Ankur Desai

That has given him an armour that I think is quite interesting to see.

Has the Pope always been a political figure to a certain extent?

Yes, the Catholic Church has a very political understanding of itself, not partisan though, right?

So that's the difference.

So being political means that you care deeply about the most vulnerable, the environment,

But you also avoid being on the side of one political party, one nation, one leader.

That's in the DNA of Catholicism.

But this is different, again, because he's dealing with an administration that is saying they are on a divine mission.

And that makes it very hard for the Vatican not to respond.

Professor Massimo Fagioli speaking to James Kumrasami.

Colombia has announced that it's going to begin a cull of its invasive hippopotamus population, which is descended from animals smuggled in by the late narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar.

The government says the beasts, which form the only wild population of hippos living outside Africa, are threatening its ecosystems and native species, as well as posing a danger to local people, as Alice Adderley reports.

In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar was renowned for being a violent cartel leader, but he was less known for creating an extravagant private zoo featuring more than a thousand exotic animals smuggled from overseas.

The wildlife included giraffes, elephants, zebras, rhinos and exotic birds.

but the most famous and destructive part of the collection was four African hippos, one male and three females.

After Escobar was killed in 1993 in a shootout with Colombian security forces, the hippos escaped from his abandoned hacienda and began breeding, thriving in the Colombian climate with no natural predators.

Now there are estimated to be up to 200 of their descendants living in the wild.

The environment minister, Irene Velez, said that following scientific advice, the government was issuing a euthanasia protocol to control the numbers of the so-called cocaine hippos.

While some of the hippos which roam freely in the Magdalena River Valley will be culled, others will be sterilised or moved.

Maybe some will be lucky enough to end up in the family-orientated theme park and wildlife sanctuary which Escobar's former ranch, Hacienda Napoles, has become.