The recent news that Venezuela will be providing Iran with 1 million hectares of arable land for farming draws further concern from the security circles concerned about the Islamic Republic’s growing influence in the Western Hemisphere. That follows a rapidly growing energy collaboration between Caracas and Tehran following the Biden administration’s decision to lift oil […]
Obama delivers last SOTU. Paris hosts monetary policy conference. Economic development explored in Latin America. EU commission begins investigation. Former comedian becomes president.
Paul Nash of the Foreign Policy Association spoke with director Joey Boink about “Burden of Peace,” the challenges of he faced while filming in one of the world’s more dangerous countries, and human rights in Guatemala.
Dear Leader Dreams of Sushi By Adam Johnson GQ Kenji Fujimoto, an alias, was Kim Jong-Il’s sushi chef and sidekick for eleven years. Once he finally escaped, he became one of the biggest intelligence assets for the Japanese intelligence services on the Kim family. Johnson interviews him to dig up some wild stories about the […]
In some countries, political will is not enough. This is because they don’t have the institutions to implement whatever anti-corruption political will there might be. Fighting corruption requires investigations, arrests, prosecutions, and incarceration in a prison with guards that can’t be paid off. Some countries lack some or all of these things. Guatemala poses an […]
Last week, the official drug czar of Guatemala as well as the chief of national police were arrested for allegedly leading a police ring that stole cocaine from drug traffickers. Now that is deep-rooted corruption. Guatemala is caught in a vicious cycle. On one side, the police and security forces have become involved in organized […]
The former president of Guatemala, Alfonso Portillo, has been charged with money-laundering in the United States, whose banks he had been using to allegedly embezzle from the Guatemalan government. This is an admirable example of an international effort to fight otherwise domestic corruption.
With the holidays coming up and getting the 2009 Year in Review together, we have been a bit light on posting. However here are some links to a few of the human rights stories from this past week. Detained in Iran, Russia, and China Last week NPR reported on three human rights stories from Iran, […]