Day: May 29, 2021

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Protests have rocked Colombia for a month, and thousands of people continue to pour into the streets of its major cities, with demonstrators blocking major roads and the police responding at times with lethal force. At least 46 people, many of them protesters, have died.

On Friday, President Iván Duque said he would send a “maximum deployment” of military troops to Cali, a city that has been one of the focal points of the protests, “as a measure to protect citizen rights.”

“Islands of anarchy cannot exist in our country,” he said in a video address. “We

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau.

It’s all so eerily familiar. The gray weather and afternoon sunsets. The anxious wait for the day’s numbers. The obsessive checking of exposure sites. The rumors of restrictions, followed by the reality of lockdown. The kids home from school. Birthday parties canceled, holidays postponed. The dreary, fearful, resigned uncertainty of it all.

Today, Victoria entered its second lockdown since last year, when the state — and Melbourne in particular — spent many months with a variety of harsh restrictions. With 39 active coronavirus cases in the state and hundreds