Category Archives: Colombia

Global rainforest loss continues at rate of 10 football pitches a minute

Posted on by

Despite major progress in Brazil and Colombia, deforestation led by farming still cleared an area nearly equal to Switzerland

The destruction of the world’s most pristine rainforests continued at a relentless rate in 2023, despite dramatic falls in forest loss in the Brazilian and Colombian Amazon, new figures show.

An area nearly the size of Switzerland was cleared from previously undisturbed rainforests last year, totalling 37,000 sq km (14,200 sq miles), according to figures compiled by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland. This is a rate of 10 football pitches a minute, often driven by more land being brought under agricultural cultivation around the world.

Continue reading...

Bolivian Indigenous groups assert claim to treasure of ‘holy grail of shipwrecks’

Posted on by

Descendants of miners who dug up gold, silver and emeralds worth billions call on Colombia to halt plan to lift cargo

Indigenous communities in Bolivia have objected to Colombia’s plans to recover the remains of an 18th-century galleon believed to be carrying gold, silver and emeralds worth billions, calling on Spain and Unesco to step in and halt the project.

Colombia hopes to begin recovering artefacts from the wreck of the San José in the coming months but the Caranga, Chicha and Killaka peoples in Bolivia propose that the galleon and its contents should be considered “common and shared patrimony”.

Continue reading...

Bernie Moreno says he fled socialism in Colombia for the US in 1971. What does history say?

Posted on by

The Republican challenger to Democrat Sherrod Brown for US Senate in Ohio has made dubious claims in his campaign

Bernie Moreno, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Ohio who expected to mount a stern challenge to Sherrod Brown, the incumbent leftwing Democrat, says his family fled socialism when they came to the US from Colombia in 1971, when he was four years old.

Though such statements formed a central part of Moreno’s campaign message on his way to securing the Republican nomination with support from Donald Trump, they do not withstand historical scrutiny.

Continue reading...

Brazil and Colombia voice concern as Venezuela bans opposition candidate

Posted on by

South American neighbours respond to blocking of Corina Yoris, who was favoured to beat strongman Nicolás Maduro in elections

A chorus of Latin American nations, including Brazil and Colombia, have voiced concern over the deteriorating political situation in Venezuela after the opposition politician best-positioned to challenge its strongman leader, Nicolás Maduro, in July’s presidential election was prevented from registering for the vote.

Corina Yoris, an 80-year-old philosopher, was little-known outside academic circles until last Friday, when she was catapulted on to the frontline of Venezuela’s long-running political crisis by being named as the substitute for María Corina Machado, a prominent opposition figure who had been banned from running in the election.

Continue reading...

Over 3,000 stranded as boat captain arrests halt Darién Gap migration

Posted on by

Attempt to stop movement through perilous rainforest leaves people stuck in two remote Caribbean towns

Migration towards the US through a perilous but increasingly well-trodden rainforest border crossing has ground to a halt after the Colombian navy arrested two boat captains for trafficking migrants.

But the attempt to stop movement through the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama has left more than 3,000 people stranded in two remote Caribbean towns, where officials fear the bottleneck could cause a public health emergency.

Continue reading...

People displaced by climate crisis to testify in first-of-its-kind hearing in US

Posted on by

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will hear how climate is driving forced migration across the Americas

Communities under imminent threat from rising sea level, floods and other extreme weather will testify in Washington on Thursday, as the region’s foremost human rights body holds a first-of-its-kind hearing on how climate catastrophe is driving forced migration across the Americas.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will hear from people on the frontline of the climate emergency in Mexico, Honduras, the Bahamas and Colombia, as part of a special hearing sought by human rights groups in Latin America, the US and the Caribbean.

Continue reading...

Warlord behind 1,500 murders returns to Colombia after 12-year sentence in US

Posted on by

Salvatore Mancuso was taken into police custody and is expected to cooperate with investigation into war crimes in 1990s and 2000s

A Colombian warlord found responsible for more than 1,500 murders and cases of forced disappearance has been returned to his native country after serving a drug-trafficking sentence in the United States and being denied several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also has citizenship.

Salvatore Mancuso arrived in Bogotá’s El Dorado airport on a charter flight that also carried dozens of Colombians who had been deported from the US after illegally crossing the southern border. Mancuso was quickly taken into police custody, wearing a green helmet and a bulletproof vest.

Continue reading...

Colombia vows to put nature at the heart of global environmental negotiations

Posted on by

The environment minister Susana Muhamad says nature is a ‘pillar’ of fighting the climate crisis

The next round of global biodiversity negotiations will put nature at the heart of the international environment agenda, Colombia’s environment minister has said, as the country prepares for the Cop16 summit.

Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister, who is expected to be the Cop16 president, said the South American country would use the summit to ensure nature was a key part of the global environmental agenda in the year building up to the climate Cop30 in the Brazilian Amazon in 2025, where countries will present new plans on how they will meet the Paris agreement.

Continue reading...

‘Very afraid’: Colombian human rights lawyer loses security after winning prize

Posted on by

Adil Meléndez Márquez received call from bodyguards 20 minutes after Sir Henry Brooke award from Alliance for Lawyers at Risk

“I’m very afraid,” says Colombian lawyer Adil Meléndez Márquez, the day after being presented with an award in London honouring human rights defenders.

Meléndez is no stranger to death threats, because of his work on cases related to Colombia’s decades-long civil war, environmental justice and corruption, but things have just got a lot scarier. With bitter irony, 20 minutes after receiving the Sir Henry Brooke award from the Alliance for Lawyers at Risk, his bodyguards called him to say that they had been stood down from, leaving him without protection.

Continue reading...

Medellín authorities to meet embassies and dating apps after five foreigners die

Posted on by

Cluster of cases in seven days follows spate of druggings and robberies of tourists, some of which have ended in death

Authorities in Medellín will meet representatives of embassies and popular dating apps this week after five foreigners were found dead in Colombia’s second city in the past seven days.

Police say none of the deaths were violent, though one of the cases appears to involve a man who was found dead in his hotel room hours after entering accompanied by two women.

Continue reading...

‘Deeply alarming’: sevenfold increase in sexual attacks at Darién Gap, says Médecins Sans Frontières

Posted on by

More than half a million people made treacherous, weeklong trek in 2023, facing horrors including mass rapes by armed bandits

A sevenfold increase in sexual attacks against people crossing the Darién Gap is compounding the misery for people trekking one of the world’s most dangerous and underreported border crossings, said Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Complete impunity for armed gangs in the lawless stretch of jungle that links South and Central America meant one person became a victim of sexual violence every three and a half hours in December, the overstretched medical organisation said.

Continue reading...

Suspect allegedly involved in shooting of Spain Vox party co-founder is arrested in Colombia

Posted on by

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a former vice-president of the European parliament and co-founder of Spain’s Vox party, was shot in the head in Madrid last year

Colombian police say they have arrested a Venezuelan suspected of involvement in the alleged attempted assassination in Madrid last year of a co-founder of Spain’s far-right Vox party.

Greg Oliver Higuera Marcano was wanted in connection with last year’s shooting of Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a former leader of Spain’s main rightwing political party in Catalonia who went on to co-found Vox, and is a former vice-president of the European parliament.

Continue reading...

Ecuador ‘at war’ with drug gangs, says president as violence continues

Posted on by

Daniel Noboa designates nearly two dozen gangs as terrorist groups after wave of violence across country

Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, said on Wednesday that his country was “at war” with drug gangs who are holding more than 130 prison staff hostage and who briefly captured a TV station live on air, in a wave of violence that has left city streets deserted.

At least 10 people have been killed, including police officers, in the attacks.

Continue reading...

Record half million people crossed the treacherous Darién Gap in 2023

Posted on by

Jungle between Colombia and Panama marks the start of the dangerous trek north from South America to the United States

A record 520,000 people crossed the treacherous jungle between Colombia and Panama known as the Darién Gap in 2023, more than double the number reported the year before, according to new figures from the government of Panama.

The people who made the journey that marks the start of the dangerous trek north from South America to the United States last year were mostly from Venezuela, Ecuador, Haiti and China, according to the numbers from Panama’s migration agency.

Continue reading...

Nearly 21ft bronze statue of Shakira unveiled in her home town in Colombia

Posted on by

In social media posts, the singer thanked the sculptor Yino Márquez and his students for their ‘enormous artistic talent’

Shakira has been transformed into a 21.3ft (6.5 meters) bronze statue in her home town of Barranquilla, Colombia, where according to legend she began her trademark hip-shaking dance moves on the table in a Lebanese restaurant at the age of four.

The Hips Don’t Lie singer shared photos and video of the statue, which captures her making her trademark hip swivel, on her Instagram account. She captioned one post: “Estoy muy emocionada por este homenaje a la mujer Colombiana y a las Barranquilleras dentro y fuera de mi tierra!” (I am very excited for this tribute to the Colombian woman and the Barranquilleras inside and outside my land!)

Continue reading...

Colombia looks to recover billions in treasure from ‘holy grail of shipwrecks’

Posted on by

But critics say the raising of the San José, sunk in battle with British ships in 1708, might damage the country’s cultural heritage

The Colombian government has announced that it will attempt to raise objects from the 1708 shipwreck of the galleon San José, which is believed to contain a cargo worth billions of dollars.

The 300-year-old wreck, often called the “holy grail of shipwrecks”, has been controversial, because it is both an archaeological and economic treasure.

Continue reading...

Two Guinean children abandoned in Bogotá airport as migrant routes shift

Posted on by

Migration through the treacherous Darién gap is slowing as less restrictive air routes open up between South and Central America

Two children from the west African country of Guinea who were abandoned in Bogotá’s airport have been taken into government custody after spending several days on their own in the international departures terminal.

Colombia’s national immigration department said the children, aged 10 and 13, had been travelling with separate groups and were left in the airport by their relatives earlier this month for reasons that have not been clarified.

Continue reading...

Middle-class fear of green policies fuels rise of far right, Colombia’s Petro warns

Posted on by

Guerrilla leader turned president says, faced with having to reduce their carbon consumption, upper classes fear ‘the barbarians are coming’

Middle-class fears of losing a high standard of living because of green policies is driving the rise of the far right across the world, the president of Colombia has warned.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian at the Cop28 UN climate summit, Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftwing president, said the world had to find carbon-free ways of being prosperous, and that his country’s rich biodiversity would be the basis of its wealth after phasing out fossil fuels.

Continue reading...

Plant fossils turn out to be turtles in ‘unusual misidentification’

Posted on by

Re-examination finds what were taken to be veins of leaves are actually bone growth patterns

Two small, oval fossils thought to be prehistoric plants are actually the remains of baby marine turtles, researchers have revealed.

The fossils, found in rocks dating to between 132 and 113 million years ago, were discovered in Colombia in the middle of the 20th century by Padre Gustavo Huerta, a priest with a penchant for fossil plants.

Continue reading...