Those who’ve been displaced by violence and forced to leave behind their home and neighborhood, can start over with nothing more than a good idea. All they have to do is go to the nearest Service and Orientation Unit and there someone will evaluate their proposal.

Afterwards, the person can get trained at Sena and, when they’re ready to take on the reigns of their own business, funds will be provided for them to begin.

“It’s a cry for hope. It’s a way to show that people can be in the city, not begging but building”, says John Jairo Villegas, coordinator of the unit. A trade show on 33rd Avenue has many of these projects on display.

Venezuela and Colombia suffered another setback in their troubled relations when four people, later confirmed as members of Venezuela’s Army, blew up two pedestrian crossing bridges in the department of Northern Santander. The bridges connected the two countries and were built by the civilian community, which in the end is the most highly affected.

“This act represents a violation of international law, of humanitarian law, it’s an aggression against civilians”, said Colombian Minister of Defense Gabriel Silva adding that the government will denounce this “grave act” before the United Nations’ Security Council and the Organization of American States.

Venezuelan Vice-President, Ramón Carrizalez, said Colombia’s claims are unfounded and accused the government of “manipulating reality”. He confirmed the explosion and said the bridges were illegal, “improvised runways used by drug traffickers”.

Four adults and two minors perished in a fire on a bus that was attacked by alleged guerrillas in the most serious attack against civilians of the past few months; the attack has been attributed to the Farc. The incident took place in the department of Nariño, in the municipality of Barbacoas.

Witnesses say a group stopped the bus, started shooting indiscriminately and set fire to it, specific details are still unknown. The Uribe administration has, with a U.S. supported military offensive, managed to force the guerrilla into remote mountainous and forested areas, but the group maintains its presence in regions considered strategic for production and trafficking of drugs and weapons, as in the case of Nariño.

The National Government announced yesterday that it will resort to external credit for the financing of social interest housing macro projects. The decision was revealed after a meeting of the Economic and Social Policy Commission (Conpes).

Funds will be used in a four year time-span and include the adaptation of soils and generation of housing offers. Director of National Planning said public and private partnerships will be established and projects are meant to benefit between four and six Colombian cities.

Relations between Colombia and Ecuador are still on the road to normalization after Defense Ministers Gabriel Silva Luján and Javier Ponce met on Thursday in Bogotá.

The Bi-National Border Commission (Combifron) was reactivated as of this date and a high-level group will be created within it to guarantee security on the border.

By December 10th each nation will designate their police and military attachés to officially represent the public forces in the cooperative efforts to fight drug trafficking and terrorism.

As directors of Interactuar,  the Actec Foundation and special guests took part in the opening ceremony for the Gastronomy, Hotel and Small Tourism Formation Center, students who started taking courses last August paid close attention to the chef in one of the center’s modern kitchens. They are part of those benefiting from the new courses Interactuar is offering to small family businesspeople in hopes of filling an existing gap in this field.

“The goal is to strengthen small hotels in Antioquia looking to improve rural tourism, a significant component of the economy. For now we are forming small businesspeople in the metropolitan area and perhaps later on we’ll transfer them to other municipalities in the department”, said Rafael Arango Fonnegra, CEO of Interactuar.

According to a report presented by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) Latin America has nine million more people living in poverty this year which brings the total number to 189 million.

What causes most concern is that these numbers are equivalent to almost a fourth of the Latin American population who had a;ready overcome poverty between 2002 and 2008, which proves the steps backward in fields like economic growth, social spending expansion and distributive equity. Despite this, “the numbers are smaller than we had projected”, said Olga Lucia Acosta, regional advisor for Cepal in Colombia.

The new political reform in Colombia has been left up in the air and is unlikely to be ready before the 2010 elections. Absenteeism and ballot reposition (a state financing mechanism) have brought the initiative to a halt which “deprives the country of important regulatory norms (…)”, said House representative Oscar Arboleda Palacio.

Human Rights Watch’s first evaluation of Cuba since Fidel Castro transferred control to his brother Raul in 2006 concludes that, rather than dismantle Cuba’s repressive machinery, the younger Castro has firmly maintained it and uses it to consistently violate human rights.

The report “New Castro, Same Cuba” describes how the government has relied on the “dangerousness” offense, which allows the government to arrest people before they’ve committed a crime and based solely on the suspicion that they’re likely to commit one in the future.

The organization says this law has led to the arrest of Cubans for organizing peaceful demonstrations, writing articles against the government, even those who are unemployed. Cuba has achieved “significant” advances in issues like education and health but the “crude reality is that these advances have not gone hand in hand with respect for civil and political rights”.

Unicef’s representative in Colombia, American Paul Martin, denounced the recruitment of minors by illegal armed groups on the border between Ecuador and Venezuela. “It’s a problem due to the presence of armed groups in those areas. It’s not a cross-border problem”, Martin said to reporters.

Martin also said he is aware of other cases of forced enlisting in the Colombian Pacific. He asked for the governments of all three countries to “set aside their political differences and confront” the humanitarian issue derived from the situation.