Paraguay's new president was targeted by the DEA
Source: Associated Press
ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) -- The man taking over as Paraguay's new president Thursday has built a family fortune in one of the most unequal places in South America, dominating industries from banking to tobacco to soft drinks to soccer.
The 57-year-old Horacio Cartes also is a political neophyte who never registered to vote before running for president, and he's often faced accusations that his family's fortune was fed by money laundering, cigarette smuggling and drug trafficking.
Paraguayan voters overlooked these allegations, focusing instead on hopes that the boyish-looking businessman from the dominant Colorado Party can help the country reap more benefit from windfall soy profits that are boosting the economy at 10 percent a year.
His Grupo Cartes has grown quickly to include more than two dozen companies employing 3,500 people, and he won April's election with 46 percent support by promising to use his expertise to create more jobs. Inaugural organizers said his most important encounter Thursday would be a lunch with 150 foreign executives eager to improve the economic infrastructure in the country of 6.2 million people, where 39 percent of people live in poverty.
"We have declared war on poverty, and from this government we will call no truce," Cartes said in his victory speech.
Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_PARAGUAY_PRESIDENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-08-15-03-50-34
Judi Lynn
(160,656 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)And doesn't expect to be investigated because of those ties he said.
I wrote an article about him some time ago relating to Bush's property in that country and water rights.
The country is almost the last right wing government in S. America. Thus the differences between rich and poor.
BTW.. what happened to GD?
Damn you Snowdon!!!!!
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)From memory the Bush holdings are top of an aquifer and are heavily guarded.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)I read
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/07/2012718115122519807.html
http://www.war-times.org/node/463
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ParaguayUnited_States_relations
DU is also going very slow too
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)May be local to you.
RC
(25,592 posts)Actually, when DU is slow, and it can get very slow, other web sites are still just fine.
malaise
(269,256 posts)I want my GD right fuggin' now
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)Moon was also involved in the Paraguay aquifer grab, iirc.
joshcryer
(62,287 posts)HumansAndResources
(229 posts)... I bet the Poor can't wait to play their part.
There is nothing like getting the "privilege" of a "job" working on someone else's farm - while not owning a scintilla of the land and resources that make up your homeland
And, due to your inability to bargain from a position of "de-facto homelessness on your own planet," being "fortunate" to take home a tiny fraction of the wealth your labor generates.