Headlines

Copenhagen, Oct.18.– Denmark has again ranked number one in the Rule of Law Index published by the World Justice Project (WJP), an independent organisation advocating the advancement of rule of law around the world.

It is the sixth time in a row that Denmark has ranked first – this time above 138 other countries.

The Nordics tend to dominate, and 2021 was no different with Norway, Finland, Sweden and Germany completing the top five.

Lima, Oct.18 (DP.net).– According to an editorial of "El Comercio" newspaper, «Peru has become a narco-state for a time; In other words, in a country in which the main policy decisions are made based on the interests of drug traffickers». However, it appears as if President Castillo is not concerned with a substantial expansion of the influence of drug trafficking in his country.

Political volatility has become more pronounced in recent years, including the radical removal of Congress in 2019 and the impeachment and rapid rotation of presidents amid civic mobilizations during November 2020, policy changes advocated by the left-wing Free Peru party, of which the President is a member. 

The Peruvian president’s first months in office have been characterized by chaos, extremisms and -according to critics- sheer incompetence. In addition, coca crops have expanded to 150,000 acres in 2021, a 10% increase since 2019, and according to Rubén Vargas, former Minister of the Interior, by 2022 an estimated 248,000 acres are estimated, enough to produce 180,000 tons of coca leaf. It is worth noting that the traditional coca market requires only 7% of that whole production. Therefore, the surplus would go to the production of cocaine. A report published yesterday by this newspaper reported that, in the Vraem (the valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro rivers) alone, the potential production of cocaine has gone from 112 tons in 2012 to 280 tons in 2020.

October 9 (DP.net).– All eight winners of the 2021 Nobel Prizes in medicine, chemistry, physics and literature awarded in Sweden, and the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to two winners in Norway have been announced this week. The 2021 Prize in Economic Sciences has not been awarded yet. It will be announced on Monday 11 October, 11:45 CEST at the earliest.

David Julius, of the University of California at San Francisco, and Ardem Patapoutian, of Scripps Research at La Jolla, Calif., got the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their independent discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch that give us our ability to sense heat, cold and touch.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Benjamin List, of the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, and to David W.C. MacMillan, of Princeton University, USA, for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis, a precise new tool for molecular construction.

• The Pandora Papers’s 11.9 million records arrived from 14 different offshore services firms in a jumble of files and formats – even ink-on-paper – presenting a massive data-management challenge.
• The 336 politicians and dignitaries exposed are from more than 90 countries and territories.

By Emilia Díaz-Struck, Delphine Reuter, Agustin Armendariz, Jelena Cosic, Jesús Escudero, Miguel Fiandor Gutiérrez, Mago Torres, Karrie Kehoe, Margot Williams, Denise Hassanzade Ajiri and Sean McGoey.

OCT. 3.– A 2.94 terabyte data trove exposes the offshore secrets of wealthy elites from more than 200 countries and territories. These are people who use tax and secrecy havens to buy property and hide assets; many avoid taxes and worse. They include more than 330 politicians and 130 Forbes billionaires, as well as celebrities, fraudsters, drug dealers, royal family members and leaders of religious groups around the world.