Ibero-American News Digest

Desperate Brazil, China Toy with Dollar-Dumping Schemes

May 19 (EIRNS)—Brazilian President Inácio Lula da Silva and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao are foolishly considering the British Empire-inspired scheme of dumping the U.S. dollar, and discussing carrying out their bilateral trade in local currencies.

Just prior to departing Brazil for his May 18-20 state visit to China, Lula announced this would be an important agenda item in his talks with the Chinese. According to today's London Financial Times, the two leaders also broached the subject at the April 2 summit of the G20 in London.

"It won't work," said Lyndon LaRouche, commenting on the dollar-dumping proposal today.

China, Brazil, and other governments that are talking up this scheme, such as Russia and Turkey, are avoiding the reality that the only solution to the global crisis is LaRouche's proposal to put the world economy through bankruptcy reorganization, and create a new international credit system.

Despite Lula's claims to the contrary, Brazil is in desperate financial straits, which is why is he grasping at straws. As the global financial meltdown accelerates, the Brazilian President is counting on China to serve as his country's economic lifeline. Today, the China Development Bank signed an agreement to extend a ten-year, $10 billion loan to Brazil's state oil firm, Petrobras, in exchange for which Petrobras will provide 100,000 barrels per day of oil to China this year, and increase it to 200,000 bpd in 2010. The latter figure is almost 10% of Brazil's national oil production.

But relying on China as Brazil's "lender of last resort" carries real risks, not the least of which is China's worsening domestic economic crisis. There are many unresolved tensions surrounding the Brazil-China relationship.

Four years ago, when President Hu visited Brazil, he promised $7 billion in investments, but only $147 million materialized. In January, the joint venture between the Baosteel Group and Brazil's Vale do Rio Doce, to build a $3.6 billion steel-slab plant, was cancelled, and the Hainan Airlines Group announced on May 8 that, due to declining demand, it has been forced to reduce by half its original order of 100 aircraft from the Brazilian firm Embraer. Brazilian businessmen fear that recognizing China as a "market economy," as it demands, will hamper Brazil's ability to impose sanctions on China for dumping cheaper goods on Brazil's domestic market.

LYM Circulates LaRouche Statement in Mexico

May 18 (EIRNS)—The LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) is distributing Lyndon LaRouche's "Dragging Their Feet for Hitler" release of May 18, which exposes the Nazi health-care policy embraced by President Obama. Thousands of copies of the statement have gone out by e-mail and in leaflets.

At Mexico City's Politécnico Institute, the LYM is asking students: "Why do you think Obama says 80% of health costs are wasted on the last months of a patient's life?" One student shouted out: "Because he wants to kill them." To this, a professor responded, "I agree that two-thirds of the population has to be wiped out, because they aren't productive." The organizer replied, "Well they want to start with you; why do you praise people who think you're just a cow?"

With elections coming up in the state of Sonora in July, the LYM intervened at a campaign rally of the PAN gubernatorial candidate Guillermo Padrés, who pretends that he backs the Northwest Hydraulic Plan (PLHINO), which the LYM and others are championing. A LYM organizer challenged him, asking, if he supports the PLHINO, would he be willing to confront the forces that oppose it, like Prince Philip's Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), its agent Luege Tamargo, who heads the National Water Commission (CONAGUA), and the banks? Padrés danced around the question, and said he was in discussions with a European bank to get a $10 billion loan to finance the PLHINO. This didn't go over very well, since he had just been attacking current governor Bours for increasing the state debt to build projects.

Drumbeat Against Colombia's Anti-Drug President

May 21 (EIRNS)—The Brutish Empire definitely doesn't want current Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez to run for a third term in office. With his aggressive fight against the drug cartels and the terrorists who live off the drug trade, Uribe has been a thorn in the side of loyal British agent and drug kingpin George Soros, a key instrument of London's new Opium Wars against the Americas.

The complicated procedure that would allow Uribe to run again, which includes a national referendum to amend the Constitution, is moving forward, and there is a good chance the referendum will be approved.

But former Colombian President César Gaviria, a conspicuous figure in Soros's stable of Ibero-American narco-politicians, is leading the charge against Uribe's possible reelection, echoing the London Economist's claim, in its May 14 edition, that a third term for Uribe would smack of "autocracy."

Gaviria, who peddles drug legalization as one of three co-chairmen of the Soros-sponsored Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy (LACDD), charged on May 20 that a third term for Uribe would lead Colombia "down the path of authoritarianism," generating "an unprecedented political uncertainty." Were a referendum to be approved, he warned, it would jeopardize both "Colombian democracy and the "balance of powers."

Hardly. The truth is that Gaviria, who opened the country up to the drug cartels during his 1990-94 Presidency, wants Uribe gone. It was mooted in February that he might be considering running for President again, and had organized a chorus of supporters in the Liberal Party, which he heads, to "beg" him to run.

Max Londoño, president of the Lyndon LaRouche Association of Colombia, warned that a Gaviria candidacy would be tantamount to a death threat against Uribe. Gaviria could only become President, Londoño stated, were Uribe to be killed. He is otherwise not electable—just as he was not electable in 1990, but became the Liberal Party candidate after its very popular anti-drug candidate, Luis Carlos Galán, was assassinated.

Argentina's Wheat Crop the Smallest in 100 Years

May 14 (EIRNS)—The sharp decline in Argentina's wheat crop this year will move it from fifth place to the world's seventh-largest wheat exporter. Total acreage for wheat production will drop to 3.7 million hectares, the smallest since 1910.

A devastating drought is the main factor in this decline, although the large landowners from the oligarchic Rural Society blame President Cristina Fernández, because she restricted wheat exports, in order to keep prices low on the domestic market.

Such policies are returning Argentina to the era of the "caveman," one grain broker wailed. There's no respect for the free market!

The country's last wheat harvest dropped by almost 50%, from 16.3 million tons to 8.3 million tons, and the now almost-completed corn harvest is expected to drop by 42%.