Former French hostage Ingrid Betancourt will be awarded the Legion of Honour on the country’s biggest national holiday.

Ingrid Betancourt today checked into a French military hospital for tests after spending six years in the hands of Colombian rebels.

The Colombian government has released video footage of the dramatic rescue of politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages.

INGRID BETANCOURT began each day in captivity at 4am — cold and depressed, but awake in the dark waiting to hear her mother’s words of encouragement over the radio.

Former hostage Ingrid Betancourt arrived in France to a hero’s welcome today after six years as a captive in the Colombian jungle.

Freed hostage Ingrid Betancourt is to meet the Pope, the Vatican announced today.

In her first hours of freedom, Ingrid Betancourt held her children tight, visited her father’s grave and sent her husband out to find oranges for breakfast.

Hostages freed in a daring helicopter rescue said today their gruelling existence as captives of Colombian rebels worsened in recent months as government troops closed in and supplies became more scarce.

The children of rescued hostage Ingrid Betancourt have embraced their mother for the first time in six years.

Colombian spies tricked leftist rebels into handing over kidnapped presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors today in a daring helicopter rescue. No shots were fired during the rescue.

COLOMBIA freed Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors from leftist guerrillas after military spies tricked rebels into giving them up without a single injury, the defence minister said. In all, the operation freed 15 hostages including Colombian soldiers and police, Juan Manuel Santos said.

Fifteen hostages, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors, have been freed, the Army said tonight.

France has asked Venezuela for help with a hurried mission to free an ailing hostage held by Colombian rebels, but President Hugo Chavez says he is powerless until Colombia and the US stop hunting a rebel leader.

The former husband of French hostage Ingrid Betancourt said today that he fears she is dead after six years of rebel captivity in Colombia’s jungle, expressing doubts about a government offer to obtain her release.

Colombia offered to suspend the sentences of jailed guerrillas if the rebels first free hostages including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

Four hostages were freed by Colombian rebels after six years of captivity and flown to Venezuela, where they appealed to President Hugo Chavez to help press for the freedom of all remaining hostages.

Colombia’s largest guerrilla group is expected to release three captive politicians in the coming days or weeks, France’s foreign minister says.

Freed hostage Clara Rojas wore a photograph of her three-year-old son around her neck as she described his birth and upbringing among Colombian rebels in jungle camps.

TWO high-profile woman hostages held in the Amazon jungle by Colombian rebels for more than five years were freed yesterday.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe agreed to allow a representative of Colombia’s largest guerrilla group to travel to Caracas for talks aimed at freeing dozens of rebel-held hostages, including politician Ingrid Betancourt and three US defence contractors.

Former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt is forced to sleep chained by her neck as punishment for having tried to escape from her rebel captors five times, an escaped hostage told family members today.

An international society conman jailed in Ireland after going on a spending spree with a stolen credit card and wanted in three countries is to face an extradition hearing within weeks, the High Court heard today.

EVEN though many people might like to know what Martin McCauley, Niall Connolly and James Monaghan were doing in Colombia, it should be recalled that, at their first trial, they were found not guilty.

An Irish minister today met the husband of a kidnapped Colombian politician to assure him of the State’s support in the fight to free his wife.

Members of the Colombian Green Party are calling on the Irish Government to support their efforts to release their leader, Ingrid Betancourt, who has been held hostage by FARC rebels for 1,000 days.

The daughter of a politician held hostage held for the past 1,000 days by rebels in Colombia today accused the country’s president of not doing enough to win her release.

Leftist guerrillas in Colombia have taken a presidential candidate hostage after abducting her at a roadblock as she was driving into an area where government troops are trying to oust the rebels.

A presidential candidate has been kidnapped by rebels in Colombia.

A candidate in Colombia's presidential elections has been reported missing after she failed to arrive at a former rebel-controlled town occupied by the army.