Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Friday 3 July 2015

“Agriculture, Industry Become Priorities For Nicaraguan Economy – OpEd” plus 24 more : Eurasia Review

Link to Eurasia Review Newsletter


Posted: 02 Jul 2015 05:02 PM PDT
Job creation, diversification of industry, sustainable development and the war against poverty has been a top priority for the current government of Nicaragua. This year is continuing the second phase of the Better Work Program which is estimated to create 150 thousand new jobs in the Free Trade Sector. According to Mr. Roberto Gonzalez, leader of the Central Sandinista Workers Union (CST), “Better Work program is a comprehensive initiative that protects labor rights for workers; provides...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 05:00 PM PDT
The U.S. and Iranian nuclear negotiators have just announced a one week extension of their nuclear talks.  If, as expected, there is an agreement next week, it will open a new stage of tension in the process leading to its final formal ratification by all parties.  For then, the U.S. Congress will have 30 days to vote the agreement up or down.  This vote, forced on an unwilling president by his own party’s Senate members several weeks ago, poses a new threat.  For the Israel Lobby, it offers a...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 04:55 PM PDT
Ken Ballen, Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals, Free Press, 2011. This is a strange book—a racy title, documenting the way six jihadis turned to al-Qaeda and its spin-offs in desperation to find some kind of fulfilment in life. There are several Romeo and Juliette stories, though the author seems oblivious to the fact that the ‘love’ in the title is mostly about devotion to God, however mistaken. Ballen is president and founder of Terror Free Tomorrow, “a...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 04:39 PM PDT
Successful implementation of the AEC2015 should have a positive impact on ASEAN’s agri-food sector, leading to improved food availability for the region and increased exports. Sadly, early signs are not encouraging. Major constraints apparent on investment need to be addressed. By Paul S. Teng and Jurise Athena Oliveros* Investment has long been a key engine for inclusive growth and development. Through the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2015 agenda, the region aims to establish a unified and...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 04:35 PM PDT
In the aftermath of the attack on a church in Charleston, South Carolina by a white Christian supremacist, the media ran extensive analysis on the who’s and why’s of the assault which led to the murder of nine people attending service. One of the debates to emerge from the reverberation of this ghastly act was whether this was indeed an act of terrorism or simply a young man gone “temporarily insane”. In the past, the US news media flinched from identifying such acts as acts of...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 04:27 PM PDT
Since the launch of the summer offensive ‘Azam’ by insurgent groups, Afghanistan has gone through one of its most challenging periods of the last 14 years. Afghanistan national security forces have witnessed huge number of casualties. Insurgency in North of Afghanistan and the fallout of districts in Kunduz, Badakhshan and Nuristan echoes the unpreparedness of Afghan forces to fight without international forces air-support. Similarly Kabul was lucky not to witness the massacre of its member of...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 04:22 PM PDT
Once upon a time, in the Fall of 2007, a King went out to hunt on a very warm day. After a few hours he felt very hot and tired, so he decided to stop for lunch. His servants unpacked a large picnic basket they had brought with them and set up a table. Now the King didn’t want to eat together with his servants, nor did he want to eat alone. The King told one of his servants to find someone to come and eat lunch with the King. The servant walked to a nearby road, saw two 13-year-old The post A...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 04:09 PM PDT
The Greek government’s decision to call a referendum, shut banks and default on its payment to the International Monetary Fund are taking a toll on tourism, professionals warned on Wednesday, reports KATHIMERINI. Andreas Andreadis, the head of the Association of Hellenic Tourism Enterprises (SETE), said that hotel bookings are down 50,000 a day due to the recent developments in the country. Given that last-minute bookings account for 20 percent of the year’s tourism traffic, the blow is...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 04:04 PM PDT
Intel and the Spanish technology company Indra have signed an alliance aimed at the joint development of innovative solutions in the fields of Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet (II) for clients of the energy sector worldwide. This initiative contemplates the creation of an innovative offer in the area of Smart Energy based on new families of Intel processors and Indra gateways, the Spanish company said. Specifically, the multinational consulting and technology firm will include...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 03:56 PM PDT
On behalf of RAGA, I hurry to share with our readers the sad news of Yevgeny Primakov’s passing away on June 26, 2015, and to express our condolence to his family, friends and colleagues in Russian government, public, and academic institutions where he has left an indelible mark. Mr. Primakov is best known for the famous diplomatic “turn-around” when, on the way to Washington for a state visit on March 24, 1999, he immediately cancelled the visit and ordered his airplane around in mid-Atlantic...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 03:51 PM PDT
The German government on Wednesday appointed their own version of a special prosecutor when they named a former judge as a special investigator to probe the targets that German intelligence tracked on behalf of President Barack Obama and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Part of the political uproar is the belief of German lawmakers that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s staff may have given the German foreign intelligence agency authorization to assistance NSA spies to monitor European...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 03:48 PM PDT
By James Sherk* The Obama Administration has announced plans to require overtime pay for salaried employees who earn less than $50,440 a year. Economic research shows that employers will offset new overtime costs by lowering base salaries. As a result, these regulations will have little effect on total weekly earnings or hours worked. They will require employers to rigidly monitor salaried employees’ hours. This would proscribe the flexible working arrangements that many salaried employees...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 03:36 PM PDT
By Walter Russell Mead* There are lots of things to worry about in the face of an ever more likely Grexit, but the future of the euro isn’t one of them. The credibility of the euro depends on the credibility of the rules, the institutions and the political will behind it. A Grexit won’t affect that much; indeed, a Greek exit may end up strengthening the credibility of the euro by removing the one member that all agree should never have been allowed to join in the first place. The euro has never...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 03:28 PM PDT
On the back drop of the $100 billion dollar AIIB bank that has been set in China for which $40 billion has been assigned for the development of the Silk Route, Sri Lanka Tourism together with the Sri Lankan embassy in Beijing has launched an aggressive Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion in the top-end Chinese province of Shandgon in the Quingdao city, according to the Sri Lanka government. Quingdao connects with the Colombo city by way of the silk route, which makes this new market development unique,...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 03:22 PM PDT
The Organisation of American States (OAS), the National Critical Infrastructure Protection Centre of the Ministry of Home Affairs (Spanish acronym: CNPIC) and the National Cyber-Security Institute of the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism (Spanish acronym: INCIBE) have launched the 1st International Cyber-exercises – CyberEx 2015. CyberEx 2015 will include the completion of a cyber-exercise by the Member States of the Organisation of American States (OAS) to enable the strengthening...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 03:18 PM PDT
Europol said Thursday it supported UK and Dutch law enforcement authorities in a week-long operation to tackle criminality across the UK and The Netherlands through national roads policing. Operation Trivium 4 ran simultaneously in various locations in England, Wales and The Netherlands from 22-28 June. It targeted foreign national offenders who use the road networks, as well as human trafficking, organized property crime and drugs trafficking. With regard to the actions in the UK, an...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 03:12 PM PDT
The Sri Lanka Navy has declared a General Amnesty period for navy deserters from July 1, 2015 to September 31, 2015, according to the Sri Lanka government, adding that Navy deserters can report to their closest Navy camp with their National Identity Card or Navy Identity Card to complete the clearance formalities. Thursday’s news follows on earlier reports that the Sri Lanka Air Force has declared a general amnesty period for absentees, enabling them to receive their legal discharge from...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 03:08 PM PDT
The United States said Thursday it is deeply concerned about the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen, which the United Nations yesterday designated as a Level 3 crisis, its most severe category. “In light of the critical humanitarian situation facing the Yemeni people, we again join the United Nations and the international community in calling for an immediate humanitarian pause, to be enacted as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon suggested in his July 1 statement until the end of the holy...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 03:04 PM PDT
By Elizabeth Sidiropoulos* Some five weeks ago I attended the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) Academic Forum in Moscow as part of the South African delegation. The discussions held there provide interesting insights into the future direction of the BRICS group. Under the title of ‘Co-operation for growth, security and prosperity’, the Academic Forum comprised 11 themes ranging from the plenary on ‘Building a Fair World Order’ to breakaway sessions on...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 03:00 PM PDT
Are you one of the millions of people in the United States who drives a car every day? How do you react to the trucking industry, whose lobbyists with ample campaign cash swarm over Congress, pressing for a rider to a transportation appropriations bill to be passed to overturn laws in 39 states that currently ban unsafe double 33 foot tractor-trailer combinations? What is your opinion of another provision in this bill to permanently increase truck driver working and driving hours up to 82 hours...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 02:57 PM PDT
By Laura V. Natera* On June 2, the United States announced that 180 Marines would be deployed to Honduras as a preventative measure primarily concerning the upcoming hurricane season. Both the U.S. Marines and the White House affirmed that the military mobilization will be temporary and that its functions will only be to protect local citizens in the case of a natural disaster. Regional specialists, however, fear that the presence of sophisticated U.S. military and surveillance equipment, as...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 02:52 PM PDT
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate strategy should coexist as parts of an integrated whole. If a company’s internal policies are not consistent with its stated social mission, its reputation will be in jeopardy. In an article on effective CSR, IESE’s José Ramón Pin presents what he calls a “map of organizational consistency” which calls for implementing socially responsible policies throughout the organization, not just when it comes to external...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 02:48 PM PDT
Growth in China is expected to decelerate to 7.1 percent in 2015 and 6.9 percent by 2017, reflecting a growth trajectory that is slower but more balanced and sustainable – a “new normal” for the world’s second-largest economy, according to the World Bank’s China Economic Update released Wednesday. “In the short run, the slowdown in China’s economy growth means the government is making inroads with structural adjustments and policy efforts to address financial vulnerabilities. Over the medium...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 02:45 PM PDT
At least 15 people, including nine children, have died in a cholera outbreak in Central Nigeria’s Plateau State. Local medical sources confirm that the cause is drinking water contamination. The majority of cholera deaths and cases were registered in the villages of Kantam and Filam, in the north of the State. A Kantam villager, Joseph Wuyep, said that the epidemic broke out last week, but that there had been delays in the intervention of local authorities. “The problem is the water. We drink...

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Posted: 02 Jul 2015 02:44 PM PDT
The Moroccan Press Agency MAP reports that the Moroccan Central Bureau for Judiciary Investigations (BCIJ), under the General Directorate for Territory Surveillance (DGST), has dismantled a suspected nine-member militant cell that was in contact with the Islamic State and tried to encourage Moroccan youth to fight for the group. The nine suspects were arrested in the cities of Nador, Laayoune, Tetouan, Meknes, Sidi Ifni, Beni Mellal, Saidia, Dakhla and Tangiers. The report, which cited the...

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