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BOGOTA, Colombia — A car packed with at least 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of explosives blew up in an office district of Colombia's capital Thursday, shattering windows in dozens of buildings and injuring nine people, police said. No deaths were reported. It was the first car bombing in Bogota since a blast killed two people a year and a half ago, and came five days after Juan Manuel Santos was sworn in as president.

Colombia has announced it will build a new military base near its border with Venezuela, in a move likely to further strain its tense ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said Friday that the base, located on the Guajira peninsula near the city of Nazaret, would have up to 1,000 troops. "It is a strategic point from a defense point of view," Silva said. Army Commander General Oscar Gonzalez meanwhile announced Saturday that six air battalions were being activated, including two on the border with Venezuela. Venezuela shares a ...1,250-mile border with Colombia . In November...

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Bogota, Mar 24, 2008 / 11:19 am (CNA).- The Colombian daily “El Tiempo” revealed on Holy Saturday that a crisis that could have ended in an open conflict between Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela was averted by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe confiding the situation to the intercession of Mary under the three different titles by which she is the country’s patroness. The crisis between Colombia and its southern (Ecuador) and northeastern (Venezuela) neighbors started On March 1, when Uribe ordered a military raid into Ecuador's territory against a rebel camp used by Marxist guerrillas to launch terrorist...

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA -- One rebel, call her Angelly, hijacked a private airplane to escape the guerrilla ranks. The other, Marilu Ramirez, is charged as a modern-day Mata Hari who at the time of her arrest had infiltrated the highest levels of Colombia's military establishment. The stories of the two women, both members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have riveted Colombians' attention in recent weeks, presenting the two faces of the guerrilla movement. SNIP The benefits are not what made Angelly flee after five years in the rebel ranks. It was the hope of reuniting with her...

BOGOTA, Colombia - Five Colombian congressmen, including the brother of the foreign minister, were arrested in a widening scandal linking the country's political class and far-right militias drew closer to the president, local media reported. It was the latest wave of arrests of lawmakers arising from a Supreme Court investigation into collusion between politicians and the militias, who are responsible for some of the worst massacres of Colombia's five-decade civil conflict and a sizable portion of its cocaine trade. Previously, other politicians have been charged with funding the paramilitaries and ordering murders during the civil conflict. Colombian media reported late...

Bogotá, Nov. 03, 2006 (CNA) - Bishop Ramon Dario Molina of Neiva expressed disgust this week over a photographer who managed to sneak past security to shoot photos of a nude model at the local Cathedral. Bishop Molina said the photographer deserves to spend “a few hours in jail” for the stunt, which has caused outrage among the residents of Neiva in southern Colombia. “It’s disrespectful.  It merits at least a few hours in jail so they will learn their lesson,” he told reporters. The photographer, identified as Reynel Llanos, chose the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Neiva to...

The mayor of a small Bergen County, New Jersey town is calling for a McDonald's boycott if the fast-food chain does not take down a Spanish-language billboard.... Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan said the advertisement is "offensive" and "divisive"......"The true things that bind us together as neighbors and community is our belief in the American flag and our common language," Lonegan said. "And when McDonald's sends a different message, that we're going to be different now, that causes resentment." Representatives for McDonald's and CBS Outdoor in New York, the company that owns the billboard on River Road in Bogota, defended the...

BOGOTÁ -- The beheading of more than a dozen woodcutters last week was the latest of several recent attacks by Colombia's leftist guerrillas to exploit the power vacuum left by the demobilization of 32,000 right-wing militiamen -- and a signal that peace will not come easily to besieged rural areas. The bloodshed at Riosucio bore the hallmarks of the four-decades -long war waged by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in neglected regions lacking state services or security. Giovanny Ramírez was chopping wood in the mountains of northwestern Colombia last week when a group of rebels emerged from...

Bogotá, Jul. 04, 2006 (CNA) - A Franciscan priest was killed this week in Colombia in the northern region of Magdalena.  Initial investigations indicate the 46 year-old priest was assaulted. Father Luis Alfonso Herrera Moreno, who was the accountant at the San Luis Beltran School, operated by the Franciscans in the costal city of Santa Marta, disappeared on Tuesday after he went out to run a few errands for the school.  His body was found one day later and police said it appeared he had been bludgeoned to death.   According to other officials at the school, Father Herrera took...

Bogotá, May. 12, 2006 (CNA) - In response to a ruling by Colombia’s Constitutional Court making the country the first in Latin America to legalize abortion, the country’s bishops said Thursday that civil disobedience may be necessary to resist the new immoral law. Likewise, Bogotá’s Archbishop, Cardinal Pedro Rubiano Saenz is threatening excommunication against the responsible lawmakers. The president of the Bishops’ Conference of Colombia, Archbishop Luis Augusto Castro, rejected the Court’s decision to legalize abortion in certain cases and said it was a crime against human life.  “A door is being opened toward the elimination of the innocent lives...

BOGOTA, Colombia - A western Colombian city councilman wants to require everyone in town 14 or older to carry a condom to prevent pregnancy and disease, outraging local priests. William Pena, a councilman in Tulua, said Wednesday he will present a formal proposal to force all men and women _ even those just visiting _ to always carry at least one condom. Those caught empty-pocketed could pay a fine of $180 or take a safe sex course, he said. "Sexual relations are going on constantly," Pena told The Associated Press by telephone. "If you carry a condom, chances are you'll...

Lawyer's love of labor Richard Loccke laughs sheepishly when he's told what other lawyers say about his demeanor at the bargaining table. "I've never intimidated anybody," he says in his standard baritone. "I've never exploited anyone." As a labor lawyer who has thrived in the rough-and-tumble backrooms of collective bargaining for more than 30 years, Loccke knows full well what he brings to negotiations. His tenacious bargaining skills, mastery of the state's arbitration laws and vast client list have had an enormous impact on police salaries and municipal budgets, his friends, clients and critics say. "Rich is the best police...

Noe Pernia is a reporter for Channel 2 News in Caracas, known as "El Observador". Because of the muzzle Bill he was not able to report correctly the news on the Granda case. He writes this in today's Tal Cual: Jesse did not say the truth, neither did I By Noé Pernía I tried to construct a story, a simple story that would help TV viewers of El Observador understand the labyrinth of the Minister of The Interior and Justice since on Thursday the 6th., the day of the wise men, he replied to the lawyers of Rodrigo Granda in...

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) confirmed that Rodrigo Granda Escobar, known as "the Chancellor" was kidnapped in Venezuela, while attending the Second Bolivarian Peoples Conference. In a statement published on their web page, the Central Command of this organization blamed the kidnapping of "Ricardo", as he is known within FARC, on "the Colombian intelligence services" and blamed his deportation on "gringo advisors and the complicit support of corrupt elements of the Venezuelan police". In the statement they went on to ask that the government of Venezuela make "its position clear regarding guarantees to the other bolivarian organizations that...

A Republican in the blue state of New Jersey is bucking what some decry as a national trend to eradicate all traces of religion in public places. Steve Lonegan, who is running for the Republican nomination for New Jersey governor, is defying a school-district edict that bans religious music from holiday-season celebrations this year. Mr. Lonegan has asked local residents of all religions to join him at 5 p.m. tomorrow "to sing and listen to" songs such as George Frederick Handel's "Messiah" and "Silent Night," which have been banned from schools, even in instrumental form, by the South Orange/Maplewood School...

BOGOTA, Colombia - President Bush was targeted for assassination by Colombia's biggest Marxist rebel group this week when he visited the Caribbean port city of Cartagena, a top Colombian official said Saturday. "According to informants and various sources, we had information indicating that various members of the FARC had been instructed by their leaders to make an attempt against President Bush," Defense Secretary Jorge Alberto Uribe told reporters. He would not reveal details of the threat. The Secret Service, which protects the president, said it "does not comment or release information regarding our protective intelligence and protective methods." "We do...

TRENTON -- Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan this afternoon said that he has filed paperwork with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission to run for Governor in the 2005 election. Lonegan will run in the June 2005 Republican Primary and said his announcement today was designed to tell Republicans and Democrats alike that “the Democrats can run who they want to replace McGreevey. They don’t scare me. Every one of these possible candidates represents the same failed pro-tax, anti-suburban, pro-abortion, anti-homeowner liberal-left agenda that McGreevey represented and I’ll beat whoever they put up, regardless of how much they spend.” The...

Misael Vacca Ramirez, the Bishop of Yopal BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe ordered his troops to launch a rescue operation if they locate a Roman Catholic bishop being held by Marxist rebels in jungle-covered mountains. Hundreds of counterinsurgency forces searched the northwestern Casanare region Monday for signs of Misael Vacca Ramirez, the Bishop of Yopal. He was seized Sunday by members of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, the smaller of Colombia's two main rebel groups. "Kidnapping is indefensible," Uribe told reporters. "He must be rescued, and I hope that he quickly regains his freedom." Speaking Tuesday from...

BOGOTA, Colombia - A car bomb exploded Monday near a police station and a church in Colombia's second-largest city, injuring 10 people, including a priest and two pregnant women, police said. The blast in a parking lot in the northwestern city of Medellin knocked down walls and damaged a Catholic church where morning Mass was under way. About 60 people were in church when the explosion occurred, shattering Italian windows that were more than a century old, the Rev. Jose Giraldo, who was unhurt, told local radio. Another priest, the Rev. Javier Arango, was hospitalized with cuts to his face,...

Lonegan leads fight against gas tax hike -- and possibly prepares for '05 gubernatorial bidBy STEVE KORNACKIPoliticsNJ.comDecember 1 - As Democrats and Republicans in Trenton decide whether they want to take up the hot potato issue of a gas tax\ increase during the lame duck legislative session, one Republican mayor is seeking to turn the matter into a litmus test for conservatives. Steven Lonegan, who was just elected to his third term as mayor of the Bergen County town of Bogota, launched a web site -- nogastaxhike.com -- several weeks ago to combat the effort to raise the tax....