<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Monster Energy</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><ul><li><strong>Monster's shares have rocketed 60,000% since their public debut in 2003, besting all other US shares this century.</strong></li><li><strong>The energy-drinks company has grown revenues by at least 9% every year since 2001, and increased earnings annually since 2008.</strong></li><li><strong>However, competitors such as Monster shareholder and distributor Coca-Cola have put pressure on its stock price.</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/mnst-stock">Watch Monster trade live</a>.</strong></li></ul><p>This century's best-performing US stock isn't Apple, Google, Amazon or another of the usual suspects. It's Monster Beverage, which has rocketed 60,000% since its public debut in 2003, surpassing all other stocks in the S&amp;P 500.</p><p>Monster, which changed its name from Hansen's Natural in 2012, sells various drinks under brands such as Monster Energy, Java Monster, Muscle Monster, NOS, Burn and Full Throttle. Its share price has surged from <a href="http://investors.monsterbevcorp.com/stock-information/historic-stock-lookup?8c7bdd83-a726-4a84-b969-494be2477e47%5BMNST_O%5D%5Bdate_month%5D=01&amp;8c7bdd83-a726-4a84-b969-494be2477e47%5BMNST_O%5D%5Bdate_day%5D=11&amp;8c7bdd83-a726-4a84-b969-494be2477e47%5BMNST_O%5D%5Bdate_year%5D=2003">below $0.10 in January 2003</a> to more than $54, lifting its market value from less than $1 million to more than $29 billion. </p><p>The California-based company's unparalleled stock rally reflects its steady growth. It has boosted revenues by at least 9% every year since 2001 and increased earnings annually since 2008, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-15/after-60-000-rally-america-s-top-stock-has-suddenly-gone-cold">according to Bloomberg</a>. <a href="http://investors.monsterbevcorp.com/node/13991/pdf">Net sales rose 13% to $3.8 billion in 2018</a>, which combined with lower income taxes to drive net income up 21% to $993 million.</p><p>Monster remains one of the biggest players in energy drinks. It commanded a 35% share of the energy-drinks market in March, close to archrival Red Bull's 38%, according to all-channel IRI data reported by Bloomberg.</p><p>The group's shares hit a record high of almost $69 in January 2018 but have fallen in the face of rising competition. Coca-Cola, its largest shareholder with a near-19% stake and a key distributor, <a href="https://www.coca-cola.co.uk/newsroom/press-releases/Coca-Cola-energy-launch">recently announced the launch of Coca-Cola Energy drinks in the UK</a>.</p><p>Bang, an energy drink owned by healthcare group Vital Pharma, has also taken market share from Monster. Citi analyst Wendy Nicholson recently cut her price target for Monster stock from $74 to $66 as competition "remains stiff in the near term," according to Bloomberg.</p><p>Monster's efforts to fend off competition and maintain growth have taken several forms. It raised the price of its Monster Energy drinks by 4% in the US in November, bringing them closer to Red Bull. Last month it launched Reign, a more affordable energy-drink brand designed to rival Bang, according to Bloomberg.</p><p>It has also expanded into new channels such as foodservice, e-commerce and home-improvement stores. Moreover, it's bolstering its international presence: it plans to launch Monster drinks in the Dominican Republic and Paraguay this quarter, and it released Monster Ultra Light in China late last year to appeal to its "primary target of young affluent customers," <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4245025-monster-beverage-corp-mnst-ceo-rodney-sacks-q4-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single">according to the company's fourth-quarter earnings call</a>. </p><p>Smartphones, search engines and "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-amazon-decided-to-sell-books-2018-4?r=US&amp;IR=T">everything stores</a>" are all well and good, but energy drinks are for now at least, proving a great way for companies to deliver shareholder returns.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Markets Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p> </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-airline-shuttle-transportation-pan-am-eastern-new-york-2019-1">The rise and fall of Donald Trump's $365 million airline</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

This century's best-performing US stock sells energy drinks, not iPhones

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://idg.receita.fazenda.gov.br/noticias/ascom/2018/marco/receita-federal-realiza-a-maior-apreensao-de-cocaina-da-historia-no-porto-de-santos">Brazil Federal Revenue service</a></span></p><p class="caption">Packages of cocaine hidden among legal cargo found in the port of Santos, in southeast Brazil, March 23, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>The port of Santos in southeast Brazil saw its largest cocaine bust ever on Friday.</strong></li><li><strong>The port is a major transshipment center for the drug, and seizures there are frequent.</strong></li><li><strong>Brazil as a whole has become a hub for both consumption and transit of the drug.</strong></li></ul><p>Federal officials in Brazil intercepted a shipment of 2,052 kilos of cocaine on Friday at the port of Santos in the country's southeast, near São Paulo. It was the biggest bust ever made at the port, <a href="http://idg.receita.fazenda.gov.br/noticias/ascom/2018/marco/receita-federal-realiza-a-maior-apreensao-de-cocaina-da-historia-no-porto-de-santos" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Brazil's Federal Revenue service.</p><p>Brazilian Revenue officials found the drugs at a container terminal at a wharf in Guaruja. During a survey of the containers, customs officials found hundreds of tablets of the drug in three containers, hidden among legal, declared shipments of coffee, sugar, and soy.</p><p>One container held 1.1 tons of cocaine, another had 500 kilos, and the rest was in the third.</p><p>The containers were to be loaded on a ship called the Cap San Marco, set to arrive at the port this weekend, and were destined for Hamburg, Germany; Le Havre, France, and Algeciras, Spain, port authorities <a href="https://g1.globo.com/sp/santos-regiao/noticia/mais-de-2-t-de-cocaina-com-destino-a-europa-sao-interceptadas-no-porto-de-santos-sp.ghtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told news site Globo</a>.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Fernando Donasci</span></p><p class="caption">Cranes and containers seen in the distance at the port in Santos, São Paulo state, Brazil, September 14, 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Authorities suspected the cocaine was hidden in the containers after they arrived at the terminal. An investigation will be opened to identify the people responsible for the shipment as well as those involved in the attempt to sneak the drugs into the legitimate cargo, <a href="https://g1.globo.com/sp/santos-regiao/noticia/mais-de-2-t-de-cocaina-com-destino-a-europa-sao-interceptadas-no-porto-de-santos-sp.ghtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Globo.</p><p>Santos was the busiest port in Latin America in 2016, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. That year, the port saw <a href="https://www.cepal.org/en/infographics/ports-ranking-top-20-latin-america-and-caribbean-2016" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3.4 million TEUs</a>, each of which is equivalent to one standard 20-foot-long shipping container. The port accounts for <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-07/brazil-s-dreams-and-nightmares-are-on-view-at-this-super-port" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nearly one-third</a> of Brazil's trade.</p><p>The three-square-mile port complex in Santos is surrounded by upscale beachfront condos and three sprawling favelas, which are made up of huts mounted on stilts. The port itself has over the past year processed many of the goods driving the country's protracted recovery from a deep recession, according to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-07/brazil-s-dreams-and-nightmares-are-on-view-at-this-super-port" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a Bloomberg report</a> published late last year.</p><p>Cocaine has become increasingly common among those goods. So far this year, Brazilian authorities have made six drug-seizures in Santos, totaling about 2,800 pounds, <a href="http://idg.receita.fazenda.gov.br/noticias/ascom/2018/marco/receita-federal-realiza-a-maior-apreensao-de-cocaina-da-historia-no-porto-de-santos" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the Brazil's Federal Revenue service.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://idg.receita.fazenda.gov.br/noticias/ascom/2018/marco/receita-federal-realiza-a-maior-apreensao-de-cocaina-da-historia-no-porto-de-santos">Brazil Federal Revenue service</a></span></p><p class="caption">Packets of cocaine seized at the port of Santos, in southeast Brazil.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Santos' federal police chief <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-07/brazil-s-dreams-and-nightmares-are-on-view-at-this-super-port" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Bloomberg</a> smugglers active in the port continue to innovate. A recent method has been pulling up alongside ships leaving the port and using lines dropped by cooperating crew members to hoist drug shipments aboard.</p><p>A 2017 report found there was <a href="https://g1.globo.com/sp/santos-regiao/noticia/litoral-de-sp-tem-100-vezes-mais-cocaina-no-mar-do-que-na-costa-dos-eua.ghtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">100 times</a> more cocaine in the water of the Bay of Santos, off the São Paulo coast, than there was in the water off US coasts.</p><p>Just a few weeks before the bust on Friday, federal authorities intercepted 355 kilos of the drug at the port, also at a wharf in Guaruja. That shipment was destined for Hamburg.</p><p>In a February bust, a diver was spotted near a ship in the port. The diver fled when authorities responded, but <a href="http://seanews.co.uk/cocaine-seized-from-containership-at-brazils-port-of-santos/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">57 kilos</a> of cocaine were found on the ship and in a waterproof bag dropped by the diver.</p><p>The port's previous record seizure was <a href="https://g1.globo.com/sp/santos-regiao/noticia/mais-de-2-t-de-cocaina-com-destino-a-europa-sao-interceptadas-no-porto-de-santos-sp.ghtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1,495 kilos</a>, which were found in three containers there in August 2016. Those drugs were bound for Antwerp, Belgium.</p><p>2016 also saw a then-record <a href="http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/geral/noticia/2017-01/brazil-399-kilos-cocaine-seized-santos-port" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10.6 tons</a> of cocaine seized at Santos. That mark was eclipsed in 2017, when more than <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-07/brazil-s-dreams-and-nightmares-are-on-view-at-this-super-port" target="_blank" rel="noopener">11 tons</a> were intercepted.</p><h2>A global cocaine hub</h2><p>Brazil - its southeastern corner in particular - has emerged as a key transshipment point for South American cocaine headed to Europe.</p><p>Its porous borders stretch <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-deep-in-the-jungle-brazil-struggles-to-battle-drug-trade-2017-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nearly 10,000 kilometers</a> - three times as long as the US-Mexico border - much of which is shared with Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, the three main producers of the drug. Brazil itself is also the world's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/paraguay-tour-bus-busted-with-cocaine-on-its-way-to-olympics-2016-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">second-biggest cocaine consumer</a>, behind the US.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="UNODC" title_caption="Major drug flows between 2011 and 2015, according to the UN." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5ab58ae162cf0f1e008b482f-960/screen shot 2018-03-23 at 70721 pm.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>UNODC</span></p><p class="caption">Major drug flows between 2011 and 2015, according to the UN.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's 2017 World Drug Report, Brazil was the most frequently mentioned non-European country of departure for shipments of cocaine to Europe between 2010 and 2015 - followed by Colombia and Peru.</p><p>African countries also reported Brazil as the most common departure or transit point for cocaine smuggled to that continent between 2010 and 2015, citing it 58% of the time. Second place, Colombia, was cited just 20% of the time.</p><p>Brazil was also the most frequently reported departure or transit point for cocaine trafficked to Asia between 2010 and 2015, cited 37% of the time - again ahead of Colombia, which was cited 19% of the time.</p><p>The southeast corner of Brazil, where Santos is located, has also become <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/paraguay-tour-bus-busted-with-cocaine-on-its-way-to-olympics-2016-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a hub for smuggling</a>, as it located near the tri-border region where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay converge. In late 2016, as the Rio Olympics were in full swing, authorities in Paraguay intercepted <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/paraguay-tour-bus-busted-with-cocaine-on-its-way-to-olympics-2016-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a bus loaded with 300 kilos</a> of Colombia cocaine headed for the games.</p><p>That shipment would have stayed in Brazil. But many like it appear headed to Santos. The port sees off <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/italy-cocaine-bust-drug-trafficking-ndrangheta-mafia-2017-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">as much as 80% of the cocaine</a> heading to Europe, according to a mid-2015 report.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-coast-guard-bust-1-billion-worth-cocaine-2017-3">Here's what $1 billion worth of cocaine looks like</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Latin America's biggest port just made its largest cocaine seizure ever - the latest bust in a thriving drug-trafficking corridor

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">An overview of the port of Rosario, Argentina, on the shore of the Parana river.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Argentina's government has stepped up security at the ports in its main grain-exporting hub of Rosario, counting on cooperation with private terminal operators to keep drug traffickers away from a key industry.</p><p>Some 3,000 federal police, coast guard, gendarmerie, and airport police have been deployed in the northern province of Santa Fe in recent weeks with about half of those based in Rosario, which handles about 80% of Argentina's grain exports.</p><p>More than a dozen commodities-trading companies operating in and around Rosario, including industry giants like Cargill, have agreed to work with the government "to prevent our ports from becoming a free entry point for drug trafficking," according to Security Minister Patricia Bullrich.</p><p>The focus on ports is part of center-right President Mauricio Macri's efforts to crack down on drug trafficking. He declared a one-year <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/argentina-police-militarization-drug-war-2016-11" target="_blank">state of emergency in January</a>, a month into his term, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/argentina-police-militarization-drug-war-2016-11" target="_blank">asserting</a> that illegal-drug trafficking was a "threat to national sovereignty."</p><p>That decree permitted the shoot-down of suspected drug planes, which <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/drug-planes-cocaine-bolivia-argentina-south-america-2016-11" target="_blank">appear in the skies over northern Argentina</a> frequently and are thought to move to as much as 20 tons of cocaine into the country. Reinstating the shoot-down policy follows the lead of other countries in the region but <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/peru-drug-plane-shoot-down-law-and-cocaine-trafficking-2016-4" target="_blank">worries human-rights advocates</a>.</p><p>The ports agreement, signed in September and reviewed by Reuters, authorizes federal forces to enter private terminals and shows that grain merchants in the world's No. 3 corn and soy exporter are also concerned about the drug trade.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian</span></p><p class="caption">An official from the AFIP tax agency walks her sniffer dog by the port of Rosario, September 10, 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Argentina has mostly avoided the drug violence seen in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/colombia-palace-of-justice-siege-2016-11" target="_blank">Colombia</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mexico-homicides-high-drug-cartel-bloodshed-2016-10" target="_blank">Mexico</a>, but it is now the fifth-largest trafficking point of cocaine en route to Europe and Asia, according to the UN.</p><p>European chapters of motorcycle gangs are believed maintain contacts in and regularly travel to South American countries like Venezuela and Argentina, "suggesting links to the cocaine trade," according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.</p><p>Argentina does not produce cocaine itself but cocaine from Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia pass through its borders, and there is a large domestic market for the drug in Argentina. The country has also become <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-guzman-in-argentina-and-chile" target="_blank">a hub for precursor chemicals</a> used in the production of synthetic drugs like methamphetamine. Criminal elements in Argentina are believed <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-guzman-in-argentina-and-chile" target="_blank">to partner with other groups</a> in the region to traffic those chemicals.</p><p>Rosario's location on the Parana river, which continues on to Buenos Aires and the Atlantic Ocean, also make it a trafficking point for Paraguayan marijuana. Gangs control land deliveries on the poor outskirts of Rosario, Argentina's third-largest city.</p><p>Turf wars contribute to a homicide rate five times the national average in a city known to Argentines as "Latin America's Chicago," a reference to its prominent grain exchange, or more recently "The Tijuana of Argentina," after the violent Mexican city at the heart of the drug trade.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian</span></p><p class="caption">Members of Argentina's gendarmerie, which took control of security in parts of Rosario city in 2014 after a spike in violence in drug-infested neighborhoods, stand guard next to a person near the Villa Banana slum in Rosario, September 10, 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Corruption is also thought to be rampant among authorities in Rosario. Some 200 local police are <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/argentina-police-militarization-drug-war-2016-11" target="_blank">under federal investigation</a>, and in October, the provincial police chief was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/argentina-police-militarization-drug-war-2016-11" target="_blank">sentenced</a> to six years in jail for drug-trafficking ties.</p><p>Coast Guard Captain Roberto Tomas Annichini arrived in Rosario in January, soon after Macri took office, to oversee the lower Parana river, after spending most of his career monitoring Argentina's oceans with little thought of drug traffickers.</p><p>"I've learned fast," he told Reuters.</p><p>On a recent afternoon, Annichini observed employees on three monitors in a watch tower overlooking the river, one focused on Bunge and AGD's terminal 6, one of Latin America's largest.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Argentine President Mauricio Macri.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Argentina's coast guard has access to real-time electronic maps showing the whereabouts of every ship that has passed through or will enter Argentine waters, but only customs agents can see what kind of cargo-container ships carry, and there is little cooperation between the two agencies.</p><p>The agreement with port terminal operators is aimed at increasing efficiency, Annichini said, and the coast guard has launched surprise inspections on several ports in Santa Fe state in recent weeks.</p><h2>'Infinite ways'</h2><p>Port operators, as well as the coast guard, say the measures are mainly preventative and that there is little risk of drugs entering the highly-guarded commodity shipping terminals. They say Argentina's porous borders are responsible for the arrival of marijuana and cocaine.</p><p>"(The agreement) is important for all the port operations in the region, as unfortunately there is an idea that the ports of Rosario are a kind of sieve where tonnes of drugs enter each day, and it is not like that," Guillermo Wade, a manager for Rosario's port chamber Capym, the group that signed the agreement with the government, told Reuters</p><p>Wade said companies have made additional investments in security in recent years, including electronic padlocks for customs monitoring, closed-circuit-television cameras and nonintrusive scanners for cargo to ensure drugs do not enter the port system.</p><p>Last year, however, customs agents found about 30 kg of cocaine absorbed into grains of rice in a Rosario warehouse. The cargo was headed for Europe via Africa.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian</span></p><p class="caption">An official from the AFIP tax agency and his sniffer dog by containers loaded with grains at the port of Rosario, Argentina, September 10, 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Argentine paper La Nacion reported this month that 32 metric tons of river-bound marijuana have been seized in two shipments on the Paraguay-Parana waterway in 2016.</p><p>Jorge Caro, who helps develop private-security plans for port terminals and ships, told Reuters that traffickers easily bribe truck drivers, who are able to sneak drugs into container shipments, and then convince customs agents not to check the cargos.</p><p>Argentina's customs agency declined to comment to Reuters and said it did not have data on drug seizures in the Paraguay-Parana waterway.</p><p>"The ports have no idea what they are up against," Caro told Reuters. "The drug traffickers are always looking for new transport methods, cans, bags of potatoes... there are infinite ways."</p><p>(Reporting for Reuters by Caroline Stauffer; editing by Kieran Murray)</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/drone-footage-endangered-southern-right-whales-migrating-to-argentina-2016-7">Amazing drone footage shows endangered whales migrating to Argentina</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="JicmdrNDE6whTqLWALudXTWyxZUtUABO" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

'No idea what they are up against': Argentina is stepping up its offensive against drug trafficking

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Wu Hong/Pool Photo via AP</span></p><p class="caption">Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, center, and Australia's now-former foreign minister Julie Bishop, right, talk as they arrive for a joint press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>A proposed trade deal between Australia and Taiwan apparently never had a chance to see the light of day, former foreign minister Julie Bishop says.</strong></li><li><strong>Bishop blamed what she said was direct and constant pressure from Beijing.</strong></li><li><strong>That startling concession shines light on a sobering truth: China is comfortable exerting pressure at the very highest corridors of power in order to secure its interests.</strong></li></ul><p>Australia's former foreign minister Julia Bishop says direct and consistent pressure from Beijing effectively skewered any chance Canberra had of even striking up a conversation with Taiwan on a free trade deal.</p><p>The startling concession highlights how Beijing is apparently comfortable exerting pressures at the very highest corridors of power to secure its interests.</p><p>Bishop, who served as foreign minister from 2013 to 2018, told <a href="https://amp.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-abandoned-plans-for-taiwanese-free-trade-agreement-after-warning-from-china-20181024-p50bj5.html?__twitter_impression=true">Fairfax Media on Thursday</a> that for two years, her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi "made it clear" that any official flirtations with the island state that China considers a rogue province would ensure that Beijing "would not look favorably on Australia."</p><p>Those are words not to be taken lightly when the resource-rich Australian economy is beeping away on China's life-support.</p><p>China is far and away Australia's key economic partner. China is its largest two-way trading partner, its top export market and its biggest import source, last year generating $129 billion USD in revenue - up 16% on 2016 - and now accounting for 24% of the country's total trade.</p><p>"During my time as foreign minister, I observed an increasing assertiveness on the part of China to encourage nations to disengage from their relationship with Taiwan," Bishop said in remarks that now barely illicit a cringe from Asian Pacific analysts.</p><p>"This included in the Pacific and where some nations still formally recognize Taiwan and in some of the major multilateral forums where Taiwan had observer status to participate in such meetings," she added.</p><p>Dr. Kevin Carrico, a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Macquarie said smaller nations in the region were vulnerable to an increasingly assertive Beijing.</p><p>"This is an example of the really dangerous nature of People's Republic of China party state influence in Australia's political system," Dr. Carrico told Business Insider.</p><p>"Australia is a sovereign nation and can decide for itself if it would like to pursue a free-trade pact with Taiwan."</p><p>Taiwan's economic contribution is far from insignificant and the island nation of 23 million remains Australia's 14th most significant business partner and one of its fastest growing.</p><p><a href="https://www.austrade.gov.au/news/economic-analysis/australias-two-way-trade-with-the-world-was-up-11-to-763-billion-in-2017">According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,</a> two-way trade in goods and services between Taiwan and Australia topped $10.6 billion in 2017, a rise of 10.9% year-over-year, and now 2% of Australia's total trade.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Xi Jinping.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2><strong>It's a cheque, mate</strong></h2><p>While China has for decades been wielding Pacific states like chess pieces in its admirably single-minded pursuit of reintegrating <a href="https://guidetotaipei.com/article/what-is-chinese-taipei">"Chinese Taipei"</a> with the mainland, this is the first time an Australian official at the very highest levels has so publicly acknowledged what so many have feared:</p><p>That the Chinese state is capable and willing to use economic threats to direct Australian foreign policy in the pursuit of its own interests from the corridors and gardens of <a href="https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/zhongnanhai.htm">Zhongnanhai</a>.</p><p>Australian <keyword id="6358883" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="politics">politics</keyword> has been literally stalked in recent years by what many observers perceive as the growing shadow of Chinese influence across domestic and international policy.</p><p>Politicians have been implicated, journalists have been sued and desperate cracks have taken hold within one of the world's most diverse and proudly multicultural of countries.</p><p>Following an investigation into the extent of foreign interference in Australia ordered by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull earlier this year, reports emerged of attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to influence "all levels" of Australian politics.</p><p>"Our system as a whole had not grasped the nature and magnitude of the threat," Turnbull said in May, just months after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/12/sam-dastyari-quits-labor-senator-china-connections">a high-profile political figure was sacked and labeled a Chinese "agent of influence."</a></p><p>The following week, the Chinese ambassador Cheng Jingye addressed a business event that Business Insider attended at Parliament House, insisting China "never interferes in the internal affairs" of Australia or any other state.</p><p>The ambassador then told business leaders that China never exercised "so-called infiltration of other countries."</p><p>Nevertheless, the following month, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/australia-passed-foreign-interference-laws-amid-china-tensions-2018-6">Australia passed sweeping new counterintelligence laws</a> that broaden the powers and increase the severity of offenses within espionage and foreign influence.</p><p>And while the ever-diplomatic Turnbull said the laws did not single out any one country, there was no doubt that their target was Beijing.</p><p>Turnbull had previously remarked of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/09/mao-did-not-say-it-australian-pm-malcolm-turnbull-quote-china-">"disturbing reports about Chinese influence,"</a> and even once had a decent crack at speaking directly to camera in Mandarin to announce, quite daringly, that Australia has stood up, as China once did so famously under the leadership of Mao Zedong - "Zhong guo ren min zhanqilai!"</p><p>Without a doubt, the new laws exacerbated the already inflamed tensions with China, which, again in the words of Ambassador Chen and a state media blitz, accuses Australia of having a "Cold War mentality."</p><p>A December 2017 editorial in the <a href="http://opinion.huanqiu.com/editorial/2017-12/11425288.html">Global Times</a> made that pretty clear.</p><p>"Australia poses a problem for China. If we mind its silly carrying-on, it will deplete our energy, and it doesn't seem worth our while; however, if we leave it be and pretend nothing is happening, that would only encourage it, and it may go from bad to worse."</p><p>"Australia is one of the countries that have benefited most from China's rise, yet it is also one of the most provocative voices in the Western bloc. It is beginning to look like a piece of chewing gum stuck to the bottom of China's shoe."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Billy H.C. Kwok/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">TAIPEI, TAIWAN - OCTOBER 10: Military honour guards take part to mark the island's National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Palace on October 10, 2018 in Taipei, Taiwan.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2><strong>It's getting close to checkmate</strong></h2><p>Meanwhile, China has ramped right up that pressure on Taiwan since President Tsai Ing-wen of the more independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party won office in 2016, more actively blitzing Taiwan's attempts at international engagement and looming ever larger across its domestic politics.</p><p>Tsai immediately staggered Communist Party officials by refusing to endorse the "1992 consensus," a pillar of regional stability that enshrines the One China, Two Systems principle that provides China some flexibility with the way it deals with its various client states and wayward provinces from Hong Kong to Taipei.</p><p>And since Tsai took power in the democratic stronghold across from Fujian province, the Pacific chess game has swung strongly in China's favor.</p><p>The Chinese government first cut off official communication with Tsai's government and then leaned into its multilayered strategy of erasing Taiwan from the international stage and poaching its handful of remaining diplomatic allies.</p><p>In under two years, China has seduced away five Taiwanese diplomatic allies, most recently when China established ties with El Salvador, shrinking Taiwan's diplomatic pool to just 17 allies.</p><p>In May, the West African state of Burkina Faso became the fourth country to cut ties following similar kiss-offs from diplomatic heavyweights like Panama, Sao Tome, the Dominican Republic and Principe.</p><p>Now, many of the countries with which Taiwan has formal relations worldwide are tiny, weakly developed, and highly vulnerable nations with many dotting across the Pacific like Palau and Nauru.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Reuters / Michael Buholzer</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2><strong>Climate change, seasonal typhoons?</strong></h2><p>No, it's often the tug-of-war between Taiwan and China that makes these states especially vulnerable to systemic failings, from long-term corruption, debt-trap diplomacy, and the insidious reach of foreign influence in sovereign surrounds.</p><p>From 2000 to the opening of the Beijing Olympics, Taiwan lost nine allies to China amid a bidding war, as Taiwan also showered cash on sovereign states to gain diplomatic recognition.</p><p>There have been successes and failures on both sides.</p><p>Nauru surprised everyone when it jumped ship from China to Taiwan in 2005.</p><p>Tonga, which has voiced concerns about its growing Chinese debts, cut ties with Taiwan in 1998.</p><p>From Vanuatu to the Marshall Islands to the Solomons, China's growing influence and Taiwan's waning is often viewed as an opportunity to roll the dice again.</p><p>In July an airline based in the Pacific nation of Palau <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/palau-airline-closes-over-anger-from-china-about-taiwan-ties-2018-7">says it was forced to close</a> because of China's attempts to punish the nation for its diplomatic ties with Taiwan.</p><p>And according to Business Insider's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/which-companies-have-changed-taiwan-description-china-2018-7">Tara Francis Chan,</a> China has been judicious in its application of threats, fines, public shaming, cajoling and the introduction of social credit scores for corporations to force foreign companies to adopt and adhere to its political rhetoric.</p><p>According to Dr. Carrico, Australia's democratic values are being threatened by the intersection of China's rising sense of its place in the world and Canberra's own economic weaknesses.</p><p>"Taiwan is a democratic nation with which Australia shares many values, of course it is unfair to both countries to be held hostage to Beijing's fantasy that Taiwan, never ruled by the People's Republic of China, is somehow "an inalienable part of China."</p><p>Following <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2169493/taiwan-independence-protesters-take-street-taipei">demonstrations in Taipei</a> on Saturday over the increasing threats from Beijing and as a referendum over whether Taiwan should compete as "Taiwan" or "Chinese Taipei" in international sporting events draws ever closer, Chinese <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-golf-taiwan-china-exclusive/exclusive-chinese-women-golfers-told-to-pull-out-of-taiwan-event-sources-idUSKCN1MX0Z2">golfers were pulled out en masse</a> from an international event in Taiwan on Wednesday, Reuters reported.</p><p>Beijing has also recently cut Chinese tour groups from visiting Taiwan while both sides have ratcheted up military exercises to show their respective capabilities in any Taiwan Strait conflict.</p><p>Here is a list of the remaining nations still diplomatically aligned, including their dates of engagement and re-engagement, with Taiwan as of October 2018:</p><ul><li>Swaziland (1968)</li><li>Vatican City (1942)</li><li>Kiribati (2003)</li><li>Marshall Islands (1998)</li><li>Nauru (1980-2002, 2005)</li><li>Palau (1999)</li><li>Solomon Islands (1983)</li><li>Tuvalu (1979)</li><li>Haiti (1956)</li><li>Saint Kitts and Nevis (1983)</li><li>Saint Lucia (1984-1997, 2007)</li><li>Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1981)</li><li>Belize (1989)</li><li>Guatemala (1933)[56]</li><li>Honduras (1941)</li><li>Nicaragua (1962-1985, 1990)</li><li>Paraguay (1957)</li></ul>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/megyn-kelly-santa-is-white-remark-fox-news-nbc-ignition-today-controversial-remarks-2017-11">Megyn Kelly in 2017: 'I regret a lot' of the controversial stuff I've said on live television</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Australia's former foreign minister let slip how casually easy it is for China to tell another country what to do

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Enrique Castro-Mendivil</span></p><p class="caption">Peru's Interior Minister Daniel Urresti speaks next to seized cocaine bricks during a media conference at a police headquarters in Lima, November 4, 2014.  A total of 608 pounds of cocaine with a value of up to $7 million had been seized.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Peru has been one of the world's top <a href="https://thecipherbrief.com/article/latin-america/fall-and-rise-cocaine-1091" target="_blank">cocaine producers for decades</a>, and as a part of the fight against drugs, the country reinstated a discarded <keyword id="6355470" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Law">law</keyword> allowing the shoot-down suspected drug planes, a move that <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/peru-revives-controversial-shoot-down-law-for-narco-planes" target="_blank">worried</a> human-rights defenders.</p><p>Though no planes have been shot down yet, Peruvian authorities now <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-peru-shoot-down-law-turns-drug-smugglers-to-boats-backpackers-2016-4" target="_blank">claim</a> that the law has forced traffickers to change their behavior - but that doesn't mean they aren't still moving drugs.</p><p>"Drug traffickers are using other routes to transport drugs, we've seen that in recent months," Prime Minister Pedro Cateriano said at a press conference, citing police intelligence, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-peru-shoot-down-law-turns-drug-smugglers-to-boats-backpackers-2016-4">according</a> to Reuters.</p><p>"Now, for example, the trafficking is fluvial and there's more antwork transportation, that is, backpackers."</p><p>Reliance on water and foot traffic to move the drug had resulted in a glut in coca leaf supply, Cateriano <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-peru-shoot-down-law-turns-drug-smugglers-to-boats-backpackers-2016-4">added</a>, causing its price to drop.</p><p>Peru is the second-largest cocaine producer in the world (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cocaine-seized-in-florida-from-trafficking-hub-ecuador-2016-3" target="_blank">Colombia passed it in 2015</a>) and <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/perus-vraem-region-the-home-of-miss-coca">most of that cocaine</a> comes out of the rugged Apurimac, Ene, and Mantaro River Valleys (VRAEM). Political and law-enforcement officials have also been <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/peru-cocaine-business-is-booming-2016-2">implicated</a> in Peru's drug trade.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-peru-shoot-down-law-turns-drug-smugglers-to-boats-backpackers-2016-4">According</a> to the US State Department, small aircraft bound for Bolivia are the main transport method for cocaine produced in Peru. Ten percent of the cocaine seized in the US in 2014 was from Peru, the Drug Enforcement Administration <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cocaine-seized-in-florida-from-trafficking-hub-ecuador-2016-3">said</a> in 2015.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Google Maps</span></p><p class="caption">The Apurimac, Ene, and Mantaro River Valleys (VRAEM), a hub of drug production and trafficking located in southern Peru.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Peru enacted strong anti-drug-trade efforts in the 1990s, under then President Alberto Fujimori (who is <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-peru-fujimori-idUSKBN0KH29420150108" target="_blank">currently jailed</a> for human-rights abuses), which included shoot-down polices; those efforts drove down cocaine production in the country, <a href="https://thecipherbrief.com/article/latin-america/fall-and-rise-cocaine-1091">according to Mike Vigil</a>, the former chief of <keyword id="6356001" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="international">international</keyword> operations for the DEA.</p><p>According to UN data, coca production in Peru <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/in-a-blow-to-us-policy-colombia-is-again-the-worlds-top-producer-of-coca/2015/11/10/316d2f66-7bf0-11e5-bfb6-65300a5ff562_story.html" target="_blank">dropped</a> from 53,700 hectares in 2007 to 42.9 hectares in 2014.</p><p>But the shoot-down policy was rescinded in 2001, after the Peruvian military, working with the CIA, downed a plane carrying missionaries, killing an American woman and her child, Reuters <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-peru-shoot-down-law-turns-drug-smugglers-to-boats-backpackers-2016-4" target="_blank">notes</a>. After that, Peru focused on destroying the secret airstrips used by the aircraft, an effort that was <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/peru-revives-controversial-shoot-down-law-for-narco-planes">frequently undercut</a> by traffickers' ability to rebuild the strips in a matter of hours.</p><p>After nearly 15 years, however, the Peruvian government passed legislation in August 2015 <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/peru-revives-controversial-shoot-down-law-for-narco-planes">authorizing</a> the shoot-down of suspected drug plans, providing there is reasonable suspicion the plan is carrying contraband.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Honduran Police/Handout</span></p><p class="caption">Honduran police with a privately owned plane that was seized after it was found to be holding 450 kilos of drugs in Brus Laguna, Honduras, 600 km (372 mi) east of Tegucigalpa along the border with Nicaragua, July 22, 2010.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Peruvian officials said at the time that the US had lobbied to stop the law's passage, but, according to Reuters, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-peru-shoot-down-law-turns-drug-smugglers-to-boats-backpackers-2016-4" target="_blank">the US has not said</a> the policy's return would affect joint anti-narcotics programs it has with Peru.</p><p>Aerial transport is a common feature of the drug trade, and other countries have enacted policies to allow suspected drug planes to be shot down. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Paraguay, and Venezuela <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/peru-revives-controversial-shoot-down-law-for-narco-planes">all have laws</a> on the books permitting shoot-downs.</p><p>In some of those countries, those policies have <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/argentina-president-implements-security-plan">attracted criticism</a>, and their use has <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/honduras-approves-drug-plane-shoot-down-law-bolivia-set-to-follow">strained relations</a> with the US.</p>     <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-drug-profits-stay-united-states-narconomics-tom-wainwright-2016-4">Why most of the profits in the drug business stay in the United States</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="BzOTlvMjE6GvdBRltuIhBojo9IigkNAe" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Peru enacted a dangerous law to fight drug smuggling, but traffickers still found a way around it

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source">REUTERS/Miguel Adorno</p><p class="caption">Polaris, an Argentine oil tanker, burns after colliding with another ship on the Paraguay River near the port of Villeta August 12, 2011. All 17 crew members from both ships were rescued, according to local media.</p></div></div>Chaos in Egypt has some watchers worried that we could eventually see trouble in the <keyword id="168216" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Suez-canal">Suez Canal</keyword>, a vital channel for trade and one of the most important oil chokepoints in the world.</p>
<p>"About half of the world's total oil production of nearly 90 million barrels per day is transported over water," write <a href="http://www.usfunds.com/interactive/where-oil-squeezes-through-straits-and-canals/#.UO6ZdKyVoat">US Funds analysts</a>.</p>
<p>At some point, almost all of this seaborne oil passes through one of seven chokepoints, or a narrow body of water.</p>
<p>At these chokepoints, oil tankers face various risks ranging from heavy traffic to piracy.  Any disruption could lead to volatility in oil prices.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.usfunds.com/interactive/where-oil-squeezes-through-straits-and-canals/#.UO6ZdKyVoat">US Funds</a> recently took a close look at these seven chokepoints.  We highlight some of their findings here.</p>

The 7 Most Important Oil Chokepoints In The World

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>The Dominican Republic said on Monday it was cutting ties with Taiwan and establishing diplomatic relations with China.</strong></li><li><strong>That is a victory for China, which views Taiwan as part of its territory and wants to isolate it politically.</strong></li><li><strong>The switch also underscores Beijing's growing political influence among the US's neighbors.</strong></li></ul><p><br>The Dominican Republic's decision on Monday to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dominican-republic-recognizing-china-over-taiwan-to-send-message-to-us-2018-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sever ties with Taiwan</a> and establish diplomatic relations with China brings economic benefits for the Caribbean country and further isolation for its former Asian partner.</br></p><p>But it also indicates that China is gaining leverage in the US's backyard in its longstanding dispute with its island neighbor.</p><p>Taiwan <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dominican-republic-recognizing-china-over-taiwan-to-send-message-to-us-2018-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">broke away</a> in 1949, after defeated Nationalist forces fled the mainland. Beijing still considers the island part of its territory, and the two countries have competed for diplomatic recognition around the world.</p><p>That competition cooled in the late 2000s, when they entered a kind of detente, under which they "wouldn't poach each other's diplomatic allies," Jorge Guajardo, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jorge-guajardo-interview-us-china-power-balance-policies-2018-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mexico's ambassador to China</a> from 2007 to 2013, told Business Insider on Tuesday.</p><p>Chinese President Xi Jinping, who took office in 2013, has expressed desire for reunification, and the erosion of that rapprochement quickened with Taiwan's 2016 election of President Tsai Ing-wen, who has said she wants peace and to maintain the status quo, though <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-parliament-taiwan/china-urges-taiwans-few-allies-to-follow-irresistible-trend-of-recognizing-beijing-idUSKCN1GK0KR?il=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Beijing suspects</a> she wants to push for formal independence.</p><h2><span>'The gloves are off'</span></h2><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>The tipping point, Guajardo said, came with the December 2016 phone call between Tsai and then President-elect Donald Trump.</span></p><p><span>That created a situation "in which China all of sudden faced a threat that Taiwan would get recognition that it didn't have before," Guajardo told Business Insider. China's response was, "OK, the gloves are off, and we're going after every single ally."</span></p><p><span>The US does not <a href="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35855.htm">have official relations</a> with Taiwan and currently recognizes Beijing "as the sole legal government of China."</span></p><p><span>Weeks after Tsai's phone call with Trump</span><span>, China said the small West African country of São Tome and Principe had switched its diplomatic allegiance from Taipei to Beijing, reducing the number of countries recognizing Taiwan to 21.</span></p><p><span>In June 2017, Panama switched sides and recognized China - a move promoted by business interests in both countries. </span></p><p><span>The Dominican Republic's decision brings Taiwan down to diplomatic recognition by 19 countries, 10 of which are in Latin America, and underscores China's increasing leverage in its competition with Taiwan in Latin America - the "<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-parliament-taiwan/china-urges-taiwans-few-allies-to-follow-irresistible-trend-of-recognizing-beijing-idUSKCN1GK0KR?il=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">irresistible trend</a>" that Beijing says Taiwan's remaining allies should follow.</span></p><p><span>"Over the last two years, China's interest in and efforts in Latin America increased considerably. They're now the number-one trading partner for a number of countries" in the region, according to Mark Feierstein, a senior adviser at Albright Stonebridge Group who was senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the National Security Council during the Obama administration.</span></p><p><span>These partnerships secure resources from abroad to feed domestic consumption in China and open new markets for Chinese goods - but they also <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2017/11/08/chinas-new-relations-with-panama-and-costa-rica-are-another-step-towards-a-beijing-consensus-in-central-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">augment Beijing's clout</a> in international forums and in its dispute with Taiwan.</span></p><p><span>"They're trying to get resources and raw materials," Feierstein told Business Insider. "This battle with Taiwan is ongoing for a long time, and China's just better positioned now than they used to be."</span></p><h2>'A cost that Taiwan could not match'</h2><p><span>Taiwan and China's late-2000s detente led to a pause in their "<a href="https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/Staff%20Report_China-Caribbean%20Relations.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">checkbook diplomacy</a>," where they both offered generous aid in exchange for diplomatic recognition, but Chinese firms, encouraged by Beijing, have continued to expand investment, projects, and trade in the Caribbean over the past decade.</span></p><p>Latin America has also become a larger source of natural resources for the voracious Chinese economy, <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/china-oil-latam-final.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">growing</a> its share of China's crude-oil imports from about 2% in 2005 to nearly 13% in 2016.</p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>"Both countries have been willing to throw around resources in order to gain diplomatic recognition, but I think it's increasingly been more difficult for Taiwan to compete with China on that front, and as a result we're seeing certain countries flip from Taiwan to China," Feierstein said.</span></p><p><span>The Dominican Republic's trade with China has grown to $2 billion a year, the second most among Caribbean and Central American countries. A Taiwanese official told Reuters that Beijing offered <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-dominicanrepublic-taiwan/taiwan-says-china-dangled-3-billion-to-grab-ally-dominican-republic-idUSKBN1I22LN" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$3.1 billion</a> in investments and loans to get the Dominican Republic's recognition. "It was a cost that Taiwan could not match," the official said.</span></p><p><span>"The relative poverty and lack of infrastructure of the Central American isthmus make recognition of China a profitable move for regional leaders seeking financial aid," Sophie Wintgens, a post-doctoral researcher at the Universite libre de Bruxelles, <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2017/11/08/chinas-new-relations-with-panama-and-costa-rica-are-another-step-towards-a-beijing-consensus-in-central-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in November. "Historically, governments switching diplomatic relations to China have been rewarded with investment, improved access to the Chinese market, and loans."</span></p><p><span>China's success with the Dominican Republic may also be an effort to caution the US about trying to use Taiwan to counter Beijing, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dominican-republic-recognizing-china-over-taiwan-to-send-message-to-us-2018-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said Yang Liquan</a>, a Beijing-based expert on Taiwan.</span></p><p><span>"The Taiwan issue is part of the China-US rivalry, and America has intensified its efforts to use Taiwan as leverage against China," Yang told The South China Morning Post. "While the US only sees Taiwan as a chess piece, China sees Taiwan as part of its core interests that cannot be compromised."</span></p><h2><span>'A play to isolate Taiwan'</span></h2><p><span>In Latin America's biggest economies, like Brazil, China will continue to have big economic interests, Feierstein said, but both he and Guajardo said those interests would take a backseat in Beijing's diplomatic offensive against Taipei.</span></p><p><span>China's goal in the region is still "strictly to isolate Taiwan," Guajardo said, adding that having broader economic relations "doesn't move the needle" for Beijing.</span></p><p><span>"When it comes to the smaller Central American countries, smaller Caribbean countries, China doesn't have a huge economic interest there," Feierstein told Business Insider. "That's part of the diplomatic game with Taiwan."</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>Countries in Central America still have strong ties with the US, which makes it unlikely the region will become a venue for a larger geostrategic competition between Washington and Beijing, Guajardo told Business Insider. China, he said, would look to make "more of a play to isolate Taiwan and weaken the US's hand vis a vis Taiwan."</span></p><p><span>The Dominican Republic jumping sides, just months after Panama, may spur similar moves by their neighbors, who will likely act in their own self-interests and in response to Trump's seeming <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-oppenheimer/article195683709.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">withdrawal</a> from Latin America, Feierstein said. </span></p><p><span>With the potential for expanded business dealings as an incentive, Guajardo said, "it now becomes a race toward not being the last one with Taiwan."</span></p><p><span>In 2008 and 2009, some of Taipei's largest partners in the region - among them Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Honduras - expressed interest in switching their diplomatic allegiance. But China, amid the detente with Taiwan, declined their overtures, <a href="http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/09/10/2003512928" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to cables</a> released by WikiLeaks. </span></p><p><span>Beijing is not likely to demur should such an opportunity arise again.</span></p><p><span>"China's going to go wherever they can to flip countries, and clearly they've determined, and they were correct, that there are countries they can flip in Latin America," Feierstein said. "As long as China grows by leaps and bounds and is on the verge of becoming the largest economy in the world, I would think it'd be increasingly difficult for Taiwan, perhaps, to hold on to some of these countries."</span></p><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-yuan-not-euro-could-become-global-currency-dollar-china-usa-eu-dharshini-david-2018-4">Why China's Yuan, not the Euro, could become the dominant global currency</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div></hr>

China's latest triumph over Taiwan points to its growing influence in the US's neighborhood

<p>&#xa0;</p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>The 2015-16 El Niño has <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/">likely reached its end</a>. Tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures, trade winds, cloud and pressure patterns have all dropped back to near normal, although clearly the event's impacts around the globe are still being felt.<p>Recent changes in Pacific Ocean temperatures have been comparable to the decline seen at the end of the 1998 El Niño, although temperatures remain warmer than at the end of the most recent El Niño in 2010. Models suggest that ocean cooling will continue, with little chance of a return to El Niño levels in the immediate future.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><p>The 2015-16 El Niño will go down as one of the three strongest El Niño events since 1950. Every El Niño is different, but typically the stronger the event, the greater its global impact. The 2015-16 El Niño was no exception, with wide-ranging effects felt around the world.</p><p>El Niño also added to the globe's warming trend, making <a href="https://theconversation.com/2016-is-likely-to-be-the-worlds-hottest-year-heres-why-59378">2015 the world's hottest calendar year on record</a>. Early indications are that 2016 could be hotter still.</p><p>So as El Niño fades, let's take stock of its impacts worldwide.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><h2>Africa</h2><p>Drought meant that <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/business/news/farmers-owe-banks-r125bn-as-crops-wither-1971244">South African food production</a> was around six million tonnes below normal levels - the lowest since 1995.</p><p>In Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique, maize prices were at least 50% higher than usual, with drought unlikely to break until rains in summer 2016-17. In the <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/not-so-rainy-season-drought-southern-africa-january-2016">driest areas of Zimbabwe</a>, more than 75% of crops were lost. In May 2016, Zimbabwean national parks put wildlife up for sale in a bid to save animals from drought.</p><p>The <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/chocolate-prices-to-rise-as-el-nino-brings-big-dry-to-west-africa/news-story/7b68da82787af93e2557435638699c47">cost of chocolate</a> hit a four-year high as a result of drought and lost production in the world's major cocoa producer, Ivory Coast.</p><p>Drought also affected Ethiopia, Somalia, Swaziland, Zambia and parts of Madagascar, with more than 10 million Ethiopians in need of food aid.</p><p>In December 2015, <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5282e.pdf">Rift Valley fever</a> was reported in East Africa. The disease is associated with heavy rainfall providing a fertile breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry the virus.</p><p>In Tanzania, <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/el-nino-induced-floods-ravage-east-africa/a-19245333">heavy rain destroyed crops and food reserves</a>, while in Kenya <a href="http://www.unocha.org/el-nino-southern-africa">heavy rains aggravated cholera outbreaks</a>. In May 2016, landslides in Rwanda cost many lives and heavy rains damaged infrastructure and hundreds of homes.</p><h2>The Pacific region</h2><p>El Niño is often, but not always, associated with <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-indian-ocean-and-el-nino-join-forces-things-can-get-hot-and-dry-48969">drought in Australia</a>. But the drying influence of the 2015-16 El Niño was initially tempered somewhat by very warm temperatures in the Indian Ocean. From April to August, above-average rainfall fell over parts of inland Western Australia, New South Wales and eastern Victoria.</p><p>But by spring, the Indian Ocean was helping El Niño, resulting in Australia's third-driest spring on record, limiting growth at the end of the cropping season. A record early heatwave in October further <a href="http://www.farmonline.com.au/news/agriculture/cropping/grains/el-nio-hammers-wheat-crop/2745601.aspx">reduced crop production in the Murray-Darling Basin</a>.</p><p>However, the lack of heavy rains in the north and west meant <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mining-australia-elnino-idUSKCN0S601W20151012">reduced downtime for mining</a>.</p><p>The northern wet season produced a record-low three tropical cyclones in the Australian region. The previous record was five, which happened in 1987-88 and again in 2006-07 - both El Niño years.</p><p>Fewer clouds and less tropical rain contributed to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/coral-bleaching">most severe coral bleaching</a> event on record for the Great Barrier Reef.</p><p>The combination of heat and low rainfall brought a very early start to the fire season, with more than 70 fires burning in Victoria and around 55 fires in Tasmania during October. Dry conditions in Tasmania also resulted in hundreds of fires being started by dry lightning in mid-January 2016. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/fires-in-tasmanias-ancient-forests-are-a-warning-for-all-of-us-53806">fires damaged large areas of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area</a>, including areas of rainforest and bogs, which may not have seen fire for centuries.</p><p>In Papua New Guinea, <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-papua-new-guinea-faces-worsening-drought-a-past-disaster-could-save-lives-46390">drought and frost led to crop failures and food shortages</a>. Staple sweet potato crops in the highlands were severely damaged by August frosts - the result of El Niño reducing night-time cloud cover - which also destroyed wild plants that are usually eaten as a backup source of food.</p><p>Vanuatu, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Samoa and Tonga experienced <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/12/14/el-nino-warning-bells-ringing-oxfam">worsening drought</a>. Islands closer to the Equator such as Kiribati and Tuvalu had intense rain causing flooding, as well as higher sea levels due to warmer waters and weaker trade winds.</p><h2>Asia</h2><p>In the Philippines, drought was declared in 85% of provinces. Indonesia experienced its worst drought in 18 years. <a href="https://theconversation.com/indonesia-fires-threaten-to-send-even-modest-climate-ambitions-up-in-smoke-49155">Forest fires caused poor air quality</a> over vast neighbouring areas including Singapore, Malaysia, southern Thailand and the southern Philippines.</p><p>In the Mekong Basin, delayed monsoon rains reduced rice production, with significant reductions in Vietnam. In Thailand, severe water shortages led to water rationing and delayed rice planting. The Thai government <a href="http://time.com/3960462/thailand-drought/">lowered its forecast for rice exports</a> by two million tonnes. This led to some African countries increasing their imports, fearing a price rise.</p><p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-28/malaysian-palm-oil-production-to-worsen-on-el-nino-mistry-says">Palm oil prices rose</a> as supplies became limited due to drought in Malaysia and Indonesia. In April 2016, a heatwave set national temperature records for Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.</p><p>Northern parts of China experienced drought in 2015. Heavy rainfall in southern China persisted through the second half of 2015, with flooding and landslides recorded along the Yangtze River Valley. China's December-to-February rainfall was approximately 50% above normal. In May 2016, heavy rain caused <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1949392/torrential-rains-claim-eight-lives-southern-chinas-guangdong">flooding and landslides in China's Guangdong province</a>.</p><p>In India, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/india-is-suffering-one-of-its-worst-droughts-in-decades">below-average monsoon rains</a> in June to September led to reduced rice, corn, cotton and sugar output in 2015. Below-average rainfall between October and December also affected India's wheat harvest. Major water shortages emerged in some areas, including Mumbai - the result of two years of failed rains.</p><p>Indian Premier League cricket matches were relocated from Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur due to water restrictions. Record heat affected the north and west of the country in May, setting a <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/india/india-sets-new-heat-record-temperatures-soar">new national record of 51?</a> in Phalodi.</p><p>Conversely, some <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/12/10/before-and-after-satellite-imagery-of-the-historic-flooding-in-chennai-india/">southern parts of India had exceptionally wet conditions</a>, with record-breaking rains and widespread flooding in Chennai in November and December. The city received over 300mm of rainfall on December 1, 2015; the wettest day in more than a century.</p><h2>South and Central America</h2><p>Peru experienced widespread flooding and mudslides in early 2016, with heavy rain leaving more than 5,000 people homeless. In Ecuador, flooding and landslides damaged properties and affected shrimp production.</p><p>More than 150,000 people were evacuated from <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35184793">flooded areas in Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina</a> in December 2015. Some experts have linked El Niño flooding to outbreaks of <a href="http://who.int/hac/crises/el-nino/22february2016/en/">mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika virus</a>.</p><p>In January 2016, Argentina experienced its worst locust plague since 1954, following heavy rains and warm temperatures. Heavy rains returned to Argentina and Paraguay in April 2016, causing large agricultural losses.</p><p>In contrast, <a href="http://latincorrespondent.com/2016/02/el-nino-wreaks-havoc-in-colombia/">Colombia experienced drought and forest fires</a>, which caused severe damage to crops and pushed up food prices, leading to malnutrition in some areas. In November 2015, the United Nations warned that 2.3 million people would need food aid in Central America.</p><p>The Caribbean also experienced drought; Cuba had its most severe dry season in 115 years; Barbados, Dominica, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Antigua, Barbuda and Saint Lucia experienced water shortages, with the latter declaring a national emergency. The Dominican Republic experienced serious agricultural losses.</p><p>Brazil had a particularly high number of forest fires during 2015, exacerbated by ongoing drought conditions in the Amazon region. Drought in Brazil and Colombia (and Indonesia) meant <a href="https://weather.com/science/environment/news/el-nino-weather-damages-coffee-crops">coffee prices soared</a> as dry conditions affected all the major coffee-producing countries.</p><p>In contrast, excess rain in northeast Brazil flooded crops, leading to rises in the sugar price worldwide.</p><h2>North America</h2><p>In California, many hoped that El Niño would bring relief from five years of drought. But despite some regions getting heavy rain more typical of El Niño, leading to mudslides, El Niño failed to end the long-term dry.</p><p>In the southeast and south-central United States, rainfall was above normal. Major flooding occurred along the Mississippi River. Missouri received three times its normal rainfall during November and December 2015.</p><p><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-17/crabs-carpet-california-beaches/7420956">Warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures</a> offshore meant warm water species such as sea snakes, red tuna crabs and hammerhead sharks were found on Californian beaches.</p><p><em>For information on the current and forecast state of ENSO, keep an eye on <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/">the Bureau's ENSO Wrap-Up</a>.</em></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"></div></div></div></div><p><span><a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/alison-cook-269168">Alison Cook</a>, Climatologist, <em><a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/the-bureau-of-meteorology">Australian Bureau of Meteorology</a></em>; <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/andrew-b-watkins-2818">Andrew B. Watkins</a>, Manager of Climate Prediction Services, <em><a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/the-bureau-of-meteorology">Australian Bureau of Meteorology</a></em>; <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/blair-trewin-3692">Blair Trewin</a>, Climatologist, National Climate Centre, <em><a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/the-bureau-of-meteorology">Australian Bureau of Meteorology</a></em>, and <a href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/catherine-ganter-259928">Catherine Ganter</a>, Senior Climatologist, <em><a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/the-bureau-of-meteorology">Australian Bureau of Meteorology</a></em></span></p><p>This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/el-nino-is-over-but-has-left-its-mark-across-the-world-59993">original article</a>.</p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"></div></div></div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/weather-system-in-a-box-2016-3">This is a weather system in a box</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="E0dTNpMTE6pr_yrk_cImaAg0baJy6XE7" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

El Nino is over - but its impacts are still being felt across the globe

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>In April 1884, Bolivia and Chile signed a treaty that ended the War of the Pacific and ceded 240 miles of coastline - Bolivia's only outlet to the sea - to the Chilean victors.</p><p>In September 2015, the International Court of Justice at the UN ruled that it would hear the Bolivian government's argument that Chile must negotiate with it for a new route to the sea.</p><p>A final decision is months, if not years, away.</p><p>But after 131 years, Bolivia may soon touch the sea once more.</p><h2>The War of the Pacific</h2><p>Bolivia, Chile, and Peru had competing claims over an arid but mineral-rich portion of the Atacama Desert since gaining their independence from Spain in the mid-1820s, a consequence of unclear Spanish <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Born-Blood-Fire-Concise-History/dp/0393911543">colonial boundaries</a> in the area.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>By the late 1870s, the competition over the area's sodium nitrate deposits had pushed tensions higher, and a tax dispute <a href="http://www.britannica.com/event/War-of-the-Pacific">led to war</a> in 1879.<p>The war that followed raged on the Pacific Ocean, across harsh deserts, and into the mountains of the Andes.</p><p>Chile soon gained an advantage, <a href="http://www.britannica.com/event/War-of-the-Pacific">occupying Lima</a> in 1881. By 1883, Peru bowed out of the conflict, signing a peace deal. Bolivia signed a truce a year later.</p><p>The territorial shifts the war brought helped make it one of the most <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=VT7fAQAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA549&amp;hl=en#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false">important military actions</a> of the late 19th century.</p><p>Chile gained from its foes most of what are now its three northernmost regions, which then&#xa0;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Born-Blood-Fire-Concise-History/dp/0393911543">supplied it</a> with the bulk of its government revenues for the next forty years.</p><p>Peru lost vital resource-rich provinces in its south (though it <a href="http://www.britannica.com/event/War-of-the-Pacific">regained</a> some land in 1929).</p><p>Bolivia lost more than <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-22287222" target="_blank">46,000 square miles</a> of territory, including what is currently Chile's <a href="http://laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14094&amp;ArticleId=2392793">copper-rich</a> Antofagasta region.</p><p>A 1904 treaty made this loss permanent in exchange for Chile allowing Bolivian trade access to the sea through Chilean territory.</p><p>Bolivia has been consigned to landlocked status ever since. (The quest for sea access would lead Bolivia into <a href="http://www.britannica.com/event/Chaco-War">another war</a>&#xa0;with Paraguay a half-century later.)</p><h2>The war of words</h2><p>Relations between Bolivia and Chile have been strained ever since. With the exception of a brief period in the 1970s, the two countries have not had <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34347332">full diplomatic relations</a> in decades.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>In recent years, leaders from each country have berated the other for the impasse that persists.</p><p>While Bolivia still has access to ports in northern Chile, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-22287222" target="_blank">the country has said</a> the Chileans have backed out of agreements granting Bolivia access to other ports. While Bolivia is itself <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-22287222" target="_blank">rich in natural gas</a>, the extensive copper deposits <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-22287222" target="_blank">discovered</a> in what is now Chilean territory have no doubt attracted attention across the border.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>In December 2012, Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia called Chile "the bad boy of the region" whose behavior was "unfriendly, provocative and aggressive."</p><p>The next month, Chile's then-President Sebastian Pinera dedicated a speech at a regional summit to rebuking Bolivia, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-22287222">telling</a> his neighbor to be "more respectful of the truth."</p><p>Chile has invoked the 1904 treaty to defend its claim on the territory, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-22277407">saying</a>, "no one in the world will accept that a country unilaterally dismisses a treaty which is in full force."</p><p>Indeed, despite Bolivian President Evo Morales' <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-22287222">claim</a> that the treaty was forced on his country "down the barrel of a gun," the country's suit, filed with the ICJ in April 2013, only asks the court to compel Chile to negotiate "<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/24/un-highest-court-dispute-chile-and-bolivia">in good faith</a>" with Bolivia over the latter country's access to the sea.</p><p>In September this year, the court assented to Bolivia's request, and agreed that it had the jurisdiction to hear the case.</p><p>Chile argued its territory was defined by previous treaties, but, the court ruled, prior treaties did not cover "Chile's alleged obligation to negotiate Bolivia's access" to the Pacific Ocean, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/24/un-highest-court-dispute-chile-and-bolivia">said</a> ICJ judge Ronny Abraham in the court's 14-2 decision.</p><p>"Chile's objection to jurisdiction [of the court] … must accordingly be dismissed," Abraham added.</p><p>The rule has led to a new round of posturing.</p><p><a href="http://www.latercera.com/noticia/politica/2015/09/674-649086-9-vicepresidente-boliviano-y-demanda-en-la-haya-el-gobierno-de-chile-se-aferra-a.shtml">According</a> to Bolivia's vice president, Álvaro García Linera, "the government of Chile is clinging to the logic of the 19th century, and that is not going to take them anywhere. Bolivia is invoking the justice, they history, and the logic of the 21st century."</p><p>Chile's president, Michelle Bachelet, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/24/us-chile-bolivia-court-idUSKCN0RO1KR20150924">said</a> her country maintains "the firm conviction that the Bolivian demand lacks all basis, as it confuses rights with aspirations."</p><p>Morales, whose country celebrates the Day of the Sea every March 23 by marching through the streets with model ships and pictures of the ocean and with the landlocked country's navy in full uniform, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34347332">said</a> the September 24 ruling was "a day Bolivians would never forget."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>For Morales and Bachelet, the ruling is likely imbued with political importance.</p><p>Bachelet, who was elected in late 2013 with <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/12/18/bachelet-returns-to-power-in-chile-with-impressive-victory-but-what-does-low-turnout-mean-for-her-mandate/">62% of the vote</a>, has seen her popularity shrink to just 20%, while disapproval of her administration reached 72%, according to <a href="http://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2015/09/14/bachelet-sigue-bajando-20-de-aprobacion-en-la-cadem/">a recent poll</a>. The Chilean public, however, has shown <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-22287222" target="_blank">strong support</a> for resisting giving up&#xa0;control over the land in question.</p><p><div></div></p><p class="embed-spacer">In Bolivia, the country <a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Evo-Morales-Ready-to-Continue-Serving-Bolivian-People-20151003-0001.html">will vote</a> in a national referendum in February that would allow Morales to seek a third term in office, which has said <a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Evo-Morales-Ready-to-Continue-Serving-Bolivian-People-20151003-0001.html">he will do</a> if the measure is approved. His current term ends in 2020.</p><p>Whatever the domestic political implications, the matter is far from settled.</p><p>"Bolivia hasn't won anything," <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34347332">said</a> Bachelet.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/crabs-migrating-off-coast-of-canada-thousands-female-eggs-laying-seafloor-deep-sea-2015-9">Scientists are mystified by this rare footage of thousands of crabs crawling on the seafloor</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="djOGVsdzq0AD7ZBt0fTI1GNabe8NutxO" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Chile and Bolivia are still arguing over the outcome of a war they fought 131 years ago

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Last October, a 28-year-old Lebanese man named Muhamed Amadar was arrested in Lima, Peru. He was alone and hadn't left his apartment for weeks. A search of his apartment found TNT and other chemicals used for making explosives. </p><p>The Peruvian National Police analyzed the chemicals and determined that they were similar to those by the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.</p><p>"Based on conversations with Peruvian officials familiar with this investigation, what seems clear is that Amadar is an explosives expert, but not an operator," <a href="http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA07/20150318/103177/HHRG-114-FA07-Wstate-Lpez-DolzD-20150318.pdf">said former Peruvian Interior Minister Dardo Lopez-Dos</a> in testimony before the US House subcommittee on Foreign Affairs. "He was not going to be the individual who would carry out the attack that was presumably being prepared."</p><p>That means Amadar had a network.</p><p class="p1">"The arrest in October 2014 of ... [<span>Amadar], who confessed to being a member of Hezbollah, with clear evidence of having </span><span>handled explosives, indicates they seem to be ready to move into an offensive phase using </span><span>terror," Dardo Lopez-Dos added.</span></p><h3 class="p1">'You get little alerts all the time'</h3><p>Iran, Hezbollah's state backer, has <span>substantially </span>grown its presence in Latin America over the last decade, and we are now seeing reminders of that infiltration.</p><p>"<span id="docs-internal-guid-2345c1a9-aa15-a558-08f5-c6165723ea14">In the last few months... you would think that Hezbollah and Iran by extension have increased their activity in Latin America. But journalists are just picking it up more now," Joseph Humire, executive director at The Center for a Secure Free Society, a think tank, told Business Insider. "</span>You get little alerts all the time. "</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The most recent and high-profile reminder was the death of Argentine prosecutor, Alberto Nisman.</p><p>Largely considered the foremost expert on Iran's presence in the Western Hemisphere, the 51-year-old was about to testify to Argentina's legislature that the Argentine government had made a deal with Iran to cover up Iran's involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center that killed 85 people. Nisman was found shot to the head in his apartment in January, it was made to look like a suicide.</p><p>If that was the case, Nisman left no note.</p><p>What he did leave are over a thousand pages of exhaustive research that he'd collected about Iran's presence on his continent over the course of a decade - research that is now being given further treatment considering the suspicious circumstances of his death.</p><p>In his life, the Argentine government forbid Nisman from testifying before the US legislature on what he'd found in his investigation. After his death, more experts on the subject testified before both the House and the Senate. What those witnesses had to report is alarming. Dardos-Lopez said that Iranian activity in Peru "has advanced very rapidly [and] almost unnoticed."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Belk library" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55159653eab8ead85cfe0c12-960/latin_america_map.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></div><p></p></div></div></p><h3><span>'The State Department owes the American people answers</span>'</h3><p>In the past, the US State Department has ignored questions about Iran's inroads in the West, ignoring letters from concerned legislators. They've said that the Obama administration is on top of the situation. But in 2013, 19 legislators signed a letter slamming the administration for putting together a shoddy report on Iran's involvement in the region - one that <a href="http://jeffduncan.house.gov/sites/jeffduncan.house.gov/files/DOS%20Response%20to%20August%201%2C%202013%20Letter.pdf">did not take Alberto Nisman's work into account</a>.</p><p>That's when South Carolina Representative Jeff Duncan accused the <a href="http://jeffduncan.house.gov/editorial/rep-jeff-duncan-department-state-obstructing-congressional-oversight">State Department of obstruction. </a></p><p>"The State Department has chosen to obstruct Congressional oversight of Iran's deepening relations with countries in Latin America by sending a letter that did not answer even a single question," Duncan wrote. "The State Department owes the American people answers to these questions on whether they still believe Iran's influence is 'waning' in the Western Hemisphere.</p><p>"Recent Congressional hearings on this issue uncovered disturbing evidence of Iran's ability to recruit over a thousand students from Latin America to travel to Iran for training, obtain fraudulent passport documentation, exploit free trade zones and loose border security measures, and cooperate with drug cartels and criminal networks," Duncan continued.</p><p>"In light of the events in Syria with ramifications for U.S. homeland security, the Administration should prioritize this issue of Iran's deepening penetration within the Western Hemisphere and stop putting up road blocks to Congressional oversight."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h3>'An attempt to win converts and sympathizers'</h3><p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">There are indications of how Iran is winning favor in Latin American countries. For example, Iranian agents have made it a point to connect with a militant Peruvian indigenous rights group called the </span><em style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Etnocaceristas</em><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> founded by Peruvian President Ollanta Humala.</span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Humala's brother, Antauro Humala, leads the <em>Etnocaceristas</em> from jail, where he is serving out a sentence for sedition, homicide and kidnapping. On paper, that makes him sound like the perfect partner for a group like Hezbollah.</p><p>So Iran's agents look for ways to strengthen the idea that Iran is a natural ally of Peru's indigenous people.</p><p>"In an attempt to win converts and sympathizers, cultural memes are used to create parallels between seemingly disparate religions and cultures," said Lopez-Dos. "Such concepts as the Shiite belief in the 'return of the Mahdi' can be translated closely to resemble the traditional Inkarri myth, believed by many indigenous in the Andes to represent the return of the Inca (God). Such parallels can be used to provide a certain cover of legitimacy to those otherwise thought of as 'outsiders.'"</p><p>If Iran manages to pull that off successfully, these 'little alerts' might start getting too big for anyone to ignore.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/smartphone-impact-brain-body-sleep-2015-2">This is what happens to your brain and body when you check your phone before bed</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="BvMjVqcjoHdZBG6tTpXy8UkhB5_46U_c" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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