News stories by Constanza Vieira, page 8

The so-called para-politics, para-institutions and para-economy in Colombia 'have their place in the dock' among the accused, said eight former leaders of ultra-right armed paramilitary groups, now demobilised and charged with crimes against humanity in the nation's decades-long civil war.

Venezuela's Minister of Interior and Justice, Tarek El Aissami, presented a report Oct. 29, 2009, to his country's National Assembly. That report is believed to have resulted, two days later, in the murder of two people on a farm in neighbouring Colombia, near the capital.

Time does not heal everything. Finding the Colombian state guilty in the murder of Patriotic Union (UP) Senator Manuel Cepeda, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights considered the 16 years of impunity enjoyed by the masterminds behind the killing an aggravating factor.

Former Colombian Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos was elected president with the votes of just 30 percent of all voters on the electoral rolls, while turnout stood at a mere 45 percent in this country caught up in a civil war since 1964.

Surrounded by a protective phalanx of stern generals and police chiefs, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe assailed a court ruling that sentenced a senior army officer for human rights crimes committed nearly 25 years ago.

Opinion polls on Sunday's presidential elections in Colombia turned out to be correct in predicting a June runoff. But they pointed to a much smaller gap between the two leading candidates.

Colombian presidential candidate Antanas Mockus said he 'shares the horror' over the so-called 'false positives' -- young civilians killed by the army and passed off as guerrilla casualties in the military's counterinsurgency campaign.

Feliciano Valencia, who holds the rank of minister for the Nasa indigenous people in the southwestern Colombian province of Cauca, was arrested Saturday but released on bail.

Noemí Sanín, the presidential candidate of Colombia's Conservative Party, who is running second in the polls, has a few advantages over her main rival, the right-wing Juan Manuel Santos, such as extensive experience in foreign relations and in running programmes for poor families and children.

A leading international rights group urged the Colombian government to take action against what it called the 'successors' to the far-right paramilitary militias, which continue attacking civilians and human rights defenders.