Backyard Notes:
Changing cabins aboard the Titanic
According to an intelligence advisor and close friend who works for the United Nations, there is widespread agreement that due to political and economic instability in the region, the migration of Latin Americans to the United States would grow by the end of the year.
Really? Oh, what a surprise. Is this shocking news? What new intelligence is the UN relying on to reach such a stunning conclusion?
Peru’s president Pedro Castillo is still in power, nobody knows how or for how long, but there he is trying to put together a coherent strategy to govern. In Chile, communist president Gabriel Boric faces the challenge to navigate between the ultra-leftist and the left while at the same time trying not to scare local and foreign investors.
Colombia and Brazil have presidential elections this year (Colombia first round coming in May and Brazil in October) and the polls -today- give winners to leftist and ex-guerrilla (M19) Gustavo Petro in Colombia and leftist, syndicalist, Foro de Sao Paulo leader and ex-president Ignacio Lula Da Silva in Brazil.
Argentina with leftist president Alberto Fernandez is battling inflation and his own political coalition leaving a bad feeling for the times to come. Venezuela…, well, President Nicolas Maduro still holds a firm grip on power and the opposition is -at least officially- getting used to the idea to go to the elections in 2024 even if everybody is aware that they will be rigged.
By the way, Central America isn't progressing any better, with Daniel Ortega becoming by far Nicaragua's worst dictator in the last 50 years, and El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, facing the consequences of his no-aggression pact with the country's two most powerful criminal gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18. Now, after nearly 100 homicides in three days, civil rights have been thrown out the window, not to mention the national Bitcoin strategy.
Honduras' President, Xiomara Castro (wife of ousted ex-President Manuel Zelaya), gave political assent, and the Supreme Court, unsurprisingly, ordered the extradition of ex-President Juan Orlando Hernandez to the United States on drug trafficking accusations this week. Some political observers secretly speculate that this is only a mafia substitution.
We haven't discussed Panama and President Laurentino Cortizo's conflicts with ex-President Martinelli or Mexico, which would demand a separate article.
So, seriously do we really need a UN intelligence assessment to predict that social movement to the north will increase in the fourth trimester of 2022 and the first semester of 2023?