Top reason why the Chinese judicial system is never going to catch on in South America

I mean, can you imagine any of the self-serving corrupt governments down this neck of the woods ever getting close to passing laws like this one? There are very few suicides in government circles, after all. The following translated from this report in Peru 21 today:

Condemned to death for accepting bribes

Chinese judiciary also ordered the confiscation of the savings of Xu Zongheng, ex-Mayor of the city of Shenzhen, for receiving money from companies and employees.

The Chinese judiciary has condemned to death for accepting bribes Xu Zongheng, ex-Mayor of the city of Shenzhen, according to official news agency Xinhua.

The Intermediate Popular Tribunal of Zhengzhou, in the northern province of Henan, also condemned Xu, 56, to lose all his political rights and ordered the confiscation of his personal assets.

According to the judgment, between 2001 and June 2009 the ex-Mayor accepted 33.18m Yuan (U$5.1m) in bribes from building construction companies and lower level public employees who wanted promotions.

However, the death penalty has been suspended for two years because Xu confessed to his crimes, which implies that if he shows good conduct during this time the capital punishment may be commuted to life imprisonment.

South America is not Latin America and vice versa (a.k.a. John Rathbone of the FT wins this week's coveted award)

There are three things I see in dumbass English language reporting about LatAm that drive me up the freakin' wall:

It's "Ecuador", not Equador...all right?

It's "Colombia", not "Columbia"....got it?

And Latin America is not the same as South America.  

This comes up once again because even a publication with the supposed gravitas and fact-checking background as The Financial Times gets it wrong, wrong wrong. 

Exhibit A: I was recommended this article in the FT today by a reader, opened it up but stopped after the first FREAKING HEADLINE PHOTO CAPTION about 20 words in and went to do something better with my time than read high-falutin' tosh from yet another English language reporter that's pretending to know far more about the region than he clearly does. The caption under the nice photo of São Paulo read:

"Gaining altitude: São Paulo in Brazil, a country that accounts for about half of the economy and population of Latin America" 

.....to which your humble scribe immediately called BUUUULLSHIT in a loud enough voice to startle the dog out of his morning nap. So after about a minute over at the CIA World Factbook I pulled down the numbers to back up the case:

LatAm Population: 580m
Brazil population: 201.1m
Percentage of Brazilians to LatAm population: 34.7%

LatAm GDP (PPP): U$6.27 trillion
LatAm GDP (Official exchange rate): U$5.16 trillion
Brazil GDP (PPP): U$2.013 trillion
Brazil GDP (Official exchange rate): U$1.574 trillion
Brazil % of LatAm GDP (PPP): 32.1%
Brazil % of LatAm GDP (Official exchange rate): 30.5%

So according to the FT, Brazil is "about half" of Latin America in terms of population and GDP. But according to bleeding reality, it's less than 35% by population and between 30% and 32% of regional GDP, depending on how you cut and slice the figures.

Yes, you've worked it out already haven't you? FT reporter John Paul Rathbone has taken the numbers for South America and not Latin America and made his 50/50 call. Another dumbass hack in other words, so John, why not do us all a big fat favour when it comes to your crap reporting about LatAm and.....

Charts of the day are....

...road traffic accident figures for 2009.

So yesterday there was a media splurge on the publication of The Andean Community (aka CAN, comprising of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia) and the amount of road traffic accidents they'd all had in 2009. Here's the chart that comes from the figures, (example report here) which also compares each country to its year 2000 stats the same way as nearly all the reports did:

click to enlarge

We see that in 2009 Bolivia had the most accidents, with 410 for every 100,000 population. Then comes Colombia (though we note the rate has dropped in the last 10 years), then Peru and finally Ecuador. Sure enough, the anti-Evo media in Bolivia started on their 'world's gonna end' stuff thanks to the numbers.

Then the raw numbers for deaths were also published in the reports, but without any population count context. So this author decided to do the pro rata calculations himself, getting population figures for each country from the CIA Factbook (the best thing them spooks ever did was launch that site...great stats homebase). So here's how road traffic deaths per 100,000 look for the four countries and also as superduper extra context, the stats for Argentina, the USA and the UK (the sources are mentioned there on the chart):

click to enlarge

So it seems that although there are more accidents per 100k in Bolivia, they tend not to be as life-threatening as in the other countries....more prangs, less speed. On the whole, the Andean region is basically on a par with the fatalities rate of The USA (more or less, Ecuador pushing the envelope a bit). This might not be so, however, if we look at the different metric of deaths per km driven. That number isn't calculated down here, it is up there and I'm guessing (though not sure) that the USA's average would drop if we went with it. Meanwhile, in The United Kingdom they obviously drive like whusses.

But Argentina is the real context here. Man, I know how they drive and it doesn't surprise me to see double the death rate of Bolivia; total dumbasses behind the wheel who all think they're Fangio.

If you're interested, here's the dataset:

2009 deaths		pop. (100k) (CIA Factbook)	deaths per 100k population
Argentina	7885	413.43201	19.07
Ecuador	1998	147.90608	13.51
Colombia	5634	442.05293	12.75
USA	33963	3102.328630	10.95
Peru	3243	299.070030	10.84
Bolivia	973	99.47418	9.78
UK	2222	612.84286	3.63

The USA and LatAm: You know it's true

I rest my case, m'lud:


H/T olivera

UPDATE: In the same vein, site friend Cansarnoso brings us shocking news of Egypt's latest move (according the Fox News at least)

Bolivia: Why doesn't this surprise me?

Let's just start with a plain fact: Police corruption is rife all over South America. That needs to be said out loud, no matter what country and no matter what denials or excuses are wheeled out by politicos, police chiefs and what-have-you. Part of the problem is the simple deal of paying a low salary to somebody who can legally walk round town with a gun strapped to their hip and wide-ranging powers to make other people's lives difficult, but another significant part is that many people join police forces in South America because they know they'll be able to get "two salaries" (as the phrase goes round this way), with the unofficial one much higher than the official one.

Despite that, I'm often impressed (for want of a better word) by the new and inventive ways cops find to add to their take-home pay. Here's a novel variant reported by AP, brought to light thanks to that good Bolivian resource, Boliviasol (my translation). Just another day in paradise, folks:

The Bolivian government has suspended the licenses of two private clinics that allegedly have illegal agreements with police officers so that police bring them road accident victims, according to government minister Sacha Llorenti.

The minister said during a press conference that 10 police officers are being investigated in La Pax and its neighbouring city, El Alto.

Llorenti mentioned three recent accidents in which the injured passengers were not taken to the nearest clinic as required by the law, but to other more distant clinics because it is suspected that they paid the police officers.

In one of the cases, one of the injured died before reaching the hosipital. The police that attended the injured person drove four kilometres in in an hour of high traffic density to take the person to a clinic when there was another medical centre close at hand.

"There are people profiting from the pain of others", said police commander Oscar Nina at the same press conference. The case has been sent ot the public prosecutor and the investigation may result in the definitive suspension of the clinics involved.

Having a left wing or right wing government in South America has made no difference at all to regional economic performances

A great post over at Gran Combo that compares South American countries' economies, specifically by exports and FDI. Here's one of the charts available (go over to Rendon's post for the others).

Apart from the recent winner being Bolivia (YAY!) the pattern is pretty clear over the region. They're all in the same boat. As for the source material used, the stats come from the United Nations via its favoured (and pretty darn sharp) macro-economy studio in LatAm, Chile's ECLAC/CEPAL. The English language report is available right here. As Rendon writes (translated)

"I don't sympathize with the Bolivian or Venezuela models, but the numbers at the moment indicate there is little difference with other countries."

Getting Defensive

And thus the world shivers and trembles in the face of Venezuela arms deals, with some dudette called Clinton saying:

"We have expressed concerned about the number of Venezuelan arms purchases. They outpace all other countries in South America and certainly raise questions as to whether there is going to be an arms race in the region."

Sorry? What was that? Let's see what our friend the owl says about that "outpace all other countries in South America" thing, shall we?

Yeah, thought he'd say that. Here's a chart that shows the really real numbers, not the BS taint that the USA pretends is reality.

But that's not really the whole story. Brazil is a big place and has 198m people on board (according to the CIA Factbook at least), so what we really need is some context. Here's the same grouping of countries, but this time the chart shows spend per capita on defence.

Hmmmmmm...gonna tell Hillary about Chile and Colombia? But to make it fair, defence isn't just about defending people, it's also about defending your territory. Here's how South American defence spending per square kilometre of country racks up:

And Venezuela is the problem? Yeah yeah yeah.....

Chart of the day is...

...how the World Cup qualifiying table stands in South America:

Click to enlarge

Brazil and Paraguay are now through. Chile is almost through. Then the big fight is for fourth (the last automatic qualifying place) and fifth (that plays off against the Central/North American region also-ran for a spot at the finals).

Two rounds left, and here's the next to last round (October). Gonna be tight.

Argentina vs Peru
Bolivia vs Brazil
Ecuador vs Uruguay
Venezuela vs Paraguay
Colombia vs Chile

The South America Swine Flu Sweepstakes Update, August 15

Here's the fatalities chart as at the date:

Argentina still has plenty plenty to add to that total and is now closing in on the official world topspot (the USA has 447 though that won't last long once winter hits up North).

But this week Brazil is the big story. Its fatalities number has shot from the low 100s to over 300 in the space of a week, with 63 deaths registered in the last 24 hours (for example). There's some serious infecting going on right now in the big cities and general southern region and Brazil is catching Argentina fast. Of course there's the question of population size (there are 5X more Brazilians than Argentinians) but all the same the recent fast upmove will be cause for real concern chez Lula.

I've left Uruguay in 5th because it's lagging on official figures and trying to play dumb with its own people...dat be stoopid of dem. Peru's HealthMin says the worst of the problem is over...yeah right. In general, those countries coming to the end of their winters have had it much rougher than the tropical zones. I presume it's cold where you live in December....am I right?

The South America Swine Flu Sweepstakes Update Aug 8

Here's the updated chart, as at August 8th:

The big news is from Argentina this week, as the health ministry said there were 337 confirmed deaths from AH1N1, but another 400 deaths are suspected as being due to swine flu so that number is going to rocket and put Argentina waAAAay out in front of the world league table. Also...listen up, the ministry said there had been 762,711 cases of flu in the country since the outbreak started, with 93% of cases being AH1N1. Yes, that does say seven hundred and sixty-two thousand seven hundred and eleven. That's around 700,000 cases of swine flu in Argentina and 1.75% of the entire population...that's a lot.

Another snippet from the Argentine health ministry this week said 53% of death had no previous health complication (no obesity, no high blood pressure, no chronic illnesses etc), so that's another mythbuster with three months and counting for the northern hemisphere winter.

Meanwhile, deaths in Brazil have shot past Chile's total and into second place at 132, mostly reported in the cities of San Pablo (50), Paraná (25) and Rio de Janeiro (19).

Chile's fatalities break into three figures, with 12,030 registered cases.

Something pretty for a Saturday

Drawn by Mercator-Hondius in 1630. Pretty, no? The original is yours for 900 Euros, just click the map to go to the seller (and no, I'm not on commission).

The South American Swine Flu Sweepstakes Update July 31

Here's the updated chart:

click to enlarge

Chile hasn't updated since last Friday, so that 79 number will jump for sure...that goes for Paraguay, too. Argentina is now world number two for AH1N1 fatalities (after the USA with 302 deaths and ten times the population count). Brazilian cases are mainly in the South of the country where its not that warm this time of year. Your winter will come, northeners.

According to this report, two out of three swine flu deaths have been registered in Latin America. Want me to start singing Meat Loaf songs?

The South America Swine Flu Sweepstakes Update July 25th

Here's the fatalities chart and we're up to 390 deaths in South America.

click to enlarge, feel free to copypaste in other places

Argentina now has 197 confirmed deaths (and more in the suspecteds pipeline, for example in Cordoba there are 10 confirmed and 32 suspected). Chile's death toll jumped significantly this week to 79 confirmed. Google Argentina has opened a dedicated page to AH1N1 in Argentina.

Peru has given kids a extra week off school, thus extending the current break through to August 10th (nearly a month off when they normally get two weeks). Chile still leads with confirmed infections, up at 11,641. Argentina has stopped trying to count. Peru has 3,300 confirmed cases. Brazil chopped the number of flu deaths from 24 to 29 yesterday. Meanwhile, border towns in Uruguay are suddenly doing great business as Brazilians flock over, this because Tamiflu is only available under prescription in Brazil but is sold over the counter in Uruguay.

The South America Swine Flu Sweepstakes Update July 18

Here's the updated chart:

Click to enlarge

Chile breaks the 10,000 barrier. Nobody's really sure how many cases there are in Argentina, but the official number is 3,056 as at July 13th so we're going with that even though it's almost certainly way more. Peru now has 2,503 cases and 12 deaths, which is an infection-to-death ratio about 10X lower than the fatties in Argentina with 155 dead.

Paraguay and Uruguay are fudging their numbers. Uruguay has 19 dead but won't say how many confirmed cases there are, only saying there are "40 outbreaks", many in schools. President Tabaré Vasquez last night appealed for calm. Paraguay with 8 dead says there are only 164 confirmed cases but also 1,728 suspected cases. As so often, the truth lies somewhere in between.

I made a mistake in the last update and said that every single South American state now has a fatality. Reader 'S' pointed out to me that Venezuela has missed the bullet so far. Let it stay that way. So anyhow, as countries down this way are beginning to count fatalities more accurately than infection cases here's a new chart:

click to enlarge

It's pretty clear that the southern cone is being affected far more than the tropical North of the continent, so watch out northern hemisphere...your winter will come.

The South America Swine Flu Sweepstakes Update 13 July

Here's the chart (and as I've been asked a couple of times, for those who wish feel free to copy and use elsewhere, no problems and no need to write in):

Click to enlarge

Sadly, it might be time to stop counting the infected and start a new fatalities chart, with nearly 100 deaths in Argentina, 26 in Chile and smatterings over all corners of the continent, even the bits that don't get a real winter. All countries on the list have at least one fatality to their names and the region total is now 151 (94 in Argentina).

Argentina took delivery of 100,000 "anti-flu kits" on Friday and another 400,000 on Sunday (from Switzerland...nice people) and the government seems to be reacting..finally. However, the officially confirmed 2,928 cases may be way behind reality, with some health people quoting 19,700 infections throughout the country right now.

Brazil has broken into 4 figures. Bolivian health authorities are talking about 27,000 infections over the next 12 months. Peru is now panicking and the traditional midwinter school break that happens end July/beginning August has been brought forward and now starts July 15th.

It's Quiztime at IKN

Yes indeedy, it's time to tickle your neurons and throw out another question for your dee lek tay shun. What follows is not trick question either, just a straight up'n'down one word answer special:

Which South American country is forecast
to have the highest GDP growth for 2009?

Answers by mail or in the comments section below. Answer tomorrow and first name out the bag with the correctness wins....errrr...I dunno.... a bar of chocolate (but a BIG one, promise).

The South America Swine Flu Sweepstakes Update

Here's the updated chart, with 14,071 officially confirmed cases in South America (but don't worry, plenty more to come):

click to enlarge

The main news is that Argentina is officially crapping itself. The are now 60 confirmed deaths from AH1N1 in the country and another dozen are likely to be added to the list tomorrow according to the health people. Also ever since last week when the new Health Minister was stupid enough to tell people the truth and Argentina is staring at 100,000 infections before this all dies down, Argentine nerves have been shot to hell.

Chile still a mile ahead of course, and as that 8,160 figure hasn't been updated for 48 hours we can expect a bunch more soon. Peru has snatched 3rd place back from Brazil and passes into 4 figures. Peru has also registered its first two deaths from the thing. Bolivia has shot from nowhere to move into 5th place, most cases being in Santa Cruz. Uruguay isn't telling the truth any more. Finally, to put a bit of context on the latest numbers here is the chart from one month ago, June 7th

Basically tenfold in 30 days. Wow.

The South America Swine Flu Sweepstakes Update 27th June

Here's the updated chart.

Click to enlarge

Chile stretches its lead again, to 6211 cases. Argentina zooming up towards 2,000 now and already has 26 deaths from the disease...plenty of McDs in Buenos Aires, folks. Peru has just put on a spurt and added 100 cases in the last 24 hours, but still can't peg back Brazil for third place.

Meanwhile, down at the foot of the table Colombia has added just 3 cases in the last few days and sinks to the bottom. No winter + no addiction to fast food = living la vida loca. Frankly you have more chance of dying from false positiveness than you do from the pandemic.

The South America Swine Flu Sweepstakes Update June 23

Here's the new chart, folks.

Click to enlarge

Uruguay finally released its figures and has jumped right up the chart with 195 cases. But biggest mover is Brazil, scoring 94 cases in just one day (Monday) and snatching third place from Peru.

Runaway leader Chile hasn't updated its numbers for a few days, so that 4,315 is surely higher by now. UPDATE; 10 minutes after publishing Chile came out with its new number, 5,186 cases....the chart above has been updated. Reports in Chilean media now talk about "collapsed health services" with the number of cases (and suspected cases) swamping hospital staff. Happy days.

The South America Swine Flu Sweepstakes Update 19 June

Hot off the presses here are the latest regional numbers for swine flu, or potato flu or AH1N1 if you really insist.

Click to enlarge

Chile stretching that lead again and into the 4,000s now. Argentina may be second on the infecteds list but has the most amount of regional deaths, at six.

Peru is at 185 and when this all started the country's health minister assured his people that nobody would die of swine flu on his watch. Well I dunno about the condition of each patient, but statistics are starting to play against him methinks.

O pais mais grande do mundo has moved up from 5th to 4th all of a sudden, beating Euador into the three-figure column. Further down the field, Paraguay has just doubled its number of infected tonight.

UPDATE: The latest out of Argentina tonight is 1,010 official positive cases and another death. That makes seven total in Argentina. Health Minister Ocaña tonight talked of her "deep worry" about the unfolding situation. Moral: don't supersize me.