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Mexican authorities uncover border tunnel into San Diego County By: North County Times wire services - SAN DIEGO - Mexican authorities have discovered an unfinished cross-border tunnel that extends 31 feet into San Diego County, federal officials announced today. The passageway, discovered yesterday morning, originates in Baja California and is located south of the intersection of Via de la Amistad and Enrico Fermi Drive and about a half-mile east of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. So far, U.S. Border Patrol agents have not discovered access to the tunnel on the U.S....

Bogota, Jul 23 (EFE).- Five members of Conservation International and a cameraman working for the environmental organization were kidnapped in northern Colombia by suspected members of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, guerrilla group, Colombian media reported. The group was caught by surprise by ELN fighters in the hamlet of La Paz, which is close to Sincelejo, the capital of Cesar province, some 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) from Bogota, according to radio and television reports. The environmentalists had left Sincelejo last week and were working on a project to protect sections of the Serrania del Perija, a mountain range rich...

Former Mexican soldiers, police and federal agents, originally trained as an elite force of anti-drug commandos, are working as mercenaries for Mexican narcotics traffickers, bringing a new wave of drug-related killings into the United States, authorities said. Law-enforcement and intelligence officials said the well-armed gang, known as the "Zetas," is linked to hundreds of killings and dozens of kidnappings on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly over a wide area of southeastern Texas from Laredo to Brownsville and in cities throughout Mexico.

ASUNCION, Paraguay - Thousands of Paraguayans chanting "Justice! Justice!" crowded a cemetery Friday to say farewell to former President Raul Cubas's daughter, who was found dead this week after being kidnapped five months ago. AP Photo Reuters Slideshow: Daughter of Former Paraguayan President Found Dead Hundreds more lined streets of the capital, reaching out to touch the hearse carrying the body of Cecilia Cubas. Police on motorcycles led the funeral cortege. Her father, president from August 1998 to March 1999, was driven from power by deadly street riots and turmoil set off by the assassination of his vice president.

Bogotá. The supposed assistance given by Colombian guerrillas to the kidnappers of the daughter of the Paraguayan ex-president is further proof of the international tentacles of the rebels who finance themselves through criminal activities, said Colombia’s Minister of Defense, Jorge Alberto Uribe. "This only confirms the fact that Colombian narcoterrorist groups are not merely Colombians, they have roots and presence in every country", warned Uribe, who was visiting Holland, according to AP. "I was just with the people at Europol – the European police- and I saw four or five cases which involved people from these groups, especially" from the...

Latin American war could possibly break out in the next few years. Unlike what happened in the 20th century when all confrontations were caused by border disputes, this time the war could be a bloody, multinational conflict triggered by ideological reasons. All symptoms indicate that behind that likely disaster will be the irresponsible behavior of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a quixotic firebrand who is intent in reconstructing the continent according to his revolutionary fantasies. .... Venezuela has replaced Cuba as the headquarters of the violent left. A few weeks ago, a former Peruvian Army officer, Antauro Humala, after proclaiming himself...

... Zeta's Editor Rafael Poleo says that Chavez’ main problem ... may be that he has so many crises burning simultaneously, that he has no time to worry about ... running the state. Poleo is right and he is wrong. He is right because even if Chavez is really the night owl that he is supposed ... it will be hard for him to juggle all ... he is trying to handle today. He has conflicts about land interventions, company confiscations, the image of hero Danilo Anderson being destroyed, and now the Granda affair. But Poleo is also wrong because...

Alek Boyd of VCrisis has a fascinating bit of breaking news up about President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia handing over to the Venezuelan government a list of FARC Marxist narcoterrorists. To those of us from afar, it might not look like anything earth-shattering. But it is. President Uribe is one of the most effective terror fighters in the world today, a man with Bush-like and Sharon-like resolve to stomp out some of the world's most savage organized killers. Like them, he's taking a huge risk by doing it. And he's winning big. Over the weekend, it came to light that...

Despite new evidence that Venezuela has become a sort of ''Club Med'' for Latin America's violent groups, the Bush administration is unlikely to start its second term taking major steps to isolate leftist-populist President Hugo Chávez. But, eventually, it will probably do so. Judging from what incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate earlier this week and what I have heard in interviews with well-placed current and former U.S. officials, the U.S. strategy will be to wait until Chávez does something really obnoxious in the eyes of the world, which he probably will.

London 14.01.05 | Hugo Chavez, the greatest pariah ever to govern our nation, has just frozen diplomatic and trade relations with Colombia. The embarrassing thing for us decent Venezuelans is the reason for this breakage, i.e. the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Rodrigo Granda, FARC leader, was captured in Caracas by bounty hunters, when he was attending, as guest of honour, a Bolivarian celebration organized by the government of Venezuela. The Chavez regime then incurred in a series of mishaps, distortions and outright lies to cover its cosy relationship with the terrorist, who happened to have been naturalized in...

The Government continues tangling itself in lies in the case of the Foreign Minister of Colombian terrorist group FARC. We have gone from ignorance about the possibility that Mr. Granda was in Venezuela or kidnapped in Venezuela to accusations about bounty hunters kidnapping Granda in broad daylight. Of course, he makes no mention of the fact that Colombians may have perpetrated a kidnapping in Caracas in broad daylight and taken Granda all the way to the border without the Chavez Government doing anything about it. How efficient no? Even today, the Government continues to deny that it knew about Granda’s...

London 07.01.05 | Prensa Latina reports today that the lawyer of arrested FARC leader Ricardo Granda informed that Granda had both Colombian and Venezuelan citizenship. Lawyer Miguel Gonzalez expressed that his client is Colombian by birth and Venezuelan by adoption, whatever that means. Furthermore, Gonzalez is quoted saying that Granda did not need entry permits to Venezuela for he resides in that country. Granda's Venezuelan ID number was mentioned by his lawyer as 22.118.142. On other news, member of Colombia's Congress Foreign Affairs Commission Jimmy Chamorro declared that the Granda's capture in Caracas is but another proof of the close...

London 05.01.05 | The answer is, he was a guest of honour of the Bolivarian encounter of intellectuals organized, hosted and sponsored by the administration of Hugo Chavez. That’s right folks; Hugo Chavez cuddles with and invites international terrorists at the taxpayer’s expense, although this is not the first time his criminal and clumsy actions are spoilt by respectable police forces. Just to refresh public memory: Remember Montesinos’ 'arrest' in Caracas? Costa Rican authorities would later reveal that a man fitting his description entered their country using a false Venezuelan passport under the name Manuel Antonio Rodriguez. But Venezuela's Foreign...

London 04.01.05 | My astonishment with respect to the arrest of FARC leader Ricardo Granda in Caracas continues to grow, not because Granda was in Caracas as a guest of honour of Hugo Chavez but rather due to the outlandish nerve of the FARC in condemning Chavez via public communiqués. Mind you what sort of moral stance a bunch of assassins have to be claiming anything to anyone? Their rights to claim were forfeited the moment they decided to start killing innocent peasants to achieve whatever goal they set out to reach. What's more, according to UN reports 1 million...

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) confirmed that Rodrigo Granda Escobar, known as "the Chancellor" was kidnapped in Venezuela, while attending the Second Bolivarian Peoples Conference. In a statement published on their web page, the Central Command of this organization blamed the kidnapping of "Ricardo", as he is known within FARC, on "the Colombian intelligence services" and blamed his deportation on "gringo advisors and the complicit support of corrupt elements of the Venezuelan police". In the statement they went on to ask that the government of Venezuela make "its position clear regarding guarantees to the other bolivarian organizations that...

London 03.01.05 | Undoubtedly internet is the true revolution, so much so that a bunch of assassins, otherwise known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), have their own website where they post communiqués and other stuff. During last December's meeting in Caracas of guerrilla fighters, leftist talebans and revolutionaries, Ricardo Granda a.k.a FARC's 'foreign secretary' was arrested by Colombian police forces and whisked to Colombia. FARC leaders weren't amused by the operation and have released a communiqué criticising comrade Hugo for lack of protective measures towards such honourable guests. These guerrilla fighters must truly enjoy to crack bad...

Poor President Bush, so hated by "the world" and yet so incredibly popular at home. We all know why he's popular - he's a man of his word, he doesn't bend with political winds, he's willing to take the hard road and he means what he says. There's one other president in our hemisphere who resembles him, a man in the middle of another terror war whose inhumanly vicious enemies have tried to assassinate him two times in the past week, adding to a long string of other efforts. And his response has been like President Bush's - to defy...

The California State Assembly is presently debating the repeal of SB 60 (SB 1XXX, Oller), the measure which gave drivers licenses to illegal aliens has already passed the State Senate, and late last week it passed the Assembly Transportation Committee. It is expected to pass the full Assembly, and after that it goes to the Governor for his signature. If you can, tune in to your local Cal Channel on cable, or you can try to access the live audio stream here-> http://192.234.213.71/asm-flr