South America Watch Thread

[caltrek]

Argentines Have Stopped Buying Books
by Constance Lambertucci

March 2, 2024

Introduction:

(El País) Sales in the sector fell around 30% in January. While publications become increasingly inaccessible: a minimum wage from the South American country buys 13 and one from Spain, 63

There are Argentine readers who return these days to the works they already have in their libraries; others who choose to buy used books; some have borrowed; There are those who choose to download the pirated digital version. But many have stopped buying new copies in bookstores, where sales fell by around 30% in January, according to different players in the sector who estimate an even more pronounced decline for February. The economic crisis in Argentina , which today is the country with the highest inflation, has emptied citizens' pockets and buying books is becoming increasingly inaccessible: a minimum wage in the South American country buys 13 publications while one in Spain buys 63.

Gustavo López, editor at Ediciones Lux , has himself stopped buying works of poetry, novels, essays... “We are also readers and we know what a book costs. Although it is an object of great need, our pockets are not in a position to pay the cost of a book today.” López, who runs a small publishing house, founded in the 1990s in the city of Bahía Blanca, south of the province of Buenos Aires, says that “the last few months have been terrible” for the sector: “Sales fell tremendously and the production costs of the books multiplied. At the last fair we went to, Edita, we normally sell 200 books and this time we didn't reach 60″.

The Argentine Book Chamber (CAL) estimates that the drop in book sales in January was “close to 30%,” according to Juan Manuel Pampín, president of the chamber and Ediciones Corregidor. “The decline is becoming even more accentuated,” Pampín anticipates before the publication of the sector's annual report, which surveys bookstores and publishers in Argentina. The editor conveys the widespread “concern” among his colleagues: “Our industry comes in third or fourth place after paying for food , services, rent, clothing... We are going to find ourselves in a complex situation.” .

Read more here: https://elpais.com/argentina/2024-03-0 ... sis.html

[caltrek]

'Stronger Than Ever,' Venezuelan Opposition Candidate María Corina Machado Refuses to Yield
by Margioni Bermúdez
March 14, 2024

Introduction:

(Buenos Aires Times) Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado is pushing forward on the presidential campaign trail, traversing the country to energize supporters despite having little chance of overcoming the hurdles the state has placed in her way.

Polls show that Machado, who won an opposition primary with 92 percent of votes cast last October, would likely beat incumbent Nicolás Maduro in elections set for July 28.

But she has been disqualified by Maduro-aligned institutions from holding public office, accused of corruption -- a charge she dismisses as fabricated -- and of supporting sanctions against the Maduro government.

Machado, 56, has dug in her heels.

Additional extract:

Analysts say that unless her disqualification is somehow overturned, the opposition coalition may have to pick a substitute candidate -- among those not yet barred on similar allegations.

Read more here: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/latin- ... ld.phtml

[Time_Traveller]

Ecuador presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio assassinated at campaign event
Source: CNN

An opposition candidate in Ecuador’s upcoming presidential election, Fernando Villavicencio, was assassinated at a campaign event Wednesday, President Guillermo Lasso confirmed on social media, vowing the killing will not go unpunished.

Villavicencio, 59, was shot dead at a Movimiento Construye political rally at a school north of the capital Quito, campaign team members Cristián Zurita and Rodrigo Figueroa told CNN.

He was gunned down 10 days before the first round of the presidential election was set to take place on August 20.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/americas ... index.html

An update on this: -

Ecuador's youngest mayor shot dead: Brigitte Garcia was member of ex-president Rafael Correa's Citizen Revolution Movement party

Monday 25 March 2024 10:31, UK



Ecuador's youngest mayor and an aide were shot dead on Sunday, police in the South American country have said.

Brigitte Garcia, 27-year-old mayor of San Vicente, and her communications director Jairo Loor, were found dead in Manabi province, officers said.

Police added that the pair had both suffered gunshot wounds and that the gunfire had come from within the car, which was rented.

Ms Garcia - a member of former president Rafael Correa's left-wing Citizen Revolution Movement party - is the latest political figure assassinated in Ecuador.

Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was killed last August while leaving a campaign event two weeks before the election. He was a vocal critic of corruption and organised crime.

https://news.sky.com/story/ecuadors-you ... e-13101389

[Time_Traveller]

Corina Yoris: Venezuela's opposition candidate blocked from election

5 hours ago



Venezuela's main opposition coalition says its candidate has been blocked from July's presidential election.

The opposition Unitary Platform (PUD) said it was unable to access the electoral council website to register its candidate, Corina Yoris.

It is the latest setback for the PUD, whose leader, María Corina Machado, has been barred from running for office.

Polls have suggested that if the election was free and fair, Ms Machado could beat President Nicolás Maduro.

Ms Machado, 56, made headlines in October when the notoriously divided opposition united behind her. She received more than 90% of votes in a primary election organised by the opposition.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68664242

[Powers]

^^^ He's clinging at this point.

[caltrek]

Lula-Milei Clash Embodies the World’s Competing Economic Views
by Manuela Tobias & Simone Iglesias
March 28, 2024

Introduction:

(Buenos Aires Times) There are few presidents in the world today with more radically different economic models than Argentina’s Javier Milei and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Milei is desperate to gut public spending, sell off state-run companies and slash regulations. Lula, meanwhile, hounds his aides to ramp up spending, revitalise state companies to drive industrial policy and strengthen regulations to protect workers and the environment.

That the two men lead neighbouring countries — rival commodity powerhouses, long-time trade partners, allies and, of course, mortal enemies on the football field — makes the ideological clash all the more stark. Tensions have flared again and again. Milei has a habit of calling Lula a “Communist.” Lula in turn sticks Milei in his bucket of “primitive” nationalists. Their top diplomats are then sent to patch things up.

But the huge divide remains clear in the pretty distinct crowd each leader attracts. Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Elon Musk have all supported Milei, while Lula this week is hosting Emmanuel Macron in the Amazon and Brasília, after holding more than one meeting with both US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz since his 2022 re-election. He also has China’s Xi Jinping in his corner.

So the question hanging over their countries and the broader developing world is: which administration and which economic vision will prove more successful? The two leaders, of course, inherited far different economies. Brazil grew above expectations last year with inflation below five percent. Argentina is sputtering toward yet another recession with 276 percent inflation.

Read more here: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/latin- ... ews.phtml

[Time_Traveller]

Mexico cuts diplomatic ties with Ecuador after Jorge Glas arrest

3 hours ago



Mexico is cutting ties with Ecuador after police stormed the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice-President Jorge Glas.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said they had "forcibly entered" the embassy in a "flagrant violation of international law".

Glas took refuge in the embassy last December after Ecuador issued an arrest warrant against him for alleged corruption.

Glas's lawyer said he was innocent.

Glas served as Ecuador's vice-president between 2013 and 2017. He was relieved of his duties because of mounting corruption allegations against him.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68748011

[caltrek]

International Group Runs Simulations Capable of Describing South America's Climate With Unprecedented Accuracy
April 17, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) A consortium made up of researchers from more than ten countries, including Brazil, the United States and some European nations, is running simulations of the past and future climate in South America with unprecedented resolution. The aim is to create a computer visualization model that more accurately represents the hydroclimatic processes that occur in the region to help decision-makers implement more effective measures to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The work was presented at a panel discussion on climate on April 10, during FAPESP Week Illinois, in Chicago (United States).

“We’re now beginning to be able to correctly represent the hydroclimate of South America at the scales needed,” said Francina Dominguez, a researcher at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and coordinator of the project.

According to Dominguez, the climate in South America, like in all regions of the world, is changing. Increased droughts have been recorded in the southern Amazon, the Cerrado region, northern Brazil, and Chile. This scenario has affected agricultural yields, water supplies for reservoirs, hydroelectric power generation, and tens of millions of people in major metropolitan areas such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Santiago de Chile.

The Andean glaciers, which are an important source of water, have lost 30% of their area in the tropics and up to 60% in the southern Andes, the highest rates of glacier mass loss in the world. On the other hand, southeastern South America has experienced an increase in annual rainfall and an intensification of heavy precipitation since the beginning of the 20th century.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1041670

[caltrek]

I was pleasantly surprised recently to discover that the journal Capitalism, Nature, and Socialism (CNS) is still around and is even available online. Because I have not been monitoring headlines for interesting articles, the article I have chosen to cite and link is a little dated. It was published December 19, 2023, so it is not too out of date. The introduction I have cited starts with a discussion of the history of Venezuela, but most of the actual article is a description of Venezuela in its current condition. The linked article is slightly longer than the length of articles I usually cite.


Venezuela 2023: Oil and Water and Untelevised Revolution
by Quincy Saul

Introduction:

(CNS) 2023 is an important year to write about Venezuela. 101 years ago this month, in December of 1922, petroleum erupted into history. El Reventón, near the village of La Rosa, was a pillar of petroleum that burst forty meters into the air and could be seen as far away as Maracaibo. For ten days the geyser continued: at a rate of 100,000 barrels a day, the black rain fell. The Shell Oil engineers couldn’t stop it. Only when the chimbangleros of San Benito de Palermo were allowed onto the site – where they sang and danced around it with an image of their saint – did the reventón reside. And so began the next century, the same one which now begins to end.

So was born “the magic state” – there are two books with this title about Venezuela – all states may be magic but this one more than most.[1] Standard Oil and the Rockefellers came running in early 1923. In the last century since the reventón, Venezuelan demographics were turned upside down, from ~90% rural to ~90% urban. Then, suddenly, came a constitutional revolutionary process which over the last twenty years has inverted the magic of Venezuela… from neocolonial comprador client state to an aspiring radical participatory democracy, insurgent against US imperialism and protagonist of a multipolar world. Oil has been booming in Venezuela for a hundred years now, yet at the dawn of the 21st century, this country has also placed itself at the center of radical ecosocialist geopolitics. In 2006, Hugo Chavez insisted in the state of Zulia: “if there is no method which can show me truly truly that they are not going to destroy the forest or contaminate the environment of those peoples, if you can’t show me, then that coal stays in the ground, we won’t take it out, it will stay underground.”[2]

It’s an important time to write about Venezuela but it’s also terribly difficult – it’s complex, convoluted, combated and controversial. There’s so much crossfire around this country that it’s difficult to make any sense of what’s really going on.

[1] The Magical State: Nature, Money and Modernity in Venezuela, by Fernando Coronil, 1997, and The Magic of the State by Michael Taussig, 1997

[2] He went on: “I say this as a fact, but a fact which also marks a line and a concept, which every day should be more of a reality, which should concretize itself in the model for the construction of socialism.” For more on this subject, see: http://ecosocialisthorizons.com/2014/10 ... ocialism/

Read more here: https://www.cnsjournal.org/venezuela-2 ... olution/