Interoil Exploration & Production ASA: Production update June 2010

The average production in June 2010, compared to the average production in May 2010,
was:

Production* June 2010 May 2010
Peru 3’197 3’392
Colombia 1’861 2’100
Total 5’058 5’492

*The production is average daily production (bopd) and is working interest before
royalty

The production in Colombia in May includes test production from Altair-1. Juni
production does not include any production from Altair.

Oil has been sold at average sales price of USD 73.47 in Peru and USD 68.89 in Colombia
per barrel during May.

For more information please contact:

Fredrik von Zernichow

Investor Relation Manager

Tel: +47 6751 8661

Mob: +47 9927 3843

Fax: +47 6751 8660

E-mail: f.zernichow@interoil.no mailto:f.zernichow@interoil.no

www.interoil.no

***************************

InterOil Exploration & Production ASA is a Norwegian based exploration and production
company – listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange – with focus on Latin-America. The company
is operator of several production and exploration assets in Peru and Colombia, and is an
active license partner in Angola and Ghana. InterOil currently employs approximately 250
people and is headquartered in Oslo.

This information is subject of the disclosure requirements acc. to §5-12 vphl (Norwegian
Securities Trading Act)

Conservative Santos has early lead in Colombia vote

May 30 (Reuters) – Former Colombian defense minister Juan Manuel Santos took an early lead in the first round of a presidential election trailed by independent Antanas Mockus, according to preliminary results on Sunday.

With 6.29 percent of voting stations counted, Santos led with 47.7 percent of the vote, with Mockus garnering 22.3 percent.

(Reporting by Bogota Newsroom)

18 killed in Colombia rains

Bogota, May 26 (IANS) Heavy rains in Colombia have left at least 18 people dead and some 84,200 affected in the past weekend, the National Emergency System said.

The downpour caused floodings, landslides and storms in 134 municipalities, Xinhua reported.

According to the emergency department, 87 people were injured, five missing and more than 15,000 house were damaged.

More heavy rains are expected to hit the central and south of the country, accompanied by thunder storms.

French Open men’s singles first round results

REUTERS – French Open men’s singles first round results from Paris on Sunday (prefix denotes seeding, * new result).

* 5-Robin Soederling (Sweden) beat Laurent Recouderc (France) 6-0 6-2 6-3

11-Mikhail Youzhny (Russia) beat Michal Przysiezny (Poland) 6-1 6-0 6-4

Thiemo de Bakker (Netherlands) beat Olivier Patience (France) 6-4 5-7 6-4 6-3

Alejandro Falla (Colombia) beat Janko Tipsarevic (Serbia) 6-1 6-2 6-3

10-Marin Cilic (Croatia) beat Ricardo Mello (Brazil) 6-1 3-6 6-3 6-1

(Compiled by Infostrada Sports; Editing by Toby Davis)

I have good gut feeling – South Africa’s Parreira

Coach Carlos Alberto Parreira said he had “a good feeling in the pit of my stomach” about South Africa’s World Cup chances despite the host nation being among the lowest-ranked teams in the tournament.

Parreira said a recent 4-0 friendly win over Thailand and increased intensity in training had given him a positive feeling.

South Africa, drawn with France, Mexico and Uruguay in Group A, are seeking to avoid becoming the first World Cup hosts to fail to get past the first round of their tournament.

“My stomach tells me we are going to do well. I have a very positive feeling. Every time I see them (the players) train, they are looking better and better. Every day they spent together, you can see the improvement,” he told a media briefing on Sunday.

South Africa play Bulgaria in Soweto on Monday as they continue their preparations for the opening World Cup game against Mexico in Johannesburg on June 11.

“The idea is to take it step-by-step but always go forward, never going backwards,” Parreira said.

“We want to keep improving on every performance and then we should have the confidence that we are going to do well at the World Cup.”

South Africa then face Colombia on Thursday and Parreira said he wanted another international on May 31 before his team’s final warm-up game against Denmark on June 5 in Pretoria.

(Editing by Ed Osmond; to query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

US forced American Muslim into ‘exile’: Rights group

A Muslim civil rights group today accused the US government of forcing an American citizen into “exile” because he was an Islamic convert.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said Raymond Earl Knaeble IV, 29, had been placed on a no-fly list and had been unable to return home from Colombia since March.

The group’s claim could not be independently confirmed and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to CAIR, Knaeble this week flew to Mexico in hope of travelling to the Mexican-US border, but he instead faced lengthy interrogation by Mexican officials before being sent back to Colombia.

“He was stopped by Mexican authorities as he got off the plane and asked, ‘Are you Muslim?’ He was then detained for 15 hours and asked many questions relating to his faith,” according to CAIR.

“It is un-American and illegal for a citizen who has not been accused of, let alone charged with, any crime to be denied entry to his own country without adequate explanation,” said CAIR lawyer Nadhira Al-Khalili, who is representing Knaeble.

“We call on the Department of Justice to end Mr Knaeble’s forced exile and to address the disturbing issue of the other Americans who are similarly being denied re-entry to their own country,” she said.

Colombian rebels release hostage after 12 years

A Colombian soldier captured as a teenager by the country’s left-wing FARC rebels has been released after more than 12 years as a hostage.

Sergeant Pablo Moncayo was 19 when he was captured. He was a corporal at the time but was promoted while in captivity.

The Red Cross coordinated the handover that took place at a remote jungle location in the south of the country.

Sergeant Moncayo’s plight has received international media attention largely due to his father’s lobbying efforts in which he would wear chains to symbolise his son’s captivity.

But the rebels say no more hostages will be released until Colombian president Alvaro Uribe agrees to negotiate a prisoner exchange.

Mr Uribe has a hardline policy against the rebels, but says an exchange is possible if freed guerillas do not rejoin the FARC.

EU in trade deal with Colombia, Peru – sources

BRUSSELS, March 1 (Reuters) – The European Union has reached a free trade agreement with Colombia and Peru, sources close to the negotiations said on Monday.

The European Commission, the EU executive in charge of trade policy in the 27-nation bloc, held the ninth round of negotiations with the two Latin American countries over the past week.

“Yes, there has been a deal (reached) with both countries, Colombia and Peru,” one of the sources said, adding that details would be announced later on Monday. (Reporting by Bate Felix, editing by Dale Hudson)

Maradona insists he won’t quit, instead will work hard like crazy

Buenos Aires (Argentina), Sep 7(ANI): Argentina coach Diego Maradona, who faces the axe if his team fails to qualify for next year’s World Cup in South Africa, has said that he will not quit rather he would “work hard like crazy”.

The two-time World champions was beaten by South American rivals Brazil, and are currently fourth in their group, just two points ahead of Ecuador and Colombia.

“This won’t break me. I will work hard like crazy. To lose to Brazil is always ugly. We were very motivated about winning and moving closer towards the World Cup. But now we can’t sit back because qualifying will be tough,” The Sun quoted Maradona, as saying.

Maradona further accepted to take the responsibility of defeat against Brazil, and said that Messi should not be blamed for it, as he wasn’t the only on playing.

“I won’t complain about my players, because I threw everything at Brazil. Unfortunately we just couldn’t turn the game,” he said.

Maradona also said that there was now huge pressure on the team ahead of the next qualifier, which will be played against Paraguay on Thursday. (ANI)

Lunar clock to be built by River Thames by 2012

London, September 3 (ANI): Scientists and artists are planning to build a 40m-wide lunar clock by the River Thames by the year 2012.

According to a report by BBC News, the aim is to create a new London landmark close to the proposed Olympic stadium as a monument to a more natural way of marking time.

The proposed site is at East India Dock, six miles along the river from Westminster Palace. It is currently a bedraggled nature reserve.

The designers of the clock hope that the instrument will become as iconic as Big Ben, which has been marking time for 150 years.

Laura Williams, an East London artist, explained that the clock would be powered by the tides from the Thames.

“There are three giant concentric rings made from recycled glass. Light shines through from the glass in time with the Moon’s cycles so the largest ring shows the lunar phase,” she said.

“Gradually, the light waxes on all the way around the ring and connects full circle when it’s full Moon,” she added.

“The second ring is like the big hand of the clock. It’s a marker of light that tracks the Moon around the globe so that’s the lunar day cycle,” said Williams.

“The third ring – the smallest – is the small hand that tracks the tide as it goes from high tide to low,” she said.

The clock has been called Aluna. It is a word from the Kogi indigenous people of Colombia.

“It means memory, possibility. It’s also being in tune with the planet’s rhythms and living in harmony with our planet,” said Williams.

According to Dr Usama Hasan, an astronomer, in this age of iPods and atomic clocks, there is a greater need than ever for an older way of measuring time.

“Aluna is a project which tries to connect us back to the cosmic cycle, with nature. I think that’s very important especially in the very technological age we live in,” said Hasan. (ANI)

A unique story of parallel evolution in moths unraveled

Washington, Sept 2 (ANI): A new revision of the taxonomic relationships among one group of moths, the subfamily Dioptinae, sheds light on the diversity of tropical moth species and presents a unique story of parallel evolution.

“These diurnal moths are a microcosm of butterfly evolution,” said James Miller, author of the new Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History and a research associate in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the Museum.

“There are about 500 spectacular dioptine species, all of which evolved from a common ancestor-a nondescript brown nocturnal moth-into a diversity of butterfly mimics,” he added.

Miller qualifies this with a technicality, though, noting that no one is sure whether butterflies or diurnal moths evolved their colors first (and who is really mimicking whom).

The wing pattern diversity within the subfamily is enormous: some species mimic clear-winged butterflies and inhabit the darker parts of the forest understory where their co-mimics fly.

Still others have wings that are colored blue and yellow and feed on melastomes.

About 100 species feed on Passiflora, the poisonous passion flowers famous for being consumed by the caterpillars of Heliconious butterflies.

In fact, although most of the Dioptinae are diurnal, or fly during the day, a few species like those in Xenomigia have re-conquered the night.

Although most dioptines are neotropical, ranging from lowland jungles to cloud forests at 4,000 meters in the Andes, Phryganidia californica occurs in the western United States.

Miller’s new revision of the Dioptinae is the first systematic look at this group in almost a century.

After studying over 16,700 specimens housed at 38 different institutions and private collections around the world, Miller discovered and described 64 new species and seven new genera, bringing the total to 456 species in 43 genera.

Some of the new species were found during field work in parts of the tropical Americas poorly explored by lepidopterists.

Even so, there is much more work to be done on the Dioptinae.

Miller estimates that there are about 100 to 150 species in collections that still need to be described and inserted into the taxonomy, and he thinks that additional fieldwork in under-sampled countries like Bolivia and Colombia will ultimately bring the total number of species to between 700 and 800.

Miller’s careful analysis has dissected the taxonomic groups, finding that 47 of the previously named species could be included within another existing species. (ANI)

India-Colombia to sign BIPA to increase investment flow

New Delhi, July 2 (ANI): The Union Cabinet today approved the signing and ratification of Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPA) with the Government of Colombia.

The Agreement is likely to promote and protect the interests of investors of either country in the territory of the other country.

Such Agreements increase the comfort level and boost the confidence of the investors by assuring a minimum standard of treatment and non-discrimination in all matters while providing for justiciability of disputes with the host country.

The signing of BIPA is likely to increase investment flow between India and Colombia.

Government of India has signed BIPAs with 75 countries so far. (ANI)

White House staffers joke about Obama’s ‘evil eye’

Washington, July 1 (ANI): White House staffers have joked about the menacing glance that comes when President Barack Obama meets with world leaders who don’t align with his progressive view.

White House photographers have captured what they call the “evil eye” in recent weeks, during sessions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Colombia’s Alvaro Uribev.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi got hit with the commander’s malocchio last week in the Oval office, reports Politico. (ANI)

Rare turtle travels 7,000 km to breed

Toronto, June 19 (IANS) How could a contemporary of the great dinosaurs survive to this day?
A rare leatherback turtle, which has existed since the time of the dinosaurs, has been found to be adept at making the longest ocean journey to breed in warmer places.

Fitted with a satellite transmitter by Canadian scientists to track its journey, the turtle – which is the also world’s largest turtle growing up to two metres long and weighing up to 500 kilogramme – travelled over 7,000 km to be found on the coast of Colombia in South America.

The 149-centimetre-long turtle named Nueva Esperanza kept sailing for over a year to reach the coast of Colombia, the Canadian Press quoted researchers at the Canadian Sea Turtle Network in Halifax.

The researchers said their counterparts in Colombia tracked the device and found the turtle after the lengthy journey to be nesting on a beach. The turtle makes the ocean journey to breed in the warm beaches of the Caribbean and South America.

The researchers said the data from the transmitter on the turtle will help them study the journey pattern of the species and take steps to preserve them.

After exisiting for hundreds of millions of years, it is now an endangered species in Canada.

Peruvian footballers decline national duty to press for changes

Peruvian footballers decline national duty to press for changesLima – Peruvian footballers will decline national team duty from July, in an effort to press for “radical” structural changes in the Andean country’s football, the footballers’ union said Wednesday.

“The (current) crisis is the consequence of a series of management mistakes, which is reflected not only in the awful results of our national teams, but also in the low level in our professional and amateur tournaments,” said union leader Francesco Manassero, who cited many other factors.

Manassero noted that the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF) was informed of players’ demands in a letter.

Peru is set to play Ecuador and Colombia in June in South America’s qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and it stands last in the qualifiers table.

Media reports noted that national team coach Jose Guillermo del Solar would resign rather than play official international games with junior players.(dpa)

20 persons test negative for swine flu

New Delhi, May 6 (ANI): The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday said that samples of 20 persons had been tested and found negative for Influenza H1N1.

It also said that the samples of three persons – two from Hyderabad and one person from Jalandhar – are under test.
A ministry release said that so far 39,315 passengers have been screened, of which around 5987 passengers were from affected countries. The release said 165 doctors and 86 paramedics have been deployed to man 67 counters at 21 airports around the country.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported 1516 laboratory confirmed cases of influenza A/H1N1 infection with 30 deaths from twenty-two countries.

There are 403 laboratory confirmed human cases in USA with one death. Mexico has reported 822 cases including 29 deaths. The other countries which have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths are: Austria (1), Canada (165), China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1), Colombia (1), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (1), El Salvador (2), France (4), Germany (9), Guatemala (1), Ireland (1), Israel (4), Italy (5), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (6), Portugal (1), Republic of Korea (2), Spain (57), Switzerland (1) and the United Kingdom (27).

The ministry has also issued a press advisory informing the public that the retail sale of Oseltamivir phosphate is not permitted in India.

It said chemists are not authorized to sell it and the indiscriminate use of this drug by the public could result in the virus developing resistance to this only known treatment of the H1N1 influenza.

It said that the Government of India is maintaining adequate stockpiles of this drug that shall be distributed free through the public health network in case of need to the confirmed cases of the disease. (ANI)

Gunmen kill eight in Mexico

Mexico City, April 20 (EFE) Eight law enforcement officials, including two federal police officers and two prison guards, were killed in an attack on a police convoy in western Mexico, authorities said Sunday.

According to the public safety secretariat, the assailants opened fired Saturday on the police convoy transporting an important drug suspect to a prison in the coastal state of Nayarit.

The gunmen were trying to free nine inmates, including Jeronimo Gamez Garcia, a top leader of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel, officials said.

Garcia, who is suspected of being the logistics and finance chief of the criminal organization run by the Beltran Leyva family, and was in charge of buying cocaine from Colombia’s Valle del Norte drug cartel. He was arrested in January.

Mexico has been plagued in recent years by drug-related violence, with powerful cartels battling each other and the security forces, as rival gangs vie for control of lucrative smuggling and distribution routes.

Armed groups linked to Mexico’s drug cartels murdered around 1,500 people in 2006 and 2,700 people in 2007, with the 2008 death toll soaring to more than 6,000.

So far this year, more than 1,750 people have died.

Colombia’s most wanted drug trafficker arrested

Bogota, April 16 (EFE) Colombia’s most wanted drug trafficker Daniel Rendon has been arrested in an operation involving 500 police officers, an official said.

Rendon, alias Don Mario, was arrested Wednesday by the National Police in San Jose in northwestern part of the country, Police Chief General Oscar Naranjo said.

The Colombian government had offered a reward of five billion pesos (about $2.08 million) for information leading to Rendon’s arrest. He is also wanted in the US for crimes in that country.

President Alvaro Uribe, who is currently on a visit to Brazil, said: ‘We spent all of the Holy Week (includes the religious holidays of Good Friday and Easter Sunday) monitoring the operation.

‘The truth is that I felt a tremendous sense of relief for all of my countrymen when the news came in this morning … It shows what we can do, it shows that Colombia can finally rid itself of all criminality,’ the Colombian leader told reporters in Rio de Janeiro.

Earlier, Naranjo had informed the president about Rendon’s capture.

Rendon was second-in-command of the militia group Elmer Cardenas Bloc, which is part of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC).

The AUC was accused of committing numerous human rights violations.

Colombia’s militia groups were formed by the government to fight against drug crimes in the country. However, after these groups were disbanded by the government some of the ex-militia groups got involved in the drug trade.

Colombian authorities arrest drug lord “Don Mario”

Bogota – Colombian police arrested Wednesday Daniel Rendon, known with the alias “Don Mario,” the boss of a paramilitary gang devoted to drug trafficking.

Cesar Mauricio Velasquez, press secretary at the government palace in Bogota, said that the man – one of the most sought after suspects in Colombia – was arrested in the town of Apartado, in the northwestern region of Antioquia.

Police said that the operation that led to the arrest started a month earlier, when 600 elite officers cornered “Don Mario” between Apartado and Necocli, a town in the Urabab region, on the Panamanian border.

Rendon was the leader of a group of some 1,000 paramilitaries known as the Autodefensas Gaitanistas, which was regarded as one of Colombia’s main drug cartels.

Colombian authorities had offered a reward of some 2.1 million dollars for information leading to the arrest of “Don Mario,” 43. The United States is seeking his extradition.

Police said last month that 11 gangs with a total of 2,500 armed men currently control the drug business in Colombia.

Rendon and a handful of others took over the business following the death, arrest or extradition to the United States of the more prominent bosses of the Medellin and Cali cartels, which dominated drug trafficking in the 1980s and 1990s, and of the North of the Valley Cartle, which the authorities think disappeared more recently.

Freddy Rendon, a brother of “Don Mario,” was arrested a few months ago in the framework of negotiations between the government and the extreme-right paramilitaries, which led close to 32,000 people to lay down their weapons 2003-2006.(dpa)

Bancolombia S.A. Announces Unconsolidated Results for the Month of March 2009

MEDELLIN, Colombia, April 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Bancolombia S.A.
(“Bancolombia”) (CIB) reported unconsolidated net income of Ps. 129.0 billion
for the month ended March 31, 2009. Net income for Bancolombia on an
unconsolidated basis totaled Ps. 362.2 billion for the first three months of
2009, increasing 9.1% as compared to the same period last year.
– Net interest income, including investment securities, totaled
Ps. 238.1 billion in March 2009. For the three month period ended March 31,
2009, net interest income totaled Ps. 696.6 billion, increasing 19.7% as
compared to the same period last year.
– Net fees and income from services totaled Ps. 71.8 billion in March
2009. For the three month period ended March 31, 2009, net fees and income
from services totaled Ps. 200.3 billion, which represents an increase of 9.5%
as compared to the same period of 2008.
– Other operating income totaled Ps. 107.5 billion in March 2009. For the
three month period ended March 31, 2009, other operating income totaled
Ps. 220.4 billion, decreasing 15.0% as compared to the same period last year.
Bancolombia notes that a considerable part of this revenue comes from dividend
income received from subsidiaries, which is eliminated in the consolidated
results as it is an intercompany transaction. As a result, this dividend
income is only recorded in Bancolombia’s unconsolidated results
(Ps. 64.4 billion corresponding to dividend income from subsidiaries for the
month of March will be eliminated in the consolidated results). The Bank also
notes that the line item of income from derivative financial instruments was
negatively impacted by a Ps 20.1 billion charge in March, related to rule
changes concerning valuation methodologies for derivative instruments
established by the Colombian regulator.
– Net provisions charges totaled Ps. 89.5 billion in March 2009,
increasing 131.6% as compared to the figure presented in February 2009. Net
provisions totaled Ps. 210.5 billion for the three month period ended March
31, 2009, which represents an increase of 103.7% as compared to the same
period of 2008.
– Operating expenses totaled Ps. 174.7 billion in March 2009. For the
three month period ended March 31, 2009, operating expenses totaled
Ps. 496.4 billion, increasing 21.4% as compared to the same period of 2008.
Total assets (unconsolidated) amounted to Ps. 40.1 trillion, gross loans
amounted to Ps. 27.8 trillion, deposits totaled Ps. 26.1 trillion and
Bancolombia’s total shareholders’ equity amounted to Ps. 5.9 trillion.
Bancolombia’s unconsolidated level of past due loans (overdue more than 30
days) as a percentage of total loans was 3.90% as of March 31, 2009, and the
coverage for past due loans was 140.4% as of the same date.
Market Share
According to ASOBANCARIA (Colombia’s national banking association),
BANCOLOMBIA’s market share of the Colombian financial system as of March 2009
was as follows: 21.6% of total net loans, 21.4% of total checking accounts,
19.7% of total savings accounts, 17.0% of time deposits and 19.0% of total
deposits.
* This report corresponds to the unconsolidated financial statements of
Bancolombia. The numbers contained herein are subject to review by the
relevant Colombian authorities. This information has been prepared in
accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in Colombia and is
stated in nominal terms.
SOURCE Bancolombia S.A.

Sergio Restrepo, Executive VP, +011-574-4041424, or Jaime A. Velasquez,
Financial VP, +011-574-4042199, or Juan Esteban Toro, IR Manager,
+011-574-4041837, all of Bancolombia