|||| FARC. She was released along with 3 U.S. contractors and 11 other hostages 

Betancourt’s rescue ‘impeccable’

||| Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said the army captured rebels, persuading their comrades to turn over the captives. The well planned rescue effort was a total success as no lives were lost. Betancourt was abducted in February 2002 as she was campaigning for president. [5]

Colombia freed Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors, including a man who grew up in Connecticut, from leftist guerrillas on Wednesday, saying military spies tricked rebels into giving them up without a single shot being fired. Betancourt, who was seized while campaigning for president six long years ago, called her surprise rescue “absolutely impeccable” and said she and 14 other hostages had no idea they were being rescued until they were airborne in disguised military helicopters. “They got us out grandly,” Betancourt told Colombian army radio. Eleven Colombian police and soldiers were also freed in the rescue, the most serious blow ever dealt to the 44-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which considered the four hostages their most valuable bargaining chips. The FARC is already reeling from the deaths of key commanders and the loss of much of the territory it once held.
(See related story on P.5)

Breaking news

*French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday that the newly freed Colombian-French hostage Ingrid Betancourt was in “good health” and her children would go to see her in Colombia. Sarkozy urged the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which had held Betancourt for six years, to stop “this absurd and medieval conflict” with the Colombian government. He said France was ready to offer asylum to FARC fighters who renounce violence.

*Pope Benedict XVI's spokesman says the Vatican is happy about the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages in Colombia. The Rev. Federico Lombardi has told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday night that the Vatican hopes it will be the start of a pacification process for Colombia and that other hostages will also gain freedom. Lombardi is in Hungary for a meeting. He says he is sure Benedict will have been rapidly informed of the news. Benedict appealed Tuesday for the end to kidnappings in Colombia. The pope met with Betancourt's mother at the Vatican in February.  
  
   

HONOR

 Heath Ledger’s Joker is as dark and anarchic a figure as Randle McMurphy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” [15]

Oil soars above $144    

Oil prices shot to new records above $144 a barrel Wednesday as the government reported a bigger-than-expected drop in U.S. supplies and the threat of conflict with Iran weighed on traders’ minds. [11]

STUDY

The dwindling march of the penguins is signaling that the world’s oceans are in trouble, scientists now say.   [13]

Mercosur urges rethinking      

The 35th bi-annual summit of the Mercosur trade bloc ended Tuesday in this northern Argentine city with timid advances toward economic integration and pledges to forge a common response to skyrocketing food and energy prices. [6]