Sweating out my new location, in the wrong clothes: Feels like 100, at BlogHer.
Archives for July 2014
Argentina defaults
As predicted,
Argentina Declared in Default by S&P as Talks Fail
Standard & Poor’s declared Argentina in default after the government missed a deadline for paying interest on $13 billion of restructured bonds.
A US judge had set a deadline of 04:00 GMT on Thursday for a deal.
Argentina: defaulting for 190 years @TheEconomist: http://t.co/WX2J4UG09I pic.twitter.com/wai9C5A5mq”
— Fausta (@Fausta) July 31, 2014
This is the eighth time the country has defaulted:
ARGENTINA’S first bond, issued in 1824, was supposed to have a lifespan of 46 years. Less than four years later, the government defaulted. Resolving the ensuing stand-off with creditors took 29 years. Since then seven more defaults have followed, the most recent this week, when Argentina failed to make a payment on bonds issued as partial compensation to victims of the previous default, in 2001.
In case you missed it,
Last night’s podcast, Memories of old Havana PLUS US-Latin America stories of the week with Graciela Chelo Lodeiro, and host Silvio Canto Jr.
Chicken run: The curious case of Venezuela’s Pollo Carvajal
My latest at Da Tech Guy Blog, Chicken run: The curious case of Venezuela’s Pollo Carvajal, on the released general, is up. Please read it and hit the tip jar!
Behold, the Hugo Chavez font
Carlos Eire says it’s conclusive proof that humans need to evolve further.
I can’t wait for Unsavory Agents to design some toilet paper in ChavezPro.
UPDATE:
Linked to by Dustbury. Thank you!
Is North Korea Selling (Cuban) Arms to Hamas?
Interesting question from Capitol Hill Cubans:
Is North Korea Selling (Cuban) Arms to Hamas?
According to the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph, Hamas militants are attempting to negotiate an arms deal with North Korea for missiles and communications equipment that will allow them to maintain their offensive against Israel.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, a U.S. federal court ruled that North Korea provided rocket and missile components for Hezbollah to use in its 2006 attacks against Israel.
. . .Last year, the Cuban regime was caught red-handed smuggling 240 tons of weapons to North Korea. This constituted the largest amount of arms and related materiel interdicted to or from North Korea since the adoption of resolution 1718 (2006).
The interdicted shipment, aboard the Chong Chon Gang, includedsurface-to-air missile systems (that can take down planes), missile components, ammunition, radars and other miscellaneous arms-related materiel.
What if these missile systems had ended up in the hands of Hamas or Hezbollah?
Other Cuban weaponry may have, as there were at least seven otherNorth Korean vessels that made similarly elusive trips (as the Chong Chon Gang) to Cuban in the last few years.
Most recently, the Mu Du Bong
El Pollo and Venezuela’s game of chicken: Venezuela exerted military pressure on Aruba
Aruba’s chief prosecutor Peter Blanken said that Venezuelan navy ships neared Aruba and Curaçao over the weekend as Dutch officials were debating what to do with Hugo Carvajal —Venezuela’s former chief of military intelligence who was jailed in Aruba last week on a U.S. warrant.
“The threat was there,” Mr. Blanken said. “We don’t know what their intentions were, but I think a lot of people in Aruba were scared that something would happen.”
Holland is a member of NATO and as such Aruba would be protected, as WSJ commenter Donald Hutchinson points out, but, in the Obama administration’s era of “smart diplomacy”, the Dutch couldn’t count on that:
Assuming that US intelligence was not asleep, all,it would take would be a fly over by US Navy jets and a notification that any offensive action would be met by the immediate destruction of their ships. Holland is a member of NATO and such actioned would clearly be sanctioned,
It would also be a devastating set back to the former bus driver running Venezuela for bringing shame to their military.
But what one might expect from a timid White House and a preoccupied State Department?
Then there’s the oil,
Mr. Blanken said Venezuela’s government also had threatened to sever Venezuela’s vital commercial air links to Aruba and Curaçao. Venezuela’s state oil company also threatened to withdraw from a contract to manage Curaçao’s refinery, Mr. Blanken said, which would have put at risk some 8,000 jobs.
To put that number of jobs in perspective, Aruba’s total population is 103,009.
In the “no sh*t, Sherlock” file, the U.S. State Department spokeswoman’s reaction was, “This is not the way law enforcement matters should be handled.” At least they didn’t #hashtag it.
Hugo Carvajal a.k.a. “”el Pollo” is one of the guys who took part in Hugo Chávez’s unsuccessful 1992 military coup, later rising to the rank of general, but with a sideline,
Mr. Carvajal’s role as one of the Chávez government’s key liaisons to guerrillas from Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, emerged after computers belonging to a slain guerrilla leader were captured by Colombian security forces in 2008.
Here’s the indictment in the U.S. District Court accusing Carvajal of coordinating the transport of 5,600 kilos (6.17 tons) of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico.
In addition to good’ol military thuggery, Miguel Octavio asserts that the Netherlands caved in (emphasis added):
Clearly, everyone applied pressure, but the weak link did not turn out to be Aruba as I suggested on my first post, but rather The Netherlands, as reportedly even Russia played a role, exchanging concessions on the Ucraine plane for helping release Carvajal. No matter what anyone says or how this is interpreted, it was a severe blow to the US, who would have loved to get Carvajal onshore.
One of my sources also mentions that team Obama had about 30 days to hand over its Extradition Request to Aruba but failed to; the Treasury Dept, the DEA and a U.S. District Court (mentioned above) had indicted him last year. It reminds me of drug kingpin Walid Makled, who was released to Venezuela by Santos of Colombia after the U.S. dragged its feet.
We’re in the best of hands.
PS,
While the Dutch allow Carvajal diplomatic immunity, the Egyptians search Secretary of State John Kerry, which was no biggie, but he fumes over Israel’s criticism.
And now, MS-13 news
from Drudge:
'OBAMA WILL TAKE CARE OF US'...
Violent MS-13 gang recruiting at Arizona facility...
Amnesty, work permits for 5 million could be ordered 'within weeks'...
Visa overstays to be excused...
Scott Brown Becomes First Senate Candidate To Run Ad On Crisis...
POLL: 77% want illegals sent home...
VIDEO: Coyote on jet ski delivers migrants to USA in broad daylight...
Jerry Brown kicks off trade mission in Mexico...
Migrants from Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka Entering Through Mexico…
VIDEO: Residents Protest in MA…
More than 200 dumped in Indiana…
Pittsburgh at ‘tipping point’…
Professors: Guest worker policies freezing Americans out of middle class…
‘Death Train’ to increase traveling speeds to deter jumping…
‘BORDER PATROL’ POINTS LOADED GUN at Iowa Boy Scout Troop…
IN EVENT OF EMERGENCY, ILLEGALS TO BE EVACUATED BEFORE CITIZENS…
‘Plan is to get unaccompanied women and children to safer ground’…
One of the reasons why so many Americans oppose amnesty and a “path to citizenship” for illegal aliens is because, even if one buys it in utilitarian terms, to accept that an honorable American identity can be born from an illegal act seems to mock the very essence of citizenship and allegiance.
Read the rest.
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