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A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.8 has struck just off the coast of northwest Ecuador, centered near Pedernales and Muisne, seismologists say. A tsunami alert has been issued for coastal areas of Ecuador and Colombia. LIVE UPDATES: Twitter, Facebook The earthquake, at 6:58 p.m. local time on Saturday, was centered just northwest of Pedernales, or 27 kilometers (17 miles) southeast of Muisne. It struck about 19 kilometers (12 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to seismologists. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) put the magnitude of Saturday's earthquake at 7.8, a significant increase from its...

Iranian Army Commander Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi on Saturday announced that Iran intends to deploy warships and destroyers in Latin America, in a sign of the attempts of the leading state sponsor of terror to expand its military cooperation with countries opposing the US. We intend to take a longer stride in marine voyages and even go towards friendly states in Latin America," Salehi told reporters at the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency. Speaking at a ceremony welcoming back the Iranian Navy's 38th fleet after 75 days of international deployment, he said...

The Colombian Air Force’s (Fuerza Aérea Colombiana – FAC) programme to integrate Israeli-made Spike air-to-surface missiles onto several of its Black Hawk helicopters is almost complete, according to industry sources. Several modified UH-60L Black Hawks are operated by the FAC, known locally as the ‘Arpia’, which have been adapted to an AH-60L gunship variant with the edition of weapon pylons and a Toplite II electro-optical sensor turret. Earlier versions (pictured above) of the AH-60L could only fire unguided 70mm rockets and machine guns. Now the AH-60Ls are in the process of being upgraded to the Mark IV standard, which sees...

Anyone trying to understand why Donald Trump always has thought New Hampshire would be friendlier to him than Iowa should put aside the polls for a moment and focus on what each state's Republican voters are putting on their Spotify playlists. According to data for the week ending Feb. 1, Iowa Republicans can't stop listening to "This Is Amazing Grace" by Christian rocker Phil Wickham, which opens with the verse: "Who breaks the power of sin and darkness/Whose love is mighty and so much stronger/The King of Glory, the King above all kings." Republicans in New Hampshire, meanwhile, prefer "Idle...

Peppa Pig puts kids off pork by Latin Correspondent | 28th January 2016 229 SOCIAL BUZZ A traditional Colombian lechona. Photo: Pinterest. A traditional Colombian lechona. Photo: Pinterest. Peppa Pig, a firm favorite among kids across the globe, is causing uproar in one Colombian department. Parents in the town of Ibagué, in the Tolima department, famed for its pork dishes and traditional gastronomy, are hitting back on social media over claims that Peppa is putting their kids off pork. One of the region’s typical dishes includes Lechona, a whole roast pig stuffed with chick peas, rice, onions and spices –...

Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA, has delayed the export of natural gas to Colombia because of climate factors, the Colombian Mines and Energy Ministry said on Friday. In a letter to the Colombian government on Wednesday, PDVSA said the exports would not begin because of "climate variability," the ministry said in a statement. The exports are part of a deal between the two countries, which includes provisions for the neighbors to supply their own markets if necessary before exporting. ... Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol has asked PDVSA to give a new date by which the exports could begin.

A common misconnection that exists today rests on the notion that there are no racial hierarchies in Latin American countries or within the Latino communities in the United States. (SNIP) The shooting of unarmed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin by a half-Peruvian and half-White man named George Zimmerman, the rise of so-called Hispanic conservatives like Ted Cruz, Al Cardenas and Marco Rubio, and the examples of racist comments by Latinos in the media like Rodner Figueroa, have made it impossible to have a conversation of Latinos and race. (SNIP) This Saturday, the Miss Puerto Rico winner for the Miss America pageant...

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- After a decade on the advance, the left in South America is in retreat. Just in the past month, voters in Argentina elected a conservative businessman president over the chosen successor of Cristina Fernandez and Brazil's congress launched an impeachment probe against President Dilma Rousseff, whose approval ratings have been languishing in single digits. In perhaps the biggest turnabout, voters in Venezuela, where the region's leftward shift began, handed the opposition a landslide victory in congressional elections - its first nationwide legislative win since the U.S.-bashing Hugo Chavez won the presidency in 1998. The backlash comes...

Miss Colombia will suffer psychological damage as a result of Steve Harvey's blunder ... so says the country's Counsul General to New York. Maria Isabel Nieto tells TMZ the snafu was extremely painful for Miss Colombia and will likely cause long-term issues. Nieto notes it was not only psychological torture to have the crown taken away but physically traumatizing to have it removed. The Counsul General thinks Donald Trump is right on the money ... Miss Philippines and Miss Colombia should share the crown. Failing that, Nieto thinks pageant officials should give Miss Colombia a more expanded role in the...

Spanish galleon San Jose sank more than 300 years ago in battle with British, while carrying vast cargo of gold and precious stones Colombia’s discovery of the 300-year-old, shipwrecked galleon San Jose, thought to be loaded with some $10 billion in gold and precious stones, could shed light on an important period in Spanish colonial history but also spawn legal battles over the valuable cargo. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said his country spent two years studying historical maps, meteorology and used the latest sea-searching technology to locate the Spanish vessel, which sank during a battle in 1708 in the...

Hillary Clinton is upping her anti-Wall Street rhetoric, amid reports that the Clinton Foundation is running a private-equity company down in Colombia.The same private-equity field dissed by 2008 Obama in hundreds of millions of dollars of negative ads against Mitt Romney b/c Romney earned his fortune w/ a PEF. The Bogota-based Fondo Acceso, started in 2010 by Bill Clinton, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and mining millionaire Frank Giustra....$20 million seed funding supposedly came from the Clinton Foundations Clinton-Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative and Carlos Slims the SLIM Foundation, the Washington Free Beacon reports. In an ominous sign, Fondo Acceso took down...

The United States spent a total of $5.9 billion to fund militaries around the world in 2014, according to the government’s 2015 Foreign Assistance report. Of that total, some 75%, or about $4.4 billion, was divided between Israel and Egypt. Clearly, the Middle East, at 64% of the pie, is the theme here, with Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon also found among the top 10 recipients. Closer to home, Colombia led the Americas with a relatively scant $29 million. Still, that’s enough to place it ninth overall on the list.

This is a story that took place early in the year, so with all the water that’s passed under the bridge since then it might call for a quick refresher course. Do you remember these DEA agents who were working to foil the cartels in Colombia? Drug Enforcement Administration agents allegedly had “sex parties” with prostitutes hired by local drug cartels overseas over a period of several years, according to a report released Thursday by the Justice Department’s watchdog.The report did not specify the country where the parties occurred, but a law enforcement official familiar with the matter identified...

Friday on “CNN Newsroom,” the Hispanic woman named Myriam Witcher who went up on stage at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Las Vegas rally Thursday, talked about her love for Trump in an interview with Brooke Baldwin. When Baldwin asked if Trump’s comments about mass deportations and Mexican rapists bothered her Witcher said, “It doesn’t bother me at all. Mr Trump is 100 percent right,” she added, “He is my perfect man, everything he says is absolutely right.”

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Monday accused Colombia’s government of giving its consent to a plan to assassinate him as both countries try to rally regional support in a border dispute exacerbating tensions between the two neighbors. Maduro said during a visit to Vietnam that the conspiracy has the consent of Colombia’s government. Maduro, who frequently accuses Colombia of trying to topple his government, didn’t present any details or evidence to back the claim but said he would soon. Officials in Bogotá didn’t immediately respond. The president’s remarks come as diplomats from 34 Western Hemisphere nations gather at the Organization...

What Obama is pursing in Iran and Cuba isn’t peace.....The list of countries designated by the United States as state sponsors of terrorism is a pretty exclusive club, a veritable Legion of Doom populated by the likes of North Korea and Syria. The Obama administration has, for reasons that seem to be mainly political, shown extraordinary solicitude toward two countries that were on the State Department’s list when he became president: Cuba and Iran. Cuba has been removed from the list — “Cuba meets the statutory criteria for rescission” was the State Department’s bloodless explanation — and John Kerry has...

Today, there are hundreds of thousands of men and women working overseas on various contracts and making good money, probably two to three times what they can make in the United States. On top of that, they may even be eligible for the foreign earned income exclusion, which in 2014 meant that the first $99,200 of their total income earned overseas was excluded from being taxed at the Federal level (it’s higher for 2015). However – and I can’t emphasize this enough – they are earning it! Naturally, the best-paying jobs are in high-threat environments such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,...

Real-estate magnate and presidential candidate Donald Trump blasted another one of his critics early Sunday morning. Trump said the reigning Miss Universe pageant winner, Colombia's Paulina Vega, was a "hypocrite" for criticizing him without giving up her award. "Miss Universe, Paulina Vega, criticized me for telling the truth about illegal immigration, but then said she would keep the crown-Hypocrite," Trump, who helps run the pageant, tweeted at roughly 5 a.m. According to the Associated Press, Vega said last Thursday that Trump's controversial comments about Mexico were "hurtful and unfair" but she had no intention of giving up her crown "because...

Bishop Juan Vicente Córdoba says 'no one chooses to be gay or straight'ROME — A Colombian bishop, insisting that being homosexual is not a sin, said Thursday it’s possible that one of the twelve apostles of Jesus was gay or that Mary Magdalene, another key New Testament figure, was a lesbian. Bishop Juan Vicente Córdoba of Fontibón, Colombia, also said the Catholic Church does not oppose same-sex couples making a life together, but does not consider such arrangements to be a marriage or a family. “No one chooses to be gay or straight,” Córdoba said. “One simply feels, loves, experiments,...

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — The government of Colombia on Thursday night rejected a major tool in the American-backed antidrug campaign — ordering a halt to the aerial spraying of the country’s vast illegal plantings of coca, the crop used to make cocaine, citing concerns that the spray causes cancer. The decision ends a program that has continued for more than two decades, raising questions about the viability of long-accepted strategies in the war on drugs in the region. Colombia is one of the closest allies of the United States in Latin America and its most stalwart partner on antidrug policy, but...