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Colombia holds talks with top cocaine gang BOGOTA: Colombian president Gustavo Petro announced on Friday the start of fresh talks with Clan del Golfo, the country’s largest drug-trafficking gang and the world’s largest producer of cocaine. The powerful group has its origins in right-wing paramilitaries (its 7,500 members call themselves the Gaitanista Army of Colombia) and poses one of the main security challenges faced by the country’s leftist government. “We have initiated conversations outside Colombia with the Gaitanista Army,” Petro said during an event in Cordoba, about 289km west of the capital Bogota. He did not provide further details on the talks. Clan del Golfo considers itself a political group, and demands being recognised as such, in part to receive judicial treatment similar to that of guerillas and paramilitary squads. Last month, Petro’s government presented a controversial proposal to congress to offer criminal groups certain benefits – including reduced sentences and non extradition – in exchange for disarmament. Since the start of his term in 2022, Petro has tried and failed to negotiate disarmament with various armed groups. Amid record-high drug cultivation in Colombia, the armed forces are carrying out a major offensive in an attempt to bring the drug traffickers under control. – AFP Azerbaijan, Armenia sign peace deal WASHINGTON: Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a US-brokered peace agreement on Friday during a meeting with President Donald Trump. “It’s a long time, 35 years, they fought and now they’re friends, and they’re going to be friends for a long time,” Trump said at a signing ceremony, attended by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at odds since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Trump said the two countries had committed to stop fighting and open up diplomatic relations. Aliyev and Pashinyan praised Trump for helping to end the conflict and said they would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. – Reuters

its diplomatic efforts to halt the catastrophe unfolding across the Egyptian border in Gaza “as a result of the Israeli occupation’s brutal practices”. Faisal discussed the situation in phone calls with his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty, Fidan and European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and emphasised the need to halt attacks and the forced starvation of Gaza’s people. “Saudi Arabia condemns in the strongest possible terms the decision of the Israeli occupation authorities to occupy the Gaza Strip and categorically condemns their persistence in committing crimes of starvation, brutal practices and ethnic cleansing,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The Maldives has called for ensuring accountability for all Israeli crimes in Palestine. “This decision (Gaza occupation) not only deepens the suffering in the occupied Palestinian territories but also is a threat to lasting peace and regional stability,” said Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed alarm over the occupation plan and asked for unimpeded humanitarian access. China told Israel “to stop the dangerous move at once”, according to a statement. “Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people and is an integral part of the Palestinian territory,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Friday. Turkiye said the Israeli decision to widen its military operation in Gaza marks a new phase of its “expansionist and genocidal policy”. “We urge the UN Security Council to adopt binding measures to halt Israel’s actions.” – Bernama

Gaza occupation plan condemned A man wipes his tears while holding a photo of children during a rally calling for an end to the siege of Gaza at Columbus Circle in New York on Friday. – AFPPIC

strong reactions worldwide. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has written to Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan al-Saud to hold a meeting of the 57-member group to discuss the regime’s intention to occupy Gaza. Saudi Arabia has stepped up

Halt Israeli actions, UN urged

NEW DELHI: Pakistan has denounced Israel’s Gaza occupation plan as a “dangerous escalation”, echoing global concerns over the regime’s militarism to wipe out the Palestinian population. “We strongly condemn the Israeli Cabinet’s approval of a plan to take illegal and

illegitimate control of Gaza City. This tantamounts to a dangerous escalation in an already catastrophic war against the people of Palestine,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday. The regime’s occupation plan and its genocidal campaign have provoked

Apollo 13 commander Lovell dies at 97 WASHINGTON: Astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the failed 1970 mission to the moon that nearly ended in disaster but became an inspirational saga of survival and the basis for the hit movie Apollo 13 , died on Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois. He was 97. The mission was planned as humankind’s third lunar landing but went horribly wrong when an explosion put the lives of the three astronauts in grave danger. freezing. Water was drastically rationed, food was short and sleep was nearly impossible. The crew had to contrive a filter system to remove high levels of carbon dioxide that could have proven deadly. Lovell never got another chance to walk on the moon after Apollo 13, which was his fourth and final space trip.

His first trip had been the Gemini 7 mission in 1965, featuring the first link-up of two manned spacecraft. His second was Gemini 12 in 1966, the last of the programmes that led to the Apollo moon missions. Lovell’s third mission was Apollo 8 in December 1968, the first to orbit the moon. Lovell, who later had a moon crater named in his honour, retired as an astronaut in 1973, working first for a harbour towing company and then in telecommunications. He co-authored a 1994 book, Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 . Lovell made a cameo appearance in Apollo 13 as the

Lovell and crewmates Jack Swigert and Fred Haise endured frigid, cramped conditions, dehydration and hunger for 3-1/2 days while working with Mission Control in Houston to bring the crippled spacecraft safely back. With a dangerous loss of power, the three astronauts abandoned the command module and went to the lunar module – designed for two men to land on the moon. They used it as a lifeboat for a harrowing return to Earth. Electrical systems were turned off to save energy, sending temperatures plummeting to near

Lovell aboard USS Iwo Jima reading a newspaper on April 17, 1970 about the crew’s safe return. – AFPPIC/ NASA

Milwaukee. He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1952 and became a test pilot before being selected as a Nasa astronaut in 1962. He had four children with his wife, Marilyn. – Reuters

commander of the US Navy ship that retrieves the astronauts and shakes hands with Tom Hanks. Lovell was born in Cleveland on March 25, 1928. He was just five when his father died and his mother moved the family to