Other analysts, such as Santiago Levy, a former Mexican official now at the Inter-American Development Bank, point out that a fund of that kind might undermine the incentives for firms and workers to go legal.

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"When you are marching this far down the field, it is kind of silly to walk off, " said a senior administration official.

WSJ: Pressure Rises on U.S to Trim Troop Numbers in Afghanistan

High-profile prosecutions of former local-government officials are a sign that there will no longer be official tolerance of the kind of corruption that was so blatant in Casablanca, where funds allocated for slum clearance and other projects in the 1990s were diverted into private pockets.

ECONOMIST: The king is seeking to embrace moderate Islamists

This official, formerly a member of Congress, is a middle-of-the-road kind of guy.

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