http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=trafficking Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:40:31 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=trafficking Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:34:23 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bb7_1371673892 english-patriot33 http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Charge-UW-biology-student-raped-12-year-old-4607366.php http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/06/sex-jihad-muslim-uw-biology-student-rapes-12-year-old-girl.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm Charge: muslim UW biology student raped 12-year-old runaway There are many, many cases all the time of sexual predators taking advantage of underage girls. This one, however, has two elements that show traces of the effects that Islamic supremacism can have on a human mind. Abdelbadie claims that this 12-year-old girl "seduced" him -- an idea that might occur easily to someone who, following Muhammad's example, sees girls as young as nine as sex objects. Also, he claims she was dressed "provocatively." Many Muslim clerics have justified sexual abuse of women by saying that they brought it on themselves with their immodest dress. If they had covered up, nothing would have happened. Muslim men in Islamic cultures have no obligation to control themselves. Women have to make sure they don't get attacked by not "provoking" the men. This little girl was a victim of that mentality. This is same modus operandi behind the scores of Muslim child sex trafficking gangs in Europe. Vulnerable pre-teen plied with durgs and alcohol. Sex jihad .... this is how it starts. "Charge: UW biology student raped 12-year-old runaway" Seattle PI, June 18, 2013 University of Washington student accused of having sex with a 12-year-old girl he picked up in the University District has been charged with child rape. Currently free after posting bond, UW Senior Omar Abdelbadie is alleged to have plied the girl with marijuana, brought her back to his apartment and had sex with her hours after they met. Abdelbadie, a 22-year-old originally from Bellevue, was described by prosecutors as a threat to community safety, despite his lack of a criminal history. "The defendant is a danger to children given the circumstances of this crime where he met a 12 year old girl on the street, exposed her to marijuana, and took her to his home, where they had sexual intercourse," Senior Deputy Prosecutor Carol Spoor said in court papers. Having left home that evening, the girl ended up in the U District just after midnight on June 10, according to charging papers. She told police she was about to head home - she described the crowd there as "creepy" - when she encountered Abdelbadie. According to the girl's account, Abdelbadie approached and struck up a conversation with her, and then asked her to smoke marijuana with him. The girl said she told him her age several times before he brought her back to his apartment, where he had sex with her after claiming she had "seduced" him. The girl left Abdelbadie's home the following day. Abdelbadie and a friend are alleged to have walked her home, and watched hiding behind a fence as she walked up to the house. Abdelbadie's friend - who met Abdelbadie when signing him up for a children's charity -- then called 911 after arguing with Abdelbadie about his conduct with a young girl. Officers responded to the area and arrested Abdelbadie. According to charging papers, Abdelbadie told police he met the girl walking near University Avenue and claimed she was dressed "provocatively." He is alleged to have admitted he "hooked up" with the girl, but would not say whether he knew her true age. Abdelbadie has been charged with second-degree child rape. He likely faces 7 1/2 years in prison if convicted as charged. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bb7_1371673892 english-patriot33 Charge: UW biology student raped 12-year-old runaway islam, muslims, terrorists, pedophiles, outlaw islam in the free world, Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:03:08 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c0c_1371639459 LostRothschild Doesn't Obama have bigger issues? Why is he still trying to stick it to firearm owners and the second amendment? Oh yeah... Gotta head off that prism thing! "responsible gun ownership" = "you can have what I say you can have. And if I don't like it, you can't have it." I'm sure his Idea of this is: turn them all in to the government "responsibly" =============================================================== The White House says President Obama is close to completing a series of executive actions to address gun violence, but they are not a substitute for congressional legislation. In a report issued Tuesday, the administration has "completed or made significant progress" on 21 of 23 executive actions that Obama outlined Jan. 16 as part of a major gun-control initiative. "But Congress must also act," the report says. "Passing common-sense gun safety legislation, including expanding background checks and making gun trafficking a federal crime, remains the single most important step we could take to reduce gun violence." With Obama in Northern Ireland for the G-8 summit, Vice President Biden will discuss the report in a speech Tuesday afternoon. The Senate blocked a background check bill in April, thanks mostly to the votes of Republicans. Obama administration officials and Senate Democrats are trying to revive the bill by pressuring senators who voted against it to reconsider. Gun-control opponents say the proposals are ineffective, and undermine the Second Amendment rights to gun ownership. The Obama administration began pushing for new gun legislation after the Dec. 14 shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 students and six educators. The new White House report listed the executive actions on guns taken by the administration. Among them: Ending a freeze on federal research into the causes of gun violence, reducing barriers that prevent states from submitting certain records to the existing background check system, and easing the ways in which federal law enforcement agencies can trace guns recovered in investigations. The report did not mention two other legislative proposals backed by gun-control supporters: A new ban on assault weapons, and restrictions on the size of ammunition magazines. Neither proposal has sufficient support in Congress as of yet. The White House report says the president's executive actions are designed to address several goals, including improvements to the existing background check system, law enforcement, and school safety, as well as promote responsible gun ownership. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/theova...rders/2432423/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c0c_1371639459 LostRothschild White House cites progress on gun control 2, 2nd, second, amendment, gun, firearm, rights, constitution, tyranny, freedom Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:42:20 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dff_1371478630 Thickhanger Here's a real WTF. It turns out that the favorite part of a male citizen of Pakistan is another mans penis. It's also noteworthy that Pakistan has the highest rate of internet porn trafficking. This is even more the average Liveleak member. And we ain't just dickin' around. According to Google Trends, Pakistan is by volume the world leader for Google searches of the terms "shemale sex," "teen anal sex," "the Pakistani prostate plunger" and "man fucking man." Being a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual person is a considered a taboo vice in Pakistan and gay rights are non-existent. Pakistani law mandates same-sex sexual acts are illegal and even same sex dating is punishable by death. And it always is. According to a Pew Research Global study of sexuality in Pakistan, only 2% of society should accept homosexuality. Of the 39 other countries surveyed, Pakistan was the least tolerant of any homosexual type of behavior at all with an approval of zero. Pakistani society is so intolerant of homosexuality that is is actually one of the few countries in the world where homosexuality is punishable by death. While homosexuality may be a cultural taboo in Muslim nations such as Pakistan, that is not to say that homosexuality does not exist.*( Except in Iran where of course we all know it definitely does not. But I suppose if you murder all of the gays then theoretically there indeed would nor be any homosexuals). Rather, these feelings are repressed, concealed from the public eye, and unleashed in other arenas such as the Internet, where society cannot condemn them. Nor condom them. Due to this clandestine and covert method of dealing with this "non-existent" homosexual behavior, Pakistan is quickly running out of hand lotions and Kleenex. http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2013/06/gay-porn-pakistan http://www.documentingreality.com/forum/f225/why-gay-porn-so-popular-pakistan-128812/ http://www.policymic.com/articles/48825/pakistan-is-one-of-the-world-s-least-gay-friendly-countries-until-you-see-its-google-history http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dff_1371478630 Thickhanger Pakistans Private Pornography WTF,religion,sexuality,homosexuality,gay,foo foo,sissy la la, Ally Gaybar,Thickhanger, Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:08:14 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=567_1371427596 SAPD_HRT When a carjacked victim's vehicle crashed following a police pursuit by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department, the armed homicide suspect - who was shot by officers - continued to shoot. The terrified victim, with the help of two officers, was removed from danger. The frantic driver of a vehicle involved in the collision was near the shooter and was pulled out of the car by an officer while his colleagues maintained his cover. A police K-9 was enlisted to enable officers to handcuff the uncooperative and injured suspect. The LEOs involved in the heroic acts that day were Sergeants Joel Miller and Joseph Sanchez, as well as Officers Hans Almaraz, Joseph Arevalo, Mark Austin, David Blake, Joseph Broussard, Juan Garcia Bradford Gorby, Ryan Nguyen, Clint Perez, and Sean Schneider. These were just a few of the officers honored by the National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO) at the 20th Annual 'Top Cops' awards ceremony in May 2013. Another was Detective John Saavedra - from the Miami-Dade County Police Department and a member of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) - was attempting to apprehend some drug dealers when he was shot Saavedra several times by an assailant who had been hiding in a darkened vehicle. Saavedra fired at the gunman and hit him multiple times, but while Saavedra was down, he was ambushed by another man who punched and kicked him in the face. Saavedra was rescued by his colleagues, airlifted to a hospital, and he recovered from his wounds. Officer Del Pearson of the Chicago Police Department ended up in a foot chase with a curfew violator following a conversation. Pearson was ambushed and shot twice in the chest. His left arm was incapacitated, but he returned fire with his right arm. Two officers came to his aid and took him to the hospital. He was released eight days later. Senior Trooper Eric Nash of the Indiana State Police was recognized for his ability to keep cool under deadly fire and for his willingness to risk his life for a fellow officer. Nash attempted to end a deadly shootout in which Green County Sherriff's Department Deputy James O'Malley was seriously injured from the suspect's gunshot. Trooper Nash positioned his vehicle toward the house to tend to O'Malley's wound at which time the suspect emitted another round of gun fire and hit another officer. Nash maintained his position. After ten minutes of gun fire, the suspect was apprehended. When two armed bank robbers traversed three counties and engaged in a fierce gun battle with cops, Senior Trooper Mark Domino, the top cop of the Iowa State Patrol, was in pursuit. Amid a hail of bullets, Domino was shot in the arm but kept going. While steering the vehicle with his injured right arm, he returned fire - leaning out of the cruiser with his left arm. His assistance was instrumental in the apprehension. Members of Las Vegas area's Criminal Apprehension Team (CAT) were commended for their heroic efforts in attempting to apprehend a suspected murderer who had used a machete in his crime. Following their pinch formation, the suspect ran, shot at officers, and a gun battle ensued. Detective Greg Theobald was hit. The suspect was killed and colleagues aided in getting Theobald to the hospital. Detectives Eric Collins, Thomas Fuller, Richard Hart, Craig Lilienthal, Troy Radke, Greg Theobald, Linda Theobald, Sergeant David Stansbury of LVPD - alongside Detective David Rowlett of the City of Henderson PD, and Special Agents Daniel Coxon, T. Scott Hendricks III, and Christopher D. McInnes of the FBI - a were honored. Captain Mark McGrath of the Wayne (NJ) Police Department was recognized for saving his colleague's life. McGrath rescued Officer Robert Franco after a tree fell onto his vehicle. Following a 14-hour shift, McGrath crawled under live wires in the narrow space between vehicles and carefully loosened Franco's vest that was blocking his airway. For 45 minutes, he led a small team that removed the door and unloaded Franco. When off-duty cop Ivan Marcano observed an elderly man being pistol whipped and went to assist, he was shot in the chest and fell to the ground. He stumbled into his girlfriend's car. En route to the hospital, Marcano observed the criminals in a vehicle. He exited the car, clutching his chest, and shot at the suspects who crashed their car. Marcado, in foot pursuit, shot at them, and he took his assailant down. In 36 hours, his colleagues apprehended the other suspects. Detectives Ivan Marcano, Terrence Munnelly, and Steven Smith were the cops honored from the New York City Police Department. When U.S. Marshall Designate Gary Blankinship, his wife, Police Officer Nicole Blankinship-Reeves, and children were dining in a Pasadena restaurant, a gunman entered. When Officer LaReau appeared, he ordered the suspect to drop his weapon. The suspect refused and raised his gun. Lareau shot him six times and secured the scene until Pasadena Police arrived. These cops of the Houston Police Department are related family members. The top cops of the Oak Creek Police Department who responded to the Sikh Temple shooting are Lieutenant Brian Murphy and Officers Sam Lenda, John Finco, Julie Grauberger, Dean Kleinhans, Michael Shultz, Derick Slamka, and Kelly Romel. Lieutenant Murphy had been shot 17 times. Officer Lenda shot and wounded the suspect and saved Murphy from further attacks. The other officers aided other victims and got Murphy to a hospital. All these officers saved an untold number of lives. "These members of America's finest have gone above and beyond the call of duty to keep our nation safe," NAPO President Thomas Nee said. For their heroic acts, they serve as models of inspiration and deserve much gratitude for their contributions to public safety. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=567_1371427596 SAPD_HRT 2013 'Top Cops' honored in DC ceremony Police, Sheriff, Top, Awards, Sat, 15 Jun 2013 04:55:26 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0ee_1371286423 absu69 Nearly six years since massive financial fraud and speculative market manipulation drove the global capitalist economy off the rails, congressional grifters in both benighted political parties have turned over the legislative process to bankster lobbyists. Talk about technocratic efficiency! Last week, The New York Times revealed that "Bank lobbyists are not leaving it to lawmakers to draft legislation that softens financial regulations. Instead, the lobbyists are helping to write it themselves." According to emails leaked to the Times, a bill that "sailed through the House Financial Services Committee this month--over the objections of the Treasury Department--was essentially Citigroup's." Despite huge losses during the capitalist economic meltdown, which included heavy exposure to toxic collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) which cost shareholders some 85 percent of asset value by early 2009, by 2012 the bank had built up an enormous cash horde to the tune of $420 billion (lb277.7bn), derived from selling some $500 billion (lb330.6bn) of "special assets" placed in Citi holdings that were guaranteed from losses by the US Treasury Department; this included untaxed overseas profits of some $35.9 billion (lb23.74bn) according to Bloomberg . As I reported last month, Citigroup was handed some $45 billion (lb29.78bn) in TARP funds while the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve secretly backstopped more than $300 billion (lb197.31bn) in toxic assets on their books. In addition to receiving "$2.5 trillion of support from the American taxpayer through capital infusions, asset guarantees and low-cost loans," as Wall Street on Parade analyst Pam Martens pointed out, like other too-big-to-jail banks such as Wachovia and HSBC, the Citi brand has long been associated with washing dirty cash for drug cartels. Hit with a toothless Consent Order by the Federal Reserve in March over "deficiencies in the Banks' BSA/AML compliance programs," federal regulators charged that Citigroup and their affiliate Banamex "lacked effective systems of governance and internal controls to adequately oversee the activities of the Banks with respect to legal, compliance, and reputational risk related to the Banks' respective BSA/AML compliance programs." The Federal Reserve "action" followed an anemic Consent Order last year by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) which also cited Citi's failure to "adopt and implement a compliance program that adequately covers the required BSA/AML program elements due to an inadequate system of internal controls." Additionally, the OCC charged that the "Bank did not develop adequate due diligence on foreign correspondent bank customers and failed to file Suspicious Activity Reports ('SARs') related to its remote deposit capture/international cash letter instrument activity in a timely manner." Nevertheless, as with other criminogenic banks such as JPMorgan Chase, similarly hit with an equally toothless Consent Order by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in January, in their infinite wisdom the Federal Reserve averred that their Citigroup action was issued "without this Order constituting an admission or denial by Citigroup of any allegation made or implied by the Board of Governors in connection with this matter, and solely for the purpose of settling this matter without a formal proceeding being filed and without the necessity for protracted or extended hearings or testimony." In other words, let's sweep this under the rug as quickly as possible and move on. But before we do, let's step back for a moment and wrap our heads around a few salient facts. Here's a bank with a documented history as the GAO revealed in 1998, of laundering drug money for well-placed Ju'arez and Gulf Cartel crony Ra'ul Salinas de Gortari, the brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas, charged with amassing a multimillion dollar fortune from narcotics rackets and then squirreling it away in London, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. Does this evoke any memories? According to GAO investigators, "Mr. Salinas was able to transfer $90 million to $100 million between 1992 and 1994 by using a private banking relationship formed by Citibank New York in 1992. The funds were transferred through Citibank Mexico and Citibank New York to private banking investment accounts in Citibank London and Citibank Switzerland." Beginning in 1992, Citibank "assisted Mr. Salinas with these transfers and effectively disguised the funds' source and destination, thus breaking the funds' paper trail." And they did so by creating "an offshore private investment company named Trocca, to hold Mr. Salinas's assets, through Cititrust (Cayman) and investment accounts in Citibank London and Citibank Switzerland," and then failed to "prepare a financial profile on him or request a waiver for the profile, as required by then Citibank know your customer policy." Keep in mind that when Swiss prosecutors completed their money laundering investigation, The New York Times disclosed that "Swiss police investigators have concluded that a brother of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari played a central role in Mexico's cocaine trade, raking in huge bribes to protect the flow of drugs into the United States." That Swiss report stated, "When Carlos Salinas de Gortari became President of Mexico in 1988, Ra'ul Salinas de Gortari assumed control over practically all drug shipments through Mexico. Through his influence and bribes paid with drug money, officials of the army and the police supported and protected the flourishing drug business." Does the name of former Banamex CEO Roberto Hern'andez ring any bells? Described as "the single biggest winner" of Mexican bank privatizations engineered by the Bush and Clinton regimes during the 1990s as Narco News disclosed, a subsequent investigation revealed that "Hern'andez had been accused--publicly and via a criminal complaint--by the daily newspaper Por Esto! of trafficking tons of Colombian cocaine through his Caribbean costa properties on that peninsula since 1997." And when Citigroup acquired Banamex in 2001 for the then-princely sum of $12.5 billion (lb8.27bn), it was described as the largest US-Mexican corporate merger in history. Should it surprise us that this Citi subsidiary was named alongside parent Citigroup by the OCC and Federal Reserve for repeated failures to adequately police dirty money flowing into their coffers? Members of the House Financial Services Committee should examine why they would turn over the legislative process to a criminal financial cartel! As Times' journalists Eric Lipton and Ben Protess reported, "Citigroup's recommendations were reflected in more than 70 lines of the House committee's 85-line bill. Two crucial paragraphs, prepared by Citigroup in conjunction with other Wall Street banks, were copied nearly word for word. (Lawmakers changed two words to make them plural.)" Proving yet again, that Washington lawmakers are beholden to their Wall Street masters, MapLight , a nonpartisan research group that "reveals money's influence on politics in the US Congress," disclosed that legislators "serving" on the House Financial Services Committee "approved six bills that would roll back pieces of the Dodd-Frank Act designed to improve regulation of the derivatives market." Lawmakers who voted "yes" on HR 992 , the Orwellian-named Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act, "received, on average, 2.6 times more money from top banks than committee members" who voted "no." MapLight further disclosed that lawmakers who voted "yes" on this pernicious piece of legislative detritus "received, on average, 3 times more money from the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate (FIRE) sector," than committee members who voted "no." The $700 trillion derivatives market, 93.2 percent of which is controlled by the four largest too-big-to-fail-and-jail US banks, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, is a cash cow and shadow market for crooked financial insiders. HR 992, which rolled-back a key provision of 2010's anemic Dodd-Frank financial "reform" legislation, Sec. 716, would have required banks to spin off their derivatives activities into separate units that would not have access to federal bank subsidies, i.e., taxpayer bailouts. "In recent weeks, the Times reported, "Wall Street groups also held fund-raisers for lawmakers who co-sponsored the bills. At one dinner Wednesday night, corporate executives and lobbyists paid up to $2,500 to dine in a private room of a Greek restaurant just blocks from the Capitol with Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrat of New York, a co-sponsor of the bill championed by Citigroup." Responding to questions, Financial Services Committee member Jim Himes, a former Goldman Sachs banker, third-term Connecticut Democrat and one of the top recipients of Wall Street largess to the tune of $194,500 according to OpenSecrets told the Times: "It's appalling, it's disgusting, it's wasteful and it opens the possibility of conflicts of interest and corruption. It's unfortunately the world we live in." No Mr. Himes, it's the world you live in. While your colleague across the aisle, Stephen Fincher (R-TN), cites Bible verses to justify gutting federal nutritional assistance to 47 million hungry Americans while being the "the second largest recipient of farm subsidies in the United States Congress" according to Forbes , and received some $3.48 million (lb2.3m) since 1999 in USDA farm subsidies while doing the "Lord's work" according to the Environmental Working Group , the US Congress, including "liberal" Obama Democrats have promoted every filthy piece of legislation that facilitates Wall Street's plundering of the American people. Referencing the recent vote on HR 992, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that in the first quarter of 2013, members of the Financial Services Committee "received more than $1.3 million in donations to their campaigns and leadership PACs from the securities and investment industry and commercial banks." According to OpenSecrets, "By far the largest source of cash from the two industries was the Investment Company Institute , a trade association representing Wall Street firms. The ICI gave at least $129,000 to members of the House Financial Services Committee. Other trade groups representing banks and investment firms, including the American Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America , were also major contributors." OpenSecrets reported that "Banking industry companies increased their contributions in 2013 to $640,286, from $497,169 in early 2011. Citigroup, in particular, jumped from $19,500 in donations to committee members to $39,500. UBS went from $64,250 to $88,000. Wells Fargo also opened its checkbook a little wider this year, giving $80,000, compared with $31,250 in 2011." Commenting on this latest gift to Wall Street criminals, the World Socialist Web Site observed: "Flush with the $85 billion in cash printed up and handed to the banks every month by the Federal Reserve, business at the Wall Street casino is booming. Stock values are at record levels and so are bank profits, amidst declining wages and mass poverty." "Under these conditions," Marxist critic Andre Damon averred, "the banks have been pushing to rip up even the very modest restrictions on financial speculation, while broadening the scope of government bailout laws. The aim is simple: to give banks the maximum ability to speculate without constraint, while getting the maximum possible government assistance if and when the bubble collapses." None of this should surprise anyone who has paid the least attention to the cronyism and financial parasitism of the Obama regime. From get-out-of-jail-free-cards passed out to drug money laundering banks by Eric Holder's Justice Department, to the appointments of Citigroup alumnus and Cayman Islands tax-dodger Jacob Lew as Treasury Secretary, Debevoise &amp; Plimpton partner Mary Jo White over at the Securities and Exchange Commission to the nomination of billionaire Hyatt Hotel heiress, subprime mortgage "pioneer" and union-buster Penny Pritzker to lead the Commerce Department, it's a bankster world, all the time. How's that for Hope and ChangeTM! http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0ee_1371286423 absu69 Bankster Lobbyists Writing Regulatory 'Reform' Legislation banks,writing,regulation Sat, 15 Jun 2013 04:19:47 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4a0_1371284254 absu69 Paraguay's April 21 election of Horacio Cartes, a dodgy "tobacco magnate," rancher and banker, whose Banco Amambay has been accused of laundering drug money, tax evasion and other crimes, raises the specter of "state capture" by powerful drug cartels linked to US intelligence agencies. In the context of US efforts to manage not eliminate, the multibillion dollar global trade in illegal narcotics, Cartes electoral victory might very well be a shot in the arm for certain three-lettered US intelligence agencies, eager beavers always on the lookout for new allies--and an endless supply of black funds--to carry out hemisphere-wide dirty ops against leftist governments. The current US destabilization campaign targeting Venezuela's newly elected president, Nicol'as Maduro and the Bolivarian revolution, is instructive in this regard. A key factor driving US regional operations is control over the narcotics market. As researchers Oliver Villar and Drew Cottle revealed in Cocaine, Death Squads and the war on Terror : "Paraguay was the first country in Latin America to be publicly exposed for its involvement in the drug trade. Paraguay in the early 1970s was a vital center for the Corsican mafia, leading to the development of a vast heroin-trafficking network supplied from Turkey, and based in Marseille, the infamous 'French Connection.' Corsicans coordinated the transport of heroin from Marseille to the United States via Paraguay. The CIA," Villar and Cottle averred, "used such networks as transit stops in transporting Asian heroin to the United States with the help of corrupt high-ranking government and military officials." "Later," journalist Vicky Pelaez disclosed in The Moscow News , "cocaine trafficking was added. It was transported through Chaco's wild and rough terrain. Chaco is a vast, semi-arid and semi-humid region in western Paraguay, where there are at least 900 covert airplane runways and where between 60 and 70 tons of cocaine circulate annually, according to former Interior Minister Carlos Filizzola." "Curiously," Pelaez averred, "there are two US bases in that region. One is located in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero, in the Amambay province, and is operated by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The other, run by the Pentagon, is part of the Mariscal Estigarribia airport, in the Boquer'on province, and boasts a 3,800-meter long runway." When Fernando Lugo was removed from office last year after an expedited impeachment "trial" by Paraguay's Senate, it was widely denounced across Latin American as a parliamentary coup d''etat which had more than a passing resemblance to the 2009 ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. And like the Honduran coup against Zelaya, the World Socialist Web Site pointed out that "both countries have been the focus of attention of the US military and intelligence apparatus, which shares intimate connections with its local counterparts. Security forces in both countries have been trained and advised by the Pentagon and would not support the overthrow of an existing government without its approval." Elected in 2008, Lugo, a former Catholic bishop and proponent of Liberation Theology, promised to combat Paraguay's endemic corruption and implement policies favoring a "preferential option for the poor." Lugo however, was no Hugo Ch'avez, Evo Morales or Rafael Correa, populist leaders who defied the Global Godfather by charting an independent course. Despite a mildly reformist agenda which increased access to healthcare and education for Paraguay's working class majority, when it came to the key issue of land reform Lugo's administration hit a brick wall. Shortly after assuming office, Lugo became the target of that nation's entrenched landed oligarchy, multinational agricultural corporations (including such paragons of virtue as Monsanto, Pioneer, Syngenta, Dupont, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and Bunge) and the transnational drug cartels which continue to rule Paraguay with an iron fist much as they did under the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. Paraguay, a landlocked nation in which 2 percent of the population control more than 80 percent of the landed wealth, most of which had been expropriated by the kleptocratic Stroessner regime and handed out to favored cronies of his Colorado party, agrarian reform should have topped Lugo's agenda. As The Moscow News pointed out, "Monsanto was naturally involved in the conspiracy. The world's largest producer of genetically modified crops disapproved of Lugo's idea to abolish the per-ton royalty of $4 on soybeans, to be paid by growers using Roundup Ready RR1 and Intenta RR2 Pro seeds. Recall that on his fifth day in office, the new president, Federico Franco, offered new concessions to Monsanto concerning the distribution of its GM cotton, soybean and corn seeds in Paraguay." According to Pelaez, "Over the past ten months, unofficial employment has soared to 66% (this proportion is higher only in Peru (67%) and in Haiti (92%)). The bulk of the shadow labor market is formed by farmers pushed off the fields by such groups as Monsanto and Cargill, which use biotechnology to industrialize agricultural production and convert farmland into a contaminated 'green desert,' slowly but surely implanting a system of 'farming without farmers'." Blocked at every step, and relying on the right's largesse to remain in office, Lugo's betrayal of the campesino base that put him in office and his retreat and capitulation to Paraguay's elite doomed his administration. In fact, as journalist and researcher Benjamin Dangl reported in UpSideDownWorld last year, "Lugo was no friend of the campesino sector that helped bring him into power. His administration regularly called for the severe repression and criminalization of the country's campesino movements. He was therefore isolated from above at the political level, and lacked a strong political base below due to his stance toward social movements and the slow pace of land reform." Using a police provocation and subsequent massacre of 11 landless farmers who had occupied land belonging to ex-Colorado Senator Blas Riquelme, illegally seized by the Stroessner regime as a pretext, the Chamber of Deputies launched proceedings to remove Lugo from office. Scarcely 24 hours later, the Senate voted to impeach the president. Who was leading the charge for Lugo's removal? Why none other than the Colorado Party's declared candidate for the presidency, then-Senator Horacio Cartes. But the final straw may have been the decision by Lugo's administration three years earlier, to cut off access to the country by the US military. By 2007, the Pentagon had deployed some 400 Marines under the guise of "medical readiness training" exercises that were denounced by grassroots activists as a ploy to identify "dangerous" rural leaders of the landless movement. At the same time, the Pentagon was planning to expand US operations at the giant Mariscal Estigarribia air base, 120 miles from the Argentine and Bolivian borders. Journalist Conn Hallinan reported back in 2005, "US Special Forces began arriving this past summer at Paraguay's Mariscal Estigarribia air base, a sprawling complex built in 1982 during the reign of dictator Alfredo Stroessner. Argentinean journalists who got a peek at the place say the airfield can handle B-52 bombers and Galaxy C-5 cargo planes. It also has a huge radar system, vast hangers, and can house up to 16,000 troops. The air base is larger than the international airport at the capital city, Asunci'on." During a 2009 press conference, Lugo rejected further US troop deployments under the Bush-era "New Horizons" program. In a decision that greatly angered Washington, Lugo remarked, "we don't see it as convenient that the Southern Command has a presence in Paraguay." Coming on the heels of Ecuador's 2009 closure of the giant US airbase at Manta, of which Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa famously said: "We can negotiate with the US about a base in Manta, if they let us put a military base in Miami," the Pentagon and CIA looked to Paraguay for a platform for what Southern Command described as "counternarcotics surveillance," but which regional neighbors denounced as a threat to hemispheric security. Ominously, the US ambassador in Asunci'on, Liliana Ayalde declared: "It's a regrettable decision." Indeed it was, for Lugo and the Paraguayan people. The (Narco) Ties that Bind In their relentless drive to accumulate riches at the expense of their citizens, comprador elites, particularly those who mix land grabs, far-right politics with currying favor from their imperialist overlords, utilize state institutions as cash cows. And when those elites are also plugged into the international narcotics trade and control the state's machinery of repression, well, it's a win-win all around! Who would imagine that a central banker would have ties to criminals and narcotraffickers? Why, the US Embassy that's who! A 2007 Cable Gate file published by WikiLeaks noted that former Central Bank president Dr. Angel Gabriel Gonz'alez C'aceres, "a strong Colorado with close ties to President Duarte, who appointed him Central Bank president in September 2003," was named "Paraguay's new director of SEPRELAD, the Secretariat for the Prevention of Money Laundering," and that reviews of his previous performance were "quite mixed." Variously described by the Embassy as "a technician with a long trajectory at the Central Bank who has cooperated with the Embassy on money laundering and terrorist financing," as Banking Superintendent however, Gonz'alez "opposed creation of SEPRELAD because he wanted the Central Bank to retain responsibility for fighting money laundering." But perhaps there were other factors, and interests, at work? According to Asunci'on Deputy Chief of Mission Michael J. Fitzpatrick, Paraguay's counternarcotics director Hugo Ibarra would have "nothing to do with" Gonz'alez. The counternarcotics chief then "volunteered that Gonz'alez had a direct personal role as Central Bank president in white-washing ('blanquear') funds for so-called pillar of the community Horacio Cartes and his Banco Amambay, noting that 80 percent of money laundering in Paraguay moves through that banking institution." "Ibarra indicated," Embassy officials averred, "that Gonz'alez is still involved with Amambay, and questioned why a former Central Bank president would take a lower level position as SEPRELAD director--managing an office with less than a dozen employees--in the absence of some other financial incentive." Certainly a relevant question; however, no answers were forthcoming. In 2008, another WikiLeaks file disclosed that shortly after assuming office, Lugo informed the US Embassy of his interest "in closer counternarcotics cooperation with the United States and requested U.S. assistance with microenterprise development during a Friday, August 29 dinner with the Ambassador." Significantly, "Lugo made clear that he does not trust some of his closest advisors or cabinet ministers. During dinner, which took place before the weekend rumors emerged regarding coup planning, Lugo told Ambassador about a tape recording of former President Duarte and General Lino Oviedo betting that Lugo will last only three to eight months in office." A 2009 secret WikiLeaks file, "Paraguayan Pols Plot Paraguayan Putsch," noted that "discredited General and UNACE party leader Lino Oviedo and ex-president Nicanor Duarte Frutos are now working together to assume power via (mostly) legal means should President Lugo stumble in coming months." Oviedo, "serving time for involvement in the 1999 assassination of Vice President Luis Argana and the subsequent Marzo Paraguayo massacre of unarmed student protesters," the Embassy noted it was Duarte "who used his control of the Supreme Court to free Oviedo from jail" in 2007. A 2003 CIA report published by the Library of Congress informed us that "Brazilian and U.S. officials generally consider former General Lino C'esar Oviedo to be head of the so-called Paraguay Cartel. He reportedly has amassed at least US$1 billion, including numerous properties in the TBA ." The Argentine investigative news magazine P'agina/12 published a 2001 Argentine Chamber of Deputies report on money laundering which noted that according to Brazilian officials, the US Embassy and the DEA, Oviedo was involved with "drug trafficking (cocaine and marijuana), weapons, money laundering and the smuggling of various items." In 1994 for example, a "load of seven tons of cocaine, worth $70 million, which was seized with the participation of the CIA, and destined for the USA," was linked to Oviedo and his employees. Later that year, according to DEA documents, another load of five tons of cocaine was seized from "Oviedo accomplices" attempting to smuggle it across the Paraguayan border. The Chamber of Deputies report concluded: "Oviedo is accused of being the head of a drug trafficking, arms trafficking and being involved in the murder of media entrepreneur Carlos Honorio Cubillas and Paraguayan Vice President Argana. The various charges against him made by the DEA were, by former U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay and the Brazilian CPI." As noted above, in 2007, Oviedo's conviction for orchestrating an attempted military coup in 1996 was annulled by Paraguay's Supreme Court. Again a candidate for the presidency in 2013, nominated by the ironically named National Union of Ethical Citizens (Uni'on Nacional de Ciudadanos 'Eticos, UNACE), Oviedo died in a "helicopter accident" after a campaign appearance in February, clearing the path to power for Horacio Cartes. The Cartel: Back in Power Last Sunday in an unusually critical article, The New York Times reported that during the campaign, Cartes "was pressed to explain why antinarcotics police officers apprehended a plane carrying cocaine and marijuana on his ranch in 2000; why he went to prison in 1989 on currency fraud charges; and why he had never even voted in past general elections." Good questions, all of which were dismissed by Cartes' top aides as "conspiracy theories" and "slander." The most serious charges involve Cartes connection to drug trafficking, money laundering and the smuggling of contraband cigarettes. Another WikiLeaks file, this one from 2010, informed us that a joint that a joint ATF-DEA-ICE-OFAC US anti-money laundering investigation dubbed "Heart of Stone," revealed that Cartes is the head of a transnational criminal organization and the main target of the operation. "OPERATION HEART OF STONE is a coordinated, transnational investigation focused on the disruption and dismantlement of a significant drug trafficking and money laundering enterprise operating within the Tri Border Area (TBA) of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, and elsewhere throughout the world. This investigation has established links between and among drug trafficking, money laundering and other criminal organizations and, as such, was approved as a designated Consolidated Priority Organizational Target (CPOT) investigation during April 2009." The WikiLeaks file averred: "The investigative team has implemented strategies and operations aimed at attacking the financial infrastructure of drug trafficking supply network (DTO's) and other criminal enterprises operating within the TBA. Using a strategic approach to target the international command and control centers of these criminal organizations based in the TBA, agents have successfully focused investigative activity in an effort to develop this investigation with an aim toward a DEA UC introduction to CPOT designee Horacio CARTES. Through the utilization of a DEA BACO cooperating source and other DEA undercover personnel, agents have infiltrated CARTES' money laundering enterprise, an organization believed to launder large quantities of United States currency generated through illegal means, including through the sale of narcotics, from the TBA to the United States." Despite the seriousness of the allegations, and others enumerated below, The Independent reported that Cartes "has publicly denied the allegations and says he has received assurances from the embassy that the US Drugs Enforcement Agency and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are conducting no investigations against him, something the cables allege." If true, this raises a disturbing question: did the DEA drop the ball or were they ordered to back away from the investigation by Obama's State Department? "'When it comes to drug trafficking, Horacio has made it clear what his position is,' says Julio Velazquez, a Colorado senator standing for re-election tomorrow." Ludicrously, Velazquez told The Independent: "'There's no concrete allegation against him. Horacio has investments in the US. Do you think the Americans would allow a narco to bring money into their country?'" Memo to Senator Velazquez: Not only would the Yankees "allow a narco to bring money into their country," they'd look the other way as US banksters laundered the funds and extracted hefty fees in the process! Another front in the Cartes empire involved Banco Amambay and illegal tax evasion. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists ( ICIJ ) reported earlier this month that "five directors of Banco Amambay created a secret bank in the Cook Islands with no building and no staff." Journalists Marina Walker Guevara and Mabel Rehnfeldt disclosed that "top officials of a Paraguayan bank owned by Horacio Manuel Cartes, the country's leading candidate in this month's presidential election, operated a secret financial institution in a tax haven in the South Pacific." According to the ICIJ's investigation, "Cartes' father, Ram'on Telmo Cartes Lind, and four other executives of Paraguay's Banco Amambay S.A. created Amambay Trust Bank Ltd. in 1995 in the Cook Islands, a tiny chain of atolls and volcanic outcroppings more than 6,000 miles away from the South American nation." "The Cook Islands bank, which was operational until 2000," the same year the Cook Islands landed on of the OECD's money laundering blacklist, "a dishonor roll for places the OECD considers havens for dirty money," was de-registered a month prior to OECD sanctions. Guevara and Rehnfeldt reported that the Cook Islands were condemned for "'excessive secrecy provisions'" that "allowed owners of offshore companies and accounts to hide in the shadows. It noted the islands' government had 'no relevant information on approximately 1,200 international companies that it had registered' and that the offshore banks located in the Cooks weren't required to document the identity of their customers." "It was not the only time that Banco Amambay and its officials made headlines for alleged money laundering, but the accusations have never resulted in convictions." "Just last month," the ICIJ averred, "the head of Paraguay's anti-money laundering agency said that the bank was being investigated alongside other financial institutions for illegal money transfers abroad. The following day the official recanted his words and said he had misspoken. Amambay denied any involvement in criminal activities." With the election of another "teflon president" accused of operating a drug trafficking and money laundering enterprise, and with powerful connections to prominent right-wing politicians suspected of decades' long ties to global narcotics rackets, the Pentagon and US secret state agencies must be salivating over the prospect of the cartel's return to power. After all, as State Department spokesperson Patrick Ventrell said during an April 22 press briefing when queried about Cartes dodgy record: "The United States values its relationship with Paraguay and looks forward to working with the President-elect, with President-elect Cartes, on many of our shared interests, such as defending and promoting democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, and expanding trade and economic opportunities." When pressed about Cartes long history of criminal allegations, Ventrell didn't bat an eyelash and averred: "I'm not aware of specific allegations one way or another, but we do congratulate him on his electoral victory. And I think I just was clear about working with him going forward." http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4a0_1371284254 absu69 In the Wake of Last Year's 'Soft Coup' Against Paraguay's President, Will a New Narco-Dictatorship Emerge? drug,war Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:58:01 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d6a_1371160581 TheFireTiger 1. Somalia There's a reason Somalia has topped the Failed States Index for five years straight. Although the internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government gained control of the capital, Mogadishu, last August after the hard-won withdrawal of the terrorist group al-Shabab, it still lacks control of large swaths of the country, including Somaliland and Puntland in the north. The Somali police are "generally ineffective," while violence, piracy, and kidnappings are regular threats. Last year, one of the deadliest droughts in decades resulted in a famine that killed tens of thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands in the country, where 16 percent of the population was internally displaced in 2011 - the highest rate worldwide. African Union and Kenyan troops are working to help bring security to Somalia, and signs of growth in Mogadishu are offering a flicker of hope, while plans to pass a new constitution and elect a new president and prime minister later this summer offer a crucial test. Here, a Somali boy sits in the ruins of what used to be the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Mogadishu on Aug. 18, 2011. Hundreds of Somalis set up temporary shelters inside the cathedral's ruins after fleeing from their villages during the worst drought in the past 60 years. ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images 2. Democratic Republic of the Congo Nine years after the official end of the Second Congo War, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) held presidential elections in November 2011. But the chaotic voting, marred by violence, corruption, and instability, only underscored the fact that the country - where 1.7 million of the total 71 million residents are internally displaced persons - remains terrifyingly unstable. The winner of the polls, which were widely discounted by the international community, was Joseph Kabila, who has ruled the DRC since his father, the former president, was assassinated in 2001. Although Kabila may have clung to power, he by no means sits comfortably in the presidential palace. Former rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, continues to conduct attacks against civilians and political opponents with impunity. His actions are only part of the epidemic of violence that plagues the country, particularly in the eastern region, which has been called the "rape capital of the world." Above, a bloodied supporter of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress is helped by a friend after clashes with police and army forces in Kinshasa, the capital, on Nov. 26, 2011. The supporters were waiting for the main opposition leader, Etienne Tshisekedi, who was not allowed to hold a rally in town. EPA/Yannick Tylle 3. Sudan The year 2011 saw the fragile state of Sudan literally break in two when South Sudan formally declared independence in July. The split between the two longtime rivals has not been a peaceful one, with numerous skirmishes over oil-producing regions along the border, a worsening internal refugee crisis as South Sudanese find themselves stranded in the north, and each side accusing the other of supporting internal rebel movements. Tensions came to a head in April of this year when the Khartoum regime launched airstrikes and sent ground troops over the border, and northern President Omar al-Bashir vowed to wipe out South Sudanese leaders, referring to them as "insects." Analysts are now warning that a wider war looms. Here, the shell of a vehicle that was hit by a bomb sits in front of the abandoned village of Trogi during fighting in the South Kordofan region along the border. ADRIANE OHANESIAN/AFP/GettyImages 4. Chad Chad's fortunes appeared to improve in 2010, when President Idriss D'eby and Bashir, his Sudanese counterpart, ended long-simmering hostilities between the two neighbors (the troubled Darfur region sits along their shared border). But 2011 - the 50th anniversary of Chad's independence from France - brought more tumult. D'eby secured a fourth term in a race that was boycotted by opposition parties, who accused the president's party of rigging previous parliamentary elections. More recently, the impoverished central African nation experienced a food emergency as part of a larger crisis in the Sahel region. Journalist Steve Coll has described Chad, which became an oil-producing nation in 2003, as "a poster child for the resource curse." Above, women in colorful, flowing fabrics gather around a shared human and animal watering hole near Lake Chad. Photo by Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images 5. Zimbabwe After more than three decades of strongman Robert Mugabe's misrule - punctuated by massacres, assassinations, and government-led campaigns against white farmers - Zimbabwe is in shambles. The country's economy has deteriorated for much of the past decade, and in 2008 hyperinflation peaked at an annual rate that one economist calculated as the second highest in world history. Since then, the economy has begun to expand again, growing by an estimated 6 percent in 2011, but Zimbabwe remains politically fragile: Mugabe's power-sharing arrangement with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai remains more theory than reality. The country's future, and how much worse it will sink on this list, depends largely on who will rule when the 88-year-old Mugabe dies. Here, a poster of Mugabe hangs torn on a street-side wall in Bulawayo. John Moore/Getty Images 6. Afghanistan From corruption and intrigue surrounding President Hamid Karzai's rule to an unyielding reliance on the opium trade to being the world's most hostile country for women, Afghanistan unquestionably checks just about every box for state failure. And that's aside from the decade-long war that shows no signs of an immediate resolution, despite U.S. plans to withdraw troops as early as 2013. The chances of success for NATO's upcoming security handover to the Afghans depend precariously on cooperation from Pakistan, as well as whether the Taliban - lately resurgent in the country's north - can be contained. Afghanistan's trajectory on the Failed States Index - where it has inched up from No. 11 in 2005 to No. 6 this year - unfortunately does not bode well. In the above prize-winning photo, a girl screams while surrounded by the bodies of a suicide attack in Kabul on Dec. 6, 2011. More than 70 people lost their lives in the bombing. MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/Getty Images 7. Haiti It's been more than two years since a massive earthquake reduced much of this island nation to rubble, but the road to recovery remains a long one for Haiti. In May, musician-cum-president Michel Martelly, who was elected on a platform of sweeping reform and infrastructure development, marked one year in office. But his time in power has been marred by corruption scandals and plagued by political infighting and suggestions from critics that Martelly, better known as "Sweet Micky," plans on setting himself up as a dictator. There could be some hope for future development: As foreign aid continues to dwindle, the country is attempting to rebrand itself as a tourist destination. Still, social, economic, and political unrest, paired with the the country's enduring image as a disaster zone, have so far stymied the return of vacationers. Here, a Haitian boy walks by the destroyed presidential palace on March 8, 2012, in Port-au-Prince. Tens of thousands of Haitians are still living in tent camps in and around the capital. Spencer Platt/Getty Images 8. Yemen The 22-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh finally came to an end in November, when he agreed to step down amid widespread protests and escalating violence in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. But democracy hasn't exactly flowered in Yemen, where only one candidate, former Vice President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, was on the ballot in an election in February. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has taken advantage of the political chaos to seize several towns in the country's south. The military has launched an all-out offensive to recapture the lost territory, and the United States has stepped up its strikes on al Qaeda targets. Above, Yemeni soldiers ride on top of a pick-up truck near the town of Jaar, a jihadist stronghold north of the Abyan provincial capital Zinjibar, on May 30, 2012, as Yemeni forces continued their offensive against al Qaeda loyalists in the south. AFP/GettyImages 9. Iraq Although overall levels of violence in Iraq have declined substantially from the peak of sectarian strife in 2006-2007, deadly bombings and shootings have repeatedly undermined security. The country's brittle power-sharing arrangement was tested only days after the United States completed its troop withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011, when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led government issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on charges that he ran death squads. But Maliki, who recently sidestepped a no-confidence vote, has presided over some successes as well. Oil production is at its highest levels in decades, and Iraq's GDP more than doubled between 2010 and 2011. Above, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki speaks during a news conference as a security guard stands by in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad. Maliki denounced a U.S. raid against a Shia militia that was carried out in Sadr City. 10. Central African Republic When the Associated Press calls a nation "desperately poor" despite rich mineral deposits, adding that "armed bandits and insurgents roam the anarchic countryside"; when the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office recommends visitors avoid "non-essential" travel to most parts of the country's territory, and the Lonely Planet calls it the "real" Africa because it's so "underdeveloped, fragmented and poverty-stricken"; and when a Danish journalist can buy himself an ambassadorship to the country and uses it to satirize the absurd corruption that rends it - well, it sadly wasn't a good year for progress in the Central African Republic. Above, a woman walks in the rebel-held town of Kaga Bandoro in the country's north. Spencer Platt/Getty Images 11. Ivory Coast Last year was one of political upheaval and deadly violence for the Ivory Coast. Denying his defeat in the November 2010 presidential election, incumbent Laurent Gbagbo held fast to his seat for months, ordering security forces to kill some 3,000 people opposing him. Gbagbo finally ceded power the following April, when he was taken into custody by troops loyal to his opponent, Alassane Ouattara, before the International Criminal Court charged him with crimes against humanity. Ouattara assumed the presidency, but the months of turbulence have left the country in economic distress; millions are unemployed due to sanctions against Gbagbo and a decline in foreign investment. Above, a home in Grand Lahou, about 100 miles west of the capital Abidjan, on May 14, 2012. The house was once part of the city but is now being swallowed by the sea. ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/GettyImages 12. Guinea Less than two years ago, Guinea elected its first democratically chosen president - Alpha Cond'e, formerly an opposition leader who ran on a platform of reform - and just one year ago, Cond'e survived an assassination attempt by members of the armed services. Despite the rocky start for democracy in Guinea, the West African nation has continued to push forward with ambitious plans for development. Rich in mineral deposits (it has the world's largest supply of bauxite, used to make aluminum), the Guinean government is attempting to increase its mining capabilities by opening the country's first iron mine. It began production in June 2012, but Guinea's expansion has already attracted attention for possible corruption. Britain's Sunday Times reported that backroom deals threatened to divert millions of dollars in assets from companies investing in Guinea, even as the government tries to reform a mining industry that has been in chaos during the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Here, supporters of a Guinean opposition party clash with police as they protest against president Alpha Alpha Cond'e on May 10, 2012, in the capital city of Conkry. CELLOU BINALI/AFP/GettyImages 13. Pakistan The May 2, 2011, killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, along with the ongoing drone war on the Afghanistan border, kept Pakistan in international headlines last year. But the country also faced grave challenges on a number of other fronts, including assassinations, political intrigue, and natural disasters. Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, an outspoken opponent of a controversial blasphemy law, was killed in January 2011. And targeted killings between rival political factions left hundreds dead in Karachi throughout the summer. The civilian government was further marginalized by the military following the bin Laden raid, culminating in the dramatic firing of the country's ambassador to Washington after he reportedly warned of a possible "coup.". And separatist violence continued to flare in the restive Balochistan province. Pakistan is currently locked in tense negotiations with NATO over supply routes into Afghanistan, which have been closed since 24 Pakistani troops were killed in a NATO airstrike in November. Above, a Pakistani vendor talks on his phone as he walks down the middle of a railway track in Lahore on Jan. 5, 2012. ASIF HASSAN/AFP/GettyImages 14. Nigeria In April 2011, Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from Nigeria's southern, oil-producing Niger Delta, resoundingly won what was arguably the country's fairest presidential election ever. But he was immediately confronted with violent protests in the Muslim north that highlighted the deep ethnic, regional, and religious divisions in Africa's most populous country. Now, Jonathan is grappling with violence from another source: the Islamist group Boko Haram, which has killed more than 1,000 people since mid-2009. The militants' brazen attacks on everything from churches to the U.N.'s headquarters in Abuja coincided with mass protests across the country over the removal of fuel subsidies - an action the government later walked back. Here, female students stand in a burnt classroom at Maiduguri Experimental School, a private school burnt by the Islamist group Boko Haram to discourage children from seeking education in Maiduguri, northeastern Nigeria, on May 12, 2012. PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/GettyImages 15. Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau's prime minister, Carlos Gomes Junior, said in September that he would welcome deposed Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi "with open arms." He never had a chance; Qaddafi was killed in October, and Gomes himself was arrested while running for president this past April, after Guinea-Bissau suffered an all-too familiar coup. Coups have repeatedly racked the country over the past half-century: Since independence in 1974, not a single leader has finished his full term in office. In 2010, a drug kingpin who went by the name Rear Adm. Jos'e Am'erico Bubo Na Tchuto even helped staged a coup from the capital's United Nations building. Above, soldiers disperse a group of demonstrators in Bissau on April 14, 2012. Two days earlier, a group of Guinean soldiers attacked Junior's residence and held various strategic points in the capital. EPA/ANDRE KOSTERS 16. Kenya One of Africa's most developed countries, Kenya sat at No. 34 on the Failed States Index back in 2006, but by 2010 it had climbed its way up to 13, following a contested 2007 presidential election that led to widespread ethnic and tribal violence. For the past two years, the country has stayed put at No. 16, coinciding with the approval of a new constitution in 2010 and the International Criminal Court pressing charges against the alleged organizers of the post-election violence. Still, Kenya's entanglement in Somalia, where it sent thousands of troops last fall, has resulted in several attacks and kidnappings along the Kenya-Somali border, introducing new pressures in a country still struggling to recover from a half-decade of turbulence. Kenya also hosts the world's largest refugee camp, teeming with Somali drought victims. Above, a shoe lays next to a blood stain on the ground at a scene of the second explosion at a bus station in downtown Nairobi on Oct. 24, 2011. The attacks came a week after Kenya launched a military operation in Somalia to track down the militant group al-Shabab, which the country blamed for a series of kidnappings of foreigners. EPA/DAI KUROKAWA 17. Ethiopia If Ethiopians are looking for someone to blame for their three-spot leap on this year's list, they might justifiably look to their neighbor to the east, Somalia. Continued instability in that country has had spillover effects in Ethiopia, which in 2011 sent troops across the Somali border in an effort to stem the rising influence of the al-Shabab movement. During the most intense period of a devastating combination of drought, famine, and instability in Somalia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that some 23,000 refugees were arriving each month in Ethiopia, straining resources. The drought also took its toll on the Ethiopian economy, which has experienced runaway growth in recent years but slowed slightly in 2011. While the Ethiopian government has moved to institute some reform in the agriculture sector - which employs 85 percent of workers and accounts for 41 percent of total output - those changes have been incremental at best and hardly sufficient to stand up to 2011's record-breaking dry spell. Here, a malnourished boy sits in front of a feeding center on June 10, 2008, in southern Ethiopia. Late rains in 2012 have put the country at risk for famine once again. JOSE CENDON/AFP/Getty Images 18. Burundi Considered a post-conflict success story following the end of civil war in 2000, Burundi has more recently been lurching dangerously back toward instability since a disputed election in 2010, which led several disgruntled political opposition groups to take up arms. The ruling party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy, and a reconstituted rebel group, the National Liberation Forces, have attacked each other in a series of targeted killings. The country suffered its worst massacre in years this past September when 40 people were killed in an attack at a bar near the Congolese border. Journalists and civil society leaders have also faced persecution. Here, the bodies of victims of armed raiders are lined up for identification on Sept. 19, 2011, in the capital city of Bujumbura. Raiders killed at least 36 people when they stormed a Burundi bar and opened fire on patrons in one of the country's worst attacks in months. Esdras Ndikumana/AFP/Getty Images 19. Niger Mahamadou Issoufou's victory in Niger's March 2011 presidential elections marked the country's return to civilian rule after a military coup a year earlier that ousted Mamadou Tandja, (who was released from prison after Issoufou, an opposition leader during Tandja's 10-year rule, came to power). But the impoverished West African nation, a major uranium exporter, hasn't been able to shake its long history of military intrigue since achieving independence from France in 1960. Last July, five soldiers were arrested for allegedly plotting to assassinate Issoufou. Meanwhile, Niger is battling a food crisis, swarms of locusts, and the security threat posed by the rebel takeover in neighboring Mali. Above, a Nigerien woman digs a trench to collect rainwater near the village of Tibiri in the southern Zinder region on May 28, 2012. ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/GettyImages 20. Uganda The world has taken note of late of Joseph Kony, the Ugandan warlord and leader of the apocalyptic, cult-like Lord's Resistance Army. In October, U.S. President Barack Obama sent 100 U.S. troops to Uganda to bolster its fight against the LRA, and in March the activist group Invisible Children began a viral social media effort to raise awareness of his thousands of victims. The only problem? Although Kony certainly spread chaos throughout the Uganda in past years, he has since left and is thought to be hiding in the Central African Republic. Instead of warlords, the real threat to Uganda may be the spread of Nodding Disease, an incurable neurological affliction that affects thousands of children in the region. In the political arena, however, things are looking better. Since 2011, when Uganda's long-serving president, Yoweri Museveni - who has held power since 1986 - crushed opposition to his latest election and quashed political protest, he has begun to give signals that he may eventually relinquish control. Above, Ugandans watch a screening of Kony 2012 - Invisible Children's film on the war criminal - in the Lira district of Uganda on March 13, 2012. The video, which garnered 78 million hits on YouTube in a matter of weeks, outraged some Ugandans, resulting in walkouts and stone throwing. 21. Myanmar Although it has been under military rule since the 1960s, Myanmar is a rarity on the Failed States Index: a country showing strong, measurable signs of progress. Since his election in March 2011, President Thein Sein has freed hundreds of political prisoners, taken steps to open up the economy and lift restrictions on the press, and allowed a somewhat democratic vote in March that saw the election of longtime opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to parliament. The pace of change under Thein has been rapid, leading the United States to ease economic restrictions against Myanmar and even paving the way late last year for Hillary Clinton to be the first U.S. secretary of state to visit the country in more than half a century. Widespread poverty and a recent rash of sectarian violence, meanwhile, are reminders of serious obstacles that remain. Here, Suu Kyi receives flowers from supporters on her way to a political rally at a stadium in Pathein on Feb. 7, 2012. 22. North Korea For all its horrors, North Korea refuses to collapse. It survived the disintegration of its patron, the Soviet Union, in 1991; the death of its founder and dictator for 46 years, Kim Il Sung, in 1994; and the world's worst famine in decades, which led to the starvation of hundreds of thousands of people. The year 2011 saw both the ascension of Kim Jong Un, after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in late December, as well as renewed questions about life inside the Hermit Kingdom. In the world's most opaque country, information is scarce, but it appears that the North, desperately poor and inhumanly repressive, still has enough inertia to keep muddling through. Above, mourners react as a car carrying Kim Jong Il's body passes by during the funeral procession in Pyongyang on Dec. 28, 2011. Millions of apparently grief-stricken North Koreans turned out to mourn the late Dear Leader. 23. Eritrea In December, the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on Eritrea, accusing the small East African country of supporting rebel groups in Somalia, including the al Qaeda-linked militant group al-Shabab. The government has also been criticized for using its compulsory "national service" system to force thousands of young Eritreans into labor. Journalists, labor unions, and political activists are frequently subject to arbitrary detention and torture. And an estimated 2,000 Eritrean refugees arrive in Sudan each month, hoping to claim asylum. Not for nothing is Eritrean often labeled "Africa's North Korea." Here, Eritrean farmers herd a team of donkeys into the capital city of Asmara for the main weekly Saturday market on Nov. 3, 2007. The red and blue logo of U.S.-government food aid is a common sight in Eritrea. Donated grain sacks are re-stitched as popular shopping bags. 23. Syria Syria is in the throes of a debilitating uprising that began as peaceful anti-government protests in March 2011 and now features a (semi-)organized opposition, an armed rebellion, and signs that terrorist groups are exploiting the chaos. The United Nations estimates that more than 10,000 people have died during the government's relentless crackdown on the opposition despite a U.N.-brokered peace plan, and sectarian civil war appears to be just around the corner. The international community has reached a standstill about how to respond to the conflict, but sanctions imposed by Arab and Western countries have still managed to take an economic toll. In March, Syria's oil minister claimed that the measures had blasted a $4 billion hole in the country's economy. Look for Syria to leap up in the rankings next year. Here, the Syrian flag flies next to a destroyed building in the Bab Amro neighborhood of Homs on May 2, 2012. JOSEPH EID/AFP/GettyImages 25. Liberia Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf - a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Africa's first elected female head of state - is often celebrated by the international community. But her campaign for reelection this past fall, which she ultimately won in October, highlighted the criticism she has faced within her country; some accuse Johnson-Sirleaf of failing to crack down on corruption and foster economic growth, which continues to be hindered by high unemployment, illiteracy, poor health, and limited infrastructure. Although the Liberian economy has managed to rebuild modestly over the past decade, it is still recovering from the country's 14-year civil war, which ended in 2003; the U.S. State Department estimates that about 68 percent of the total population lives below the poverty line today. In April of this year, Liberians watched as former president Charles Taylor, a key player behind the country's deadly civil war, was sentenced in The Hague to 50 years of jail time for atrocities committed in neighboring Sierra Leone during his rule. Liberian incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, above, waves at supporters during a campaign meeting in Monrovia on Nov. 6, 2011, two days before the second round of the presidential election. ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images 26. Cameroon In October 2011, Paul Biya, Cameroon's incumbent president and uninterrupted ruler since 1982, won yet another landslide victory in an election tainted by allegations of electoral fraud. Any hopes that the sentiments of the Arab Spring might migrate southward to Cameroon were firmly quashed by the Biya administration, which imposed a crackdown on dissidents and the opposition in the run-up to the election. And as Biya's rule continues undisturbed, so does a massive cholera outbreak that began in 2010 and has showed little signs of slowing down. Cholera, a disease that spreads largely as a result of poor sanitation systems, speaks volumes about current conditions in Cameroon, where more than a third of children suffer from stunted growth as a result of poor nutrition and 13.6 percent of children will die before the age of five. Here, a hunter in the Cameroon jungle heads out to check traps on July 26, 2011. He is collecting blood smaples from animals for Dr. Nathan Wolfe, founder of a company that seeks to predict and prevent pathogen threats. Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images 27. Nepal Sandwiched between India and China, impoverished, mountainous Nepal has long been a proxy battleground for influence among those powers, often cracking down on Tibetan refugees at the behest of its neighbor to the north. Nepal's biggest problem is that it just can't seem to form a government. A 2008 power-sharing agreement appointed Prachanda ("the Fierce One"), the head of the Maoist rebel group, as the country's prime minister, but he resigned a year later when the president sacked his army chief. As recently as May, another attempt at forming a legislature failed; meanwhile, Nepal remains one of the poorest countries in Asia. Supporters of the Maoist Unified Communist Party of Nepal, above, take part in a torch rally in Kathmandu on Sept. 2, 2011. Nepal's former rebel Maoists handed over thousands of weapons five years after the civil war ended in a move seen as an important part of the nation's troubled peace process. PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP/Getty Images 28. East Timor East Timor celebrated its first decade of independence this past May. Although the new nation's early years were characterized by political infighting and ethnic conflict, things were a bit more stable in 2011, and U.N. peacekeepers, who are planning to pull out of the country at the end of 2012, have already handed over most security responsibilities to local forces. Human rights groups, meanwhile, have criticized East Timor for failing to prosecute perpetrators of human rights abuses during the country's war for independence. Despite impressive economic growth, the country's economy remains almost entirely dependent on oil exports. A general election in July will be a major test of whether this young country can escape the legacy of its violent birth. Above, an East Timorese vendor waits for customers in Dili, the capital, on April 24, 2012. 29. Bangladesh Politics in Bangladesh have long been dominated by a bitter rivalry between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, and the resulting political volatility has manifested itself in many ways in this impoverished, densely populated South Asian country. Last year, clashes erupted between police and protesters after the government scrapped a system in which neutral caretaker governments oversaw general elections. More recently, the army announced it had foiled a coup plot by Islamist military officers against Hasina's government, and deadly protests and general strikes over the disappearance of an opposition leader paralyzed the country. Still, Bangladesh has managed strong, if faltering, economic growth amid the political jousting. A Bangladeshi activist, above, attends a procession to mark International Workers Day in Dhaka on May 1, 2012. MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/GettyImages 29. Srilanka Sri Lanka's economy grew at an estimated 8.3 percent clip in 2011, buoyed by a peace dividend, as investors and tourists returned to this island nation after its 26-year civil war finally ended in May 2009. But ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils, supported by India, still rankle. The government of President Mahinda Rajapakse, a Sinhalese, has claimed that it "never targeted innocent civilians," but human rights groups estimate that tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the brutal last few months of fighting. Above, a Sri Lankan man walks past a painting in Colombo depicting the recent war between the Army and Tamil guerrillas. INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images 31. Egypt One year ago, Egypt was at the forefront of the Arab Spring as a popular protest movement ended 30 years of autocratic rule by former President Hosni Mubarak. Today, Mubarak has been sentenced to life in prison for his role in the deaths of protesters during the movement, and Egypt recently completed the first free elections in the country's history. But these rosy developments are far from the whole story. The elections led to what many revolutionaries have called a "nightmare scenario": a runoff between Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's last prime minister, and Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Islamist group Muslim Brotherhood - hardly a choice the liberal protest organizers welcome. At the same time, Egypt continues to face an economic crisis exacerbated in part by the revolution, with youth unemployment reaching 30 percent and the tourist industry continuing to struggle. Protesters have headed back to the iconic Tahrir Square and other hotspots time and again, often met with violence from the military and police forces. Whether Egypt's new government can bring economic and political stability without sacrificing the gains of the revolution remains to be seen. Above, anti-Mubarak demonstrators pose in front of a mock gallows while riot police provide security outside a court in Cairo on Feb. 22, 2012, as the landmark murder and corruption trial of the former president entered its final day of hearings. MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images 31. Sierra Leone Although Sierra Leone has achieved relative political stability since a brutal civil war ended in 2002, its weak economy is still recovering from the 11-year conflict, which killed tens of thousands of people. The West African country, which has improved by 14 spots on the Failed States Index since 2006, has also shown signs of healing. A government policy in recent years to waive medical fees for women and children has dramatically increased the number of children getting health care and decreased mortality rates. And this past May, former Liberian president Charles Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison for planning and abetting atrocities committed by rebels in Sierra Leone during the civil war. Here, a boy drinks water from a tap on April 28, 2012 in a new town built in Koidu, capital of the diamond-rich Kono district. 33. Republic of the Congo Although security has improved since the end of a bloody civil war in 1999, the country also known as Congo-Brazzaville remains plagued by corruption, poverty, and the spillover of instability from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In January 2012, Congo-Brazzaville finalized plans to repatriate more than 120,000 DRC refugees; thousands more had arrived in December, fleeing post-election violence next door. In March 2012, an explosion at an arms depot in Brazzaville destroyed several buildings and killed hundreds. A cholera epidemic then broke out among the homeless survivors of the blast. Congo-Brazzaville has also been identified by the United Nations as a major source and destination of child trafficking Here, two locals pass the remains of damaged buildings nearly a week after a massive series of explosions in the Mpila suburb of Brazzaville on March 10, 2012. EPA/Alon Skuy 34. Iran The West's tough sanctions over the country's nuclear program have inflicted much of the country's economic pain this year. (In fact, the International Monetary Fund raised eyebrows in 2011 by praising Iran's economic reforms in a report.) But inflation and high unemployment were already present last year, and human rights abuses and political infighting added to domestic instability. Riot police and pro-government militia fighters battled with protesters as the Arab Spring got underway in February 2011, in a brief reminder of the mass protests that followed Iran's disputed presidential election in 2009. And a power struggle between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exposed deep rifts between Iran's conservative leaders. Ahmadinejad, above, delivers a speech under a portrait of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on June 3, 2011. 35. Rwanda Rwanda's feisty president, Paul Kagame, would likely disagree with the designation of his country as a failed state. Perhaps he would point to the 8.2 percent growth rate in 2011, his business-friendly policies, or the statistic that 56 percent of parliamentarians in Rwanda are female - the highest rate in the world. But almost two-thirds of the population still lives below the poverty line. On top of that, Kagame, who has been in office since 2000, won the 2010 election with a questionable 93 percent of the vote. For all his economic success, domestic and international observers worry about his growing dictatorial tendencies, as well as his role in the 1994 genocide that killed an estimated 800,000 to 1 million people. Here, a police officer patrols the street in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, on Aug. 10, 2010. EPA/CHARLES SHOEMAKER 36. Malawi Impoverished and suffering from one of the world's highest HIV/AIDS rates, Malawi nonetheless had seen a decade of relative stability, buoyed by former President Bingu wa Mutharika's program to boost agricultural production through fertilizer subsidies. That calm was shaken last year, when protesters, spurred by fuel shortages, rising prices, and high unemployment rates, took to the streets in July, and security forces loyal to Mutharika retaliated violently, killing 19 people. Mutharika died suddenly this past April of a heart attack, and his vice president, Joyce Banda, assumed the presidency according to democratic process - a sign, one can hope, of a return to more stable times. Here, a woman walks home with her firewood and child on July 13, 2011, in Chinkota village. ALEXANDER JOE/AFP/Getty Images 37. Cambodia Last year saw the beginning of the trial of three senior members of the Khmer Rouge, accused of their involvement in the deaths of nearly one-quarter of Cambodia's population under Pol Pot in the late 1970s. The shadow of the Khmer Rouge regime still looms over Cambodia; the country's nearly three-decade-serving prime minister Hun Sen is himself a former Khmer Rouge commander, as are many high-ranking members of his government. Hun's cronyism is one of the reasons Cambodia was ranked one of the 20 countries with the highest perceived level of corruption in 2011. Above, a Cambodian solider guards the grounds of the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple on Feb. 8, 2011 in Preah Vihear. Thousands of refugees had fled the area after clashes between Thai and Cambodian troops near the disputed World Heritage site. 38. Mauritania Mauritania is still reeling from the 2008 military coup that overthrew the country's first ever democratically elected government. Coup leader Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz continues to rule, having won an election in 2009. Mauritania saw protests in the early days of the Arab Spring, including self-immolations like those in Algeria and Tunisia, but they never erupted into mass demonstrations. The Mauritanian military continued to clash with al Qaeda-linked militants in the country's western desert and in June 2011 crossed the border to attack targets in neighboring Mali. Mauritania was the world's last country to abolish slavery, in 1981, but the practice remains rampant, with at least 10 percent of the population living in bondage, according to U.N. estimates. Above, a Bedouin takes water from a well near Nema, southeastern Mauritania, on May 4, 2012. Mali's March 22 military coup and the subsequent seizure of half the country by rebels have compounded the already worrying effects of a food crisis across West Africa's Sahel region. 39. Togo Togo, a narrow strip of land in West Africa, began implementing democratic reforms in the early 1990s. But its democratic institutions have been repeatedly compromised, perhaps never more so than in 2005, when a bloody succession crisis followed the death of Gnassingbe Eyadema, who had ruled the country for nearly four decades. Power has since passed to Eyadema's son, Faure Gnassingbe, whose security forces clashed violently with opposition protesters in spring 2011 over the government's attempts to regulate public protests and revise the constitution. Last September, Gnassingbe's half-brother was sentenced to 20 years in prison for plotting a coup. Here, a Togolese security force turns away from protesters on March 7, 2010, in Lome. ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images 41. Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaor'e doesn't have much to show for 25 years of rule in Burkina Faso, where nearly half the population lives below the poverty line and the life expectancy is a mere 54 years, among the lowest in the world. But after the Arab Spring spread throughout much of North Africa and the Middle East last year, residents in the capital of Ouagadougou launched a short-lived revolt in the streets that drew local business owners, students, and even members of the military, police, and presidential guard to protest rising food prices and low wages. More than a year later, the riots have subsided, and the president has managed to hold fast to his power. A child laborer, above, rests in her farmer's storeroom after carrying a large bushel of organic cotton from a field almost a mile down the road near Benvar on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011. Child labor is endemic to the production of Burkina Faso's chief crop export. Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images 41. Kyrgystan Since 2010, Kyrgyzstan has lived under the cloud of violent ethnic clashes that sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the southern part of the country. The legacy of that conflict remains, with thousands still stranded away from their homes and requiring government services. The Central Asian nation rang in 2012 shortly after the election of a new president, Almazbek Atambayev - previously the country's prime minister - in a "peaceful and largely democratic" election, no small accomplishment for a country that has been through two coups in less than a decade. Atambayev is charting a more pro-Russia course for the former Soviet republic: In the spring of 2012, when U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta visited Kyrgyzstan, the Atambayev government made it clear it wants the Manas airport, a major U.S. military transportation base for Afghanistan, turned over to strictly civilian uses when the current U.S. lease expires in 2014. Here, children play among ruins near the town of Osh on June 11, 2011. VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO/AFP/Getty Images 43. Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo's assumption of the rotating presidency of the African Union did little to improve political conditions in a country that remains desperately poor, despite oil wealth that gives it a higher GDP per capita than much larger countries such as China, Russia, and South Africa. More than 100 political opponents were rounded up by Obiang's security forces in the run-up to an AU summit in Malabo last June. Despite widespread corruption and human rights abuses in Africa's fourth-largest oil exporter, the U.S. government continues to enjoy cordial relations with Obiang - depicted as a statue in Malabo above - who is now the continent's longest-serving ruler following the death of Muammar al-Qaddafi. Obiang's notoriously high-flying son, Teodorin, was taken down a notch last year when French police seized 11 of his supercars in Paris as part of a criminal investigation, and he is facing a U.S. indictment by the Justice Department as well - despite being elevated to vice president by his father. AFP/Getty Images 44. Zambia Zambia, Africa's largest copper producer, enjoys more political stability than its neighbours in southern Africa. Last September, Michael Sata, a labor leader who vowed to protect workers from exploitation by the many Chinese companies in the country, was elected president in a peaceful transfer of power. But the government is still grappling with secession demands in western Zambia, as well as widespread poverty and disease. In 2010, the United Nations noted that Zambia's score on the Human Development Index had actually decreased since 1970, largely due to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Above, police officers beat opposition demonstrators during a protest against the suspension of top judges in Lusaka on June 6, 2012. Joseph Mwenda/AFP/GettyImages 45. Lebanon This tiny country has it all: excellent food, stunning beaches, great skiing just a few hours' drive away from one of the world's largest extant Roman ruins. Unfortunately, it also has a messy dispute with Israel; the powerful, armed religious organization Hezbollah, which runs swathes of the country and allies itself with imploding neighbor Syria; and a population so dividedly pluralistic that there's no consensus on whose face to put on the money. As uprisings knocked down leaders across the Arab world last year, Lebanon suffered as a proxy battleground across all sorts of Middle Eastern fault lines. But its own political system has been so combustible for so long, 2011 didn't even seem that strange. Above, Shiite Muslim demonstrators block the Mar Mikhael road at the entrance of Beirut's southern suburbs in protest against the kidnapping of 13 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in the Syrian northern province of Aleppo on May 22, 2012. ANWAR AMRO/AFP/GettyImages 46. Tajikistan This poor, authoritarian Central Asian state is rife with government corruption and barely supports its economy through drug-trafficking and labor exported to Russia. In recent years, the rise of radical Islam has led the Tajik government to crack down on observant Muslims, even monitoring Friday services and, last June, banning children under 18 from attending them. Tajikistan has also seen an uptick in violent clashes along its border with war-torn Afghanistan - tensions that could escalate further following the forthcoming U.S. troop drawdown. A Tajik villager, above, jumps over an irrigation ditch at a cotton field in Yangiabad on Oct. 26, 2006. 47. Solomon Islands The Solomon Islands represent the front lines in the fight to mitigate the impact of climate change. Rising sea levels threaten several key industries for the sprawling Pacific island nation that heavily depends on agriculture and forestry, both of which may suffer from increasing soil salinity. The Solomon Islands have been pummeled by earthquakes in recent years, including at least four major quakes in 2011.The country has also suffered from chronic political instability during the past decade, with six different leaders since 2006. From 1998 to 2003 - the so-called "tension years" - the Solomon Islands were wracked by a civil war. And while an Australian led peacekeeping force has managed to keep a lid on the violence, the country's turbulent politics have showed no signs of quieting. Here, a local looks out over the ocean from a destroyed church in the outskirts of Gizo Island, which was hit by a tsunami in April 2007. WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images 48. Laos Laos is the world's smallest communist state by population. (It's slightly bigger than Cuba.) Mostly ignored by the world's media, the country contains in miniature the same muzzling of the press, intolerance of dissidents, and sham elections as its officially communist neighbors of China to the north and Vietnam to the east. Still, the government does allow some leeway: The land devoted to growing opium increased by 38 percent in 2011, according to the United Nations. Above, a Laotian fisherman casts his net in the Mekong river in the capital Luang Prabang on May 4, 2012. ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/GettyImages 49. Angola Angola, China's biggest African supplier of crude oil, is flush with cash from oil and diamonds, and the country is leveraging that wealth - and Chinese loans - to finance a construction boom following a devastating 27-year civil war that ended in 2002. (The capital, Luanda, is one of the most expensive cities in the world.) But Angola is also one of the world's poorest and least developed countries - a dichotomy that has fueled repeated allegations of government corruption. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who assumed power in 1979, is one of Africa's longest-serving rulers, and in 2011 Human Rights Watch accused his government of intimidating protesters. General elections in August could spark more turmoil. Here, an Angolan carries garbage on Sept. 9, 2008, collecting recyclable material to make a living at one of the largest municipal dumps in Luanda. GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images 50. Libya Muammar al-Qaddafi's three-decade rule over Libya came to a dramatic and bloody end in a drainage ditch near the city of Sirte this year, when the cagey and often eccentric dictator was brought down by an uprising of his own people aided in no small part by NATO airpower. The country has entered a period of political uncertainty under the presumably temporary rule of the rebel National Transitional Council. In early-2012 and mid-2012, tribal violence in Libya's remote southeast has claimed dozens of lives. The ramifications of the removal of Qaddafi - Africa's self-styled "king of kings" - has been felt beyond Libya's borders as well, with guns and returning fighters flooding North Africa and contributing to the instability in nearby Mali. Above, Libyans visit Sirte's damaged cemetery on Nov. 10, 2011. At the time, fewer than 5 percent of the residents of Qaddafi's former stronghold had returned to their homes. JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images 51. Georgia After a 2008 conflict with Russia over control of disputed border territories, Georgia's place on the Failed States Index worsened 23 points between 2008 and 2009, from 56 to 33. Since then, it has nearly regained its (still somewhat unstable) footing. After taking power in a bloodless revolution in 2003, President Mikheil Saakashvili - a Western-educated reformer and U.S. ally - has worked to build up his country's long-suffering post-Soviet economy and wipe out government corruption. In turn, the Georgian economy grew at a 6.8 percent rate last year, and the country jumped from 133rd best to 64th on Transparency International's corruption index between 2004 and 2011. Still, high poverty and unemployment rates, as well as claims that Saakashvili has failed to fulfill the democratic promises he made upon taking power, led thousands of Georgians to take part in anti-government protests in May of last year. Here, a displaced Georgian woman stands by a road on Aug. 16, 2008 just outside the town of Gori, Georgia. Uriel Sinai/Getty Images 52. Colombia Colombia has come a long way since the near-civil war conditions of the 1990s, but it is still not entirely stable. Human rights groups documented scores of extrajudicial killings by elements of Colombian security forces acting independently. Paramilitary groups continued to pray on indigenous people in rural regions, killing dozens. While substantially diminished, the FARC rebels show they are still capable of high-profile actions, including the kidnapping of a French journalist earlier this year. More than half a million Colombian refugees are still living abroad, while there are more than 4 million internally displaced people within the country. Here, a prostitute stands on the street in Cartagena on April 19, 2012. MANUEL PEDRAZA/AFP/Getty Images 53. Djbouti Bordering Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, and just a short hop over the water from Yemen, Djibouti is located right the middle of one of the world's most unstable regions. But it has managed to remain relatively stable - if increasingly authoritarian - compared with its neighbors. February saw mass demonstrations in the capital against President Ismail Omar Guelleh, whose family has ruled since the country's independence in 1977. Nonetheless, Guelleh was reelected with 80 percent of the vote in April, with the opposition boycotting and amid crackdowns against opposition and civil society groups. Djibouti hosts the largest U.S. military presence in Africa, and its key role in both anti-piracy operations and strikes on militant targets in Yemen may make the international community reluctant to criticize Guelleh's government. A Djiboutian woman with her donkeys, above, look for pastures in Garabtisan on Aug. 17, 2011. The village, located in the middle of a harsh desert of sun-baked gray rocks in northern Djibouti, is prone to extreme drought. 54. Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea's capital Port Moresby is not the world's most dangerous city, but it's close; the carjacking, violent crime, and murder rates there led the Economist Intelligence Unit to rank Port Moresby the world's third least livable city in 2011. If the scandal that added to PNG's 2011 political crisis - in which two rival sets of prime ministers and cabinets both claimed power - was not already bizarre enough, police found the body of a 29-year-old waitress in the home of Prime Minister Sam Abal. They were alerted by a security guard who claimed he heard the woman scream and 20 minutes later reported that Abal's adopted, unemployed son had told him "that he had killed the woman and left her body in the banana garden." PNG's 6.2 million people speak more than 800 languages, and civil war is always seemingly a spark away in this fractured nation. Above, children jump over a dirty drain at Daru in Papua New Guinea on Aug. 17, 2011. Tuberculosis and cholera have killed hundreds of people on the island in recent years. Jason South/The AGE/Fairfax Media via Getty Images 55. Swaziland King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute monarch, rules Swaziland with an iron fist. Swazi police cracked down on a pro-democracy demonstration in April 2011, and the government more recently moved to snuff out critics on Facebook and Twitter. The royal family lives lavishly, while the king's subjects struggle with widespread poverty, the world's highest HIV infection rate, and, in 2011, a crippling budget crisis. When 2,000 people marched to the prime minister's office a year ago to voice their frustration with the economic crisis, the king had a message for them: "Work harder and sacrifice more." Here, the king watches young virgins at a traditional reed-dance ceremony at the stadium at the Royal Palace on August 30, 2009, in Ludzidzini. About 80,000 virgins from all over the country attended this yearly event, the biggest in Swazi culture. It was founded to celebrate the beauty of Swazi women and girls. 56. Phillipines The world's 12th most populous country, with some 100 million people, the Philippines has grown rapidly in recent years. Its economy withstood the global recession better than most in 2008 and 2009, rising to a 7.6 percent growth rate in 2010 before falling to 3.7 percent in 2011. But the wealth has been slow to trickle down, and in fact, the poverty rate increased between 2003 and 2009, from 24.9 to 26.5 percent, or more than 3 million people. Poor governance is at least in part to blame. On that front, unpopular former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was arrested in November on charges of tampering with the results of a 2007 congressional election and appeared in court this past February. Above, residents try to salvage recyclable materials from what used to be houses in the aftermath of a massive fire that engulfed hundreds of makeshift houses in a shanty town community in Tondo district on May 12, 2012 in Manila. Up to 10,000 people were left homeless. Dondi Tawatao/Getty Images 57. Comoros Since achieving independence from France in 1975, Comoros has seen no fewer than 20 coups or attempted coups. Political instability continued in 2011 as the opposition accused the ruling party of widespread electoral fraud in the December 2011 presidential contest. This time, however, the parties took the conflict to the country's Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the winner of that contest, Ikililou Dhoinine. One of the world's poorest countries, Comoros has experienced paltry economic growth rates recently and its economy remains highly dependent on agriculture and fishing. A goat, above, eats garbage piled up in the old port city of Moroni on Grande Comore Island. Since its independence from France in 1975, the Union of the Comoros has experienced more than 20 coups d''etat or attempted coups d''etat and half the population lives under the international poverty line of $1.25 a day. EPA/STEPHEN MORRISON 58. Madagascar Despite the international and regional sanctions imposed after he took power in a military-backed coup in 2009, President Andry Rajoelina continues to cling to power. The government put down another attempted coup by the military in late 2010. Seventy percent of Madagascar's population lives below the poverty line, with the economic distress only exacerbated by sanctions. In January 2012, ousted president Marc Ravalomanana was rebuffed in an attempt to return to the country. Supporters of Antananarivo Mayor Andry Rajoelina, above, run from tear-gas following a rally in the main avenue of the Madagascan capital on Feb. 16, 2009. WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images 59. Bhutan Bhutan's fourth "dragon king" coined the term "gross national happiness" in 1972 as the priority for his small, isolated Himalayan kingdom, and PBS ran a documentary about the country, calling it "The Last Shangri-La." But all this happy talk masks an authoritarian streak: Bhutanese are reportedly required to wear their national dress outside during daylight hours, cigarettes are illegal, and tens of thousands of ethnic Nepali Bhutanese citizens have fled to Nepal because of persecution. Above, a Bhutanese woman looks out from her home next to a portrait of King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Queen Ashi Jetsun Pema Wangchuck as Bhutan prepares for the royal wedding on Oct. 12, 2011, in Thimphu, the capital. Paula Bronstein /Getty Images 59. Mozambique The year 2011 brought good news for Mozambique on a number of fronts. The government unveiled new anti-graft measures (though government corruption continues to be a problem), and the United Nations reported that the HIV epidemic in the country was "levelling off, albeit at unacceptably high levels." But serious problems remain. In May, the International Monetary Fund noted that Mozambique's economic growth, fueled by largely untapped mineral wealth, is leaving the country's poor (more than half of the adult population) behind and primarily benefiting foreign investors. A WikiLeaks cable in late 2010, meanwhile, warned that Mozambique was becoming a drug trafficking hub. Above, a young Mozambican protester stands near a burning car on a Maputo street on Sept. 2, 2010. Sergio Costa/AFP/Getty Images http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d6a_1371160581 TheFireTiger Worst countries in the world worst,countries,world Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:37:12 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d6d_1371154731 SvenVonErick I do think Alex Jones heart is the right place. I do not like the sometimes pushing of God, religion, and conservative agendas. Other than that, it is a source that is not rivaled out there. Be right almost 100% of the time, and the one time that you are duped, all of your credibility is challenged. The guy in the embedded video seems to be a hard drugs user. I could be wrong. If you had rooms to rent out for the week, would you rent out a room by the week to the guy Alex Jones is interviewing in the video? Prior to 9/11, and probably more so since, police use criminals to be part of cop gangs, called "informants". It is about revenue collection. It is about property confiscation. It is about police getting criminals to break into houses to actually steal guns from legal gun owners. Informants are for helping make lawyers rich, take kids away from good parents, ruin the self-employed and small business owners, to help police with their cocaine and heroin trafficking rackets, promoting prostitution, retaliation against outspoken citizens, beating citizens up, retaliating against police officers and insiders who blow the whistle, and even for murdering people. This is how the informant system works in the State of Connecticut ]. What is happening to Whitey Bulger of the Winter Hill Gang from the Boston area of Massachusetts? The FBI and the Massachusetts State Police were complicit in mafia hits, loan sharking, illegal gambling, extortion, prostitution, racketeering, heroin and cocaine trafficking, illegal domestic spying, and being international organized crime themselves. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d6d_1371154731 SvenVonErick Has Alex Jones of Infowars.com been duped? US, UN, OWS, false, flag, police, state, informant, provacateur, brutality, Connecticut, Massachusetts, NYC, New York, City, Boston, Bombing, hoax, Sandyhook, Schoolyard, Shooting, Martial Law, Patriot Act, NDAA Wed, 05 Jun 2013 11:54:26 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=860_1370447508 HeyMaker69 MINNEAPOLIS - Montia Marie Parker, a suburban Minneapolis high school cheerleader, is accused of prostituting a younger student by creating an online ad and taking her to see potential customers, pocketing $60 in one case. Parker, 18, of Maple Grove, faces felony charges of sex trafficking and promoting prostitution. She is scheduled to appear in court June 12. Parker was a senior at Hopkins High School when she allegedly set up a Backpage.com ad for a 16-year-old, driving her to an apartment to have oral sex with a man, and taking the $60 the girl made. Authorities allege Parker and the girl drove to another home the next day, but left after the man refused oral sex. The girl's mother called police after reading text messages between her daughter and Parker on the girl's cell phone, the Star Tribune reported. The 16-year-old had mentioned to others that she was trying to make some money. Parker sent the girl a Facebook message and text message about how she could make money having sex, requesting that the girl send her photos of herself, the charges allege. Parker posted the photos on Backpage.com, listing her phone number as the contact, the charges said. On March 5, the girls left school and went to an apartment building. When the younger girl returned to the car, she gave Parker the $60 and Parker deposited into her own bank account, according to the complaint. The next day, Parker pretended to be the girl's mother and called the school to get her excused, the charges said. The girls left school and went to a home where the girl was directed to have sex with a man. She refused. "You'll be fine - I didn't drive up here for nothing, and eventually you will need to have sex," Parker told the girl, according to the complaint. The girl told the man she wouldn't have intercourse with him but would give him oral sex. The man refused and Parker drove the girl back to Hopkins High School, according to the complaint. The girl's mother checked her daughter's cellphone after noticing change in her daughter's behavior and hearing that she had an unexcused absence from school. Minneapolis Lt. Kim Lund, president of the Minnesota Juvenile Officers' Association, said authorities have noticed more cases within the last five years involving teen girls using Backpage.com. However, Lund said, it's unusual to have a case involving a teen prostituting a fellow teen; most human trafficking cases involve adult men or women contacting teens. Parker admitted to police that she had created the ad and told them she received "a lot of calls" related to it, according to the complaint. She's free on $50,000 bond. Hopkins High School's last day of classes is Thursday, but school officials said they acted immediately after learning of the charges. The school has about 1,800 students. "In responding to this incident, we followed our discipline and safety policy, which includes permanently removing a student from campus," the district said in a statement. link: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57587784-504083/montia-marie-parker-minn-high-school-cheerleader-accused-of-prostituting-16-yr.-old-classmate/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=860_1370447508 HeyMaker69 Youth accused of sex <span class="highlight">trafficking</span> sex, trafficking, pimp, Sat, 01 Jun 2013 22:49:12 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8d9_1370140922 fukzionists The last time israelis were stealing organs from palestinian prisoners and from injured and orphaned haitians after the big earthquake Six men arrested, among them an IDF brigadier-general and two lawyers; woman was reportedly offered $100,000 for kidney. Police on Tuesday arrested six men suspected of being involved in an organ trafficking ring in northern Israel. Among the suspects are an IDF reserves brigadier-general and two lawyers. The department for fraud and misappropriation in northern Israel has been conducting an undercover investigation which began following a complaint by a 50-year-old woman from Nazareth, who replied to an advertisement in Arabic offering 100,000 dollars for a kidney. The woman underwent medical examinations to ensure a match, and she was then flown a country in Eastern Europe where they extracted her kidney. The woman said that when she returned to Israel, she did not receive the money promised to her. Police say they have since received similar complaints. Police also said that during the investigation they uncovered a large, very well-organized industry of organ trafficking. The ring includes organ traffickers, agents, and lawyers. "The ring is operating throughout Israel and not only in the north, and appeals to the public through local media and internet," a police official said. "The organ traffickers somehow receive details about potential transplant candidates and they offer them their services," he said. The investigators said that the traffickers usually demand around 120,000 dollars for a kidney transplant. While the donors, the majority of which are in serious financial troubles, are taken advantage of and receive around 10,000 dollars. Some of them get even smaller sums, and some do not receive any money at all. The donors sign a contract and fill out fraudulent affidavits claiming a family connection between the donor and the recipient - a requirement in the countries where the surgeries take place. Afterwards, the donors undergo medical examinations where they are categorized by blood types and other medical conditions, and are then flown to countries in Eastern Europe, the Philippines, and Ecuador. There, the donors undergo surgery to extract their kidney, and shortly afterwards return to Israel without any medical documentation, many times suffering from medical complications. During the investigation, police found out that a number of transplant candidates were on their way abroad to undergo surgery. Police located the donors and informed them that they were victims of fraud. Some of the donors were located at Israel's Ben-Gurion airport, right before their departure. Investigators said that there are several more fraud victims located abroad who are due to return to Israel after they were notified that some of the traffickers were under arrest. http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-police-uncovers-organ-trafficking-ring-in-north-1.905 the chosen people of god eyy? http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8d9_1370140922 fukzionists Another organ <span class="highlight">trafficking</span> ring uncovered in israel israel, palestine, jerusalem, europe, germany, lebanon, egypt, france, england Thu, 06 Jun 2013 05:08:25 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5a4_1370509507 Amusing ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - An Orange County man is in jail, accused of trying to sell a woman for $10,000. Investigators said they caught him in an undercover bust. According to investigators, they were tipped off by a man who told investigators he bought drugs from the suspect, and had been asked if he wanted to buy women. "Central Florida is a perfect storm for human trafficking," said Tomas Lares of the Greater Orlando Human Trafficking Taskforce. The investigation started at a 17th Street apartment where agents said Kery Rodriguez sold heroin to a confidential source, then discussed the sale of a woman. "The police source said he had seen girls in the apartment around 14-15 years old," said Lares. "One of them was clutching a stuffed animal in her arms." Undercover investigators then arranged to meet Rodriguez at Garibaldi's Mexican Restaurant near the Florida Mall to see if Rodriguez would set up a deal. They recorded the conversation. According to a transcript of that conversation, Rodriguez said: "If you want them young, normally those we have to take by force. The key is to keep them drugged, and locked up, and have at gunpoint." Agents said he later offered to provide a young white female for $10,000 and said he might have to kidnap the female. Lares said it happens more often than people in central Florida realize. "Unfortunately it's happening on a weekly basis," said Lares. People who live near the apartment said they had no idea about what was allegedly going on. "That would be too much, because it's really quiet around this neighborhood," said Vivian Thompson. Rodriguez is being held at the Orange County Jail on a $250,000 bond. He also has an immigration hold, according to investigators. Investigators said after Rodriguez was picked up, he told them he was a compulsive liar and made up the story about getting a girl. http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/man-arrested-accused-offering-sell-woman-10000/nYCtB/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5a4_1370509507 Amusing White Women Selling For $10,000.00 in Florida Human Trafficking, Slavery, Kidnapping, Crime, Police, Guns, Drugs, Violence, 2 for 1 Special, Buy One Get One Free Fri, 31 May 2013 15:09:54 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=21f_1370026651 Lake8737 He was told to transport a suitcase of jade for a fee by a businessman but it turned out the suitcase was full of drug. He insisted he knew nothing about the drug in the suitcase but both local and high courts sentenced him to death. Fortunately the businessman was caught before his execution and told the police the man did not know there was drug in it. Innocent people getting executed does happen in China and Taiwan because of the way how legal systems work. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=21f_1370026651 Lake8737 Guy sentenced to death for drug <span class="highlight">trafficking</span> cries out of joy when getting acquittal from court china,chinese,drug,death