FARMERS in the REPS4 scheme will get a 10% cut in payments, while the qualifying criteria for those farming in disadvantaged areas will also change under measures announced in yesterday’s budget.

THOUSANDS of farmers are still awaiting receipt of payment under the Single Farm Payment Scheme (SFP) and the Disadvantaged Area Scheme (DAS), despite the Department of Agriculture’s insistence the payments are rolling out on schedule.

FOREIGN intelligence services spying on the European Parliament?

Left-wing rebels freed the last known foreign hostage held in Colombia, an ailing 69-year-old Swede kidnapped nearly two years ago from the ranch where he had retired.

Colombia’s director of domestic intelligence resigned after her agency was caught spying on a prominent political opponent of President Alvaro Uribe.

THOUSANDS of airline passengers are not claiming their rights if flights are delayed or cancelled.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said his government is redoubling efforts to detect assassination plots, calling US diplomat John Negroponte a “professional killer” and saying he believes enemies – including the CIA – are out to kill him.

A Spanish official with the European Commission who was kidnapped more than a month ago in Colombia has been found safe in Venezuela after escaping from his captors, Colombian authorities said today.

Lawyers for three republicans convicted of providing terrorist training to Colombian guerrillas expressed hope today that the verdict would be overturned after a member of the three-judge panel said questioned the evidence that was allowed in court.

Colombian police today discovered what they called an ingenious drug trafficking tool - a fibreglass submarine capable of transporting up to 10 tons of cocaine.

Gunmen on motorcycles have killed the new chief of secret police as he drove his car in Medellin, Colombia.