Colombia is on course for another try at ending Latin America's last armed conflict, with confirmation Monday from the FARC leftist rebel leader that preliminary talks have taken place with the government on launching a full-blown peace process.

"We come to the table for dialogue without rancor, or arrogance," FARC leader Rodrigo Londono said in a broadcast on the Caracol radio station.

A proposal to open treatment centers in the Colombian capital for drug addicts is causing a stir in this cocaine-producing Latin American country.

The project, the brainchild of Bogota mayor Gustavo Petro, is aimed at curbing drug-related crime. Petro's office says it is similar to programs in Canada, Portugal, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

A sticker book dedicated to notorious Colombian criminals has become a sales hit in a city that was once the headquarters of notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar.

The 16-page album, which has been on the market for about 10 days, focuses on Escobar, the Medellin cartel chief who was killed in 1993, as well as other drug-traffickers and killers such as Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha or John Jairo Vasquez.

President Hugo Chavez announced Thursday that security forces arrested a U.S. citizen and suspect he is a mercenary who could be involved in an alleged plot to destabilize Venezuela if the opposition's candidate loses the upcoming presidential election.

Chavez said the Hispanic man was detained Aug. 4 while crossing into Venezuela from Colombia. The president said the man was carrying a U.S. passport with entrance and exit stamps from countries including Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya as well as a notebook containing geographical coordinates.

The United States on Wednesday named five Colombia and Venezuela-based men as key players in a sprawling trafficking and money laundering network of alleged Hizbullah-linked Lebanese drug lord Ayman Joumaa.

The U.S. Treasury set sanctions on two Lebanese-born men, Abbas Hussein Harb and Ibrahim Chibli, for helping Joumaa launder what it said were millions of dollars of narcotics-related proceeds.

Colombian rebels on Wednesday freed a French journalist kidnapped 33 days ago, releasing him in a remote jungle village in a move the French president hailed as a "happy end."

"Apart from the fact that I was held for a month, everything went very well. I cannot complain," France 24 correspondent Romeo Langlois told reporters after arriving in the hamlet of San Isidro with a group of rebels.

At least two people were killed and 39 wounded in Colombia's capital Tuesday when a bomb exploded in what President Juan Manuel Santos said was an assassination attempt against a former interior minister.

"I've just learned that an attempt was made on the life of Mr. Fernando Londono. He was in his armored car," said Santos, who canceled a planned trip to Cartagena and summoned a meeting of the National Security Council.

A French television journalist went missing in Colombia on Saturday following a leftist rebel attack on an army column that claimed four lives in the country's south, military officials said.

The reporter, identified as Romeo Langlois who works for France 24, was accompanying a military and police patrol in Caqueta province, where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are active, the officials said.

Three U.S. Marines and a State Department employee were punished over their involvement with a Brazilian prostitute in December, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday.

The admission came as officials were still reeling from the fallout of a prostitution scandal implicating Secret Service agents and military personnel working on a visit to Colombia by President Barack Obama.

Hollywood star Angelina Jolie visited with displaced Colombians forced to seek refuge across the border in Ecuador, as a special envoy of High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, the UNHCR announced Sunday.

It was the first such working visit for the screen star since Guterres named her to the post this month. She has however been a U.N. goodwill ambassador since 2001, and as such made 40 visits around the world in the past decade.