Stories that caught our eye: April 11 to 18

WASHINGTON CALLING

The week started with the visit of United States Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, but it had been preceded at the other end of the weekend by three major developments – conclusion of an Extended Fund Facility agreement for US$20 billion, of which US$12.37 billion arrived upfront last Tuesday, a partial exit from ‘cepo’ currency and capital controls as part of that agreement and the announcement of a higher-than-expected 3.7 percent inflation for March. Meeting at the Casa Rosada with President Javier Milei, Bessent congratulated him on "the recent and successful negotiations with the IMF," as well as “reaffirming full US support for his bold economic reforms” while touching on trade reciprocity. In reply, Milei thanked "the support given in the IMF, the World Bank and BID [Inter-American Development Bank] to enable Argentina access to this financing to mark a historic day like exit from the cepo." Milei, unsurprisingly, also took a benevolent view of US President Donald Trump’s steep tariff hikes as correcting "the trade imbalances of many years." Bessent then saluted Milei as "a man with the courage to defend Argentina, opposing the establishment … to make Argentina great again." Prior to his meeting with Milei, Bessent had dropped by his local counterpart Luis Caputo at the Economy Ministry across the road, praising his economic team for giving Argentina "a brilliant future." Yet there was also negative feedback over Bessent’s visit from the Chinese Embassy, which objected to the US Treasury Secretary dismissing currency swaps totalling US$18 billion as “rapacious agreements” masquerading as assistance and demanding their elimination. The Embassy argued that the swaps had helped to maintain economic and financial stability, thus playing an important role in obtaining IMF financing. An 80-strong Chinese business delegation visited Argentina this month.

SANTA FE ENDORSES GOVERNOR

Santa Fe Province Governor Maximiliano Pullaro (Radical) was the comfortable winner in last Sunday’s elections to elect 69 delegates to the province’s Constituent Assembly with a turnout of 55.6 percent among the almost 2.9 million citizens eligible to vote, Argentina’s first voting experience in this electoral year. Juan Monteverde heading one of the three Peronist lists was runner-up with third place going to La Libertad Avanza under deputy Nicolás Mayoraz. Also up for election were 19 mayors and 65 municipal councils, including Rosario and the provincial capital. Mayoraz with just over 14 percent of the vote (many in Rosario) almost lost to the challenge of fellow-libertarian Amalia Granata (12.35 percent). With more than a third of the vote, Pullaro claimed victory for his Unidos para Cambiar Santa Fe list (also including the PRO centre-right party and the socialists) in all 19 departments of the province. Monteverde took just over 15 percent of the vote.

CRISTINA’S TACTICAL RETREAT

Former two-term president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner now chairing the Partido Justicialista (the main Peronist party) has urged her followers to accept Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof’s initiative to advance the provincial elections to September 7 while continuing to believe it to be "a political error" to oblige the citizenry to vote twice with a difference of only six weeks. Her move served to defuse a potential split within Kirchnerism.

TIME HAS TIME FOR MILEI

Time magazine last Wednesday included President Javier Milei among the 100 most influential people in the world for the second year running, alongside the likes of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, María Corina Machado, Scarlett Johansson, Serena Williams, Mark Zuckerberg and Claudia Sheinbaum, among others. Self-styled ex-sceptic Ian Bremmer justified the choice for "offering voters the ray of anti-establishment light Argentina needed to control chronic inflation" while reducing poverty from 52.9 to 38.1 percent.  Milei celebrated with a typical torrent of abuse against his perceived critics, especially journalists. A far humbler Argentine citizen also figured among Time’s 100 most influential persons – Córdoba ecologist Sandra Díaz.

PENSION PROTEST

The weekly midweek march to protest insufficient pensions was once again the scene of confrontations between the police and demonstrators last Wednesday although without the intensity of March 12. Federal Police officers used tear gas – leftist deputy Alejandro Vilca (FIT-Jujuy) claimed to be a victim – and there were both injuries and arrests. Security forces cleared the demonstrators off the road from the start, leading to jostling and arrests. The march was supported by trade unionists and political militants.

VISTA BUYS OUT PETRONAS

Vista Energy announced last Wednesday the purchase of the shares of the Malaysian state oil company Petronas in the La Amarga Chica bloc of the vast Vaca Muerta shale deposits, permitting them to increase their production by 50 percent to a daily 120,000 barrels and thus become the country’s biggest independent oil producer. Vista paid US$900 million down with  a further US$300 million in two future instalments for the 7,297,507 shares of Petronas, who will continue to be shareholders in the firm run by Miguel Galuccio. Vista has invested over US$6 billion in Argentina since 2018.

REVERSING NATIONALISATION

Four state companies have been officially transformed into limited companies while the Télam news agency has been directly dissolved, the Justice Ministry announced ahead of Easter week. The quartet are Corporación Buenos Aires Sur, Fabricaciones Militares munitions plants, EANA (Empresa Argentina de Navegación Aérea) and the AGP (Administración General de Puertos), now absorbed by ANPyN (Administración Nacional de Puertos y Navegación). The Ministry announced the initiative as part of the modernisation and overhaul of the state and the reduction of public spending.

EASTER STAMPEDE

The long Easter weekend began with a mass exodus of Argentines to Chile to take advantage of the shopping bargains with Chilean retail outlets deciding to stay open on Good Friday and beyond, contrary to custom. The Araucanian region alone has reported a 535 percent increase in its sales so far this year.

MARADONA TRIAL

There was a scandalous twist in the trial of seven health professionals for malpractice leading to the death of football idol Diego Maradona in late 2020 when chats between the psychiatrists Agustina Cosachov and Carlos Díaz (both defendants) emerged last Monday pointing to a possible sexual relationship between the former and Maradona. Turning against his colleague, Díaz said that “entering into the sexual terrain … is really a form of abuse,” constituting “a breach of general contract,” while also pointing to Maradona’s extreme vulnerability. In the chats Cosachov allegedly admitted to a sexual encounter with Maradona because “therapy is therapy.” She says there was no relationship.

BROTHERS CONVICTED

The paedophile brothers Germán and Sebastián Kiczka (the former previously a Misiones provincial deputy) were sentenced last Wednesday to 14 and 12 years respectively for crimes relating to the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material. Just before last Palm Sunday weekend ex-priest Bruno Luis was remanded in custody in Jujuy on charges of having sexually abused an underaged girl in 2022. He is to be tried by the province’s Gender Violence Court.

TAX-FREE GAMING

The 30 percent surcharge on credit card purchases of online game platforms in dollars has been lifted, as both published in the Official Gazette last Wednesday and confirmed by presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni – himself a keen gamer.

CAT SPAT

The entertainment programming of programming was torn apart as from last Tuesday with show hostesses Viviana Canosa and Lizy Tagliani after the former accused the latter of abusing minors in a  gay pub while under the influence of drugs, before abusing another minor in a bus and abducting him to the house of a fellow-trans. Canosa further alleged that the reason why Tagliani had been bumped from the programme Legalmente Rubia was for arriving drunk and being generally unbearable. Tagliani rejected these controversial accusations in her Radio Pop programme, especially Canosa’s claim that she formed part of a paedophile ring, denying that she had ever had sexual relations with an underage person and also asking why the journalist had waited so long before denouncing alleged crimes dating back months. Canosa’s lawyer Juan Manuel Dragani says that she had evidence for her allegations.

NEW DINO FIND

Border Guards in the Patagonian province of Neuquén were alerted last Monday to the presence of fossils which apparently turn out to have belonged to an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile similar to a dolphin or swordfish and possibly dating back as far as over 200 million years ago to the Triassic Period. The bones were transferred to the Carmen Funes Museum in Plaza Huincul, Neuquén.