Iran supports Turkey’s EU bid and Brazil warmly welcomes Ahmadinejad, even sporting flying banners across Ipanema beach. What a strange new world we’re living in. In Buenos Aires still, off to Uruguay tomorrow. Will meet with fellow SOAS pal Marc tonight, which should be fun.

A tour de force, and only one week has passed! Beginning in Chile, where two days were spent to see whether the December 13 poll contain some risk to the markets. Interestingly, while Chileans rightly point to the fact that the upcoming elections are the most open ones since the resumption of democracy, people from other Latin American countries think Chile is boring whatever the story is. Anyway, at this stage it looks rather likely that the centre-right candidate Pinera will win against the centre-left Concertacion man Frei, although the reverse could be true. And, the dark horse, Marco Enriquez-Ominami, still has a chance to at least get through to the January 17 runoff. And finally I got a chance to meet family friend Jose Miguel from the famous Chilean folk band Illapu. Their story is very interesting, as they spent a good deal of the 80’s in political exile in Europe and Mexico.

Then it was onwards to Brazil, kicking off with 24 hours in Sao Paulo. Not much time to get to know the city except for getting a sense of the traffic. At the heart of Brazil’s economic world-trend-defying boom, the city is bustling and certainly transpires unbroken optimism. Politically, people predictably favoured Sao Paulo governor Jose Serra to win next year’s presidential race against Lula’s chosen Dilma Rousseff. In Brasilia, I had the chance to walk through both the Senate and the House, emblematic of the city’s interesting and symbolic architecture.

And then Rio. Fantastic. Surely calls for another longer touristic visit. The meetings there were great as well, and I heard some cautious overtures on Serra – reflecting the ideological rivalry between the two great Brazilian cities. I used yesterday (Saturday) to spend some quality time at the beach at Ipanema. Small planes with advertising banners marked the sky, and to my surprise, one of the banners read: “Ahmadinejad, Rio welcomes you!” – referring to the Iranian president’s visit to Brazil later this month. Strange sight, for sure. Interesting that Israeli president Peres will visit the country just days before his foe does. He didn’t get a banner, though.

I got into Buenos Aires last night, using the day to catch up on some sleep and talking a few steps through the city. My contact in town then offered me to go see local soccer side Boca Juniors play a league game from which I just got back. Although the game was rather uneventful (ending in a goalless draw), it was certainly worth going just for the atmosphere in the stadium. The Boca supporters are loud and rhythmic. Which is great, as their team is doing relatively poorly this season.

This week will be meetings here and then perhaps Uruguay in case I can organise enough to warrant the trip there. Otherwise, I’ll head back to Europe Wednesday night. So far, this trip has been amazing given that it’s my first time in Latin America. Seems I missed out a lot by not having come here earlier!

I haven’t posted here in a while, but fret not, I am seriously thinking of resurrecting my blogging endeavours and write a bit more regularly about work-related issues I face each day, so less with a Central Asia, more with a global emerging market focus.

I’ve been travelling a lot lately and will continue in that fashion this coming weekend, when I’ll set off for a trip to Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. And that all in two weeks with a packed meeting agenda. I hope to have at least some time in Santiago, Rio and Buenos Aires, but the other places, Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Montevideo will be rush-in, rush-out.

I’m flying over to ascertain political risk stuff – especially election-related (Chile in December, Brazil 2010, Argentina 2011 and Uruguay soon in the run-off to Sunday’s poll). Perhaps I’ll kick off a new EM political risk blog with a blog post about the trip.

A beer for eight euros at Ankara airport comes with the advantage of free Internet, so while I wait for my flight back home, I may as well jot down a few observations from my trip here.

In Istanbul’s Sultanahmet district, an American woman tells her little son: “Look honey, this is very special about Turkey – they put their flags everywhere! People are really proud of their country. Not like in London”.

A young man approaches me here at Ankara’s airport, looking for help with translations. He’s German of Iraqi-Kurdish descent. He just got back from Erbil, northern Iraq, where he’ll start his job as a football coach this summer. On top of that, he’ll be playing in the Kurdish premier league.

The ruling party, AKP, has re-declared 1 May Labour Day a national holiday. What happened to its traditionally anti-union stance? One cynical observer notes: As hundreds of thousands of workers are laid off, it doesn’t really matter if you give them a day off.

Two EU related anecdotes: At an Ankara university, I see hectic students revise ahead of an exam on nationbuilding in 19th century Europe. The night before, the Istanbul-Ankara Turkish Airlines flight is Almost entirely occupied by a group of French catholic pilgrims. Why? I don’t have the faintest idea. One of the pilgrims tells me that Turkey has no place in the EU, “parce que ils sont les musulmans.”

My friend Lutz Kleveman has teamed up with a filmmaker to produce a bit of a summary of his past ten years as an international conflict zone reporter. Impressive:

The results of a lazy Sunday afternoon during my last weekend in Groningen. Not entirely done yet obviously, but a contender for a spot on the next EP.

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It’s packing time again. Can you believe it’s already 17 months since I moved to Groningen? Me neither, time’s been flying at an insane speed. I’ll relocate to the Hague at the end of this month and start a new job from February 2nd onwards. It will take me from analysing numbers to analysing political risk in emerging markets, although still for the same company… And from somewhere I heard it ringing that 2009 will be an interesting year for all things political risk. So, if you were put off by the remoteness of my current town you will officially loose your excuse not to come visit. Ha!

From the 2008 album Make the Road By Walking

They sound great, especially the drum fills.

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