Michelle Morgante of the Associated Press reviews Shakira’s latest English language album. (Full article)
She’s a woman who thinks with her hips and follows her mouth. Or is it the other way around? In either case, Shakira is on the move again with the follow-up to this summer’s hit album “Fijacion Oral Vol. 1″ – this round in English. And again, her charm is seductive.
The 28-year-old superstar from Colombia shows off her rich voice, with its iconic yodel, which she plays like the powerful instrument it is – at times romantically soft, soaringly operatic, or times angrily rock.
One of Colombia’s largest volcanoes has erupted, spewing huge amounts of ash and sulphur fumes. Full story over at the BBC.
Even though in the first sentence they misspelled Colombia (Proyecto Colombia’s pet peeve #1) the article still points out details that a lot of people might not know. Read the full article from Resouce Investor here.
Columbia is a country of significant natural resources, endowed with substantial oil reserves along with major deposits of gold, silver, emeralds, platinum and coal. It has also been ravaged by a decades-long violent conflict, involving guerrilla insurgencies, drug cartels and gross violations of human rights. Needless to say, this has deterred investors and tourists alike.
What may be less known is that the economy has been gradually and relentlessly transformed since 1999 in the aftermath of the country’s worst economic crisis in 30 years. The result is real economic growth of 4% per year, unemployment down to 12% from over 20%, the public deficit down to a low 1.3% of GDP, inflation down to 5.5% – the lowest level in decades, a steep decline in the poverty rate, a strengthening peso and recovering banking sector. Recently, the IMF commended the Colombian government’s pursuit of sound policies and structural reforms, and the resulting lowered country risk premium. Violence has been dropping significantly due in large part to the “get tough” attitude of the current president.
One of the biggest myths perpertrated by Hollywood is that Colombia is a rural country. While there are a lot of rural areas in Colombia, and the country can still be considered agricultural, there are several big cities in Colombia with its share of “big” buildings.
Here are some exceptional aerial photos of Bogota.
From Globe and Mail over in Canada some excellent news about how Colombias are working towards changing the image of our country.
Tired of its image as a country of gun-toting guerrillas and narco-traffickers, Colombia is attempting to “rebrand” itself on the back of another Latin cliché — passion.
Tearing a page from the State of Virginia’s “Virginia is for lovers” playbook, the South American country has launched a “Colombia equals passion” campaign.
Read the full article here.
This year has been a very active year for Colombia economically. The Bogota stock exchange is up 60% this year. Foreign investment has also been a big factor. The takeover of Colombian brewer Bavaria by SABMiller’s for $7.8 billion made headlines this past October.
More recently the purchas of Granahorrar by BBVA for $424 million marks a new beginning for Colombia. The bank wants to help this emerging nation to build, save and invest. It will bring models for credit that should help people get into their own homes.
It seems Colombia is looking more and more like a good place to do business. Companies wanting to invest billions and millions show some optimism and faith in the country.
