China-SouthAmerica: News and Analysis, South-South Cooperation and Commodity Exchange
A comprehensive collection of scholarly, personal, and editorial articles relating to the growth and development of economic / political ties between China and South America-- with a focus on commodity rich countries in South America and commodity/energy markets.
After over one year of ups and downs with Google's blogger, my loyalty to the tech giant is slowly fading as its service remains blocked in The People's Republic of China.
Adding insult to injury is this new limit on the number of tags / labels you can use when posting.
Microfinance is a topic i've touched upon before on this site (See June 17, 2008 post). In this turbulent time, Microfinance borrowers believe it or not but are still paying back their loans despite the credit crisis.
Microfinance is an effective, long-term solution to ending poverty that empowers poor families with the financial resources they need to improve their lives.
But there is an urgent need to expand these services. Right now, microfinance is only reaching 10-20% of the estimated 500 million people who would benefit from these life-changing opportunities.
As you'll see in the two-minute video, microfinance has the power to improve the lives not just of individuals, but of families and entire communities around the world.
Chinese authorities have shut down about 1500 pornographic websites and are making no secret about it, reporting about it in their own state press.
A total of 41 individuals where also apprehended during the crackdown after being linked to the vulgar content.
Singapore's Straits Time reported:
"The government has warned that Internet giants such as Google, MSN and Baidu, the most popular Chinese search engine, could also be shut down if they continue to link to vulgar content.
Google, Baidu and others have since issued apologies and said they have taken steps against online porn."
Brazil seems to be having some money troubles by the looks of the press. It's not good news for Latin America when its largest economy slows, especially when until just recently it seemed Brazil (the depreciation of the Real aside) was well relatively well poised to weather the storm.
Like its fellow BRIC country's, Brazil is far from immune to the global crisis. The country is still heavily dependent on commodity exports, which was the main engine of growth for both the Brazilian economy and stock market the past few years.
Despite reports that consumer spending is still holding up and that Brazil's big state conglomerates like Petrobras are increasing spending (see MercoPress article here), it simply won't be enough to keep the economy afloat forever—and it definitely will not be enough to maintain growth levels of 4-5%.
Poor Ronaldo seen here losing at the French World
Now... for the grim news. While just days earlier Petrobras reported it will be increasing spending, yesterday things did not go its way when it went shopping in international markets to raise money. The company was forced to put off plans to sell bonds because the cost of borrowing to finance the bonds in dollar denominated debt was simply too high (see Bloomberg article here)
Moving on. Brazil's government also had some bad news to bring to the table, announcing plans to freeze roughly 6% of its planned spending budget for 2009 because slow economic growth is eroding tax collection ( see bloomberg article here)
To round up the negative news is one last story concerning loan defaults in Brazil. Credit card spending may be surging, people may be packing the stores but they aren't paying their bills. Loan defaults surged last month to their highest since September 2002 (see Bloomberg article here).
Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), announced today one of its oil rigs began operations in Bolivia. Drilling is reported to have begun in the Vibora field, roughly 170 km north of the city of Santa Cruz.
Not a bad headline for Morales and his supporters who voted "yes" for a new constitution just days ago which allows for Morales to run beyond his term limits and which is partly designed to empower indiginous rights.
Captivated observer and active participant in the growing exchange between countries in the Americas and East Asia.
Exhilarated by the process of identifying and growing local and international business opportunities.
Committed towards expanding my reality and nurturing a network of like-minded individuals and organizations from across the globe. Including but never limited to -- entrepreneurs, creative talent, educators, students, innovators, investors and new media journalists.
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