Why Mexican drug-traffickers started smuggling iron ore to China

The Economist explains

Mar 9th 2014, 23:50 by H.T. | MEXICO CITY

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/03/economist-explains

The Economist

IT IS big, bulky, you can’t snort it, and it doesn’t get you high. Per tonne, it sells for about $125, compared with cocaine, which fetches at least $50m wholesale. By any reckoning, iron ore would seem like a daft thing to peddle if you were in the drugs trade. Yet on March 3rd Mexican authorities seized nearly 120,000 tonnes of it near the port of Lázaro Cárdenas on the Pacific coast. Much of it they reckon was due to be smuggled to China by the Knights Templar, a bloodthirsty drug-trafficking outfit. Officials say that the business had become even better for the Templars than drugs.

Debt Exceeds $100 Trillion as Governments Binge

By John Glover  Mar 10, 2014 5:42 PM GMT+0200

Bloomberg

The amount of debt globally has soared more than 40 percent to $100 trillion since the first signs of the financial crisis as governments borrowed to pull their economies out of recession and companies took advantage of record low interest rates.

The $30 trillion increase from $70 trillion between mid-2007 and mid-2013 compares with a $3.86 trillion decline in the value of equities to $53.8 trillion, according to the Bank for International Settlements and data compiled by Bloomberg. The jump in debt as measured by the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS in its quarterly review is almost twice the U.S. economy.

Greek Yields Drop to 4-Year Low, Stocks Rally Amid Troika Talks

By Neal Armstrong and Christos Ziotis  Feb 26, 2014 6:41 PM GMT+0200

Bloomberg

Greece’s bonds jumped, sending yields to a four-year low, and stocks climbed on speculation the country will reach an agreement with international creditors to ensure its bank-recapitalization requirements are manageable.

Russian Forces Gain in Ukraine as Separatist Vote Looms

By Kateryna Choursina, Volodymyr Verbyany and Stepan Kravchenko  Mar 10, 2014 9:58 AM GMT+0200

Bloomberg

Russian forces advanced in Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, ignoring Western calls to halt a military takeover before the region’s separatist referendum.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said yesterday he’d travel to Washington this week as Russian President Vladimir Putin defended Crimea’s local government, which may use the March 16 vote to leave Ukraine and join the country’s Soviet-era master. Russian troops detained Ukrainian border guards at a base a day after gunmen fired warning shots at international observers and barred them from Crimea.

ΣΔΟΕ: Στα δίχτυα 72 της λίστας Λαγκάρντ για φοροδιαφυγή, μιζαδόροι και οδοντίατρος

Αρχίζει η αξιοποίηση της λίστα Λαγκάρντ για την είσπραξη εσόδων από το Δημόσιο. Στο αμέσως προσεχές διάστημα, σύμφωνα με πληροφορίες, 72 επιχειρηματίες, ιδιώτες και άλλα πρόσωπα που το όνομα τους υπάρχει στη λίστα αναμένεται να παραπεμφθούν στις οικονομικές υπηρεσίες για να καταβάλουν δεκάδες εκατομμύρια ευρώ για απόκρυψη εισοδήματος.

Το ΣΔΟΕ βρήκε «μαύρη τρύπα» άνω του 1,5 εκατ. ευρώ στο Μετσόβιο

«Μαύρη τρύπα» με αδικαιολόγητες δαπάνες άνω του 1,5 εκατ. ευρώ στο Εθνικό Μετσόβιο Πολυτεχνείο εντόπισαν οι ελεγκτές του Σώματος Δίωξης Οικονομικού Εγκλήματος.

Η έρευνα του ΣΔΟΕ στα οικονομικά του Πολυτεχνείου της Αθήνας βρίσκεται σε πλήρη εξέλιξη, όπου οι ελεγκτές κάνουν «φύλλο και φτερό» τιμολόγια και άλλα παραστατικά για δαπάνες, ερευνητικά προγράμματα, αμοιβές κ.λπ.

Ισόβια σε εφοριακούς για παράνομες επιστροφές ΦΠΑ

ΘΕΣΣΑΛΟΝΙΚΗ

Σύννεφο» πήγαν τα ισόβια από το Κακουργιοδικείο Θεσσαλονίκης σε βάρος εφοριακών που κατηγορούνταν για την γνωστή υπόθεση των παράνομων επιστροφών ΦΠΑ.

Μάλιστα, σύμφωνα με νομικούς, είναι η πρώτη φορά που ποινικό δικαστήριο της πόλης επιβάλει την ποινή της ισόβιας κάθειρξης εναντίον κατηγορούμενων εφοριακών σε δίκη που συνδέεται με το συγκεκριμένο σκάνδαλο, το οποίο αποκαλύφθηκε πριν από περίπου 15χρονια, με τη συνολικά προκληθείσα ζημιά για το ελληνικό δημόσιο να εκτιμάται σε δεκάδες εκατομμύρια ευρώ.

Greece, lenders will miss March 10 deadline for rescue loan deal: sources

ATHENS Fri Mar 7, 2014 5:50pm EST

(Reuters) - Greece and its international lenders will miss a self-imposed March 10 deadline to clinch a deal that will release the next tranche of the country's rescue loans, three senior Greek government sources said late on Friday.

Greece's top banks need $8.9 billion euros in extra capital: central bank

BY GEORGE GEORGIOPOULOS

ATHENS Thu Mar 6, 2014 1:44pm EST

(Reuters) - Greece's major banks must raise an extra 6.4 billion euros ($8.9 billion) in capital to make themselves strong enough to deal with the fallout from future crises, the central bank said on Thursday.

A health check was run to see whether last summer's 28-billion-euro recapitalization of the four top banks had left them with enough cash to withstand rising loan losses, a further economic slump and other potential shocks.

How the Ukraine crisis ends

By Henry A. Kissinger, Published: March 6

Henry A. Kissinger was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977.

Public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation. But do we know where we are going? In my life, I have seen four wars begun with great enthusiasm and public support, all of which we did not know how to end and from three of which we withdrew unilaterally. The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins.

IMF Said to Demand Greater Say on Greek Banks in ECB Wrangle

By Nikos Chrysoloras, Jeff Black and Christos Ziotis  Mar 6, 2014 2:00 AM GMT+0200

The International Monetary Fund wants a greater say in the fate of Greek banks because it’s worried that the European Central Bank is being too lenient on them, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

The IMF views an analysis of the country’s banks run in 2013 by BlackRock Inc. (BLK) as being too optimistic, said the people, who declined to be identified as the talks are private. The fund is concerned that the ECB, which will conduct its own stress test later this year, hasn’t pushed the Greek central bank hard enough to revise BlackRock’s findings, the people said. Those results will be published today.

EU weighs Russia sanctions as Ukraine diplomacy falters

BY LUKE BAKER AND ELIZABETH PIPER

BRUSSELS/MOSCOW Thu Mar 6, 2014 3:41am EST

(Reuters) - European Union leaders were set to warn but not sanction Russia on Thursday over its military intervention in Ukraine after Moscow rebuffed Western diplomatic efforts to persuade it to pull forces in Crimea back to their bases.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov refused to meet his new Ukrainian counterpart or to launch a "contact group" to seek a solution to the crisis at talks in Paris on Wednesday despite intensive cajoling by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The two men will meet again in Rome on Thursday.

U.S. Effort to Broker Russia-Ukraine Diplomacy Fails

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and STEVEN ERLANGERMARCH 5, 2014

The New York Times

PARIS — An effort by the United States to broker the first face-to-face diplomatic meeting between Russia and Ukraine over the Crimea crisis failed on Wednesday, but Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart announced more discussions in the days ahead.

Their remarks left open the possibility of progress toward a solution to de-escalate one of the most serious East-West confrontations since the Cold War.

Almost Half a Billion Worth of Bitcoins Vanish

The Wall Street Journal

Mt. Gox Says It Lost 750,000 of Customers' Bitcoin to Fraud

Mt. Gox, once the dominant exchange for bitcoin trading, on Friday said more than $470 million of the virtual currency vanished from its digital coffers, kicking into high gear a search for the missing money by victims and cybersleuths.

Acting alone and in groups, the people stepped up their efforts after Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan and confirmed rumors it had lost almost 750,000 of its customers' bitcoins, as well as roughly 100,000 of its own.

Is Putin “in Another World?”

Marvin Kalb | March 4, 2014 12:30pm

Brookings

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, rarely one to engage in flights of fancy, finished a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the crisis in Ukraine, and then, turning to several of her aides, she said that “she was not sure he was in touch with reality.” The Russian leader, she added, seemed to be “in another world.”

President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy

By Editorial Board, Published: March 3

The Washington Post

FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which “the tide of war is receding” and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces. Other leaders, in this vision, would behave rationally and in the interest of their people and the world. Invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances — these were things of the past. Secretary of State John F. Kerry displayed this mindset on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday when he said, of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, “It’s a 19th century act in the 21st century.”

Putin’s error in Ukraine is the kind that leads to catastrophe

By David Ignatius, Published: March 3

The Washington Post

Napoleon is said to have cautioned during an 1805 battle: “When the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.” The citation is also sometimes rendered as “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Whatever the precise wording, the admonition is a useful starting point for thinking about the Ukraine situation.

High-Interest Web Banks on the Rise in China

By DAVID BARBOZAMARCH 2, 2014

The New York Times

SHANGHAI — Last June, an affiliate of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba made an offer to its hundreds of millions of users: Give us your cash, and we will pay more than Chinese banks will.

Savers swamped the company seeking interest rates that were significantly higher than the low rates fixed by the government. By early February, 81 million people had signed up for the company’s money market product called Yu’e Bao, which translates as “leftover treasure.”

Ukraine's Perpetual East-West Balancing Act

Brookings

Striking the right balance between relations with the West and relations with Russia has always been Ukraine’s central foreign policy challenge. Ukraine’s leaders have sought to have it both ways: to grow relations with the United States, European Union and NATO while also trying to maintain a stable relationship with Russia.

Russian forces expand control of Crimea

By William Booth, Will Englund and Kathy Lally, Updated: Monday, March 3, 7:44 PM E-mail the writers

The Washington Post

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine — Russian forces expanded their control of the Crimea region Monday and reportedly gave the Ukrainian military an ultimatum, as the Ukrainian prime minister called for Western political and economic support and the Russian and Ukrainian currencies fell in tandem.