Colombia's government has offered to expedite the release of leftist rebels from its prisons if the guerrilla group immediately frees ailing French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt.
Bogota is prepared to drop several of the conditions it had placed on a long-sought prisoner swap, in a bid to jump-start the deal and secure freedom for Betancourt and other hostages in poor health, Colombian Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo said.
"It's enough that Ingrid Betancourt be immediately released for us to consider the humanitarian deal is on, enabling us to conditionally suspend the sentences of members of the rebel group," Restrepo said late on Thursday.
Asked how many rebels would be freed, Restrepo said that Bogota was not placing a limit on the number and had "reduced to a minimum" its conditions for the swap.
"There is no limit as to the crime committed, or the type of sentence received," he said.
Earlier on Thursday, Colombia's omsbudsman renewed concerns over Betancourt's health, saying her rebel captors took her to medical facilities in southeastern Colombia late last month.
"The information that we have, at least until February, is that the state of her health is very delicate, and her physical and health conditions have been deteriorating," said Volmar Perez, an independent official in charge of relations between the government and the population.
The 46-year-old former presidential candidate kidnapped in February 2002 is suffering from hepatitis B and leishmania, a skin disease caused by insect bites, Perez said, citing sources he declined to identify.
"We did not give those rumors great credibility. Nothing has been corroborated," Restrepo said of the reports, adding that President Alvaro Uribe "remains concerned" for Betancourt's health.
She is among 39 high-profile hostages, including three American defense contractors, whom the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) want to exchange for 500 rebels held in prison, including two held in US prisons.
Direct talks to negotiate the prisoner swap have never gotten off the ground, although the rebels released six hostages to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez earlier this year.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanized Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonization by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is now reflected in the country’s “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers. A month after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited,
RSS