The top story in the New York Times this morning is from Mexico where, ahead of July 5 legislative elections, pollsters and analysts are trying to determine what effect the swine flu crisis has had on voter preference. Before the outbreak, the drug war and the economic recession were considered the two primary election issues, but now questions of whether or not the government overreacted or acted adeptly could be a third factor in predicting election outcomes. In Mexico City, the paper writes, the flu crisis’s effect on politics has already been seen. Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico City’s mayor from the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party held his own news conferences and issued his own decrees over the last week-- including the closing of Mexico City restaurants--with seemingly little consultation with President Felipe Calderón. And throughout the country “large political rallies — anything more than 40 people — are discouraged, and closed-door strategy sessions should allow a generous 7.2 feet between every attendee,” writes the paper. Antonio Crespo, an analyst at CIDE, a Mexico City research institute, says “early polling indicates support for the government’s actions, although the skepticism that many Mexicans have for any politician’s utterances is clearly evident.” One Mexico City resident said some Mexicans were even questioning whether the virus was real at all, of if it was more like the Chupacabras, a mythical monster that sucks goats’ blood.
The LA Times also writes from Mexico that universities and high schools reopened in Mexico City on Thursday, as did most museums—although authorities required people in such venues to maintain a safe distance from one another. The latest figures indicate that 1,204 people have been infected with the H1-N1 virus, including those who have died from the flu strain. (A little more than 50% of fatal cases lived in Mexico City). Meanwhile, Finance Minister Agustin Carstens, speaking to a group of international reporters on Thursday, said Mexico’s GDP might contract as much as 4.1% this year because of the global economic contraction and lost business caused by swine flu fears. “It is a fact we are in a recession,” the Minister remarked. In the U.S. there are now 896 confirmed cases of the H1-N1 virus across 41 states. Only two deaths have been reported.
In the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal there are reports this morning from Venezuela where the soldiers took control of boatyards and other assets belonging to oil service companies late Thursday. In the WaPo, Reuters writes that early Thursday, Venezuela's legislature approved a law that will let the government expropriate companies and compensate firms with bonds instead of cash, order preliminary takeovers of service company assets while courts settle disputes, and possibly annul existing contracts. Takeovers began later in the day, beginning around Lake Maracaibo. The Reuters report warns that the move “could lead to further declines in the OPEC nation's oil production by risking slowdowns in key services following years of underinvestment by PDVSA”—the primary funding mechanism for President Hugo Chávez’s popular social programs. While in the WSJ, the paper writes that the move came as PDVSA ran up a huge backlog of unpaid bills with oil service companies that do much of the legwork in the oil industry. But the WSJ also adds that the new law will only affect a subset of service companies, specifically those involved in the water, steam, and gas injection needed to increase the rate of extraction from oil wells.
And the Miami Herald reports from Brazil with an AP story about devastating flooding in the north of the country. Over 218,000 residents of an area “the size of Alaska” have been displaced from their homes due to the flood, and to make matters worse, they have been forced to confront rivers filled with alligators, anacondas, and venomous legless reptiles called “worm lizards” as they attempt to find shelter from the rains. Already 36 people have died in the floods and more rain is expected to fall while “the surging torrents wrecked bridges and made it too dangerous for relief workers to take boats onto some waterways.” “We don't know yet, but this could end up being the worst flooding ever in the region,” said Joaquim Godim, a specialist with Brazil's National Water Agency.
In other news, at an academic conference in Kingston, Ontario on Thursday, a Cuban official said Cuba is willing to discuss everything with the Obama administration, but it won't give up its form of government in talks to improve relations. Josefina Vidal of the Cuban Foreign Ministry echoed earlier comments by Raúl Castro that dialogue with the U.S. must occur without preconditions. Raúl Castro’s own daughter, Mariel, added that “Just like Obama cannot ignore his experiences as a black man in the United States, Cuba cannot forget its history as a country that's been blocked under the embargo for all of these years.”
Finally two more stories from Mexico this morning. The WaPo looks at Mexico’s medical-scientific response to the H1-N1 flu outbreak, writing that the “National Institute of Diagnostics and Epidemiology here in the capital did not have enough genetic-screening machines -- or technical expertise” to provide early answers about the new flu strain. However, “in a remarkable turnaround, the Mexicans and their international collaborators built a swine flu testing facility almost from scratch -- and in less than a week.” This rapid response allowed Mexican scientists to begin processing nearly 500 tests for swine flu per day.
And, on drug violence, a very gruesome note from the AP on the most recent victims of the drug war near Tijuana. The killers of three women, missing since August, were arrested Thursday, saying the women’s bodies had been dissolved in a barrel filled with a caustic substance.
Image: Radio Netherlands
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