Fausta’s Blog

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The big story of the week: Cristina Fernandez seized the Central Bank

After a month of wrangling, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner succeeded in sacking central bank President Martin Redrado last week. In his place she named Mercedes Marcó del Pont, a Yale-trained economist who has expressed the view that central bank autonomy ought to be limited.

The opposition howled at the news. Felipe Sola, former governor of Provincia de Buenos Aires, warned that the new bank president “is going to do what the executive decides and they are going to modify the bank charter to justify her doing what the executive tells her.”

Of course that would seem to be the point. Mr. Redrado was fired because he refused to turn over $6.6 billion in bank reserves to Mrs. Kirchner, who wants to pay foreign creditors but doesn’t want to use treasury revenues.Ms. Marcó del Pont, if she wants to keep her job, will follow the orders of the president.

UPDATE
Welcome, Instapundit readers!
Please also listen to the podcast, Argentina’s Cristina seizes the Central Bank

LATIN AMERICA
Obama and the FTAs

ARGENTINA
Argentina’s reserves and its debts
Central Bank robbery: The president gets her way, again, but at a price, and visit the blogs and articles featured below,

El riesgo país es el matrimonio

BOLIVIA
PDF file: Into the abyss: Bolivia under Evo Morales and the MAS

BRAZIL
Brazil’s possible next president
Serra waits, a bit too patiently, for the presidency
The front-runner in Brazil’s coming presidential contest has done a decent job running its biggest state. But to keep his lead he must get campaigning

CHILE
El impacto de un gigante: “Mi negocio queda al lado del Costanera Center”

COLOMBIA
Uribe Vows Calm as Colombia Awaits Referendum Ruling

Colombia’s health reforms
Shock treatment: President Uribe tries to push through some much-needed changes

COSTA RICA
Costa Rica Debt May Outperform on Chinchilla Poll Win, RBS Says

CUBA
“Guardian angels”

Kenneth, What Is the Frequency: How CBS and Dan Rather Set Up Elian Gonzalez

Rage against the Marxist machine

Commentary: No ‘common policy,’ as Europe grapples over its future ties with Cuba

Cuba 1963: Inside castro’s prisons

Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Juan Ramón Rivera Despaine, Cuban Political Prisoners of the Week, 2/7/10

ECUADOR
Ecuador at Risk: Drugs, Thugs, Guerrillas and the Citizens Revolution

Cocaine trafficking keeps Ecuador anti-drug authorities busy
Seizures set a record last year for the country, which is growing in importance as a hub for shipments to the U.S. and Europe

Ecuador president says cops overreacted to insult

Humor: Por atentado a la majestad del poder
¡Correa se mete preso a sí mismo!
Asesores le aconsejan no volver a salir a la calle

Indigenous Groups Confront Rafael Correa
Ecuador’s Neo-Liberal Model

GUATEMALA
Conferencia sobre Evolución en Guatemala

HAITI
“Trop loin du Bon Dieu”

Haiti’s Crisis: Oil, Oligarchs, and The Groundhog Day Manifesto

The evil genius of the U.S. plan to destroy Haiti

HONDURAS
Honduran amnesty and truth

MEXICO
Protection through Integration: The Mexican Government’s Efforts to Aid
Migrants in the United States

PANAMA
Facts and rumors

PARAGUAY
¡Sinvergüenzo!

PERU
Chocolate and coca

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rican nationalist pleads guilty to charges related to 1983 Wells Fargo robbery in Conn.

In Hartford, A Machetero Pleads Guilty To Role In 1983 Wells Fargo Robbery

VENEZUELA
Via Instapundit, Venezuela: Chavez equates Twitter with terrorism

DEL “TAS PONCHAO” AL 26/9: ¿ESCALERA, BARRANCO O TOBOGÁN?

Murderer Ramiro Valdes comes for the 18 years of Chavez bloody military coup

CIA Factbook Draws Chavez’s Ire

Government Expands Business Nationalization Powers

From 2007,

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,
Argentina Seizes the Central Bank

After a month of wrangling, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner succeeded in sacking central bank President Martin Redrado last week. In his place she named Mercedes Marcó del Pont, a Yale-trained economist who has expressed the view that central bank autonomy ought to be limited.

The opposition howled at the news. Felipe Sola, former governor of Provincia de Buenos Aires, warned that the new bank president “is going to do what the executive decides and they are going to modify the bank charter to justify her doing what the executive tells her.”

Of course that would seem to be the point. Mr. Redrado was fired because he refused to turn over $6.6 billion in bank reserves to Mrs. Kirchner, who wants to pay foreign creditors but doesn’t want to use treasury revenues.Ms. Marcó del Pont, if she wants to keep her job, will follow the orders of the president.

Mrs. Kirchner is not the first politician to covet the wealth available from the monetary authority. Closer to home, there is Barack Obama, who didn’t back Ben Bernanke’s controversial second term as head of the Federal Reserve out of magnanimity. Mr. Bernanke kept his job because he has shown a willingness to finance Mr. Obama’s big-government agenda.

Yet Americans can still hold out hope that competing institutions will check the runaway power of a government that is being underwritten by the central bank. In Argentina, institutions are frail and it is far from certain that they can hold up under Mrs. Kirchner’s iron fist.

There’s a lot at stake. More inflation—beyond the 17% rate in 2009—is one danger. A Hugo Chávez-style power grab is another. Mr. Chávez is Mrs. Kirchner’s closest ally in the region, and she has been open about her desire to copy his model; her husband, former president Nestór Kirchner is widely viewed as the author of her playbook.

The lunge for the bank reserves is all about improving the Kirchners’ odds of staying in power. Until last night when Mr. Kirchner underwent emergency circulatory surgery, analysts expected him, rather than her, to run in the 2011 presidential election. What remains clear is that if the kirchneristas want to retain power they will need to boost government spending.

Related reading:
Argentine Committee Backs Firing of Central Banker
Argentina Bank Won’t Be Independent, Goldman Says
Argentina Markets Slump On Central Bank Worries
And from the English-language Buenos Aires Herald, After gov’t made appointment official
‘Marcó del Pont must stop Moreno, otherwise she has too much to lose’

In other news, Argentine Ex-President Kirchner May Leave Hospital by Midweek

The Carnival of Latin America will be up this afternoon.

I had the pleasure of being a guest in Minnesota NPR’s In The Loop. We talked about Argentina’s Central Bank crisis: Their mess, or ours too?

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was reconfirmed this week, but it was kind of a squeaker as these things usually go. Lots of folks are wondering if the political pressure he now has on him will compromise the independence he needs to manage the country’s money supply and prevent future financial disasters.

In light of that, what’s going on in Argentina is all the more interesting. President Christina Fernandez has fired — or tried to — the Governor of the Central Bank (their equivalent of the Federal Reserve). It’s a big ol’ mess. We called up Latin America blogger/podcaster Fausta for more details.

Here’s the audio,

You can also subscribe to In The Loop’s network.

In other NPR news, The Anchoress was talking to another NPR station about Madonna and Lady Gaga.

Pigging out for better sex,

Not satisfied with plundering public coffers and getting into a constitutional crisis, Cristina Fernandez took the weekend off with her husband former president Néstor Kirchner and after a meal of pork, revealed her results to the press:
Pork better for sex than Viagra?

Argentina’s president recommended pork as an alternative to Viagra Wednesday, saying she spent a satisfying weekend with her husband after eating barbecued pork.

The botoxed, face-lifted Cristina explained,

“I’ve just been told something I didn’t know; that eating pork improves your sex life … I’d say it’s a lot nicer to eat a bit of grilled pork than take Viagra,” President Cristina Fernandez said to leaders of the pig farming industry.

She said she recently ate pork and “things went very well that weekend, so it could well be true.”

Of course she didn’t go into the details why the push for pork,

Argentines are the world’s biggest per capita consumers of beef, but the government has sought to promote pork as an alternative in recent years due to rising steak prices and as a way to diversify the meat industry.

And why are beef prices rising? As I explained last February,

In 2006, Argentinean farmers turned away from beef, both in response to the rise in soybean and other commodity prices, but also because of export caps imposed as an anti-inflationary measure by then-president Nestor Kirchner – the current president’s husband. However, not all farmers switched crops. Some farmers sold their holdings in Argentina and moved to Uruguay in search of lower taxes.

Just don’t ask the Argentinian cattle ranchers what Cristina and Néstor can go do with themselves.

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. Haiti continues to be the top story, but in Venezuela Hugo Chavez is now closing RCTV permanently, continuing to consolidate his power. Seven students from Universidad Santa María (USM), a private university in the state of Anzoátegui (northeastern Venezuela), were injured after the police broke up a demonstration outside the campus.

AMERICAN POLITICS
Univision’s Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Xavier Becerra regarding President’s Obama’s 1st year (link in Spanish)

ARGENTINA
New Twist in Argentine Currency Fight

Argentina: Cristina Against Everybody Else?

BOLIVIA
Fidel: Protect Morales from ‘the empire’

BRAZIL
Brazil’s presidential biopic
Lula, sanitized: A film for the campaign trail

CHILE
Chile’s presidential election
Piñera promises a gallop: After 20 years, a move to the right

And the winner is, Chile!

Las exitosas Bicicletas Públicas de Providencia

Open letter to Sebastian Pinera

Chile unlikely to lead anti-Chávez bloc

COLOMBIA
Ecopetrol proven oil reserves up 35%; share price falls

CUBA
More on the free healthcare: Twenty-Six Cuban Mental Patients Dead

Cuba: What Globalists Want You to Know

LEAVE CHE ALONE!!!…I MEAN it!!! (part 2)

José Daniel Ferrer García, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 1/24/10

Repairs

ECUADOR
Lawyers for the Government of Ecuador Engage in Revisionist History – Myth of Jurisdiction Exposed

Ecuador Should Stop Interfering With International Arbitration Mandated by Treaty

Humor: Nueva Ley de Comunicación
¡Prohíben photoshopear lluchas! Un grupo de asambleístas considera nocivo el retoque de fotos femenino de contenido erótico.

HAITI
The upside of Yankee imperialism in Haiti

Debate grows in aftermath of quake: Should U.S. let more Haitians immigrate?

Post-earthquake chaos in Haiti
A massive relief effort limps into gear: The world’s attempt to aid Haitians stumbles against extraordinary difficulties of transport and communications

U.S. Military in Haiti: A Compassionate Invasion

And the meme goes on

HONDURAS
Pepe’s deal with Zelaya

Hammering Honduras

Honduras’s new president
Lobo alone: Picking up the post-coup pieces

MEXICO
Mexico: Halting drug war corruption

PANAMA
Supreme Court to Noriega: Bon voyage

VENEZUELA
RCTV international cut-off

¡ESTE PUEBLO YA NO SE DEJA “CARIBEAR”!

Tonight’s baseball game of the final series a hotbed for protests

A January 23 harsh on democracy: RCTV out again and Globovision is the last network in Venezuela to present the opposition views, the rest are pro Chavez or “neutral”, that is, silent.

Venezuela President Chavez orders TV station off the air

Chávez closes down opposition media outlets

Venezuela Orders Cable Providers to Remove RCTV

Hugo Chavez: Circling the Drain?
The Venezuelan would-be dictator has put his country in an accelerating economic collapse.

How Hugo Chavez’s revolution crumbled

During the past two weeks, just before and after the earthquake outside Port-au-Prince, the following happened: Chávez was forced to devalue the Venezuelan currency, and impose and then revoke massive power cuts in the Venezuelan capital as the country reeled from recession, double-digit inflation and the possible collapse of the national power grid. In Honduras, a seven-month crisis triggered by the attempt of a Chávez client to rupture the constitutional order quietly ended with a deal that will send him into exile even as a democratically elected moderate is sworn in as president.

Last but not least, a presidential election in Chile, the region’s most successful economy, produced the first victory by a right-wing candidate since dictator Augusto Pinochet was forced from office two decades ago. Sebastián Piñera, the industrialist and champion of free markets who won, has already done something that no leader from Chile or most other Latin American nations has been willing to do in recent years: stand up to Chávez.

Piñera was only stating the obvious — but it was more than his Socialist predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, or Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been willing to say openly. That silence hamstrung the Bush and the Obama administrations, which felt, rightly or wrongly, that they should not be alone in pointing out Chávez’s assault on democracy. Piñera has now provided Washington an opportunity to raise its voice about Venezuelan human rights violations.

He has done it at a moment when Chávez is already reeling from diplomatic blows. Honduras is one. Though the country is tiny, the power struggle between its established political elite and Chávez acolyte Manuel Zelaya turned into a regional battle between supporters and opponents of the Chávez left — with Brazil and other leftist democracies straddling the middle.

The outcome is a victory for the United States, which was virtually the only country that backed the democratic election that broke the impasse. Honduras is the end of Chávez’s crusade to export his revolution to other countries. Bolivia and Nicaragua will remain his only sure allies. Brazil’s Lula, whose tolerance of Chávez has tarnished his bid to become a global statesman, will leave office at the end of this year; polls show his party’s nominee trailing a more conservative candidate.

Haiti only deepens Chávez’s hole. As the world watches, the United States is directing a massive humanitarian operation, and Haitians are literally cheering the arrival of U.S. Marines. Chávez has no way to reconcile those images with his central propaganda message to Latin Americans, which is that the United States is an “empire” and an evil force in the region.

The week’s posts and podcasts:
Bill for Haiti czar? 15 Minutes on Latin America
Hope among the ruins: the @USNSComfort VIDEO
Just what Haiti needs: John Edwards
Zeyala to go, Nancy rejects the Bill, and other roundup items with VIDEO
Anti-Americanism and the Haiti earthquake: 15 Minutes on Latin America

Post re-edited for omitted items.

Please note there will be no podcast tomorrow due to an appointment change.

My latest post at Real Clear World, Argentina: Cristina Against Everybody Else?

Just the other day Noticias 24 had an article on how Cristina Kirchner is the most unpopular head of state in our hemisphere. However, Hugo Chavez was not rated in that survey.

Click on the chart for more detail (link in Spanish):

Prior Real Clear World posts here

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. I had planned to do a regular Carnival as usual, but today received this email from The Anchoress,

These most recent updates by this missionary are sounding very grim, indeed. You read them and realize you are reading a modern psalm – that these people are in the midst of an Old Testament crisis. The missionary’s camp, thirty miles from Port au Prince, has seen no help; thieves are being killed outright, as there is no law, no jails.

Also, the Team Rubicon stuff is fascinating. A small group of Marines, medical personnel and Jesuits managing to avoid the bureaucratic red tape and get to work. Yes, I am link whoring, not because I’m greedy but because Ed’s story needs telling and the Team Rubicon needs funding. If you could link, I would appreciate it very much.

You must go read her post, The Living Psalm of Haiti

As so many turn their focus to the special (and possibly controversial) election in Massachusetts, I continue to receive updates from a Haiti-stationed missionary named Ed (via DeLynn), some of which I have shared with you here and here and here, and which cannot be ignored. Ed is outside of Port au Prince, and I have been particularly interested in his reports because, while Port au Prince is getting massive attention, there are people even 50 miles away from that epicenter whose lives are also in a complete shambles. While we hear that supplies and help are on the ground in PAP, Ed writes of seeing helicopters pass by but no relief, “noting on the ground yet,” day after day.

You must go read the rest.

OTHER NEWS AND BLOGS ON THE HEMISPHERE:
ARGENTINA
Cristina Kirchner, el Jefe de Estado más impopular de América

CHILE
Chile mira adelante tras la elección presidencial de Piñera

What the left really fears about Chile’s new president

Won by a 52-48 percent margin: Piñera echoes calls by JFK, Obama

The Dominoes Begin to Fall: Chile’s Leftists Lose Presidency After 52 Years in Power

CUBA
Chemical and Biological Weapons in Cuba

ECUADOR
Ecuador’s president
Smile turns to frown: Blackouts of power and news

Ecuador: La prepotencia del poder – por Carlos de la Torre

Ecuador: ¿Tres o trescientos años? – por Antonio Rodríguez Vicéns

HAITI
Memo to President Obama: Haitians are asking for Marines, not the State Department

Haiti after the quake

Medics liken Haiti to a war-ravaged zone

Haiti’s earthquake
Catastrophe in the Caribbean:
One of the world’s most vulnerable countries is devastated by a murderous earthquake

Security fears mount in lawless post-earthquake Haiti

U.S. task force commander for Haitian relief says logistics remain stumbling block

Stop trivializing tragedies

Strong quake hits Haiti, collapsing hospital

HONDURAS
Micheletti awarded the Brass Balls Award La imagen: Micheletti homenajeado como el ‘héroe de los huevos de oro’

JAMAICA
Hillary Clinton says Jamaica has pivotal role in Haiti’s recovery

PANAMA
Rodelag Fire

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico: What you must see on a quick trip to the island

VENEZUELA
Venezuela’s devaluation
The weakening of the “strong bolívar”: In a harsher world Venezuela faces a reckoning

Milicianos cuestionan a Hugo Chávez

This week’s posts and podcasts
Chavez accuses US of using the earthquake as pretext for military occupation
The Haitian Exodus
Chile’s new president: 15 Minutes on Latin America
Chile: Runoff election today
Haitians granted Temporary Protection Status
Earthquake in Haiti? Blame global warming, and the USA
Earthquake in Haiti, UPDATED with VIDEO
The constitutional showdown in Argentina: 15 Minutes on Latin America

At Real Clear World,
Disastrous earthquake in Haiti

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,

Redrado Remains at Argentine Central Bank Amid Clash after president Cristina Fernandez provokes a constitutional crisis.

Constitutional Showdown in Argentina
President Cristina Kirchner tries to seize control of the central bank.
Crisis Threatens to Curb Central Banks
Argentina’s bad timing
Argentine President and Central Bank in Standoff

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. The two top stories of the week are the Venezuelan currency devaluation, and Argentina’s Central Bank dispute.

LATIN AMERICA
Threat of Terrorism in Latin America

Today’s roundup at The Americano

ARGENTINA
Argentine Leader Fights Bank Move

Argentina’s bank grab
The reserves, or your job: The president’s ultimatum to her Central Bank chief

BRAZIL
Brazil reflects on Lula’s last year

Lula and the generals
Don’t look back: The army blocks a truth commission

CUBA
The Vigil brothers, Cuban Political Prisoners of the Week, 1/10/10

En memoria de Gloria Amaya

Reggaeton

U.S. says contractor arrested in Cuba is no spy

500 Cuban Doctors Manage to Defect Via Venezuela

ECUADOR
Flota aerea Taura trasladada desde ayer a la base de Manta

Ecuador Orgs Reiterates Solidarity with Cuba

HONDURAS
Guest blog: Diaspora, remittances and immigration

MEXICO
A peaceful getaway or a lawless frontier?

Mexican Cartel Skins Rival’s Face, Stitches It on Soccer Ball

Tijuana reels amid a surge of violence
After some gains in Mexico’s drug war in 2009, Tijuana has had a bloody turn of events in the new year. More than a dozen people, four of them students, were reported slain in the last week.

Organised crime in Mexico
Outsmarted by Sinaloa: Why the biggest drug gang has been least hit

A Mexican cult
Death in holy orders: Syncretism in the era of the drug baron. There is a novel on this, named La Virgen de los sicarios, and a movie of the same name.

NICARAGUA
Foto (del abuso) familiar

PANAMA
How to be a wheeler-dealer

PARAGUAY
Señor Topocho

PERU
Peru’s Interbank Names Interim General Manager

PUERTO RICO
Good news: Puerto Rico to Become Cruise Ship Hub of Caribbean

VENEZUELA
Chavez’s 3-Tiered Currency System May Spur Inflation

Venezuelan devaluation and Giordani for dummies!

Chavez Says Dollars Were Sold Very Cheap at Old Rate

By subscription: Chavez To Activate $1 Billion Fund

Chavez’s Devaluation Leaves Venezuelans Jittery About His “Socialism of the 21st Century”

Special thanks to the Baron, Eneas, Maggie and Vlad

The week’s posts and podcasts:
Chavez devalues the currency: 15 Minutes on Latin America
Oliver Stone: “We can’t judge people as only ‘bad’ or ‘good.’”
Chavez devalues currency, creates a distraction
Court reinstates head of Argentina’s Central Bank
Argentina’s central bank impasse: 15 Minutes on Latin America
Al-Qaeda and the FARC – together? 15 Minutes on Latin America
Argentina’s Central Bank director resigns: 15 Minutes on Latin America

The news broke earlier yesterday as I was starting my podcast, and you may recall that I mentioned that a federal judge had suspended the decree that would allow the government to use foreign reserves to pay debt. The same judge reinstated Redrado.

Here’s an update,

Court Reinstates Fired Central-Bank Chief
Argentina’s Constitutional Crisis Escalates as Judge Blocks President Kirchner From Using Reserves to Pay National Debt

On Friday morning, federal judge Maria Jose Sarmiento granted an injunction request by two opposition parties barring the central bank from transferring money into the so-called Bicentennial Fund, which Mrs. Kirchner had hoped to create with $6.57 billion from the reserves.

A few hours later, Judge Sarmiento ordered the reinstatement of the bank president, Martín Redrado, whom Mrs. Kirchner dismissed on Thursday for refusing to make the transfer.

Since Fernandez does not control the legislature, she’s facing strong opposition:

Mrs. Kirchner faced a further threat on the legislative front, as Argentina’s vice president, Julio Cobos, moved Friday to call Congress out of recess for an emergency session on the reserves dispute. Mr. Cobos has fallen out with Mrs. Kirchner and her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, and is their chief rival before next year’s presidential elections.

Mr. Cobos has questioned the legitimacy of the special decrees of “necessity and urgency,” which Mrs. Kirchner used both to enact the Bicentennial Fund and to fire Mr. Redrado. Some constitutional scholars said such decrees were intended for use only in emergencies, such as natural disasters. Congressional leaders maintain that the legislature must be consulted to replace the central-bank president and has final control over the reserves. Mrs. Kirchner’s faction of the Peronist party lost the majority in Congress in June midterm elections.

The government’s dealings with the central bank represent “a new abuse of the republic’s institutions,” said Ricardo Alfonsín, a leader of the opposition Radical Party.

Mrs. Kirchner accused Mr. Cobos of conspiring against her with Mr. Redrado, and lashed out at the Radicals, saying they presided over economic debacles when in power.

“If they didn’t know how to govern at least let us do it,” she said.

Underlying the dispute is the Kirchner administration’s need for funds to sustain the Peronist patronage machine. Last year, public spending grew at three times the rate of revenue.

From the government’s standpoint, paying debt with reserves frees up resources for politically popular spending programs. It also helps to persuade skeptical financial markets of Argentina’s willingness to pay its debts.

She can’t persuade them.