The United Nations and Transnational Organized Crime

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Tuesday July 17, 2012 · 1:25 PM PDT

2012/07/17 · 13:25

The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime officiallylaunched a new campaign yesterday to raise global awareness about the corrosive effects of transnational organized crime. Among other statistics released to underscore the point, the UNODC touted their estmate that the annual proceeds from various forms of criminal enterprise bring home somewhere in the neighborhood $870 billion to the world's bad actors. Not only are the sums of money huge, the UNODC warns, but crime is all pervasive. "Transnational organized crime reaches into every region, and every country across the world. Stopping this transnational threat represents one of the international community's greatest global challenges."

Michael K Busch

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Thursday July 12, 2012 · 2:45 PM PDT

2012/07/12 · 14:45

Indigenous activists wasted no time in following through today with their threat to push out police from the southwest Colombian town of Toribio. The Spanish-language news agency EFE reports that this afternoon “Members of the Indigenous Guard took down gates and filled in the trenches of the military outpost” near Toribio. ‘“At this moment we are advancing in the seizing of control,’ Feliciano Valencia, leader of the Association of Indigenous Governments of North Cauca, told EFE by telephone from Toribio.”

Michael K Busch

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Wednesday July 11, 2012 · 2:59 PM PDT

2012/07/11 · 14:59

In an astonishing act of civil disobedience, local residents of Toribio, a small town in southwest Colombia, demanded that government forces fighting the rebel FARC go home—and destroyed their fortifications to underscore the point. The town has been witness to especially brutal violence in recent days that has left a number of people dead, and scores more injured and homeless. Yesterday afternoon, up to a thousand indigenous community members stormed the local police station in Toribio and destroyed the trenches fortifying it.

Michael K Busch

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Monday July 09, 2012 · 2:46 PM PDT

2012/07/09 · 14:46

Amidst ongoing controversy surrounding the results of last Sunday’s presidential election in Mexico, the declared winner of the contest, Enrique Peña Nieto, is unambiguously organizing to take over the government come December. The election was marked by claims of fraud, irregularities, and manipulation by the major media in favor of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled the country for much of the twentieth century, and sponsored Peña Nieto’s run for the presidency. While all of these allegations are likely true to an extent, they ultimately fail to convince. And while the opposition continues to protest Peña Nieto’s victory, the president-elect has moved on.

Michael K Busch

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Thursday May 24, 2012 · 7:47 AM PDT

2012/05/24 · 07:47

On the heels of learning that the United States has significantly scaled up its presence in Honduras in recent months, disturbing news emerged this week that suggests the country is suffering a bloody return on Washington's military investment in the region. Last week, the New York Times reported that "A commando-style squad of Drug Enforcement Administration agents accompanied the Honduran counternarcotics police during two firefights with cocaine smugglers in the jungles of the Central American country this month, according to officials in both countries who were briefed on the matter. One of the fights, which occurred last week, left as many as four people dead and has set off a backlash against the American presence there."

Michael K Busch

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Thursday May 24, 2012 · 7:32 AM PDT

2012/05/24 · 07:32

Yesterday, I wrote up a brief account of the news coming from Argentina that police had defused an explosive device targetting former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. To quickly recap, police officers there allegedly "defused a bomb discovered in the ceiling of a Buenos Aires theater...and authorities said it was timed to explode during an appearance there by...Uribe."

Michael K Busch

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Sunday May 22, 2011 · 1:18 PM PDT

2011/05/22 · 13:18

It’s hardly a secret that rich Saudi Arabians, including those running the government, have used their considerable oil wealth to spread political and ideological influence throughout the world. One need look no further than the close-knit relationship between the House of Saud and the Bush family to understand Saudi’s powerful reach across the globe. In Muslim countries, though, its presence is more pointed and explicitly ideological. Indeed, following the 9/11 attacks it has become increasingly clear that Saudi money frequently makes its way into the hands of Islamic extremists.

Michael K Busch

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Saturday May 21, 2011 · 1:44 PM PDT

2011/05/21 · 13:44

One of the least remarked upon aspects of the WikiLeaked embassy cables is the persistent focus by diplomats on the so-called “dark side of globalization”—the illicit global economy. From gun-runners and nuclear smugglers to concerns about the trafficking of people and natural resources, cables detailing the corrosive effects of organized crime on the national interest pepper the Cablegate database with remarkable frequency.

Michael K Busch

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Thursday May 19, 2011 · 3:31 PM PDT

2011/05/19 · 15:31

In the wake of 9/11, Americans were introduced to some of the uglier features of their government at war. On the one hand, we were witness to the petty politics of competing bureaucracies—small-minded turf battles over information that ultimately led to failures of security and bungled missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the other hand, we became subject to the repressive character of secrecy regimes that defend Constitutional violations in the name of preserving the very principles—such as transparency—that bolster a democratic society. But according to new embassy cables published this week by WikiLeaks, the United States isn’t alone. Washington's counterparts up the north, it seems, have had their own problems with government information sharing—amongst themselves and with the public.

Michael K Busch

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Friday May 13, 2011 · 7:00 PM PDT

2011/05/13 · 19:00

Recent cables published by WikiLeaks from the American embassy in Ottawa paint a less than flattering picture of Stephen Harper. The Canadian prime minister, whose Conservative Party took a commanding majority in nationwide elections last week, has built his political success on a platform of aggressive nationalism concerning the country’s Arctic sovereignty, pro-business economics, and keen avoidance of doing anything about climate change.

Michael K Busch

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Monday May 02, 2011 · 5:54 PM PDT

2011/05/02 · 17:54

The story of Yasser Talal Al Zahrani offers one of the most mysterious, and ultimately tragic, narratives in the “Gitmo Files” published by WikiLeaks this past week. The son of “a senior official in the Saudi Interior Ministry, reportedly holding the rank of abid, or brigadier,” the seventeen-year-old al Zahrani reportedly left home, having just completed the eleventh grade, “after hearing that sheiks from negihboring towns were saying jihad in Afghanistan (AF) was a religious duty.”

Michael K Busch

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Sunday May 01, 2011 · 10:01 AM PDT

2011/05/01 · 10:01

When reports began surfacing in 2003 that Guantanamo Bay was housing children detained as enemy combatants, then-Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers dismissed these concerns by noting that

despite their age, these are very, very dangerous people. They are people that have been vetted mainly in Afghanistan and gone through a thorough process to determine what their involvement was. Some have killed. Some have stated they're going to kill again. So they may be juveniles, but they're not on a little-league team anywhere, they're on a major league team, and it's a terrorist team. And they're in Guantanamo for a very good reason—for our safety, for your safety.

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The United Nations and Transnational Organized Crime

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The Gitmo Files: Yasser Talal Al Zahrani

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