533: The incredible story of Colombia's first Woman Chess Grandmaster

On the final episode of 2023, the Colombia Calling podcast welcomes back Colombia Risk Analysis' director Sergio Guzmán and Daniel Poveda to discuss their latest report: "Understanding China's Tech Footprint in Colombia - Challenges and Opportunities," and also discuss 2023 in terms of Colombia's politics. Hear Guzmán and Poveda discussing the strategic - or lack thereof - plans created by the Colombian government led by President Gustavo Petro, to court China but at the same time, not alienate their key partner...the United States. We discuss Chinese tech investments and infrastructure investments, Colombia's relationship with Venezuela, where the government stands on the aggression towards Guyana and much more. Check out Colombia Risk Analysis: www.colombiariskanalysis.com Support the Colombia Calling podcast: www.patreon.com/colombiacalling

19 Dec 202358min

Kidnapped by the FARC guerrillas whilst birding, Diego Calderon may just be Colombia's most famous birder. This week on the Colombia Calling podcast, Calderon sits down with myself and journalist Natalia Malaver, to discuss how birding in Colombia can be a tool for reconciliation, his experience of being kidnapped, what the peace accord with the FARC means and all sorts of information about birdwatching in Colombia. Tune in for this and the Colombia News brief reported by journalist Emily Hart. Watch the NatGeo documentary of Calderon and his kidnapping experience here: https://youtu.be/ZF9rfNphh5I?si=7nAZMzJvYFtOJrLi Tune in to the Birders Show: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBirdersShow and support us here: www.patreon.com/colombiacalling

12 Dec 202355min

This week, Emily Hart takes you on a sonic tour of Colombia, with the Humboldt Institute’s Natural Sound Collection: not only are we going to be hearing about this amazing project, we are going to be listening to some of the more unusual and noteworthy sounds from the collection itself and exploring what they tell us about Colombia’s natural environments and those who inhabit them. We’ll hear a giant otter’s bark, the snore of a fish, a frog cocktail party, and mosquito love songs, plus bizarre and beautiful birds – along with a few other Colombian nature noises. We are joined by the collection’s curator, Hoover Pantoja – expert in bioacoustics, technological development, and innovation; and Curator of Birds, Gustavo Bravo - evolutionary ornithologist and expert in the systematics, ecology, and evolution of Neotropical birds. This soundbank – known as the Mauricio Álvarez Rebolledo Collection - is the second largest repository of natural sounds in Latin America, with more than 24,000 audio recordings - of 20 species of mammals, 1064 birds, 131 amphibians, 17 insects, and numerous ambient recordings of Colombia’s innumerable ecosystems. It has been built sound by sound since the 1990s, providing a crucial resource on a vastly underrated dimension of Colombia’s biodiversity, and ecology more generally. We’ll be talking about its evolution, from one man in the wilds of Colombia wielding a tape recorder through to the high-tech solutions – including of course artificial intelligence – being applied to the collection and the discipline more widely today. This sound bank is open to everyone - we'll be sharing the links so you can explore it for yourselves too. We are going to be journeying through the unseen universe of natural sound – sounds we often don’t or even can’t hear - talking about which animals have evolved to make and hear sounds - and why, and how sound can be used to understand evolution and measure the health of ecosystems. In the next hour, we’ll travel across Colombia from the Amazon to the Eastern Plains and beyond – with an unplanned but somewhat inevitable detour through Central Medellin.

5 Dec 20231h 14min

In this week's episode, I reflect on four recent visits to the town of Capurgana on the Caribbean coast of the department of Choco. Capurgana is one of the jump-off points for migrants to begin the infamous and dangerous trek through the Darien jungle to Panama en route to their final destination of the United States. In this episode, I relate my attempt to gain access to the migrant camp in Capurgana, my brief meeting with some members of the Clan del Golfo crime syndicate, finding two migrants from Togo and observing the arrival of people from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, China and Somalia. Tune in for this and the Colombia News Brief reported by journalist Emily Hart. Support the Colombia Calling podcast: www.patreon.com/colombiacalling

28 Nov 202339min

This week, Emily Hart gets the inside story on the #NarcoFiles - a new investigation into The Global Criminal Order, the largest investigative project of its kind to originate in Latin America. She speaks to OCCRP’s Latin America Editor Nathan Jaccard, who has led and coordinated this project - right from its earliest seeds in the 2022 hack to the incredible flourishing of reporting we’ve seen this week, and which continues to emerge. Last year, a group of 'hacktivists' known as Guacamaya infiltrated the Microsoft Exchange server, enabling them to hack the system of the Colombian Attorney General's Office, the entity in charge of investigating and prosecuting crimes in Colombia. Five terabytes in size, the leak contains more than 7 million emails, including exchanges between the Fiscalia and numerous embassies, law enforcement groups, and others. The documents in the leak reveal unique details about the inner workings of international criminal gangs as well as law enforcement efforts to dismantle them. The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP), Vorágine, and Cerosetenta gained early access to the data, and then shared the leak with more than 40 other media outlets. Journalists from over 23 countries worked on the investigation. Nathan will be giving us the who, what, and how of this story, as well as his insights into the new world of organised crime and cocaine trafficking revealed by this hack – from the changes in where cocaine is grown and produced to corruption of top officials in Suriname, as well as the narco-nexus between huge banana companies and Colombia’s political right wing, Israeli mafia in Colombia, links to the Odebrecht scandal and more – stories involving fruit, shark fins, and DEA Agents. Emily will also be sharing with supporters and subscribers her top picks from the NarcoFiles reporting from a number of outlets, with translated versions - subscribe now to our Patreon to get access!

14 Nov 202359min

Emily Hart takes us (way) back in time this week, to a very different Colombia - one well before the arrival of human beings… but in the process of looking back, we’ll also be looking forwards - to what the future on this planet might look like. We have with us some of the team behind "Hace Tiempo" - an incredible book on Colombia’s paleontological past: Colombia’s leading palaeontologist, Carlos Jaramillo, Paleo-botanist at EAFIT University, Camila Martínez, and science communications specialist at Parque Explorer Luz Helena Oviedo. This illustrated book - now in its second edition - is a paleontological journey through the country’s past, and winner of an Alejandro Ángel prize, one of the most important awards for scientists in Colombia. More than 30 Colombian palaeontologists, working all over the world, contributed to the book, which is available free online – http://repository.humboldt.org.co/handle/20.500.11761/36213 – the physical version is for sale through the website of the Humboldt Institute, a key partner in its creation. Colombia is enormously fossil-rich and with a huge variety of habitats past and present Understanding Colombia’s ancient flora and fauna is key to understanding the country’s incredible biodiversity today, which is the product of millions of years of evolution, but in the alarmingly short term, is threatened by climate change and the accelerating global extinction of species. Uniquely, the project also gives readers in Colombia a paleontological resource which relates to the land around them. Rather than the well-known dinosaurs like T-Rex or triceratops, this book presents prehistoric animals peculiar to Colombia, like the 6-tonne giant sloth which lived here 50 million years ago, giant turtles the size of a cars, or the megalodon which roamed Colombia’s waters, the biggest shark to ever exist – bigger than a school bus. The Titanoboa, meanwhile, was a vast snake weighing over a tonne, which roamed 60 million years ago in the then-tropical jungles of La Guajira, ancestor to the anaconda and the boa constrictor, its body was 13 metres long and – at a cross section - the size of a bicycle wheel. It is the largest snake ever to roam the earth. The Titanoboa was discovered by Carlos himself only a few years ago - after analysing tons of rocks extracted from the Cerrejón mines still active in La Guajira today. The new and expanded edition of the book - just out - includes a new chapter on Perijasaurus Lapaz, a long-necked herbivorous Colombian dinosaur discovered in 2018 in the Serranía del Perijá. Its name pays homage both to where it was discovered and to the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC, hence lapaz - which allowed palaeontologists to explore that region for the first time in decades. So today we'll be talking all about what Colombia looked like a very long time ago, what happened since, what fossil records can teach us about climate change, and whether humans are in fact, as Carlos will argue, the least successful species ever to live on Planet Earth.

7 Nov 202340min

On this episode of the Colombia Calling podcast, we get to talk to writer Paula Delgado Kling - after a long absence - about her book, which is now a reality and will be launched on 28 January 2024 (Tune in for further details). "Leonor, the Story of a Lost Childhood," is a heart wrenching tale of a young girl who entered the FARC guerrillas in Colombia, becoming the "first girl" of the commander in her region of Putumayo. Author Delgado Kling has had unrivalled access to Leonor over the space of some 20 years as she goes through the process of reintegration back into formal Colombian society after being captured by the military. Now a mother herself, Leonor has returned to her hometown of Mocoa and her life continues there. However, this story is not just one of a young girl born into poverty, abuse and misery, it also runs parallel to Delgado Kling's family's experiences of having to leave Colombia due to the threat of kidnapping at the hands of the M19 guerrillas. The Colombia News Brief is reported by Emily Hart. Paula Delgado Kling´s website: http://pauladelgadokling.com

31 Okt 20231h 1min

Colombia's leading astronomer, Dr Paola Pinilla, joins us to talk about planet formation, space technology, and diversity in the field of astronomy. We’ll be chatting about the knowledge and inspiration which arrives from outer space, how Paola's childhood in Bogotá led her across the world and into the depths of the universe, and the incredible elements we are all made of – Space Dust. Paola's work focuses on how planets are born – the first steps of planet formation, growing from dust to entire planets – ranging from vast uninhabitable masses to planets just like the one you and I live on. As well as having won a fellowship from NASA, earlier this year Paola won one of the world’s most prestigious awards The New Horizons Prize - known as the Oscars of Science - for her ground-breaking work at the Mullard Space Lab at UCL University College London. The Colombia News Brief is reported by Grace Brennan.

24 Okt 202342min