Majority of Brazilians favor holding new elections this year.

More than a quarter of Brazilians view interim President Michel Temer's government negatively and a majority want new elections this year, according to a poll on Wednesday that suggested scandals and policy reversals had dented his popularity.

Temer's government, which began on May 12 when Brazil's Senate suspended leftist President Dilma Rousseff for breaking budget laws, received a negative rating from 28% of Brazilians, according to the CNT/MDA poll.

Only 11.3% of those questioned gave it a positive rating, while 30.2% found it "regular."

The poll, the first major sampling of public opinion since Rousseff's suspension, also showed increased support for her impeachment. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed - 62.4% - said the decision to send her to an impeachment trial was the right one, compared to an MDA poll in February that showed 55.6% in favor of impeachment.

A majority of those polled - 54.8% - said they saw no difference between Temer's government and that of Rousseff, which was roiled by a sweeping corruption investigation into political kick-backs from state-run oil company Petrobras. Some 46.6% of those polled believe corruption in the Temer government will be the same.

The survey showed that 50.3% of Brazilians favor holding new elections this year to resolve the political crisis.

A string of recent scandals has weakened Temer as he seeks to build support in the Senate to definitively remove Rousseff, who has described her impeachment as a coup.

Brazil's chief prosecutor is seeking the arrest of senior members of Temer's PMDB party for allegedly trying to obstruct the Petrobras investigation, O Globo reported on Tuesday. Their arrests would be a severe blow to the interim president's efforts to establish his government's legitimacy.

In the poll commissioned by the transport industry lobby CNT, MDA surveyed 2,002 people between June 2-5. The poll has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.

At: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-idUSKCN0YU1VL

Prosecutor asks University of Buenos Aires experts to audit Macri's financial disclosure filings.

Argentine federal prosecutor Federico Delgado has requested an investigation into President Mauricio Macri’s sworn financial disclosure filings issued before the Anti-Corruption Office and the Buenos Aires municipal government between 2013 and 2015. Macri, who was mayor of Buenos Aires at the time, was gearing up for a presidential campaign which he narrowly won last November.

It is a felony in Argentina for a public servant to file a false financial disclosure statement.

Delgado's motion, filed before Judge Sebastián Casanello, would have experts at the School of Social Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) conduct the audit. The prosecutor’s request follows the Panama Papers and Open Corporates leaks in April that revealed Macri’s name in at least two offshore companies and his connection, through immediate family members, with up to ten others.

Gianfranco, one of Mauricio Macri’s brothers, owns eight shell companies in Panama. According to economist Ezequiel Orlando, who has done research on the Macris’ links to offshore companies, five out of the other seven companies in which Gianfranco Macri is a board member were established in December 12, 2007, only two days after Mauricio Macri became the mayor of Buenos Aires.

When the Panama Papers scandal broke out on April 3, Macri said he was not "legally obliged" to declare his connection with the offshore companies listed as clients of the disgraced Panamanian corporate law firm Mossack Fonseca as he "never had a stake in them."

The revelations forced the president, however, to admit he was a director of a shell company based in the Bahamas (Fleg Trading Ltd.) and another based in Panama (Kagemusha SA) - both created by his father, a major government contractor, to control still-active investments in Brazil and elsewhere without the knowledge of Argentine revenue authorities.

Macri has come under fire for failing to disclose, and after the Panama Papers scandal failing to explain, his connection with these offshore companies, given that such firms are often used to launder money and evade taxes.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/215784/prosecutor-requests-uba-experts-investigate-macris-sworn-declarations

Argentina's Social Security threatened with Macri bill that would cost an extra $13 billion a year.

A wide-ranging new bill introduced by President Mauricio Macri’s administration, which includes changes to pensions, a tax amnesty, and revenue-sharing deals with the provinces, could, based on the fine print, cost the ANSES social security agency up to $13 billion a year by the time it's fully implemented.

The bill, introduced by President Macri on May 27, is part of a broader bill that allows any Argentine national maintaining undeclared offshore accounts to repatriate said funds by paying a 10% tax and with immunity from prosecution.

A number of right-wing media outlets supportive of Macri seized on the fact it includes additional payments to high-income retirees to portray the legislation as a "pensioners' payment bill." These additional payments, projected to cost ANSES an extra 75 billion pesos ($5.3 billion) a year, will solely benefit pensioners who are already earning 10,000 pesos ($700) or more - about twice the basic 4,950-peso ($350) pension most retirees currently collect.

Administration officials touted this proposal as a way to settle long-standing litigation (some dating from 1994) filed by thousands of seniors with a high level of social security contributions; legal analysts, however, point out that nothing in the bill would impede some from suing for more later.

The bill also includes a reimbursement of the 15% deducted from the federal revenue sharing budget to help finance ANSES outlays. This reimbursement is partly the result of a Supreme Court ruling to that effect last year in a suit brought forward by three provinces. An agreement signed by President Macri and the nation's 23 governors this February stipulates that the 15% reimbursement will be phased in three percentage points at a time each year until 2020 - at a cost 21 billion pesos ($1.47 billion) in 2016 and $7.4 billion annually by 2020.

Together, these two changes will cost the ANSES social security agency, which already had a deficit of $6 billion in 2015 (out of $57 billion in outlays), an additional $12.7 billion a year by 2020.

Asked about the bill, ANSES director Emilio Basabilvaso was confident that the additional revenues needed for these changes would come from a 10% tax on repatriated offshore accounts and an eventual economic recovery (Argentina has been in a deep recession since Macri began enacting austerity policies shortly after taking office six months ago).

The only concrete source of new funding mentioned by Basabilvaso, however, was the planned sale of a still-unspecified share of ANSES’ equity holdings. The sale of these investments, part of the agency's $60 billion sustainability fund (FGS), had been lobbied for by a number of the Argentine corporations in which ANSES holds enough stock to be entitled to a seat on the board of directors.

This latter proposal is strenuously opposed by opposition lawmakers - particularly the center-left Front for Victory (FpV), whose leader, former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, nationalized the largely fraudulently-run and insolvent private pension funds in 2008. FpV legislators have compared Macri’s plans to sell long-term, profitable assets in order to finance ordinary spending, to the disastrous Menem-era privatizations of the 1990s.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/215423/revenuesharing-pension-hikes-in-bill-could-cost-up-to-us$13b-a-year

Argentine Journalists' Forum denounces gag order tucked inside Macri's tax amnesty bill.

The Argentine Journalists' Forum (FOPEA) denounced a provision (Article 85) buried inside the Macri administration's Undeclared Assets bill that would criminalize investigative reporting on those who benefit from this tax amnesty plan with up to two years in prison and a fine equal to whatever amount was repatriated by way of said amnesty.

FOPEA called on members of the congressional committee currently debating this bill to "modify the wording to avoid the adoption of a provision that would be clearly unconstitutional." The organization, established in 2002 as a counterweight to the newspaper owners' lobby ADEPA, called on Congress to "exclude journalists from the gag order applied to officials and judges" in Article 85 of the bill.

The clause, they said, "seriously damages freedoms of speech and the press and affects journalistic work by encouraging self-censorship and by criminalizing the work of reporting in an area that includes matters of public interest."

The tax amnesty bill, which allows any Argentine national holding undeclared offshore accounts to repatriate said funds by paying a 10% tax and with immunity from prosecution, was introduced by President Mauricio Macri on May 27, and would potentially benefit Macri himself, his family, many of his friends and business partners, and several administration officials who were revealed to hold sizable offshore accounts by the recent Panama Papers and Open Corporates leaks.

The bill, in its current form, is also opposed by the center-left Front for Victory (FpV), the largest single caucus in each house of Congress. "The clause is clearly unconstitutional, because it violates the right to publish ideas through the press without prior censorship as enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution. It moreover flouts the prohibition that Congress dictate laws restricting freedom of the press, as required by Article 32."

Horacio Verbitsky, head of the prominent human rights watchdog Center for Social and Legal Studies (CELS), explained the clause in a recent Página/12 op-ed:

"If you as a reporter divulged that Nicky Caputo (Macri's best friend and preferred contractor) used this law to repatriate 100 million dollars hidden in Jersey, men brandishing Glock pistols could come to your home or office and stop it - after which you could lose your license and be fined $100 million. Such extraordinary protection toward tax evaders is unconstitutional; but within a month might become law."

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.politicargentina.com/notas/201606/14501-para-fopea-el-proyecto-de-blanqueo-afecta-la-libertad-de-prensa.html&prev=search
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More from Judi Lynn on Macri's illegal gag order against reporting on tax cheats (including, of course, himself): http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141477670

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant doesn't have to manufacture problems.

The governor should give it a rest.

To hear him tell it, he is under siege by an angry mob of progressives for signing House Bill 1523. We can only hope Bryant's victim card has finally worn out. He certainly slaps it on the table whenever he's criticized.

It's not the media's fault he was pressured by conservatives to OK a law that was drafted outside the state. The media told him it was a bad idea that would lead to costly litigation and would make it tougher for the state to compete in a very competitive tourism market (New Orleans to the right of us, Gulf Shores and Florida's Emerald Coast to the left).

But he soldiered on. Bryant said he was trying to protect circuit clerks from being forced to issue licenses for same-sex marriages.

That, Governor, is not a problem in Mississippi.

Enrollment cuts at Mississippi Math and Science School because of state budget cuts is a problem. The chronic short-changing of the rest of our school systems is a problem. The diaspora of some of our best graduates is a problem. Mississippi's chronically high unemployment rate is a problem.

The state's heavy dependence on money from a federal government the governor and his colleagues claim to distrust and dislike (except when it comes to handouts) is a problem.

In Mississippi, 60 percent of our counties are defined as Persistent Poverty Areas (counties that have more than 20 percent of the population living below the poverty level for at least three decades). That's a problem that has bedeviled governor after governor.

That problem wails for this governor's attention. But our governor is distracted by his make-believe war on his values.

It's past time for him to get to work on the real problems.

At: http://www.sunherald.com/opinion/article81810067.html

Mayor of Argentina's most populous county obtains court injunction against Macri's 300% rate hikes.

The mayor of La Matanza County in Argentina, Verónica Magario, obtained a court injunction against sharp public service rate hikes imposed in April by President Mauricio Macri. The largely working-class La Matanza County, located southwest of Buenos Aires, is home to 1.8 million people and is the nation's most populous county.

The injunction, granted by the Tenth Court of First Instance in Civil and Commercial Matters, will apply to all electricity, gas, and water surcharges within the county that have not yet been issued; those surcharges already paid since April will be credited against each user's future monthly bills.

Utility bills rose that month by an average of 300-400% after the right-wing Macri administration eliminated subsidies as part of a broader austerity package.

Mayor Magario applauded the ruling, declaring that "I'm happy to have been able to carry our county's social demands forward, and to see that justice was done."

An appeal by the Macri administration prompted Judge Edith Rota to refer the case to the federal courts. Judge Rota's ruling suspending all utility rate surcharges within the county stands until the appeal can be ruled on, however.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.politicargentina.com/notas/201606/14492-la-justicia-freno-el-tarifazo-en-la-matanza-tras-un-pedido-de-su-intendenta.html&prev=search

Argentine Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra’s bid for UN Secretary General wins support from U.S.

The U.S. government will support Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra’s bid to become the next Secretary General of the United Nations, reports suggested yesterday. Malcorra had served as chief of staff to retiring Secretary General Ban Ki-moon before becoming Argentina’s Foreign Minister last December.

Sources inside the U.S. government told Britain’s Sunday Telegraph that President Barack Obama and his National Security Adviser Susan Rice fully back Malcorra’s candidacy, with the newspaper suggesting that Downing Street is concerned such a move would damage its position over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands.

The recently-appointed Foreign minister is “enthusiastically supported by Ms. Rice,” the newspaper said, quoting a source in Washington. “Obama is said to have been won over by arguments in Ms. Malcorra’s favor from his Argentine counterpart Mauricio Macri on a visit to Buenos Aires in March that was widely seen as an attempt to reset US-Argentine relations,” the Telegraph wrote.

Malcorra however will need more support than just the United States to be elected to the position, as she competes to be the first woman to head the United Nations since it was created in 1945. There are currently five women among the 10 candidates vying for the position, with New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Helen Clark and Bulgarian diplomat Irina Bokova reported to be the favorites.

At the same time, the country’s recently-appointed Foreign Minister also faces several other hurdles. The United Kingdom, one of five security council members with veto powers, has been a vocal advocate of having the next UN Secretary General be a woman. They are, however, apparently uneasy about electing a secretary-general from Argentina due to the Falklands/Malvinas sovereignty dispute.

Some experts claim that the Macri administration’s recent attempts to play down the dispute over the islands is primarily due to Macri's goal of obtaining Britain's support for Malcorra’s candidacy.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/215635/malcorra%E2%80%99s-un-bid-wins-support-of-washington

OAS chief accuses Argentina's Macri of obstructing moves to censure Venezuela.

A row has broken out inside the Organisation of American States (OAS) over efforts to chastise and possibly suspend Venezuela, with Argentina providing ideologically unlikely support for the embattled government of Nicolás Maduro.

In a telephone interview with The Guardian, the OAS secretary general, Luis Almagro, accused Argentina’s ambassador to the OAS of holding up efforts to call a general assembly so members can discuss Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis, human rights violations and detentions of political prisoners.

His complaint comes amid reports that Argentina’s right-wing president, Mauricio Macri, is trying to cut a deal with the left-wing administration in Caracas over the appointment of the next United Nations secretary general. Macri is believed to be seeking support for the candidacy of Argentina’s foreign minister, Susan Malcorra.

If so, this appears to run contrary to Macri’s promise in last November’s presidential election campaign, when he vowed to confront Venezuela over what he described as its democratic failings.

Argentina’s ambassador to the OAS, Juan José Arcuri, has used his position of chairman of the regional body’s permanent council to delay and divert moves to invoke Article 20 of the organisation’s Democratic Charter, which can lead to suspension. To initiate discussions on Article 20 requires a simple majority of the 35 member states. There would still be a long way to go from there to suspension, which would require a two-thirds majority. This is far from certain.

First, the Argentine chairman has to call an assembly, which he has so far declined to do. Instead he organised a more softly worded declaration by the permanent council on the situation in Venezuela that called for talks.

Almagro accused the chairman of failing to respect “the right order.” Although he welcomed the first council discussion on Venezuela since 2014, he said the declaration omitted his key recommendations, including the release of political prisoners, allowing international organisations help to alleviate the humanitarian crisis, measures to improve public security and acceptance of a recall referendum this year.

Noting the considerable differences that remain, he called on the Argentine president to intervene. “At the end of the day, we expect Macri to fulfill what he promised during his campaign,” said the secretary general.

At: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/04/oas-accuses-argentina-venezuela-luis-almagro
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Being a two-timer didn't help Macri in his two previous marriages, and it's certainly not going to help him in the shark tank of international diplomacy.

Argentine inflation rises to 44.6% - the highest in 24 years.

Consumer prices in Argentina rose by 3.9% in May and by 44.6% over the same time last year according to Miguel Bein, an economic consulting group based in Buenos Aires. Alternative estimates remain the only source of inflation data since President Mauricio Macri decreed a statistical data blackout just days after taking office in December.

The 3.9% monthly inflation rate in May was a considerable improvement from the 7.2% registered in April - the highest monthly figure since the depths of the post-convertibility crisis in April 2002. The increase in prices from a year earlier - 44.6% - was nevertheless the highest since January 1992.

The bulk of the slowdown in monthly inflation was mainly due to much smaller rate and fare hikes compared to April, when federal subsidy cutbacks led to 200-300% higher utility rates and 100% higher public transport fares. Core inflation continued to rise, however, with the sharpest price increases coming from miscellaneous goods and services (22.4%), transport and communications (7.2%), entertainment (5.1%), and housing (3.5%).

Food and beverage prices, which impact poor households most, rose by 2.6% in May.

Consumer prices, according to the study, have risen by 24.5% so far this year and by 32% since Macri took office six months ago. Macri had promised that his policy changes, including a steep devaluation and deep cutbacks in public service subsidies, would lead to inflation of "no higher than 20-25%" for all of 2016 - about the same rate as 2015.

The report projects that inflation in June will ease further to 2.1% even with already announced hikes in insurance and homeowners' association dues, and that inflation for all of 2016 might still be held down to around 39%. Argentina's largest labor federation, the CGT, projects that inflation this year may reach 50%.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.politicargentina.com/notas/201606/14423-inflacion-hubo-un-aumento-del-446-respecto-a-2015.html&prev=search

As Argentina's Macri lifts statistical blackout, official INDEC data confirms a deep recession.

For the first time since Argentine Prosident Mauricio Macri decreed a data blackout just days after taking office six months ago, the INDEC statistics bureau published updates yesterday on the industrial and construction sectors - with both registering sharp declines.

Despite the Macri administration’s reiterated promises for a rebound for the second half of the year the economy continues to slump, official figures show. The industrial sector shrank 6.7% in April compared to the same month last year, accumulating a 2.4% decline in the first four months of the year. Construction, meanwhile, collapsed by 24.1% in April from the same time a year earlier, having already declined 10.3% so far in 2016.

The last data the INDEC bureau had released for either sector was for October 2015. Industry at the time had slowed by 1.7% after six consecutive positive months, while construction grew by 4.2%. Over 48,000 jobs were lost in the construction sector, INDEC data showed - nearly one third of the 155,000 lost since Macri took office.

The industrial recession was widespread, with the steepest declines registered in cement (23.6%), dairy products (20.9%), beverages (17.8%), machinery (17.4%), steel (16.9%), and beef (11.5%). The most significant increases, on the other hand, were in glass (17.4%), tires (7.3%), and textiles (6.8%).

Data related to construction materials had few bright spots, however. Sales declines for supplies such as asphalt (48.8%), concrete (27.6%), rebar (26%), and cinder blocks (25.7%) were the steepest since the depths of the 2002 crisis.

While Macri officials attempted to blame April's steep declines - the sharpest since 2002 - on heavy rainfall, most economists pointed to lower consumer spending and the austerity policies implemented by the Macri administration.

“The economic policies so far implemented led to a drop of the domestic market, making people consume less. The rain might have influenced some sectors like agriculture; but not all of them,” Mariano Kestelboim, chief economist at the University of Buenos Aires, told the Herald. “We are facing a similar macroeconomic scenario as Brazil. Consumption will continue to fall with people’s purchasing power.”

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/215349/indec-reveals-severe-industrial-slump