Colombia

The tour was widely viewed as an attempt to mirror an official royal visit, raising questions given the couple's decision to step back from royal duties over four years ago

COP16 host country Colombia has put the inclusion of Indigenous and traditional communities at the center of its agenda in Cali

Both sides also exchanged views on regional, multilateral, and international issues of mutual interest during the FOC on Tuesday, the Ministry of Externals Affairs (MEA) stated in a release

The rebels have long viewed the oil industry as a military target as well as a cash cow, its antagonism comes from its belief that Colombia should have sovereignty over its natural resources

The leaders of Brazil and Colombia on Saturday again called on Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro to release voting tallies, days after the country's Supreme Court backed the government's disputed claims that it won elections in July. In a joint statement, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Colombian President Gustavo Petro said the credibility of the electoral process can only be restored through the transparent publication of disaggregated and verifiable data. The two leaders also warned against repression as the Venezuelan government has jailed thousands and met protests with violence. The governments spoke a day after several other Latin American countries and the U.S. rejected the Venezuelan high court's certification. Many were waiting to see how the two leftist leaders would respond to the court because both are close allies of Maduro and have been working to facilitate talks with both sides. Maduro claims that he won the presidential vote, but so far has refu

Colombian President Gustavo Petro was the target of a possible attack in July, when he took part in a public event in downtown Bogot, Defense Minister Ivn Velsquez said Thursday, without providing evidence or elaborating further. There was information about that an attack, Velsquez said, but declined to provide additional details when pressed by reporters. Petro participated in the traditional military parade on July 20 to commemorate the 214th anniversary of Colombia's independence from Spain, after arriving several hours late to the event. Petro said at the time that his tardiness was due to information that had to be corroborated with the United States embassy, and a lack of coordination among my security detail. On Wednesday, Gustavo Bolvar, one of Petro's closest allies in his cabinet, insisted to the press that the president arrived late on July 20 because there were security concerns and a warning from the U.S. embassy. Petro, a former rebel and the first leftist president

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Monday signed a bill that bans bullfights in the South American country, further reducing the short list of nations around the world where the centuries-old tradition is still legal. Petro signed it in front of hundreds of animal rights activists during a ceremony held in Bogota's bullring, after a supporter in a bull costume handed him a copy of the legislation. We cannot tell the world that killing living and sentient beings for entertainment is culture, Petro said in a speech after signing the bill. That kind of culture of killing an animal for entertainment would also lead us to killing human beings for entertainment, because we are also animals. The bullfighting ban was approved by Colombia's Congress in May, after months of heated debates. The bill calls on the government to completely ban bullfights across the nation by 2027, and orders the government to turn more than a dozen bullrings into cultural and sporting venues. Bullfights have

Colombia's government on Tuesday said it will end a cease-fire with the largest faction of the FARC-EMC, a holdout rebel group that refused to sign a 2016 peace deal but which had been involved in peace talks with President Gustavo Petro's administration until March. In a press conference, Defence Minister Ivn Velsquez said the FARC-EMC has split into two factions. He said a cease-fire with the group's smallest faction will be extended for three months while peace talks with the government continue. The FARC-EMC was founded by fighters who refused to join a peace deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that led to the disarmament of more than 13,000 rebels and their integration into civilian life. Colombia's military estimates the hold out group has more than 4,400 fighters who operate in southwestern Colombia, in the Amazon piedmont, and in the Catatumbo region along Colombia's border with Venezuela. The group's two factions are led by commanders

Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced on Saturday that his country will suspend coal exports to Israel over the war in Gaza, as relations sour between two countries that were once close military and commercial allies. Petro wrote on the social media platform X that coal exports will only resume when the genocide in Gaza stops. Petro also posted a draft decree, which says that coal exports will only resume if Israel complies with a recent order by the International Court of Justice that says Israel should withdraw its troops from the Gaza strip. According to Colombia's National Statistics Department, coal exports to Israel were worth more than $320 million in the first eight months of last year. That's a small fraction of the nation's overall coal exports which were worth more than $9 billion in 2023. Israel imports more than 50% of its coal from Colombia, according to the American Journal for Transportation, and uses much of it to feed its power plants. Petro, who was elected

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday announced his government will break diplomatic relations with Israel effective Thursday in the latest escalation of tensions between the countries over the Israel-Hamas war. Petro again described Israel's siege of Gaza as genocide. He previously suspended purchases of weapons from Israel and compared that country's actions in Gaza to those of Nazi Germany. Tomorrow, diplomatic relations with the State of Israel will be broken for having a genocidal president, Petro said during an International Workers' Day march in Colombia's capital. If Palestine dies, humanity dies, and we are not going to let it die. Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz quickly rebuked Petro's comments on the platform X. History will remember that Gustavo Petro decided to side with the most despicable monsters known to mankind who burned babies, murdered children, raped women and kidnapped innocent civilians, he said. Weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southe

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Tuesday that hundreds of thousands of pieces of ammunition have gone missing from two military bases in the South American country. In a brief statement, Petro said that an inspection this month by the army found that hundreds of thousands of bullets, thousands of grenades and 37 anti-tank missiles were stolen from a military base in the centre of the country and another near the Caribbean coast. Petro, the country's first left-wing president, said the ammunition might have ended up in the hands of Colombian rebel groups, or may have been sold illegally to criminal groups overseas, including Haitian gangs. The only way to explain these missing items is that there are networks made up of people within the armed forces who are involved in the illegal arms trade, Petro said. Petro said that inspections of military bases would continue in order to separate the armed forces from any type of criminal organisation. The investigation comes as Colombi

Haiti's government declared a state of emergency and nighttime curfew late Sunday in a bid to regain control of the streets after an explosion of violence over the weekend saw armed gang members storm the country's two biggest prisons. The 72-hour state of emergency went into immediate effect as the government said it would set out to find the killers, kidnappers and other violent criminals that it reported escaped from the prison. The police were ordered to use all legal means at their disposal to enforce the curfew and apprehend all offenders, said a statement from Finance Minister Patrick Boivert, who is serving as acting prime minister. Prime Minister Ariel Henry travelled abroad last week to try to salvage support for a bringing in a United Nations-backed security force to stabilise the country in its conflict with increasingly powerful crime groups. The decree capped a deadly weekend that marked a new low in Haiti's downward spiral of violence. At least nine people had been .

Colombia's government declared a disaster on Thursday and asked for international help to combat raging wildfires that are expected to worsen in coming days due to warm, dry conditions associated with the El Nio weather phenomenon. Officials raised the number of fires from 25 to 31, and said nine of them were under control. They did not order mandatory evacuations despite some fires burning in the mountains that surround some municipalities. President Gustavo Petro said Chile, the United States, Peru and Canada have already responded to the call for help, without specifying when the assistance will arrive to the South American country. The government also asked for aid from the United Nations and European Union. To the extent that we know that in the coming days and weeks crisis events are going to increase, we want to make sure that we have the physical capacity to address and mitigate them, Petro said. Colombia's Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies repo

South Africa, Colombia and other countries that lost out in the global race for coronavirus vaccines are taking a more combative approach towards drugmakers and pushing back on policies that deny cheap treatment to millions of people with tuberculosis and HIV. Experts see it as a shift in how such countries deal with pharmaceutical behemoths and say it could trigger more efforts to make lifesaving medicines more widely available. In the COVID-19 pandemic, rich countries bought most of the world's vaccines early, leaving few shots for poor countries and creating a disparity the World Health Organization called a catastrophic moral failure. Now, poorer countries are trying to become more self-reliant because they've realized after COVID they can't count on anyone else, said Brook Baker, who studies treatment-access issues at Northeastern University. One of the targets is a drug, bedaquiline, that is used for treating people with drug-resistant versions of tuberculosis. The pills are

'With advanced AI and machine learning algorithms, I can swiftly and accurately make data-driven (decisions)'

Israel has suspended security exports to Colombia in an escalating diplomatic spat over online messages by Colombia's president comparing Israel's siege of Gaza to the actions of Nazi Germany. Colombian President Gustavo Petro has doubled down on his criticism of Israel and suggested that his country may need to suspend diplomatic relations with Israel, while his foreign minister has suggested Israel's ambassador should leave the country. In a statement published Sunday, Israel's foreign ministry said that Petro's recent statements on X, previously known as Twitter, inflame antisemitism" and "threaten the safety of the Jewish community in Colombia." The Israeli government said it called Colombia's ambassador to a meeting in which she was informed that defense cooperation between the countries would be suspended. Colombia currently has diplomatic relations with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and over the past two decades it has been one of Israel's closes partners in Lati

Thirty-six states and the District of Colombia have reached an agreement in principle with Google to settle a lawsuit filed in 2021 over the tech giant's alleged monopolistic control of app distribution for the software that runs most of the world's cellphones. The agreement, cited in a court filing late Tuesday by both sides, is subject to approval by the state attorneys general and the board of directors of Google's parent company, the execution of an agreement and court approval. Terms were not disclosed. The Utah attorney general's office, the lead plaintiff, did not offer immediate comment, nor did Google. "We don't have a comment at this time, Google spokesperson Peter Shottenfels said via email. A trial date had been set for Nov 6. The complaint filed in a Northern California federal court echoed similar allegations that mobile game maker Epic Games made against Google that is scheduled to go to trial in November. Apple prevailed in a separate suit Epic filed against it ov

Jhojan Torres gave Colombia a lifeline with a superb curling effort from just outside Italy's penalty area, but it proved to be a mere consolation

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met his Columbian counterpart Alvaro Leyva Duran and discussed ways to boost bilateral cooperation and exchanged views on global issues, including the situation in the Indo-Pacific region. Jaishankar arrived here in Colombia's capital from Panama on Wednesday. He is the first external affairs minister to have visited Columbia. "Met Foreign Minister @AlvaroLeyva of Colombia this morning. Exchanged views on expanding our bilateral cooperation, especially in health, agriculture and digital domains," he tweeted about his meeting on Wednesday. "Proposed greater exchanges and stronger collaboration, especially in capacity building. Also spoke about global issues, including the Indo-Pacific. Addressed the issue of Reformed Multilateralism," he said. The US, India and several other world powers have been talking about the need to ensure a free, open and thriving Indo-Pacific. The evolving situation in the strategic Indo-Pacific region in the wake of .

Colombia is planning to fly dozens of its "cocaine hippos" -- the descendents of late drug trafficker Pablo Escobars private menagerie