
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez agreed over the weekend to temporarily extend the bilateral trade pact within the framework of the Andean Community, or CAN, despite Venezuela’s pending withdrawal from that regional organization on April 21.

The presidents of Colombia, Venezuela Juan Manuel Santos and Hugo Chavez held a non announced meeting with their Honduran peer Pofirio Lobo and said they were committed to help the outcast country rejoin the Latin American family by returning to the Organization of American States, OAS.

White House officials said the United States and Colombia have reached a deal on a free trade agreement. President Barack Obama and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos are to meet Thursday to discuss the deal.

Operations of a joint stock market linking Chile, Colombia and Peru are scheduled to begin May 30. The group, known as the Integrated Latin American Market, or Mila, said Tuesday that the decision was taken following two rounds of successful testing.

Latin America can help solve the global food crisis by expanding farm production, the World Bank said this weekend, and Colombia said it was on board with plans for an 'agricultural revolution'.

Colombian Defence minister Rodrigo Rivera said that the FARC guerrilla movement is surrounded and with its operational capacity very diminished and limited, because of the current policy from the administration of President Juan Manuel Gomez.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez begins Monday a tour of four South American countries to strengthen ties and to analyze existing accords, the Bolivarian revolution leader said on Sunday.

The Colombian military began using US supplied drones for counter-terrorism and narcotics operations in 2006, U.S. documents released by WikiLeaks indicate.

United States farmers have called on the US government to approve the free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama because Mercosur countries are taking a bigger share of US agriculture exports to those countries.

Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos said this week that military forces know the exact hiding place and movements of the FARC guerrilla maximum leader, Alfonso Cano, and brushed aside any chance that he might escape.