News of Michael Soltys

Michael Soltys

Michael Soltys, who first entered the Buenos Aires Herald in 1983, held various editorial posts at the newspaper from 1990 and was the lead writer of the publication’s editorials from 1987 until 2017.

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

From Batgirl to Superman?

12-08-2022 10:54 Massa’s rise has relegated President Alberto Fernández to a distant third in the ruling troika where Cristina Fernández de Kirchner retains full veto powers even when abstaining from calling the shots.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me

A trail of two (big) chitties

15-07-2022 13:00 Throughout most of this century Argentina has sought to make a virtue out of necessity by demonising debt so that if that was ever a virtue, it has become a deadly vice – the options to an inflationary expansion of the money supply are few and far between.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me…

From Gooseman to Batgirl?

09-07-2022 07:30 Recommended to President Fernández as having “the necessary dose of heterodoxy and the indispensable dose of orthodoxy,” Guzmán was eventually found wanting on both counts with the latter front more fatal.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Crisis, more than a middle name

02-07-2022 07:00 Few keywords have been more constant throughout my 34 years of newsroom experience than “crisis.”

by Michael Soltys

Canada's Ambassador to Argentina Reid Sirrs.

DIPLOMACY

Ambassador talks up common ground at Canada Day event

01-07-2022 10:35 Canadian Ambassador to Argentina Reid Sirrs hosts reception marking Canada Day.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Stick it to the pickets?

25-06-2022 00:01 The standard critique of the picket movement as a public nuisance is wholly valid but it is also incomplete.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me…

Economic questions

18-06-2022 08:15 There is a massive sale of risk financial assets on a global scale, not just Argentine bonds (even if more unattractive than most).

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me…

The near in blood, the nearer bloody

09-06-2022 23:06 No economic policy in Argentina seems as dangerous as its total subordination to politics – which is what has happened with Matías Kulfas.

by Michael Soltys

Premios de la Academia Nacional Periodismo: The Pluma de Honor winners accept their prizes.

JOURNALISM

Three for one and one for all

09-06-2022 01:09 Argentina’s National Press Academy awards Pluma de Honor prizes to Robert Cox, Elisabetta Piqué and Daniel Enz.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Could Bogotá become Petrograd?

03-06-2022 11:01 Argentina’s past might herald Colombia’s present, which might in turn offer clues for our future.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me…

Not getting the hang of it

28-05-2022 01:00 The Kirchnerite wing of the Frente de Todos coalition has come to the final conclusion that the “war on inflation” is irreversibly lost, leading to a refusal to have any official of its kidney attached to that failure.

by Michael Soltys

El Testigo Inglés, Luces y sombras del Buenos Aires Herald (1876-2017), by Sebastián Lacunza.

BOOK REVIEW

The English (non-indicted) witness

21-05-2022 06:00 El Testigo Inglés, Luces y sombras del Buenos Aires Herald (1876-2017), by Sebastián Lacunza; Paidós, 2021, 632 pages.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

The maybes of May

14-05-2022 00:01 Today’s anniversary is nowhere in the current agenda with plenty of issues to absorb our attention, yet stopping to recall the Menem years would not go amiss.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me

Javier Milei: Might right make right?

07-05-2022 00:01 Some local pollsters and overseas media already tip Javier Milei as a presidential dark horse, but does his support extend beyond an echo chamber for anti-system politics?

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me

Supreme Courts are caught, not tort

29-04-2022 17:03 Phobias against independent justice are far from being a uniquely Kirchnerite vice.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Windfalls or smokescreens?

23-04-2022 00:01 In proposing to milk any commodity price bonanza arising from the Ukraine war without offering anything to recoup losses, the government is blatantly applying a “heads I win, tails you lose” logic.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me

No omelette from Easter eggs

16-04-2022 00:02 The most memorable Easter would undoubtedly be 1987 – rocked by Aldo Rico’s Campo de Mayo carapintada Army mutiny.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me…

A demonised demon

08-04-2022 23:25 Vaccines against the coronavirus pandemic were discovered within a year but antibodies against inflation are still being sought after almost eight decades.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

A small war you do not miss

01-04-2022 19:31 Strictly speaking, the 1982 war does not warrant inclusion in this series of columns relating current topics to newsroom memories but hopefully today’s special anniversary allows me to cheat.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Foreign to the Ministry

25-03-2022 11:48 Caf is to international relations what decaf is to coffee.

by Michael Soltys

Commemorations marking the 30th anniversary of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires.

TERROR ATTACK

Call for justice renewed on 30th anniversary of Israeli Embassy bombing

18-03-2022 21:09 Israeli authorities again point finger at Iran and Hezbollah, three decades on from the 1992 bombing of Embassy that killed 29 people.

by Michael Soltys

In this file photo taken on March 18, 1992, firemen and rescue workers continue to dig through the ruins of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires after a night of search following the 17 March explosion of a powerful car bomb which virtually destroyed the diplomatic building.

And that reminds me…

We remember thee, Zion

18-03-2022 21:04 The phrase “shock horror” might belong to the cheapest style of tabloid headline writing, yet 30 years on from the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, I find no better way of describing my reaction.

by Michael Soltys

Irlanda y la Argentina del siglo XX: Diplomacia, diáspora, Iglesia Católica, derechos humanos y la guerra de Malvinas, by Dermot Keogh.

IRISH CULTURE

Emerald Isle meets the Silver River

11-03-2022 10:57 Book review: Irlanda y la Argentina del siglo XX: Diplomacia, diáspora, Iglesia Católica, derechos humanos y la guerra de Malvinas; by Dermot Keogh.

by Michael Soltys

Maud Daverio de Cox, pictured at the launch of her latest book, flanked by Perfil’s Jorge Fontevecchia and her husband, ex-Buenos Aires Herald editor Robert Cox.

And that reminds me…

Chronicles of a horror retold

12-02-2022 09:47 Never attempting to share the fame won by her husband Robert Cox as the Buenos Aires Herald editor defending human rights against the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, Maud Daverio de Cox has forged her own career as an author.

by Michael Soltys

2021: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

2021: The year that was

31-12-2021 13:44 Covid-19 dominates another year, with the the global vaccine race illustrating the very best and worst of humanity. Aside from coronavirus (a crucial factor in the ‘VIP vaccine’ and ‘Olivosgate’ political scandals), the death of former president Carlos Menem, rising prices and poverty, trigger-happy policing, IMF debt talks and key elections across the region steal the show – including Argentina’s PASO primaries and midterms, which reshape the political landscape. This is 2021: the year that was.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

An epic victory, or mythical?

20-11-2021 00:00 To my mind, last Sunday’s midterms have a historic significance for reasons other than those usually given – as heralding the end of Kirchnerism (although not necessarily Peronism) and that truly impressive Senate breakthrough, doubling opposition numbers in just six years.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me…

Black swan song

12-11-2021 21:57 Not only does murder most foul occur elsewhere in the world but also in this country – the murder rate in Buenos Aires Province has averaged a couple every day for some years now while Rosario has become a byword for ferocity.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me

Veep on the beep

05-11-2021 18:01 Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has repeatedly said over the years in the course of lengthy speeches that she does not believe that there is any such thing as coincidence.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me…

A tale of two anniversaries

29-10-2021 22:08 With the election campaign now entering its final fortnight, both sides of the political divide have found significant occasions to flag the faith.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me

Keeping up with the Jones Hualas

22-10-2021 22:09 Jones Huala is the wrong poster boy for the indigenous cause but that should not disqualify this extremely fundamental and sensitive issue.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Price controls without IDEA(s)

16-10-2021 00:01 The holes in price controls are an all too familiar story in Argentina. All sorts of routes for bypassing them, but the ultimate problem confounding price controls is that even their success against all the odds also contains the seeds of failure.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me...

Importing no less important

09-10-2021 12:12 Everybody hails the importance of exports. Imports have no such luck.

by Michael Soltys

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Interval or interregnum?

01-10-2021 23:00 With multiple scenarios lurking in an uncertain future, what can the past tell us as to what to expect?

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me

Can Aníbal or (is he a) cannibal?

25-09-2021 00:01 Territorial imperative reigns supreme – at least until the November midterms when it stands or falls.

by Michael Soltys

Victor D’Hondt (1841-1901) was a Ghent lawyer and mathematician who devised the successive division method of proportional representation used to allocate seats.

And that reminds me

D’(H)ont ask me

18-09-2021 00:01 The autistic power plays now underway are only likely to sustain voting anger against a dysfunctional coalition.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me…

Twenty years can be something

11-09-2021 09:35 Just as in the preceding generation everybody seemed to remember exactly what they were doing on the day of John Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, so 9/11 has remained the object of universal recall in the last 20 years.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Still currents run deep

04-09-2021 10:23 While the pundits quite rightly remind us that it would be rash to extrapolate local results onto the national arena, the fact that Gustavo Valdés virtually trebled the votes for his veteran Peronist rival should send alarm-bells among the ruling coalition.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Future tense or tense future?

27-08-2021 23:20 Calling either the PASO primaries or the November midterms this year is tantamount to a mission impossible.

by Michael Soltys

OBITUARY

Malcolm Hunter OBE, key figure in Argentina’s British community, dies at 91

27-08-2021 23:16 Ex-ABCC chief, business leader and charitable soul Malcom Hunter OBE has to go down as one of the most important leaders the British community in Argentina has ever had.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Kabul capitulates

21-08-2021 21:34 All too much past and present for Afghanistan but what about the future? The fast forward to the past indicates that nothing is irreversible.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me...

Universities Breed Awareness

14-08-2021 07:30 Two centuries ago, UBA was inaugurated in San Ignacio Church next to what is today the Colegio Nacional, giving life to an edict dated August 9, 1821 issued by Buenos Aires Governor Martín Rodríguez – the university was thus pre-presidential.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me…

Olympic rings and vicious circles

07-08-2021 10:09 The Tokyo Olympics are now entering into their last throes – a total of 11,656 athletes from 205 countries or territories competing for over 1,000 medals.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

PASO, step by step

31-07-2021 00:39 Plenty of rhetoric about democratising political representation and restoring transparency to politics, but electoral miscalculation was the exclusive reason for the PASO primaries.

by Michael Soltys

The successive fates of the austral and convertibility would suggest that Argentina’s currency is like Icarus – the closer it flies to the sun, the harder the economy crashes.

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Mightier than the dollar

24-07-2021 00:34 The successive fates of the austral and convertibility would suggest that Argentina’s currency is like Icarus – the closer it flies to the sun, the harder the economy crashes.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Facundo Manes: A nerve specialist for a nervous country?

17-07-2021 11:09 Lots of excited talk about Facundo Manes as an electoral game-changer, but has he given any hint as to the concrete policy proposals the opposition should be offering?

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

Reutemann: A life in multispeed

09-07-2021 22:26 Although never losing an election, whether for governor or senator, all in his native province of Santa Fe, the abiding memory of Reutemann’s political career will always be ducking a presidential run in 2003, thus effectively bequeathing Kirchnerismo to this country.

by Michael Soltys

AND THAT REMINDS ME…

PASO = Pushing A Single Option

03-07-2021 23:13 The attitude that candidacies should be defined by political factions negotiating a single list, rather than the choice of the electorate at large, quite simply insults the citizenry of a democratic society.

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me

Hugo Chávez, I'll go somewhere else

26-06-2021 00:15 Plenty of opinions on Venezuela here in Argentina, ranging from slavish adoration of the ruling ideology to a rather more prevalent demonisation. Neither is recommended.

by Michael Soltys

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Grabbing the wealth of health by stealth

19-06-2021 09:51 Replacing Argentina’s fragmented system with a comprehensive public health system is highly rational in principle and there are some positive examples abroad – but what are the chances of these being emulated under the current government?

by Michael Soltys

And that reminds me…

Perusing Peru

12-06-2021 00:11 Political gridlock and Odebrecht corruption were the main causes of Peru’s downturn accelerated by PPK’s ouster in 2018, but the coronavirus pandemic has turned the decline into a free fall – indeed the worst in the region after Venezuela.

by Michael Soltys