International

It is a mistake to think that certain problems do not concern us, only because they happen thousands of miles away from us and affect people we have never met, or whom we perceive as “different” from us. The world we live in is increasingly interconnected, and what happens in seemingly remote places can affect all of us in the form of violence, conflict, insecurity.

A study published by the University of Heidelberg reveals the gap between the media-generated image of war and the nature of the actual conflicts. Although the Second World War ended with great aspirations for world peace, since that time the total number of world conflicts has risen in a moderate, but constantly upward, curve.

Northrop Grumman personnel ready a visiting unmanned Global Hawk aircraft for takeoff at Brunswick Naval Air Station. A pilot from Patrol navigates the craft remotely from Patuxent River (Md.) Naval Air Station. The Global Hawk’s approximately stay represented the first time one of the military’s vaunted drones had ever landed from a New England location.

The United Nations General Assembly awarded President Evo Morales a medal and scroll, naming him “Global Defender of Mother Earth”. The ceremony took place at the Palacio Quemado, the presidential palace in La Paz. The honor was bestowed after the Bolivian president’s tireless efforts before the United Nations defending the environment and natural resources.

Noam Chomsky speaks about the future and predicts difficult situations for China and India. On the other hand he analyzes the appearance of progressiveness in Latin America as very important. For the first time in 500 years, LA is moving towards a degree of independence and a kind of integration and also is beginning to face some of its massive internal problems.

On August 5, Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey lit a Nuclear Abolition Torch from the Peace Flame in Hiroshima in preparation for its being carried around the world on the World March for Peace and Nonviolence. Mayor Harvey was in Japan for the annual assembly of Mayors for Peace – an international movement of 3000 cities calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The United Nations (UN) is en route to its renovation because its current structure doesn’t respond to worldwide reality, declared to the ABI the president of this organization, Miguel D’Escoto, who was in Bolivia to hand to President Evo Morales a parchment in which he was declared by the international organization “World Hero of Mother Earth”.

31 August 2009. The Trial Court of Chimaltenango ordered the immediate arrest of Felipe Cusanero Coj, the ex military commissioner responsible for the disappearance of six people from the village of Choatalum during the “internal armed conflict”, and sentenced him to 25 years in prison for each person disappeared. This legal ruling is a landmark in the history of Guatemala.

The main subject at the summit was the installation of US bases in Colombia. Alvaro Uribe defended the decision to allow them in order to combat drug-trafficking, while President Correa pointed out that “Never before have we discussed foreign bases in South America, and we used to have them in Ecuador for example,” and he stressed the creation of “criteria and rules”.

Minister of Education, Dr. Leonardo Garnier Rímolo, demonstrates his support endorsing and organizing activities in the file of education for the World March. Dr. Rímolo considers the the March to be of great interest to the country, “Education for Nonviolence”, especially the elements that can be incorporated in the Costa Rican curriculum, is very useful in this moment.