Being in Brazil, the biggest political issue discussed is corruption. The government is corrupt, the policemen are corrupt and all the branches are corrupt. The judical part is especially protected and whilst they have less corrupt people, the ones who are, cant be harmed. This ofcourse does not allow for almost any equality and is very harsh on the people. Also the trust for the government and other big organizations is fading then. This is a very bad thing to have in a country. This is mainly caused by greed...
A big economic issue is that Brazil has a humongous external debt of over 300 billion dollars. This impacts the economic growth of the country as a huge part of growth potential is paid back as interests. It can be a good thing to take loans, but if you do it too much, it hinders your growth. The cause of this is that people have not carefully planned their loans and this is a worldwide problem.
This is a picture of brazilian policemen after arresting a banker for bribery. This is a big issue in the country as it does not follow federal law and thus it is not in the interests of the people and the country. Bribery is a huge issue in especially 3rd world countries. Brazil is working on getting it smaller but it is only babysteps in a huge battle.
This shows a growing trend of external debt in brazil. The situation was the worst in 1999 but it is heading fast towards the same point again. This would hinder the economic growth of the country as explained before.
Here is a link about bribery and this explains more about the issue and why its a problem.
http://www.economist.com/node/15580390?story_id=15580390
Cuba
A big political issue in Cuba is the relationship with USA. This is an international problem. The US has put a blockade on Cuba. The Americans call it embargo, but the Cubans themselves call it a blockade. This problem is actually being discussed and slowly both sides try to solve it. This is a huge step as the two did not speak to eachother for a long time.
Cuban economy was severely damaged after the fall of the USSR. Now though they are recovering by receiving aid from Venezuela, whom they have good relations with. Cuba's biggest foregin income is tourism and they grow a lot of sugar. They are also famous for their cigars. The economy is based mostly on selling raw materials such as nickel and selling sugar. These are not huge sources of income though. Cuba's economy is state controlled and thus is not growing as fast as it could be.
This cartoon explains a lot about the problems with Cuba. America is being very harsh on them and they are hindering their country's growth a lot. They now are contacting eachother which is a step towards progress and maybe finally lifting the embargo. This is bad both economically and politically as US is very powerful in both. This impacts the people's life in Cuba a lot, by not having as many opportunities and so on.
This is a good picture showing the main productions in cuba and also showing where they are grown. As you can see most of the production is agricultural, which nowadays is not the biggest source of income. This impacts the Cuban economy heavily, as they lack the service sector in a big part. Their products are much needed, but they need to "industrialize" more.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/01/13/relations-cuba-hobbled-detention-contractor/
Here is a link to a problem between the two countries. USA and Cuba just dont seem to get to an agreement.
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