As Venezuela’s leftist regime further tramples its own laws and social-democratic ideals, protesters are reminding us what a popular uprising looks like.
Source: EL ESPECTADOR
The oldest newspaper in Colombia, El Espectador was founded in 1887. The national daily newspaper has historically taken a firm stance against drug trafficking and in defense of freedom of the press. In 1986, the director of El Espectador was assassinated by gunmen hired by Pablo Escobar. The majority share-holder of the paper is Julio Mario Santo Domingo, a Colombian businessman named by Forbes magazine as one of the wealthiest men in the world in 2011.
Colombia may have massive shale oil and gas reserves that could cover the decline in its crude output, but environmentalists are raising alarms.
Sadly, the wall-sized master work says as much about the world’s current horrors as it did about the first-ever air raid on civilians 80 years ago.
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ –– For some time now, Latin America has not figured on the U.S. State Department’s agenda. If the continent did appear, it was at the bottom of the government’s list. This indifference has only grown starker since Donald J. Trump moved into the White House. This state of affairs is neither good nor […]
A Colombian NGO is hoping football could turn former communist guerrillas into peaceful citizens — and maybe even sporting stars.
When El Espectador’s Aldo Civico spots a former henchman of the Medellin drug cartel in a restaurant, enjoying a meal and the well wishes of patrons, he wonders if something has gone terrible wrong with society at large.
As the Rainbow Warrior III traverses the Strait of Magellan, its crew shows what it means to defend the natural world on a daily basis.
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — There is a curious new twist to a longstanding political phenomenon, and we see it popping up around the world. Provocation and outrageous behavior is switching sides. Crossing the line has been a part of culture since poets like Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, with their disheveled hair and shabby clothes, used […]
Rural physician Julián Ramírez recounts the spectacle of desperate survivors streaming into a hospital in Mocoa, devastated by the deadly mudslide on April 1.
We have already been revealed, both our leaders and ourselves, by writers of the past.
Murderous paramilitary organizations that formed in the 1980s were supposedly dismantled. Elements, however, continue to live on through what the government now calls Organized Armed Groups, or GAO.
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ – We often confuse a phenomenon with its causes. We’re in the 21st century but we still believe that the problems we face are due to political personalities, whether it’s Donald Trump in the U.S., the combative former president Álvaro Uribe here in Colombia or Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and so many others […]
Repatriating people like Ismael Arciniegas, a Colombian executed in China for drug smuggling, could create a perverse incentive.
Beyond the Filippino leader’s inciting vigilante killings of drug dealers, Colombian leaders who have long battled the narcotics trade might study his other ideas.
Bolivian president Evo Morales has been criticized for his supposed ‘cult of personality.’ But he is no Donald Trump.
Irrational anger is turning ordinary individuals into system wreckers when they are seduced and provoked by demagogues.
If Trump wants to seal off U.S. borders, Latin Americans can respond by boycotting American brands.
Invoking religion against one’s enemies is a sure way to perpetuate resentment and war. It stretches from the Crusades to the internet where you are reading right now.
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — The declarations Donald Trump made in last week’s inauguration speech mark a major shift for the United States on both the domestic and international fronts. His nationalist exhortations, and call for other countries to follow the same path, are the kind of dangerous demagoguery that often leads to war and misery. Trump’s […]
-Analysis- BOGOTÁ — A majority of gay and lesbian students in Colombia feel unsafe in school and almost a quarter of them miss classes because they fear getting bullied, a survey by two non-profits found. Sixty-seven percent of LGBT secondary schoolchildren feel unsafe at school, according to the poll by advocacy groups Colombia Diversa and […]
Enough with the praise the Left has shamelessly heaped on Fidel Castro. He was simply a dictator who deprived Cubans of their basic human rights. Looks the same from the right.
BOGOTA — Freeze! The Mannequin Challenge, the latest internet craze where groups of people make a video of themselves frozen in time, has an unlikely new participant: the Colombian rebel army FARC. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has spent much of the past half-century waging a bloody insurgency and holding hostages for […]
-Analysis- In his half-century as leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro oversaw grand changes on the island. In the wake of his death, new changes may — or may not — be on their way under the helm of the late leader’s brother, President Raul Castro. Nowhere is the future more uncertain on the island nation […]
People should not dismiss the meaning of a spate of shocking electoral results, for the world may be entering a period of democratic decline.
Nicaragua’s once revolutionary president Daniel Ortega has won reelection, this time with his wife Rosario Murillo as VP. It’s an accumulation of power and money that makies their own supporters squirm.
Massive protests Wednesday target recent actions by Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro for banning a referendum and evading parliament. Does he compare to Latin American strongmen of the past?
For famed Colombian artist Doris Salcedo, sewing a vast sheet with the names of victims of the country’s civil conflict is a sprawling but humble attempt at some form of salvation.
The great paradox of our time is that we’ve never had access to so much information, and yet have never been so badly informed.
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — Colombians have now had their say, voting Sunday to reject the peace deal signed between the government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), intended to end more than 50 years of fighting in the country. The No vote triumphed against all odds it seems, against […]
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — On Sunday, Colombians will decide whether to ratify a peace deal that makes the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, lay down their arms. But if that happens, what will the future of FARC look like? Will it become a socialist party like the one that has driven Venezuela into an […]
Decades of war between FARC guerrillas and the government seem to have made aggression a widespread social trait in Colombia that’s reflected in cases of domestic violence, bullying at school and a tendency to talk tough. The peace deal could help
From architecture to food, history lives on in the Andean city, where residents continue to celebrate their Inca heritage and traditions.
More and more coffee growers are going organic in Colombia. A boost for the environment, the trend is also improving lives, as producers in the coastal Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta can attest.
Donald Trump shows disdain for both Latinos in his own country, as well as some basic tenets of international relations.
A clearer picture is emerging of the socio-political profile of those who recently voted to oust Dilma Rousseff from the Brazilian presidency: right-wing males with a penchant for more “traditional,” submissive women.
-OpEd- Frustration is the lifeblood of dictatorship. Just look at what’s happening in Venezuela. President Nicolas Maduro recently declared that he had readied a decree to revoke the institutional immunity from criminal prosecution of “all public positions,” including members of parliament of course. As you may recall, since the last elections in January, the majority […]
Decades of civil war have ravaged Colombia’s environment and undermined opportunities at oil exploration. Now with peace looming, big and small firms alike are ready to pursue the government’s “sustainable” energy plan.
BOGOTÁ — Suicide used to be rare among the native communities of Vaupés, a region in eastern Colombia with the largest proportion of indigenous residents. That’s not the case anymore. Decades of hostility between the region’s native inhabitants and outsiders has had devastating results. El Espectador sent me to investigate this increase in suicides, now […]
As President Daniel Ortega and his relatives continue to accumulate power in Nicaragua, they are becoming a close copy of the venal political dynasty Ortega fought to overthrow.
From China to Colombia, the use of sexual favors and vulnerability to blackmail is key to widespread corruption of public officials.