The IKN Weekly, out now

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Peru Presidential Polling: Ollanta is slipping

The monthly snapshot of the Peru political scene from country benchmark pollster Ipsos/Apoyo is out and here's the headline number:

President Ollanta Humala's approval rating has slipped considerably in the last two months and now stands at 41% (his wife Nadine gets 50%, fwiw). And here's the socioeconomic breakdown of that approval:

The slippage is across the board but one that catches the eye is in the Bs, being the best indicator of true middle class in the country (the As are a very small group in percentage terms, perhaps half a million people man/woman/child in a coun try of ~30m). That 43% is a lot lower than any time in the last year.

Anyway, we're now getting pretty (and petty) typical mid-term politic gripes in Peru that make a lot of noise and tend to grind down a government's popularity without meaning much on the grand scale of things. However watch out folks, because between now and the end of July we're now expecting the big ruling on the maritime border between Chile and Peru which will be a big and potentially defining moment for government popularity on both sides of the border. 

Neymar today

Two minutes into the Confederations Cup, Brazil 1, Japan 0. Neymar.

Order of importance, Guatemala politics edition

Which is more important?

• Narco gang attacks police station en masse and murders eight police officers.

• Your country plays an international friendly football match against Argentina.

No, not according to your moral compass dear reader, but according to Alejandro Sinibaldi, 2015 Presidential candidate for the Guatemala's Patriotic Party. See Mike for the rest of the story over at Central American Politics.

And tonight's winning entry in the Friday-night-bury-that-news-while-the market-players-are-at-happy-hour NR stakes is...

...Tasman Metals (TSM.v) for this dog's breakfast of a retraction. And there was plenty of competition this week, too. Congrats and kudos, Mr Saxon.

Ah, remember the good old days when rare earths were about to change the world? It was about two or three years ago if memory serves, just a few short months after the time that lithium was going to change the world and long after the time that thorium was going to change the world. But don't worry, because now graphite is going to change the world. What could possibly go wrong?

The Friday OT: Eric Clapton & JJ Cale; After Midnight

It's gonna be peaches and cream.

Chart of the day is...

...the gold/copper ratio:

Presumably good that this looks as though it's bottomed and is moving back up. Though it may just mean that gold's losing value at a slwoer rate than the factory metal.

A musical interlude

Why this song occurs right now is beyond my ken.