With the entire country cheering her on, Mariana Pajón achieved the ultimate glory, a gold medal at the London Olympics. “This is for Colombia. It’s an honor for me and for Colombia (…) I may have to sleep with it. I still can’t believe it”, the 13-time world champion said.

Mariana acknowledged that she felt the pressure to win the gold, and took it as positive energy. “I didn’t want to let the country down and I did it, I did it for  all of them (…)” This is Colombia’s eighth medal in London and the second gold overall, after the one earned by Maria Isabel Urrutia in the Sydney Games of 2000.

‘Diana’ is the first of three tunnel boring machines that will dig a tunnel along the Medellín River for an 8-Km long wastewater pipeline. At a depth of 16 meters, the Northern Interceptor will convey residual waters that currently pollute the river in northern Medellín and Bello to a new treatment plant that will be built in the Navarra sector.

The second machine, named ‘Sofía’, will start digging in a month, when the tunnel is already 417 meters along from the starting point in Moravia. A third one, still unnamed, will come into play next year. The hope is that the task of these German-made machines will be completed by December of 2013.

In Medellín, visitors have a wide array of options in terms of accomodations. According to Cotelco Antioquia, there are some 4,800 rooms available, 95 percent of which are located in El Poblado, El Estadio, Laureles and downtown.

Hotel executives, however, have expressed concern over the threat that so-called “parralel accomodations’ pose to the industry, which are apartments rented out to out-of-town visitors that do not have the necessary paperwork and licenses to function as such, and protested authorities’ lack of action to control unlicensed properties.

National Police Chief, General Jose Roberto Leon Riaño, confirmed the arrest of “Fredy Colas”, allegedly one of the few remaining right-hand men of alias ‘Sebastian’, the last leader of the fourth generation of the criminal gang known as “la Oficina”.

“Fredy Colas” was arrested in El Poblado, with several weapons in his possession and the passport of one of ‘Sebastian’s’ daughters; until now, the true identity and whereabouts of “Fredy Colas’ were a mystery to authorities but the residents of neighborhoods such as Buenos Aires, La Milagrosa and El Salvador are all-too familiar with his activities.

What’s certain is that every passing hour digs a deeper hole for alias ‘Sebastían’ as authorities continue to discover hideouts and stashed weapons that incriminate the former head of ‘la Oficina’.