20 million voters will elect Peru’s president in today’s runoff
I’ll be posting the results once they are in, but check out The Latin Americanist for analysis and Living in Peru for news.
Oh, and after campaigning for Humala, Mario Vargas Llosa won’t be voting for him, since his doctor says he needs to rest. No word as to whether this was due to a cognitive dissonance explosion.
Ollanta Humala so far has 52% of the votes counted in today’s presidential election in Peru.
This is very bad news for the hemisphere, as Peru has now chosen a leader that may not continue the country in the growth agenda the country has followed for the past decade.
A leader who’s been backed by Hugo Chavez, and who allegedly has killed and tortured people.
Live feed (in Spanish, via Eneas) below the fold,
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LATIN AMERICA
The Chinese Dragon Sweeps Through Latin America
Time to stand up and take notice — English and Spanish speakers alike
ARGENTINA
Jorge Macchi
South American magic on show in the north
BRAZIL
Bossa nova and Elenco Records
A moody soundtrack for Brazil
No Samba for Chavez this time around
COLOMBIA
After 11 Months Colombia Asks, Who’ll Stop the Rain?
COSTA RICA
Organized Crime in Costa Rica and the Other Balloon Effect
ECUADOR
Ecuador: Uncertainty and Division
Report Links Ecuador’s President With Colombian Guerrillas
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa may have received as much as $400,000 from Colombian guerrillas and their drug trafficking allies for his 2006 presidential campaign, a U.K. think tank concluded in a report released Tuesday.
Ecuador emerging as new cocaine centre
Ecuador’s constitutional referendum
A close count
The balance of powers hangs in the balance
Oppenheimer Report; Ecuadorian media censorship
The problem is not only reckless spending but also hostility toward business. The Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom, which once ranked El Salvador as the ninth freest economy in the world (2000), now places it at 39.
MEXICO
Battle With Mexican Gang at Texas-Border Lake Kills 13
HAITI
Martelly inaugurated as Haitian president
NICARAGUA
Qaddafi’s Man in Managua
Sandinista boss Daniel Ortega is an old friend of the Libyan tyrant.
PANAMA
Fears grow that US unready for larger Panama canal, via The Latin Americanist.
PERU
Giuliani accompanies Keiko Fujimori on campaign
PUERTO RICO
American Airlines Backs Puerto Rico Airport Plan
Committee to Free Venezuela Foundation’s Anonymous Effort
The week’s posts,
Chavez, nursing knee injury, tweets
Zelaya returning to Honduras
Raiding private pensions: it’s not just for Argentina anymore
Ecuador’s Correa and the FARC
A guitar grows in Argentina
Bin Laden’s cousin arrested in Ecuador for human trafficking
Makled now in Venezuela
At Real Clear World
Venezuela Wanted FARC to Act as Hit Men
Iranian Training Camps in Latin America
Simon Romero writes about Peru’s election,
A Candidate in Peru Tacks Toward Brazil’s Course
LIMA, Peru — In his failed 2006 bid for Peru’s presidency, Ollanta Humala donned red T-shirts, boasted of plans to assert state control over energy resources and blasted opponents for warming to the United States, using elements from the playbook that was then helping propel leftist political allies of Venezuela to electoral victories in Latin America.
But in a transformation this year that points to the eclipse of Venezuela by Brazil, Mr. Humala has swapped the red shirts for dark suits, explicitly rejected talk of seizing private companies and celebrated Brazil’s market-oriented economic model, while distancing himself from Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez.
Mr. Humala, 48, made the shift after hiring Brazilian campaign advisers tied to Brazil’s governing Workers Party.
However, as Jaime Bayly remembered in 2006, Humala was a military adjunct representing the Toledo government after serving under Fujimori.
Keiko Fijimori, on the other hand, had publicly opposed her father’s illegal re-election and requested that his right-hand man Montesinos be expelled.
A small glimpse of an interesting election that will resonate through the region.
ARGENTINA
Argentine Government Takes Larger Role in Private Companies
Obama vs. Perón: In Their Own Words
U.S. denies visa for German journalist who investigated baby thefts in Argentina
Today’s Video: The long arm of the law
BOLIVIA
Bolivia socialist hit with demand for 15% pay increase
BRAZIL
Link in Portuguese: Iranian cleric wanted by Interpol for the AMIA bombing in Argentina is in Brazil recruiting poor men for “religious instruction”
Something Real, For A Change, via Real Clear World
CHILE
Clarity in Chile
Chile is the first nation whose return to democracy was based on economic freedom. On global economic freedom rankings, Chile stands near the top — in part because its public employees can’t run up debt or corrupt the political process.
The existing constitution makes Chile a full right-to-work country and expressly prohibits government collective bargaining and public employee strikes.
The idea is to prevent the ugly anti-democratic dynamic — now seen in Wisconsin and elsewhere — of public employee unions extorting concessions from politicians in exchange for campaign support.
COLOMBIA
Colombia’s Santos: accomplice in drug trafficking and terrorism
CUBA
Former Al-Jazeera and NPR Reporter Now Working for Castro
Granma: State spends more to subsidize food, so local producers must do their part
‘Last Congress’ for Cuba’s old guard, Laughter and the Congress
GUATEMALA
A MURDER FORETOLD Unravelling the ultimate political conspiracy. via Clifton
MEXICO
Number Of Dead Near Border Up To 122
Mexican soldiers arrest drug cartel suspect in connection with slaying of poet’s son
Prosecutor slain in Mexican border city
PANAMA
Who Is Your Angel?
PERU
Via Real Clear World, Peru’s Ghost Election
Whoever wins on June 5, Peru’s next president will be an admirer of one of the two living ghosts that haunt this election, each a political leader who has undermined democracy and shown strong authoritarian tendencies.
Most Peruvians are worried, even if not everyone agrees with the assessment that the choice is between two deadly alternatives. The election will come down to which specter Peruvians fear most, the ghost of Hugo Chávez or the ghost of Alberto Fujimori.
It’s show-me time for Peru’s Humala-investors; Vargas Llosa’s [sic] supports Ollanta Humala, with reservations
PUERTO RICO
Augusto Marin, a Puerto Rican painter and muralist, dies at 89
VENEZUELA
Chavez Policy Sends Venezuelans on Cross-Border Cash Hunt
Inadequate Management Everywhere Under Chavismo
The week’s posts:
Drinking our milkshake: Cuba’s Deep-Water Drilling Proposal Raises Concern
3 on Mexico
EPA pays to upgrade unsafe Mexican trucks
Welcome to this week’s Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. As the title indicates, it’s been a year since Mel Zelaya was thrown out of office. He and his teddy bear are also gone from his tin foil-lined room at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa.
ARGENTINA
Collateral damage
Cristina se reunió con empresarios antes del comienzo de la cumbre del G20
BARBADOS
Barbados and Panama sign double taxation agreement
BOLIVIA
Bolivian Bottles Build Houses
BRAZIL
Brazil’s foreign policy
An Iranian banana skin
Lula has little to show for his Tehran adventure
Lula’s adventure in Tehran smacks of the overconfidence of a politician who basks in an approval rating of over 70% and who sees the Iraq war and the financial crisis as having irreparably damaged American power and credibility. But the United States is still Brazil’s second-largest trading partner. Although some American and Brazilian officials are keen to prevent ill-will over Iran from spoiling co-operation in other areas, it nevertheless may do so. The United States Congress may be even less willing to support the elimination of a tariff on Brazil’s sugar-based ethanol, for example.
Lula wants the UN reformed to reflect today’s world, with Brazil gaining a permanent seat on the Security Council. But by choosing to apply his views on how the world should be run to an issue of pressing concern to America and Europe, and in which Brazil has no obvious national interest, Lula may only have lessened the chances that he will get his way.
Lula skips G20 summit due to deadly Brazil floods
CHILE
Piñera’s (dis)approval
Entrevista a Josep Montaner, “El rol de la sociedad civil ha de ser activo en cualquier situación” Video in Spanish,
Josep Montaner _ Rol de la sociedad civil from Plataforma Urbana on Vimeo.
COLOMBIA
THOMSON: Santos sweeps to the presidency
Platform for security, stability and development win b
Good news from Colombia, but does Obama appreciate it?
Ros-Lehtinen: Recognizing Colombia’s presidential election and the U.S.-Colombia alliance Ros-Lehtinen Resolution on Colombia Elections Passes House
Will Washington treat Colombia’s Santos as an ally?
COSTA RICA
Father’s Day in Costa Rica
CUBA
When Learning Turns to Dust
Syrian president due in Havana on Sunday
Interviews With Dr. Darsi Ferrer and Juan Juan Almeida
ECUADOR
UPDATE: Filmmakers Argue Against Ruling In Chevron Case
HONDURAS
A year without Mel Zelaya
More intromission by US Ambassador Llorens and G-16
JAMAICA
Mr Coke turns himself in
MEXICO
Mexican Violence Crosses Borders; Attracts Media Attention
Mexico Represents Single Biggest Drug Trafficking Threat to U.S.
PANAMA
Washington Post on retiring to Panama
PARAGUAY
Journalists in the crosshairs of Paraguayan People’s Army
PERU
Peruvian Franken-Corn Defamation Case Update
Keiko Fujimori Leads Peru Presidential Poll, El Comercio Says
Keiko Fujimori says “I will be in the second round” for president of Peru in 2011
Peru judge rules Van der Sloot confession valid
PUERTO RICO
Students approve strike pact. Back in the olden days when I was a student at the UPR they were striking, too, but no one slept in cute little tents on campus. Either way, the strikes are a total waste of time.
VENEZUELA
Today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern: UN: Most of the cocaine going to Europe passes through Venezuela
The report launched by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) expresses concern about Venezuela due to the existence of cells of armed insurgent groups, such as the Bolivarian Liberation Front and civilian militias supported by the government.
WDR 2010 website. PDF file: full report.
Syrian president meets with Chavez in Caracas
Revolutionary Rot, But News It’s Not: AP Ignores Venezuela’s ‘Battle for Food‘, also at BizzyBlog
Como el paternalismo crea dictadores
A radical shift to the radical left in Venezuela
Ollie Loves Hugo & Hugo Loves Ollie
Le Monde criticizes the selling out of Venezuela to Cuba, Chavez gets revenge by taking away a minor farm of Diego Arria and Letter from Diego Arria to Hugo Chavez
VenEconomy: Venezuela Dominated By & Split Up Into Ghettos
Commie Despot Renegs On Debts, Seizes Oil Rigs
Today’s Video: Oligarchs vs. Bolivarians
Maria Conchita Alonso on Oliver Stone’s South of the Border (VIDEO)
HUMOR
My cousin sent this, Por que Cuba No fue a el Mundial Los Pichy Boys
The week’s posts and podcasts:
How about, Sayonara, Citgo?
Venezuela to nationalize U.S. firm’s oil rigs
Venezuela’s fast-track doctors
Jamaica: Dudus Coke in the can
Mexican gangs’ lookouts in Arizona
Rum war?
Obama Secretary of Labor: Illegals Have a Right to Fair Wages VIDEO
In Silvio Canto’s podcast.
In Rick Moran’s podcast.
