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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.

“It really would do the workers a good deal of benefit if the major trade unions could see a difference between their trade union activities and any political interest they may have.

According to Grant, it could be uncomfortable for those members of the ABWU who are not necessarily supporters of the UPP, to hear comments coming from the UPP platform that they may not agree with.

They think there are another 8,500 civilians who make up the Farc's support network.

Inspired by the Cuban revolution in the 1950s, they demanded more rights and control over the land.

No, Colombia went through a 10-year civil war before the Farc were even founded.

The man who would later become the top leader of the Farc, Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, had fought in La Violencia.

Most of their fighters are from poor, rural communities and include both men and women of all ages.

Colombia is one of the main producers of cocaine and the rebels get a large part of their income from drug trafficking or levying "taxes" on those who do.

The Lindquist report named Sir Ronald as a “person of interest” in this alleged fraud which cost Antigua $14 million (£9.3 million) between 1997 and 2006.

Mr Lindquist found that the monthly surplus of $203,594 – amounting to 40 per cent of Antigua’s total revenue from petrol sales tax - was shared between various beneficiaries, apparently including Sir Ronald. The architect of the alleged fraud was the late Bruce Rappaport, a S

A fax dated 28 November 1997 appears to show that Rappaport opened an account with the Bank of Bermuda called the “IHI Debt Settlement Co Account”.

The document says that “funds received monthly from the Government of Antigua” amounting to $403,334 were to be used to repay IHI to the tune of $199,74

Including funds that were channelled through Bellwood Services – a Panamanian company owned by Sir Ronald until 1996 – the Lindquist report says that he appeared to receive a total of $1,398,492 (£933,000).

But on 29 June 2015, Antigua’s police commissioner wrote to Sir Ronald’s lawyers saying this should never have happened, adding: “I hereby confirm that the Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda has no interest in interviewing Sir Ronald Sanders and that there are no current or pending investigations that involve him in any way.”

Antigua's current government has described the Lindquist report as “riddled with hearsay, rumour and conjecture” and the result of a “partisan witch-hunt” launched by a previous administration. Sir Ronald has never been shown the report.

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

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.

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.

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. 

Several Latin American leaders would like to succeed him, but no one meets the necessary conditions: Cuba's blessing, a fat wallet, a country that carries enough demographic, political and economic weight, potent charisma, a willingness to take almost limitless risks, and sufficient autocratic control to allow him or her to devote major time to permanent revolution away from home.

Cuba has made Venezuela into its foreign-policy proxy, the Castro brothers need Caracas to remain the capital of the movement for it to retain any vitality. While Cuba is dependent on the roughly 100,000 barrels of heavily subsidized oil Chávez's regime supplies to Cuba daily, the island nation has a grip on Venezuela's intelligence apparatus and social programs. Chávez himself acknowledged last year that there are almost 45,000 Cuban "workers" manning many of his programs, though other sources speak of an even larger number. This strong connection allows Cuba to exercise a vicarious influence over many countries in the region. Caracas's clout in Latin America stems from Petrocaribe, a mechanism for helping Caribbean and Central American countries purchase cheap oil, and ALBA, an ideological alliance that promotes "21st century socialism."

Critical in all of this is the money at Maduro's disposal. The sales of PDVSA, the state-owned oil cash cow, amounted to $124.7 billion in 2011, of which one-fifth went to the state in the form of taxes and royalties, and another fourth was channeled directly into a panoply of social programs. This kind of management makes for very bad economics, a reason why the company needs to resort to debt to fund its basic capital expenditures, and for decreasing productivity,

China has helped mitigate the impact. The China Development Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China have lent Caracas $38 billion to fund some social programs, a bit of infrastructure spending, and purchases of Chinese products and services. Another $40 billion has been promised to fund part of the capital expenditures needed to maintain the flow of oil committed to Beijing.

Indian Muslims, whether Pathans from the north-west or Tamils from the south, were all seen by Arabs as “Hindis”

there is little doubt that some Indian ruler, emulating his forerunners, would have done so.

the dismantling of existing political institutions, the fomenting of communal division and systematic political discrimination with a view to maintaining British domination.

Later, in 1857, the sight of Hindu and Muslim soldiers rebelling together,

As early as 1859, the then British governor of Bombay, Lord Elphinstone, advised London that “Divide et impera was the old Roman maxim, and it should be ours”.

The effort to understand ethnic, religious, sectarian and caste differences among Britain’s subjects inevitably became an exercise in defining, dividing and perpetuating these differences.

As late as 1920, under the Montagu-Chelmsford “reforms”, Indian representatives on the councils – elected by a franchise so restricted and selective that only one in 250 Indians had the right to vote

many other kinds of social strife were labelled as religious due to the colonists’ orientalist assumption that religion was the fundamental division in Indian society.

the creation and perpetuation of Hindu–Muslim antagonism was the most significant accomplishment of British imperial policy

The British ran government, tax collection, and administered what passed for justice.

Indians were excluded from all of these functions.

entire new communities were created by people who had not consciously thought of themselves as particularly different from others around them.

Democracy, in other words, had to be prised from the reluctant grasp of the British by Indian nationalists.

British law had to be imposed upon an older and more complex civilisation with its own legal culture

only three cases can be found of Englishmen executed for murdering Indians, while the murders of thousands more at British hands went unpunished.

In his notorious 1835 Minute on Education, Lord Macaulay articulated the classic reason for teaching English, but only to a small minority of Indians

The language was taught to a few to serve as intermediaries between the rulers and the ruled

But the facts are even more damning.

the third-class compartments, with their wooden benches and total absence of amenities, into which Indians were herded, attracted horrified comment even at the time

their Indian mechanics became so adept that in 1878 they started designing and building their own locomotives.

today rely extensively on Indian technical expertise, provided to them by Rites, a subsidiary of the Indian Railways.

The process of colonial rule in India meant economic exploitation and ruin to millions, the destruction of thriving industries, the systematic denial of opportunities to compete, the elimination of indigenous institutions of governance, the transformation of lifestyles and patterns of living that had flourished since time immemorial, and the obliteration of the most precious possessions of the colonised, their identities and their self-respect.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, British shopkeepers tried to pass off shoddy English-made textiles as Indian in order to charge higher prices for them.

there is no earthly reason why this could not again have been the case, if its resources had not been drained away by the British.

Today Indians cannot live without the railways;

As I’ve often argued, you don’t need to seek revenge upon history. History is its own revenge.