The New York Times: The US Supreme Court’s refusal to review the Second Circuit ruling in favor of Argentina’s holdout creditors empowers “vulture funds,” undermines sovereign debt restructuring, threatens global financial stability, and could harm ordinary people worldwide.
Locked out of international capital markets since its 2001 default, Argentina cleared a major hurdle on Thursday when it reached an agreement with the Paris Club, a grouping of 19 major economies, to resume debt payments and clear outstanding arrears. The Paris Club issued a statement, noting that:
The scheme offers a framework for a sustainable and definitive solution to the question of arrears due by the Argentine Republic to Paris Club creditors, covering a total stock of arrears of USD 9.7 billion, as of 30 April 2014. It provides a flexible structure for clearance of arrears within five years including a minimum of USD 1150 million to be paid by May 2015, the following payment being due in May 2016.
Economy Minister Axel Kicillof, who led the negotiations for the Government of Argentina, told a local radio station that, “Argentina is continuing its path of regularizing and paying off the debt that 40 years of neoliberalism left us,” Reuters reported.
Long thought to be a lynchpin of any possible deal, Argentina secured the settlement without the involvement of the IMF. President Fernández told the press, “It is the first time that a country negotiates without the intervention of the International Monetary Fund (FMI), and without ceding our independence.”
Argentina’s 2001 default followed years of following IMF prescriptions, which only exacerbated the crisis. Argentina broke off relations with the IMF in early 2006, paying back all of its outstanding debt to the Fund in one move. In a statement following the current deal, Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of Jubilee USA, praised the lack of IMF involvement:
“Argentina negotiated an agreement that keeps the IMF out of Argentina… IMF austerity programs have wreaked havoc in both poor and wealthy countries.”
Business News Americas reported that the creditors agreed to exclude the IMF “in return for a larger down payment by Argentina.”
Roger Cohen, what a disappointment. He is not Tom Friedman or David Brooks, and shouldn’t be insulting an entire nation based a clump of tired old clichés and a lack of information. Argentina is “the child among nations that never grew up” he writes, an
The Wall Street Journal today published a report trashing Argentina based on an economic mistake which renders the article meaningless. The headline: Devaluation Hurts Argentina’s Regional Standing: Colombia Has Likely Overtaken Argentina as Latin America
The Guardian: America’s ‘pivot’ to Asia along with decades of heavy-handed policy give China an opportunity to rebalance global powers.
Deborah JamesHuffington Post, November 18, 2013
President Obama is in St. Petersburg, Russia to participate in the G20 Summit today and tomorrow, amidst a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and several G20 member nations. Looming over the summit are the Obama administration’s plans for a possible military attack on Syria, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that a U.S. military response without U.N. Security Council approval “can only be interpreted as an aggression” and UNASUR – which includes G20 members Argentina and Brazil, issued a statement that “condemns external interventions that are inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.”
New revelations of NSA spying on other G20 member nation presidents – Dilma Rousseff of Brazil and Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico – leaked by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden and first reported in Brazil’s O Globo, have also created new frictions. Rousseff is reportedly considering canceling a state visit to Washington next month over the espionage and the Obama administration’s response to the revelations, and reportedly has canceled a scheduled trip to D.C. next week by an advance team that was to have done preparations for her visit. The Brazilian government has demanded an apology from the Obama administration. In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, an anonymous senior Brazilian official underscored the gravity of the situation:
[T]he official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the episode, said Rousseff feels “patronized” by the U.S. response so far to the Globo report. She is prepared to cancel the visit as well as take punitive action, including ruling out the purchase of F-18 Super Hornet fighters from Chicago-based Boeing Co, the official said.
“She is completely furious,” the official said.
“This is a major, major crisis …. There needs to be an apology. It needs to be public. Without that, it’s basically impossible for her to go to Washington in October,” the official said.
Other media reports suggest that Brazil may implement measures to channel its Internet communications through non-U.S. companies. But when asked in a press briefing aboard Air Force One this morning, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes did not suggest that such an apology would be forthcoming:
Much of New York City grows eerily quiet in the late summer, but on Monday, August 6th one corner of Manhattan – 777 United Nations Plaza – was buzzing with activity. Argentinean president Christina Kirchner, accompanied by 12 Latin American foreign mini
ABC, the far-right newspaper in Spain, has again been caught running a false report related to Venezuela. On July 18, the paper reported that Secretary of State John Kerry had phoned Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elías Jaua and told him that the U.S. government was enacting a raft of sanctions against Venezuela for its having offered political asylum to whistle-blower Edward Snowden. The punitive measures, according to ABC, included revoking the visas of senior officials’ and Venezuelan businessmen’s “associated with chavismo” (which the paper reported had already begun a week earlier), and suspension of U.S. exports of gas and oil derivatives to Venezuela. The paper also reported that Kerry had informed Jaua that the U.S. would not permit any Venezuelan plane suspected of carrying Snowden to fly over either U.S. or NATO-member country airspace, unless the plane was a presidential flight carrying President Nicolás Maduro himself. “Immunity is not for the plane, but the president,” ABC’s “sources” cited Kerry as saying.
The report was picked up by a number of Venezuelan media outlets, including the opposition-oriented El Universal, the Miami-based Venezuela Al Día, and even what is widely considered Venezuela’s most objective newspaper, Últimas Noticias. U.S. English-language media outlets were more cautious, with only UPI running an article summarizing the ABC report prior without waiting for verification from the State Department.
But AFP reported on Saturday:
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf confirmed that Kerry spoke about Snowden by telephone on July 12 with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua.
But she denied as “completely false” a report in the Spanish newspaper ABC that Kerry had threatened to suspend sales of gasoline or oil products to Caracas if it granted Snowden asylum.
“The secretary made no reference in his conversation with Foreign Minister Jaua as to what our response would be if Venezuela were to assist Mr. Snowden or receive him,” she said, reading from a statement.
Dan Beeton
Third World Quarterly, May 28, 2013
En Español
