Colombia

BOGOTA, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Colombia will guarantee the right to asylum and refuge, President Gustavo Petro said late on Monday, after a high-ranking Venezuelan lawmaker urged the extradition of his party's political opposition from Colombia.

The South American neighbors have begun the process of normalizing their relations since the inauguration of Petro this month, after years of tension and trade closures, with each naming an ambassador to the other country. 

BOGOTA. Aug 21 (NNN-TELESUR) — A new massacre, the 64th in Colombia so far in 2022, was registered in the north of Bogota, after four bodies, three men and a woman, were found inside a van, reported the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz).

This discovery took place on Autopista Norte and Calle 223 in the Colombian capital, after neighbors alerted the authorities, who later found the bodies in bags inside a car.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s first leftist president will be sworn into office Sunday, promising to fight inequality and heralding a turning point in the history of a country haunted by a long war between the government and guerrilla groups.

BOGOTA, July 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A dozen police officers have been killed, and dozens more injured in recent weeks by Colombia’s most powerful drug gang, the Gulf Clan.

The group has been sowing terror in the country since May, when its boss Dario Antonio Usuga, known as “Otoniel,” was extradited to the United States to face trafficking charges.

BOGOTA, July 4 (NNN-EFE) — Colombian authorities extradited the sister of the alleged leader of the Clan del Golfo crime gang to the United States, where she is wanted for laundering proceeds from drug trafficking, the National Police said in a statement.

The 39-year-old Nini Johana Usuga David, alias “La Negra,” is accused of belonging to a transnational drug-trafficking organization and also of “bolstering the illicit revenues” that the Clan del Golfo – Colombia’s most powerful criminal outfit – received from the drug trade, that law enforcement agency added.

BOGOTA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Two new cases of monkeypox were detected in Colombia, bringing the total number of cases in the country to five, local health authorities reported on Saturday.

The new cases were two related adults, one of whom had recently arrived from Europe and infected the other, said Bogota's Secretary of Health Alejandro Gomez, adding the two patients are currently in isolation, with their care managed on an outpatient basis.

BOGOTA, July 1 (Reuters) - Colombia on Friday extradited to the United States a sister of accused major drug cartel leader Dairo Antonio Usaga, known as Otoniel, to face drug trafficking charges, the national police said.

Colombian police accuse Nini Johana Usaga, 39, of being responsible for laundering drug money for the Clan del Golfo and handling international relations with cartels in other countries like Mexico, helping to coordinate shipments of narcotics.

BOGOTA, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Colombian President-elect Gustavo Petro on Saturday named Alvaro Leyva Duran as the foreign minister in his cabinet, ahead of Petro's inauguration in August.

"Alvaro Leyva Duran will be our minister of foreign affairs. It will be a chancellery of peace," Petro tweeted, adding that Colombia will focus its efforts on overcoming the climate crisis and ending endemic violence.

Leyva Duran, 79, has served as a mines and energy minister, a congressman from the Conservative Party, and a mediator in the country's peace process, among other positions.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia will be governed by a leftist president for the first time after former rebel Gustavo Petro narrowly defeated a real estate millionaire in a runoff election that underscored people’s disgust with the country’s traditional politicians.

Petro’s third attempt to win the presidency earned him 50.48% of the votes Sunday, while political outsider Rodolfo Hernández got 47.26%, according to results released by election authorities.

BOGOTA, June 14 (NNN-Xinhua) — Colombia’s army has killed the leader of the dissident faction of the former guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), President Ivan Duque said.

While celebrating his birthday with other rebels at a house in a rural area of the southwest department of Cauca, Leider Johany Noscue Bototo, alias “Mayimbu,” was located by military intelligence and was identified by a tattoo of his name on his right arm, Duque said at the government headquarters in the capital Bogota.