International
Four police, five others dead in Colombia attacks
AFP
Four policemen were among nine people killed in three separate attacks blamed on Colombian armed groups that continue to sow mayhem in the country in contravention of a peace pact, authorities said Sunday.
Three off-duty police died in an attack by armed men in the northeastern town of Pailitias in which one of the officers’ pregnant wife was injured, a police statement said.
It did not identify the attackers but the ELN, Colombia’s last active guerilla group, is known to operate in the area.
In the country’s south, five men were found murdered in San Vicente del Caguan, mayor Julian Perdomo told AFP, lamenting that “frequently, peasants are being found murdered” in the countryside there.
Such attacks are blamed by authorities on dissidents who rejected a 2016 peace deal that led to the disarming of the FARC guerilla group.
A fourth policeman died in “an incursion by an armed group” in a neighborhood of the city of Cali in the southwest, according to mayor Jorge Ivan Ospina.
He did not identify the culprits but military intelligence says FARC dissidents and ELN guerillas are active around Cali, as well as paramilitary groups and drug traffickers.
Including the latest killings in San Vicente del Caguan, the Colombian observer group Indepaz says there have been 45 massacres — the killing of three or more people in a single event — so far this year.
President Ivan Duque’s government blames groups financed by drug trafficking and illegal mining.
Colombia is in the midst of its worst outbreak of violence since the peace deal that ended Latin America’s most powerful insurgency.
On Friday, a helicopter carrying Duque was attacked near the Venezuela border, with several shots — apparently from rifles — fired at it.
It was the first attack on a Colombian head of state in nearly 20 years.
Internacionales
U.S. to restore ambassador-level relations with Bolivia after 17 years
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau announced on Saturday that the United States will restore ambassador-level diplomatic relations with Bolivia after 17 years. The statement came during his visit to La Paz to attend the inauguration of Bolivia’s new president, Rodrigo Paz Pereira.
In a brief appearance before the media, Landau noted that in recent weeks Washington had maintained “very close relations with the president-elect.”
“And now that he is officially president, we will restore relations at the ambassador level, as it should have always been,” he said, speaking alongside President Paz.
Landau described it as “highly unusual” and “very unfortunate” that the two nations have spent years without ambassadors in each other’s capitals — Washington, D.C., and La Paz.
“Diplomacy is ultimately about communication. Without an ambassador in the other country’s capital, that becomes more difficult,” the U.S. official emphasized, expressing hopes that the appointment of new ambassadors will be announced “very soon.”
He also recalled that President Paz has expressed his interest in maintaining a strong bilateral relationship, adding that the United States “reciprocally wants to establish a good relationship with this new Bolivian government.”
For his part, President Paz thanked the U.S. delegation led by Landau for attending his inauguration and asked him to “convey a message of cordiality and friendship” to President Donald Trump and all levels of the U.S. government.
International
Trump says GOP ‘learned a lot’ after democratic election wins
U.S. President Donald Trump said that he and the Republican Party “learned a lot” from the Democratic victories in Tuesday’s state and local elections. He also compared Democrats to “kamikaze pilots” over the ongoing budget standoff.
Speaking at an event with Republican senators on Wednesday, Trump described the results as an unexpected setback.
“These were very Democratic areas, but I don’t think it was good for Republicans. In fact, I don’t think it was good for anyone. But we had an interesting night and we learned a lot,” he said during remarks broadcast by the White House.
Trump agreed with pollsters that two key factors led to Republican losses in New York’s mayoral race and the gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia.
International
Bolivia’s Jeanine Áñez freed after Supreme Court annuls her conviction
Former Bolivian interim president Jeanine Áñez was released from a women’s prison in La Paz on Thursday, where she had spent more than four and a half years for an alleged coup, after her conviction was annulled, AFP journalists confirmed.
Dozens of supporters and family members gathered outside the facility to celebrate her release. Áñez left the prison waving a Bolivian flag around 15:00 GMT.
“It is comforting to see that justice will once again prevail in Bolivia. She was the only woman who took on the role with bravery and courage,” said Lizeth Maure, a 46-year-old nurse who had come to show her support.
Áñez, a 58-year-old lawyer and conservative politician, governed Bolivia for nearly a year until November 2020, when she handed power to leftist leader Luis Arce.
She was arrested in 2021 and sentenced the following year to 10 years in prison for “resolutions contrary to the Constitution,” accused of illegally assuming the presidency after Evo Morales resigned in 2019 amid social unrest.
Her sentence was overturned on Wednesday by the Supreme Court of Justice, Bolivia’s highest judicial authority.
The court ruled that Áñez should have been subjected to a “trial of responsibilities” before Congress— a constitutional process reserved for sitting presidents, vice presidents, ministers, and top judges — rather than prosecuted in an ordinary criminal court.
As she was welcomed by relatives and supporters upon release, Áñez declared:
“I feel the satisfaction of having fulfilled my duty to my country, of never having bowed down. And I will never regret having served Bolivia when it needed me.”
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