Mexico's reaction to economic crisis has been weak, says Nobel winner Stiglitz

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, thinks Mexico's reaction to the global economic crisis has been one of the worst anywhere. 

"Statistics showing growth have been very weak and pessimistic" for Mexico, Stiglitz said. "The combination of a very weak recovery in the United States and a fiscal policy that doesn't stimulate the Mexican economy is worrying." Stiglitz spoke to attendees of an event organized by Grupo Mexicana and Grupo Posadas, two major Mexican companies.

El Universal newspaper reported that Stiglitz said Mexico's position in the face of this crisis was "unusual."

"In contrast, countries such as Australia, which was the first country in the developed world to emerge from the recession," Stiglitz said, "applied strong measures through a packet of well-defined incentives."

Although Mexico is dependent on the U.S economy, that represents a risk, he warned.

"Many people hope that a recovery in the U.S will be the solution," he said. "But Mexico needs an alternative."

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

YouTube partners with Univision to offer Spanish-language programs; creates citizen journalism service

The largest Hispanic media company in the United States has agreed to feature short and full-length programs on YouTube, including new and archived programs from the Univision, TeleFutura and Galavision networks, Reuters and AFP report.

The agreement is the latest in several YouTube ventures with major entertainment partners, reports the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. Revenue will come from ads featured around the programs, and Univision will receive most of it, Reuters says.

YouTube has also created a citizen journalism tool, YouTube Direct, which allows news organizations to request and rebroadcast YouTube clips directly from users. You can read about it here on the YouTube blog.

Read more on this story here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Making an example of American Apparel

American Apparel is in the process of firing all of its undocumented workers, under pressure from the Department of Homeland Security -- a move that will cause as much real harm to Los Angeles as it will imaginary good. Taking away as many as 1,800 jobs that pay $10 to $12 an hour plus benefits will probably drive those workers into an underground economy or into sweatshops, maybe into crime, maybe homelessness. They and their children will be more susceptible to poverty and hunger and more likely to require public assistance, argues this Los Angeles Times editorial.

Read on here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

'Crude' documentary explores Ecuador versus Chevron case

"Crude" sounds like the standard "this is an outrage" environmental degradation documentary, the latest in a line that includes "An Inconvenient Truth" and films about the death of the ocean, the evaporation of water, the murder of dolphins, even the disintegration of dirt. "Crude" fits that bill, but it is something considerably more interesting as well, writes Kenneth Turan.

The outrage in question is the subject of a class-action suit filed by 30,000 citizens of Ecuador against Chevron, the world's fifth-largest corporation, alleging that 18 billion gallons of toxic waste-water were dumped into the Amazon between 1972 and 1990, fatally poisoning the land and water and sickening inhabitants. The lawsuit, with a potential cost to Chevron of $27 billion, has been going on for so long, 16 years and counting, that the original American oil company in Ecuador, Texaco, was acquired by Chevron and no longer exists.

Director Joe Berlinger ("Brother's Keeper," "Metallica") has been working on "Crude" for three years, and though he feared he was coming too late to the story, a verdict is still not in sight. Having all that time to explore the situation has paid off for Berlinger, enabling him to gain the confidence of his subjects and show us situations that ordinarily would not be open to outsiders.

Read the rest of this movie review here, and click here for more posts about films and documentaries.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Video: The official "Crude" trailer.

Recession hits Argentina's tango industry

Tango, Argentina's seductive, complex dance, isn't going to be able to hot-step its way through the financial crisis and the H1N1 flu outbreak. The country's tango industry has been badly hit by a drop in tourists put off by swine flu and the global recession, according to this report by the BBC:

"At the moment we are seeing a fall of around 70% in the number of people coming to see the shows," says Luis Veiga, president of Argentina's chamber of tango venues.

Some tango shows have been forced to close temporarily, and some might now have to close down altogether if things don't improve, he adds.

Read the rest of that report here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Cuba's Craigslist

The restriction and high price of Internet access in Cuba hasn't stopped the island's black market from flourishing online.

Nick Miroff reports for GlobalPost on Revolico.com, Cuba's answer to Craigslist.

"Cuba’s informal economy is an imperfect marketplace. Without advertising, it relies heavily on word-of-mouth, and its commercial activity tends to flourish in small circles — among neighbors, coworkers and other trusted acquaintances.

"Then came Revolico.com. Its name essentially translates as “disarray,” and while Havana residents jokingly call it “the Cuban eBay,” the site is really closer to Craigslist. For Cubans who make a living through the black market, it's a godsend."

Read the rest of the report on Revolico.com, which claims to be the third-most-visited site in Cuba, here on GlobalPost.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Vendors sell spices, fruit, flowers and more every Sunday at the farmers market across the street from the Capitolio Nacional in Havana. Credit: Lianne Milton / For The Times

Dole strikes back against "Bananas!" documentary

You might remember this post we did in June on a documentary about Nicaraguan banana-plantation workers and the Dole Food Co.

Well, in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Dole accused Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten of slander and libel in making the documentary, which was shown at last month's Los Angeles Film Festival.

The film "Bananas!" chronicles a 2007 case against Dole and prominently features L.A. attorney Juan J. Dominguez, who now faces contempt charges.

The Times' Victoria Kim reports:

In light of the judge's finding of fraud by the plaintiffs' attorneys, Dole attorneys contend in the complaint that "Bananas!" unfairly demonizes Dole and is riddled with factual inaccuracies.

Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney, in a 60-page ruling dismissing two pending lawsuits, said attorneys for the Nicaraguans engaged in a brazen scheme to recruit men who had never worked on banana plantations, train them to lie on the stand and fabricate medical evidence to back up the claims."

Read the rest of Kim's story about the Dole lawsuit here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Plunge in Mexico remittances is worst on record

Remittances from Mexicans living and working in the United States are continuing to fall.

"Money sent home by Mexicans working abroad fell by 19.9 percent in May, the biggest monthly decline on record as the U.S. recession slashed jobs," reports the Associated Press in Business Week.

"Remittances dropped to $1.9 billion from $2.4 billion in May 2008, the central bank said on Wednesday. The amount of money sent home in the first five months of 2009 fell 11.3 percent to $9.2 billion compared with the same period last year.

"Remittances are the second-biggest source of foreign currency after oil exports in Mexico, and their decline has contributed to the country's own economic downturn."

Read the full Business Week report

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Henry Ford's utopian adventure in the Brazilian rain forest

Historian Greg Grandin has taken what heretofore seemed a marginal event -- Henry Ford's failed attempt to establish a gigantic agricultural-industrial complex in the heart of Brazil's Amazon Basin -- and turned it into a fascinating historical narrative that illuminates the auto industry's contemporary crisis, the problems of globalization and the contradictions of contemporary consumerism.

For all of that, this is not, however, history freighted with political pedantry. Grandin is one of a blessedly expanding group of gifted American historians who assume that whatever moral the story of the past may yield, it must be a story well told.

"Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City" is precisely that -- a genuinely readable history recounted with a novelist's sense of pace and an eye for character. It's a significant contribution to our understanding of ourselves and engrossingly enjoyable.

Read the rest of Tim Rutten's review of Greg Grandin's book Fordlandia.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

More jump ship at Mexico City's English-language newspaper

Only five of the original 14 people rehired by the new owner of the News, Mexico City’s struggling English-language newspaper, remain on the job. In the last few days, nine more employees have left the paper.

Brian Rausch was the most recent editor of the daily after the dismissal of Malcolm Beith earlier this month. Rausch departed Wednesday along with four other people, and three others left on Monday. Of the five remaining and original employees, only two are native English speakers.

Beith was the first to sit in the editor’s chair after the News was sold by its former owner Victor Hugo O’Farill to Grupo Mac at the beginning of June.

The latest developments at the News do not bode well for the paper, which for the last two weeks has relied even more heavily on wire reports and translated copy from other Grupo Mac titles to fill its pages.

Today's front page story in the Mexico City daily is a New York Times wire story about how the U.S needs a new financial system.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City