By NEIL KING JR.

DES MOINES, Iowa—Prominent Republicans here pretty much splinter into two camps on the question of whether Sarah Palin will jump into the 2012 presidential race.

One side points to a mysterious California lawyer named Peter Singleton as proof the former Alaska governor will definitely run. The other side points to Mr. Singleton as proof she won’t.

“When it comes to Palin in Iowa, it’s pretty much Peter Singleton,” said Iowa Tea Party Director Ryan Rhodes. “The guy is everywhere.”

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Neil King/ The Wall Street Journal

Peter Singleton at the Iowa Capitol, where he buttonholes lawmakers between forays around the state boosting Sarah Palin.

Crisscrossing the state in a series of rented cars, the 56-year-old Mr. Singleton has spent the better part of five months visiting obscure county GOP chairmen, befriending tea-party activists, buttonholing lawmakers in the lobby of the state Capitol, and amassing a database of potential Palin supporters. His base camp is the Days Inn in West Des Moines, where he washes his shirts in the sink.

Deepening the mystery: Mr. Singleton swears he has never met Ms. Palin and has no contact with her team. “I’m just a dedicated activist working on my own,” he said.

Ms. Palin’s aides concur, insisting that she hasn’t met with Mr. Singleton and that he is in no way coordinating with her political-action committee.

But not many Republicans here buy the lone-wolf theory.

“I came away from our conversation convinced Mr. Singleton is organizing for her, and has an inside track on her 2012 campaign,” said Jeff Jorgensen, GOP chairman of Pottawattamie County in the state’s southwestern corner. He met Mr. Singleton for breakfast last month.

State Sen. Kent Sorenson, an up-and-comer in Iowa tea-party circles, emerged from his talks with the Menlo Park lawyer with a different conclusion.

“To send someone you’ve never met, an operative from another state, just seems odd,” he said. “It suggests Sarah Palin is simply not serious about Iowa.” Mr. Sorenson plans to support Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann if she runs.

Ms. Palin’s plans for 2012 remain a big topic across a state famed for its first-in-the-nation caucus, a contest—now set for February—that rewards those who really work the state, from county fairs to small-town living rooms.

Ms. Palin, who appeared at a tea-party event in Wisconsin over the weekend, is slipping in most national polls, but GOP activists here believe she would scramble the emerging field if she jumps in.

Other presumed candidates—Tim Pawlenty, Haley Barbour, Newt Gingrich—are now popping into Iowa almost weekly. Many are beginning to hire operatives and lease office space. But Republicans strain to cite any evidence of a fledgling Palin campaign in Iowa—beyond the ubiquitous Mr. Singleton. Ms. Palin hasn’t visited the state since December.

“I can’t think of a single person outside of him who says they’re ready to drop everything and work for Sarah Palin if she runs,” said Maureen Olsen, publisher and editor of the Neola Gazette and state president of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women.

The tall, sleepy-eyed Silicon Valley lawyer and former Oracle salesman seems to have found his calling in Iowa’s political byways. Until last year, he had never worked on a political campaign.

A Northern California native, he spent a decade as a small-time investor after leaving Oracle in the mid-1990s. He then got a law degree and clerked for a Nevada Supreme Court justice, at age 52.

He first traveled to Iowa in August with a map of the state, and one contact at a tea-party group. “I drove around to the big counties and went into the election offices to shake hands and meet people,” he said.

He worked for Sharron Angle’s unsuccessful Senate campaign in Nevada before returning to Iowa after that election.

Iowa GOP activist Stacey Rogers first met Mr. Singleton in late November, outside a Borders bookstore in West Des Moines.

It was 6 a.m, but people were already lining up for a Palin book signing 12 hours later.

“He had a clipboard, and was gathering names, not for the book-signing, but for later use, in case Palin runs,” Ms. Rogers said.

Since then, the two have bumped into each other at dozens of events, including at a Polk County Republican Party meeting in a Des Moines Holiday Inn late last month.

“The guy has compiled a truly encyclopedic knowledge of Iowa politics and Iowa political operatives,” she said as Mr. Singleton worked the room, pulling aside members of the county’s central committee. “He also seems strangely prescient about the internal workings of Sarah Palin’s own operation.”

Mr. Singleton was similarly omnipresent at a recent Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines that brought half a dozen likely GOP candidates to town—but not Ms. Palin.

Connie Armstrong, a top GOP organizer in Linn County, which includes Cedar Rapids, pulled him aside at the event to grill him on his ties to the Palin camp.

“He kept saying ‘we,’ but he wouldn’t clarify who ‘we’ was,” she said. “My gut feeling is he’s working on her campaign.”

Wherever he goes, Mr. Singleton argues that Ms. Palin will jump into the race, will win the Iowa caucuses and the GOP nomination, and is the best suited to defeat President Barack Obama.

If others think he is “amiably but aimlessly wandering about on an extended holiday trip,” he said, all the better.

Write to Neil King Jr. at neil.king@wsj.com

Originally Published On: online.wsj.com – Original Article Here

Police in Brazil have moved into a poor neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro in an attempt to catch the alleged drug lord they say controls the area.

Around 200 police are searching the Rocinha neighbourhood for Antonio Lopes, who is also accused of running a money laundering scheme.

Officers say they found almost three tonnes of marihuana, a garage full of stolen cars and a pirate DVD factory.

Eleven people have been arrested, but so far Antonio Lopes remains at large.

Police entered Rocinha, the country's largest favela, or shantytown, at about 0600 local time (0900 GMT), backed by helicopters.

Mr Lopes, 34, is considered the number one enemy by local police trying to regain control of the area ahead of the 2014 Football World Cup and the 2016 Olympics held in Rio.

Officers said they had 30 arrest warrants for Mr Lopes, also known as Nem, and his associates.

His gang is accused of running a sophisticated money-laundering scheme, which allegedly used six companies to obscure the origins of proceeds from the drugs trade.

Police found thousands of pirated DVDs and CDs, fake shoes, and stolen fridges and other kitchen appliances.

They said some of the drugs and stolen goods probably had been taken to Rocinha from Sao Carlos, another area of the city which police raided in February.

Originally Published On: www.bbc.co.uk – Original Article Here

* Deputy PM says trustees to replace officials

* Trustees will vote on government orders

* Board initiative comes ahead of presidential vote

(Recasts with Putin deputy’s quotes)

By Denis Dyomkin

GORKI, Russia, April 22 (Reuters) – A senior Russian
official said on Friday the government would keep a strong voice
on state-controlled company boards, a blow to President Dmitry
Medvedev’s drive to curb state influence in the economy.

The remarks quashed hopes among minority shareholders that
independent directors may replace officials and underscored the
challenge Medvedev faces in putting his stamp on corporate
governance and emerging from the shadow of his powerful mentor,
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Asserting his authority, Medvedev said in late March that
top members of Putin’s government must leave the boards of firms
such as gas giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM) and oil major Rosneft
(ROSN.MM) within months.

Some board chiefs are seen as close Putin allies, and the
order was a bid by Medvedev to build up clout ahead of a March
2012 election in which both members of the ruling “tandem” have
said they may run.

He has warned that overbearing state influence on the
economy could lead to stagnation, suggesting that policies that
worked for Russia during Putin’s 2000-2008 presidency rule
needed to change to attract investment and foster modernisation.

Pressing ahead with his initiative, Medvedev told a meeting
attended by Putin that officials leaving the boards must be
replaced by “impartial, uncorrupted” professionals and not by
“clerks from ministries”.

But a top Putin deputy made clear directors replacing
officials on boards would put the government’s priorities first.

“We will treat these people as professional trustees,” First
Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told journalists.

Shuvalov said that “an independent director acts in line
with his vision of what is best for the company’s development
while a professional trustee acts on the government’s orders.”

He said officials would leave the boards of more than 1,000
companies, some 950 of which are due to be privatised.

Putin steered Medvedev into the Kremlin in 2008 after eight
years as president and has said they will decide together who
should run in 2012. Medvedev has shown increasing signs he wants
a new term, but analysts say Putin will make the final choice.

“SADDENING FIASCO”

Most Russian firms are traded at a discount to their peers
in other emerging markets and analysts explain the discount by
poor corporate governance, saying that officials’ presence on
the boards is partly to blame.

“Medvedev’s great idea has turned into a saddening fiasco.
What difference does it make who sits on the board if he votes
on orders anyway,” activist shareholder Alexei Navalny, who owns
shares in many state controlled firms, told Reuters.

Shortly after Medvedev’s order, Putin’s deputy Igor Sechin,
Russia’s energy tsar, stepped down as chairman of state oil
giant Rosneft (ROSN.MM). [ID:nLDE73107S]

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin followed suit by tendering
his resignation as chairman of VTB (VTBR.MM), Russia’s
second-largest lender, and of diamond miner Alrosa.

“Now a new problem emerges, which we must resolve in a
worthy way: the people who replace you must be professionals,
impartial, uncorrupt and possessing authority on the market,”
Medvedev said on Friday.

There is still no formal procedure for the replacement of
ministers on corporate boards, and many analysts predict the
changes will be cosmetic.

Rosneft CEO Eduard Khudainatov has said that Sechin would
still control Russia’s biggest oil company, and Kudrin suggested
the changes would be symbolic because state-controlled companies
would continue to represent state interests until privatised.

Medvedev also said that regional officials from the
personnel reserve lists compiled by his administration as well
as by Putin’s United Russia party could serve on the boards. He
did not specify whether they should quit their current jobs.
(Writing by Gleb Bryanski and Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by
Jon Boyle)

Originally Published On: www.reuters.com – Original Article Here

War, it is said, comes at a cost – not only in human lives, but also on the health of a country's economy.

Nearly 700 people have died in drug-related incidents since 2006 in the city, and shoot-outs between rival drug cartels and with the security forces are frequent.

Foreign tourists have not been targeted and the hotel district has been mostly spared by the violence – but headlines around the world of "Acapulco's descent into violence" have badly tarnished the city's reputation.

Sitting among deck chairs around the swimming pool at the Copacabana hotel, chief concierge Jose Luis Espejel admits that tourism is on the decline.

He talks about the "spring breakers", the US university students who from late February to early April flock south of the border for warm temperatures and beach parties.

Following warnings by some in the US against travelling to parts of Mexico, Acapulco was off the radar for spring breakers in 2011.

Mr Espejel says that while last year about 2,600 students filled the rooms of his hotel, this year only 60 showed up. Official figures from Acapulco's authorities say the number of spring breakers that came this year dropped by as much as 93% compared with 2010.

That has had a huge impact on the city's livelihood.

"There are no jobs," he says.

"Low occupancy, no income, obviously no profits. And these are not only hotels – everybody has problems, restaurants, bars, even people selling items on the beach."

According to government figures, about 22 million tourists visited Mexico in 2010, an increase of 4.4% compared with 2009.

Critics say that the increase is nothing to celebrate – since the number of tourists entering the country had plummeted in 2009, when Mexico became the first country in which swine flu was reported.

Other areas of the economy are showing healthier indicators.

The announcement, earlier this year, by the US retail giant Wal-Mart, that it would invest more than $1bn (£615m) in the Mexican market was lauded by the government as yet another proof that foreign investors were not being scared off by rising crime.

Antonio Ocaranza, spokesman for Wal-Mart Mexico, says that while they had noticed some changes in people's purchasing patterns – for instance, in some areas of the country they avoided shopping after dark because of security concerns – their sales continued to grow.

"We see that beyond the current circumstances that affect some cities of the country, I believe this is a country that, beyond what is happening now, has enormous growing possibilities."

In fact, Mexico ranked high in a World Bank report on the ease of doing business – amount of hurdles to set up a company or access credit, among other criteria – it was the top-ranked country in Latin America.

Unemployment in Mexico is the lowest in all of the Americas and one of the lowest between member countries of the Organisation of Co-operation and Economic Development (OECD).

But some argue that even if Mexico's economy is showing good signs, the violence could be preventing it from growing even more.

Recently, a chief economist for the BBVA Spanish bank – a major investor in Mexico – put a number on it.

"If there were no violence, the Mexican economy would have grown 1% above the rates of the past few years," said analyst Jorge Sicilia from BBVA.

This is attributed by many not only to investment in extra security measures for companies, but also to the fact drug cartels have morphed into sophisticated organised crime groups, spreading their business to kidnapping and extortion.

A survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico of more than 500 business leaders revealed that 67% felt less safe doing business in Mexico compared with last year.

The Canacintra national manufacturing industry chamber recently estimated that up to 10,000 small and medium enterprises had shut down during 2010 in the areas most badly affected by the drugs violence.

Many of them had suffered extortion or threats from criminals who demanded the payment of a "fee" for their security.

That is the case for a businesswoman in Central Mexico, who prefers to remain anonymous.

She told the BBC that six months ago, she and her husband, owners of a successful medium-sized company, had been approached by a group of armed men who identified themselves as members of the La Familia drug gang.

They asked them to pay about $4,000 (£2,465) every month – and threatened to kill them and their family if they did not.

Fearing a retaliation from the criminals if they alerted the authorities, they decided to pay.

"They show up every month to collect the fee," she says, visibly nervous while walking around a park in Mexico City.

These episodes make many in Mexico fear that, as the drugs war rages, other parts of the country could start living the turmoil that Acapulco is already facing.

Originally Published On: www.bbc.co.uk – Original Article Here