Here is today’s one Foreign police brief: Chile is preparing for a presidential runoff, Hong Kong holds Legislative Council elections and a record number of journalists are imprisoned in 2021.

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Chile’s polarized election

Here is today’s one Foreign police brief: Chile is preparing for a presidential runoff, Hong Kong holds Legislative Council elections and a record number of journalists are imprisoned in 2021.

If you would like to receive Morning Brief in your inbox every day of the week, please sign up here.

The Chilean presidential election campaign enters its final days as voters prepare to choose between two men with radically different visions of their country.

Voters on Sunday will decide between Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old congressman who served two terms and began his political career as the leader of the student protest, and José Antonio Kast, a former congressman whose style and far-right ideology have made comparisons. to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

Boric has had to fight attacks from the right as his sympathies are too much on the left, especially since his nomination was initially backed by the local Communist Party. His campaign has sought to allay fears that he is a retreading of left-wing leaders in Venezuela and Cuba, attempting to assure the electorate that he is more social democratic than socialist.

The two men qualified for the second round after a first round contested in November. Then Kast came out on top, with almost 28 percent of the vote, and Boric came in close with almost 26 percent. Since then, polls have mostly indicated a majority in favor of Boric, with the left-wing leader seeking to moderate his positions to broaden his appeal. Kast’s efforts to do the same appear to have paid off, with the pair standing shoulder to shoulder in a poll released Thursday.

Along with the two candidates presenting reshuffled political agendas, the campaign sparked other surprises, including the news that Kast’s father, who emigrated from Germany to Chile after World War II, was a Nazi cardholder.

A daunting task awaits whoever wins on Sunday, said Claudia Heiss, head of political science at the University of Chile. Foreign police. “I think they will both have a very difficult time,” Heiss said. “First because he‘It is a tight Congress that will lead any government, left or right, to stand still. And second, whoever wins will receive a badly damaged economy and the unpleasant task of cutting public spending because Chile has spent the last year like crazy.

Heiss said a Boric victory would ease the transition to a new constitution, currently under consideration by a sympathetic constitutional assembly. However, he may soon have to play bad cop, Heiss said, if his proposed tax hikes fail to pay for a planned expansion of Chile’s welfare state.

Despite Kast‘s Trumpian warning, without evidence of impending electoral fraud, Chile’s professional electoral commission is expected to release preliminary results on Sunday at 9 p.m. local time.

Boris Johnson on the ropes. Britain‘s The Conservative Party lost a closely watched by-election on Thursday in what was once considered one of its most secure seats. Liberal Democrats‘ Candidate Helen Morgan won the race in North Shropshire, garnering 47 percent of the vote, while the Tories won just 31.5 percent. Morgan‘his victory is all the more remarkable since it took place in a predominantly rural and pro-Brexit constituency, where the Conservatives won 62.7% of the vote in 2019; Morgan came in third with just 10 percent of the vote in that race.

The turnaround, which saw the Tory vote share cut to half, comes after former local MP Owen Paterson got mired in a corruption scandal. Paterson was investigated for breaking lobbying rules during his tenure, and Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson subsequently sought to protect him from punishment by overhauling the MPs’ disciplinary system. The ensuing uproar led Paterson to resign.

Analysts have warned the loss could be the last straw for Johnson after several disastrous revelations about Johnson and his staff breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules last year, which altered his approval ratings and allowed for the Labor Party to take the lead in the national polls. Morgan, for his part, wasted no time shooting the PM. It is “all about you and never about us,” she said after the votes were counted. “Our country demands leadership. Mr. Johnson, you are not a leader.

US-Russian relations. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov briefs on US-Russian relations today in Moscow amid tensions between the two countries over a Russian military build-up near Ukraine. Ryabkov’s press conference comes after the visit of America’s top diplomat to Russia, Karen Donfried. Ryabkov reportedly offered Donfried new proposals for mutual security guarantees, which would include a deal to stop NATO’s eastward expansion.

IAEA Updates on Iran. Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will brief reporters on developments related to the IAEA’s monitoring and verification work in Iran. His remarks come as the IAEA has struck a deal to replace damaged surveillance cameras at a key Iranian nuclear site, a move that likely prevents Iran from being censored by the IAEA Board of Governors.

Hong Kong elections. The first legislative elections in Hong Kong since Beijing’s crackdown on civil liberties take place this Sunday, with low turnout expected. Only three of the 153 candidates running for the Legislative Council are considered pro-democracy, according to a tally from the South China Morning Post. The turnout is expected to fall to an all-time high, with a poll predicting a 51% turnout, well below the more than 80% turnout recorded in the previous two elections.

Journalism under threat. A record 488 members of the media were jailed in 2021, Reporters Without Borders reported on Thursday, an increase of 20% from the previous year. China has detained the most journalists this year, with Myanmar, Vietnam, Belarus and Saudi Arabia rounding out the top five. The report found that 46 journalists were killed in 2021, the lowest number reported since the group began keeping annual records in 1995.

Santa has yet to come to the rescue of a model Rudolph in the Canadian town of Fort Nelson, even as the festive decoration has become a target for deer mating in the area. “Every year a buck in the area attacks or hits him and knocks him down and breaks him,” said Arlene Chmelyk, who places the reused archery target in her yard every Christmas season. Model Rudolph has already lost its head and paws to rival deer in the past five years, a problem Chmelyk solved with glue and persistence. “I‘I like, he has a bright red nose, ”Chmelyk told CBC News. “I‘i don’t really know what [the deer] see.”