PALERMO LETTER-BOMB SHOCK
Two suspicious packages were sent to Rural Society president Nicolás Pino and his vice-president Marcos Pereda on Thursday morning with the one addressed to Pino exploding, bruising the hand of his secretary. The City Police´s Explosives Brigade rushed to the scene and ascertained that there was no shrapnel in the letter-bomb, thus leading them to conclude that the attack was meant to intimídate rather than cause serious damage. Nevertheless, four people were transferred to the Hospital Fernandez, the secretary and three people inhaling toxic smoke. All were reported unhurt.
TRANSPARENCY CURBED
President Javier Milei on Monday decreed new regulations to govern the 2016 Access to Public Information Law, setting new limits on the data to which access may be requested. According to the decree, information ceases to be public the moment it enters “the private sphere of the official.” A principle of “good faith” is also introduced whereby abuse of this right can be punished by the obligation to pay compensation to the aggrieved official. This move was promptly criticised by civil society organisations, ADEPA press association and the PRO centre-right party authoring the 2016 law, among others, while Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos in his midweek report to Congress hinted that the measure could be “reviewed.”
PENSION PROTESTS
Wednesday was a busy day for Congress – Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos made his maiden report there but far more attention was paid to the protests going on outside to urge parliamentarians to come up with the two-thirds majority needed to override President Javier Milei’s total veto on August 30 of a law to compensate pensioners for shortfalls earlier this year. Yet far from contributing to that two-thirds majority, leftist and Kirchnerite deputies used the violent clashes between security forces and a group of demonstrators as a pretext to walk out of the session. The demonstrators, who consisted of leftist and picket militants as much as pensioners, attempted to extend their march to Plaza de Mayo to protest the veto directly outside the presidential offices, but were barred by police. Two arrests were made and nine policemen were injured, according to the official report, while downtown traffic was snarled but less than usual.
BUS TRANSFERS AGREED
City Mayor Jorge Macri dropped into the Casa Rosada on Tuesday morning to sign an agreement with President Javier Milei to transfer the 31 bus lines operating exclusively within the Federal Capital into municipal hands. City Hall will use its new control to hold down bus fares at a monthly cost of some seven billion pesos in subsidies. But Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof has adopted a different tack, insisting that the payment of transport subsidies corresponds to the national government and turning to the Supreme Court to prevent those subsidies from being cut.
ALBERTO STILL TWISTING IN THE WIND
Testifying in the gender violence case against ex-president Alberto Fernández lodged by his former partner Fabiola Yáñez, presidential doctor Federico Saavedra said during his four-hour testimony that both had told him at the time that her black eye was the result of an "involuntary blow." Prosecutor Ramiro González had a list of 98 questions for the doctor. At the start of the week the Federal Appeals Court resolved that the case would stay in downtown Comodoro Py courthouse under judge Julián Ercolini and not be moved to San Isidro as being closer to the scene of the alleged crime in Olivos presidential residence, as requested by Fernández.
GARRAHAN STRIKE
Employees of the Garrahan Children’s Hospital staged a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, demanding doubled wages, exemption from income tax and starting pay equivalent to the family shopping-basket. The strikers complain of being reduced to “destitution with a wage of 400,000 pesos”, also accusing the UPCN state workers union of selling them out. Hospital authorities replied that their funding has more than doubled in the past year with a 200,000-peso bonus paid out to all employees.
MONDINO RAPS MADURO
The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday joined six other Latin American countries in signing a joint statement rejecting “in unequivocal and absolute fashion” the arrest warrant issued against Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia the previous day. The statement also accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “of ignoring Venezuela’s popular will” with fraudulent July elections. The other countries signing the statement were Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.
MERCADO LIBRE MAKES INITIAL INVESTMENT
Mercado Libre founder Marcos Galperin announced the investment of US$75 million into the unicorn’s La Matanza distribution centre together with the creation of 2,300 jobs on the occasion of a presidential visit to his Saavedra offices. The investment will double storage facilities, thus reducing delivery times, the tycoon told a press conference, saying that he was thinking 10 years ahead. President Javier Milei’s visit was seen as a gesture of support for Galperin, who is embroiled in a legal battle with the competing Modo virtual wallet, created by Argentina’s main banks, suing it for “cartelisation.”
CAR REGISTRATION MADE SIMPLE
The government has advanced in the deregulation of car registration, eliminating red tape and reducing taxation to one percent, it was announced at the end of last month, thus saving 36.000 billion pesos annually and the government a monthly 1.3 billion.
CHURCH TURNS GREEN
The Catholic Church last weekend took on both Vaca Muerta shale and the Javier Milei’s RIGI major investor incentive scheme when it questioned the environmental impact of YPF state-controlled oil company’s latest mega-project, the construction of the Vaca Muerta Sur oil pipeline. Their concerns were expressed in a letter sent by Rawson Bishop Roberto Álvarez to Chubut Governor Ignacio Torres and provincial attorney-general Jorge Luis Miquelarena (Rawson is the capital of the Patagonian province of Chubut). “Neither water nor pollution respect frontiers,” warned Monsignor Álvarez, expressing concern for both the Magellan penguins and whales which are “so vulnerable to oil spills” as well as for local tourism while describing his objections as motivated by “civic and pastoral concern” rather than any ideology. “Economic interest should not be allowed to prevail over the common good,” he concluded. His stance echoes similar environmental worries previously expressed by Río Negro Bishop Alejandro Benna in the presence of that province’s Governor Alberto Weretilneck. The Vaca Muerta Sur pipeline implies an investment of US$ 2.5 billion and has been proudly described as “the first RIGI project in Argentina” by YPF CEO Horacio Marín. In response to the bishop of his provincial capital, Governor Torres declared himself open to making an interprovincial agreement for environmental management with Río Negro. But the deputies Miguel Angel Pichetto and José Luis Espert took a dimmer view of the bishop’s intervention with the former (earlier a four-term Peronist senator for Río Negro) declaring: “The bishops of Patagonia are against progress and development” while Espert went further: “The bishops of Patagonia must be eating hallucinogenic communion wafers. What an obscene militancy in favour of poverty.”
MPOX DEATH
Argentine youth Santiago Molina, 28, died in a Mexican hospital last Sunday three weeks after having contracted mpox there. Although the cause of death was given as a collapsed lung, there was a general multi-organic failure due to the disease. Molina was also diagnosed as HIV-positive, thus adding to the risks.
PAEDOPHILE BROTHERS
The paedophilia of the Misiones Kiczka brothers Germán and Sebastián, arrested last month, extends to the newborn, closer examination of their computer files has revealed, prosecutor Daniela Dupuy said last Tuesday.
FULL SPEED AHEAD
Franco Colapinto, 21, made the first Argentine appearance since the start of the century in Formula 1 motor-racing at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza last Sunday, driving his Williams to 12th place and winning praise.
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