From Colombia

In these days the singer Shakira, the most famous Colombian vocalist, just launched the video "She-wolf", both in English and Spanish, which is her first single track of the upcoming albums, in the two languages, whose names are not known yet. The song has not been as successful in Colombia, neither English nor Spanish, as the ones from her past albums. That is due to the popularity of the nine-times Grammy Award winner is lowering progressively in her own country where Colombians prefer other less-famous internationally singers such as Juanes and Carlos Vives, even when they do not sing in English though. Many people say Shakira has forgotten her roots and now even speaks in a foreigner accent, and they do not like her love relationship with Antonio De La Rua, the son of a former President of Argentina, because they say he does not do anything for a life and he is a lazybones. For many Colombians celebrities personal lives are an important fact and they do not forgive anythi...

Today expires the ten-years agreement that the governments of US and Ecuador signed in 1999, in which the Southamerican nation allowed the Northamerican one to build up and have a military base in the city of Manta to fight narcotrafic. The agreement was not extend because the current Ecuatorian government called for a plebiscite where most of the people voted for not to extend the agreement. Some reports about violation of human rigths in the area may have had an influence on the people's desition. Since then the US began to look for a new place where to move the base over in order to continue the figth against narcotrafic, and the most suitable place was Colombia because its geographical position and because it is a great ally of the US. Besides, The Plan Colombia has not expire. And in fact, it happened: the governments of Colombia and the US has just signed a pre- agreement in which the American military will move from Manta to three Colombia Air Force bases in Colombia. When t...

Today, July 2nd, we Colombians are conmemorating the first aniversary of The Check Operation (La Operación Jaque in Spanish). Check as in chess. The Check Operation was a military operation carried out by the intelligence of the Colombia Army in which 15 hostages held by the left-wing guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC were rescued succesfully without shooting one single bullet. No one was injured but two guerrilla commanders were captured. The hostages were a former presidential candidate, Ingid Betancourt, 3 American contractors of CIA, 11 Colombia Army and 4 Police members, who had been kidnapped for between 7 and 10 years. This operation is considered by experts the best military operation in Colombian history, only compared to the ones of the Independence in the beginning of 19th Century, and the best intelligency operation in the world's history since the Army members who carried out the operation infiltrated the FARC´s communications in the jungle and impe...