Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

[EX Q]: Privatising Mexico's oil industry spells disaster. Considering Mexico's history and the present political context, it's no surprise that the majority of the Mexican population nowadays is either deeply suspicious of President Pena Nieto or just opposed to the current fast-track drive to privatise oil and pass it into the hands of foreign oligopolies . At present, Mexico suffers from an extremely weak state where the vast majority of crimes go unaddressed because of a judicial vacuum . More than 22,000 forced disappearances have occurred since 2007 and more than 70,000 people have been killed since 2006 . Almost every week we hear about more mass graves discovered . Most recently, a massacre of students in Iguala shook the nation . Mexico also suffers from the third largest illicit economy in the world, according to the Global Financial Integrity Report . Clearly, organised crime is openly challenging and fragmenting the state . In the face of these facts even President Nieto has admitted in public speeches that Mexico's legal system is in shambles . International experience and basic common sense indicate that a country must possess a minimum standard of the rule of law in order to be able to foster social benefits for most of its population when privatising state assets . Without functional regulatory and judicial controls, it is technically and politically not feasible for any oil-funded social development fund to effectively spread wealth to future generations through new public education programmes, a modernised public health, adequate environmental standards and a much-improved physical infrastructure . Absolutely nothing today indicates that Mexico can implement privatisation of the oil infrastructure at even the most basic standards of security, transparency, effectiveness and efficiency . Yet ,  a Mexican paradox occurs . While insecurity still runs at record highs , foreign money keeps pouring in . What's going on? Since the beginning of the still unfinished democratic transition and since the economic opening to international trade of the early 1990s, Mexico managed to attract billions of dollars per year in foreign direct investment . Yet ,  most of this money has been channelled into politically managed non-competitive sectors in the hands of Mexican "state courtesans" disguised as private entrepreneurs who over the last 25 years created vast oligopolies out of the privatisation of state assets . The privatisation process in Mexico has largely been conducted through dubious procedures orchestrated by corrupt federal governments . All this happened in the midst of a Mexican economy lacking technological innovation with low productivity and where more than half of what is produced and consumed is exchanged within informal/illicit markets . Nevertheless ,  these so-called private oligopolies within the mining, banking and telecommunications industries operate in a crony capitalistic fashion by attracting foreign investors to politically protected markets in which governments (through bribes and subsidies) ensure rates of return two to five times above the international average . How can, for example, German or US oligopolies presently investing in Mexico fail to fall in love with such a "generous" corrupt system? The forthcoming Mexican oil privatisation falls comfortably within this "legally corrupt" economic framework . Yet ,  harsh social realities have a way of trumping politics most of the time . Mexican writer and journalist Ana Lilia Perez published in 2012 a book titled"The Black Cartel" in which she provides a description of massive organised crime infiltration within the top managerial echelons of the state-run oil company, PEMEX . The nature of the organised crime infiltration covers technical and political appointees at PEMEX . Moreover ,  with thorough documentation, Ms Perez provides a detailed account of how and where a large portion of the oil extracted and distributed by PEMEX is currently stolen through illegal operations . These have been linked to Mexican politicians and US and Mexican private companies selling illegal Mexican oil to the markets in Canada, Mexico and the US, with the complicity of the Mexican armed forces supposedly responsible for protecting the PEMEX infrastructure . The current illegal oil trafficking comes with high-level political corruption, intense armed conflict causing thousands of deaths per month and frequent acts of terrorism against the PEMEX infrastructure . One cannot expect this armed conflict scenario to just go away after privatisation . In this kind of context, any honest foreign investor bidding within a Mexican oil privatisation process should have his or her head checked or otherwise possess enough political clout within Mexico or the financial capacity to bribe with millions of dollars the government ladder and pay for a vast praetorian guard of security personnel to manage the armed chaos ahead . In comparison , dealing with other oil producing countries with problematic states, such as Nigeria, would seem like a walk in the park . Shareholders of oil companies can only expect low economic returns and chaos from investing in the Mexican oil sector , unless , prior to any private investment drive, an international judicial cooperation effort starts dismantling the vast organised crime networks within the Mexican oil business and beyond . This international judicial cooperation must entail the actual implementation of a serious anti-corruption programme within the Mexican state with much broader conflict of interest and traffic of influence statutes, all monitored by reputable international civil society organisations . Furthermore ,  the failure of the Mexican state needs to be corrected with the installation of autonomous investigative units for economic crimes within each Mexican region and the creation of witness protection programmes for cases of political corruption linked to organised crime . These reforms will be good for Mexican society in general and also good for the pockets of Mexican and foreign oil investors .
[EX A]: Clearly, organised crime is openly challenging and fragmenting the state Almost every week we hear about more mass graves discovered

[EX Q]: Where does your tax money go? To many people overseas, the United States government is viewed as an aggressive empire of military bases, drones, and special forces that transcend national borders . But to big corporations, the US government is a patsy that gives away trillions of dollars of natural resources, tax revenues and public assets to grasping giant companies and industries . The US has an unsurpassed record of transferring what belongs to all Americans to a few giant business interests . Unlike any other country, the federal government, under the 1872 Mining Act, gives away hard rock minerals (eg gold, silver, platinum, molybdenum) discovered on federal lands that belong to the American people, to the foreign or domestic companies that find these minerals . In 1986, for example, a gold company found over $9bn worth of gold under federal land in Nevada . The company bought rights to that gold for $5 per acre(less than $6,000 total) without having to pay any royalties on the mined gold back to the Department of Interior . For over 100 years, valuable minerals worth hundreds of billions of dollars have been given away to the mining industry for $5 or less per acre . Once these mines are exhausted, the law only requires companies to do little to clean up their toxic waters and waste . As for other natural resources on federal land such as timber, grazing fields, oil, gas and coal, the companies pay very low fees to the government to obtain these valuable natural resources . The public airwaves belong to the people . Yet ,  under a law passed in 1934 by the radio lobby (sustained later by the television industry), the broadcasting stations control their licensed portion of the broadcast spectrum 24/7 for free . As tenants they pay nothing to the Federal Communications Commission , which represents the landlords , who are the people . These free licenses allow radio and television stations to exclusively decide who gets airtime and who does not . Entertainment and advertisements now make up over 90 percent of the broadcasting time of these very profitable commercial stations, using our public airwaves . For many decades, the federal government has used taxpayer-funded research and development as hand-outs for private industries in the US . For instance ,  the research and development of the Pentagon has resulted in technologies that built the aero-space, computer and containerisation industries . It was the Pentagon that funded the basic and applied research that led to the creation of the Internet . The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has transferred, for free, many diverse technologies that were developed through taxpayer-funded research and development to the transportation, detection and medical service industries . The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has funded many of the major pharmaceuticals which, under contracts known as CRADA agreements, are given away to large drug companies . The anti-cancer drug, Taxol, was developed with $31m of taxpayer funds by the National Cancer Institute and, after clinical testing, given away to Bristol- Myers-Squibb under a monopoly marketing agreement . The biotechnology industry was formed out of free NIH research programmes . Without a century of freely transferred research and development investments by the US Department of Agriculture, pesticide, herbicide and other chemical industries would not be where they are today . At the state and local level, companies and their consulting firms put the location of new factories, warehouses or large retail stores up for bidding by the states and municipalities . It becomes a race to the bottom by states and municipalities competing against each other to create the most "business friendly environment" with incentives like tax breaks, cash donations and other subsidies to convince companies to locate to a community called corporate welfare or crony capitalism . These deals amount to governments paying companies to make money while depleting their public tax base that pays for schools, public works and other public services . Recently, Tesla, the electric car company, put the location of a proposed one billion dollar factory to produce lithium ion batteries up for bid . Texas, California, Arizona, and Nevada offered large giveaways in incentive subsidies . Nevada won, offering a package worth at least $1bn that included tax vacations, cash reimbursements of expenses and even a cash bonus for signing . Similarly ,  professional sports businesses have routinely demanded taxpayer- funded stadiums and ballparks as a condition of either staying in a city or relocating to another . Many billions of dollars have been spent to make these rich football and baseball giants even richer . This is money that could have been spent to create and improve neighbourhood recreational facilities for participatory sports and healthy exercise . Under those corporate subsidies, the taxpayers are paying far too much (sometimes between $100,000 to $200,000 per job) for their governments' race to the bottom during these bidding wars . There are many thousands of similar corporate subsidy programmes , which are not regularly reviewed by the federal government . Instead ,  Congress just lets them continue on indefinitely without regulatory standards, cost-benefit tests or sunset provisions , which is exactly what these corporate lobbyists are paying for with their ample campaign contributions to these indentured legislators . The most profitable companies in the world make demands for such subsidies . Some years ago the former CEO of Intel Corporation, Andy Grove, testified before the Senate urging continuation of the generous tax credits given to computer companies like Cisco, Microsoft, Google, and Apple . These are companies with staggering profit margins, year after year . Grove was candid when he told the Senators that his industry was not very eager to spend money to do basic research . What these companies do, he noted, is apply the research to their products and services . He called on the government to take this responsibility by extending tax credits (big checks) from the Treasury to pay companies to do such basic work . The unfairness of all these giveaways is inducing a Left-Right alliance that opposes such giveaways . The Left calls this corporate welfare , while the Right calls it crony capitalism . Thus far, the politicians from both the Democratic and the Republican parties have not wanted to make these giveaways debatable issues in their electoral campaigns or the subject of thorough congressional or state legislative hearings . The time is coming for a Left-Right public coalition to go operational and exert political demands for reform of this gigantic largesse , while many other necessities of the people are subjected to cruel, austere cutbacks .
[EX A]: To many people overseas, the United States government is viewed as an aggressive empire of military bases, drones, and special forces that transcend national borders But to big corporations, the US government is a patsy that gives away trillions of dollars of natural resources, tax revenues and public assets to grasping giant companies and industries

[EX Q]: What is not being reported in Azerbaijan. While global media appears to be focused on debating the limitations on free speech in France following the attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo , it is worth remembering that France is not the only country whose media professionals are targeted . For years, journalists in Azerbaijan have suffered harsh penalties for defending their freedom of speech- from prison sentences to interrogation and the confiscation of broadcasting equipment . On December 26, at around 10:30am, a group of police officers and investigators stormed the Baku bureau of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty , ransacking the company's safe, seizing company documents, the official seal and equipment , while keeping the staff hostage in a conference room for over five hours . Once the search was over, the office was sealed shut . The staff was let go only to be forcefully summoned a day later at the heavy crimes unit of the state prosecutor's office for questioning . In just a few days, over 30 former and current staff members of RFE/RL were questioned, including the bureau's cleaner . On December 30, the government accused the radio and its staff of espionage, money laundering and appropriation of funds as part of the ongoing criminal investigation against foreign-funded entities in Azerbaijan . Similar measures were taken against Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), the Media Rights Institute, and International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) . The offices of all three were raided in August and sealed shut with IREX leaving the country shortly after . The director of IRFS, Emin Huseynov, remains in hiding . Consistent targeting . This is not the first time the RFE/RL station, locally called Azadliq Radio (Liberty Radio) is targeted by the authorities . In 2009, its FM broadcast was shut down . BBC radio service and Voice of America followed suit . For years, the police harassed the radio's reporters, often confiscating or breaking their equipment or detaining them for endless hours of interrogation . On December 5, Azadliq Radio investigative journalist and the host of the radio's daily show, Khadija Ismayilova, was arrested and placed in pre-trial detention for two months . Accused of "incitement to suicide" or "an attempt to suicide" as per Article 125 of the Criminal Code, Ismayilova remains in jail  - even though her accuser, Tural Mustafayev, has withdrawn his complaint . Mustafayev had accused Ismayilova of inciting him to attempt suicide and "insulting his honour and dignity on social networks and among her friends following the break-up of their relations and his intention to marry another woman" . On December 30, the Baku Court of Appeal dismissed Ismayilova's appeal for house arrest . Prior to this charge, Ismayilova was already facing an unrelated criminal trial for defamation linked to her posting a document on Facebook revealing the identity of a man who was an informant for Azerbaijan's intelligence services . In October, when travelling for a conference in Prague, Ismayilova was prevented from leaving the country . A little over a week before this trip, Ismayilova was searched and detained for four hours at Baku International Airport . She was returning from Strasbourg where she talked about the deteriorating human rights conditions in Azerbaijan . Her investigative work uncovered many of the hidden and illegal business dealings of the ruling Aliyev family and other government officials for which she is recognised internationally . Ismayilova is the recipient of Global Shining Award, the Gerd Bucerius Free Press of Eastern Europe Award, the Courage of Journalism Award, and named one of the Brave Thinkers of the world by Atlantic magazine . Was it a coincidence that Ismayilova's detention came just a day after the country's chief of staff, Ramiz Mehdiyev, accused Ismayilova of treason and being a foreign spy? Or that the radio station was raided and then closed in another few weeks time? In his 60-page diatribe on "Western Colonialism", Mehdiyev wrote:"Their main concern is lip service to their bosses abroad and keeping good relations with them . The example is Azadliq Radio's journalist Kahdija Ismayilova . Together with her colleague 'friends' she puts on anti-Azerbaijani shows, makes absurd statements, openly demonstrates destructive attitude towards well-known members of the Azerbaijani community, and spreads insulting lies . It is clear this sort of defiance pleases Ms Ismayilova's patrons abroad." He concluded:"Overall there is an understanding within the society that Azadliq Radio and its employees are on a disgusting path . There is no need to prove that provision of false information is the same as working for the foreign secret service . This is treason . This is what journalists and people with a healthy mindset would think . If the symbol of democracy is Khadija Ismayilova , then it is awful to imagine what future awaits the society." Siyavush Novruzov, an MP from the ruling party, agrees . In an interview with a local news site, Novruzov said:"Every place that works for foreign intelligence and the Armenian lobby should be searched." The Armenian lobby is just another popular tool used by government circles to punish dissent in Azerbaijan . Despite its support for Track Two diplomacy initiatives, Aliyev's regime was quick to accuse Leyla Yunus and Rauf Mirkadirov of treason and spying for Armenia this year . Both Yunus and Mirkadirov have been engaged in public diplomacy initiatives pressing for reconciliation between Armenia and Azerbaijan for over a decade . The authorities were fully aware of their work for years . And yet ,  in what has been by far the most unprecedented year of crackdowns, Azerbaijan continues to maintain a steady relationship with Europe and the image of a transforming country, young and rich, and eager to spend so long as its critics keep quiet . With many of the country's prominent advocates, lawyers, and journalists in jail; independent media platforms under attack; and only a handful of international non-governmental organisations left in the country, there is little hope for the country's positive transformation anytime soon . So long as President Ilham Aliyev keeps saying there are no political prisoners and no limitations on freedom of speech in Azerbaijan- conjuring the illusion of a democratic country- little is going to change in this country .
[EX A]:
For years, journalists in Azerbaijan have suffered harsh penalties for defending their freedom of speech- from prison sentences to interrogation and the confiscation of broadcasting equipment