Thursday, March 12, 2026

Latest News

Valencia picks Oviedo as VP to expand Colombia’s center-right base

By Richard Emblin -

Conservative presidential candidate Paloma Valencia has chosen economist and former statistics chief Juan Daniel Oviedo as her vice-presidential running mate, a move widely interpreted as an effort by the right-wing Centro Democrático to broaden its appeal beyond its traditional conservative base ahead of Colombia’s May 31 presidential election. The alliance seeks to balance Valencia’s hard-line […]

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Indigenous communities caught in armed clashes in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada

By Richard Emblin -

Colombia’s high-altitude Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta has become the latest flashpoint in the country’s worsening rural security crisis, after armed clashes between illegal groups left Indigenous communities trapped in the crossfire and triggered a humanitarian evacuation mission. Authorities confirmed that at least nine wounded civilians, including two minors, were evacuated following heavy fighting between […]

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Paloma Valencia surge reshapes Colombia race as election season begins

By Richard Emblin -

Colombia’s presidential race entered a decisive new phase this week after Sunday’s inter-party primaries propelled conservative senator Paloma Valencia into the national spotlight and triggered a scramble among political factions to forge alliances ahead of the May 31 election. Valencia’s commanding performance in the right-wing “La Gran Consulta” primary – where she secured roughly six […]

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Petro opens consultation on ‘Black Line’ after Colombia court ends protection decree

By Richard Emblin -

President Gustavo Petro has announced the start of a consultation process with ethnic communities to draft a new decree protecting the sacred “Black Line” of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta after Colombia’s highest administrative court annulled the previous legal framework governing the ancestral territory. The announcement came late on March 4 during an interethnic […]

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Ex-FARC admit to recruiting 18,677 children during Colombia conflict

By Richard Emblin -

Colombia’s transitional justice system has reached a morally charged milestone. The seven former commanders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) guerrilla have formally accepted responsibility for the recruitment of 18,677 minors during the country’s decades-long internal conflict, acknowledging not only the scale of the practice but also the sexual and reproductive abuses that […]

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Colombia set for inter-party primaries, presidential race gripped by apathy

By Richard Emblin -

Colombians head to the polls on March 8 for what is, formally, a legislative election. In practice, it is something more consequential: a stress test of the country’s political coalitions ahead of the May 31 presidential race already defined by fragmentation – and by mounting security concerns for right-wing candidates. The vote for Congress matters. […]

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Suspected drone attack disrupts high-level visit to Colombia’s Hidroituango

By The City Paper Staff -

Colombia’s security forces alerted late Sunday Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez and Antioquia Governor Andrés Julián Rendón to cancel a planned visit to the Hidroituango hydroelectric complex for Monday, March 2, after intelligence warnings of a possible drone attack and credible terrorist threat. The visit, which included a press conference expected to draw around 100 journalists, […]

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UN report warns Colombia faces worsening human rights crisis

By Richard Emblin -

Colombia is at risk of sliding back into one of the darkest chapters of its recent history, according to a stark new report by the United Nations, which warns that escalating violence, territorial control by illegal armed groups and political instability are eroding hard-won human rights gains. The annual assessment by the Office of the […]

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Global airlines return to Venezuela, Avianca restores Bogotá–Caracas flight

By Richard Emblin -

International airlines are rapidly re-establishing services to Venezuela, signalling a cautious but commercially significant reopening of the country’s aviation market. On Thursday, February 12, Colombia’s Avianca resumed a daily direct flights between Bogotá and Caracas. The move restores one of the most important air corridors in northern South America and comes amid a flurry of […]

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Extreme flooding in northern Colombia triggers humanitarian crisis

By The City Paper Staff -

Unseasonal heavy rains and severe flooding across northern Colombia have created a full-blown humanitarian crisis, displacing hundreds of thousands, destroying homes and farmland, and pushing local infrastructure and health systems to breaking point. The disaster has hit hardest in the department of Córdoba, where officials say 156,000 people have been affected and 80% of the […]

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Petro and Trump: What next in U.S.–Colombia relations?

By Richard Emblin -

Nearly a week after Donald Trump hosted Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, at the White House, calm has returned to a bilateral relationship that only recently appeared headed for rupture. The insults have stopped. The social media theatrics have faded. Diplomacy, not spectacle, is back in charge. This alone tells us that both governments have agreed […]

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All That Glitters Isn’t Trump Nor Petro

By Richard Emblin -

Colombian President Gustavo Petro appeared on Tuesday to melt into the gilded woodwork of the Oval Office, wearing a gold tie and an uncharacteristically sober dark suit. Seated beside U.S. President Donald Trump, the two-hour meeting appeared—at least on the surface—to be a cordial encounter between political adversaries entrenched on opposite sides of the ideological […]

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Tropical storms batter Colombia’s Caribbean coast, flooding tens of thousands of homes

By Richard Emblin -

Powerful storm surges and weeks of unusually intense rainfall have triggered widespread flooding across Colombia’s Caribbean coast, affecting more than 50,000 families, damaging homes and infrastructure, and placing hundreds of thousands of livestock at risk, authorities said. The floods have hit the Magdalena River basin and large swathes of northern Colombia, forcing beach closures in […]

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Colombia rules out external factors in SATENA crash as probe opens

By The City Paper Staff -

Colombian authorities said on Thursday they have found no evidence so far of “external factors” contributing to the crash on Wednesday of a SATENA Beechcraft 1900 aircraft on the Cúcuta–Ocaña route , which killed all 15 people on board. The conclusions were presented during a press conference held at Ocaña airport in the northeastern department […]

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Colombia’s Petro claims U.S. “kidnapped” Maduro during Caracas strike

By The City Paper Staff -

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Tuesday that Nicolás Maduro should be returned to Venezuela to face trial in his home country, calling the U.S. military operation that captured the ousted leader in Caracas earlier this month a “kidnapping” that violated Venezuelan sovereignty. “They have to return him and have him tried by a Venezuelan […]

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