Valeska’s T Mobile charms make up for a dire night in the Copa América

By Calvin Palmer

The more I see of Paraguay the more they remind me of Stoke City on a bad day, lots of honest endeavour that produces little in the way of goals or entertainment. Last night’s semi-final against Venezuela in the Copa América was dire.

The 90 minutes of normal time was excruciating to watch as neither side had a player of real quality to break the deadlock. Venezuela perhaps came closest but Paraguay’s defence held firm, and the one time it was breached, the referee assistant’s flag came to the rescue. Vizcarrondo’s header was disallowed for offside.

At 70 minutes, it was plain to see that this game was not only destined for extra-time but also a penalty shoot-out. And so it proved.

Even the dismissal of Paraguay’s Santana for a second bookable offense could not tip the scales in Venezuela’s favour. They huffed and they puffed but could not translate territorial advantage into that all important goal.

The nearest thing to drama occurred when the Paraguay coach and his assistant became embroiled in a slanging match with the referee and one of the Venezuelan coaching staff. The referee banished both men from the touchline and a baseball hatted cop was on hand to see that the referee’s ruling was enforced.

So it came down to penalties and once again Paraguay’s goalkeeper, and skipper, Justo Villar emerged as the hero, saving Lucena’s spot-kick. All it need was for Veron, the Andy Wilkinson lookalike, to score from the spot and Paraguay were through to the final. Veron duly obliged with a fierce shot that gave the Venezuelan keeper no chance.

The Guardian’s coverage of this match also alluded to the similarity between Paraguay and Stoke City. Jacob Steinberg in his summing up states:

“Paraguay are the epitome of anti-football. They’re in the final and they haven’t won a single game.”

The anti-football tag has been applied by a great many football pundits and fans regarding Stoke City in the past, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger being among the vanguard.

The Guardian piece also contains:

 “How do you think Jon Walters would do in this game tonight?” asks Alec McAulay. “You remember him. I am sure.”

Jon Walters is a clodhopper, so he could probably fit in well in the Paraguay midfield.

Clearly Steinberg’s memory does not extend as far back as May and Stoke City’s destruction of Bolton Wanderers in the semi-final of the FA Cup, where Walter’s scored two goals one of which was worthy of goal of the season.

If I were Jon Walters, I would be taking legal advice about Steinberg’s slur.

Paraguay versus Venezuela was certainly not a game for football purists. I spent more than two hours watching the TV coverage by Univision and the moments of interest during that time had little to do with the football action.

First I noticed the game was being played at the Estadio Malvinas Argentinas in the city of Mendoza. You don’t need to speak Spanish to know that the name translates into Stadium of the Argentine Falkland Islands.

The stadium was originally named Estadio Ciudad de Mendoza but was renamed in 1982 after the Falklands War. Whether it was renamed in honour of Argentina’s war dead, I don’t know but Argentina still claims sovereignty of the islands.

The mainly British Falkland islanders wish to remain British and the UK government has repeatedly told Argentina that no talks will be held over the future sovereignty as there is no issue to resolve.

During the match I kept seeing these white marks appear on the playing surface and they seemed to coincide where the wall of players lined up to defend a free-kick. I noticed too that the referee had what looked like a spray can tucked into his shorts but couldn’t work out what is was for.

Near the end of extra time, the referee awarded a free-kick and the TV cameras showed him using the spray can to mark the spot where the ball was to be placed and then pacing out the distance where the wall should form and spraying a line on the turf. What an excellent idea to stop players in the wall encroaching on the 10 yards they should be from the ball.

Apparently this practice has been in use in Brazil for 10 years; Argentina for three years; Mexico for two years; and has also spread to Uruguay and Chile.

FIFA has approved its use by CONMEBOL, the South American ruling body. I wonder if it will eventually spread to the European game?

Although the football served up by Paraguay and Venezuela for more than two hours was dire, the advert breaks offered some entertainment and the T Mobile ad in particular was most pleasing on the eye.

It features the charms of Latin beauty Valeska Castillo. Apparently she is based just down the road from me in the Fort Lauderdale/Miami area and is on the books of the Elite Model Agency in Miami.

I can find no links on YouTube to the T Mobile TV ad I saw, no doubt such links will surface in the weeks and months ahead as her beauty becomes more widely known.

However, I did find a clip of Valeska on Vimeo, which was shot for the Elite Model Agency.

Valeska Castillo – Elite Miami from Lily Manzano on Vimeo.

Police seize 42-piece dinner service made from cocaine

By Calvin Palmer

Spanish police said today they have detained a man who received a 42-piece dinner service made from cocaine.

The plates, dishes, cups and saucers amounted to 45 pounds of the drug and were contained in a parcel sent from Maracaibo in Venezuela to Barcelona via London.

The 35-year-old suspect, named only as JVLL, was arrested and charged with an offense against public health.

Police say the suspect, who lives in Barcelona, had been forced to become involved in the illicit trade by Venezuelan drug traffickers.

Police were tipped off about a suspicious package that had been sent by recorded delivery last month. The senders listed the contents as a 42-piece dinner set.  But after it was seized in Spain, tests proved that it was made from compressed cocaine.

Two weeks ago Spanish police arrested a Chilean man with a broken leg whose “plaster cast” was made with cocaine. The 66-year-old, who was arrested at Barcelona airport, also carried six cans of beer and two hollowed-out stools that contained the drug. Altogether, he was caught in possession of 11 pounds of cocaine.

Spain has the second-highest level of cocaine consumption in Europe after Britain. Drug dealers, principally from Latin America, have traditionally used the country as a key entry point to bring cocaine and other drugs into Europe.

The favored routes were through Galicia in the northwest and Andalusia in the south but, after successful operations by Spanish police, drug dealers are now using Barcelona and Valencia, in south-east Spain.

[Based on a report in The Times.]

Chavez seizes U.S.-owned rice mill

By Calvin Palmer

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez yesterday ordered the expropriation of a rice-processing plant owned by American food giant Cargill Inc. because the company allegedly was not distributing rice at prices imposed by the government.

Chavez said Cargill’s plant in Portuguesa state violated local laws by distributing rice without printing the regulated price on its packages.

“Prepare the decree, we are going to expropriate Cargill. We are not going to tolerate this,” Mr Chavez during a televised address. “I warn you this revolution means business.”

The rice-processing plant in Portuguesa is one of 13 food-processing plants the Minneapolis-based Cargill operates in Venezuela.

Mark Klein, a Cargill spokesman, said the company is respectful of the Venezuelan government’s decision and expects an opportunity to clarify the situation.

He said: “Cargill is committed to the production of food in Venezuela that complies with all laws and regulations. The rice mill was designed exclusively to manufacture Parboiled rice, which the company has done at this site for the last 7 years and elsewhere in the country for 13 years.”

Earlier in the day, Empresas Polar said it had asked Venezuela’s Supreme Court to block the government from occupying one of its rice-processing plants for a lengthy inspection. The company’s Alimentos Polar subsidiary argued it was “unconstitutional, illegal and arbitrary” for authorities to occupy the rice plant for a 90-day inspection.

The government says the price controls need to be respected to control inflation and keep the prices of basic foods affordable, while businesses say the controls could drive them into bankruptcy.

“These private companies can continue functioning as long as they remain within the scope of the law and the constitution,” Chavez said.

Venezuela’s inflation is running at 31 percent, Latin America’s highest, despite price controls imposed in 2003 on items such as rice, chicken, sugar and other products.

The government imposed new rules this week to try to prevent producers from cutting output of price-regulated products or from modifying products to circumvent price controls, such as selling paella-flavored rice that does not fall under the controls.

Companies must ensure that 70 percent to 95 percent of their products are the types that fall under the price controls.

The threats of nationalisation of the food sector are just part of a wider policy Chavez has employed as part of his ‘Socialism of the 21st Century’ drive.

So far companies in the oil, electricity, steel, cement and telecommunications industries have been nationalised or had their contracts renegotiated to ensure majority control by the state.

Chavez last month won a referendum allowing him to stand for re-election indefinitely.

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph and Associated Press.]

Venezuela seizes Stanford bank to stem massive withdrawals

By Calvin Palmer

Venezuela seized a local bank owned by R. Allen Stanford today to stem massive online deposit withdrawals as the impact of the $8 billion fraud case against the Texan billionaire spread through Latin America.

The Venezuelan government said it would quickly sell the bank — Stanford Bank Venezuela, one of the country’s smallest commercial banks — and that it had already been approached by potential buyers.

In recent days, depositors at the bank had worried over the fraud case targeting a sister company, Stanford International Bank, even though the companies’ assets are separate.

Depositors withdrew cash using Internet banking services. The bank takes deposits and makes loans only in Venezuelan currency.

“Most depositors of Stanford Bank Venezuela are from the highest income classes,” Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said. “They move their funds on the Internet, and this allowed for a massive withdrawal that pushed the bank into a precarious state.”

“The authorities were forced to take the decision to intervene and there will be an immediate sale,” he added.

Industry officials have said the fall of a bank, whose deposits represent only 0.2 percent of Venezuela’s banking system, is unlikely to cause much disturbance in the rest of the sector.

Two days after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Stanford, 58, of perpetrating “a fraud of shocking magnitude,” SEC officials were still in the dark about his whereabouts — as were close members of his family.

In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Stanford’s 81-year-old father James said he understood that authorities were searching for his son, but insisted he had no idea where his son could be.

“I’d spoken to him a week or so ago — he’d called — about problems with the business climate in general, but nothing of this magnitude,” he said. “I cannot imagine, I cannot believe, I will not believe what is being alleged actually happened.”

“I cannot believe that my son would run,” he added.

Reports also emerged yesterday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating whether Stanford was involved in laundering drug money for Mexico’s powerful Gulf cartel.

ABC News, citing unnamed federal officials, said Mexican police detained one of Stanford’s private planes and found checks inside believed to be linked to the ultra-violent cartel.

Stanford and his company Stanford Financial Group invested heavily in politics, spending about $2.4 million in campaign contributions to lawmakers and political committees since 1989, according the Washington-based watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics.

Stanford donated $4,600 to the Obama campaign. The value of Stanford’s campaign contribution has been donated to Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

The $28,150 that McCain collected since 2000 placed him third among recipients of donation from Stanford and his firm. Sen.McCain (R-Ariz.) also promised yesterday to return the funds or donate them to charity.

The other top recipients of donations include Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.)($45,900) and Republican Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas ($41,375). Nelson received $45,900 and promised yesterday to give his donations to charity. Sessions received $41,375

The center also noted that Stanford Financial Group contributed the most during the 2002 election cycle, when federal lawmakers were debating a bill aimed at curbing financial fraud by better connecting information gathered by state and federal regulators. It passed the House but not the Senate.

[Based on reports by Reuters, AFP, Orlando Sentinel and Chicago Tribune.]

Stanford’s whereabouts unknown as depositors start a run on his banks

By Calvin Palmer

U.S. regulators do not know the whereabouts of Texan billionaire R. Allen Stanford.

Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against him alleging a “massive and ongoing” $8 billion investment fraud.

“We don’t know where he is, quite frankly,” said Rose Romero, director of the SEC’s Fort Worth office, which filed the charges against Stanford and his companies.

A lot of people would like to know his whereabouts and not just financial regulators.

Hundreds of depositors of the Bank of Antigua lined up to withdraw their funds.  The bank is owned by Stanford but is not part of the alleged fraud.

At one branch in the capital of Antigua, St John’s, about 600 people lined up outside.  A similar-sized crowd was seen at another branch near the airport.

The scene was repeated in Panama where bank regulators stepped in to take control of the Stanford Bank Panama – also not involved in the fraud allegations – after customers began a run on the bank.

Lengthy lines also formed outside the Stanford Bank Venezuela in Caracas, which issued a statement in an attempt to calm clients, saying that it had asked a bank regulator to join its board and stressing that its assets were not linked to the Stanford International Bank in Antigua that is at the heart of the fraud inquiry.

Venezuela’s superintendent of banks, Edgar Hernandez, said Venezuelans hold about $2.5 billion in Stanford Bank on the island of Antigua, which is being investigated by U.S. authorities on fraud allegations.

Many Venezuelans made investments in dollars in the bank in Antigua. But he said those investments are outside the purview of Venezuelan law.

Hernandez also sought to reassure investors today about Stanford Bank in Venezuela, saying an inspection in the fourth quarter of 2008 found no problems and that the bank appears “healthy”.

The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank pleaded with Bank of Antigua customers to remain calm, saying in a statement that although many depositors had started to withdraw funds, “causing some anxiety”, the bank had sufficient reserves.

“However, if individuals persist in rushing to the bank in a panic, they will precipitate the very situation that we are all trying to avoid,” the central bank warned.

Antigua’s Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer said yesterday that the charges against Sir Allen could have “catastrophic” consequences for the nation, but he also urged people not to panic.

The Stanford group is the largest private employer in Antigua and Barbuda, covering financial, media and sporting franchises.

[Based on reports by Bloomberg.com, The Times, BBC News and the Houston Chronicle.]