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Senator Chuck Schumer wrote a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today calling for “increased scrutiny” of the Iranian Mission to the United Nations in light of potential terrorist attacks against New York City. Pointing to NYPD’s director of intelligence warning that Iran is “essentially” the number one threat, Mr. Schumer argued these diplomats must ”be vigorously monitored.” “With Iran’s increasingly bellicose and threatening behavior, it’s imperative that agents of the Iranian government in the United States receive additional scrutiny to ensure that they pose no threat to New York or the rest of the country,” Mr. Schumer said...

“Our homeland is bleeding painfully,” is how Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez put it recently at a religious event whose audience included Honduran President Porfirio Lobo. Indeed, Honduras is spiraling into an ungovernable and unstable situation due to the increased operations of international drug syndicates and their local gang proxies within its territory. Last October, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime reported that Honduras, a nation of 7.6 million, now has the highest homicide rate in the world. Honduras is a victim of what counter-narcotics experts refer to as the “balloon effect,” where heavy pressures on traffickers in Colombia...

Russia said on Friday that the West was stoking the conflict in Syria by sending weapons to the opponents of President Bashar al-Assad. In an attempt to deflect criticism of Russia for blocking a U.N. Security Council resolution urging Assad to give up power, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Western states were stirring up trouble in Syria, where Assad has pursued a violent crackdown since March on protests against his 11-year rule. "Western states inciting Syrian opposition to uncompromising actions, as well as those sending arms to them, giving them advice and direction, are participating in the process of...

The only people authorized to carry weapons during the 90-day trial that began Wednesday are active and retired police and soldiers, bodyguards of diplomats, politicians, judges and prosecutors, armored car guards, gun club members and hunters. Anyone else caught with a gun will have it seized indefinitely, said the 51-year-old Petro, who took office last month. Such bans are rare in Latin America, though Brazilian civilians have not been permitted to carry arms since 2003, and Venezuela instituted a ban in November on carrying guns on buses and in passenger terminals. Bogota’s ban aims to reduce the murder rate, although...

In a move that was decried by the U.S., France, and Arab countries, Russia and China on Saturday vetoed a U.S.-backed proposal at the UN Security Council to condemn Syrian leader Bashar al-Assed for violence against Syrian citizens. The resolution that had demanded that Assad resign was backed by the Arab League, and the League on Saturday night called on Arab countries to shut down their embassies and consulates in Syria, and remove Syrian ambassadors from their countries. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said that Washington was "disgusted" by the vetoes. The vetoes followed a particularly bloody night...

WATCH: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/indian-american-group-learns-shoot-after-string-vi/nGNG5/ ARTICLE Asian-Indian community taking self-defense classes after home invasions http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/asian-indian-community-taking-self-defense-classes/nGMfw/ ALPHARETTA, Ga. — A Fulton County grand jury has indicted seven Colombian nationals for a violent home invasion. Lawyers for the men appeared in court Friday morning to learn the suspects won't get bond. Roswell police said the men robbed Raj Sharma and his family at gunpoint two weeks ago looking for gold. Police are looking into whether the men are tied to cases targeting Indian families in Alpharetta and Cobb County. "As a community, we're completely ignorant about firearms," Sanjeev Navalkar said. Navalkar works in insurance but...

Nearly a decade after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez fired 20,000 oil workers from the state oil company, Venezuelan production has slumped. In nearby Colombia, a country that has attracted many Venezuelan oil engineers, production is soaring. As recently as 2005, Colombia thought it would have to import oil, but today it is exporting sizable amounts to the United States and on the verge of producing 1 million barrels a day.

It was a proud day in Medellín, Colombia. Mayor Alonso Salazar smiled as he announced the city's latest accomplishment, and a sycophantic press reported his happy message verbatim. The 12,000 desperately poor people of Medellín's Comuna 13, a shantytown set high atop a steep hill, had spent generations climbing up and down some 530 mountainside stairs to reach their homes. It has always been a 35-minute walk, each way, a challenge for even the healthiest among them. But it is no longer. What did the city do to alleviate the pain of its most destitute? The city of Medellín, long...

Ecuador has deployed some 10,000 security forces to its border with Colombia to deal with a "most grave" security problem, President Rafael Correa said Saturday. Correa said the troops and police forces were deployed to bolster security amid concerns about "organized crime, drug trafficking (and) irregular groups," including paramilitary groups and Marxist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia known as FARC.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents have raided an Oklahoma car dealership that the government suspects may be one of about 30 such businesses in the U.S. involved in funding the terrorist group Hezbollah. DEA agents say the car lot of Ace Auto Leasing in Tulsa is part of a huge network that is selling cars and drugs -- and then using the money to support terrorism against the U.S., myfoxphoenix.com reports. During Friday's raid, agents could be seen carryout out filing cabinets and other items. They also questioned employees and took inventory. "They're making big time money and it's going right...

What does it take to be a crime reporter in the murder capital of the world? Everything, says Irma Londono. For 17 years, Irma Londono did her part to uncover the truth about drug trafficking in Colombia. As a journalist, Londono disregarded comments that women did not belong in her field, endured challenges to her credibility from corrupt officials and even survived a kidnapping from guerilla rebels. But when threats against her life escalated, the award-winning journalist heeded her mother’s advice and fled to the United States as a political refugee, leaving her family, friends and career behind. “I am...

As Occupy Wall Street droned on about the evils of corporate avarice last month, a multimillion-dollar international scandal broke in Bogotá, exposing greed and corruption in the "nongovernmental organization" (NGO) world of human rights.

Reuters) - Colombians rejoiced at the killing of top FARC rebel leader Alfonso Cano and hoped the biggest blow yet against Latin America's longest insurgency could herald an end to nearly five decades of war. In a triumph for President Juan Manuel Santos' hardline security policy, officials said forces bombed a FARC jungle hide-out in the mountainous southwestern Cauca region. Troops then rappelled down from helicopters to search the area, killing the widely hated Marxist rebel boss, his girlfriend and several other rebels in a gun battle on Friday. Pictures of his dead body showed him without his trademark beard,...

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The top leader of Colombia's main rebel group, the bookish ideologue Alfonso Cano, was killed Friday in a military bombing in the country's southwest, authorities said. "The fingerprints matched," said one senior security official who confirmed the death, adding that Cano was killed in "a standard military operation" in Cauca state in which ground troops also participated. The official spoke on condition he not be further identified. Cano, the 63-year-old head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had been the top target of Colombian authorities since September 2010, when they killed the insurgency's...

Pentagon counternarcotics and counterterrorism operations around the world were abruptly suspended this month when the Defense Department officials overseeing the programs failed to ensure they were funded by congressional authorizations, according to documents obtained by The Washington Examiner. The lapse has caused serious national security and diplomatic problems for the U.S. military, according to Defense Department officials. The authorizations cover joint counternarcotics operations with foreign governments, as well as federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the U.S. The mix-up occurred when the anti-narcotics programs were not included on a list provided to Congress of operations that needed to...

A $90 million contract aimed at creating jobs as well as strengthening local governments in Colombia has been awarded to Chemonics International by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The Consolidation and Enhanced Livelihoods Initiative, or CELI, as it is known, seeks to sway Colombian citizens from participating in drug-related activities and to instead pursue legal livelihoods. A U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor previously reported, USAID earlier this year separately awarded a $110 million contract to a different vendor to achieve similar goals across Colombia (see: U.S. Contractor to Help Colombia Establish 'Presence' in Former Coca-Eradication Zones, April 27,...

All across America there are cities and towns that were once prosperous and beautiful that are being transformed into absolute hellholes. The scars left by the long-term economic decline of the United States are getting deeper and more gruesome. The tax base in many areas of the nation has been absolutely devastated as millions of jobs have left this country. Hundreds of cities are drowning in debt and are desperately trying to survive. Last year, city government revenues in the United States fell by another 2.3 percent. That was the fifth year in a row that we have seen...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Oct 11, 2011 / 03:34 pm (CNA).- Saudi Arabia’s religious police detained a Colombian soccer player at a shopping mall on Oct. 7 for not covering up an image of Jesus tattooed on his shoulder.Juan Pablo Pino, 24, who plays with the Al Nasr Soccer Club in Saudi Arabia, was wearing a sleeveless shirt while out with his pregnant wife at a mall in the capital city of Riyadh.Locals who saw the tattoo began insulting him, which drew the attention of the officers from a group known as the Police Force for the Promotion of Virtue of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly a dozen Republican senators on Wednesday urged President Barack Obama to quickly send Congress three long-delayed trade deals that they said would help put Americans back to work. "If the president really cares about jobs, he will send up the agreements immediately," Senator Rob Portman told reporters, referring to deals with South Korea, Panama and Colombia signed more than four years ago. With Obama set to outline his ideas for reducing high U.S. unemployment in a speech on Thursday night, Senator Mike Johanns urged the president to announce that he will send the pacts to Congress...

According to the White House, President Obama has been huddling with advisers on a jobs plan he’ll present to Congress this week. One thing he could do immediately is finalize the free-trade deals with Colombia, South Korea and Panama that have been languishing on his desk. For nearly three years, Republicans and a number of Democrats have been calling on the president to approve these deals to create a level playing field with America’s competitors overseas, vastly expand the market for U.S. goods, strengthen our ties with three important allies and create jobs for Americans. Yet the deals have been...

Although the Government of Colombia typically investigates allegations of human rights violations, its budget does not allocate enough funds to promote human rights and prevent violations; consequently, the Government of the United States instead will continue to force U.S. taxpayers to pay for such endeavors. Indeed, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is about to embark upon Round Three of such efforts. Management Sciences for Development, Inc., the contractor carrying out Human Rights Program II, or HRP II, is nearing completion of its obligations under a five-year, $38.8 million contract. The next phase, known as HRP III (Solicitation #...

Media: Just days before the U.S.-Colombia free trade pact heads for a vote, the Washington Post publishes a story claiming Colombia's miracle is a sham. This is a smear unworthy of the name "journalism." Topping the front page in its Sunday edition with "A case of aid gone bad in Colombia," the Post attempted to rewrite history by claiming the U.S.'s $8 billion Plan Colombia military program that broke the back of its drug cartels was really ... a waste. Pay no attention to the safety, security and economic growth that have made Colombia such an attractive partner for a...

Politics: These days, what would a firm that outsourced 400,000 U.S. jobs be called? The answer: labor union. Monday's Canada-Colombia free-trade pact is its masterpiece. Leo Gerard, the proudly Canadian president of the United Steelworkers Union, is one of many who ought to stand up and take a bow. He and his fellow Big Labor union bosses loudly opposed the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement, using their political muscle to keep the already-negotiated deal on ice in Congress and the White House for nearly five years. It's come at a massive cost to American workers' jobs. Gerard's native land put its...

Jacksonville is bananas for bananas. Consumers here eat so many that Dole Fresh Fruit has bestowed on us the title "Top Banana City." But how much do you really know about bananas? 1. They're naturally radioactive, but it's no big deal. We're exposed to low levels of natural radiation every day; it's even emitted by our bodies. So it's OK to keep eating bananas, radiation and all. 2. Bananas are berries. Botanically speaking, "berry" is defined as a fruit produced from a single ovary, so bananas are in the same category as grapes, cranberries and tomatoes. But botanically, strawberries and...

16 Countries, Including Mexico, File Briefs Against New Alabama Immigration Law August 04, 2011 In an effort to ensure their citizens are treated fairly in Alabama, 16 nations, including Mexico, filed briefs against the state’s controversial new immigration law that has already drawn fire from the U.S. Department of Justice. Edward Still, a Birmingham attorney who filed the brief, told The Montgomery Advertiser that the nations “want to have one immigration law and not 50.” "Mexico has an interest in protecting its citizens and ensuring that their ethnicity is not used as basis for state-sanctioned acts of bias and discrimination,"...

Who says women shouldn’t use sex to get what they want? In the far-away Colombian town of Barbacoas, female residents are making international headlines by withholding sex until the government provides a safe passageway from their village to other towns in the province. The “crossed legs movement” has been going on for the better part of the summer. Barbacoas’ roads in and out of the town are not paved, making travel hazardous, access to medical care difficult, and commodities prices five or six times higher than other areas of the country.

The woman flying into Fort Lauderdale International Airport from Colombia on Saturday afternoon had three bags of kidney beans and two bags of pistachios in her carry-on suitcase. It must have struck the customs inspector as odd. So he cut open one of the kidney beans, to reveal "a white powdery substance" – cocaine, six kilos' (13.2 pounds') worth in all.

This one took out an ad in El Diaro, a Spanish-language daily in New York City, to attract clients for his services facilitating driver’s license acquisition in New Mexico, according to court papers. The cost of the service: $2,500 to $2,700, plus expenses incurred getting to New Mexico. The U.S. Border Patrol arrested and charged Jose Luis Aguirre last month with harboring illegal immigrants Elsa Puente-Vasquez of Ecuador and her husband, Luis Sancho-Pachar, along with Edwin Zorrilla-Ordonez of Colombia. Aguirre’s is the latest case in an international market that has drawn foreign nationals from India, Poland, Brazil, Korea and elsewhere...

President Hugo Chavez said Thursday he will not to tolerate the presence of Colombian guerrillas in Venezuelan territory, adding that he's confident Colombia's government would in turn capture any opponents conspiring against his government. "We are not going to allow the presence of any armed group," including rebels, paramilitary fighters and drug traffickers in Venezuelan territory, Chavez said before meeting with former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. "We have fulfilled our obligations." The socialist leader's comments came a day after Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced that a top commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or...

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe says South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon were “naive” to vote for a United Nations Security Council resolution which has been used by Western countries to carry out a sustained bombardment of Libya. “Our African countries were naïve, absolutely naïve, to vote with the West when the West had its interests, you know, its own motives ... ulterior motives,” Mugabe said in an interview published on Friday. “These motives include wanting to re-occupy our countries. They are in search of our resources, in search of political control. It's now the reversal of the freedoms that we attained through...

On Thursday, four Columbian nationals were arrested in a pair of traffic stops carried out by a multi-agency task force in Houston. The suspects have been on the run since allegedly fatally wounding a jewelry salesman on April 17. Fernando Rodriguez-Amaya, 50, Luis Garcia-Campos, 30, Oscar Ruiz Garcia, 38, and Maria Silva, 30, have all been charged with murder and theft and are currently being held in the Walker County Jail. Immigration holds have also been placed on each of the suspects. On the night of April 17, Arif Sayed, 59, was eating his meal at a McDonalds in Huntsville,...

Trade: After two years of stalling, President Obama announced a breakthrough on the U.S.- Colombia free-trade treaty, paving the way for its passage. As the left cries sellout, notice who's cheering: America's battered private sector . It's been so long since American businesses have had anything to cheer from Washington that Wednesday's announcement about a plan to pass the long-languishing U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement — to be presented by presidents of both countries at the White House on Thursday — brought a unanimous chorus of approval. "This is an important market for U.S. farmers and we do not want to...

The Obama administration has announced a renegotiated trade agreement with Colombia. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Michael Froman, the deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, held a noon conference call to announce an agreement on the controversial trade deal. The reworked agreement could help break a logjam of trade deals on Capitol Hill. Republicans in both the House and the Senate have been calling on the administration to send pending agreements with Colombia and Panama to Congress for approval and have threatened to hold up another renegotiated trade deal with Korea until action was taken on the...

Israel wins rare victory in Latin America with Colombian President Calderon announcement at World Jewish Congress meeting in Bogota. After suffering a series of diplomatic defeats to the Palestinians in Latin America, Israel won a rare victory on Wednesday when Colombia announced that it would not unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos told a delegation of the World Jewish Congress in a meeting in the Colombian capital of Bogota that his government would not recognize Palestinian statehood as “a matter of principle.”

It was like a scene from "Weekend at Bernie's" when a Colombian soccer team recently got an unexpected fan. Friends brought a coffin with the body of a 17-year-old boy into a soccer match Sunday between Cucuta Deportivo and Envigado, according to Colombia Reports. Christopher Jacome, a big fan of Cucuta, was gunned down Saturday in a local park while playing soccer, according to the paper. Friends of Jacome took his body from the funeral home after the wake and brought it into General Santander Stadium for the game. "They don't let in the fanatics, but yes, a cadaver. This...

President looks ridiculous ignoring Colombia and Panama on Latin America tripWhen President Obama begins his tour of Latin America on Friday, two countries will be conspicuously missing from his itinerary: Colombia and Panama. Although Mr. Obama plans to swing by Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, he opted not to schedule visits to a pair of nations he claims are important partners in his plan to double U.S. exports by 2015. Their absence on his schedule is disappointing - but no surprise. Five years ago, the United States negotiated free-trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, and Mr. Obama has called for...

Colombia's armed forces say they have killed a Farc rebel leader who acted as the group's main contact with Mexico's drug cartels. The rebel known as Oliver Solarte controlled drugs and weapons smuggling operations in southern Colombia, President Juan Manuel Santos said. He died in an attack on rebel positions near the border with Ecuador. It is the latest in a series of blows to the guerrillas, who have lost many of their top leaders in recent years.Farc setbacks President Santos said the death of Oliver Solarte was an "important blow" to the left-wing group. ""I want to tell them...

Foreign Policy: President Obama has picked, tourist-like, three random countries for his first showy trip to South America. By contrast, Rep. Michele Bachmann, who just got back, demonstrated what a serious policy visit is. These days it seems like all of Washington wants to visit Latin America, an economically booming region with fiscal policies that have kept it out of recession. But purposes of the trips vary widely. From March 19 to 23, President Obama will pay his first visit to Central and South America, with stops to include Brazil, Chile and El Salvador. He is going late, more than...

The Colombian military has nabbed a sophisticated, 100-foot long submarine capable of transporting eight tons of cocaine to the coast of Mexico, authorities said Monday. The fiberglass sub, which was seized in a jungle in Timbiqui, near the Colombia's southwestern Pacific coast, could carry a crew of four to six people, had two diesel engines and navigational equipment allowing it to remain fully submerged up to 30 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, navy officials said. It also had a 16 ½ foot periscope and an air-conditioner to keep the crew cool during the trip. Authorities estimated it...

As one walks the streets of Medellin’s communas, it is striking how much more developed these poor and crime-ridden neighborhoods are compared to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the barrios of Cuidad Juarez, or shantytowns of Johannesburg. The hilly streets are wide and paved, and electricity, gas, and water are provided to over 90 percent of the population. Yet, despite the impressive public-goods distribution and other laudable shift in policies in Medellin over the past decade, homicides and other violence have increased again. With pervasive urban crime increasingly a 21st century phenomenon and urban "ungoverned spaces" posing important threats...

Geopolitics: America's string-along -and-dither policy on a free-trade pact with Colombia is not only costing U.S. firms; it's exacting a strategic price. China is now exploiting the void with a dry canal at a strategic choke point. A decade ago, military analysts worried about what the final handover of the Panama Canal in 2000 might mean if Chinese companies got a foothold there. Some did, setting up warehouses. Today, something much more dramatic is happening. China's Development Bank is prepared to splash out $7.6 billion to build a whole new railroad "dry canal" on the Colombian side of the isthmus...

Colombia has announced it is negotiating with China to build an alternative to the Panama Canal. The proposed transport route is intended to promote the flow of goods between Asia and Latin America. The plan is to create a "dry canal" where the Pacific port of Buenaventura would be linked by rail, across Colombia, to the Atlantic Coast. Trade between Colombia and China has increased from $10m in 1980 to more than $5bn last year. The announcement came from the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, who told the Financial Times that the project was "a real proposal... and it is...

Further delay will hinder economic growth and cost jobsIt has been four years since the United States and Colombia signed a reciprocal trade agreement. Unfortunately, the agreement has yet to be implemented. In June 2007, then-President George W. Bush sent the agreement to Congress but the Democratic majority in the House refused to vote on it. The new Republican Majority in the House must ensure a vote on this agreement, as it will create U.S. jobs and make good on a promise to an important ally. Passing the agreement would create U.S. jobs by eliminating tariffs on U.S. exports to...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday held a joint briefing with Colombia Vice President Angelino Garzon — and told a reporter that the White House intended to submit the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement for a vote before the year was up. The disbelieving reporter made sure he heard that right and got the same ‘yes’ the second time. The exchange read as follows: Reporter: Vice President Garzon asked two days ago the Obama Administration to send this year to Congress the Free Trade Agreement. With all due respect, is the — you — Obama Administration going to do that,...

IAI offers 'power-by-the-hour' use of 767 tankers By Arie Egozi Israel Aerospace Industries has offered some air forces a deal that would enable them to have an aerial refuelling capability on a "power-by-the-hour" basis. The plan is based mostly on the use of converted Boeing 767s to be operated either by a local airline or by Israeli pilots. It has been prepared for nations that cannot afford to buy their own tankers. Negotiations are under way with air forces that have shown an interest in the proposal, says a senior IAI source. In 2008, IAI won a contract to convert...

Islamic rebels familiar with the barren terrain of the Sahara have struck deals under which they provide armed security escorts for drug traffickers in return for a slice of their profits. Counter-terrorism experts said that the terrorists belong to the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) group, which has kidnapped a series of Westerners and killed a British tourist last year. They warned that the money they receive from drugs gangs could be used to attract new recruits and plan terrorist attacks on European cities. Olivier Guitta, a counter-terrorism and foreign affairs consultant, said that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of...

Sarah Palin is planning her first real foreign trip—a move that could burnish her foreign policy credentials in advance of a 2012 presidential run. The Daily Beast has learned that Sarah Palin will be traveling overseas in the new year. At the top of the list: Israel and England, both countries she has said she wanted to travel to in the past. The schedule and itinerary is still fluid, but an overseas trip in 2011 will boost her foreign policy credentials, something she can turn to in a potential 2012 presidential run. Up to now Palin’s travel outside of North...

Egypt and 18 other countries will not attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, officials said in an announcement that followed a Chinese campaign to dissuade diplomats from showing up. Representatives of different embassies, including those of Egypt, Russia, Pakistan, Serbia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Colombia have turned down the invitation to the event, scheduled to take place in Oslo on 10 December, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee said. At least 44 of the 65 embassies that have been invited have accepted the invitation, the committee claims, adding that the Chinese boycott...

AS many as 200 people may have been buried in a landslide yesterday that swept over 10 houses in Medellin, Colombia's second largest city, Red Cross relief workers said. "The initial count is that there may be 150-200 people considered missing. So far we have rescued three alive," said Cesar Uruena, a Red Cross operations deputy director. "We are focused on moving rubble to see if we find survivors," he added. Medellin is 250 miles (400 km) northwest of Bogota.

When Juan Manuel Santos came into office as Colombia's president and emphasized economic issues over the fight against terrorist guerrillas, he was suspected of going soft on those he had combated as minister of defense under the previous administration. Little did his critics know that he was planning the "coup de grace" against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The devastating Sept. 22 attack on FARC headquarters in Colombia's central Meta province all but signifies the end of the five-decade-old conflict. It will take a little while for the official end to be declared, but this war is pretty...