Arrest warrants issued for founders of Panama Papers firm: report

Yahoo – AFP, October 20, 2020 

Mossack Fonseca's founders, suspected of tax evasion and associating
with criminals, will be arrested if they enter the EU, according to reports

Germany has issued international arrest warrants for the two founders of the firm at the centre of the tax haven scandal exposed by the Panama Papers data leak, German media reported. 

Mossack Fonseca founders Juergen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca, suspected of tax evasion and associating with criminals, will be arrested if they enter the European Union, German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported late Monday. 

A spokesman for the Cologne public prosecutor's office confirmed that two international arrest warrants had been issued in connection with ongoing investigations, but did not identify those involved. 

Mossack and Fonesca hold Panamanian passports and are currently in the Caribbean archipelago, which does not have any extradition treaties, the newspaper said. 

However investigators hope that Mossack, who has family in Germany, may surrender to officials in order to negotiate a reduced sentence and avoid US charges. 

The Panama Papers, a massive data leak in April 2016, exposed widespread tax avoidance and evasion using complex structures of offshore shell companies and caused an international outcry. 

At least 150 investigations have been opened in 79 countries to examine potential tax evasion or money laundering, according to the American Center for Public Integrity. 

In 2018, Mossack Fonseca said it would close due to "irreparable damage" to its reputation. Panama's government meanwhile continues to petition the international community to remove it from several tax haven blacklists.

Spain, France, Germany give Venezuela's Maduro ultimatum

Yahoo – AFP, 26 January 2019

International pressure is growing on Maduro, right, after National Assembly head
Juan Guaido declared himself acting president

Spain, France and Germany on Saturday gave embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro an ultimatum, saying they would recognise opposition leader Juan Guaido as president unless he calls elections within eight days.

The ultimatum comes as international pressure mounts on the Maduro regime to agree a new vote, with the United States, Canada and major South American players already recognising Guaido, who proclaimed himself acting president of Venezuela during massive street rallies this week.

After four years of economic pain that has left Venezuelans short of food and medicine and driven more than two million to flee, Guaido is trying to oust Maduro following controversial elections that saw the socialist leader sworn in for a second term.

"If within eight days there are no fair, free and transparent elections called in Venezuela, Spain will recognise Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president" so that he himself can call such polls, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a televised announcement.

French President Emmanuel Macron followed suit in a tweet, saying "the Venezuelan people must be able to freely decide on their future," as did German government spokeswoman Martina Fietz.

The coordinated announcements are the most explicit yet from EU countries as the 28-member bloc struggles to draft a joint statement with regards to its position on the crisis in Venezuela.

'Not looking to impose'

Spain had wanted the EU to take a tough line on Maduro by calling for immediate elections, failing which the bloc as a whole would recognise Guaido, the 35-year-old head of Venezuela's National Assembly.

But countries like Austria, Greece and Portugal are much more reluctant.

In fact Greece's ruling party Syriza has publicly backed Maduro, with party secretary Panos Skourletis voicing "full support and solidarity" to what to he called "the legal president."

President Donald Trump's administration has spearheaded the international pressure on Maduro, who accuses Washington of being behind an attempted "coup," by declaring his regime "illegitimate."

On Saturday at a UN Security Council meeting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will urge members to recognise Guaido as interim president, the State Department said.

Washington's support for Guaido led Maduro to close the US embassy and consulates and break diplomatic ties.

US diplomats in Venezuela have until Saturday to leave the country, but Washington has refused to fully comply fully with the exit order.

Guaido is instead urging the US diplomats to stay and keep the embassy's doors open.

Maduro's reelection last year was contested by the opposition and criticised internationally -- but he has until now retained the loyalty of the powerful military.

Spain is closely linked to Venezuela, a former colony, as some 200,000 of its nationals live there.

Sanchez insisted Saturday that Spain is "not looking to impose or remove governments in Venezuela, we want democracy and free elections in Venezuela."

#UPDATE The European Union told embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro they would recognise opposition leader Juan Guaido as president unless he calls elections within eight days, an ultimatum the Venezuelan foreign minister rejected https://t.co/Hg2x1tsPEL

— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 26, 2019

VIDEO: Peru celebrates the return of one of its cultural treasures, an eighth-century gold funerary mask, after a 20-year legal and diplomatic battle with Germany

VIDEO: Peru celebrates the return of one of its cultural treasures, an eighth-century gold funerary mask, after a 20-year legal and diplomatic battle with Germany pic.twitter.com/jzmjyMVNUE

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 11, 2018

German judges agree to hear Peruvian's climate case against RWE

Yahoo – AFP, Daphne Rousseau with Tom Barfield in Frankfurt, November 30, 2017

Peruvian farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya claims energy giant RWE must share
 the cost of protecting his hometown from a swollen glacier (AFP Photo/
PATRIK STOLLARZ)

Berlin (AFP) - A German court ruled Thursday that it would hear a Peruvian farmer's case against energy giant RWE over climate change damage in the Andes, a decision labelled by campaigners as a "historic breakthrough".

Farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya's case against RWE was "well founded," the court in the northwestern city of Hamm said in a statement.

Lliuya argues that RWE, as one of the world's top emitters of climate-altering carbon dioxide, must share in the cost of protecting his hometown Huaraz from a swollen glacier lake at risk of overflowing from melting snow and ice.

RWE's power plants emitted carbon dioxide that contributed to global warming, increasing local temperatures in the Andes and putting the father of two's property at risk from flooding or landslides, Lliuya argues.

"Even people who act according to the law must be held responsible for damage they cause to property," the judges said.

Now the court must decide whether "the accused's contribution to the chain of events depicted here is measurable and calculable," they added.

"This is a major success not just for me, but for the people of Huaraz and everywhere in the world threatened by climate risks," Lliuya said in a statement circulated by NGO Germanwatch.

He wants RWE to pay 17,000 euros ($20,000) towards flood defences for his community in Peru's northern Ancash region.

The 37-year-old also wants the German company to reimburse him for the 6,384 euros he himself has spent on protective measures.

Lliuya bases his claims on a 2013 climate study which found that RWE was responsible for around 0.5 percent of global emissions "since the beginning of industrialisation".

The court said in the statement that it would choose experts to evaluate the claim in cooperation with both plaintiff and defendant, with Lliuya paying some 20,000 euros in fees up front.

"It will be up to the experts to quantify (RWE's) role, which could be different" from the amount he claims, the judges said.

'Can't be accountable'

After an initial hearing in mid-November, the Hamm court gave both sides until Thursday to provide further arguments to help them decide whether the case should go ahead.

The decision to hear the case is a "historic breakthrough with global relevance," Germanwatch, which has backed Lliuya's claim, said in a statement.

"Major emitters of greenhouse gases can be held responsible for protective measures against climate damage."

For RWE's part, "we still believe that one single emitter can't be held accountable for something that was contributed to from millions of sources and factors worldwide," the energy giant's spokesman Guido Steffen told AFP after the ruling.

"We realise that (Lliuya) is afraid for the safety of his land, but we think it's up to the authorities where he lives to defend it from acute dangers."

He added that RWE would appeal any ruling against it to Germany's highest court.

A lower court in the German city of Essen, where RWE is based, initially found that the lawsuit against the energy giant was unfounded.

The company has in the past said it did not understand why it has been singled out for legal action, stressing the efforts it had made to become more environmentally friendly.

As well as modernising its coal-fired power plants to reduce CO2 emissions, RWE has invested billions in renewable energy as part of Germany's move away from fossil fuels, it says.

Shares in RWE plunged on Germany's DAX index of blue-chip shares following the news, closing down 1.94 percent.

The Peruvian's case comes at a time when German politics is sharply divided over how to balance climate action against economic growth.

A government-directed "energy transition" to renewables, rather than nuclear power and fossil fuels, is making only halting progress, while environmentalists are pushing the country's powerful auto industry to produce less polluting vehicles after a series of scandals.

Climate and energy policy was among the most bitterly disputed issues in three-way coalition talks between Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, the pro-business Free Democrats and the ecologist Greens before they broke down this month.

Haribo launches probe into 'inhumane working conditions' in Brazil

Yahoo – AFP, November 3, 2017

German sweets manufacturer Haribo is to investigate companies in its supply
 chain after accusations in a documentary that Brazilian workers including minors
work in appalling conditions at a suppliers' plantation (AFP Photo/JOEL SAGET)

Berlin (AFP) - German sweets maker Haribo said it had launched an internal investigation after a TV documentary alleged Brazilian workers supplying ingredients for their confectionary suffer inhumane conditions.

"We have tasked a group of independent, accredited and certified auditors with conducting a full investigation of our carnauba wax supply chain and are currently awaiting the findings of the investigation," the company said in a statement Thursday.

The company has faced criticism in the German and international press after public broadcaster ARD alleged in mid-October that workers on carnauba wax planations in Brazil, among them minors, suffered under high temperatures and were forced to sleep outside, often without access to clean drinking water.

Haribo uses carnauba wax as a coating agent in its candy.

"We have been in contact with our direct carnauba wax supplier in Brazil to demand that the entire supply chain, including its preliminary suppliers, all the way down to the carnauba wax producing farms, is laid bare and reviewed to ensure standards are upheld at all relevant facilities," beginning this week, the company said.

The company said it would hold discussions with Brazil's labour ministry and other government officials as part of the investigation.

Haribo also said it would launch an additional internal probe to respond to allegations in the same documentary about the mistreatment of pigs on German farms used for gelatine production.

The animals live in their own excrement and are covered in bruises, according to the documentary.

"As a company whose mission it is to bring joy to children and adults alike, reports of animal cruelty in our supply chain are unacceptable," the company said.

Colonia Dignidad: No 'glorious chapter' for German diplomacy

Torture, slavery, child abuse: Germany's foreign minister met with victims of a German sect run in Chile for decades. At the same time, the government in Berlin is declassifying the Colonia Dignidad files.

Deutsche Welle, 27 April 2016

Human rights groups welcome as a "positive step" plans by the German government to make public files on the notorious Colonia Dignidad colony in Chile.

Files that would have remained sealed for another decade will be made available to journalists and researchers in the coming weeks, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. The documents detail how informed German diplomats were about what was going on in the colony from 1986 to 1996. The foreign ministry isn't responsible for what Paul Schäfer and his cronies did, but the German embassy denied the colony's residents the protection they would have needed. "I salute the victims of Colonia Dignidad," Steinmeier told a group of victims Tuesday in Berlin.

Wolfgang Kneese managed to flee
when he was 20

Steinmeier conceded that German diplomats for decades turned a blind eye to the human tragedy playing out before them, adding that embassy staff in Chile should have been able to see what was going on at the Colonia Dignidad commune. From the 60s to the 80s, German diplomats looked the other way, and "did too little to protect their citizens in this commune," he said.

Respect for the victims

The foreign ministry in Berlin has pledged that it will find out what role German diplomats played. "Transparency is imperative," Steinmeier told the victims, who had traveled from Chile to Berlin to hear just those words.

Colonia Dignidad was founded in 1961 by Paul Schäfer, a German lay preacher, former soldier and convicted pedophile who fled the country to Chile after World War II.

Today, victims estimate that over the course of 30 years, more than 30,000 boys were raped at the remote commune hidden behind security fences. Schäfer brutally suppressed and controlled his followers, including brainwashing, draconic punishments and enforcing a vow of secrecy. Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet used the German commune, which was situated about 350 kilometers south of the capital Santiago, as a torture camp, and hid weapons and poison gas on the premises.

A scene from the film Colonia

One of the few who managed to extricate himself from the sect's grip doesn't like to be reminded of the role the German embassy played. "When I left the colony, I was wary of the foreign ministry," Wolfgang Kneese said, adding that Paul Schäfer's system involved people who profited from Colonia Dignidad, who went along with the sect's well-oiled apparatus of repression, and who looked the other way.

Emotionally crippled

A feature film about Colonia Dignidad actually got the ball rolling.

"Colonia" by Florian Gallenberger aired in Germany last year after the director had put in five years of research. The film reminded the foreign ministry of this dark chapter of German diplomacy, Steinmeier said, adding that it goes to show how culture can "act as a trigger for politics."

The commune is the only home Anna
 Schnellenberger ever knew

Anna Schnellenkamp still lives on the premises of the former colony. She was surprised at how well the film depicts Schäfer's harsh rule. "But in truth, it was much worse," she admitted.

Fleeing sex abuse charges by Chilean authorities, Schäfer disappeared in 1997. Almost eight years later, he was found hiding in Argentina, sent back to Chile and sentenced to 33 years in jail for sexual abuse of children. He died in 2010 in a Chilean prison. Meanwhile, life at the colony continued as before.

Today, the commune with its roughly 130 residents calls itself Villa Baviera and tries to attract tourists with Bavarian music and Oktoberfest events.

Many of the original followers stayed on, in part because "no one had documents, no one had money," Schellenkamp said, adding another reason: two out of three are older than 65 years of age. Many of Schäfer's victims feel like emotional cripples, Wolfgang Kneese says. Some hope the German government will grant them psychological support, others demand compensation.

It's time "the burden is taken from our shoulders," Schnellenkamp said.

Traumatized victims, open questions

Many victims find hard to bear the thought that perpetrators have gotten away. Hartmut Hopp, a former colony deputy, fled to Germany in 2011 to avoid imprisonment in Chile, where he was sentenced to five years in jail for child sex abuse in 2005. It's surprising that people, like Hopp, "continue to live freely in Germany," Wolfgang Kneese said. Hopp lives in the western German town of Krefeld, and it remains unclear whether Germany will enforce the Chilean verdict, start new proceedings, or simply put the matter aside. The latter is almost unbearable to many victims.

It's also not clear what will happen to the sect's isolated premises in Chile. Turn it into a memorial, urges film director Florian Gallenberger, who visited the area many times. They have some tourism, but that's all, the director argues. Perhaps an upcoming visit by German President Joachim Gauck to Chile will help resolve matters.

Related Article:

Switzerland to compensate victims of centuries-old child labor practice

German gunmaker Sig Sauer faces criminal charges over Mexico drug killings

German weapons maker Sig Sauer is facing a second lawsuit on suspicion of illegally exporting guns to Latin America. A Mexican drug cartel member has confessed to killing 12 people with one of its handguns.

Deutsche Welle, 31 Aug 2015

German anti-weapons campaigner Jürgen Grässlin has filed charges against Sig Sauer after revelations that a Mexican drug cartel member used one of the company's 9mm handguns to kill 12 people - including a prominent human rights campaigner.

The charges - on suspicion of illegal weapons exports - were filed following the release of Chihuahua court documents about the 2010 murder of Marisela Escobedo. The 52-year-old woman became a prominent activist in Chihuahua after a man who confessed to murdering her 16-year-old daughter was acquitted by a Mexican court.

In a short documentary aired on Sunday night, German state TV network ARD showed CCTV footage of the murderer chasing Escobedo across a street in the city of Chihuahua and shooting her in the back of the head.

Sig Sauer's slogan is "When it counts"

"It's a particularly horrifying case, but it's also a special case - it's very rare," said Grässlin. "We have a convicted killer who confessed that he killed at least 12 people, and the gun's serial number - and Sig Sauer themselves say it is one of their guns."

"We don't know where exactly the gun was assembled - but we know it was German expertise, German technology - either separately or in one piece - and it found its way to the perpetrator in Mexico - the fact that he had it was illegal, because there was no export license," he told DW.

Mother and daughter killed

Escobedo's daughter Ruby disappeared in 2008, and her mother, frustrated at the slow police investigation, found out for herself that Ruby had been killed in 2008 by her boyfriend, a member of the Los Zetas drug cartel. He was subsequently arrested, confessed, and led the police to her body - only to be acquitted for lack of evidence. ARD showed Escobedo break out in tears in a courtroom in 2010 as the verdict was read, before screaming at the judge and storming out.

For the next seven months until her murder, Escobedo campaigned against Mexico's judiciary, which has often been accused of corruption, before finally confronting the chief state prosecutor himself. "I am convinced that she signed her own death sentence on that day," lawyer Gabino Gomez, a close associate of Escobedo, told ARD.

Unlike her daughter's boyfriend, Escobedo's killer - another member of Los Zetas - was convicted, and the Sig Sauer gun was identified as the murder weapon (among an arsenal of some 200 firearms found in his possession). "Now we know that it was a 9mm gun, from a German firm," said Gomez. "According to the files, he killed another 11 people with this weapon alone."

No export license

Grässlin has campaigned against
German weapons exports for
more than 20 years

Chihuahua is one of four Mexican states that the German government has declared as too dangerous and corrupt to export weapons to, and the German Economy Ministry has confirmed that Sig Sauer has not been granted an export license to Mexico since 2000.

Sig Sauer did not respond to a request for comment from DW, but according to ARD it has claimed that the murder weapon was produced at its factory in New Hampshire, in the US, and sold, probably in a batch of several hundred, to a legal dealer in Mexico.

"But if they want to pass on deliveries, to Colombia, to Mexico, to Venezuela or wherever, they need another export license," Grässlin told DW. "This definitely didn't happen." According to Germany's Federal Office of Export Control, an export license is still necessary if "technology from Germany has been exported to the subsidiary company in the US in advance," and confirmed that it had not received an application for a license from Sig Sauer.

Sig Sauer, which is based in Eckernförde, northern Germany, is already under significant legal pressure after it was revealed last year that tens of thousands of its handguns, manufactured in Germany, found their way to Colombia via its US subsidiary. Grässlin pressed charges against the firm over the revelations in July 2014, and within days the German government banned the company from exporting any more weapons.

Related Article:

"The Biggest Filter" - July 18-19, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“..  War - Nobody Sees What is Coming

Let's talk about war. Let's discuss something that very few are considering. What you expect next is completely and totally out of perspective of what's actually coming, because you only have one kind of knowledge about war. Your war has advanced over history with bigger explosions, higher yields and weapons that fire faster. Nuclear, laser, sound - all are far more efficient ways to terminate life. That's how war has evolved. However, there hasn't really been anything called anti-war devices, have there?

I'm going to give you an invitation for discovery, and some are already in the postulation stage of this. Multidimensional fields change 3D reality. Period. I've told you that lurking in your future are discoveries that will help you with every aspect of your life, mainly due to the discovery of what makes basic physics do what it does at the atomic level. If you fully understand multidimensionality, you can manipulate the formula for mass and create massless objects. You can even do it with the tools you have right now.

There is physics possible that can create certain kinds of fields - listen to me - certain kinds of heretofore unseen multidimensional fields that are harmless to your biology, but will alter some attributes of 3D. These fields are designer fields, and they are isolated and specifically designed for one purpose. When in the field, conventional explosive reactions can't happen. Can you imagine putting a field within rooms of a building so that no matter what weapon is fired, whether it's a machine gun or a pistol, it simply won't work! What about targeting an airplane when it drops a bomb and it won't explode? This is pure physics. The alteration of 3D reality through multidimensional designer fields, both small and large, is coming. I know you don't believe it, but just wait. As you start to discover multidimensional physics and the ability to control it, you will discover that there is a "benevolent attitude" of this kind of physics. You can't "weaponize it" as easily as you can 3D. It is an entirely different kind of reality.

Again, I tell you that when you understand how mass is created at the atomic level, you'll learn how to create massless objects. By the way, that has another name. You call it anti-gravity, but there is no such thing. It's just the ability to finally control the formula that creates gravity with mass. You understand that this is simple physics, don't you? And it's very easy to manipulate for benevolent uses through other fields that you do know about. Just like you have learned to control certain kinds of physics that are 3D, you can also control multidimensional physics. Imagine a planet where it doesn't matter what war device you had, it wouldn't work anymore! What do you think about that? Imagine physics having the ability to shatter the molecules of a biological weapon. Do you think that would change world politics? It's happening, it's going to happen. It's in the laboratory today. You're broaching the discovery of multidimensional physics. Being able to control that which you don't think is controllable is what you are doing. It's going to make such a difference to the Human race!

You don't believe it, since your knowledge of how things work just doesn't allow for such a thing. This is your filter.  ….”

Take this plane to Cuba, say Chinese and German airlines

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-06-16

Boeing delivers an 747-8 aircraft to Air China in Seattle, Sept. 30,
2014. (File photo/Xinhua)

Chinese and German airlines are strengthening their air connections with Cuba, Cuban state daily Granma reported Monday.

Air China is poised to launch a Beijing-Havana route starting in September, while Condor of Germany will increase the frequency of its flights in October and add a new route, the daily said, citing the island's Ministry of Tourism.

Air China will operate three weekly flights with a stopover in Montreal, marking the first flights between the Asian giant and the Caribbean island, according to the daily. The new flight has the potential to turn Havana into a hub for Chinese visitors traveling to other parts of Latin America, Granma added.

More than 28,000 Chinese travelers visited Cuba last year, a more than 27% increase over 2013, according to Cuba's official statistics institute (ONEI).

In time for the winter high tourism season, Condor will launch a new weekly route between Munich and Holguin, increase the ferquency of its Frankfurt-to-Havana to four a week and add a second weekly flight between Munich and the Cuban beach resort of Varadero.

Condor's goal is to maintain its dominance as the leading German carrier to Cuba.

In 2014, Germany maintained its ranking as Cuba's second-largest market of foreign tourists, after Canada, with more than 136,000 visitors, an increase of 20% over the previous year, the ministry said. Some 150,000 German tourists are expected in 2015.

Tourism is Cuba's second largest source of foreign revenue, generating US$2.6 billion a year, and drawing some 3 million visitors for the first time in 2014. That figure is expected to double in a few years as improving US-Cuba ties allow more Americans to freely travel to the country.

Ceremonial EU-CELAC summit could still bring big gains

An EU summit with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States is intended to revitalize trade. Though few real results are expected, the political gesture is important. Barbara Wesel reports from Brussels.

Deutsche Welle, 11 June 2015

After Tuesday's meeting in Brussels between the European Union and the 33-member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, appeared together before the press. The Cuban foreign minister stressed that a cooperation agreement between the European Union and his country would hold many opportunities for both sides. He said he was very pleased with the negotiations, which would hopefully lead to a signed agreement in the future. Beyond that, Parrilla invited Steinmeier to Havana so that he could experience Cuban hospitality firsthand.

Bruno Rodrgiuez Parrilla (left) invites
Steinmeier to Havana to experience
Cuban hospitality

Steinmeier accepted and found the friendliest of words: In light of the numerous crises around the world, cooperation with Cuba is a sign of hope. The European Union wants to be - and must be - present in Latin America. However, the projected signing date of the agreement, which is to contain a section on human rights dialogue, is still unclear. Cooperation with Cuba was put on hold in 2003, following a wave of repression against dissidents.

The high-level summit in Brussels is a political gesture to signal the EU's interest in Latin America, says Susanne Gratius of FRIDE, a Madrid-based think tank that studies European foreign policy. And those contacts have become more important since China initiated a similar forum in order to undertake its own negotiations with Latin America. After all, the cultural and historical connections between Europe and the Americas, especially with Spain, remain deep. But in the face of billions in investments from China, European Union has to consider what it can really offer Latin America. Gratius suggests "Soft Power": EU countries should strengthen political and cultural dialogue, she says, and "they should spread their norms and values." Admittedly, they don't have much leverage to increase the acceptance of such offerings. Since Latin America has moved on from being a developmental partner, Europe's "political influence" in the region has waned.

The European Union is already heeding the call for more "cultural diplomacy." A concurrent academic summit in Brussels has brought together university presidents and educational ministers from Europe and the Americas to discuss research exchanges, for example. There, the EU unveiled an expansion of the Erasmus exchange program for young academics, thus offering new destinations for adventurous students. A meeting between labor organizers from both continents and an event with civil services representatives under the aegis of Federica Mogherini, the European Union's top diplomat, have already taken place. Incidentally, she has often said that Europe needs to reach out to Latin America in the way that it does the United States.

From left to right: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Chilean President
Michele Bachelet and German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Improve trade relations

EU leaders want to get economic relations up and running again. The EU already has preferential trade agreements with 26 of CELAC's 33 member states. Nevertheless, further progress could prove tedious. Negotiations for a trade deal with the Mercosur group - consisting of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay - have been dragging on for 20 years.

In an interview with DW, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff promised that her country would "do everything possible, and everything impossible" to make sure that negotiations finally lead to a deal. The president added that an agreement is of existential importance to Brazil. However, optimism that a deal might soon be struck is decidedly muted in Brussels.

"One should organize more thematically specific meetings, and discuss concrete problems like migration or drugs, rather than putting on big summits," FRIDE's Gratius said. There is no denying that the interests of individual CELAC states vary greatly. What does Honduras have to do with Brazil? What do Caribbean states have to do with South American ones? That is why there is no chance to export the European integration model to Latin America: CELAC will never be more than an institutional umbrella, a loose geographic confederation of states with very different concerns and problems. Above all, the Brussels summit is about the "political visibility" of Latin America.

One of the small events taking place on the periphery of the summit is the elevation to international organization status of the Hamburg-based European Union-Latin America and Caribbean Foundation, which supports relationships between civil societies. EU-LAC President Benita Ferrero-Waldner, a former European commissioner for external relations, said the bloc should make relations with Latin America a priority: "We are 61 nations. How much could we get done if we worked in unison?" The Austrian politician knows full well how difficult it is to achieve such consensus from experience. And dialogue partners are woefully absent in some crisis situations. Recently, Ferrero-Waldner told the newspaper Die Presse that "the situation in Venezuela is very unsettling." That situation could worsen yet - first in the form of awful skirmishes, and then civil war. In light of that threat, the only thing that Europe can do is attempt to start a dialogue with Venezuela's government, if that is still possible.

Germany's Bilfinger announces probe into possible Brazil 2014 World Cup bribes

German construction company Bilfinger says it is investigating claims employees in Brazil paid bribes to officials in connection with orders to supply security centers to Brazilian host cities for the 2014 World Cup.

Deutsche Welle, 22 March 2015

In a statement released on Sunday on Bilfinger SE's website, the company said it had launched a "comprehensive investigation" into an outside auditor and a law firm's involvement in "suspected bribery payments from employees of a Bilfinger company in Brazil to public officials and employees of state companies."

The allegations relate to orders to equip security command centers at 12 host cities during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The company said the probe, involving auditors Ernst & Young and Deloitte, plus a specialized law firm in Brazil, showed that "suspicions have now been substantiated," although the investigation has not yet been completed, such as how much was paid to each player.

The construction company is accused of paying bribes to secure a contract worth more than 20 million euros ($21.6 million) for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil through its subsidiary Mauell, reported German tabloid Bild am Sonntag on Sunday.

The newspaper reported that illegal payments went to local Brazilian politicians and officials from world football's governing body, FIFA.

FIFA dismissed the allegations on Sunday, saying it had no influence on the project, and refuted claims its staff were bribed.

"Traffic control and security centers in the 12 FIFA 2014 World Cup venues was the responsibility of local governments. Neither FIFA, nor their employees, were involved in the awarding of contracts for host cities or the federal government," it said in a statement.

Bilfinger announced on Sunday that it received internal communication last year and immediately started an investigation into the corruption allegations by Bilfinger in Brazil.

"The company and its supervisory board have an interest in ensuring this is cleared up," the group's supervisory board chairman Eckhard Cordes told Bild.

"If the allegations are proven, we will take action with regard to personnel and will initiate legal steps," an unnamed company spokesperson said.

At the 12 host city venues for the 2014 World Cup, Bifinger had over 1,500 security monitor walls and the appropriate software needed to run the security command centers for police, fire and emergency services.

jlw/msh (Reuters, dpa, AP)

MPs' trip Ecuador canceled over drilling row

The Ecuador government has banned a group of German MPs from entering the country. The official reason: miscommunication - but the government is also unhappy with the politicians' plans to meet anti-government activists.

Deutsche Welle, 7 Dec 2014

Only a few days before the trip - which had been planned for the beginning of December, the Ecuadorian government has forbidden members of the German parliament's environment committee from entering their country.

In a press release, the Ecuadorian embassy said the delegates' travel program had not been approved by Ecuador because it was "imbalanced," and would have promoted biased communication with political opponents of the government and would thus have created a skewed image of Ecuadorian reality.

Bärbel Höhn, head of the environment committee, called the cancellation "strange and unnecessary." She told DW that talks had been planned with both the government and the opposition.

The Bundestag's press division said such entry bans on Bundestag delegations were rare - a press officer said she could not recall such a case in the last seven years, though bans have been imposed for individual MPs.

Oil drilling in Yasuni National Park

Many people in Ecuador are against
drilling in the Yasuni National Park

Led by Höhn, the group had planned to visit the Yasuni National Park on Saturday (06.12.2014) and meet with people opposed to drilling there. Despite massive protests by environmental activists and representatives of indigenous groups, the Ecuadorian government plans to start drilling in the park, which is located in the Amazon rainforest.

Höhn had planned a meeting at the park with Guadalupe Llori, an activist campaigning to stop the oil drilling with a national referendum. "The concern is that the basis of existence of indigenous peoples would be very strongly affected," Höhn said. "There is also a big threat to the environment."

Germany plays a significant role when it comes to the Yasuni park. Ecuador originally started an initiative promising not to drill for the oil in the park as long as big industrialized countries such as Germany paid millions of dollars into a fund in return. Former German Development Minister Dirk Niebel opposed the deal, leading Ecuador to go ahead with drilling.

Ecuador's decision to ban the delegation is a clear signal of how sensitive the Yasuni project is, according to Jonas Wolff of the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt. "The project is a thorny issue and polarizes sides," he told DW. "Taking any side from the outside is considered meddling."

Oil drilling in the park could endanger the
 environment as well as the lives of
indigenous people

Other incidents show that Ecuador will not accept any criticism when it comes to Yasuni park. The British daily the Guardian reported that a bus transporting Ecuadorian environment activists from Quito to the UN climate conference in Lima was stopped six times by police on its way and that some of the passengers were even threatened. The activists blamed President Rafael Correa in an interview with the daily, saying he wanted to prevent protests at the conference.

German-Ecuadorian ties still positive

Wolff believes that the recent entry ban imposed on the German delegation is only an isolated case. "Relations between Germany and Ecuador are pretty good," he told DW. But Höhn is quite upset. "We will not be told with whom we can and cannot speak. I can only hope that the Ecuadorian government returns to democratic ways," she said.

The Ecuadorian embassy in Germany wrote in a statement that it hopes to entertain positive relations with Germany and jointly tackle issues such as environmental and climate concerns. It also said that Bundestag representatives were welcome in Ecuador - but relations must be based on mutual trust and equality.

Obama und Rousseff - end of the freeze?

Ever since the NSA's spying on Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff came to light, relations between Brasilia and Washington have been particularly icy. The G20 meeting in Australia brought the leaders face to face.

Deutsche Welle, 16 Nov 2014

For more than a year, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has been waiting in vain for an apology from her American counterpart Barack Obama. It was over twelve months ago when the story broke that the NSA had spied not only on Brazilian businesses and citizens, but also on the president herself.

Unlike German Chancellor Angela Merkel, no one suspected Rousseff of feigning her outrage. She immediately cancelled her planned state visit to the White House in September 2013. Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and US Secretary of State John Kerry all renewed the invitation several times, but Rousseff has doggedly refused, and Obama has still not issued a personal apology, or indeed even considered such an apology necessary. If he had, he could have easily done it shortly after the fact at the 2013 G20 meeting in St Petersburg. Another chance to approach one another came at this year's summit in Australia.

The G20 meeting in 2013 yielded no
relaxation of tensions

Neither friend nor enemy

Traditionally, the relationship between the two countries has been good, if not particularly strong. "Brazil has always viewed the US hegemony skeptically," Matthew Taylor, political researcher at American University in Washington, DC, told the BBC recently. The problems are much more deeply rooted than any personal animosities.

The relationship blossomed for a short period during the presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994-2001), who threw his support behind the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a proposal that came from President George H. W. Bush. This was quickly cut short by Cardoso's successor Lula da Silva, who - along with other Latin American heads of state - condemned the plan as another tool of US domination. Brazil's complaint to the World Trade Organization against US cottons subsidies did the rest, although larger diplomatic complications never came to pass.

The two largest economies in the Americas remain far removed from any free trade agreement. Juan Carlos Hildalgo, Latin American analyst from the CATO Institute in Washington, offers this to consider: "In her first term, Dilma Rousseff focused even more than her predecessor da Silva on South-South cooperation." And when it comes to the North, a relationship with the European Union is more important than the United States.

Altogether, the EU is Brazil's most important trade partner, accounting for more than one fifth of Brazil's foreign trade. China and the US follow with around one-sixth of foreign trade combined.

Brazil's share of US trade on the other hand is well below three percent. For the United States, the development of relations with the EU and China has priority over partnerships in the Americas.

Together with Angela Merkel, Dilma
 Rousseff has launched a UN-initiative
against US spying

Mutual disinterest

But the US and Brazil are planning a visa deal to ease entry from both sides. And Obama has recently showed more interest in Latin America. Yet more pressing questions are plaguing both leaders: Obama's forces are in demand in Syria and Ukraine. At home he is fighting to secure his legacy against a Republican-dominated Congress. And Dilma Rousseff is heavily involved in the after-effects of her reelection in late October: She must put together a new cabinet with which to lead her country out of the economic doldrums.

Now, the two leaders have had to face each other at the G20 summit in Australia. Obama had already congratulated Rousseff on her reelection, and expressed his desire to meet her in Brisbane. "There will be polite exchanges, but certainly no substantial strides in relations," hypothesized Marcos Troyjo, leader of the BRIC lab at Columbia University in New York.

Political scientist Paz Neves also doesn't hold out much home for rapid convergence: "In the White House, there are approximately two state receptions per year. Rousseff isn't going to get another invitation so quickly."

But if anyone is supposed to make a move, says Paz Neves, it's the Brazilian president who should give a sign: "The ball is clearly in Dilma Rousseff's court."