Latin America braces for 'Bolsonaro effect'

Yahoo - AFP, Denis BARNETT, October 29, 2018

Police officers patrol the streets after the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro won
Brazil's presidential election, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on October 28, 2018 (AFP
Photo/DANIEL RAMALHO)

Montevideo (AFP) - Brazil's Latin American neighbors are bracing for a regional "Bolsonaro effect" after the far-right leader's crushing victory in presidential elections.

The knock-on effect will be felt across the region in foreign policy, trade, policing and even in how political campaigns are waged, analysts said.

Bolsonaro's win perpetuates electoral routs for right-wing presidents against leftist governments hostile to the United States, said Argentine commentator Pablo Seman -- citing recent victories for Mauricio Macri in Argentina, Sebastian Pinera in Chile and Mario Abdo Benitez in Paraguay.

"The US is taking possession of what has been lost in Latin America, in a context of global struggle with China for natural resources, markets, political support. There is no place in Latin America where Washington has not regained the position it lost" in the 2000s, Seman added.

With President Donald Trump in the White House, "strongmen have the edge" in US foreign policy, said US analyst Michael Shifter.

Bolsonaro's triumph however raises fears of a return to authoritarian rule in a region which has suffered under a string of military dictatorships.

The shift will be stark, according to Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.

"This is a guy who said the Brazilian dictatorship didn't kill enough people, that they need to kill another 30,000 people, that the police should be able to kill suspects, that the left will have a choice of going to jail or leaving the country.

"Will he do these things? I think he will implement as many of these threats as he can get away with," said Weisbrot.

'Not so extreme'

However, "the shift towards authoritarian rule may not be as extreme as many fear," according to Shifter, head of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank -- because traditional parties in Congress could yet provide checks and balances.

There could be a "modest Bolsonaro effect" in neighboring countries, especially those that experienced military rule, "but each country has its own particular dynamics that shape its political direction. Any contagion would be limited."

Ivan Briscoe, Latin America director of the International Crisis Group, said the ex-soldier's rise is part of a gradual "winnowing of democracy" in the region, the most notable examples being Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Police officers patrol the streets after the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro won 

Brazil's presidential election, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on October 28, 2018 (AFP

Photo/DANIEL RAMALHO)

Bolsonaro wielding power in the volatile social context of Brazil is alarming.

"When you have a populist authoritarian, militaristic ruler in that context, he isn't just a laughing stock -- as Trump often is -- he is actually a very serious challenger to civil rights, and human rights and basic freedoms."

Bolsonaro has much in common with Mexico's president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said Briscoe.

"It's the appeal of the strong leader, it's the slightly vague political program, it's the promise of 'trust me, I will do the job' - it's the style. So we might see similar campaigning in Latin America."

Bolsonaro's trade choices

Bolsonaro has vowed to implement free-market reforms in the region's biggest economy and recently accused China -- its largest trading partner -- of "buying Brazil."

Beijing is set to build on its aggressive strategy in the region in recent years, analysts agree, with a style that appeals to Latin American leaders.

"It provides much more direct investment, loans, and aid to developing countries than the US does, and has a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of the recipients," Weisbrot pointed out.

Regardless of his China trade policy, it's an anxious moment for the struggling regional MERCOSUR bloc -- Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

"If Bolsonaro follows through on his idea of allowing members to pursue bilateral trade agreements, and not as a bloc, that would be a big blow," noted Shifter.

According to Weisbrot, Bolsonaro will "follow Macri and the other right-wing governments in pursuing commercial policies that the Trump administration favors." ​

Briscoe agrees that a leader with a "Brazil First" approach "is possibly not going to do wonders for MERCOSUR."

Worst case scenario

Regardless of Bolsonaro's appeal to the markets, Shifter says that based on his campaign rhetoric and background, we can expect "considerable erosion of democratic norms and institutions".

That means Bolsonaro supporting "right-wing and fascist movements everywhere, and also (being) a strong supporter of the Trump administration's foreign policy, which seeks to get rid of the remaining left governments," said Weisbrot.

The worst case scenario is that he could become South America's answer to the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, whose war on drugs has been credited with killing some 20,000 people since July 2016.

In a country where police killings number around 5,000 a year, "if Bolsonaro and all his deputies are saying 'the gloves are off, you can do what you want, we'll protect you, the courts won't prosecute you,' the signal which will be given in that context could lead to appalling violence," said Briscoe.

"In Brazil it really is a risk."

Mexico may be next to legalize cannabis: incoming FM

Yahoo – AFP, October 23, 2018

Mexico's Secretary-designate of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard listens to Canada's
 Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland during a press conference in Ottawa October 22,
2018 (AFP Photo/Lars Hagberg)

Montreal (AFP) - Mexico "absolutely" could follow Canada's lead in legalizing marijuana as a way to reduce violence generated by a war on drugs that "doesn't work," its incoming foreign minister said Tuesday.

Marcelo Ebrard, who will become foreign minister when Mexico's president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador takes office December 1, said he discussed Ottawa's experience Monday with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Asked whether Mexico might follow Canada's example, Ebrard told reporters, "Sure, absolutely."

"We think it is a very interesting option in the short term for Mexico," he said. "We think there are two options: the Canadian model or the Uruguay model."

"It doesn't make sense to have a law forbidding the possession or production of cannabis and we have 9,000 people in jail for that, we have a huge amount of violence in the country," Ebrard said.

"You spend a huge amount of money (on policing), you cause suffering for a lot of people and it doesn't make sense."

Prohibition, he added, "doesn't work, you have the cannabis anyway."

Canada legalized cannabis on October 17, becoming the first major economy to do so. Uruguay legalized recreational use of the drug in 2013.

Mexico has long been a major supplier of marijuana and other illegal drugs to the US market, spawning powerful drug cartels and violent struggles for control of drug routes.

Since 2006, when the government deployed the army to fight the cartels, more than 200,000 people have been murdered, including a record 28,702 last year.

Another 37,000 people are reported missing.

Honduran migrant 'caravan' resumes from Mexico to US: AFP reporter

Yahoo – AFP, 21 October 2018

The authorities opened the border to women and children who were then taken to a
shelter in the city of Tapachula, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico

Thousands of Honduran migrants resumed their march toward the United States on Sunday from the southern Mexican city of Ciudad Hidalgo.

Mexican authorities on Thursday had managed to block the "caravan" of migrants on a border bridge between Mexico and Guatemala, but many later entered via a river separating the two countries.

"No one is going to stop us, after all we've gone through, like crossing the river" said 21-year-old Aaron Juarez, who was accompanied by his wife and baby and was walking with difficulty because of an injury.

"We are tired, but very happy, we are united and strong," added Edwin Geovanni Enamorado, a Honduran farmer who was part of the caravan, who said he was forced to leave his country because of intimidation by racketeering gangs.

The caravan left San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras last week, following a call on social networks relayed by a former Honduran deputy.

On Sunday morning, about a thousand migrants, including women and children, were still stranded on a border bridge hoping to enter Mexico legally via Guatemala.

The day before, the Mexican authorities opened the border to women and children who were then taken to a shelter in the city of Tapachula, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico.

US President Donald Trump has been tweeting about the caravan's progress and thanked Mexican authorities on Saturday for their efforts to block it.

"Mexico will not allow irregular entry into its territory, much less violent," Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Friday evening in a video message.

VIDEO: The United States returns 38 ancient artifacts to Colombia, which were plundered over decades by a private American collector

VIDEO: The United States returns 38 ancient artifacts to Colombia, which were plundered over decades by a private American collector pic.twitter.com/lwTsNKzGrh

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

Pope says Church can no longer tolerate silence on abuse

Yahoo – AFP, October 6, 2018

'We will follow the path of truth wherever it may lead', Francis said in 2015 (AFP
Photo/Andreas SOLARO)

Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis said Saturday that silence on sexual abuse can "no longer be tolerated" as he ordered an investigation into Vatican archives concerning former archbishop of Washington Theodore McCarrick, who resigned in July.

"Both abuse and its cover-up can no longer be tolerated," said Francis in a Vatican statement in which he declared the Church had to tackle "the grave scourge of abuse within and beyond" the institution.

The case of McCarrick triggered a storm in August after Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican envoy to Washington, dropped a bombshell letter accusing the pope of ignoring allegations about the prominent US cardinal, one of the most senior Catholic leaders to face abuse allegations.

Following Vigano's letter, US groups representing survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic priests urged the Vatican to publish a list of clerics accused of sexual assault.

Saturday's Vatican statement said Francis was "aware of and concerned by the confusion that these accusations are causing in the conscience of the faithful."

The statement added: "Both abuse and its cover-up can no longer be tolerated" and said the Church had a duty "to prevent such crimes from being committed in the future to the harm of the most innocent and most vulnerable in society".

The statement also underlined that Francis had in an August letter to Catholics stated that "the only way that we have to respond to this evil that has darkened so many lives is to experience it as a task regarding all of us as the People of God.

"This awareness of being part of a people and a shared history will enable us to acknowledge our past sins and mistakes with a penitential openness that can allow us to be renewed from within," said the statement.

Regarding McCarrick, the Vatican said Francis "has decided that information gathered during the preliminary investigation be combined with a further thorough study of the entire documentation present in the Archives of the Dicasteries and Offices of the Holy See ... to ascertain all the relevant facts, to place them in their historical context and to evaluate them objectively."

The Vatican concluded the Holy See recognised "it may emerge that choices were taken that would not be consonant with a contemporary approach to such issues" but that, as Francis said in 2015, "we will follow the path of truth wherever it may lead."

Pope Francis meets with leaders from the US church at the Vatican on Thursday

to discuss claims of sexual abuse by clergy (AFP Photo/Handout)

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Part of the painting, said to one of the highlights of the Vatican collection

Jesus and Joseph, UK, May 27, 2018 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… I gave you a channelling years ago when Pope John Paul was alive. John Paul loved Mary, the mother. Had John Paul survived another 10 years, he would have done what the next Pope [The one after the current one, Benedict XVI] will do, and that is to bring women into the Church. This Pope you have now [Benedict XVI] won't be here long.* The next Pope will be the one who has to change the rules, should he survive. If he doesn't, it will be the one after that.

There it a large struggle within the Church, even right now, and great dissention, for it knows that it is not giving what humanity wants. The doctrine is not current to the puzzles of life. The answer will be to create a better balance between the feminine and masculine, and the new Pope, or the one after that, will try to allow women to be in the higher echelon of the Church structure to assist the priests.

It will be suggested to let women participate in services, doing things women did not do before. This graduates them within church law to an equality with priests, but doesn't actually let them become priests just yet. However, don't be surprised if this begins in another way, and instead gives priests the ability to marry. This will bring the feminine into the church in other ways. It will eventually happen and has to happen. If it does not, it will be the end of the Catholic Church, for humanity will not sustain a spiritual belief system that is out of balance with the love of God and also out of balance with intuitive Human awareness. …”

Women should play a greater role in the training of priests to fight the child abuse 'crisis' that has engulfed the #CatholicChurch, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet has said https://t.co/UmGvrcnIZI #MarcOuellet

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 16, 2018

A Belgian bishop has called for married men to be allowed into the priesthood, a hot-button topic within the Roman Catholic church as it grapples with falling priest numbers and sexual abuse scandals https://t.co/nKSHNOGfBj

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 10, 2018

World court sinks Bolivia bid for sea access

Yahoo – AFP, Jan HENNOP and Danny KEMP, 1 October 2018

Bolivia -- South America's poorest country -- became landlocked after losing a
four-year war against Chile at the end of the 19th century, forfeiting territory and
 its access to the Pacific coast

The International Court of Justice on Monday ruled against landlocked Bolivia in a row with Chile over access to the Pacific Ocean that dates back to the 19th century.

Bolivia lost its prized route to the sea in a 1879-1883 war with Chile, and Santiago has rejected every attempt since then by its smaller and poorer neighbour to win back its coastline.

La Paz took Santiago to the top UN court in The Hague in 2013 to try to force it to the negotiating table over the maritime spat, a long-running strain on relations between the two South American countries.

"The court by 12 votes to three finds that the Republic of Chile did not undertake a legal obligation to negotiate a sovereign access for the... state of Bolivia," judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf said at the end of a judgement that took an hour and 20 minutes to read out.

The judge said, however, he hoped that "with willingness on the part of both parties meaningful negotiations can be undertaken".

Bolivia's leftist President Evo Morales -- who has used the issue to boost support at home as he seeks a fourth term in office -- attended the court in person for the verdict.

"Bolivia will never give up" its claim, Morales told reporters afterwards. "The people of the world know that Bolivia had an invasion and we had our sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean taken away from us."

Bolivia says regaining its territory which comprises of several hundred kilometres

of coastline along the northern tip of Chile will stimulate growth and development

'False expectations'

The ICJ was set up after World War II to rule in disputes between UN member states. The court's findings are binding and cannot be appealed, although it has no real power to enforce them.

Chile and Bolivia have had no diplomatic relations since 1978 when Bolivia's last major attempt to negotiate a passage to the Pacific broke down in acrimony.

The War of the Pacific pitted Bolivia and Peru on one side against Chile on the other, and saw battles fought in the Pacific Ocean, the Andes mountains and even in the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world.

Decades of post-independence border tensions in South America were finally ignited by a dispute over Bolivian attempts to tax a Chilean company mining saltpetre, a mineral used in fertilizer that was at the time replacing the traditional use of guano, the excrement of seabirds and bats.

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera lashed out at his Bolivian counterpart as he hailed the ICJ's decision.

"President Evo Morales of Bolivia has created false expectations in his own people, and has created great frustration in his own people," he said in a statement.

"We have lost five valuable years of the healthy and necessary relationship that Chile needs with all neighbouring countries, including Bolivia."

Based in The Hague, the International Court of Justice was set up in 1945

to rule on border and territorial disputes between nations

'The struggle continues!'

Morales has weaponised the dispute to boost his popularity at home where the importance of the issue is underscored by the fact that Bolivia still has a navy despite lack of access to the sea.

A small crowd of Bolivian protesters waved flags, played pan pipes and banged drums outside the Peace Palace for the verdict, shouting "The struggle continues!"

"Of course we are sad about the decision. We’re a small country, but we’re not Switzerland or Luxembourg. We need access to export and import our goods,” said Gabriella Telleria, 50, one of the protesters.

“We asked for justice and we didn’t get it,” she told AFP.

Bolivia says regaining the 400 kilometres (260 miles) of coastline along the northern tip of Chile that it lost in the war would stimulate growth and development in South America's poorest country.

Bolivian activists said the loss of the Chuquicamata mine, the world's largest open-pit copper mine which is situated in the disputed area, has also badly hit the country's indigenous peoples.

For its part, Santiago says the border is based on a 1904 peace treaty signed with Bolivia in the wake of the War of the Pacific and therefore must be respected.

Meanwhile, Chile has opened its own case against Bolivia over the Silala waterway, which flows into the Atacama desert and which La Paz has threatened to divert.

#UPDATE The International Court of Justice rejects a bid by Bolivia to force Chile to the negotiating table for access to the Pacific Ocean in a row dating back to the 19th century https://t.co/5TjZh9MFhB pic.twitter.com/i1BiinaE3s

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 1, 2018

Former CEO of Schiedam-based oil firm jailed for three years in bribery scandal

DutchNews, October 1, 2018

Photo: SBM Offshore

The former CEO of a Schiedam-based oil services company has been sentenced to three years in prison in the US for his part in a large-scale international bribery scandal. 

Tony Mace, 66, a British national, was also fined $150,000 (€130,000) after he admitted being involved in the bribery of foreign officials in Brazil, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. 

Mace greased the palms of local officials to secure new contracts while acting as CEO of SBM Offshore between 2008 and 2011, US prosecutors said. He kept a spreadsheet detailing payments worth €16 million which were made to five officials in Equatorial Guinea. 

Robert Zubiate, a 66-year-old sales and marketing executive executive from California, was fined $50,000 and jailed for two and a half years for his role. Both men pleaded guilty last November to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). 

‘Their actions rewarded corrupt officials’ greed and tilted the playing field against honest, law-abiding companies,’ said assistant attorney general Brian Benczkowski in a statement. 

‘Today they paid a heavy price for their crimes. Their sentences should serve as a warning to corporate executives everywhere: if you pay bribes to advance your business interests, we will catch you and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.’ 

The corruption came to light when a whistleblower contacted the authorities in 2012. The company earlier reached a financial settlement worth $400 million. The company employs almost 5,000 people worldwide.