Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for October 2016

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Panama: New tax-avoidance laws

The WSJ reports that Panama Signs Up to International Tax Avoidance Agreement

The move signals a change of approach for the Central American financial center, and comes ahead of a July 2017 deadline set by the Group of 20 largest economies for compliance with international rules on sharing tax information.

In signing up to the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Tax Matters, the Panamanian government has committed to provide information to the other 104 signatories, which would allow them to identify individuals who are using shell companies or offshore accounts in the country to avoid paying tax.

As you may recall, six months ago the Panama Papers Revealed Clinton’s Kremlin Connection, John Podesta’s lobbying firm.

Prior Panama Papers posts here.

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Project Veritas: Money from Belize

What the video is about (emphasis added)

In the effort to prove the credibility of the undercover donor featured in the videos and to keep the investigation going, Project Veritas Action made the decision to donate twenty thousand dollars to Robert Creamer’s effort. Project Veritas Action had determined that the benefit of this investigation outweighed the cost. And it did. In an unexpected twist, AUFC president Brad Woodhouse, the recipient of the $20,000, heard that Project Veritas Action was releasing undercover videos exposing AUFC’s activities. He told a journalist that AUFC was going to return the twenty thousand dollars. He said it was because they were concerned that it might have been an illegal foreign donation. Project Veritas Action was pleased but wondered why that hadn’t been a problem for the month that they had the money.

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Now waiting for the results

Compare and contrast New Jersey and Florida voting protocols,

In Florida the information on your voter registration card and ID have to match, you are issued a 12″ printout (similar to a cash register receipt) showing your name, date of birth and address which you then must confirm, and that is placed on a clear plastic pocket on the outside of a folder. The paper ballots (2 pages printed on both sides) go in the inside of the folder, and the ballot number and voter number must in turn match the same number on the printout.

From there you are directed to the rooms with the voting booths. All the booths in the first room were occupied, so we were directed to the second room.

Once in your booth, you fill in the ballot in black ballpoint pen ink, and then head to another area with the machine. A worker explains how to enter the ballot into the machine, he removes the printout ticket, you again confirm the ballot and voter number, you feed the ballot into the slot, it enter the information electronically, you leave the empty folder in a bin, and you’re done.

Read my report as we are Now waiting for the results.



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Colombia: And now, “narco torpedoes”

InSight Crime reports on sailboats transporting cocaine by towing packages tied with dead weights, Why Colombia Traffickers Love High-Tech ‘Narco Torpedoes’.

As the article points out, reports of trafficking by underwater towing have been circulating for several years, in addition to submarines used since the 1990s and the ever-present speedboats. Here’s their graphic (click to go to article):

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Mexico: 50,000 Haitians waiting to get into the U.S.

Elena Toledo reports that

Authorities ask Mexican solidarity towards Haitian immigrants (Sin Embargo)

Nearly 50,000 Haitian immigrants have been stranded in Brazil, and in the coming months will pass through Mexico in order to reach the United States.

President of Mexico’s National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH) Luis Raul Gonzalez said that the flow of Haitian immigrants to Mexico has become an issue over recent months as the increase has accelerated.

“The flow of people has increased rapidly in transit to the United States,” Gonzalez said at a news conference Monday.

The transit is from Brazil into Mexico into the U.S., and it’s getting so out of hand that Mexicans are starting to ask for a wall on the country’s southern border.

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Chile: Local elections go to Chile Vamos

Silvio Canto points out that Chile goes right on the anniversary of Allende’s election.

Reuters:

With over 99 percent of results counted on Sunday night in local elections, the right-leaning Chile Vamos pact emerged as the big winner. It won slightly more votes than President Michelle Bachelet’s left-leaning Nueva Mayoria coalition, despite the left going into the vote with a massive incumbent advantage.

Conservative candidates won the majority of key swing cities, including central Santiago, a municipality inside the capital that is considered an electoral bellwether.
. . .
The results should benefit Pinera, a conservative politician and businessman who served as president from 2010 to 2014 between Bachelet’s two terms and is widely expected to seek a return to office.

WSJ:

The election is the latest setback for Latin America’s left following the end of high commodity prices that drove economic growth for a decade. In August, former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was ousted in an impeachment trial. Bolivian President Evo Morales’ proposal to change the constitution to run for another term was rejected in a referendum. Late last year, Argentine voters elected business-friendly President Mauricio Macri to overhaul his predecessor’s populist policies.

Or, as Bloomberg put it, Chile Voters Give Government a Bloody Nose and Peso a Boost

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Venezuela: Pope Francis intervenes

Following the talk of impeachment after the government cancelled the recall vote, Nicolás Maduro made an unscheduled stop by the Vatican, where Pope Francis advised Maduro to hold talks with the opposition (emphasis added),

In a statement, the Vatican said the pope received Mr. Maduro “within the framework of the worrisome, political, social and economic situation that the country is going through.”

“The Pope thus invited the President to undertake with courage the path of sincere and constructive dialogue, to alleviate the suffering of the people,” the statement added. Mr. Maduro, in a message posted on his official Twitter account, called it an “excellent private meeting with deep spirituality.”

A spokesman for Mr. Maduro and Jesus Torrealba, head of the Democratic Unity Roundtable, a coalition of opposition parties known as MUD, said the talks would begin Sunday on Margarita Island under the mediation of the Vatican and the Union of South American States, known as Unasur.

This latest political theater will work to Maduro’s advantage:

  1. The pressure is now on the opposition, again.
  2. It provides the regime an opportunity to defuse unrest.
  3. The Pope has already given Maduro legitimacy, with an added a special frisson of “consulting to a Higher Power” for the gullible, by receiving him.
  4. The Catholic Church gives its imprimatur to the talks by acting as mediator.
  5. The Church-mediated talks are a very important distraction from the country’s ruinous state, and will change nothing.
  6. In the immediate future, it waters down the impact of the protests scheduled for tomorrow.
  7. More importantly, as the article mentions, “Indeed, the announcement, which surprised some of the country’s top opposition leaders, many of whom apparently weren’t included in the talks, risks a split in the antigovernment alliance.”

Indeed, the Vatican meeting and the upcoming talks serve the only purpose of providing Maduro with a screen to which hide his denial of democracy,   to borrow the WaPo’s phrase.

The Washington Post editorial board recommends instead that the United States should be coordinating tough international action. I estimate a zero chance of that.

Related:
Caracas Chronicles translated the Vatican Communiqué

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Colombia: Uribe in Miami “Colombia could become the next Venezuela”

Alvaro Uribe explained his opposition to the so-called “peace agreement” at a conference in Doral yesterday,

Uribe said that if the accords prevailed without substantive changes they could turn Colombia into another Venezuela, a reference to the government of leftist President Nicolás Maduro, perceived as a friend of Cuba and increasingly undemocratic. Maduro replaced President Hugo Chávez, who established an alliance with Havana, became friendly with FARC and set Venezuela on a path toward socialism.

“This is an agreement that opens up the possibility of Colombia opening the doors to ‘Castro-chavismo,’” Uribe told South Florida Colombians at Mondongo’s restaurant, 3500 NW 87th Ave., Doral. “The accords would resolve the Venezuelan problem, but it would create a similar one in Colombia.”

. . .

Uribe then launched into a detailed explanation of why he opposed the accords.

First, he said, FARC’s promises cannot be trusted because it is not merely a revolutionary group, but a major drug cartel.

“The FARC became the first narco-terrorist cartel in the world and the world’s first cocaine cartel,” Uribe said.

“Days before the referendum, FARC reaffirmed its Marxist-Leninist platform and expressed that the president of Colombia had recognized their insurgency and the accords were a recognition of the triumph they had obtained,” Uribe said.

As a result, he added, FARC cannot be a reliable partner in the peace agreement, one that would foster democracy and economic growth.

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