Cristina Kirchner favorite pour succéder à son mari à la présidence argentine

Cristina... Cristina...

The Queen Cristina.

Queen and 'Presidenta', right.

"We know what's necessary. We know how to do it. Cristina, Cobos y vos"

Powerful women are nothing new in Argentine politics but next week Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, wife of the current leader of Argentina, is almost certain to move from her role as first lady to become the first ever elected "presidenta."

Her colorful character has often eclipsed her husband Nestor Kirchner.

Eva Peron set the mold in the 1950's as the wife of dictator Juan Peron, but in more recent times, women across Latin America have been reaching the top via the ballot box, including Chile's president Michelle Bachelet.
Fernandez, a center-left politician for the ruling party, is expected to crush her opponents in the presidential election on October 28.
She met her husband Nestor Kirchner when they were both law students in her hometown of La Plata in the 1970's. They married in 1975 and have two children. Kirchner served three terms as Santa Cruz governor, while Fernandez is a three-term senator now representing powerful Buenos Aires province.
Comparisons have been made between the Kirchners and the Clintons. Like Bill and Hillary, the couple are said to consult each other on everything, especially political matters, and Kirchner is his wife's cheerleader-in-chief, promising she'll be an even better president than him.
While economic and political stability may have been welcomed by many, some analysts are wary of the close relationship dominating Argentine politics.
"There is no political debate in this country right now," Walter Curia, an editor at the newspaper Clarín told The New York Times. "The only debate is within the walls of the Pink House."
As long as they keep trading places and winning elections, the couple could stay in the Casa Rosada indefinitely, sidestepping the constitutional limit of eight consecutive years in office.

A different face in politics

Fernandez' glamorous image, love of designer clothes and jet-set lifestyle has earned her the nickname "Queen Cristina" by the Argentine press.
Many in Argentina also see her bossy and authoritarian, something leveled at Hillary Clinton before her image-makeover.
"Humility is not her strong point," Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said in The New York Times.
However her passion seems to be striking a chord with voters. A poll in early October put Kirchner 20 points clear of her rivals.
At a campaign rally in Buenos Aires, the stadium thundered with the chants of 7,000 fans: "We feel it! We feel it! Cristina, president!"
"Get used to it," she responded, wagging a finger. "It's Presidenta!"
Still, inflation is high, corruption scandals have tarnished Kirchner's government, and the opposition is trying to capitalize on fears the couple will become what rival campaigns call "una monarkia," spelling the word for monarchy with a K for Kirchner.
"There is a risk she will be so captivated by international politics and foreign relations that she will avoid the mounting problems in Argentina," Shifter told The New York Times.

Overshadowing her husband

With her long brown hair and glamorous manner, Fernandez has often overshadowed her husband at campaign rallies. In her fiery way she has become a leading advocate for the center-left.
As far back as 2003, she angrily pounded her Senate desk as she demanded the Supreme Court repeal amnesty for officials accused of crimes during the 1976-83 military dictatorship, when as many as 30,000 Argentines were kidnapped and killed, including some of the Kirchners' friends.
The high court listened, scrapped the amnesty, and "dirty war" trials resumed last year.
Argentines are only now overcoming a deep distrust of elected officials, bred by hyperinflation, recession, corruption and failed promises in the first years of the new millennium. These woes provoked huge street protests that forced a succession of presidents from office.
Kirchner's election in 2003 restored stability to the government. It also brought pragmatism. Like Kirchner, Fernandez takes care to avoid raising expectations of radical change, but many Argentines would be happy if she simply keeps her promise to continue the economic recovery begun by her husband

Damn postal offices

Hace un mes, envié un regalo a Groenlandia. Era para Nivi Nielsen, my amiga viviendo en Aasiaat, pero nativa de Upernavik. Agregué el regalo dentro de un sobre, certificado y estampillado, pero no llegó. Ella espera aun su brazalete tipicamente latinoamericano. Como sea, mandaré otro, nuevamente. Maldito sistema postal.

One month ago, I sent a gift to Greenland. It was for Nivi Nielsen, my friend living in Aasiaat, but Upernavik's native. I added the gift at the inside of an envelop, certificated and stamped. But it didn't come there. She's still waiting her latinamerican typical bracelets. Anyway, I have to send another, again. Damn post-office's system.

L'or bleu: un investissement gagnant

L'eau devrait devenir l'un des biens les plus précieux de notre planète.

Après l'or noir, l'eau est souvent considérée comme la prochaine ressource rare pour l'humanité. Un statut particulier qui dope les cours des sociétés spécialisées dans la gestion de cet élément. Quel que soit le secteur : traitement, collecte, stockage ou encore désalinisation, les cours de ces entreprises offrent des opportunités d'investissement particulièrement intéressantes. La société suisse Geberit a ainsi fait fortune en inventant, dans les années 80, un réservoir d'eau économique. Un succès : l'article s'est vendu à plusieurs millions d'exemplaires. La valeur Veolia environnement, spécialisée notamment dans la gestion et l'assainissement de l'eau, cote 61.98 euros contre 33.60 euros en 2000. L'optimisation de la gestion de l'eau est en effet un enjeu majeur. Mais "contrairement aux idées reçues, ce n'est pas une matière première", prévient d'emblée Hervé Thiard, de la banque Pictet. Il y aura toujours de l'eau, seulement elle change de forme. Ce qui coûte cher, c'est sa transformation et son transport."Que ce soit dans les pays en développement ou dans les pays développés, les infrastructures sont en mauvais état, ou insuffisantes pour l'approvisionnement des populations. En effet, "rien que pour les pays développés, les travaux pour remplacer les infrastructures demandent plusieurs dizaines d'années", poursuit Hervé Thiard. Plusieurs indices permettent de suivre les progressions des entreprises spécialisées dans l'eau. Le "Palisades Water Index" américain, par exemple, est passé entre 2006 et 2007, de 1587 points à 2002 points. Idem pour l'indice "ISE-B&S". Créé en 2006, il regroupe une vingtaine de valeurs du marché de l'eau. Il est à 91.34 points contre 62 à son lancement.
L'eau potable : un enjeu financier. Si ce secteur ne connaît pas la forte croissance des éoliennes ou des panneaux solaires, ces performances sont néanmoins très bonnes. "Ce secteur est plus traditionnel que celui des énergies nouvelles, analyse Olivier Genpier, responsable produit Bourse à la Société Générale. L'eau est un marché plus mature, alors que celui des énergies nouvelles bénéficie d'un engouement basé sur le potentiel futur de cette thématique." Pourtant à terme, les besoins d'investissement induits par la rareté de l'eau se chiffre "entre 600 et 1 000 milliards de dollars", poursuit Olivier Genpier. En effet, le secteur public gère à 90% la fourniture d'eau, selon un rapport de la Société Générale. Les investisseurs misent donc sur l'augmentation des entreprises privées pour répondre aux besoins des populations.

C'est article est publiqué au Lefigaro.fr

Reciclaje

Hace algún tiempo organizamos en la residencia universitaria una iniciativa muy linda. Re linda más bien. Pero por la desidia de la mayoría, hizo que quedara en su título: Recicla y Ayuda.

Como universitarios, ocupamos mucho papel. La idea era reunir a diario ese papel y entregarlo a la señora encargada de la lavandería, pues ella lo entrega a reciclaje y recibe una ayuda monetaria, la que sirve para tratar a su pequeña hijita que sufre de artritis. Ayudábamos y reciclábamos al mismo tiempo, ¡qué mejor¡, pero quedó en eso. Ese es el compromiso de quienes protestan por el cambio climático. Lamentablemente. Yo, por mi parte, sigo enviando mis papeles.
Ese fue mi blog action day. Breve, pero ojalá otros lo imiten y reciclen su papelería.

Blog

Express yourself. Start a blog!

Exprésate. Comienza un blog!

N'hésitez pas. Publiez vos idées dans 1 blog!

Respecto al famoso action day

Debo declarar que soy un inconsistente, porque promocioné el blog action day, y cuando llegó el día 15 de octubre, no posteé lo que había pensado colocar. Ni siquiera lo he escrito. Quizás mañana lo suba y disponga de algunas buenas fuentes.

Fernando.


I have to say I'm a real stupid guy, 'cause I promoted blog action day, and when it came, I didn't post what I thought. I haven't written it even. Maybe I'll upload it tomorrow, adding good sources.

Fernando

Cristina Kirchner, el proyecto que viene

Wordpress

He pensado en cambiar el blog a wordpress. Me gusta el formato y todas las chances que tiene. No se. Quizás si ustedes, flojos para comentar, me dan algunas sugerencias, sería espectacular.

Tengan en cuenta la interactividad con otros blogs y cuánto factor se les ocurra.

Fernando.

I've thought about change my blog to wordpress. I like format they offer and all chances it has. I don't know. Maybe as long as you all can comment about it, suggesting something, would be great. Have in mind concepts like interactivity amongst blogs and how many issues you could believe.

Fernando

Blog action day

Estimado bloggero:

El próximo 15 de octubre es el BLOG ACTION DAY. Esta es una iniciativa global que busca que, cada 15 de octubre, todos los blogs del mundo hablen sobre un mismo tema. El objetivo es lograr poner dicho tema en la agenda mundial.
El tema elegido este año es MEDIO AMBIENTE. Lo interesante de la iniciativa es que se deja en libertad del autor el enfoque que quiere darle al post. Puede hablar del medio ambiente desde el cine, las ciencias sociales, el derecho, la literatura, etc.

Sería excelente si puedes participar. Te dejo la página web para mayor información:
http://www.blogactionday.org/
http://www.blogactionday.org/commit (para inscribir tu blog).
Asimismo, sería genial si puedes ayudar a promocionar el evento desde tu blog, para que más bloggers participen

Cuando...

Qué tiempos aquellos en los que todo era tranquilidad.
Cuando me cuidaban en la casa de mi abuela e iba a San Antonio a arrendar el VHS de La Pantera Rosa y de Chatrán.
Cuando no tenía que dormirme a una hora y podía llorar durante la madrugada y mi madre me consolaba.
Cuando tomaba té frío en mi mamila y descansaba toda la tarde comiendo un bowl de tunas o una cajita de galletas Morocha.
Cuando no había que trabajar en una oficina repleta de individuos.
Cuando podía pensar mil carreras. Ser actor, médico, ingeniero, periodista, computín e incluso astronauta.
Cuando me conformaba con los chalecos tejidos por mi mamá, y pedía otros de color extraño a mi abuela.
Cuando el zapato Alejín me calzaba bien, y no quería aquellos de suela, negros y firmes talla cuarenta y tres.
Cuando me compraban todo y con suerte escogía el color. Lo ideal para cualquier mantenido.
Cuando me decían Nachito.
Cuando, por maña, tras ir al baño me lavaban y secaban el poto con secador. Qué tiempos ¿no?...
Cuando quería ir a Santiago sólo para andar en metro, ir al zoológico o mirar los nombres de las micros.
Cuando no tenía que andar en metro repleto.

En fin…

Cuando no tenía que pensar en los cuando…

Web 2.0... ¿y por qué sigue la 1.0?

Si bien no ha sido difundida con ese nombre, la antigua web, la que podríamos denorminar 1.0, aún sigue vivita y coleando. Crea, crece y se mueve cómoda en cuánto organismo se las da de moderno. No se aleja, pero entiende que debe acercarse y tomar al menos la mano de la dos punto cero. Por eso últimamente se avanza en contacto con usuarios, posibilidad de comentarios o reclamos, y participación en las confecciones de cada sección.
Nuevas iniciativas que radicarán en una ocho. 90, suena interesante… quién sabe… se llama boggitosphera. Já-Já.

First among unequals: the 18th first Bachelet's leadership months.

First among unequals

By Jude Webber

In a country that has been slow to empower women, Michelle Bachelet swept to power on a platform of social justice and gender equality. But after 18 months, is Chile's first female president already a lame duck? By Jude Webber
Night is falling in Santiago, and the roads are crammed with cars carrying commuters home. Shiny new white buses bowl along avenues that seem to lead directly to the feet of the silvery, snow-capped mountains encircling the city. But no one is looking at the spectacular scenery. At bus stops, long lines of Chileans wait patiently behind barriers for buses that appear slow to come.
I opt for the underground. There, the carriages are clean, and the service efficient - until you try to change lines. As I turn a corner into a tunnel, I walk straight into a huge crowd of people trying to inch en masse down a narrow set of steps to the platform. "It never used to be like this," says the woman next to me.
Welcome to Transantiago, the city's new integrated bus and metro system, five years and untold millions of dollars in the making. Launched in February, it was meant to impose order on a chaotic, unregulated transport system which had contributed significantly to congestion and pollution in a city of six million. Instead, it proved a fiasco. There were too few buses, coming too infrequently, and people had to walk to stops on new routes that turned familiar, no-transfer commutes into complicated journeys.
The overhaul of the capital's transport system was devised under former president Ricardo Lagos, but his successor, Michelle Bachelet, has become its public face. Seven months since its launch, it has improved but remains flawed, unpopular and, some argue, emblematic of Bachelet's own fortunes. She stormed into office 18 months ago, confident and accomplished. Now, after Transantiago, and mounting social and labour unrest, she appears wrong-footed. Bachelet is not the only leader to have stumbled in the early years in office, but as the first female president in a country where only a third of women have jobs, her fate has taken on an operatic magnitude.
Part of Bachelet's current problems stem from how much was expected of her when she took office in March last year. She was a people's champion after Lagos, the paternalistic statesman and her political maker, but also a mould-breaker in every way: a single mother and socialist, fluent in five languages, accomplished in both medicine and politics, and an agnostic in a land of Catholics. With her cropped blonde hair, dazzling smile and informal manner, she oozed charisma in a sea of suits.
Bachelet was elected with 53 per cent of the vote, and a month into her term she had approval ratings of 62 per cent. But in a poll released this month, that figure dropped to 39 per cent. Forty-two per cent of people disapprove of her.
Such a slide in popularity would worry any politician, but Bachelet has pinned her political fortunes on the people. On the campaign trail, she promised a new, participatory style of government that would continue pro-market economic policies begun under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. These have made Chile prosperous, but with an accent on social justice, education, pension reform, welfare, research and development and gender equality. She aims to empower ordinary Chileans by improving education, infrastructure and access to credit, and thus to shatter perceptions in the country that politics can only deliver for the rich upper class.
"She couldn't care less about political power," said Marta Lagos, a pollster and friend of all of Chile's four post-Pinochet leaders. No one concerned with power for its own sake would voluntarily expose themselves to public ridicule in the way Bachelet has. In March, in a televised address, she apologised for the Transantiago mess, admitting it was an unmitigated disaster - particularly for the poor, who were most dependent on public transport. The following month, she confessed that her gut feeling had been that Transantiago was not ready for launch, but that she had allowed herself to be talked into it.
What might have been viewed as brave and candid came across instead as naive. Many people equated her touchy-feely presidential style with incompetence. It didn't help that she had faced protests by students pressing for free bus fares, free college entrance exams and better school buildings, and had acceded to most of their demands, drawing criticism for being too permissive and establishing dangerous precedents.
Chileans are not impressed. Bachelet, once a ground-breaker, now finds herself described as a lame-duck president with nearly two thirds of her term left to run.
Latin America has had a handful of female presidents, but Bachelet was the first to become head of a significant country in the region without a leg-up from a politically powerful husband. When she tried to get a job as a physician in the 1980s, her surname was a hindrance. A decade earlier, her father, Chilean air force Brigadier General Alberto Bachelet, had, amid rampant inflation and food shortages, been put in charge of national food distribution by Salvador Allende, the Marxist president who took office in 1970, and whom the CIA had worked to destabilise. General Bachelet was arrested for treason on the day of Pinochet's coup against Allende in 1973 and died six months later in jail of a heart attack brought on by torture.
Michelle Bachelet was 21 at the time of her father's death. Two years later, she and her mother Angela Jeria, an archaeologist, were arrested by the secret police, blindfolded and taken to the notorious Villa Grimaldi torture centre. They were roughed up and psychologically tortured but were lucky: within weeks, they were released and fled into exile in Australia, where Bachelet's older brother Alberto had been living since the late 1960s.
From Australia, Bachelet moved to Leipzig, East Germany, where she finished her training as a surgeon and met and married fellow Chilean exile Jorge Davalos, the father of her two eldest children, now in their 20s. Returning to Chile in 1979, she won a scholarship allowing her to specialise in paediatrics and public health, and after the end of the dictatorship, worked as a consultant to international agencies including the World Health Organisation. Subsequent military studies, including a spell at the prestigious Inter-American Defense College in Washington DC, paved the way for her to become Latin America's first female defence minister in 2002, two years after she had joined Lagos's cabinet as health minister.
Chile is widely perceived as being the most socially conservative state in an already macho continent. Pinochet's regime - brutal, military and repressive - lasted 17 years until 1990, making Chile a later convert to democracy than neighbours which were also ruled by military juntas in the 1970s and 1980s. It has also been slower to empower women. There is a blanket ban on abortion in Chile, unlike in other Latin American countries, where it is permitted in a handful of instances. Divorce was only introduced three years ago.
Economically, Chile's enviable income levels, investment-grade sovereign credit rating and solid economic performance make it the country other Latin American nations want to be when they grow up. But culturally, it is still behind, with the proportion of women in politics and public life far lower than, say, in Argentina, and fewer women in the workforce than anywhere else in Latin America.
Still, things are slowly changing. "The fact that Michelle Bachelet has come to government is a trigger for that change, and a product of that change," says Andres Velasco, the finance minister. More women are heading households - as Bachelet attests: she and Davalos split up in the mid-1980s. She had another daughter, now 14, from a later relationship but never married the father and is separated from him.
The number of women-led homes in Chile is rising across all social classes, and now totals nearly 30 per cent overall - up from 20 per cent in 1990. Women work and earn more than ever before, though true equality remains a long way off. Chilean women still only earn three quarters as much on average as men, and the more advanced their education, the greater the gap: a university-educated women earns just 61 per cent of what a similarly educated man does.
Being a woman - or as Bachelet is fond of joking "a woman, a socialist,separated, agnostic: all the sins together" - has shaped both the president's agenda and her approach to politics. She has said her style is one "which could be characterised as more feminine, but which in reality, I think is more modern". Even so, it's hard to imagine a male president using the kind of language that she sometimes does. She called a law giving women the right to breast-feed at work "just and beautiful", and said of her own experiences at the hands of Pinochet's torturers "because I was a victim of hate, I have dedicated my life to turning that hate into understanding, into tolerance and, why not say it, into love".
She promised to do more for women and, in her first year, delivered not only the breast-feeding law in a country where women complain they have been subjected to illegal pregnancy tests at job interviews, but also set up hundreds of nurseries and shelters for victims of domestic violence. By presidential decree, and to the disgust of the Catholic Church, she made the morning-after pill available free to girls as young as 14, Chile's heterosexual age of consent, arguing that since it was already available for women who could pay, it would be discriminatory not to offer it to poorer people as well.
But her boldest move backfired. Seeking to lead by example, she championed the cause of women by kicking off her government with a cabinet split 50-50 along gender lines. Critics complained that her team was mediocre, and that she was undermining the notion of a meritocracy. She stuck to her guns until Transantiago. In March, her first anniversary in office, she reshuffled her cabinet again, ejecting two senior women and drafting in some of the old guard.
Bachelet denies her experiment with equality has gone awry. "It's not mathematical, it's a concept," she told me in an interview in the Moneda Palace. "I'm not just aspiring to a representative democracy, I'm interested in a democracy in which men and women are well represented."
She stresses that her non-traditional approach to politics - including bringing together diverse "stakeholders" to discuss an issue, listening and then deciding - is not exclusively the preserve of women. Indeed, instead of identifying herself with prominent peers such as Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton, Segolene Royal or Argentine first lady and presidential candidate Cristina Fernandez, she compares herself to Spain's prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. "He's a man and yet he has the same kind of direct, simple leadership."
Bachelet is clearly weary of, and hurt by, the kind of double standards familiar to women following "macho" career paths. "When President Lagos appeared moved by something, people said, 'how great to have a sensitive president'. I can't help my voice cracking when I'm deeply hurt or moved by something, [so] I'm [perceived as] a woman who can't control her emotions. If President Lagos spoke strongly, he was a man of character. If I do, I'm furious." She says her pension reform bill gives the lie to critics who believed her approach - setting up a special council to study the issue - was typical of her inability to take decisions. She counters that consensus-building leads to stronger accords, and hopes that by next July her bill, now before the Senate, will have resulted in the biggest shake-up of the pensions system in 30 years, with retirees and even housewives - who have never had pensions - receiving monthly payments of $150.
Bachelet also admits to to certain qualities associated with alpha males. She is a workaholic, she has a strong sense of duty and loyalty and she is often portrayed as a micromanager who steamrolls members of her own team, eschewing advice and taking decisions alone. As one minister, who declined to be named, noted drily: "Sometimes officials can be surprised by decisions they were not consulted about."
Her troubles didn't end with the Transantiago apology. A five-week pay strike by subcontracted workers at the country's state copper giant, Codelco, overlapped with a strike at the major Collahuasi mine and suggested rising union activism. A large demonstration in Santiago last month was called by an umbrella trades union group, her supposed allies, and attended by members of her coalition. Moreover, Chile has been subjected to gas shortages from its sole supplier, Argentina. And inflation is at a six-year high. "She's only surviving without any worse problems because Chile is awash in money," said one investment banker, referring to a bonanza of revenue from copper.
It would be wrong to lay too much blame at Bachelet's door. She is the fourth consecutive president of the Concertacion, which came together to oppose Pinochet, and which is beginning to look tired after two decades in power. Cracks are appearing among its members, and it has been hit by a scandal over $800,000 that appears to have been siphoned off from a government sports agency and which the opposition says was funnelled into Concertacion political campaigns. (The scandal does not implicate Bachelet.) Genaro Arriagada, a veteran Christian Democrat and former minister, says: "There are two crises here. She has serious problems, but it would be just as unfair to blame Bachelet for everything as it would be to say this is a crisis of the Concertacion in which Bachelet plays no part."

The jury is still out on whether the Concertacion will succeed in reinvigorating itself against the expected onslaught of billionaire businessman Sebastian Pinera in the 2010 presidential elections, in which Bachelet cannot stand. Nevertheless, what some women's groups feared may have already come true: a poor performance by Bachelet will almost certainly make it harder for another woman, such as Christian Democrat leader Soledad Alvear, to follow in her footsteps in the near future.
Can Bachelet recover? She says a pioneer has to be patient, but even her supporters say it's going to be tough. With a four-year term instead of the six that Ricardo Lagos enjoyed, and midterm elections next year, she has precious little time left to turn things around. And yet whatever happens, all sides credit her with humanising politics. "She's changed things much more than people want to accept," said Marta Lagos. "I'm not sure her style will endure... but there will, in Chile, be a before and after Michelle Bachelet."

Jude Webber is an FT correspondent based in Argentina

Claridades

No existe gran claridad en mi mente para versar mis anhelos. Son difusos, irreconocibles, irrepetibles y muy volátiles. A veces aparecen poderosos, impulsivos y hasta torturantes. En otras ocasiones, son breves, ultra lights y hasta olvidables. Ese es el problema: la inconsistencia. Por lo que he leído, es propio de quienes están en el periodo post adolescencia – pre adultez. No me gusta ser de ese momentum crítico. Es anticonstitucional, o al menos deberían decretarlo como tal, porque me hace atentar contra los valores ciudadanos de perfección, perfectibilidad y control de si mismo. Y sí, a veces me descontrolo. Creo que es divertido, o al menos trato de pensarlo así. No se por qué escribo estupideces, pero I like it.