Toma nota.../Take note...

Estonia and Moldova have similar origins, but could not be more different. Both declared independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991. Both tiny countries have big Russian minorities, and both have struggled with emigration and shrinking populations. Yet where Estonia has joined the EU, become an IT hub and is virtually corruption-free, Moldova struggles with corruption and its citizens are five times poorer than Estonia’s. Was Estonia’s fortune down to luck or good choices?

Moldova and Estonia show how different democracies can be

One post-Soviet country defeated corruption, the other is still battling it

Chisinay and Tallinn, Feb.28.– Kaja Kallas, a former competition lawyer and member of the European Parliament, is just the sort of businesslike politician one expects in Estonia. She took over as leader of Estonia’s liberal Reform Party last year; polls show it in a dead heat with the ruling Centre Party. She has run a technocratic campaign, focusing on education and tax policy. But she loses her cool when she talks about EKRE, Estonia’s anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic populist party. “They want to destroy everything,” she says: all the institutions that have made her open, tech-savvy nation more successful than “other countries that had the same starting-point. Take Moldova, for example.”

Indeed, take Moldova. Like Estonia, it declared independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991. Both tiny countries have big Russian minorities, and both have struggled with emigration and shrinking populations. Yet in many ways they are polar opposites. 

El Presidente interino de Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, después de una gira por varios países, se dispone a regresar a su país el martes 5 de marzo para asumir sus funciones con el propósito de reorganizar el Estado fallido que deja atrás el ex Presidente Nicolás Maduro y convocar lo antes posible a elecciones presidenciales y parlamentarias. No obstante, cuelga sobre él la espada de Damocles que esgrime el dictador Nicolás Maduro con sus amenazas de tomar medidas represivas contra el Presidente Guaidó, apoyado por sus testaferros castrenses. Pretende justificar tales medidas dictatoriales con el pretexto de una presunta ilegitimidad de Guaidó y una falsa acusación de "traición a la patria". Veamos a continuación un examen somero de la validez de estos argumentos:

Quién es Juan Guaidó y por qué su juramento es constitucional

La situación política de Venezuela hace necesario tener en cuenta dos aspectos sobre los hechos ocurridos el pasado miércoles 23 de enero de 2019. Quién es Juan Guaidó y por qué ostenta en este momento la Presidencia de la Asamblea Nacional. Y más importante, por qué su juramento como presidente encargado es perfectamente constitucional.

EL PRESIDENTE ENCARGADO

Juan Guaidó tiene 35 años, es ingeniero industrial y ha sido diputado de la Asamblea Nacional por el Estado de Vargas, durante dos períodos (2011-2015 y 2016-2021). Forma parte del partido Voluntad Popular, liderado por Leopoldo López, y que pertenece a la Internacional Socialista. Debido a los acuerdos políticos dentro de la oposición, los cargos de la Junta Directiva de la Asamblea Nacional van rotando según el partido político en cuestión. 

Anuncian también el establecimiento de una zona económica y compromisos medioambientales ante la realidad de una Unión Europea que está fragmentada y dividida. Este Tratado firmado recientemente por Francia y Alemania supone un nuevo paso en las relaciones bilaterales, pero no debería trasladar la imagen de duunvirato: el acuerdo representa un punto de encuentro insuficiente para desarrollar el proyecto europeo.

Claves de un nuevo Tratado franco-alemán en Aquisgrán

Aquisgrán, Ene.22.– Francia aspira a conservar su capacidad autónoma de actuación, mientras que la prioridad alemana es mantener el statu quo y la cohesión de la Unión, y preservar el papel de Europa en la OTAN.

El Tratado de Aquisgrán ocupa 16 páginas en su versión alemana, que contiene 28 artículos. Más allá del marcado carácter simbólico del acuerdo, el texto contempla objetivos y medidas concretas. Estos son los principales puntos del acuerdo franco-alemán firmado el martes en Aquisgrán:

The corporate world is plagued by a drive to “gigantism” that is a veiled form of monopolistic and oligopolistic trends dominating all other trends of globalization (some of them beneficial). This drive to gigantism is nothing new; it started with the Industrial Revolution of the XIX century, but its development has become overwhelming and crushing with the forming of blocs of firms, holding companies, and conglomerates that are amassing even greater resources. In addition, globalization has given way to the proliferation of mergers. These consolidations exhibit the same disregard for restraint and employ similarly disruptive means of expansion as those in stock market manipulations and hostile merge/takeover, among other strategies giving way to the formation of powerful cartels (oligopolies) and monopolies. Joseph Stiglitz offers us in the article that follows a partial remedy, so that these large conglomerates cannot evade their fiscal responsibilities.

How Can We Tax Footloose Multinationals? 

Apple, Google, Starbucks, and companies like them all claim to be socially responsible, but the first element of social responsibility should be paying your fair share of tax. Instead, globalization has enabled multinationals to encourage a race to the bottom, threatening the revenues that governments need to function properly.

New York, Feb.13.– In the last few years, globalization has come under renewed attack. Some of the criticisms may be misplaced, but one is spot on: globalization has enabled large multinationals, like Apple, Google, and Starbucks, to avoid paying tax.

Apple has become the poster child for corporate tax avoidance, with its legal claim that a few hundred people working in Ireland were the real source of its profits, and then striking a deal with that country’s government that resulted in its paying a tax amounting to .005% of its profit. Apple, Google, Starbucks, and companies like them all claim to be socially responsible, but the first element of social responsibility should be paying your fair share of tax. If everyone avoided and evaded taxes like these companies, society could not function, much less make the public investments that led to the Internet, on which Apple and Google depend.