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nick_gauthier

Annual Reports | Managua, Nicaragua - Embassy of the United States - 0 views

  • Nicaragua is a multiparty constitutional republic, but in recent years political power has become concentrated in a single party, with an increasingly authoritarian executive branch exercising significant control over the legislative, judicial, and electoral branches. In 2011 the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) announced the re-election of President Daniel Ortega Saavedra of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in elections that international and domestic observers characterized as seriously flawed
  • he principal human rights abuses were restrictions on citizens’ right to vote; obstacles to freedom of speech and press, including government intimidation and harassment of journalists and independent media
  • reports the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings, many during confrontations with illegal armed groups in the northern part of the country
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  • Human rights organizations and independent media alleged some killings during the year were politically motivated.
  • rison conditions continued to deteriorate due to antiquated infrastructure and increasing inmate populations. Many prisoners suffered mistreatment from prison officials and other inmates. Inmates also suffered from parasites, inadequate medical attention, frequent food shortages, contaminated water, and inadequate sanitation
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    This is a report on Human Rights Practices for 2015 in Nicaragua. It cites the many ways in which Nicaraguan government is corrupt and that "increasingly authoritarian". It then continues on to highlight the ways in which human rights are violated.
Javier E

The Global Elite's Favorite Strongman - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • No country in Africa, if not the world, has so thoroughly turned itself around in so short a time, and Kagame has shrewdly directed the transformation.
  • Kagame has made indisputable progress fighting the single greatest ill in Africa: poverty. Rwanda is still very poor — the average Rwandan lives on less than $1.50 a day — but it is a lot less poor than it used to be. Kagame’s government has reduced child mortality by 70 percent; expanded the economy by an average of 8 percent annually over the past five years; and set up a national health-insurance program — which Western experts had said was impossible in a destitute African country.
  • Progressive in many ways, Kagame has pushed for more women in political office, and today Rwanda has a higher percentage of them in Parliament than any other country. His countless devotees, at home and abroad, say he has also delicately re-engineered Rwandan society to defuse ethnic rivalry, the issue that exploded there in 1994 and that stalks so many African countries, often dragging them into civil war.
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  • The question is not so much about his results but his methods. He has a reputation for being merciless and brutal, and as the accolades have stacked up, he has cracked down on his own people and covertly supported murderous rebel groups in neighboring Congo
  • In some areas of the country, there are rules, enforced by village commissars, banning people from dressing in dirty clothes or sharing straws when drinking from a traditional pot of beer, even in their own homes, because the government considers it unhygienic. Many Rwandans told me that they feel as if their president is personally watching them. “It’s like there’s an invisible eye everywhere,” said Alice Muhirwa, a member of an opposition political party. “Kagame’s eye.”
  • why has the West — and the United States in particular — been so eager to embrace Kagame, despite his authoritarian tendencies?
  • Kagame has become a rare symbol of progress on a continent that has an abundance of failed states and a record of paralyzing corruption. Kagame was burnishing the image of the entire billion-dollar aid industry. “You put your money in, and you get results out,” said the diplomat, who insisted he could not talk candidly if he was identified. Yes, Kagame was “utterly ruthless,” the diplomat said, but there was a mutual interest in supporting him, because Kagame was proving that aid to Africa was not a hopeless waste and that poor and broken countries could be fixed with the right leadership.
  • Though Rwanda has made tremendous strides, the country is still a demographic time bomb. It’s already one of the most densely populated in Africa — its 11 million people squeezed into a space smaller than Maryland — and despite a recent free vasectomy program, Rwanda still has an alarmingly high birthrate. Most Rwandans are peasants, their lives inexorably yoked to the land, and just about every inch of that land, from the papyrus swamps to the cloud-shrouded mountaintops, is spoken for.
  • much has improved under his stewardship. Rwandan life expectancy, for instance, has increased to 56 years, from 36 in 1994. Malaria used to be a huge killer, but Kagame’s government has embarked on a wide-scale spraying campaign and has distributed millions of nets to protect people when they are sleeping — malarial mosquitoes tend to feed at night — and malaria-related deaths plummeted 85 percent between 2005 and 2011.
  • Kagame hopes to make more money from coffee, tea and gorillas — Rwanda is home to some of the last remaining mountain gorillas, and each year throngs of Western tourists pay thousands of dollars to see them.
  • aid flows to Rwanda because Kagame is a celebrated manager. He’s a hands-on chief executive who is less interested in ideology than in making things work. He loves new technology — he’s an avid tweeter — and is very good at breaking sprawling, ambitious projects into manageable chunks. Rwanda jumped to 52nd last year, from 158th in 2005, on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business annual rating, precisely because Kagame set up a special unit within his government, which broke down the World Bank’s ratings system, category by category, and figured out exactly what was needed to improve on each criterion.
Javier E

The Most Important Alliance You've Never Heard Of - Moisés Naím - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • the presidents of Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru met with little fanfare in Cartagena last week to seal an economic pact launched in 2012. They call their project the Pacific Alliance, and it will soon include Costa Rica
  • The four founding members are the most successful economies in Latin America; they boast the region's highest economic-growth rates and lowest inflation rates. Together, they represent 36 percent of the region's economy, 50 percent of its international trade, and 41 percent of all incoming foreign investment. If the Alliance were a country, it would be the world's eighth-largest economy and seventh-largest exporter. Its members lead the lists of the most competitive economies in Latin America and those where it’s easiest to do business.
  • the Pacific Alliance has already yielded more results in its 20 months of existence than similar initiatives that have been around for decades. The four countries have eliminated 92 percent of all import tariffs among them. Chile, Colombia, and Peru have linked their stock markets so that a company listed in one of the exchanges can be traded in the other two. Mexico is expected to follow suit this year, meaning this integrated stock market will rival that of Brazil as the largest in Latin America. The four countries have eliminated the need for business and tourist visas for visiting nationals of bloc members. In a break with tradition, the joint communiqués of Alliance presidents tend to be brief and concrete in terms of goals, timelines, and roadmaps.
Ellie McGinnis

2013 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) - 0 views

  • more than 80 percent of the primary flow of the cocaine trafficked to the United States first transited through the Central American corridor in 2012.
  • Guatemala’s weak public institutions, pervasive corruption, and porous ports and borders to move illicit products, persons, and bulk cash.
  • Improved law enforcement efforts in Colombia and Mexico, among other factors, led to an increasing volume of precursor chemicals transiting Guatemala.
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  • Guatemala produces opium poppy and synthetic drugs for export
  • ombating drug trafficking one of his administration’s top priorities.
  • President Otto Perez Molina
  • government’s extensive anti-drug efforts and established a mobile land interdiction unit charged with targeting DTOs operating in remote areas
  • Guatemala’s pressing issues include high levels of violence fueled by the drug trade, money laundering, and other organized criminal activities; corruption within the police; and an overburdened and inefficient judicial system
  • Guatemala confronts continuing fiscal challenges in seeking to fund its counternarcotics initiatives. The country has the lowest tax collection rate in Central America and one of the lowest in Latin America.
  • Guatemala had the eighth-highest murder rate in the world
  • Guatemala worked with the United States to arrest high-profile traffickers in 2012
  • Guatemala is a party to the Central American Commission for the Eradication of Production, Traffic, Consumption and Illicit Use of Psychotropic Drugs and Substances
  • Inter-American Convention against Corruption
  • A maritime counternarcotics agreement with the United States is fully implemented
  • Guatemala is one of six countries (along with Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, France, Belize and the United States) that ratified the Caribbean Regional Agreement on Maritime Counter Narcotics, which is now in force.
  • 590 hectares of opium poppy on these missions
  • air interdiction efforts, supported by six U.S.-titled helicopters, have significantly deterred drug flights from entering the country.
  • Guatemala seized 4.7 metric tons (MT) of cocaine in 2012,
  • eight kilograms of heroin
  • $5.6 million in drug-related assets
  • United States intends to work with Guatemala to build capacity for proper storage and/or destruction.
  • uatemala lacks current information
  • underfunded with an annual budget of $450,000, of which approximately 80 percent was used to cover salaries
  • SECCATID developed a school-based drug prevention program, “My First Steps,
  • United States continues to work with the Guatemalan Police Reform Commission to address police reform.
  • Guatemala cooperated with the United States and regional partners on several important counternarcotics initiatives in 2012
  • Guatemala and the United States continued to collaborate on a range of ongoing citizen security, counternarcotics, law enforcement, and rule-of-law initiatives in 2012, including the Central America Regional Security Initiative. U.S. assistan
  • United States provided support to an inter-agency anti-gang unit that brought together the PNC, Attorney General’s office (MP), and analysts from the PNC’s criminal analysis unit (CRADIC) to investigate and dismantle local gang organizations.
  • .S. support for rule-of-law activities, Guatemala increased its capacity to prosecute narcotics traffickers, organized crime leaders, money launderers and corrupt officials.
  • productive relations with Guatemala and will continue to support the government’s efforts to improve its technical and organizational capacity in the security and justice sectors.
  • better equipped to combat narcotics-related crimes in the country by fully implementing the Organized Crime Law
  • The United States encourages the Government of Guatemala to continue implementation of the Asset Seizure Law; quickly implement an anti-corruption law enacted by the Congress in October; approve legislation to regulate the gaming industry; and reform its law governing injunctions, which is often used to delay processes and trials
  • Concrete and substantial police reform, with appropriate budgetary support, is necessary for sustained progress in Guatemala. 
Ellie McGinnis

Venezuela Releases U.S. Journalist After 2 Days - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • The Venezuelan authorities on Saturday released an American journalist who had been detained and questioned by military intelligence officials.
  • Jim Wyss, is the Andes region bureau chief for The Miami Herald. He was detained Thursday near Venezuela’s western border with Colombia while on a reporting trip.
  • Mr. Wyss said the authorities who had questioned him never explained to him why he had been detained. He said that he had been treated well and that he would be allowed to remain in Venezuela and continue his work as a journalist.
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  • “I think the release could be an acknowledgment that I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Mr. Wyss said. “I think there was a lot of tension along the border, and I got scooped up in it. It became clear to them I was just a reporter trying to do a job.”
  • Venezuela is struggling with economic problems, including a 54 percent annual inflation rate and shortages of basic goods.
  • President Nicolás Maduro says right-wing enemies here, in Colombia and in the United States are waging an economic war against his socialist government.
  • He and other officials have suggested that the local and foreign news media are conspiring against the government.
  • She accused the international news media of following “this script of a continuous and silent coup in Venezuela.”
Javier E

Global Climate Pact Gains Momentum as China, U.S. and Brazil Detail Plans - The New Yor... - 0 views

  • in the joint announcement by Brazil and the United States, the two nations committed to increasing the use of wind, solar and geothermal energy to make up 20 percent of each country’s electricity production by 2030, which would double power generation from renewable sources in Brazil and triple it in the United States. Brazil also pledged to restore about 30 million acres of Amazon rain forest, an area about the size of Pennsylvania.
  • Money is another major obstacle. In 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged that by 2020, developed economies would send $100 billion annually, from both public and private sources, to developing economies to help them adapt to the ravages of climate change. This year, the United Nations has sought to establish a $10 billion “Green Climate Fund” to help begin that fund-raising effort.Although Mr. Obama has pledged $3 billion — more than any other nation has offered — Republicans in Congress have blocked efforts to appropriate the money.Climate policy experts say that without the money from rich countries, developing economies will not be able to follow through on their pledges.
Javier E

How Brazil's China-Driven Commodities Boom Went Bust - WSJ - 0 views

  • If the biggest economic story this century was China’s rise, Brazil was uniquely poised to benefit from it. Rich in iron ore, soybeans and beef, not to mention oil, Brazil was positioned as a supplier of many things China needed. Its annual trade with China, only around $2 billion in 2000, soared to $83 billion in 2013. China supplanted the U.S. as Brazil’s largest trading partner.
  • Brazil fell under what some economists call the “resource curse,” a theory describing how countries with abundant natural resources sometimes do worse than countries without them. The idea is that the money from commodity sales can lead to overvalued currencies and shortsighted policy-making, leaving such countries badly exposed when the resource boom finally ends.
  • “Unfortunately, the history is that commodity-dependent economies do not catch up with the U.S.,” said Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. “Not just oil producers. More countries end up being poorer, compared with the U.S., after they find a commodity than catch up.” Using data going back to 1800, he said commodity-dependent economies typically grow for a decade, then spend as long as two decades wallowing or slipping back.
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  • Buoyed by China trade, nationalist-minded politicians launched a foreign policy meant to reduce the role of the U.S. in Latin America. Brazil blocked a U.S. free-trade initiative for the Americas. They teamed with Venezuela to create a regional security council to supplant one that included the U.S. The foreign minister worked from an office with a huge map of the world upside down, offering the message that the era of emerging markets was at hand. But the world wasn’t upside down. While Brazil tied itself more closely to anti-American governments like Venezuela, Argentina and Iran, some regional neighbors—Chile, Colombia and Peru—went around Brazil and cut individual free-trade deals with the U.S.
  • Anticipating commodity sales, the government spent increasingly heavily. Government banks supplied Brazilians with easy credit. Brazil subsidized energy bills, issued cheap loans to big companies with government ties and built stadiums to host global events such as the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.
  • Meantime, Brazil produced far less oil than predicted. Production actually shrank in some years, as Petróleo Brasileiro SA, PBR 12.80 % known as Petrobras, struggled with the enormous task of developing oil fields in extremely deep water.
  • Commodities’ support of the economy allowed Brazilian leaders to put off addressing certain problems that had long bedeviled the nation, such as a political system that tended to breed corruption and a bureaucracy that stymied business innovation. “Brazil became complacent because of the intoxicating effects of China trade,”
Javier E

Brazil's European Dream - 0 views

  • The news that Brazil has overtaken Britain to become the world's sixth largest economic power is being touted as a sign that that the longtime "country of the future" has finally arrived.
  • In the past 20 years, Brazil has become well known for turning crisis situations into geopolitical opportunities, becoming a leading voice in international forums devoted to AIDS, poverty, and even the environment. And now, it is doing it again with a challenge that Brazilians understand all too well: a debt crisis.
  • The IMF contributions stem from Rousseff's intention to maintain a tradition that began under her predecessor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of using foreign assistance as a means to strengthen Brazil's international reputation and influence. Yet another example is Brazil's annual contributions to the World Bank, which have averaged $253 million from 2004 to 2009. Brazil was the first nation to contribute -- $ 55 million -- to the World Bank's Haitian Reconstruction Fund. From 2003-2007, Brazil also gave approximately $340 million to fund the U.N.'s operations. Lula also increased Brazil's contribution to the U.N.'s World Food Program from $ 1 million in 2009 to $ 27 million in 2011.
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  • in 1998, it was the Brazilian government, under President Fernando H. Cardoso, that was running to the IMF for assistance. Brazil was trying to recover from a capital flight of roughly $30 billion dollars, triggered by a lack of foreign investor confidence due to exorbitant debt and recession. To help quell investor speculation that Brazil would default (like Russia did months earlier), the IMF provided a bailout package of $41 billion on the condition that Cardoso prune government expenditures by 20 percent and reform the pension system.
  • in 2001, after a steep decline in foreign investment, currency depreciation, and a debt crisis in neighboring Argentina, Brazil essentially begged the IMF to help avoid a default on its external debt. This time the government received $15 billion in exchange for reducing federal expenditures and maintaining a primary budget surplus of approximately 3.75 percent through 2005.
  • Rousseff also wants an expanded role for Brazil within the IMF, along with the other BRICS, mainly through increased quota shares and voting rights. She has joined her colleagues from China, India, Russia, and South Africa in emphasizing that the IMF needs to recognize the importance of the world's largest emerging economies
  • Rousseff's European strategy is a smart move. By providing financial support in time of need, Brazil can strengthen its partnership and economic relationship with several European countries, as well as with the IMF. And by lending a hand, Rousseff may be able to garner more European support as she strives to boost Brazil's influence within the U.N. system and the IMF. Through these calculated endeavors, Rousseff can signal that Brazil isn't just arriving on the international scene, it's here to stay.
Javier E

Trouble in Paradise - 1 views

  • Over the past decade, Trinidad's murder rate has risen nearly 400 percent; last year, the rate in the capital city of Port of Spain rivaled those in Johannesburg and Baghdad. Proliferating gangs, mostly composed of impoverished young men, are behind many of the killings, centered in the dense suburbs of Port of Spain
  • What has emboldened the gangs and caused the violence? Mostly, drugs. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Trinidad and Tobago has become a major transshipment point for illegal substances heading north from South America. Traffickers send cocaine and small arms from Venezuela, just 7 miles off the coast of Trinidad, via fast boat. The drugs are then shipped out on container ships, planes, and private yachts.
  • he country's annual per capita GDP has risen from about $11,000 to $18,800 in the past decade due to strong exports of natural gas and steel. Still, unemployment remains high, and to create jobs, the government spends about $400 million per year on make-work projects. The bulk of this money is ultimately funneled to gang leaders, who administer "grants" and distribute "salaries." Indeed, corruption -- always a problem in the country -- is reaching new heights. According to several security analysts, a damning unofficial study carried out by the government in 2009 suggested that almost 90 percent of police officers were regularly involved in illegal activities. Those pursuits ranged from running and selling drugs, to colluding with gangs by renting out weapons to criminals, to performing extralegal killings.
nataliedepaulo1

Annual Reports | Managua, Nicaragua - Embassy of the United States - 0 views

  • Nicaragua continued to be a major drug transshipment point for South American cocaine flowing to the United States in 2011. Nicaragua‘s limited law enforcement capabilities and sparsely populated regions provide an enabling environment for drug
  • Drug consumption in Nicaragua rose in 2011, particularly on the Atlantic coast where the transshipment of drugs is highest.
  • U.S. assistance in Nicaragua is focused on enhancing the abilities of government law enforcement agencies to detect and intercept shipments, detain traffickers, stop the laundering of illegal profits from the drug industry, and support preventative programs to protect youth from drugs and recruitment into gangs.
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    This article shows the drug issue in Nicaragua and why it is an increasing problem.
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