El precio de la harina PAN en el mundo (actualizado I)

Estos son datos temporales. He conseguido varios precios por ciudad y he colocado los más bajos para cada una.

Si tienen más datos, envíenlos, por favor.

Quienes quieran pensar que el precio fuera de Venezuela es muy alto cuando calcula en dólares oficiales o no oficiales deben tener en cuenta lo siguiente: lo realmente importante es calcular el precio según el poder adquisitivo. Visto de otra forma: cuántas horas tiene que trabajar una persona promedio en Venezuela o en Alemania para comprar un kilo de una harina que debería ser producido en el primer país y que es un producto importado para consumo de un grupo de inmigrantes en el otro.

Sitio	País	Precio	Moneda	En €
Sandnes	Noruega	35	NoK	4,17
Stavanger	Noruega	30	NoK	3,59
Copenhague	Dinamarca	25	coronas danesas	3,39
Augsburgo	Alemania	2,99	euro	2,99
Lansberg am Lech	Alemania	2,99	euro	2,99
Fráncfort	Alemania	2,9	euro	2,9
Kaufbeuren	Alemania	2,9	euro	2,9
Zürich	Suiza	3,5	franco suizo	2,9
Varsovia	Polonia	12	sloty	2,85
Washington DC	EUA	3,59	dólar EUA	2,83
Hamburgo	Alemania	2,8	euro	2,8
Louvain-La-Neuve	Bélgica	2,8	euro	2,8
Bergen	Noruega	23	NoK	2,74
Calgary	Canadá	3,75	dólar canadiense	2,63
Munich	Alemania	2,55	euro	2,55
Braunau	Austria	2,55	euro	2,55
Hanau	Alemania	2,5	euro	2,5
Mons	Bélgica	2,5	euro	2,5
Hasselt	Bélgica	2,5	euro	2,5
Estrasburgo	Francia	2,5	euro	2,5
Estocolmo	Suecia	23	corona sueca	2,5
Berlín	Alemania	2,45	euro	2,45
Maastricht	Países Bajos	2,45	euro	2,45
Kerkrade	Países Bajos	2,4	euro	2,4
Carolina del Norte	EUA	2,99	dólar EUA	2,36
Miami	EUA	2,99	dólar EUA	2,36
Braine-Le-Compte	Bélgica	2,3	euro	2,3
Turnhout	Bélgica	2,25	euro	2,25
Aquisgrán	Alemania	2,2	euro	2,2
Erlangen	Alemania	2	euro	2
Génova	Italia	2	euro	2
Amberes	Bélgica	1,99	euro	1,99
Gante	Bélgica	1,99	euro	1,99
Barcelona	España	1,99	euro	1,99
Sevilla	España	1,99	euro	1,99
Los Angeles	EUA	2,5	dólar EUA	1,97
Oviedo	España	1,95	euro	1,95
Amsterdam	Países Bajos	1,95	euro	1,95
Bruselas	Bélgica	1,9	euro	1,9
Murcia	España	1,9	euro	1,9
Londres	Reino Unido	1,5	libra	1,9
Montreal	Canadá	2,5	dólar canadiense	1,76
Alicante	España	1,7	euro	1,7
Madrid	España	1,69	euro	1,69
Murcia	España	1,6	euro	1,6
Tenerife	España	1,53	euro	1,53
Marburg	Alemania	1,5	euro	1,5
Figueres	España	1,5	euro	1,5
Bogotá	Colombia	2,67	peso	1,02272

More weapons, banks, Russians, Venezuelans and FARC

I wrote something about Viktor Bout, weapons, FARC and Venezuela in my Spanish blog.

"Invest in Venezuela's banks if you want to shoot from the hips"

FARC-Terroristen, Kolumbien, Venezuela und Deutschland

Raul Reyes

Am 1.3.2008 tötete die kolumbianische Armee den Guerrilla-Führer Raúl Reyes auf ecuadorischen Boden. Die Armee konnte beim Angriff mehrere Laptops beschlagnehmen. Interpol stellen dann fest, dass die vorhandenen Gebraucherdateien nicht nach dem Angriff verändert wurden (siehe hier).

Ein britischer Think Tank, das IISS, hat vor kurzem ein Buch über die Informationen veröffentlicht und dazu eine Menge Dateien mit den Emails von Raul Reyes zur Verfügung gestellt.

Soweit ich sehen kann, sieht die vorhandene Information sehr überzeugend aus. Hier eine Email des Guerrilleros aus dem Jahr 2001:

"Die Bundestagsfraktion der PDS hat die kommunistische Partei Venezuelas kontaktiert, um ihnen mitzuteilen, dass sie sich Sorgen darüber machen, dass Europarlamentarier einen Gesetzentwurf in Umlauf gebracht haben, um die FARC-Vertretungen aus diesen Ländern wegen des Falls der 3 Gefangenen [deutsche Geiseln der FARC] auszuweisen. Die Namen der befreundeten deutschen Abgeordneten sind: WOLFGANG GEHRCKE UND HARRY GRUENBERG, die folgende Telefonnummer..."

Wolfgang Gehrcke

Dies ist nichts. Warte mal, bis wir andere Punkte kommentieren.

Es geht voran in Venezuela

Ich denke an dieses Lied: "keine Atempause, Geschichte wird gemacht, es geht voran....vergessen macht frei".

Stromausfälle werden schon wieder häufiger. Man hat keinen Strom in Yaracuy, in Carabobo, auf Margarita, in den Llanos, im ganzen Land.

Die Regierung ist schon froh, dass die meisten Menschen nicht mehr an Pudreval denken. 

Die Regierung bietet den Leuten nun eine Art Lotto, damit sie vielleicht ein Haus endlich mal erwerben können. Die Regierung verspricht, nun wird man wirklich-wirklich Sozialwohnungn bauen. In den nächsten 7 Jahren wird man bis zu 2 Millionen Wohnungen bauen, auch wenn man in den letzten 13 Jahren weniger als ein paar Tausende Wohnungen gebaut hat, viel weniger, als was andere Regierungen mit einem Bruchteil der Petrodollars gebaut haben. Aber nun geht's schon.

Und die NY Times erzählt uns über ein neues Buch, das weitere Informationen aus den Reyes-Laptops darstellt. Demnach sollen selbst die FARC-Terroristen sich über die Duplizität der Chávez-Regierung beschwert haben: die Venezolaner halfen ihnen manchmal und manchmal halfen sie ihren Feinden. 

Ich fand es schon heftig, dass selbst Kriminelle wie die FARC-Guerrilleros den berüchtigten Rodríguez Chacín als Schurke bezeichnen.

Es geht voran in Venezuela.

Venezuela and FARC: a recent chronicle

• 

Zulia state. Red spots represent municipalities where the major is pro-Chávez. Blue ones are the ones where the opposition tries to govern in spite of the military sabotage.
The yellow spot is the approximate location of one of the presumed FARC bases in Zulia.

2008

• January 2008: Chávez calls for giving "belligerent status" to the FARC and ENL guerrilla groups. The National Assembly (basically pro-Chávez) votes in favour of his proposal.
  

• February 2008: Some Yukpa indians reject claims they may be supporting the FARC. They reject statements from also Yukpa but regime-critical deputy Javier Armado and former opposition major Di Martino stating there are groups within the community providing the FARC with state resources.
  

• 11 March 2008: The Colombian army attacks FARC bases in Ecuador and kills some 20 terrorists, including FARC leader Raúl Reyes. The army seizes a couple of laptops with information that would link the Venezuelan government to the FARC movement. In the next months the Colombian government makes public a series of details from those laptops, information that suggest the Venezuelan government is actively supporting the FARC.

• Chávez pays tribute to Raul Reyes (here and here).
  

• 9 June 2008: Chávez urges the FARC to put down arms.

2009

• 14 April 2009: Uribe meets Chávez.

• 15 April 2009: Chávez again urges the FARC to put down arms.

• June 2009: Betty Luzeta, a Chávez's deputy for Zulia, declares the FARC is not a terrorist force but "a group with a different ideological thought".
  

• July 2009: Colombian troops on a raid discover in FARC camps Swedish weapons that had been previously sold to the Venezuelan army.

• July 2009: Chávez "freezes" ties with Colombia.
  

• August 2009: Chávez says the FARC stole those Swedish weapons in 1995.

• October 2009: Venezuelan government "assigns" some territories to the Yukpa indians along the border. The ranchers, who had been illegally taking land in the region for decades, have to leave the area but the Yukpas do not seem to get much control over it.

2010

• Spanish channel Cuatro shows in a programme about Chávez the influence of the guerrilla in Venezuela. One of the highlights is an encounter with the ENL in Apure and a brief conversation with Venezuelan soldiers who, very candidly, explain where the Colombia guerrilla groups are in the area.
  

• July 2010: Colombia presents material to the Organization of American States (OAS) to back up its claims about FARC and ENL camps in Venezuelan territories. The Colombian government asks the OAS to send international observers to Venezuela as soon as possible. The OAS, led by Insulza, does nothing.
  

• 23 July 2010: Cantankerous Chávez severes ties with Colombia. The Colombian government says it will go on putting forward details about guerrilla bases in Venezuela.
  

• 25 July 2010: Chávez asks the FARC "not to give pretexts to the USA" and put down arms.

• Insulza says he won't do anything unless Colombia presents a written petition and the Venezuelan government agrees. He says the conflict is "between Colombia and Venezuela".
  

El Tiempo is reporting further details about possible FARC-Venezuela connections. The Economist has an interesting article about the Uribe-Santos possible rift.

Impression

My impression is that most Venezuelan soldiers are just powerless. Their bosses, though, are very much ideologically close to and eager to tolerate and probably support the FARC.

Insulza is head of the OAS primarily thanks to Hugo Chávez. The Venezuelan military regime already said it will not accept international observers unless they can also visit the US bases in Colombia. Insulza is a joke. He has already said he won't do anything about the requests from Venezuelans to investigate human right abuses by the Venezuelan government because "those are internal affairs". Now he says he won't do anything because those are "bilateral affairs". What on Earth is Insulza getting money for? Probably to give the opening speeches at banquets of the OAS, a.k.a. the Club of American presidents.

"Gracias, Chávez, por apoyarme"

Colombia says

We saw yesterday how the military ruler of Venezuela decided to break relations with Colombia after the Colombian government submitted to the Organization of American States evidence of FARC havens in Venezuelan territory.

Here you can see a satellite map and some interesting pictures of what the Colombia government says are FARC bases in Venezuelan territory.

My bet: those bases will be moving from there now. Nobody will be able to get in fast enough as the Venezuelan military keeps a grid on many areas in Venezuela. There is enough time to clean it up.

I am preparing a longish post on the border region that may be of some interest.

Looking at skeletons in the wrong closet

Wrong skeleton!

The Colombian government informed in great detail about the presumed whereabouts of top level FARC men in Venezuela. This comes at a moment when inflation in Venezuela is going through the roof, when the murder rate remains out of control (the highest by far in South America) and when scandal after scandal about rotten food or anything else pop up (just a random selection of anything else here).

What does the military regime in Caracas do? Caudillo Chávez declares the government opened Simón Bolívar's grave to examine the skeleton inside and find out whether semi-God Bolívar really died of tuberculosis or US Americans murdered him. Never mind we are not sure those are Bolívar's bones. Never mind the vast majority of Venezuelans think there are a zillion other priorities. The personality cult around Bolívar (and as usual linked to the current caudillo) has taken new dimensions.

A few days ago the Venezuelan government had announced the Dutch military had violated Venezuelan airspace with their aircraft. I wonder what purpose the Dutch may have had.

Going back to the FARC issue in Venezuela: Colombians announced one of the big guerrilla guys is in the Perijá Region. The FARC is said to have a base there. The location is exactly in the territory where the Venezuelan government "returned land" to the native American communities of the Yukpa (the Westernmost group of Carib Indians). Curiously, a lot of Indian groups in other parts of Venezuela had been demanding lands for a long time but the government has completely ignored them. The only ones who "got" some land were the Yukpas. Those lands had been stolen some decades ago by terratenientes. Unfortunately, the Yukpas haven't got much control of that land : the military and, according to some sources- FARC are the ones in control. Basically, the government pretended to give land to the Yukpas because they wanted to seal off the area from anyone else and the Yukpas have hardly any means of spreading information to the outside world. Hardly anyone can get into that area now, even NGOs trying to bring medicine to the destitute Yukpas.



Chávez et alia do not want you to take a loo at certain skeletons located, among other places, between municipality Rosario de Perijá, municipality Jesus Enrique Losada and the Colombian border.

El Tiempo, the Santos Clan, Mockus and Chávez

Santos, from the Santos family









Colombian newspaper El Tiempo is reporting that Mockus admires Chávez and that Chávez would not like Santos in power. One of the main shareholders of that newspaper is the Santos family.

What did Mockus really say? Who could actually win from such a statement? Could Chávez have a preference for either candidate (hope of having a pawn or hope of having a demonization target)? Does it matter what Chávez may think is better for himself?

Between the lines: destroying the Indian territories

based on a map from this great site














Yesterday Venezuelan and Colombian media outlets reported some 392 Colombian and Brazilian citizens were forced to leave Venezuela, where they working in a mine near San Fernando de Atabapo. Now they are in Inírida, capital of the Colombian department of Guainía. Some 400 more are expected soon.

Venezuelan news are saying those minders were illegal. Colombians are saying the expulsion of so many people is causing a big problem for Inírida and that it is just inhumane. This event takes place on the context of the increasing tension between Chávez and Uribe.

Orinoco meets Casiquiare: in spite of the brown colour they always had, they were clean until mining and other uncontrolled industries arrived.

I do not know why Hugo decided to throw out the Colombian miners now: does the Venezuelan military want the resources to be exploited by someone else? Who then? Or were they just finally trying to put some order in the plundering of the Amazonas region? Or is it something else?

What I do know and see here anyhow is what people on either side don't discuss: this event shows once again the absolute lack of governance, the absolute chaos and the complete lack accountability on both sides.

• Fact: they were working illegally indeed.

• Fact: they are not the only ones, illegal mining is happening everywhere in the Amazonas state and in Bolívar state, it is done by Venezuelans and foreigners alike.

• Fact: they are using mercury, mercury that goes into the rivers (the Río Negro, the Casiquiare and the Orinoco, among many others), mercury that is highly poisonous to all forms of life and which is almost impossible to clean up.

• Fact: those miners, together with lots of Venezuelan miners from poor and not so poor regions, are getting into native American territory, they are making native Americans again a minority in the last regions native Americans have left.

• Fact: military on both sides just control those they want, not those they should.
  

Below you have a map of the Venezuelan Amazonas State showing population density (inhabitants/km2). San Fernando de Atabapo and its whole municipality have less than 15000 inhabitants. Around that city you have the territories of some very small First Nations who until now have had very little contact with alcohol, Western diseases and so on.

















Here a look at the other side, the neighbouring departments and the estimate population there.
Many of the miners, according to sources from the Colombian side, are not from those departments but from other regions of Colombia.



















The Colombian departments on the other side of the Orinoco and Río Negro have a much higher population and there is a civil war going on there. The Venezuelan government seems to be siding with the guerrillas for many years already.

Some NGOs say there are around 3 million illegal Colombians in Venezuela. That is over 10% of Venezuela's population. In Venezuela there is no reliable registry of population. On one side, for some years now you have to tell your ID number to any vendor in Venezuela when you buy (not just sell) anything but a hot dog. This is supposedly for VAT reasons. On the other side the government does not know really who lives where and estimates for population in many municipalities are just wild guesses.

Everybody - the opposition in Venezuela, the government, the Colombian government and the Colombian opposition - should openly talk about possible solutions to uncontrolled movements of populations, present transparent mechanisms to improve the security situation on both sides of the border and work on detailed plans for a sustainable development of the region. That is very unlikely to happen now. The native Americans - the Puinave, the Piapoco and others - as well as the natural resources are the ones who are suffering.

Geez...we so badly need shadow ministers in Venezuela that show Venezuelans there are solutions, we need them now, even in the middle of the emerging dictatorship.

Oops...apologies to the Piapocos, I mispelt their name in the map below

Sweden-Venezuela-FARC IV

The Sweden-Venezuela-FARC issue has new details. Here some of them in a nutshell.
Sources El Nacional, El Tiempo

1988

Sweden sells a series of AT4s to Venezuela

1999

Hugo Chávez becomes for the first time president in Venezuela (elected in 1998, came to office on 4.2.1999)

2004

2 Swedish rocket launchers were found in FARC camp in the Yari Jungle (Caqueta Department, C1 in map). Their serial numbers are similar to the ones found in 2008.

2008

May: Message from FARC leader Camilo Tabaco is intercepted. Details about contacts with Venezuelan contacts that would provide weapons appear.

September: Colombian forces discover, among other things, Swedish rocket launchers in a FARC camp in the Meta area (C2 in the map)

10 October: Colombian forces discover over 58000 rounds for Kalashnikovs in the Meta area

2009

4 June: Colombian minister of Foreign Affairs gives to Venezuelan minister Maduro documents in which 2 FARC leaders mention their negotiations with three high Venezuelan officials on similar rocket launchers
24 June: Colombian magazine Semana reports on the rocket launchers.
26 June: the Colombian government asks neighbouring countries not to provide weapons to FARC and some further details come out on the weapons
28 June: Chávez freezes ties with Colombia.
End of July: the government of Hugo Chávez still has no answer for what is going on but saying it is all a media show and Colombia (and I reckon Sweden) is lying.




A silly question of mine: can we track back the Kalashnikov ammunition?

Chavez The Freezer (Sweden-Venezuela-FARC III)

Our dear president, Comandante Hugo Chávez, has just thrown a tantrum again and declared he is freezing Venezuela-Colombia ties one more time (read about it in English, Spanish or Swedish). He recalled the Venezuelan ambassador to Bogota again (who by now must be enjoying the frequent-flyer program) and he threatened that "if Colombia attacks Venezuela again, he would break all ties and expropriate the many Colombian businesses in Venezuela".

It was predictable. What was that Colombian attack? Well, Colombia simply was looking for explanations. They found Swedish rocket-launchers in a FARC camp and Sweden had sold those weapons to the Venezuelan army in the eighties, as the serial numbers showed. The Swedish government confirmed that and it is now also asking the Venezuelan government to explain how those weapons ended up in the hands of the Colombian guerrilla. The FARC is a terrorist organisation for the European Union, among others, and Sweden is part of the European Union, so the Swedes are not amused about how others are using their very lethal weapons*.









Now, in my previous post I presented all possibilities, just for fairness:

1. Some of the many corrupt Venezuelan military men sold those weapons to the FARC before Chavez came to power
2. Chavez military gave those weapons to the FARC when their bloody coups in 1992 failed
3. Some of the many corrupt Venezuelan military sold those weapons to the FARC NOW
4. The Chavez army gave those weapons to the FARC, with or without knowledge from the Great Leader himself

For the record: I think it is 4. Chávez recently rejected he ever supported FARC., even if he asked for a minute of silence on TV when a FARC leader was killed by a Colombian attack, even if his former minister Chacín wished the FARC success (pro-Chavez Telesur broadcast), even if the FARC laptops (laptops Chavistas claimed were fixed by the Colombian government) tell another story, even if...I digress.

As fellow blogger Daniel Duquenal wrote, any more or less normal government that finds itself in the situation Chavismo is right now would at the very least declare that it will carry out an enquiry on the issue. Chavismo is different: the Chávez ministers firstly said it was just a fib and media show without any counter-explanation and Chávez now threatens Colombia, as he knows Colombia is interested in keeping the current trade.

Colombian exporters are greatly benefiting from the mess in which Chavez has placed Venezuela. I plotted the statistics on trade between Colombia and Venezuela for the first half of 2008 and 2009 here:
















Venezuela exported to Colombia just 584 million dollars in the first half of 2008 and Venezuelan exports there fell to just 280 million on the first half of this year. Venezuelan exports consists mostly of iron and aluminum and some chemicals. Venezuela is becoming less competitive by the day. Colombia is exporting to Venezuela from underwear to flour, meat, toilet paper and assembled cars.

Venezuela's currency control and very overvalued Bolivar together with the bad climate for productive business due to expropriations and political shenanigans have lead producers to become importers or simply keep their production at spare flame (this is irrespective of the global crisis).

What is this about and what next?

I wonder, though, why Colombia waited until now to reveal the issue about the weapons they found last year. One reason could be "they were just waiting for Sweden's confirmation". It is most likely something else: they wanted to use it to show they need the US bases in their territory. They are in their right to do so, considering the civil war they have there. As Daniel Duquenal said, they may be starting to think Chávez is looking, after all, for a confrontation. That is what the Argentinian military did decades ago and they went for the Malvinas. Or it could be Colombia wants to get more US aid as it knows Venezuela's economy is collapsing and having US bases there increases those chances. If you have any other idea, let me know.

In any case, businesses from both sides (actually, Colombian exporters and Venezuelan importers mostly) are calling for restrain.

This could get worse. Colombians are probably going to react in a more cautious manner, due to their business interests. Venezuela has few options for importing many products at the same price it does from Colombia. Still: Venezuela's president is not Gro Harlem Brundtland but Hugo Chávez, a.k.a. El Comandante.

What a difference between Venezuela-Colombia and the European Union! Colombians and Venezuelans have the same language, a lot of common traditions, almost anything. The main differences I see are two:

1. Education: Venezuelans have on average a much worse level of basic education. Colombia's government, in spite of all the problems, is trying to improve its education standards and to bring about some transparency, whereas Venezuela's so-called revolutionaries abhor accountability, proclaim a lot and deliver little (here for an interview in Spanish with Venezuela's minister of education some months ago).
2. Economic production: even if Colombia exports mainly raw materials, its production is much more diversified than Venezuela's petroculture. Colombia can feed and clothe itself. Venezuela can't. The Colombian government has no control over the main exports, Venezuela's government provides 90% of Venezuela's dollars, which turns Venezuelan citizens into beggars
   

OK, there is another difference: Venezuela's cuisine is better than Colombia's, but don't tell my neighbours, they are producing the ingredients.


* the real weapons that went from Sweden to the Venezuelan army to the terrorist organization FARC are not like the chef's (thanks to Dutch blogger Alpha for the video):

The FARC, Chávez and Betancourt

There have been zillions of articles about Colombia's latest developments.
Caracas Chronicles posted a good article comparing the editorials from different media sources.
It was very interesting to see how Venezuela's official media (i.e. Chávez' followers) talked about "retained people" and not kidnapped people and similar things.

In the last couple of days pro-Chávez groups have started to produce all kinds of strange statements like:

• It was evil to cheat guerrilleros by pretending to be an ONG group with Che-Guevara badges (as if kidnapping people and putting bombs that kill innocent or murdering Indians who do not cooperate with the guerrilla were saintly jobs)
• The action taken by the military was not "unprecedented", it was just a copy of an action the guerrillas did some years ago (hello, there is a patent on the process, you have to pay rights to the guerrilla)

Ecuador's president, Correa, had the nerve to say that even though he was happy for the prisoners' release, it was a pity the liberation had to take place through violence (????) and not through peaceful negotiations.

Now, top of the top might be - I haven't read but a handful of Chavez outlets - what high-profile Chávez supporter and one of his best-known intellectuals, Britto García, wrote in the site of Venezolana de Televisión:

"(Britto García) said the show set up by Uribe is evident. He said this after analyzing the detailed story Ingrid Betancourt told, who admitted the guerrilla were carrying out a humanitarian release. The writer reminded what Betancourt said (sic): “we arrived a place, the FARC set us free, they put us in a helicopter". That confession is enough: “the government kidnapped the hostages and then said it had liberated them”, Britto García said.

Could Chávez supporters please agree on one single complot before speaking up?

Of course, a lot of people are now tapping on their own shoulders and congratulating themselves for helping so much in the hostage liberation. That is what the French are doing, the Swiss, the US, Venezuela, Ecuador, etc. Only the Chinese remain silent about their help, even if the Chinese food the Colombian security forces must have been eating during the preparation time will certainly have contributed more to the liberation than what several countries did.

And then a French Swiss radio station says it knows from very good sources the hostages had actually been released for 20 million dollars, that the 3 US citizens released were FBI agents lent to DEA and that the release money came from the US

UPDATE: what do you think about this video?

Meanwhile, Hugo Chávez is thinking how he can try to regain face. At the same time, he announced the National Electoral Council had to register over 3 million new voters for next November's elections and it seems as if the CNE will do something to make this happen.More on this in a later post