Gentrification is affecting many Latin American cities. As residents push back, there are worries that existing residents and cultures alike will be erased.
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.
Much has been said about how the children’s local culture helped them survive 40 days stranded. But there are indigenous people in Colombia who believe “natural spirits” watched over them, keeping them safe until it was time for them to be found.
If the United States insists on treating Latin American countries as unruly neighbors rather than partners, then it must expect problems from them in the form of fugitives, drugs and crime.
In several parts of Colombia over the past decades, right-wing paramilitaries and their successor gangs have targeted all those tagged as sexual “deviants” for execution, supposedly in a bid to restore traditional values.
Despite fears of AI upending the education and the teaching profession, artificial education will be an extremely valuable tool to free up teachers from rote exercises to focus on the uniquely humanistic part of learning.
The throuple of three gay men married together has challenged the standard vision of a family in traditionally conservative Colombia.
In traditionally Catholic Colombia, Protestant preachers have learned to effectively combine marketing and religion to make themselves enormously wealthy. And thanks to political lobbying and religious freedom, they are exempt from the law and taxes.
The West and its brand of modernity may be waning in favor of an ascendant China, but is it offering anything besides replacing market forces with brute force.
Male dominance and violence is often encouraged in popular Latin American music, and particularly in genres like salsa or bachata. The more memorable the songs, the bigger the harm they will have done to generations of women.
Like fears of communist subversion during the Cold War, claims that the Left will destroy the economy and end freedom persist in Latin American elections, in spite of their ridiculousness.
Convincing coca farmers to plant legal crops is better than spraying poisonous pesticides to wipe out the plants. And yet it turns out these crop substitution programs are problematic, disrupting livelihoods and unintentionally causing violence and deforestation.
Top chefs in Bogotá and other big cities in Colombia are rediscovering and updating the country’s traditional fare to celebrate local ingredients.
Atheists may not have been blessed with faith, but God has graced them with a mischievous wit and a love of the arts that has led to some of the most beautiful depictions of religion.
Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a “hostile” world. It’s a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.
Colombia has a history of earthquakes, yet many of its buildings are not designed to withstand even moderate tremors. As Turkey and Syria reel from disaster, will other countries around the world learn any lessons?
Social media hype and the “obsessive-compulsive” tendencies of younger generations are demonizing some basic foods, like bread, that have fed humanity for some 8,000 years.
Colombia’s reformist president has promised to tackle endemic violence, economic exclusion, pollution and corruption in the country. So what’s new with a politician’s promises?
A lavish book to celebrate Cartagena, Colombia’s most prized travel destination, will perpetuate clichéd views of a city inextricably linked with European exploitation.
The election in Brazil of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) is being hailed by some as the confirmation of Latin American around a shared leftist project, yet even the left can’t agree with itself. It’s a story that goes back centuries, and can only change with a commitment to move beyond ideology.
The impeachment and arrest of Peru’s Leftist president can be taken as perhaps a conclusive signal to the region that populism — from the Left and Right — may have run out of gas.
Justice works around adults. Keen to uphold parental custody rights, family courts have effectively allowed violence against children by giving abusive parents access. So it is time the legal system stopped ignoring children.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has managed to cling to power after an allegedly rigged 2018 presidential election. He did so with the help of Cuba, having enjoyed “working relations” with Cuban intelligence for decades.
Readers can be unduly critical of authors for a range of reasons, from old-fashioned spite to the modern phenomenon of wokeness. But writers should not consider these people enemies, but rather guides to help dig deeper.
The idea of a man carrying a child only receives attention when it is sensationalist or entertaining. But for trans men like me who want to get pregnant, we face discrimination and danger at all levels — from society, the healthcare system, and even from our own communities.
Those touting degrowth for the sake of the planet should remember that the majority of the earth’s population has yet to taste a fraction of the material prosperity now blamed for destroying the natural world.
States and technology have failed to stop the destruction of the natural world, but a deceptively simple rethinking of our habits could turn the tide.
This essential morning drink for millions worldwide was once considered an addictive menace, earning itself a ban on pain of death in the Islamic world.
The Biden administration and Colombia’s new government seem to agree on the need for a new approach to drugs policy. But will they be able to find support in their countries to forge a new strategy?
Giving nature rights, as South American nations are keen to do these days, is well-intentioned, but far too limited in scope to make sense.
Categories
Let’s Stop Calling It “Extreme” Weather
As measures to curb climate change move slowly in the face of deadly new weather patterns, we must immediately mitigate the havoc it has begun to cause around the world.
Green technologies are crucial to reducing carbon emissions, but they require ramping up the need for mining of minerals. And since mineral extraction can cause grave natural destruction, how can we ensure renewables are truly good for the environment?
Didi Food, a delivery startup that struggled in East Asia, has found a growing market in Latin American cities, where appetite for home deliveries has yet to be fully satisfied.
With the complicity of leftist rulers in Venezuela, Bolivia and even Argentina, Iran’s sanction-ridden regime is spreading its tentacles in South America, and could even undermine democracies.
Gustavo Petro’s victory is not only a response to the social ills of today, but having been part of a Marxist guerrilla group that negotiated with the state decades ago, and returned to the social fold, he embodies the nation’s democratic future.
Colombians spurned the establishment candidates in the first round of presidential voting. In the second round, on June 19, they will have to choose between Gustavo Petro, a former Marxist guerrilla, and Rodolfo Hernández a “tough-talking” businessman being compared to Donald Trump.
Categories
The Bogus Concept Of “Carbon-Neutral” Oil
The Colombian president recently said that the country had exported one million barrels of carbon-neutral or offset oil. But in an unregulated carbon market, such a claim is pure greenwashing.
In his early journalistic writings, the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez showed he had an eye for factual details, in which he found the absurdity and ‘magic’ that would in time be the stuff and style of his fiction.
When humans care about the natural world, it means revising our place in it and acting accordingly, not giving nature “rights and concessions” that are figments of our self-serving imagination.
Growing up in Colombia, I never saw people who looked like me in books, on TV or even represented in the toys I played with. But working as a consultant on a new Disney movie gave me the chance to rewrite my history — and my country’s — by showing the true beauty and diversity of Colombia.
Most Latin American countries fear civil conflicts more than international invasion. A regional union is the best way to assure stability and lawfulness in a troubled but culturally cohesive continent. The EU shows us what that would look like and how to make it happen.