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José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 223
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Our reader's opinion
Without legal security, investors shy awayDear A.M. Costa Rica: Don Luis Guillermo Solís, the president, continues to approach the U.S., Canada and others for inward investment when the "inefficiencies" of the judicial system make the timely resolution of any possible legal "disagreement" doubtful. One might argue that the law in Costa Rica is an abettor of white collar theft and fraud. Why would any intelligent investor come here knowing the state of law in the land of Depende? Property rights are a basic tenant of the law anywhere, and such blatant and offensive disregard is a damning indictment of the legal system in Costa Rica. The various credit agencies have already downgraded Costa Rica. It's legal system is in dysfunctional disarray, and well placed white collar operators continue to ply their trade with an arrogance in the knowledge they have nothing to fear. Meanwhile honest folk bear the brunt of a justice system acquiescent to the machinations of the white collar crooks and their protectors. No inward investment will be forthcoming by intelligent companies or individuals while this intolerable situation continues to proliferate with seeming impunity. Perhaps the government could set an example by re-looking at its contract with the Chinese company entrusted to widening the road to Limón. The World Bank has cited Chinese Harbour's parent CCCC for bribery and corruption and banned it. Perhaps the government knows something that the World Bank doesn't? Sheldon Haseltine
(For the record, we are in a land dispute) San José No prosecution for tool thief Dear A.M. Costa Rica: I spent three months in Costa Rica, and I am very disappointed with the law system. My friend got robbed of all his tools. We caught the thug on the spot and called the cops. They came in a heart beat. They question the fellow, and he said that part of the tools were at a pawn shop. We went with the cops and the thief, got the tools as evidence, and we went to the court to meet the prosecutor. She said that it was not enough evidence and was the guy’s first time, and next day he was on the loose..and he stole more than $1,000. That is Costa Rica. Pura vida, a very pitiful slogan !!! Mauricio Corleto
.Houston, Texas He picked a chilly hiding place By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A man suspected of stabbing a relative in Pavas fled the scene and tried to hide in a neighboring house. Fuerza Pública officers were on his tail and received permission from the occupant to search the house. They had trouble locating him. They even looked in a dog house, but he was not there. The man, who is known to police, had managed to crawl into the refrigerator. When police opened the door, he emerged violently, they said, but they managed to cuff him. U.S. Embassy gives dogs to prison guards By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Embassy of the United States has donated to the Policía Penitenciaria 19 trained dogs and four vehicles to move them in. The donations are valued at $230,000, including the cost of bringing the dogs to Costa Rica from Colombia where they were trained. The dogs include golden retrievers, and Belgian and German shepherds Elizabeth Odio to seek rights court post By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The country is putting forward Elizabeth Odio Benito as a candidate for judge in the Interamerican Court of Human Rights. She is a former vice president and a long-time academic in the Universidad de Costa Rica. She also has served as a judge in the International Criminal Court and in the criminal tribunal for Yugoslavia. Volcano alert lowered for some cantons By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The national emergency commission has dropped the alert for the cantons of Cartago, Oreamuno and Jiménez but have maintained it for Alvarado and Turrialba. The reason is that the Turrialba volcano is becoming more stable, the commission said. Classes have begun again in the educational centers that were closed when the volcano was spewing gas and ashes.
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San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 223 |
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School director, ministry employee held in sale of test
questions |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Cheating on school tests always has been a concern and the topic of many rumors. Monday, the Limón prosecutor and judicial agents raided five high schools and detained two persons on the allegation that they were selling answers to the annual bachillerato exams in Spanish and math. One of those detained, is a Ministerio de Educación Pública employee. The other is the director of a private school. These major exams in Costa Rica are guarded closely. They are distributed by the Fuerza Pública. The Poder Judicial alleged that a school director in Batán picked up |
the stack of exams
early in the day from police. This provided time
for him to determine the answers and to distribute the responses to
other schools by text messaging, said agents. The answers went to confederates at other schools who would then sell the information for amounts ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 colons, the prosectorial agency said. That is about $19.50 to $55. Agents raided the Bilingüe Experimental de Siquirres, Gilander de Batán, Venecia, Matina and Cuba Creek in Matina and confiscated cell telephones in an effort to learn who might have received the purloined test questions. No students have been detained yet, agents said late Monday. Agents said they have not discarded the possibility that students at other schools were involved. |
Most of the annual marchamo payment is just a tax on vehicles |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Instituto Nacional de Seguos, the state insurance agency, expects to collect 176 billion colons or about $325 million for the annual road tax. Most of the money, some 69.5 percent, is a tax that goes to the Ministerio de Hacienda. Just 19.9 percent goes to the insurance company for coverage, according to data provided by the insurance firm Monday. There are a number of other agencies that also have their hand out. The amounts are relatively modest. The insurance firm, known as INS, said that it expects payments from about 1.25 million vehicle owners. Private firms can receive a commission for collecting the fee. Banks, insurance firms and even the payment stations in supermarkets accept the money. Vehicle owners can find out how much they owe by going to the insurance institute's Web page, www.ins-cr.com or by calling 800-6272-4266. Or they can call 2243-9999. The company said that a text message to 1467 giving the license plate number will generate a response giving the amount. The marchamo has to be paid by Dec. 31, or there is the possibility of a 49,000-colon fine, some $90. |
Like
many other payment locations, INS has a raffle.
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San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 223 |
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New study relates chronic marijuana use to brain
abnormalities |
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By
The Center for BrainHealth news staff
The effects of chronic marijuana use on the brain may depend on age of first use and duration of use, according to researchers at the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas. In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers for the first time comprehensively describe existing abnormalities in brain function and structure of long-term marijuana users with multiple magnetic resonance imaging techniques. Findings show chronic marijuana users have smaller brain volume in the orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain commonly associated with addiction, but also increased brain connectivity. “We have seen a steady increase in the incidence of marijuana use since 2007,“said Francesca Filbey, associate professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas and director of the cognitive neuroscience research in addictive disorders at the Center for BrainHealth. “However, research on its long-term effects remains scarce despite the changes in legislation surrounding marijuana and the continuing conversation surrounding this relevant public health topic.” The research team studied 48 adult marijuana users and 62 gender- and age-matched non-users, accounting for potential biases such as gender, age and ethnicity. The authors also controlled for tobacco and alcohol use. On average, the marijuana users who participated in the study consumed the drug three times per day. Cognitive tests show that chronic marijuana users had lower IQ compared to age-and gender-matched controls but the differences do not seem to be related to the brain abnormalities as no direct correlation can be drawn between IQ deficits and orbitofrontal cortex volume decrease. “What’s unique about this work is that it combines three different MRI techniques to evaluate different brain characteristics,” said Sina Aslan, founder and president of Advance MRI, LLC and adjunct |
assistant
professor at The University of Texas at Dallas. “The results suggest
increases in connectivity, both structural and functional that may be
compensating for gray matter losses. Eventually, however, the
structural connectivity or wiring of the brain starts degrading with
prolonged marijuana use.” Tests reveal that earlier onset of regular marijuana use induces greater structural and functional connectivity. Greatest increases in connectivity appear as an individual begins using marijuana. Findings show severity of use is directly correlated to greater connectivity. Although increased structural wiring declines after six to eight years of continued chronic use, marijuana users continue to display more intense connectivity than healthy non-users, which may explain why chronic, long-term users “seem to be doing just fine” despite smaller orbitofrontal cortex brain volumes, Professor Filbey explained. “To date, existing studies on the long-term effects of marijuana on brain structures have been largely inconclusive due to limitations in methodologies,” said Professor Filbey. “While our study does not conclusively address whether any or all of the brain changes are a direct consequence of marijuana use, these effects do suggest that these changes are related to age of onset and duration of use.” The study offers a preliminary indication that gray matter in the orbitofrontal cortex may be more vulnerable than white matter to the effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant. According to the authors, the study provides evidence that chronic marijuana use initiates a complex process that allows neurons to adapt and compensate for smaller gray matter volume, but further studies are needed to determine whether these changes revert back to normal with discontinued marijuana use, whether similar effects are present in occasional marijuana users versus chronic users and whether these effects are indeed a direct result of marijuana use or a predisposing factor. |
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Russia more provocative, new report says of strategy By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Russia’s provocative military actions toward Western countries is at Cold War levels, and the risky strategy could prove catastrophic, according to new report. In a report released on Monday, the European Leadership Network, a London-based think tank, gathered details of and mapped almost 40 specific incidents over the past eight months. “These events add up to a highly disturbing picture of violations of national airspace, emergency scrambles, narrowly avoided mid-air collisions, close encounters at sea, simulated attack runs and other dangerous actions happening on a regular basis over a very wide geographical area,” write the authors of the report, entitled "Dangerous Brinkmanship: Close Military Encounters Between Russia and the West in 2014." Some of the incidents were labeled serious because of “aggressive or unusually provocative nature, bringing a higher level risk of escalation,” according to the report. Three of those incidents stood out, including a near miss between a Russian surveillance plane and a civilian airliner, the abduction of an Estonian intelligence officer and the alleged appearance of a Russian submarine in Swedish waters that set off a major submarine hunt. “What is at stake here is very profound,” said Jonathan Eyal of the Royal United Services Institute, a United Kingdom-based defense and security think tank. “What we are seeing is attempts to puncture the security guarantee, the credibility of the security guarantee, which the West has provided to former Communist nations.” A North Atlantic Treaty Organization official said the report confirms patterns they have seen all year. "So far this year, we have had over 100 separate incidents in which NATO jets have intercepted Russian aircraft," the official said in an email. "That is more than three times as many as we had during the whole of last year." The official added that on many occasions, Russian pilots have failed to turn on their transponders or talk to civilian air traffic control and that this represents a danger to civilian aircraft. "NATO remains vigilant and ready to respond," the official said. "In reaction to Russia’s aggression over Ukraine, we have enhanced the collective defense of our Allies. We have increased air patrols in the region. We have deployed more ships to the Baltic and the Black Seas." They added that the "measures are entirely defensive and fully in line with NATO’s international commitments." President Barack Obama has been adamant about defending NATO allies. "We will defend our NATO allies, and that means every ally," he said during a visit to Estonia in September. "In this alliance, there are no old members or new members, no junior partners or senior partners. They're just allies, pure and simple." Brian E. Carlson, a former U.S. ambassador to Latvia, says that in early 2004, when the Baltic States were entering NATO, Russia took similarly provocative actions. He said that by April NATO and the U.S. Air Force began conducting combat air patrols. "The Russians quit testing our resolve," he wrote in an email. "I personally believe that these Russian actions today need a response much like "broken windows" theory in New York City," he said. In essence, the theory states that by taking care of small issues, larger problems can be avoided. While some of Russia’s actions are a throwback to the Cold War, analyst Douglas Barrie of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a United Kingdom-based international security think tank, says Russia is not nearly as powerful as it was decades ago. “What NATO are now faced with isn’t a Soviet-era size air force,” he said. “The Russian Air Force is significantly smaller, significantly less capable than the Soviet Air Force was in the 1980s.” Barrie said the actions show a level of ambition within the Russian elite. Still, the network urges caution, including calling on Russia to re-evaluate its more assertive posture, calling for both sides to exercise military and political restraint and improve military-to-military communication and transparency. “Even though direct military confrontation has been avoided so far, the mix of more aggressive Russian posturing and the readiness of Western forces to show resolve increases the risk of unintended escalation and the danger of losing control over events,” the authors wrote. Sputnik now becomes name for Russian media initiative By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Russia has launched another state-run, international media brand called Sputnik, a name with connotations of the Cold War. Sputnik, according to a statement, is for people who are “tired of aggressive propaganda promoting a unipolar world and want a different perspective.” Announcing the launch Monday in Moscow, Dmitry Kiselev, referred to by many as the Kremlin’s propagandist-in-chief, said Sputnik will “provide an alternative interpretation of the world, of course,” adding that “there is demand for this.” Kiselev, a conservative television anchor who heads the Rossiya Segodnya media outlet created by Russian leader Vladimir Putin last year to promote Russia's image abroad, said the outlet would have news hubs in 30 cities including Washington, London, Berlin and Paris, as well as the capitals of several former Soviet republics. According to the news release, Sputnik will broadcast in 30 languages, with over 800 hours of radio programming a day, covering over 130 cities and 34 countries by the end of next year. Sputnik will offer news wires, a radio station, a Web site and mobile phone apps. "In this world, Japan is Japanese, Turkey is Turkish, China is Chinese and Russia is Russian," Kiselev said in a statement. "We are not suggesting that other nations should adopt the Russian way of life. We believe everyone is entitled to live in their own way. Our outlook on the world is rooted in international law.” Kiselev would not discuss the cost of Sputnik. Russia has been working hard to repair its international image in the wake of the Ukraine crisis. In another media development in Russia, American cable news broadcaster, CNN, announced Monday it will no longer be available to Russian cable TV providers starting next year. According to TASS, no reason for the move was given. The Voice of America, as well as many other international broadcasters have moved to solely distribute their content in Russia online. Obama comes out strongly for neutrality of Internet By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. President Barack Obama has asked for the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality and ensure Internet service providers treat all traffic equally. He made the request Monday to the Federal Communications Commission, which is writing new Internet traffic regulations. Obama urged the FCC to ban any deals that would allow content providers to pay Internet providers to deliver their material more quickly, known as paid prioritization. He also said providers should not be allowed to block legal Internet content from consumers. The president said the FCC should regulate consumer broadband services like a public utility. Earlier this year, the FCC proposed widespread changes in the way the Internet operates in the United States. The Federal Communications Commission voted in May to offer a plan that could allow such major Internet Service Providers as AT&T and Comcast to make deals with companies like Google and Facebook to provide them with faster paths for their content to consumers. The controversial proposal, however, is opposed by consumer groups and some other Web companies. The White House says nearly four million public comments on the proposal were submitted to the FCC. The White House adds Obama's proposal will "ensure the network works for everyone - not just one or two companies." Math, physics, astronomy are categories for big prizes By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Researchers across the globe in mathematics, physics and astronomy were among the winners of the second annual Breakthrough Prizes, awarded Sunday in San Francisco. Twelve Breakthrough Prizes were announced at a formal awards gala held in the unofficial capital of the U.S. technology industry, commonly known as Silicon Valley. Among the winners were two teams of astronomers that discovered that expansion of the universe is accelerating as opposed to slowing down. Five mathematicians shared the first-ever Breakthrough Prizes in their field, while six scientists shared the Life Sciences Prizes for work on such topics as the regulation of genes and bacterial immunity. Each of the 12 prizes is worth $3 million. Sunday's event was hosted by Hollywood comic director-actor Seth McFarlane, with such noted actors as Benedict Cumberbatch, Kate Beckinsale and Cameron Diaz on hand as presenters. The Breakthrough Prizes were co-founded by Russian billionaire investor Yuri Milner, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Jack Ma and Cathy Zang of China's online retailer Alibaba and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. According to its Web site, the prizes "aim to celebrate scientists and generate excitement about the pursuit of science as a career.” Hawaiian volcano lava claims threatened home By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A stream of lava set a home on fire in a rural Hawaiian town that has been watching a slow-moving flow for months. The molten rock hit the house Monday in Pahoa, the largest town in the Big Island's mostly agricultural Puna district. The home's residents already had left the house, the first destroyed by the lava stream. The lava from Kilauea volcano entered the town Oct. 26. Its leading edge remains about 180 meters from central Pahoa. Pahoa firefighters will let a structure hit by lava burn, but will fight fires that spread or threaten other structures. A relative of the homeowners was planning to be at the site to watch the house burn. Officials made arrangements for homeowners to watch any homes burn as a means of closure and to document the destruction for insurance purposes. Many residents have evacuated or are ready to leave if necessary. Child mortality rates dip in world, U.N. report says By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Child mortality rates have dropped to record lows in developing countries. Improved government action and simple protective health measures are narrowing the mortality gap in children under 5 years old between the richest and the poorest families. According to the United Nations, the number of deaths in children under 5 has dropped from 12.7 million in 1990 to about 6.3 million in 2013, or about 17,000 deaths per day. Stanford University population health analyst Eran Bendavid credits things like malarial bed nets and oral rehydration salts, which are used to treat diarrheal diseases in children in low- and moderate-income countries. “The poorest of the poor - we’re talking about countries where people live on $1 or $2 per day on average...have seen enormous declines in mortality. Their children are surviving at rates they have never seen before in those contexts,” said Bendavid. Bendavid led a study by researchers at Stanford’s School of Medicine that used demographic and health surveys to analyze child mortality in 54 countries. The research involved surveys of 1.2 million women in more than 929,000 families. Investigators compared child mortality data between 2000 and 2007 with data from 2008 to 2012. They found mortality rates for children under-5 declined 4.3 deaths per 1,000 live births among poor families, 3.36 deaths per 1,000 among middle-income households and 2.06 deaths per 1,000 among the wealthiest families. Bendavid said that in countries with good governance, international aid can flow to people who need it. However, in nations rife with corruption and lawlessness, the number of pediatric deaths increased during the same period. “If you have Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, if you have situations now like you have in Pakistan where aid workers are being vilified and attacked for providing vaccines, you know, where you have a governance that really has no ability to provide the basic conditions for health to work, basic safety, the legitimacy for health workers to go and do what they need to do, then even those simple and basic and easy interventions can’t be accomplished,” said Bendavid. Countries that have seen a significant improvement in the child mortality gap between rich and poor include Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ivory Coast, Egypt and Ghana. The study on child mortality was published in the journal Pediatrics. |
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Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights decided to adopt a precautionary measure in favor of Honduran journalist Julio Ernesto Alvarado, who was ordered by a Honduran court to stop working as a journalist for 16 months after he reported on alleged wrongdoing attributed to a dean of the Honduras Autonomous National University. The Inter-American Commission took the action last week, calling on the Honduran government to suspend the court order and abstain from carrying out any action to disqualify the journalist until the commission reaches a decision on the petition it had received on the case. The commission declared that the matter comprised the “serious aspects, urgency and irreparable harm” that justified its action. The Inter American Press Association today welcomed the decision. Its President Gustavo Mohme, editor of the Lima, Peru, newspaper La República, expressed his “satisfaction with a decision whereby the Inter-American system reactivates the protection of journalists who tend to be silenced by libel suits brought by public officials.” “This decision,” Mohme added, “creates important precedents for judges to better review lawsuits that seek to subject journalists to prior censorship when they are investigating and reporting on corruption in areas of public interest, as occurs in Peru and Brazil, among several other countries.” On Oct. 4 the Inter American Press Association deplored the punishment of the journalist and criticized the lack of commitment by the government of Honduras regarding promises made to decriminalize libel, calumny and defamation offenses. “To prevent journalists from doing their work is equivalent to taking us back to the most absurd forms of censorship that used to be practiced in past centuries,” said Claudio Paolillo, chairman of the organization's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information and editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, weekly Búsqueda. The commission received the request for precautionary measures to be taken in favor of the journalist May 29, claiming violation of his freedom of expression and legal guarantees and protection, citing the American Convention on Human Rights. “After reviewing the allegations submitted by the petitioners the commission considers that the information presented shows prima facie that the rights of Mr. Julio Ernesto Alvarado are seriously threatened and at urgent risk of irreparable harm,” the commission said in its precautionary measure. During a 2006 broadcast of the television program “Mi Nación” (My Nation) by Globo TV, hosted by Alvarado, two Honduras Autonomous National University professors, Guillermo Ayes and Gustavo Villela, accused economic sciences dean Belinda Flores Padilla of arbitrary actions and of having been “implicated in the trafficking of university degrees,” “found in a rigged master’s degree,” and involved “in the award of rigged degrees.” Dean Flores Padilla then sued Alvarado in court, accusing him of defamation and libel. A court of first instance ruled in favor of Alvarado, warning that the information about Dean Flores Padilla had not been made up by him but rather that he had limited himself to “reporting what was said in a report by a committee investigating irregularities in the granting of certain benefits to students at the university.” But in 2011 Dean Flores Padilla filed an appeal and in December 2013 the Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling and declared that Alvarado had “exceeded the normal limits in the exercise of press freedom” and had intentionally caused harm to the reputation of the dean. The Supreme Court then sentenced Alvarado to 16 months in prison, and an additional punishment of “deprivation of his civil rights and special disqualification” for the same period. Alvarado appealed, and in April of this year an enforcement judge granted him freedom by commuting the prison sentence with a fine and also acquitted him of the additional penalties. The following month Dean Flores Padilla appealed this ruling and in August the appeals court admitted the former dean’s request. In September, Alvarado was notified that the ban on his work as a journalist remained in force. Alvarado last month filed a procedural complaint with the supreme court, arguing that his constitutional rights were being violated. But the court has not yet responded. In its decision the human rights commission warned that the information that had given rise to Alvarado’s conviction “is related to a matter that presumably was of public interest, correctly, on the suitability of a person for holding public office.” In addition the commission said, “the journalist was not held to have been the author of the information considered offensive to the reputation of the public official in question, rather that he was considered to have been limited to transmitting statements or information by third parties on his television program.” “The use of criminal court mechanisms to punish statements concerning matters of public interest, and especially about public officials or politicians, violates Article 13 of the American Convention, as there is no imperative social interest to justify it and “it is unnecessary and disproportionate,” the commission said. The agency recalled that “to have recourse to criminal court tools to punish especially protected statements is not only a direct limitation of freedom of expression but also can be considered as an indirect method of restriction of expression for their intimidating, silencing and inhibiting effects on the free flow of ideas, opinions, and information of all kinds.” “The gravity of the situation arises from the imposition of a secondary punishment capable of preventing the journalist from exercising his freedom of expression for a period of 16 months, which could amount to a situation of prior censorship,” the commission said “This conviction would have a silencing effect regarding all people and particularly journalists, who would be subjected to a constant self-censorship before reporting on something that could offend the reputation of those occupying public office. This could compromise the freedom of expression of Honduras society altogether,” it declared. |
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From Page 7: U.S. becoming aggressive fighting corruption By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The White House has rolled out its Global Anti-Corruption Agenda, a multi-faceted approach to addressing illicit activities around the globe. The White House issued a statement in late September that reflects President Barack Obama’s global initiative to fight and reduce corruption both domestically and among nations doing business with the United States. “The United States views corruption as a growing threat to the national security of our country and allies around the world,” the statement said. The administration’s centerpiece is the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in force since 1977. The White House says that in the past five years, the act has produced more than 50 convictions of corporations worldwide, along with the convictions of a similar number of CEOs and other high level corporate officials. The White House says the act has also caused the imposition of fines of some $3 billion. “Part of the reason for the government’s increased crackdown on FCPA violators may have something to do with the state of affairs overseas,” said Jennifer Dowell Armstrong, an attorney with the firm McDonald Hopkins. “China faces extremely grave corruption issues, as do many other nations in both the developed and developing world, including Western European countries. Rather than sitting on the sidelines, the U.S. government is addressing corruption by teaming up with foreign governments to combat the threat.” Other steps the Obama administration says it is taking includes addressing the use of shell corporations to hide and move the proceeds of corruption. Another is a call on Congress to tighten laws on money laundering, especially concerning funds derived from illicit activities abroad. Included as well is an initiative to make asset recovery in corruption cases more robust. While the administration’s Global Anti-Corruption Agenda has drawn praise, some analysts point out that its main enforcement vehicle, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, is not being used to its full abilities. “The U.S. government largely enforces the FCPA through non-prosecution agreements, deferred prosecution agreements, and other vehicles (such as, with increasing frequency, SEC administrative settlements not subjected to any meaningful scrutiny” wrote Mike Koehler in FCPAProfessor.com, which monitors activities associated with the White House anti-corruption efforts. The SEC is the Securities and Exchange Commission. “The White House is emphasizing the quantity of FCPA enforcement over the quality of FCPA enforcement,” Koehler wrote. “However, in a legal system based on the rule of law, quality of enforcement [the size and the scope of cases] should take priority over quantity.” That is the the size and the scope of cases should take priority over the number of cases pursued The Global Anti-Corruption Agenda integrates foreign policy as a malfeasance-fighting tool. Under the section “Working with other countries to promote anti-corruption, transparency, and open government,” the administration says the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development are devoting $1 billion yearly promoting anti-corruption and other good governance programs in other nations. The White House Fact Sheet states that Washington “will hold responsible governments that tolerate or commit corrupt practices in contravention of international norms, including by adjusting our bilateral relations, and advising our businesses and investors accordingly.” Matthew Stephenson, who writes for globalanticorruptionblog.com, writes that if this is put into practice, it would be a departure from the past. “Though the United States routinely condemns corruption,” he wrote, “I’m not aware of any cases in which another country’s failure to adhere to anti-corruption norms has had broader collateral consequences for U.S. foreign policy toward that country.” The White House says the administration will draw up a national action plan to promote and provide incentives to domestic and overseas businesses to be transparent and proactively fight illicit conduct. The White House says its plan will closely follow both anti-corruption principles followed by the United Nations. Accountability and compliance groups are calling on President Obama to use two international summits, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Group of 20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia, this month to press world leaders to adopt best anti-corruption practices in both government and private commercial activities. Frank Vogl, one of the co-founders of the good governance group Transparency International, calls for governments to take legislative and other actions to enforce proper official and commercial behavior. “The forces of corruption in many countries,” Vogl wrote in The Huffington Post, “be they organized crime, violent gangs, or government officials, feel increasingly threatened as the anti-corruption warriors build powerful public support and find mid-level officials – and sometimes even senior ones – willing to stand up and join the cause.” |