Category World News

A group of 45 Colombian soldiers have been retrieved from a village controlled by rebel fighters in the country’s rural southwest, where authorities say they were blocked from leaving by a group of about 600 civilians.

The Colombian military said on Monday that the last remaining soldiers had been retrieved “without incident” and returned “safe and sound” from El Tambo, located in a region known for coca production and other illicit activity.

“All military personnel in the hands of civilians have been released,” President Gustavo Petro said in a social media post. “The population in regions of coca leaf and illicit gold [mining] must stop obeying orders from the mafias.”

The government has blamed such incidents, five of which have occurred this year, on splinter groups that spurned a 2016 peace deal between the government and the FARC, a left-wing rebel group.

Colombian authorities allege that such armed groups pressure civilian populations in coca-producing regions into blocking patrols of soldiers in place. Such incidents are not uncommon and mostly result in soldiers being released unharmed, sometimes following mediation by human rights groups.

After the 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), various splinter groups, drug trafficking, and criminal organisations rushed in to take control of areas previously controlled by the left-wing group.

A six-decade civil conflict that resulted in the death of 450,000 people may also contribute to hostility towards the army in some parts of the country. A 2022 truth commission report stated that the government, along with right-wing paramilitaries, were responsible for the majority of civilians killed in the conflict, although all forces involved participated in abuses such as kidnapping and disappearances.

While the Petro government has sought to reach agreements with remaining armed groups, authorities have struggled to address continued violence and instability that have disrupted life for civilians in regions where they remain active.

Democratic lawmakers have released a suggestive letter purportedly sent by United States President Donald Trump to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, which is probing the handling of a criminal investigation into the disgraced financier, published the letter and drawing of a nude woman on social media on Monday. It had been handed over to the committee by Epstein’s estate.

The letter was originally reported on in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), leading Trump to deny he had written it and to file a $10bn lawsuit against the newspaper.

The letter was included as part of a 2003 album compiled for alleged sex trafficker Epstein’s birthday.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee received a copy of the birthday album on Monday as part of a batch of documents from Epstein’s estate.

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Trump has denied writing the letter and creating the drawing, calling a report on it “false, malicious, and defamatory”.

“These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures,” Trump said, though news media reports later noted that Trump had donated a number of drawings to charity auctions over the years.

The letter released by the committee looks exactly as described by the WSJ in its report.

The note bearing Trump’s name and signature includes text framed by a hand-drawn outline of what appears to be a curvaceous woman.

“A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret,” the letter says.

🚨🚨HERE IT IS: We got Trump’s birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein that the President said doesn’t exist.

Trump talks about a “wonderful secret” the two of them shared. What is he hiding? Release the files! pic.twitter.com/k2Mq8Hu3LY

Trump once considered Epstein a friend, and the controversy surrounding the now-deceased high-profile figure has prompted conspiracy theories, especially among the president’s far-right supporters.

Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell in 2019, but he is believed to have abused hundreds of underage girls during his decades as a high-powered financier.

Questions have lingered over how he could have evaded justice for so long and whether his vast network of powerful contacts played a role.

Many of Trump’s supporters have been calling for the release of the sex offender’s files since July, when US Attorney General Pam Bondi reversed course on the president’s election campaign pledge to release court documents that some believed contained damning revelations about Epstein and his alleged elite clientele.

Democrats – as well as some Republicans – have seized on the moment, pushing for the full release of the files and carrying out their own investigations.

The United States Supreme Court has allowed Donald Trump to keep a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) away from her post for now, temporarily pausing a judicial order that required the reinstatement of the commissioner, who the Republican president has sought to oust.

The court announced the decision on Monday.

The court’s action, known as an administrative stay, gives the justices additional time to consider Trump’s formal request to let him fire Rebecca Slaughter from the consumer protection and antitrust agency prior to her term expiring.

The stay was issued by Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles emergency filings arising in Washington, DC. Roberts has asked Slaughter to file a response by next Monday.

The Justice Department made the request on Thursday after Washington-based US District Judge Loren AliKhan blocked Trump’s firing of Slaughter.

AliKhan ruled in July that Trump’s attempt to remove Slaughter did not comply with removal protections in federal law. Congress put such tenure protections in place to give certain regulatory agencies a degree of independence from presidential control.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on September 2 upheld the judge’s ruling in a 2-1 decision, prompting the administration’s request to the Supreme Court.

Slaughter said she intends to “see this case through to the end”.

“In the week I was back at the FTC, it became even more clear to me that we desperately need the transparency and accountability Congress intended to have at bipartisan independent agencies,” Slaughter said.

An FTC spokesperson declined to comment.

The lower courts ruled that the statutory protections shielding FTC members from being removed without cause conform with the US Constitution in light of a 1935 Supreme Court precedent in a case called Humphrey’s Executor v United States.

In that case, the court ruled that a president lacks unfettered power to remove FTC commissioners, faulting then-President Franklin D Roosevelt’s firing of an FTC commissioner for policy differences.

The Trump administration in its recent Supreme Court filing argued that “the modern FTC exercises far more substantial powers than the 1935 FTC”, and thus its members can be fired at will by the president.

The court in a similar ruling in May said the Constitution gives the president wide latitude to fire government officials who wield executive power on his behalf.

The administration has repeatedly asked the justices this year to allow implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has sided with the administration in almost every case that it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the US presidency in January.

Political tensions

Slaughter was one of two commissioners from the Democratic Party who Trump moved to fire in March. No more than three of the five commissioners can come from the same party, and the FTC has operated since April with three Republicans at the helm.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has pursued conservative political goals at the agency, including holding a workshop on what it called the dangers of gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, saying the agency would investigate whether employers coordinated diversity, equity and inclusion goals, and telling Google that filtering Republican fundraising emails as spam could be unlawful.

The FTC has also sought to investigate media watchdogs accused by Elon Musk of helping orchestrate advertiser boycotts of his social media platform X, and cleared Omnicom’s $13.5bn acquisition of rival Interpublic IPG after the companies agreed not to steer advertising spend based on political factors.

Spain has announced sweeping measures against Israel, including a total arms embargo, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez saying the move is aimed at “stopping the genocide in Gaza” and “supporting the Palestinian population”.

“There is a difference between defending your country and bombing hospitals or starving innocent children,” Sanchez, one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, said in a speech posted from his official X account.

“This is an unjustifiable attack on the civilian population. Sixty thousand dead, two million displaced, half of them children. This is not self-defence … it is the extermination of a defenceless people.”

Central to the package, unveiled on Monday, is a royal decree law that will be approved by Spain’s cabinet and later ratified by parliament. The measure formalises what has been in effect since October 2023: a ban on the purchase and sale of weapons, ammunition and military equipment to Israel.

Spain will also prohibit ships carrying fuel for the Israeli army from docking at its ports, deny airspace access to aircraft transporting defence material, and bar entry to individuals “directly involved in genocide, human rights violations and war crimes” in Gaza, a restriction that could apply to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his government.

Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant have been issued an arrest warrant for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), but several European leaders have faced criticism for refusing to execute the ICC warrant. The United States, the closest ally of Israel and its main military funder, has even slapped sanctions on ICC prosecutor Karim Khan.

Other steps include banning imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Sanchez pledging 10 million euros ($11.7m) in new funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and a total of 150 million euros ($176m) in humanitarian aid for Gaza by 2026.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned Spain’s measures as “anti-Semitic” and accused Sanchez’s socialist government of leading a “hostile anti-Israel line, with uncontrolled and hateful rhetoric”.

Israel’s leaders have often conflated criticism of its human rights violations and abuse against Palestinians with anti-Semitism. Similar charges were levelled against French President Emmanuel Macron and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in August after they announced recognition of the Palestinian state and called for an end to the war in Gaza.

Israel also announced it would bar two Spanish ministers from entering the country.

Madrid swiftly rejected the allegations, summoning its ambassador in Israel back for consultations. Spain’s Foreign Ministry said it “strongly rejects the false and slanderous accusations of antisemitism made by the Israeli government” and that it would “not be intimidated in its defence of peace, international law and human rights”.

“The measures relating to the inhumane situation in Gaza and the West Bank, announced today by the President of the Spanish Government, reflect the majority opinion of Spanish society and are adopted within the framework of its sovereignty and in line with its defence of peace, human rights and international law,” the ministry added.