PrairiePundit

Miami Herald: A Paraguayan businessman accused of moving millions of dollars around the globe for drug traffickers and other criminals with suspected links to the terrorist group Hezbollah was extradited to Miami to face money-laundering charges on Friday. Before his extradition late Thursday, Nader Mohamad Farhat operated one of the biggest currency exchange businesses in the Tri-Border Area of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. At his first appearance in Miami federal court, he was charged with two counts of conspiring to launder money from drug-trafficking proceeds and an unlicensed currency transmitter in the United States, as well as six related money-laundering offenses. Farhat faces similar charges in New York federal court, but his Miami case must be resolved first before he is transferred there. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Miami next Thursday, when he also has a bond hearing. Prosecutors are seeking his detention, saying he is a risk of flight. ... Farhat, who is o...

Silvo Cantu: President-Elect Jair Bolsonaro recently made news with his announcement about Cuban doctors in Brazil. He also ran as a "law and order" candidate, and the Paraguay-Brazil border will quickly be on his agenda. This is the latest report from that border: Paraguay shares a thinly policed, 848-mile border with Brazil, and has long been a hub for smuggling and money laundering. The country is a major producer of marijuana, has a vibrant arms market and acts as a conduit for cocaine shipped from neighboring Bolivia. But now, powerful gangs from Brazil are exploiting Paraguay's lax gun laws, police corruption and weak justice system to establish a more permanent foothold. These criminal organizations "no longer treat Paraguay like a foreign country, but rather part of their criminal domain," Mr. Guizzio said. Eradicating the gangs' influence poses a significant institutional challenge for Paraguay, senior officials say. Yes, a problem f...

Image via Wikipedia Reuters: A leftist group attacked a police station in northern Paraguay with explosives late on Sunday, injuring four police officers and raising concerns about a new offensive by the insurgents. The Paraguayan People's Army (EPP) -- a small group linked to Colombian rebels and active in marijuana-growing regions in the north -- said it was avenging the killing of rebel leaders under leftist President Fernando Lugo . The powerful blast damaged homes near the police station and occurred just days after two smaller explosions hit Paraguay's capital, Asuncion . The EPP has been blamed for high-profile kidnappings dating to at least 1997 but Police Intelligence Chief Carlos Altemburguer said they appeared to be changing their tactics. "Now we're seeing more attacks with explosives, which is more dangerous because they are indiscriminate," he said. Lugo has made little progress in tracking down the group's key figures and attacks ...

Image via Wikipedia Washington Times: The U.S. has been concerned about about the presence of terrorists - as well as Iranian influence - in Paraguay , according to a cable from the WikiLeaks document dump. A March 24, 2008, directive sent to the U.S. Embassy in Asuncion asks diplomats to collect information "on the presence, intentions, plans and activities of terrorist groups, facilitators, and support networks - including, but not limited to, Hizballah, Hamas, al-Gama'at al-Islamiya , al-Qa'ida , jihadist media organizations, Iranian state agents or surrogates - in Paraguay, in particular in the Tri-Border Area (TBA)." The TBA, where Paraguay meets Brazil and Argentina has long been a source of unease in the West, described in 1998 by FBI Director Louis Freeh as a "free zone for significant criminal activity, including people who are organized to commit acts of terrorism." Both the CIA and Israel's Mossad intelligence agency have long be...

NY Times: The baby jokes just keep coming. Fernando Lugo , the former priest who is now the country’s president, shocked the nation last month by admitting to fathering one child — and possibly more — before the Vatican had returned him to layman status. Now the Internet here is buzzing with an irreverent video showing him in a baby carriage, magically impregnating each woman he passes on the street. A popular television show in neighboring Argentina has dedicated a tango to him and recommended that he use contraception. A local cumbia song is even mocking his campaign slogan. “The playboy has heart, but he doesn’t use a condom,” goes the refrain, playing on the slogan that helped get him elected, “Lugo has heart.” Even his closest advisers say they were stunned and dismayed by the revelations — and cannot rule out the possibility of more secret babies turning up. “He isn’t sure, so we can’t be sure of exactly what could be coming,” said Miguel López Perito, his chief of staff and ...

Washington Post: The clamor over Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo's behavior is getting louder, one crying baby at a time. For the third time in less than a month, a woman came forward yesterday saying that Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop, is the father of her child. A single secret out-of-wedlock child by any president would make headlines. But in this heavily Roman Catholic country, the revelations about a man who had sworn chastity vows as a priest has stirred deeper concerns that some say could have serious repercussions for his government. ... Lugo's admission of paternity has prompted widespread discussions not only about his loyalty to his vows to the Catholic Church but also about his credibility on other matters. During the campaign, he did not admit to having children. ... He appears to be chastity challenged. He also appears to be a man more interested in spreading his sperm than in looking for a lasting relationship. He looks like just another left win...

Telegraph: Mr Lugo, 57, did not confirm nor deny fathering the 6-year-old boy, but read a brief statement promising to "act always in line with the truth" before appealing for privacy and referring all questions about paternity claims to his lawyer. Two of Mr Lugo's cabinet ministers started judicial proceedings against their boss on the second woman's behalf, and vowed to order DNA tests if Mr Lugo does not recognise paternity. When Mr Lugo admitted last week that he fathered a 2-year-old boy with a different former parishioner, saying he would "assume all responsibilities" for the boy, analysts predicted that his forthright response would disarm the potential scandal, despite the feeling of at least one bishop that it was a "slap in the face" of the Catholic Church. But a second paternity claim will inevitably give his opponents more ammunition. Benigna Leguizamon, an impoverished soap-seller, said she decided to go public with her affair with th...

NY Times: Fernando Lugo , “the bishop of the poor,” as he is known here, was sworn in Friday as president of Paraguay, promising to give land to the landless and to end entrenched corruption after six decades of one-party rule. Despite his remarkable victory in April, the gray-bearded Mr. Lugo, a 57-year-old former Roman Catholic bishop, faces a challenging road in pursuing his agenda, knowing that the Colorado Party, which ruled Paraguay for 61 years, is still very much ingrained in politics here. For 35 of those years, the party was dominated by one man, Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, a dictator blamed for many human rights atrocities. In the past five years it was represented by the departing president, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, who expanded an already bloated and inefficient government bureaucracy. The election of Mr. Lugo, the ultimate outsider who spent 11 years as a priest living in the countryside working with peasant movements seeking land reform, was a dramatic break with the past fo...

Amir Taheri: 'A MAN of God and an enemy of the Great Satan": That's how Iran's official media described Fernando Lugo - the Paraguayan ex-priest who just won his country's presidency in a hotly contested election. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - among the first foreign leaders to congratulate Lugo on his win - hopes that Paraguay will now become another link in what he calls "the counter lasso" - the chain of anti-US regimes he's supporting with the help of his "brother," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Ahmadinejad's analysis is simple: America is trying to throw a lasso around Iran with the help of allies in surrounding regions. So Iran should throw a counter lasso via an alliance in the United States' South American backyard. The Vatican had rejected Lugo's resignation from the priesthood but suspended him after he ran for office despite being denied permission. He visited Iran in the '90s to pay homage to t...