The Washington Post this morning reports from Ecuador on the once-scorned IMF and its possible encore performance in Latin America. The paper writes that the IMF’s reputation is anything but stellar within much of the region, but facing an economic downturn, quiet talks have resumed between the international lender and many nations, including Ecuador. According to the WaPo, Ecuador’s recently re-elected President Rafael Correa still rejects the IMF in word and has sought cash from China and smaller multilateral lenders. “But for the loans Ecuador needs -- economists say as much as $2 billion to alleviate a crushing $3.5 billion trade deficit -- the Correa administration may be forced to go to the IMF” because if its ability to lend out money quickly. The paper says the fund is today “flush with money and a new leadership,” in addition to a new policy that makes it easier for countries to get loans, particularly those with sound economic fundamentals. The IMF's loans to Latin America fell from $48 billion in 2003 to $803 million last year, but this year, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala are already set to receive loans, and Mexico is receiving $47 billion. It is not yet known if countries like Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador, all of whom have severed ties with the IMF, would accept a refashioned IMF, although discussions between financial officials and the IMF have begun in each country. For his part, Brazil’s president, Lula da Silva, also a one-time critic of the fund, recently remarked at the World Economic Forum in Rio de Janeiro that “I spent 20 years of my life carrying a banner and shouting in the street, in the gates of factories, on platforms: 'Get out IMF.’ And these days, I called my finance minister and told him: ‘We are going to loan money to the IMF.’”
In the New York Times, a piece on the investigation into the alleged assassination plot broken up by a special forces police unit in Bolivia two weeks ago. The paper writes that the details of the case still remain anything but clear as President Evo Morales’s claims those killed by the police were part of a destabilization plot and his opponents’ counter that such words are meant to fuel tension between the central government and pro-autonomy lowlands. In the words of analyst Jim Shultz of the Cochabamba-based Democracy Center, “If this weren’t such a serious matter, it would make a great screenplay, tragedy and farce all wrapped together.” Much of the mystery centers around, Eduardo Rozsa Flores, the Bolivian-born Hungarian who appears to have been the leader of those killed in the hotel shootout. The journalist turned rebel fighter in the Balkans said in an interview taped before his death that his goal was not toppling Mr. Morales, but rather achieving autonomy for Santa Cruz. However, over the weekend new audio tapes allegedly capture Rozsa Flores saying he had a plan to kill Morales on a recent trip to Lake Titicaca. Such claims have now been countered by the opposition who says those who died were not killed in a gunfight with police but rather were killed while sleeping. One thing is certain: much remains unclear and unanswered for now.
And in the Wall Street Journal, LA Times, and Miami Herald more on the swine flu crisis in Mexico and beyond. The WSJ begins its report by saying the World Health Organization moved a step closer to declaring a pandemic on Wednesday, recognizing that the new A/H1N1 virus spreads from person to person. Moreover, The U.S. issued a travel advisory for Mexico yesterday, urging Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to the country where the death toll had risen to as many as 152 people Monday. There is also new evidence that the disease had spread to 10 Mexican states. The LAT adds that nearly 2,000 cases are suspected, and say investigators believe the source of the outbreak may be a pig farm in the state of Veracruz. The suspected first case of swine flu was reported in a boy living near a pig farm run by a U.S.-Mexican company, Granjas Carroll, in the municipality of Perote, in Veracruz state. He contracted the disease on April 2 but survived. The first fatality is now believed to be a 39-year-old census taker in that same region and it is believed that the woman had contact with many people. And the MH reports that Mexican schools in the entire country were closed until at least May 6, extending an order already in place for Mexico City and five other states. The Mexico City government is now considering a complete shutdown if the death toll keeps rising, including all public transport. Mexico City's two main chains of movie theaters also announced they were closing, and even in distant Tijuana, the government suspended nearly all events at a national juvenile Olympics taking place there.
In other news, the WSJ reports on a second disease outbreak in Latin America. Reporting from Argentina, the paper writes that the country is preparing for potential cases of swine flu while also struggling with an outbreak of mosquito-borne dengue fever. The government reports that more than 20,000 people have been diagnosed with dengue in recent months, and five people have died from complications brought on by the disease. The majority of cases have been confined to two northwestern provinces. The report maintains that many have become critical of the Kirchner government for its lack of response to the dengue outbreak.
In the WaPo, a report from Ecuador on the case against U.S. oil giant Chevron, being sued for alleged environmental and human damages in the Ecuadorean jungle. A report drafted by court-appointed investigators says Texaco, later bought by Chevron, is responsible for causing 1,401 cancer deaths and pumping high levels of toxins in soil and water around the company’s production sites. Damages were assessed to be $27.3 billion, dwarfing what is to-date the largest sum awarded for environmental damage: the $3.9 billion awarded against ExxonMobil for the 1989 spill in Alaska. The lawsuit began all the back in 1993 and could be wrapped up this year.
An AP report in the NYT writes that Venezuela has recalled its ambassador from Peru in protest of Peru’s decision to grant political asylum to a prominent Chávez opponent, Manuel Rosales. The Chávez government called Peru’s acceptance of Rosales’ asylum request “a mockery of international law” and “a tough blow to the fight against corruption and an insult to the people of Venezuela.”
Finally, two opinions. In the WaPo, Eugene Robinson writes on Mexico and the swine flu outbreak arguing that the global response to cases showing symptoms no different than the common flow illustrates “how sensitive and responsive the global health-monitoring system has become. If the world is going to be ravaged by an infectious disease, chances are that we'll see it coming,” he writes. And in the MH, Cuba-watcher Brian Latell, no fan of Fidel Castro, writes that the appearance of Fidel Castro’s rejections of recent U.S. overtures via his online columns is a signal that “it is the infirm, cosseted, all-but-invisible Fidel, angry but triumphant, who is again the ultimate arbiter of Cuban foreign policy.”
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