Argentina Approves Abortion

 

ARGENTINA

Seismic Shift

Argentina’s Senate voted early Wednesday to legalize abortion, marking a historic shift for the predominately Catholic country that is also the homeland of Pope Francis, NPR reported.

The Senate’s vote follows one by the lower house, which narrowly approved the measure earlier this month. The measure will allow abortions up to the 14th week of pregnancy.

Currently, abortions can only occur in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is in danger – otherwise the woman could face criminal charges.

President Alberto Fernandez proposed the law in mid-November and has been a vocal supporter of the legislation.

Argentina now becomes the fourth country in Latin America and the Caribbean to legalize abortion, joining Uruguay, Cuba and Guyana.

A majority of nations in the region allow abortion only if the mother’s life is threatened, and some outlaw it altogether. However, Colombia, Chile and Mexico have seen growing pro-choice movements in their countries.

Despite being largely illegal, nearly 5.4 million abortions occurred annually in Latin America and the Caribbean between 2015 and 2019, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

South America-Anti Fragility

 

SOUTH AMERICA

Anti-Fragility

Gustavo Delgado visits a food pantry every day in his hometown of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Otherwise, his family doesn’t eat. Delgado, 52, had been an office cleaner until earlier this year, Reuters reported. But his employer closed down due to the coronavirus pandemic. Unable to find a job, he is three months behind on the rent for the small house he shares with his wife and granddaughter.

Argentina was already in a recession dating back to 2018 due to investors’ lack of confidence in the South American country’s political stability and financial stewardship. Covid-19 has made the bad situation worse.

As a second surge of the coronavirus attacks Central and South America, experts are fearful that the region’s leaders – often mired in corruption, presiding over governments that lack capacity and sometimes showing gross incompetence – will fail to rise to the challenge.

Covid-19 recently became the leading cause of death for five Latin American countries and the second-most common cause in another six, according to National Public Radio. Hard-hit countries like Ecuador have cracked down on any behavior that might spread the virus, even banning the sale of alcohol, Chinese state news agency Xinhua noted.

“The management of the pandemic has been so bad that we are not optimistic about how the vaccine is going to be managed,” Dr. Francisco Moreno, who oversees Covid-19 treatment in the private ABC Medical Center in Mexico City, told the Los Angeles Times. “The people at the top are not doing what has to be done.”

Mexican officials misled residents of the capital, for example, withholding data that would have triggered a lockdown in December to keep the economy humming, the New York Times wrote. Citizens were allowed to congregate for two weeks before officials had no choice but to shut down businesses and enact other rules.

At the same time, there’s a surge of infections because of a policy allowing Americans and Europeans seeking to escape the cold and Covid-19, to head to resorts where they party as if on spring break, the Washington Post reported.

Meanwhile, Brazilians can look forward to a Chinese vaccine that has shown signs of promising efficacy even if it is less effective than those Europeans and Americans are getting. Yet President Jair Bolsonaro recently delivered an “expletive-filled tirade” against the vaccine, saying it might turn those who take it into alligators, reported the New York Post. That’s not a ringing endorsement from a leader who has been a virus-denier even when he became infected.

Some believe the region is in danger of enduring a “lost decade” like it experienced during the 1980s, when inflation, debt defaults, crime and economic decline were the order of the day, Foreign Affairs explained. The World Economic Forum, working with Project Syndicate, issued an analysis that hoped the virus could help the region rebuild and avoid the mistakes that made it so fragile in the first place.

Resilience requires preparing for unknown unknowns. That requires resources and the power to channel them. Sometimes, like many things these days, those are in short supply.

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Brasail-A Dirty State

 

BRAZIL

A Dirty State

Rio de Janeiro state police arrested outgoing Mayor Marcelo Crivella Tuesday on charges of corruption in relation to a kickback scheme, the latest of the seemingly endless graft scandals to embroil the country and especially Rio over the past five years, the Associated Press reported.

Authorities said that Crivella has close links with businessman Rafael Alves, whose brother was the head of the city’s tourism office: The businessman was also arrested Tuesday over allegations that he chose which companies would win contracts, and promised to award them in exchange for payments.

Crivella called his arrest unfair and said that he was “the mayor who most fought corruption.”

The evangelical bishop and ally of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro was scheduled to leave office next month after losing the mayoral election against his predecessor, Eduardo Paes.

Crivella is the latest figure in Brazil and especially the state of Rio de Janeiro to be dogged by corruption charges.

In August, Governor Wilson Witzel was suspended from office when a top court linked him to irregularities in health spending earmarked for the fight against Covid-19. Wilson is also facing impeachment proceedings: If he is convicted, his position goes to another official under investigation, Deputy Governor Cláudio Castro.

Corruption probes in recent years have resulted in the jailing of five of Rio’s former governors. One of them remains behind bars.

Chile Gives Indigeneous People A Set At The Table

 

CHILE

A Seat At The Table

Chilean lawmakers approved a bill this week to reserve 17 out of 155 seats for representatives of its Indigenous communities in its upcoming constitutional convention, a move many say has been a long time coming, Reuters reported.

In October, Chileans voted overwhelmingly in favor of rewriting the country’s dictatorship-era constitution to include more equality in health, pensions and education following mass protests over inequality in late 2019.

The convention will be elected in April and will have up to a year to approve a draft text. Chileans will then vote on whether they accept the text or want to go back to the previous charter.

Chile’s 2017 census reported that about 13 percent of the country’s 17 million population identified as Indigenous.

Social Development Minister Karla Rubilar hailed the move as a “historical milestone in recognition of Indigenous peoples, and for taking another step toward repaying our historical debt (to them).”

The Amazon In Prehistoric Times

 

The Jungle Life

A recently discovered piece of ancient rock art is offering a good glimpse at how prehistoric humans and extinct animals co-existed more than 10,000 years ago in the Amazon region, New Scientists reported.

Archeologists came across the large piece in southern Colombia, the earliest evidence found to date of people living in the Colombian Amazon, the study said.

The art showed various images including geometric patterns, handprints, as well as evidence of multiple megafauna that once roamed the region. Among these depictions were the palaeolama, an extinct stumpy-legged, long-necked camelid, and mastodons – the precursors of modern elephants.

Researchers explained that the presence of these animals proves that humans lived around the area some 12,500 years ago but need to conduct further studies to confirm their findings.

“The most important thing has been to obtain good radiocarbon dates to specify the early peopling of the area,” said co-author Francisco Javier Aceituno.

However, the team didn’t find remains of megafauna, which could mean that the ancient people didn’t hunt them.

The team instead found remains of iguanas, fish – piranhas included – and fruit, suggesting that the previous inhabitants had a broad diet and quickly adapted to the Amazon.

Argentina:Of Dicisions And Distractions

 

ARGENTINA

Of Divisions and Distractions

Argentinian lawmakers approved a bill to legalize abortion over the weekend, a move that faces strong resistance in the Catholic country, the New York Times reported.

Legislators in the lower house of Congress voted 131 to 117 in favor of the bill, making Argentina the fourth country to legalize abortion in Latin America.

The legislation will make it legal to end pregnancies up to 14 weeks – previously, abortions were only allowed in cases of rape or when it posed a risk to the mother’s life.

Civil rights activists praised the legislation even as they expressed surprise: They had feared the proposal would remain in limbo while Argentina grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, inflation and crushing debt, which has paralyzed its economy.

Critics, meanwhile, said the bill is meant as a distraction to the problems plaguing the country.

Argentine’s Senate still has to approve the bill before it becomes law: In 2018, the Senate killed an abortion bill following opposition from senators from rural and conservative districts.

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Venezuela-A Fraudulent Election

 

VENEZUELA

Total Control

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared victory in Venezuela’s legislative elections in a vote that has been called fraudulent by the opposition and the international community, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Maduro’s party secured a majority of the 277 seats in the National Assembly, which was the only government body under the control of the opposition.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido had previously condemned the election as a sham and urged voters to boycott the vote. As a result, the country’s electoral council said that turnout was only 31 percent – turnout was 70 percent turnout during the 2015 legislative elections.

Last year, Guaido, who is also head of the assembly, declared himself president, citing the constitution. More than 50 countries, including the United States, consider Guaido Venezuela’s legitimate leader.

However, Maduro’s victory means that Guaido will no longer be the National Assembly president when the new body takes over next month – meaning that he can longer claim to be the country’s rightful leader.

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Human Misery In Venezuela

 

VENEZUELA

Misery and Conspiracy

In the US, the power of communist Venezuela is the stuff of conspiracy theories.

But in Venezuela, the misery is real.

Authorities in neighboring countries like Trinidad and Tobago are dealing with tens of thousands of desperate Venezuelan fleeing their economically devastated country, Reuters reported. Venezuelan refugees have also taxed countries like Chile, Al Jazeera explained. The migrant trains and human smugglers have helped create a culture of crime and violence among the destitute: CNN described in a poignant but harrowing story the plight of Venezuelan women seeking to escape their homeland.

To date, about five million Venezuelans have left their country.

The Venezuelan economy’s problems are deep. Hugo Chavez, president from 1999 to 2013, and his Socialist Party borrowed heavily to lift millions from poverty. Now his disciple, Nicolas Maduro, has been printing money in a vain attempt to keep the economy going. Food and utility shortages are now widespread, Borgen Magazine wrote.

Gross domestic product has shrunk 65 percent over the past five years, one of the worst contractions in the history of the world.

Maduro rules with an iron fist. OilPrice.com reported how the president has ordered the arrest of oil workers who go public with their concerns about corruption and mismanagement in the state oil firm. Strict controls on travel have resulted in Doctors Without Borders curbing their assistance in the country. Recently, the president has even been persecuting longtime Socialist Party stalwarts who dare expose the administration’s failings.

“After having crushed the political parties opposed to his version of socialism, Maduro’s critics say he has trained the state’s security apparatus on disillusioned ideological allies, repeating the path taken by leftist autocrats from the Soviet Union to Cuba,” the New York Times explained.

The tyrant might have a chance of securing more power, according to US State Department officials who spoke to Fox News. On Dec. 6, Venezuelan voters go to the polls to elect a new National Assembly. The opposition now controls the chamber. The US and the European Union have recognized its leader, Juan Guaido, as acting president. Maduro is hoping to seize control, eliminating a rival for the presidency in the process, American officials say.

Two years ago, when Guaido was emboldened to claim the presidency, he instilled hope in many freedom lovers around the world. But today, Maduro’s power remains solid while Guaido’s is a shadow government with moral cache and little else, Bloomberg argued.

That’s because the US policy of “maximum pressure” involving deep sanctions has pushed Maduro into the arms of China, Russia and other rivals of the US, which are propping up the government: “Iranian tankers go dark to ship gasoline and food to Venezuela in exchange for contraband crude, while Turkey buys Venezuelan bootleg gold. China and Russia, meantime, have obligingly rolled over Venezuelan debts. Cuba, has put its intelligence apparatus at Maduro’s disposal, implicitly as quid pro quo for Venezuelan petroleum,” Bloomberg wrote.

Guaido, backed by the US, most of Europe and the Organization of American States, has denounced the election as a sham. He is pushing instead for a parallel national referendum starting online on Dec. 5 and extending to some polling stations.

It’s a stalemate and the only thing that can move the situation forward is compromise, analysts say, a deal that no one will like. But without one, Venezuelans will continue to flee and many of those left behind will want to.

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Brasil- A Loud No!!!!!

 

BRAZIL

A Loud ‘No’

Center and center-right parties were declared the winners of run-off municipal elections across Brazil, marking a major defeat for far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, the Irish Times reported Monday.

Bolsonaro-backed candidates failed to secure races in key cities in a defeat that underscores the resurgence of traditional, more centrist parties.

The biggest loss for Bolsonaro’s far-right agenda was the defeat of incumbent Rio mayor, Marcelo Crivella, a bishop of a powerful neo-Pentecostal church: Crivella failed to win a single city district and was defeated by former mayor Eduardo Paes.

Local elections are an important indicator for the general elections in 2022 – mayors are crucial in fomenting support for presidential candidates.

Along with Bolsonaro, the left-wing Workers Party also failed to win a single state capital and won only four of the 15 cities it contested. The party’s poor performance shows that voters have not yet forgiven the left for the economic mismanagement and corruption scandals that marked the last year of its 13 years in power.

The election results will increase pressure on the Workers Party to drop its iconic leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – jailed in 2018 on corruption and money-laundering charges – as the candidate for any left-wing ticket in the upcoming national elections.

The former president has been barred from running in elections due to the convictions, which he is appealing.