Weekend Update

A day late, hopefully not a dollar short…on with it!

• Big news out of Tehran as Lula seems to have come out on top in his push for dialogue over sanctions. Judging by the reaction in the West though, this was never about a deal, they want blood. Best coverage, unsurprisingly goes to Al-Jazeera, who also has the actual text of the agreement. For some good commentary check out Robert Naiman at Huffington Post. Special award goes to Hillary Clinton who was surpremely pessimistic about the whole thing last Friday…maybe she’s upset that all that sucking up she did hasn’t paid off.
  
  
• From the blogosphere, Otto gives the rundown on what’s been kicking…giving due props to maladjusted’s better half. I’ll second the call for checking out Abiding in Bolivia’s music recommendation…in fact I’m listening to it while I write this. Otto also highlights the recent polling for Brazilian elections….Rousseff now in the lead.
  
  
• In Haiti, Monsatan is establishing a presence in the country by giving some $4 million in seeds to Haitian farmers. They aren’t GMO supposedly, so that’s a positive, but as the AP writes, “The company said the seeds produce larger yields than non-hybrid seeds, but that with such a variety new seeds have to be purchased and planted every year.” Grrrreat. Good news though is that at least some Haitian farmers have committed to burning the seeds…take that!
  
  
• On the “hopey and changey” front; Obama nominated another cold-warrior to a post at USAID. Mark Feierstein, who makes the seamless transition from Vice President of the international polling firm Quinlan, Greenberg, Rosner to Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean. His bio on GQR actually brags that "While at NDI, Feierstein worked with the democratic movements that defeated...the Sandinistas in Nicaragua." He’s worked with the opposition in Venezuela and Bolivia as well. And just because we’ve plugged it before, doesn’t mean we won’t again…so to see what GQR did in Bolivia, go watch “Our Brand is Crisis”….NOW! For a post from a few weeks back about the movie that really made me chuckle, check out Jonathan Schwarz at A Tiny Revolution.
  
  
• More on nominations from Tim’s El Salvador Blog, who checks out the GOP blockade on Obama’s nomination for ambassador. Apparently being questioned in the 1990s about a relationship with a Cuban is enough to kill your career.
  
  
• Dominique Strauss-Kahn is heading to Latin America at the end of the month, as he described the region as “brimming with energy and promise.” Also on the IMF front, RAJ at Honduras Culture and Politics has a nice article on an upcoming IMF mission to Honduras and the balance between money and human rights.
  
  
• From Swan’s Commentary, we get a nice long article from Michael Barker on “Imperialism And The Washington Office On Latin America”. This stems from an issue that was raised by Adrienne Pine, who took on the human rights organization over their actions regarding Honduras.
  
  
• Speaking of Pine, she notes on her Quotha blog the ongoing victimization of the Resistance in Honduras. Two members of the Frente were killed last week after having participated in protests the previous day. Check out Quotha for all your Honduran needs.
  
  
• Quick news round-up: The Nation takes a look at the crackdown in Rio in preparation for the Olympics, Mexican’s aren’t down on cell-phone database, and the US drug war has been a total, abject, utter and complete failure. Speaking of which, WOLA (those imperialist enablers mentioned earlier) has a brief out on proposed drug reforms in Ecuador. They’ve got some seriously draconian drug laws now, why? Put simply by WOLA, “Countries that adopted the “war on drugs” were rewarded economically and politically; countries that wavered were threatened with cuts in U.S. assistance and trade.” Truth, just ask Bolivia. (h/t Hemispheric Brief)
  
  
• Reader and devoted commenter Paul Escobar links to an interesting and informative article on Cuban doctors from FT. Check it out.
  
  
• Influential Colombian magazine, Semana, reports that the results of DAS spying and wiretapping were reported directly Uribe’s personal secretary. Although Uribe denies it, revelations like these will NOT help Santos’ presidential bid. (via Colombia Reports)
  
  
• On presidents being shady as hell, Bananama Republic continues its great coverage of the scandal that’s got Martinelli’s panties in a bunch. Read all about it here, here, and here.
  
  
• Finally, for those with some time on their hands, check out this presentation by Brazilian economist Maria da Conceição Tavares from CEPAL. The press release reads, “Markets were organized in not a very "canonic" form of capitalism, in an unsustainable manner, tied to ghost loans and toxic derived instruments that affected international lending and caused strong restrictions to financing.” Sounds like the world was pretty structurally maladjusted.