Argentine president answers Harvard crowd’s questions

 By Associated Press

BOSTON — In a rare departure from her usual political style, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez responded to questions from an audience at Harvard University Thursday night. But she didn’t always answer them.
 Fernandez spoke before more than 100 students, faculty and guests at the Kennedy School of Government. In Argentina, she has had five news conferences in five years and has only occasionally taken questions.
Fernandez said the criticism that she doesn’t speak to the press is unfounded.
“I don’t know where this comes from that I don’t talk, that I can’t speak, that I’m mute,” she said in Spanish which was translated into English.
One student, who is from Argentina, asked Fernandez about Argentines’ limited access to foreign capital when they want to travel abroad and increased taxes on credit and debit card purchases made outside the country or online.
“You are here and you are Argentine, so obviously you don’t have dollar problems,” Fernandez told the student. “You are lucky enough to study in Harvard. You think you can really talk about these currency problems?”
To another student, who asked if it was time for Fernandez to be more self-critical because of her country’s escalating crime and what some say is its inflation problem, she said she expected different questions from her Ivy League audience.
Capital flight and wary investors have plagued Fernandez’s second term, despite her attempts to use currency controls, taxes on the wealthy and programs for the poor to combat what some analysts have labeled the economy’s impending downward economic spiral.
Moody’s Investor Service Thursday downgraded 30 Argentine banks to “negative” ratings, down from “stable.”
The International Monetary Fund has given Argentina until Dec. 17 to publish accurate inflation statistics, questioning the reported monthly inflation of below 1 percent.
Fernandez succeeded her husband, Nestor Kirchner, as president of Argentina in 2007. He died three years later.

from The Washington Post

Please read the following actual comments written by The Washington Post readers and then rank them taking into account clarity and accuracy. 

If you spot any mistakes, please correct them.

Max A Secas
9/29/2012 6:21 PM GMT-0300
The worst part about this government is they are succeeding in convincing people that we must ask permission to the government to exert freedoms that are already granted in our Constitution. Today the government says you are free to buy dollars (or chemotherapy drugs, for that matter) because, if you stand on your knees and ask reaaaaally nice, they might consider authorizing you to do so.

"It is true that liberty is precious so precious that it must be rationed" - Vladimir Lenin.

Andrea JORDAN
9/29/2012 12:28 PM GMT-0300
Im from Argentina and Im ashamed as how my President behaved and teat to the students in your country.
I apologize to the United States of America for the shame that causes me Cristina Fernandez s attitude.
Now in Argentina there is no freedom all kinds of freedom.
Not expression freedom.
You cant buy dollars, you cant send dollar to any part of the world to a family member although is needed, only allow 270 dollars per month and must be an immediate family member.
There is high inflation, they persecute the people who thinks different.
There was a cacerolazo (meaning a crowd of people against our government in the streets) and only in one channel was showing what happens. When something happens that they doesnt like in television they freeze the screen so that we cant see it. In many provinces there are opposing programs that are not visible.
Cristina Fernandez never gives press conference. She use national dialy to discuss things she wants to show (lies) in prime time about an hour.
She doest like the debate, just talk to hear herself. Not interested in the needs of our country.
Guillermo Moreno Secretary of Industry has several complaints of abuse people and power abuse but always fall their causes in the same judge who is friend of the government. Abuse defense people to consumers because they gave real inflation numbers and run them off the debate with his security people.
Thousands or Argentines want freedom, honesty, education, safety and union. But the only thing that makes this government is mistreating, those who are against, not listen to proposals.
They pay people, with our money,with low income so that they go to the demostrations that the government proposes.
There are many allegations of corruption but nobody is accused because this justice is friend of the government.
The President Cristina Fernandez lies about everything that happens in our country.
I am ashamed by her attitude and apologize again to the United States of America.
I didnt voted neigther Cristina Fernandez nor his husband and dont want this government.
But we cant do anything cause there is not opossite.
Please help us to be a wonderful country like yours.
Andrea

tamino12
9/29/2012 12:39 AM GMT-0300
It's a disgrace to hear our president babble in the usual way she and her cronies do in our country. Bullying, direct confrontation, brutal force and denying blatant facts are their only way of communicating. Neither she nor her late husband ever gave a real press conference and she constantly lambasts the media for publishing the facts the government tries to conceal. I am currently spending twice as much on my supermarket weekly shopping as last year. Is that inflation for you or what? To make matters worse, the incredibly miopic government import controls are depriving our people of essential goods, such as parts for car and electronic goods and health-care and hospital supplies, ranging form plastic gloves to pacemakers. I can't have my CD player fixed because of a small device that is banned form customs. We've never gone through anything like this before!

Times are getting tougher for Cristina Fernández

EVERY Argentine politician knows that clanging pots and pans are the sound of trouble. In 2001, after the government froze bank accounts, furious residents of Buenos Aires staged nightly cacerolazos (pot bangings) until the president resigned. On September 13th it was the turn of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the current president, to face the raucous music. Tens of thousands filled the capital’s streets wielding kitchen implements. Ms Fernández was in San Juan, a provincial capital, which saw a smaller protest.

Her aides dismissed the protesters as an unpatriotic elite. “They’re more concerned about what happens in Miami than in San Juan,” said Juan Manuel Abal Medina, the cabinet chief. Ms Fernández has weathered cacerolazos before. In 2008 farmers staged pot-clanking demonstrations after she tried to raise taxes on soyabean exports. She was re-elected three years later.

But the latest cacerolazo looks more like a turning point than a stumble. The main reason is that the economy has run out of steam. Between 2003 and 2011, Argentina’s annual average growth rate of 7.7% was Latin America’s second-highest. This year, even by the questionable official numbers, it is set to be the lowest (see chart).

Distortions have been building for years under Ms Fernández and her late husband and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner. Price caps have squelched investment in energy and led the treasury to subsidise fuel imports. Public spending has soared, yielding a primary fiscal deficit of 3% of GDP. Thanks to the Kirchners’ quarrel with the IMF, Argentina can only raise external credit at steep interest rates. So the Central Bank has printed pesos. Inflation is around 25% according to unofficial estimates. 

Until now, the economy has grown despite these policies, mainly because of high prices for its farm products, and exports to Brazil. But this year drought parched soyabean fields, and Brazil stalled. In addition $18 billion of debt and other payments came due that Argentina could not refinance. Desperate for hard currency, the government imposed curbs on imports and foreign-exchange transactions. It scared investors further by expropriating a majority stake in YPF, the national oil company, held by Spain’s Repsol. All this turned a soft landing into a screeching halt.

A second problem for the president is that she has alienated large chunks of her amorphous Peronist movement. Mr Kirchner dealt deftly with its barons, mayors and unions, who can rally crowds to the streets and voters to the polls. Since being widowed in 2010, Ms Fernández has sidelined many of her husband’s allies, relying instead on a group of youngish leftist activists led by her son, Máximo.

This year’s cash crunch has brought conflict with the Peronist machine. Workers have seen their take-home pay drop in real terms. Hugo Moyano, the head of Argentina’s biggest trade-union confederation, has turned against Ms Fernández, accusing her of acting like “a goddess…who has to be knelt before”.

The squeeze has also hit local governments. Ms Fernández has cut the share in total public spending of discretional transfers to provinces and municipalities by half in the past two years. In June she delayed a transfer of $250m to Buenos Aires province, leaving it unable to pay its staff. Her dealings with its Peronist governor, Daniel Scioli, remain tense. José Manuel de la Sota, the Peronist governor of Córdoba, now consorts with the opposition.

Ms Fernández has also alienated the middle class, some of whom rallied to her last year. That is potentially dangerous. “You can’t win an election here without the middle class,” says Joaquín Morales Solá, a columnist for La Nación, an opposition newspaper. “Very few people say they’re poor. They’re culturally middle class. They have the same aspirations.”

It is sections of the middle class who are now banging their pots. They are disappointed by declining public services and public safety. In a recent survey by Carolina Moreno of the Catholic University, 31% of respondents said they had been victims of a crime, up from 22% in 2004. A commuter train crash in February that killed 51 people highlighted the government’s neglect of the transport network.

Controls on access to dollars and negative real interest rates make it hard for the middle class to travel or save. They are offended by the president’s use of the tax agency to persecute opponents, and annoyed by the frequent interruptions of television shows to broadcast her speeches, such as one opening a technology fair.

Ms Fernández’s fortunes will probably improve before a legislative election due in October 2013. The prospect of a better harvest, a rebound in Brazil and an easier debt-repayment schedule all mean she should be able to relax the economic squeeze and buy back the loyalty of wavering Peronist operators. Moreover, the opposition is fragmented and bereft of leaders.

Yet Ms Fernández will need more than a modest rebound if she is to prolong her grip on power. She has no heir-apparent: her vice-president, Amado Boudou, has been hamstrung by corruption accusations, and her son has never run for office. Some of her allies have suggested changing the constitution so that she can run for a third consecutive term, though she has not discussed the idea publicly. A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress, which looks difficult to attain. And since polls suggest that the public opposes the idea, her opponents are sure to use the spectre of a third term when campaigning next year. But Ms Fernández has beaten the odds before. And no one can question her hunger for power

from The Economist 

Sep 29th 2012 | BUENOS AIRES | from the print edition

 

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Apple Supplier Halts Production After Violence in Chinese Factory

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Which of the following ideas are NOT mentioned in the video you have just watched?


Foxconn, the company that makes Apple's iPhones, has suspended production at a factory in northern China after a brawl that involved as many as 2,000 workers and left about 40 people injured.

The clash erupted late Sunday in a privately-managed dormitory for Foxconn employees who work at the company's factory in Taiyuan. 

China's Xinhua news agency says 5,000 police officers were dispatched to the dormitory and about 4 hours later they brought the chaos under control early Monday.

Photographs of the incident that were posted to social networks but later deleted showed smashed windows and riot police, and crowds of workers.

Foxconn says the incident appears to have started as a personal dispute and does not appear to be work related.

A staff member at the Taiyuan plant said he was told the plant could be closed up to two to three days while police investigate.

The Taiyuan plant employs 79,000 workers and manufactures automobile electronic components, consumer electronic components, and precision moldings. It is an important supplier for companies including Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft.

Foxconn, owned by Taiwan's Hon Hai, is the world's largest contract maker of electronic goods and employs about one million workers in factories across China. 

The company has faced scrutiny over complaints about its wages and working conditions.

 

 

 How about completing the following sentences?

1 -  Although 5,000 police officers were dispatched to the dormitory ………….......................

2 - Photographs of the incident were posted to social networks. However ………………….........

3 - In spite of the fact that Foxconn said the trouble started with a personal fight , some people said   …………………………...

4 - The plant was closed Monday. Anyway ………………..............   

Please ask questions so as to get the following answers



1. Apple's iPhones
2. 2,000 workers
3. at a dormitory
4. Monday
5. A personal fight
6. In Taiyuan
7. 4 hours
8. No, it's not the first incident
9. Poor working conditions and workers mistreatment
10. 1 million
11. I don't know
12. Perhaps