Fue hallado sin vida el compañero y amigo Luis Díaz, participante de las principales luchas de la UCR en los últimos años. Este lamentable hecho ocurre en el contexto del endurecimiento del régimen costarricense en los últimos meses...

The Great Deluge in Pakistan passed almost unnoticed in the United States despite President Obama’s repeated assertions that the country is central to American security. Now, with new evacuations and flooding afflicting Sindh Province and the long-term crisis only beginning in Pakistan, it has washed almost completely off American television and out of popular consciousness. No one yet knows just what kind of long-term instability the Pakistani floods are likely to create, but count on one thing: the implications for the United States are likely to be significant and by the time anyone here pays much attention, it will already be too late.

Since September 11, 2001, fear has been the main engine of change in the United States. Who would have thought that across the US, where people boast that it is the home of the free and the land of the brave, people would gladly surrender their freedom and liberty because they so fear terrorism? Who would have thought that the US would allow, much less pay for, the National Security Agency to intercept and store 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other communications – every single day – and pay for 30,000 people to listen in on phone conversations in the name of fighting the fear of terrorism?

En su primera campaña electoral, Uribe Vélez ofreció acabar con la guerrilla en seis meses de presidencia. A pesar de la muerte de algunos dirigentes y cuadros, particularmente en el 2008, pasaron dos períodos presidenciales, o sea ocho años, y la insurgencia sigue con sus estructuras intactas, además de preservar su presencia nacional, tal como lo aseguró la Cruz Roja Internacional en su informe de este año. Juan Manuel Santos, el nuevo presidente, de seguro irá por el mismo camino. Siendo ministro de la Defensa, demostró que podía ser peor que el propio Uribe Vélez. Durante su ministerio, el asesinato a civiles se multiplicó, haciéndolos pasar por guerrilleros caídos en combate

El asesinato de 72 migrantes extranjeros asesinados en Tamaulipas ha puesto a la vista de la opinión pública nacional e internacional las condiciones de desamparo, segregación, abuso y riesgo que enfrentan los centro y sudamericanos indocumentados en su paso por México, y es pertinente formular algunas reflexiones al respecto. En la circunstancia presente, la persistencia en nuestro país de expresiones de racismo, xenofobia y maltrato contra los inmigrantes, por parte de autoridades y ciudadanos, se agrava por un panorama de violencia generalizada en el que se han potenciado los casos de vejaciones, abusos, secuestros y asesinatos contra los extranjeros indocumentados.

La seguridad es un arma de doble filo. El presidente francés probó uno de sus lados cortantes con el debate, la controversia y la ola de críticas que levantó su última incursión en el campo de la seguridad. Oposición, policías, asociaciones de defensa de los derechos humanos y voces del mismo campo conservador salieron al paso de la última cruzada de Nicolas Sarkozy contra los gitanos. El eje de esa política, anunciada con bombos y platillos en los medios de comunicación, consistió en la evacuación de los campos de gitanos y la posterior expulsión de éstos a sus países de origen, sea Rumania o Bulgaria.

One of the strangest aspects of these last years when two administrations, the U.S. intelligence community, and the American media have focused on, obsessed about, speculated wildly about, and generally chewed over a single potential proliferation story -- Iran's nuclear program -- is how little other weapons proliferation stories even qualify as news. I'm excepting, of course, the usual alarms over possible nuclear weapons developments in North Korea, Syria, and the like. And I'm certainly not referring here to the estimated 200 to 400 nuclear weapons in Israel's undeclared arsenal that hardly rate a peep in our media. I'm thinking about us.

If Iran is actually pursuing the capability to build nuclear weapons, its leaders would be doing so in response to a strategic environment in which two of its key adversaries, the U.S. and Israel, and two of its sometime friends/sometime adversaries, Russia and Pakistan, have substantial nuclear arsenals. By all sober accounts, Iran's security posture is primarily focused on the survival of its regime. Some Israeli military and intelligence officials have been quoted in Israel's media as saying that Iran's motivation in seeking a nuclear weapon would be primarily to head off a threat of U.S. intervention aimed at regime change. Most states do not pursue weapons systems as ends in themselves, and most states are hardwired to prioritize their own survival.

Costa Rica, incluida en la agenda de guerra estadounidense, ha defendido su ideal de pacífica y democrática, cediendo su "territorio" para la ocupación militar “acordada” y “benevolente”

"You see all these people who lost their houses who don’t have the means to build other houses. In the camp, someone who has a tent is someone who’s found someone to give them a gift; the majority of people are living in tonèl, a little shelter made of a tarp over [four sticks of] wood. They’ve taken a little wood and some nails and they’ve built a little place to live. I can’t say that this is bad because people need a place to stay and no one is doing it for them, so they’re making do the only way they can. But the authorities should have foreseen this. Especially now that we’re in hurricane season until November… For people who don’t have a good tonèl or tent, when the rains come, they spend the entire night standing up on their two feet. After seven months, people are tired."