Tears and betrayal liven up Argentine farm crisis

You probably heard about the dramatic finale to yesterday's senate vote. I was unable to post before, but here's the story I collaborated on with the Indy's New York correspondent David Usborne. Also check out some of Cobos' emotional speech below.

A woman president scorned – by her most trusted ally

Argentina farm crisis ends with crushing defeat for Fernandez

By Paul Scheltus in Buenos Aires and David Usborne
Friday, 18 July 2008

After watching its glamorous female president and the all-powerful farming lobby fight each other to a standstill, Argentina was stunned yesterday by one of the most dramatic political betrayals in living memory.

A crisis which has seen months of protests and threatened to starve the cities as the country's legendary gauchos battled against new taxes on agricultural exports, ended with a crushing Senate defeat for President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner that left her seven-month-old government severely weakened.

At the end of an 18-hour debate on the new tax bill, the final word came from her closest political ally, Vice-President Julio Cobos, who was close to tears as he cast the deciding vote against his boss. Their dispute centres on plans to raise the tax on soy exports, Argentina's main foreign currency earner, to almost 50 per cent. But it is being seen as a harbinger of the way in which the global food crisis could destabilise governments worldwide.

....continues here.