Category Archives: Colombia

Environmental crime money easy to stash in US due to loopholes, report finds

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Secrecy and lax oversight mean illegal loggers and miners in Amazon can park billions in real estate and other assets

Secrecy and lax oversight have made the US a hiding place for dirty money accrued by environmental criminals in the Amazon rainforest, a report says.

Illegal loggers and miners are parking sums ranging from millions to billions of dollars in US real estate and other assets, says the report, which calls on Congress and the White House to close loopholes in financial regulations that it says are contributing to the destruction of the world’s biggest tropical forest.

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Argentina: leftists celebrate after far-right Milei fails to win election victory

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Lula and other Latin American leftwingers hail Sergio Massa’s first-placed finish, with election now headed to November runoff

Leading Latin American leftists have celebrated the thwarting of Javier Milei’s attempt to claim a first-round victory in Argentina’s presidential election after the far-right populist was beaten by his centrist rival Sergio Massa.

Milei, an oddball economist who has called climate change a “socialist lie” and the pope “a lefty son of a bitch”, had hoped an explosion of anti-establishment rage would catapult him into the presidency on Sunday as 27 million Argentinians turned out to vote amid the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

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Israel and Colombia in ferocious diplomatic spat over Hamas war

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Colombia’s president likens Israel’s actions to Nazis as Israel accuses Gustavo Petro of putting Jewish lives in danger

The Israel-Hamas war has sparked a ferocious diplomatic spat between Israel and Colombia, with Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, likening Israel’s actions to those of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis and Israel accusing Petro of putting Jewish lives in danger and encouraging “the horrific acts of Hamas terrorists” with his “hostile and antisemitic statements”.

The row began one day after Hamas’s unprecedented 7 October attacks when Petro used his official X account to denounce what he called “neo-Nazi” efforts to destroy the Palestinian people, freedom and culture.

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Six suspects in murder of Ecuador presidential candidate killed in prison, authorities say

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The six Colombians had been arrested on the day Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead in August

Six men suspected of involvement in the August murder of Ecuador’s anti-corruption presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio have been killed in prison, the prisons agency has said, barely a week before a crucial run-off election.

The killings took place on Friday in a penitentiary in Guayaquil, the South American country’s largest city, the attorney general’s office announced earlier.

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Unicef sounds alarm as record numbers of children cross dangerous Darién Gap

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Children risking lives to migrate across Latin America and Caribbean, with aid groups warning they cannot cope

Record numbers of children are migrating across Latin America and the Caribbean with more than 60,000 children risking life and limb to cross the treacherous Darién Gap jungle pass this year, according to a new Unicef report.

Sounding the alarm over the rising number of youngsters on the move, the UN’s children’s agency said at least 92 migrant children had died or gone missing last year – more than any other year since 2014.

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‘We can’t keep up’: Panama-Colombia border sees record number of migrants

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In August, 50,000 people fleeing northward were met with long lines for medical attention, a lack of water and sleeping spaces

Medical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attending to injured and sick migrants crossing the Darién Gap are increasingly unable to manage the record number of people taking the perilous journey, according to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the United Nation high commissioner for human rights.

In August 50,000 people took the week-long trek through the dense jungle connecting Colombia and Panama, outstretching the capacity of MSF’s staff at medical treatment posts on the Panamanian border.

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Colombia’s leftwing president rocked by spiralling narco cash allegations

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Drug money claims involving Gustavo Petro’s son Nicolás could hamper progressive agenda

The lawyer representing a businessman accused of financing killings by paramilitary death squads has admitted that his client donated money to the campaign of Colombia’s first ever leftwing president, Gustavo Petro.

Alfonso Hilsaca knowingly gave 400m pesos ($95,000) to Gustavo Petro’s eldest son as a donation to his father’s electoral campaign, his lawyer said this week – though he said Hilsaca had not expected Nicolás Petro to steal the money for himself.

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Andrea González picked to replace Ecuador’s assassinated presidential candidate

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Fernando Villavicencio fatally shot last week after leaving a campaign event in capital, Quito

The political party of Ecuador’s assassinated presidential hopeful, Fernando Villavicencio, picked its vice-presidential candidate to replace him on Saturday, just a week before the election.

Villavicencio’s Build party, or Construye in Spanish, announced on social media that Andrea González was replacing the 59-year-old as its presidential candidate in the 20 August vote.

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Amazon leaders fail to commit to end deforestation by 2030

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Eight South American presidents including Brazil’s Lula say rich countries need to pledge more resources to help protect rainforest

Amazon leaders have called on rich countries to help them develop a Marshall-style plan to protect the world’s largest rainforest – but stopped short of committing to zero deforestation across the biome by 2030 amid divisions over oil extraction.

In a joint declaration at the end of a two-day summit in the Brazilian city of Belém on Wednesday, the eight South American countries that are home to the Amazon rainforest said ensuring its survival could not be solely up to them, as resources from the forest were consumed globally.

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UN bodies call for urgent action over Panama’s Darién Gap migration route

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UN Refugee Agency and IOM urge steps – including more legal pathways for migrants – to curb humanitarian crisis

International bodies have called for urgent intervention in the Darién Gap to prevent a further escalation of a humanitarian crisis as new figures showed that record numbers of people are risking their lives to cross the lawless 100-mile stretch of rainforest between Panama and Colombia.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) also called for the creation of more legal pathways to migrate to the US in order to help reduce irregular migration.

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Colombian president’s son arrested in money-laundering inquiry

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Nicolás Petro held as part of investigation into funds he allegedly collected from drug traffickers during 2022 election campaign

The son of the Colombian president has been arrested as part of a high-profile money-laundering investigation into funds he allegedly collected from convicted drug traffickers during last year’s presidential campaign.

The president, Gustavo Petro, a former rebel who rose through Colombia’s political ranks as an anti-corruption crusader, said he would not interfere with the investigation.

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‘Insult to his victims’: outrage as warlord appointed ‘peace manager’ in Colombia

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Salvatore Mancuso, who is imprisoned in US, is responsible for more than 300 killings and is accused of about 75,000 crimes

Salvatore Mancuso is one of the most notorious figures in Colombia’s six decades of conflict, responsible for some of the most heinous of crimes during the darkest chapters in the country’s history.

As a senior commander of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) – the country’s largest rightwing death squad – he ordered forced disappearances, sexual violence and massacres of civilians.

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Venezuela’s ex-spy chief extradited from Spain to US to face drug charges

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Hugo Carvajal, intelligence leader under Hugo Chávez, accused of providing support to drug trafficking by rebel Farc group

Venezuela’s former intelligence chief has been extradited from Spain to the United States where he is wanted on drug trafficking charges, his lawyer and judicial sources said.

Gen Hugo Armando Carvajal, who served as intelligence chief under the former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, has long been sought by US Treasury officials who suspect him of providing support to drug trafficking by the now disarmed Farc guerrilla group in Colombia.

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German travel agency criticized for tour of Panama’s deadly jungle migrant zone

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Travel startup says it doesn’t ‘holiday where people suffer’ but offers trek in Darién Gap known for dangerous migration routes

“We go where no one goes,” is Wandermut’s tagline, but one of the German tour agency’s packages has left people asking whether some places are better left unexplored.

The travel startup’s 10-day Panama Jungle Tour has been criticised across Latin America in recent weeks for offering tour packages in a region which is home to one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes.

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Amazon facing ‘urgent’ drug crisis after gutting of protections, says narcotics chief

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Brazilian government warning comes as UN report says that flourishing organized crime groups are driving a boom in environmental devastation

The Brazilian government’s drug policy chief has admitted that the rapid advance of drug factions into the Amazon rainforest has produced a “a very difficult situation” in the region, as a UN report warned that flourishing organized crime groups were driving a boom in environmental devastation.

Marta Machado, the national secretary for drug affairs, said the previous administration’s intentional dismantling of Brazil’s environmental and Indigenous protection agencies had created a dangerous vacuum in the Amazon which had been occupied by powerful crime syndicates from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

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Germany’s return of sacred Kogi masks to Colombia may have health risks

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Wooden artefacts dating from 15th century and bought from indigenous people were treated with pesticides while in museum

Germany has returned two wooden masks of the indigenous Kogi community to Colombia but conceded that wearing the sacred artefacts in ceremonies may come with a health risk because they were treated with toxic pesticides during their time in German museums.

The masks, which date back to the mid-15th century and have been held in ethnological collections in Berlin for over a century, were handed over to Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, by his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier at a ceremony in Berlin on Friday.

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Colombian police officer in hospital after swallowing extorted banknotes

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Grey-faced officer pleaded his innocence after anti-corruption police allegedly caught him in the act of extorting businessman

A Colombian police officer has been admitted to hospital after swallowing a wad of banknotes he extorted from a businessman.

The officer had demanded payments in return for not arresting his victim on trumped-up charges – but did not know that the businessman had already reported the shakedown to Colombia’s anti-kidnapping and extortion unit.

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Rescued children pay tribute to sniffer dog still missing in Colombian jungle

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Wilson the Belgian shepherd featured prominently in drawings by Indigenous children as they recover in Bogotá hospital

The four Indigenous children who survived a plane crash and 40 days alone in the Colombian Amazon are continuing their recovery in Bogotá’s military hospital, and the oldest two have been well enough to pick up crayons.

In their first pictures released by Colombia’s armed forces, a four-legged figure jumps from the page: Wilson, the Belgian shepherd dog who helped lead rescuers to their location – and who remains missing in the jungle.

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Colombia plane crash: custody battle breaks out between relatives of children

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Officials are interviewing family members of the children who survived 40 days alone in the rainforest to determine who should care for them

A custody battle has broken out among relatives of the four Indigenous Colombian children who survived a plane crash and 40 days alone in the Amazon rainforest, with the father of two of them facing accusations of domestic violence.

The siblings, ranging in age from one to 13, remained in hospital on Monday and were expected to stay there for several days, during which time Colombia’s child protection agency will interview family members to determine who should care for them after their mother died in the 1 May crash.

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Rescuers reveal tragic words of children who survived in Colombian jungle

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Siblings, who spent more than 40 days in Amazon after plane crash in early May, told of mother’s death when search party arrived

The tragic first words four Colombian children spoke after surviving for 40 days in the Amazon jungle have been revealed by their rescuers, as the youngsters recover at a military hospital in Bogotá.

When a search party found the emaciated children on Friday, the first thing Tien Noriel Ranoque Mucutuy, four, said was: “My mother is dead.”

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