45 pieces on politics, technology and digital regulation. Each with at least one verifiable data point and a named author from the team.
The Registraduría's preliminary count gave Abelardo De la Espriella 43.74 percent and Iván Cepeda 40.91 percent, with close to 100 percent of tables reported. Neither cleared half plus one, so the runoff is set for 21 June. Cepeda and President Petro questioned the preliminary count without presenting evidence; registrar Penagos reported a peaceful vote.
Robert Abela's Labour Party won the 30 May snap election with 51.77 percent; Alex Borg's Nationalist Party took 44.68 percent and cut to about 21,700 votes a gap that exceeded 40,000 in 2022. Turnout was 87.4 percent. Borg conceded the same night; Labour celebrates a mark unmatched since independence.
Two days before the presidential first round, the five main pollsters give Iván Cepeda between 36 and 44 per cent of voting intention. The fight for the second slot is between Abelardo De la Espriella and Paloma Valencia. The European Union Election Observation Mission, which already certified the 8 March legislative elections, returns to monitor the count.
The Registraduría opened 253 consular sites and 1,489 polling tables for a process that began in New Zealand on 25 May and closes on Sunday 31 at 4 p.m. local time in each country. The United States holds 454,262 voters; Spain, 307,996; Venezuela, 180,782. Twenty-four hours before close, the Foreign Ministry moved 58 polling stations without public explanation.
The National Statistics Office postponed to 3 and 4 June two series originally scheduled for the eve of the vote. Its director general says he is complying with reflection day; the European Central Bank published the figures on its own and shows a monthly jump of 933 million euros in debt. The opposition denounces opacity; the government invokes the General Elections Act.
Researchers attribute to the pro-Kremlin 'Matryoshka' operation at least 343 fake videos published by early May, several using artificial intelligence. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan defends a pivot toward the European Union; the opposition and Moscow deny it. Analysts also warn that labeling all domestic criticism as 'hybrid warfare' affects freedom of expression.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Prosperity Party heads into the House of Representatives election with near-total control of the media. The opposition denounces coordinated disinformation campaigns online; Facebook already removed accounts for 'coordinated inauthentic behaviour' in past elections. The record of internet shutdowns hangs over the vote.
Robert Abela (Labour Party) seeks a fourth term against Alex Borg (Nationalist Party). EDMO documented AI-manipulated videos and images aimed mostly at the opposition leader. The economy and purchasing power dominate the debate; the rule of law and the Caruana Galizia case have, according to analysts, taken a back seat.
Weeks before the high-risk systems deadline, the AI Act enters its most demanding phase. But a simplification package —the Digital Omnibus— threatens to push it back to December 2027. This is the countdown of a regulatory calendar worth 524 billion euros that defines how AI is governed worldwide.
Twenty-two forensically or judicially verified cases, in twelve countries on four continents, draw a pattern of unsettling uniformity: the software is almost always Israeli, and the victims are almost always journalists, activists and opponents. From the Polish senator hacked mid-campaign to Khashoggi's circle before his murder, this is the global trace of Pegasus and its competitors.
More than seventy countries have launched over a thousand artificial-intelligence regulation initiatives. But between the national strategy that gets announced, the bill sleeping in committee and the rule that actually sanctions lies an abyss. This is the anatomy of comparative AI regulatory risk: where there is law, where there is only intent, and where there is real enforcement.
The GDPR has accumulated over 7.1 billion euros in penalties since 2018. The DSA and DMA are starting to add their own. But between the headline fine and the fine that gets collected lies an abyss of appeals, reductions and years. This is the anatomy of the world's most influential digital sanctions regime.
Diálogo Ciudadano tracks the 2026 elections not by who wins, but by the digital conditions under which people vote. Four trackers —electoral risk, digital integrity, ad spending and documented disinformation— turn that invisible layer into comparable, country-by-country data. This piece is the map of how they fit together.
Cross-referencing the world election calendar with the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index produces an uncomfortable portrait: most countries voting in 2026 are not full democracies, and in twelve of them there are verified digital risks —spyware, internet shutdowns, censorship— that shape how people vote. This is the anatomy of global electoral risk.
The world does not regulate artificial intelligence in one way, but in three mutually incompatible ways. The European Union imposes a single risk-based law; the United States lets each state legislate and fights itself; Latin America copies the European model but barely enforces it. This is the comparison, with its trackers.
On 19 May the European Commission finally published the guidelines defining when an AI system falls into the AI Act's 'high-risk' category —the line that decides which firms carry the costliest obligations. They arrived months late, are not binding and admit the list is not exhaustive. The delay was one of the causes that precipitated the postponement of the Regulation itself.
A flaw in an AI orchestration framework was probed by attackers 3 hours and 44 minutes after going public. The same week, the UK regulator published a five-step plan treating AI security as a present legal duty, not a future one, and listed seven ways AI supercharges attacks. The gap between attacker and defence is now measured in hours.
DAOs were designed to run with no headquarters, no boss and no owner: organisations governed by token votes. But when something goes wrong, courts look for someone to hold responsible, and they are finding them. A 2025 California ruling opened the door for token holders to answer with their personal assets. The gap between the ideal and the law has been laid bare.
Brazil and the EU recognised each other as territories of 'equivalent' data protection, creating a free-flow zone for 670 million people. It is the world's first mutual adequacy and the broadest Brussels has signed. But it happens as the government expands by decree the powers of the very authority that manages it, just before an election.
The memory thirst of AI data centres has sent chip prices soaring: DRAM will rise 125% and flash memory 234% in 2026, according to Gartner. The phenomenon has a name —'memflation'— and a paradox: the first to pay is not the AI industry, which already locked in its supply, but the consumer who buys a pricier laptop or phone, or one with fewer features.
Governments worldwide are demanding that platforms verify users' ages to keep minors off social media or adult content. Australia banned under-16s, the UK's Online Safety Act triggered millions of daily checks, half of US states have age-gating laws. But early evidence shows minors slipping through, and privacy advocates warn the checks erode anonymity for everyone. Law versus reality.
AI 'companion chatbots' simulate ongoing emotional relationships, and millions of people — including minors — use them as friends or confidants. After tragic cases reached the courts, California and New York passed the first laws requiring crisis protocols and disclosures to minors. Industry warns the definitions are too broad. Another gap between technology and the law.
Deepfakes and synthetic content multiplied across recent elections worldwide, and regulation runs behind. The EU's AI Act now demands AI content be labeled; the US has a patchwork of state laws, some struck down on free-speech grounds; Brazil banned deceptive deepfakes. But the deeper problem is structural: the tools that protected elections were built for a media world that no longer exists.
The headlines warn of mass layoffs from AI, but the data point to something subtler and harder to see: not workers being fired, but jobs that are never created. Hiring of recent graduates is down, entry-level roles are compressed, and the first rung of the career ladder is thinning. The evidence is contested — and that ambiguity is itself the story.
To combat child sexual abuse material, the EU proposed requiring messaging apps to scan private communications — including encrypted ones, via 'client-side scanning.' In April 2026 the voluntary regime expired and Parliament rejected its extension, but the permanent regulation lives on in trilogue. A clash between two goods: protecting children and protecting encryption.
The United States and China are fighting over advanced semiconductors, the input that powers AI, the cloud, and defense. Washington restricts, Beijing pursues self-sufficiency, and a single US rule reaches almost any chip on Earth. Most countries depend on these chips for everything yet have no seat at the table. The board, explained.
The Fourth Amendment requires a warrant to access data in which Americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy. But a whole industry sells bulk location and personal data to advertisers — and to government agencies, with no warrant. Privacy advocates call it a constitutional workaround; a 2026 surveillance-law deadline reopens the fight to close it.
Almost every organization runs on the cloud, and most of that cloud belongs to three American companies. A US law, the CLOUD Act, lets its authorities demand that data even when it sits on a server in Europe or Latin America: what matters is not where the data lives, but the nationality of whoever controls it. The debate over digital sovereignty, with both readings.
While stablecoins surged past $4 trillion in volume, China advanced the opposite model: a state-controlled digital currency. As of January 2026, the digital yuan pays interest, the largest CBDC in the world keeps scaling, and its cross-border rail moves tens of billions. It is the sovereign answer to private digital money — and a front in the US-China fintech rivalry.
France has bet billions on Mistral AI as Europe's answer to US and Chinese dominance, with a €109bn infrastructure plan and a 'third way' for AI. Yet Mistral trains on Nvidia chips it cannot replace, its top shareholder is Dutch ASML, and its CEO warns Europe risks becoming a US 'vassal state.' Can you build sovereignty on someone else's silicon?
The UN is pushing a global dialogue to govern artificial intelligence; the United States 'totally' rejects it. The New Delhi summit of 2026 laid bare a world split between those who want common rules and those who defend the free market. The question underneath every other AI story: can you govern something that respects no borders?
There is no single way the world regulates artificial intelligence — there are at least five competing models. The EU writes comprehensive law; the US fights over who rules; the UK refuses to pass a single act; Canada let its AI bill die; China governs through state control. The result is a 'compliance splinternet' where the same AI feature is legal in one country and risky in the next.
Ransomware attacks on governments and critical infrastructure surged again in 2026 — disabling 911 terminals, shutting hospital networks, freezing entire cities. The threat is industrializing, now with AI in the attack chain, and shifting toward nation-state actors. Yet the dominant response stays reactive: act after the breach, not before. A threat that evolves against a defense that lags.
In a single year, Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil hold presidential elections — alongside Chile, Honduras, and Bolivia just before. Security has overtaken the economy as the top voter concern, the regional pendulum is swinging rightward, and disinformation shadows every race. A guide to the most consequential electoral year Latin America has seen in a generation.
El Salvador's Nayib Bukele cut homicides dramatically with mass arrests and a years-long state of emergency, and his 80-90% approval has made 'mano dura' the region's hottest political export. Ecuador, Honduras, and others are copying it as 2026's elections turn on security. But analysts warn the model's gains come with democratic and human costs — and may not transplant at all.
In much of the world crypto is a speculative play; in Latin America, where inflation has hit 65,000% in one country, dollar stablecoins became a survival tool. Now the region is racing to regulate — Brazil leads with a strict VASP framework, others lag, and the map is a patchwork. A real-world laboratory for how emerging economies govern digital money.
Latin America faces a choice: write its own digital rulebook, or become a 'regulatory colony' of Silicon Valley and Brussels. Brazil leads with an EU-inspired AI bill; Chile, Mexico, and others follow; Panama builds a crypto framework; many lag. The result is a fragmented region borrowing the 'Brussels effect' while improvising for local needs. A regional overview of digital governance.
From Argentina to Mexico, one pattern recurs across Latin American politics in 2026: corruption is exposed, institutions are tested, yet the consequence rarely arrives. Transparency International's latest index scores the region at just 42 of 100, most countries stalled or worsening. A regional overview of the distance between scandal and accountability — and the few places bucking the trend.
Nonconsensual intimate deepfakes became one of the internet's most widespread abuses, with victims left to navigate a fragmented patchwork of laws. In May 2026, a US federal law's full compliance regime took effect: platforms must remove such content within 48 hours or face penalties. A rare case of regulation catching up — and the gaps that remain.
Millions work for digital platforms managed not by a human but by an algorithm that assigns tasks, rates performance, and can deactivate accounts. The EU's Platform Work Directive, due in national law by December 2026, introduces a presumption of employment and rules forcing algorithmic management into the open. The US largely goes the other way. Two models for the future of work.
Australia banned social media for under-16s; the UK, France, and others are weighing the same. The driver is alarm over youth mental health. But the scientific evidence is genuinely mixed — some studies link social media to anxiety and depression, others find no effect, and causation is unproven. A rare case where policy is moving faster than the research.
Dollar-pegged stablecoins moved tens of trillions in 2025, more than Visa and Mastercard combined, and 99% of them are denominated in dollars. With the US GENIUS Act now law, this is a 'digital dollarization' that spreads outside local banking systems — extending US monetary power and unsettling central banks in vulnerable economies. The phenomenon, and both readings.
As AI threatens jobs, the tech leaders building it have become the loudest advocates of universal basic income — a cash floor for everyone. But the largest experiments deliver a nuanced verdict: a US study found modest drops in work hours; a German one found none at all. The evidence is mixed, the funding politics are striking, and the hardest questions stay unanswered.
An executive order seeks a single national standard for AI by overriding state laws the White House calls 'onerous.' But Congress has twice rejected a moratorium on state AI rules, and preemption usually requires an act of Congress, not an order. The result: a contest over who governs AI in the world's largest tech market, with no winner yet — and a global signal either way.
On 26 June 2025, Brazil's Supreme Federal Court declared Article 19 of the Marco Civil partially unconstitutional. Eight months later, EU regulators preparing the first DSA review are reading the ruling more carefully than the Brazilian platforms that have to comply with it. The conversation on platform liability moved from Washington to Brasília without anyone announcing it.