BOLIVIA: Evo Changing Tune About GMOs, Price Controls And Export Limits.

AP

Last year, Bolivia had to import food. Normally, it is self sufficient...and even exports food stuffs.

La Nina's freakish weather was one reason. But farmers also blame President Evo Morales' policies...price controls and export limits...instead of a free market setting prices and demand.

Now, Evo is starting to listen to the farmers...even cultivating their council.
"Advise me, help me. Let's work together to guarantee food production," he said last month."If we've had ...ideological differences, that's in the past. Now the situation is different."

ARGENTINA: Surging Soy Price Bolsters Once Troubled Credit Risk And Cristina.

BLOOMBERG/ Ben Bain and Drew Benson/

   The price of soybeans has jumped 55 percent price in just the second half of 2010 and is now at a 29-month high thanks to dry, hot weather caused by the La Nina pattern that has caused drought in Argentina and Brasil .
   Argentina's credit rating and its recently beleagured President Cristina Fernandez are benefitting mightily from the oil seed price surge as the world's third largest producer.
    The cost of protecting Argentine debt against non-payment for five years with credit-default swaps has tumbled 41 basis points, or 0.41 percentage point this week.
   It has even fallen below contracts for Ireland for the first time and is within 37 basis points of Portugal.
   A remarkable turnaround.

COLOMBIA: iST UPDATE: Mudslides, Heavy Rains Leave 136 Dead, 208 Injured, Over 20,000 Homes Damaged.

LINK CHANGE/ C.REPORTS: 19 NOV /
     A "state of calamity" has been declared after La Nina's continued heavy downpours continue to wreak havoc in 28 or the nation's 32 departments. Bodies recovered from mudslides in Medellin and in a rural area outside Quinchia  increased the death toll to 136 with at least 208 injured and 22 missing.
   Other measures will release emergency funds for the victims of floods and landslides that  have damaged the houses or land of 1.3 million people.

  

COLOMBIA: Emergency Declared After Heavy Rains Near Bogota; Barranquilla Flooding Video.

C.REPORTS/       Unusually heavy rains drenching Soacha, near Bogota, have forced authorities to declare a state of emergency. Rains have soaked the nation since January leaving 48 people dead and affecting more than 47,000 in 27 of the 32 departments. Barranquilla has also been hit hard. The rainy season usually lasts only until mid-June but after an exceptionally dry 2009 El Niño season meteorologists believe 2010 will unusually wet because of the La Niña phenonmenon.
Here is :31 of  YOUTUBE video from a TV Report (ES) about Barranquilla flooding :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY0_ctbptGM