When Jose Saramago wrote that a benevolent Tsunami swept Barack Obama into the White House allowing him to become the first black president of the United States, the Portuguese author defined the wave of change that brushed the entire country from west to east. During the Bush-Cheney era, thick...

On Sunday I visited the Tercer Milenio Park, the area only a few blocks away from the President's palace that internally displaced people occupied in protest in Bogota. Since mid-March, about 2,000 people (one third minors) live here in fragile huts made of nylon and pieces of wood. By...

Last week, in her speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Hillary Clinton held out an olive branch to Taliban militants willing to lay down their arms. In March in an interview with The New York Times, President Barack Obama suggested Washington might be willing to talk with...

On Monday, the president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe will come face to face with president Barack Obama. The meeting is scheduled at a very sensitive moment for Colombia. Used to considerable familiarity with president Bush, Colombia is probably one of the few countries in the world where the election...

I followed the Summit of the Americas while in Colombia. The picture of the handshake between U.S. President Barack Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dominated all the front pages of the region's newspapers. The friendly smiles of the two countries'...

Can a culture of life be affirmed by intolerance?

As a Catholic, I have been asking myself this question again recently as a result of the controversy that arose around the invitation Notre Dame University extended to president Barack Obama. In a letter to the president of the...

With the formation of a new government in Israel, what are the chances for peace in the Middle East? Last Friday, as director of the Center for International Conflict Resolution, I invited to Columbia University Shlomo Ben Ami, a historian and former foreign minister of Israel, to talk about...

The war on drugs is a failure. How then to severe the tentacles of the drug cartels? To legalize drugs is the solution put forward by some voices that are getting louder and louder. Maybe legalization can change the dynamic of the drug trade for the better, but it...

At the end of March, Hillary Clinton will be heading to Mexico to address the escalation of drug related violence and the expansion of the drug cartels, which are an increasing threat also to the United States. In preparation for her trip, Clinton should call to mind the visit...