Bogota  - Wilson Bueno Largo, a young former member of Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels, left the country late Tuesday bound for exile in France.

Largo, also known as Isaza, gained hero status for freeing a kidnapped Colombian lawmaker, Oscar Tulio Lizcano, 62, whom he dragged to freedom in October, earning a 400,000-dollar reward.

The 28-year-old was accompanied to Paris by another former FARC hostage, Ingrid Betancourt, and his girlfriend, who deserted from the rebels three months earlier.

Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate, who was freed by the military in July after eight years as a FARC hostage, proposed the exile to Largo, as a message to other rebels still holding hostages.

Bogota  - A former FARC rebel's planned departure from Colombia to live in asylum in France was stopped at the last moment on Monday after the public prosecutor requested a delay.

Wilson Bueno Largo, alias Isaza, had fled a FARC camp in Colombia in October along with a hostage and was to fly to France with high- profile former hostage Ingrid Bentancourt on Monday.

But prosecutor Mario Iguaran asked for the stay in order to determine whether Isaza was guilty of kidnapping and to wait for a justice decision on his pardoning.

Bogota  - Eight Colombian police officers were killed Friday in a bomb attack by leftist rebels on a road in the northeastern province of Arauca, on the border with Venezuela, officials said.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, although both the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the smaller National Liberation Army
(ELN) - both leftist groups - are active in Arauca.

The attackers allegedly killed off those who survived the initial bombing.

COLUMBIA, S. C., Dec. 4  -- The Columbia, S. C., City Council has closed a legal loophole that kept officials from prosecuting people for having sex in parks, officials said.

Under the new ordinance passed Wednesday, it is illegal to "knowingly or intentionally" have sex on any "streets, sidewalks, bridges, alleys, plazas, parks, driveways, parking lots, automobiles (whether moving or not), and those portions of buildings open to the general public," The State newspaper of Columbia reported.

"We are not going to tolerate criminal behavior in our public places and parks," Columbia Mayor Bob Coble said. "This gives law enforcement and the parks the tools to enforce it."

Bogota  - Tens of thousands of Colombians poured into the streets of the South American country's cities Friday to demand the release of more than 3,000 hostages being held, sometimes for years, by Colombian rebels.

"Freedom by Christmas," demonstrators demanded. Many wore ghostly white to symbolize their solemn message.

Bogota  - Ten people were killed in an avalanche Wednesday in the south-western Colombian town of Miranda, following heavy rains that have fallen on the South American country for weeks.

Colombian radio station Caracol said the avalanche caused by an overflowing river buried people living in a humble area of Miranda, 300 kilometres southwest of Bogota, in the province of Cauca.

According to rescue teams, the rain has affected 255 municipalities in 26 of Colombia's 32 provinces since mid-September. Forty-four people have died, while some