Perspectivas / Perspectives

Islamic State is advancing with scarce Western opposition   

Tripoli, Jan. 18.─ Islamic State fighters launched a naval assault in northern Libya last week, dispatching three boats that fired on an oil terminal at Zueitina. Local guards repelled that attack, but it was a reminder of Islamic State’s growing capabilities and reach beyond its heartland in Syria and Iraq. Too bad Western capitals seem unprepared to stop it.

The Zueitina episode was the latest in a string of Islamic State attacks in Libya since the new year. On Jan. 8 an Islamic State truck bomb hit a police academy in Zliten, western Libya, killing 65 people. The same week Islamic State arson attacks ignited two other Libyan oil terminals. Islamic State draws much of its revenue by marketing oil from captured fields in Iraq and Syria.

El acuerdo sacrifica
los derechos de las víctimas a la justicia
y garantiza la impunidad,
dijo José Miguel Vivanco,
Director de HRW para las Américas

Enero 2.─ El grupo activista de los derechos humanos, Human Rights Watch, criticó duramente este martes un acuerdo entre el gobierno y los rebeldes de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC, alcanzado a principios de mes en Cuba, diciendo que sacrifica los derechos de las víctimas a la justicia y garantiza la impunidad.

El pacto abre el camino a un acuerdo final de paz en los próximos meses.

Bajo los términos del convenio, los guerrilleros y militares serán juzgados por tribunales especiales de paz. Quienes confiesen crímenes graves, no irán a la cárcel sino que cumplirán una sentencia máxima de ocho años en proyectos especiales como limpieza de minas y reconstrucción de comunidades.

This article is guilty of spreading panic and disorder

More general signs of a crackdown on expression in China   

Beijing, Dec.5.─ In the middle of August Zhao Shaolin, a retired Communist Party boss of Jiangsu province in eastern China, was carted away by the country’s anti-corruption commission. Nothing unusual there. Dozens of local party bosses have fallen foul of a national anti-bribery campaign. What was surprising were the charges levelled against him. These usually stress the vast wealth the accused is said to have squirrelled away by his or her nefarious activities. Mr Zhao’s crime, according to Beijing News, a party newspaper, was to flout party discipline by criticising government policies. Some people, Xie Chuntao of the Central Party School sniffed, think “they are cleverer than the Party, which cannot be allowed.”

Mr Zhao was not the only one. In mid-October the anti-corruption commission arrested two serving provincial party chiefs, in Hebei near Beijing and Guangxi in the south. Their list of crimes also included criticising the party. On October 12th the Politburo approved a new edition of the party’s rules. It was, Xinhua, the state news agency, said, “the most complete and stringent code of conduct” in the history of the Communist Party. It bans party members from making “negative comments” or “irresponsible remarks” about policy. Members may debate issues—but only if they say nice things.

Hunted by ISIS, afraid to enter refugee camps, they are undercounted and desperate for help  

Dec. 17 (WSJ).─ Donald Trump’s bizarre proposal to bar all Muslim immigrants from the U.S. has overshadowed a more legitimate concern regarding religion and immigration: Middle East Christians who are desperate to escape the genocidal campaign against them by Islamic State.

Islamist terror attacks like the ones in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have underlined the need for more and better vetting of refugees from the Middle East who seek safety in the U.S. But with tens of thousands pushing at the gate, who should to get first preference?