Soccer plane in Colombia crash was running out of fuel, a pilot says - Reuters

Reuters

The pilot of a LAMIA Airlines plane that crashed in Colombia, virtually wiping out a Brazilian soccer team, had radioed that he was running out of fuel and needed to make an emergency landing, according to the co-pilot of another plane in the area.

The crash on Monday night killed 71 people. Six survived, including just three members of the Chapecoense soccer squad en route to the biggest game in their history, the Copa Sudamericana final.

Avianca co-pilot Juan Sebastian Upegui said in a chat message with friends that the LAMIA pilot told the control tower at the airport in Medellin that he was in trouble.

Read the rest here.

Soccer crash survivors undergo operations in Colombia, probe begins - Reuters

Doctors treated traumatized survivors and an investigation was to get underway on Wednesday into an air crash that killed 71 people and wiped out Brazil's Chapecoense soccer team en route to a cup final in Colombia.

Only six people - three players, a journalist and two crew members - survived the disaster on Monday night when Chapecoense's charter plane hit a mountain en route to their Copa Sudamericana showdown in Medellin city.

All were being treated at local hospitals.

Read the rest here.

Plane taking Brazilian soccer team to cup final in Colombia crashes, 71 dead - Reuters

A plane taking Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense to a South American cup final crashed in Colombia after reporting an electrical fault, killing 71 people, including most of the team and accompanying journalists.

The plane slammed into a mountainside near Medellin on Monday night as the team flew to face Atletico Nacional for the Copa Sudamericana, which is South America's equivalent of the Europa League.

It was Colombia's worst air disaster in two decades and there were only six survivors.

Global soccer was stunned with tributes pouring in from major figures from Pele to Lionel Messi.

Read the rest here.

Colombia, rebels agree revised peace deal to end 52-year war - Reuters

Reuters

Colombia's government and the Marxist FARC rebels said on Saturday they agreed on a revised peace deal to end a 52-year war, six weeks after the original was narrowly rejected in a referendum amid objections it was too favorable to the rebels.

The government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which have been holding talks in Havana for four years, said they had incorporated proposals from the opposition, religious leaders and others.

President Juan Manuel Santos hopes to unite the divided nation behind the new deal after the peace process was endangered by its rejection in the October plebiscite. Colombian voters were deeply split, with many worried the FARC would not be punished for crimes and others hopeful the deal would cement an end to violence.

Read the rest here.

Colombia Is Hit Hard by Zika, but Not by Microcephaly - New York Times

This tropical city on the Caribbean coast may hold the answer to one of the deeper mysteries of the Zika epidemic: Why has the world’s second-largest outbreak, after Brazil’s, produced so few birth defects?

Katie Orlinsky, New York Times

In Brazil, more than 2,000 babies have been born with microcephaly, abnormally small heads and brain damage caused by the Zika virus. In Colombia, officials had predicted there might be as many as 700 such babies by the end of this year. There have been merely 47.

The gap has been seen all over the Americas. According to the World Health Organization, the United States has 28 cases — almost all linked to women infected elsewhere. Guatemala has 15, and Martinique has 12.

Read the rest here.