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Outlook: Fighting Farc with Morse Code Song

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Juan Carlos Ortiz

14/08/2017 GMT

Fighting Farc with Morse Code Song

BBC World Service - Outlook, Fighting Farc with Morse Code Song

Juan Carlos Ortiz hid Morse Code messages in a song to communicate with hostages.

Advertising executive Juan Carlos Ortiz came up with an ingenious solution to send a message to captured soldiers being held hostage in a Colombian forest.

Advertising executive Juan Carlos Ortiz grew up in the Colombian capital of Bogota, a country which has suffered decades of armed conflict and has long been among the major producers of illegal drugs such as cocaine. Juan Carlos ran a campaign against the addictive qualities of cocaine, and made powerful enemies of FARC guerillas who relied on the drugs trade. A few years later, Juan Carlos was asked by a Colombian army chief to get a secret message to hostages being held by FARC rebels in the middle of a jungle. 

David J. Peterson is an American language creator. He has created both the words and grammar for characters in some of the biggest productions on the big and small screen. One of his most famous languages is Dothraki spoken in HBO's hit television series Game of Thrones.

Sixteen year old Kenyan dog trainer and champion handler Shadrack Adams has competed at the world's biggest dogs show, Crufts. But Shadrak's first challenge in life was simply staying alive. He was found abandoned in a ditch by his mother at just 2 days old. His adoptive family always had dogs, and he started looking after puppies in his early teenage years as a way to stay out of trouble. 

Tom Horn is a beatboxer from Brisbane, Australia. He uses his voice to reproduce the sound of drums, trumpets and many other instruments and he's been described as a "living sound effects library". He performs as Tom Thum and he's recently made a series of videos called 'live from the larynx', where he undergoes medical procedures, including an MRI scan, to find out what is happening to his body when he beatboxes.  


Image: Advertising executive Juan Carlos Ortiz
Credit: Courtesy of Juan Carlos Ortiz

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