Former Colombia aide faces arrest

31 July 2011 Last updated at 01:40 GMT Uribe employed Moreno as his chief of staff for eight years A senior aide of former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is facing criminal prosecution.

A judge has ordered the arrest of Mr Uribe's former chief of staff, Bernardo Moreno, for allegedly spying on judges, journalists and politicians.

It is the second such order this week. Andres Felipe Arias, a former agriculture minister, has been charged with corruption. He denies the allegations.

Alvaro Uribe left office last year.

Mr Moreno served as Mr Uribe's chief of staff for both of his presidential terms, from 2002-2010.

He now faces trial for criminal conspiracy, abuse of public office and other charges.

Mr Moreno would be jailed for at least three years, if convicted. He denies all the charges.

Mr Arias, 38, is suspected of diverting farm subsidies intended for peasant farmers to rich landowners.

He will be held at a jail in the capital Bogota while his case proceeds.

The Colombian Attorney General's office has already disqualified him from public office for 16 years because of what it deemed were irregularities in the subsidy scheme.

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Colombia to target 'rebel houses'

11 July 2011 Last updated at 12:21 GMT President Santos has vowed to continue a tough stance against armed groups Colombian troops have been given the order to destroy houses used by rebels to attack civilians or government, President Juan Manual Santos says.

He was speaking after left-wing Farc guerrillas attacked several towns in the west of the country, killing at least three people and injuring dozens.

Mr Santos says the attacks showed the rebels' "desperation" as security forces closed in on their leaders.

In recent months, guerrillas have stepped up hit-and-run attacks.

President Santos announced a range of measures in the wake of the violence in Cauca department.

Security would be stepped up, he said, and another mountain battalion would be created in Tacueyo, to operate "in a zone traditionally used by guerrillas as a corridor and a sanctuary".

"We've taken the decision that from now on, security personnel will destroy any house being used by terrorists to attack government forces or civilians. No more using houses to shoot at security forces or at civilians," Mr Santos said, after holding a security meeting.

Over the weekend, Farc rebels staged a series of attacks in Cauca, long plagued by violence from armed groups.

Worst hit was Toribio, in Cauca province, where rebels drove a small bus laden with explosives into the local police station.

Toribio was holding its Saturday market when the rebels struck

Several houses were also destroyed.

Two civilians and a policeman are reported to have died as rebels and officers exchanged fire.

Toribio has repeatedly been targeted by the Farc, Colombia's largest left-wing rebel group.

The town is located in a mountainous area where the Farc's Sixth Division is active.

Farc rebels also targeted the towns of Corinto, Caldono, Jambalo and Santander.

President Santos said the attacks were a cowardly response to the successes of the security forces in the area.

"We know exactly what they're thinking: they're doing their best to distract the security forces because we're taking away their sanctuaries and lairs," he added.

President Santos was referring to a recent raid by the security forces in which, he said, they came close to catching Farc leader Alfonso Cano.

According to Mr Santos, Mr Cano left the camp only 12 hours before soldiers moved in.

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Colombia corrects cocaine seizure

7 July 2011 Last updated at 18:08 GMT Adm Alvaro Echandia said the Navy had miscalculated the amount of cocaine found The Colombian navy says it miscalculated the amount of cocaine it found in the port city of Cartagena in May, believed at the time to have been one of the biggest seizures ever.

Head of the navy Alvaro Echandia said testing had revealed only 16kg (35lb) hidden in a shipment of brown sugar.

Originally, the navy had estimated the cocaine seizure at 12 tonnes.

Initial tests had shown a high drug concentration in the sugar, which later tests did not bear out, he said.

But Adm Echandia said the navy was still satisfied with the seizure.

On 23 May, sniffer dogs had alerted their handlers to the presence of the drug in a shipment of 33,000 packs of brown sugar destined for Veracruz, Mexico.

Adm Echandia said first tests on the sugar revealed a cocaine concentration of around 70%, which led the navy to estimate the total amount of the drug shipment at 12 tonnes.

The admiral said 25,106 packs of sugar had been laced with cocaine.

But subsequent tests revealed a much lower drug concentration, bringing the total to only 16.2kg (35lb).

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Colombia troops jailed for deaths

6 July 2011 Last updated at 19:27 GMT The "false positive" scandal has provoked protests in Colombia, as with this demonstration in Bogota A court in Colombia has sentenced eight soldiers to 60 years each in jail for killing four farmers and then claiming the men were left-wing guerrillas.

It is the latest prosecution in the so-called "false-positive" scandal that first erupted in 2008.

Security forces are believed to have killed thousands of civilians and passed them off as guerrillas in order to falsely inflate their success rates.

They used these tallies to claim promotion and perks such as days off.

The specific events happened in 2006 in the area of Yarumal, in the province of Antioquia.

The soldiers claimed the victims - Enrique Piedrahita, John Edison Galeano, Jesus Alberto Londono and Juan Dario Arroyave - were guerrillas killed in combat.

In a statement, Colombia's Public Prosecutor's office said the prosecutor had proved beyond reasonable doubt that "the victims were taken from their houses by force, there was no fighting, and that the men were farmers who were shot in the back".

The convicted soldiers included one officer, Luis Gabriel Rueda Acevedo.

The "false positive" scandal first hit the headlines under former President Alvaro Uribe.

There have been a number of high-profile resignations and prosecutions since.

But hundreds more cases are still being investigated.

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Court witness killed in Colombia

1 July 2011 Last updated at 21:10 GMT Mr Gomez was killed in Arboletes, an area once dominated by the paramilitaries One of the main witnesses in a court case investigating politicians' links to right-wing paramilitaries in Colombia has been killed.

Luis Eduardo Gomez, 70, was shot dead by gunmen in his home in Arboletes, in north-western Antioquia province.

He is the second witness in the case to be killed this week, officials say.

Prosecutors are investigating scores of local politicians over their alleged links to the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces.

The United Self-Defence Forces, or AUC, was formed by landowners and drug traffickers in the 1990s to combat Colombia's left-wing guerrillas.

The group demobilised under a 2003 peace agreement with the government, and around 30,000 fighters surrendered their weapons.

Mr Gomez, a freelance journalist, had testified in the court case which is investigating more than 20 local politicians over their alleged links to the AUC.

The group is accused of forcing thousands of people off their land as well as dealing in drugs, forcibly recruiting minors and killing hundreds of people they suspected of being rebels or rebel sympathisers.

Prosecutors say the AUC built up close connections with a number of local and national politicians, financing their campaigns in exchange for their backing in local government and Congress.

Many current or former members of Congress have been jailed or investigated for allegedly conspiring or collaborating with the AUC paramilitaries, in what has been dubbed the "parapolitics" scandal.

Mr Gomez's murder comes just days after the killing of Vicente Botero Arbelaez, who was also a witness in the case.

Prosecutors say five other witnesses are missing, while a sixth is part of a witness protection programme.

The government says many former AUC members now swell the ranks of the so-called Bacrin, short for criminal narcotics gangs.

Police suspect one of the Bacrins, Los Urabenos, of being behind the killing of Mr Gomez.

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Colombia condemns rebel attack

29 June 2011 Last updated at 23:40 GMT Maj Felix Antonio Jaimes Villamil was ambushed as he arrived on the scene Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has condemned as "cowardly" an ambush by left-wing Farc rebels that has killed a senior police officer.

Maj Felix Antonio Jaimes Villamil was killed by an explosive device in north-western Antioquia province.

Police said the explosives were set off as Maj Jaimes arrived to investigate a rebel attack on two buses.

The Colombian authorities say the Farc have stepped up their attacks on civilians and security forces alike.

Police say three people were injured early on Wednesday when members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) burned down two buses and a lorry on the main road linking Colombia's second city, Medellin, with the Atlantic Coast.

Officials said Maj Jaimes, the commander of Antioquia's highway police, travelled to the area to oversee the evacuation of the victims.

Two police agents who were accompanying Maj Jaimes were also injured when the device went off.

President Santos called the ambush "terrorist and cowardly".

"This shows that the Farc are ever more desperate and weak," the president said.

Colombian security forces have killed a number of Farc leaders over the past year, and arrested many others.

The attack happened on the main road from Medellin to the Atlantic Coast, near Yarumal

The group's top military commander Jorge Briceno, better known as Mono Jojoy, was killed in an army bombing raid last September.

And the army says it is getting ever closed to Farc leader Alfonso Cano, whose head of security it killed in March.

But the rebels also have been stepping up their attacks on both civilian and military targets.

The Colombian hauliers' union has asked the government to increase security on the country's highways.

They said the attack was the ninth so far this year in Antioquia, with some 40 vehicles burned by the guerrilla nationwide.

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Colombia

Colombia has significant natural resources and its diverse culture reflects the indigenous Indian, Spanish and African origins of its people.

But it has also been ravaged by a decades-long violent conflict involving outlawed armed groups, drug cartels and gross violations of human rights, although since 2002, the country has made some progress towards improving security.

The fourth largest country in South America and one of the continent's most populous nations, Colombia has substantial oil reserves and is a major producer of gold, silver, emeralds, platinum and coal.

It also has a highly stratified society where the traditionally rich families of Spanish descent have benefited from this wealth to a far greater degree than the majority, mixed-race population. With few avenues for social mobility, this provided a natural constituency for left-wing insurgents.

However, the lucrative returns from drugs and kidnapping came to dominate the rebels' agenda, and largely replaced ideological motivations. The conflict has dragged on for decades, and at one point the government effectively lost control of large swathes of Colombian territory to the rebels, especially in the north and east.

However, during Alvaro Uribe's tenure as president in 2002-8, the government managed a string of spectacular successes against the left-wing rebels, regaining control of much of the rebel-held territory and raising hopes that the conflict may be drawing to a close.

Critics argue that while weakened, the rebels' backbone has not been broken, and that the underlying causes of the conflict have not been tackled. New illegal armed groups have also arisen, and little progress has been made in combating drug-smuggling.

At the other end of the political spectrum from the left-wing rebels are illegal right-wing paramilitary groups, who are sometimes in the pay of drug cartels and landowners, and have at times been backed by elements in the army and the police.

Many of these groups, which have have targeted human rights workers, peasants suspected of helping left-wing guerrillas, street children and other marginal groups, have demobilised under a government peace initiative, but there are doubts about how genuine the process is.

Alongside politically-motivated blood-letting is drug-related crime, which has become the most common cause of death after cancer and has fuelled kidnapping.

The US, a key market for Colombian cocaine, has bankrolled the fight against the trade to the tune of billions of dollars. But critics say "Plan Colombia" has had little impact on the supply and price of drugs.

Full name: Republic of Colombia Population: 46.3 million (UN, 2010) Capital: Bogota Area: 1.14 million sq km (440,831 sq miles) Major language: Spanish Major religion: Christianity Life expectancy: 70 years (men), 78 years (women) (UN) Monetary unit: 1 Colombian peso = 100 centavos Main exports: Petroleum, coffee, coal, gold, bananas, cut flowers, chemicals, emeralds, cotton products, sugar, livestock GNI per capita: US $4,930 (World Bank, 2009) Internet domain: .co International dialling code: +57

President: Juan Manuel Santos

Juan Manuel Santos, who won an easy victory in the second round of presidential elections in June 2010, is no stranger to high office.

Mr Santos has long been preparing himself to take over the reins of power from Alvaro Uribe

He comes from a powerful Colombian family. His great-uncle, Eduardo Santos, was president from 1938 to 1942 and owned the country's largest newspaper, El Tiempo.

Juan Manuel Santos has himself held a number of ministerial posts, most recently that of defence minister.

He served in this post under President Alvaro Uribe from 2006 until 2009, playing a key role in implementing the president's tough policies against Colombia's main left-wing rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

He oversaw Operation Checkmate, the successful rescue by the military of 15 high-profile hostages, and was also in charge when the Colombian military mounted a controversial air raid into Ecuador that resulted in the death of senior Farc leader Raul Reyes.

The improved security achieved during his term as defence minister earned him considerable credit and helped to pave his way to the presidency.

During his campaign for the presidency, Mr Santos insisted that he would continue the policies of President Uribe, with a strong emphasis on combating the drugs trade and Farc.

Shortly before taking office in August 2010, he rejected a Farc offer of peace talks, saying that the rebels would have to release all their hostages before any talks could take place.

He has also promised to develop the country's infrastructure and to create more jobs, vowing to make Colombians less dependent on the informal economy.

Colombia is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists to operate. Media workers face intimidation by drug traffickers, guerrillas and paramilitary groups. More than 120 Colombian journalists were killed in the 1990s, many for reporting on drug trafficking and corruption.

The media-freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders has denounced armed groups, corrupt politicians and drug barons as "enemies of press freedom".

Rebels have used radio to spread their propaganda. One of the main clandestine stations is the Farc-operated La Voz de la Resistencia, which the rebel group has described as another battlefront.

Colombia's main commercial media outlets are owned by a handful of large groups. Television is the medium of choice for most Colombians.

The press

Television

Radio

Hundreds of stations are registered with the Ministry of Communications. Among the main networks are:

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