Americas-MOAS

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his efforts to end a 52-year-old war with Marxist guerrillas, a surprise choice and a show of support days after voters rejected a peace deal he signed with the rebels.

Santos has promised to revive the plan even though Colombians narrowly rejected it in a referendum on Sunday.

The fact that a majority of the voters said ‘No’ to the peace accord does not necessarily mean that the peace process is dead.”

And we can already predict with absolute certainty that Daniel Ortega will be elected president. Again.

Since coming to power, the former Marxist rebel’s ideology has taken an idiosyncratic twist, blending elements of capitalism, populism, new age spirituality and, above all, the tendencies of an autocrat whose paramount objective is to remain in power

Next week’s election will mark the seventh time he runs for president, after having ruled the country from 1979 to 1985 as head of the junta.

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.

“That woman is the one who rules in the country. She is powerful,” said fruit vendor Roberto Mayorga. “If ‘the man’ dies, she’ll be there. She has been his shadow. There is nobody who can keep her from being next.”

She is said to run Cabinet meetings and many Nicaraguans credit her for social programs that have helped keep the ruling Sandinista party’s popularity ratings high.

And she’s equally reviled by government opponents, who see her presence on the ticket as another step in the 70-year-old Ortega’s push to maintain the couple’s grip on power in a country with a long and uncomfortable history of dynastic families.

“The election is a farce, a mega-fraude is taking place and we cannot legitimize it."

In July, he banned 28 deputies of the Independent Liberal Party from running in the elections, including its leading presidential candidate, Eduardo Montealegre

In August, Ortega chose his wife, Rosario Murillo, for the vice-presidential ticket. “They have created a dynastic dictatorship …

Antiguan ex-president of UN general assembly faces $1m corruption charges

A former president of the United Nations general assembly turned the world body into a “platform for profit” by accepting over $1m in bribes and a trip to New Orleans from a billionaire Chinese real estate mogul and other businesspeople to pave the way for lucrative investments, a prosecutor charged on Tuesday

John Ashe, a former UN ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who served in the largely ceremonial post from September 2013 to September 2014, faces conspiracy- and bribery-related charges along with five others, including Francis Lorenzo, a deputy UN ambassador from the Dominican Republic who lives in the Bronx.

PM recommits to ending corruption in Antigua-Barbuda

he was president of the UN General Assembly, have “cast a pall of gloom over all of us and neighbouring Caribbean countries”, in a national broadcast on Sunday Prime Minister Gaston Browne promised to strengthen the structures and machinery of good governance in his country and put an end to all corrupt practices.

The implication of members of the former United Progressive Party (UPP) government, including the former prime minister, Baldwin Spencer, in bribery, money laundering and other corruption charges, has also caused us great alarm,” Browne said.

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.

NECOCLI, Colombia — As the Colombian government nears a deal to end its 50-year conflict with FARC guerrillas, it is intensifying another war in the jungles here along the Caribbean coast, the stronghold of a shadowy drug organization known as Clan Úsuga.

Both the government and the traffickers know that a big share of Colombia’s billion-dollar cocaine trade will be up for grabs if FARC — whose rebellion runs on drug profits — goes out of business. Some of its 7,000 battle-hardened fighters may be looking for new jobs. Clan Úsuga will be hiring.

That $10 billion program, funded by Congress, is considered by many Republicans and Democrats to be one of the most successful U.S. foreign policy achievements of the past generation, forcing FARC to the negotiating table after a half-century of violence that has left more than 220,000 dead.

"I will keep seeking peace until the last minute of my term," said Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, after voters rejected his peace deal with the left-wing Farc rebels.

The deal aimed to put an end to more than five decades of conflict, which left an estimated 260,000 people dead and millions internally displaced.

Less than a decade ago, while serving as defence minister, he authorised the controversial bombing of a Farc camp in Ecuador without informing the neighbouring country.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc, after the initials in Spanish) are Colombia's largest rebel group.

They were founded in 1964 as the armed wing of the Communist Party and follow a Marxist-Leninist ideology.

They are controlled by the Secretariat, a group of less than a dozen top commanders who devise the overarching strategy of the Farc.

In a world dominated by horrific forever wars, Colombia's agreement with the Farc guerrilla movement stands out as an extraordinary moment for this country, and a rare affirmation of the power of peace talks.

"What we have seen in Colombia is an example that if you work hard at it, with a lot of international support, you can get something worthwhile," he said, while a Colombian choir rehearsed Beethoven's Ode to Joy on the edge of the picturesque harbour.

Every conflict is different, but every peace process throws up similar challenges and controversies.

President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, days after Colombia rejected a peace deal he pursued.

Then on Friday, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia won the peace prize for his efforts to bring the country’s “civil war to an end” — only days after his country rejected the peace deal in a referendum.

Share The International Press Institute (IPI) is deeply alarmed to hear that the editors of the Antiguan investigative news site Caribarena have left Antigua and Barbuda reportedly due to fear for their family's safety.

they and their children had been threatened and harassed and their home vandalised following the publication of articles alleging corruption among high-ranking Antiguan politicians and public figures.

Moreover, a series of alleged cyberattacks that began on July 19th have shut down Caribarena's website indefinitely.

“Colombians will have two options, between those who prefer an end to the war and those who want a war without end,” Mr. Santos said after the results were made public. His main challenger, Óscar Iván Zuluaga, a former treasury minister, received 29 percent of the vote, with more than 99 percent of polling stations counted, officials said. Mr. Santos received slightly more than 25 percent in the field of five candidates.

Mr. Santos, 62, had cast himself as the peace candidate and urged voters to empower him to finish talks he started in 2012 with the rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Mr. Zuluaga, 55, an ally of the right-wing former president, Álvaro Uribe, has been a harsh critic of the talks and could break them off if he becomes president.Colombia, a country of 47 million people, is one of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America and has received billions of dollars in American aid in recent years to combat drug trafficking and guerrilla groups.

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.