Fausta's Blog

ARGENTINA
Documentary (in Spanish):

BRAZIL
Brazil Nightclub Fire Kills at Least 245

Brazil Streetwalkers to Take English Lessons for 2014 World Cup; RELATED: The Proud Winner of the Miss Brazilian Prostitute Title Was Beaming

COLOMBIA
Security in Colombia
Fear of missing out
The second-biggest guerrilla group tries to muscle in on peace talks

Colombian Police Seize Over 4 Tons of Cocaine Bound for Mexico

CUBA
Alan Gross and his descent into hell

All talk
The government fails to promote new leaders—even though hard times loom

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Emails show FBI investigating Sen. Bob Menendez for sleeping with underage Dominican prostitutes – 16-year-olds.

GUATEMALA
Edging back from the brink
A potential “failed state” is clawing its way back to something like normality

HONDURAS
Honduras can’t pay its bills, neglects services

MEXICO
As Deadly Mexican Cartel Loses Control, Heroin and Meth Trafficking Rise

Florence Cassez released in Mexico

PERU
EU-Colombia-Peru Aim for Trade Accord in Effect by First Quarter

Peru on the Right Path to Eradicating Child Malnutrition, UN Official Says

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico Top 10 Most Wanted Captured by NY/NJ Regional Fugitive Task Force

VENEZUELA
More than 50 people have been killed in a prison riot in western Venezuela, hospital staff say. [GRAPHIC PHOTOS] En Uribana ya van más de 50 muertos y 120 heridos (FOTOS)

Chavez Cancer Freezes Venezuela’s Overseas Oil Funding (h/t DP)

Venezuela’s $100 billion oil industry is seeing the first drop in funding in five years from some of its closest partners, as concern mounts President Hugo Chavez’s battle with cancer is creating a political vacuum, people familiar with the matter said.
The government, which for a decade has disclosed credit lines from China when they’re signed, has announced none since April, according to a report released Jan. 13 by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, known as UNAM. Russian and Indian companies are withholding planned investments in Venezuelan oilfields, according to eight oil company executives and consultants who declined to be identified because they weren’t authorized to talk about the matter publicly.

Hugo Chavez Starting More Treatment in Cuba, Hugo Chavez Respiratory Infection: Venezuelan President Overcomes Health Issue

Why President Hugo Chávez’s Twitter Account Went Silent

The Missing President

Chavez is not going quietly

Impunity in Venezuela
The price of justice
A family with a case against the government faces “extermination”

Gustavo Rios, Hugo Chavez Impersonator, Thinks Dictator’s Cancer Is No Laughing Matter

The week’s posts:
South American cocaine’s African routes

Brazil: Barcodes on Rio’s sidewalks

Venezuela: Hugo’s fake picture

Halitophobia! in Spanish, no less

Venezuela: Noelia’s plane seized by the government

ARGENTINA
Argentina’s debt default
The noose tightens

Argentina rejects US ruling over foreign debt repayment
Argentina will appeal against a US ruling ordering it to pay $1.3bn (£800m) to foreign creditors holding bonds that it defaulted on in 2001.

I was in Buenos Aires the day Kirchner died, and the graffiti read, “Evita and Nestor, together in heaven”; Make room, Evita: Argentine leader seeks to put late husband Nestor Kirchner on Peron pedestal. The only surprising thing is that it’s taken Cristina two years.

BRAZIL
Brazil busts corruption ring

CHILE
Chile Faces Hurdles to Sustain Robust Economic Growth

COLOMBIA
Land reform in Colombia
Peace, land and bread
The hard bargaining start

FARC rebels release 4 Chinese oil workers

Colombia Farc rebels optimistic about Cuba peace talks
Negotiators from Colombia’s largest rebel group, the Farc, say they are highly optimistic about peace talks currently under way in the Cuban capital, Havana.

From Colombian evangelicals to Jews in region with a hidden Jewish past

CUBA
As predictable as a soiled diaper on a newborn baby

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
The Dominican Republic’s Taxing Turn
Servicing its debt will take 44% of government revenue by 2015, despite steep new taxes.

A rum do
The new president faces a tax revolt

HAITI
Haitian ex-soldiers in hiding renew call for president to restore disbanded military

MEXICO
Lame-duck lameness: Mexico’s President Calderon seeks to change country’s name
Profile: Felipe Calderon
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has sent a bill to congress to change the official name of the country.

Chinese-Mexicans expelled during xenophobic period celebrate anniversary of repatriation

From darkness, dawn
After years of underachievement and rising violence, Mexico is at last beginning to realise its potential, says Tom Wainwright

1 of FBI’s 10 most wanted arrested in Mexico

NICARAGUA
Colombia awaits government´s San Andrés reaction (h/t Silvio Canto)

PANAMA
Angry Panama
The earthbound bite back
Why is Latin America’s fastest-growing country so furious?

PUERTO RICO
The 51st state?
America may not want what its Caribbean outpost now does

Ex-boxer Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho dies after shot

TURKS & CAICOS
The Turks and Caicos Islands
Paradise interrupted
A troubled Caribbean territory tries to turn over a new leaf

VENEZUELA
Breaking Bad? Venezuela National Guard finds buried stash of cash
Security forces in Venezuela have found $550,000 (£343,000) buried near the border with Colombia, interior ministry spokesman Jorge Galindo said.

The building up of a FARC/drug corridor in Venezuela

Accomplices Galore

The week’s posts:
Venezuelan immigration to the USA quadrupled over the past 15 years

Argentina: Now on general strike

Mexico: No Iran or Hezbollah here

ARGENTINA
Los últimos días de Néstor Kirchner

BRAZIL
French Giants Vie in Brazil
Retailers Carrefour and Casino Face Off Over High-End Chain in Hot Market

CHILE
Carta de la semana: “Decapitar la capital”

COLOMBIA
Por qué entré y por qué salí de las FARC

Preview of GMT’s upcoming title Andean Abyss

CUBA
Hugo Chavez’s Secret

Bono’s Love Song

HONDURAS
Take a ride with me

JAMAICA
Via Gates of Vienna, Poll: Most Jamaicans believe UK rule better

MEXICO
Crime and politics in Mexico
A turning tide
With a year to go until the presidential election, voters are tiring of the drug war

“In Spain, I would still be living off scholarships.”

Project Gunrunner Assault Weapons Showing Up At Phoenix Crime Scene

U.S. opposes Mexican’s execution
The Obama Administration takes the rare step of urging the Court to block temporarily a state from executing a convicted individual — in this case, a Mexican national who contends that Texas violated his rights under an international treaty, the Vienna Convention.

July 4 warning: Texas says don’t go to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico

PERU
NATURAL RESOURCES IN PERU
The trials of miners

Hydrocarbon production surges in Peru

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico Governor Fortuno Signs Deficit-Reducing 2012 Budget
Worst Budget Deficit in the Country Cut by 81 percent in Just Over Two Years, Puerto Rico Continues Progress Toward Balancing its Budget

Among the reforms implemented since 2009, Gov. Fortuno enacted the largest tax cut package in Puerto Rico’s history, which will lower taxes an average 30 percent for businesses and 50 percent for individuals. And after launching one of the most advanced Public-Private-Partnership programs in the country, the Governor announced in June that Puerto Rico will receive $1.436 billion in private infrastructure investment—the largest such investment in any U.S. jurisdiction this year and the first infrastructure P3 in the country since 2006 – to upgrade and manage two of the Island’s major toll roads.
…
Fortuno took a 10 percent pay cut, required agency heads to take a 5 percent cut, froze all salaries for two fiscal years, reduced political appointments by 30 percent, and got rid of government cell phones and credit cards. Because payroll expenses dominated 70 percent of the budget, government employee ranks were reduced by 23,000 through voluntary and mandatory measures, achieving a $935 million or 17 percent reduction in total payroll.

Puerto Rico police chief quits amid crime concerns

VENEZUELA
Spanish newspaper: Chávez has colon cancer and the first surgery was a “mistake”

How bad is Hugo Chavez’s cancer? Very bad, say physicians

Hugo Chávez’s cancer puts 2012 Venezuela elections in doubt
As President Hugo Chávez fights what some experts say is an aggressive form of colon cancer, some wonder what it will mean for next year’s presidential race I was talking to a physician friend who had not read this article but who reached the same conclusion based on the information that we have so far:

He also said it’s possible that the original abscess drainage procedure itself could have contaminated the area with cancer cells. Treatment, doctors agreed, would be aggressive radiation and chemotherapy.

“Prostate tumors normally do not cause this kind of abscess,” said Leon Lapco, president of the Venezuelan-American Doctors Association and a surgeon at Mercy Hospital. “I would say it’s his colon, the large intestine. It’s the most likely to cause diverticulitis, perforations and abscesses.”

Why Hugo Chavez’s Illness Matters

Chávez should get credit for economic miracle

After Chávez
What awaits Venezuela if he dies?

U.S. – Venezuelan Relations – Just Frozen or Beyond Repair?

What Hugo Chavez’s Illness Means for Venezuela’s Future

Noam Chomsky denounces old friend Hugo Chávez for ‘assault’ on democracy
Renowned American intellectual accuses the Venezuelan leader of concentrating too much power in his own hands

Noam Chomsky honesty appeal…

The week’s posts
Chavez back in Venezuela VIDEO
The Invisible Hugo and the list of rumors
BREAKING: HUGO CHAVEZ HAS CANCER
HACER: The must-read on Latin America
The Invisible Hugo cancels summit
Today’s installment of The Invisible Hugo: The Video
The Invisible Hugo post of the morning: the speakerphone call

You wouldn’t know it from the photo-op,

but Hillary wanted to know if Cristina was on meds,
Clinton probed Argentine leader’s ‘nerves,’ ‘anxiety,’ ’stress’

“How is Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner managing her nerves and anxiety?” asked a cable dated Dec. 31, 2009, and signed “CLINTON” in all capital letters.

The cable, sent at 2:55 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, and originating in the department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, asked a series of other probing questions as part of what it said was an attempt by her office to understand “leadership dynamics” between Kirchner and her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner.

“How does stress affect her behavior toward advisors and/or her decision making?” the cable continued. “What steps does Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner or her advisers/handlers, take in helping her deal with stress? Is she taking any medications?”

Hillary wanted info on Nestor Kirchner’s temper, and what the hey were the Kirchners doing with the economy. Of course, that assumes that the Kirchners (Cristina and Nestor) had a clue as to what they were doing,

“Long known for his temper, has Nestor Kirchner demonstrated a greater tendency to shift between emotional extremes? What are most common triggers to Nestor Kirchner’s anger?” the cable asked.

The cable described Nestor Kirchner’s governing style as “heavy-handed,” and asked U.S. diplomats in Buenos Aires to determine whether Cristina Kirchner viewed “circumstances in black and white or in nuanced terms?” Does she have a “strategic, big picture outlook” or does she “prefer to take a tactical view?” it asked.

Other leaked cables offered insight into U.S. interest into a foreign minister’s past links with leftist Montoneros guerrillas, and suggested that Argentina had offered to intercede with Bolivian President Evo Morales, who expelled the U.S. ambassador to La Paz in September 2008.

Another confidential cable detailed Argentine umbrage at Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela’s remarks in late 2009 suggesting that U.S. businesses had concerns over “rule of law and management of the economy in Argentina.”

“Once again, the Kirchner government has shown itself to be extremely thin-skinned and intolerant of perceived criticism,” the cable said.

The Argentine anger at Valenzuela contrasted with the good relations it held with his predecessor, Thomas Shannon, an Oxford-educated U.S. diplomat with a smooth manner. According to the Madrid daily El Pais, a not-yet-public cable dated Sept. 2, 2008, reveals how Shannon convinced Kirchner that Washington did not have anything against Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous leader, and did not seek to break apart his country.

Good for Shannon. Evo, who recently kneed a guy in the gonads during a friendly soccer game, is a lunatic in power.

No wonder Hillary asked about meds.

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern, a few notes on my trip.

Related posts:
Buenos Aires dispatch: Listening to the news
Argentina: Today’s headlines from Clarin
Surprise! I’m in Buenos Aires!

Two articles in The Economist regarding Kirchner:
Back to a vacuum
The passing of kirchnerismo
Néstor Kirchner’s sudden death will hasten change in Argentina, and beyond

And, in today’s news,
Lawmaker proposes Argentina’s companies to distribute 10 per cent of profits

You can listen to the archived podcast here.

I’ve been traveling for the past few days and my current location is Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The big news today, Census day, is the former president Nestor Kirchner died of a heart condition this morning.

The Financial Times reports that

Argentine stocks saw their biggest rise in two years and benchmark sovereign bonds soared after Néstor Kirchner, 60, the former president and husband of current president Cristina Fernández, died of a heart attack and investors bet that the country’s “Kirchner era” was drawing to a close.

The funeral will start tomorrow, followed by a private burial on Friday at his hometown of Río Gallegos.

The Economist has an interesting post on Kirchner’s effect on Argentina’s politics.

Today’s podcast topic at 11AM Eastern:
Argentina’s censorship through court decree

Related articles:
Argentine President seizes newspapers’ firm

The Government has moved to take over the country’s only newsprint maker, alleging that two leading newspapers illegally conspired with dictators to control the company three decades ago and then used it to drive rival media out of business.

President Cristina Fernandez said the courts should decide whether the newspapers, Clarin and La Nacion, should be charged with crimes against humanity, and specifically whether the newsprint company was illegally expropriated by the papers and the military junta.

The companies
, with which Ms Fernandez has been feuding for two years, deny any illegality in the acquisition of the newsprint maker, or other crimes. They have accused the President of trying to control the essential material needed to guarantee freedom of expression, a position supported by the Inter-American Press Association and other media groups.

On Tuesday, Ms Fernandez insisted she was defending those rights. She accused Clarin and La Nacion of using the newsprint company, Papel Prensa SA, to impose media monopolies on Argentina and stifling other viewpoints by refusing to sell paper at fair prices to competitors.

Cristina Fernandez has been in office since 2007; her husband Néstor Kirchner was the President of Argentina from May 25, 2003 until December 10, 2007. Obviously they weren’t too bothered by much that happened during the junta’s years if they waited this long to do anything about it.

Feud With Clarin Deepens Bond Rout as JPMorgan Says Sell: Argentina Credit

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s growing confrontation with the country’s largest newspaper is exacerbating the biggest tumble in its dollar bonds in two months and prompting JPMorgan Chase & Co. to recommend investors cut holdings.

The yield on the South American country’s benchmark 7 percent securities due in 2015 increased 74 basis points, or 0.74 percentage point, since Aug. 23, the biggest two-day jump since June 7, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Emerging- market bond yields climbed an average of 18 basis points during the same period, according to JPMorgan indexes.

The New York bank advised investors to sell holdings of the securities, citing concern that “domestic political conflicts are escalating” and global growth is slowing, after benchmark yields fell to their lowest since November 2007 this month. Fernandez, 57, asked a court this week to review the 1976 purchase of a newsprint producer by Grupo Clarin SA, a move opposition leaders say is an attempt to silence critics in the media.

“It’s the type of news that starts to unnerve the market, particularly against this global backdrop and after prices have rallied a lot,” said Alberto Ramos, an economist with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York.

Argentina takeover of paper mill heats up feud with media
Argentines debated a decision by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to take over the country’s largest newsprint mill, the latest episode in her feud with the media.

And then there are the unions and the opposition:
Pressed

By declaring war on Argentina’s most powerful opinion-former, the Kirchners are gambling with their political future. If they can bloody the company enough to make its management seek a truce, they could secure friendlier coverage of the 2011 presidential election. Even then, however, the strategy might backfire. First, it has made them look hypocritical: by trying to kill Fibertel, they have made the already-concentrated ISP market even more so. Moreover, they have given the fractious opposition a new cause to unite around.

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.

Fernandez Loses Congress Power in Argentina Election

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner lost power in Congress after voters angry at her handling of a farm strike, crime and a slowing economy favored opposition candidates in mid-term elections yesterday.

Nestor Kirchner, Fernandez’s husband and predecessor, acknowledged this morning that a slate of candidates he led for the lower house of congress in the bellwether province of Buenos Aires was defeated. Partial results indicate the government will lose its majority in both houses of congress, with no party having outright control.

She had had the election moved up four months, probably in the hope that economic conditions now would be better than later, but it didn’t work.

Noticias 24 has a graph with the results (click for article):

Fernandez and Kirchner, as you may recall, are big friends of Hugo Chavez, who sent her a suitcase filled with $800,000 to finance her prior campaign.

All in all, Hugo’s had a hell of a weekend.

UPDATE
Following the defeat, Néstor Kirchner resigned as leader of his Partido Justicialista (PJ) political party.