Birds of a feather

Cook da bookz

So Manuel Runaway Rosales lands in Peru last Sunday and applies for some kind of weirdass political asylum by filing a 350 page petition/report/life story/gawdknowswhat with the Peruvian judiciary.

But guess who he has as his legal council? (update: Aww gawd..it's "counsel". All those wasted years at skool) None other than disgraced Prime Minister and Twobreakfasts right-hand man, Jorge MiniMe Del Castillo! Yes indeed, the PM that was caught up in the middle of the massive Petrogate corruption scandal last year has decided to "help" Rosales because he's some sort of "democrat".

OH THE HUMANITY! LOL!

Reuters has all the details in this report right here.

Peru: as corrupt as ever

"Just the one breakfast this morning, Mr. García? Or would you like two"

Another immersion in the putrid world of Peruvian politics.

Remember the scandal back in October when this Romulo Leon guy was recorded in conversation with Alberto Quimper of state-run PetroPeru talking about the bribes they were about to pick up for favours offered to foreign oil companies? Yeah, course you do cos I blogged about 9 times on the thing (here's one). It's also the corruption scandal that led to the resignation of the then Prime Minister Jorge Del Castillo and all the cabinet and the start of the woefully disappointing Yehude Simon's term.

So anyway, since then plenty has happened in the case, but things came to a head this week with two happenings.

The parliamentary commission charged in investigating as to how deep all this corruption malarkey went (and it went deep into the APRA party, no doubts) was expected to slap at least four ex ministers with formal corruption charges. But when it came to the vote, one committee member decided to vote against the charges and due to the nature of the committee this meant that the charges disappeared into puff of smoke. Carlos Raffo is the name of the committee dude that saved the bacon of Jorge del Castillo along with ex-Health Minister Hernan Garrido, ex-Health Minister Carlos Vallejos and ex-Mining Minister Juan Valdivia

Of course Raffo will deny it (in fact he already has), but people who don't live in the fantasy world of PeruPolitik need about 10% of their brainpower to work out that he was bribed by the APRA party to change his vote. This Raffo guy is one of those long-standing "controversial ministers"; a member of Fujimori's party, a vocal supporter of his ex-boss..and most importantly a corrupt piece of shit who would sell his mother to a platoon of Slavic soldiers given the chance.

Meanwhile, in true Peru style, while the guilty corrupt bigwigs get off scot-free the people who managed to eavesdrop the conversation between Leon and Quimper in the first place are now behind bars. Eight people from the Peruvian Spooks'Я'Us company "Business Track" (website here) were arrested yesterday, including the bossman who was.........roll on the drums.....the ex chief of intelligence in the 1990's Fujimori government.

And thus the sordid world of Peru, APRA and Twobreakfasts continues:

• The sacrificial lamb is chosen (Romulo Leon)
• The bigboy corruptos cross palms with silver, get away with it and lived to be bribed again (Del Castillo and his merry men)
• The whistleblowers are thrown in jail (as a lesson to the next people who dare to try for a bit of justice)

And President Twobreakfasts, leader of the most corrupt political party in South America, member since he was old enough to walk, stalwart party capo-de-tutti-capi for decades..... knows absolutely nothing at all.

Peru's Cabinet Ministers: All gone, bye bye

Well, President Twobreakfasts has done it in style; instead of picking or choosing a few sacrificial lambs, he's "accepted the resignation of" (read 'sacked') all of his ministers. From the good (Antonio Brack) to the bad (MiniMe, Alva Castro) to the indifferent (Valdivieso, Pinilla), all of them have just been given more time to spend with their families.

No word yet on who will replace the motley crew, but all the buzz is now around Yehude Simon (as mentioned this morning). Maybe PPK for Finance Minister, too. It's also possible that some of the same faces are re-hired in different roles. And Brack should be re-instated at Environment immediately if there's any justice in this world. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater if he loses his post. Vamos a ver...........

UPDATE: Here's Bloomberg's version

UPDATE 2, 10:30pm EST: Otto's famous jungle drums can confirm that Yehude Simon will be given the job of Cabinet Chief. This is very good news imho. You heard it here first, folks.

Peru: Don't let them eat cake (the flour's imported)

Jorge Del Castillo and Peru's Agro Minister Ismael Benavidez caught
on camera wearing their masonic aprons.

All great fashions start out by being ridiculed (e.g. flared jeans, Tamagochis, the hula-hoop, sitting on the roof of a train in the Indian sub-continent...you name your own fave). This year's crazy craze goes by the name of "Nationalization", and was kicked off last year by a little known local politico named Hugo Chávez, who nationalized CANTV, the Venezuelan phone company. Since then this nationalization fad has turned into flavour of the month and talk of the town, with Bolivia snapping up its gas prodcution, Argentina taking over (better said 'back') its national airline, the UK feasting on a couple of savings&loans thingies and the USA nationalizing everything to do with money (though it has to be said, circumstances up North are somewhat different....I mean, the nationalizations down this way have actually added value to the states in question).

So not to be outdone, Peru has joined in on the act. In a big hoopla presentation today, Prime Minister Jorge "mini me" Del Castillo along with a bunch of his ministers launched its latest attempt at Communism called "Take Advantage, Eat That Which Peru Produces" (Aprovecha: consume lo que el Perú produce).

Mini-Me said "We have to Nationalize our food, and because of this army barracks, hospitals and prisons will use local produce of the finest quality to bring down costs." He then went on to moan about the fact that Peruvians eat more imported goods than locally grown potatoes (for example), and then immediately contradicted himself by saying that Peruvians had changed habits and were eating more fish than chicken nowadays, which brought the price of a kilo of chicken down from S/7.40 to S/5.50. This is of course total bollocks, because chicken prices came down once the imported chicken feed came down after the much headlined surge in food prices was over (funny...you don't hear people talking about that much nowadays but inflation is still on the up'n'up...I wonder why...not) and had nothing to do with any sudden fervour Peruvians developed for horse-mackerel.

So I's got me an idea; why not stop planting all that asparagus for export to the USA (cos by the sounds of things, WalMart shoppers just won't be able to stretch to it soon), and use the same areas to plant something radical...like wheat, or soya or more rice? Then Mini-Me can stop imposing his ridiculous logic on his fellow citizens and let them bake a cake or two, just like they could when they were poor.