INFLATION LIES LOW
Last month’s inflation at national level was 1.7 percent (coinciding with the key item of food and beverages and also City Hall’s figure published last Tuesday), the lowest in the last 14 months, for a total 21.3 percent so far this year at an annual rate of 33.5 percent, the INDEC national statistics bureau reported on Thursday afternoon. The figure came as no surprise to the market while Economy Minister Luis Caputo celebrated monthly inflation dropping back below two percent after posting 2.1 percent in July. Core inflation (excluding regulated and seasonal prices) was 1.8 percent, the consequence of the regulated prices (with electricity and gas bills, public transport and prepaid health schemes all being updated) while seasonal prices retreated 0.9 percent. The main culprits were Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels 2.8 percent) and Education (2.5 percent).
MALVINAS CRACKDOWN
Just five days after President Javier Milei’s nationwide broadcast announcing sanctions to escalate the pressure for Argentina’s Malvinas sovereignty claims, some 60 targets are already in line for violating the ban on illegally authorised fossil fuel activities on the continental platform, as mandated by Law 26,659. “The Argentine Republic does not admit nor will admit attacks against its sovereignty,” affirmed the Presidential Office, adding that “nobody will be able to dispose of the resources (of all the Argentines) without the authorisation of our country.” The government indicated that it would continue advancing in the identification of those responsible for violating sovereignty with a view to the corresponding litigation and sanctions. Last weekend, three oil majors – SLB (Schlumberger), the world’s biggest supplier of ancillary services for the industry, Halliburton and Baker Hughes – all affirmed their "respect for Argentine sovereignty” over the islands while disavowing any intention of working with the kelper government or the Sea Lion project pushed by the Anglo-Israeli consortium consisting of Rockhopper Exploration and Navitas Petroleum. These statements were celebrated by YPF oil company, which highlighted the continuity of their activity in Argentina. On Monday businessman Eduardo Elsztain felt obliged to defend himself against charges of “treason” (some of them with an anti-Semitic tinge) for owning a two percent share in the Falkland Islands Company, explaining that in 2017 he had sought to buy a majority holding in the company in order to expand Argentine influence on the islands but had been blocked by the British authorities. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno sprang to Elsztain’s defence, saying that he was “anything but a traitor.” Last Tuesday Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir posted on his X social network account: “It’s time the state of Israel recognised in public that the Malvinas Islands are occupied Argentine territory stolen violently by the British from the Argentine people, not only occupying territory but also drilling for oil there and robbing money from the Argentine people,” also demanding Israeli sanctions against Britain. Amid mounting tension, Milei suspended next month’s trip to Britain (pencilled in for October 21) when he was due to give a lecture at Oxford University among other activities.
EDUCATION ERRORS
The latest edition of the PISA scholastic aptitude tests show Argentina to be regressing in the past three years with its ranking, falling to 72nd out of 91 countries and almost half its students (48.8 percent) flunking in Science, Reading and Mathematics. Only 1.2 percent of the Argentine students could be graded as excellent while Argentina only topped El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Paraguay within the Latin American region. The distractions of mobile telephones were described as a new and growing problem although the report did not describe technology as a negative factor as a whole. An initiative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) every three years, the 2025 edition made public last Tuesday measured the scholastic skills of 760,000 students worldwide representing 33 million pupils with China obtaining the best results.
CRISTINA’S TEAM OWED MILLIONS
A civil lawsuit has condemned the state to paying almost US$10 million (13.6 billion pesos) for the legal fees of the defence lawyers of ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and other defendants in the ‘Vialidad”’ case of fraudulent Santa Cruz highway contracts, while the courts have still not managed to lay their hands on the US$587 million to compensate for the corruption earning the ex-president her six-year prison sentence. The courts have appealed the lawsuit to the Supreme Court. On Thursday Banco Galicia confirmed that some US$5 million in Florencia Kirchner’s account was available to be impounded by the courts.
SWISS GOLD
Central Bank governor Santiago Bausili revealed last Wednesday that some of Argentina’s gold reserves had been transferred to Switzerland in 2024 in answer to questions by opposition senators during a hearing in Congress, also commenting sarcastically on the penchant of his critics for conspiracy theories. Bausili explained that he had been taking advantage of a demand for gold ingot and bullion as “a window of opportunity,” insisting that the move had been properly audited and documented.
PLOT THICKENS FOR CERIMEDO
Argentine political consultant Fernando Cerimedo was transferred early last Tuesday from Santa Cruz de la Sierra to Chonchocoro maximum security prison in the Bolivian capital of La Paz, where he must remain for the next six months remanded in custody while under investigation for presumed embezzlement of state funds and the attempted femicide of his ex-partner Nadia Beller. Before boarding the aircraft to transfer him, Cerimedo asked Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz Pereira and his wife Natalia Basil to pardon him for ever having been mixed up with Beller while asking for “justice and the truth to be known.” Cerimedo, one of the founders of the digital platform La Derecha Diario, successively advised the presidential campaigns of Javier Milei in 2023 and Paz Pereira last year but the Bolivian president denies that he ever held any official role. Cerimedo was originally arrested on August 21 in connection with the shooting of Beller in Santa Cruz de la Sierra but the embezzlement charges have emerged since. His lawyers unsuccessfully resisted last Tuesday’s transfer.
ALBERTO IRIBARNE, 1950-2026
Ex-minister Alberto Iribarne died last weekend at the age of 76. The Peronist leader replaced current Supreme Court Chief Justice Horacio Rosatti at the helm of the Justice, Security and Human Rights Ministry during the Néstor Kirchner presidency in mid-2005 when Rosatti resigned over perceived corruption in prison construction contracts, remaining until late 2007 for the rest of that presidency. He later became Argentine ambassador to Uruguay throughout the Alberto Fernández Presidency (2019-23) while prior to his entry into the Cabinet he had headed the Mint before becoming SIGEN comptroller between 2003 and 2004.
CHICHE GELBLUNG, 1944-2026
The journalist and media personality Samuel ‘Chiche’ Gelblung died last Wednesday in his 82nd year after a media career spanning over five decades and marked by his provocatively controversial style. Gelblung had been suffering intensified health problems since late 2023 (when he was visited in Mater Dei Hospital by then president-elect Javier Milei) but they worsened considerably this year with a month in intensive therapy following a heart operation last April to place two stents. The peak of his career was during the Carlos Menem years in the last decade of the past century, including contributing to the exposure of the tycoon Alfredo Yabrán following the murder of news photographer José Luis Cabezas in 1997.
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