El Espectador

FARC

• A group of leftist parties in Mexico are joining forces to campaign against a proposal to give broad powers to the army and navy, and extend military control. The parties involved are the the PRD (Democratic Revolutionary Party – Partido de la Revolucion Democratica), PT (Labour Party – Partido del Trabajo) and Convergencias, Animal Politico reports. Critics warn that the proposed National Security Law would give too much power to the authorities, and lead to violations of human rights. It would allow the president to declare a state of emergency and suspend certain legal guarantees, and let the government use whatever method it sees fit to do intelligence work, including intercepting and recording private conversations. This measures could be extended or modified if necessary. The bill will go before the Senate on Friday.
• In other news, the security minister of Costa Rica, Jose Maria Tijerino, announced that he will step down this week following a series of public missteps. In the most recent incident Tijerino made the unsubstantiated claim that the Sinaloa Cartel was responsible for the deaths of a young couple in February, and was forced to apologize. The minister will be replaced by Mario Zamora, but President Laura Chinchilla said that Tijerino will continue working in national security in another role, Ticotimes reports.