Argentina's Milei with Tucker Carlson

How do you fix a problem like Argentina?, is a 12-minute video report by The Economist that places Milei's rise in the polls in the context of "decades of economic mismanagement." One data point: the average European pays US$40 in monthly electricity bills; the average Argentine spends US$5 because of government subsidies at a cost of US$ 12.5 billion, or about 2% of the country's GDP.

The U.S. personality Tucker Carlson has arrived in Argentina to interview Javier Milei, according to the Buenos Aires Times and La Noticia Más. Marcelo Longobardi, the Argentine radio interviewer, called Tucker ‘Dr. Lotocki del Periodismo’, according to La Nación. Rumors abound about a pay-off to the ex-Fox News for this event. Carlson has already broadcast interviews with El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele and Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban.

 El País' columnist based in Buenos Aires confesses that she didn't understand much less anticipate Milei's recent political rise.

More Argentina: Argentina has rescinded three honorific medals previous government bestowed upon Chile's Augusto Pinochet in 1975, 1976 y 1993, including the Orden del Libertador San Martín, in the lead up to the 50th anniversary of the ex-dictator's coup, according to Página 12, El País and the nation's official gazette. Argentina's president Fernandez "cancelled the right" for Pinochet's family to use publicly use the commendations presented by Isabel Perón, Rafael Videla and Carlos Menem.

Chile

• Five Chilean presidents, current President Gabriel Boric along with the four living predecessors signed a “commitment for democracy” document to “defend democracy from authoritarian threats,” according to MercoPress. Members of the opposition suggested it was just a 'media show,' according to ADN Radio.

• Jorge Castañeda writes that Chile's President Boric "confronts the same challenge faced by Salvador Allende [fifty years ago]: how to transform society through democratic means. Boric must forge strong alliances, and fast, because the far right is gaining ground, in a syndicated column. In a reflection of several other Latin American contexts, Casteñada writes that "despite winning 55.9% of the vote, Boric has struggled to translate his electoral majority into a legislative majority." The column was written with Carlos Ominami Chile's former Minister of Economy.

• "Technology is helping put past Latin American dictatorships in blockchains" by digitizing, preserving and making accessible documents and histories of human rights abuses and other data on their victims", according to a Telemundo journalist writing in Axios. "There's still a real need for accountability and institutional change" according to Lauren Harper at the National Security Archive.

Colombia

• Colombia's President Gustavo Petro is commemorating his first year in office by hosting a Latin American summit on drugs with delegates from some 20 countries. The new policy against drug trafficking shifts from an all-out security approach to one involving both carrot and stick and is titled "Sowing Life, Banishing Drug Trafficking," according to Agence France Press and El País.  The summit will conclude with a public meeting between Petro and his Mexican counterpart President Lopez Obrador.

Mexico

• President López Obrador made a public showing of his support of Claudia Sheinbaum, Morena's candidate for president in the 2024 elections, categorically endorsing her and even letting her carry the symbolic baton of governance, according to El País and Reuters. This was seen as a firm rebuke to Marcelo Ebrard, AMLO's former Foreign Minister, who has not yet accepted his loss in the presidential nomination to Sheinbaum,  highlighted in a separate article in El País. Ebrard says he will announce his plans on Monday and has left open the possibility of joining Movimiento Ciudadano who has yet to proffer a candidate for the June 2 election.

• Mexico’s opposition presidential candidate Xochitl Gálvez gave a sit-down interview to Bloomberg TV where she discussed the economy as well as Donald Trump.

• Following up on Mexico's Supreme Court ruling on the decriminalization of abortion, Agence France Press reviews the legal status on a continental level while The Guardian and the Associated Press wonder if the USA will soon be an outlier.

• Bloomberg tweaked President Obrador for using a military jet to travel to Columbia and Chile this week, after being a "champion coach travel earlier in his presidency." It seems that prickly regional relations were the cause for the plane: El País reports that he wanted to avoid using Peru's airspace in order to "avoid any problems'', after the diplomatic row between the countries after the forced removal of Peru's President Castillo from power.

Venezuela

• Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro is in China in a bid to rekindle relations between the two countries, according to Reuters and Bloomberg. (Immediately after deplaning in a rainy Beijing, Maduro posted a short video on X / Twitter.)  "Venezuela owes over $10 billion to China, according to independent data." Bloomberg notes that China's Premier Xi is "skipping" the G-20 summit in India and hosting presidents like Maduro and Zambia's Hichilema.

Cuba

• Cuba arrested 17 for trafficking men to fight for Russia in Ukraine, although no one has been named, according to Reuters and the New York Times. (See LADB, September 6.) "Cuba says it has no part in the war in Ukraine, and that it rejects the use of its citizens as mercenaries."

• A judge in Colorado "ruled that Cuba must pay $2.59 billion in damages to the family of Gustavo Villoldo Argilagos, a Cuban-American who died in 1959, according to the Miami Herald. His sons claimed their father was "harassed and forced to commit suicide by Ernesto “Che” Guevara. A state court in Florida ruled for the family in 2011. Villoldo owned one of the first General Motors dealerships in Cuba.

Peru

• Peru’s Chinese-funded mega-port is profiled in the South China Morning Post. The Port of Chancay (about 75 km north of downtown Lima) and is very visible part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Peru’s official news agency, Andina, reports that they anticipate at least a partial inauguration in time for the country’s hosting of APEC countries in 2024.

Brazil

• "Today's official Independence Day celebrations were calm and quiet this morning in Brasilia," was the lead line in The Brazilian Report. The event was peaceful as "more than 3,000 troops marched past the president and cabinet ministers", according to the Reuters and the Associated Press. Former president Jair Bolsonaro shared a video on X / Twitter yesterday of the parade in 2022. Bolsonaro has yet to concede his defeat to President Lula.

Climate

• Hurricane Lee is now a Category 5 Storm, but its eventual path Is unclear, headlines the New York Times. It has since been downgraded to a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Margot is slowly coming in from the coast of Africa, according to NOAA's maps.

Translation Wands

• Edith Grossman, the celebrated translator of Spanish literature from Miguel Cervantes to Gabriel García Márquez to Isabel Allende, has died, according to the Washington Post and the New York Times. Both papers recall that García Márquez told her, "you are my voice in English”; the NYT reveals that Grossman said that translating him “was like doing an intense crossword puzzle.” She was also the author of 'Why Translation Matters', reviewed with high praise by the New York Times.