Fausta's Blog

ARGENTINA
Looting Tests Leader in Argentina
President Kirchner’s Social Policies Are Criticized After Raids Spread to Several Cities; Government Blames Union Leaders; thing is, once you run out of other people’s money, you don’t have money to pay the unions.

Argentina looting spreads to Buenos Aires province
Two people have been killed in Argentina’s third city, Rosario, as a wave of looting spreads.

BOLIVIA
A tale of two churches

Senadora que demanda Justicia es amedrentada por el Fiscal y exige garantías

BRAZIL
Kerry Has Investments in Companies Accused of Violating Iran Sanctions

CHILE
Copahue volcano eruption puts Argentina and Chile on alert

COSTA RICA
Costa Rica: Security Chief Suggests Firearms Ban

CUBA
Teacher’s Day

ECUADOR
Ecuador top banker’s fake degree
The governor of the Ecuadorean Central Bank, Pedro Delgado, resigns after admitting that he lied about finishing a degree in economics.

GUATEMALA
Mayan temple damaged in tourist ‘apocalypse’ frenzy

LATIN AMERICA
John Kerry’s Record in Latin America
It isn’t that he opposes U.S. intervention. It’s that somehow he often ends up backing the bad guys: Sandinistas, Cubans, FARC, Zelaya.

MEXICO
Jon Hammar back on U.S. soil

Mexico Takes On Teachers Over School Control

PUERTO RICO
US and Puerto Rico Sign Police Reform Agreement

VENEZUELA
Chavez death watch intensifies

Chávez Is Conscious and Recovering, His Vice President Says

Dr. Marquina says no,

Doctor Marquina: Presidente Chávez no muestra ninguna mejoría del cuadro clínico – tinyurl.com/d6vmmy4

— Noticias Venezuela (@NoticiasVenezue) December 22, 2012

Chávez Faces Infection
President Hugo Chávez is in stable condition after facing a respiratory infection following cancer surgery in Cuba, Venezuela’s information minister said.

Pobre hijita de Papi…

Is There Any Silver Lining For The Venezuelan Opposition From Sunday’s Elections?

Say what?

BONUS: MISS UNIVERSE
Photos: Miss Universe 2012’s Most Bizarre National Costumes
On Dec. 19, women from around the world competed at the 61st annual Miss Universe pageant. Here’s a look at the contestants’ wacky—and occasionally tacky—national ensembles

The week’s posts:
John Kerry for Secretary of State

Mayans, schmayans

Venezuela: Chavistas take all the states except 3

ARGENTINA
Argentina Runs Out of Other People’s Money
The demonstration in Buenos Aires this month was the largest since Argentines restored democracy in 1983.

In the second quarter, the economy contracted by 1.4%. The Buenos Aires-based think tank Foundation for Latin American Economic Research (known by its Spanish initials FIEL) is forecasting 2012 GDP growth of only 1.5%. Inflation is estimated by independent economists at almost 25% annually. As salaries are adjusted upward to compensate for the loss of purchasing power, workers are being pushed into higher tax brackets. Argentines traveling abroad now have to explain their plans to government bureaucrats if they want to buy hard currency.

Add these pocketbook issues to the rising rate of violent crime, recurring corruption scandals, increasing antidemocratic efforts to silence independent media outlets and pronouncements from Mrs. Kirchner’s inner circle that it wants to amend the constitution to allow her to run for a third term. The Kirchner government has also angered labor leaders by letting it be known that it plans to shift union control of hundreds of millions of dollars in health-care premiums to the government.

Turkey in November in Argentina

BELIZE
Software founder McAfee denies killing neighbor

BOLIVIA & CHILE
Trickle-down diplomacy
Evo Morales tries to swap a stream for a piece of Chilean seafront

BRAZIL
In sign of growing clout, Brazil’s corn helps hold up U.S. market

As the result of a 2009 WTO ruling, Brazil now receives about $17 million in monthly payments from U.S. taxpayers — money being used to advance the Brazilian cotton industry with research on best practices, pest management and other issues. The Obama administration agreed to the payments as an alternative to either curbing government support for U.S. cotton growers or having Brazil slap import taxes on American goods to compensate for the loss to its farmers.

Oil in Brazil
The perils of Petrobras
How Graça Foster plans to get Brazil’s oil giant back on track

COLOMBIA
Colombia Peace Talk Negotiators Meet Again

COSTA RICA
Students protest Costa Rica’s information crimes law

CUBA
IKEA: No deep business contacts with Cuban suppliers
Test sofa sets were of such poor quality that no orders were placed, IKEA says.

Cuban health care
Nip and tuck in
Medicine is big business in Cuba

Can I Wake Up?

Reporters Without Borders condemns Castro regime’s increasing harassment of Cuban independent journalists

ECUADOR
Los fabricantes de burbujas

EL SALVADOR
Holding Salvadoran War Criminals Accountable: The Massacre at University of Central America, San Salvador, 1989

MEXICO
Mexico ex-mayor killed after surviving two attacks
The former mayor of a town in western Mexico, who had survived two earlier assassination attempts, has been beaten to death

Mexican Economy Slows on Weak Exports

PANAMA
Panama Canal’s $5 billion makeover could be boon for South Florida
The $5.25 billion makeover of this century-old engineering marvel could be a boon for South Florida.

Make this a Koki Day!

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico Statehood: Luis Fortuño Pushes Bid To Become 51st State After Status Vote

VENEZUELA
The GREAT devaluation robbery coming to Venezuela

Of Virtual Ice Cream Plants And Ministers In The Chávez Revolution

Fake Venezuelan Olympians held
Ten Venezuelans who falsely claimed to be Olympic weightlifters are arrested in Buenos Aires after scans show drug capsules in their stomachs.

The week’s posts:
More #post-election info: 28% Latino poverty rate

Argentina: Broadcast licenses, cable TV and fiber-optic Internet networks to be auctioned off

China & Brazil: Striking out while the iron’s hot

Belize: McAfee goes bonkers, UPDATED

ARGENTINA
Argentina’s president rocked by biggest protest for a decade

Argentines flood the streets to protest against President Cristina Fernandez
Brandishing banners and banging on pots and pans, thousands of Argentines take to streets of Buenos Aires to protest against President Cristina Fernandez.

Argentina Puts Pressure on Media Firm

Argentina: Chevron’s Assets Are Frozen

Tango Therapy: A Fun, New Way to Treat Parkinson’s Disease

BOLIVIA
This is what can happen when you are the most interesting man in the world

BRAZIL
Brazil in Africa
A new Atlantic alliance
Brazilian companies are heading for Africa, laden with capital and expertise

Brazil: 13 new deaths in Sao Paulo’s gang battle
More than 90 police officers have been killed this year in the city
At least 13 people have died in fresh violence between police and a gang in Brazil’s largest city, Sao Paulo

CAYMAN ISLANDS
Cayman allows boat with Cuban migrants to continue to Honduras

COLOMBIA
Colombia President Interrupts Speech for Phone Call from Obama

CUBA
Cuban dissidents detained; Yoani Sánchez released
A group of political dissidents were detained near a Havana police station. Among them: blogger Yoani Sánchez, who was later released.

Whose Brain Is It?

Yaremis Flores, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 11/11/12

GUATEMALA
Guatemala Suffers a Major Quake

JAMAICA
Jamaica approves laws to allow for casino gambling

MEXICO
The Real Victims of Mexico’s Drug War
Not all who die at the hands of the cartels are criminals—and not all who work for them do so willingly.

Mexico moves away from secret military tribunals

Mexico to reconsider joint policies with U.S. amid new state marijuana laws

Organised crime in Mexico
The stakes of marijuana legalisation
Could Mexico’s bandits find themselves undercut by “El Cártel de Seattle”?

PANAMA
Potrerillos Neighborhood Watch Criminal Actively Report: November 7, 2012

PERU
Obama gets endorsement from self-described Peruvian medicine men

Mayor and mafias
A referendum too far

Peruvian Ambassador Resigns After Meeting with Rebel Supporters

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico’s vote for US statehood signals dissatisfaction with status quo
The pro-statehood plebiscite is unlikely to bear fruit, but it does express Puerto Ricans’ anger at being second-class Americans

VENEZUELA
Lying As A Way Of Life In The Chavez Revolution

Miss Venezuela Playboy Bunny Held in Drug Lord Case

ARGENTINA
Argentina supermarket roof collapse kills at least two

Ruling Hits Argentina Bonds

BAHAMAS
Hurricane Sandy Makes Landfall in The Bahamas

BOLIVIA
Bolivia vs. Venezuela’s Debt: What Are Investors Smoking (or Chewing)?

BRAZIL
Brazil’s north-east
The Pernambuco model
Eduardo Campos is both modern manager and old-fashioned political boss. His success in developing his state may make him his country’s next president

Brazil Hit By New Blackout

Boycott on Google News leads to 5% loss in web traffic: Brazilian newspapers

COLOMBIA
Cuba-supported Terror Group, FARC, Speaks with a Forked Tongue

Colombia to Develop Its Own Drone Program to Combat Drug-Trafficking

Financing the Colombian War

CUBA
THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS @50: A RECONSIDERATION

How Castro Held the World Hostage

Seven Proposals After Hurricane Sandy

Peter Hitchens: The Guardian interviews me. And some Thoughts in Passing on Cuba and DNA, via Carlos Eire.

Fidel Castro reflections fade to a shadow

ECUADOR
Reporter threatened in Ecuador after airing report on drugs and guns in schools

MEXICO
Pocket Litter: The Evidence That Criminals Carry

Mexico’s Drug Lords Ramp Up Their Arsenals with RPGs

Mexican Drug Gangs on “Verge of Collapse”?

The global Mexican
Mexico is open for business

Case of blonde girl beggar rescued from streets strikes nerve in Mexico; activists see racism, via Gates of Vienna.

PANAMA
Colon Free Zone: Panama debates land sale law repeal

Security Message for U.S. Citizens: Ongoing protests in Panama with possible violence

Day Two of dealing with hospitals in Panama.

PERU
Tense calm follows Peru market clashes

PUERTO RICO
These Bond Portfolios Invest 25% Or More In Puerto Rico

Humor: No Habrá Más Preguntas En Debates; Candidatos Solo Hablarán M**rda Por Dos Horas

VENEZUELA
Venezuela’s Future Up in the Air

The Venezuelan brand of democracy

The week’s posts:
Is the Obama administration planning to release two more convicted terrorists?

The WaPo finds 900,000 Puerto Ricans in Florida

Argentina: High-end retailers leave the country

No doubt Fidel Castro will die, and keeping track of the rumors has become a pastime not only for all Cubans but also for all Latin America watchers – including the ones, like myself, who bring up the Zombie Fidel. And Cubans are restless.

Mary O’Grady writes, The Castros in Winter
Cuba will soon make it easier for some to legally travel abroad. This is not a sign of liberalization.

This at first sounds like progress. But it doesn’t come close to setting Cubans free to roam the world. Citizens will still be required to secure a passport validation stamp, and for many Cubans the costs will add up to more than the fee for the white card. The stamp can also be withheld at the discretion of the regime.

As spelled out in the law, scientists, doctors and anyone deemed to be of high value to the state will have a hard time getting permission to travel—and even if they get it, they will have to wait five years between filing an application and actually boarding a plane. An editorial in the Cuban state newspaper last week said that the regime intends to protect itself from “the theft of talent applied by the powerful,” i.e., the U.S. The law also stipulates a catchall rejection category marked “defense and national security interests.” Translation: Nobody gets out without the dictator’s blessing.

Video:

Meanwhile, you can’t make this up: Hotel official: Fidel Castro appears in public

HAVANA — Fidel Castro has appeared in public for the first time in months, a top hotel executive told The Associated Press on Sunday, challenging persistent rumors that the aging revolutionary is near death.

The 86-year-old leader dropped off a Venezuelan guest at the Hotel Nacional on Saturday afternoon, then stayed for about half an hour to chat with hotel staff, commercial director Yamila Fuster said.

The “guest” is supposedly former Venezuelan vice-president Elías Jaua, who showed (but didn’t release) to the media a snapshot (h/t Miguel) of the blessed event:

Así fue la reunión de Elías Jaua con Fidel Castro by Globovision

Here’s the photo (Jaua’s finger holding it),

ARGENTINA
Argentine politics
Young guns

Colombia, Argentina Trade Barbs on Economic Might
Colombia is bragging that its economy has surpassed Argentina to become is the third-largest in Latin America, marking a turnaround for a country that until a few years ago had its reputation mauled by violence.

Free Postage! Mail your Ballot!

BOLIVIA
Justicia para Juan Kudelka . Learn more about him in Silvio Canto’s podcast.

BRAZIL
Brazilian newspapers pull out of Google News
Brazilian newspapers decide to pull out of Google News, saying the search engine refuses to pay for content and takes traffic away from their websites.

Con L de Lumbre en los aparejos

este sábado, la influyente revista Veja publicó que uno de los condenados, el publicista Marcos Valerio Fernandes (cuyo grupo publicitario pagaba a los diputados y a la tesorería del partido de Lula con prestamos fraudulentos de bancos estatales), ha dicho que “Lula era el jefe” de toda la trama que juzga el STF. “Todo lo que hacía era del conocimiento de Lula”, lanzó. Aunque el abogado de Valerio negó la declaración (una aparente amenaza cifrada), ésta podría ser la primera acusación directa en contra del ex presidente.

CHILE
Chile will request the United States extradite an ex-military commander over the killings of two U.S. reporters

COLOMBIA
Security in Colombia
This time is different
A promising new round of peace talks with the FARC begins

Colombia Peace Talks Have Bumpy Kickoff
Colombia’s main guerrilla army used the opening salvo of peace talks to attack some of the country’s most prominent oil and mining firms, suggesting the Marxist group will try to use the meetings to assail Colombia’s market-friendly economic policies.

CUBA
All will be revealed…

The very, very slow thaw of the half-century U.S.-Cuba standoff

Travel from Cuba
Let my people go

Travel and Immigration Reform: Happy or Satisfied

Cuban Regime Will Open it Doors, To Its Own People

In the short-term, the Party is trying playing the immigration card a few weeks before the U.S. presidential election. Why? In part, because it can. They think they can influence votes in South Florida’s large Cuban-American community by using the immigration/family reunification talisman to divide voters in Miami. I can think of at least one Congressional race where this could become an minor issue, but it is mostly quixotic.

Feds: Remittance firm at center of Medicare-Cuba laundering scam
Federal prosecutors named Caribbean Transfers as the financial backer that sent millions of dollars to Cuba as part of a Medicare-fraud scheme.

An offshore remittance company called Caribbean Transfers financed a complex money-laundering ring that moved more than $30 million in stolen Medicare money from South Florida into Cuba’s banking system, federal authorities said Thursday.

The revelation surfaced in the widening case of a now-convicted check-cashing store owner who was first believed to be at the center of the federal case. It marked the first time that investigators traced tainted Medicare proceeds to Cuba’s state-controlled bank.

Rafael Matos Montes de Oca, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 10/21/12

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Two more Germans held over Dominican Republic ‘sect’ shootout
The Dominican Republic authorities have arrested two more German suspected doomsday cult members over a deadly shootout earlier this week.

HONDURAS
Heist in Honduras leaves 4 dead

MEXICO

Mexico’s drug lords
Kingpin bowling
The most wanted men in Mexico are tumbling. Will crime follow suit?

Mexico goes to the opera, and likes what it hears

Breaking Mexico out of middle income trap
Telecom systems reform a good first step

PANAMA
Protests in Panama duty-free zone
Demonstrators in Panama clash with police after a new law is approved allowing the sale of state-owned land in the free trade zone of Colon.

1 Dead, 9 wounded in Panama protests

Security Message for U.S. Citizens

PERU
Fujimori wants a pardon: Pardon me
A request for clemency puts the president in a bind

PUERTO RICO
La Comay makes the news: Puerto Rico enthralled by cheeky newscaster puppet

Madre Naturaleza Decide Que Hombre Que Saltó De La Estratósfera Es El Único Macho En El Mundo

URUGUAY
Abortion in Uruguay
Still leading the way

VENEZUELA
What Chávez inherits from Chávez

If only we could be as efficient as the soviets…

Now what? The society we have

How The Venezuelan Presidential Vote Was Won

Capriles: Tuvimos que luchar contra el gasto público más alto de la historia de Venezuela

The week’s posts,
Cuba: FIDEL CASTRO DEAD?

Bring out Zombie Fidel, again!

Cuba: If it’s October, the rumors must be flying

Cuba: Fidel and the Nazis

[Opening paragraph re-redacted for clarity.]

BOLIVIA
Bolivia to consider nationalizing embattled silver project

BRAZIL
Credit in Brazil
Maxing out
A spike in defaults signals a need for caution, not yet panic

CUBA
Cholera death toll at 158; Cuba scrambles to fight rare cholera outbreak, and the understatement of the week, An outbreak of cholera tests a much-praised health system

Cuba Seeks Closer Ties With Beijing

Remembering the “13 de marzo” Tugboat Massacre, July 13, 1994

ECUADOR
Ecuador to make ‘sovereign’ decision on Assange: president

Assange and Ecuador: A toxic mix
Analysis: Why WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Ecuador are so bad for each other

HONDURAS
Honduran seizures raise fear of wider conflicts

LATIN AMERICA
South American integration
Mercosur RIP?
Mounting protectionism and the rule-breaking admission of Venezuela have fatally undermined a once-promising trade block

MEXICO
After Mexico’s election
Counted out
López Obrador, sore loser

NICARAGUA
No New Property Waiver for Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega

PARAGUAY
Paraguay’s presidential coup: the inside story

The Significance of Paraguay
It is still a functioning democracy, which is more than we can say about Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Paraguay counts cost of Lugo’s sacking

Franco’s challenge

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico Seeks US Help to Fight Crime, Drugs

VENEZUELA
To Power Syria, Chávez Sends Diesel

Venezuela’s presidential campaign
Tilting the pitch
The opposition faces some extraordinary obstacles

US VIRGIN ISLANDS
Virgin Islands governor’s chief of staff resigns after seeking favorable tax breaks

The weeks’s posts:
10 ways Chavez has presented a national security threat

Integration through welfare dependence: SNAP to the Parque Alegría dole

National Drug Intelligence Center closed

Argentina bans buying dollars

Venezuela: Chavez gives China control over oil

Assange comfy…at the Ecuadorian embassy

Inter-American Security Watch has an excellent translation of Revista Veja’s report on present-day Bolivia, The Cocaine Republic

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales is proud to encourage the cultivation of coca, the raw material for more than half of the cocaine and crack consumed in Brazil, arguing that its leaves are used to produce tea and traditional medicines. However, the United Nations (UN) estimates that only one-third of the coca planted in the country is necessary to meet this demand. The rest is used for drug trafficking and, consequently, contributes to corrupting the lives of nearly one million Brazilians and their families. Recently, evidence has emerged that the Bolivian government’s complicity with drug trafficking goes beyond a simple defense of the cocaleros, or coca growers. VEJA magazine had access to the reports produced by an intelligence unit of the Bolivian police which reveal, among other facts, a direct connection between Morales’ confidante, Minister of the Presidency Juan Ramón Quintana, and a Brazilian drug trafficker currently serving a sentence in Catanduvas, a maximum-security prison in Paraná.

A must-read for those wanting to know what is going on in South America. Read the whole thing.

ARGENTINA
Cause: Argentina Bans Dollar Purchases For Savings, Infobae Says (h/t Clark). Effect: Making The Euro Zone Look Good

Argentina convicts 2 dictators of stealing babies

BOLIVIA
La República de la cocaína

Bolivian farmer dies in protests against Canadian mine

CHILE
Star Gazers
Way out in a barren Chilean desert, the biggest telescope ever made is taking shape, via Instapundit.

CUBA
The Self-Employed and the “Mules”

The Truth About Cuba, via Babalu.

Raul Castro’s long trip to China raises questions about a secret stopover
A trip that takes one day on commercial jetliners took more than two, raising questions about a secret stopover

ECUADOR
Ecuador Seeks Liquidity Loan As Correa Loses Oil Funding

Pide a EEUU no renovar Atpdea con Ecuador
Chevron descarta cualquier acuerdo extrajudicial con demandantes ecuatorianos

GUATEMALA
U.S. soldier killed on humanitarian mission in Guatemala

HONDURAS
Xiomara Castro Urges Hondurans to Retake Power

MEXICO
Remember Fast and Furious’s Mexican Victims.

Mexico destroys 1 million chickens for bird flu

Mexico’s Leader Seeks to Shed the Past

Mexico’s election
The PRI’s qualified comeback
The former ruling party triumphs, but without the majority it had hoped for

OLIVER STONE: MEXICO NEEDS DRUG WAR FOR ECONOMIC SURVIVAL

MEXICO ELECTION REPORTEDLY CORRUPT

PANAMA
Castro & Co. Are Best Kept at Arm’s Length
Economic growth in Latin America is at risk if tyrants are welcomed as legitimate leaders. As my family learned in Panama, poverty and tyranny go hand in hand.

PARAGUAY
Mercosur Shows Lack Of Ethics

The Paraguay MERCOSUR fiasco: the loser list

PERU
Peru: Three die in clashes over Conga gold mine project
Clashes in northern Peru between police and demonstrators opposing a multi-million dollar gold mining project have left at least three people dead.

PUERTO RICO
Our American Dream: Bobby Sanabria, the Voice of Afro-Cuban Jazz

URUGUAY
Uruguay president: Only pot will be legal

VENEZUELA
Chavez Promotes to Minister Military Officer designated by the U.S Treasury as Drug Kingpin

Venezuelan Officials Acting on Behalf of the FARC

Chávez: into Mercosur by a side door

Venezuela’s presidential campaign
Tilting the pitch
The opposition faces some extraordinary obstacles

Mitt Romney: We Stand With Venezuelans Fighting For Democracy And Freedom

The week’s posts:
Cuba: $1.55 billion, gone!

MoDo did well!

A brief Carnival this week,
BOLIVIA
NY Hasid resorts to hunger strike after nearly a year in Bolivian prison

BRAZIL
Brazilian politics
What Lula did next

CUBA
There’s a lot of public relations recently on Communist William Morgan:
George Clooney’s making a movie about him, George Clooney Puts on His Directing Helmet to Help Castro’s Cuba with ‘Comandante’, based on the New Yorker article, The Yankee Comandante
A story of love, revolution, and betrayal. Humberto Fontova‘s more realistic,

Something also tells me the film will be devoid of any input by Roberto Martin Perez and others who suffered the longest terms of political incarceration in modern history because of Morgan’s treachery. After all, their anti-Castro plot, as the New Yorker article explains (echoing Castro) had nothing whatsoever to do with restoring Cuba’s freedom. Instead it was inspired by the wicked dictator Rafael Trujillo.

According to Armando Lago about 2000 Cubans were murdered by firing squad while Morgan loyally served Castro. Indeed in 1959-60 many of the men and boys cramming La Cabana’s galeras were were there because of Morgan’s treachery.

Morgan lived in a mansion during this time, had a fancy car and owned a frog farm. Might it occur to Clooney to ask how this AWOL GI, deadbeat-Dad and ex-con managed to acquired these luxuries? In fact they were all stolen at gunpoint from their rightful Cuban owners. “Bienes Malversados”–INDEED!

O’Grady: Castro Endorses Obama
The dictator’s daughter gets a visa to make speeches here while the regime continues to hold an American hostage.

Another Cuba-related Law Heads to Court

HONDURAS
Honduran sourdough bread

MEXICO
Mexico election diary
How important is the tactical vote really?

Eric Holder’s sizzling summer
Attorney general on hot seat for probes on gun-running, child exploitation funds

PERU
Peru Leader Faces Outrage, Defections on Mining Plan

Peru searchers find bodies in Andes chopper crash

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico Borrowing Costs Rise on Rating Concern: Muni Credit

Puerto Rico Schools to Expand Instruction in English

SURINAME
Suriname’s president
Catch me if you can
Legal troubles? Run for office

VENEZUELA
Venezuela opposition floods streets in support of presidential candidate
Leader Hugo Chávez vowed to flood the streets with supporters as hundreds of thousands turned up in Caracas to rally for his rival

Chavismo Pulls Dirty Trick On Podemos And Patria Para Todos (And Ultimately On Capriles)

Capriles smashing launch: le ladró en la cueva

Fading Chávez Rouses Markets

The week’s posts,
Funereal erection, while “Chavez’s days are numbered,”

Leaks and islands

Remember that dry offshore Cuban oil well? UPDATED

Romney names Hispanic Steering Committee, “Juntos con Romney”

Romney targets Hispanics on jobs

ARGENTINA
The Star: Argentina overtakes Venezuela as South America’s biggest default risk

Argentina’s economy
The blue dollar
Another step towards a siege economy

Argentine official denies devaluation planned

El joven Borges y Argentina
Por Edwin Williamson
Se ha querido ver en Borges a un escritor poco interesado en la política y ajeno a los problemas de su país. Sin embargo, como cuenta en este ensayo su biógrafo Edwin Williamson, el joven Borges estuvo atento a las grandes corrientes ideológicas de su tiempo y participó en las grandes disputas políticas, y singularmente históricas, de la Argentina del siglo XX

BOLIVIA
Obama Administration Fails Jewish-American Citizen Detained in Bolivia

Bolivian Drug Accuser Seeks Asylum in Brazil

The stakes are high. Bolivian drug trafficking has become a domestic issue for Brazil, which has become one of the world’s biggest consumers of cocaine amid a decadelong economic boom. Brazilian officials say much of the cocaine consumed in Brazil either originates or passes through Bolivia.

CARIBBEAN
Caribbean integration
Centrifugal force
Half a century of small islands with big egos

CHILE
Codelco v Anglo American
Ore war
A mineral battle in business-friendly Chile

Chilean power firm Colbun puts project on ice
One of the two firms planning to build the giant HidroAysen dam in Chilean Patagonia has frozen the project, citing lack of government backing.

COLOMBIA
FARC leader lives at Chavez’s brother’s house: Priest

In an interview with RCN Radio, priest and Venezuelan journalist, Father Jose Palmar, said FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño, alias “Timochenko,” and two other members of the FARC secretariat frequently spend the night at the estate of Adam Chavez, brother of President Hugo Chavez and governor of the Venezuelan state of Barinas.

“Part of the FARC Secretariat live in Venezuela,” said Palmar who is a priest in the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo and often crosses the border. “That I can assure you,” he added.

Palmar is an open critic of the Chavez government and swears that the 19th, 41st and 59th fronts of the FARC operate with impunity in the Venezuelan state of Zulia. It is from here, he claims, that they organize raids in Colombia, such as the attack by the 59th Front Monday which killed 12 Colombian soldiers in the department of La Guajira.

Colombian volcano spouts ash

CUBA
Mariela Castro hopes Cuban-U.S. relations can normalize in Obama second term

ECUADOR
Journalism in the Americas: Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa asks citizens to boycott press

HONDURAS
Despite Deaths in Honduran Raid, U.S. to Press Ahead With New Antidrug Policy

Honduras sets up anti-corruption body
The Honduran government has set up an anti-corruption commission to target rogue officials in the judicial system and police force.

MEXICO
The Economist Debate: Mexican Elections.

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico bets on American tourists to repay debt

VENEZUELA
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi: Hugo Chavez is wearing Fentanyl Patches and Diapers

Dan Rather says Chavez’s cancer is “at end stage”.

Aponte Aponte is singing like a bird: Fugitive Venezuela judge helps elite U.S. anti-drugs unit

USA Today: Venezuela’s PDVSA oil company is bloated, ‘falling apart’

One thousand car bodies deteriorate in Venezuelan-Iranian auto plant
The National Assembly is investigating whether the Venezuelan-Iranian auto plant Venirauto is causing “property damage” to the South American country

Venezuela bans private gun ownership
Venezuela has brought a new gun law into effect which bans the commercial sale of firearms and ammunition.

The week’s posts:
Property rights are human rights

Smart diplomacy: Fast and Furious ‘poisoned’ Mexican public opinion of US – UPDATED

Brazil power: Spain out, China in.