Category: Colombia

El Niño: Colombia Faces Water Shortage

02 Oct 2006 @ 15:44 GMT | Permalink | Comments

Valle del Cauca Department, on Colombia's western coast, is likely to face a shortage of water as well as electricity, as the El Niño phenomenon intensifies in the coming months, the Independent Regional Corporation of the Cauca Valley [CVC] said.

In the U.S., NOAA has confirmed the start of a weak El Niño, which characterizes a shift in ocean-atmosphere system and starts with the warming of the ocean surface in the equatorial Pacific. El Niño can disrupt the weather worldwide and impact certain countries economically.

As for Colombia, the C.V.C. is warning that there could be critical supply shortage. Water is being rationed in some parts of the province, and further cuts are expected.

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Posted by Dayhawk Kim at 15:44 | Permalink | Comments (0)
TAGGED: Climate | Colombia | El Niño | Shortage | Water

Cartagena's Blank Vote Campaign Loses

31 Oct 2005 @ 16:12 GMT | Permalink | Comments

Cartagena's "Vote Blank" (Vote en Blanco) campaign ended with bittersweet results last weekend when disgraced former Mayor Nicolás Curi Vergara waged a last-minute campaign and won despite an unprecedented number of abstentions and a formidable number of blank votes. Reformers in this fabled city are bracing for a return to the more corrupt era of the 1990s when Mr. Curi was mayor.

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Posted by Dayhawk Kim at 16:12 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Colombian Firestorm?

10 Jul 2005 @ 16:14 GMT | Permalink | Comments

All the ingredients are there for another firestorm in Colombia, as President Uribe makes his case for a constitutional change that will let him run for another term.

Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe Echevarría announced his resignation Friday, citing personal reasons. He will be replaced by Camilo Ospina, who is President Álvaro Uribe Vélez's legal counsel. The resignation followed months of disquiet within the military, his indiscretion with a female drug trafficker and the deaths of hundreds of soldiers under his watch.

His only tie to the military -- in name only -- was the two years he spent at the Culver Military Academy, a college preparatory boarding school in Indiana. He is a businessman by trade; he went to George Washington for economics and Besançon for international marketing. Mr. Uribe was Finland's honorary consul and an insurance executive until his old friend and fellow medellinense, President Uribe, no relation, appointed him 20 months ago. He replaced Martha Lucía Ramírez, the country's first woman defense minister.

His no-nonsense approach to streamlining the military seemed like a plus at first. Soon his tactless comments and his admitted relationship with a convicted drug trafficker became a liability for a president who is trying to change the constitution so he can run for a second term.

President Uribe was elected in 2002 to a single, four-year term after his predecessor Andrés Pastrana failed to negotiate a cease-fire with Marxist rebels and right-wing militia groups. The wave of popular discontent over the insurgency catapulted Mr. Uribe to presidency. His popularity has hovered around 70 percent in urban areas.

Backed by billions of dollars in mostly military aid from the United States, the president has had some successes against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC] and the smaller National Liberation Army [ELN]. Colombia's expanded military force reclaimed some areas of the country that had been inaccessible due to rebel conflict. But he failed to introduce even basic infrastructure, like sanitation and utilities, into those areas. Mr. Uribe himself has done little to gain the hearts and minds in FARC-controlled areas of the country.

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Posted by Dayhawk Kim at 16:14 | Permalink | Comments (0)