ties between the two countries first nosedived after Azerbaijan – which neighbours both – seized the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in 2023, triggering an exodus of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the enclave. For many Armenians, Russia’s response was a watershed moment. Despite being in a security alliance with Armenia and maintaining peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh, Moscow stood aside as Azerbaijan seized control – exposing the limits of Russian security guarantees. The loss prompted officials in Yerevan to openly question the value of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), the Moscow-led military alliance Armenia had long treated as the cornerstone of its security. Last year, Pashinyan suspended Armenia’s participation altogether. The country drew further ire from Moscow in April, when it hosted a European Political Community summit – with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in attendance. In recent months, Pashinyan has not only spoken about Armenia’s aspirations to join the EU – a prospect that remains distant – but also made inroads with Washington. Donald Trump has publicly endorsed him, while the vice-president, JD Vance, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, have both visited Yerevan, underscoring a level of US political attention and economic engagement it has never previously enjoyed. For Moscow, Armenia’s westward drift comes at a particularly sensitive moment, four years into the grinding war in Ukraine, as it engages in an increasingly complex effort to preserve its influence across the former Soviet sphere and beyond. Areg Kochinyan, the president of the Yerevan-based Research Center on Security Policy, said: “Russians are concerned about losing, in their understanding, yet another country that they see as their rightful sphere of interest. And they are acting on it.” In Moldova and Hungary, the Kremlin has previously sought – without success – to bolster friendly political forces in elections using what western intelligence services have described as a combination of disinformation campaigns and covert influence operations. Analysts and western officials say elements of the same playbook are now being deployed in Armenia. Kremlin backing has flowed toward Pashinyan’s main challenger, Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian-Armenian billionaire whose Stronger Armenia party advocates for closer ties with Moscow. He is currently under house arrest on charges linked to calls for the seizure of power. But despite Moscow’s pressure, opinion polls suggest Pashinyan’s party is on course to comfortably emerge as the largest political force on about 30% of the vote, while Karapetyan trails at roughly 10%. “What’s interesting is this Russian campaign has backfired. It’s only strengthened Pashinyan at home,” said Richard Giragosian, the director of the Regional Studies Center, a thinktank based in Yerevan. De Waal added that the Armenian opposition had largely discredited itself in the public’s perception through its perceived closeness to Russia. “Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party is likely to win the elections more or less by default,” De Waal said. “Not because the prime minister is still popular – he isn’t – but because Armenia’s opposition is even less competent or impressive and too associated with Russia.” Analysts say Moscow has also been careful not to push too hard, as the Kremlin understands that excessive pressure could backfire and fuel further anti-Russian sentiment. Hovhannes Nikoghosyan, an Armenian political scientist, said: “No one can confidently predict how far Moscow will continue pressure if Pashinyan is re-elected, but if he remains in power, Russia will still have to find some modus operandi with the existing political landscape. Leaving Armenia to their geopolitical competitors’ embrace is something Kremlin will not want to do.” Pashinyan, a former journalist, has centred his campaign on what he calls the “crossroads of peace” – a vision of Armenia as a regional transit hub reconnecting long-closed borders with Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey, moving the country beyond decades of conflict and poor connectivity. He has also made clear that, like many Armenians, he seeks diversification rather than divorce from Russia. Pashinyan has stressed that Moscow will keep its large military base in Armenia, and said he would travel to meet Putin shortly after the elections. Giragosian said: “Russia has such dominance that the west is not a peer competitor. Pashinyan’s policies are based on a realistic assessment. Nobody is talking about replacing Russia with France, Europe or the United States overnight.” Still, European leaders have made little secret of their preference for a Pashinyan victory. The Armenian prime minister has cultivated particularly close ties with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the two leaders even performed a musical act together during Macron’s visit to Armenia – with Pashinyan on drums as the French president sang at an official dinner. That support has come despite growing concerns about Pashinyan’s democratic record. Dozens of opposition activists have been detained in the run-up to the election, including allies of Karapetyan. Those criticisms have largely fallen on deaf ears in Brussels. On Thursday, eager to support Armenia’s drift away from Moscow, the EU announced an initial €50m economic support package to help the country weather Russian trade pressure, and vowed further economic cooperation. In a symbolic gesture of solidarity, Ukraine has also begun importing Armenian roses following Russia’s ban on flower imports. But for all Armenia’s efforts to diversify its partnerships, Moscow still holds powerful economic and political levers. Russian officials have hinted in recent weeks that Armenia may no longer be able to rely on the subsidised gas that underpins much of its economy. “When Russia demands to renegotiate the price of subsidised gas, that tells you Armenia has gone too far, too fast,” said Giragosian. “Then there will be a real crisis.”