Paraguay Chases Crime Lords and Economic Growth
NEED TO KNOW
Paraguay Chases Crime Lords and Economic Growth
PARAGUAY
International criminal agencies are hunting for alleged Uruguayan drug trafficker and money launderer Sebastian Marset, who has strong ties to Paraguay and could have returned there after he disappeared a few years ago, according to InSight Crime.
If he did, he won’t be safe there for long, analysts say.
That’s because Paraguay is stepping up its fight against organized crime and the drugs the criminals trade in. Officials see it as key to increasing investment and growth.
To that end, Paraguay recently showed off the purchase of six Tucano turboprop airplanes from Brazil to combat drug runners and other criminals in the landlocked South American country.
The country also recently purchased radar sets from American aerospace giant Northrop Grumman that would help track planes transporting drugs and money, wrote Diálogo Américas, giving the Tucanos better eyes in the sky.
In recent years, Paraguay has become a key country for the transit of cocaine then transported across the Atlantic in container ships: Cocaine produced mainly in Peru and Bolivia is moved through Paraguay to Brazil and Argentina, entering from neighboring Bolivia by land and air routes through the Chaco, the vast and sparsely populated region in the northwest of the country, where airstrips are being built for drug trafficking. The acquisition of radar will help Paraguay curb these criminal activities, Diálogo Américas added.
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña said that the purchases signaled a crucial change of direction because of urgent priorities, and marked “the beginning of a new era in the fight against transnational organized crime and narcotrafficking.”
“Today the Paraguayan State invests in defense and security, no longer to confront our neighbors. That remained in the past. Today we face different dangers. Organized crime, drug trafficking, transnational crimes know no borders, know no nationality, and this requires that States be increasingly organized,” Peña said in a recent speech as reported by Spanish news agency EFE.
Peña’s comments were about more than law and order, however. The purchase of the planes reflected how the Paraguayan state was seeking to move on from one of the most stressful periods in its history since the end of the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner in 1989.
When the military regime ended, “many wounds” remained that were “eroding and deteriorating the capacity for response” of the military, which is why he considered it “fundamental” to strengthen it now, Peña added.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently called for Paraguay to strengthen measures against money laundering and violent crime, in order to create more opportunities and improve the economy, MercoPress noted.
Fast-growing Paraguay has become South America’s star economy over the past two decades but has also failed to tackle one of the world’s most endemic organized crime problems.
Even so, the financial institution recently praised Paraguay’s efforts to grow its economy after the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic and, even more damaging, a severe drought in early 2022. Climate change has made such droughts more frequent and extreme in recent years, too, added the Fitch Ratings agency at the time.
With the help of almost $200 million in IMF financing, the country’s economy is now rebounding. Gross domestic product grew by almost 6 percent in the first quarter of the year, driven by a nearly 13 percent increase in construction sector activity, for example, reported bnamericas. The exploding interest in the country’s Paraguay-Paraná river system is also stoking economic growth, Americas Quarterly added.
“Now, with a surge of infrastructure projects along its banks, the corridor is reemerging as a vital, contested axis for regional trade and security,” it wrote. “Both investment and foreign interest are ramping up: China and the US are maneuvering for influence along the corridor, as are transnational criminal organizations, for Andes-to-Atlantic drug trafficking and other illicit activity.”
That’s part of the reason the country is heightening its fight against drug trafficking: It’s worried that it will dampen or even crowd out true economic development, investment, and growth.
There are other critical issues beyond organized crime that Paraguay must tackle to promote growth, analysts say.
“Paraguay’s institutional aspect is very weak,” Ramiro Blazquez of investment bank BancTrust told the Financial Times. “It’s a country with a lot of perceived corruption and crony capitalism, and many problems with judicial independence.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
US Extends Tariffs Deadline but Threatens Higher Rates
JAPAN / SOUTH KOREA
Japan and South Korea, two key US allies in Asia, were scrambling to try to make deals with US President Donald Trump on Tuesday after he reiterated his threat this week to slap steep tariffs on their goods, despite granting more time to secure trade deals, the Washington Post reported.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba called Trump’s threat “deeply regrettable” but said his administration will continue negotiations with the US to reach a deal.
Trump warned that Japan and South Korea would face 25 percent tariffs on goods if they fail to reach an agreement by Aug. 1, a deadline that was extended from July 9. The new tariffs would increase by one percent for Japan but would remain the same as those announced in April for South Korea.
Twelve other countries face tariffs of up to 40 percent, CNBC wrote.
In April, Trump paused tariffs for 90 days to give countries time to make trade deals after global markets declined sharply. The deadline has now been pushed to Aug. 1 for most countries.
Currently, the US has only reached agreements with Vietnam and the United Kingdom.
Trump said the new deadline is “firm, but not 100 percent firm,” which observers said indicates the US might be flexible on the timeline.
After the new deadline extension, Japanese and South Korean stock markets remained stable, which analysts said was a positive response from investors.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s newly appointed administration held emergency meetings but also appeared grateful for the extended deadline.
Even so, analysts cautioned that the tariffs could undermine trust and stability within the alliance. Both East Asian countries have important, long-established security agreements with the US and are key partners in Washington’s efforts to counter China.
Lebanon Backs Plan to Disarm Hezbollah Amid Ongoing Clashes with Israel
LEBANON
Lebanon confirmed a proposal to disarm Hezbollah, a senior US envoy announced this week, in what is seen as part of a broader effort by the United States to stabilize the country after years of economic and political turmoil, the Associated Press reported.
US Special Envoy Tom Barrack said he was “unbelievably satisfied” with the Lebanese response to Washington’s proposal to disarm the Shiite militant group after meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun in Beirut.
Barrack did not disclose details of the response.
The US proposal, submitted last month, calls for Hezbollah to fully disarm within four months in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from five occupied positions in southern Lebanon and an end to airstrikes. It also includes US support for economic reforms to help pull Lebanon out of its six-year financial crisis.
Lebanon has been grappling with years of political and economic crisis driven by decades of corruption and mismanagement. With new leadership in power and Hezbollah weakened by its fight with Israel, many in the region and elsewhere are hoping the country can turn things around.
While Barrack said both Israel and Lebanon back a “stand-down agreement,” Hezbollah has yet to formally respond to the plan. The Iran-backed group has insisted it will not disarm until Israel fully withdraws from southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera noted.
Barrack acknowledged that Hezbollah would need guarantees to remain politically active in Lebanon under any disarmament deal.
The proposal comes as Israeli operations continue in southern Lebanon despite a US-brokered ceasefire with Hezbollah in November.
Fighting between the two sides began shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. Hezbollah launched attacks in solidarity with Hamas, but by September 2024, the conflict had escalated into full-scale war.
More than 4,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, including much of Hezbollah’s leadership and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah. In Israel, the war has killed 127 people, including 80 soldiers.
Since the ceasefire, Lebanese officials say at least 250 people have been killed and more than 600 have been injured by Israeli strikes. Israel says its operations are defensive and aimed at preventing Hezbollah from rearming.
German Court Deals Blow to Chancellor’s Migrant Crackdown
GERMANY
A Berlin court ruled Tuesday that the German government must resettle an Afghan family currently stranded in Pakistan, a verdict that dealt a blow to conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s promises to severely curb the influx of asylum-seekers entering Germany, Politico reported.
The case centered on a resettlement program that was specifically designed for Afghans considered at-risk after the Taliban regained control of the country in 2021.
The program allowed special consideration for those who collaborated with the German military or other organizations in Afghanistan, along with journalists and activists deemed to be at risk from persecution by the Taliban, according to Agence France-Presse.
When Merz was elected chancellor in May, his administration suspended the program, leaving about 2,400 Afghans – those German authorities had admitted into the resettlement program – stuck in Pakistan waiting for flights to Germany, even as they risked deportation.
Pakistan began deporting thousands of Afghans promised resettlement in the West earlier this year.
The plaintiffs in the case were an Afghan family, including a woman who worked as a law professor and as a deputy head of Afghanistan’s election commission before the Taliban’s return.
The family was approved to resettle in Germany under the program in 2023 but has been stuck in Pakistan since then.
In its ruling, the court said the German government “has legally bound itself through final, unrevoked admission commitments,” adding that the family had “made a credible case that they were threatened with deportation from Pakistan to Afghanistan, where they would face danger to life and limb.”
The court said that, while Germany had the right “to decide whether and under what conditions the admission program for Afghan nationals will be continued,” and that it could “abstain from new approvals during this decision process,” the government “cannot release itself” from approvals already issued.
German officials told Politico they are reviewing the case.
Meanwhile, other Afghans are challenging Germany’s suspension of the resettlement program, and more rulings are expected.
Merz, ahead of the election, promised to crack down on migrants and refugees to win over some voters from the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
However, analysts say Merz can expect more setbacks regarding his immigration crackdown as the courts have already ruled on some of his attempts to tighten the border.
Last month, for example, a court ruled that the German government’s attempt to reject asylum-seekers at the border is illegal, noted Deutsche Welle.
DISCOVERIES
The Wandering Lizard
After 76-million-year-old fossils were discovered at the Kaiparowits Formation in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah in 2005, they were put in a jar labeled “lizard,” left in a museum, and forgotten.
Twenty years later, however, a scientist specializing in lizard evolution saw the jar and peeked inside, shocked to realize those bones belonged to a previously undocumented species.
“I opened this jar…and was like, oh wow, there’s a fragmentary skeleton here,” lead study author Hank Woolley said in a statement. “We know very little about large-bodied lizards from the Kaiparowits Formation in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, so I knew this was significant right away.”
In a new study that followed that discovery, the scientists described the new species, named Bolg amondol after the goblin prince from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.” “I think of these lizards as goblin-like, especially looking at their skulls,” Woolley added.
B. amondol is a species that originated within a group of large, sharp-toothed, armored lizards called monstersaurs that still exist today in the deserts where the lizard was found.
“Three feet tip to tail, maybe even bigger than that, depending on the length of the tail and torso,” Woolley said, describing what the lizard would have looked like. “So by modern lizard standards, a very large animal, similar in size to a Savannah monitor lizard – something that you wouldn’t want to mess around with.”
The skeleton is less fragmented compared with most fossils from the Age of Dinosaurs. The team found tiny pieces of the skull, vertebrae, girdles, limbs, and the bony armor called osteoderms in the jar.
“What’s really interesting about this holotype specimen of Bolg is that it’s fragmentary, yes, but we have a broad sample of the skeleton preserved,” Woolley said. “There’s no overlapping bones – there’s not two left hip bones or anything like that. So we can be confident that these remains likely belonged to a single individual.”
The part of B. amondol’s skeleton that survived provides scientists with a great deal of information to study the species, especially considering that the fossil record of monstersauria is largely incomplete, despite their roughly 100-million-year history.
This discovery also highlights the likelihood that there were many more types of big lizards in the Late Cretaceous Period. To date, scientists know of at least three types of predatory lizards that existed in the region that is modern-day southern Utah, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
B. amondol’s closest known relative has been found on the other side of the planet, the Gobi Desert in Asia. While scientists have long known that dinosaurs roamed between the once-connected continents during the Late Cretaceous Period, between 66 and 100 million years ago, this new finding shows that smaller animals were also travelers.
The discovery also indicates that land vertebrates of different sizes shared common patterns in how they were distributed across continents at the time.