Word: colombia
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...must work long hours to pay off their debt. Knowing the snakehead or his family personally diminishes such risks, and most Fujianese migrants are only one degree removed from the person they will pay to get them abroad. "This isn't like cocaine, where there's one boss in Colombia who directs the whole business," says Frank Pieke, the director of the Institute for Chinese Studies at Oxford University, who has written a book on Fujianese migration to Europe. "Instead, you have a very loose network of independent people with close local connections. This creates a sense of trust that...
...there something or someone you would never make fun of?- Felipe Cabrales, Barranquilla, Colombia...
President Bush's seven-hour visit to Colombia came at an awkward moment. Revelations of ties between powerful politicians and criminal paramilitaries have brought down eight lawmakers and forced out President Alvaro Uribe's intelligence chief and foreign minister in the last four months. A new U.N. report says extra-judicial killings by the military are rising in the country. Colombia had the highest murder rate of trade unionists in the world and 4,000 disappearances last year, according to Human Rights Watch...
...Bush talks the game when it comes to building institutions. "The United States cares deeply about the human condition," Bush said at his Bogota press conference Sunday, "Much of our aid is aimed at helping people realize their God-given potential." Bush's budget request for Colombia in 2008, however, still places heavy emphasis on military aid to the country. Says Rieser, "It's virtually a Xerox of the previous year; it has nothing to reflect some of the changes that have occurred there." In Iraq, U.S. forces cleared and then abandoned by Fallujah, which was soon retaken by insurgents...
...other lesson Colombia provides is the importance of strong leadership. Guatemala's weak government is struggling to impose order and Iraq's central government is incapable of providing security. Uribe's strength has gained him the support of Colombian society and is giving the country a chance. The question now is whether he is strong enough, and sincere enough, to further build public trust by improving the country's human rights record and going after tainted officials in government and the military...