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Media Navel Gaze: October 12, 2015

Mark Kollar  Follow

The Week UnpeeledMedia Navel Gaze

Let's just call it "Surprise Week": In what seemed to be a surprise (just like the Arab Spring, perhaps), the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, a civil rights group now known to the world as the force behind the push toward democracy following the Jasmine Revolution in 2011; Another winner (and maybe less surprising) for the prestigious award was Belarussian journalist Svetlana Alexievich (Literature) for her work on female Russian soldiers in WWII and the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown; the Economics prize will be announced Monday.

Elsewhere:

  • Big Surprise: Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy way unexpectedly dropped out of race of speaker, leaving a big mess behind for the Republican party and a leadership vacuum;
  • Probably not a surprise but a bigger headline than really needed: Bill Gross sued Pimco for forced exit at the tune of $300 million;
  • Smaller headlines but bigger news: the OECD voted on new rules that would reform corporate taxes for global companies, meaning Starbucks, Google and others may be paying bigger taxes in lieu of their tax-haven strategies;
  • The Democratic presidential debate plays Tuesday in Las Vegas, with Veep Biden still a no show and curiosity a bit high whether the event receives as many viewers with no Trump;
  • Dell and Silverlake joined forces in a bid to buy EMC;
  • The Dow (this is a welcome surprise) closed out the week 3.7 percent higher and ended Friday at 17,084;
  • Hackers attacked Dow Jones for subscriber data (always a surprise);
  • Start your engines because Ferrari (not Kristina) filed for an IPO valued at nearly $10 billion; and
  • Instagram turned five last week and in celebration listed its five most popular accounts:  no surprises but Taylor Swift came out on top, followed by "human brand" Kim Kardashian, then Beyonce, Selena and Ariana (Instagram needs a man plan!);

LatAm Gaze:

  • Brazil's political woes continued as the country's Federal Accounts Court ("TCU") rejected her government's accounting practices, labeling them as illegal and further fueling the fire for those demanding President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment.
  • In a Sunday Facebook post, Argentine Presidential candidate Mauricio Macri called for a consolidation of anti-government political parties, warning opposition voters that the current plethora of anti-government political groups could result in the absence of any one opposition party holding a strong enough majority to take down the current government regime. Argentina's presidential elections are on Sunday, October 25th.
  • Perú's government pledged US$123 million in future investments by 2019 into its national police force.
  • Mexico's national men's soccer team, in the debut of new manager Juan Carlos Osorio, eeked out a hard-fought overtime win versus their US counterparts, securing a berth in the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia.   End of Story

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