Egypt and the Polo Democrático
Some months ago I wrote a column in which I questioned the attitude of certain leaders of the Polo Democrático (political party) who criticize the project of land restitution of the current government …
Read MoreEgypt’s crossroads
In Egypt, there’s a traditional song that ends with these words: “Fortunately we have Islam. “
Read MoreAgainst national anthems
In my school there was a history professor which argued that the Colombian national anthem was the most beautiful in the world after the Marseillaise.
Read MoreMoral imagination
LAST JANUARY 12, before the victims of the slaughter of Tucson, Arizona, President Obama gave one of the most moving speeches of his career (full of eloquent speeches.)
Read MoreDelusions
We columnists are constantly looking for amazing facts or ideas that help us draw the reader out from their own lethargy of the views he reads every day.
Read MoreThe black hole of the golden triangle
In this country economic development, as almost everything else, is uneven.
Read MoreEconomics and poetry
WILLIAM OSPINA AND ALEJANDRO Gaviria are two prominent Colombian intellectuals, the former a poet and the latter an economist.
Read MoreUnforgiving nature?
WHEN WE’RE HEALTHY, we think our body is invincible; but when we suffer an illness or an accident, we understand that all we are depends on the performance of a few organs, valves and bones that keep us standing.
Read MoreFriends and cuisine
AT THE ENTRY OF THE PASTRY Arlequin in Bogota, there’s a sign that says: “Eating and drinking holds body and soul together”.
Read MoreWikileak and international order
Many are worried about the fate the current international order may face with the publication, realized by the organization Wikileaks, of thousands of diplomat cables from the Unites States.
Read MoreSemana Speaks on the Lawsuit Presented by Dejusticia on the Right to to live in a House with Dignified Conditions
“Cramped” in the Social Interest Houses
A group of academics presented a lawsuit before the Constitutional Court against two laws from the regime that establishes the conditions to give houses to the poor. They consider these t be damaging, and in the contrary benefit constructors and owners of the land.
Colombian Laws allow the Social interest Houses to be of minimum 26 square meters. According to Fedevivienda and Dejustcia, imposing that minimum ends up to be the maximum offered in the market.
Read MoreDead Disappeared
This is a macabre country. The great headlines in the colombian news this week refers to the founding of bodies of disappeared people. One of them was the body of an 11 months baby killed by its own father, who had kidnapped the baby in order to extortionate his mother.
Read MoreVictims Statute: observations to the law project 157 of 2007
This document pretends to develop a proposal to include the gender perspective in the Victims Statute that is now in the Congress. The document argues from the practical and normative point of view why is it necessary and fundamental to include differential perspectives in the law project, in particular the gender perspective.
Read MoreThe Financial Market, a Suicidal Institution?
As some people, there exists institutions that are “suicidal”, according to the suggestive expression of the philosopher Garzón Valdés. One of those institutions is the market, or at least, the financial market. Its suicidal tendency derives from the fact that if it´s abandoned to its own dynamic, without any ethical control or regulation, then the market tends to the auto´destruction.
Read MoreIt´s Alive
Society must stop treating the forced missing people as victims of a second category.
Read MoreBattle Cities
The cities, as the people, have their own temperament. Some are disciplined, kind and calmed, while others are impulsive, unpredictable and spoiled. It´s not easy to identify such a character, but any tourist knows is not the same to be in Stockholm than in Rome or Barranquilla and that behind geography and buildings, their is something incorporeal and own that identify and determines them.
Read MoreHRW: Yanquis of shit also?
Kicked out. Like that were thrown from Venezuela osé Miguel Vivanco and Daniel Wilkinson representatives from Human Rights Watch (HRW). All because of telling the truth to the Hugo Chavez government in a press conference in which was presented a report on the human rights situation in that Country.
Read MoreHoodeds
Last year we were listening t a conference from a french professor in the Universidad Nacional when we suddenly saw by the windows of the auditorium some hooded persons that exhorted against Uribe and threw explosive potatoes. The french professor suspended his explanation and stood up from his chair.
Read MoreEnough with Guerrilla´s Violence
How come the Guerrilla leaders cannot see the disastrous results that have produced the armed conflict which has been the factor for paramilitary groups, the disappearance of the peasants movement, the weakening of the union leaders movement, the agricultural policy, and the daily terror of these last decades?
Read MorePress Release: Dejusticia, Fedevivienda and other citizens present a Lawsuit for the right to live in a House with Dignified Conditions
Dejusticia, Housing Federation (Fedevivienda) and other citizens present a lawsuit against two laws that regulate Social Interest Houses for violating the rights of people for living in a deign house, the right to equality, public space, and the duty of the State to protect the most vulnerable people and respect the decentralization principle.
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