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Argentines Hold Anti-Government March

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“They’re killing policemen like dogs, and the president doesn’t even open her mouth. This government is just a bunch of hooligans and corrupters.”
Police officials said the crowd numbered at least 30,000, while some local media put it at hundreds of thousands. People started heading home a little before midnight, although the Plaza de Mayo remained crowded.
Demonstrations were held on plazas across Argentina, including in major cities like Cordoba, Mendoza and La Plata. Protesters also turned up outside Argentine embassies consulates from Chile to Australia.
In Rome, about 50 protesters, all Argentine expats, held a noisy protest outside the consulate on Via Veneto. Among the slogans being shouted was “Cristina, go away.”
About 200 demonstrators braved the rain in Madrid to bang pots outside the Argentine consulate.
“In Argentina, there’s no separation of power and it cannot be considered a democracy,” said Marcelo Gimenez, a 40-year-old from Buenos Aires who has been living in Spain for two years. “Cristina is not respecting the constitution. The presidency is not a blank check and she must govern for those who are for her and against her.”
The protests hold deep symbolism for Argentines, who recall all too well the country’s economic debacle of a decade ago. The “throw them all out” chants of that era’s pot-banging marches forced presidents from office and left Argentina practically ungovernable until Fernandez’s late husband, Nestor Kirchner, assumed the presidency in 2003.
The president’s supporters sought to ignore two earlier protests this year, but when it became clear the latest effort could turn out huge numbers, her loyalists came out in full force.
They dismissed the protesters as part of a wealthy elite, or beholden to discredited opposition parties, and misled by news coverage from media companies representing the country’s most powerful economic interests.
In a speech Thursday, Fernandez didn’t directly refer to the protest, but she defended policies that she said helped rescue Argentina from its worst economic crisis a decade ago and buoyed it during the 2009 world financial downturn.

Slovenians to Choose New President

Recession-hit Slovenia holds a presidential election on Sunday, with the incumbent who has repeatedly questioned Prime Minister Janez Jansa’s economic policies expected to hold on to his job.
The former Yugoslav republic is in the throes of one of the deepest downturns in the eurozone with the government battling to avoid a bailout and the European Commission predicting this week that output will shrink a painful 2.3 percent this year and 1.6 percent next, AFP reported.
Polls indicate that current President Danilo Turk, who despite the head of state having little power has been a thorn in Jansa’s side, will likely come first in Sunday’s first round before a run-off on December 2.
Large volumes of bad loans at Slovenia’s banks have raised fears that the two-million-strong country may become the latest in the 17-nation European currency union to need outside help.
Slovenia’s credit ratings have been slashed and borrowing rates on its sovereign debt have hit seven percent, a level seen by experts as unsustainable in the long term without assistance.
Unemployment in the 21-year-old nation is hitting record levels and trade unions plan major protests on November 17 against tough government spending cuts.
A new government led by the centre-right Jansa came into power in February and has launched a series of austerity measures aimed at stabilizing public finances and reforming the country’s creaking pension and labor systems.
During the electoral campaign Turk, 60, a law professor who worked at the United Nations under former secretary general Kofi Annan, openly and repeatedly questioned Jansa’s policies.
“The economic situation is difficult but not extraordinary, there is no use of dramatizing the situation and threatening. The government’s assessments of the situation are more alarming than they should be,” Turk warned during a recent television debate.
Some 1.7 million eligible citizens will visit polls on Sunday between 7.00 am (0600 GMT) and 7.00 pm while the first partial results are expected late on Sunday.

Chavez to Obama: Stop Hegemonic Policies

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on his US counterpart Barack Obama to put an end to Washington’s policy of “invading” and “destabilizing” other countries.
Speaking at a Thursday meeting with his cabinet ministers at the Presidential Palace in Caracas, Chavez pointed out that Obama should “forget about invading other nations, destabilizing countries, etc.”
He described the US as socially and economically “fractured” and called on Obama to focus on “governing his own country” instead, Press TV reported.
Chavez, who was making the remarks in reaction to Obama’s reelection, said the American “super elite” exploits the rest of the US and manipulates it “through the media.”
During the US presidential campaigns, Chavez said he did not expect either Obama or his Republican rival Mitt Romney to make any change in the relations between the US, Latin America, Venezuela and the rest of the world.
The Venezuelan president has repeatedly challenged the US foreign policy since he took office in 1999.
Barack Obama managed to repeat his 2008 victory in the country’s presidential election, defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
“Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come,” Obama told thousands of cheering supporters in his victory speech in his hometown of Chicago on Wednesday.
Following Obama’s victory, Romney appeared at his election headquarters, the Boston Convention Center, conceding defeat.
“I have just called President Barack Obama to congratulate him on his victory. His supporters and his campaign also deserve congratulations. I wish all of them well, but particularly the president, the first lady, and their daughters. This is a time of great challenges for American and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation,” he told dejected supporters.
The election set record as the most expensive one ever with the electoral campaigns having cost the country some USD six billion.
In the United States, the president is not chosen by direct popular vote. Presidential elections are conducted using an electoral college. The US also has a two-party system, in which there is no chance for third parities to challenge for higher office. The victory made Obama the first Democrat to win a second term since Bill Clinton in 1996.
Staring the president in the face is the need to tackle the country’s USD-one-trillion annual deficits and USD-16-trillion public debt among other sizeable tasks.

Britain to End Aid to India in 2015

Britain will stop all aid to India in 2015 and the assistance budget will be reduced by around £200 million ($320 million) until then, the international development minister said Friday.
Justine Greening, who visited Britain’s former colony for talks earlier this week, said the move recognizes India’s “changing place in the world” and that the money would now go to poorer countries, AFP reported.
Britain’s aid to India has long been a controversial issue for Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, with London paying money to a country that can fund its own space program at a time when British taxpayers face harsh austerity.
“After reviewing the program and holding discussions with the Government of India this week, we agreed that now is the time to move to a relationship focusing on skills-sharing rather than aid,” Greening said.
British funding to India was cut last year but still committed the UK to spending £280 million a year until 2015.
Total spending between 2013 and 2015 will now be £200 million less than had been planned previously, Greening said.
Greening said Britain’s relationship with India would now focus on “trade not aid”.
“Having visited India I have seen first hand the tremendous progress being made. India is successfully developing and our own bilateral relationship has to keep up with 21st century India,” Greening said.
“It’s time to recognize India’s changing place in the world.”
Britain has previously defended its aid payments to India on the basis that tens of millions of Indians live in poverty, and Greening said that it would complete all its programs there.
“It is of course critical that we fulfil all the commitments we have already made and that we continue with those short-term projects already underway which are an important part of the UK and government of India’s development program.”

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