Presidential edition of Whats Wrong With This Picture?

UPDATE BELOW

Last Wednesday the Washington Post style section ran a story on the front page about Oliver Stone's new movie "South of the Border". The story included a picture of the six current South American presidents that Stone interviewed. But, wait, there was one tiny little problem...take a look at the picture below:


(Top, Chavez, Correa and de Kirchner. Bottom, Lugo, Morales and da Silva)

You may have noticed, something is amiss.....got it yet??? Answer and more after the jump.

Some Surpringly Rational Thoughts on Bolivia

The sky must be falling...it is really the only explanation for what follows, from the BBC:

A senior European Union official has said Bolivia has the right to nationalise companies as long as they are offered "fair compensation".

Kenneth Bell, the head of the EU delegation to Bolivia, said nationalisation was a sovereign right of the Bolivian government.

Whadda ya think? Bell gets canned within a week? Month? In all seriousness though, this is a pretty surprising statement from Bell, not often do you get rational comments like this on Bolivia. While Bolivia has been criticized for years about the nationalization policy, the fact is the country had the best growth in South American this past year, and has been able to use their natural resource wealth to try and better the lives of the many Bolivians who have long been excluded. So props to Kenneth Bell, who also noticed a key fact that those who have been critical of Bolivia often don't mention:

He also said that despite the recent nationalisations, European firms such as Repsol, Total, and British Gas remained active in Bolivia.

That's right, Evo is not scaring off foreign investment, his policies are sound and rational, and the macroeconomic management of the country has been truly remarkable (even the IMF thinks so)....and oh yeah...he thinks the US is a terrorist state and that capitalism is the " worst enemy of humanity". Suck it haters.



(image from eabolivia.com)

The Count

38,700,000...

...is the dollar price tag on Evo's new presidential jet. That's right, Bolivia's prez is out shopping for a new Dassault Falcon 900.

But before you start jumping to the conclusion that the famously humble and austere prez is living it up, consider that the current presidential jet was bought back in 1975. Indeed, the decree authorizing the purchase cited "incidents that put in danger the lives of the head of state and those who accompany him, due to different technical malfunctions as well as a plane's normal wear and tear."

Also, $38.7 million isn't much when compared to high rollers like Brazil and Venezuela, with their big Airbus A319s (with average price tags of $70.3 million).

Now all that remains to be seen is what he'll name it. Any guesses?

Bolivia, Argentina, Natural Gas and Doomsayers

Remember when the sky was going to fall down in Bolivia because Evo nationalized the natural gas industry? Well, it hasn't happened yet, and with a recent spate of investments and a nice lil contract with CFK, it looks like the doomsayers are going to have some 'splainin to do (or more likely they'll just keep lying through their teeth, but whatever). Reuters, with a pretty nice article really:

Bolivia will quadruple natural gas exports to Argentina by 2021 under a deal signed on Friday that extends the deadline by nearly a decade for the Andean nation to boost fuel exports to its wealthier neighbor.

But Evo's scaring off foreign investment you say? There's no way he will be able to do this with them, well Reuters continues:

But a consortium led by Repsol unveiled plans in late 2009 to invest $1.5 billion to boost natural gas output, and last month Total launched a gas exploration project, saying it may invest up to $500 million in the impoverished nation.

Heritage Makes Me Angry....

The Heritage Foundation blog has a post from some young 'un on how the Bolivian army will now use the slogan "Patria o Muerte, venceremos". Apparently they don't get the irony like we do. But in any case the post begins with "The Cold War is supposed to be over, and the murderous ideology of Marxist-Leninist revolution either tempered by capitalism and consumerism in China or Vietnam, or confined behind the grim ramparts of communist throwbacks like Cuba and North Korea." But really the only ones still fighting the cold war are the Heritage Foundation and their ilk. Get past a slogan, and you'll see that Bolivia is one of the most successful countries in the hemisphere, regardless of ideology or rhetoric.

Best economic growth in the region in 2009, yup, that belongs to Bolivia. So good that even the IMF, yeah, THAT IMF, is praising Bolivia for their economic policies. Unless Heritage thinks the IMF has all of a sudden gone the way of Marxism, they should seriously take a reality check and stop letting "young leaders" who don't know shit post on their blog.

The people in Bolivia who are still fighting the cold war, its not Evo, its the fascist assholes who are trying to overthrow the government because their president cares about people who aren't rich and white.

This "young leader" from Heritage writes that "Bringing back the ghost of Guevara is a great way to shore up support for Morales not only in Latin America but throughout the world." You know what else is a great way to "shore up support", implement policies that the majority of your country approves of. Oh and taking the lead role in pushing for better climate policy on the world stage might make just a few people happy "throughout the world".

Personally, I think it is slightly amusing that the military slogan was changed, but why I think Evo is legit, is because his policies are legit. Maybe the folks at Heritage are the ones who should stop fighting the cold war.

Rant over.

Bolivian Army unveils new logo

OK, so I'm a bit late on this one but the Bolivian government has unveiled the military's new logo, which as reported here a few days ago, features the indigenous wiphala. I've gotta say, it certainly looks far cooler than the stoic, ugly ass symbol of republicanism they had before. Great symbolism all around in the new one but instead of wasting your time while I try to unearth what little I remember from my liberal arts education, I'll leave all the artsy, visual interpreting stuff to vice president Alvaro García:

"The emblem brings together several elements that represent the nation, there's our three colors, the insignia of our nation, there's the wiphala, which captures the diversity of our peoples, of the cultures and regions of Bolivia... I celebrate this proposal that attempts to synthesize our vital forces, maintains what has been built in 180 years of republican life, the three colors with which we live and die to defend."

patria o muerte, venceremos!

There's been a bit of controversy in military circles in Bolivia during the last few days over Evo's order to make the socialist chant "patria o muerte, venceremos" (homeland or death, we will triumph) an official military slogan. That's right, the army that famously captured and executed Che Guevara will now be required to chant a slogan traditionally associated with the deceased guerrilla. Oh the Irony.

But this rebranding of Bolivia's military doesn't end there. Evo has ordered the military to confer official military honors on the wiphala, an indigenous emblem that has come to represent the new plurinational state of Bolivia. The symbolism of requiring an institution that has historically been an instrument of repression to wear an indigenous emblem and chant a slogan associated with the struggle for social justice couldn't be any clearer.

So props go out to Evo for showing the military who's boss and dishing out a bit of historical justice, no?

New Bolivian mining law will share royalties with indigenous communities

Word has it that the latest draft of Bolivia's new mining law would share royalties from mining operations with nearby indigenous communities, according to a report by La Razón this morning (sorry no English link on this one).

Royalties from mining operations are currently divided between the prefecture and the municipality the project takes place in, with 85% going to the former and 15% to the latter. Under the new law, however, the prefectures would now only receive 80%, giving the remaining 5% to local indigenous communities.

The draft law also includes a mechanism for redistributing royalties among neighboring municipalities if annual royalty payments are larger than $600,000. If this is the case, the prefecture would only receive 70%, with 20% now going to poorer neighboring municipalities and 5% going to the local municipality. Now, if annual royalties top $600,000 the indigenous share drops to 2% and the remaining 3% goes to... the Armed Forces? Sounds to me like a compromise gesture to members of the military upset over ongoing institutional reforms.

Solidarity Fútbol

Yesterday Chile's new president Sebastian Piñera and Bolivia's Evo Morales played a "solidarity" game of fútbol. The speedy Otto over at IncaKola beat me to the scoop and also posted a great video of the whole affair. So go check it out, here.

On a completely unrelated note, Chile was hit by a 7.2 richter scale aftershock during the beginning of Piñera's presidential inauguration ceremony. Let's hope this isn't some sort of bad omen.