BARRA BUMPED
Just before last weekend, President Javier Milei fired veteran Treasury Attorney Rodolfo Barra for taking the side of a Justice Ministry employee suing the state for a pay bonus. The former Supreme Court justice, 77, also reportedly fell out of favour for spending more time outside than inside the country in Punta del Este and Spain. Barra’s ouster was widely considered yet another scalp for star spin doctor Santiago Caputo (including at least three ministers), bringing the number of senior officials fired in less than 14 months of La Libertad Avanza government up to 115. Ex-judge Ricardo Manuel Rojas was quickly tipped to be his successor (although other candidates were also named) but ended up turning down the offer with the slot being filled on Tuesday by Santiago María Castro Videla (43), a specialist in administrative law and a guest professor at Austral University. The new official also works in the Bianchi, Galarce & Castro Videla Abogados law firm whose senior partner Alberto Bianchi has been a witness for the prosecution in Burford Capital’s US$16.1-billion lawsuit against the Argentine state over the 2012 nationalisation of YPF. Meanwhile the Attorney-General’s post has been vacant since 2018 with Eduardo Casal filling in.
MARRA BUMPED
City legislator Ramiro Marra, abruptly expelled from the La Libertad Avanza (LLA) caucus in midweek, on Thursday published on his social networks the message “VIVA LA LEALTAD. VIVA LA LIBERTAD CARAJO,” which can be indirectly translated as a ratification of his loyalty to President Javier Milei but not to his sister, Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei, who favours all-out opposition to City Hall under PRO Mayor Jorge Macri. Marra, the LLA mayoral candidate in 2023 and a co-founder of the party, was “irreversibly” expelled for voting in favour of Macri’s Budget, which increased some taxes and created others, considered to run contrary to the libertarian ethos. The expulsion was announced by Pilar Ramírez, a leader extremely close to Karina Milei who replaced Marra in the caucus chair last year. Shortly before Marra’s expulsion three PRO legislators aligned with Security Minister Patricia Bullrich crossed the floor to join the LLA caucus.
BOLIVIA FENCED OFF
A barbed-wire fence 200 metres long will be constructed in the zone of the Salta frontier town of Aguas Blancas in order to block off illegal immigrants and contraband as part of the “Plan Güemes” launched by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich with the blessing of Salta Governor Gustavo Sáenz and local trustee Adrián Zigarán (replacing the elected libertarian mayor Carlos Alfredo “Conejo” Martínez, who was ousted last October on criminal charges of covering up a drug-related homicide committed by his brother). The fence will be financed by the Salta provincial government under the supervision of the national government. Upon hearing the news, the Bolivian Foreign Ministry immediately complained. While Bullrich’s focus was on the frontiers, her own cousin Jaime Bullrich (61) was robbed of seven million pesos at a Recoleta café last Thursday.
INDIGENOUS DISLODGED
Last Monday the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs, headed by Claudio Avruj, revoked the permit of the Qom community to occupy territory in Makallé, Chaco, after a woman announced co-ownership of the property in question, presenting documentation. The permit had been granted in the last fortnight of the previous Frente de Todos government and was challenged by Mariel Luisa Crespo.
SELF-SERVICE STATIONS
The government published last Wednesday in the Official Gazette a decree permitting drivers to fill up both petrol and diesel fuel at service stations. The move is expected to result in “lower prices with a clear benefit to the consumer.” Such self-service is already permitted in the United States, the European Union, Uruguay and Paraguay among other countries. The innovation had already been anticipated last year by Deregulation & State Transformation Minister Federico Sturzenegger with pilot tests in this city and Mendoza. Despite Wednesday’s decree, the self-service of fuel will continue to be prohibited in provinces like Buenos Aires, La Pampa and Jujuy, where local legislation restricts the operation of pumps to service station staff while a mixed service remains an option with self-service also solving problems at night and on public holidays.
‘WE HAD TO’ (?!)
The Defence Ministry cashiered 23 retired military officers on Wednesday after their sentences for crimes against humanity were upheld but the portfolio headed by Luis Petri was subsequently at pains to explain that it was not their decision. “The courts ordered us to cashier them because their sentences for crimes against humanity had been confirmed. We did nothing more than heed a court order, that’s all,” Ministry sources explained to Noticias Argentinas news agency, insisting that the expulsions “did not respond to our unilateral decision.”
CHAINSAW AND COUNTING
The Javier Milei administration cut the state payroll by 37,595 public employees last year, a report by the Deregulation & State Transformation Ministry headed by Federico Sturzenegger revealed on Thursday. Most of the cuts (22,302) were made in the civil service while 12,410 employees of state companies were made redundant with the remaining 2,883 dismissals coming at the expense of the armed and security forces. The central administration thus dropped from 205,000 to 183,000 employees while the state company payroll was reduced from 91,000 to 78,000 workers. Sturzenegger estimated the fiscal savings from these cuts at over US$4 billion.
TRADE ENVOYS TO JOIN AMBASSADORS
The government has created the post of “Commercial Ambassador for Investment and Strategic Development” under the Foreign Ministry via Decree 43/2025, published in midweek in the Official Gazette and signed by President Javier Milei and Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein. Apart from seeking strategic investments, these new representatives recruited from the private sector are expected to promote and diversify exports, international business deals, technological transfer and Argentina’s global presence with an eye to creating jobs at home, also reporting on international economic trends. While authorised to interact with embassies and consulates abroad, the norm specifies that these Commercial Ambassadors “do not represent the Nation nor will be considered public officials” and will work “ad honorem,” also paying their expenses, without a permanent protocol ranking as “consultants” whose recommendations will not be binding on the state.
LGBTQ BACKLASH
Last Saturday afternoon hundreds of people converged on Parque Lezama for an Anti-Fascist Assembly called by gender organisations and the LGBTQ+ collective under the slogan “Our lives are at risk. Let us never again return to the closet” to protest President Javier Milei’s anti-woke speech at the Davos World Economic Forum where he equated homosexuality with paedophilia, as well as a rise in hate speech since he took office. A much bigger anti-fascist march from Plaza de Mayo to Congress is scheduled for today, enjoying the support of the UCR Radicals as well as the left. The main incident during the generally peaceful protest last Saturday was an attack on the young libertarian influencer Marco Palazzo, 18, who claimed that “his arm was bitten” and thanked the City Police for “saving his life.” Those attending the event affirmed that the influencer and his friend Fernando Valenzuela had been deliberately provocative. The assembly further rejected Milei’s plans to repeal various items of gender legislation and eliminate femicide as a criminal charge. Palazzo is notorious for various controversial stances such as vindicating Nazism (including the claim that Adolf Eichmann was illegally captured here in 1960), criticising Diego “Hand of God” Maradona and questioning Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas.
ARGENTINE AMONG DC DEAD
An Argentine citizen not immediately named was among the 67 fatal victims over Washington DC on Wednesday night when an American Airlines passenger plane flying in from Wichita, Kansas, crashed into a military Sikorski helicopter, sending both aircraft plunging into the Potomac River whose frozen waters led to any survivors being rapidly ruled out. The dead Argentine was one of 60 passengers with the crew of four and the three aboard the helicopter accounting for the other fatalities. At press time the Foreign Ministry was awaiting the official list from the authorities in the United States before contacting the family of the dead man and making public his identity.
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