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Argentina

Where Is Latin America Car Craziest? Think Southern Cone

As evidenced by new car sales, consumers in Chile and Argentina and out-buying their counterparts in some much larger countries, including Brazil and China, members of the much talked about BRICS club.

Bumper to bumper traffic in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Bumper to bumper traffic in Buenos Aires, Argentina

*NEWSBITES

Argentina and Chile may be relatively small players as far as global economics are concerned, but when it comes to per capita purchasing power, they have a way of punching above their weight.

New car sales are a good example. A study carried out by the Argentine consulting firm Abeceb found that so far this year, Chileans and Argentines are snatching up more "straight-out-of-the-showroom" vehicles per capita than are Mexicans, Brazilians and even Chinese.

In Brazil and China, the current rate of new car sales per 1,000 residents is 10.7 and 7.6 respectively. Argentines, in contrast, are buying nearly 13 new vehicles per 1,000 residents. In Chile, the rate is 11.6, while in Mexico, only 4.3 new cars are being sold per 1,000 residents. The world leaders in new car sales are Canada (27.8 vehicles) and the United States (23.9).

In the case of Argentina, the numbers are generating a boom for the automotive industry. "This past August, there were 79,826 units sold, 39% more than during the same month last year," Abeceb reported. The industry expansion is occurring both at the commercial and production level. At this pace, new car sales in Argentina could total approximately 830,000 in 2011.

For a sense of just how strong the Argentine car market is, it's worth making a comparison with Mexico, where new vehicles sales are also on the rise. "The Mexican market grew 10.3% over the first six months of the year, with total sales of 479,000 units." During that same period, sales in Argentina – which has only a third of Mexico's population – totaled 517,000 units.

In terms of market growth, Argentina also outpaced the United States, Brazil and China, where new car sales rose 10.9%, 8.6% and 5.5% respectively.

Read more from AméricaEconomía in Spanish

Photo – Blmurch

*Newsbites are digest items, not direct translations

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

The Real Purpose Of The Drone Strikes Inside Russia? A Decoy For Ukraine's Counterattack

Putin is hesitant to mobilize troops for political reasons. And the Ukrainian military command is well aware that the key to a successful offensive lies in creating new front lines, where Russia will have to relocate troops from Ukraine and thus weaken the existing front.

The Real Purpose Of The Drone Strikes Inside Russia? A Decoy For Ukraine's Counterattack

Police officers stand in front of an apartment block hit by a drone in Moscow.

Anna Akage

This article was updated at 8 p.m. local time May 31 with reports of new strikes inside Russia

-Analysis-

On the night of May 30, military drones attacked the Russian capital. There were no casualties – just broken windows and minor damage to homes. Ukraine claims it had nothing to do with the attack, and it is instead the frenzied artificial intelligence of military machines that do not understand why they are sent to Kyiv.

While the Ukrainian president’s office jokes that someone in Russia has again been smoking somewhere they shouldn’t, analysts are placing bets on the real reasons for the Moscow strikes. Many believe that Kyiv's real military target can by no means be the capital of Russia itself: it is too far from the front and too well defended – and strikes on Russia, at least with Western weapons, run counter to Ukraine’s agreements with allies, who have said that their weapons cannot be used to attack inside Russia.

Eight apartment buildings, four homes, a school and two administrative buildings were damaged during the shelling in Shebekino, a village in the border region of Belgorod, its governor said, as the oblast increasingly becomes a hotbed of straying violence.

On Wednesday, new reports of a “massive” shelling attack inside Russia's borders that injured at least four people in Belgorod and a drone sparked a fire at an oil refinery further south.

If the goal is not directly military, maybe it is psychological: to scare the residents of the capital, who live in a parallel reality and have no idea how life feels for Ukrainian civilians. Forcing people to live with this reality could push the Kremlin to retreat, or at least make concessions and negotiate with Kyiv. If neither sanctions nor the elite could sober Vladimir Putin up, could angry Muscovites?

But neither Russia's military command nor its political leadership depends on the opinion of citizens. And there are enough special forces in Moscow to crush any mass protest.

Laying bare Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inability to guarantee his country's security, in front of Russia’s remaining international partners or among the country’s elites, is also an unlikely goal. The Russian army has already seen such embarrassing failures that a few drone strikes on the Kremlin can’t possibly change how Putin is seen as a leader, or Russia as a state. So why would Kyiv launch attacks on Moscow?

Let's go back to the date of the shelling: May 29 is Kyiv Day, a holiday in the Ukrainian capital. It was also the 16th attack on Kyiv in May alone, unprecedented in its scale, even compared to the winter months when Russia had still hoped to cut off Ukrainian electricity and leave Kyiv residents, or even the whole country, freezing in the dark.

The backdrop: the Ukrainian counter-offensive to liberate the occupied territories, which is in the works, if not already launched.

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