Political Risk Event of the Month: June 5th election in Peru

Submitted by ICBA Asia, Brazil, India and the USA via the IRC Read & Delete Monthly

On June 5, 2011, Peru will hold a run-off election between Socialist candidate Ollanta Humala and center-right candidate Keiko Fujimori. Fujimori's father is a former President of Peru and is currently serving time in prison for his administration's corruption. Humala has threatened to nationalize strategic industries and revise trade agreements if elected. As election day approaches, the candidates are running neck and neck. Pundits generally believe a Fujimori victory would be better for Peru's Foreign-Direct Investment climate.

On April 11, 2011, BBC news Latin America & Caribbean reported, "The prospect of a run-off between Mr Humala and Ms Fujimori has worried some Peruvians, including the Nobel Prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, who has said it would be like 'choosing between Aids and cancer'."

The ICBA blog will report the outcome of this event as an addition to this post.

UPDATE (June 6, 2011) -- Ollanta Humala Wins Peru Election Over Keiko Fujimori, Fox News Latino

(The Political Risk Event of the Month blog post will be a recurring post, on a sporadic basis, at the ICBA blog. ICBA Asia, Brazil, India and the USA, which is International Risk Consultants, Inc. (IRC), has agreed to continue to share these "event" posts with the ICBA blog.)

Credit insurance brokers improve performance and results by using yesterday’s progress as the zero point and aiming higher each day

By Rob Downey

Commercial airline passengers benefit everyday from flight crews who, by law, tradition and training, follow pre-flight checklists. My view is that the use of checklists to maintain high standards in the performance of important recurring team tasks should be studied in business schools.  What has this got to do with trade credit insurance, trade finance and the management of political risks?  ICBA USA uses a wide variety of lists in our global brokerage business to assist, educate, and guide ourselves as well as our global credit-insured clientele.

One of the most recent and striking confirmations of the efficacy of using lists as touchstones to guide high performance comes from the medical profession.  In case you have not heard it, I synopsize below the story of how empowered nurses armed with checklists in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Johns Hopkins Medical Center managed to dramatically improve patient outcomes at what was already one of the world’s finest hospitals.

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