Leaving office, (Costa Rican president) Arias reflects on his legacy

[pampango]

Source: Global Post

Nobel Prize winner and Costa Rican president pushed for disarmament, free trade and carbon neutrality.

During a United Nations meeting about nuclear arms proliferation last September, a 69-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate cleared his throat to deliver bold remarks to a room of world leaders with high-powered armies. “I of course introduced the theme of disarming in general, laying down not just nuclear arms but all arms,” said Costa Rican President Oscar Arias in a recent interview, recalling the New York summit. “Nuclear arms kill many people all at once, but other weapons kill many people, little by little, every day, everywhere in the world.”

As a temporary member of the U.N. Security Council, Arias said, Costa Rica made sure to point out that the five permanent members are responsible for about 80 percent of weapons sold worldwide. The world spends about $1.6 trillion on weapons and soldiers, he said, when it should be combating poverty and improving education and health care. Unlike if he were the leader of some other countries, Arias doesn’t get lambasted at home for such utterances: Costa Ricans are proud of the fact they abolished the military more than 60 years ago.

Although Arias made new friends abroad, he sparked controversy at home as a no-holds-barred champion of free trade. The most hotly contested of his commercial dealings was joining the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA). The treaty revealed a deep disagreement over globalization and, amid angry protest, ultimately won only narrow approval in an October 2007 public referendum.

Costa Rica has gone on to ink further free trade deals, with far less vocal public disapproval, with Singapore and China, Costa Rica’s second trading partner after the United States. Arias has declared this “the Asian century.” But diversifying trade channels has been a priority. Now the negotiating team looks poised to reach a Central American trade pact with the European Union sometime this month.

The president has also secured Costa Rica’s reputation for being one of the ecologically smartest developing countries. He launched a campaign for the country to become carbon neutral by 2021, a mission he hopes will be met in part thanks to having already planted nearly 20 million trees during his term. According to Arias, reforesting and forest preservation programs have enabled Costa Rica to become the country with the most trees per capita, per square kilometer in the world.

Read more: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/costa-rica/100506/oscar-arias-retires

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"Costa Rica, which translates literally as "Rich Coast", constitutionally abolished its army permanently in 1949. It is the only Latin American country included in the list of the world’s 22 older democracies. Costa Rica has consistently been among the top Latin American countries in terms of the Human Development Index, and ranked 54th in the world in 2007. The country is ranked 3rd in the world, and 1st among the Americas, in terms of the 2010 Environmental Performance Index.

In 2007 the Costa Rican government announced plans for Costa Rica to become the first carbon neutral country by 2021. According to the New Economics Foundation, Costa Rica ranks first in the Happy Planet Index and is the "greenest" country in the world."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica

[Holy Moly]

1. el Lardo moving to Costa Rica?

OMG Costa Rica ain't gots no army??
Whotta a huge disappointment.
I thinks the Rushbo ain't gonna like
that depressing bit of news. Perhaps he'd
best reconsider his promise to transport
his massive pimple deferred ass down to
that wimpy peace loving country.
I thinks el Lardo might be better
advised to move himself to North Korea.
Not only does they gots a real
big humongous military, they even gots
the bomb that he learned to love as a
patriotic Nam draft dodger.

[Greenheron]

2. Not buying

Arias stole an election. He had Bushes boys down there to show them how. The majority of Ticos did not want the B.S. trade agreement.
Not buying Arias anymore.