The idea of today’s neuroscientists and radical secularists that human beings are nothing more than cell matter is not only arrogant, it is a theory that is self-defeating to the core.
country: Colombia
Stay updated with comprehensive news on Colombia from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Colombian politics, economic strategies, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Bogotá, Colombian history, and cultural events.
Carmen Tulia Ortega recently came face-to-face with a former paramilitary chief responsible for some of the deaths of her loved ones. No, she did not forgive him.
CESAR — Without saying a word, which none would have understood anyway, Guneymaku Chaparro, an Arhuaca Mamo or spiritual leader, and Tenzin Priyadarshi, a monk and disciple of the Dalai Lama, took each other’s hands and lightly put their heads together to say good-bye. It was the end of a meeting that the northern Colombia […]
Last month’s optimistic reports of declining poverty rates in Colombia are a world away from reality.
In Colombia, a recent case of censorship – since reversed – shines a light on the role of art in a society that has all the signs of freedom. And yet….
Some gay men have so many sexual partners that straight people find the numbers hard to believe. But it’s less about being gay and more about the nature of male sexual desire.
CUCUTA — It’s 2 p.m., and the borderland between Colombia and Venezuela is sizzling in the afternoon heat. Sweat is the permanent companion of all those crossing the Simón Bolívar bridge linking Venezuela with the Colombian border city of Cúcuta. Mariela* has been sitting for two hours in an endless line of cars, returning from […]
Their economic philosophies may differ, but Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa and Colombia’s arch-conservative former president Alvaro Uribe, share a taste for the perpetuation of power.
A poorly lit city can become a hostile place for residents, so designers have gathered in Bogotá to discuss how lighting can serve pedestrians, the first step toward a new kind of city.
BOGOTA — How dirty can business get? In Colombia, it can get as dirty as a diaper. An investigation by the country’s Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) has uncovered a series of illegal, coordinated price hikes in the highly lucrative diaper industry. Trade and industry inspectors started investigating price-fixing practices in late 2013, with […]
BOGOTA — Maria Carolina Rodríguez, who describes herself as an “upper-middle class mother from Bogotá,” was kidnapped by the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2001. Her captivity allowed her a rare glimpse at how one group of female guerrillas were treated by their male comrades. Rodríguez kept notes during her captivity, which […]
Justice is twisted in a country where a man is jailed for stealing candy from a store, while gangsters and corrupt politicians are always able to negotiate prison reductions.
BOGOTA — When 31-year-old Grace Kely sic, a transsexual living in Bogotá, applied to become a nurse with the city government last year, the hiring process ground to a sudden halt. It happened when the municipal department she hoped to work for told her they couldn’t hire her without a certificate showing she had completed […]
BOGOTA — Call it the South American version of selling ice to eskimos: Starbucks is opening its first store in Colombia on July 16. The shop marks the start of the American coffee giant’s operations in a country that grows and produces lots of its own brew, and already has a strong, local but international, […]
As Colombia prepares to elect a president, voters must choose between a candidate willing to make painful concessions with FARC guerrillas and a hawk keen on the status quo.
Categories
Soccer, The New Opiate Of The Masses
It may have begun as a game, but soccer has become a substitute for so many facets of people’s lives, including politics and war, writes Colombian novelist Jose Luis Garces Gonzalez.
We may be witnessing the demise of the Western idea that climate determines how we think. Could it change the very way we look at the world, and ourselves?
-Editorial- BOGOTA — Some residents of the Colombian capital are indignant at recent police checks on white cars thought to be carrying passengers through Uber, an Internet application that links users with private drivers. Passengers using Uber can pay by credit or debit card beforehand and can be picked up anywhere. Cars are clean and […]
Even if you don’t judge him South America’s greatest writer, there’s no denying that his life lived with joy and principle is the stuff of modern legend for a country, and continent.
PRO-RUSSIAN PROTESTERS REFUSE GENEVA DEAL Pro-Russian protesters in Eastern Ukraine have rejected the deal reached yesterday in Geneva, refusing to leave the official buildings they have been occupying over the past week in more than 10 cities, the BBC reports. Alexander Gnezdilov, a spokesman for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said that they would only […]
Categories
Pablo Escobar’s Hippos Are Running Wild
The late Colombian drug lord spent some of his cash on a private zoo, which the Colombian state took over after Escobar was killed. But now, deadly hippopotami have fled the reserve.
BOGOTA — Colombia’s National University is working on recycling used banknotes, by processing them into an absorbent material that cleans water and air of pollutants, El Espectador reports. Some 169 million banknotes in Colombia are replaced every year. And the University’s chemical engineering department found that shredding them creates “activated carbon,” a crystalline substance able […]
Categories
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Beyond Solitude
Weeks before Marquez’s death at 87, the Bogota daily wrote how the legendary novelist was followed right until the end by the ghosts of his strongest character: his mother.
Producers from Rwanda, Burundi and Ethiopia have visited the Colombian estates of producers to discover the social, environmental and aesthetic benefits of growing shade coffee.
A former soldier accuses the Colombian Army and aides to former President Álvaro Uribe of ordering the killings of innocent civilians amid a “dirty war” against FARC rebels.
For those in the gay, lesbian and transgender community rejected by their own loved ones, a shelter in the Colombian capital offers comfort, but also practical support to build a new life.
-OpEd- I too can play the game of “I won’t think about that, so it can’t exist,” like a character tells himself in Delirium, the novel by Colombian writer Laura Restrepo. Indeed, such mental games are a national character trait. The country’s principal cinema chain Cine Colombia refused last December to show a short trailer […]
-OpEd- BOGOTA – Permit me to be direct and frank, but also practical. What do we see from the outside when we look at Europe? We see a Europe that is languishing, despondent, self-absorbed and self-satisfied, and to some extent both tired and apathetic. I know these are words that are both harsh and ugly, […]
Categories
In Colombia, Displaced Farmers Start Anew
YOTOCO — “The first thing we did was to look for land, thinking not so much about crop productivity as security…” Efraín Sierra, one of countless farmers forced off his land by Colombia’s long-running civil war, recalls having had to move in the past from the district of Buga when paramilitaries moved in nearby in […]
– Editorial – BOGOTA — Voters in Colombia recently rejected multinational gold mining near Piedras, and now people in Tauramena, near Bogotá, have said no to oil prospecting. The people have spoken, but will the state listen? Specifically, residents in seven rural localities voted against seismic testing as part of the oil firm Ecopetrol’s Odisea […]
The Colombian city hosts the most citizens displaced from rural areas by the country’s ongoing civil conflict. A special program allows these domestic refugees to farm in the city.
What does Mandela’s example mean for Colombia as it seeks to end decades of bloody conflict with leftist guerrillas?
Colombia marks 20 years since police killed Pablo Escobar, who helped define the nation as the global mecca of violence and drug trafficking. It’s a lot to absorb for one man in particular.
Older people in San Basilio de Palenque know 64 edible plants native to the region. Their grandchildren, about half. How can the agriculture past of this region not become history?
The troubled Colombian city has become a mecca for street art.
One full year has past since peace talks opened between the Colombian government and the rebel forces after decades of war. But behind the slow pace, there are real reasons for hope.
Exclusive: Rebels and drug traffickers teamed up to take out Colombia’s former president. Two undercover agents gained key information, before being discovered and killed by FARC.
-Op-Ed- BOGOTA — The urge to wander the streets and feel the adrenaline rush that comes when painting on a public wall or bridge is condemned in our society, which has demonized this colorful art form and freedom of expression. This is a fundamental right — to communicate through letters and images painted on surfaces […]
Nearly three decades after a bloodbath between guerrillas and the government, prison sentences, judicial expenses, and international prosecutions are costing the country dearly.
BOGOTA — As negotiations continue to try to bring a definitive end to Colombia’s decades-long civil war, another thorny issue related to the country’s violent past won’t go away: the fate of soldiers accused of crimes. The government’s proposal for a specific military justice code to handle such cases was recently rejected by the Colombian […]