MILEI STANDS BY ISRAEL – AND VILLARRUEL
President Javier Milei on Monday became the first Argentine head of state this century to attend the ceremony marking the anniversary of the 1992 terrorist car-bomb destruction of the Israel Embassy. He also took advantage of the occasion to close ranks with Vice-President Victoria Villarruel in a cordial encounter after the tension between them over the Senate rejection of the DNU emergency mega-decree – the latest in a series of conciliatory measures from both. The last president to attend the Israeli Embassy tribute to the 29 victims had been Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001). The orators at the ceremony were Israeli Ambassador Eyal Sela, his designated Argentine counterpart, rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish, and survivor Alberto Kupersmid. Ministers Guillermo Francos (Interior), Luis Petri (Defence), Sandra Petovello (Human Capital) and Mariano Cúneo Libarona (Justice), presidential chief-of-staff Karina Milei, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni; lower house La Libertad Avanza caucus chief Oscar Zago and Buenos Aires City Mayor Jorge Macri also attended. In his speech, Sela also referred to the terrorist bomb destruction of the AMIA Jewish community centre two years later, directly naming Hezbollah, and, far more recently, to the sanguinary Hamas invasion of Israel last October when "dozens of Argentines were murdered or kidnapped."
PICKETS SHOWN THEIR LIMITS
Kirchnerite and leftist social organisations delivered a promised “piquetazo nacional” against the “plan motosierra” or chainsaw plan last Monday, cutting traffic at over 500 points, many of them adjacent to the boundaries between Buenos Aires City and Province, but all attempts to enter the Federal Capital were repelled by the City Police and federal security forces. Protest leaders claimed urgency for their demonstration from soup kitchens being denied food supplies. Some of the marchers chanted: “We’ll throw out the Peluca” (“Wig,” in reference to President Javier Milei).
STORMY COMEBACK
The exceptionally wet weather throughout most of the previous week returned with a vengeance last Wednesday when torrential storms left the Casa Rosada itself flooded and motorway waterfalls formed along Avenida General Paz dividing Buenos Aires City and Province (quickly christened the ‘Cataratas de General Paz’ by online comics). At Government House the daily press conference of Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni had to be postponed until noon due to “technical problems.” Subte underground lines had to skip various stations while the Mitre suburban railway line was interrupted due to flooded tracks and some flights were delayed or suspended at Ezeiza International Airport. In Recoleta, a woman of 74 was killed by the railings of a ninth-floor balcony blown away by the storm and several injuries were reported. An orange alert was declared but by Thursday, it seems the rain had been removed and replaced by chilly autumnal breeze.
100 DAYS: CHAINSAW AT WORK
Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni’s daily press conferences throughout the week included the Tuesday announcement that two rural institutions – the National Institute of Family, Peasant and Indigenous Agriculture (INAFCI, in its Spanish acronym) and the National Council of Family Agriculture – would be closed down, firing at least 900 employees and saving nine billion pesos. Adorni, who dismissed INAFCI as "a public employment agency," also gave his take on the government’s first 100 days that day, underlining its zero fiscal deficit and the fact that the government had not fallen despite "the fantasies of some people." President Milei himself was out defending himself, acknowledging the nation’s economic pain but citing surveys showing he still had the people’s support.
INSURANCE SCANDAL
The scandal of the insurance fraud steering commissions in the direction of brokers close to previous President Alberto Fernández, indicted in this case since the start of this month, saw the spotlight moving last week to the Women’s and Education Ministries of the 2019-2023 Frente de Todos administration in the audit conducted by the Human Capital Ministry headed by Sandra Pettovello. The Ministry’s lawyers detected 27 Nación Seguros policies (mandatory for all state agencies after a 2021 emergency decree) worth approximately 600 million pesos as contracted with Aspen Brokers as the intermediary. The material was delivered to federal judge Julián Ercolini in charge of the case. The commissions in question are believed to total some 3.5 billion pesos.
NEW BANKNOTES
New banknotes of 10,000 and 20,000 pesos will enter circulation in June, the Central Bank confirmed on Monday. The former banknote will bear the images of flag creator Manuel Belgrano and independence heroine María Remedios del Valle while the latter will only show the figure of Juan Bautista Alberdi, author of the 1853 Constitution and the “liberal” idol of President Javier Milei.
DENGUE FULLY WATERED
The dengue outbreak continues to gain momentum and is expected to peak around Easter with cases doubling in more than one province. While Buenos Aires Province continues to have the leading death toll with 17 of the 79 fatalities so far this year at the start of this week, some northern provinces such as Misiones (14) and Chaco (13) were not far behind while this city had its first four deaths. The 10th week of the year saw 24,302 people infected, taking this year’s total to 120,007 nationwide, close to topping the 2023 record of 130,000 for all 2023, and hospitals are finding it difficult to cope with the multiplicity of cases.
INSFRAN GIVEN FINGER, MAN GETS BEATEN
Germán Malkiewiez, 27, was arrested on Monday for “threats, attacks on and resistance to authority” for flashing an “up yours” finger at eight-term Formosa Province Governor Gildo Insfrán when the young man’s motorcycle and the gubernatorial van converged at a traffic light. Insfrán’s bodyguards did not omit to beat up Malkiewiez, an entrepreneur who is also active in sports, as they arrested him. His defence lawyers immediately charged that the arrest was “illegal” as well as denouncing the gratuitous violence of the bodyguards. Comparisons were quickly made with another abuse of authority in Jujuy early this year when two men were arrested and held behind bars for over seven weeks, apparently at the behest of Gerardo Morales, for tweeting that the former two-term Radical governor is a cuckold. Morales refuses to accept their release, vowing to take the case all the way up to the Supreme Court.
MIRTHA’S CLEAR ON GAUMONT
Entertainment world icon Mirtha Legrand, 97, on Tuesday criticised as “disagreeable” and “ridiculous” the attitude of President Javier Milei in retweeting the following post: “What a great gesture it would be were Mirtha to buy the Gaumont (Cinema), which could be renamed Cine GAUMONT-LEGRAND and only project Argentine films. A milestone which would ennoble her and contribute to changing the bad image which Argentines have of their cultural references,” also appealing during her traditional programme La noche de Mirtha for the Gaumont not to be closed down.
ISABELITA DECORATED
After decades of obscurity, ex-president María Estela ‘Isabel’ Martínez de Perón, 93, the widow of movement founder Juan Domingo Perón, reappeared in public in Madrid on Monday to receive the Hispanidad 2023 prize for her “defence of Hispanic values” from the Asociación Preserva non-profit cultural organisation. President of Argentina from 1974 until the 1976 military coup whose anniversary will be marked tomorrow, “Isabelita” has not returned to this country from Spain since the inauguration of Raúl Alfonsín in 1983.
ABANDONED CHILD DEATH
A three-year-old boy died in Cipoletti (Río Negro) on Tuesday night after having been locked up for six hours in the car of his parents, who had forgotten to drop him off at kindergarten before going to work. Police rushed him to hospital where all efforts to save his life proved in vain. Provincial prosecutors are evaluating the possibilities of charging the parents with negligence.
HINTERLAND TRAGEDY
Six men aged between 27 and 60 died on the eve of last weekend in Blaquier, Buenos Aires Province, from the inhalation of toxic gases when a group of neighbours including two volunteer firemen entered a sewage cesspit to try and rescue a man working on the site.
NO PRAISE FOR PUTIN
A dozen countries, including Argentina, from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) diplomatically rebuked Honduran President Xiomara Castro after she offered congratulations on behalf of the bloc to Vladimir Putin on his re-election in Russia. They said in a joint statement that this was not an agreed position among member countries and that she was speaking only for her own country. “Prior consultations” were not carried out, they complained.
ECONOMIC DECLINE
Argentina's economy contracted in the fourth quarter of 2023, cementing a full year of negative growth. Gross domestic product fell by 1.9 percent compared with the July-September period, according to official data released on Wednesday by the INDEC national statistics bureau. Economists surveyed by the Central Bank forecast GDP will fall 3.3 percent this year as austerity measures lead to a drop in consumption. As output expanded in the third quarter, the country managed to avoid a technical recession. Even so, the struggling economy has contracted for six of the last 10 years. Annual inflation accelerated to 276 percent last month, affecting purchasing power as the value of pensions and wages erode.
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