Colombians face a hard, familiar choice in this month’s presidential election: negotiate with violent criminals, or go back to war against them. Voters must decide whether to continue President Gustavo Petro ’s “Total Peace” strategy, which has brought seven drug-trafficking militias to the negotiating table, even as their leaders get rich from the biggest cocaine boom in history. The alternative ...
Colombians face a hard, familiar choice in this month’s presidential election: negotiate with violent criminals, or go back to war against them. Voters must decide whether to continue President Gustavo Petro ’s “Total Peace” strategy, which has brought seven drug-trafficking militias to the negotiating table, even as their leaders get rich from the biggest cocaine boom in history. The alternative is another US-backed military offensive of the kind launched by former president Álvaro Uribe more than two decades ago. Senator Paloma Valencia , a security hardliner and Uribe protégé, has emerged as one of the most prominent voices calling for an end to talks. Instead, she wants Donald Trump ’s help to battle illegal armed groups — an approach that has gained favor elsewhere in the region. “No Colombian government can sort out the security question unless the US helps us,” Valencia said in an interview during a day of campaigning on the Caribbean coast last month. “Or unless somebody helps us.” At one campaign event that day, speaking in a sun-baked plaza in downtown Barranquilla, she pledged to hire 60,000 additional police and soldiers and send crime bosses to remote work camps in the sparsely-populated Orinoco basin. Giant “WANTED!” posters of guerrilla leaders, including some she says have plotted to kill her, flashed on a screen behind her. “We are going to hunt them down,” Valencia, who may become Colombia’s first woman president if elected, told supporters gathered beside a 300-year-old church. “No more impunity or freedom for violent criminals!” Valencia, 50, has also called on the US to use its influence in neighboring Venezuela to capture guerrilla commanders who have taken refuge there. Colombia’s largest rebel group, the ELN, has most of its senior leadership across the border, according to the Ideas for Peace Foundation. Uribe’s strategy enabled Colombia to recapture territory from Marxist guerrillas between 2002 and 2010. His approach of seeking US support ...
Hong Kong’s property market is poised for a broad-based recovery as a strong upturn in the residential segment spills over to the struggling office and retail sectors, according to analysts. Morgan Stanley upgraded its forecast for the city’s home prices to a 12 per cent increase this year from 10 per cent previously and anticipated another 5 per cent rise in 2027, it said in a report on Monday. L...
Hong Kong’s property market is poised for a broad-based recovery as a strong upturn in the residential segment spills over to the struggling office and retail sectors, according to analysts. Morgan Stanley upgraded its forecast for the city’s home prices to a 12 per cent increase this year from 10 per cent previously and anticipated another 5 per cent rise in 2027, it said in a report on Monday. Likewise, the office property segment was likely to see some relief, with Hong Kong’s top business...
(RTTNews) - SSH Group Ltd (SSH.AX), a metals and mining company, on Monday announced the signing of a binding share sale agreement to acquire Elphinstone Mechanical Services or EMS, a 20-year mining services business, in a cash and stock deal.
(RTTNews) - SSH Group Ltd (SSH.AX), a metals and mining company, on Monday announced the signing of a binding share sale agreement to acquire Elphinstone Mechanical Services or EMS, a 20-year mining services business, in a cash and stock deal.