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Members of the Venezuelan Bolivarian Continental Coalition (BCC) burn a U.S. flag during a ceremony in which they unveiled a bust and a plaque in memory of the late Colombian FARC rebel leader Manuel Marulanda during a ceremony commemorating the six months since his death, Caracas, September 26, 2008.
(Photo credit: Thomas Coex/AFP)
Two Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC- EP) guerrillas enjoy ice cream during a gathering near San Vicente del Caguan, Colombia, 2001.
(Photo credit: Paul Smith)
March 7, 2025 - Locals attacked invading military vehicles in the rural Colombian region of El Plateado. Locals are resisting increasing militarisation as government forces have ramped up counterinsurgency operations in the province of Cauca, hunting for dissident FARC guerrillas. [video]
In 2016, when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government, scientists realized
In 2016, when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government, scientists realized that the rainforests, mountains, and savannahs, out of which the FARC waged a 50-year guerrilla war, and which were counted among the most biodiverse and least-explored places on earth, were suddenly safe to explore.
In Colombia, a few biologists who longed to journey to the heart of these places also saw them as the perfect way to bring 14,000 former guerrillas back into society in a meaningful way that would benefit not only them, but the country’s stunning biodiversity.
Colombia is often referred to as the world’s most biodiverse country. Although this is a hard thing to designate since many species around the world of all kinds remain undiscovered, she does lay claim to the most bird species anywhere on earth – both endemic and migratory.
Who better to help protect Colombia’s wild spaces than those who know them best, thought Jaime Góngora, a wildlife geneticist at the University of Sydney but who is originally from Colombia.
Góngora now leads a group of researchers from the United Kingdom, Australia, and 10 different Colombian scientific institutions in a program to train ex‑guerrillas to study Colombia’s native plants and animals, which to date has uncovered nearly 100 previously-unknown species.
Peace with Nature
Peace with Nature is the result of these scientists working together with guerillas to help protect Colombia’s biodiversity and aid in the post-conflict situation for thousands of people, 84% of whom, according to Góngora, are interested in pursuing, of all things, river habitat restoration as their post-conflict career path.
Góngora and his colleagues are only too happy to help, and Peace with Nature began hosting citizen scientist workshops to help train eager folks how to find, identify, catalogue, and study wild plants, insects, birds, amphibians, and more.
The preparation work was long and hard – between 15 and 18 months according to Góngora...
“In some of the workshops, we have the presence of the police and military forces along with the ex-combatants,” explains Góngora. “I think what has surprised me most is the opportunity that biodiversity offers for reconciliation and healing after an armed conflict. These workshops have been spaces for a respectful dialogue about biodiversity and nature.”"
-via World at Large, 7/13/20
Note: Video is half in English, half in Spanish. Spanish subtitles for English parts only.
But as ever-larger, more concentrated corporations captured more of their regulators, we’ve essentially forgotten that there are domains of law other than copyright — that is, other than the kind of law that corporations use to enrich themselves.
Copyright has some uses in creative labor markets, but it’s no substitute for labor law. Likewise, copyright might be useful at the margins when it comes to protecting your biometric privacy, but it’s no substitute for privacy law.
When the AI companies say, “There’s no way to use copyright to fix AI’s facial recognition or labor abuses without causing a lot of collateral damage,” they’re not lying — but they’re also not being entirely truthful.
If they were being truthful, they’d say, “There’s no way to use copyright to fix AI’s facial recognition problems, that’s something we need a privacy law to fix.”
If they were being truthful, they’d say, “There’s no way to use copyright to fix AI’s labor abuse problems, that’s something we need labor laws to fix.
-How To Think About Scraping: In privacy and labor fights, copyright is a clumsy tool at best
Image: syvwlch (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Print_Scraper_(5856642549).jpg
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
Researchers are studying the cooking traditions of the FARC, Colombia's disarmed guerrilla group.
“I will never forget my first ranchada [cooking shift],” he says. That first day, Semillas had to cook everything from white rice to fried meat and colada, a thick liquid mixed into agua de panela, a traditional beverage. He was guided by an experienced, old guerrilla who taught new guerrilleros all the “little secrets,” such as how to clean the rancha, or artisanal kitchen station, and how to knead and fry cancharinas. “We passed the knowledge from one generation to the next.”
A special truth commission criticized Colombia’s security forces and the United States for their role in a half-century conflict that left at least 450,000 people dead.
The United States believed that the Colombian military was behind a wave of assassinations of leftist activists and yet spent the next two decades deepening its relationship with the Colombian armed forces, newly released documents show.
The Central Intelligence Agency had evidence that the Colombian military had provided a target list to paramilitaries who killed 20 banana plantation workers in a high-profile massacre, the documents show, but went on to send billions of dollars in aid to the Colombian government.
