VETERANS DAY
President Javier Milei and his Vice-President Victoria Villarruel marked the 44th anniversary of the outbreak of the South Atlantic war last Thursday over 3,000 kilometres apart, addressing rallies in Plaza San Martín and the Tierra del Fuego provincial capital of Ushuaia respectively. While affirming Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas, Milei had been planning to visit Britain as early as this month but his plans have been postponed by the war in the Middle East. Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni was alongside the President despite being in the eye of a storm over his properties and flights abroad.
SCHOOL SHOOTING
Easter Week started with a nation in shock after a 15-year-old schoolboy smuggled his grandfather’s rifle into a school in the small Santa Fe Province town of San Cristóbal and started blazing away in the playground, killing Ian Cabrera (aged just 13, given an emotional funeral last Tuesday) and seriously wounding two others before being overpowered. At press time there were conflicting accounts as to whether there were any warning signs while the youthful killer’s criminal responsibility also remains unclear after the recent reforms.
POVERTY DOWN
Poverty fell to 28.2 percent in the second half of 2025, the lowest figure in seven years, the INDEC national statistics bureau reported on Tuesday, (almost halving the 52.9 percent peak in early 2024) while destitution has dropped to 6.3 percent. However experts warn of higher figures in the future with inflation on the uptick amid persistent structural poverty issues.
YIELDING PAYMENTS FORESTALLED
Just before last weekend the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York quashed the first instance verdict of judge Loretta Preska sentencing Argentina to pay up to US$18 billion to hedge funds in a lawsuit arising out of the 2012 nationalisation of YPF oil company, an outcome celebrated by both President Javier Milei and Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof for different reasons. The lawsuit had originated from the state expropriating 51 percent of YPF from Spain’s Repsol while ignoring the statutory obligation to extend the takeover bid to minority shareholders. While Economy Minister Luis Caputo, who denied having sought an out-of-court settlement, hailed the ruling as “tremendous news,” others saw it as vindicating Kiciloff’s insistence that Congress laws and the National Constitution prevail over company statutes. The key words of the ruling read: “Taking these observations into consideration, we now reverse the decision of the district court for two independent reasons. First, under Argentine civil law, the Bylaws did not create bilateral promises giving rise to a contractual obligation on the part of the Republic to YPF’s other shareholders, including the plaintiffs. Second, even assuming the Bylaws did create a bilateral contract, the plaintiffs’ breach of contract claims for damages are precluded by the Republic’s public law governing expropriation.” The ruling was expected to improve country risk by easing the pressure on Central Bank reserves.
NEW CRITERIA FOR JUDGESon
The three justices of the Supreme Court last Monday officially presented their proposals selecting judges, signed by Carlos Rosenkrantz and Ricardo Lorenzetti (Chief Justice Horacio Rosatti withheld his signature for formal reasons as chairing the Council of the Magistrates for whose guidance the proposals are aimed). The proposals seek a more transparent, impartial and swifter selection process. The future judges are now to be selected by the Council of Magistrates in anticipatory competitive examinations ahead of vacancies with multiple choice questions while the importance of the personal interview is to be downscaled in order to prevent other merits being ignored to favour a discretionary choice.
ADORNI STAYS IN NEWS
Lecturers and students of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) held a public class on glaciers and mining on Tuesday outside the Caballito home of Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni to press for the application of the University Financing Law (approved by Congress and published in the Official Gazette last October) and protest a pay erosion of 36 percent (with three weeks of strike last month) amid general underfunding of the educational system – a call echoed by the Administrative Litigation Appeals Court the same day. Exactly where Adorni lives is an issue in itself – the official is embroiled in controversy with a probe into properties not included in his sworn statements and his recent flights abroad. Regarding his flight aboard a private aircraft to Punta del Este for the Carnival long weekend, the secretary of its pilot Agustín Issin has ratified that it was paid by Marcelo Grandio, a TV Pública journalist who is a close friend of the Cabinet chief.
SECURITY FORCES PROTEST
Last Thursday the five national security forces – the Federal Police, the Border Guard (Gendarmería), the Coast Guard (Prefectura Naval), the PSA airport police and the Federal Penitentiary Service – marked Veterans Day by linking up to give a symbolic hug to the Centinela headquarters of the Border Guard in Retiro in order to demand better pay and working conditions (including their deficient healthcare scheme IOSFA), complaining that current salaries place them below the poverty line and oblige them to moonlight. The National Security Ministry had no comment ahead of the protest.
KARINA BLOWS THE CANDLES
The 54th birthday of presidential chief-of-staff Karina Milei (last weekend but celebrated on Monday) was also the highest-profile of her life. The military band ‘Alto Perú’ more accustomed to martial music played eight minutes of ABBA songs on her behalf. Among those celebrating her birthday were Pilar Ramírez, who heads the City Branch of La Libertad Avanza, Congress Speaker Martín Menem, advisor Eduardo ‘Lule’ Menem and Interior Minister Diego Santilli. A smiling Karina Milei continued the celebrations on Monday night by attending a fashion show by the designer Anna Rossatti at the Centro Cultural Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (once the Central Post Office), where she chatted at length with the ex-model and businesswoman Teresa Calandra while libertarian deputy Karen Reichardt was also among the guests.
2026 SPACE ODYSSEY
The University of Buenos Aires (UBA) is participating in the Artemis II mission of NASA making its first return to the Moon in 54 years with the takeoff from Cape Canaveral scheduled for the first six days of April, The equipment will include the microsatellite Atenea, co-developed in Argentina, along with three other microsatellites supplied by South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Germany. “Almost 50 countries signed the agreement with NASA to participate in the Artemis II project when their director visited our Engineering Faculty … but only four were selected … after complying with the strictest safety standards,” explained Alejandro Martínez, the dean of the UBA Engineering Faculty. UBA professors Guillermo Salvatierra and Fernando Filippetti were at Cape Canaveral last week to participate in the launch.
NEW GRAFT WATCHDOG
Just before last weekend the government appointed Gabriela Zangaro as the new head of the Anti-Corruption Office after accepting the resignation of Alejandro Melik presented a fortnight previously. Zangaro had previously been a City judge and member of the Council of Magistrates close to the new Justice Minister Juan Bautista Mahiques, who anticipated her appointment. Soon after taking office, Mahiques was also quick to replace Daniel Vitolo with Alejandro Ramírez as Inspector-General of Justice.
DENIAL OF ENTRY
Airport Police officers last Tuesday arrested at Aeroparque Jorge Newbery airport the Brazilian activist Thiago Avila, a coordinator of the Global Sumud international solidarity fleet shipping humanitarian aid from Barcelona to the Gaza Strip, who now faces deportation. Avila is helping to coordinate a return voyage with 100 ships to the Gaza Strip as from April 12 with some 3,000 activists aboard (including the famous environmentalist Greta Thunberg) and the aim of denouncing the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory. Global Sumud Argentina denounced the “self-styled most Zionist government in history ... kidnapped by the geopolitical interests of the United States and the State of Israel” for seeking to stigmatise and criminalise pro-Palestinian militants. Leftist politicians Myriam Bregman, Romina del Plá and Celeste Fierro along with Peronist deputy Juan Grabois expressed their repudiation of Avila’s arrest, calling for his immediate release. Ávila had previously been arrested in Montevideo. Meanwhile in North America ESMA concentration camp survivor Silvia Labayru (age 69) was denied entry into Texas last Wednesday, being allowed to proceed no further than Mexico City on no other grounds than having been a Montonero 50 years ago. Labayru had previously travelled to the United States without problems in 2022 and 2024, years of Joe Biden’s Presidency.
FOOTBALL AND POLITICS
Argentina closed out its World Cup preparations with wins against two underwhelming African teams – 2-1 against Mauretania on the eve of last weekend and 5-0 against Zambia last Tuesday. Since the latter match came the day after AFA Argentine Football Association President Claudio Tapia and AFA Treasurer Pablo Toviggino were sent to trial for tax evasion and fraud, midfielder Rodrigo De Paul was asked to comment on the scandal but forcefully declined, saying: “We’re not into politics,” thus detaching the national team from any stance. "We’re just football players come to play football … leaving politics to the politicians," he said. However he expressed concern over the social mood surrounding Argentine football in an “annoyed,” disunited and “destructive” country. There was some media speculation that substandard patches in the team’s play could be the result of the AFA scandal.
BAEZ SOSA REPENTANCE
Rugby player Lucas Pertossi, sentenced to 15 years in prison for playing a secondary role in the murder of Fernando Báez Sosa in Villa Gesell in early 2020, expressed repentance from his cell last Monday while giving his version of the crime. He denied the slaying having been a murder since he assured that the death of Báez Sosa had never been planned but “a tragedy which went out of control.” Pertossi said that he had been on his way home when he saw a fight which he decided to film with his mobile phone. While hearing screams, he never saw much, as he recalled, entering into shock without realising what had happened. Pertossi then complained that defence lawyer Hugo Tomei had prevented him from telling all this at the trial.
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