Farce

Reporting from Moscow -- The abuse-of-power trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko slid into chaos Wednesday when the Western-leaning politician was tossed from a Kiev courtroom after calling the judge a "monster" and her prosecution a "farce. " The former princess of the so-called Orange Revolution, which in late 2004 and early 2005 loosened Ukraine's ties to Russia, is also under investigation, government officials said, on possible charges of high treason and the alleged attempted embezzlement of $405 million while she and her colleagues were in power.

Colombian officials said Tuesday that government troops rescued 21 of 23 oil field workers who were kidnapped the day before by suspected leftist rebels in remote Vichada state. Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said the overnight military operation, code-named Minotaur, was greatly helped by a hostage who escaped shortly after the abduction and then provided information about others' whereabouts. The abduction took place near the village of Puerto Principe, about 450 miles east of Bogota, the capital.

Colombian officials reported that 23 oil field workers were kidnapped Monday in the eastern state of Vichada, and said they believed leftist rebels were responsible. The Defense Ministry said in a statement that the workers were employed by a contractor of Canada-based Talisman Energy, and that they were seized while conducting oil exploration activities. Vichada Gov. Juan Carlos Avila told Caracol television that the leftist guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia, or FARC, were responsible for the kidnappings.

Colombian rebels released the first of five political hostages they have promised to set free amid renewed hope in some quarters that the insurgents and the government will launch peace negotiations. Marcos Baquero, a San Jose del Guaviare city councilman who was kidnapped in June 2009, was released by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, at an undisclosed location in the nation's eastern jungle region and flown to his home town of Villavicencio, where he was reunited with his family.

When a romantic comedy opens with kids looking for shapes in the clouds and one young lad spots a "wiener" ? and he's not talking hotdogs ? it's a pretty good bet that a conventional love story is not going to follow. That is most definitely the case in the audacious and wildly out-of-control farce of "I Love You Phillip Morris," with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor as a match made in prison. And, trust me, that is a long way from heaven. Though the film, and its many whimsical visual and musical flourishes, evokes a kind of warped funhouse effect, this is a true-life tale of a small-time lawman turned con artist and the lengths he goes to for the man of his dreams.

Through the bars of a cage built in the jungle, Ingrid Betancourt watched her kidnappers dig a 9-foot-deep pit. She believed it would be her grave. Instead, Betancourt was tossed inside, very much alive. Her laughing captors, members of the leftist Colombian guerrilla group known as the FARC, then placed bets on whether the 42-year-old mother of two would have the strength and moxie to find a way out. That story, like so many in "Even Silence Has an End," Betancourt's riveting account of her six years in FARC captivity, ends with a strange and poignant twist.

For many years now, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ? guerrillas who have waged civil war against the government since the 1960s ? have been falling behind the times. Living as they do in Colombia's vast forests, the FARC troops, made up mostly of poor peasants who are given guns, a bit of food and a smattering of pseudo-communist ideology, are often the last to get important updates about world events. For example, several American military contractors who were held hostage by the FARC until their rescue in 2008 recounted their futile efforts to convince their captors that the Panama Canal was no longer in the possession of the United States, or that the real reason for the U.S. embargo of Cuba was not to keep Americans from fleeing there.

The Colombian armed forces delivered a major blow to the nation's largest insurgent group, killing a key rebel leader at his base camp in a remote area of southeastern Meta state. President Juan Manuel Santos, in New York to attend a session of the United Nations, confirmed Thursday that longtime rebel leader Victor Julio Suarez Rojas, 57, had been killed in an operation carried out Wednesday and early Thursday by 600 troops, led by special forces and supported by 27 helicopters and 30 other aircraft.

"Soul Kitchen" is a lively, easygoing farce filled with high-energy music and amusing complications. It sounds like the least likely film to be written and directed by Fatih Akin. Or does it? Akin, born in Germany of Turkish parents, is best known for way-serious films such as the devastating "Head-On" and the somber " The Edge of Heaven. " Though he'd written this film before those two, he admits in a director's statement that after their success, "I didn't find 'Soul Kitchen' important enough.

Tensions are bubbling once more along the rugged 1,200-mile border between Venezuela and Colombia. Using videos and photos, Colombian diplomats accused Venezuela of tolerating the presence of 1,500 leftist rebel fighters and several top leaders in its territory. They made the charges in a presentation Thursday before the Organization of American States. They requested an international body to monitor the border and verify the presence of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia , or FARC.