Colombia’s second-largest city inaugurated a giant, outdoor escalator for residents of one of its poorest neighbourhoods.

More than two decades after the US forced him from power, Manuel Noriega returned to Panama as a prisoner and, to many of those he once ruled with impunity, an irrelevant man.

FORMER military strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega was flown home to Panama yesterday to be punished once again for crimes he committed during a career that saw him transformed from a Cold War ally of Washington to the target of a US invasion.

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega will be extradited to his homeland in the next few weeks, the French Justice Ministry said.

Hooded gunmen killed the mayor of a small town in the northern Mexico state of San Luis Potosi, and prosecutors announced the arrest of seven suspects in the massacre of 72 migrants in August.

ANY loosed-tongued World Cup commentator tempted to describe an own goal as “a tragedy” would do well to note that yesterday, July 2, marked the 16th anniversary of the murder of Andres Escobar, the Colombian player whose final major act for his country had been to put through his own goal in a game against the host nation at USA ‘94.

Colombian drug kingpin Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela was flown to the United States early today on a US government plane, becoming the most powerful Colombian trafficker ever extradited to face US courts.

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