Bewildering technology and savage capitalism fuels desperation and hatred against the West. War was declared a long time ago, and the underdeveloped world are the primary victims.
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.
Long after the days of Pablo Escobar and cocaine cartels, Colombia has regained the crown as world’s No. 1 producer of coca. It gives further urgency that FARC-government peace talks succeed.
Unlike Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa manages to keep his political crackdowns below the international radar.
BOGOTÁ — In a kind of eerie, Darwinian evolution, abandoned pets in parts of Colombia have become feral beasts and predators that are proving more fearsome than wild animals. Once again, wildlife is proving defenseless in the face of yet another man-made threat, produced in this case by former owners of an unwanted dog or […]
Gustavo Petro, the former Marxist guerrilla who became Bogotá’s mayor for the poor, has left the Colombian capital a wreck. But he’s on the way in favor of a newly elected leader voters hope will put the city back on track.
Tourism feeds a construction and real estate boom in the historical town of Cartagena de Indias. But the shadows of this former slave port hide a huge gap between rich and poor.
Daniel Scioli, candidate closest to the outgoing Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, is leading the polls. But whoever wins, the future of the country is a wide-open question.
Pursuit of free trade may be at an all-time high as Washington seals the TPP deal and Beijing pursues its New Silk Road. Here’s how it all looks from Bogota.
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — The Colombian Health Ministry wants to tax sugary drinks. The Supreme Court is ordering parliament to regulate labeling on food products so consumers know which ones contain genetically modified ingredients. A nationwide debate has begun on the poor quality of school meals, as the regional head of the World Food Programme tells […]
Latin American governments have shown scant interest in restricting cars and improving public transport. But some citizens in smoggy Bogotá have chosen a different path.
Honest judges and popular protest combined to topple a president, setting a bold precedent in an age when news travels fast.
Ordinary citizens, the media and politicians make so much noise about ideology and petty politics, but quietly carry on in the face of massive mining pollution.
The unlikely tale of how a young Colombian’s communist convictions led him to leave his family in Spain to fight with Ukraine’s Putin-backed separatist rebels.
Colombia’s former conservative president and Venezuela’s socialist leader fight in public, but they love the same, bombastic style of politics. And both countries suffer for it.
Despite huge amounts of food still being wasted every day in the world, initiatives in various countries demonstrate growing public awareness about this modern-day abomination.
-Editorial- BOGOTÁ — Colombia’s more than half-century old civil war has been, if nothing else, an environmental calamity. Besides causing tens of thousands of deaths and forcing millions from their homes, the protracted fighting between state forces, left-wing guerrilla forces and right-wing gangs has led to massive amounts of crude oil being poured into the country’s rivers, streams and wetlands. Data released by the oil industry suggests that over the past 30 years, some 4 million barrels of crude have been dumped in Colombia. That’s 10 times the amount the infamous Exxon Valdez tanker released off the coast of Alaska […]
After Colombian Energy Giant Mansarovar announced plans for oil exploration around one of Colombia’s natural reserves, local farmers asked Pope Francis to intervene.
Arguments for blocking the car service Uber are based exclusively on the fact that it brings unwelcome competition to cab drivers, and not at all on the welfare of drivers and passengers.
BOGOTA — Spanglish: Is it a dialect? Ghetto talk? Whatever else it may be, Spanglish is now the brazen, no-nonsense fruit of two languages and cultures coexisting in the United States. It may sound a little crazy at times. For example, walking in a Latino area of New York one day, I saw a notice […]
Concepcion is the first place in Colombia where the vast majority of transactions involve electronic banking via mobile phones, staying well ahead of even northern Europe.
Three key factors in the world’s leading economies may slow growth again, and emerging economies could bear the brunt.
Pope Francis’ recent encyclical on the climate had a major blind spot: cattle farming and meat consumption. Nowhere is the damage more evident than his native Latin America.
Latin American-style populism is gaining traction in Europe, just when states like Cuba and Venezuela may be heading toward moderation and sensible economics.
Vast urban areas are home to much more animal and plant life than you might think, making their natural spaces crucial in the fight against global warming.
Protecting the environment is not about “reconciling” man and nature, it’s about giving each their due space. In large part, this means concentrating people in cities.
There are plenty of good reasons Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa shouldn’t be flaunting his affair with a Madrid socialite. But if it’s really love, none of that really matters.
Mexico’s top drug kingpin manages to break out of jail again, likely with the complicity of junior officers. It’s hardly surprising when he is so unbelievably rich, and they are paid so little.
Venezuela, facing economic turmoil and the challenge of upcoming legislative elections, is inflaming a centuries-old border dispute with Guyana.
As Venice’s biennial art extravaganza reveals, sexual provocation is old hat, and anti-capitalism is the new means of selling expensive art to millionaires.
While Colombian justice has ruled to allow euthanasia for patients who ask for it, physicians are reticent to apply the health ministry’s “vague” norms.
After being abducted as a child, Sandra Mora decided to become a police officer. She excelled at her job, but then got kicked off the force after being outed as a lesbian.
-OpEd- BOGOTA — The government of Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa released a somewhat Orwellian video last month that tries to turn the concept of dictatorship on its head. The soundtrack of the video, which touts the administration’s various achievements, is a schmaltzy pop song that goes: “If this is a dictatorship, then we’ve been had. […]
To the chagrin of climate change deniers, the pontiff’s environmental encyclical says there are no reasonable doubts that global warming is caused by human activity.
Studies show that pesticides sprayed on crops are poisonous and that we are ingesting these toxins with our food. Perfect examples are the corn and soybeans Colombia imports from Argentina.
Meet Alondra Metaute, a 38-year-old woman who wants to shake up a sleepy Colombian town.
Gangs extort at leisure in the El Salvadoran capital, making a mockery of police and the state. Could this again happen in Colombian cities like MedellÃn?
BOGOTA — It is no easy task trying to talk about the errors of Pope Francis. The achievements of Argentina’s Jorge Bergoglio, both in words and deeds, have been frankly quite startling. Acts of humility by the Supreme Pontiff have had a tremendous public impact, like kneeling to wash and kiss the feet of prisoners, […]
A Bogota-based NGO is helping some 30 farmers to sell organic produce directly to consumers. An oasis of clean food in the face of rising agrobusiness dominance.
-OpEd- BOGOTA — When I hear about people now selling marijuana legally in the United States, I think of all our fellow Colombians who have died over the years fighting America’s absurd war on drugs. I think of Luis Carlos Galán and Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, two politicians gunned down by drug traffickers, and I imagine […]
Colombia’s health minister has opened up to euthanasia and imposed new bans on herbicides — news in a conservative country, and one so close to the U.S. for so long.