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The world is talking, are you listening?

Rituals, reflections, poetic “assaults”… From May 17 to 23, 2013, the first Latin American Congress of Community Living Cultures [es] will invade the streets of La Paz, Bolivia. The city will host government representatives from Brazil and Colombia, along with more than one thousand activists.
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Colombians commemorated World Press Freedom Day showing their outrage over the May 1 attack against journalist Ricardo Calderón from Semana magazine. Calderón was investigating corruption among military officers [es]. On Twitter the hashtag #NoNosCallarán [es] (we will not be silenced) is trending in Colombia.

Flisol 2013 Banner.

From the Patagonia to Havana, hundreds of computer users across Latin America are choosing freedom over control by installing free software on their computers. On April 27th, groups of free software enthusiasts will be installing free software in dozens of cities across Latin America as part of FLISOL [es], the Latin American free software installation festival.
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Photo shared by Twitter user @CrisferMartin: “Here people get up early for PEACE #AhoraSiLaPaz”

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Former senator Piedad Córdoba has called [es] for a march in favor of peace for April 9, 2013. The event seeks to ask the Colombian government to continue carrying out peace talks with FARC until they agree to a cease fire. There are several hashtags dedicated to the march [es] on Twitter: #9deAbrilporlaPaz [April 9 for peace], #Ahorasílapaz [Peace now], and #SomosGeneracióndePaz [We are a generation of peace].

“Army raids are illegal”
Image published on Facebook by “Soy Colombiano”

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1) the protection of indigenous territory;
2) indigenous self-government;
3) the self-development of indigenous communities on the basis of equilibrium and harmony;
4) free, prior and informed consent as a condition for developments on indigenous land; and
5) the ‘institutional redesign’ of the state in its relations with indigenous peoples.

Colombian indigenous organizations have presented five new development goals in response to the Millennium Declaration. Read more about these goals in a post by Robin Llewellyn at Intercontinental Cry.

On January 23, 2013, an excerpt from the annual report of l'ACAT-France, A World of Torture 2013, makes a fresh assessment of the state of torture in the world [fr]:

“A report called A World of Torture in 2013, assesses torture practices that continue to be alarming, from Pakistan to Italy, by way of South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Bolivia. From authoritarian regimes to democratic countries, none are exempt from criticism on the topic. In 2013, torture remains as endemic, omnipresent and multi-faceted as ever”.

During the afternoon of March 4, 2013, Colombians found out [es] that their current president, Juan Manuel Santos, is one of the 259 candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize. Various netizens showed their disagreement using the hashtag #SantosNobeldelainfamia [es, Santos Nobel of Infamy].

Colombian blog Diario Nocturno wonders “What if Superman had landed in India?” [es]:

We all know that Superman, while he was just a superbaby, fled planet Krypton in a space capsule, just before its destruction and landed (oh, what a coincidence) in Smallville, Kansas. But, what if he had landed, let's say, in India?

Then he presents other new versions of well-known stories made in Bollywood.

Adam Isacson has been updating a timeline on the peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). The timeline includes relevant links with more information on each event.

The team of travel writers at the Colombia Travel Blog celebrated their 500th post by coming up with a list of 500 reasons they love Colombia.

The truth is, there are hundreds more reasons to come and thousands more reasons that we love the country, but we could also boil it down to just one: Colombia is our home.

Las Colombianadas del Facebook posts a video [es] where two children ask smoker adults to light up a cigarette for them. The adults refuse, claiming their are too young and it's wrong, but they are surprised when the children handle them a paper with the message: “You are worried about me, and not about yourself?”

Colombia has the law 1335 of 2009 [es] and according to it, it is forbidden for minors to purchase tobacco products.

On his personal blog, Colombian journalist Javier Contreras wonders [es] if there really was a ceasefire during the Christmas and New Year truce between the Guerrilla group FARC [es] and Colombian government, in the context of peace negotiations ongoing since late 2012:
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Due to most recent news about the health condition of Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez [es], who is currently in Havana, Cuba since December 11, 2012 for the cancer that is afflicting him, Juan Mosquera posts his personal reflection about the political landscape in Venezuela [es]:

-Tell me, boy, what's the capital of Venezuela?
-Havana!
-Very good, boy.

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Mike's Bogota Blog rants about traffic jams in Colombian capital city, Bogotá, and foresees the situation can only get worse:

Congress, in all its wisdom, has included in the tax reform bill which it just passed and Pres. Santos will sign, a cut in gasoline prices. Colombians will cheer and senators will gain votes, but, by promoting consumption, driving and traffic congestion will all get worse – besides the impacts on pollution and climate change.

Blogger Miguel from Mike's Bogota Blog lists some situations that make people feel indignation and wonders:

So, why is it that all kinds of vehicles and industry can poison us, day in and day out, in plain sight, and almost nobody does anything?

He also shares pictures and concludes his reflections by saying “we can expect to live with rolling chimneys in Bogota for a long time.”

In World Policy Blog, Global Voices contributor Robert Valencia highlights five “top stories from 2012 that will have an impact in 2013 and beyond”: the war on drugs, Hugo Chávez's re-election, the Colombia-Nicaragua dispute over the San Andrés Archipelago, the Colombian peace process, and Brazil's booming economy.

The Colombo-Venezuelan border is a two-faced, majestic beauty burdened by the protracted armed conflict in Colombia, the massive drug trade, and the illegal armed groups that enter and leave both countries as if there were no immigrations controls in a European-like fashion. The palm trees and false calm that may appear on the way from Cúcuta to San Cristóbal at seven in the morning can mislead one into thinking this land is peaceful.

Jonathan Pfaehler recounts his experience crossing the Colombia-Venezuela border in a guest post for the blog Caracas Chronicles.

The recently released Free Software Assessment Report 2012 shows the opinion, assessment and preferences of more than 5,000 people from Spain and Latin America. The study published in its fourth edition is promoted by PortalProgramas and supported by a number of experts and collaborators [es]. The report aims to contribute to a better understanding, use and dissemination of free software in Latin America. The summary of the study can be accessed online [es] and more information can be found on the report's conclusions for 2012 [es].

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has announced its first contest for bloggers, which will focus on issues related to child development.
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Servindi [es] published Bulletin N°3/2012 [es] by the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) [es], where they report that the organization will go to the International Criminal Court to denounce that numerous Indigenous people -including several children- are dying of malnutrition or as victims of anti-personnel mines due to the conflict between legal and illegal groups in their territories.

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Maria Elvira Bonilla, director of online portal Kien & Ke, resigned after acknowledging her error in firing journalist Daniel Pardo for his column about the influence exercised by the Canadian oil company Pacific Rubiales in media like W Radio [es]-a case that sparked outrage among Colombians.
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Front Line Defenders has joined Colombian social movement ‘MOVICE‘ [es] (National Movement of Victims of State Crimes) in a campaign to develop a series of 6 radio Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to “encourage public opinion in Colombia to support greater protection for [human rights defenders].”
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Colombia based American blogger Natalie Southwick writes about cocaine supply chain and asks her countrymen to think about how Americans may be perpetuating the cycle of violence and exploitation by feeding the demand for cocaine. “At the least, think before you inhale”.

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After riots at the campus of the National University of Colombia in Bogotá last week, some students proposed [es] to paint the buildings white to express their rejection of vandalism, prompting a debate [es] about the issue. Andrés Villaveces writes [es] about this and the “conflicting relationship” of most Bogotanos with “the public”, pointing out that, unlike other countries in Latin America, the best universities, hospitals, schools, etc. are privately owned.

Sibylla Brodzinsky in the blog InSight Crime writes about organized crime as “the new face of forced displacement in Latin America.” She adds that under the coordination of InSight Crime and with the support of Internews, an alliance of digital media in El Salvador, Colombia, and Mexico explored this new face of displacement in the region.

In their blog, [es] Fundación Karisma [es] reports that they have joined other organizations in a “supportive intervention” in Senator Camilo Romero's [es] lawsuit against the constitutionality of Law 1520 [pdf, es], also known as Lleras Law 2.0. Fundación Karisma shares links to two Citizen Interventions [es] which lay out their requests before the Constitutional Court of Colombia.

InfoAmazonia is a platform that brings together organizations and journalists from nine countries of one of the most biodiverse areas in the world to freely provide news and reports of the endangered Amazon region. The website maps deforestation, fires, oil and mining, and calls for public participation through the submission of data and stories.

Since last May [es], ‘pink sauce’ from popular gossip website La Fiscalía has been posting a series on “the gloomy years of Colombian television” [es], where he reviews, tongue-in-cheek and year by year between 1992 and 2012, the most popular mainstream medium in the country. Readers share their memories of their favourite or hated shows in the comments section, as well as fun facts and impressions of what most of them consider the increasingly decreasing quality of Colombian television.