Stories that caught our eye: November 15 to 22

TAME IT IN RIO

President Javier Milei attended the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro last Monday and Tuesday, toning down his differences with the international community to sign the final statement along with the other participants (although including an addendum disassociating Argentina from “all content linked to Agenda 2030”). His continuing hostility to summit host President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (as expressed in a frosty photo while not appearing in the main summit group photograph) did not prevent him from celebrating an ambitious agreement with Brasilia towards infrastructural projects to accelerate the supply of Vaca Muerta gas to Brazilian industry. On Tuesday Milei also held a 30-minute meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, reviving a tricky bilateral relationship with a mutual interest in fostering and diversifying trade along with an exchange of invitations to visit – this was followed by a meeting with Indian premier Narendra Modi. Milei further met with International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, who praised the “impressive progress towards stabilising the economy” and pledged IMF support. The presidential flight to Brazil was preceded by receiving French President Emmanuel Macron in this city last weekend while the summit was followed by hosting Italian premier Giorgia Meloni here on Tuesday and Wednesday with the two far right leaders proposing an alliance of free countries against tyranny and misery as an alternative to the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty inserted by Lula into the summit agenda.

'ARMED' PRAETORIAN GUARD

National officials and leading figures of the social networks identified with the ruling La Libertad Avanza party launched the ‘Las Fuerzas del Cielo’ (“The Forces of Heaven”) grouping in the Greater Buenos Aires district of San Miguel last weekend with the influencer Daniel Parisini aka ‘Gordo Dan’ presenting it as “the armed guard” of the libertarians while youthful Worship & Civilisation Secretary Nahuel Sotelo underlined the importance of winning the “cultural battle.” The initiative was widely criticised for the violence of its language.

CONGRESS GRIDLOCKED

Congress failed to reach quorum last Wednesday to debate the ‘Ficha Limpia’ bill to prevent convicted persons from running for electoral office. Speaker Martín Menem lifted the session after PRO, La Libertad Avanza, Radical and Coalición Cívica deputies fell just one short of the 129 members present needed to start. Supporters of the bill continued arriving after the suspension. Nor was progress made towards floor debate of the 2025 Budget in committee sessions the previous day. Both Unión por la Patria and the left oppose the bill as nothing more than a bid to frustrate the candidacy of ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (convicted for corruption) in next year’s midterms, a candidacy which now goes ahead barring a Supreme Court ruling. On Thursday the government sent a bill to Congress to eliminate the PASO primaries but it would need to call extraordinary sessions next month in order to ensure its passage in time for next year’s midterms.

HIDROVÍA GOES PRIVATE

Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos on Tuesday announced the virtual privatisation of the Hidrovía waterway, putting it out for tender on a 30-year private lease at entrepreneurial risk without state assistance. Bidders have until next January 29 to submit offers with only solvent companies accepted. Francos indicated that the bids would need to be ambitious, accompanied by proposals to modernise drastically the waterway, which carries some 80 percent of national exports, making it more competitive in order to compensate for Argentina’s distance from the rest of the world, as well as safeguarding against drug-trafficking and terrorism.

AIR FORCE CHIEF BOUNCED

The Defence Ministry on Thursday communicated the ouster of Air Force chief-of-staff Fernando Mengo on charges of the private use of military aircraft and presumed sexual abuse. The communiqué seemed to take the former charge more seriously than the latter. Mengo’s successor had not been defined at press time.

HOW GENERAL A STRIKE?

Teamster leader Pablo Moyano, one of the three CGT secretaries-general, warned last Monday that the country faced a general strike next month although his two colleagues and many trade unionists are not in agreement and he himself admitted that his initiative was being “debated.” He also cast doubts on the veracity of the government’s inflation figures.

CICCONE CLOSED

The government last Monday announced the closure of the Ciccone Calcográfica money-printing plant, which was nationalised in 2012 after the scandal of its fraudulent purchase by then-Vice-President Amado Boudou via crony capitalist friends. The end of the Don Torcuato plant, described by Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni as “one of the great emblems of Kirchnerite corruption,” will save the state over five billion pesos annually but 270 jobs stand to be lost. Three of the plant’s machines will now be used for passports while the production of banknotes has been outsourced abroad, considered more economical than the state firm.

BOMB SCARE

A drone exploded near the Israeli Embassy on Thursday but Security Minister Patricia Bullrich quickly assured the citizenry via her social networks that the incident had been confirmed to be the result of the "imprudence" of a private citizen rather than an act of terrorism after personally going to the downtown Embassy. Meanwhile President Javier Milei stoutly defended Israel after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence minister Yoav Gallant.

WORLD BANK LOANS

The World Bank on Tuesday extended a credit of US$1 billion so that the government may continue subsidising the electricity bills and transport fares of the most vulnerable sectors, earmarking US$500 million for each. The loans are to be returned in the next 32 years with a grace period of seven years.

ALBERTO SUMMONED

Federal judge Julián Ercolini on Thursday summoned ex-president Alberto Fernández to testify in court on December 11 in the case accusing him of gender violence against his former partner Fabiola Yañez.

PEPÍN’S COMEBACK

Fabián ‘Pepín’ Rodríguez Simón, an advisor of Mauricio Macri during his 2015-19 presidency, ended three years on the run last Wednesday, returning from Uruguay after federal judge María Servini de Cubría lifted the warrant for his arrest in the cases for supposedly extorting the Grupo Indalo. But on his arrival he had to surrender his passport because he is still forbidden to leave the country, pending a final ruling from the Supreme Court.

URRIBARRI BEHIND BARS

The provincial Criminal Cassation Court in the Entre Ríos provincial capital of Paraná on Tuesday ordered former two-term Peronist governor Sergio Urribarri to be remanded in custody pending a final Supreme Court ruling on his eight-year sentence on five counts of corruption, leading to his prompt arrest in Concordia and transfer to a Paraná jail. The court insisted on his detention as a flight risk. The main charge against him was using public funds to finance a personal campaign as a Peronist presidential hopeful when an outgoing governor in 2015.

HEY, KICI, LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE

Vice-President Victoria Villarruel has taken issue with Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof for viralising having spent a rainy Sunday last weekend reading Cometierra by Dolores Reyes, a book which “exalts paedophilia,” according to Villarruel. She also spotted on his table a book entitled Si no fueras tan niña (“If you weren’t such a young girl”) about a 14-year-old girl abused by a man of 30. Libertarians have recently started to question textbooks forming part of the school reading plan in Buenos Aires Province and Villarruel’s remarks fall into that context.

RUSSIAN COKE

The Federal Cassation Court on Tuesday not only upheld the convictions of Russian drug-traffickers Ivan Blizniouk and Alexander Chikalo but upped their prison sentences to 10 and eight years respectively. The two men, both Russian-born but resident in Argentina, had been found guilty in 2022 after 12 suitcases stuffed with 389 kilos of cocaine were located on Russian Embassy premises in late 2016. The suitcases were duly shipped to Moscow via diplomatic pouch but in the interim Border Guard officers had replaced the cocaine with flour. The other end of the gang led by one Andrey Kovalchuk was sentenced to prison in Russia in late 2021.

SOLDIERS CONVICTED

Six former military servicemen (including three officers) were sentenced to eight years in prison for causing the death of private Matías Chirino in initiation rites which got out of hand at the Paso de los Libres (Corrientes) Army base in mid-2022. Three other defendants were acquitted. The prosecution had pressed homicide charges against all nine defendants but these were not accepted by the judge.

ARGENTINA STAYS TOP

The Argentine football team eked out an uninspired 1-0 victory over lowly Peru at the Boca stadium last Tuesday thanks to a Lautaro Martínez scissor kick in the second half, thus partially redeeming the previous Thursday’s 2-1 defeat away to Paraguay and remaining comfortably top of the South American qualifier standings for the 2026 World Cup.