Voters will choose from over 3,000 candidates to fill 102 Senate seats and 182 House seats, in a vote analysts predict will be divided among dozens of parties

International News via Reuters:

Colombians head to the polls on Sunday to elect a new Congress and choose three of the presidential candidates who will contest elections this May, a vote that will shape the next president’s ability to push through legislation and fulfill their agenda.

Voters will choose from over 3,000 candidates to fill 102 Senate seats and 182 House seats, in a vote analysts predict will be divided among dozens of parties, likely forcing the next president to form a coalition government. 

Some 41.2 million eligible voters will also be able to participate in consultations through which the right, center and left-wing parties will select their presidential candidates.

However, the candidates leading the polls, leftist Ivan Cepeda, an ally of current President Gustavo Petro, and right-wing Abelardo De La Espriella, will not participate in Sunday’s consultations but will be on the ballot for the May 31 presidential election.

Sergio Guzman, the director of consultancy firm Colombia Risk Analysis, said that with a Congress split among several political parties, “any government will see its legislative proposals diluted” and have difficulty getting them approved.

Morgan Stanley also expects Colombia’s fragmented party system to persist in Sunday’s legislative vote, meaning centrist and traditional parties will likely remain crucial to forming congressional alliances.

JPMorgan said Colombian assets currently price little extra election risk, suggesting the legislative vote alone is unlikely to move markets unless it clearly signals a shift in policy.

A divided result would likely keep markets steady. Stronger opposition momentum could support the peso and narrow sovereign spreads, while gains for the left could weigh modestly on local assets and keep fiscal concerns in focus.

For Guzman, the consultations to choose candidates will allow the right, the left, and the center parties to measure their strength in the lead-up to the presidential elections.

Petro has repeatedly questioned the software that will be used for the vote count in the elections, calling it unreliable and vulnerable to fraud, and has raised doubts about the way in which the physical tally sheets from the polling stations, called E-14, are filled out manually.

“The transparency of the Colombian electoral process is complete and absolutely guaranteed. There are absolute guarantees with the software and the E-14 forms,” ​National Registrar Hernan Penagos recently said.

The registrar denied the possibility the software used to tally the votes could be altered, and reiterated the main guarantee would be the 860,000 jurors at the 125,000 polling stations set up throughout the country, in addition to more than three million party witnesses.

Some 246,000 members of the military forces and the national police have been placed on high alert to prevent attacks by illegal armed groups seeking to disrupt the election or pressure voters to cast their ballots for certain candidates, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said this week.

Leftist guerrillas throughout the country often carry out attacks during elections, a common occurrence of the six-decade internal armed conflict that has left more than 450,000 dead in Colombia.

Report by Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogotá, additional report by Rodrigo Campos in New York, editing by Chris Reese

Europol spokesman Jan Op Gen Oorth said he expected to see more cyberattacks against European infrastructure and an increase in online fraud using increasingly sophisticated Artificial Intelligence

International News via Reuters:

The Middle East conflict will have “immediate repercussions” for European Union security with an increased threat of terrorism, serious and organised crime as well as violent extremism and cyberattacks, European police body Europol told Spanish news agency EFE on Thursday. 

Europol spokesman Jan Op Gen Oorth said he expected to see more cyberattacks against European infrastructure and an increase in online fraud using increasingly sophisticated Artificial Intelligence and exploiting the flurry of information swirling about the conflict online, EFE reported. 

Groups linked to Iran could seek to carry out “destabilising activities” within the EU, he added, referring to groups linked to the so-called Axis of Resistance, the network of anti-American and Israeli Shi’ite militias in countries including Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. These could include terrorist attacks, intimidation campaigns, terrorist financing and cybercrime. 

“The level of terrorist threat and violent extremism in EU territory is considered high,” he told the news agency.

The terror threat could be heightened by individuals acting alone or small cells acting on their own initiative, he said. 

“The rapid spread of polarising content on the internet can accelerate short-term radicalisation processes among diaspora communities within the EU and other individuals,” he said. 

Europol did not immediately return a Reuters request for comment on the reported statements. 

Iran and Israel on Thursday were exchanging fire on a sixth day of war after Israel and the United States launched joint air strikes on Iran on the weekend. So far the attacks have killed more than 1,000 people including Iran’s Supreme Leader, prompted Iran to attack neighbours including Qatar and UAE along with energy shipments. 

Reporting by Aislinn Laing

The ECB will take its decisions “in view of all the data that we can harness, and that we can analyse, and that we can scrutinize with sufficient confidence,” she said

International News via Reuters:

The European Central Bank will carefully analyse the impact of the war in the Middle East, taking its monetary policy decisions on a “meeting-by-meeting” basis and without any preset stance, President Christine Lagarde said on Thursday.

The ECB will take its decisions “in view of all the data that we can harness, and that we can analyse, and that we can scrutinize with sufficient confidence,” she said.

There is no “preset pace for our monetary policy stance,” Lagarde said during a Q&A session after delivering a speech at the Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, Italy.

“And I think that if you bring these two elements together, it places the ECB and the euro system in a good position to monitor very carefully and to try to understand what the consequences of the current shocks will be in the future,” she added.

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which has spread to other countries in the Gulf, is threatening to drive up inflation and hit sluggish euro zone growth by making energy more expensive and disrupting supply chains.

Prior to the attacks, Lagarde and other ECB policymakers had repeatedly said that the central banks’s interest rate policy was in a “good place”.

On Thursday, three ECB policymakers warned that a prolonged, wider war could push up inflation, both present and expected.

Lagarde said the ECB had the advantage of facing potential shocks to growth and prices from a good starting point.

“I think that when you face additional shocks, additional uncertainty, it’s certainly more convenient and more appropriate to be in a good place than to be in a less good place.”

The ECB president, who has been fighting speculation about a possible early exit, also reiterated her mandate at the euro zone’s central bank ends in 2027.

Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari, editing by Alvise Armellini

The vote happened on Wednesday, and on Thursday analysts who follow the Horn of Africa country closely were still debating exactly what the implications are

International News via Reuters:

Somalia’s parliament has backed constitutional changes that could extend the president’s term in office by a year and push back planned elections.

The vote happened on Wednesday, and on Thursday analysts who follow the Horn of Africa country closely were still debating exactly what the implications are.

Somalia has endured conflict and clan battles with no strong central government since the fall of autocratic ruler Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

While an African Union peacekeeping mission has pushed back the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group, it still controls vast areas of the countryside and has the ability to conduct regular strikes on major population centres.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud celebrated parliament’s backing of the constitutional changes at a press conference on Wednesday, saying the approval process “had dragged for a long period”.

Samira Gaid, an analyst with Balqiis, a Mogadishu-based think tank, said the implications of the constitutional amendments, which have been criticised by opposition lawmakers, remained unclear.

“The constitutional change doesn’t automatically extend the current president’s term but it is a matter of interpretation. For now, the president is being very careful not to say that he is extending his term because of potential criticism from the international community,” she said.

Gaid said the elections slated for May would be delayed regardless because there is no agreed framework currently.

Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Ammu Kannampilly; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Alexander Winning and Sharon Singleton

GAFCON opposes liberal shifts in parts of the Communion, including the ordination of women and greater inclusion of LGBTQ+ members

International News via Reuters:

An influential group of conservative Anglicans announced on Thursday the establishment of a new council to lead the global Anglican Communion, in a direct challenge to the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury as she is about to be installed.

The move by the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) – which brings together conservative churches mainly from Africa and Asia and claims to represent a majority of the world’s Anglicans – highlights a deepening rift within the Church after years of tension over theological and social issues.

GAFCON opposes liberal shifts in parts of the Communion, including the ordination of women and greater inclusion of LGBTQ+ members.

CHALLENGE TO FIRST FEMALE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

It strongly criticised the Church of England’s appointment last October of Sarah Mullally as its first female Archbishop of Canterbury, and thus spiritual leader of the world’s 85 million Anglicans spread across 165 countries.

“Believing the current instruments of communion no longer meet the needs of the majority of Anglicans around the world, the global Anglican Communion is to be led by a conciliar structure,” Bishop Paul Donison, secretary-general of the new council, told the conference in Abuja, Nigeria.

The council will include bishops, priests and lay members, each with voting privileges, GAFCON announced. 

Archbishop Laurent Mbanda, a former Rwandan refugee who later studied in the United States, was elected chairman of the new council. GAFCON said he would not be “primus inter pares” (first among equals) but would share power.

Asked if GAFCON members still recognised the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the group’s spokesman Justin Murff said: “The Global Anglican Council recognises Archbishop Laurent Mbanda as its leader.”

A spokesperson for the Anglican Communion Office in London said GAFCON’s announcement failed to take into account years of consultations over “Anglican identity, structures and leadership”.

This had led to ideas, known as The Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, which included exploring “more collegial, diverse approaches to shared leadership” in a post-colonial world, the spokesperson said.

“We encourage Anglican member churches and Anglican groups to engage with this conversation about The Nairobi-Cairo Proposals,” they added.

Mullally, who was officially confirmed in her new role at a ceremony in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, on January 5, is due to be enthroned as the 106th archbishop of Canterbury on March 25.

GAFCON’S MBANDA SAYS ‘NO TURNING BACK’

The Church of England broke from Rome nearly 500 years ago under King Henry VIII. Since then, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been the symbolic head of an Anglican Communion that has expanded worldwide through missionary activity, especially in countries that were once part of the British Empire.

Over the last three decades, reforms in the Church of England have allowed women to be ordained first as priests and later as bishops. But such reforms – along with debate over same-sex relationships – have increasingly pushed the Communion toward what some leaders describe as a breaking point.

Many Anglicans in Africa and Asia, where the Church has been growing fastest, reject the more progressive trends seen in England and other Western countries. 

GAFCON, founded in 2008 to counter what members describe as the abandonment of scripture, says it is not seeking to break away from the Anglican Communion but to “reorganise and realign” it around Biblical authority.

One of the proposed reforms aimed at warding off a full schism would dilute the Archbishop of Canterbury’s role, creating a rotating international figurehead, who would assume some organisational responsibilities while the Archbishop focuses on pastoral duties.

In October, Mbanda said the grouping had “not left the Anglican Communion; we are the Anglican Communion”.  

While leading prayers on Thursday, he said: “The future has arrived, no turning back”.

Additional reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe and Ben Ezeamalu in Lagos and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg; Editing by David Lewis, Gareth Jones and Andrew Heavens