One man is dead after a shooting broke out during a peasant protest in which the demonstrators were blocking a road in Caloto, which leads to the village of Huasanó, to demand the withdrawal of Army troops. Witnesses say the incident left one man dead, three injured and ten more missing.

Authorities are uncertain of where the gunfire originated and believe perhaps “Farc subversives infiltrated the demonstration against Army presence, “because from the inside they started shooting at Esmad agents who were trying to reopen the road,” Cauca police Commander, Colonel Ricardo Augusto Alarcon explained.

This information, however, has not yet been confirmed. Meanwhile in Toribío a negotiations committee is trying to help the National Government and the indigenous communities reach some type of agreement, especially in terms of land occupancy and control of the territory.

A judge gave performer Paulina Rubio two more months to prepare her defense in the lawsuit filed against her by CMG Entertainment, the Boyacá Cultural Fund and the Viva La Música Cultural Corporation for failing to show up for a concert in Tunja for Boyaca’s International Culture Festival.  Trial is set to begin on November 13^th in Miami, FL and could last six or seven days, especially considering there are witnesses flying in to Miami from Colombia.

According to the plaintiffs, Rubio breached a contract that had been signed in advance; they are asking for one million dollars in damages. The artist’s defense claims Rubio couldn’t make it to the show because of difficulties in air transportation to Tunja, and not for lack of interest in the event. They claim the event’s organizers had promised to provide a jet to transport the singer to Tunja, but that they had to do it themselves and the aircraft wasn’t cleared to land because of weather conditions.

The plaintiffs, however, say Rubio was actually supposed to fly from Medellín to Bogotá and from there was expected to travel by land the 130 Km to Tunja, which doesn’t have a commercial airport.

Initially the judge had refused to change the date of the trial but she reconsidered.

With measures announced yesterday, President Juan Manuel Santos hopes to give the country’s healthcare system a much needed overhaul.

“The decree will force many EPS’s to capitalize (…) it will raise standards so that they can continue to operate and that means several EPS are going to disappear. Only the financially solid ones that can meet those minimum requirements will remain”, Santos explained.

Maestro Armando Villegas, an important plastic artist who represents fantastic realism and is one of the pioneers of modern art in Colombia, was chosen by Google to transform its logo with what is known as a doodle. The artist rescued iconic images from the independence era, plays with the colors of the flag and showcases what makes us feels like Colombians on these important dates.

The red represents beings in a process of evolution, and then those who look to improve themselves move up to the blue; those who develop thanks to their intellect are in the yellow. That’s where a hummingbird is shown because, as the artist explained, in the Pre-Colombian culture it symbolizes absolute liberty: it flies at the altitude it wants and it cannot be held captive.

Now 85 years old, Villegas still leads an extremely active lifestyle thanks to his passion for research and teaching, and says he never goes to bed without having done something worthwhile that day.