Weekend Update

Chop, chop:

• My favorite story of the week, Kanellos the Greek protest dog. Check out the photos from The Guardian. This dog is straight bad ass.
  
  
• Also on Greece, and this at least somewhat relates to Latin America, they are facing some harsh austerity measures courtesy of the IMF (and EU) and are enslaved by a fixed currency...remind you of anything? Well it reminded CFK of something, who warned Greece about the draconian measures, "The recipes that are being imposed on Greece are identical to those that were applied here in 2001,"..."Savage austerity measures are going to be resisted,” she warned. “They are going to end badly." It may not be identical, but she wouldn't be the first to make the comparison. Meanwhile, a majority of Greeks support continued protests...
  
  
• For those of you who haven't seen "Crude", you definitely should check it out. Tells the story of the $27 billion dollar lawsuit indigenous groups in Ecuador are fighting against Chevron. Well, Chevron has used every dirty trick in the book and this is just the latest; Chevron requested all 600 hours of footage related to the movie that producer Joe Berlinger had. Somewhat surprisingly, some judge in New York even granted the request, meaning Berlinger is likely to have to hand over all of his outtake footage. Check out CPJ for a nice comment on the situation.
  
  
• In Honduras, after announcing the whitewash commission last week, Lobo decided against attending (was uninvited) to the EU-LAC summit in Madrid. If you'll remember, the same day as announcing the whitewash commission, several South American leaders pledged to boycott the summit if Lobo was there.
  
  
• On the decision to boycott, Mexfiles gets its snark on: "Bloggings by Boz writes, “UNASUR countries threatened to cancel their meeting with the EU if Honduras was invited,” which he claims was learned behavior from the United States. Apparently, without Big Brother to the North to teach us to act like dickheads, we are unable to do it on our own."
  
  
• Reuters decides to split Latin American into "good left" and "bad left", which is in and of itself bullshit, but the worst part; they fail to categorize Bolivia. It is excluded from the debate until the very end, where it is described as defying "the trend or any simplistic tags", thanks Reuters. I guess its hard to get on Evo, what with the best growth in South America and all. Otto, I am humbly serving up a steaming cup of STFU to Reuters' Andrew Cawthorne.
  
  
• The US has named a new ambassador to their favorite client state in the region. I thought I would be happier the day they got rid of Brownfield, the guy who said Colombia "has been the most successful nation building exercise that the U.S.A. has associated itself with perhaps over the last 25-30 years," although I guess that's not really saying that much anyway. In any case, I don't know much about the new guy...but his expertise seems to be on Venezuela...not Colombia.
  
  
• More on pot-smoking presidential candidates in Colombia....from the folks at the bipolar rodent....
  
  
• On a more serious note relating to presidential elections in Colombia...first signs of a slight drawback in support for Mockus? Smear campaign working? New polls show tightening race in the first round....but still a Mockus win in the second. I think its more likely just coming back to earth a bit. Bad news? Shifty at the Monologue makes sense, for once...sorta...saying a Mockus presidency would make an FTA more likely. Can't say I completely disagree. Trojan horse with an Amish beard? I'm still rooting for him, I'm a sucker for Amish beards.

I'm sure there is plenty more...let me know.