The sheer volume of political stories made public on a daily basis means that, starting from today, this website will also publish a regular digest of some of the most interesting and curious news.

Today’s top three stories:

1. Uribe v Chávez
2. Santos v the media
3. Ordoñez v drug use

1. Top story – Uribe v Chávez 

Earlier this week ex-President Uribe revealed he would have launched military raids in neighbouring Venezuela had he had more time in office. During a speech made to a university audience, Uribe claimed he had sufficient evidence that FARC guerrillas were operating across the border, and that these forces were aided and abetted by the government of Hugo Chávez.Chávez responded that Uribe lacked not time but the ‘balls’ to launch an attack. An unsavory exchange of insults ensued, reminding the world of early 2010 when the two men fought at a summit of the Americas. On this occasion Chávez had accused Uribe of ordering his assassination by Colombian paramilitaries.During the final months of the Uribe presidency the tension ratcheted up as his government presented evidence of Chávez’s complicity with FARC and ELN guerrillas to the Organisation of American States, in an attempt to secure international condemnation of Caracas. As he amassed troops on the Colombia Venezuela border, Chávez spoke of his ‘weeping heart’ at the prospect of war.

Within weeks, Uribe handed over the baton to Juan Manuel Santos whom he hoped would continue the combative mano dura approach to the Venezuelan leader. The new president decided, however, to open dialogue and establish diplomatic ties with Chávez, who soon professed to be Santos’ ‘new best friend’. Uribe has never assimilated this, viewing Santos’ change in diplomatic tactics as treacherous.

Uribe’s announcement reminds Colombians what sort of government he hopes to replace Santos with in 2014 (he has committed to launch an ‘anti-Santos’ candidate for these elections). All this also provides us an insight into what might have happened had the Colombian courts allowed Uribe to stand for a third term in office.

Thankfully, the tragic waste of life that a war between the two countries would have produced, has been avoided.

Curiously while Uribe’s words might have ignited his base they have done precious little to help the opposition candidate Capriles in his fight to rest the presidency from Chávez in October. Chávez has used Uribe’s talk of war to insinuate that Capriles is supported and funded by ‘far right’ interests in Colombia. Uribe’s talk may achieve the reverse of the outcome he hopes for. Capriles must hope that Uribe keeps quiet over the coming months.

President Juan Manuel Santos found himself in the eye of a storm this week as he claimed that ‘without the media, there would be no terrorism’.

It is of course a self-evident truth that the media helps to spread the word and actions of terrorists and that consequently it helps to spreading fear. Nevertheless it was a strange move for Santos to make this point in public, and it has left the president who belongs to the most famous newspaper-owning family in Colombia, red-faced indeed.

The nation’s media has jumped on the ‘gaffe’ and accused Santos either of passing the blame for the inability of the government to finish off the FARC – or worse, of ignorantly inciting oppression of free-speech.

Santos’ popularity has been in free-fall partly on the back of a perceived deterioration in the country’s security situation following an up-surge in FARC activity. Critics accuse Santos of erecting a smoke-screen to divert attention from the real and pressing problems the nation faces.

This is harsh as Santos’ comments were not a serious attack on the press. Instead, they should be seen more as an insight into his frustration at being impotent to end Latin America’s longest running internal conflict.

The ultra-Conservative Alejandro Ordoñez has called for a national referendum on drug legalisation. Ordoñez, a Catholic moralist, is a fierce opponent of attempts to relax drug laws.

His move is a reaction to an emerging political panorama – within Colombia, as well as abroad – that is pondering a serious reconsideration of the tactics of the war on drugs:

Ordoñez understands that the climate is liberalising, and as the debate continues to take hold in the country, the prospect of an eventual move towards a form of legal control on the production and consumption of drugs will move closer.

Were a referendum called now, Colombia would vote no, and the debate would be stopped in its tracks. Ordoñez is attempting to abort the issue.

Naturally, Ordoñez also knows that it is constitutionally impossible to offer a plebiscite on an issue that extends beyond Colombia’s borders, and he therefore knows that the push for a referendum is a political statement rather than a realistic proposal.

There are those who speculate on the connection this has with Ordoñez’s campaign to be re-elected.