Worldcrunch
-Analysis- BOGOTÁ — Decades of civil conflict and the formation of the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) could be attributed in part to the struggle for land in this Latin American nation. That’s why land was one of the most important issues in FARC’s peace negotiations with the government. A historic deal was […]
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 […]
Negotiators working to end Colombia’s decades-long civil war are seeing women as a critical component of lasting social and political peace.
From China to Colombia, the use of sexual favors and vulnerability to blackmail is key to widespread corruption of public officials.
Politicians are hiding behind complacent language instead of facing the challenges that their constituents are fired up about.
El Tiempo, Aug. 3 “Police destroyed 104 FARC laboratories in Guaviare,” reads the Wednesday front page of the Colombian daily El Tiempo. An accompanying image shows security forces operating in the nation’s thick southeastern jungle. The head of the anti-narcotics police announced yesterday that the 104 cocaine laboratories, run by the FARC (or Revolutionary Armed […]
A meeting with shamans in Colombia allows El Espectador’s Pablo Correa to experience an “indescribable” ritual.
El Espectador, July 19th Tuesday’s edition of Bogota daily El Espectador reports on the Colombian Constitutional Court approving a measure to hold a national referendum on the recently signed peace agreement with the Marxist rebels, FARC. Above the headline “Green light for a referendum,” is a rather giddy photograph of Constitutional Court President Maria Victoria […]
From a republic struggling to rid itself from overbearing U.S. influence, then its own political shenanigans, Panama has come of age as a sovereign state.
For Chile’s former president, Ricardo Lagos, peace between Bogota and leftist FARC guerrillas could signal a new path well beyond the borders of Colombia — though a post-Brexit Europe may be hard to reach.
-Essay- BOGOTÁ — Colombia’s Caribbean coastal cities have people with less depression, bipolar mood swings, schizophrenia and other mental health conditions than elsewhere in the country, according to a recent national mental health poll. Is that surprising? A few days after I arrived in the Caribbean, I was invited to a barbecue in one of […]
El Espectador — June 24, 2016 Colombian daily El Espectador featured an AK-47 assault rifle with the headline “Do not recycle” on the paper’s front page on Friday. Rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, signed a historic ceasefire deal with the government in the Latin American nation. After more than 50 […]
Tests in a region in Colombia with widespread, recurring and inherited Alzheimer’s may help researchers understand why the disease occurs and has thwarted treatments for so long.
BOGOTÁ — For Latin America, the U.S. presidential elections have become a big-screen spectacle that affects the tone and register of local politics, in a region that combines democratic aspirations with an enduring admiration for its northern neighbor. The televised debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy generations ago began a process that has […]
Some 6,000 people gathered in Bogota for artist Spencer Tunik’s latest outdoor photo shoot. The clothes-free event was a stunning splash of hope for a country torn for so long.
A recent drug raid in a south-central Bogotá neighborhood that shares its name with the New York borough uncovers a veritable den of vice, violence and unfettered gang rule.
A handful of producers are trying to boost the quality of coffee in Colombia, and improve rural lives in the process. They’d also like local consumers to be a bit more discerning.
The legacy of our time will not be our literary or architectural monuments, but all the plastic trash we leave to poison the seas and choke our future. Fortunately, change is in the air.
Bogotá’s Central Military Hospital has seen the worst of decades of civil war in Colombia — from severed limbs to longstanding traumas, Amid prospects of peace with the FARC guerrillas, its work begins a slight, and welcome decline.
BOGOTA — During the difficult months of the rainy season, when daily downpours put a damper on hunting and fishing, the Tatuyo indigenous people of Vaupés, in Colombia’s Amazonian region, spend entire days in the jungle collecting fruit. The purpose of the forest harvest? To make yapurá. A black paste with a pungent odor that […]
Are there clues to Donald Trump’s rise in the celluloid figure of Citizen Kane? It may be that the Orson Welles classic also points to the limits of the billionaire candidate.
Saving rainwater and increasing green spaces are two small steps shown to help fight the ravages of climate change in cities.
-Analysis- BOGOTÁ — Lynching, as it is practiced in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America, represents a kind of fast-track “people’s justice” fueled by anger over persistent crime and contempt for the pace and integrity of the police and judiciary. It’s not a new phenomenon, and a wave of lynchings was registered in Argentina a […]
BOGOTÁ — Colombians can add pollution caused by millions of cigarette butts to an already varied list of environmental calamities that include deforestation, forest fires and the pesticides and mercury dumped into their rivers. It’s the huge number of discarded cigarette butts that add gravity to what might seem an insignificant problem. In Bogotá alone, […]
Keiko Fujimori has overcome, at least paritally, her imprisoned father’s past to become the frontrunner to be Peru’s next president. But the runoff will measure fears of a return to the authoritarian right?
El Tiempo, April 8, 2016 “Court says “yes’ to gay marriage in historic decision” reads the Friday front page of Bogota-based daily El Tiempo, a day after Colombia’s highest court ruled to legalize same-sex marriage. Members of the Colombian LGBT community, pictured on the daily’s front page, gathered outside the court in Bogota’s historic center […]
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — Years ago, toward the end of Lula da Silva“s first term (2003-2007) as president of Brazil, I remember reading a perplexing article. It was about Lula’s son, Lulinha, who had apparently become a multi-millionaire in the span of just a few years. It is always possible, if highly improbable, that someone could […]
BOGOTÁ — Mmmmm. How about the World’s Largest Rodent on your Easter menu? That’s right. The capybara, a bigger and arguably uglier cousin of the guinea pig, may soon be legally served in the homes and restaurants of Colombia, after having been classified as a threatened species and thus banned from markets and menus. That […]
With help from agencies and the government, locals from Monte de María in northern Colombia are breathing new life into the land stripped by abuse and violence.
MEDELLIN — Colombian meteorologists blame weather phenomenon El Niño for unprecedented weather changes, bringing both extreme drought and rapid evaporation of water to the South American country. Water supplier Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) has announced that citizens in the Colombian city must reduce their water consumption by 10% if local water supplies are to […]
Plan Colombia was never the aid program touted by leaders in Washington and Bogota. But it proved to be excellent business for arms dealers and other shady characters.
A new surge in deforestation can be traced to an unauthorized road connecting La Macarena to San Jose del Guaviare. What is the origin? What will be done?
Complaining out loud (and on social media) about the high prices at exclusive restaurants is the epitome of upper class lack of self-awareness. A VIP case study in Bogota.
Health authorities in Cúcuta, northeastern Colombia, are struggling to stop the spread of mosquito-borne infections like zika. And the blame game has begun.
BOGOTA — Bogotá”s new mayor, the technocratic Enrique Peñalosa, wants to remove some of the Colombian capital’s abundant graffiti — those deemed to be “non-artistic.” But the move is being perceived by some as a reversal of the socially oriented policies of his predecessor, leftist Gustavo Petro, who essentially considered all such street art socially […]
Deforestation is one of the primary causes of global warming, and much of it has happened across vast areas of the Amazon rain forest. Will pledges at the climate change conference in Paris really count?