Colombia, FARC rebels resume peace talks in Havana

Colombia’s government and leftist rebels launched a new round of peace talks Wednesday, one day ahead of the arrival of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to help facilitate negotiations. The talks between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), now into their third year, are resuming after a two-week hiatus. They also plan to meet during this round of negotiations with newly-appointed US special envoy to Colombia Bernard Aronson, former assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs who came out of retirement to help facilitate the talks, which wrap up on March 7. President Juan Manuel Santos’s government has been in peace talks since November 2012 with FARC, the country’s largest rebel group with an estimated 8,000 fighters.