Colombia, Venezuela restore diplomatic ties

The leaders of Colombia and Venezuela have reestablished diplomatic relations, saying they are starting to repair confidence undermined by years of mutual recriminations.

The announcement came after a four-hour meeting Tuesday in the Colombian city of Santa Marta between Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombia’s new leader, Juan Manuel Santos. The two restored ties that Chávez severed last month in response to accusations that Venezuela has become a haven for Colombian rebels.

Santos said the rapprochement between two men with “so many and such frequent differences, who decide to turn the page and think of the future . . . that’s something I think we have to celebrate.” He said after the meeting that Chávez had given assurances “he is not going to allow the presence of outlaw groups in his territory.”

Chávez said the neighbors are starting down a new road after years of often prickly relations under Santos’s predecessor, Álvaro Uribe. Uribe’s administration accused Chávez’s socialist-oriented government of aiding the rebels and turning a blind eye to rebel leaders and guerrilla camps in Venezuelan territory.

Chávez reiterated that he does not support the Colombian rebels or any other insurgent group.

— Associated Press

CHINA

Landslide death toll in northwest rises to 1,117

Heavy rains lashed a remote section of northwestern China as the death toll from weekend flooding that triggered massive landslides jumped to 1,117, although rescuers’ fading hopes got a boost late Wednesday when a survivor was found in the debris.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency gave no immediate details on the survivor, found nearly four days after the disaster struck the small town of Zhouqu, in Gansu province. Earlier Wednesday, a 50-year-old man was rescued who had been trapped in knee-deep mud on the second floor of a hotel, Xinhua said.

At least 627 people were still missing, local officials said.

— Associated Press

VATICAN

2 Dublin bishops’ resignations are rejected

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin disclosed that the Vatican has rejected the resignations of his two auxiliary bishops after their reported involvement in the Catholic Church’s coverup of child abuse.

The Vatican’s rebuff deals a blow to Martin, a veteran Vatican diplomat who was appointed to head Ireland’s most populous diocese in 2004. He has clashed with predecessors who oversaw a culture of concealment of child molestation by transferring abusive priests to new parishes in Ireland, Britain and the United States.

“Following the presentation of their resignations to Pope Benedict, it has been decided that Bishop Eamonn Walsh and Bishop Raymond Field will remain as auxiliary bishops,” Martin said in a letter sent this week to priests and other Dublin church officials.

— Associated Press

Sri Lankan war panel begins hearings:

A government-appointed commission looking into Sri Lanka’s civil war began public hearings in Colombo. The United Nations says at least 7,000 civilians were killed in the five months before the war ended in May 2009, when government forces finally crushed separatist ethnic Tamil rebels after a quarter-century of conflict. Human rights groups say the commission is aimed at deflecting calls for an international investigation.

60 bodies found in Bosnian lake: Officials said they have found 60 partial skeletons in the muddy banks of a man-made lake in eastern Bosnia since the water level was lowered for dam maintenance. More than 1,000 Bosnian Muslims disappeared from around the city of Visegrad when Serb forces took control of the area in 1992.

8 Iraqi soldiers killed in booby-trapped house: Gunmen burst into a house in volatile Diyala province, killed three people and then sent the surviving children to lure over soldiers from a nearby Iraqi army checkpoint. When the troops arrived, the house blew up, killing eight soldiers and wounding four, the local mayor said.

Grenade blast injures 7 in Rwandan capital: A grenade exploded near a bus station in Kigali, wounding at least seven people, just two days after the country’s presidential election, a police spokesman said. The electoral commission said Wednesday that full provisional results showed President Paul Kagame was reelected with 93 percent of the vote.