Nicaragua-The Saddest Of Do-Overs

NICARAGUA

The Saddest of Do-Overs

After more than 100 days of deadly protests, there’s no end in sight to the troubles in Nicaragua.

On Monday, President Daniel Ortega rejected calls for a referendum on whether to hold an early election, Reuters reported, while the US turned up the heat by confiscating US-donated vehicles from Nicaraguan security forces and suspending future donations and sales, the Los Angeles Times said.

Echoing human rights organizations in its strongest condemnation yet, the White House claimed Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, had “brutalized their own people” with “indiscriminate violence” that has killed more than 300 people in three months.

Commemorating 100 days of protests last week, Nicaragua’s Association of Human Rights said that at least 448 people have been killed since the agitation began, Al Jazeera reported.

It’s an ironic development for Ortega, as he came to power more than 30 years ago amid hopes that Nicaragua might become an inclusive democracy following the ouster of dictator Anastasio Somoza, Rodrigo Urimny opined in El Espectador via WorldCrunch.

Now, he’s repeating Somoza’s worst crimes.

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Ecuador: Guests Are Like Fish

ECUADOR

Guests Are Like Fish

Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno confirmed that the country is in talks with Britain to end Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange’s six-year stay at the South American country’s London embassy.

Assange’s legal team is reportedly making preparations for his eviction in “hours, days or weeks,” according to a report in Britain’s Sunday Times. On Friday, Moreno suggested that it might not be too sudden, saying Assange’s expulsion must be carried out correctly and through dialogue, the Telegraph said. But he made clear his sympathy for Assange – if he ever had any – has run out.

“I have never agreed with the interventions in people’s private emails in order to obtain information, however valuable it may be, to bring out certain undesirable acts of governments or people,” the Telegraph quoted him as saying.

Assange originally sought asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced allegations of sex crimes. Those claims have since been dropped. But he still faces arrest in Britain for violating conditions of his bail and he still fears he’ll be extradited to the US for publishing diplomatic and military secrets on Wikileaks.

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No longer flavour of the month, SA rethinks its bus rapid transit systems

No longer flavour of the month, SA rethinks its bus rapid transit systems: It seems government’s love affair with bus rapid transit (BRT) systems has cooled. Courted in the Brazilian city of Curutiba – it is difficult to find a local government transport executive who has not been there on a study tour – and sworn to fidelity in the pressure cooker years before the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, once ardent fervour has now turned to discontent.

Brasil: Shut Up Or Else

BRAZIL

Shut Up or Else

Latin America was once again the most dangerous region for environmental activists in 2017 – the deadliest year yet for eco-warriors – and Brazil was the worst offender, according to the latest report from UK-based Global Witness.

The nonprofit watchdog group said Tuesday that 207 people lost their lives last year in their fight against companies and governments that seize land and harm the environment, with Latin America accounting for nearly 60 percent of the killings, Al-Jazeera reported.

At least 57 such activists were killed in Brazil, the largest number ever recorded in a single country in the course of a year.

The news channel noted that Brazilian President Michel Temer and his predecessor Dilma Rousseff both weakened the country’s laws and institutions designed to protect environmental activists and made it easier for corporations to undertake projects without the consent of local communities.

Colombia recorded 24 environment-related killings, while Mexico saw the largest spike in deaths, from three in 2016 to 15 last year.

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Venezuela: Who Wants To Be Millionaires?

VENEZUELA

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

The dream of becoming a millionaire is about to become really easy in Venezuela, where the International Monetary Fund predicts inflation will top 1 million percent by the end of the year.

Faced with an insurmountable budget deficit, President Nicolas Maduro continues to print money. Meanwhile, the situation is spiraling into conditions like those faced by Germany in 1923 or Zimbabwe in the late 2000s, Alejandro Werner, head of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere department, said as cited by Bloomberg.

Werner predicts Venezuela’s economy will shrink 18 percent in 2018 – the third consecutive year of double-digit contractions – due to continued falls in oil production.

Food and medicine shortages and the prevailing atmosphere of hopelessness has prompted hundreds of thousands of residents to flee to neighboring countries, and Werner warned of “intensifying spillover effects” as the situation grows worse.

What does that kind of inflation look like on the ground? The price of a cup of coffee in Caracas has soared 60,000 percent over the past year, Bloomberg said.

Brasil: Turning To The Right

BRAZIL

Turning a Hard Right

Spain’s conservative People’s Party selected the more right-wing Pablo Casado to replace Mariano Rajoy as party leader and other countries, such as Brazil, are also taking up the trend of turning a hard right.

Jair Bolsonaro, a controversial far-right politician, has formally declared his candidacy in Brazil’s presidential election in October, the BBC reported. He’s already polling in second place behind ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – who is currently serving a prison sentence on a corruption conviction that’s all-but-certain to prevent him from running.

Bolsonaro is running on behalf of the lightweight Social Liberal Party (PSL), which means he’ll only get a maximum of 10 seconds of airtime for his TV campaign ads. However, despite or because of his racist and homophobic remarks, he has millions of followers on social media.

Dubbed “the Brazilian Trump,” he’s viewed by some supporters as a tough leader who’ll crack down on the country’s endemic crime, while millions of evangelical Christians appreciate his uncompromising anti-abortion stand.

The US Trade War With China Will Help Brasilian Soy Bean Farmers

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Nicaragua: Bloody Sunday

NICARAGUA

Bloody Sunday

Violence continues in Nicaragua, as pro-government forces strive to control protests against President Daniel Ortega that have been raging since April.

In the latest chapter of the crisis, regime authorities trapped about 200 student protesters on the sprawling campus of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua in the capital Friday, eventually resulting in clashes that left at least two people dead and several others injured, NPR reported, citing the Associated Press.

The violence flared further on Sunday outside Managua, when the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights said at least 10 people were killed when security forces and paramilitary groups loyal to Ortega attacked people in the city of Masaya and communities of Monimbo. Overall, human rights group say the crackdown has resulted in nearly 300 deaths since the demonstrations began.

Accusing them of corruption, the demonstrators demand that Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, resign. A conference of the country’s bishops has called on the president to move up scheduled elections from 2021 to 2019, but Ortega has rejected that idea.

Buenos Aires Is The Most Expensive city In The World For The Millenial Lifestyle

Jo'burg second-most expensive for millennial lifestyle - study

Jul 15 2018 15:29 

Carin Smith

(iStock)

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Johannesburg came out as second-most expensive for the millennial lifestyle in 2018 among 11 cities in the world ranked by Swiss investment bank and financial services company UBS.

The study compared how much a "typical millennial shopping basket" costs around the world. The 11 cities in the study are Johannesburg, New York, Paris, London, Zurich, Dubai, Hong Kong, Moscow, Bangkok, Buenos Aires and Toronto.

“Millennial must-haves” in 2018 the study considered include an iPhone, a laptop, a pair of jeans, a pair of sneakers, a Netflix subscription, a cup of coffee, a Big Mac burger as a late-night craving and avocados - for their favourite avocado toast meal.

Avocados in Johannesburg are the fifth most expensive among the 11 cities surveyed, while a Big Mac came in second cheapest among the cities. A cup of coffee is the cheapest in Johannesburg.

Jeans were found to be the third cheapest among the 11 cities, while sneakers (tekkies) are by far the cheapest - almost a third of the price in Moscow, for example.

An iPhone, however, will cost you the second most in Johannesburg among the 11 cities, the same is true for a Notebook which is almost the same as the most expensive city for this product, Moscow.

Lastly, Netflix in Johannesburg is the fifth most expensive. It costs the same as in New York and Dubai.

• READ: Survey unveils what millennials want at work

One of the world's most expensive cities, Hong Kong, was actually found in the study to be the cheapest for the millennial lifestyle.

"Hong Kong turns out to be the millennial place to be," the report states.

Buenos Aires in Argentina was found to be the most expensive city on the list - although avocados are a bargain there.

In an overall comparison of 77 cities in the world - not just for the millennial lifestyle - Johannesburg was ranked 53rd on a price level, 51st on the earning level and 43rd on the purchasing power level.

The report states that Johannesburg has been undergoing rapid change, with new office and apartment developments springing up across the city.

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Mexico: The Magic Man

MEXICO

Magic Man

To call it a landslide would be an understatement.

After two previous failed presidential bids, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, dominated Mexico’s July 1 elections, securing 53 percent of the vote, according to the National Electoral Institute which certified the vote Sunday.

Not only that but his five-year-old political party, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), now controls both houses of Congress and at least five governorships.

Post-victory, AMLO faces a laundry list of challenges to bring campaign promises to fruition – ones that will not only impact Mexico’s future, but also that of the entire region.

The question on everybody’s mind is Mexico’s relationship with the United States, particularly regarding immigration and renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), wrote the Hill.

Lopez Obrador was an opponent of NAFTA back in the 1990s when it went into effect, and some worry that his hard-left ideology will influence the tenor of negotiations.

“We’re very concerned about having a situation like Venezuela just south of the border,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the Hill.

But others say Lopez Obrador is a pragmatist and will work to save the deal without compromising Mexico’s standing on the global stage, wrote Jonah Shepp for New York magazine. After all, three-quarters of Mexico’s exports are to the US, though only about half that total is covered by NAFTA, Bloomberg reported.

On the immigration front, AMLO is under pressure to halt the flow of migrants from Central and South America through Mexico toward the US, wrote Vox. Tough border controls and family separation at the American border have placed Lopez Obrador in an adversarial position with US President Donald Trump over the issue.

Instead of bending to the Trump administration, Lopez Obrador has said he’ll turn inward to fight corruption, rampant violence and migration, and invest heavily in local infrastructure and social programs.

He says he’ll be able to do so without busting the budget by trimming government salaries and recovering money lost to corruption, but details of those plans remain unclear, Vanda Felbab-Brown wrote for the Brookings Institution.

There are signs, however, that AMLO isn’t just another fast-talking populist.

On Friday, he announced a plan for negotiating peace in the nation’s drug war, including amnesty or reduced jail time for foot soldiers who admit guilt and reparations for some victims, Reuters reported. AMLO hopes the plan will help provide paths to employment for youth caught up in the drug trade, stemming violence and migration in the process.

He reportedly also had a cordial phone call with President Trump after the election, and said he’s determined not to rock the boat: “We are not going to get into fights,” he told Mexico’s Televisa TV network, according to Vox.

With his broad electoral mandate, AMLO will have some flexibility to experiment with policies and his relationships with other leaders, and “might still prove to be a transformational figure,” Leon Krauze wrote for the Washington Post.

But, he added, “the question persists: Where will Mexico turn next if its new president fails to work his magic?”

Chile: The Long Arm Of The Law

CHILE

The Law’s Long Arm

A Chilean court found eight retired soldiers guilty of murdering popular folk singer Victor Jara more than 40 years after his killing in 1973.

A ninth person was convicted as an accessory to the crime, the BBC reported.

The eight former military officers were sentenced to 15 years each on the murder charges and three more years for kidnapping, while the ninth officer received a sentence of five years.

Famous for his protest songs and a member of Chile’s communist party, Jara was arrested and tortured the day after General Augusto Pinochet ousted socialist President Salvador Allende in a military coup.

Because he was arrested along with some 5,000 others, there were many survivors who witnessed his interrogation and torture at the sports stadium in Santiago.

His body was found riddled with 44 bullets a few days later.

After decades of foot-dragging, Chile has been racing to address the crimes of Pinochet’s dictatorship before the deaths of witnesses, victims, and the accused makes doing so impossible, Reuters noted.

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Ecuador Is Open For Business

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