Corbyn attacks Trump for spreading hate during his state visit

Argentina's Macrisis: Country risk surpasses 1000 basis points

A selloff in Argentine bond markets today pushed the nation's 'country risk' to close above 1000 points for the first time in over five years.

The index, based on JP Morgan’s Emerging Markets Bond Index (EMBI) yield for Argentine bonds over the yield of U.S. Treasuries of comparable maturity, reached 1013 points today, an increase of 28 basis points.

The trend has pushed yields on the two most subscribed Argentine bond issues, Bonar 2020 and Bonar 2024, to 19% on the secondary market - the highest in the world for performing sovereign bonds.

The steady increase in the country risk, from around 400 points in early 2018, comes as investors have become increasingly skeptical of Argentina's ability to repay its mounting foreign debts - which now exceed $200 billion in the public sector alone.

Scheduled debt payments over the next four years already total over $148 billion.

Debt service has ballooned from 6% of the federal budget in 2015, to 20% this year, forcing cuts in infrastructure, health, and education budgets amid a deep recession and massive job losses.

Vulture culture

This was Argentina's highest country risk index since February 5, 2014 - at the height of the vulture fund dispute, when holdouts led by Paul Singer's Cayman Islands-based hedge fund NML had a Manhattan court block payment to Argentina's foreign bondholders in order to collect a 1600% payout.

An $8.9 billion payout to holdouts in April 2016 by recently-elected President Mauricio Macri (netting NML an estimated 1180%) was touted as a sign of "Argentina returning to the world."

Macri then issued $122 billion in sovereign bonds and notes over the next two years - second only among emerging markets to South Korea.

Foreign investors lost interest in Argentine bonds in February 2018 however, leading to the implosion that April of a domestic carry-trade debt bubble known as the "financial bicycle."

Shut out of global bond markets, Macri turned to the IMF, where he secured a $56 billion high-access stand-by credit line - the most restrictive kind, and one which only three other crisis-wracked countries (Iraq, Jamaica, and Kenya) currently have.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&tab=wT&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ambito.com%2Friesgo-pais-alcanzo-un-nuevo-maximo-la-era-macri-perforo-los-1000-puntos-n5034978

Argentina's Central Bank has responded to investor worries over the payability of the country's mounting public foreign debt by raising its key interest rates to over 70%.

Offering high yields succeeded in stanching capital flight somewhat; but it's also led to effective lending rates of 90% or more for local businesses, further deepening the most severe recession in two decades.

With Brazil on brink of recession, Bolsonaro scoffs "I said I didn't understand economics"

Brazil's Geography and Statistics Institute (IBGE) reported last week that the nation's GDP slid 0.2% in the first quarter. Compared to the first quarter of 2018, GDP grew only 0.5% - its worst result in two years.

This was followed by reports that unemployment rose another 0.5% in April, to 12.5%.

These were unwelcome news to President Jair Bolsonaro, whose right-wing administration is now languishing at around 35% job approval just five months after taking office.

The president, however, remained defiant.

"I already said that I didn't understand economics," Bolsonaro shot back when asked about the recent data. "Those who understood sunk Brazil; I have 100% trust in the economics of Paulo Guedes."

Guedes, Bolosonaro's Economy Minister, has pledged to revive growth in Brazil through deregulation, tax cuts, budget cuts, and privatizations.

This supply-side cocktail, already enacted in neighboring Argentina in 2015 by Mauricio Macri, resulted in the sharpest downturn (6.2% as of March) since that country's 2001-02 collapse - itself on the heels of the similar policies.

Brazil's economy, the largest in Latin America and the 9th largest in the world, is now threatened by recession - something considered unlikely a few months ago. The country had already endured a deep recession in 2015-16, followed by a weak recovery of 1.1% annually in 2017 and '18.

This has left Brazil's GDP at 2011 levels for the last three years.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&tab=wT&sl=pt&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.minutouno.com%2Fnotas%2F5034769-brasil-esta-al-borde-la-recesion-y-bolsonaro-se-ataja-yo-ya-dije-que-no-entendia-economia

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro with his supply-side "Chicago boy," Economy Minister Paulo Guedes:

"I told you I didn't understand economics!"

Hillary, Chelsea Clinton plan Hollywood production company

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton plan to create a Hollywood production company, according to a Thursday Bloomberg report.

The Clintons have met with studios about financing, per Bloomberg, which said that the former secretary of State and her activist daughter "plan to focus on stories by and about women."

Discussions about the formation of the yet-to-be-named company are said to be in the early stages.

Hillary Clinton has had experience working with high-powered Tinseltown figures in the past, including director and producer Steven Spielberg for “The Woman’s Hour," a film adaptation of the acclaimed book that looked back on female activists and their fight to give women the right the vote under the 19th Amendment.

At: https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/446248-hillary-chelsea-clinton-plan-hollywood-production-company

Chelsea and Hillary Clinton: Hollywood ending?

National strike paralyzes Argentina amid economic woes

Argentine unions held a national strike Wednesday, forcing banks to shut their doors, airlines to ground flights and a soccer final to be postponed amid growing anger over President Mauricio Macri’s economic management.

Argentina’s biggest labor union federations, the CGT and CTA, launched the one-day strike as Macri faces a backlash months before a presidential election in October.

While the CGT and CTA did not call for demonstrations, numerous marchers were injured by rubber bullets.

Many Argentines are upset over a sharp recession and rising prices for food and utilities. Inflation in April hit 56%, among the highest in the world, while the economy shrank 6.2% in March from the same time last year.

Since the recession began following the collapse of a 2016-17 carry-trade debt bubble, some 283,000 registered jobs have been lost as of February - equivalent to 2.1 million jobs lost in the U.S.

Today's general strike was the sixth since Macri was elected in late 2015 on promises to jump-start sluggish growth with tax cuts and deregulation.

Critics note that his policies have instead led to a massive debt crisis, an IMF bailout, and the deepest recession since the 2001-02 collapse.

"People are asking us to send a message to the government, for them to stop creating smokescreens," CGT head Carlos Acuña said.

"This is not political; it's not against anyone. It is a demand for the situation to change so we may work with dignity."

At: https://www.wsj.com/articles/national-strike-paralyzes-argentina-amid-economic-woes-11559160328

"Because there's no other way," a sign posted by bank workers announcing today's general strike overlooks a quiet scene during a normally hectic weekday in Buenos Aires' financial district.

Macri's economic policies, which first created a financial bubble in 2016-17, followed by a collapse and a hike in interest rates to over 70% to help stymie capital flight, have been blamed for a sharp rise in layoffs and business failures over the last year.

Elections this October show opposition candidate Alberto Fernández defeating Macri by around 11%.

Texas Senate approves bill allowing Texans to carry guns for week after natural disasters

Source: Fox News

The Texas Senate on Sunday approved a bill that would allow any Texan who can legally own a firearm to be able to carry it either open or concealed for seven days after the state declares a natural disaster, The Dallas Morning News reported.

The bill, which was narrowly passed 16-15, has been hotly contested. Three Republicans voted against the measure, including Sen. Joan Huffman, R- Houston.

The paper reported that she questioned House Bill 1177’s effect on policing after a powerful storm.

“It’s really, really poor public policy that is not well thought out,” she said, according to the paper.

Read more: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-senate-approves-bill-allowing-texans-to-carry-guns-for-week-after-natural-disasters-report

Deaths of four youths questions Macri policy of allowing police to fire on fleeing persons

A dozen Argentine police officers have been suspended pending a probe into the deaths of four youths during a chase in which shots were fired into their car, officials said Thursday.

The incident happened Monday night when a car with five local youths failed to stop on police orders in the small town of San Miguel del Monte, about an hour's drive south of Buenos Aires.

Police pursued the car and then fired several shots into it from close range, after which it crashed into a parked truck. The chase, captured on security cameras, showed an officer leaning out the window of the patrol car and pointing into the vehicle, just before the crash.

Four people - three teens and the 22 year-old driver - were killed. The only survivor, a 13-year-old girl, is in serious condition in hospital.

"Thousands of theories come to us," Lucas Sanguineti, uncle of the sole survivor, Rocío Guagliarello, said.

"That the policeman had stopped them to ask for money, that the boys saw something they should not have seen. In any case, we can't believe what happened. Four dead children, with a life ahead of them - and with Rocío now full of tubes."

The police they want

The tragedy, now known as the San Miguel del Monte Massacre, has put the right-wing Mauricio Macri administration on the defensive over their policy of giving police broader powers.

Critics point to a decree signed by Macri on December 3 authorizing federal officers to use lethal force against fleeing suspects - a radical change in Argentine law, which since 1983 authorizes police use of gunfire only when their own lives or those of others are in danger.

Since Macri took office in late 2015, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has expressed concern over the excessive and indiscriminate use of force - as well as over the use of indefinite detention against critics and opponents.

Former Security Minister Cecilia Rodríguez placed the blame squarely on her successor, Patricia Bullrich, who has publicly backed officers facing murder charges after shooting unarmed suspects.

"Faced with the irrationality of such cases, she and the president sit with these policemen on television."

"This shows the type of police they want."

At: https://news.yahoo.com/argentine-police-probed-youths-killed-chase-193248824.html

San Miguel del Monte Massacre victims, from left: Camila López (13), Gonzalo Domínguez (14), Danilo Sansone (13), and Aníbal Suárez (22). A fifth teen, Rocío Guagliarello (13), remains in critical condition.

Their deaths during a police chase, during which officers fired repeatedly despite the youths' being unarmed and not having engaged in any illegalities, has put the Macri administration on the defensive over its policy of allowing police gunfire against fleeing persons.

Since Macri took office in 2015, the number of deaths at the hands of police has risen from 300 annually to over 450.

UK suffers major UN defeat over Chagos Islands decolonization

Source: CNN

The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to condemn the UK's continued occupation of the Chagos Islands -- a humiliating defeat for London on its continued colonial legacy.

The Indian Ocean islands, which are home to US military base Diego García, were separated from the former British territory of Mauritius during decolonization in 1968.

On Wednesday, UN member states voted 116-6 for a non-binding resolution endorsing a decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that separation was illegal and calling for the UK to return the islands to Mauritius within six months. Only Australia, Hungary, Israel, the Maldives, and the US voted in support of the UK.

"The advisory opinion is clear and unambiguous," Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth said. "It is decisive."

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/22/asia/uk-chagos-islands-un-intl/index.html

Aerial view of Diego García.

The existence of a U.S. Navy base there may make today's ruling, which follows a similar one at The Hague, unlikely to ever be carried out.

Argentine elections: Half the nation's teen voters missing from voter rolls "by mistake"

Argentina's National Electoral Commission (CNE) today announced a one-week extension in the deadline for verification of federal voter rolls until Wednesday, May 29.

The unusual step was taken after the CNE confirmed widespread reports of gaps in the voter rolls. Up to half the nation's voting-age teens were never uploaded to the official voter database by the National Registry of Persons "by mistake."

The right to vote was extended to Argentine 16 year-olds in 2012; over 1.1 million 16 and 17 year-olds were registered to vote by 2017 (80% of the total).

Recent polls show right-wing President Mauricio Macri losing to center-left Peronist candidate Alberto Fernández by 23% among younger voters.

Among all voters Fernández is currently leading by 11% despite having announced his candidacy just this Saturday. Former President Cristina Kirchner, who governed Argentina from 2007 to 2015 and who remains popular, is Fernández's running mate.

Narrowly elected in late 2015 on promises to jump-start sluggish growth with tax cuts and deregulation, Macri's policies have instead led to a massive debt crisis, an IMF bailout, and the deepest recession since the 2001-02 collapse.

Now you see it, now you don't

Today's incident underscores wider concerns over the integrity of Argentina's federal elections, scheduled for October 27.

University of Buenos Aires Professor Ariel Garbarz, a cybersecurity expert, warned that Macri's policy of having precinct summaries scanned and transmitted via e-mail to an electronic tabulation center, rather than having them visually verified, makes the process vulnerable to alteration and thereby fraud.

Mid-term elections in 2017 were marred by irregularities, with evidence surfacing of doctored precinct summary pdf files showing zeroed-out counts for Kirchner's Citizen's Unity in a number of cases.

The presiding electoral court judge at the time, Juan Manuel Culotta, was a high-school friend of Macri's. He struck down all complaints, and resigned shortly after the 2017 elections.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&tab=wT&sl=pt&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicargentina.com%2Fnotas%2F201905%2F29169-el-gobierno-impide-que-los-jovenes-de-16-anos-puedan-votar.html

An Argentine high-schooler votes in the last presidential election in 2015.

President Mauricio Macri, who opposed extending the right to vote to 16 year-olds, is down 23 points among young voters in the latest polls.

"Now there are problems in the voter rolls," according to student leader Ofelia Fernández, "because our voting obviously bothers them."

As Argentina's Macri senses defeat, charges against opponents revived

Former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner appeared in court today to face charges related to alleged cost overruns in public works contracts during her 2007-15 administration.

The charges, one of at least eight facing the center-left former president, come as the 2019 presidential campaign season in Argentina gets underway.

Kirchner, 66, is currently a running mate for Peronist candidate Alberto Fernández - whom polls show defeating right-wing President Mauricio Macri by 11% amid a debt crisis and the most severe recession since the 2001-02 collapse.

Earlier today, three days after the Fernández-Kirchner ticket was announced, Mariana Zuvic of the pro-Macri Civic Coalition announced that she intends to file an unspecified complaint against Fernández in relation to the case - though he has never been named in any of the charges pressed against Kirchner.

Zuvic and two fellow Civic Coalition lawmakers have been implicated in the recent Extortiongate scandal - a federal case involving Argentina's Federal Intelligence, millions in ransom payments and false testimony coerced against political opponents.

Road to nowhere

The Vialidad ('Roads') case does not involve federal contracts; but instead those granted in remote Santa Cruz Province to Austral Construcciones, whose former CEO, Lázaro Báez, is a family friend of the Kirchners and has been the focus of intense media coverage.

Báez was jailed on money laundering charges in 2016, and following Macri's rescission of numerous Austral contracts by decree the firm declared bankruptcy in 2017.

The 'roads' case has been impugned by Mrs. Kirchner's defense as legally void not only because she was never governor of Santa Cruz; but also because of the 51 Austral contracts the courts ordered prosecutors to examine, only five were - and all five are incomplete.

Prosecutors have stated that their report on the five contracts, will be ready "sometime in June to September." The first round of presidential elections will be on August 11, and the second, on October 27.

The prosecution is led by Anti-Corruption Office head Laura Alonso - a pro-Macri hard-liner who once confessed "being in love" with the president; but who lacks a law degree as required by the office.

Critics of the Macri administration have pointed to the 'roads' charges as the latest in a series of lawfare attacks carried out against opposition figures for political purposes - particularly against Kirchner, whom Macri sees as his principal obstacle to re-election.

Defense attorneys, who were not allowed to speak in today's trial, have also impugned the case for double jeopardy:

The public works contracts granted to Austral had already been investigated in federal courts in 2011 and 2015, by Santa Cruz courts in 2012-13, and in 2016 (after Macri took office) by the National Highway Bureau. None found irregularities.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&tab=wT&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eldestapeweb.com%2Fjuicio-cristina-kirchner%2Fjuicio-cristina-kirchner-que-se-trata-la-causa-que-impulsa-comodoro-py-medio-la-campana-n60250

Former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner during today's trial.

Decade-old charges alleging road construction cost overruns in her home province, which have been found without merit on at least four occasions and for which no evidence has emerged, were recently revived by the Macri administration ahead of elections this October.

Recent polls show the center-left Alberto Fernández-Cristina Kirchner ticket defeating Macri by 11%.