The objective of this workshop was to provide basic facts and theory related to RIA and best practices when undertaking RIA.

Colombia and Mexico are a step closer to beneffiting from cross border tax co-operation and information sharing. Colombia has signed, and Mexico has deposited its instrument of ratification for the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.

Colombia will become the 40th Party to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention on 19 January 2013.

El 19 de enero de 2013 Colombia se convertirá en el 40º estado en formar parte en la Convención para Combatir el Cohecho.

The OECD Working Group on Bribery will release a review of Colombia’s efforts to fight foreign bribery on Wednesday 21 October 2015 at 09.00 Bogota time/16.00 CET.

Colombia necesita mejorar su capacidad para investigar el cohecho internacional estableciendo un régimen eficaz de responsabilidad corporativa, mejorando la coordinación entre sus numerosas agencias y formando con más rigor a los órganos responsables de la aplicación de la ley.

Colombia needs to improve its capacity to investigate foreign bribery by establishing an effective corporate liability regime, improving coordination between its numerous agencies and more rigorously training law enforcement, according to a new report by the OECD Working Group on Bribery.

In Colombia, the beginning of a new century has brought with it a palpable feeling of optimism. Colombians and visitors sense that the country’s considerable potential can be realised, and education is rightly seen as crucial to this process. As opportunities expand, Colombians will need new and better skills to respond to new challenges and prospects.

Colombia es una de las principales economías de la región de América Latina y el Caribe y el gobierno tiene planes ambiciosos para su desarrollo social y económico, para lo que es crucial el fortalecimiento del capital humano.

Over the past 15 years, Colombia’s education system has undergone an extraordinary transformation.

Colombia’s education system has made impressive progress over the past two decades, but more needs to be done now to ensure that all children have access to a quality education, according to a new OECD report.

The project provided recommendations to the city of Medellin and Antioquia to support the development of the local economy and includes a focus on how the innovative environment can be strengthened to support inclusion, entrepreneurship, SME, and local developmentto and how to better coordinate and integrate its policies with the national level.

A report of the 2013 joint OECD/Swedish Chemicals Agency/European Commission workshop on the assessment and management of risks of microbial pesticides that resulted in 20 recommendations for approaches that could be taken now and areas for follow-up work to be undertaken by OECD or Member countries.

A advertising company from Bogotá, Colombia, created hospital beds with metal railings that designers say can double as a casket if a patient dies.

John Ibrahim reckons a copy of Lesbian Sex Secrets For Men that Paris Hilton sent him after he missed out on a threesome with the model was seized by police to embarrass him.

An ongoing study of school textbooks in four states has found stereotypes and biases in Gujarat's textbooks. The Social Studies textbook for standard five has nine stories on mythology masquerading as history. Deepa A reports.

Venezuela's military said it seized three abandoned Colombian light combat vessels that soldiers found on Saturday while patrolling the Orinoco river, several days after the government accused its neighbor of aiding a failed invasion.

Venezuela's military said it seized three abandoned Colombian light combat vessels that soldiers found on Saturday while patrolling the Orinoco river, several days after the government accused its neighbor of aiding a failed invasion.

Book review

There are several hypotheses about how amphibian chytrid has spread around the world, but the trade in amphibians for food, bait, pets and laboratory animals has been identified as the most likely mode of spread

The post Trade in frog legs may spread diseases deadly to amphibians appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The rescue pods will be part of the project’s Amphibian Rescue Center at Summit Municipal Park, which will also include a lab with a quarantine facility.

The post Shipping industry sends help as project in Panama tackles amphibian crisis appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Any adventurer, hiker or backyard naturalist with a camera can help scientists survey and hopefully save the world’s amphibians thanks to a new social networking site that links “citizen scientists” with researchers tracking the decline of amphibians around the globe.

The post Scientists turn to social networking and citizen scientists to help keep track of amphibians appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The recent field of invasion biology faces a new challenge as 19 eminent ecologists issue a call to "end the bias against non-native species" in the journal Nature.

The post Is ecology biased against non-native species? appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Smithsonian scientists have confirmed that chytridiomycosis, a rapidly spreading amphibian disease, has reached a site near Panama’s Darien region. This was the last area in the entire mountainous neotropics to be free of the disease. This is troubling news for the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project, a consortium of nine U.S. and Panamanian institutions that aims to rescue 20 species of frogs in imminent danger of extinction.

The post Deadly amphibian disease detected in the last disease-free region of Central America appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

University of Florida and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute scientists describe a new 20-foot extinct species of crocodile discovered in the same Colombian coal mine with Titanoboa, the world’s largest snake.

The post New 20-foot extinct species of crocodile discovered in Colombian coal mine appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Our studies of the genetic relationships between these bees tells us that they originated in the Amazon about 22 million years ago and that they moved north into Central America before 3 million years ago.

The post Two closely related bee species discovered far apart in Panama and northern Colombia appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Researchers who will study the microbial communities living on the skins of frogs that are surviving the fungal scourge of chytridiomycosis, deadly to the frogs.

The post Research team to explore how microbial diversity defends against disease appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Reptiles that live near and feed upon amphibians in the tropics may be spreading the deadly amphibian disease Chytridiomycosis (caused by the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dedrobatidis), holding and transporting reservoirs of the fungus on their skin.

The post Reptiles may be spreading deadly amphibian disease in the tropics appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The specimen’s skull measures 24 centimeters, roughly the size of a regulation NFL football. The shell which was recovered nearby – and is believed to belong to the same species – measures 172 centimeters, or about 5 feet 7 inches, long.

The post Giant prehistoric turtle from Colombia chomped everything in sight–including crocodiles! appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Justin Touchon, post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, discovered that climate change in Panama may be altering frogs’ course of evolution.

The post Climate change may alter amphibian evolution appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Forget the deep forest, “today the highest densities of deer in the state of Virginia are in suburbia,” says William McShea, ecologist and research scientist at the Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va.

The post Browsing suburbia: Virginia’s parceled-up farms and forests are ideal refuge for white-tailed deer appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

WHAT A new species of stick catfish from South America, so called because the thin, elongated bodies of these fish mimic sticks. About 5 inches […]

The post New species of armored catfish from Colombia appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Bright orange with a distinctive call the Panamanian poison dart frog Andinobates geminisae lives in only a small area of the Caribbean Coast of Panama. […]

The post In modern amphibian “ark,” new species added with due diligence appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Cobia, a promising fish for aquaculture, lives throughout the world’s oceans except in the Central and Eastern Pacific. In August 2015, a large number of […]

The post Invasive Cobia Spreads in Panama appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A team of scientists including a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) research associate announced the discovery of a new species of pale-gold colored frog from […]

The post New golden frog species discovered in Colombia appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Join National Zoo Conservation Biologist Brian Gratwicke in his work to save Panama's amphibians from extinction. You can also catch up on his dispatches from the field on the Panamanian Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project's blog: http://amphibianrescue.org/

The post Meet our Scientist: Brian Gratwicke, Amphibian Avenger appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute are working together as part of the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project have […]

The post New Amphibian Rescue Lab in Panama appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A team of some 30 taxonomists, many from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, accompanied by renowned photographer Christian Ziegler, conduct a week-long bioblitz on Cobia […]

The post Bioblitz!! Cobia Island, Panama appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Dried specimens of nearly 800 flowering plants were acquired by the Botany Department of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History from the National Botanical Research Institute in Windhoek, Namibia, Africa. The collection includes nearly 160 specimens from the Compositae, or sunflower family.

The post Namibian specimens come to the herbarium of the National Museum of Natural History appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A number of strategies used by the police to proactively prevent crimes have proved to be successful at crime reduction, at least in the short term, and most strategies do not harm communities’ attitudes toward police, finds a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

We tend to think of the process of seeing as fairly objective — that our eyes are similar to cameras, neutrally taking in light and turning it into pictures. But research has shown that biases buried beneath our awareness can powerfully shape how we see.

A man walks past Low Library on the Columbia University campus in New York City on March 9.; Credit: Mark Lennihan/AP

On Thursday, Columbia University and Pace University joined a growing number of colleges — including University of Miami, Drexel University and the University of Arizona — facing legal complaints aimed at their response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Thursday's suits were filed in federal court on behalf of Xaviera Marbury, a student at Pace, and an unnamed student at Columbia. Both complaints say students are owed reimbursement as well as damages for services that are no longer available now that campuses are closed. In both cases, those services include:

I. Face-to-face interaction with professors, mentors, and peers;
ii. Access to facilities such as computer labs, study rooms, laboratories, libraries, etc.;
iii. Student governance and student unions;
iv. Extra-curricular activities, groups, intramurals, etc.;
v. Student art, cultures, and other activities;
vi. Social development and independence;
vii. Hands-on learning and experimentation; and
viii. Networking and mentorship opportunities.

Marbury's complaint says her dorm rent costs $9,380 for the semester; she lost access to her dorm for approximately half the semester, the complaint says, but Pace is only offering to reimburse $2,000. Similarly, the Columbia complaint says that the student was refunded just 11% of their mandatory fees for the semester. The complaints also claim that though classes continue, their degree will eventually be worth less on the job market.

Marie Boster, a spokeswoman for Pace University, pointed out that the college is still offering services like tutoring and counseling along with classes remotely. "The faculty, staff and leaders of Pace continue to work tirelessly to support our students during this challenging time," she says. Columbia University had no comment on the suit.

The complaints, filed by a personal injury law firm in South Carolina, seek class action status on behalf of Columbia and Pace students. That same firm, Anastopoulo Law Firm, is also behind the suits against the University of Miami and Drexel.

"Universities are not delivering those services that students and their families have paid for," Anastopoulo attorney Roy T. Willey IV tells NPR. "It's not fair for the universities with multi-million dollar endowments to keep all of the money that students and their families have paid."

If the suits gain traction, the resulting damages would be a further blow to colleges already reeling from the financial impacts of the coronavirus. As NPR's Elissa Nadworny has reported, college endowments have taken a hit, some schools have begun to announce hiring freezes and others are looking at merging or closing their doors.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Shares of WPX Energy traded 25% higher after President Trump tweeted that he expected a deal between Russia and Saudi Arabia to scale back oil production.

University of Oregon researchers have found links between the levels of antimicrobial chemicals and antibiotic-resistance genes in the dust of an aging building used for athletics and academics.

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To everything there is a season -- even divorce, new research from University of Washington sociologists concludes.

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