STATE OF THE NATION
President Javier Milei opened the 144th ordinary sessions of Congress on Sunday night with a feisty state-of-the-nation speech in which he furiously confronted “ignorant” and “corrupt” Kirchnerite deputies as well as mocking businessmen whom he perceived as being at odds with the open economy he staunchly defended. He further claimed to have been the victim of an attempted coup last year. His speech played up the dire inheritance received before highlighting the transformations achieved in the first two years of his presidency. No concrete announcements of legislation were made beyond promising various packages of reforms to be submitted to Congress, alongside changing the “institutional architecture.” Apart from Kirchnerite heckling, the speech was frequently interrupted by the noisy cheers of the numerous libertarians packed into the building. Next day it was the turn of City Mayor Jorge Macri and Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof to open their legislatures – speaking more like next year’s opposition presidential candidate than this year’s governor, the latter largely shirked any provincial issues to attack the national government for “a plan of mass destruction of industry,” with 30 companies closing down daily and the middle class facing extinction.
MILEI BACKS TRUMP AND NETANYAHU
The government wholeheartedly threw its support behind the joint attack by the United States and Israel against Iran commencing last weekend, expressing hopes that it would end “over 40 years of oppression and violation of human rights” in Iran. “The Presidential Office celebrates the joint operation which resulted in the elimination of Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran and one of the most evil, violent and cruel persons ever seen in the history of humanity,” ran the communiqué signed by President Javier Milei, listing the 1994 car-bomb destruction of the AMIA Jewish community centre by the terrorist group Hezbollah among the “atrocities” of Khamenei.
GALLO RELEASED
Border Guard corporal Nahuel Gallo ended 15 months of captivity in El Rodeo 1 prison in Caracas last Sunday and was back in this country in the small hours of Tuesday with AFA Argentine Football Association president Claudio ‘Chiqui’ Tapia quick to take credit for the “humanitarian” efforts brokering his release with AFA’s Venezuelan counterparts while also thanking Venezuelan caretaker president Delcy Rodríguez for her “sensitivity.” Venezuela’s Bolivarian government reportedly hit on this format for freeing Gallo in order to deny President Javier Milei and Senator Patricia Bullrich, who had insistently pressed for the Border Guard’s release when Security Minister, any kudos. On Wednesday Gallo gave a press conference flanked by two ministers – Alejandra Monteoliva (Security) and Pablo Quirno (Foreign Relations) – where he said he had “scant information” regarding his release, “not giving names” (with no mention of AFA) and that he was trying to “reinsert himself into society.” He described El Rodeo 1 prison as containing 35 nationalities with “quite a lot of psychological torture” alongside “atrocities” he could not yet name while adding that “thinking of my son was the only thing keeping me strong – it’s not easy being in solitary confinement and falsely accused.” He would not feel free until the 24 foreigners still held in El Rodeo 1 were also freed, he concluded. On the same day Virginia Rovero, the wife of the other Argentine still held in Venezuela (criminal lawyer Germán Giuliani for the past 10 months) confirmed that her husband had been tortured.
NEW MINISTER
City Attorney-General Juan Bautista Mahiques, 45, is the new Justice minister replacing Mariano Cúneo Libarona (who had long wanted out), President Javier Milei announced via his official X social network account last Wednesday following a morning meeting with the departing minister. Mahiques made a point of thanking Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei “for her permanent support and the dedication with which she heads and strengthens the government’s political team,” as well as Cúneo Libarona “for taking care of the first stage of transformation.” The new minister will be seconded by Santiago Viola, a lawyer closely linked to the circle of Karina Milei and Eduardo ‘Lule’ and Martín Menem, who will replace deputy minister Sebastián Amerio (close to presidential advisor Santiago Caputo).
NEW FINANCE GURU
Just before last weekend Economy Minister Luis Caputo announced via his X social network account that Central Bank director Federico Furiase would be the new Finance Secretary, replacing Alejandro Lew who was stepping down for personal reasons after barely three months in the post. Lew, also previously a Central Bank director when appointed, was a stopgap replacement when Pablo Quirno was promoted to the Foreign Ministry last November. Prior to this government, Furiase had over 17 years of private-sector experience in business and academic life, including work in the Anker consultancy of Caputo and Central Bank governor Santiago Bausili, among other consultancies.
LABOUR REFORM TAKEN TO COURT
All three CGT secretaries-general went to court last Monday to demand that the government’s recently approved labour reform be declared “unconstitutional,” also expressing disappointment with President Javier Milei’s state-of-the-nation speech the previous day as “showing that this is a government for financial speculators,” according to Cristian Jerónimo while teamster Octavio Argüello spoke of the loss of 270,000 jobs.
LOPERFIDO SUCCUMBS TO ALS (ELA)
Darío Lopérfido, a former outspoken Culture secretary well known for various controversial statements, died just before last weekend in Madrid at the age of 61 after losing a 20-month battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a merciless neuro-degenerative disease “with no epic” which he chronicled first-hand. He rose to be culture secretary at both municipal and national level, always under Fernando de la Rúa (Buenos Aires City’s first elected mayor from 1996 to 1999 and president of Argentina until 2001) when he was a leading member of the so-called Sushi Group of cosmopolitan youngsters backing the latter. When Mauricio Macri was elected mayor of this city in 2007, he again entrusted culture to Lopérfido, this time with ministerial rank, but he was obliged to step down in 2016 when a series of clashes with progressive artists and human rights organisations culminated in his resignation in 2016 after he questioned the figure of 30,000 for the missing under the 1976-1983 military dictatorship as a fetish and a political abuse of their memory.
CARS CRUSHED UNDERGROUND
Around 60 cars parked under a three-storey residential housing complex in the neighbourhood of Parque Patricios were crushed when the roof above them caved in during the small hours of Tuesday. Around 500 people inhabiting the complex’s 300 flats had to be evacuated for fear the building would also collapse as fire-fighters and Civil Defence personnel rushed to the scene. Some neighbours blamed the disaster on works to improve the drainage against reported leaks.
FOOTBALL STRIKE
Even if the court summons of AFA Argentine Football Association president Claudio ‘Chiqui’ Tapia for tax evasion prompting the protest was postponed until next Thursday (due to the expedient of switching his lawyer) while fan discontent was reported, the nationwide football strike as from last Thursday through the weekend went ahead. In other football news, Eduardo ‘Cacho’ Coudet was confirmed as the new trainer of River Plate, succeeding the club idol Marcelo “el Muñeco” Gallardo.
ARGENTINE WRITER IN US ACADEMY
Argentine writer Luisa Valenzuela, 86, will be officially joining the American Academy of Arts and Letters of the United States as a Foreign Honorary Member at its annual ceremony in New York on May 20, it was announced at the end of last month after she was formally informed of her choice on February 9. She thus enters an exclusive group of 75 prestigious international personalities including such names as Meryl Streep, Bob Dylan, Margaret Atwood, J. M. Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Haruki Murakami and Salman Rushdie, among others.
A THOUSAND AND ONE ARABIAN FLIGHTS
The Emir of Abu Dhabi, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is also the President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), spent the last six days of February in Bariloche, accompanied by a vast entourage of over 200 persons transported in a fleet of three massive aircraft headed by a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with every luxury (including a king-size bed and private bathroom) and only flying a few dozen passengers despite having space for 300. The Emir’s previous stop had been the Moroccan capital of Rabat. The royal Patagonian holiday followed the recent signature with the UAE of strategic energy agreements with YPF amid a growing interest in real estate purchases and infrastructural projects.
PAINTING PROBE
In the context of the investigation of the Portrait of a Lady stolen by the Nazis and located after 80 years in Mar del Plata, the courts have made enquiries in Germany to determine the role of Friedrich Kadgien during the Third Reich, as well as requesting analysis of other works of art found in the dwellings of daughters of the late Nazi official. The portrait was originally owned by the Dutch Jew Jacques Goudstikker, whose art gallery was looted when the Nazis entered Amsterdam in 1940, leaving almost 800 paintings scattered around the world (of which only 350 have so far been recovered). While Portrait of a Lady (valued at some 250,000 euros) was found in the house of Patricia Kadgien, more paintings have now turned up at the home of her sister Alicia with both women under investigation and forbidden to leave the country.
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