tagged w/ Colombia
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There was a time when the Secret Service represented the best of the best, dependable men beyond reproach and most importantly, they were incorruptible. They were those chaps who would do anything in order to keep their country safe. In short, they were America’s finest.
Oh, how times have changed.
As President Obama and his royal entourage touched down in Cartagena, Colombia for the Summit of the Americas on Friday afternoon, it seems that his elite security detail had other, more pressing matters on their minds – wasting no time getting busy sampling some of the South America’s local delicacies.
It was billed in the press as an important meeting with over 30 South American leaders present to discuss the globalists’ plans for the coming decade. This latest White House holiday junket also counted in its imperial entourage Hillary Clinton and favored Romney running mate Marco Rubio, along with other high-ranking member’s of the President’s court, and a security detail which included scores of Secret Service agents, along with a few dozen more aids and logistics personnel.
Unable to control their manic hormonal urges, a number of the President’s elite Secret Service detail thought it prudent to coordinate some special recreational reconisance missions, on US taxpayers time. According the initial reports last night, a dozen agents – including a number of married ones, have been sent packing we are told, this time for “soliciting prostitution”, a practice considered inappropriate for Secret Service agents charged with guarding America’s heads of state.
It’s still unclear whether or not Obama’s body guards made trips to one of Cartegna’s infamous ‘red light’ districts, or if the Secret Service had instead organized their staff party at the same venue as US diplomats, and who actually paid for their Colombian hookers....
Continued at:
http://www.infowars.com/club-obama-president-compromised-by-secret-service-orgy-with-hookers-in-cartagena/There was a time when the Secret Service represented the best of the best, dependable... more
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The bones of a giant turtle were unearthed in Colombia in a coal mine. This ancestor of our modern day turtles had a shell that could be turned upside-down and used as a small swimming pool!
At 60 million years old, the “coal turtle” reminds us of the gigantic prehistoric creatures that once inhabited our earth. The giant lived after the dinosaurs had passed on, but during a time when giant reptiles like mega-snakes ruled.
Discovery News notes that unlike today’s slow-moving veggie lovers, this type of turtle could have snapped up animals as large as crocodiles in its huge jaws.
The huge turtle sounds pretty scary! And a pretty hilarious contrast in comparison with the pet turtles my uncle keeps in his San Francisco apartment. I wonder which museum will house this monster turtle and when we will get a chance to check it out! I love the idea of seeing that big shell . . . I might even try to recreate it on the roof of my apartment building!
Even more, this giant reminds me of a dream I once had . . . the ninja turtles would have nothing on this guy!
Photo Credit: All rights reserved by ashliek (via flickr)The bones of a giant turtle were unearthed in Colombia in a coal mine. This ancestor... more
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Barack Obama on the failure of the war on drugs. A discussion with NYT Charles M Blow and Neill Franklin, a former narcotics officer, who was for the drug war and is now with LEAP - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and drug legalization.
http://youtu.be/Gez5Ur-8CCsBarack Obama on the failure of the war on drugs. A discussion with NYT Charles M Blow... more
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Colombia guerrillas free captives held 12 years
Students ran, hid as gunman opened fire in Calif.
GSA chief resigns amid reports of excessive spending… $823,000 in Vagas?Colombia guerrillas free captives held 12 years
Students ran, hid as gunman opened... more
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In Colombia, violence against women—including domestic violence—is rampant. A new wave of programs is gently stirring young Colombians in violent cities to talk about their lives. Organizers say their goal is to help women think about protecting themselves and their children from family violence.In Colombia, violence against women—including domestic violence—is... more
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I have been a member of Tree Nation for going on five years now. Tree Nation is a free Internet community/organization where you can be a part of planting thousands of trees in four separate forests globally to help counter deforestation and desertfication right from your modem. Their original forest in the heart of Niger has now planted over 52,000 trees on their way to the goal of 100,000 for 2012! All total over 397,000 trees have been planted. I have several trees planted there in my name as well. There are other forests in Columbia, Nicaragua and their newest in Madagascar. This article is about a new moringa park being introduced in Niger and also about beginning to use agroforestry in their Niger plantation.
We see so much deforestation taking place in our world and so many negative effects from our behavior. This is one bright spot proving that people globally can join together in good spirit to work to make the world a better place.I hope you check it out and maybe even become part of the solution in planting trees in places where they are most needed now.
Excerpt:
"Alongside planting trees, we are beginning to farm fruits and vegetables as we cultivate the trees planted. Our goal is twofold: to enhance the quality of the soil and the growth of the trees through agroforestry and to take advantage by selling the products farmed in the process.
So far, we have planted tomatoes, aubergines and cucumbers. While the first two have yielded good results, many cucumbers have been lost owing to the pest of caterpillars. We are, however, going to continue farming the vegetables and we hope to make the most of distribution outlets in the capital of Niamey and in local markets to sell them alongside our production of Moringa leaves.
The Moringa plantation:
We have also decided to reorganise our site to open a new Moringa park. 15 metres wide, it runs alongside the channelling strip used for channelling the irrigation from the basin, which is a round 200 metres long. It will be ideally placed to take advantage of the water well and our soon-to-be-in-place micro irrigation system, by using the border irrigation technique, which involves irrigating a whole area of land at one time. As for our old park, until the irrigation system has been expanded it will only be being farmed on a seasonal basis.
In all, over the last few months we have harvested around 200 kg of Moringa leaves. And, while we’re on the subject, we thought you might want to know that we’ve just collected our first Baobab leaves since they were planted 4-5 years ago!"I have been a member of Tree Nation for going on five years now. Tree Nation is a free... more
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BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Rev. Rafael Reatiga asked his parishioners to pray for him and gave the choirmaster a list of songs for his funeral shortly before he was found shot to death together with another Roman Catholic priest, a Colombian prosecutor said Tuesday.
Authorities initially suspected robbery when Reatiga's body was found along with that of Rev. Richard Piffano, 37, in a car in southern Bogota on Jan. 27, 2011.
But on Tuesday prosecutor Ana Patricia Larrota said investigators had determined that it was suicide by hitmen in the year-old case: the two priests hired gunmen to kill them after Reatiga discovered he had AIDS.
The priests gave members of a criminal gang the equivalent of $8,500, said the chief investigator of the prosecutor's office, Maritza Gonzalez, as two of the four alleged assassins appeared before a judge for processing.
She said the two priests had originally planned to throw themselves off a cliff into a canyon north of Bogota but apparently lacked the nerve.
In addition to AIDS, Reatiga had syphilis and witness testimony indicated he was a regular visitor to places frequented by gays in central Bogota, Larrota told the judge who processed the two alleged assassins on Tuesday.
Gildardo Alberto Penate and Isidro Castiblanco were charged with aggravated homicide, said Larrota. Each faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted. MORE HERE http://news.yahoo.com/colombian-priests-hired-hitmen-kill-themselves-043441579.html
There are oh, so many things wrong (albeit quite sad) with this story which exposes the hypocrisy of religion. Two priests hire hitmen to murder them (religious dogma of sins - thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit suicide) because they had sexually transmitted diseases caused by their human sexual behavior (thou shalt not commit fornication)... So very sad for the priests (and their flocks) to be burden with so much "dogmatic" (opinionated) sin, that they felt the need to end their lives and involve others in the process. (The hiring of other human beings to kill...). If only they were free from the rigid instruction, religions extol and realize that we are all by nature, programmed to indulge in so called “sins of the flesh” and that if one “falls from grace” there can be rational pardon. It is a doleful account that is repeated time and time again and contributes to the extreme despair in life. This should be yet another reason to take a good look at the misery, harsh religious indoctrination causes in a very short mortal existence.
Funny or not so funny moral of this story is… the guilt that religions force upon their worshipers never seems to stop the extreme behavior of psychopaths in society (including pedophiles within their own clergy) they only seem to subjugate those with conscience who might do good for humankind if it wasn’t for their contrived guilt. thinkingblue
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A philosophical moment:
Absurdism - A view, which is shared by Sartre, is that humanity must live in a world that is and will forever be hostile or indifferent towards them. The universe will never truly care for humanity the way we seem to want it to. The atheist view of this statement is that people create stories, or gods, which in their minds transcend reality to fill this void and attempt to satisfy their need.
Absurdism is a philosophical stance embracing a wide range of perspectives, which implies that the efforts of humanity to find or absolutely define, limit, express or exclude the inherent meanings of anything, including human existence, are absurd because the qualities of communicable information available to the human mind, and relationships within Reality makes any certainty about such impossible. Philosophical schools of absurdism explore the fundamental nature of the Absurd and how individuals, once they become aware of it, can or should react to it and to circumstances they encounter.
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'The Theatre of the Absurd' is a term coined by the critic Martin Esslin for the work of a number of playwrights, mostly written in the 1950s and 1960s. The term is derived from an essay by the French philosopher Albert Camus. In his 'Myth of Sisyphus', written in 1942, he first defined the human situation as basically meaningless and absurd. The 'absurd' plays by Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter and others all share the view that man is inhabiting a universe with which he is out of key. Its meaning is indecipherable and his place within it is without purpose. He is bewildered, troubled and obscurely threatened.
The origins of the Theatre of the Absurd are rooted in the avant-garde experiments in art of the 1920s and 1930s. At the same time, it was undoubtedly strongly influenced by the traumatic experience of the horrors of the Second World War, which showed the total impermanence of any values, shook the validity of any conventions and highlighted the precariousness of human life and its fundamental meaninglessness and arbitrariness. The trauma of living from 1945 under threat of nuclear annihilation also seems to have been an important factor in the rise of the new theatre.BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Rev. Rafael Reatiga asked his parishioners to pray for... more
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Mudslide, part of the Deadly Landslide Killing 37 in Colombia 7.11.2011
A landslide caused by heavy rains left 37 people dead while 40 are still missing in northwest Colombia , a Red Cross official said.
Cesar Uruena, a Red Cross rescue director, said the landslide buried more than 14 homes in the city of Manizales in Caldas department, 102 miles northwest of the capital, Bogota.Mudslide, part of the Deadly Landslide Killing 37 in Colombia 7.11.2011
A... more
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Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said this week that legalization of marijuana would allow the war on drugs to move forward by shifting focus to harder drugs and helping to stop the international violence associated with drug trafficking.
Santos said more world leaders should rethink their approach to the War On Drugs in order to deal with drug trafficking and the use of hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine, reports Natalie Dalton of Colombia Reports. The Colombian president made the remarks in an interview with Metro News.
"The world needs to discuss new approaches ... we are basically still thinking within the same framework as we have done for the last 40 years," the president said.
Legalizing marijuana could be a way forward, "provided everyone does it at the same time," Santos said.
The president said he cannot be the first to make the move, "because for Colombia, this is a matter of national security," and drew a contrast, saying "in other countries this is mainly a health and crime issue."
"Drug trafficking is what finances the violence and the irregular groups in our country," Santos said. "I would be crucified if I took the first step. We need to insist on more multinational actions on drug trafficking and innovate the ways we are dealing with it."
Santos said he sees a future of global change, including marijuana legalization, as a viable possibility.
"We have something that the U.S. and Europe don't have: a young population and a lot of optimism," Santos said. "The latest poll in Colombia from Thursday shows that 79 percent of our population believes that we are on a great path."
http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/10/colombias_president_marijuana_should_be_legalized.phpColombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said this week that legalization of... more
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President Obama broke his campaign promises in backing Bush-era trade pacts that repeat mistakes of NAFTA
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- With President Obama’s backing, Congress yesterday passed trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama that are based on the flawed model of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, had the following statement in response:
“President Obama broke his campaign promise by championing these unjust trade deals. The pacts with South Korea, Colombia and Panama will empower big multinational corporations and Wall Street investors to pursue quick profits at the expense of environmental protections, human rights and shared economic prosperity.
“The investment chapters of the three trade deals, which open the door to corporate attacks on environmental protections, are especially alarming. If, for instance, a South Korean uranium mining company thought a U.S. environmental law impinged on its ‘right’ to make profits, it could sue our government through a biased international tribunal, bypassing U.S. courts and threatening to override decisions made through our democratic institutions.
“The passage of the Colombia deal is downright shameful. This deal promises to fuel ongoing armed conflict in Colombia, including intimidation and murder of local activists and union leaders. The deal will also encourage foreign investments in destructive palm oil plantations, mines, oil drilling and other projects designed to exploit Colombia’s natural resources and export the profits overseas. Afro-Colombian and indigenous peoples are at particular risk of displacement.
“As polls demonstrate, Americans understand that current U.S. trade policies are not working in the public interest. As protesters on Wall Street and in other cities across the country challenge the deepening poverty, unemployment and inequality in our country, President Obama has led us toward more of the same.
“President Obama must change course as he negotiates the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, and its investment chapter in particular, must not be based on the same failed and unjust model.”
More at the linkPresident Obama broke his campaign promises in backing Bush-era trade pacts that... more
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A sex strike by women demanding a paved road to the small town of Barbacoas has deservedly grabbed the media’s attentionA sex strike by women demanding a paved road to the small town of Barbacoas has... more
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Recopilación de las notas que más interés despertaron en los lectores del portal a lo largo del mes de mayo, en base a la cantidad de visitas registradas.Recopilación de las notas que más interés despertaron en los... more
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Los analistas estiman que la Bolsa de Valores de Colombia continuará con tendencia alcistas en los próximos días, siguiendo las ganancias de las últimas jornadas.Los analistas estiman que la Bolsa de Valores de Colombia continuará con... more
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El banco colombiano vendió en el mercado 1.000 millones de dólares en bonos a diez años con una tasa del 5,95% y superó las expectativas de los analistas.El banco colombiano vendió en el mercado 1.000 millones de dólares en... more
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In the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, a five-year-long downpour imprisons people in their homes, washes away the banana plantation and reduces the town of Macondo to ruins. But the deluge dreamed up by Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez in his magical-realist masterpiece pales compared to the real-life flooding of his homeland now.
Amid 11 months of nearly nonstop rain, dykes have burst and rivers have topped their banks, inundating communities, cattle ranches, and croplands in 28 of Colombia's 32 departments. Waterlogged Andean mountainsides have collapsed, burying neighborhoods and blocking highways. More than 1,000 people have been killed, injured or gone missing. In the flooded town of Puerto Boyacá in central Colombia, coffins holding the dead are being floated to the cemetery on boats.
(Read a Q&A With Colombia's President Santos.)
All told, more than 3 million people — nearly 7% of Colombia's population - have been displaced or have suffered major water damage to their homes and livelihoods. President Juan Manuel Santos calls it the worst natural disaster in the country's history, one his government predicts will shave 2.5% from Colombia's 2011 GDP. Yet hardly anyone outside of Colombia has noticed because the tragedy, unlike an earthquake or hurricane, has unfolded in slow motion. "Drop by drop the rain causes more damage every day," Santos said recently. "It's like Chinese water torture."
Santos and other government officials blame La Niña, the weather phenomenon that causes unusually cold temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator and provokes heavy rains. La Niña kicked in around the middle of 2010, dumping five to six times the average amount of precipitation on some parts of Colombia. And there's been no respite. Last year's wet weather continued through what is normally Colombia's dry season and merged with the current rainy season.
Complicating matters is extreme geography. Colombia is divided by three Andean ranges, and the rain-saturated mountain soil is crumbling away, causing daily landslides as well as sedimentation — which raises water tables in rivers. One of the hardest-hit cities is Cúcuta, located on the Venezuelan border. Cave-ins and landslides have blocked highways leading to Bogotá and the Caribbean coast, leaving residents largely cut-off from the rest of the country. Ironically, Cúcuta also lacks drinking water because so much rain has increased sediment in local rivers, overwhelming the city's water purification system.
Santos has toured some of the worst flooded areas, but the government's response has been marred by bottlenecks and graft. Due to the isolation of flooded villages, the inexperience of local officials and the presence of rebels and drug traffickers, just four of 753 public works projects to repair roads, bridges, homes and schools are underway. Four governors and 26 mayors are being investigated for allegedly mishandling flood assistance. Outraged victims have blocked highways in protest.
(See pictures of FARC, Colombia's notorious guerilla army.)
snip
The Universidad de la Sabana (University of the Savanna), one of the Colombia's elite academic institutions, sits next to the Bogotá River in the capital suburb of Chía. On April 25, the surging river punched a 60-ft.-long hole (18 m) in a nearby levee. Now, the university's library, amphitheatre and science laboratories sit five-feet deep (1.5 m) in putrid black water. As he climbed into an aluminum boat on a mission to salvage classroom desks and computers, volunteer relief worker Luis Gabriel Angel said: "Nobody imagined the flooding would be this bad."
Fortunately, the downpours won't last as long as they did in the fictional Macondo. Forecasters predict the rain will peter out by July. But thanks to global warming and climate change, Colombians should get used to extreme weather, says Ricardo Lozano, who heads the government's Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies. He points out that just before the floods, Colombia suffered through a lengthy drought. "It's wrong to think that climate change is a future threat because it is taking place right now," Lozano says. "The world should learn from what's happening in Colombia."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2069653,00.html#ixzz1NImrU5muIn the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, a five-year-long downpour imprisons people... more
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Red-crested Tree Rat Rediscovered in Sierra Nevadas After 113 Years
Red-Crested Tree Rat
A unique guinea-pig sized rodent, not seen since 1898, has been rediscovered. The Red-crested Tree Rat (Santamartamys rufodorsalis) showed up at the front door of the ProAves' El Dorado Nature Reserve Eco-lodge in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. NPR says the rodent was presumed to be extinct.
The animal was rediscovered by Lizzie Noble and Simon McKeown - two volunteers with ProAves monitoring endangered amphibians. The tree rat stayed for about two hours and posed for pictures before heading back into the forest.
Lizzie Noble says, "He just shuffled up the handrail near where we were sitting and seemed totally unperturbed by all the excitement he was causing. We are absolutely delighted to have rediscovered such a wonderful creature after just a month of volunteering with ProAves. Clearly the El Dorado Reserve has many more exciting discoveries waiting."
ProAves says the The Red-crested Tree Rat will now likely be designated as Critically Endangered under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Red List of Threatened Species criteria.
Red-Crested Tree Rat
Photos: Lizzie Noble / proaves.orgRed-crested Tree Rat Rediscovered in Sierra Nevadas After 113 Years
Red-Crested... more
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Los analistas mejoraron sus expectativas para los papeles colombianos luego de que la Bolsa local subiera durante cinco días la semana pasada y recuperaran parte del terreno perdido durante el año.Los analistas mejoraron sus expectativas para los papeles colombianos luego de que la... more
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Los analistas estiman que luego de las caídas sufridas desde principios de año los papeles locales podrían mostrarse nuevamente tentadores para los inversores.Los analistas estiman que luego de las caídas sufridas desde principios de... more
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El cierre de trimestre estuvo lleno de noticias positivas para la petrolera colombiana que, además de los excelentes resultados, vio elevada su calificación de riesgo a categoría de grado de inversión por parte de Standard & Poor´s.El cierre de trimestre estuvo lleno de noticias positivas para la petrolera colombiana... more
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Recopilación de las notas que más interés han despertado en los lectores del portal a lo largo del mes de abril, en base a la cantidad de visitas generadas.Recopilación de las notas que más interés han despertado en los... more
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