
Colombia will receive a US$ 31.5 million grant to help deal with the flood of refugees from neighbouring Venezuela, the World Bank announced on Friday Colombia has received about a third of 3.7 million refugees who have fled the worsening crisis in Venezuela in recent years - the most dramatic and fastest exodus in the world after war-torn Syria, according to the United Nations.

NATO can look at the possibility of other Latin American states joining Colombia in becoming alliance partners, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday, while appearing to rule out U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Brazil could one day become a full member of the North Atlantic security body.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) presented on Thursday the balance of its main humanitarian concerns in Colombia, highlighting a deterioration of security conditions in the most remote areas of the country. The cases of armed conflicts and the violence that has continued to plague Colombia in recent decades, as well as the recent mass exodus of Venezuelan migrants, showed a complex humanitarian context.

South American countries on Friday launched the Forum for the Progress of South America (Prosur), a new regional bloc which seeks the “integration and strengthening of the region.”

The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) has rejected a proposal from the United States and awarded the 2020 Copa America tournament to Argentina and Colombia. CONMEBOL officials meeting in Miami on Wednesday said the joint bid was accepted as a way of bringing South American football to the fans and would be subject to a more detailed presentation by both countries.

Colombia’s government announced it had signed two exploration and production contracts with Shell in offshore areas of the Caribbean Sea that will require the company to make initial investments of US$ 100 million.

A DC-3 model aircraft with registration number HK2494 that had been declared in emergency fell on Saturday to land in the center-east of Colombia after not finding where to land, local media reported.

Colombia and its state-run oil company, Ecopetrol, announced they have signed an offshore exploration and production deal for a nearly 400,000-hectare (988,000-acre) bloc in the Caribbean, the country's first new oil and gas contract in more than four years.

The number of members of the Venezuelan Armed Forces who defected across the Venezuelan-Colombian border since Saturday, February 23, has risen to 326, according to Colombian immigration authorities.

The United States targeted Venezuela's government with new sanctions on Monday and called on allies to freeze the assets of its state-owned oil company PDVSA after deadly violence blocked aid from reaching the crisis-hit country during the weekend.