News of James Neilson

James Neilson

Former editor of the Buenos Aires Herald (1979-1986).

Milei comes up trumps

01-11-2025 06:34 At least half of the over nine million people who voted for candidates linked to La Libertad Avanza did so not because they are devoted fans of Milei but because the last thing they wanted to see was yet another Peronist government.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Most countries are on death row

24-10-2025 21:07 Unless demographic trends change abruptly in the very near future, many other countries will precede Argentina on the path into the unknown.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Milei and the master of the universe

18-10-2025 06:18 Trump is different: he wants everyone on planet Earth to know that his or her personal fate depends on him. By behaving the way he does, he has put Argentines in a bind.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Two years after the pogrom

10-10-2025 16:27 Peace would have come to Gaza long ago if Hamas had returned the hundreds of hostages it seized on October 7.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Democracies in choppy waters

04-10-2025 06:09 Needless to say, the United States is not the only country in which the recently dominant progressive elite is on the back foot.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Milei gets a second chance

27-09-2025 06:50 Like dei ex machina, two of the world’s most powerful men decided to step in and save Argentina from the unhappy fate it was plunging towards.

by James Neilson

As I see it

A kinder and gentler Milei?

20-09-2025 06:34 Two years ago, many came to the conclusion that what the country desperately needed was a madman prepared to do whatever would be necessary to put it back on track. Is this still the case?

by James Neilson

As I see it

Milei gets his comeuppance

13-09-2025 06:44 It should have been quite easy for Milei to build a broad enough coalition. But instead of making an effort, egged on by Karina, he decided to go it alone.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Crunch time approaching for Javier Milei

06-09-2025 07:19 Much is made of Milei’s emotional dependence on his sister. She seems to have made him her prisoner. If those who say he cannot sideline her without putting his own mental health in danger are right, Argentina is in deep trouble.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Dark clouds line the horizon

30-08-2025 06:52 Millions who voted for Milei less than two years ago may have assumed that he would immediately replace the old political class but, needless to say, that was a pipe dream.

by James Neilson

As I see it

All good things come to an end

23-08-2025 07:48 Western politicians and those who feed them ideas are ill-equipped to deal with the many challenges they face.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Why Milei refuses to budge an inch

16-08-2025 06:11 Like “the Iron Lady,” late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, whom he admires, Milei lets it be known that he is not for turning.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Fearful Westerners turn their backs on Israel

09-08-2025 05:29 Could what is happening in the Middle East be just a prelude to a similar drama in Europe and other parts of the West?

by James Neilson

AS I SEE IT

Elites under pressure in a changing world

04-08-2025 18:26 In North America and much of Europe, governments have long come under fire because an increasing number of people feel they are falling behind and it seems more than probable that many more will do so in the next few years.

by James Neilson

AS I SEE IT

Weirdoes do battle for the world

28-07-2025 15:33 Few imagined that the old order would soon fall apart and that through the cracks would emerge political leaders determined to bring about drastic changes in the societies they lived in.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Politics becomes a strictly personal matter

21-07-2025 05:49 Once upon a time, politicians were expected to stand for rather more than their own egos, but in most parts of the world, the more successful political parties now tend to be one-man bands.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Do smartphones make people stupid?

12-07-2025 06:51 For a long time it was taken for granted that headlong technological progress would greatly benefit youngsters by providing them with a cornucopia of educational resources that had been denied to previous generations.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Milei hurt by yet another time bomb

05-07-2025 07:34 A New York judge has ordered the government to hand just over half the shares in YPF to a vulture fund that had purchased the rights of companies harmed by the cack-handed takeover of the oil firm in 2015.

by James Neilson

As I see it

The world is Donald Trump’s playpen

28-06-2025 07:38 Trump clearly imagines he can reshape the rest of the world by treating lesser potentates like counters in a board game he has devised.

by James Neilson

As I see it

High noon for Israel and the ayatollahs

21-06-2025 06:03 The Israelis hope that, by humiliating an incompetent regime and killing its military commanders one after another, they will encourage the Iranian people to take to the streets and help them remove it.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Tougher times for politicians on the take

14-06-2025 06:41 Argentina is turning into a country in which even the most powerful among them understand that they would be well advised to respect the letter of the law.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Humanity in the grip of a death wish

07-06-2025 06:39 According to Austral University’s human resources department, the birth rate in Argentina has fallen to 1.4 per woman.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Censorship is making a comeback just about everywhere

31-05-2025 06:28 Milei has a habit of shouting “Freedom, damn it!” whenever the opportunity arises, but he is clearly an authoritarian at heart who does not take kindly to criticism.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Milei wants to paint Argentina violet

24-05-2025 06:49 Milei and his sister are well aware that political loyalties usually owe more to a person’s sense of belonging to a vaguely defined community than to reasoned arguments. Handouts can help, but peer pressure counts for more than anything else.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Being pope in an irreligious age

17-05-2025 06:28 Leo XIV faces a most difficult dilemma.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Milei looks like a one-trick pony

10-05-2025 07:45 Chainsaws are great but they can maim or even kill users who are too weak or too clumsy to handle them properly.

by James Neilson

As I see it

When the machines stop working

03-05-2025 07:00 A growing proportion of decisions that affect people will be made by artefacts that can be hacked either by individuals working for hostile regimes, religious zealots who disapprove of Western ways or mere mischief-makers who get a kick out of provoking turmoil.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Goodbye to the Argentine papacy

26-04-2025 05:00 While some of the causes Bergoglio embraced may have been good, by adopting them he blurred the distinction between Catholicism and what most of the “progressive” atheists and agnostics who have long dominated Western culture already take for granted.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Milei goes low in an effort to get high

19-04-2025 06:00 To get the big electoral majority he is after, Milei will have to persuade such people that he is the man, as was Juan Domingo Perón in his moment and after him, Carlos Menem and Néstor Kirchner.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Trump has China in the crosshairs

12-04-2025 05:41 The 19th century belonged to the United Kingdom, the 20th to the United States. And the 21st?

by James Neilson

President Javier Milei and his libertarian crew.

As I see it

Sailing blithely into the maelstrom

05-04-2025 06:15 Like Donald Trump with his error-prone minions, Javier Milei is accompanied by an entourage which includes far too many individuals who are unsuited for high office.

by James Neilson

As I see it

The old order is fighting back

22-03-2025 07:45 Milei has managed to apply a much-needed corrective to a political order that, until he took over, seemed to have been programmed to destroy both itself and the country.

by James Neilson

AS I SEE IT

Demography should help the US keep China at bay

15-03-2025 07:46 Despite the fact that demography has always been China’s not so secret weapon, in recent years it has become a major problem that seems certain to put a premature end to the imperial dreams of Xi and his immediate successors.

by James Neilson

AS I SEE IT

Alarm bells ringing in Europe

08-03-2025 06:00 Have the Europeans stumbled into the dependency trap? Trump and his cronies evidently think they have and therefore deserve to be treated like the supplicants they are.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Hail to the chiefs

01-03-2025 06:15 Much of the world is reverting to an older formula in which it is taken for granted that everything depends on the whims of a handful of big men.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Milei caught in a crypto spider web

22-02-2025 06:09 By associating himself with a cosmopolitan bunch of chancers, Milei has raised serious questions about the government he leads.

by James Neilson

As I see it

A cyberpunk at the helm

15-02-2025 06:10 Is Milei an astute operator who is merely playing the role of a foul-mouthed cyberpunk or is he simply showing the world the kind of person he really is?

by James Neilson

As I see it

Mar-a-Lago on the Med

07-02-2025 09:58 Why is Trump’s suggestion being derided as hopelessly far-fetched and reactionary?

by James Neilson

As I see it

The quest for the new philosopher’s stone

01-02-2025 09:07 For good or ill, Artificial Intelligence is the philosopher’s stone of the age we are living in.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Back to basics with Donald Trump

25-01-2025 06:43 Progressives should be aware that what Trump represents is an increasingly powerful movement that is certain to endure.

by James Neilson

As I see it

The battle of the sexes is far from over

18-01-2025 06:46 Trump and the people who surround him evidently believe that the time has come to roll back some of the gains chalked up by women.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Dreaming of a Trumpian empire

11-01-2025 06:36 By openly declaring that all that stuff about sovereignty, the inviolability of internationally recognised borders and such should be discarded for what he says are strategic reasons, Trump may well have kickstarted something that could have far-reaching consequences that he would be the last to welcome.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Chainsaws are now in fashion

02-01-2025 07:45 Though Trump has yet to take office, his electoral triumph has had an immediate impact not just in his own country but also in Europe and further afield where it has strengthened those who feel betrayed by the political parties.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Quite soon there will be nobody left

21-12-2024 05:07 If present trends are anything to go by, then our descendants, most of whom will be in their dotage, will occupy a prominent place on the endangered species list.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Milei is still very much in charge

14-12-2024 15:37 The success or failure of the far-reaching programme Milei devised will depend on whether or not most members of the political fraternity have learned enough from their many errors.

by James Neilson

As I see it

The return of the great disruptor

07-12-2024 06:07 Caught off-balance, progressives in the United States and movers and shakers in Latin America, Europe, East Asia, the Middle East and Africa are asking themselves what the return of the great disruptor could mean.

by James Neilson

As I see it

The invasion is about to begin

30-11-2024 05:46 Putting up protectionist barriers can be wonderfully easy, but pulling them down is anything but.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Green going out of fashion

23-11-2024 06:00 Javier Milei is far from being the only prominent person who thinks global-warming activists have rather more in mind than an understandable desire to prevent the entire planet from going up in flames.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Milei books a seat on the Trump express

16-11-2024 05:52 Though Milei expects Trump to lend him a helping hand on the financial front, he must be worried by his determination to surround the US with sky-high protectionist walls.

by James Neilson

As I see it

Post-electoral Democrat blues

09-11-2024 07:36 If Democrats were wise, they would understand that it was due to their incompetence, combined with highhandedness, that Trump came roaring back.

by James Neilson