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OPINION AND ANALYSISEDITORIAL: Central America Elections Prove We Are Stuck in the Past (GT/NI)10 November 2011 Middle East North Africa - Financial Network / The Tico Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
Other consequences include undermining citizen confidence in the ability of the state to carry out all of its functions effectively and in representation of the rights of all citizens. ... After more than 20 years of elections, it is distressing that electoral institutions remain so weak in Nicaragua." While Sandinistas celebrated, an EU elections observation team blasted the lack of transparency in the electoral process. Ethics and Transparency called the Nicaraguan elections a failure. Say hello to the new Ortega Dynasty. Oppenheimer was right: We are obsessed with the past. Here's a little taste of the present: After Haiti, Nicaragua is the poorest country in the hemisphere. It ranks 112th on the U.N.'s Human Development Index. Its per capita gross national income -- a measure of all the products and services a country generates in a year, plus its income from abroad -- is $1,010. Along with Guatemala, its infant mortality rate is among the highest in the region. In Guatemala, only 1.5 percent of crimes reported to the Attorney General's office reached sentencing in 2009, according to the United Nations Development Program. In the first seven months of this year, 42 murders a week were committed in Guatemala City. Uncontrolled drug and human trafficking is wreaking havoc on the country, particularly in the northern departments near the border with Mexico. More than 12 percent of Guatemalans live below the international poverty line, earning less than $1.25 a day. If there is a way out of this quagmire, it's through investment in human development, education and access to better health care services. It requires political leaders to respect the rights of citizens. And it takes a commitment to creating a better future for our children. What we do not need are backwards-thinking ghosts from a past we would rather forget. Source: [www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?storyid=%7B4bc91f8f-04a4-4a13-9148-0ae5dfe7defb%7D] Return to Contents Operation Cancun Fugitive Lands in Mexico To Buy Airline (US/MX)10 November 2011 APTN National News Michael Chamas, the alleged “banker” for a Mohawk-based marijuana smuggling ring, is a wanted man in Canada, but recent RCMP efforts to nab him internationally have not slowed his globe-trotting ways. Chamas said in a recent interview with APTN National News that RCMP investigators contacted Lebanese authorities through Interpol as part of their efforts to track him down. He said Lebanese authorities contacted his family trying to glean information about his movements. “They contacted uncles, they contacted family members, they contacted (my) father and mother,” said Chamas. “They went to the most sacred, my family, and now they are going to have to answer to that.” Chamas, however, said he’s unfazed by the RCMP’s efforts to catch him and told APTN National News he travelled from Dubai to Mexico City this week to shore up his bid to buy Mexicana, Mexico’s oldest airline which is currently in bankruptcy protection. According to Mexican media reports, Chamas is now in the middle of a national spectacle around the future of Mexicana which was punctured this week with protests by pilots and airline employees followed by arrests. There were also reports of threats aimed at pushing investors out of the running for the airline’s restructuring. Chamas said he is using a “diplomatic passport” from a country he wouldn’t name to travel between Dubai, Mexico and Switzerland. “I never committed any crime, I never committed any fraud,” said Chamas in a phone interview he said was from Amsterdam where he had recently landed on a flight from Mexico. “I did not touch drugs, I did not touch arms.” A Quebec judge issued a warrant for Chamas’ arrest in October after he failed to show up for a trial date. He is facing nine weapons charges stemming from a March 26, 2008, search of his house where police found two Arizona-bought handguns and ammunition. The raid was part of Operation Cancun, a two year-long police investigation into a drug smuggling organization that moved Quebec-grown marijuana across the Canada-U.S. border through Akwesasne and onto New York City. Akwesasne, a Mohawk community about 120 kilometers west of Montreal, straddles both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. RCMP investigators believe that individuals linked to the drug-smuggling network transferred money to some of Chamas’ companies. Police documents referred to him as the “banker” for the smuggling organization. Chamas denies he has anything to do with laundering drug money. Chamas’ former assistant, a Mohawk woman named Juanita Cree, says the police found the guns in his home because she planted them there at the suggestion of a Surete du Quebec officer. She claims the officer said planting evidence was the only way to nail guys like Chamas who are usually too slick to get caught. Cree says she was also an informer for the SQ in Kanesatake, the Mohawk community at the center of the Oka crisis, and did consulting work on Aboriginal community policing for the RCMP from 1994 to 2000. Cree says she came forward with her story because she wanted to come clean on her actions. The RCMP and the SQ said they would not comment on Cree’s allegations. Chamas claims he is being hounded by the RCMP because they believe he is an international money launderer with links to a foreign entity trying to infiltrate Canada. He says that if detained abroad at the request of Canadian authorities, he will claim political asylum. Reports from Mexico indicated Chamas was in the country this week but his bid to refinance Mexicana airline hit a major roadblock Wednesday. Federal authorities overseeing the company’s restructuring said he did not do enough to prove he had the capital for the deal, the El Economista reported. Chamas was required to prove he had $400 million US on hand to inject into Mexicana. . . . . Source: [aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/11/10/operation-cancun-fugitive-lands-in-mexico-to-buy-airline/] Return to Contents Directory: gifiles -> attach -> 136 attach -> Adaptability Sustainment attach -> Pop-up 1 ("C" Chechnya) Header Text: Emir of the Caucasus Emirate Doku Umarov Image attach -> Russia and Islam are not Separate attach -> Chapter 13: The Northern Caucasus attach -> Russia 100209 Basic Political Developments attach -> The evolution attach -> The devolution 136 -> Institute for the study of violent groups 136 -> How the World will Change in the Next 30 Years: World Experts Talk about Global Trends and Forces that will Sweep the 21 Download 193.33 Kb. Share with your friends:
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