Latin America and the Caribbean is the only region of the world where the fertility rate of adolescents has gone up over the last 30 years, as manifested in Colombia's and Brazil's alarming increases in teenage pregnancy. This trend reflects Colombia's silent social catastrophe.

In the early 1990s, Colombia became famous for the US$1,500 bounty that Pablo Escobar put on every policeman’s head. This may be in the past, but that fact has not impeded the development of an enormous price distortion in the Colombian hired-killing market.

Colombia’s new diplomatic efforts to discredit the FARC internationally only demonstrate the failure of domestic diplomacy; the fact that some Colombian diplomats are closely linked to the paramilitaries may meanwhile serve the interests of the narco-guerrilla movement.