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Celebrity fashion designer, who recruited couriers to transport bags from her native Colombia to US on commercial flights, receives 18-month sentence A leading fashion designer whose accessories were used by celebrities from Britney Spears to the cast of the Sex and the City TV series has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty in Miami federal court on charges of smuggling...

In announcement three weeks before election, José Raúl Mulino gave no details of how he would stop migrant flowPanama’s presidential frontrunner has vowed to “close” the Darién Gap, the swampy jungle straddling the border with Colombia that has become an unavoidable ordeal for many US-bound migrants – but experts criticised the idea as unworkable and potentially dangerous.Presided over by criminal groups and corrupt officials,...

Bogotá brings in water rationing with El Niño weather phenomenon meaning city could run out in under two monthsCouples in Bogotá are being asked to shower together as water supplies are rationed in the Colombian capital.Major neighbourhoods were cut off from the water grid on Thursday to preserve dangerously low water levels at reservoirs that have been starved of rain by the weather phenomenon...

Country had previously turned the tide on deforestation but armed rebels have revoked banDeforestation in the Colombian Amazon is surging and could be at a historic peak as armed groups use the rainforest as a bargaining chip in peace negotiations with the government.Preliminary data shows that deforestation in the region was 40% higher in the first three months of this year than in 2023...

Álvaro Uribe, one of country’s most powerful figures, denies working with paramilitary death squads against leftist rebelsColombia’s ex-president Álvaro Uribe will face trial for witness tampering and fraud, prosecutors have announced, once again casting the spotlight on allegations that the former leader partnered with paramilitary death squads in his war against leftist rebels.Uribe has long been accused of committing a litany of crimes at...

Despite major progress in Brazil and Colombia, deforestation led by farming still cleared an area nearly equal to Switzerland The destruction of the world’s most pristine rainforests continued at a relentless rate in 2023, despite dramatic falls in forest loss in the Brazilian and Colombian Amazon, new figures show.An area nearly the size of Switzerland was cleared from previously undisturbed rainforests last year, totalling...

Descendants of enslaved miners who dug up gold, silver and emeralds worth billions call on Colombia to halt plan to lift cargoIndigenous communities in Bolivia have objected to Colombia’s plans to recover the remains of an 18th-century galleon believed to be carrying gold, silver and emeralds worth billions, calling on Spain and Unesco to step in and halt the project.Colombia hopes to begin recovering...

The Republican challenger to Democrat Sherrod Brown for US Senate in Ohio has made dubious claims in his campaignBernie Moreno, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Ohio who expected to mount a stern challenge to Sherrod Brown, the incumbent leftwing Democrat, says his family fled socialism when they came to the US from Colombia in 1971, when he was four years old.Though such...

South American neighbours respond to blocking of Corina Yoris, who was favoured to beat strongman Nicolás Maduro in electionsA chorus of Latin American nations, including Brazil and Colombia, have voiced concern over the deteriorating political situation in Venezuela after the opposition politician best-positioned to challenge its strongman leader, Nicolás Maduro, in July’s presidential election was prevented from registering for the vote.Corina Yoris, an 80-year-old...

Attempt to stop movement through perilous rainforest leaves people stuck in two remote Caribbean townsMigration towards the US through a perilous but increasingly well-trodden rainforest border crossing has ground to a halt after the Colombian navy arrested two boat captains for trafficking migrants.But the attempt to stop movement through the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama has left more than 3,000 people stranded in...

Salvatore Mancuso was taken into police custody and is expected to cooperate with investigation into war crimes in 1990s and 2000sA Colombian warlord found responsible for more than 1,500 murders and cases of forced disappearance has been returned to his native country after serving a drug-trafficking sentence in the United States and being denied several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also...

The environment minister Susana Muhamad says nature is a ‘pillar’ of fighting the climate crisisThe next round of global biodiversity negotiations will put nature at the heart of the international environment agenda, Colombia’s environment minister has said, as the country prepares for the Cop16 summit.Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister, who is expected to be the Cop16 president, said the South American country would use...

Adil Meléndez Márquez received call from bodyguards 20 minutes after Sir Henry Brooke award from Alliance for Lawyers at Risk“I’m very afraid,” says Colombian lawyer Adil Meléndez Márquez, the day after being presented with an award in London honouring human rights defenders.Meléndez is no stranger to death threats, because of his work on cases related to Colombia’s decades-long civil war, environmental justice and corruption,...

Cluster of cases in seven days follows spate of druggings and robberies of tourists, some of which have ended in deathAuthorities in Medellín will meet representatives of embassies and popular dating apps this week after five foreigners were found dead in Colombia’s second city in the past seven days.Police say none of the deaths were violent, though one of the cases appears to involve...

More than half a million people made treacherous, weeklong trek in 2023, facing horrors including mass rapes by armed banditsA sevenfold increase in sexual attacks against people crossing the Darién Gap is compounding the misery for people trekking one of the world’s most dangerous and underreported border crossings, said Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).Complete impunity for armed gangs in the lawless stretch of jungle that...

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a former vice-president of the European parliament and co-founder of Spain’s Vox party, was shot in the head in Madrid last yearColombian police say they have arrested a Venezuelan suspected of involvement in the alleged attempted assassination in Madrid last year of a co-founder of Spain’s far-right Vox party.Greg Oliver Higuera Marcano was wanted in connection with last year’s shooting of Alejo...

Dozens of people also injured after mudslide in mountainous area on road connecting major citiesThe death toll from a mudslide in western Colombia has risen to 34, authorities have said.The mudslide struck a busy municipal road on Friday in a mountainous area connecting the cities of Quibdó and Medellín. Continue reading...

US embassy issues warning after US citizens died in Medellín following suspected drugging and robbing on app-arranged datesForeign visitors to Colombia should take serious caution when using dating apps after a spate of suspicious deaths in the South American country, the US embassy in Bogotá has warned.In the last two months of 2023, eight US citizens died in the city of Medellín, in incidents...

Daniel Noboa designates nearly two dozen gangs as terrorist groups after wave of violence across countryEcuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, said on Wednesday that his country was “at war” with drug gangs who are holding more than 130 prison staff hostage and who briefly captured a TV station live on air, in a wave of violence that has left city streets deserted.At least 10 people...

Jungle between Colombia and Panama marks the start of the dangerous trek north from South America to the United StatesA record 520,000 people crossed the treacherous jungle between Colombia and Panama known as the Darién Gap in 2023, more than double the number reported the year before, according to new figures from the government of Panama.The people who made the journey that marks the...