Compare and contrast:
Full show here.
The Labor Day Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean
First the Chong Chong Gang, then the Mu Du Bong, now the Haddad 1: Weapons smuggling to and from rogue states.
ARGENTINA
Menem said no: Argentina Former Prez Refuses to Testify in AMIA Bombing Cover Up
Menem refused to testify on grounds that he was under obligation to maintain ‘state secrets’ which only the Senate could lift.
Argentine Jewish leader: What happened to Alberto Nisman?
Lengthy but must-read: Inside the Spyware Campaign Against Argentine Troublemakers, including Lanata and Nisman.
BRAZIL
Raid in Sao Paulo discovers ISIS money-laundering network: Polícia Federal descobre rede de apoiadores do Estado Islâmico em São Paulo. O achado assusta. Ainda mais porque terrorismo, no Brasil, não é crime
On August 31st Dilma Rousseff, their president, sent Congress a budget for 2016 with a gaping primary deficit (before interest payments) of 30.5 billion reais ($8 billion), or 0.5% of GDP, challenging its members to close the gap. It was a break with the sound-money practices that have underpinned Brazil’s economy. It was, some critics say, illegal. Certainly nothing similar has happened since at least 2000, when Fernando Henrique Cardoso, then the president, transformed public finances.
On a charitable view, Ms Rousseff was shocking legislators into making hard decisions rather than simply blocking her fiscal proposals. A harsher reading is that she does not know how to lead Brazil out of recession.
CHILE
Chile on Path to “Modest” Recovery, Central Bank Says
COLOMBIA
COLOMBIAN MAN DETAILS SEXUAL ASSAULT BY VENEZUELAN SOLDIERS DURING DEPORTATION
CUBA
Russian Spy Ship Targets U.S. Nuclear Submarines, Then Heads to Cuba
Hope in change: August was worst month for political repression in Cuba since June 2014
EL SALVADOR
MS-13 GANG MEMBER IN U.S. ILLEGALLY WANTED FOR SALVADORAN PROSECUTOR’S MURDER
GUATEMALA
What’s Happening in Guatemala?With its government about to fall, Guatemala is finally questioning the neoliberal orthodoxy of the post–Cold War world. Not that they actually tried it.
MEXICO
Excuse me while I whip this out: *GRAPHIC CONTENT* WATCH ‘DISABLED’ MAN DISPLAY HIS 19-INCH PENIS
“I don’t believe Chapter 9 would solve Puerto Rico’s problems,” he said. “I believe what would solve Puerto Rico’s problems is the same thing that would solve Washington’s problems, and that is to restructure the way government spends its money.
“No organisation, whether it’s a government, a company or a family, can survive long-term spending more money than it takes in.”
Aides: Clinton raised up to $500,000 during Puerto Rico trip
You can’t cure stupid: Puerto Rico Senate Declares Spanish over English as First Official Language
VENEZUELA
Maduro castiga a Colombia para proteger al Cartel de los Soles [Maduro punishes Colombia to protect the Cartel of the Suns.]
Read more here:
Why is China Bankrolling Venezuela?
Whatever Beijing’s motivations, the practical effect of said loans, according to Ellis [Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army War College], has “enabled countries such as Venezuela to continue as de facto sanctuaries for criminal and insurgent groups, and also, as points of entry into the region for Russia, Iran and other actors with potentially hostile intentions toward the United States.”
The week’s posts and podcast:
The mysterious Bolivian ship and its tons of weapons UPDATED
Guatemala: President resigns, is charged and jailed
Labor Day weekend film review: Wild about Wild Tales
Brazil: U.S. fast food chains expanding
Venezuela: Well on the road from “malgoverned space” to failed state
Haiti: Hillary’s “campaign against the negative stories concerning our involvement in Haiti”
Breaking: Obama Clinches Vote to Secure Iran Nuclear Deal
Pedro Pan exhibit and panel coming up
Wikileaks is a Front for Russian Intelligence
Guatemala: Central America’s Next Flashpoint
Chile: Bachelet’s proposal for failure
En español: Mensaje a Jorge Ramos (with English excerpts)
8PM Eastern Podcasting live on Latin America, Trump, http://t.co/HNZscHnzzt
— Fausta (@Fausta) September 2, 2015
Argentina: A story in 5 tweets
1. in Argentina the VP is accused of heroic levels of corruption, the President of having had a troublesome prosecutor whacked and
— Eamonn MacDonagh (@EamonnMacDonagh) August 3, 2015
2. now we learn or rather, are reminded, that Fernández, one of the most powerful men in the country is a narco.
— Eamonn MacDonagh (@EamonnMacDonagh) August 3, 2015
(See Argentina’s Cabinet Chief Refutes Drug Trafficking Allegations as Extortion
With a week to go for the primaries in Argentina, Cabinet chief Anibal Fernandez was accused of involvement in drug trafficking by those implicated in ephedrine trafficking in a television program, Periodismo para Todos (Journalism for Everyone), or PPT.)
3. And what’s more Scioli, the govt’s candidate and guarantor of future immunity, is likely to become the next president.
— Eamonn MacDonagh (@EamonnMacDonagh) August 3, 2015
4. Business as usual then in the mafia state that is Argentina, the permanent govt of which is a network of crooked politicians
— Eamonn MacDonagh (@EamonnMacDonagh) August 3, 2015
5. crooked “businessmen”, cops, union bosses, football hooligans, legions of spies, spivs and diverse lowlifes.
— Eamonn MacDonagh (@EamonnMacDonagh) August 3, 2015
Here’s Lanata’s Sunday show of Aug. 2 (in Spanish but NSFW),
Full show here,
Following which, Police: Lanata building damaged during street fight
Argentina: Tokyo Rose does the Falklands?
During WWII, Japanese propaganda tried to demoralize American soldiers serving in the Pacific,
Alas, Argentina is broadcasting to the Falklands,
. . . the broadcasts were an attempt to “break the media siege” around the islands, where Argentine TV signals cannot penetrate, and “guarantee the inhabitants a right to information in the English language.”
Information broadcast to the “English-speaking Argentinians” in previous editions included stories about trade surpluses, transgender rights and many, many more stories on how wonderful President Kirchner is.
Nick Hallett calls it,
Irrelevant, uninteresting and sometimes even unintelligible, the “Boletín Malvinas” – a product of Radiodifusión Argentina al Exterior (RAE) – is a textbook example of how not to do effective propaganda.
The show may have been going two years, but there is little evidence it has had any effect, or that anyone is indeed listening. Taking a listen to recent editions, it is easy to see why.
It broadcasts at midnight, or, as Nick puts it, “when most islanders are presumably in bed.”
I nominate Lanata’s show (in Spanish) as the antidote,
Lanata’s latest is on the Mercosur parliament, or Parlasur.
Argentina: Who went into #Nisman’s laptop?
In today’s WSJ:
New Twist in Death of Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman
Officials probe whether someone logged onto prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s computer after his mysterious death
The WSJ calls it “mysterious death,” I call it murder.
Kejal Vyas reports,
The new development in a case that has roiled Argentina since Mr. Nisman’s death in January is being investigated by Viviana Fein, the prosecutor who is trying to determine if the 51-year-old killed himself or was the victim of foul play. Mr. Nisman’s Samsung laptop logged the input of up to three flash drives just after 8 p.m., Ms. Fein told Argentine media on Monday, some hours after a .22-caliber Bersa was held to his head and discharged.
Investigators are looking into whether the computer—which contained data from his investigation of Iran’s suspected role in a 1994 terror bombing in Argentina—was accessed locally or remotely and whether its time registry could have been changed.
Here’s the mind-boggling video shown in Jorge Lanata’s show,
Vyals also mentions,
A new book by Mr. Nisman’s cousin, Andrea Garfunkel, launched fresh accusations that the late prosecutor was killed because of his investigation into the 1994 bombing. Ms. Garfunkel highlights irregularities regarding the findings at Mr. Nisman’s home. She notes the unused pajamas found near his bed, which she says suggests he may have died the night before investigators found him.
The book, In memoriam, is available for Kindle from Amazon in Spanish.
En español: Lo que sabía #Nisman: la conexión iraní
Argentina: Crime scene video from #Nisman apartment
90 mins after arriving Berni asks Fein whether they should check if Nisman is alive http://t.co/5mIRZLGoSb pic.twitter.com/UytaADh9Zv
— Eamonn MacDonagh (@EamonnMacDonagh) June 1, 2015
Argentinian journalist Jorge Lanata played in his TV show the following video:
In it, State Security chief Sergio Berni, while at the apartment of the presumably very dead Alberto Nisman, went to prosecutor Viviana Fein who was recording the findings at the scene, and asked her whether they should first verify the state of the person in the bathroom, “in case he was in agony.”
Nisman’s own mother had already been at the scene, and he was clearly dead.
The investigation had been botched up from the start. Lanata has more video (which apparently had been edited by the authorities) showing how evidence was handled by numerous people who were not wearing rubber gloves, the murder weapon was wiped to show its registration number, Fein stepped in the blood on the bathroom floor, and on and on.
One would compare them to the Keystone Kops, but there’s no need to insult the Kops.
Departing question:
Incompetence, yes; willful or not?
Related: “Silence is health”
UPDATE:
Linked to by Power Line Picks. Thank you!
Linked to by Grouchomarxistas. Thank you!
Argentina: Jorge Lanata will petition US Court re: Cristina’s US businesses
The headline is less tactful,
Argentinean Journalist to file petition in U.S. Courts to obtain information about Cristina Kirchner’s money laundering operations
Last night, Argentinean renowned investigative journalist Jorge Lanata announced he is planning to submit an application for an order for discovery pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782 in a Nevada District Court, aiming to obtain information related to President Cristina Kirchner’s companies in the United States.
Section 1782 of Title 28 of the United States Code is a federal statute that allows a party to a legal proceeding outside the United States to ask an American court to obtain evidence for use in the non-US proceeding. The full name of Section 1782 is “Assistance to foreign and international tribunals and to litigants before such tribunals”.
For the last two years, Jorge Lanata has been conducting an investigation known as the “Kirchner Money Route”, through which he demonstrated that Kirchner cronies were laundering millions of dollars coming from corrupt activities through a vast networks of shell companies and shady financial institutions in Argentina, Uruguay, Panamá, Switzerland, Seychelles Islands and the U.S., among others.
This investigation was then used by NML Capital Ltd., a hedge fund who holds a judgment against Argentina for more than $1.7 Billions (see NML Capital Ltd. vs. Republic of Argentina), as the main source of evidence to produce information about 123 companies in the State of Nevada that may point to the location of Cristina Kirchner’s assets in the United States and abroad. NML Capital Ltd. was able to depose a key witness to the “K-Money Route”. However, that deposition is being sealed by the request of the parties.
In Spanish, Lanata’s Sunday show.
More on NML bond holdouts:
A New Twist in the Argentine Debt Saga
But Dart’s legal complaint draws attention to something that had been overlooked as the talks progressed: The so-called Gang of Five—the five holdouts at the center of Singer’s legal case: Singer’s NML Capital, Aurelius Capital, Blue Angel Capital, Oliphant, and a small group of retail investors—hold only about a quarter of all the New York bonds held by holdouts. In addition to Dart, there are approximately $2.4 billion worth of bonds out there that are governed by New York law and in the hands of other holdout investors. The minute Argentina settles with Singer’s group and the bondholder payments are allowed to flow through, all the other holdouts will likely rush forward to Judge Thomas Griesa’s court, demanding the same legal rulings and the same terms, which could block the payments again. The default could be cured temporarily, but then Argentina would be right back where it started.
NML sought an emergency court order last week barring attorney Cesar Guido Forcieri, a former World Bank director, from returning. There’s no reason NML can’t question Forcieri when he gets to Argentina, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said in a one-page order issued Nov. 6 and made public today.
. . .
Forcieri is a close associate of Argentine Vice President Amado Boudou, NML said in court papers. Boudou was indicted in June by an Argentine federal court on corruption charges related to his alleged involvement in acquiring a bankrupt printing company, Ciccone Calcografica SA, that later won contracts to print the nation’s currency.Boudou was initially indicted with five others. In September, an Argentine judge indicted Forcieri for his alleged role in helping to steer business to Ciccone. If Argentine courts find Boudou guilty, the country may confiscate any profit, funds or property employed in the takeover scheme, according to NML’s lawyers.
Until last month, Forcieri served in Washington as a World Bank director for Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. He worked with Argentina’s Ministry of Economy and Public Finances as a G-20 finance deputy from 2010 until March, according to a profile on LinkedIn.
NML served Forcieri with a subpoena on Sept. 10 seeking documents regarding his involvement in the alleged Ciccone scheme. The Argentine lawyer failed to appear for a deposition on Oct. 20, NML said.
This ain’t over yet, not by a long shot, no matter what the SCOTUS ruled.