Saturday, May 2, 2026

Latest News

Child Recruitment in Colombia Surges 300 Percent Warns UNICEF

By The City Paper Staff -

Every 20 hours, somewhere in Colombia, a child vanishes into the ranks of an illegal armed group. That is the grim calculation released this week by UNICEF and the United Nations, which warn that the forced recruitment of minors has surged to levels not seen in decades, undermining Colombia’s efforts to contain its internal conflict. […]

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Colombia Confirms 15 Minors Killed in Army Bombings Against FARC Dissidents

By The City Paper Staff -

The Colombian government of President Gustavo Petro has acknowledged that at least 15 minors recruited by illegal armed groups were killed in four military operations carried out between August and November, after a report by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine revealed a higher number of child casualties than initially disclosed by the Defence Ministry. […]

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Colombia Reacts to Washington After Petro is Shown as U.S “Prisoner”

By The City Paper Staff -

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro is considering recalling the Ambassador to the United States, Daniel García-Peña, amid another escalating diplomatic crisis triggered by an AI-generated photo showing the leftist leader and Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in orange prison uniforms. The controversy, which erupted late Sunday, marks another episode in strained Colombia–U.S. relations under the governments of […]

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China’s Ruifeng Lin Wins Bogotá’s First International Violin Competition

By The City Paper Staff -

Bogotá brought its inaugural International Violin Competition to a rousing close on Saturday night, capping a week of performances that reshaped the city’s classical music landscape and signaled the arrival of a new cultural tradition. The grand finale, held at the Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo, unfolded as both a celebration of virtuosity and […]

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US Hits Seventh Narco-Boat Off Colombia, Blurring Lines Between Ally and Adversary

By The City Paper Staff -

The United States carried out its seventh missile strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific near Colombia on Tuesday, the latest in a rapidly expanding maritime campaign that has killed at least 67 people and is drawing Colombia into the same operational battlefield long reserved for President Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela. In a […]

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Bogotá Opens First International Violin Competition With Latin American Celebration

By The City Paper Staff -

Bogotá is preparing for a milestone in its cultural calendar as it inaugurates the first edition of the Bogotá International Violin Competition on October 30, an ambitious event that aims to position the Colombian capital on the global map of classical music. Organized by the Mayor’s Office through the Secretariat of Culture, Recreation and Sport, […]

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FARC Dissidents Linked to Miguel Uribe Turbay Assassination

By The City Paper Staff -

Nearly three months after the death of Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, Colombian authorities say they are closing in on what they believe is the most powerful hypothesis to date: that the illegal armed group Segunda Marquetalia ordered the killing. The claim, made by the new director of the National Police, General William Oswaldo Rincón Zambrano, […]

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Did Venezuela’s ex-spymaster Hugo Carvajal Spark OFAC Sanctions Against Petro?

By The City Paper Staff -

The U.S. Treasury’s unprecedented decision to sanction Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his inner circle has sparked speculation that recent testimony by Venezuela’s former spy chief, Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, may have cemented the move. Carvajal, once a powerful general in Hugo Chávez’s intelligence services, pleaded guilty in June 2025 to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism […]

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U.S. Deploys USS Gerald Ford to Lead Military Build-Up Near Venezuela

By The City Paper Staff -

The United States is deploying its largest and most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, to the Caribbean as part of the regional military buildup aimed at disrupting narcotics trafficking networks linked to the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro. The move marks a sharp escalation of U.S. counter-narcotics operations in Latin America and comes […]

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U.S. Treasury Puts Colombia’s Petro and Close Circle on ‘Clinton List’

By The City Paper Staff -

The U.S. Government moved aggressively against Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his inner circle on Friday, imposing sanctions that target his financial and political support network as relations between Washington and Bogotá struck a new low. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), also known as the Clinton List, designated Petro, First Lady […]

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U.S. Senate Warns of Hezbollah Expansion in Colombia and Venezuela

By The City Paper Staff -

Hezbollah’s growing foothold in Latin America has found its epicenter in Venezuela and along the porous 2,000-km long Colombia-Venezuela border, where U.S. lawmakers and former counterterrorism officials warn the militant group has built financial and logistical networks with the support of the Maduro regime and illegal armed groups. “Venezuela is a willing safe haven for […]

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U.S. Destroys Drug Boat in the Pacific as Trump Expands Anti-Narco Offensive

By The City Paper Staff -

The United States said it destroyed a vessel carrying narcotics in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, killing two people it described as “narco-terrorists,” in what marks the first U.S. military strike away from Caribbean waters under President Donald Trump’s expanding campaign against drug trafficking groups. “Yesterday, at the direction of President Trump, the Department […]

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Trump Calls Colombia’s Petro an “Illegal Drug Leader,” Halts U.S. Aid

By The City Paper Staff -

In an extraordinary escalation that threatens to end decades of strategic partnership, U.S. President Donald J. Trump on Sunday labeled Colombian President Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader” and announced the immediate suspension of U.S. financial aid to Colombia. Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump accused […]

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Bogotá: “Criminal structures” behind Congress of the Peoples protest

By The City Paper Staff -

A wave of coordinated protests and building occupations by the social movement known as the “Congress of the Peoples” has raised alarms in Bogotá this week, after Interior Minister Armando Benedetti claimed that “criminal structures” are behind the unrest, pointing to alleged infiltration by armed groups, most notably the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla. The […]

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Venezuelan Activists Attacked in Bogotá During Targeted Shooting

By The City Paper Staff -

Two Venezuelan human rights activists living in exile in Colombia were wounded in a targeted shooting on Monday afternoon in northern Bogotá, an attack that has renewed fears over the safety of political dissidents in the country. The assault took place just days after Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the 2025 Nobel […]

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