Colombia's defence minister has said a deal giving US soldiers immunity from prosecution was amendable, as law-makers want to charge five US soldiers suspected of cocaine smuggling.

Five US soldiers were arrested aboard a US military plane leaving Colombia on March 29, allegedly with 16 kilograms of cocaine.

They had been in Colombia on an anti-drug mission. One of the five has been released for lack of evidence.

"I am not saying that [the agreement] should be modified, but if problems are found that merit a change, I am sure that officials at the Colombian Foreign Ministry and US State Department officials would sit down for that," Jorge Alberto Uribe told reporters.

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Country's Leader Vows To Continue With Fumigation

BOGOTA, Colombia - President Alvaro Uribe vowed Friday to press ahead with U.S.-financed fumigation of cocaine-producing crops, even as a new White House report found that a massive aerial spraying offensive last year failed to make a dent in the area of coca cultivation in Colombia.

Critics of Washington's effort to crush drug production in Colombia, the world's main cocaine-producing country and a major supplier of heroin, say the report indicates the Colombian and U.S. governments are losing the war on drugs, which has cost more than $3 billion in U.S. aid here since 2000.

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But White House Report Finds Fumigation Hasn't Cut Coca Supplies

BOGOTA, Colombia -- President Alvaro Uribe vowed on Friday to press ahead with U.S.-financed fumigation of cocaine-producing crops, even as a new White House report showed that a massive aerial spraying offensive last year failed to dent the area of coca under cultivation in Colombia.

Uribe, in an interview with local RCN radio, said he was undeterred by the report by the White House drug office.

"Our will is to continue seizing the drugs and to continue with the fumigation," Uribe said.

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BOGOTA, Colombia - President Alvaro Uribe vowed to press ahead with US-financed fumigation of cocaine-producing crops, even as a new White House report showed that a massive aerial spraying offensive last year failed to dent the area of coca under cultivation in Colombia.

Critics say the report indicates the Colombian and US governments are losing the war on drugs, which has cost more than $3bn in US aid here since 2000.

"The US government's own data provides stark evidence that the drug war is failing to achieve its most basic objectives," John Walsh, of the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank critical of US drug policies in Colombia, said on Friday.

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BOGOTA, Colombia - Five U.S Army soldiers are under investigation for allegedly trying to smuggle some 32 pounds of cocaine from Colombia aboard a U.S. military aircraft, U.S. and Colombian officials said Thursday.

The soldiers were detained Tuesday as a result of the investigation, said Lt. Col. Eduardo Villavicencio, a spokesman for the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command.

He would not disclose where the five are being held, other than "in the United States."

"This is an ongoing criminal investigation," Villavicencio said, declining to release any other details.

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POLICE have found a home-made submarine capable of carrying $260 million worth of cocaine on a Pacific Ocean smuggling mission.

Police, who acted on a tip, made no arrests after finding the submarine hidden in the port of Tumaco, near the border with Ecuador, police said yesterday.

It was the second publicised case of Colombian drug smugglers trying to use submarines. In 2000, an underwater vessel was found far from the coast in the Andean mountain capital of Bogota.

"They started building the submarine about six months ago, using small pieces so as not to make people suspicious," said Eduardo Fernandez, the security chief in the southern province of Valle del Cauca.

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Efforts Target Rain Forest In Colombia

Over the jungles of western Colombia --- The newest battle in Colombia's drug war is being fought in one of the largest tracts of virgin rain forest in the Americas, an expanse of stunning beauty where crystalline rivers weave around mountains hugged by a blanket of trees.

Harried by eradication campaigns elsewhere, drug gangs have been moving into the remote region, bringing in millions of seedlings for coca --- the bush used to make cocaine --- to be planted by peasants who are felling patches of trees.

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Depression, Anxiety Rising Amid Violence

Four decades of internal conflict have turned Colombia into an anxiety-ridden nation struggling to overcome an epidemic of emotional problems, mental health professionals say.

More than 40 percent of Colombians between ages 18 and 65 acknowledged suffering mental illness at least once during their lifetimes, including depression and substance or alcohol abuse, according to a study by Dr. Juan Posada. One-fifth of Colombians have experienced profound feelings of anxiety.

The reasons: Battles by drug gangs, an ongoing civil war, high murder and kidnapping rates, along with double-digit unemployment and grinding poverty.

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For every gram of coke snorted in Britain, someone in Colombia will have had their life taken away. Antony Barnett in Cartagena finds hard evidence to back up appeals to end Britain's habit

Olinda was weeping. Her tears were hard to see through the large sunglasses she wears to shield her blind eyes and facial scars. The Spanish interpreter was trying not to cry as she explained in English what happened to the 19-year-old. Two years ago Olinda was helping her mother milk one of the family's cows in the Colombian village of Santa Roca. As she ran to round up stray cattle she tripped and fell. The ground exploded beneath her. 'I was dead, I was dead. I kept screaming until my mum came. But everything was dark.'

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The 24 Nations That Were Asked to Fund Disarmament Last Week Said Colombia Must Stiffen Penalties for Ex-Fighters.

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - When right-wing fighters abandoned La Gabarra late last year as part of a government-sponsored peace process, weary residents who were forcibly displaced five years earlier looked forward to finally returning home.

But there were some surprises waiting for them when they got back to their small town in northern Colombia. It turns out that the paramilitaries, who commandeered 105 farms and 58 homes in a 1999 raid, ran up thousands of dollars in utility bills and didn't pay the property taxes. Worse, it is unclear how residents can reclaim property that was once theirs, as many of the original owners didn't have official land titles.

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The head of the sniffer dog unit at Bogota international airport has been arrested in raids against a drug ring run by an ex-Colombian police chief.

Drugs police believe Freddy Castro was paid to tip off smugglers when his dogs were taking breaks.

Sixteen other suspects were held as police moved against a network headed by retired police Col Lionel Mendoza, who was arrested in December.

Colombia is the world's biggest cocaine producer and a major heroin supplier.

Bogota airport boasts one of the tightest security systems in the world and has developed a net aimed at snaring drugs that leave by plane, the BBC's Jeremy McDermott in Colombia reports.

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The Story of One Officer's Rise and Fall in Colombia's Drug Wars Illustrates the Challenges Police Face

BOGOTA, Colombia - On a chilly and overcast day in late March, mourners gathered at a police force chapel in the Colombian capital to bid goodbye to a fallen officer.

The ceremony was short and awkward. Despite Col. Danilo Gonzalez's highly decorated career stretching over two decades, there were no official police honors.

Only a handful of former colleagues turned out for the event. His family was not even allowed to speak.

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The most prominent jailed leader of Colombia's leftist Farc rebels has been handed over to the US to face charges of drug-trafficking and abduction.

A US plane collected Simon Trinidad after heavily armed troops took him to an airfield outside the capital Bogota.

The Farc leader, whose real name is Ricardo Palmera, was extradited to Colombia from Ecuador last year.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe agreed to the new extradition after rebels failed to free more than 60 hostages.

Among those held by the group are former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three US citizens and dozens of Colombian army officers and political figures.

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Why Isn't Mancuso Being Extradited?

On December 11, Stewart Tuttle, head of the Political Affairs division of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota looked on as Salvatore Mancuso, commander of Colombia's largest and most brutal network of right-wing death squads, ceremonially surrendered his Berretta to Colombian Peace Commissioner Carlos Luis Restrepo.

But Tuttle and his superiors were strangely silent a week later when the government of President Alvaro Uribe announced that it would not extradite Mancuso to the U.S. to face cocaine trafficking and money laundering charges as long as the death squad leader agreed to "cease all illegal activities" and encourage other paramilitaries to take part in the government's demobilization process. While the U.S. hasn't formally dropped its extradition request, neither the U.S. Embassy nor the U.S. State Department has issued a public statement about Uribe's decision to delay or cancel Mancuso's handover to U.S. authorities -- which is highly unusual to say the least, given that Mancuso is the head of a terrorist organization and is accused of conspiring to smuggle over seventeen tons of cocaine to the U.S. and Europe.

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WASHINGTON - Plan Colombia, the United States' signature international drug-fighting effort, is to get a major overhaul once its five-year term ends at the end of 2005, with policymakers looking to give it more of a social and less of a military character.

Officials say the $3.5 billion program has succeeded in putting Colombian drug traffickers and armed groups on the run or suing for peace. Kidnappings and other violent crimes in the South American nation also have declined.

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BOGOTA - (AP) -- Colombian police on Tuesday captured a leader of a reputed cocaine cartel wanted by the United States on drug-related charges, officials said.

Dagoberto Florez, a capo of the Norte del Valle cartel, was arrested early Tuesday in a rural area outside of Medellin, 250 miles northwest of the capital, National Police chief Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro told reporters. He declined to provide details on the capture.

Florez is among nine Norte del Valle cartel leaders being sought for extradition under an order issued by a U.S. federal court in New York in May. The U.S. government offered a reward of up to $5 million for each one earlier this year.

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Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, former boss of Colombia's Cali drugs cartel, appeared in a Miami federal courtroom on Monday to face charges of cocaine trafficking and money-laundering. Mr Rodriguez, 65, is the most powerful Colombian trafficker ever to face US justice. He was extradited at the weekend. The US Drug Enforcement Administration calculates that his empire once supplied 80 per cent of cocaine to the US and generated annual profits of $8bn (€6bn, UKP4bn).

His extradition is being hailed officially as a spectacular example of ever more effective co-operation between the US and Colombia and evident progress in the war against illegal drugs.

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Despite Glowing Claims by Bush and Uribe, Both Violence and the Drug Trade Rage On

On his way home from the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit in Chile, President George Bush stopped off in the Caribbean city of Cartagena on November 22 to see Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez. Uribe is George Bush's closest regional ally in the global anti-terrorism campaign. Known as "Bushito" (little Bush), he spared no efforts to provide suitable security for his guest.

Cartagena became a ghost town. Alcohol was banned for 24 hours, businesses shut and workers were ordered to stay home. The airport, airspace and waters of Cartagena Bay were closed. Combat helicopters and fighter planes patrolled the sky, and naval submarines and armed patrol boats guarded the waters of the silent port. As sharpshooters crouched along rooftops, 15,000 army, navy and police troops lined the streets, alongside 1,200 black-clad anti-riot police and numerous plainclothes secret police, 50 bomb-sniffing dogs and two anti-explosive robots. Meanwhile, an American aircraft carrier stood anchored at the entrance to the bay.

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Colombian drug lords had developed a genetically modified "cocaine tree" that contained higher drug levels and was resistant to herbicides, the Financial Times newspaper said today.

Drug producers were helped by foreign scientists to develop the leafier strain of plant, which grows to 2.7m, twice the height of the normal shrub, the newspaper said, citing a Columbian police intelligence dossier.

"In their search for greater profits, drug-traffickers appear to have entered the world of genetically-modified crops," the dossier was quoted as saying.

The tree yielded eight times more cocaine than the normal shrub, and due to its size and sturdiness was more resistant to herbicides -- one of Colombia's main weapons in the war on drugs.

[end]

BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 5 - At the beginning of November, Colombia's government crowed about extraditing, all on one day, 13 drug trafficking suspects to the United States. Before the month was out, President Alvaro Uribe's government had handed over another group of 15 Colombians, all facing cocaine trafficking and money laundering charges, to American anti-drug agents.

Then late on Friday, the biggest prize of all - Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, 65, said to be the most powerful cocaine magnate ever to be extradited - was placed aboard a Drug Enforcement Administration flight to Miami. Officials from Attorney General John Ashcroft, to federal prosecutors in New York to authorities from the Department of Homeland Security hailed the extradition.

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