Colombia President Santos offers truce with Farc

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said that he wants to enter into a bilateral truce with the Farc rebel group on 1 January 2016.

Despite having been engaged in peace talks with the left-wing rebels for almost three years, the government had always refused to declare a ceasefire.

The Farc, who have been observing a unilateral ceasefire, have repeatedly called on the government to join them in the truce.

The conflict started in 1964.

Next step

Speaking at a public event promoting science, Mr Santos called on the Farc and government negotiators "to make the effort so between now and 31 December we can wrap up the fifth point [on the peace agenda], which is how to end the conflict, so that we can declare an internationally monitored bilateral ceasefire from 1 January".

Mr Santos had in the past refused to enter into a bilateral ceasefire with the rebels arguing that during previous negotiations, the Farc had used it to re-arm and re-group.

An estimated 220,000 people have been killed in the 51-year armed conflict, the longest-running in the Western Hemisphere.

Farc and the government negotiators started official peace talks in the Cuban capital, Havana, in November 2012.

Since then, they have reached agreement on the political participation of the rebels, land rights, drug trafficking, and most recently, transitional justice.

Transitional justice - how rebels who have committed crimes will be punished - had been considered one of the thorniest issues on the agenda.

When the two sides announced a deal on the issue on 23 September, President Santos flew to Cuba and shook hands with the Farc leader known as Timochenko.

The president also set a deadline of six months, until 23 March 2016, for the signing of a final peace agreement.

ELN rebels in Colombia kill 12 security staff

Left-wing rebels in Colombia ambushed a group carrying regional election ballots, killing 12 members of the security forces, officials say.

The group had left an indigenous reservation near the town of Guican when it was hit, defence minister Luis Carlos Villegas said.

He said the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia's second-biggest rebel group, was behind the attack.

President Juan Manuel Santos vowed retaliation against the attackers.

On Sunday, Mr Santos had said the election had been "the most peaceful and least violent in decades".

Eleven of those killed were soldiers, while the other was a police officer, Mr Villegas said.

Six other people, among them poll workers and a local guide, were missing, he added.

Colombia's government is locked in talks with another rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, to end more than five decades of violence.

Late last month, the two parties reached agreement on how to punish human rights abuses committed during the conflict - a detail seen as key to a lasting peace deal.

The Farc has called several times for the ELN to join their peace talks.

Occasional attacks by Farc rebels have occurred despite negotiations taking place in Havana. In May, it ambushed and killed 11 soldiers after briefly suspending its ceasefire.

A month later, rebels killed three police officers and cut off power to close to 500,000 people.

French pilots flee drugs conviction in Dominican Republic

Two French pilots who were sentenced by a court in the Dominican Republic to 20 years in prison have fled the country.

Pascal Fauret and Bruno Odos were arrested in 2013 in the Dominican resort of Punta Cana.

Police said their plane was carrying 26 suitcases stuffed with 680kg (1,500lb) of cocaine.

The two pilots and two other Frenchmen on board were found guilty of drug trafficking. They denied the charges.

Daring escape

According to French news channel BMFTV, the pilots had previously worked for the French navy and were helped by former intelligence agents to leave the Dominican Republic.

The channel said that the ex-intelligence agents helped the pilots, who were under house arrest, reach a boat off the Dominican coast.

From there they sailed to the French Antilles and then flew to Paris.

The French government said it had nothing to do with their escape.

The pilots' lawyer, Jean Reinhart, told AFP news agency that Fauret and Odos had returned to France "not to flee justice but to seek justice".

Mr Reinhart said the two were not "escapees" as they had not escaped from jail.

They had been barred from leaving the country but had not been sent to prison because they were appealing against their convictions, Mr Reinhart explained.

He said that Fauret and Odos had contacted the French magistrate in charge of their case and were keen to clear their name.

Fauret and Odos along with Nicolas Pisapia and Alain Castany were about to leave the Dominican Republic on board a Dassault Falcon 50 jet when the suitcases full of cocaine were discovered on board.

Six months after the four were arrested, 22 people were detained over a massive cocaine haul found on an Air France flight from the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, to Paris.

Guatemala families struggle for food in Central American drought

Guatemala families struggle for food in Central American drought

For hundreds of thousands of farmers in Guatemala, this year's harvest is over before it has even begun. The fields in the east of the country are yellow, the ground bone-dry.

For 74-year-old Marco Tulio Lopez Diaz, the situation is getting desperate. He has worked on his land in the village of San Miguel near Chiquimula his whole life.
It is a four-hour drive from the capital.
Farming is all that he knows, but with 80% of his corn crops dead and the ones that have survived providing no grain, he is hugely worried.
Marco Tulio lives in what is known as the Dry Corridor.

It is a drought-prone area of Central America that runs across El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
"We've often had tough droughts but not like this year," he says.
"We sowed the seeds, the plants are here but they've not produced anything. This year we've not been able to harvest."

Struggling smallholders

People in this part of Guatemala are smallholders who grow corn and beans.                
They cultivate enough to provide food for their families.
In a good year, they can grow surplus to sell or store, but after several difficult seasons, they have run out of stocks.
According to Action against Hunger, four out of the last six years have seen below-average rainfall.
Government data shows that by July this year, 400mm of rain had fallen in the area of Chiquimula - that is half of what it would be normally.
Other parts of the Dry Corridor have received even less rain.
Farmers now go for weeks without any rain at all, which is damaging during the crucial crop-growing period.
Then, when it does rain, it often comes with such force that the parched earth cannot soak it all up and the crops drown.

The impact of El Nino

Many experts blame the change in weather patterns on El Nino

Last year Guatemala, along with other Central American governments, declared a state of emergency because of the drought.
The problem is not expected to get any better any time soon.
The drought comes on top of the recent coffee-rust crisis which has swept through the region's coffee-growing communities.
Crop yields have fallen and that has led to unemployment.
Mr Tulio says the younger generations are increasingly heading to local towns to work - anything to avoid going into agriculture.
"This is a large area of impact and so people have two choices," says Diego Recalde who represents the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Guatemala.
"They look for other jobs in more urban areas in each of these countries or migrate through Mexico to the US."
In Guatemala, it is estimated that about 900,000 people have been hit by the drought in the Dry Corridor.
According to Maria Bernardez who is a food expert for the European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Office, more widely in Central America as many as 2.5 million people are affected.

No rain, no food

The drought is having an impact on people's health.
Doctor Juan Manuel Mejia works at the Nutritional Recovery Centre in the nearby town of Jocotan.
He is performing a check-up on four-year-old Claudia.

No violence as Haiti holds elections

General elections in Haiti have gone ahead without major incidents, less than three months after parliamentary polls that were marred by violence.

Some 15,000 policemen and United Nations peacekeeping force members were deployed to prevent any incidents.

Haitians were choosing from more than 50 candidates to succeed President Michel Martelly.

They were also electing members of the Congress, which was dissolved in January amid a political crisis.

Results are not expected to be known until next month.

Guatemala election: Jimmy Morales elected president

A former TV comedian with no experience in government has won the run-off vote in Guatemala's presidential election.

Argentina presidential run-off campaign starts

The two men bidding to be Argentina's next president have begun their campaigns for November's run-off vote.

The centre-right mayor of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Macri, surprised observers by securing almost as many votes as Daniel Scioli, the chosen candidate of the current president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Mr Scioli's focus would be protecting jobs and welfare programmes, he said.

Mr Macri said he would address state spending "abuses" and high inflation.

The candidate in third place, Sergio Massa, has not said who will get his backing in the second round.

President Fernandez was constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.