Panama has shown that having a Canal is cool, so now everybody wants one. This Carnival is dedicated to their pipe dreams.
ARGENTINA
The ANSES-PDVSA link
As the Economist reported in February, ANSES is already under fire in Argentina for failing to index pension funds to inflation, meaning that many of Argentina’s seniors are receiving far less money than they put in the system. More generally, CFK has turned the agency into a large slush fund for social programs that go to political supporters. Argentina’s opposition hopes to make an issue over why ANSES can find over a billion and a half dollars to pay Venezuelan debt when Argentina’s seniors can barely get by on their pensions and the average Argentine citizen must fight for every peso-to-dollar conversion they need to do international business.
BRAZIL
Religion in Brazil
Earthly concerns
The promise and peril of a papal visit
Samples of Sales Taxes on Products in Brazil
CUBA
Cubans killed activist: Spanish politician
Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya did not die in a car crash last year but was instead “assassinated” by Cuban secret services, a Spanish politician who was at the wheel of the car said in an interview published on Monday. (h/t Babalu)
HONDURAS
Prisons in Honduras are ‘in control of inmates’
JAMAICA
As Cost of Importing Food Soars, Jamaica Turns to the Earth
PERU
Humala humbled
A lonelier president faces protests
PUERTO RICO
84 Haitians abandoned off Puerto Rico
People smugglers have abandoned 84 men and women from Haiti on a deserted island off the west coast of Puerto Rico.
TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
Politics in Trinidad and Tobago
Own-goal
URUGUAY
Drug legalisation in Uruguay
The experiment
Another blow against prohibition
VENEZUELA
Groll: Meet the NSA’s new data centers: Russia, China and Venezuela
Otto Reich sues Derwick Associates
Bronze medal in prison overcrowding
PDVSA Creates Privatization-Like Program To Increase Oil Production
Chavez’s heirs in full psychotic dissociation
The week’s posts:
Good news: Colombia eradicates “river blindness”
Colombia: WSJ reviews 2 novels
Venezuela imports US$3 billion worth of Cuban surveillance equipment
Argentina: Wall-to-wall Papal photo up
Panama: More Cuban weapons in the N. Korean freighter
High intensity drug trafficking areas: Caribbean security threats
Brazil: Santos Basin/Libra field among top 6 key oil & gas discoveries of 2013
Central America: Everybody wants a canal