The 2d place finalist of America’s Got Talent, Barbara Padilla, interviewed in Spanish by Jaime Bayly,
She has a new CD out today, available through Amazon. I’d like Andrea Bocelli’s agent to sign her up.
American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
By Fausta
By Fausta
My latest at Da Tech Guy Blog, The Pontifical Council denounces ISIS, is up.
Don’t miss also tonight’s podcast at 8PM Eastern, when I’m Silvio Canto’s guest.
By Fausta
First we hear that producers of cheap Malbec are getting squeezed by inflation. Now this,
Venezuela Sips More Local Rum, Less Pricey Whiskey
Lagging Economy Pushes Consumers Away From Expensive Scotches.
At fancy steakhouses and Spanish-style tascas, Scotch is served the Venezuelan way: poured to the brim in a highball glass with ice.
Let’s hope they don’t do that to any of these.
Regardless, $5 says the chavistas are still getting their Buchanan’s and Chivas.
*1848: Karl Marx puts out the Communist Manifesto.
By Fausta
Miriam Leitão and Carlos Alberto Sardenberg, outstanding journalists who report on the many corruption scandals of the Dilma years, found out they were being hacked and smeared by someone using a computer address inside the Planalto presidential palace.
Ooopsie!
Or should I have a Captain Louis Renault moment?
I mean, “I’m shocked, shocked” that the journalists have come under attack by someone who doesn’t have enough brains to realize a computer address inside the Planalto could be located.
But I digress.
What’s interesting is the blowback; Mac Margolis:
Launching stealth attacks on critics from within the presidential palace plays well with the party faithful, but maybe less so at the voting booth. Although official probes in Brazil rarely reach the highest office, the blowback from the smear campaign suggests that Rousseff’s road to re-election will be fraught.
Brazil’s general election’s scheduled for October 5th. The Economist calls the presidential campaign “A tightly scripted telenovela.”
Video below the fold, since it starts right away,
[Read more…]
By Fausta
After offshore oil failure, Cuba shifts energy focus (emphasis added)
Cuba has shifted its focus away from offshore oil, concentrating on renewable energy and improving output from onshore wells due to a lack of interest by foreign companies for further deepwater exploration, sources close to the industry say.
That includes China and Russia; after three deepwater wells drilled in 2012 came up dry.
Capitol Hill Cubans blog had a more tactful title than mine, Cuba Ends Deepwater Oil Exploration Illusion.
By Fausta
Arminio Fraga, president of Brazil’s central bank from 1999 to 2002 under the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration, is now back in the game:
Brazil Ex-Insider Returns to Help Oust President
With slow growth and high inflation hurting Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s chances of winning a second term, former central banker Arminio Fraga joins the opposition to persuade voters that Brazil needs a new economic steward.
Mr. Fraga appears to be positioning himself as something of an inflation whisperer. As president of Brazil’s central bank from 1999 to 2002 under the administration of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, he helped stabilize the currency and rein in consumer prices. Mr. Fraga supports restrained public spending, tough inflation targeting and a floating exchange rate, policies that became known in Brazil as the “economic tripod.”
He is highly critical of the Rousseff administration’s decision slow inflation by capping gasoline prices and electricity rates, moves he dismissed as “gimmicks.” He’s also alarmed that Brazil’s central bank has been intervening regularly in the currency markets to prop up Brazil’s real against the dollar, a strategy he ridicules a “populist move.”
Mr. Fraga said these are stopgap measures that already are proving unworkable and that Brazil needs to focus on long-term fundamentals like increasing private investment and balancing its books.
The fact that earlier this year Standard & Poor downgraded Brazil´s long term bonds credit rating to one notch above junk doesn’t help Dilma – but you have to remember that, even when Dilma’s the candidate, Lula is the man to beat.
By Fausta
Mary O’Grady on today’s WSJ:
A Terrorist Big Fish Gets Away
The Netherlands refuses to extradite FARC ally Hugo Carvajal Barrios to the U.S.
While O’Grady contradicts herself on the criminals’ intent, saying, on the one hand, “America’s voracious appetite for illegal drugs has allowed violent political actors to create powerful transnational criminal organizations”, while on the other hand stating, “All of this terror is done in the name of social justice for Colombians,” the effect of current U.S. foreign policy is clear: The bottom line? (emphasis added)
Yet it’s not surprising that the Netherlands decided it would be less costly to be on the good side of the bad guys than to be on the bad side of the good guys. After six years of the Obama global retreat, any leader would be crazy to expect the U.S. to go to the mat for an ally, even one that stuck its neck out for Uncle Sam. So when Venezuela threatened military and economic retribution at the Netherlands Antilles if Carvajal was extradited, the Dutch foreign affairs minister relented.
Read the whole thing here.
By Fausta
Producers of cheap Malbec are getting squeezed by inflation, according to the WSJ,
Wine has been hit harder than agricultural products like soy because picking the grapes is so labor intensive. Analysts say producers’ costs have risen at least 100% in the past four years.
That means fewer bottles of cheap Argentine wine are making it to the shelves of restaurants and liquor stores in the U.S. and Europe.
As if things weren’t tough enough already.
ARGENTINA
Judge Threatens Argentina With Contempt Over Its Statements
Argentina seeks legal case against U.S. in The Hague
BOLIVIA
‘King Midas’ Bat From Bolivia Identified As A News Species
Women’s rights advocates in Brazil have denounced requirements by the country’s most populous state for prospective female teachers to submit to gynaecological exams or prove their virginity in order to work.
The education department of Sao Paulo state requires female prospective teachers to undergo a Pap smear in order to prove they are free of a variety of cancers, or to present a doctor’s statement verifying they have not been sexually active.
Until recently, it also required women to have a colposcopy, a type of visual examination used to detect disease.
CHILE
Chile youth leader freed in Venezuela, going to Santiago
CUBA
Cy Tokmakjian – Imprisoned in Cuba No Charges. No Justice
Museum enshrines the history of Cuba according to “The Godfather II”
ECUADOR
Ecuador to open embassy in ‘Palestine’, president cancels visit to Israel
What Can Tens of Millions of Dollars Buy Ecuador in the ‘Empire’?
GUATEMALA
Guatemala Receives Deported Children from U.S.
IMMIGRATION
BORDER PATROL AGENT: CARTELS USING CHILDREN AS ‘SHIELDS’
JAMAICA
Jamaica: The good, the bad and the ugly
LATIN AMERICA
Why is Latin America Coddling Hamas?
Russia Slaps Embargo on Western Food Imports and Looks to Latin America
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO CYNTHIA MCKINNEY? She’s at TeleSur, which is
funded by the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Venezuela.
MEXICO
Mexico Gains Winning Edge By Opening Energy Market
Mexico Mulls Over Raising It’s Shockingly Low Minimum Wage
NICARAGUA
Costa Rica seeks investigation of immigrant bribes to Nicaraguan military
PANAMA
Has Panama weaned itself off drugs and cleaned up?
PARAGUAY
Pope Benedict XVI OK’d abusive priest in Paraguay, local bishop says
PERU
PERU HAS REOPENED ITS OFFICE OF UFO INVESTIGATIONS
PUERTO RICO
Puerto Ricans Are Fleeing the Economic Disaster That Is Their Home Island
VENEZUELA
Venezuelan weather vanes
The week’s posts and podcast:
Venezuela: Derwick in the news
Today’s illegal invasion headlines
Nicaragua: A reminder on the sandinistas
Venezuela: What a show trial looks like
Ecuador: Like bitcoin, but not as solid
Need a coyote? Check Facebook!
Mexico: Knights Templar chief La Tuta’s on YouTube
Illegal immigration: Just who is getting in?
At Da Tech Guy Blog:
Pope Francis reinstates Marxist to the priesthood (update DTG)
And now, for a “train deal” with Mexico
The week’s podcast, with Silvio Canto.