Violence

Security concerns to decide Ecuador’s presidential election this weekend

Elections

Ecuadorians head to the polls this Sunday, in one of the most hotly contested elections in decades. Thirty-seven-year-old President Daniel Noboa, the son of a banana tycoon, is facing off against former National Assembly member and leftist Luisa González. Security is the top issue on the table, as both candidates promise to tackle the rising narco-gang violence that has given Ecuador one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America. Michael Fox has the story from the capital, Quito.

Gangs seize roads leading to Haiti’s capital as police continue to lose control

Conflict & Justice

Thousands flee their homes in northeast Colombia amid worst security crisis in a decade

Conflict & Justice

Many Palestinians in Gaza have no homes left to return to

Israel-Hamas war

A new wave of violence in the West Bank amid Gaza ceasefire

Conflict & Justice

A massive mural project in Mexico City is transforming some of the poorest neighborhoods

Arts, Culture & Media

Artists in Mexico’s Iztapalapa borough are using murals to highlight local residents and send positive messages, in what’s been dubbed the largest mural project in the world.

Growing number of governments using counterterrorism to justify targeting dissidents abroad

Justice

A growing number of countries repressing dissidents beyond their own borders includes a NATO ally of the US: Turkey. A Washington Post report finds that the tactics and language justifying these actions are pulled from the post-9/11 counterterrorism playbook. Host Marco Werman speaks with Fionnuala Ni Aolain, a former UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism.

Despite new campus rules, Columbia University students vow to continue protests against Gaza war

Classes have resumed at Columbia University amid new restrictions following last year’s protests and encampments against the war in Gaza. Yasmeen Altaji, a May graduate of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and now a freelance journalist, dedicated her final semester to documenting those protests. Altaji brings the story of one student who is resolved to continue her fight against the war despite new rules limiting protest.

Israeli ‘double tap’ strikes in Gaza and Lebanon ‘raise serious ethical and legal concerns’

Israel-Hamas war

Israel has conducted thousands of strikes in Gaza and Lebanon since the start of the current war last October. Footage shot by witnesses, as well as survivors’ testimonies, raise serious ethical and legal questions about some of those attacks.

How the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is still shaping the fraught relationship between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Conflict & Justice

Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous enclave located in the South Caucasus. For decades, the territory has been the source of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, however, ethnic Armenians have been living in this territory for hundreds of years.