The Communities Meeting and National Celebration (in Spanish, Encuentro y Fiesta Nacional de Colectividades) is a cultural event celebrated annually in Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina, since 1985.
Spanish or Castilian is a Western Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain and today has hundreds of millions of native speakers in the Americas and Spain. It is a global language and the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese.
Argentina is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires, which is the federal capital of the nation as decided by Congress. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system.
The Province of Santa Fe is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero. Together with Córdoba and Entre Ríos, the province is part of the economico-political association known as the Center Region.
This event showcases the diversity of customs of the many established communities of immigrants that live in the city and around. It is locally known simply as las Colectividades, and usually held in the middle of spring (the first days of November), though in 2004 it was celebrated in December instead, to avoid overlapping with the Third International Congress of the Spanish Language (held in Rosario in mid-November). Tents, kiosks and several performing stages are set up in the National Flag Park (Parque Nacional a la Bandera), a large expanse on the shore of the Paraná River, right opposite the National Flag Memorial. Immigrant communities devote their space to selling typical foods and drinks, as well as other items, or for exhibits. The stages are devoted to the performance of dances and music. The festival is attended every year by tens of thousands of local residents and tourists.
The Third International Congress of the Spanish Language was a cultural event that took place in Rosario, Argentina, on 17, 18 and 19 November 2004.
The Paraná River is a river in south Central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina for some 4,880 kilometres (3,030 mi). It is second in length only to the Amazon River among South American rivers. The name Paraná is an abbreviation of the phrase "para rehe onáva", which comes from the Tupi language and means "like the sea". It merges first with the Paraguay River and then farther downstream with the Uruguay River to form the Río de la Plata and empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
The National Flag Memorial in Rosario, Argentina, is a monumental complex built near the shore of the Paraná River. It was inaugurated on June 20, 1957, the anniversary of the death of Manuel Belgrano, creator of the Argentine flag, who raised it for the first time on an island on the opposite shore of the river on February 27, 1812.
In recent years, the Colectividades were marred by poor organization and abuse on the part of some communities, which in effect turned their spaces into common open-air bars and barbecues. Alcohol abuse by some attenders, robberies, problems with public transportation and traffic congestion in the area of the festival caused many people to complain or to miss the celebration altogether. In light of this and the recently increased touristic flow into the city, for 2005 the municipal government added special requirements for the communities' exhibits, such as a percentage of space to be devoted to cultural activities and the sale of typical foods only, and a change of the layout. The 2005 celebration was, accordingly, deemed better organized and safer than the previous ones, and attendance during its ten days reached about 1 million.
Barbecue or barbeque is a cooking method, a style of food, and a name for a meal or gathering at which this style of food is cooked and served.
Alcoholism, also known as alcohol use disorder (AUD), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems. The disorder was previously divided into two types: alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence. In a medical context, alcoholism is said to exist when two or more of the following conditions are present: a person drinks large amounts over a long time period, has difficulty cutting down, acquiring and drinking alcohol takes up a great deal of time, alcohol is strongly desired, usage results in not fulfilling responsibilities, usage results in social problems, usage results in health problems, usage results in risky situations, withdrawal occurs when stopping, and alcohol tolerance has occurred with use. Risky situations include drinking and driving or having unsafe sex, among other things. Alcohol use can affect all parts of the body, but it particularly affects the brain, heart, liver, pancreas and immune system. This can result in mental illness, Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome, irregular heartbeat, liver cirrhosis and increased cancer risk, among other diseases. Drinking during pregnancy can cause damage to the baby resulting in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Women are generally more sensitive than men to the harmful physical and mental effects of alcohol.
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by putting the victim in fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear; that is, it is a larceny or theft accomplished by an assault. Precise definitions of the offence may vary between jurisdictions. Robbery is differentiated from other forms of theft by its inherently violent nature ; whereas many lesser forms of theft are punished as misdemeanors, robbery is always a felony in jurisdictions that distinguish between the two. Under English law, most forms of theft are triable either way, whereas robbery is triable only on indictment. The word "rob" came via French from Late Latin words of Germanic origin, from Common Germanic raub -- "theft".
