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	<title>Council on Hemispheric Affairs &#187; Colombia</title>
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	<link>http://www.coha.org</link>
	<description>COHA is an NGO specialized in monitoring Latin American and Canadian Relations for more than 30 years...</description>
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		<title>Rural Colombia: The Potential for the Future</title>
		<link>http://www.coha.org/rural-colombia-the-potential-for-the-future/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coha.org/rural-colombia-the-potential-for-the-future/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:31:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Colombia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indigenous Rights]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coha.org/?p=15670</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The problems of Colombia’s rural populations have been extensively analyzed, mostly regarding their participation in the country’s historical domestic armed conflict. For example, numerous reports have focused on the violence of the guerrillas, paramilitaries, and narco-trafficking organizations that have forced families and even entire villages to abandon their native land and homes, becoming Internally Displaced People (IDP).[1] However, factors other than civil conflict can lead to the displacement of populations. Biofuel companies, the mining industry, and mega-construction projects have threatened the environment, food security, and agricultural biodiversity in rural Colombia, and have led to displacement and the dispossession of land.[2] Successive Colombian governments have exacerbated this problem by engaging in the indiscriminate allocation of exploitation licenses to private companies. Furthermore, several ongoing mega-projects fail both to uphold any standards of sustainability and to take into account the interests of the local population. This has created a need for a clearly defined national usage policy and an accompanying regulation and management system. These issues are rarely present in the national and international media, but have transformed the lives of many Colombians living in rural areas. El Quimbo Dam Expected to begin operating in 2014, the El Quimbo Hydroelectric Project Plant is located in Huila, a southwestern region of Colombia. It is [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Mexico&#8217;s Drug War: Not Another Colombia</title>
		<link>http://www.coha.org/mexicos-drug-war-not-another-colombia/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coha.org/mexicos-drug-war-not-another-colombia/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:55:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[COHA Research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Colombia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mexico]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War on Drugs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coha.org/?p=15643</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The drug war in Mexico grows more brutal daily. It is practically impossible to read news from that country without exposure to a myriad of literal rolling heads, mass graves, shootouts, and grisly abductions. While addressing the Council on Foreign Relations on September 8, 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton qualified the situation in Mexico as “looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, when the narco-traffickers controlled certain parts of the country.”[i] In fact, both U.S. and Mexican policymakers have proposed tactics based on the Colombian experience. However, one must closely examine the practical differences between the two countries before applying Colombian tactics to Mexico indiscriminately, since in practice many of Colombia’s crime strategies might well be ineffective in the Mexican case. Inequality, Drugs, and Violence: Colombia 2.0? On the surface, similarities between the two countries are obvious: both are tainted by the almost uncontrolled presence of organized crime and a quickened tempo of violence. As in Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s, urban violence has risen, and criminal groups have proliferated. The news regularly portrays drugs cartels slamming into each other and the state, usually through indiscriminate homicides and massacres that target innocent civilians. Such [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Higher Education in Latin America 2011:The Burden of the Youth</title>
		<link>http://www.coha.org/higher-education-in-latin-america-2011the-burden-of-the-youth/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coha.org/higher-education-in-latin-america-2011the-burden-of-the-youth/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:29:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Chile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[COHA Research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Colombia]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coha.org/?p=15568</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The high cost of public education combined with a deterioration in quality, two such consequences of the reforms being introduced to privatize education incited opposition in various Latin American states during 2011, particularly in Chile and Colombia. The regressive atmosphere of higher education and its production of inequitable returns, most attributable to the neoliberal Organic Constitutional Law on Education (LOCE), underlined the grievances of the student movement in Chile. Chilean activists finally ended their 6-month occupation of the Universidad de Chile, now planning for future demonstrations in 2012 after failing to influence a better funded education budget for the year. In Colombia, the occupations of public universities, the suspension of classes and the near forfeiture of an academic semester, were all reactive measures to the government’s reform of a 19-year-old law on higher education, which many believe would have accelerated the privatization of education and spur the financial collapse of public universities. After sustained opposition from student activists, the Colombian administration decided to revoke the legislation, now proceeding to draft a new reform measure together the nation&#8217;s student organizations. Three years after the global financial crisis triggered a wave of austerity measures across the world, the rising generation found itself systematically [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Latin America&#8217;s Pacific Alliance Plans for 2012</title>
		<link>http://www.coha.org/latin-americas-pacific-alliance-plans-for-2012/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coha.org/latin-americas-pacific-alliance-plans-for-2012/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:21:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Chile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Colombia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mexico]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peru]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coha.org/?p=15405</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[During the Second Pacific Alliance Summit on December 4, 2011, held in Mérida, Mexico, the Heads of State of Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Peru took a significant step towards the formation of what could turn out to be an unprecedented trading alliance, inspired by the July 28, 2011 Presidential Declaration of Lima . In its initial period, the coalition will consist of the aforementioned countries. However, the current members are encouraging additional Latin America countries to join once they meet the essential requirements, which are: the recognition of the validity of the rule of law and the respective constitutional orders, the separation of branches of government, and protection of and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli participated in the summit as an observer, indicating the country’s interest in joining the trade alliance, although the Panamanian president would find it difficult to qualify as a hard-core democrat. According to Mexican President Felipe Calderón, the allied countries combined represent a population of 200 million, fifty percent of Latin America’s imports and exports, and over thirty-four percent of the region’s Gross National Product (GNP). In addition, the president mentioned that the association would surpass the trade volume of [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.coha.org/latin-americas-pacific-alliance-plans-for-2012/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>A Legal Wasteland – Lawyers, Murder, Democracy, and Justice in Colombia</title>
		<link>http://www.coha.org/a-legal-wasteland-%e2%80%93-lawyers-murder-democracy-and-justice-in-colombia/</link>
		<comments>http://www.coha.org/a-legal-wasteland-%e2%80%93-lawyers-murder-democracy-and-justice-in-colombia/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:23:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[COHA Research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Colombia]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.coha.org/?p=15250</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Those working in Colombia’s legal field continue to face intimidation, coercion, and violence in performing their professional duties. State authorities have contributed to the ongoing climate of fear by actively undermining, influencing, and criticizing lawyers and the judicial system. Disadvantaged Colombians remain vulnerable to human rights abuses, with little chance of obtaining justice, a crucial component of democracy. On May 25, 2011, Avocats Sans Frontieres Canada and the Colombian Caravana UK Lawyers Group launched a report detailing the findings of a visit to Colombia by an international caravana of lawyers. The visit by a large and impressive group of international legal talent was undertaken to carry out an inventory of the status of the Colombian legal system and the working conditions faced by Colombian lawyers.[1] Their report painted a damning picture of the Colombian legal system, establishing that “there continues to be a large number of assassinations of and threats against Colombian lawyers, human rights defenders and trade unionists, indications of the continued violent activity of former members of paramilitary groups and challenges to accessing justice by victims.”[2] This represents a depressing indictment of the lack of progress made in upholding the autonomy and safeguarding the effectiveness and security of the [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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