May 04 2008 - Americas Program
by Tony Phillips
On Feb. 4, 2008, news came over the wires from Rome that the World Bank had appointed Robert Briner to head up an arbitration tribunal to decide yet another claim against the Argentine government, this time by Italian corporate lawyers. The arbitration will take place in the Washington, DC–based "International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes" (ICSID), an obscure World Bank arbitration forum.3 Obscure that is, outside of Latin America. While mention of the ICSID in London or New York will likely elicit confused stares, in La Paz or Buenos Aires it could well provoke a string of expletives.
Jul 05 2008 - The Independent Institute
by Alvaro Vargas Llosa
WASHINGTON—We tend to judge this year’s food crisis, marked by seemingly indomitable prices, from the point of view of those who are suffering. It might be useful to judge the crisis also from the point of view of those who are causing it. That’s where the real lessons will be learned.
Let’s take Argentina, one of the world’s top producers of grains and soybeans. Agriculture, both traditional and industrial, employs a third of the country’s work force and accounts for half of its exports. Three months ago, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner declared war on the countryside by raising taxes on farm exports. The decision took an already alarming tendency to new heights—both her government and that of her husband, Nestor Kirchner, whom she succeeded, have squeezed farmers in order to maintain a political machine based on patronage and wealth redistribution under a populist state.
May 03 2008 - Americas Program
by Carlos A. Vicente
On Mar. 11, 2008, the Argentine government established an increase in retentions on soy exports, raising the figure from 33% to 44% and applying a series of adjustable retentions that vary according to the international price of soy. It did not take long for the soy producers to respond.
Apr 03 2008 - Investor's Business Daily
by INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Americas: As sure the sun will rise, Argentina will fall into crisis. It's not just the tax hike that has led to a farm strike. It's a government that still expects much of an economy at all after killing off any reason to farm.
It may sound like common sense to us, but we aren't Argentina's irrational new president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who suddenly hiked taxes to 44% on soy and sunflower exports just as crops were about to be harvested. It was the third tax hike on farmers in six months, but she denounced Argentine farmers' protests as the acts of "coup plotters" in a "protest of plenty."
Feb 18 2008 - Americas Program
by Alan B. Cibils
Argentina's stunning recovery from the economic crisis of 2001 dealt a blow to orthodox economic theories imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international institutions. Former president Néstor Kirchner and now his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner have consolidated political power on the basis of that success. But some serious problems loom on the horizon. This article argues that as Cristina takes over the nation, the lack of a real national development plan and the government's growing disregard for democratic institutions hamper efforts to address challenges like rising inflation and a serious energy shortage.
Aug 31 2007 - Seattle Times
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina ? All this first lady talk is getting a bit tiresome for Argentina's first lady.
"I didn't get into politics because I'm the wife of the president," Sen. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner told the Spanish daily El Pa?s, with apparent exasperation.
Polls and analysts point to Fernandez as the prohibitive favorite to succeed her husband in Argentina's Oct. 28 presidential election.
Aug 16 2007 - Washington Times
BUENOS AIRES ? The American–Venezuelan businessman whose cash–filled suitcase set off a scandal that has rattled two governments is willing to cooperate with investigators, his attorney said in a report published yesterday.
Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson is willing to testify about the nearly $800,000 in cash he brought into Argentina from Venezuela aboard a plane chartered by Argentina's state energy company, his attorney Hector Vidal Albarracin told the daily La Nacion.
Aug 15 2007 - Washington Times
by Martin Arostegui
Argentine President Nestor Kirchner edged his country closer to Venezuela's energy–based circle of allies over the weekend, joining Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales at a rhetoric–drenched summit in Bolivia.
Jul 26 2007 - Americas Program
by Marie Trigona
A much awaited human rights abuse trial is underway in Argentina. The accused is a catholic priest charged with carrying out human rights abuses while working in several clandestine detention centers during the nation's 1976–1983 military dictatorship. The priest was arrested four years ago while living under an alias in Chile. This is the latest human rights trial of accused torturers since the landmark conviction of a former police officer for genocide in 2006.
Jul 23 2007 - The Nation
by Naomi Klein & Avi Lewis
On March 19, 2003, we were on the roof of the Zan?n ceramic tile factory, filming an interview with Cepillo. He was showing us how the workers fended off eviction by armed police, defending their democratic workplace with slingshots and the little ceramic balls normally used to pound the Patagonian clay into raw material for tiles. His aim was impressive. It was the day the bombs started falling on Baghdad.
Jul 11 2007 - Washington Times
by Abraham Mahshie
BUENOS AIRES ? Hillary Rodham Clinton isn't the only first lady turned senator who is running for president.
Argentine President Nestor Kirchner says he will forgo an almost certain re–election to support the presidential candidacy of his wife, Sen. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
Jul 03 2007 - The Independent Institute
by William Ratliff
Twenty–five years ago, in one of history?s biggest military blunders, the Argentine military invaded the Falkland Islands (which Argentines call the Islas Malvinas), a self–governing, overseas territory of the United Kingdom. It took British forces just over ten weeks to traverse a third of the globe and rout out the invaders. Two–thirds of the more than nine hundred people killed were Argentines.
While we might wish to spend our time now more constructively counting penguins, the dispute persists. Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana told the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization on June 21 that Britain is abusive and refuses to negotiate. But how is dialogue possible when Argentina, the weaker party, insists on the total capitulation of the United Kingdom, the stronger party?
Jun 18 2007 - San Francisco Chronicle
by Patrick J. McDonnell
Did the son do it? That is the question of the day in Argentina's most sensational murder mystery: the unsolved slaying more than six months ago of Nora Dalmasso, a mother of two who was strangled in her suburban home...
Apr 29 2007 - Americas Program
?gora TV, a Window for Liberation
By Marie Trigona
Never before in Latin America's history has media ownership been concentrated in the hands of so few. In Argentina, media concentration dates back to when the 1976–1983 military dictatorship censored most of the press and implemented harsh laws to prevent opposition from being publicly expressed. Media legislation from Argentina's dictatorship is still intact today. Despite legal challenges, over the past decades groups have emerged that produce alternative and independent media for television, radio, and video to counter mass media's misinformation.
Apr 07 2007 - American Enterprise Institute
by Mark Falcoff
Since its financial crisis six years ago, Argentina has faded somewhat from the headlines. This is no doubt due in large part to the disproportionate space our media outlets now devote to Iraq and Iran, but also to the fact that other Latin American news stories––particularly Fidel Castro's surgery and the antics of Venezuela's clownish president Hugo Ch?vez––have dominated coverage of the area. Argentina is not, however, a negligent regional actor.
Jan 14 2007 - Washington Times
by Jerry Seper
Interpol has failed in assisting Argentina in locating and capturing the terrorists who bombed a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing 85 persons and injuring 150 others, the chairman and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee say.
Jan 13 2007 - Seattle Times
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina ? The arrest of former Argentine President Isabel Per?n in Spain on Friday signaled an expansion of human–rights cases here beyond the former military junta to the epoch of ex–strongman Juan Domingo Per?n, father of Argentina's current ruling party.
Sep 17 2006 - San Francisco Chronicle
by Monte Reel
Resting in peace has never been easy for Juan and Eva Peron, Argentine icons whose bodies after death were separated from each other and have endured everything from frequent international airplane travel to grotesque...
Aug 20 2006 - San Francisco Chronicle
by Larry Rohter
The horrific abuses under a military dictatorship –– murders, kidnappings, torture, rapes, the abduction and sale of infants –– had gone unpunished for nearly 30 years. But last year, Argentina's Supreme Court...
Aug 09 2006 - Washington Times
BUENOS AIRES –– Russia is negotiating arms sales to Argentina less than two weeks after angering Washington with a $3 billion deal to sell jets and helicopters to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Russian Ambassador Yuri Korchagin met with Argentine Minister of Defense Nilda Garre on Aug. 2 to express Moscow's willingness to "open a road to military and technical cooperation," according to a statement from Argentina's Ministry of Defense.
