News roundup (we sniff the bottoms of the mongrel dogs that others fear to sniff)

OH NOES! SECRET OIL DOLLAR CONSPIRACY! Dumbasses fall for this crap every time, but Mish nails the issue in this post. Gimme a freakin' break here, dudes....

Argentina: Why do we lurve da booorev? Let's take yesterday's note by the WSJ on Argentina and the IMF:

"Deranged psycho killer will never understand why the orphan child of the mother it once strangle-raped cannot return its love".

Oh yes, we love da booorev.

Paraguay: Beats me why AP is so, so bad sometimes, cos other times they nail great stories. Check out this one on Paraguay that starts

"Three police chiefs imprisoned for torture have finally have been fired after collecting their salaries from behind bars since 1995, Paraguay's interior minister said Tuesday."

Peru: The strike at Shougang's iron ore mine in Peru is now eight days old. Reason for strike? The deal brokered by workers and management to end the last strike has been totally ignored by the Chinese management. It's the future of Kapitalism, Komrade.

Ecuador: Good news is no news

When it comes to South American financial news, the only things that English language newswires are allowed to report about Colombia and Peru (Amerika's friends) are good. When it comes to Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela (those nasty commiepeople) the reverse is true.

Take, for example, the story of Ecuador's international currency reserves. Here's the chart year to date and we can see how reserves dropped in the first part of the year, reaching their low point at the end of May.

Bizarrely, the newswires were full of stories about those reserves when the drop was on. Here are just a few examples (of many, believe me) culled from the wires between March and May:

March 16: "...Ecuador’s foreign reserves fell to their lowest since June 2007..."

March 19: "... The country’s foreign reserves declined 5 percent to $3.31 billion in the week ended March 13, the lowest since June 2007..."

March 26: "...leftist President Raffael Correa could be forced to drop the dollar, throwing the country's monetary system into chaos ..."

April 27: "....Correa dismissed concerns about the economy, even though Ecuador's foreign exchange reserves dropped by half over the last six months...."

May 11: "... A 30 percent tumble in the central bank’s foreign reserves since the December default is draining the money supply..."

But then weirdly, bizarrely, strangely, when May left the scene and those international currency reserves began to rebound (due almost entirely to the better prices for crude oil), the newswires decided that the subject wasn't interesting any longer. By way of proof, check out this link to Bloomberg that notes how the keywords 'Ecuador', 'currency' 'reserves' returned a whole swathe of reports in 2009....but not a word since May. Not a single word.

Funny that, innit?

And you wonder why I call bullshit on the mediocre media that covers LatAm? The only truth you get is the version the newswire controllers want you to get. True for every single country down here. Truly pathetic coverage of Latin America, brought to you by Cheese-O-Mint™, for all your cheese/mint needs. Ask for it by name at your favourite store.

Newsy things

Question: If thirty-five billion dollars fell in the middle of the forest, would anyone hear one hand clapping? (Answer: There is no spoon).

Report on Kinross results and Tye Burt's comments about Chile being "key". Photos of Yale Simpson drooling and raving on request.

Report on Yamana (AUY) earnings. They were ok..nothing special...not bad.

Peru FinMin and dumbass Carranza tells world that Peru has touched bottom and will bounce back in 2q09. Fool me eight times, shame on my grandchildren?

Bolivia: the UN says that the reports of slave labour (it's called 'forced work' these days) on Santa Cruz farms are true.

Sunday snoozy newsy roundup

Panama: Observers report that the Presidential election happening right now is going off in a calm, free and fair manner. Isn't it cool to notice that this type of report is the rule rather than the exception in Latin America nowadays?

Venezuela: A helicopter crash on the Venezuelan side of its border with Colombia has left 17 army personnel and one civilian dead. The toll includes the TO2 (Theater of Operations Two) border troops' top general. No news as yet on how the accident occurred, but it's a real nasty one no matter how it happened. QEPD.

Ecuador: With 90% of the votes now counted (it always takes forever in Ecuador, don't ask me why cos I don't know) Studmuffin has 51.8% of the vote. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Bolivia: Not only has the shady NGO 'Human Rights Foundation' been messing around in internal affairs and supporting illegal separatist movements, but it has also been operating in Bolivia without any permission or licences. Not registered, not declared, not anything. As thus another far-right wing destabilizing force will be chucked out of Bolivia and moan about freedom of speech and human rights. Alek Boyd, what a tosser.

Italy, and Berlusconi's wife has filed for divorce. Nothing to do with this region for sure (except that I found out about it in Clarín). Just a chance to go "ahahhahaahahahahah ahhhhahhahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

News roundup

The Last Temptation of Evo, Trinidad&Tobago style

Peru: Thirteen soldiers are dead after being ambushed by Sendero terrorists in two separate events last week. Lillie at Memory in Latin America has a full rundown in English and here are the latest repercussions with the far left angle played in local press. Despite what you might read in the NYT or Comercio this isn't a resurgent idealogical struggle, more like a bunch of heavily armed narcos trying to defend what they consider their patch.

Argentina rightly going ga-ga over Angel Cabrera's magnificent victory in the Masters and the champ gets all headline space this morning. Here's an example. ¡Voto Latino!

More Argentina: It looks like Alfonsin is still influencing Argentine politics from beyond the grave, as the Radical UCR party has, on what many are calling Raul's last wish, made the necessary moves to allow Presidential Veep Julio Cobos back into the party after expelling him for the "treason" of being Klishtina's running mate. All he has to do now is stop being Veep. Argentinpolitik is a weird world, komrade

Bolivia, and Evo Morales now on day four of his hunger strike. It's all a bit weird this one too, but basically he's protesting about the way the legally voted constitutional changes are being delayed by a congress with a significant block of opposition seats. Because of his ongoing protest he has announced that he won't attend the Summit of the Americas, probably because the buffet table would be too tempting. Chuños and api served.

News round up (serious edition)

When you live in a seismic zone and see photos like this, you know
what it means. Thinking of you, Costa Rica

"Pura Vida" (I hope). In Costa Rica the death toll from the 6.1mag quake yesterday is at 14, with unconfirmed reports of another 18 dead. No more, please. Aguante ticos.

Check this out for an excellent early morning news review as he does this nearly every day. Headlines from all over the LatAm region all neatly packaged and a line of comment to boot. Put this dude on your RSS immediately and then I won't feel so obliged to be all serious here.

Wow, what a coincidence. As soon as the Peruvian petroleum exploration business comes under close corruption scrutiny a whole bunch of international players stop getting busy. Add to the list of deferred projects this JV between Royal Dutch Shell and BPZ yesterday. BPZ dropped 17% on this news that was blamed on the market's "current environment". Yeah right. Wanna see this bridge I have for sale again? It's a really nice one...got arches and everything.

In other regional countries insider stock trading is positively encouraged, but Chile is more serious than most (as we know). Land of the Mapuche wins more anti-corruption brownie points by fining and upholding this ruling against a director of airline LAN.

Finally, an excellent report from the London Financial Times about the economic downturn and how it's affecting the whole region, written by Stephen Fidler. This article is highly recommended as balanced and accurate. Personally, I know the world has gone totally gaga when I start agreeing with Ricardo Hausmann. Sheesh...i need a stiff drink.

News roundup (the bits that Fox News forgets to tell yaz)

BLAME CHAVEZ FOR THIS
HUMANITARIAN DISASTER

Honour amongst thieves. This afternoon at its cabinet meeting, Peru's 17 ministers of state decided to reject the pay rise given to them late last week by Presidential emergency decree. Or in other words, Peruvians kicked up such a fuss about this barefaced crime that the ministers collectively decided that they couldn't get away with it.

Freeze, suckers! Chávez takes approximately four nanoseconds about deciding between cutting cheap fuel aid for US citizens and cutting aid for....errr...Venezuelans. Y'know that if Venezuela carried on spending the way did with crude at $100 it would also be frowned upon as too much public sector burden. Some you lose, some you draw, eh? Anyhow, betcha can't wait for the first "Chávez Froze My Grandmother!" headline out of New Hampshire.

Argentina started its "plan zero" easy credit plan for new cars today. Just in time (geddit?) too, as auto production was announced today as down 47% in December YoY. Phunny phactoid; originally the first person on the list for the new car on cheapo credit was the 21 year old son of the Minister of Environment and Development, Homero Bibiloni. When the press got wind he struck his name off the list. Only in Argentina........

Ecuador has shrinking reserves. At end 2008, international currency reserves stood at U$4.472Bn. El Comercio does the math and notes the important bit; that's down U$1.538Bn in the month of December. Ouch. Not good.

News roundup

Mar Del Plata, Argentina. Jan 23rd 2008.

Ecuador: Even though Correa decided to default on the 2015 Global bonds, he's now saying that they're different from the "illegitimate" 2012 and 2030 bonds (the 2030s are still technically undefaulted though) . Studmuffin now says that the 2015s were "developed in a very different way" and need further examination. Smell fishy smells? Yeah, me too.

Venezuela: International currency reserves shot up in the last few days of 2008 and finished at U$42.2Bn, a country record high. Here's Bloomie on the story. This should take pressure off the parallel currency rate, currently standing at a bid/ask of 5.5/5.7 to the dollar. I'll do an update post on the VEF currency in the next few days with the usual charts and everything (if it doesn't appear, somebody send a mail to remind me please?).

Peru: By their deeds shall ye know them. President Lugo of Paraguay foregoes his salary, saying it must be spent on the poor. President Morales of Bolivia caps his ministers' salaries as a gesture of austerity to his poverty-stricken nationals. Meanwhile in Peru President Twobreakfasts first watches as the members of Congress raise their salaries from S/15,600 to S/23,200 per month (approx U$5K to U$7.5k) and then says that his ministers don't get enough and should earn the same. Thus the "Emergency Decree" published yesterday that raises Ministerial salaries to the same S/23,200 level. How this deserves to be called an emergency is only logical in the corrupt shithole of Peruvian cronyism politics. This government is vomitworthy and Yehude Simon should be thoroughly ashamed of himself for being such an apologist.

More Ecuador: a nice op-ed in on the new mining law and some of the consequences published Ecuador's El Comercio daily and written by our very own Silvia Santacruz of Ecuador Mining News. It's only available in spanish at the moment, but hopefully Silvia will translate it and add it to her website soon.

Argentina: AirMiles a-plenty, as Klishtina is due to travel 75,000 km in the next two months on official (and semi-official) foreign visits. Not much happens in Argentina (politically speaking, at least) until March as everyone's at the beach til then. La Salada for the Ds and Es, Mardel for the Cs, Pinamar or Brazil for the Bs and Punta del Este in Uruguay for the glitterati. ¡Que pais generoso!

PS: I've kept my mouth shut about Israel and Gaza and it will stay that way. My only comment on events: I'm glad Dubya decided not to stage his grand finale round this neck of the woods.

News roundup

Ecuador announces that it has confiscated 30.886 metric tonnes (MT) of drugs in 2008, including 27MT of high quality cocaine. Not bad for a country that produces virtually no cocaine at all and is used as a trafficking route from Colombia and Peru.

Glencore Bolivia announces 700 job losses at its zinc/lead/silver mine in Potosí. Locals are protesting the announcement with protests in the town square. Here's bloomberg on the news, but the Bloomie report doesn't mention the job cuts come just after locals rejected an emergency plan put together by Glencore that would have forced workers to accept a 12 hour working day for 14 consecutive days. It's evolution, baby..........

In Peru, the local Amazon development pressure group Aidesep has threatened to throw Dorato Resources (DRI.v) out of the area it is trying to turn into a gold mine on the Peru/Ecuador border. The Peru mining ministry came out with some BS about Dorato not being there and the cmaps being operated by Minera Afrodita, but forgot to mentin that Afrodita is optioned to be sold to Dorato with the operation due closed in 2009. Anyway, Aidesep says that if the company doesn't leave on its own according, it a 5,000 locals will turn up at their camp and persuade them it'd be best to abadon the area.

In Argentina, the Econometrica monthly review is out for the month of December. Here's the link to this most useful PDF that keeps Spanish speakers nicely informed on economic issues. Recommended reading, and free.

In Peru, Prime Minister Yehude Simon complains that businesses should have dropped their retail prices due to cheaper supplies, citing the example of chicken selling at S/8 per kilo (U$2.58). He accuses businesses of not playing fair. Meanwhile, Bolivia's government sets a price limit of Bs./12 per kilo (U$1.70) for chicken and doesn't allow the "free market" room to rip off its population.

News roundup

Ingrid Betancourt kindly removes ear wax
from President Bachelet's right lug

The bits you don't normally get to see (or see once it's too late), courtesy of your loving and caring IKN:

Dateline Paraguay (beepbeepbipbipbeepbipbip)
Brazil's Bandes financing agency is under fire from another quarter. After President Studmuffin said "ain't gonna pay your illegal debt" and kicked up a world-sized fuss, Paraguay's megatop wonderful President Lugo came out with his country's own version today.

Lugo said that Paraguay would exhaustively study the legality of the debt Paraguay has with Bandes (also known as BNDES) and he was going to commission a group "of high moral standing" (man this guy is great) to study the debt taken out with Brazil, nearly all of it to build the joint Itaipú dam project.

Dateline Argentina (beepbeepbipbipbeepbipbip)
Argentina's lower house today easily passed their part of the law proposal to nationalize Aerolineas Argentinas (and its internal flight service, Austral). The upper house Senate must also pass the law before it becomes a reality.

The Klishtina gov't is likely to pay current owner, the Spanish Marsans (which started life as a travel agency) $1 for the company by the end of December, all this after Marsans and the government couldn't agree on a price to pay. Aerolineas has a heavy debt burden, but the two sides differ widely on exactly how far in the mire it really is. It all sounds like a very Argentine bizdeal to me.

Dateline Argentina (beepbeepbipbipbeepbipbip)
More news from Klishtinalandia, as she today sacked her environment secretary Romina Picoletti. The official reason is the lack of progress made in cleaning up Buenos Aires' Riachuelo open sewer (which was a river a couple of hundred years ago). The snarky reason is the lack of progress in enviro affairs since she got the job, except the progress in feathering her own nest and those of friends and families (4x4s suddenly parked in relatives' driveways, we're led to believe). But the real reason is for the Glacier Protection Bill that was passed by Argentina's parliament but vetoed by Klishtina herself. Picoletti was the driving force behind the bill and Barrick (ABX) and its big bad Pascua Lama gold mine project was the driving force behind the Kirchner decision. The "experienced in LatAm affairs" Barrick wins. Hey, what's new?

Dateline Chile (beepbeepbipbipbeepbipbip)
Ingrid Betancourt has one helluva good PR agent. She hits Studmuffin on Monday, Klishtina on Tuesday and today it was Santiago and Michelle Bachelet. Bachelet chose the moment to announce she was nominating the ex-FARC hostage for the Nobel Peace Prize. At least Bachelet can look Ingrid in the eye and tell her she understands, as Chile's top cheese was also imprisoned for her politics in the Pinochet era. Tomorrow Betancourt meets and greets someone who skipped off to France to avoid imprisonment. Yep, she's in Peru.

Dateline Bolivia (beepbeepbipbipbeepbipbip)
"On Sept. 11 2008, in the village of Porvenir and other places in the Pando province, a massacre occurred." That's how the Unasur commissioner started his presentation to Evo Morales today. Reuter's via the excellent reporter Eduardo García brings you the details. If you prefer your news straight from the source, here's the link to the final Unasur report, now available as a 66 page PDF. Spanish language only.

News roundup

Hearts'n'minds, Chinese style. Peru state radio reports that Chinalco has begun an information campaign in the town of Morococha about its enormoous copper project to be built next door as of next year. Otto prefers this to the normal mushroom politics method of so many world miners.

Disappointingly for some, Ecuador and Brazil are not about to stop doing deals with each other. Otto is totally unsurprised and laughs in the face of the ignorant (e.g. Walter Molano).

Caracas falls to the Chávez opposition, and immediately 30% of the city is without water supply. Huh...those capitalists, eh?

Evo says relations with the USA will be better when The Hawaiian takes charge. Evo therefore wins this week's "No Shit Sherlock" award, as bar direct napalm attacks from B-52s it's tough to imagine how they could be any worse.

Otto receives precisely six hatemails and board comments from guys called 'anonymous' concerning yesterday' post about silver. Read here and find out why the comments didn't get through, dumbasses. Freakin' silverbugs can't face reality.........