WorldcrunchStay 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.
A new generation of coca leaf growers and pickers is posting video content on social media. They show their life in the fields, how the crops grow, the laboratories where they create the coca paste, and even the exit routes for drug trafficking. And while they used to be stigmatized, and threatened by armed groups, their content is escaping censorship and violence.
In Colombia, the possibility of integrating insects to our diets is gaining traction, with a little help from former FARC members. Some of the critters have a higher protein percentage than beef and cost less to produce. Not to mention that their consumption could help mitigate the environmental impact of eating conventional animal protein.
Though mainly associated today with Islamic countries, underage marriage is increasingly being reported in Colombia, and other places in Latin America, often with a financial motivation pushing poorer families to effectively “sell” their daughters to older men.
Cuba is approaching a state of economic collapse and has turned to the UN for food assistance for the first time in its history. While Havana blames the U.S. embargo for its economic woes, the reality is quite the opposite.
Bezos, Branson, Musk, Isaacman. Will the billionaires throwing untold resources into private space travel prove to be visionaries or just thrill seekers? The latest, Isaacman’s Polaris dawn mission, launched Tuesday with the objective to feature the first ever private spacewalk.
The leaders of three big Latin American powers, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, have shown they believe keeping a fellow socialist in power is more important than respecting the votes of millions of ordinary Venezuelans who chose freedom over socialism.
Marta Lida Arias, a veteran LGBTQ+ activist in Medellín, discusses how she’s created a community for other women who were once intimidated by Colombia’s patriarchal society and norms, and why their fight isn’t over yet.
The former U.S. president and Republican nominee Donald Trump is threatening to revive his choice policies of curbing immigration and trade, and nobody would suffer as a result quite as much as the hundreds of millions of Latin Americans who may be forced to turn toward China and the Global South.
Antonio, Ibrain, Victoria, Lizeth, Xiomara and Zaira. All six have etched in their memory the people they were able to help and those they couldn’t while crossing the Darién Gap, one of the most dangerous points on the Central American migration route to the United States.
A Colombian journalist recounts his sexual traumas and understands that his problems in bed are not just his — but many men share similar histories. While partners cannot step into the role of therapists, what can men do to have more intimacy, and better sex lives?
The modern world conspires to make us fear reflection and solitude, but these might be the rocky paths to a happier life, if we could first stop hating them.
An ad for one of Colombia’s biggest banks sparked controversy for including a gay couple. Some viewed it as a step in the right direction, while detractors said the ad was not suited for a bank.
Tourism has become big business in Medellín, Colombia, but it also be fueled the city’s worst sociocultural traits and encouraging drugs and abusive sex work. With new laws and bans being put in place, is change afoot in “the City of Eternal Spring”?
The recent outrage of Colombians online over a singer’s reported criticism of the country’s late, great novelist García Márquez, showed perfectly how jingoism and a primitive hatred of freedom go hand in hand.
Trafficking people, especially for sex, between Colombia and Mexico is rife and rising, buoyed in part by pervasive social and media contempt for the working-class girls who are among the chief victims.
Politics has always been associated with image. This is especially true in Latin America, where white men in suits have dominated the field for years. But a new generation of women are shaking up politics — as well as how female politicians are expected to dress.
Certain contemporary writers may be deluded and even deceived in claiming there is nothing subjective in their fictional writings, forgetting that their literary “realities” are, inevitably, the fruit of a personal vision.
The German philosopher believed education and discipline is necessary to turn youth into independent and moral adults. As the 300th anniversary of his birth is being celebrated this year, what would Kant say about the current state of affairs? And what can be learned from his teachings?
As the world’s climate becomes erratic and hostile, we might remold our cities from being expressions of our cold triumphalism to vessels and tools for inclusive, peaceful cohabitation with nature.
For the Colombian trans activist Álex Rodríguez Pineda, there is no single way to be a person with trans life experience; our gender identities and our bodies are in constant construction. He speaks with Colombian daily El Espectador about masculinity and trans activism.
Shakira made headlines this week for calling the Barbie movie “emasculating,” yet the Colombian superstar, with a radical image change in 2009 and her signature hip moves, has created her own pack of undeniable feminist she-wolves.
Colombia’s second-largest city has imposed a six-month ban on all prostitution in a bid to tackle the sexual exploitation of minors. But it only shows the government’s ignorance of — and possibly even indifference to — one of the city’s most shameful trades.
As Colombia debates banning the abusive practice of “conversion therapy,” a Colombian teacher recalls the four years of therapy he undertook as teenager and his path to self-acceptance.
Following the announcement of Colombia’s first rare earths mining project, Climate Tracker reports on the incomplete licenses, unreal expectations, bad relationships with indigenous populations and suspicion of planted minerals that surround the venture, which seeks to extract minerals critical for the energy transition.
The late Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author’s sons have published his draft novel Until August against his will. Yet no work of art is ever really finished. And excerpts and fragments are suited to our anxious times.
The release of “En agosto nos vemos” as a posthumous novel by Gabriel García Márquez would have horrified Colombia’s Nobel laureate, who had described it as useless and wanted it to be “destroyed.”
We’re renouncing books to gorge ourselves on digital imagery and short texts. If we continue like this, ditching the written word of the past, we may soon become fitting descendants of the cringing, timorous masses of the dark ages.
It’s not easy coming out to your family as gay or transgender, nor for every family to accept it, especially in conformist societies like Latin America’s. But, unlike decades ago, today families can seek out sensible information and professional help to avoid hurting their children.
Ecuador’s simmering civil war, curiously, appears to also be a byproduct of the disbanding of Colombia’s FARC rebels in 2016. Since then, chaos has reigned through much of Latin American drug trafficking routes, reverberating with criminal elements in Ecuador.
On climate and peace negotiations, Colombia’s president has lots to say. But has he ever seen the filth which late-night drinkers leave on streets and at doorsteps nearly every night?
Postmodernism’s eagerness to relativize what is commonly considered factual, objective or real is attractive to recent, jaded, generations, but can barely help a contemporary world lurching between chaos and calamity.
A noted expert of the late Gabriel García Márquez is putting to rest the idea that the legendary Gabo was just a fantasist and man of fiction, revealing poignant and pointed essays and literary criticism.
Sectors of the political Left around the world have practically lauded the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel — finally barely bothering to hide their good ol’ fashioned hatred of the Jews, rather than hiding behind anti-Zionist rhetoric. Something evil has been re-released.
Considering that our “final war” may be arriving isn’t so far-fetched when states like Iran, Russia and North Korea are courting confrontation and taking “crazy” risks, a little like the European powers of 1914. But let’s proceed with caution.
The number of migrants and refugees who have passed through the Darien Gap reaches historic figures. So far this year, it is estimated that 250,000 migrants and refugees have crossed through the dangerous Darién jungle, mainly from countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador and Haiti.
Like Cuba, Venezuela churns out doctors who are poorly trained and overworked. Colombia then lets them practice medicine in the country in yet another senseless gesture of political goodwill toward Venezuela.
Industrial-style farming should certainly be reimagined, but not with a guilt-ridden assault on the livelihoods of millions of farmers, herders and fishermen.
Three women who were victims of sexual violence during the Colombian Civil War recount their stories of struggle and survival. They speak up in the hopes that the judiciary will open a new case to bring justice to them and many more survivors of sexual abuse perpetrated during the conflict.
The number of climate refugees is predicted to hit 1.2 billion by 2050, yet states are still not taking enough action. The Global South will be the most affected, but the West will not be spared.