November 27, 2009  Ecrisis notes that the happy days of lying to the United States with gay abandon by Ecuadoreans is over. The damage is done anyway and now Ecuadoreans will lie down with the dogs and the fleas they told the world did not matter when in fact these vermin and their acts mattered a lot to ruin Ecuador.

Here is US amb. Heather Hodges before the AMCHAM in Guayaquil this past week.

She is essentially telling these business people that the ECU-USA alternative to the FTA is not gaining real traction…because it is a joke, we call it  a ploy, and a waste of time anyway. She also says that the ATPDEA will not get action until well after the new year.

Hodges at last tepidly states that some in the USG see that the end of the US-GOE  BIT by Correa is a bad thing- an unsupportable thing. Remarkably she is not quoted as blaming it all on the U.S. Republicans who continue to ask for accountability, none of which is provided by the Ecuadorean or U.S. governments….to insure plausible deniability.

From our perspective, Hodges tells her AMCHAM pals that what they have been doing, with the USA’s help, to blindly support Correa and pretend that every anti-democratic step he has made and every corrupt act matters nothing because….Correa’s paid lobbyists and the AMCHAMs can lie their way to misrepresenting the lawlessness that is Ecuador, as has been the case for the last 4 years.

What we do not see is Hodges telling the truth: Ecuadoreans need to stop lying to themselves, the world and most assuredly to their previously known as best trading partner and source of local jobs- the USA. Hodges should and could but, following the well trod path of her dishonest two predecessors,  refuses to state the truth which is that Ecuadoreans can and must self reform and stay the madness currently running the country…into the grave. Hodges is correct that the Obama team cannot focus on much… they have blown their respect on aiding and abetting Chavez and Correa’s nefarious assaults on Honduras, their appeasement of Iran’s evil doers and their utter mismanagement of American assets to enthuse a new U.S. stock market bubble to short the U.S. dollar. 
Recently some opinion polls have shown that el presidente Correa of Ecuador’s popularity is declining. Then again, so is his new best friend, Barack Hussein Obama of the USA about whom John Bolton wrote today in The Wall Street Journal  that neither personal popularity nor media deference really means much in the hard world of international affairs.

And just like Obama’s falling relationship with the world of fact- and not Hollywood fiction- so too does Correa fall very, very short in the adult world which is hard and cold and sometimes really unforgiving, especially when- as Correa does- they are lied to and about repeatedly. For now, Correa assumes that the USA will behave as he has known the USA to behave: like a battered wife, always whimpering and whining but never divorcing for all the abuse, crime, slander and theft. Indeed, Mrs. Clinton as Obama’s Secretary of State- his own private hausfrau, has shown the Correaistas that she is willing to continue her role as First Wife, like Mrs. Correa, abused, lied to, beaten and humiliated- all good stuff as long as the money is good and the fake status remains. 

But at the end of the day, like Russia, it does not matter how much Iran or Russia or Correa lie. It is to each to discern and reject their lies and to each to refuse to play the victim, the abused and the idiotic liar. Russia is enormously corrupt. We remind that it is an impotent analysis to note that corruption alone is Russia’s failing, however much it is. Russia’s sin includes vast sins of omission, rampant crime and a refusal to consider any acknowledgement of their own evil, ongoing yet today with no reforms- only excuses- in sight. Like Ecuador, Russia has no rule of law, no free speech and no liberty, except for the politburo.

The Washington Times
Monday, November 23, 2009
Corruption drags down Russian economy
Jason Motlagh

MOSCOW | The Hotel Moscow, an icon of Soviet architecture, is today a monument to another pervasive aspect of Russian reality: crony capitalism.

Seven years ago, the city government decided to demolish and rebuild the towering, thousand-room structure just off Red Square, and awarded the contract to a U.S.-registered developer. But the deal was annulled under murky circumstances, investigators say, in favor of business interests well connected to officialdom and organized crime. Financial irregularities have since delayed the project's completion.

The fate of the hotel is emblematic of Russia's troubling business culture. A string of similar high-profile cases in which bureaucrats, police and justice officials are suspected of using their authority to pressure or swindle foreign companies has caused an increasing number of investors to pull out, with potentially dire consequences for a flagging economy.

Foreign investment is down 22.9 percent compared with last year, according to the Noviye Izvestia newspaper. In the second half of 2008 alone, an estimated $7 billion in foreign capital exited Russia.

Russia also was ranked 146th out of 180 countries last week in Transparency International's annual survey, which measures corruption in government and business - a drop of nearly 30 places since 2002.

The watchdog group estimated that bribery costs Russia $300 billion a year, or about 18 percent of its gross domestic product.

"With the current level and volume of corruption ... we cannot move forward," Transparency International said in a statement last week. "If corruption stays as it is now, it will continue to eat up the resources" that Russia could invest in its future.

President Dmitry Medvedev has acknowledged the problem, lamenting the "legal nihilism" that has rotted the system. In a major speech earlier this month, he said corruption needed to be tackled from many directions but that a solution would take time: "We won't solve the problem in a single bound, but we have to dig in."

Russia analysts say implementation of promised reforms has been scant.

Dmitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank, and a frequent visitor to Russia, said that "senior government officials do not hide their wealth" and can be seen wearing watches worth tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"This systemic corruption makes it very difficult to introduce meaningful political change," Mr. Simes said at a recent forum on Russia.

In July, Robert Dudley, the chief executive officer of a joint venture between BP PLC and Russian oil company TNK, left the country in the face of harassment. Masked agents raided the company headquarters, BP staff members suddenly were denied visas on dubious grounds, and Mr. Dudley faced threats over what appeared to be bogus labor law violations.

The week after his departure, Russian stocks plummeted 12 percent. JP Morgan lowered its stock rating from "neutral" to "below market," citing the risk of state interference.

When Ikea, the Swedish retailer, began opening stores across the country, it faced extortionate rates from utility companies. Rather than pay, it rented private generators to power its stores, only to find that the Russian executive in charge of the generators was inflating prices.

Ikea claims it lost nearly $200 million over two years and has suspended all investment in Russia.

One of the most notorious cases involves a criminal lawsuit under way in a Moscow court, in which government employees are accused of defrauding Russian taxpayers of a half-billion dollars and, adding insult to injury, using the legal system to punish those who sought justice.

According to Bill Browder, head of the Hermitage Fund, a hedge fund that was once the biggest foreign investor in Russia, scammers within the government have taken over companies that have paid taxes, then created fake losses to retroactively reclaim taxes as a rebate.

Last week, an attorney for Mr. Browder's hedge fund, Sergei Magnitsky, died in a Moscow prison hospital. He had been in pretrial detention for nearly a year, during which he claimed that police made offers to release him if he testified against Hermitage.

"He entered prison as a healthy 37-year-old and exited the prison dead," Mr. Browder told the Associated Press by telephone. He said Mr. Magnitsky had developed pancreatitis in jail and was repeatedly denied medical attention.

Attempts by The Washington Times and the AP to contact authorities for comment on the case were unsuccessful.

Mr. Browder, who now lives in London, has been blacklisted as a "threat to national security."

His attorney's death is likely to deepen Western concerns about the risks faced by anyone who challenges the authorities in Russia. Several independent journalists and human rights activists and lawyers have been victims of unsolved slayings in recent years.

Analysts say corruption is so widespread that even those determined to combat graft don't know where to start or whom to trust.

"Nothing will change with this case," Yulia Latynina, a prominent investigative journalist who tracks state corruption, said of the Hermitage Fund situation. The government's "response has been crude and fantastic. It's quite evident that the people behind this are high up in the system."

In the case of the Hotel Moscow, politics and crime meet, with a twist.

Investigators say businessmen with close links to the city government were given a majority stake in the reconstruction contract after the contract had been issued to another company, Decorum Corp.

The businessmen adopted a variation of the same name, Dekorum, prior to assuming control, and partnered with the Moscow Development Co. to form a new company called Dekmos. Among the main stakeholders was Ashot Yegiazaryan, a veteran banker and member of parliament suspected of having ties with criminal networks.

One investigator, a former Western intelligence officer who monitors Russian organized crime and asked not to be named because he works in Russia and does not want to compromise his investigations, said that for the past two decades Mr. Yegiazaryan has colluded with Moscow government officials to secure properties illegally and development rights at a fraction of their real value.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Yegiazaryan founded Moscow National Bank, where, according to the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, a leading independent daily, he used high-level official contacts to divert tens ofmillions of dollars in state funds. It soon became one the largest banks in Russia.

Mr. Yegiazaryan departed as the bank's fortunes soured, and subsequently moved on to co-own Unikombank. Within several years, the bank declared bankruptcy. By then, he had also left that company.

To finance the Hotel Moscow project, associates at Dekorum took out an $87.5 million loan from Deutsche Bank, according to Novaya Gazeta. However, the overextended company was hit with heavy losses during the economic downturn and eventually defaulted.

The city government intervened to cover the loan, on the condition that Dekorum transfer an additional 25.5 percent stake to the city, which has yet to happen.

In mid-June, Mr. Yegiazaryan's offices were raided by police. Investigators suspect that the loan and failure to repay may have been planned from the outset.

Mr. Yegiazaryan is now keeping a low profile and could not be reached for comment. Dekorum's offices are closed.

Reports have circulated in the media that he may be stripped of his seat in the Duma, the lower house of parliament, and with it, immunity to prosecution. Moreover, a new anti-mafia law signed earlier this month by Mr. Medvedev aims to punish those who leverage their ties to organized crime.

Mr. Yegiazaryan "was always considered one of the most corrupt," said Ms. Latynina, the investigative journalist. "For sure, he was never a model businessman."

The city construction department, meanwhile, has taken control of the Hotel Moscow project.

On a recent afternoon, empty scaffolding ringed the vast exterior. Only an artist's rendering of the completed building on a billboard affixed to the chain-link security fence suggests its realization.

City authorities say doors will open sometime in 2011, years after the overhaul began. That may be optimistic.
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And here is a tepid summary on Ecuador about Correa’s self inflicted problems:

The Wall Street Journal

AMERICAS NEWS

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Ecuador's Populist President Faces Dwindling Support
By MERCEDES ALVARO and ROBERT KOZAK
QUITO -- Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa is finding that a weak economy, electricity shortages and a confrontational governing style have undermined support for his government, not three years after taking office in a landslide that highlighted the rise of populist leaders in Latin America.

Polls taken last month show that approval ratings for the 46-year-old socialist have fallen into the mid-40s, well down from the 73% he had soon after taking office in early 2007, pollster Cedatos-Gallup International said Wednesday.

That slide matches the drop in support for leftist allies such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez. Lower commodities prices have undermined their ability to sustain spending programs, while rising crime and electricity shortages in resource-rich nations underscore the rampant inefficiency of parts of the public sector.

"The time to fulfill many promises has passed, and people are waiting for answers," said Teodoro Bustamante, an independent Ecuadorean political analyst and academic. "Promises and insults have reached their limits."

As the patronage ebbs along with the government coffers, the failure of some statist policies is becoming more evident. Meanwhile, a dearth of private-sector investment has meant some of these sputtering economies have little to fall back on. The nationalist rhetoric and attacks on the opposition no longer resonate as strongly as they did when leftist leaders came to power riding a wave of antipathy toward market-oriented economies.

Mr. Chávez's approval rating slipped to 46% in October from 53% a month earlier, as annual inflation runs around 30% even as Venezuela's economic contraction deepened in the third quarter from a year ago. Ms. Fernandez's approval rating in Argentina stands at about 20%, with pollsters pointing to her confrontational style and an anemic economy.

All three leaders enjoy considerable influence over the legislative and judicial branches, making it harder to blame the opposition when entitlement programs dry up just as unemployment and inflation are on the rise.

After taking office in Ecuador, Mr. Correa took a page from Mr. Chávez's playbook and quickly undermined Congress by establishing a Constituent Assembly, which promptly wrote a new constitution. That paved the way for Mr. Correa to run anew for office, and he started a second term in August after cutting short his first term.

As president, Mr. Correa has taken much greater control over oil production from the private sector, much along the lines of what has happened in Venezuela. He also roundly criticized the media for questioning what he calls a citizens' revolution.

However, Mr. Correa has also had to deal with the economic downturn, with gross domestic product expected to expand a mere 1% this year after growing by 6.5% last year.

Economists warn the high level of subsidies isn't sustainable. But cutting them back or eliminating them is politically and socially sensitive for a government that built its support on such public spending.

If the economic situation doesn't improve, Mr. Correa could suffer the fate of earlier presidents, some analysts speculate. Since 1996, Ecuador has had seven presidents, most of whom were run out of office before finishing their terms.

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And here is a review of another ALBA nation in formation. Had Ecuadoreans [which none admire as a skill at all]  the self reflection held by honorable persons, they too would have seen Correa’s evil on the march. This is a story of Ecuador, too:

The Weekly Standard
Losing Nicaragua
The Sandinistas are slowly crushing democracy.
by Jaime Daremblum
11/24/2009 9:00:00 AM 

With U.S. policymakers distracted by the situation in Honduras, Nicaragua continues to move toward authoritarianism. On October 19, a Nicaraguan Supreme Court panel overturned a constitutional provision limiting presidents to two non-consecutive terms in office. The ruling will allow incumbent Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega--the Sandinista party leader, former Soviet client, vociferous critic of the United States, and current Hugo Chávez acolyte--to run for another term in 2011.

If there were any doubts that Nicaraguan democracy is slowly being extinguished, this latest development should remove them. The Nicaraguan Supreme Court is composed of 16 members. Thanks to a political deal made by Ortega and Arnoldo Alemán, a former Nicaraguan president who went to jail for massive corruption, half the magistrates are appointed by the ruling Sandinistas, and the other half are appointed by the opposition Liberals. But due to the May 2009 death of one Liberal-appointed magistrate, and the fact that his seat still has not been filled, the Sandinistas currently enjoy an 8-7 majority, which means the court is effectively a Sandinista rubber-stamp.

Six magistrates made the decision to let Ortega seek reelection. And guess what? All six were Sandinista appointees--even though the court's six-member constitutional panel includes three Liberal magistrates. Those three Liberal judges were not summoned to the meeting at which the decision was made. Instead, the Sandinistas called in three "replacement" judges to guarantee their preferred ruling.

The Supreme Court's action represents a gross Sandinista power grab. It makes a mockery of Nicaraguan democracy. It is the kind of thing we expect from tin-pot dictatorships.

Unfortunately for the Nicaraguan people, the anti-Sandinista opposition parties are tainted by corruption and prone to infighting. Indeed, in its latest Corruption Perceptions Index, Transparency International ranks Nicaragua as the most corrupt country in Central America. Ortega has skillfully manipulated and divided opposition figures, just as the dictatorial Somoza regime (which ruled Nicaragua from 1936 to 1979) once did. The lack of a united opposition has made it easier for Ortega and his cronies to trample the democratic process.

In November 2008, the Sandinistas committed widespread fraud to rig municipal elections, leading to a suspension of U.S. and European aid. This was a particularly egregious example of Ortega's broader attempt to weaken or obliterate the checks on Sandinista authority. His party has embraced the thuggish mob tactics used by Chávez (and, prior to his arrest, by former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya). Just ask Robert Callahan, the U.S. ambassador in Managua. After Callahan criticized the pro-Ortega Supreme Court ruling as "improper," Sandinista followers vandalized the U.S. embassy. "A day later," the New York Times reports, "Ortega supporters surrounded Mr. Callahan at a university fair, forcing him to dash to his sport utility vehicle in a hasty getaway that was televised locally."

Despite being freely elected in 2006, Ortega never accepted the principles of democracy. During his previous stint as president of Nicaragua--following the 1979 Sandinista revolution, which toppled the Somoza dictatorship--he governed as a leftist autocrat and received aid from the Soviet Union. After losing a free election in 1990, Ortega worked to consolidate his influence over the Sandinista party. In 1999, he made a sinister pact with Alemán, one of the most corrupt leaders in recent Latin American history, who was then serving as Nicaraguan president.

The Ortega-Alemán pact established a power-sharing arrangement between the Sandinistas and the center-right Liberals. It was designed to let the two parties dominate Nicaragua's key political institutions--and to shield both Ortega and Alemán from possible legal troubles. Unfortunately for Alemán, it was not enough to save him from receiving a 20-year prison sentence in December 2003 (nearly two years after he left office). This past January, however, the Nicaraguan Supreme Court cleared Alemán of all charges and released him from jail. "In exchange for his freedom," Time magazine reported, "Alemán returned the favor by essentially forgiving the Sandinistas last November's electoral theft by providing the congressional votes needed to give Ortega control over the National Assembly, which had been considered the 'last democratic holdout.'"

Ortega's own 2006 election was made possible by his 1999 deal with Alemán, which led to constitutional reforms that lowered the popular-vote threshold needed to win presidential contests. In 2006, Liberal supporters were divided between José Rizo (the candidate of the Liberal Constitutional Party) and Eduardo Montealegre (the candidate of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance). Together, Rizo and Montealegre received a majority of the popular vote. But Ortega received 38 percent, which was enough to make him president.

As the poorest country in Central America, Nicaragua may seem insignificant to U.S. interests. Yet Hugo Chávez views Nicaragua as a crucial member of his anti-American bloc. As long as Ortega and the Sandinistas control Nicaragua, Chávez will have at least one ally in Central America. So will Russia and Iran, both of which have warm relations with the Ortega regime. Indeed, Nicaragua has even honored Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with two of its most prestigious awards (the Liberty Medal and the Rubén Darío Medal).

There is no question that Ortega is trying to secure an authoritarian grip on his country. In the 1980s, the U.S. government spent huge amounts of money and adopted controversial policies to support the cause of Nicaraguan democracy. Today, supporting that cause would require much less from the United States. But the Obama administration must first make Nicaragua a priority. Thus far, it has not.
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ECrisis says: get the facts. Analyze the facts. Consider the facts. You will know what to do.

-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis