The US Department of State on Friday it would revoke the visa of Colombian President Gustavo Petro for his “incendiary actions” during a pro-Palestinian street protest in New York.
“Earlier today, Colombian president @petrogustavo stood on a NYC street and urged US soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence,” the State Department wrote on social media.
“We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions,” it said.
Photo: Reuters
On his social media account, Petro shared video of himself speaking Spanish to a large crowd through a megaphone on Friday, with his translator then relaying his comments calling on “nations of the world” to contribute soldiers for an army “larger than that of the United States.”
“That is why, from here in New York, I ask all soldiers in the United States Army not to point their rifles at humanity. Disobey [US President Donald] Trump’s order! Obey the order of humanity!” Petro said.
A source from the president’s office confirmed to AFP that Petro was traveling to Bogota on Friday night.
Petro has said he has Italian citizenship and would not need a visa to enter the US.
Petro was in New York for the UN General Assembly, where he in his Tuesday address rebuked the Trump administration fiercely and called for a criminal inquiry into recent US strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean.
Petro said unarmed “poor young people” died in the strikes — more than a dozen in total — but Washington contends the actions are part of a US anti-drug operation off the coast of Venezuela, whose president Washington accuses of running a cartel.
Trump has dispatched eight warships and a submarine to the southern Caribbean, and the biggest US deployment in years has raised fears in Venezuela of an invasion.
Petro has said he suspects some of those killed in the US boat strikes were Colombian.
Last week, the Trump administration decertified Colombia as an ally in the fight against drugs, but stopped short of economic sanctions.
The countries are historical allies, but ties have soured under Petro — Colombia’s first-ever leftist leader.
Colombian Minister of the Interior Armando Benedetti wrote on social media that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visa should have been revoked rather than Petro’s.
“But since the empire protects him, it’s taking it out on the only president who was capable enough to tell him the truth to his face,” he wrote.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
‘TOXIC CLIMATE’: ‘I don’t really recognize Labour anymore... The idea that you can implement far-right ideas in order to stop the far right is nonsense,’ a protester said Tens of thousands of people on Saturday marched through central London to protest against the far right, weeks ahead of local elections and six months after Britain saw one of its largest far-right demonstrations. Organized by hundreds of civic groups, including trade unions, anti-racism campaigners and Muslim representative bodies, Saturday’s Together Alliance event was billed as the biggest in UK history to counter right-wing extremism. A separate pro-Palestinian march had also converged with the main rally. While organizers claimed 500,000 had turned out in total, the police gave a figure of about 50,000. Protesters carrying placards with slogans such as
RSS