Colombia and Farc rebels agree on drug trade plan

Farc negotiator Ivan Marquez says the agreement includes reparations for victims of coca plantation spraying

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Colombia's government and the Farc, the country's largest rebel group, have agreed on a plan to deal with the illegal drug trade.

Both parties agreed to eliminate all illicit drug production in Colombia should a final deal be reached.

The Farc, which controls large patches of rural Colombia, is believed to be partly funded by money generated by the illegal drug trade.

This was the third on a six-point peace agenda being negotiated in Cuba.

The civil war in Colombia has killed an estimated 220,000 people in the last five decades.

Last year, government officials and the left-wing Farc (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) agreed on land reform and political participation.

As with previous agreements, details of the programme to combat the drug trade will need to be discussed further by special commissions.

Friday's agreement marked the end of the last round of the talks initiated by President Juan Manuel Santos, who is seeking a second mandate in next week's elections.

Earlier, the Farc along with the country's second largest armed group, ELN, said they would observe a unilateral cease fire for the voting.

Mr de la Calle (R), the head of the Colombian delegation said the deal was a "fundamental step"

At a news conference in the Cuban capital, Havana, the Colombian chief negotiator, former vice-President Humberto de la Calle, said the deal was a "fundamental step" towards peace.

"This way we eliminate the petrol that has fuelled the conflict in Colombia for decades," he said.

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Mr de la Calle also said the rebels committed themselves to severing any ties to drug trafficking.

As part of the deal , both parties also agreed on a programme to clear rural areas of land mines.

The Farc negotiator Ivan Marquez said the left-wing rebels insisted on addressing the consequences of the aerial spraying of coca plantations, including reparations for those affected.

The talks in the Cuban capital, Havana, are the fourth attempt since the 1980s to reach peace.

Previous negotiations failed amid disagreements, mutual recriminations and flare-ups of violence.

The conflict - the longest-running in Latin America - has killed an estimated 220,000 people since it began in the 1960s, with some three million more internally displaced by the fighting.

8:57 AM Share:

Venezuela detains dozens of anti-government protesters

Dozens of demonstrators were detained in the latest clashes in Caracas

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Police in Venezuela have detained at least 80 demonstrators who were demanding the release of those arrested in recent anti-government protests.

Hundreds of people, mostly students, had marched peacefully through the streets of the capital Caracas.

But security forces later clashed with a group of demonstrators who threw stones and home-made explosives, and tried to erect barricades.

More than 40 people have been killed during three months of unrest.

Wednesday's march was called by university students to demand the release of more than 200 people who were detained after security forces broke up protest camps last week.

The government said they were being used as bases to launch "violent attacks" and to hide "drugs, weapons, explosives and mortars".

'No proof'

But a university student at the march, Alex Gomez, rejected the accusations, saying "there was never a problem due to drugs, weapons, or alcohol".

"We are demanding that they show us the reasons why they arrested them," he told the Associated Press news agency.

Protesters were loaded onto trucks and taken away by police

A student leader, Juan Requesens, vowed they would continue demonstrating despite the arrests.

"The government is trying to suppress us by continuing to detain students. We will not bow down and will continue our protests," he told the Efe news agency.

They were demanding the release of other protesters detained in recent days

Since 12 February, Venezuela has seen a wave of violent demonstrations that were first triggered by discontent over high inflation, rampant crime and food shortages.

The government has labelled the protesters "fascist agitators" and accused them of fomenting a coup against the left-wing President Nicolas Maduro.

In a report published last week, the pressure group Human Rights Watch accused Venezuelan security forces of illegally detaining and abusing protesters.

The latest clashes come a day after the Venezuelan opposition threatened to boycott ongoing talks with the government.

The two sides began meeting last month in an attempt to find a way out of the crisis.

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Christopher Columbus's Santa Maria wreck 'found'

A replica of the Santa Maria, the flagship of the Italian explorer's 1492 expedition

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A US underwater investigator has said he believes he has found the wreck of the Santa Maria, the flagship of Christopher Columbus's famed expedition.

Barry Clifford said evidence "strongly suggests" a ruin off Haiti's north coast is the Santa Maria.

Mr Clifford's team has measured and taken photos of the wreck.

He says he is working with the Haitian government to protect the site for a more detailed investigation.

The Santa Maria, along with the La Nina and La Pinta, were part of Columbus's expedition in 1492, which explored islands in the Caribbean in an attempt to find a westward passage to Asia.

The flagship was lost during the expedition, shortly before Columbus returned to Spain.

"All the geographical, underwater topography and archaeological evidence strongly suggests that this wreck is Columbus's famous flagship, the Santa Maria," said Mr Clifford.

Columbus and his flagship

• The Santa Maria left Spain in August 1492, along with La Pinta and La Nina, sailing westward
• It was the largest ship in the expedition, about 117ft (36m) long
• The ship ran aground on a reef near Haiti on Christmas Day, 1492
• Columbus told his crew to strip timbers from the ship to build an outpost or fort nearby, leaving sailors behind while he returned to Spain
• The fort, known as La Navidad, was found destroyed upon Columbus's return to the island he called Hispanola

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Smithsonian Magazine

"I am confident that a full excavation of the wreck will yield the first-ever detailed marine archaeological evidence of Columbus' discovery of America," he added.

Mr Clifford said he identified the potential location of the Santa Maria through earlier archaeological findings that pinpointed a likely location for Columbus's fort - a building that experts always thought was erected near to where the ship ran aground.

He also used information from the explorer's diary, and a recent diving mission near the site further burnished Mr Clifford's belief the wreck was the Santa Maria.

Mr Clifford told US broadcaster CNN the "smoking gun" was a cannon of 15th Century design found at the site.

A marine archaeologist who accompanied Mr Clifford on that mission told the newspaper there was "very compelling evidence" but an excavation of the site would be necessary to confirm the wreck's identity.

Further investigation will be supported by the government of Haiti and the History Channel, which plans to make a documentary programme about the wreck.

Mr Clifford is best known for the excavation of the first fully verified pirate shipwreck, the Whydah.

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Mexico sets security plan for violent Tamaulipas state

Despite a heavy security presence, Tamaulipas continues to be wracked by drug-related violence

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The government in Mexico has pledged to deploy more security forces and boost intelligence in Tamaulipas, one of the country's most dangerous states.

Mexican Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio admitted that the government had not done enough to deal with insecurity in the north-eastern state.

But he promised that a "new phase" against powerful drug cartels would restore peace there.

Last week, Mexican intelligence chief Salvador Haro Munoz was killed there.

His car was ambushed by armed men in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria.

'24-hour patrols'

Mr Osorio announced that the state would be divided into four regions, each with an army or navy officer in charge of implementing the government's security plan.

"We will strengthen surveillance at ports, airports, customs and border crossings, as well as the major land routes," he told a news conference.

Mr Osorio said security forces would "patrol 24 hours, every day of the week, in main urban areas", and would conduct reviews of local police forces to eradicate corruption.

He also admitted that, despite some "significant" government successes against the cartels, "these are not enough".

On Sunday, security officials said one of the founders of the Zetas cartel, Galindo Mellado Cruz, was killed in a gun battle in Tamaulipas.

The Zetas, which first served as enforcers for the Gulf cartel, have since split off and have been fighting a turf war against their former ally.

Dozens of people have been killed in recent weeks in the border state, which is criss-crossed by drug-smuggling routes to the United States.

The city of Nuevo Laredo, along the border with Texas, is a major hub for trade between Mexico and the US.

Since he came into office in December 2012, President Enrique Pena Nieto has also sent federal forces to deal with growing drug-related violence in the state of Michoacan and the State of Mexico, near the capital, Mexico City.

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