Category Archives: Argentina

‘More exploitation, fewer rights’: Argentina braces for sweeping overhaul of labor laws

Posted on by

Javier Milei’s boosters say law will revive employment, but critics decry cuts to severance and longer working hours

Argentina’s senate is poised to approve a sweeping overhaul of labour laws aimed at weakening trade unions and lowering labour costs for businesses.

The government of the self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president, Javier Milei, says the initiative will help revive formal employment, after 290,600 registered jobs were lost between December 2023, when he took office, and November 2025.

Continue reading...

Disease fears as Argentina child vaccination rates hit historic lows

Posted on by

Sharp drop since 2024 in country regarded as a Latin American leader in childhood and adolescent immunisation

Argentina’s childhood and adolescent vaccination rates have collapsed to a historic lows according to a new analysis, prompting warnings that once-eliminated diseases may resurge.

The study of health ministry data by the Argentinian Paediatric Society (SAP) found that fewer than half of children aged five and six received several of their essential doses in 2024. All vaccines analysed were below the 95% level needed to reach herd immunity.

Continue reading...

Trump’s bailout threat may have been key to Milei’s electoral triumph in Argentina

Posted on by

Voters appear to have responded to idea that US president’s ‘generosity’ would evaporate if Milei failed to win

“The dollar always talks in the end,” Donald Trump wrote in his 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal.

Javier Milei’s surprise triumph in Argentina’s midterm elections – after Trump bailed him out with 40bn of them – suggests there may be some truth to that assertion.

Continue reading...

Javier Milei hails ‘tipping point’ as his far-right party wins Argentina’s midterm elections

Posted on by

The result falls short of giving Milei a congressional majority but has been widely described as surprising by Argentinian analysts

The party of Argentina’s far-right president, Javier Milei, has won Sunday’s midterm elections after a campaign in which US president Donald Trump announced a $40bn bailout for the country and made continued aid conditional on the victory of his Argentinian counterpart.

With more than 95% of ballots counted, Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, won 40.84% of the nationwide vote in an election widely seen as a de facto referendum on the self-styled anarcho-capitalist’s nearly two years in power.

Continue reading...

Do populists always crash the economy?

Posted on by

Argentina is counting the cost of its turn to Javier Milei. Politicians from Donald Trump to Giorgia Meloni and Nigel Farage will be closely watching what happens next

“Cambio, cambio.” Under the blazing sun, dozens of money changers are hawking US dollars along Florida Street, a bustling pedestrian strip in Buenos Aires. Known as arbolitos (“little trees”), they are thriving ahead of the 26 October midterm elections in a country long used to saving in the greenback.

“The best time to buy is now,” says one arbolito, declining to give her name. “[The dollar] went down a little but it is a fake-out – it’ll rise again.”

Continue reading...

Story of Indigenous activist’s murder takes top prize at London film festival

Posted on by

Jury says documentary about killing of Argentinian campaigner Javier Chocobar brings ‘a measure of the justice’ denied by the courts

A documentary about the murder of the Indigenous activist Javier Chocobar has taken the top prize at the London film festival, with the jury calling it “a measure of the justice” that has long been denied by the courts.

The Argentine film-maker Lucrecia Martel’s first documentary, Landmarks, won the best film award in the festival’s official competition, it was announced on Sunday.

Continue reading...

Trump threatens to cut US aid to Argentina if Milei loses election

Posted on by

US president says ‘we will not be generous’ if leader fails to win key midterms after promising $20bn to prop up struggling economy

Donald Trump has warned he could cut financial aid to Argentina if his ally Javier Milei loses crucial legislative elections later this month.

“If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” the US president said as Milei visited the White House to seek the Republican’s political and economic support. “I’m with this man because his philosophy is correct. And he may win and he may not win – I think he’s going to win. And if he wins we are staying with him, and if he doesn’t win we are gone.”

Continue reading...

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner: Argentinian court sentences man to 10 years for attempted assassination

Posted on by

Court in Buenos Aires sentences Fernando Sabag Montiel and accomplice over 2022 incident in which gun was pointed at former president but did not go off

A court in Argentina has sentenced a man to 10 years in prison after finding him guilty of attempting to kill former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

The court in Buenos Aires also sentenced the man’s accomplice to eight years in prison, capping a dramatic case that has captivated the country since 2022, when the main defendant, Fernando Sabag Montiel, squeezed through a crowd outside the ex-president’s home, thrust a loaded gun at her face and pulled the trigger.

Continue reading...

Drug traffickers livestream torture and killing of young Argentinian women and girl

Posted on by

Brenda del Castillo, Morena Verdi and Lara Gutiérrez were lured with a promise of a $300 payment for a ‘sex party’

The murder of two young Argentinian women and a girl whose torture by suspected drug traffickers was livestreamed on a private Instagram group has sent shock waves through a country unused to such extreme levels of narco violence.

Brenda del Castillo, 20, Morena Verdi, 20, and Lara Gutiérrez, 15, went missing on Friday, after they were lured to a house in the outskirts of Buenos Aires by a promise that they would be paid US $300 for taking part in a “sex party”.

Continue reading...

Brazilian musician identified as victim of 1976 killing by Argentina military

Posted on by

The bossa nova pianist Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior went out for cigarettes after a concert in Buenos Aires – a forensic team has finally revealed his fate

Early on 18 March 1976, Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior, a Brazilian pianist who had played alongside some of Latin America’s greatest musicians, disappeared from the streets of Buenos Aires.

For nearly 50 years, his fate has remained a mystery, sparking desperate searches, raising suspicions of government complicity, and inspiring international documentaries. Now the mystery has been solved, with forensic scientists formally identifying Tenório Júnior’s body – and confirming he was a victim of Argentina’s bloody dictatorship.

Continue reading...

Old master painting looted by Nazis recovered a week after being spotted in Argentinian property listing

Posted on by

Portrait of a Lady by the Italian master Giuseppe Ghislandi handed over by daughter of the late Nazi financier Friedrich Kadgien

Authorities in Argentina have recovered an 18th-century painting stolen more than 80 years ago by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam, a week after it was spotted by chance in a real estate listing.

The painting, the long-lost Portrait of a Lady (Contessa Colleoni) by the Italian master Giuseppe Ghislandi, was looted in the second world war. It was handed over on Wednesday to the Argentinian judiciary by the daughter of the late Nazi financier Friedrich Kadgien, Patricia Kadgien, who has been under house arrest with her husband since Tuesday.

Continue reading...

Argentina couple under house arrest amid search for painting stolen by Nazis

Posted on by

Daughter of former Nazi official and her husband to be questioned after raid on home failed to find masterpiece

A federal court in Argentina has ordered house arrest for the daughter of a former Nazi official and her husband after a raid failed to locate a painting stolen from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam.

Authorities raided a home in the coastal city of Mar del Plata last week after a Dutch newspaper identified a painting seen in a real estate photo as an Italian masterpiece registered on a database of lost wartime art.

Continue reading...

Old master painting looted by Nazis disappears from home in Argentina

Posted on by

Search for artwork seen in estate agent’s photo continues after police raid on house finds tapestry hanging in its place

Argentinian police have said they will continue hunting for an old master painting looted by the Nazis and spotted by chance in an estate agent’s listing after a search of the property in the seaside town of Mar del Plata failed to uncover the work.

“The painting is not in the house … but we’re going to keep searching for it,” the federal prosecutor Carlos Martínez told local media. He said items that could be useful for the investigation, including two firearms, engravings and prints, had been seized.

Continue reading...

Old master painting looted by Nazis spotted in Argentinian property listing

Posted on by

Dutch newspaper AD says it has traced Giuseppe Ghislandi’s Portrait of a Lady to house near Buenos Aires

More than 80 years after it was looted by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam, a portrait by an Italian master has been spotted on the website of an estate agent advertising a house for sale in Argentina.

A photo shows the painting, Portrait of a Lady (Contessa Colleoni) by the late-baroque portraitist Giuseppe Ghislandi, also known as Fra’ Galgario, hanging above a sofa in the living room of the property, in a seaside town near Buenos Aires.

Continue reading...

Argentina rocked as contaminated medical fentanyl kills up to 96 patients

Posted on by

Dozens of hospital patients treated with opioid for unrelated conditions suffered serious bacterial infections

As many as 96 people are now thought to have died in Argentina after being treated with medical-use fentanyl that was tainted with bacteria.

The official death toll stands at 87, and a judicial source has told the Buenos Aires Herald that nine further deaths are under investigation.

Continue reading...

Weather tracker: Warm air engulfs parts of Argentina as winter temperatures soar

Posted on by

Rosario in Sante Fe likely be to 10C above normal, as Japan braces for Tropical Storm Nari

An unseasonably mild start to the week is expected in northern and central parts of Argentina, where it is winter. A plume of warm air will sink southwards from neighbouring Paraguay on Monday, lingering through Tuesday, before giving way to a cold front on Wednesday.

The maximum daytime temperatures on Monday and Tuesday will be up to 5C (9F) higher than normal in these regions, while Buenos Aires is forecast to be about 7C above average on Tuesday.

Continue reading...

Man kidnapped by Argentina’s military regime as baby is reunited with relatives

Posted on by

Forty-nine-year-old is 140th child found by Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who search for people ‘disappeared’ under 1976-83 dictatorship

A man taken from his mother as a newborn by Argentina’s military has been reunited with his relatives after almost 50 years.

The man, 49, whose identity was not disclosed for privacy reasons, was identified after he took a DNA test.

Continue reading...

Lula visits former Argentinian president under house arrest in snub to Milei

Posted on by

Brazilian president meets Cristina Fernández de Kirchner at her flat in Buenos Aires after regional summit

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has eschewed a one-on-one meeting with the Argentinian president, Javier Milei, during a trip to Buenos Aires, instead opting to visit Milei’s political rival, former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is under house arrest.

Lula was in the Argentinian capital on Thursday to attend the Mercosur summit.

Continue reading...

Lalo Schifrin, composer of Mission: Impossible theme and more than 100 film and TV scores, dies aged 93

Posted on by

The Argentinian composer also wrote the scores for Cool Hand Luke and Dirty Harry, and wrote one of the biggest-selling works in the history of classical music

Lalo Schifrin, the composer who wrote the endlessly catchy theme for Mission: Impossible and more than 100 other arrangements for film and television, has died aged 93.

Schifrin’s sons, William and Ryan, confirmed the composer died on Thursday of complications from pneumonia.

Continue reading...

Former Argentinian president Cristina Fernández allowed to serve corruption sentence at home

Posted on by

Judge rules Cristina Fernández de Kirchner can serve six-year sentence in apartment, citing age and security reasons

A federal court in Argentina has granted former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s request to serve a six-year prison sentence for corruption at her home in Buenos Aires.

Judges ruled that Fernández, 72, can serve time in the apartment, where she lives with her daughter and her granddaughter, citing her age and security reasons. Fernández was the victim of an attempted assassination three years ago.

Continue reading...