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SAFETY IN MEDELLIN
Medellin is a Safe City! Our Agency, Bed & Brekfast, and apartments are located in the best area of Medellín. Our Bed & Breakfast has an alarm system and there is a security guard on the street in front of the houses of the neighborhood 24 hours a day as well as apartment buildings on both sides of our Villa We have had hundreds of guests already stay with us and verify that Medellín is a safe city (TESTIMONIALS page). The Colombians are very polite people and like foreigners!
The security situation in Medellín and
Colombia has improved incredibly with the election of President Alvaro Uribe in 2002. Colombia is the third largest recipient of military aid from the United States and since July 2000 the United States has provided
Colombia with $1.7 billion to combat narcotics trafficking and terrorism, strengthen democratic institutions and human rights, foster socio-economic development and mitigate the impact of the violence on Colombian civilians. The United States has long been engaged in Colombia, and key
U.S. interests are very much at stake.
The Colombians are very honest people and fully support President Uribe in eliminating corruption and combating the guerillas. Inside of the major cities of
Colombia the security is safe. In the first trimester of 2004, in comparison with the same period of 2003, the number of kidnappings decreased in 45.9 percent: from 586 cases to 317; this number is the lowest in the last 8 years. In the Capital of Antioquia, Medellín, the homicides decreased in 51.5 percent, for the cases stepped down from 815 to 395 cases. This drastic decreases in crime and kidnappings would be difficult to find in any US or European city.
INTERNATIONAL
Posted on Mon, Jan. 08, 2007
Confidence soars in Colombia
Boosted by a boom in commodities, 's output rocketed in '06.
BY CHRIS KRAUL
Los Angeles Times Service
BOGOTA - To say 2006 was a good year for the Colombian economy is to describe native pop phenomenon Shakira as a reasonably successful singer. With exports, confidence and investment soaring, economic output here could finish 2006 having grown 6.3 percent from 2005, a full point above the robust expansion projected for all of
Latin America.
Like most other Latin American economies that just ended a banner year, was boosted by the boom in commodities. Exports of its coal, highly coveted by utilities because of its low sulfur content, have doubled in three years, bringing in close to $3 billion in foreign exchange.
Colombian oil revenue of about $6 billion is up 80 percent from 2004, thanks to global energy demand. And coffee growers are enjoying a tripling of bean prices since 2002, a result of worldwide consumption growth and severe weather that cut harvests last year in and.
STRONG FORECAST
Even better news for and the rest of the continent is that prices for a broad range of commodities -- gold, copper, soybeans and cotton -- are expected to remain high in 2007, said economist Ken Shwedel of Rabobank in
Mexico City . That's because of the continued demand for raw materials and foodstuffs from
Asia as well as the rapidly expanding biofuels industry, which has tightened supplies of sugar, corn and other crops.
Just as crucial to the surge in is the increased confidence that foreign and domestic investors have in its finances -- and its ability to weather the inevitable downturn in the market for those raw materials.
Colombia, like several other countries in the hemisphere, has used the windfall in foreign exchange generated from commodity sales to reduce its foreign debt and its fiscal deficit, said Lisa Schineller, a Standard & Poor's analyst in New York who specializes in Latin American bonds.
S&P recently gave Colombian bonds a positive outlook, meaning they might soon be upgraded.
The nation of about 45 million inhabitants is also revamping its tax system to reduce the red ink further. It will impose a $4-billion wealth tax on its 6,000 richest citizens and biggest companies starting this year to finance the continuing war against leftist rebel groups.
Although that decades-long conflict is far from won, President Alvaro Uribe could claim significant progress after demobilizing some 31,000 right-wing paramilitary troops and by improving security on the highways and in most cities, where the bulk of business is conducted.
URIBE RE-ELECTED
In
May, Colombian voters re-elected Uribe to a second term in a landslide.
The sense that the country has improved security and put its fiscal house in order has resulted in a doubling of investment here since 2002 by foreigners and Colombians when figured as a percentage of total economic output, said finance minister Alberto Carrasquilla in an interview in December.
''Confidence reflects better expectations for the future and has had an effect on the pricing of all Colombian assets, from land and houses to bonds and the currency,'' he said.
Also priced higher are Colombian stocks, which after rising 119 percent in 2005 posted a 17 percent gain in 2006.
Other Latin American stock markets, likewise fueled by high commodities prices, grew even more: 49 percent in , 33 percent in , 37 percent in and an eye-popping 168 percent in.
Signs of confidence abound. Drummond Corp. of Birmingham, Ala., and Swiss company Glencore are plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into northern mines to double their coal production capacity.
From no investment in 1999, foreign energy companies committed $1.5 billion to explore for crude oil and natural gas in 2006, said Armando Zamora, general director of the National Hydrocarbons Agency, a government office charged with energy development.
To reverse declining production, enticed 30 foreign energy companies to explore in the country by offering what consultant Arthur D. Little has called the most attractive terms of any Latin American government.
Construction grew 18 percent last year from 2005, and industrial output and retail sales each rose 13 percent, Carrasquilla said.
Another factor adding to investor confidence is that , one of the slowest among the hemisphere's countries to open its doors to free trade and outside investment, has signed agreements to reduce barriers and encourage business with the , and five Central American nations. All of the pacts await approval by 's Congress.
Cartagena regaining its former cinematic luster
This historic port city, which once claimed to be the filmmaking center of the Caribbean, looks to rebuild its cinema and tourism industries.
BY JOSHUA GOODMAN
Associated Press
CARTAGENA, Colombia - Even if you're not a location scout, it's difficult not to become entranced by the timeless beauty of this Caribbean port's heavy-stone ramparts and trove of Spanish colonial architecture.
But despite a sharp drop in murders since law-and order President Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002, Colombia's well-earned reputation for violence nearly cost Cartagena the chance of being featured in the film Love in the Time of Cholera. The best-seller novel on which the film was based was set here by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
After it was announced in April that the film was going to be shot in Brazil, Vice President Francisco Santos -- whose kidnapping was described in detail in Garcia Marquez's nonfiction tour de force Notes of a Kidnapping -- called producer Scott Steindorff and implored him to first give Cartagena a fair look.
Immediately upon his visit, Steindorff says he fell in love with the Caribbean port city, a UNESCO World Heritage site (http://whc.unesco.org).
But it took Santos' promise to provide security -- producer Mike Newell was allotted a bodyguard with a .45-caliber revolver -- and the consent of the movie's insurers to clinch the deal.
Santos then personally shepherded the producers through a maze of red tape, even engineering a presidential decree so the filmmakers could shoot in a historical mansion where Simon Bolivar, the continent's ''liberator,'' slept.
Still, working with an inexperienced, mostly Colombian crew to build everything from a river steamboat to the era's art nouveau architecture was initially a slog. ''We basically had to open a film school to teach the makeup artists how to be makeup artists and the extras how to be extras,'' said Newell. ``It was like staring into a rock face in a way you normally don't on a film.''
For Cartagena, the chance to recover its former luster as a movie location, feed a nascent boom in foreign tourism and bolster the rejuvenated hopes of Colombia's own film industry was received like manna from heaven. Despite frequent complaints of traffic jams, residents of Cartagena -- one of Colombia's poorest cities -- have also benefited from the creation of 5,000 temporary jobs and huge amounts of cash thrown around by the big-budget, $50 million production.
NEW HOPES
The experience spurred the government to create a film commission to attract future foreign productions. ''This film returns us to what we were 10 years ago, when we were the center of the Caribbean's film industry,'' said Salvo Basile, a production assistant for Love in the Time of Cholera.
A number of major films have been filmed in Cartagena, including the 1968 thriller Burn, starring Marlon Brando as an English mercenary who stirs up a slave revolt, the Academy Award winner The Mission and Werner Herzog's Cobra Verde. But it's been decades since the last big production movie has been shot in the city.
Even if the film doesn't succeed at the box office, the buzz surrounding the production has already generated some positive results for the city.
Steindorff, who made his money as a real estate developer in Las Vegas, said he's begun to spread the word about the unrivaled architectural charm and is scouting for properties to buy. ``This city is on the verge of exploding.''
Information:
Colombian Consulate, 305-448-5558;
www.consuladodecolombia.com
Cartagena tourism, (011-57-5) 655-0277
www.turismocartagenadeindias.com
Is Colombia as safe as the U.S.?
By Hugh Bronstein
REUTERS 4 January 2007:
BOGOTA, - Cities in Colombia, the world's biggest cocaine exporter infamous for crimes related to its four-decade-old guerrilla war, have become as safe as those in the United States, according to a poll by a Bogota think tank. Urban crime has fallen as part of President Alvaro Uribe's popular crackdown on Marxist rebels who still control wide rural areas. He has stepped up patrols to reduced kidnappings on the highways. From October 2005 through the same month last year, 15 of every 100 Colombians said they had been the victim of some type of crime compared with 17 out of every 100 in the United States, said the poll published on Thursday by the Security and Democracy foundation. "Colombians have developed sophisticated techniques of survival, such as refusing to give out personal information and women driving with their bags in the trunk of their cars rather than in the passenger seat. This helps," said Pablo Casas, who prepared the poll.
The survey, held in Colombia's six biggest cities, also showed the Andean country compares well with Great Britain, which registers 24 crime victims out of every 100 citizens. The think tank said the poll is 95.5 percent reliable and more accurate than official figures as many crimes go unreported here. It did not take into account the thousands who are killed or displaced in the war every year, or the average three Colombians per day who step on land mines. Despite billions of dollars in U.S. aid aimed in part at fighting Colombia's insurgency, the guerrillas still rule wide swathes of countryside with an iron fist. Their operations are funded by cocaine trade, and to a lesser extent by kidnappings.
Sources:
http://www.ejercito.mil.co/ingles/detalleNoticia.asp?numDocumento=6948
http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rls/rm/11297.htm
Excerpt From BBC News:
President: Alvaro Uribe
President: Alvaro Uribe
Alvaro Uribe came to power in May 2002, and was Colombia's first presidential candidate to win a first-round election victory.
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President Alvaro Uribe
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Described as a hard-line and right-leaning politician, Mr Uribe has pursued a tough line against left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries alike. Although this has won him high approval ratings, guerrilla attacks on civilians have continued.
The challenges facing Mr Uribe were starkly illustrated moments before his swearing-in, when deadly explosions rocked the area around the parliament.
Mr Uribe has boosted spending on the military and police and has set about arming peasants in vulnerable areas of the country. Major offensives have been launched against the guerrillas. Anti-terrorism laws have expanded the military's power to make arrests and detain suspects.
In June 2003 Mr Uribe unveiled a long-awaited security plan, intended to end the war and the drugs trade which fuels it. The plan aimed to establish a police presence in all parts of the country, and to eradicate all drugs crops.
Mr Uribe has called for a ceasefire and a commitment by the rebels to give up terrorism before entering negotiations. He is keen on seeking international mediation to end the violence and has courted US military and financial assistance.
Born in Medellin in July 1952, Alvaro Uribe is a Harvard and Oxford University-educated lawyer. He is described as a workaholic and a disciplined scholar. He was elected mayor of Medellin in 1982 and was Antioquia governor between 1995 and 1997.
Mr Uribe is a staunch Roman Catholic and is interested in horses and yoga. He is married with two children.
His father, a wealthy landowner, was killed when FARC rebels tried to kidnap him. But Mr Uribe - who has survived a handful of assassination attempts - says his anger does not influence his policies.
Source: www.news.bbc.co.uk
Excerpt from The US State Department:
The Uribe Administration
President Alvaro Uribe, a Harvard and Oxford-educated lawyer, was elected President of Colombia in May 2002 on a line platform to restore security to the country. An independent, he was elected with 56% of the vote, giving him a strong mandate. Among his promises was to continue to pursue the broad goals of the Pastrana administration's Plan Colombia, but within the framework of a long-term security strategy.
U.S. support for Colombia continues to evolve under the Uribe administration. Recognizing that terrorism and the illicit narcotics trade in Colombia are inextricably linked, the U.S. Congress granted new expanded statutory authorities in 2002 making U.S. assistance to Colombia more flexible in order to better support President Uribe's unified campaign against narcotics and terrorism.
Close cooperation continues with passage by the United States of legislation providing about $400 million in additional funding for these programs. Moreover, since the end of the FARC safe haven, the United States has responded to the Colombian Government's request for increased intelligence support, expedited delivery of spare parts paid for by Colombia, and support for counter-narcotics operations in the former demilitarized zone.
U.S. policy toward Colombia supports the Colombian Government's efforts to strengthen its democratic institutions, promote respect for human rights and the rule of law, intensify counter-narcotics efforts, foster socioeconomic development, address immediate humanitarian needs, and end the threats to democracy posed by narcotics trafficking and terrorism. Promoting security, stability, and prosperity in Colombia will continue as long-term American interests in the region.
Source: www.state.gov
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