The former Colombian senator, Ingrid Betancourt, has announced she will run for president again, 20 years after being kidnapped by left-wing rebels. Ms Betancourt was campaigning in the 2002 presidential election when she was abducted by Farc rebels and held hostage for over six years. She has pledged to tackle corruption and poverty if she wins May's poll. "Today I am here to finish what I started," she told supporters in the country's capital city of Bogotá.

The congressional panel investigating last year's US Capitol riot have issued a subpoena to former President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The House of Representatives committee demanded Mr Giuliani and three others hand over documents and sit for depositions on 8 February. Mr Giuliani travelled the US after the 2020 election to promote the baseless claim that Mr Trump had won the vote. The riot on 6 January 2021 was stoked by falsehoods about mass voter fraud.

Pollution from plastics is a global emergency in need of a robust UN treaty, according to a report. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) says there's a cascade of evidence of harm from plastics. It argues that the plastic pollution threat is almost equivalent to climate change. The air we breathe now contains plastic micro particles, there’s plastic in Arctic snow, plastic in soils and plastic in our food.