Brasil: Law And Order Candidate Stabbed

BRAZIL

Law and Order Candidate

Brazil’s far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro is in serious but stable condition after he was attacked and stabbed at a campaign rally on Thursday.

The controversial Congressman, who’s running a law and order campaign, is currently leading the race, Reuters reported.

Local police in Juiz de Fora said they had apprehended the suspect, 40-year-old Adelio Bispo de Oliveira, and he appeared to be mentally disturbed. Though he was affiliated with the leftwing Socialism and Liberty Party from 2007 to 2014, the party repudiated the attack, which a video depicted Oliveira saying was ordered by God.

The incident might spark sympathy for Bolsonaro and bolster support for his calls to encourage police to gun down criminals. But if his injuries prevent him from making public appearances that could prove especially detrimental to his campaign, as election rules grant his tiny coalition almost no campaign time on TV and radio, the agency said.

Argentina-Over Achiever?

ARGENTINA

Over-Achiever?

Argentine President Mauricio Macri aims to abolish “about half” of the government ministries as part of an austerity plan to tackle the country’s currency crisis announced Monday.

Beginning Jan. 1, Argentina will also reinstate taxes on soy meal and soy oil as well as corn, wheat and raw soybeans – its main exports, the BBC reported. The move is a reversal of Macri’s decision to slash agricultural taxes in December 2015.

Macri also set his sights higher than the targets set in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund in May, vowing to balance the budget next year and deliver a 1 percent surplus by 2020.

Arriving for talks with the IMF in Washington on Tuesday, Argentine Treasury Minister Nicolas Dujovne said he hopes to renegotiate better terms for a $50 billion loan package from the fund, securing an early release of some of the money so as to avoid tapping the bond market. The massive bailout scheme has already sparked protests in Argentina – where many blame the agency for the country’s 2001-2002 financial crisis.

Brasil: Cruel Irony

BRAZIL

Cruel Irony

It wasn’t the Rio de Janeiro fire station burning down, but it was almost as ironic.

Brazil’s National Museum was ravaged by a rampaging fire on Sunday, just a month before its fire suppression system was due to be upgraded, CNN reported.

As millions of artifacts went up in smoke, firefighters found that two nearby fire hydrants had inadequate pressure Sunday night and were forced to draw water from a pond. Meanwhile, the upgrade had been approved in June and everything was set for the improvements to begin, Roberto Leher, dean of the Rio de Janeiro Federal University, told reporters Monday.

Culture Minister Sérgio Sá Leitão said much of the damage occurred in a building once called the Imperial Palace. But other items, including a library with 500,000 volumes, were saved.

A complete inventory of the destroyed artifacts is still pending. But more than 20 million items spanning 11,000 years went up in flames, likely including Egyptian mummies and historic artwork.

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Central America: No Right TO Grow Old

CENTRAL AMERICA

No Right to Grow Old

Migrants have many reasons for making the long trek to the United States from Central American countries like Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Poverty, crime and corruption, for example, are endemic in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula. One the most violent cities in the world, it faces 142 homicides for every 100,000 people, NPR reported.

“The right to grow old has been destroyed,” photojournalist Tomas Ayuso told the public radio network. “One has to fight for their right to grow old, either by migrating out of the country or enlisting in a gang for protection. But it’s not a given.”

Those living in rural Honduran communities, like the Garifuna minority descended from African slaves and indigenous groups, find themselves driven off their land by gangs and palm oil companies, said Reuters.

In El Salvador, a drought is threatening the food security of half the country, adding to strains on an economy already struggling with low growth, high debt and high crime.

So when Salvadoran leaders decided recently to sever ties with Taiwan and establish diplomatic relations with China, hopes of attracting investment and boosting the economy were clearly part of the motivation.

The move rankled American leaders, who viewed it as unwelcome Chinese meddling in the Western Hemisphere, the New York Times wrote. The United States government might even cut off vital aid to the country as a result. But Fitch Solutions, a newsletter published by the Fitch Ratings agency, said China would likely invest mightily in El Salvador as a result of the decision.

Meanwhile, a budding rebellion in Nicaragua could trigger a new wave of migrants to the US border, warned the Conversation.

Citizens have risen up against authoritarian President Daniel Ortega, who oversees a corrupt regime that seems only to benefit his wife, Rosario Murillo, who happens also be his vice president, and members of his Sandinista party.

Ortega has cracked down in response. The New Yorker described an interview with men in ski masks who toted guns in the western Nicaraguan city of Masaya. They insisted they weren’t police officers or members of the military but rather were law-abiding citizens seeking to cleanse the city of terrorists. There’s another word for such bands of armed men: death squads.

Some call the immigration situation in the US an emergency. The many crises in Central America are a catastrophe.