Stories that caught our eye: January 1 to 8

REACTIONS TO VENEZUELA

While the Javier Milei administration wholeheartedly applauded last weekend’s seizure of Nicolás Maduro, only adjusting its stance to tone down support for opposition leader María Corina Machado in line with Donald Trump, there were reactions at other levels. The Obelisk (illuminated at night with the Venezuelan colours of yellow, blue and red on the explicit orders of City Hall) was the rallying-point for the immediate reactions of thousands of jubilant Venezuelan expatriates. Buenos Aires City Mayor Jorge Macri posted an extended message on his social networks speaking of a “historic day” with “the City of Buenos Aires always on the side of liberty” while blasting the Maduro “dictatorship” and concluding: “In moments like this, there is only one correct side of history.” The Security Ministry tightened its protection of the Embassies of both the United States and Venezuela and there was indeed a march by various leftist groupings that same Saturday against the former in repudiation of Trump’s action, which they dubbed “imperialistic aggression” with banners reading: “Yankees out of Venezuela and Latin America.” More moderate voices among the marchers said: “We don’t defend Maduro but we categorically reject any direct military intervention by the United States in our continent” while Buenos Aires Province socialist deputy Mónica Schlotthauer concluded: “All he [Trump] wants is oil.”

SIDE PUSHBACK

The SIDE intelligence agency on Wednesday night issued an official communiqué dismissing an article published by the La Nación newspaper and journalist Delfina Celichini on a DNU emergency decree amending the Intelligence Law as based on “false and malicious interpretations.” The article argued that the decree facilitated snooping on legitimate activities “like political militancy or journalism,” as well as opening a door for Armed Forces intervention in domestic matters. SIDE argued that the decree “does not extend the limits of state vigilance.” The decree has stirred controversy ever since issued right at the end of 2025 with Coalición Cívica deputy Maximiliano Ferraro in the forefront of repudiation. Ferraro was quick to dismiss Wednesday’s communiqué as an “intimidating message of enormous institutional gravity” and “an attack on the freedom of expression.”

BUDGET UP AND RUNNING

The 2026 Budget formally came to life with its publication in the Official Gazette on the second day of the year. The Budget, approved during extraordinary sessions of Congress, is premised on a fiscal surplus (estimated at 2,734,029,655,055 pesos) with the options of cutting taxes if the surplus is higher than forecast and cutting spending if lower. Total revenue is calculated at 148.29 trillion pesos and spending at 148.06 trillion pesos, of which social services alone account for 106.52 trillion. The government is authorised to issue Treasury bonds up to a nominal value of 70 trillion pesos.

REGIONAL RIGHT RALLY?

President Javier Milei started the year by revealing his plans to assemble a regional rightist grouping of 10 countries to “embrace the ideas of liberty and confront the cancer of socialism” in the course of an interview with the journalist Andrés Oppenheimer. Milei said: “It would seem that the region has woken up from the nightmare of 21st century socialism. The people are discovering it to be a farce … nothing more or less than a deceptive narrative so that a bunch of rogues can take power and impoverish the population. In all the countries it has been applied, it has failed.” Milei’s candidates for his regional grouping are the Presidents Rodrigo Paz Pereira (Bolivia), Luis Abinader (Dominican Republic), Daniel Noboa (Ecuador), Nayid Bukele (El Salvador), José Mulino (Panama), Santiago Peña (Paraguay) and José Jeri (Peru) and the presidents-elect José Antonio Kast (Chile) and Nasry Asfura (Honduras).

ANOTHER EXIT

At the start of the year the government accepted the resignation of the Foreign Ministry’s Cults secretary, 30-year-old Nahuel Sotelo, presented a month previously to take his seat in the Buenos Aires provincial legislature representing La Libertad Avanza. Sotelo had held the post since August 2024. The libertarian activist is a leading figure within the Fuerzas del Cielo grouping responding to spin doctor Santiago Caputo, who thus loses a slot in government.

PICKET PROTOCOL PROBED

The anti-picket protocol introduced in the first month of the Javier Milei administration in late 2023 has fallen under judicial review after two years of sometimes violent incidents between police and demonstrators. Federal judge Martín Cormick has ruled against the ministerial resolution for seeking to limit rights of protest and assembly which “can only be regulated by a Congress law” in response to a lawsuit lodged by human rights organisations and trade unions. “This is a collective triumph,” celebrated Amnesty International, one of the plaintiffs. But the Milei government was quick to appeal the ruling, thus obliging the judge to refer it to a second instance. “Without the protocol we’ll return to chaos, to streets seized by over 8,000 pickets annually, as occurred in the previous administration,” commented Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni.

HEALTH OVERHAULS

Eight months after the scandal of the lethally contaminated fentanyl began, the government replaced the head of ANMAT (the Argentine equivalent of the Food & Drug Administration), appointing surgeon Luis Fontana (head of the OSDE prepaid healthcare scheme for executives for almost two decades) to take over from the resigning Agustina Bisio following an extended probe into the responsibilities for the scandal claiming over 100 lives. The Health Ministry, under whose orbit ANMAT falls, defined Fontana’s mission as “to control well … without unnecessary bureaucracy.” In the previous week the Ministry also acquired the previously autonomous ANDIS agency for the disabled, dissolved just before the end of the year. The announcement made no mention of the scandal erupting in mid-August alleging ANDIS kickbacks managed by government officials and almost costing the government the election.

NOVEL PEACE SUMMIT

In what was dubbed a “Peace Summit,” 15 veterans of the 1982 Malvinas war from both sides of the conflict, now in their sixties, began the ascent of Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas (almost 7,000 metres), as from last Monday. This original peace message arose last April from an initiative of Oscar Barrios, president of the Mendoza branch of the Malvinas veterans association. While Ricardo González placed the symbolic value above the physical effort, British veteran Stephen Crosland said: “For me it is an enormous pleasure to be here with my former enemies and now my friends.” Geoffrey Cardozo, the British officer recognised for his key role in identifying and burying the Argentine war dead on the disputed islands, is too old for the climb at the age of 75 but will be joining the group at the close of the “Peace Summit” on January 20.

AFA STAYS IN SPOTLIGHT

While largely overshadowed by events in Venezuela last week, court raids investigating suspected corruption at AFA Argentine Football Association continued with the focus on the TourProdEnter company, which collected money corresponding to AFA in the United States against a 30 percent commission, when AFA has US bank accounts into which any money due them can be directly paid.

BRUSSELS-BOUND

President Javier Milei has formalised the appointment of the former deputy Fernando Iglesias as the Argentine ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium with the approval of the Brussels government since last November. The future envoy’s vocal advocacy of the free-trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur while chairing the Foreign Relations Committee in Congress is expected to aid him in his new post. In his teens half a century ago Iglesias was a Trotskyist militant in the Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores. He first entered Congress in 2007 as a deputy for Elisa Carrió’s Coalición Cívica, moving further to the right in his second parliamentary stint (2017-2025) as a PRO deputy.

SWISS MISS

At the start of the year Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno upbraided Swiss Ambassador Gustavo Lunazzi via his social network accounts for having “outdated and politically biased” information on the Embassy website dating back to 2012 under the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Presidency. The Embassy promptly took corrective action. Previously Quirno recalled the Argentine consul in Syria for approving anti-Israeli Instagram comments.

PATAGONIAN FIRES

The summer fires in Patagonia are offering no respite with over 700 residents and tourists evacuated in the Chubut locality of El Hoyo in the face of a blaze out of control since Monday and burning down houses. No less than 10 aircraft including helicopters and hydrant planes are assisting some 300 firefighters with Chubut Governor Ignacio Torres flying to the spot. High temperatures, winds of up to 70 kilometres per hour and a drought since spring only feed the flames in dense woodland. The Patagonian provinces of Chubut, Río Negro and Neuquén declared a state of emergency some months ago while no less than 16 provinces have been labelled "critical" (with the provinces of Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos, Corrientes, Santa Fe, Córdoba, La Pampa, San Luis, Mendoza, La Rioja, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego adding to the Patagonian trio in emergency).