Wednesday, July 20, 2016 Colombia high Court approves peace plebisciteFormer president Uribe, critic of FARC negotiations, calls vote ‘a government trick,’ urges rejectionBOGOTÁ — A Colombian high court late Monday night ruled in favour of allowing a plebiscite to approve a peace deal being negotiated with Marxist FARC rebels that seeks to end more than five decades of war. A final peace accord could be signed in a question of weeks and the vote held by year-end. Yesterday Uribe, a leading critic of the government’s peace negotiations with the FARC, said that his Democratic Centre party had not decided whether to participate in the plebiscite on an eventual peace agreement endorsed late Monday night by the country’s own Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court decision would allow the accords to be approved with 13 percent, or 4.4 million, of the electorate and would be a response to one question. Some 33 million of Colombia’s almost 49 million population are eligible to vote.

So far, however, with low interest rates across the globe, Argentina remains attractive in the short term. Investors have already absorbed some US$7.275bn in Argentine bonds over the last month and a half alone — much of that provincial debt. Wednesday, July 20, 2016 Chubut sells US$650M in oil-backed bondsProvince becomes latest to join in local debt spree after country’s return to global marketsArgentine borrowers continued to play the market yesterday, as the province of Chubut sold US$650 million in bonds at 7.75 percent interest, continuing the massive, months-long provincial debt spree. Sean Newman, a senior portfolio manager at Invesco, still sees further upside potential investing in provincial bonds despite the fact that their value has already improved in secondary markets over the last few weeks. The bonds will be backed by the province’s oil and gas royalties.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016 Where are the constructive alternatives? Any third way out of this quandary must come from the political world since court rulings by definition must follow a binary logic of either rubberstamping Macri’s indigestible increases or reverting to an unsustainable status quo. It should not be a mission impossible to come up with a way of updating utility billing which is superior to the complete hash coming from Macri’s team, but this particular public service is nowhere to be found. The courts are showing signs of accelerating their always lethargic timetables to shorten the legal limbo surrounding the definition of gas pricing, but it should never have depended on them in the first place — this issue has always been a political problem which should have been resolved by the politicians. Much the same situation applies today — Macri deserves virtually all the criticism he is receiving and more but the opposition should also be showing the way ahead out of this predicament since going back to the absurd subsidy mountain is not an option.

After complaints from Gualeguaychú municipality Wednesday, July 20, 2016 Uruguay denies pulp mill pollutionThe new UPM pulp mill planned for construction near the Río Negro in Uruguay will have no effect on the Uruguay river, the neighbouring country’s environmental agency said yesterday. But Gauleguaychú’s government argues that the Río Negro eventually flows into the Uruguay river, which borders the Argentine province, and thus could affect Uruguay’s neighbours. “Uruguay was already able to analyze to pulp mills and follow how they worked, with no environmental impact at all in either of the previous two projects. “If the law is followed, everythings points to no pollution problems” in the river shared by both countries, Nario told Radio Sarandí. The plant will require a US$5-billion investment, the largest in the history of the country.

On the day that a mass soup kitchen protest snarled traffic in the nation’s capital, drawing attention to the rising numbers of people living in poverty here, the UN said that one in eight live in extreme poverty globally. “This translated to one in eight people worldwide living in extreme poverty in 2012. Despite a significant drop from 2002 to 2012, the UN warned that 13 percent of the global population still remain mired in extreme poverty. Wednesday, July 20, 2016 Extreme poverty affects 1 in 8 globallyUN says Latin America leads the way in tackling hunger, but warns over high homicide ratesThe number of people living in extreme poverty across the world has halved over a 10-year period, a report by the United Nations declared yesterday. According to the Sustainable Development Goals Report, the proportion of the global population living below the extreme poverty line dropped by half between 2002 and 2012, from 26 to 13 percent.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016 Soup-kitchen protests highlight rising povertyWith big pots full of soup, stew and milk, social organizations yesterday gathered at a hundred major Buenos Aires intersections to protest Mauricio Macri’s policies as well as to highlight the situation concerning the homeless in the city. The study also reports that the poverty rate is at its highest level in seven years now reaching one million people more. According to the report, poverty levels hit 29 percent in 2015 to reach 34.5 percent in the first trimester of this year. “Since we took office, we decided not to hide poverty because that stigmatizes and does not help to solve the problems,” Stanley said. After that, many groups marched to Plaza Congreso, where the organizations staged the closing rally to end the day.

ISTANBUL — Asserting that “all the evidence” points to a US-based Muslim cleric as the mastermind of last week’s failed coup, Turkey yesterday fired tens of thousands of teachers, university deans and others accused of ties to the plot as its purge continued. “A person of this kind can easily be extradited on grounds of suspicion,” said the spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin. Deep Split as Erdogan’s purge widens dramatically Wednesday, July 20, 2016 50,000 suspended from jobs as Turkey targets education sectorTurkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, shakes hands with Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili after having returned to the nation’s capital for the first time since an attempted coup in the country, at the presidential palace in Ankara, Turkey, yesterday. “And there is very strong suspicion for his involvement, for Gülen’s involvement, in this coup attempt. Turkish media, in rapid-fire reports, said the Education Ministry had fired 15,200 educators, while the Interior Ministry dismissed 8,777 employees and Turkey’s Board of Higher Education called for the deans’ resignations.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016 Theatre world mourns icon Carlos GorostizaArgentine playwright, novelist and theatre director Carlos Gorostiza, a revered icon of the local stage, died yesterday in Buenos Aires. Breaking new groundGorostiza was born on June 7, 1920, to Basque Argentine parents in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Palermo. Produced in a professional version by director Armando Discépolo at the prestigious Argentine Theatre, El puente was adapted into a film with Gorostiza directing it in 1950. Herald with Télam, online mediaThe local artistic scene yesterday came together online to pay tribute to theatre veteran Gorostiza. Following El puente’s success, Gorostiza returned to theatre direction, though without the draw of spectators he had earlier enjoyed.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016 Venezuela edges closer to constitutional crisisCARACAS — Venezuela could be heading toward a constitutional crisis, to add to its economic collapse, after the opposition-controlled National Assembly challenged the power of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice that backs President Nicolás Maduro. The National Assembly last week voted to strip 13 of 32 Supreme Tribunal of Justice judges of their powers and said any decisions the justices participated in would be invalid. Diosdado Cabello, a government lawmaker, said the three lawmakers would probably end up in jail if reinstated, adding weight to Maduro’s repeated threats to close down the National Assembly. Lawmakers are now studying the appointment of its own judges, according to the head of the National Assembly President Henry Ramos Allup, of the opposition coalition, Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD). “The opposition appears to be taking a calculated risk,” Francisco Rodriguez, chief economist at Torino Capital in New York, said Monday.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016 S&P pulls back from record; Dow notches eighth day of gainsThe S&P 500 pulled back from record highs on Tuesday, while the Dow industrials edged up for an eighth straight day of gains, as investors digested mixed earnings reports amid lowered expectations for global economic growth. The Dow's eighth straight session of gains marked its longest winning streak since March 2013. Even with the economic concerns triggered by Britain's recent vote, the S&P 500 and Dow have hit record highs in the past week. The S&P 500 lost 3.11 points, or 0.14 percent, to 2,163.78 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 19.41 points, or 0.38 percent, to 5,036.37. Netflix's disappointing quarterly results weighed on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, while Johnson & Johnson's strong earnings and forecast helped prop up the Dow.

After eliminating 16 party rivals, warring with much of the Republican establishment and provoking controversy at the party convention, Donald Trump on Tuesday had his name formally placed in nomination for the White House. Senator Jeff Sessions, an early backer of Trump, placed the New York businessman's name in nomination, calling him "a warrior and a winner." Senator Mike Lee said efforts by some delegates to block Trump's nomination appeared finished. The alphabetical roll call vote began with Alabama. Despite threats of another chaotic day, anti-Trump Republican U.S.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016 After hitting highest mark in four months, US dollar slips backAfter hitting its highest mark in four months and reaching 15.50 pesos earlier, the US dollar today fell five cents to 15.31 pesos in banks and foreign exchange agencies. In the informal market, the “blue” dollar fell 16 cents to 15.23 pesos. Yesterday, the US currency jumped 23 cents accumulating a 49-cent rise during the last three working days amid an increase of the demand and a decline of liquidations from grain exporters.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016 Three arrested after hanging anti-Trump banner near Cleveland conventionA female activist is handcuffed with others after raising a banner from the flag poles outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. Three women were arrested on Tuesday after climbing a flagpole near the site of this week's US Republican National Convention and hanging a banner protesting the party's presidential candidate, Donald Trump. "Don't Trump our communities," read the banner hung near Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "They actually climbed the flagpole and hung a banner and our officers responded and made the arrests," Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams told reporters. Using a ladder truck, fire officials brought down the protesters and the banner, which also had an anti-fracking message.

No closer to the truth despite the change of government — AMIA continues to be a byword for impunity. Tuesday, July 19, 2016 AMIA no closer to justiceThe 22nd anniversary of the AMIA Jewish community centre terrorist bomb massacre that killed 85 came and went yesterday without any basic change in the underlying sense of impunity. Macri’s government seems more politically interested in highlighting the undeniably deficient Kirchnerite handling of the AMIA case but the roots of the damage to the investigation came in the years immediately following the bombing — and the first five were under Menem. Not only does a fresh new presidency not beholden to Iran fail to offer any future breakthrough — it does not even show any signs of retreading old ground in order to place the AMIA probe back on track after all the previous detours. But that controversial agreement (which never really left the ground) has only clouded this issue for three of the past 22 years — otherwise the Macri administration is offering precious little to justify even the faintest optimism as to calls for justice ever being heeded.

“That makes it really hard for me to tell people to save, save, save.”Investment companies want as much of our money as possible, so it makes sense for them to promote the idea that all or even most of us should aim for triple-digit ages and save accordingly. Uncertainty about longevity is just one of many unknowns in financial planning, says Bob Veres, a financial planning industry consultant and publisher of the trade publication Inside Information. Now 95 and even 100 are common defaults when financial planners tell people how much to save for retirement. #factsoflife Tuesday, July 19, 2016 Should you save enough to live to 100? That notion so offends adviser Carolyn McClanahan that she confronted a speaker at a financial planning conference who contended that death at 100 should be the default assumption.