Congo

The government in Kinshasa, the capital, is weak and corrupt, leaving this vast nation rotten at its core. The remote east has plunged straight into anarchy, carved up by a hodgepodge of rebel groups that help bankroll their brutality with stolen minerals. The government army is often just as sticky fingered and wicked. Few people in recent memory have suffered as long, and on such a horrifying scale, as the Congolese. Where else are men, women, and children slaughtered by the hundreds, year after year, sometimes so deep in the jungle that it takes weeks for the truth to come out? Where else are hundreds of thousands of women raped and just about nobody punished?
 
To appreciate how Congo descended into this madness, you need to step back more than a hundred years to when King Leopold II of Belgium snatched this huge space in the middle of Africa as his own personal colony. Leopold wanted rubber and ivory, and he started the voracious wholesale assault on Congo’s resources that has dragged on to this day. When the Belgians abruptly granted Congo independence in 1960, insurrections erupted immediately, paving the way for an ambitious young military man, Mobutu Sese Seko, to seize power—and never let go. Mobutu ruled for 32 years, stuffing himself with fresh Parisian cake airlifted into his jungle palaces while Congolese children curled up and starved.
 
But Mobutu would eventually go down, and when he did, Congo would go down with him. In 1994 Rwanda, next door, imploded in genocide, leaving up to a million dead. Many of the killers fled into eastern Congo, which became a base for destabilizing Rwanda. So Rwanda teamed up with neighboring Uganda and invaded Congo, ousting Mobutu in 1997 and installing their own proxy, Laurent Kabila. They soon grew annoyed with him and invaded again. That second phase of Congo’s war sucked in Chad, Namibia, Angola, Burundi, Sudan, and Zimbabwe—it’s often called Africa’s first world war.
 
In the ensuing free-for-all, foreign troops and rebel groups seized hundreds of mines. It was like giving an ATM card to a drugged-out kid with a gun. The rebels funded their brutality with diamonds, gold, tin, and tantalum, a hard, gray, corrosion-resistant element used to make electronics. Eastern Congo produces 20 to 50 percent of the world’s tantalum.
 
Under intense international pressure in the early 2000s, the foreign armies officially withdrew, leaving Congo in ruins. Bridges, roads, houses, schools, and entire families had been destroyed. As many as five million Congolese had died. Peace conferences were hosted, but cordial meetings in fancy hotels didn’t alter the ugly facts on the ground. The United Nations sent in thousands of military peacekeepers—there are around 17,000 today—but the blood continued to flow. Donor nations sank $500 million into an election in 2006—Congo’s first truly inclusive one—but that didn’t change things either.
 
Congo’s east remained a battle zone. Ugandans, Rwandans, and Burundians kept sneaking across the borders to sponsor various rebel outfits, which kept using minerals to buy more weapons and pay more rebels, like the wig-wearing Cobra Matata boys. Despite the international outcry, no one knew exactly what to do.

Angola

Angola is a country located in southwestern Africa, the name itself comes from the word Bantu kingdom of Ndongo, whose name for its king is ngola.

Angola, more than three times the size of California, extends for more than 1,000 mi (1,609 km) along the South Atlantic in southwest Africa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Congo are to the north and east, Zambia is to the east, and Namibia is to the south.

A plateau averaging 6,000 ft (1,829 m) above sea level rises abruptly from the coastal lowlands. Nearly all the land is desert or savanna, with hardwood forests in the northeast.

It was first settled by Bushmen hunter-gatherer societies before the northern domains came under the rule of Bantu states such as Kongo and Ndongo.

The original and very first inhabitants of Angola are thought to have been Khoisan speakers. After 1000, large numbers of Bantu speakers migrated to the region and became the dominant group.

In 1482, the Portuguese first landed in (now northern Angola), they encountered the Kingdom of the Kongo, which stretched from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. Mbanza Kongo, the capital, had a population of 50,000 people. South of this kingdom were various important states, of which the Kingdom of Ndongo, ruled by the ngola (king), was most significant. Modern Angola derives its name from the king of Ndongo.

On 1482, the region was said to be explored by a Portuguese Navigator named Diego Cao. Soon Angola became a link in trade lines with India and Southeast Asia. A few years later they were a major source for slaves during Portugal's New World Colony in Brazil.

A government was starting to come together after the Berlin Conference back in 1885. The borders were secure and soon the British and Portuguese started investing into the colony, they brought over fostered mining, agriculture as well as the first railways in the country.

South America

If you thought America’s government was corrupt, a new report suggests you may be on to something.

Transparency International published its annual Corruption Perception Index, which measures the levels of public sector corruption in 177 of the world’s territories and countries. America did not fare too well.

The United States failed to place even in the top ten cleanest countries, barely cracking the top twenty. According to the 2013 CPI report, America is the world’s 19th least corrupt country. The US held the same spot in 2012.

Apart from New Zealand, the five cleanest were all Northern European. These included, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway. Singapore, which is an Asian country, was also ranked as one of the least corrupt countries.

Somalia, North Korea, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Sudan were found to be the world’s most corrupt countries. The vast majority of the countries with the highest percentage of public sector corruption were located in the Middle East or in the continent of Africa.

To measure a country’s public sector level of corruption, the CPI looks at the amount of money laundering, bribery, voter fraud, abuse of power, and any other factors that contribute to corruption. Analysts then add up a country’s score, which can range from 100 — least corrupt — to zero — most corrupt.

It derives its information from a variety of sources, including World Bank and World Economic Forum assessments, the African Development Bank’s governance ratings, and Transparency International’s Bribe Payers Survey.

EU and Western European countries had an average score of 66, while Sub-Saharan African countries showed the highest perceived levels of public sector corruption, averaging a score of 33. The United States scored 73.
 
Although Spain is a member of the EU, recent political scandals caused it have the largest total decline, dropping six points from its 2012 score. Among other incidents, the king’s son-in-law was charged this year with embezzling millions in public funds.

Overall, the 2013 study concluded that more than two-thirds of the 177 nations surveyed scored under 50, indicating that there is widespread government corruption throughout the globe.

North America

America is a continent that is divided in three parts: Central, North and South. Yet, when people say "America" it is immediately clear that they don't mean the continent with 35 ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse countries, they mean the United States of America.

That might be where the aggressive envy many South Americans have towards the US starts: why do we have to be "South Americans" and people from the US get to be just Americans, no explanatory prefix required?

But that's just the beginning of it.

The northern continent of the Western Hemisphere, extending northward from the Colombia-Panama border and including Central America, Mexico, the islands of the Caribbean Sea, the United States, Canada, the Arctic Archipelago, and Greenland.

The third largest continent, linked with South America by the Isthmus of Panama and bordering on the Arctic Ocean, the N Pacific, the N Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean.

It consists generally of a great mountain system (the Western Cordillera) extending along the entire W coast, actively volcanic in the extreme north and south, with the Great Plains to the east and the Appalachians still further east, separated from the Canadian Shield by an arc of large lakes (Great Bear, Great Slave, Winnipeg, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario); reaches its greatest height of 6194 m (20 320 ft) in Mount McKinley, Alaska, and its lowest point of 85 m (280 ft) below sea level in Death Valley, California, and ranges from snowfields, tundra, and taiga in the north to deserts in the southwest and tropical forests in the extreme south. Pop: 332 156 000 (2005 est). Area: over 24 000 000 sq km (9 500 000 sq miles)

Although the United States is seen as a deeply divided country politically, with many extremely conservative and outdated laws and views (this image is particularly true of southern states), there are states that are very liberal and are attractive to Brazilians. California and New York, in particular, are attractive to LGBT communities here, because of the acceptance they imagine is rampant. Having a pro-LGBT rights president is also a huge plus. While the United States is still seen by many as homophobic, misogynist, sexist and classist – these conditions are still worse in Brazil.

But perhaps the biggest draw to the United States is the relative accountability of your political leaders. Barack Obama should be considered a national treasure. If the United States doesn't want him, we will take him. The man is not perfect, but at least he tries to improve the country and respects his people. Here in South America, politicians constantly embezzle money, are hardly ever held accountable for their crimes, and generally neglect the population. I don't know how much corruption goes on in American specifically, but I am willing to bet that it nowhere near as prevalent and blatant as in Brazil and many other South American countries.

Of course, the US has a huge problem with the privacy invasion perpetrated by the NSA, as was revealed by this very publication. They have spied on world leaders, including Brazil's president. And while the US government attempts to dodge accountability, it was also revealed that Brazil's government has also been spying on the US and other countries' leaders. So it seems like the Brazilian government is also abusive in the name of "national security". In terms of political impact, it has definitely soured a usually smooth diplomatic relationship, but this hasn't really changed the opinions of the masses.

The way the people are treated here, the constant misery we see in the streets, the violence and the government continually spitting in our faces by stealing public money – and giving priority to unnecessary international events – is more than many of us can bear. This is especially true when we are dominated and overwhelmed by the culture of a country that, while again, is not perfect, is definitely much more successful than ours.

The negligence our population suffers is the reason why the view of America as an "escape" is held predominantly by the middle to upper class: the lower income population isn't exposed to American culture. They, too, deeply feel the leaders' abuse of power, but it is the middle to upper classes who have the resources needed to leave.

It is for these reasons that Brazilians have aggressive envy of America, and why more privileged Brazilians escape to the US, be it via a yearly trip or permanent immigration. Though the problems of the United States are clear, the opportunities are much more attractive than in our own country and our neighbors'. We know that despite our potential, we can't get our act together – most of my extended family has escaped to first world countries, primarily to the US.

Although the trend of escaping to the US existed before Obama's presidency, his leadership has convinced me and many others that our people deserve greater respect from our leaders. The accountability and pressure Obama is put under by the American people is, in and of itself, remarkable to us. So if you really don't want Barack Obama to be your president anymore, give him to us. We'll take him.

Widespread Corruption.

Another difference between Third World and developed countries is their differing degrees of what John Bailey and Roy Godson (2000) call governability, that is, “the abilities that government has to allocate values over society, to exercise ultimate authority in the context of generally accepted rules and procedures.” So defined, governability can be measured in terms of the state’s administrative capacities in a number of areas including how well the state can administer justice and guarantee the basic rights of its citizens. In that respect, Mexico differs sharply from the United States and Canada, a difference that is characteristic of the Latin and Anglo-Saxon culture areas of the Western Hemisphere.

For example, corruption is a persistent problem that bores deeply into Mexican institutions, seriously impeding the proper operation of the state. Journalists and social scientists have described this problem for the former administration in Mexico (Riding 1984, Oppenheimer 1996, Rotella 1998, Morris 1991, Bailey and Godson 2000) and indeed it is still a serious problem for the Fox government. The police in Mexico, poorly paid, untrained and under the influence of patronage, have a terrible record not only of enforcing the law but for being law-breakers themselves. Local, state and federal police sometimes work for local politicians and even drug lords as armed guards. In some cases, they run their own criminal enterprises. A saying heard in Mexico goes, “if you get mugged don’t yell, you may attract the police.” There are hundreds of cases reported by Mexican human rights organizations, ordinary Mexican citizens, and American and Mexican-American visitors about police stopping travelers and demanding money from them. People who are sometimes stopped for infractions are held for long periods until their relatives can buy their freedom. Sometimes, when crime victims file complaints the police abuse them. Kaplan tells of a Mexican citizen in Mexico City who reported a stolen car. The police wanted to take his wife to the station to file a complaint. The crime victim would not let them take her, for once they got her to the station, he said, they would rape her. Indeed, rape by police is not uncommon in Mexico where prosecution of guilty parties is difficult and in most cases impossible.

Sometimes no infractions are involved and the mordida (bribe) becomes outright extortion. If the victim is too poor, he often ends up in prison where he must pay for the most rudimentary of needs such as a bed to sleep on and some modicum of protection from other inmates or his jailers. One of the worst abuses of Mexican police is their custom of torturing suspects in order to extract confessions. A joke heard in Mexico tells of a contest between the FBI, Scotland Yard, and whatever Mexican police force is the brunt of the joke. The three agencies let a rabbit loose, and bet on which one can find it the fastest. The Mexican police come in first with an elephant in handcuffs, the elephant constantly muttering “I’m a rabbit, I’m a rabbit.” According to the United Nations, Amnesty International, and other human rights organizations in Mexico and abroad, Mexico has the worst record of torture in the world. The Washington Post detailed this widespread police abuse as well as the grave deficiencies in the Mexican justice system and the way in which corruption is crippling the function of the state (Sullivan, Jordan, 2002).

Illegal aliens from Central America cross Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala either to work in Mexico or to make the clandestine transit through Mexico to the United States. Such people are at risk for abuse at the hands of corrupt Mexican police and immigration officials. After a visit to Mexico’s southern border, United Nations special rapporteur Gabriela Rodriquez said: “Mexico is one of the countries where illegal immigrants are highly vulnerable to human rights violations of degrading sexual exploitation and slavery-like practices, and are denied access to education and healthcare” (Grayson 2002: 10). Mexican illegals on their way to the U.S.-Mexico border are likewise the victims of such abuses by Mexican police. Shortly after his election Vincente Fox went to the border at Nogales and asked the police to stop abusing emigrants, whom Fox called “heroes.”