Following the success of coca eradication efforts, the FARC and right-wing paramilitaries are in a deadly struggle for control of outlaw gold-mining operations in Colombia’s jungles.
The foreign ministers of Colombia and Venezuela met in Caracas to improve bilateral relations—as the militarized and oil-rich border zone was shut down by indigenous protests.
Colombian “neo-pramilitary” groups containing former armed forces personnel were able to infiltrate the state by exploiting past military connections, according to a WikiLeaks cable.
Leaked US diplomatic cables with much unflattering gossip on Peru’s political elite have become an issue in the Andean nation’s pending presidential elections.
Devastating floods on the heels of a transport strike have paralyzed Bolivia. Flooding has left some 7,000 homeless across the country, with 400 homes destroyed in La Paz.
The Colombian navy announced the seizure a submarine believed to be used by drug runners to smuggle cocaine to Mexican shores. Authorities call it the most sophisticated craft yet uncovered.
China and Colombia are planning to build a railway linking the South American country’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The rail line will pass through the violent Urabá region.
Bolivian President Evo Morales retreated from the southern mining city of Oruro after protesters angered by rising food prices and shortages jeered him and set off dynamite.
Hugo Chávez threatened to kick Coca-Cola out of the country if the company does not settle a pay dispute with striking workers, calling on Venezuelans to switch to guava juice.
Since early December, hundreds of private contractors of multinational banana corporation Banacol have illegally invaded and occupied the lands of Afro-Colombian “peace communities.”
The North Cauca Association of Indigenous Councils in southeast Colombia’s Cauca department has implemented its own re-immersion program for demobilized guerillas.
A Peruvian appeals court rejected the government’s petition to overturn a lower court’s decision to grant parole to Lori Berenson, a US citizen held since 1995 for collaboration with guerillas.
