The people of Colombia

ciscokid says on Jun 21, 2005, 07:59:

The Economy of Colombia Agriculture has traditionally been the chief economic activity in Colombia. An extremely wide variety of crops is grown, depending on altitude, but coffee is by far the major crop and its price on the world market has affected Colombia's economic health. Among the commercial crops, coffee is grown between elevations of 3,000 and 6,000 ft (914 and 1,829 m); bananas, cotton, sugarcane, oil palm, and tobacco are grown at lower elevations. Between 6,000 and 10,000 ft (1,829 and 3,048 m) potatoes, beans, grains, and temperate zone fruit and vegetables are grown.

Colombia is rich in minerals, including petroleum, natural gas, iron, nickel, coal, copper, gold, silver, platinum, and emeralds. The saltworks at Zipaquirá, near Bogotá, are world famous. Hydroelectric potential was developed during the 1970s and 80s. The manufacturing sector of the economy has expanded greatly in recent decades, although it is heavily dependent on imported materials. Beverages and processed foods, textiles, clothing and footwear, metal products, cement, and chemicals are the chief manufactures. Tourism is also a sizable source of income.

Oil replaced coffee as the nation's leading legal export in 1991. Other important official exports include petroleum-related products, coal, cotton, bananas, cut flowers, and sugar. Cocaine is the major illicit export, accounting for about 25% of foreign exchange earnings. Once most of the raw materials were grown in Peru and Bolivia, but cultivation has increased in Colombia as a result of those nations coca-eradication programs. The drug trade (Colombia also produces heroin and grows cannabis) has brought riches to some, but has seriously disrupted the fabric of Colombian society with its violence. Industrial and transportation equipment, foodstuffs, chemicals, and paper products lead Colombia's imports. The United States and Germany are the chief trade partners.

Colombia joined the Andean Group, an economic organization of South American nations, in 1969, and has signed free-trade pacts with other Andean countries and Mexico. During the early 1990s the economy was growing quickly in comparison with that of other Latin American countries, and inflation and unemployment were under control. However, government spending and foreign debt soared in the late 1990s, the country suffered its worst recession in a century, and labor unrest and internal problems related to the drug trade continued to threaten the country's economic stability.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

ciscokid says on Jun 21, 2005, 08:00:

The Government of Colombia Colombia is governed under a 1991 constitution. The president serves a four-year term. The legislature, subservient to the president, consists of a senate and a house of representatives. The members are apportioned among the departments (states) and popularly elected for four-year terms. The supreme court is chosen by the president and the legislature. The Conservative and Liberal parties, formed in the 1800s, have generally dominated political life. To insure stability, the two formed the National Front Coalition in 1957 and agreed to divide the major offices between them and alternate in the presidency. The coalition, which ended in late 1973, was challenged in the 1960s by the Popular National Alliance, formed by the former dictator Rojas Pinilla.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Miguel says on Jun 21, 2005, 10:46:

How dare you? Rip off Elmo's Harvard thesis?

0 funny, 0 helpful.