Nicaragua breaks off Colombia ties

Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president, has said he will break off diplomatic relations with Colombia over its raid on a Farc rebel camp inside Ecuador at the weekend. Ortega said he was ending relations with Bogota "in solidarity" with Ecuador, whose president, Rafael Correa, was on a visit to Nicaragua amid regional tension over the raid.

"We are breaking off relations because of the political terrorism being carried out by the government of Alvaro Uribe, not because of the Colombian people," Ortega said alongside Correa in Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, on Thursday.

Regional tensions have risen following the raid, in which a senior Farc leader was killed and Ecuador and Venezuela have sent troops to their Colombian borders.

'Colombian aggression'

Correa called on the Rio Group of regional powers, which represents 20 Latin American states, to formally condemn the raid at a summit in the Dominican Republic.

He urged the group to "clearly condemn the Colombian aggression in Ecuador and oblige this government to never dare again to assault a brother country"