From Colombia

Today we, the inhabitants of Bogota, are facing the fourth day of a public transportation strike due to a series of facts that are going on in this city. One of the longest and the gravest in the last times. The reason: the desagreement between the government of the city an the trade whose representatives are in these days negotiating the new public transportation integrated system (SITP for its abbreviation in Spanish) which includes the integration of the city's bus system, the metro (not built yet) and the suburban train. Yeah, believe or not, in full 21st century, Bogota does not have a metro system yet! In order to stablish the new transportation system, the city's government is taking measures which the transportation trade weighs up affects them. That is the apple of discord because the system will belong to and run by the government and not by the transportation trade who has been doing that since the stablishment of it in Colombia. This is a kind of struggle for the po...

Her name is Piedad Cordoba. Although she belongs to one of the traditional parties in Colombia (Liberal), she is opposite to government and, according to some sectors of the country, she sympathizes with the left-winged guerrilla FARC. The Colombian authorities have done research into her for supposed links with FARC. She leads the humanitarian group Colombians for Peace, and she certainly simpathizes with Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. Piedad Cordoba has become well-known internationally because of her intermediary work in the Humanitarian agreement of kidnapped people and FARC prisoners, between the Colombian government and the guerrilla. In early 2008, she, together with the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, achieved the release of six kiddnaped politicians. Because of this, she won the Prince of Asturias Prize. Even when Colombian president Alvaro Uribe din not authorized Cordoba's intermediary work anymore, she achieved again the release of three kidnapped policemen and o...

Juanes is a Colombian pop music songwriter, singer and guitarplayer who has sold more than 14 million copies of his albums in Spanish and has won one Grammy Award, 17 Latin Grammy Awards and 9 MTV Latino Awards. He is also a declared social and humanitarian activist who holds a fundation for victims of antipersonal mines named Mi Sangre (My Blood). He is the author of the civil initiative called Paz Sin Fronteras (Peace Without Borders) which consists of free music concerts performanced by him and any other famous singers and musicians, as a way of appealing for peace by ignoring the political differences . There has been two so far, and the second one caused some controversy between the involved parts. Paz Sin Fronteras II was carried out in Havanna, Cuba, for the people who live isolated in the island under the comunist governmnet of Fidel and Raul Castro and the US economical blockade. These people and the Cuban government and its political allies welcomed the concert but the oppos...

A group of Colombians who live in Bogota organized through the social networking websites Facebook and Twitter a march for today in order to demostrate against the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, because of his repeated interventions in the Colombian political, economical and social affairs. In fact, they are many marchs hold in more than 100 cities of more than 30 countries of the five continents. Something more or less like the March Against FARC made in last year's Febraury. The march was named "Chavez No More" In the last days, Chávez kept on giving his opinion about the Agreement of Military Cooperation signed between Colombia and the United States, even when he atended, as the other twelve presidents of the South American countries, the last UNASUR's (Union of South American Nations) summit in Argentina a week ago where the topic was discussed. He did not say anything remarkable there but as soon as he got back in his country he started to blame Colombian p...

In 1821, two years after their independence from Spain; Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama became La Gran Colombia (The Great Colombia), a whole nation that lasted less than two decades due to the disagreements of the two political trends, Federalism and Centralism, and the regional tension. In 1829 Venezuela became independent from Colombia followed by Ecuados in 1831. In 1903 Panama separated from Colombia, being backed by the United States who was concerned in the zone because it wanted to build up the Panama Canal there. Since then the diplomatic relations between Colombia and each one of the separated nations has been relatively good with some border brushes with Venezuela;but we Colombians consider Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama "Sister Nations". But things have changed in the last years regarding to Venezuela and Ecuador. They do not seem to be sisters of Colombia since their governments have moved away from ours. In 1999 Hugo Chavez, a Venezuelan Army colonel, be...

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...