"Cartagena women are respectable, and you cannot generalize as if the city were filled with prostitutes," said Campo Elias Terán, the mayor, in a radio interview.
In 2011, the EU was central to the 'Durban alliance' of Least Developed Countries, small island states threatened by rising sea levels and the 'Cartagena group' of progressive countries.
Arguably Colombia's most beautiful city, Cartagena combines striking colonial architecture and a vibrant cultural life without sacrificing reality: streets are still buzzing with locals and you can find yourself spending longer than expected people-watching in a coffee shop or just sitting in a square admiring the orange and yellow houses.
Despite the sorrow of seeing young women trapped by poverty, Longoria left Cartagena feeling optimistic: "I felt very hopeful because of the foundation's work, because these women wanted to change".
The Seasiders were due to face La Liga side Granada on Saturday 26 July, before taking on Murcia-based team Cartagena two days later.
In Cartagena, officials from Japan, South Korea, the ASEAN countries and Australia were especially enthusiastic about closer links—in some cases seeing in the alliance a way to compete with China's growing influence in Latin America.The Pacific Alliance seems almost taken aback by its own diplomatic success.
This month at the Cartagena Dialogue, a conference in that city organised by Colombia's government and the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a London-based think-tank, several Asian officials urged the Alliance to admit their countries as full members.Two things have piqued the interest of outsiders.
Since being privatised in 1993, when it was a jumble of rusting machinery, the Port of Cartagena has become the fourth-biggest container hub in Latin America, shifting 2.2m containers in 2012.
San José de los Campanos is a dusty, motorbike-infested barrio on the far side of Cartagena from the cruise-ships and the tourists who throng the colonial walled town.
The main sticking point in Cartagena was the Miami group's refusal to allow this to apply to commodities such as maize and soyabeans, which make up 90% of the world's trade in GMOs.
Prostitution is, after all, legal here.The Colombian government had kept mum about the scandal until Spirit Airlines, an American low-cost carrier, launched an ad offering flights to Cartagena in which a Secret Service type wearing an earpiece and dark glasses pressed a finger to his lips, as the words "More bang for your buck" flash on the screen to reveal scantily clad women.
