Tag Archives: post-2015

Latest Developments, December 20

Posted on by
Reply

In the latest news and analysis…

New court
The BBC reports that Senegal’s MPs have voted to create a “special African Union tribunal” to try former Chadian president Hissène Habré on the continent, rather than in Europe:

“In July the United Nations’ highest court, the International Court of Justice, passed a binding ruling that Senegal should begin proceedings to try Mr Habre without delay if it did not extradite him to Belgium.
MP Cheikh Seck said he voted for the law because it would show that Africa could hold its own leaders accountable.
‘It’s not up to the West to try Hissene Habre. It’s why I voted in favour of this law,’ he told the Associated Press news agency.
…
A 1992 Truth Commission in Chad accused Mr Habre of being responsible for widespread torture and the deaths of 40,000 people during his eight-year rule.”

The hardest word
Reuters reports that on his first state visit to Algeria, French President François Hollande said he was “not here to repent or apologize” for his country’s colonial past:

“The trauma of the 1954-1962 Algerian war, in which hundreds of thousands were killed before France’s departure, left deep scars in both countries which still hold back a partnership France believes could help revive the Mediterranean basin.
…
A formal apology for its colonial past is a sensitive issue. Many French citizens who lived there before independence and who fought in the French army against Algerian insurgents oppose the idea, as do former loyalist Muslim volunteers known as ‘harkis’.”

Idle No More
The Globe and Mail reports that, while First Nations protests are nothing new in Canada, “never in recent years have the protests been so widespread or sustained”:

“They point to the legislation that directly affects their communities, which native leaders, including [National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Shawn] Atleo, say was written without their input. They point to development of natural resources on their traditional lands that offers little sharing of wealth but promises lasting environmental consequences. They point to a federal government that they say has been long on gestures but short on a willingness to listen and negotiate.”

Rio suit
Dow Jones reports that Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro state intends to sue Chevron for damages on top of the $149 million the US oil giant has already offered to settle federal lawsuits resulting from a 2011 offshore spill:

“ ‘There will be a series of demands made by Rio de Janeiro besides the fine’ paid to settle the federal lawsuits, [Rio Environment Secretary Carlos] Minc said. Mr. Minc said he was not authorized to disclose the value of the damages the state was seeking.
Mr. Minc said that the spill, which released an estimated 3,700 barrels of oil into the sea after a drilling accident, ‘obviously’ caused damage to the environment, dismissing claims to the contrary made by Chevron.”

Big fine
Al Jazeera reports that Swiss bank UBS has been ordered to pay $1.5 billion to regulators in the US, UK and Switzerland for its role in the Libor rate-rigging scandal:

“UBS, which is based in Zurich, is the second major bank to be fined over the interbank lending rate scandal after Britain’s Barclays bank was ordered to pay $450m to British and US authorities in the summer for attempted manipulation of interbank rates between 2005 and 2009.
The fine is the second-biggest ever levied on a bank with banking giant HSBC fined $1.9bn recently for money laundering.
…
Other banks are also reportedly in advanced talks with regulators about settling allegations that they too manipulated their Libor information, including Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank.”

Land limits
Inter Press Service reports on Tanzania’s decision to limit the amount of land that investors can “lease” for agricultural purposes:

“According to official documents, seen by IPS, from the Tanzania Investment Centre, a government agency set up to promote and facilitate investment: ‘Even within a seven-year period, an investor would not be able to use more than 10,000 hectares…’
The move will come as a relief to land rights organisations that have continually called for the government to curb the land grabs here.
…
In Tanzania’s northern Loliondo district, which is known for its wildlife, much of the land has been leased out to international hunting concessions, which has resulted in the large-scale eviction of the local population – although the government refutes this.  A major U.S. energy company, AgriSol Energy, has also been accused of engaging in land grabs in Tanzania that would displace more than 160,000 Burundian refugees, according to a report by the Oakland Institute. The report states that AgriSol is benefiting from the forcible eviction of the refugees, many of whom are subsistence farmers, and leasing the land — as much as 800,000 acres — from the Tanzanian government for 25 cents per acre.
[Land Rights Research and Resources Institute’s Yefred] Myenzi said that of the 1,825 general land disputes reported in 2011, 1,095 involved powerful investors.”

Not on the agenda
Britain’s international development secretary, Justine Greening, has explained to the House of Commons why next year’s UK-chaired G8 summit will not play a role in establishing successors to the Millennium Development Goals:

“The Prime Minister is co-chair of the High Level Panel on the post-2015 development agenda, which will submit independent recommendations to the UN Secretary-General in May 2013. Thereafter, we anticipate that a wide UN-led process will culminate in the agreement of post-2015 development goals in 2015. It is right for this process to be led by the UN and developing countries. The Prime Minister has announced that the G8 summit in 2013 will focus on tax, trade and transparency.”

Friends in high places
The University of Cambridge’s Ha-Joon Chang gives his take on why tax havens, which drain public revenues from governments around the world, continue to prosper:

“Why do tax havens exist? Because rich countries allow them to. If the US came down on tax havens in the same way they come down on countries that trade with Iran and Cuba, we’d have no tax havens in the world.”

Latest Developments, November 23

Posted on by
Reply

In the latest news and analysis…

Mining aid
The Globe and Mail reports that Canada’s new international co-operation minister’s promotion of business opportunities abroad, particularly for mining companies, signals “a profound shift” in the Canadian approach to foreign aid:

“[Julian Fantino] said part of [the Canadian International Development Agency’s] work is to help small and medium enterprises in developing countries find their footing. But he also emphasized CIDA’s role in preparing those countries for foreign investment, suggesting the agency’s work can help make countries and people ‘trade and investment ready’ and even dissuade governments from nationalizing extractive industries.
‘CIDA can help develop the capacity to negotiate with other countries, implement international commercial agreements with Canada and other trading partners and help firms benefit from these agreements. We will be doing more of this in the future,’ he said.”

Setting limits
In a draft report on sustainability and the post-2015 development agenda, New York University’s Alex Evans calls for the successors to the Millennium Development Goals to include “explicit recognition of planetary boundaries”:

“Poverty reduction is the first casualty of unsustainability, with poor people disproportionately reliant on natural assets and vulnerable to climate and scarcity risks. At the same time, current models of development are also the main driver of unsustainability – most obviously in ‘developed’ countries, but increasingly also in emerging economies which, though far behind high income countries in per capita impacts, are nonetheless helping push the world towards ecological tipping points.
…
Environmental summitry has become the world’s principal breeding ground for multilateral zombies (staggering on, moaning piteously, never quite dying) with few if any really significant wins in the 15 years since Kyoto. This should surprise no-one, mirroring as it does the fact that in capitals all over the world, environment ministers lack the clout to make change happen. Sustainability advocates need to stop talking about mainstreaming and get on with it. That means bringing environment to the heart of debates about how we develop – not in some vague, aspirational way, but by starting from quantified estimates of how much environmental space is available for us to share between us.”

Vulture loss
The Guardian reports that politicians in Jersey have voted to prevent so-called vulture funds from using the British island’s courts as a venue to sue poor countries:

Vulture funds, which buy up poor nations’ debts on the cheap before suing them for up to 100 times the original amount, had attempted to take cases to Jersey after British law banned the practice.
In the latest case, multimillionaire speculator Peter Grossman used Jersey’s courts to sue the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for $100m (£64m) over a decades-old debt that started out at $3.3m. Grossman, who runs the FG Hemisphere fund, was able to take the case to Jersey’s courts because the island is a crown dependency not covered by all UK laws.
…
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank estimate that vulture funds are seeking total claims of $1.47bn from countries including Cameroon, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, and the DRC.

Vulture win
The Financial Times reports that Argentina’s government has described as “a kind of legal colonialism” a US court ruling that the country should pay $1.3 billion to hedge funds:

“The victory for several hedge funds against Argentina has sparked fears that the country could be plunged into yet another debilitating sovereign default and threatens to make government restructurings more difficult in the future.
In what has been dubbed the ‘trial of the century’ for sovereign debt restructurings, a US District Court judge on Wednesday ordered Argentina to pay the hedge fund creditors – led by Elliott Associates and Aurelius Capital – in mid-December.
…
Buenos Aires could choose to default rather than repay the hedge funds it considers ‘vultures’, in a case that experts say has far-reaching ramifications for international finance.
…
The decision still has to be confirmed by the appeals court and could end up before the US Supreme Court. But if upheld, it would open a chink in the armour of sovereign immunity against creditors that countries have largely enjoyed for the past century.”

Unnecessary incentives
TrustMedia reports that the African Tax Administration Forum is calling for a review of tax incentives granted by African governments to multinational corporations:

“[ATAF’s Logan Wort] said most tax incentives agreements were entered into without wide consultations as to how they impact on African countries’ ability to mobilise domestic resources for development.
‘We believe African countries are losing millions of dollars through tax incentives, which are mostly negotiated by the political elite.’
…
Zambia, for instance, has given specific tax incentives to companies operating in copper mining, the country’s traditional export sector, with conditions varying from one company to another. ATAF thinks this kind of incentive is not necessary.
‘We believe investors will come with or without tax incentives, therefore they are not necessary,’ Thulani Shongwe, a tax expert at the ATAF secretariat, commented. He said the organisation was now on a ‘crusade’ to review the benefits.”

Corn fears
Via Campesina expresses concern that multinational giants Monsanto, Dow and DuPont look likely to get the green light to plant genetically modified maize on 2.4 million hectares of Mexican land, “a surface area equivalent to that of El Salvador”:

“The situation is extremely alarming since Mexico is the world’s centre of maize diversity, with thousands of varieties in the fields of peasant and indigenous communities. Maize is currently one of the world’s three main food staples, so the contamination of Mexican maize by dangerous GMOs is a threat to the entire planet.”

Human development
The University of London’s Simon Reid-Henry writes that Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen’s conception of development “requires thinking about poverty not simply as an aberration, as something that we might somehow solve.”

“It involves acknowledging, rather, that ‘our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering’, as Susan Sontag puts it. The problem of development lies as much in what we classify as wealth and how we go about promoting that as it does in poverty.
…
Accordingly, development becomes not so much about making up for what people lack (modernisation, say) so much as removing the ‘unfreedoms’ that stop them living in a way they might otherwise choose: market inequalities, perhaps, or state violence.”

Latest Developments, November 2

Posted on by
Reply

In the latest news and analysis…

Development’s holy grail
The Guardian provides an explainer on the post-2015 development agenda, including a warning of the tension inherent in trying to establish Sustainable Development Goals:

“ ‘Getting rid of poverty is about making more stuff and giving it to more people,’ said Claire Melamed, head of growth and equity at the Overseas Development Institute thinktank. ‘It’s a popular thing to do, but climate change is about sharing out limited resources. Politically it’s of a totally different order of magnitude and so contentious.’ ”

Ultimate refusal
The Canadian Press reports that Canada’s highest court has refused to hear a lawsuit brought against a mining company over a massacre in DR Congo:

“[Human rights groups] allege that Anvil, which opened an office in Quebec in 2005, provided logistical support to the Congolese military as it crushed a rebel uprising in 2004, killing as many as 100 people in the port city of Kilwa.
Last January, the Quebec Court of Appeal overturned a lower court ruling in favour of the coalition, saying the complaint should be heard in Congo or Australia, where Anvil also operated.
…
‘It is unacceptable that in 2012, victims are still unable to hold Canadian companies accountable in Canadian courts, for their alleged involvement in serious human rights violations committed abroad,’ said Matt Eisenbrandt, a member of the board of directors of the group.”

Betting against forests
Global Witness has released a new report accusing banking giant HSBC of making $130 million from financing logging companies “causing widespread environmental destruction and human rights abuses” in the Malaysian state of Sarawak:

“Sarawak’s logging giants, all past or present HSBC clients, have since expanded their destructive model of business to every major tropical forested region in the world. These companies are currently logging or converting forests to plantations in 18 million hectares of concessions – an area three times the size of Norway.
‘HSBC has bankrolled some of the world’s worst logging companies and in some cases got them off the ground with their first commercial loans. The destruction they have caused simply couldn’t have happened without the services and kudos the bank provided,’ said Tom Picken, Global Witness Forest Campaign leader.”

Chocolate lawsuit
Reuters reports that an American pension fund is suing US chocolate giant Hershey to obtain records indicating whether “the candymaker knew its suppliers in Ghana and Ivory Coast used child labor”:

“A 2011 study by Tulane University found that 1.8 million children in the Ivory Coast and Ghana work in the cocoa industry and that the vast majority of them are unpaid. The study also found evidence of child-trafficking, forced labor and other violations of internationally accepted labor practices.
If the court forces Hershey to turn over the documents, the pension fund could look for evidence to bring a lawsuit against the company and its directors. With evidence, the fund said it could claim Hershey violated anti-trafficking laws and knowingly benefited from a supplier using child labor.”

Mali drones
Algeria’s Le Matin picks up on a report by French newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné that the US is considering sending armed drones into northern Mali: 

“The CIA urgently wants to acquire about 10 drones equipped with bombs, missiles and rockets, according to the satirical French paper that obtained the information from French intelligence sources. The US deems the 20 or so small surveillance planes currently stationed in Burkina Faso to be insufficient. They want lethal machines like the ones that operate in Pakistan and Yemen, in spite of the known consequences: from 2004 to 2012, these drones killed 3,325 people, including 176 children, according to a study conducted by two American universities.” [Translated from the French.]

Doing less
Bill Morton, an analyst who has worked for Oxfam and the North-South Institute, calls on Western-based NGOs to consider “adopting a ‘do nothing for now’ approach” to the debate over the successors to the Millennium Development Goals:

“The large majority of proposals on the next MDGs are put forward by people and institutions based in developed countries. So far, thinking and proposals that emanate from developing countries, and that reflect the interests and priorities of people in these countries, are getting relatively limited traction in policy debates and discussions.
…
That’s why now is the right time for practitioners and analysts in developed countries to take a step back, and to make room for people in developing countries to advance their own thinking on a post-2015 framework. That doesn’t mean the existing thinking isn’t worthwhile. It’s just that there is enough of it for now. It’s fair enough that we loosen our grip on the post-2015 agenda a little, and give those who it will affect most the opportunity to shape it more strongly.”

Two steps back
Inter Press Service reports on concerns that so-called agricultural development “will actually compromise the country’s food security” by pushing smallholder farmers off their land in favour of large-scale agribusiness:

“[Pretorious] Nkhata and the other farmers displaced from the 46,876 hectares of now commercial farmland told IPS that they had obtained their land from a traditional leader but did not get deeds of ownership from the government.
‘They said we were squatters, we were intruders on that land. I had 21 hectares … I lost it all…
‘They (the South African agribusiness) came with guns and threatened to shoot anyone who resisted moving out. They burnt all our household properties without any notice. We were almost 200 households. They burnt my food barns, clothes, blankets, bedding, television set – they even burnt my fields,’ he said.
The agribusiness has since sold the land and closed its operations in Zambia.”

Green costs
Reuters reports that Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal has opted to reduce its annual South African steel output by 1 million tons rather than greenify its furnaces:

“The steelmaker, Africa’s biggest, was given until October 16 to deal with emissions from the furnaces and decided it was cheaper to shut the units rather than complete a project on a dust-extraction system that would capture the emissions.”

Latest Developments, August 2

Posted on by
Reply

In the latest news and analysis…

USA for Africa
In a speech delivered in the Senegalese capital Dakar, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to portray her country as force for good in Africa, even if “in the past our policies did not always line up with our principles”:

“We’re also working with resource-rich nations to help make sure that their mineral and energy wealth actually improves the lives of their citizens. The days of having outsiders come and extract the wealth of Africa for themselves leaving nothing or very little behind should be over in the 21st century.
…
We want to advance your aspirations and our shared values. We want to help more people in more places live up to their own God-given potentials. We want this to be our mutual mission. That is the work we are called to do in the 21st century.”

Top-down agenda
The Guardian reports that not everyone is happy with the makeup of the UN panel tasked with preparing a “bold yet practical” global development agenda beyond 2015:

“John Hilary from War on Want, the anti-poverty group, criticised the panel for being unrepresentative. ‘Ban Ki-moon has put together a panel of career diplomats, business leaders, politicians and professors,’ said Hilary, who strongly criticized the appointment of Cameron as co-chair. ‘Why is there no one at all from social movements, trade unions or people who are actually engaged in the struggle against poverty? Was there genuinely no room for a single representative from civil society? This is like having a panel to take forward women’s empowerment composed entirely of men.’ ”

Oil shutdown
Al Jazeera reports that a Brazilian court has given oil giant Chevron and drilling company Transocean 30 days to suspend their operations in the country:

“The court said in a statement posted on Wednesday on its website that each company will be fined 500 million reals, or about $244m, for each day they fail to comply with the suspension.
…
‘Two environmental accidents in the space of just four months and the lack of equipment needed to identify the origin of the leaks and contain them, shows that the two companies do not have the conditions necessary to operate the wells in an environmentally safe manner,’ Judge Ricardo Perlingeiro said in his ruling.”

FTT baby steps
The Nicolas Hulot Foundation’s Nicolas Hulot and Oxfam’s Luc Lamprière call for the right kind of precedent to be set by France’s new financial transaction tax which, they say, offers a mere hint of what a “real tax on transactions” could look like:

“If an extreme weather event causes, on average, 23 deaths in a rich country, that number is 1,052 in less developed countries. Even in the face of nature’s fury, the injustice of poverty divides humanity.
If the goal of containing our deficits is laudable, necessary even, we must not create a choice between two debts: the one owed to financial players who are now betting on the euro’s failure, and the one we have been accumulating for centuries in the countries of the South by pillaging their resources, ignoring the pandemics they face and provoking climate change that hits the poorest hardest.” [Translated from the French.]

Crop Shock
The World Development Movement’s Amy Horton presents the latest surge in cereal prices as evidence that the global food system needs urgent reform to reduce the damage caused by biofuels and financial speculation:

“The researchers [at the New England Complex Systems Institute] point out that efforts to reform the markets have been too slow, with US regulators facing a legal challenge from Wall Street and European regulation also delayed. Consequently, measures that might have limited the effect of speculators have not yet been implemented.
…
But power to deliver many of the necessary reforms – not least reform of the global trade system – lies with developed nations. Without a radical change of approach to our food system, including regulation to prevent financial speculators gambling on food prices, the world’s poorest people will continue to pay the highest price.”

Reconstruction business
CNNMoney reports that bakery-café chain Cinnabon has become the first US franchise in Libya, as American business interests expand in the rebuilding country:

“American business interest in Libya is growing, said Chuck Dittrich, executive director of the U.S.-Libya Business Association, a trade group representing American companies that are interested in doing business in Libya.
In April, the trade group led a delegation of 20 American companies to Libya to discuss business opportunities.
Much of the interest is coming from the energy, infrastructure and health care industries, Dittrich said. But American franchises are also taking note of Libya.”

Blocking Braille
The Guardian reports that the US and EU are blocking a treaty that would give blind people access to more books translated into Braille:

“Europe and the US are home to some of the world’s biggest publishing companies, many of which don’t like the idea of an international treaty that would restrict their intellectual property rights. Observers speculate that the Obama administration may be loth to upset the publishing industry, a major campaign supporter, this late in an election year. ‘What we can see in the [negotiating] room is that primarily it’s the business interests that dominate,’ said [Electronic Information for Libraries’ Teresa] Hackett.
Activists are hoping for a legally binding treaty, but US and European delegates have been pushing for a softer ‘instrument’ that would offer only guidelines and recommendations.”

Water rights
Inter Press Service reports that two years on from the UN General Assembly’s recognition of the human right to water, a coalition of NGOs is saying much work remains to be done if the resolution is to become a reality:

“The resolution in the General Assembly proved politically divisive, with 122 countries voting for it and 41 abstaining, but with no negative votes.
The United States abstained and so did some of the European and industrialised countries, including Britain, Australia, Austria, Canada, Greece, Sweden, Japan, Israel, South Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Ireland.
…
In its letter, the NGO coalition said the recently concluded Rio+20 summit on sustainable development affirmed ‘full and unquestioned consensus among UN Member States regarding the human right to water and sanitation’.”

Latest Developments, August 1

Posted on by
Reply

In the latest news and analysis…

ATT postponed
Inter Press Service reports that six years of preparatory meetings were not enough for the US, China and Russia, as they requested “more time” in the quest for an international accord on regulating the global arms trade:

“The ‘killed’ Arms Trade Treaty is now to be referred to the U.N. General Assembly’s First Committee in October, where it will be submitted to a majority vote.
The process will take a long time, [Amnesty International’s Alberto] Estevez warns.
‘It might well take two to three years at least, and that would mean that the ATT would not enter into force until 2014 or 2015,’ he told IPS.
‘A key question remains whether the largest exporter of arms – the U.S. – wants to be part of the game,’ Estevez added.”

The future of development
Agence France-Presse reports that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has named the 26 members of a panel established to recommend a “new development vision” to replace the Millennium Development Goals after 2015:

“Ban on Tuesday named personalities ranging from Queen Rania of Jordan and German former president Horst Kohler to Tawakel Karman, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner for her activism in the uprising in Yemen, and the mayor of Istanbul Kadir Topbas.
…
The corporate world is represented by Paul Polman, the Dutch chief executive of Unilever and Betty Maina, chief executive of Kenya’s Association of Manufacturers.”

Robin des Bois
Sky News reports that France is today becoming the first EU country to introduce a financial transaction tax:

“It was first proposed by the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy who suggested a 0.1% levy on all share purchases involving France’s biggest companies.
The country’s new leader, Francois Hollande, has been sharply critical of the financial services industry and decided to double the tax to 0.2%, while applying it to all publicly traded businesses with a market value over 1bn euros.
That means anyone buying shares, including credit default swaps, in 109 companies will have to shell out the extra euros to the French Treasury.”

Security focus
Reuters reports that, while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to talk publicly about democracy and economic potential during her trip to Africa this week, her real concern will be security:

“Instead, attention has focused on AFRICOM, the unified U.S. Africa Command that the Pentagon established in 2007. It is playing an increasingly important role as the United States pumps resources into training African militaries.
…
J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa program at the Atlantic Council, said Washington’s emphasis on security, coupled with the lack of new economic initiatives, had shifted the balance in U.S. ties with Africa.
‘It is militarization by default,’ Pham said. ‘Part of the reason is the U.S. interest in fighting al Qaeda, and part of it is because of the weakness of our African partners which are unable to contain these threats themselves.’ ”

Looting Africa
The UN Economic Commission for Africa reports on a new study that accuses foreign multinationals of illicitly transferring back to rich countries most of the $1.5 trillion they make in Africa each year, thereby “draining hard currency reserves from the continent, stimulating inflation, reducing tax collection and deepening income gaps”:

“The report on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa: Scale and Developmental Challenges is adamant about the role of multinational corporations in what some call Africa’s greatest economic sabotage, because it ‘perpetuates Africa’s economic dependence on other regions’, it says.
It adds the depletion of investments and stifling of competition caused by these illicit transfers actually undermine trade and worsen the socio-economic fabric of poor communities in Africa, leading to shorter life expectancy due to limited spending in providing social services such as health care, according to the Information and Communication Service of ECA.”

DPAs
Compliance Week reports that the British government is looking into following the US lead on so-called deferred prosecution agreements, which “require corporate reforms and other penalties in exchange for holding off on pursuing a conviction”:

“The U.K. Ministry of Justice published a much-anticipated consultation paper recently on whether to adopt DPAs in an effort to fight corporate bribery and corruption without having to win a conviction in every case.
…
The U.K.’s Solicitor General and Serious Fraud Office are firmly in support of adopting the use of DPAs in Britain. As the consultation paper points out, enforcement agencies often rely on companies to self-report wrongdoing due to a lack of tools and resources. Without the ability of prosecutors to offer a plea deal, however, companies have little incentive to self-report, especially if doing so may result in a criminal conviction.”

Ease of doing business
The Associated Press reports that “liberal company laws” make New Zealand an attractive place for shady business enterprises:

“Like those before him, [American fraudster and launderer Jeffery Lowrance] found that about $130 and a little online paperwork let him set up a shell company in New Zealand without stepping foot in the country or having any financial presence. He registered First Capital Savings & Loan to an Auckland address but ran his scheme from Panama.
…
Some say New Zealand has yet to get serious about stopping abuse. Financial blog naked capitalism has repeatedly accused New Zealand of playing the equivalent of the arcade game ‘Whac-a-Mole’ by knocking down illegitimate operators as they pop up but not dealing with the systemic problems that give rise to the abuse.”

Haitian gold
Al Jazeera reports that with 15 percent of Haitian territory under license to North American mining companies or their partners, there are concerns over who will reap the benefits Haiti’s potential gold rush:

“Many Haitians we spoke to are divided on the issue. Some locals like Jean Igo, who has been unemployed for months, says he would welcome a job working in a mine. However, after he allowed a Canadian company to drill on his land he is now having second thoughts about doing business with foreigners.
‘I don’t trust doing business with them. They did not give us a good guarantee. They gave us a little cash but it was nothing. They promised they would give people jobs operating the machines and they did not fulfill any of their promises.’ ”