Latest news with #ArmandoBenedetti
Reuters
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Reuters
Colombia's Petro signs decree to hold labor reform referendum
BOGOTA, June 11 (Reuters) - Colombia's leftist President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday signed a decree to hold a public referendum vote on a labor reform. The referendum proposal seeks to limit the working day, increase the surcharge for Sunday and holiday work from 75% to 100% and require social security payments for delivery app drivers. "If the law comes out just as the Senate says, with no imposition, then there would be a repeal of the decree," Interior Minister Armando Benedetti told reporters.
News.com.au
a day ago
- Politics
- News.com.au
Seven dead as Colombia hit with wave of bombings and gun attacks
Colombia was rocked by a string of 24 coordinated bomb and gun attacks that killed at least seven people across the country's southwest Tuesday, deepening a security crisis roiling the Andean nation. Attackers struck targets in Cali -- the country's third-largest city -- and several nearby towns, hitting police posts, municipal buildings and civilian targets. National Police chief Carlos Fernando Triana said assailants -- suspected to be a local guerrilla group -- had attacked using car bombs, motorcycle bombs, rifle fire and a suspected drone. "There are two police officers dead, and a number of members of the public are also dead," he said. Police later put the toll at seven dead and 28 more injured. In Cali and the towns of Villa Rica, Guachinte and Corinto, AFP journalists witnessed the tangled wreckage of vehicle bombs surrounded by scorched debris and damaged buildings. The attacks came days after a brazen attempted assassination of a presidential candidate in Bogota that has put the country on edge. Many Colombians are now fearful of a return to the violence of the 1980s and 1990s, when cartel attacks, guerrilla violence and political assassinations were commonplace. Interior Minister Armando Benedetti said the government had received unverified "proof" of possible guerrilla involvement in the attack on Senator Miguel Uribe. - 'Well-coordinated offensive' - In the town of Corinto, resident Luz Amparo was at home when the blast gutted her bakery Tuesday. "We thought it was an earthquake," she told AFP. "My husband said 'no, they are shooting.'" Her phone began to ring off the hook and she went to check on her store. As she rounded the corner, the neighbors began to look in her direction. "Everything was leveled," she said. Police and experts blamed the attacks on a dissident faction of the once-powerful FARC guerrilla group. Security expert Elizabeth Dickinson of the International Crisis Group said the attacks were likely the work of a group known as the Central General Staff (EMC). "This is a particularly well-coordinated offensive. It really demonstrates the capacity that the group has built" she told AFP. "And I think very alarmingly it demonstrates their ability to conduct operations in the metropolitan area of Cali." Efforts by President Gustavo Petro to reach a peace deal with the EMC and other armed groups have repeatedly failed. Dickinson said the group may be trying to stop an ongoing military operation that is reported to have injured or killed the group's veteran leader, known as "Ivan Mordisco." "They are trying to raise the cost of that military initiative for the government," said Dickinson. In a statement on Tuesday, the EMC warned the public to stay away from military and police installations, but stopped short of claiming responsibility. The attacks come three days after conservative senator Uribe, 39, was shot twice in the head at close range by an alleged hitman while campaigning in the capital. A 15-year-old suspect pleaded "not guilty" on Tuesday to carrying out the attempted assassination. The government believes he was a hired gun. That attack has stunned Colombians, prompted speculation about who was responsible and raised questions about the president's response. Petro has taken to social media to speculate that the hit was ordered by an international "mafia" and to claim that Uribe's security detail was suspiciously reduced the day he was shot.
CBS News
06-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Colombia arrests over 200 suspected members of powerful cartel accused of paying recruits $3,500 for "dead police officers"
Colombian authorities said Monday they had captured more than 200 members of the country's biggest drug cartel, which is accused of murdering two dozen security force members in the past month. The Gulf Clan was born out of the right-wing paramilitary groups that fought leftist guerrillas in the 1990s before turning their attention to the cocaine trade. President Gustavo Petro has accused the group, with which he suspended peace talks in early 2023, of devising a strategy to "systematically murder" members of the security forces. Armed forces chief Franciso Cubides told a news conference on Monday the security forces had responded by arresting 217 members of the clan since April 15. He added that 15 other suspected drug traffickers had been shot dead in raids that had netted 6.8 tons of drugs, 123 firearms and more than 15,000 rounds of ammunition. Sixteen police officers and five soldiers have been killed in attacks blamed on what Petro has called the Gulf Clan's "pistol plan." Cubides said the attacks were part of a "desperate response" by armed groups to the "overwhelming" setbacks they were suffering at the hands of the police and military in the north and west of the country. The cartel paid its members "between 10 and 15 million (Colombian pesos, between $2,300 and 3,500) for some dead police officers," Interior Minister Armando Benedetti told a weekly government cabinet meeting. Eight members of Colombia's Gulf Clan drug cartel were killed in clashes with security forces in April 2015, the army said. Colombia Army The Gulf Clan, which engages in illegal gold mining, racketeering and migrant smuggling, is believed to number about 7,500 members, according to government estimates. The group's "primary source of income is from cocaine trafficking, which it uses to fund its paramilitary activities," according to the U.S. State Department. Last month, the police and the DEA killed a man dubbed "Chirimoya," one of the cartel's five commanders, as well as eight other members of the group. The Gulf Clan is one of several cartels recently designated as foreign terrorist groups by the United States. In 2022, the Gulf Clan shut down dozens of towns in northern Colombia for four days in reaction to its leader being extradited to the U.S. for trial. The arrests come as Colombia suffers its worst outburst of violence since the leftist FARC guerrilla army, one of the world's oldest rebel movements, signed a peace deal with the government in 2016. Benedetti admitted last month that Petro's strategy of pursuing "total peace" by engaging in dialogue with the country's various armed groups had not borne fruit. On Petro's watch, several armed groups, particularly the Gulf Clan, have grown stronger, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez admitted recently in an AFP interview.
Bloomberg
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Colombia to Put Petro's Failed Labor Reform Directly to Voters
President Gustavo Petro's government will ask Colombians themselves whether they want better pay and working conditions after Congress rejected the leftist leader's labor reform. Interior Minister Armando Benedetti and Labor Minister Antonio Sanguino unveiled the list of 12 questions the government intends to put to a referendum during a news conference Tuesday in Bogota.
Bloomberg
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Colombia's President Taps Ex-Venezuela Envoy as Interior Minister
President Gustavo Petro put Armando Benedetti in charge of repairing the Colombian government's relationship with Congress amid deep divisions within the leftist leader's administration. Benedetti, a former senator and diplomat, was named interior minister late Monday, with the presidency publishing his resumé on the appointees page of its website. He'll be tasked with securing legislative approval for key social reforms, including overhauls of health and labor aimed at expanding the state's role in public services and increasing worker benefits.
