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runlai_jiang

DEATH TO DEMOCRACY | Antigua Observer Newspaper - 0 views

  • Keeping the status quo on campaign financing is “the death of democracy.”
  • He is calling for a ban on private funding for political campaigns.
  • Samuel said there should be stringent laws that severely punish politicians through penalties and fines for using private funding for political campaign.
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  • “What they fail to realise is that they have no power, all the power is in the hands of those who make giant contributions.”
  • The head of the Electoral Commission said political campaigns should be paid for by the public purse, and that political organisations should find other ways to fund their campaigns
  • I believe a percentage of the budget should be allocated to the body that is responsible for election, ABEC, and that they will be charged with coming up with a formula to hand out donation to political parties for them to run their campaigns, and that private financing be totally banned,”
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    The Chairman of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission pointed out that private funding to political campaign groups is a risk toward democracy. The power is hold by the giant private contributors instead of the public. Thus, the funding should be paid by the public purse. He believes that a percentage of the budget should be allocated to the responsible election body and the money should be allocated in a formula, but the private financing should be banned.
luckangeloja

Overview of ONDCP | ONDCP Antigua and Barbuda - 0 views

  • Additionally, the ONDCP fulfills the role as Antigua and Barbuda’s primary counter narcotics investigation interdiction agency inclusive of the collection, development and dissemination of intelligence on drugs.
  • At ONDCP our vision is to become the Caribbean’s lead law enforcement agency combating illegal narcotics, money laundering and terrorism financing, while our mission is to eradicate transnational drug trafficking
  • The staff component of the organization spans a cadre of enthusiastic and efficient persons who are continuously championing the cause of eradicating the prevalence of illicit narcotics, money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
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    This article summarized the "Office of National Drug and Money Laundering Control Policy" (ONDCP) and how it is one of the primary counter narcotics agencies for Antigua and Barbuda. The ONDCP is an agency that combats the illegal uses and functions of drugs, money laundering, and terrorism. The ONDCP is not exclusive to Antigua and Barbuda, but also to much of the Caribbean. They have seven units, in which two are specialized in the field of drugs.
bennetttony

Nicaragua Corruption Report - 0 views

  • Courts are prone to corruption and manipulation by organised crime groups, drug cartels and a democratic socialist political party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which allegedly accepts bribes from drug traffickers for campaign financing in return for judicial favours (InSightCrime, July 2014).
  • Rampant corruption within Nicaragua's political circles impairs the functioning of state institutions and limits foreign investment. International companies report widespread favouritism and impunity among public officials.
  • Courts are prone to corruption and manipulation by organised crime groups, drug cartels and a democratic socialist political party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which allegedly accepts bribes from drug traffickers for campaign financing in return for judicial favours (InSightCrime, July 2014).
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  • Nicaragua's legal system is plagued by corruption and is burdensome.
  • Nicaragua's police are corrupt and enjoy impunity. Prosecution and criminal sanctions against police officers in corruption cases are delayed due to bribery, ineffectiveness and an opaque justice system (HRR 2013)
  • Foreign companies encounter red tape and corruption when dealing with Nicaragua's public services administration.
  • Foreign companies experience discriminatory and arbitrary treatment and extortion in meetings with tax officials in Nicaragua. Tax audits of foreign firms are reported to be frequent and lengthy, which often hinders normal business operations and increases corruption risks and business costs (ICS 2014).
  • The overall implementation and enforcement of Nicaragua's anti-corruption legislation is weak, and the level of compliance with the law is poor among Nicaragua's public officials.
  • The Constitution of Nicaragua provides for freedom of the press, but the government restricts and controls all information available to the public.
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    This article outlines the corruption in the Nicaraguan government. This is an important to hemispheric security because it is an issue that needs to be addressed.
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    This article highlights the corruption going on in Nicaragua in many different areas like legislation, civil society, police, etc.
rachelramirez

Ortega vs. the Contras: Nicaragua Endures an '80s Revival - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Ortega vs. the Contras: Nicaragua Endures an ’80s Revival
  • Tyson and his men are contras — yes, like the ones from the 1980s who received stealth funding during the Reagan administration to topple Mr. Ortega’s leftist Sandinista government.
  • That war ended more than 25 years ago, when Mr. Ortega lost at the polls. But since being re-elected in 2006, Mr. Ortega has come to rule over this Central American nation in sweeping fashion.
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  • They control fuel companies, television stations and public construction projects, which has many critics comparing his family to the right-wing Somoza dynasty that Mr. Ortega helped topple in 1979.
  • They complain they are broke and say the reason they are not more successful is that they do not have international aid, as they did during the Reagan administration.
  • Though Mr. Ortega enjoys strong support among the poor, he was widely criticized for constitutional changes that repealed term limits, allowing him to run this year for a third consecutive term.
  • The government denies that politically motivated rebels in the country still exist, despite occasional attacks on police stations and the killings of Sandinistas and known contras
  • “It is a silent, dirty war that is not recognized,” said Bishop Abelardo Mata, a Roman Catholic leader who has served as something of a mediator between the two sides.
  • Venezuela has provided Nicaragua with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of oil a year on preferential terms, and the government acknowledges that much of it is invested in private companies closely tied to the Ortega family and its allies.
  • “The Ortega-Murillo family is getting richer while the country people starve,” a rebel who calls himself Commander Rafael said about the president and his wife, Rosario Murillo
  • He said the Ortega administration must be doing something right. In January, the World Bank projected Nicaragua’s economy to grow by 4.2 percent in 2016, one of the highest rates in Latin America.
  • It is no wonder: 38 percent of the Venezuelan oil is used to fund social projects. More than 35,000 houses have been distributed among the poor in the past two years, according to a government website. World Bank statistics show that the poverty level dropped six percentage points from 2005 to 2009.
  • “He might have an expensive car, but the other presidents before him had their luxuries but did not help the people,” Veronica Aguilar, 55, said of Mr. Ortega.
  • The rebels are not buying it. In a sign of the new allegiance the socialist administration has to the country’s richest people, the government has lifted import taxes for luxury items like yachts and helicopters.
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    This article highlights some of the positive change the Ortega family has brought to Nicaragua, despite being flooded with reports of corruption, but it shows how divided the country is. There are contras roaming the country, and have been doing so for 25 years, who refuse to step down, and now finance their resistance by working with cartels within Nicaragua. It seems as though chaos has decided to run through Nicaragua. Additionally, we are able to see that under the current president poverty has decreased and new millionaires have increased. It seems as though a few people have a high concentration of the money in Nicaragua.
Javier E

Brazil, Fortune and Fate Turn on Billionaire - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • After years of economic expansion, the South American nation has begun to sputter. Inflation has become a major concern. Brazil’s stock market index has declined about 23 percent this year, the most of any large country. This month, Standard & Poor’s cut its outlook on Brazil’s credit rating to negative, citing slowing growth and weakening finances.
  • Mr. Batista’s conglomerate, as an emblem of the nation’s industrial mettle, ranked among the government priorities now being questioned, receiving more than $4 billion in loans and investments from the national development bank.
  • authorities channeled huge resources of the state to projects controlled by tycoons.
oliviaodon

IDB - Nicaragua improves respond to natural disasters - 0 views

  • Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a $186 million contingent loan to help Nicaragua mitigate the impact that severe or catastrophic natural disasters could have on its public finances.
  • country is highly exposed to meteorological and geophysical threats such as earthquakes, floods, tropical storms, and volcanic eruptions. In fact, Nicaragua is the second most vulnerable country in the world to hurricanes and tropical storms, and ranks thirtieth in the world in its vulnerability to earthquakes.
  • This operation will help Nicaragua not only improve its financial planning but also promote the development of effective mechanisms for the comprehensive management of natural disaster risks through the Comprehensive Natural Disaster Risk Management Program (CNDRMP) required to access the proceeds of this loan. The CNDRMP promotes improvements in the identification, reduction, and financial management of risks, as well as in disaster management.
runlai_jiang

Supporting the Organization of American States in victim protection in Colombia - 1 views

  • The aim of this international peacekeeping mission is to support Colombia’s justice and peace process. Its mandate was extended in 2010 to include support for the land restitution process and implementation of the Victims and Land Restitution Law.
  • The Mission also helps to identify new armed parties and advises Colombia on alternative methods of resolving conflicts and strengthening democracy.
  • The international community pays into a fund to facilitate the work of MAPP/OEA. In 2015 funds were received from the Netherlands, the UK, Spain, the USA, the EU and Turkey as well as from Germany. This money is used to support MAPP/OEA’s general mandate and all the associated activities. BMZ has a financing agreement in place with MAPP/OEA.
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  • For the first time governmental institutions now recognise victims’ representatives as legitimate partners and take the lead in inviting them to meetings. Representatives’ proposals are taken into account when planning and implementing initiatives under the Victims and Land Restitution Law.
  • The support that MAPP/OEA provided to the victims during the trial was and remains a crucial element in the proceedings. The German contribution enables 100 victims to take part in each trial, offering general guidance, legal advice and psychological support throughout.
  • ourts, public prosecutors and victims’ associations use shared databases to exchange information with one another on the demobilised paramilitaries and update these databases continuously.
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    The OAS has started fund raising and programs such as offering general guidance, legal advice and psychological support.
krystal62

Nicaragua Economy: Population, GDP, Inflation, Business, Trade, FDI, Corruption - 5 views

  • Anti–free market policies
  • populism
  • Mostly Unfree
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  • long-term
  • subject to substantial political interference.
  • Poor protection of property rights
  • widespread corruption
  • domestic access
  • second-poorest nation in the Americas.
  • Agricultural goods and textile production account for 50 percent of exports.
  • Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian
  • the rule of law in Nicaragua.
  • Sandinista judges
  • Private property rights (especially those of foreign investors) are not protected effectively, and contracts are not always secure.
  • . The growth of public spending has outstripped revenue expansion and is likely to continue in 2016.
  • inefficient and inflexible labor market
  • underemployed
  • used cars are restricted
  • The high cost of long-term financing continues to hinder more dynamic private-sector growth.
evanpitt14

ONCP Antigua and Barbuda | Organization of Drug and Money Laundering Control Policy - 0 views

shared by evanpitt14 on 03 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • Determined to address the problem of illicit drug use and substance abuse among its citizens, the Government of Antigua and Barbuda with the assistance of CICAD/OAS drafted a five (5) year plan
  • The existing plan, which is a collaborative effort between the various Governmental and non-governmental organizations
  • Anti-Drug initiative
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  • rafficking in Class A drugs such as cocaine continues to offer the criminal the highest profit margin
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  • Financial Intelligence & AML/CFT Compliance Financial Intelligence & Compliance Most serious organised crime is about money. Therefore, tackling money laundering is an essential part of combating the threat of drug trafficking, organised crime, fraud and the financing of terrorism. Financial Intelligence Unit AML / CFT Compliance Policy on Drugs Determined to address the problem of illicit drug use
  • Most serious organised crime is about money.
  • tackling money laundering is an essential part of combating the threat of drug trafficking, organised crime
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    This page explains a 5 year plan with the OAS and CICAD to combat drug trafficking and to fight crime involving drugs. It says that most crime is about money so if they combat money laundering, they can prevent more crime involving drugs.
Javier E

For Migrants, New Land of Opportunity Is Mexico - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • it is already cheaper than China for many industries serving the American market.
  • while Mexico’s economy is far from trouble free, its growth easily outpaced the giants of the hemisphere — the United States, Canada and Brazil — in 2011 and 2012, according to International Monetary Fund data, making the country more attractive to fortune seekers worldwide.
  • residency requests had grown by 10 percent since November, when a new law meant to streamline the process took effect. And they are coming from nearly everywhere.
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  • Spanish filmmakers, Japanese automotive executives and entrepreneurs from the United States and Latin America arrive practically daily — pursuing dreams, living well and frequently succeeding.
  • “There is this energy here, this feeling that anything can happen,” said Lesley Téllez, a Californian whose three-year-old business running culinary tours served hundreds of clients here last year. “It’s hard to find that in the U.S.”
  • more Americans have been added to the population of Mexico over the past few years than Mexicans have been added to the population of the United States, according to government data in both nations.
  • If the country of 112 million people can harness the energy of foreigners and newly educated Mexicans, become partners with the slew of American firms seeking alternatives to China, and get them to do more than just hire cheap labor, economists and officials say Mexico could finally become a more equal partner for the United States and the first-world country its presidents have promised for decades.
  • “There’s been an opening to the world in every way — culturally, socially and economically.”
  • global trends have been breaking Mexico’s way — or as President Enrique Peña Nieto often puts it, “the stars are aligning” — but there are plenty of obstacles threatening to scuttle Mexico’s moment.
  • The challenge, he said, is making sure that the growing interest in his country benefits all Mexicans, not just newcomers, investors and a privileged few.
  • Mexico has failed to live up to its economic potential before. “They really blew a moment in 1994 when their currency was at rock bottom and they’d just signed Nafta,”
  • The number of Americans legally living and working in Mexico grew to more than 70,000 in 2012 from 60,000 in 2009, a number that does not include many students and retirees, those on tourist visas or the roughly 350,000 American children who have arrived since 2005 with their Mexican parents. For DiscussionWhy did you decide to move to Mexico?Please share your story in the comments below.
  • closer ties with Mexico’s beloved and hated neighbor to the north, through immigration and trade, have made many Mexicans feel less insular. Millions of emigrants send money earned abroad to relatives in Mexico, who then rush out to Costco for more affordable food and electronics.
  • “Europe feels spiritually dead and so does the United States,” Mr. Quemada-Díez said. “You end up wanting something else.”
  • it was not a country that welcomed outsiders; the Constitution even prohibited non-Mexicans from directly owning land within 31 miles of the coast and 62 miles of the nation’s borders.
  • Some of the growth is appearing in border towns where foreign companies and binational families are common. American retirees are showing up in new developments from San Miguel de Allende to other sunny spots around Cancún and Puerto Vallarta. Government figures show that more Canadians are also joining their ranks.
  • More and more American consultants helping businesses move production from China are crisscrossing the region from San Luis Potosí to Guadalajara, where Silicon Valley veterans like Andy Kieffer, the founder of Agave Lab, are developing smartphone applications and financing new start-ups. In Guanajuato, Germans are moving in and car-pooling with Mexicans heading to a new Volkswagen factory that opened a year ago, and sushi can now be found at hotel breakfasts because of all the Japanese executives preparing for a new Honda plant opening nearby.
  • Mr. Pace, bearded and as slim as a Gauloises, said he moved to Mexico in 2011 because college graduates in France were struggling to find work. He has stayed here, he said, because the affordable quality of life beats living in Europe — and because Mexico offers more opportunity for entrepreneurship.
  • Some Mexicans and foreigners say Europeans are given special treatment because they are perceived to be of a higher class, a legacy of colonialism when lighter skin led to greater privileges. But like many other entrepreneurs from foreign lands, Mr. Pace and his partners are both benefiting from and helping to shape how Mexico works. Mr. Rodríguez, the former Interior Ministry official, Cuban by birth, said that foreigners had helped make Mexico City more socially liberal.
  • Many immigrants say Mexico is attractive because it feels disorderly, like a work in progress, with the blueprints of success, hierarchy and legality still being drawn. “Not everyone follows the rules here, so if you really want to make something happen you can make it happen,” said Ms. Téllez, 34, whose food business served more than 500 visitors last year. “No one is going to fault you for not following all the rules.”
  • compared with South Korea, where career options were limited by test scores and universities attended, Mexico allowed for more rapid advancement. As an intern at the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency here, he said he learned up close how Samsung and other Korean exporters worked. “Here,” he said, “the doors are more open for all Koreans.” He added that among his friends back home, learning Spanish was now second only to learning English.
  • There were 10 times as many Koreans living in Mexico in 2010 as in 2000.
  • Europe, dying; Mexico, coming to life. The United States, closed and materialistic; Mexico, open and creative. Perceptions are what drive migration worldwide, and in interviews with dozens of new arrivals to Mexico City — including architects, artists and entrepreneurs — it became clear that the country’s attractiveness extended beyond economics.
  • Artists like Marc Vigil, a well-known Spanish television director who moved to Mexico City in October, said that compared with Spain, Mexico was teeming with life and an eagerness to experiment. Like India in relation to England, Mexico has an audience that is larger and younger than the population of its former colonial overlord.
  • “In Spain, everything is a problem,” he said. “Here in Mexico, everything is possible. There is more work and in the attitude here, there is more of a spirit of struggle and creativity.”
  • “We are now more certain about the value of sharing certain things.”
  • He struggled to make sense of Mexico at first. Many foreigners do, complaining that the country is still a place of paradox, delays and promises never fulfilled for reasons never explained — a cultural clash that affects business of all kinds. “In California, there was one layer of subtext,” Mr. Quemada-Díez said. “Here there are 40 layers.”
  • Mexico has allowed dual nationality for more than a decade, and among the growing group of foreigners moving here are also young men and women born in Mexico to foreign parents, or who grew up abroad as the children of Mexicans. A globalized generation, they could live just about anywhere, but they are increasingly choosing Mexico.
  • Domingo Delaroiere, an architect whose father is French and mother is Mexican, said Mexico’s appeal — especially in the capital — was becoming harder to miss. When he came back here last year for a visit, after two and a half years in Paris, he said he was surprised. “Art, culture, fashion, architecture, design — the city was filling up with new spaces, things that are interesting, daring,” he said. He soon decided it was time to move. Compared with Mexico, he said, “Nothing is happening in Paris.”
Javier E

Insight-Batista's Brazilian Empire Was Sunk by More Than Hubris - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • things have gotten worse for Batista. Hit by mounting debt, a series of project delays and a crisis of confidence, his six publicly listed companies have suffered one of the most spectacular corporate meltdowns in recent history.
  • He pumped billions into the group's companies even as share prices plunged by as much as 90 percent.
  • His own fortune - the world's seventh-biggest last year, according to Forbes - has declined by more than $25 billion over the past 18 months.
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  • His empire also fell victim to the sudden end of both the global commodities boom and a wild exuberance for emerging markets - two forces that attracted investors to Batista's vision.
  • A former Brazilian finance minister, a former energy minister and a former chief justice of Brazil's supreme court joined the OGX board, bolstering the credibility of the polyglot, European-educated "Brazilianaire".
  • When Batista raised $4.11 billion in OGX's initial public offering in June 2008, interest in Brazil was feverish. Petrobras had just made giant offshore oil discoveries and Brazil was expected to become one of the world's top five oil producers by 2020.
  • Record demand from China drove up the price of Brazilian soybeans, iron ore, coffee, sugar and other commodities. Oil rose to an all-time high. EBX had also just sold most of its first listed company, iron ore producer MMX Mineração e Metálicos SA, to Anglo American Plc for $6.65 billion, enriching Batista and his investors.
  • A lot of the people who invested with Batista were not fools, and his rise and fall has followed that of Brazil.
  • DeGolyer & MacNaughton (D&G), a Dallas-based certification company, estimated OGX's potential resources at 10.8 billion barrels of oil and natural gas equivalent. That would have been enough - if OGX could figure out how to get it out of the ground - to supply all U.S. oil needs for more than a year and a half.
  • OGX estimated it would produce 1.4 million barrels a day by 2019, equivalent to 70 percent of Brazil's output, or about half of the output of Venezuela, a founding member of OPEC.
  • Already Brazil's richest man, Batista bragged he would surpass Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mexico's Carlos Slim to become the world's wealthiest person. Today he does not even make Forbes' top 100 list.
  • The consequences of Tubarão Azul's failure quickly spread because of the close links between EBX Group companies. EBX shipbuilder OSX Brazil SA was formed to build and lease a fleet of offshore oil vessels for OGX. Power producer MPX Energia SA is developing gas fields with OGX in Brazil's northeast. Port operator LLX Logística SA is home to OSX's shipyard, a place to store and process OGX oil and to ship Anglo American's iron ore.
  • Batista may also have been hurt by Brazil's efforts to help his and other companies weather the 2008 U.S. financial crisis and the world economic slowdown that followed. As Brazilian stocks, currency and bonds plunged, EBX stocks briefly fell to levels that were only broken this year.
  • EBX was one of the main beneficiaries of cheap capital that Brazil's government pumped into the economy to fight the downturn.
  • In Batista, the government was pursuing its then-fashionable strategy of creating "national champions" while making up for delays in its own infrastructure projects. It encouraged Batista to speed up just as Brazil's boom was about to end.
  • Batista and Brazil, though, have struggled since. As China slows, commodity prices are falling. In the last year Brazil's Bovespa stock index was the worst performer among the world's 28 largest indexes and the only one to fall in the period.
Javier E

Brazil Vote Highlights a Rift Linked to Economics - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • “We’re emerging from an election that has revealed a rift between economic classes,” said Murillo de Aragão, the president of Arko Advice, a political consulting firm in Brasília. “The level of tension is remarkably high, accentuating a loss of confidence in the president among big economic interests.”
  • few changes are expected in the popular antipoverty programs that have shielded poorer Brazilians from an economic slowdown, with the unemployment rate remaining low even as the economy went into recession this year.
  • But Ms. Rousseff has signaled other changes, including the appointment of a new finance minister. That could open the way for a shift away from policies that have created ire in Brazil’s business establishment, like price controls on fuel in a bid to keep inflation from accelerating.
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  • In addition to the class tension, the election also exposed geographic fissures, reflected by the strong showing of the centrist challenger Mr. Neves in São Paulo and states in southern Brazil, compared with Ms. Rousseff’s sweep of states in the north and northeast, where recipients of social welfare programs broadly backed the incumbent.
Javier E

Brazil's Red-Scare Nostalgia - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • According to a recent poll by Datafolha, more Brazilians identify with right-wing ideas, like looser gun restrictions, than they did last year. Although 58 percent of Brazilians believe that poverty relates to a lack of opportunities, 37 percent insist that laziness is the main cause of it. This was a major point of debate during the election: One side argued for meritocracy and less government aid; the other, for more public spending to reduce inequality.
  • Corruption is not what the right wing fears most. Just as in the ’60s, the Brazilian middle and upper classes are intensely afraid of the Communist threat.
  • The truth is that Ms. Rousseff’s Workers Party has been in power for more than 11 years and has so far failed to establish even a hint of the dreaded dictatorship of the proletariat. On the contrary: The once radical party has come to look increasingly centrist, adopting many of the practices of its neoliberal rivals. It has employed orthodox economic policies in order to maintain market stability; it hasn’t nationalized any assets but rather favored the privatization of ports, highways and airports; and Ms. Rousseff’s new ministers include an ally of agribusiness and nemesis of environmentalists, Katia Abreu, as agriculture minister, and a fiscally conservative banker, Joaquim Levy, as finance minister. This year, the profits of Brazilian private banks increased 26.9 percent. According to the “Top 1,000 World Banks” survey, Brazil is ranked seventh in banking profits.
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  • In spite of that, lots of people keep on fearing the Communist boogeymen and are ready to take action on this matter, either through street rallies, pleas to the army, petitions to the United States or even by moving out of the country. “Brazilian people are feeling hopeless,” said an actor at an event a while ago. “Every day I see people wanting to move to Miami.”
Javier E

Mexican Leader Offers Asset Disclosure - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • President Enrique Peña Nieto said Wednesday that he would disclose details of his assets, a day after his wife promised to give up an opulent new home in one of this city’s most expensive neighborhoods.
  • On Tuesday night, Mexico’s first lady, Angélica Rivera, a former soap opera star, attempted to put to rest suspicions about how she had financed the purchase of her sumptuous home. She said she earned $10 million in 2010, the year her contract with the Mexican television network Televisa ended — more than enough to pay for the property.
  • Ms. Rivera failed to address a possible conflict of interest at the center of the criticism. She signed a contract to buy the 15,000-square-foot house from a subsidiary of a company that won multimillion-dollar contracts from the State of Mexico, the populous state surrounding the capital, while Mr. Peña Nieto was its governor.
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  • According to the government’s investigation, the students were arrested by police officers in the town of Iguala, in the southwestern state of Guerrero, and handed over to the local drug gang on the orders of the mayor, José Luis Abarca, on the night of Sept. 26.
  • Investigators say they believe the students were killed that night and their bodies burned. But the students’ families have refused to believe the government’s version, and daily protests, led by demonstrators bearing pictures of the missing, are a reminder of the government’s failure to improve security and its inability to tackle corruption.
luckangeloja

Antigua and Barbuda - 0 views

  • An increase in drug trafficking, a large financial sector, and a growing internet gaming industry likewise add to its susceptibility. Antigua and Barbuda’s Office of National Drug Control and Money Laundering Policy (ONDCP) continues to strive to eradicate transnational drug trafficking, money laundering, and the financing of terrorism through a three-pronged approach in the areas of financial intelligence and investigation, AML/CFT compliance, and counternarcotics operations. The ONDCP’s analysis in 2013 shows that criminals exploit the financial system as financial institutions often fail to apply sufficiently rigorous due diligence investigation to suspicious transactions.
  • The Government of Antigua and Barbuda receives approximately $3,120,000 per year from license fees and other charges related to the internet gaming industry.
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    This article discussed the control that the Office at National Drug Control and Money Laundering Policy (ONDCP) of Antigua and Barbuda has over problems involving drugs and money laundering. From this article, I was able to take away that the problems involving online and non-online gaming takes away from the focus of drug trafficking, which is a major problem in this country.
g-dragon

Which Asian Nations Were Never Colonized by Europe? - 0 views

  • Between the 16th and 20th centuries, various European nations set out to conquer the world and take all of its wealth.
  • Rather than being colonized, Japan became an imperial power in its own right.
  • uncomfortable position between the French imperial possessions of French Indochina (now Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) to the east, and British Burma (now Myanmar) to the west
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  • managed to fend off both the French and the British through skillful diplomacy. He adopted many European customs and was intensely interested in European technologies. He also played the British and French off of one another, preserving most of Siam's territory and its independence.
  • The Ottoman Empire was too large, powerful, and complex for any one European power to simply annex it outright.
  • the European powers peeled off its territories in northern Africa and southeast Europe by seizing them directly or by encouraging and supplying local independence movements.
  • the Ottoman government or Sublime Porte had to borrow money from European banks to finance its operations. When it was unable to repay the money it owed to the London and Paris-based banks, they took control of the Ottoman revenue system, seriously infringing on the Porte's sovereignty. Foreign interests also invested heavily in railroad, port, and infrastructure projects, giving them ever more power within the tottering empire. The Ottoman Empire remained self-governing until it fell after World War I, but foreign banks and investors wielded an inordinate amount of power there.
  • Like the Ottoman Empire, Qing China was too large for any single European power to simply grab. Instead, Britain and France got a foothold through trade
  • Both Great Britain and Russia hoped to seize Afghanistan as part of their "Great Game" - a competition for land and influence in Central Asia. However, the Afghans had other ideas; they famously "don't like foreigners with guns in their country,
  • They slaughtered or captured an entire British army
  • , that gave Britain control of Afghanistan's foreign relations,
  • This shielded British India from Russian expansionism while leaving Afghanistan more or less independent.
  • Like Afghanistan, the British and Russians considered Persia an important piece in the Great Game
  • Russia nibbled away at northern Persian territory
  • Britain extended its influence into the eastern Persian Balochistan region
  • Like the Ottomans, the Qajar rulers of Persia had borrowed money from European banks for projects like railroads and other infrastructure improvements, and could not pay back the money.  Britain and Russia agreed without consulting the Persian government that they would split the revenues from Persian customs, fisheries, and other industries to amortize the debts. Persia never became a formal colony, but it temporarily lost control of its revenue stream and much of its territory - a source of bitterness to this
  • Nepal, Bhutan, Korea, Mongolia, and the Middle Eastern protectorates:
  • Nepal lost about one-third of its territory to the British East India Company's
  • However, the Gurkhas fought so well and the land was so rugged that the British decided to leave Nepal alone as a buffer state for British India. The British also began to recruit Gurkhas for their colonial army.
  • Bhutan, another Himalayan kingdom, also faced invasion by the British East India Company but managed to retain its sovereignty.
  • they relinquished the land in return for a tribute of five horses and the right to harvest timber on Bhutanese soil. Bhutan and Britain regularly squabbled over their borders until 1947, when the British pulled out of India, but Bhutan's sovereignty was never seriously threatened.
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    A list of Asian nations that the Europeans were unable to colonize and why. This shows us the strengh that Europe gained and had especially during the expansion era. We also see how the Ottoman Empire fell and patterns with other nations.
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