Extractions: BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) U.S. and Colombian authorities in a series of coordinated, pre-dawn drug raids Wednesday in Bogota, Medellin and Cali captured a leader of one of Colombia's most notorious drug organizations. Several other alleged drug traffickers also were taken into custody. Fabio Ochoa, a leader of the Medellin cartel, was arrested and flown by helicopter to Colombian police headquarters in the capital. Ochoa faces U.S. charges of drug trafficking, which could lead to his extradition.
Colombia History history Colombia, In 1955, Cities Service Company, which was acquired by Occidental in 1982, signed an oil exploration contract http://www.oogc.com/world_oper/latin_america/hist_colo.htm
Extractions: History - Colombia In 1955, Cities Service Company, which was acquired by Occidental in , signed an oil exploration contract with the Colombian government, the first time a host government agreed to share both cost (25%) and profit from an international petroleum venture. With the project's success, Colombia quickly went from being a net importer of petroleum to being an exporter in 1986. In 2001, Occidental acquired exploration rights to three adjoining blocks encompassing approximately 9,325 square miles in the Central Llanos Basin. The new blocks are updip from the prolific Llanos foreland where billions of barrels of oil have been discovered. The company signed standard 'association contracts for each of the blocks with Colombia's national oil company, Empresa Colombiana de Petroleos (Ecopetrol). Occidental will have an 87.5 percent working interest in each of the blocks, and Repsol will hold the remaining 12.5 percent. top
Extractions: International Edition MEMBER SERVICES The Web CNN.com Home Page World U.S. Weather ... Special Reports SERVICES Video E-mail Services CNNtoGO Contact Us SEARCH Web CNN.com FARC leader Simon Trinidad was taken into custody after nearly four decades of guerrilla warfare. Story Tools YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS Colombia Guerrilla Activities or Create your own Manage alerts What is this? BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Saturday praised the capture of top rebel leader Simon Trinidad as evidence that the country's four-decade leftist insurgency can be defeated on the battlefield. Trinidad, one of the seven members of the ruling secretariat of the 16,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was arrested late Friday during a routine document check on a street in the neighboring Ecuadorian capital of Quito, police said. He was swiftly extradited to Colombia. "Countrymen: The capture of a FARC leader shows that terrorism will never triumph," Uribe told reporters. He also urged the group's fighters to desert en masse. "It would be good if all of you left the guerrillas, which only serves to kidnap, murder and sustain a drug empire that only enriches its leaders," he said.
Photos Photos of visits during a stay in Colombia. http://www.geocities.com/pateldiva/index.html
TDS; Passports, Visas, Travel Documents Notwithstanding the country s commitment to democratic institutions, Colombia s history also has been characterized by widespread, violent conflict. http://www.traveldocs.com/co/history.htm
Extractions: HISTORY In August 2000 the capital's name was officially changed from "Santa Fe de Bogotá" to the more commonly used "Bogotá." On July 20, 1810, the citizens of Bogotá created the first representative council to defy Spanish authority. Full independence was proclaimed in 1813, and in 1819 the Republic of Greater Colombia was formed. The Republic and La Violencia (The Violence) The new Republic of Greater Colombia included all the territory of the former Viceroyalty. Simon Bolivar was elected its first president and Francisco de Paula Santander, vice president. Two political parties grew out of conflicts between the followers of Bolivar and Santander and their political visionsthe Conservatives and the Liberalsand have since dominated Colombian politics. Bolivar's supporters, who later formed the nucleus of the Conservative Party, sought strong centralized government, alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, and a limited franchise. Santander's followers, forerunners of the Liberals, wanted a decentralized government, state rather than church control over education and other civil matters, and a broadened suffrage.
Extractions: LA VICTORIA, Venezuela (CNN) American and Colombian officials are blaming a Marxist rebel group for the brutal slayings of three U.S. humanitarian workers, which could damage Colombia's already fragile peace process. The three Americans Ingrid Washinawatok , 41, a member of the Menominee nation of Wisconsin, Lahe'ena'e , 39, director of the Hawaii-based Pacific Cultural Conservancy International, and Terence Freitas , a 24-year-old environmentalist from Los Angeles were kidnapped on February 25.
Extractions: Web posted at: 6:16 p.m. EST (2316 GMT) BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) Colombian officials announced that they will extend a demilitarization period which expired Sunday for another 90 days, in an effort to revive peace talks with leftist rebels. Government Peace Commissioner Victor Ricardo said the demilitarization period, in which the government withdrew troops from a guerrilla-dominated area the size of Switzerland, was too short to achieve meaningful progress in talks with the rebels. "The government aspires with this decision that the negotiations start again as quickly as possible and that the rules of the game are observed within the demilitarized zone," Ricardo said Saturday. The next meeting between the two sides is scheduled for April.
New Page 1 Reference collection of rare colombian silver cobs, from the Spanish colonial mints of Santa Fe de Bogota and Cartagena. http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Louvre/9625/
"The Panama Canal : A Brief History", Paper By Tyler Jones next is described by Theodore Roosevelt in history of the Panama Canal by Ira Bennett as Panama wanted to sell the land to America, but Colombia refused. http://www.june29.com/Tyler/nonfiction/pan2.html
Extractions: Very few human endeavors have ever conceded to change the face of the planet on which we live as did the successful completion of the interoceanic Panama Canal in 1914 by the United States. Such projects before this time had only managed to build up or tear down existing geographical features - the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, the trans-continental railroads - but none had ever even aspired to accomplish something so incredulous as splitting the continents. This the United States did and more - the Panama Canal was soon to become a vital link for the entire world. Despite previous failures by other organizations, the United states as a whole was able to overcome the numerous dangers present at the isthmus between North and South America, and build what remains today one of the greatest engineering marvels of the modern world. The idea of a path between North and South America is older than their respective names. Columbus had searched in vain for a passage through the land that would lead him to the Indies where treasures awaited, and repeated sailors since had done the same. Emperor Napoleon III of France once toyed with the idea of building a canal in France's land across the sea, but never with much enthusiasm. No real progress, other than ideas and brainstorms, was made until the nineteenth century, when a French individual felt it was time for a French-owned canal at Panama, then a republic of Colombia. This individual was Ferdinand de Lesseps, the most important foreigner involved with Egypt's Suez Canal ("the hero of Suez"). Lesseps' success at Suez made him confident, perhaps too confident, that a canal at Panama would be no different. As he proceeded to convince his countrymen of such, stock for his new company, the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique, was sold (after much press coverage had been purchased to boost the company's name) with unnerving results : the company had only managed to raise 8% of what Lesseps had hoped for - 30 million francs of his requested 400 million francs.
Extractions: CAQUETA, Colombia (CNN) Security forces on Sunday sifted through the rubble from a car bomb they suspect was planted by Colombia's largest guerrilla organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Ten people were killed and 38 were injured in the explosion in the northwest city of Medellin, while the south, a government envoy was meeting with rebel representatives in an unsuccessful mission to relaunch peace negotiations. The attack was the latest sign that FARC was fulfilling its pledge to bring its 35-year long war from the countryside to Colombia's cities.
Extractions: A brochure concerned with the phenomena of street children. Click to Enter In 2001 I completed a sponsored hitchhike through South America to raise funds for Let the Children Live!, a charity working with street children in Colombia. Whilst memories are but shadows of past reality, it is my wish to leave something of what I learnt for others to read and see. HOME ABOUT CAUSES POVERTY ... Web Design by EduVoyage Productions
Wanadoo Photos of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Tayrona Park, Nevados, and Cocuy National Parks. Also photos from the Araracuara canyon, and other places in Colombia. http://perso.wanadoo.fr/camilo.montes/slideshow.html
