Bogota - Two days of clashes between indigenous peoples and police have claimed at least one life and injured an estimated 50 people as native communities blockaded the main road between the cities of Popayan and Cali.

The clashes on Wednesday alone injured 20 people, none of them seriously, a source at the town hospital said. The death occurred on Tuesday.

The demonstrators are demanding access to land and insisted that the government put an end to the violence that indigenous leaders suffer.

Bogota - Eight Colombian soldiers were killed Wednesday when they stepped into a mine field as they fought leftist rebels in south-western Colombia.

Army spokesmen said a sergeant and seven enlisted soldiers died in the incident outside the municipality of Barbacoas, in the Narino province, on the border with Ecuador.

The radio network Caracol quoted Brigadier General Leonardo Barrero as saying that the mine field had been set up by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Colombia, Sept 30 : The first presidential debate of 2008, between John McCain and Barack Obama, reveals that most of the statements were positive.

A content analysis by a University of Missouri expert, reveals that 53 per cent of the statements in the September 26 debate were positive, followed by attacks (39 per cent) and defenses (9 percent).

The first debate of 2008 was a bit more negative than past elections’ debates, but not vastly more negative, according to Bill Benoit, MU Professor of Communication. Benoit also opined that the 1960 and 1976 and 2004 presidential debates were similar in tone: 57 per cent positive statements, 35 per cent attacks and 9 per cent defenses
(refutations of attacks).

Bogota - In clashes between Colombian military and leftist rebel group

Bogota - A valuable engraving by Spanish painter Francisco de Goya was stolen from a museum in Bogota, and the museum received a letter Sunday in which the thieves said they were protesting the high price of tickets for the art exhibition.

The work Tristes Presentimientos (Sad Premonitions) belonged to the series The Disasters of the War and was part of an 80-work exhibition on Goya (1746-1828) in the Colombian capital.

Police were looking into the letter regarding the robbery - signed by the so-called Commando Free Art S-11 - and analysing footage from security cameras.

Oviedo, Spain  - Former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was held hostage for six years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC), was Wednesday awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize, regarded as the Spanish equivalent of the Nobel.

Betancourt, who was rescued in a spectacular operation in July, was granted the award in the category of promoting understanding between peoples.