You are browsing the archives of 2007 October.

A report by Human Rights Watch is accusing the Military Government in Burma of forcing children as young as ten to enlist into its military.
From the International Herald Tribune:
According to a report that was to be released Wednesday, the military, struggling to meet recruiting quotas, is buying, kidnapping and terrorizing boys as young as 10 [...]

The Globe and Mail has reported on the increase in smuggled cigarettes in Canada, causing an estimated $1 Billion (Canadian) loss in tax revenue.
The article reported that the cigarettes that are smuggled are not branded cigarettes, but rather, simple cigarettes without a name.
The key difference between the early 1990s and today is that the scheme [...]

From the Washington Post:
Colombian drug kingpins in league with corrupt Venezuelan military officers are increasingly using this country as a way station for smuggling cocaine to the United States and Europe, according to Colombian and U.S. officials. The Bush administration’s dismal relations with Venezuela’s government have made matters worse, anti-drug agencies say, paralyzing counternarcotics cooperation.
Venezuela [...]

ABC’s Nightline had  a segment on Friday regarding sharks and the practice of cutting the fins off of sharks and dumping the body back into the water.
According to Stewart, there is a huge demand for shark fins in Asia because it is the key ingredient in shark fin soup, which is considered a symbol of [...]

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Bob Herbert wrote a piece this weekend about the hidden trade in women.
As a society, we’re repelled by the slavery of old. But the wholesale transport of women and girls across international borders and around the U.S. — to serve as prostitutes under conditions that in most cases are coercive [...]

The Washington Post is reporting that Mexican Police are estimating that 100 percent of guns used in drug-related killings in Mexico are smuggled in from the Untied States.
The guns pass into Mexico through the “ant trail,” the nickname for the steady stream of people who each slip two or three weapons across the border every day. [...]

The Associated Press has an article out today highlighting the difficulties facing the organized crime families in the Untied States.
At the mob’s peak in the late 1950s, more than two dozen families operated nationwide. Disputes were settled by the Commission, a sort of gangland Supreme Court. Corporate change came in a spray of gunfire. This [...]

From the Dow Jones wire:
 Italy’s counterfeit goods market that sells everything from knock-off designer sunglasses to contraband DVDs generated about EUR7.2 billion in sales in 2006, national retailers’ association Confcommercio said Wednesday on its Web site.

Based on today’s exchange rate, that figures comes out to $10.25 Billion.
Out of the total market figure, 3.3 Billion [...]

A column in The Bulletin Online argues that the current assumptions regarding the trafficking of nuclear materials is incorrect.
Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley writes that the belief that a nuclear black market exists in the former Soviet Union is based on false premises.
The supposed nuclear black market in the former Soviet Union lacks an important component of [...]

Jim Landers of The Dallas Morning News has a column on the bizarre situation concerning gas in Iraq and Iran.  Although both countries as located on oil fields, the ability to get gas to consumers in their own country has proven difficult due to the practice of subsidizing fuel prices.
How a country rich in oil [...]