The National:

At least nine people have been killed and another 22 injured in a car bombing at a police academy in Colombia’s capital Bogota.

The scene outside the General Santander police academy was chaotic, with ambulances and helicopters rushing to the normally tightly controlled facility.

Witnesses said they heard a loud explosion that destroyed windows in adjacent buildings.

Pictures on social media showed a charred vehicle surrounded by debris on the academy’s campus.

The police announced the casualty figures.

For decades, residents of Bogota lived in fear of being caught in a bombing by leftist rebels or Pablo Escobar's Medellin drug cartel.

But as Colombia's conflict has wound down, security has improved and attacks have become less frequent.

While authorities had yet to suggest who was behind the attack, attention was focused on leftist rebels from the National Liberation Army, which has been stepping up attacks on police targets in Colombia amid a standoff with the conservative Duque over how to restart stalled peace talks.

The group, known as the ELN, was long considered a lesser military threat than the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, whose 7000 guerrilla fighters disarmed as part of a 2016 peace accord.

But in the wake of the peace deal, the Cuban-inspired insurgency has been gaining strength, especially along the eastern border with Venezuela, where it has carried out a number of kidnappings and bombings of oil pipelines.

That has hardened Duque's resolve in refusing to resume peace talks that have been stalled since he took office last August.

The National:

ELSEWHERE, US President Donald Trump’s lawyer has said he has “never said there was no collusion” between Russia and members of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Rudy Giuliani’s comments on CNN directly contradict the position of his own client, who has repeatedly insisted there was no collusion during his successful White House run. Giuliani himself previously described the idea of Russian collusion as “total fake news”.

It was not clear whether Giuliani was reflecting a new position or talking point from the Trump legal team or was making a strategic attempt to get ahead of potentially damaging findings from special counsel Robert Mueller.

The National:

MEANWHILE, Taiwan has engaged in live-fire military exercises along its east coast, amid renewed threats from China to bring the island under its control by force.

Artillery and assault helicopters fired at targets off the west coast city of Taichung, while French-made Mirage fighter jets took off from the air base at Hsinchu to the north.

The drills are Taiwan’s first since Chinese president Xi Jinping, pictured above, on January 2 reasserted Beijing’s willingness to use military force to bring Taiwan under Chinese control.

AND finally, rescuers in Spain frantically racing to reach a two-year-old boy trapped in a borehole are clinging to the hope of finding him alive.

Julen Rosello fell into the 110-metre deep, 25cm diameter shaft on Sunday during a family picnic in the countryside near Malaga.

No vocal contact has been made with Julen but rescuers recovered hair that matched his DNA.

Engineers warned the work was “extremely difficult” and could be hampered by forecast rain.

Julen’s father Jose said: “I wish it were me buried down there so that he could be up here with his mother.” Local media reports said Julen’s older brother, Oliver, died of a sudden heart attack aged three.