|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Robert Cohen
$27.96
By Robert Kuttner
$17.79
$22
|
|
|
|
jm3 (CC BY-SA 2.0)
|
After a year of fruitless protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, some former GM employees have sewn their mouths shut in a hunger strike against the company’s treatment of workers at its Colombian plant, pledging death if their grievances are not addressed.
Posted on Aug 16, 2012
READ MORE 
|
|
By Joe Conason — Concerned as President Obama must be over the unfolding embarrassments in the Secret Service and the General Services Administration, he may actually be comforted by the feeble attempts of a few politicians to wring political profit from those scandals.
|
Photo illustration from an image by Colin Grey (CC-BY)
|
This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Thousands of companies are withholding and keeping their employees’ state income taxes; 20 years after the L.A. riots: Whites don’t see the racial divide everyone else senses; the Secret Service and masculinity in Colombia; and Robert Scheer sounds off.
Posted on Apr 20, 2012
READ MORE 
|
|
This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Thousands of companies are withholding and keeping their employees’ state income taxes; 20 years after the L.A. riots: Whites don’t see the racial divide everyone else senses; the Secret Service and masculinity in Colombia; and Robert Scheer sounds off.
|
|
By Amy Goodman — President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign launched its first Spanish-language ads this week, just after he returned from the Summit of the Americas.
|
|
Chris Weyant, Cagle Cartoons, The Hill —
|
Wikimedia Commons
|
Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater (now Xe Services), the world’s most notorious private military contractor, is discreetly training an 800-man army capable of defending infrastructure, suppressing rebellions and battling regional state enemies for the UAE. (more)
|
Flickr / The Vetruvian Man
|
A small town in the depths of the Amazon has declared itself off-limits to tourists. Why? Locals complain of tourists behaving badly and the fact that little of their spending actually benefits the indigenous people.
|
news.bbc.co.uk
|
A blast at a coal mine in Colombia has killed 21 workers, less than four years after an explosion took the lives of 30 at the same La Preciosa mine in the northeast of the country.
Posted on Jan 29, 2011
READ MORE
|
AP / Ricardo Mazalan
|
Jorge Briceno, aka “Mono Jojoy,” had long operated as a senior leader of the FARC rebel force in Colombia. But on Thursday news came that Briceno had been killed in a military airstrike, dealing a blow to the guerrilla movement and providing a public relations coup for newly minted President Juan Manuel Santos.
|
AP / Guillermo Arias
|
In an apparent mixing of official messages, President Obama has contradicted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by rejecting the analogy that Mexico is becoming more and more like 1990s drug-heyday Colombia, when 40 percent of the country’s territory was controlled by rebel groups.
|
Wikimedia Commons
|
After spending six years as a hostage in Colombia, politician Ingrid Betancourt, who was rescued from her rebel captors in 2008, has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Colombian state for “emotional stress and loss of earnings.”
|
Flickr / anselmoportes
|
Whatever your take is on drugs, you have to give traffickers some credit for their innovation: A fake World Cup trophy has been seized by police in Colombia after the 14-inch, 24-pound replica was discovered by investigators and found to be made entirely of cocaine.
Posted on Jul 4, 2010
READ MORE
|
Flickr / World Economic Forum
|
It’s an exciting day in Colombia as citizens head to the polls to vote for a new president. The two front-runners are former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and former Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus of the Green Party.
|
youtube.com
|
She’s not an American, but she is a Latina, and Colombian pop star and self-professed “She Wolf” Shakira mobilized on Thursday for a visit to Arizona, where she was due to join forces with Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon to protest the Grand Canyon State’s oppressive new immigration law.
|
AP
|
Colombian officials were blaming the rebel organization FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, for the death of Luis Francisco Cuellar, governor of the country’s southern province of Caquetá, on Wednesday. Cuellar had been kidnapped Monday night and was found less than a day later with his throat slit.
|
AP / Reinaldo D' Santiago
|
Tensions are running high, and relations running low, between Colombia and Venezuela. The latter’s president, Hugo Chavez, told his generals to prepare for war, while the Colombian government announced a new base on the countries’ border and activated six air battalions.
|
Wikimedia Commons
|
Despite profound ideological differences and a long history of fighting between the groups, the two largest Colombian guerrilla armies, the ELN and the FARC, have forged a pact to fight the country’s security forces.
|
|
By Eugene Robinson — The opium poppy was introduced to Afghanistan more than 2,300 years ago by the armies of Alexander the Great. His forces were eventually driven out, like those of every would-be conqueror since. The poppy has proved more tenacious.
|
businessweek.com
|
An ethical row has erupted after the supposedly eco- and human rights-friendly cosmetic provider The Body Shop was accused of buying palm oil from an organization that pressed for the eviction of Colombian peasant families in order to build a new palm plantation. Riot cops evicted the farming families in July.
|
voltairenet.org
|
The U.S. reputation in Latin America continues to be soiled as a plan between the U.S. and Colombia to increase American access to Colombian military bases has erupted in a firestorm of Latin anger against the deal as a form of military imperialist expansion.
|
USAF / Tech Sgt. Jerry Morrison
|
The U.S. plans to move its anti-drug operations from Ecuador to Colombia, which is just a little too close for Hugo Chavez, who said “the winds of war were beginning to blow.” Luis Inacio Lula da Silva added, “As president of Brazil, this climate of unease disturbs me.”
|
|
By Eugene Robinson — It’s an indictment of our fact-averse political culture that a statement of the blindingly obvious could sound so revolutionary. Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton deserves high praise for acknowledging that the U.S. bears “shared responsibility” for the drug-fueled violence sweeping Mexico.
|
amazon.com
|
A new book casts an illuminating spotlight on Colombia’s guerrilla war, fueled by cocaine profits and U.S. military aid.
|
|
A well-known Colombian tailor is using Dick Cheney’s famous hunting mishap—when Cheney accidentally shot his friend in the face—as inspiration for a new line of bulletproof hunting apparel. The accompanying video shows one of the bulletproof jackets in action.
|
|
By David Sirota — Bush reportedly suggested to Obama he might support an economic stimulus package and aid to struggling automakers if Democrats drop their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia. Strange behavior? Yes and no.
|
|
By Amy Goodman — It is fantastic to see Ingrid Betancourt free, but the celebration of her release should not be confused with celebration of the Colombian government.
|
news.bbc.co.uk
|
The July 2nd rescue of French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and U.S. mercenaries employed by the Northrop Grumman Corp. was heralded as a dramatic victory over the anti-imperial FARC guerrilla forces in Colombia. The real story may be significantly less daring. The mainstream media’s heroic rescue narrative is being contradicted by claims that a $20-million ransom payment was made.
|
AP photo / William Fernando Martinez
|
Well, that didn’t take long: Just a week after former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages were rescued from their FARC captors by Colombian forces, plans are in the works to make a movie version of the story, with Simon Brand on board to direct the drama.
|
AP photo
|
The demise of Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda has been rumored many times before, but this time the Colombian army has announced that the long-time leader of the rebel group FARC is dead and has challenged FARC to disprove the report. Sources close to Marulanda have yet to confirm the news.
|
|
Defending their position after the killing of members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Ecuador heightened tension among Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela over the weekend, Colombian officials said the slain FARC members had been plotting to make a dirty bomb.
|
AP photo / Reinaldo D' Santiago
|
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ratcheted up the tension between his country and neighboring Colombia by moving tanks and thousands of troops to the border between the two nations Sunday. Chavez’s actions were prompted by Colombia’s killing of a key Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) leader and 16 other FARC members in Ecuador the previous day. Chavez has friendly relations with FARC.
|
soccerlens.com
|
How will we know if the war on drugs is ever won? When all the kingpins are locked up or dead? That was once the prevailing idea among those on the front lines of the much-ballyhooed “war,” which Rolling Stone scribe Ben Wallace notes has now gone on for over three decades and, in his view, is an utter failure.
|
|
By Will Durst — After all the brouhaha in New York this week, this seems like a good time to have us a little chat about free speech. Not restricted free speech. Not partial free speech. Not pseudo-, semi-, counterfeit, limited free speech. Not free speech on Wednesdays between 2 and 3 p.m. EDT.
|
|
By Amy Goodman — What do Osama bin Laden and Chiquita bananas have in common? Both have used their millions to finance terrorism.
|
film.queensu.ca
|
Chiquita has agreed to pay $25 million in fines for bribing Colombian terrorist groups to safeguard its banana plantations. One of the groups, a right-wing paramilitary organization, has been guilty of some of Colombia’s worst atrocities.
|
|
They’re calling it a “strike of crossed legs,” and it’s supported by the Pereira, Colombia, mayor’s office: The wives and girlfriends of gang members will deny their partners sex until they vow to renounce violence.
|
View the most popular tags overall?
|
|
What Will Tighter Restrictions on Trade in Iran Do?
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
