Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will have a prostate cancer operation in Bogotá on Wednesday, he announced today, after discovering a benign tumor last week.

In a speech today, accompanied by his wife, he said will spend a few das at the clinic after the operation but will not abandon his duties as president.

“Fortunately, the cancer was discovered in time,” he said. “But I want to make sure all Colombians have examinations to prevent these diseases.”

President Santos said one of his brothers had the same illness and was able to overcome. He also confirmed that he would be gong to Peru for the South America-Arab Summit (ASPA).

“My doctors have been clear, the situation does not compromise my physical or mental state,” he said.

The president’s doctor said his tumor is isolated and the process will not require chemotherapy or radiation.

“The president is in great health. And if things to as they should, he will be back to his regular job soon.”

The Attorney General of Colombia has reported that there are more than 50,000 victims of criminal activities by paramilitary groups in the country. The report is based on confessions given by ex members of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

According to the report, which was publicised by RCN Radio, 25,083 of those victims were murdered, 10,925 were the subjected to forced displacement, 3,459 were forcibly disappeared, and 1,589 were illegaly recruited by AUC.

The Attorney General has exhumed 3,806 common graves within the last five years, finding 4,792 bodies. The province of Antioquia has the highest number of bodies discovered, though only 376 out of 823 found were given back to families.

Director of the Legal Medical Institute, Carlos Eduardo Valdes, told RCN that the number of bodies in mass graves could end up being a much higher figure. “We have around 68,000 cases, of which 15,000 are related forced disappearances, so by those calculations the bodies in graves could total more than 50,000,” added Valdes.

The Attorney General has legal proceedings against 1,126 persons related with the forced disappearances. So far only 14 ex paramilitaries have been convicted.

One of the reasons for such a low number is that AUC agreed to demobilise in 2005 in exchange for legal benefits such as lower prison sentences (a maximum of eight years).

Yesterday President Juan Manuel Santos announced his intention to re-form Colombia’s national peace council. The decision came after a meeting with the Commissions for Peace of the Colombian Congress.

The president declared his desire “to revive and summon” the peace council and spoke of a need to “update its make-up and function”. With that in mind, official announcements are expected to follow shortly regarding a new process of selection for members of the council.

Santos wants to revive the peace council so it can be integrated into the proposed peace talks with the militant guerrilla organisation, FARC. A ceasefire was provisionally agreed on 28^th August but formal peace talks are not set to commence until 8^th October in the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

In the past, the role of the National Peace council has been to collect proposals from different sectors of Colombian society and ensure that they are voiced and accounted for during the negotiations between government and FARC representatives.

A member of the Peace Commission, Guillermo Rivera, told the newspaper El Tiempo that the aim of the peace council is to establish “the line between justice and peace”.

Rivera explained that “The current victims want justice and the potential victims want peace so you have to try to find a middle ground”.

Drug baron Daniel Barrera was captured yesterday in Venezuela in a joint operation between Colombian, Venezuelan, British and US intelligence services.

Barrera, nicknamed “Crazy Barrera” was captured in San Cristobal near the Colombian border in the southwest of Venezuela.

The operation kicked off on 6^th August when Colombian authorities warned their Venezuelan counterparts of Barrera’s presence on their territory and involved 69 wiretaps and 14 intelligence teams mobilised over 45 days.

“He was perhaps the most sought druglord in recent times, having dedicated 20 years of his life to hurting Colombia and the world and to all type of crimes and perverse alliances with the paramilitary and the FARC,” said Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in a press conference organised to announce the capture.

Barrera was arrested under an Interpol warrant, with a US$5m reward attached, and had been identified as a key target since 2007 by former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. Barrera’s connections within the Colombian police forces are believed to have allowed him to evade authorities until yesterday.

The Venezuelan National Anti-Drug Office (ONA) in touch with the CIA, MI6 and Colombian police, carried out “the most important arrest yet in Venezuela” in the words of Venezuelan Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami who also called Barrera “the most wanted drug trafficker in the world”.

The capture was celebrated as a victory by all countries involved in the operation and is seen as a positive parenthesis amidst tense diplomatic relations between Venezuela on the one side, and Colombia and the US on the other.

Colombia, with neighbours Peru and Bolivia, is one of the largest cocaine producers in the world and produced 345 tonnes of cocaine in 2011 according to the UN. The vast majority of drugs produced in Latin America find their way to the US where they are sold on the largest drug market in the world.

The homicide rate in Bogotá, Colombia decreased by 44% in the month of August, to 16.1 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, according to City Mayor Gustavo Petro Urrego. This is down from August of 2011, when the homicide rate was 22 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

The Andean capital city has not seen a homicide rate this low since 1984.

Petro credits the reduction in homicides to the disarmament decree implemented on 1st February 2012. The law prohibits the bearing of arms in all public spaces throughout the city. Exceptions are made for active members of the Fuerza Pública, official government bodyguards, accredited personal safety agents, and members of certain sporting clubs, among others.

Since the law’s implementation, gun deaths in the city have fallen by 58%, according to the mayor’s office. Of 143 homicides in August 2011, 100 were committed with a firearm. Of 80 homicides in August 2012, 42 involved a firearm.

“In the entire decade, the city has never reached results so favourable with regard to personal safety,” Petro said.

In August, five of the city’s 20 localities – Chapinero, Teusaquillo, Antonio Nariño, Puente Aranda, and Candelaria – did not report any homicides. According to authorities, the city overall saw a 19% reduction in violent crime and robberies, and 22% in cellphone theft.

According to the city governments’ website Bogotá Humana, the disarmament decree is “just one part of the process” of demystifying guns and their association with security, prestige, and economic gain.

Petro implied that the law’s positive results could have a similar impact throughout the rest of the country. “If we ever see the day that the complete regulation of firearms is in the hands of the state, you can be sure that the level of homicides in all of Colombia will decline radically.”

In Caracas, capital of neighboring Venezuela, the homicide rate is 71 cases per 100,000 inhabitants as of July 2012, according to the Observatorio Metropolitano de Seguridad Ciudadana.

After nearly half a century of conflict, the Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and the left-wing guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), signed an agreement to initiate peace talks in Havana, Cuba.

The peace talks will formally begin in October in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, before delegates will return to Havana to sit down and negotiate “with the aim of not leaving the table until a peace accord has been signed which will put an end to the nearly 50 years of conflict”, said Jorge Enrique Botero, of TeleSUR.

Botero confirmed that the peace process had begun in May when secret conversations began in Havana, coordinated by the governments of Venezuela, Cuba and Norway.

The conflict began in 1964, when FARC, a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organisation picked up arms against the government of the time. The organisation has forces numbering around 18,000. The on-going conflict has led to the displacement of over two million Colombians, one of the highest rates of internally displaced people in the world.

Peru has surpassed Colombia to become the world’s main producer of counterfeit notes despite the arrest of one of the alleged main counterfeiters Joel Quispe Rodríguez, according to Peruvian and US officials.

Peru now accounts for 17% of all counterfeit dollars in the United States according to Brian Leary a spokesperson for the US Secret Service. So far this year US$17m in false currency has been confiscated.

The change is a startling escalation considering the US only detected the counterfeit bills coming from Peru in 2003. The Andean nation has surpassed even Colombia, which was once responsible for producing 43% of US counterfeit dollars according to InSight, an organisation which studies organised crime in Latin America.

Peruvian police believe the Quispe Rodríguez family is responsible for the bulk of the counterfeiting industry.

Many Peruvians believed that with the arrest of Joel Quispe Rodríguez, who was arrested last year, the illegal industry would falter. However, Police suspect his brother, Raul Quispe Rodríguez, has taken over the operation of the fake money.

After an investigation that lasted several months, police said they arrested two more members of the family. They also seized nearly US$7m worth in counterfeit bills including Euros and Peruvian soles.

On the 2nd August, police seized US$2.3m that they believe was also produced by the Quispe Rodríguez family and headed for the US in tourist souvenirs.

César Cortijo, director of the Peruvian police criminal investigation, said most of the money is being exported.

“We found notebooks with drawings, to make [the bills] look like souvenirs. They had a compartment to hide dollars wrapped in carbon paper to make them invisible to x-rays,” said Cortijo to BBC Mundo.

Peru’s surging production of good quality fake bills has attracted international organised crime, according to a police officer who spoke to the newspaper, Peru21. Peruvian police arrested a Mexican man at Lima’s international airport who carried US$520,000 in false bills. They believe he is connected to the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel.

Peru’s government has vowed to strike “heavy blows” against money launderers working in the country, after admitting it had failed make an impact so far.

On Thursday in southwestern Colombia, explosives that were allegedly placed by FARC around an electricity structure were detonated, killing five and leaving six injured. The explosions also knocked down three transformer towers in the Nariño department.

Earlier Thursday morning, a suspected bomb was also detonated in the Cauca region of the southwest department, damaging the power station and surrounding houses. For this incident, there are no reported fatalities and the electricity in the area was not affected.

Both these attacks happened after last week’s alleged FARC landmines killed three electricity workers while they were doing tower repairs in the town of Tumaco. Since this attack, the town and surrounding area have been without electricity or water for six days as workers fear entering the area.

These are examples of a string of ongoing attacks throughout this particular region between the rebel group, the military, and locals. The FARC have been suspected of placing landmines within the area and around energy towers. When workers enter to fix blasted towers, the landmines become detonated. Whether the workers are targeted or not is unknown.

So far, in the past week, there have been reports of two other incidents resulting in death, including one of a 17-year old boy.

The military is trying to work closely with the region’s energy company, Cedenar, to restore power to the approximate 150,000 people for next Tuesday.

“I express anger, rejection and condemn the criminals In the face of what the terrorist groups in Nariño have done,” the minister of Mining and Energy, Mauricio Cardenas, tweeted.

After a meeting yesterday with Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos, the Cauca indigenous communities announced a dialogue had been opened up to reestablish peace in the region.

During the meeting, Santos apologised for the armed conflict that has taken place in the region, but stated that he would not withdraw forces from the zone. The communities responded by reiterating their demand for the demilitarization of the Cauca, presenting him with a document that demanded the army leave.

The area has become increasingly militarized in recent months with the escalation of the conflict between government forces and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In one area alone, more than 3,000 people have been displaced since July.

The dialogues, which are timetabled to last for the next four months, will also confront the territorial claims of the communities, as well the development of the economic, social and cultural rights of the indigenous populations in the region. But the government had suspended a similar dialogue on Sunday, the same day local spiritual leader Lizandro Tenorio was shot dead.

The round tables were due to start today, and will be composed of government delegates, ministers, and representatives of the indigenous people of the Cauca.

Colombian indigenous leader Lisandro Tenoria was killed in Caucas Province on Sunday. The leader of the Nasa tribe was shot dead by unidentified gunmen amid mounting tension between the Nasa and the Farc.

Tenoria’s wife claims the leader was murdered on Sunday by three men who came to his house, shook his hand and then shot him three times in the head. He had been calling for an exit of Farc and security forces from the Caucus Province.

The province is a Farc stronghold and the area has been home to violent clashes between Colombian security forces and the rebel group as well as the Nasa.

The representative of the Organización Nacional Indígenas de Colombia (ONIC), James Yatacue condemnded the crime and claimed the conflict between guerrillas and armed forces has “cornered the native community.”

Tenoria has been the spiritual leader for the Nasa indigenous community of Lopez Adentro for more than thirty years. He had been consistently threatened by members of the Farc, according to relatives and close sources.

Last month Tenoria re-iterated calls for rebels, paramilitaries and police to exit Nasa land in the Caucus province and the Nasa publicly punished three men who had moved across to the Farc. The men were publicly whipped, in accordance with Nasa law.

Since these events, tensions between the Nasa and the Farc have been running high. Earlier this month the ONIC released a document estimating 9,000 people have been forced from their homes and a total of 54 native peoples killed throughout the country since January 2012.

About 15,000 members of the Nasa and other indigenous groups from the region are currently gathered in La Maria, in Cauca province, for a tribal meeting but no conclusion has yet been reached. Interior Minister Federico Renjifo has said that talks are still taking place.