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Daylesford, Australia, May 12 2016 (IPS) - A previously little-known law firm called Mossack Fonseca, based in Panama, has recently been exposed as one of the world’s major creators of ‘shell companies’, that is, corporate structures that can be used to hide the ownership of assets. This can be done legally but shell companies of this nature are widely used for illegal purposes such as tax evasion and money laundering of proceeds from criminal activity.
U.S. President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raúl Castro will go down in history as two statesmen who managed to overcome more than half a century of hostility to bring back together two neighbouring countries with too many shared interests to remain at loggerheads. When Obama visits Havana on Mar. 21-22, it will be […]
While the normalisation of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba is moving ahead, and the U.S. and Cuban flags have been proudly waving in Havana and Washington, respectively, since last July, the year gone by since the thaw has left many unanswered questions. “You shouldn’t ask me, because in my view, nothing has […]
With the decision to reestablish diplomatic ties, Cuba and the United States, polar opposites that have long inspired or fomented extremism of different kinds in the Americas, have now become factors of moderation and pragmatism. The continued isolation of Cuba 25 years after the end of the Cold War was so widely rejected that the […]
The announcement that the United States and Cuba would reestablish diplomatic relations took most Cubans by surprise. Over half of the population was born after the severing of ties in 1961 and the start of the embargo that has marked their lives. “I wasn’t expecting it; it’s the news of the century and a step […]
Joeva Rock is a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at the American University in Washington, DC, focusing on colonial legacies in West Africa.
Iraqi President Fouad Massoum said this past week that the government was looking for an independent Sunni Muslim to fill the post of defense minister in an effort to improve chances of reunifying the country and defeating the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS). Massoum, in his first extended comments to a U.S. audience since […]
When the United Nations commemorated its first ever “international day for the total elimination of nuclear weapons,” the lingering question in the minds of most anti-nuclear activists was: are we anywhere closer to abolishing the deadly weapons or are we moving further and further away from their complete destruction? Jackie Cabasso, executive director of the […]
President Barack Obama this week extended the no-fishing areas around three remote pacific islands, eliciting praise from some, and disappointment from those who fear the move did not go far enough towards helping depleted species of fish recover. Last June, Obama had proposed to end all fishing in the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of five […]
Zoe Pearson is a PhD candidate in human geography at Ohio State University. Thomas Grisaffi is a social anthropologist who currently works as a research fellow at the UCL Institute of the Americas. They both research coca politics in Bolivia and are contributors to Foreign Policy In Focus. This article is a joint publication of Foreign Policy In Focus and TheNation.com
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