Viernes, 19 de mayo de 2017 (Continuación)

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

La decisiva derrota de Marine Le Pen a manos de Emmanuel Macron en la segunda vuelta de la elección presidencial francesa fue una importante victoria para la Europa liberal. Pero fue una batalla, no la guerra. Hace muy pocos años, la idea de que uno de cada tres ciudadanos franceses votaran por Le Pen, del Frente Nacional, era inconcebible.

Los comentaristas han puesto el rótulo de “populista” a la ola de política demagógica que barre Europa (y gran parte del mundo). Pero más allá de la estridencia común a todos los movimientos populistas, ¿qué más comparten? Podemos (en España) y Syriza (en Grecia) son de izquierda.…  Seguir leyendo »

Men unload boxes of nutritional supplements from a helicopter prior to a humanitarian food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme in Thonyor, Leer county, South Sudan, on 25 February 2017. REUTERS/Siegfried Modola.

MundoÁfricaMundoOriente Próximo, , , , ,

The last time the UN declared a famine was in 2011, in Somalia. The last time it faced more than one major famine simultaneously was more than three decades ago. Today we are on the brink of four – in Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan.

The spectre of famine is primarily the result of war, not natural disaster. According to the UN, more than twenty million people, millions of them children, are at risk of starvation. This is happening in man-made crises and under the Security Council’s watch. In some places, the denial of food and other aid is a weapon of war as much as its consequence.…  Seguir leyendo »

Javier Valdez, Sinaloa, Mexico, May 23, 2013. Fernando Brito/AFP/Getty Images

MundoAméricaReflexionesTestimonios, ,

Yet another journalist has been murdered in Mexico. It was the usual pattern: Javier Valdez, fifty, wrote a drug story, revealed too much information, said something someone did not want said, and was killed at noon on a busy street near his place of work. Six other journalists, none of them quite as prominent as Javier, have been killed in drug-infested cities since the year began, but because he was a friend of mine the details matter more to me this time. On reflection, I was grateful that, unlike many of the more than one hundred reporters killed in Mexico over the last quarter century, he was not abducted, tortured for hours or days, maimed, dismembered, hung lifeless from an overpass for all to see.…  Seguir leyendo »

Children of displaced families peer out of the window of a former government building in Ibb, Yemen. Photo: Getty Images.

Internacional

The current prominence of the issue of refugees around the world is understandable. Refugee influxes are highly visible, especially when they involve large numbers of people who are putting their lives at risk, crossing frontiers without authorization and congregating in squalid makeshift settlements. Their arrival raises difficult issues related to national sovereignty, state security and social cohesion.

But while these are important and pressing issues, the international community’s keen interest in the refugee problem has detracted attention from the fact that there are other groups of vulnerable people across the globe who are in equal, if not greater, need of human rights protection and humanitarian assistance – internally displaced people (IDPs).…  Seguir leyendo »

Aboriginal elder Eileen Kampakuta Brown, joint winner of the 2003 Goldman Environmental Prize for her struggle to stop construction of a nuclear waste dump in South Australia. Photo: Getty Images.

Internacional

A quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War, interest in nuclear weapons has revived, not reduced. But for all the debate over the tensions between the United States and North Korea, a taboo still surrounds the lingering impacts of nuclear weapons testing and fears for their future use in conflict.

Our latest research looked not only at the implications of a potential future nuclear conflict, but also the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons testing for more than seven decades. Between 1946 and 1996, more than 2,000 nuclear weapons tests were conducted by the US, UK, Soviet Union, France and China.…  Seguir leyendo »

A lock screen from the the WannaCry ransomware attack. Photo: Getty Images.

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías,

The recent global ransomware attack, which affected organizations around the world including Britain’s National Health Service, was the first real illustration for many people of the scale and physical consequences a cyber attack might present. Criminal hackers exploited a flaw in ‘retired’ Microsoft software, which is not routinely updated and patched for security, to infect computers with the WannaCry ransomware.

But what if devices were even more vulnerable, running with no built-in security and no opportunity to patch? This is the problem that that the so-called internet of things (IOT) presents. With an anticipated 22.5 billion devices due to be connected to the internet by 2021, the opportunity for holding these devices to ransom will present significant opportunities to criminals and will have serious consequences for providers and users of these devices.…  Seguir leyendo »

A rally in support of the peace process in Bogotá, Colombia, in 2016. Credit Ivan Valencia/Associated Press

MundoAméricaInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional, , ,  

At the start of each school year, Colombian schoolchildren are still given specially prepared instruction manuals in the form of comic books to teach them how to avoid stepping on land mines. Despite these efforts, during 52 years of war, more than 1,000 Colombian children, usually from the poorest of our farming families working their fields, were killed or maimed by land mines.

I ran for president of Colombia to lead a nation where the books we give Colombia’s schoolchildren teach reading, science, math and poetry, not warnings against stepping on explosives. Today – having signed a historic peace agreement between my government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, on Nov.…  Seguir leyendo »

Dos mujeres se abrazan en una manifestación en Bogotá a favor del proceso de paz, el 24 de noviembre de 2016, luego de la firma del acuerdo revisado por parte del presidente Juan Manuel Santos y Rodrigo Londoño, líder de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia. Credit Ivan Valencia/Associated Press

MundoAméricaInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional, , ,  

Al inicio de cada año escolar, a los niños colombianos se les entregan manuales de instrucciones preparados en forma de historietas para enseñarles cómo evitar pisar minas terrestres. A pesar de estos esfuerzos, durante 52 años de guerra, más de mil niños colombianos —por lo general, provenientes de las familias más pobres de nuestros campos— murieron o quedaron mutilados por estos explosivos.

Contendí por la presidencia de Colombia para liderar una nación donde los libros que les diéramos a los niños colombianos enseñaran lecturas, ciencias, matemáticas y poesía, en lugar de advertencias para que no pisaran explosivos. Hoy, tras firmar un Acuerdo de Paz histórico entre mi gobierno y las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), estamos construyendo una Colombia en paz.…  Seguir leyendo »