TV images show bus flipping over between south-western cities of Pasto and Popayán
At least 20 people were killed and at least 14 injured after a bus crashed on a road in Colombia on Saturday, police said.
Images on Colombian television showed the bus flipping over in the early morning incident between the south-western cities of Pasto and Popayán, which authorities said may have been caused by a mechanical fault.
Continue reading...Nicaraguan soldiers assist evacuations as up to 38cm of rain forecast across Central America after tropical storm strengthened into hurricane
Hurricane Julia swept by just south of Colombia’s San Andres island on Saturday evening soon after strengthening from a tropical storm, as Nicaraguans rushed to prepare for the storm’s arrival on their coast overnight.
After gaining power throughout the day, Julia’s maximum sustained winds had increased to 120km/h (75mph) by Saturday evening, the US National Hurricane Center said.
Continue reading...Start date for dialogue with the National Liberation Army will be announced after first week of November
Colombia’s government and the nation’s largest remaining guerrilla group have announced that they will restart peace talks next month for the first time since 2018.
After meeting in Caracas, representatives of the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army issued a statement saying a start date for the peace talks would be announced after the first week of November. The statement added that Norway, Venezuela and Cuba would be “guarantor states” in the talks, and that the participation of civil society groups would be “essential” for the peace talks to succeed.
Continue reading...Figures likely to be an underestimate, says Global Witness, as land defenders are killed by hitmen, crime groups and governments
More than 1,700 murders of environmental activists were recorded over the past decade, an average of a killing nearly every two days, according to a new report.
Killed by hitmen, organised crime groups and their own governments, at least 1,733 land and environmental defenders were murdered between 2012 and 2021, figures from Global Witness show, with Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, Mexico and Honduras the deadliest countries.
Continue reading...Government says country ‘moving ahead’ with ceasefire as new leftist president Gustavo Petro promises ‘total peace’
At least 10 armed groups in Colombia, including the Gulf Clan crime gang and dissident members of the Farc rebels who rejected a peace deal have agreed to participate in unilateral ceasefires, according to the government.
President Gustavo Petro, who took office in August, has promised to seek “total peace” with armed groups, fully implementing a 2016 peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and meeting with dissidents and gangs.
Continue reading...Bid to move pop star’s Colombian tour date to capital’s biggest venue has united supporters of clubs who play there
Rival Colombian football fans, more used to hurling insults at each other on the terraces, have united against a common enemy: Harry Styles. At stake is what takes place at Bogotá’s football stadium on 27 November: either the Colombian football championship final, or the latest leg of the British pop star’s world tour.
Styles had been scheduled to play in the car park of an amusement park in the capital city, but fans started a social media campaign for the concert to be moved after pop star Dua Lipa’s show there last weekend was plagued by logistical and technical problems.
Continue reading...Little-known militia groups have surfaced to declare their willingness to strike peace deals – and reap ceasefire rewards
The announcement came in a grainy video from the dense jungles of northern Colombia.
A dozen masked men with camouflage uniforms and automatic weapons stand in a cluster, a roaring stream washing over their black combat boots.
Continue reading...President Gustavo Petro’s proposed legislation could raise $11.5bn a year with measures including wealth tax and levy on oil exports
Colombia’s new leftist government has proposed an ambitious plan to tax the rich in an effort to combat poverty in one of the most unequal countries in the Americas.
If implemented, the Piketty-esque legislation proposed by President Gustavo Petro could raise more than $11.5bn annually to fund anti-poverty efforts, free public university and other social welfare programs.
Continue reading...Government pledges ‘judicial and political steps’ to enable talks to resume with nation’s last guerrillas broken off three years ago
Colombia’s new government and members of the nation’s last guerrilla group have taken steps towards restarting peace talks that were suspended three years ago in Cuba.
Newly elected President Gustavo Petro, a former member of the M-19 guerrilla group, has promised to establish “total peace” in Colombia and sent a high-level delegation to Cuba this week to meet with National Liberation Army (ELN) representatives there.
Continue reading...Feared Gulf Clan has unleashed terror campaign since arrest of leader in May but keen to talk to leftist president Gustavo Petro
One of Colombia’s most feared armed groups has announced a “unilateral” ceasefire in the hopes of entering peace talks with the government of Colombia’s new leftist leader, Gustavo Petro.
The Gulf Clan, a notorious drug-trafficking militia, has unleashed a campaign of terror following the May extradition to the US of its leader – Dairo Antonio Úsuga, or “Otoniel”, assassinating dozens of police and holding large swaths of the country hostage.
Continue reading...At his swearing in Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla, says the country is getting a ‘second chance’ to tackle violence and poverty
Colombia’s first leftist president has been sworn into office, promising to fight inequality and bring peace to a country long haunted by bloody feuds between the government, drug traffickers and rebel groups.
Gustavo Petro, a former member of Colombia’s M-19 guerrilla group, won the presidential election in June by beating conservative parties that offered moderate changes to the market-friendly economy, but failed to connect with voters frustrated by rising poverty and violence against human rights leaders and environmental groups in rural areas.
Continue reading...When Francia Márquez became the South American country’s VP elect, she chose the unknown Esteban Sinisterra Paz to create her outfits
Esteban Sinisterra Paz, a 23-year-old fashion designer from Colombia’s conflict-ridden and impoverished Pacific region, had not long started his career when he received a call from a history-making client.
Francia Márquez – the renowned environmental activist and Colombia’s first black female vice-president-elect – was on the line, and she wanted two outfits made.
Continue reading...Birdwatcher ‘overcome with emotion’ on spotting the Santa Marta sabrewing, only third time it has been documented
A rare hummingbird has been rediscovered by a birdwatcher in Colombia after going missing for more than a decade.
The Santa Marta sabrewing, a large hummingbird only found in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains, was last seen in 2010 and scientists feared the species might be extinct as the tropical forests it inhabited have largely been cleared for agriculture.
Continue reading...Truth commission’s report, touted as a chance to heal after half a century of bloodshed, called for a ‘substantial change in drug policy’
The punitive, prohibitionist war on drugs helped prolong Colombia’s disastrous civil war, the country’s truth commission has found, in a landmark report published on Tuesday as part of an effort to heal the raw wounds left by conflict.
The report, titled “There is a future if there is truth” was the first instalment of a study put together by the commission that was formed as part of a historic 2016 peace deal with the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).
Continue reading...Prisons agency boss says fire broke out after inmates lit mattresses during protest at jail in Tuluá
Fifty-one inmates have died during a riot in a prison in the Colombian city of Tuluá in one of the worst recent incidents of its kind in the country.
The director of the national prisons agency said a fire had started during a protest by prisoners overnight.
Continue reading...Chaos overtakes city of Espinal after wood and bamboo stands collapse during cultural festival
At least four people were killed and hundreds injured in Colombia on Sunday after spectator stands at a bullfight collapsed, authorities said.
The bull reportedly escaped from the plaza hosting the spectacle and was causing panic in the streets of Espinal, Tolima, a city of nearly 60,000 people about 145km (90 miles) south-west of Bogotá, the capital.
Continue reading...Sophia Smith scored twice in the second half and the US women’s national team beat Colombia 3-0 on Saturday night to extend their home unbeaten streak to 68 games, but many of the players had a seismic legal ruling on their minds.
Smith scored her first in the 54th minute off a pass from Rose Lavelle when Colombian goalkeeper Catalina Perez came out of her goal. She added her second in the 60th minute. Smith, who plays for the Portland Thorns in the National Women’s Soccer League, has six international goals.
Continue reading...Despite the election euphoria, Petro has a thin mandate and is viewed with suspicion by many
He spent 12 years of his youth in the ranks of an urban guerrilla group, taking the alias of a revolutionary general from Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Later, he would serve as a progressive mayor of Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, and as a senator. He ran for president unsuccessfully twice, unable to overcome the conservative wall erected nearly two centuries ago around the Colombian presidency.
But on Sunday, Gustavo Petro, 62, was finally able to topple that wall and was elected president, making history as the first leftwing head of state of the South American country.
Continue reading...Former fighter in the M-19 militia beat populist business tycoon and fellow political outsider Rodolfo Hernández in runoff on Sunday
Colombia has elected a former guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro as president, making him the South American country’s first leftist head of state.
Petro beat Rodolfo Hernández, a gaff-prone former mayor of Bucaramanga and business mogul, with 50.47% of the vote in a runoff election on Sunday and will take office in July amid a host of challenges, not least of which is the deepening discontent over inequality and rising costs of living. Hernández had 47.27%, with almost all ballots counted, according to results released by election authorities.
Continue reading...The election is being contested by mayor of Bogotá Gustavo Petro and populist business tycoon Rodolfo Hernández
Voters head to the polls in Colombia on Sunday in a historic presidential election that could see the left win for the first time in the conservative South American country.
Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla and mayor of Bogotá, will face off against Rodolfo Hernández, a populist business tycoon and the former mayor of the city of Bucaramanga, in a contest where both candidates have cast themselves as political outsiders.
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