ALL POWER TO SIDE
The Presidential Office was quick to deny that the new strategic plan of SIDE intelligence agency, as revealed by the journalist Hugo Alconada Mon in last Sunday’s edition of La Nación newspaper, aimed at persecution. The leaked secret document contemplates domestic espionage against those who “manipulate” public opinion, seek to “erode” confidence in government officials or trigger a “loss of confidence” in the economic policies of President Javier Milei, categories which would include opposition politicians, economic experts and journalists. The plan also includes more traditional objectives such as confronting terrorism and organised crime and safeguarding Argentine interests in the South Atlantic and the Antarctic. At the start of this month President Milei approved a booster of 25.25 billion pesos for SIDE, taking its total budget for this year up to 80.87 billion pesos, including 13.426 billion in reserved spending with no accountability.
JUDGE OR STARLET?
Julieta Makintach, one of three judges trying seven health professionals for responsibility in the 2020 death of football superstar Diego Maradona, fell into disgrace last week when dozens of videos from last March emerged of the documentary being made of the trial with the magistrate in a star role. Facing possible charges of malfeasance, influence-trafficking and tampering with evidence among others, she was suspended for three months with her future in the hands of the Supreme Court of Buenos Aires Province, while the case was declared null and void and sent for retrial.
NATIONAL DAY TENSIONS
Sometimes (not always) an uneventful ritual, the Te Deum service accompanying last Sunday’s nationhood day at the downtown Cathedral included President Javier Milei snubbing both Buenos Aires City Mayor Jorge Macri (ignoring his outstretched hand) and Vice-President Victoria Villarruel before sitting through some admonitions in Buenos Aires Archbishop Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva’s sermón. "Rome does not pay traitors," was Milei’s cryptic explanation afterwards. In his sermon García Cuerva complained of “terrorism in the social networks,” also calling for decent pensions. Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, now chairing the opposition Partido Justicialista, held her own parallel “25 de Mayo” event, deploring defeatism.
RFK IN TOWN
US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrived last Sunday on an official two-day visit, with its main focus the “deregulation” of the local health system. For that reason, he met with Deregulation & State Transformation Minister Federico Sturzenegger, as well as his local counterpart Mario Lugones, while also calling on Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein. A meeting with President Javier Milei took place Tuesday morning in the Casa Rosada with the encounter serving to confirm both Argentina’s exit from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and a “profound” reform of the health system (as revealed by Lugones who was also present) – the US visitor was afterwards photographed wielding a chainsaw alongside a thumbs-up president. The Donald Trump administration has dubbed its programme MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) but Kennedy (a nephew of late US President John F. Kennedy and a Democrat until late 2023 when he launched a presidential bid as an independent, dropping it in order to back Trump) was a controversial choice for his portfolio due to his anti-vax views and his faith in alternative medicine. Earlier in his career he was an ardent environmentalist often engaged in legal battles with giant corporations.
POSSIBLE PRECEDENT
The Foreign Ministry has celebrated the May 22 agreement whereby the United Kingdom returned the Chagos archipelago to the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius as a precedent for “embarking on a serious and substantial dialogue” with the British authorities to advance towards a definite solution of the Malvinas issue, “demonstrating that it is possible to resolve controversies of this nature by peaceful means” in line with international law. Nevertheless, there has been no change in the British South Atlantic stance since Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer affirmed in Parliament last October: “The Falklands and Gibraltar are British and will continue to be British.” The main motive for continued colonisation of the Chagos, which remained in British hands after Mauritius became independent in 1965, was concern for the Anglo-American military base on Diego García, guaranteed under the agreement.
RESCUE FROM VENEZUELA
The partner and son of Border Guard Nahuel Gallo, held by the Nicolás Maduro régime on charges of espionage and forming part of an “international conspiracy” since travelling to Venezuela for Christmas last year, were whisked out of the country last Wednesday in a secret operation coordinated by Patricia Bullrich’s Security Ministry. The first stop for Venezuelan-born María Alexandra Gómez García and her son Víctor Benjamín, born in Argentina two years ago, was the Colombian capital of Bogotá, before travelling onto Buenos Aires. Another Argentine, the lawyer Germán Darío Giuliani, was detained by the régime on May 23.
MILMAN: MAGNICIDE ATTEMPT “STAGED”
Long on the defensive from being accused of having been overheard anticipating two days beforehand the attempt to assassinate then vice- president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in September, 2022, PRO deputy Gerardo Milman went on the offensive last Wednesday when he went to court to supposedly allege that she authored the attempt in order to victimise herself in the face of the corruption charges against her. The right-hand man of then presidential hopeful Patricia Bullrich until the attempt, Milman was subsequently dumped as her campaign manager, suffering a certain ostracism, but has come more into his own this year, presenting multiple bills. He backtracked on the “auto” attack thesis later, pointing to murky intelligence dealings.
AN ETERNAL PROTEST
Organisations grouping scientists staged a protest last Wednesday against those working in science and technology being robbed of their future with hundreds of demonstrators dressed as Eternauts (evoking the hugely popular comic book/Netflix series). They complained that the budget for science and technology has been halved to 0.15 percent of Gross Domestic Product from 0.3 percent of GDP only two years ago while the salaries of Conicet scientific researchers have fallen 36 percent in real terms since then, forcing young scientists to emígrate or seek another career. The salaries of 80 percent of university science lecturers is below the poverty line with as little as 300,000 pesos for professors while research equipment is not updated.
VOLUNTARY MILITARY SERVICE
In his daily press conference accompanying Army Day last Thursday, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni announced voluntary military service for youths aged between 18 and 28 – a move aimed at inculcating “the lofty values which always characterised the Armed Forces: valour, discipline and love of our nation” but also with the more practical aspect of “training in concrete skills like cooking, workshop mechanics or guard duty” to equip volunteers for their post-military careers. The training will also extend to “defence tasks in emergencies and responding to catastrophes such as floods or fires.” The Defence and Human Capital Ministries will be working together on the implementation.
CHILDREN’S OMBUDSMAN DUMPED
The Congress Bicameral Committee for the Rights of Children and Adolescents voted last Wednesday by a simple majority to remove Marisa Graham, the area’s ombudsman since 2020, and her deputy Juan Facundo Hernández. PRO, Radical and La Libertad Avanza deputies ganged up against the Unión por la Patria deputies on the committee. The Milei administration has already largely dismantled the Childhood, Adolescence and Family Secretariat previously, Graham later said.
FEMALE SCIENCE HONOURED
Argentine physicist and CONICET researcher María Teresa Dova, who works at the La Plata Physics Institute, (IFLP, CONICET-UNLP), last Tuesday was one of the five winners of the International Awards L’Oréal–UNESCO for Women in Science” 2025 representing the Latin American and Caribbean region. She will receive her prize at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on June 12 together with four other female scientists representing the other four regions of the world. The award comes in recognition of her contributions to high energy particle physics, especially her discoveries in relation to the Higgs boson (a subatomic particle), cosmic rays and other basic components of matter.
FENTANYL FATALITIES
Early this week a report by the national epidemiological authorities informed that 69 medical cases from the contaminated fentanyl produced by the HLB Pharma and Ramallo labs have been notified with 33 fatalities. There was no update on these data at press time. The deaths were attributed to a bacterial infection causing pneumonia although the report also says: “Whether the cause of these deaths is linked to administering this medication remains under investigation.” Raids on pharmacies selling the drug to hospitals and clinics continued into last week.
MEMORY MUSEUM DOWNSIZED
The Justice Ministry last Wednesday reallocated 5,000 square metres of the Memory Museum (previously the ESMA concentration camp during the 1976-83 military dictatorship) for use by federal prosecutors on the grounds that “instead of being used for ideological programmes, they will serve to fight crime.”
LAZARO TO STAY PUT
The Supreme Court last Thursday upheld the prison sentences against the Kirchnerite tycoon Lázaro Báez (10 years), together with his sons and business associates, for money-laundering to the tune of over US$55 million in the context of the corruption case known as the “Ruta del dinero K.” Justice Carlos Rosenkrantz dissented on the grounds that the Prosecutor-General should be consulted first.
INDALO OVERHAUL
On the cusp of last weekend Cristóbal López, the majority partner of Grupo Indalo, took control of the group’s media, displacing his partner Fabián De Sousa to look after Indalo’s oil, mining, real estate, caustic soda and insurance business interests. The Indalo’s media empire consists of the television news channel C5N, Radio 10, Mega, Pop, Vale, One and the websites Ámbito Financiero, Buenos Aires Herald and Minutouno with a generally Kirchnerite editorial line. López owns 70 percent of the shares and De Sousa 30 percent.
FIDEO COMING HOME
Ángel Di María, 37, a star member of the team winning the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will be returning to play for Rosario Central where he started his career, the club confirmed last Thursday.
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