Free Republic

Robert Mugabe, the longtime leader of Zimbabwe who was forced to resign in 2017 after a military takeover, has died. His successor Emmerson Mnangagwa confirmed Mugabe’s death in a tweet Friday, mourning him as an “icon of liberation.” Mugabe was a former guerrilla chief who took power after the end of white minority rule in 1980 and presided over a country whose early promise was eroded by economic turmoil and human rights violations.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Gustavo Petro, a former insurgent turned rabble-rousing mayor, is fighting to become Colombia's first leftist president, turning his humble beginnings and revolutionary past into a rallying cry for millions of the nation's youth and poor. The 58-year-old economist is about 20 points behind right-wing candidate Ivan Duque to replace President Juan Manuel Santos, but his presence in the second round has worried many in the traditionally conservative nation, where the right has kept a vice-like grip on power. Proposals from Petro to change the nation's economic model by piling taxes on unproductive landowners and abandoning oil and...