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4 direct mentions across 4 briefings, with 4 linked developments.
Latest linked intelligence
Conservative candidate Abelardo De La Espriella defeated Iván Cepeda by one percentage point. De La Espriella is a criminal-defense lawyer without prior political experience and attributes his appeal to dissatisfaction with President Gustavo Petro.
Unverified development · updated through
Conservative candidate Abelardo De La Espriella defeated Iván Cepeda by one percentage point. De La Espriella is a criminal-defense lawyer without prior political experience and attributes his appeal to dissatisfaction with President Gustavo Petro.
Open source reportGeography
Marker precision is disclosed on selection. Country and regional centroids show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
Abelardo De La Espriella dossier
4 mapped developments across 1 map positions. Centroid markers show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
Colombia
Iván Cepeda will lead the first round without a majority and face either Abelardo de la Espriella or Paloma Valencia in a June 21 runoff.
Approximate map position: country centroid. The extracted place did not have provider-resolved coordinates.
Chronology
Off Leash update 22 June 2026 COMING UP THIS WEEK •Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the UK's vote to leave the European Union. Economists estimate that Brexit lowered UK per capita GDP by at least 2.5% - and perhaps as much as 8.0% - without the drastic deregulation that free market Brexiteers promised would compensate for the output shortfall. Only 11% of Britons now say Brexit has made their lives better, while 43% say their lives are now worse for leaving the EU. •The World Economic Forum hosts its 17th Annual Meeting of the New Champions (aka "Summer Davos") in Dalian, China tomorrow through Thursday. COMMODITY AND COIN MARKET PRICES •Aluminum: $3,397/ton •Antimony (global avg.): $34,397/ton •Bitcoin: $64,062 •Cobalt: $56,290/ton •Copper: $13,595/ton •Ethereum: $1,746 •Gold: $4,197/toz •Lead: $1,954/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $3.33/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $75.31/barrel •Zinc: $3,557/ton IRAN •After a brief posturing delay, U.S. and Iranian negotiators sat down in Switzerland for the first day of talks towards a lasting peace deal. •The discussions ran late into the night, and Qatari and Pakistani mediators said the two sides had made "encouraging progress" on persistent sore points like reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending Israel's war in Lebanon, but it seemed like that progress was limited to agreeing on how to talk about the touchy topics - not actually resolving any big differences. LEBANON •Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to thread the needle between his hardline coalition partners - who want Israeli forces to keep striking Lebanon until the very last Hezbollah militant is dead - and Pres. Trump's pressure to end the war in Lebanon for the sake of a U.S.-Iran peace deal that Netanyahu despises. •At Trump's behest, Netanyahu agreed to restrict Israel's military to defensive actions in Lebanon, and the fragile detente appears to be holding - for now. No new strikes have been reported since the order. •That said, hawkish Israeli officials like Defense Minister Israel Katz are already stress-testing the truce by arguing that essentially all Israeli operations in Lebanon are - and always were - defensive in nature. UK •Embattled British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer finally gave in to rising calls for him to quit and tendered his resignation as the leader of the UK's Labour Party - and thus (in September) as PM. •Starmer's resignation kicks off the process to elect a new party leader, starting with a nomination period opening July 9. Labour's new leader will be named by the time parliament returns in September, at which point Starmer will hand the PM role over to his successor. •Former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has emerged as a leading contender to lead the Labour party, and his election to parliament last week makes him eligible to run. COLOMBIA •Conservative candidate Abelardo De La Espriella won Colombia's presidential election yesterday, with a razor-thin margin of just 1% over leftist continuity candidate Iván Cepeda. •De La Esprialla is a criminal defense lawyer with no previous political experience. That probably endeared him to Colombian voters feeling dissatisfied with incumbent leftist President Gustavo Petro's achievements.
Open source reportOff Leash update 15 June 2026 COMING UP THIS WEEK •France is hosting the first G7 summit since the Iran war began today through Wednesday. Pres. Trump is attending, as are the leaders of the other six G7 countries and guest nations like India, Ukraine, and the UAE. •DRC Mining Week takes place Wednesday through Friday in Lubumbashi. •The U.S. and China celebrate two very different holidays on Friday: the U.S. celebrates Juneteenth, while China celebrates the annual Dragon Boat Festival. Financial markets will be closed in both countries in observance. •Sunday is Father's Day in the U.S. and election day in Colombia, where Abelardo de la Espriella faces Iván Cepeda in a run-off for the presidency. De la Espriella - a right-wing businessman who styles himself after Pres. Trump - leads Cepeda - a left-leaning continuity candidate - in polls, but not by much. COMMODITY AND COIN MARKET PRICES •Aluminum: $3,535/ton •Antimony (global avg.): $34,935/ton •Bitcoin: $65,603 •Cobalt: $56,290/ton •Copper: $13,698/ton •Ethereum: $1,718 •Gold: $4,327/toz •Lead: $1,966/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $3.05/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $80.39/barrel •Zinc: $3,584/ton IRAN •The U.S. and Iran agreed to a "framework" for a peace deal that would reportedly lift both of their blockades on the Strait of Hormuz and end their conflict without addressing Iran's nuclear ambitions. •The truce allows 60 days for further negotiations on the thornier issues they still dispute, like whether Iran will be allowed to keep parts of its nuclear program and whether the ceasefire extends to Lebanon. That's a short timeline: it took around 10 times as long to hammer out Iran's previous nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. •Pres. Trump told the NYT that if a new final deal can't be closed within the new framework's much shorter time horizon, "the U.S. will resume attacks on Iran and become the guardian of the Middle East, receiving 20% of the region’s profits." •Both sides seem happy to have reached an agreement, but they may be celebrating prematurely. The new deal isn't public yet and won't be signed until Friday, and American and Iranian officials are giving vastly different accounts of its terms, raising doubts as to whether they've actually agreed to anything consequential. •For example, Iranian officials claimed that the U.S. had already agreed to release $25 billion in frozen Iranian assets, while Pres. Trump portrayed the release of frozen funds as a carrot that Iran would only earn if it behaved well. •Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif - who was involved in mediating the agreement - suggested the draft still has powerful critics who he accused of waging an "incessant misinformation campaign...to sabotage the peace deal." VENEZUELA •A U.S. airstrike in Venezuela's Bolívar state killed Héctor Guerrero Flores (aka Niño Guerrero), the head of the Tren de Aragua gang that the U.S. has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. •Pres. Trump said the operation was "coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well." Venezuelan officials confirmed it had been a "joint operation." •It was certainly more effective than Venezuela's previous government's efforts against Guerrero. Under Nicolas Maduro's regime, corrupt prison guards took bribes to let Guerrero escape - twice - and turned a blind eye to plush improvements Guerrero made to Tocorón Prison to make his stay there more comfortable, including a zoo, nightclub, betting parlor, and swimming pool. PERU •Peru's presidential election is still too close to confidently call more than a week after polls closed. •Right-wing Keiko Fujimori has a razor-thin lead over left-wing Roberto Sanchez, who alleged there had been voting irregularities and asked for a recount. SWITZERLAND •Swiss voters rejected a proposed ballot measure to implement the world's first-ever population cap. •Unusually for an immigration-related question, pre-referendum polling estimated the actual result - 55% against vs. 45% in favor - almost perfectly. As anticipated, the measure enjoyed stronger support in rural areas than in cities and border areas. UK •The UK's Prime Minister Starmer said his government will join Australia and several other countries in introducing a social media ban for children under 16. •Starmer's office followed proper British procedure and conducted a lengthy consultation process before deciding to act. It found that 90% of the 116,000 parents who voluntarily responded to its survey supported a ban, and 85% felt social media brings more risks than benefits. •The ban is slated to start in early 2027.
Open source reportOff Leash update 1 June 2026 COMING UP THIS WEEK •Ethiopia votes in parliamentary elections today. Abiy Ahmed's ruling Prosperity Party is sure to win, since large parts of the rebellious regions of Amhara and Tigray won't vote and Abiy's strongest rivals have been sidelined or jailed. •The Oslo Freedom Forum - Human Rights Foundation's annual summit - starts today. This year's speakers include Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and actor Richard Gere, who played a victim of human rights abuses in Red Corner and Bent (and is also an established rights advocate off-screen). •Saturday is the 82nd anniversary of D-Day. •Sunday is a big day for elections: Armenia and Kosovo vote in parliamentary polls, and Peru votes in a run-off presidential election. In Peru, right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori has a narrow polling lead over leftist candidate Roberto Sanchez. COMMODITY AND COIN MARKET PRICES •Aluminum: $3,667/ton •Antimony (global avg.): $35,474/ton •Bitcoin: $72,614 •Cobalt: $56,290/ton •Copper: $13,636/ton •Ethereum: $1,982 •Gold: $4,510/toz •Lead: $2,016/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $3.33/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $90.40/barrel •Zinc: $3,540/ton COLOMBIA •Far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella won the first round of Colombia's presidential election, but with less support than he needed to win the presidency outright. He'll face far-left candidate Iván Cepeda in a run-off on June 21. •President Petro - who backed Cepeda - rejected the result, citing (but not substantiating) irregularities. IRAN •Iran and the U.S. traded strikes over the weekend, but continued to exercise restraint: the U.S. said its strikes were in "self-defense," and Iran said it was merely retaliating against the U.S. strikes. •Several reports suggested that Pres. Trump sent a draft agreement back to Iran with some proposed changes to Iran's offer, but other accounts suggest there isn't much room to negotiate between the two sides' demands. •U.S. ships have reportedly quietly escorted around 70 commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz in the past three weeks. That's an approximate figure, since the U.S.-guided passages have been "dark," with transponders turned off, and probably hugging the Omani coast to stay as far as possible from Iranian fire. It corresponds to an average of about three vessels per day, which is far short of the 100 per day that transited the Strait pre-war. RUSSIA •The French Navy intercepted and boarded a sanctioned and false-flagged Russian oil tanker, the Tagor, in international waters about 400 nautical miles west of Brittany. •Pres. Macron justified the seizure in a post on X: "It is unacceptable for ships to circumvent international sanctions, violate the law of the sea, and fund the war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine for more than four years." It was the fourth time the French Navy has boarded a Russian "shadow fleet" tanker since Sep. 2025. •The Kremlin complained about the "illegal" seizure, which it said was "bordering on international piracy." VENEZUELA •The AP reported on emerging rifts in interim President Delcy Rodriguez's government, with longtime Maduro loyalists criticizing Rodriguez's reforms. They particularly object to her deportation of close Maduro ally Alex Saab to face trial in the U.S., and her authorization for U.S. forces to conduct training in Caracas. •Andrés Izarra - who served as communications minister under Hugo Chavez and tourism minister under Maduro before falling out with Maduro's cronies and fleeing into exile - said the divide isn't about Chavismo ideology, which Izarra thinks died with its founder in 2013. Rather, "since there is no ideological foundation, it is simply a struggle for power, money, positions, and survival."
Open source reportOff Leash update 26 May 2026 COMING UP THIS WEEK •Yesterday, the U.S. celebrated Memorial Day, which commemorates fallen soldiers (as opposed to Veterans' Day, which celebrates all who have served). •Tomorrow is Eid al Adha, which marks the end of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Despite the war and Iran's strikes on regional rivals like Saudi Arabia, around 1.7 million Muslims took part in this year's pilgrimage. •U.S. SecState Rubio will meet with his counterparts from the other three Quad countries - Australia, India, and Japan - for talks in Delhi today. One of their chief concerns will be finding ways to counter China's growing geopolitical and economic heft. •Paris Saint-Germain plays Arsenal in the UEFA Champions League final in Budapest on Saturday. •Colombia votes for president on Sunday. Far-left candidate Iván Cepeda is likely to win the most votes - but not a majority - in Sunday's first round, which will pit him against either far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella or center-right rival Paloma Valencia in a run-off on June 21. COMMODITY AND COIN MARKET PRICES •Aluminum: $3,650/ton •Antimony (global avg.): $35,092/ton •Bitcoin: $77,169 •Cobalt: $56,290/ton •Copper: $13,668/ton •Ethereum: $2,120 •Gold: $4,511/toz •Lead: $2,012/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.92/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $92.46/barrel •Zinc: $3,543/ton IRAN •The U.S. struck several missile sites and mine-laying boats in southern Iran in what CENTCOM called an act of self-defense "to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces." •Despite the fresh U.S. strikes, the temporary ceasefire is still largely holding up as negotiators continue to make slow progress towards a permanent peace deal during mediated talks in Doha. •Iran's foreign ministry confirmed that a "framework" for a truce had been agreed, but it's unlikely to lead to a conclusive, war-ending agreement. As The Economist quipped: "At best...it will be a deal to keep talking about a final deal." ISRAEL •In a Truth Social post, Pres. Trump demanded that several more Middle Eastern countries - namely, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar - sign onto the Abraham Accords as part of a future deal to end the Iran war. •Critics complained that Trump's new demand adds further complexity to deliberations that are already dauntingly complicated. Plus, several of the countries in question have steadfastly refused to cave to past U.S. pressure to join the pact and are unlikely to suddenly reconsider now. Pakistan and Saudi, in particular, have long maintained that they would only consider joining the Accords and normalizing relations with Israel after Palestine has a clear path to statehood. LEBANON •Three senior Iranian officials told the NYT that the latest Iran ceasefire proposal would also end Israel's war on Hezbollah in Lebanon. •However, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu struck a very different tone in a video statement announcing an escalation in Israel's war against Hezbollah: "We are not removing our foot from the pedal. On the contrary, I said to press on the pedal even more." SUDAN •Human Rights Watch accused the UAE of funding and training Colombian mercenaries fighting alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan's civil war. •It's been well documented that Colombian fighters are backing the RSF, but this is the first compelling claim that the UAE hosted Colombians for training at an Emirati military base before deploying them to Sudan. •The UAE denied the latest accusations - just as it has denied backing the RSF in the first place. GUINEA •Guinea - which is by far the world's largest bauxite producer - announced plans to introduce bauxite export controls next month. •The new curbs will disproportionately affect China, which receives almost three-quarters of Guinea's exported bauxite and processes it into alumina and aluminum.
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