Global News Journal

Can export bans be challenged at the WTO?

Russia’s ban on grain exports as a heat wave parches crops in the world’s third biggest wheat exporter has raised questions whether such export curbs break World Trade Organization rules. Russia is not a member of the WTO, and it remains to be seen how its new grain policy will affect its 17-year-old bid to join. But other grain exporters, such as Ukraine, which is also considering export curbs, are part of the global trade referee.

WTO rules are quite clear that members cannot interfere with imports and exports in a way that disrupts trade or discriminates against other members. But in practice most WTO rules aim to stop countries blocking imports – shutting out competitor’s goods to give their own domestic producers an unfair advantage.

Argentine president’s gender card wears thin

 Since she became Argentina’s first elected female president at the end of 2007, Cristina Fernandez has often complained that things are tougher for her because she is a woman.

 Some analysts and historians say that while women in power do face sexism, Fernandez’s frequent playing of the gender card can be detrimental because it emphasizes a perceived position of weakness.

Only a few months after taking office,  Fernandez got into a messy conflict with farmers over taxes, which did lasting damage to her approval ratings.

“It is harder because I’m a woman,” Fernandez said frequently during the farm dispute, which persists more than a year after it began.

In one speech, she said she had committed two sins that explained the ferocity of the attacks against her and her government: first, winning office with lots of votes and second, being a woman.

Since her party was defeated in a June midterm election, the president has kept using the gender issue as sort of a safe-conduct pass.

Last Friday, when she arrived half an hour late to a South American summit in Asuncion, Paraguay, she complained that the media unfairly pick on her when she is late.

Argentine election showdown: negative campaigns

Argentine electoral campaigns don’t go negative. They start negative and steadily crank up the intensity until the end.

This Sunday’s election showdown is a close race between ex-President Nestor Kirchner, running for Congress to bolster the faltering presidency of his wife Cristina Fernandez, and millionaire Francisco de Narvaez. They are both from different wings of the Peronist party and De Narvaez claims to want to make Argentina into a “normal” country that does business with the world instead of isolating itself and befriending extremists.

The stakes are high in the race between the two men, who are fighting to take the biggest chunk of the 35 lower house seats that are up for grabs in Argentina’s most populous district, Buenos Aires province.

If Kirchner loses, even by a small margin, he will still go to Congress under the proportional voting system, but he will have to give up on his run for president in 2011 to continue the interventionist economic policies of himself and his wife.

De Narvaez would use a win to push for the presidency even though the fact he was born in Colombia might rule out a candidacy.

De Narvaez launched his campaign a month ago with a brutally negative television advertisement that showed Argentines from all walks of life getting slapped across the face in slow motion — trying to cash in on the resentment of farmers and some business sectors sick of Kirchner tax and price control policies.

Wealthy businessman takes on Argentina’s Kirchner in mid-term vote

A wealthy businessman and critic of President Cristina Fernandez is spending millions of dollars in his own money to win the biggest race in Argentina’s upcoming mid-term elections.

Polls show Francisco de Narvaez, who leads a congressional ticket for a dissident faction of the ruling Peronist party, in a close race against Fernandez’s husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, who is widely seen as the government’s top political and economic strategist.

Both are bidding for a congressional seat from Buenos Aires province, Argentina’s largest and most populous, in a vote that will define to what extent the Kirchners keep their grip on the governing party through 2011 presidential elections.

Fernandez is expected to lose her congressional majority in the June 28th balloting.

Little-known politically only months ago, de Narvaez has raised his profile by spending heavily on television advertising and using his wealth to lead one of the most technologically modern campaigns in Argentine history.

De Narvaez, who was born in Colombia and is known for a tattoo spread across his neck, has said he plans to spend up to the $4 million limit allowed under Argentine campaign finance laws — virtually all of it out of his own pocket.

He has spent an additional undisclosed amount on a mass marketing campaign before the campaign formally got underway.

Argentina’s Kirchner shows softer side on campaign trail

Argentina’s Nestor Kirchner developed a reputation as a sharp-tongued leader who did not hesitate to upbraid company executives, opposition leaders and journalists as president.

Now, he’s looking to showcase a softer side as he returns to the campaign trail — this time as a candidate for Congress.

His high-profile candidacy has taken center stage in Argentina’s June 28th congressional elections.

Kirchner was succeeded by his wife, President Cristina Fernandez, who is struggling to hold on to a congressional majority by her faction of the ruling Peronist Party.

The former leader’s bid for Congress is aimed at strengthening the left-leaning government’s electoral chances, and in recent days he’s been campaigning in poor and working-class urban areas in Buenos Aires province, the country’s most populous region. It is considered the government’s bastion of support.

The issue of governing style has hung over the Kirchners, who have held power since 2003.

Critics call them confrontational and authoritarian, saying they have never held a Cabinet meeting, regularly criticize the press and leave decision-making to a small circle of aides.

Another shock announcement from Argentina’s leader

Argentina’s economy is slowing dramatically after seven booming years, but people here still haven’t felt much pain. The government has announced stimulus measures to buffer against the global crisis, fudged some economic statistics and persuaded carmakers and steelmakers to hold on to employees part time rather than lay them off. The effect of the crisis here has been so delayed that it was becoming easy to believe Argentine might be immune.

But Argentine President Cristina Fernandez made it startingly clear on Friday that the impact is coming and it’s going to hurt. In a surprise announcement she said she was seeking to get election rules changed so mid-term elections — to renew half of the lower house and a third of the Senate — can be held in June instead of October.  She said this was so politicians can quickly wrap up campaigns and all get together to concentrate on healing the economy.

Opposition leaders said she was desperate and scared her allies in Congress will lose if they face election in October, when the country is in the grip of economic trouble.

Her language in an announcement speech was stark. She said it would be almost suicidal for politicians to campaign while the world falls apart. “We can’t be in a marathon of elections from now to October during this world disaster.” she said. 

She also said that things going on in the world, people losing houses and jobs and banks collapsing, are much worse than what people have seen in the media, a surprising comment from a leader who often chides local media for their negativity.

Shock announcements are a specialty of Fernandez and her husband and predecessor ex-President Nestor Kirchner. But they have had mixed results. She had to back down last year on her surprise move to hike export taxes on the country’s top crop, soy, after farmers protested long and loud. But her shock nationalization of the private pension fund system breezed through Congress in November.

PHOTO CREDIT: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez in a file photo from January 2009 REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian

Best reads of January

Gaza gets 180 minute respite to shop, bury the dead – “For 180 precious minutes, Israeli warplanes and tanks held their fire, giving 1.5 million shell-shocked residents of the coastal enclave a chance to check on family members, shop for essentials and bury their dead.”

Spain’s jobless lose homes, tensions mount - “‘One day this place is going to explode,’ said unemployed waiter Miguel Roa, a Spaniard. Since December, he has lost his job and his home as well as seeing his family split as economic crisis ended 14 years of growth in Spain.

Stoic Gaza claws back to what passes for normal - “For 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza, the westward sea is like the fourth wall of a crumbling prison bounded to the north, east and south by an Israeli-led blockade, and now smashed in key places by a three-week Israeli military assault.”

Morocco tackles painful role in Spain’s past - “Slimane Betmaki smiles at the memory of the terror he inflicted on Spanish villagers on behalf of former dictator Francisco Franco.”

Pakistani newlyweds live in fear of honor killing – “Pervez Chachar and his young wife live in the police headquarters in the Pakistani city of Karachi. Their crime? They fell in love and married without their families’ permission.”

Antarctic sea creatures hypersensitive to warming – “Thriving only in near-freezing waters, creatures such as Antarctic sea spiders, limpets or sea urchins may be among the most vulnerable on the planet to global warming, as the Southern Ocean heats up.”

High-risk riches for Mexico’s “narco wives” – “Each year, dozens compete in beauty pageants in the sun-baked hills of Sinaloa state where their legendary good looks draw wealthy drug traffickers who will sometimes pluck one out and spirit her off to a mountain hide-out.”