Category Archives: Argentina

Director Asif Kapadia: ‘Diego and Maradona were two different people’

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Film director recalls the long and rocky road to meeting the mercurial subject of his film

Football is a huge part of my life. I was 14 when Diego Maradona scored the two goals against England – the hand of God and the wonder goal. Despite the first goal, I always thought he was the best player in the world. I’ve always been a fan of outsiders, rebels.

Everyone wanted to be Maradona. He was the global phenomenon. The pope wanted to meet him. Fidel Castro would sit and listen to Diego tell a story.

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‘It’s like my old man died’: Argentinians flock to palace for Maradona goodbyes

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  • Thousand queue to pay their respects to national hero
  • Tears, football chants and tributes ring out for El Diego

The death of Diego Maradona brought Argentina to an almost complete standstill on Thursday as the nation turned its gaze to the Casa Rosada presidential palace where thousands of people queued up to file, slowly, reverently and one-by-one, past the iconic footballer’s coffin.

Tears and sobbing could be heard from the mourners of all ages and classes who had gathered from the early morning to pay their respects to Maradona as his body lay in state. Among the lamentations, football chants rang out, chief among them: “¡Olé, olé, olé, olé, Die-go! Die-go!”

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Diego Maradona: the achingly human superstar who embodied Argentina | Marcela Mora y Araujo

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Maradona was a perfect representation of the human ability to be contradictory, to convey ugly and beautiful at once

“A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possesses at least two things besides: gratitude and purity” – Friedrich Nietzsche, on love, perseverance, and moving beyond good v evil.

Diego Maradona said that when you’ve been to the moon and back, things get difficult. “You become addicted to the moon and it’s not always possible to come back down.”

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Diego Maradona, one of the greatest footballers of all time, dies aged 60

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Argentina, Naples, and the world of football were in mourning on Wednesday at the death of Diego Maradona, in many people’s eyes the greatest player of all time, following a heart attack. He was 60.

The Argentinian president Alberto Fernández, who declared three days of national mourning, said that Maradona had taken his country to the “highest of the world” with his virtuoso performances in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. “You made us immensely happy,” he wrote. “You were the greatest of all. Thanks for having existed, Diego. We will miss you all our lives.”

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Diego Maradona to undergo brain surgery in Argentina

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  • Argentina legend has a subdural haematoma
  • His personal physician says procedure is ‘routine surgery’

The former Argentina captain and World Cup winner Diego Maradona will undergo surgery for a subdural haematoma, a blood clot on the brain, his personal physician said on Tuesday, after he was admitted to hospital in La Plata, about an hour from Buenos Aires. Maradona coaches the local club Gimnasia y Esgrima.

The operation was expected to begin on Tuesday to address the condition, which is a pool of blood, often caused by a head injury, that can put pressure on the brain.

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‘We are meant to gather’: organisers of global dance festival refuse to cancel – or give refunds

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Ticket holders are angry that organisers insist the Global Eclipse festival will go ahead in Argentina, despite the government there banning international tourists

Thousands of people from around the world partying for 10 days in the middle of the Argentinian wilderness sounds like an ambitious endeavour even before Covid-19. But a global pandemic has done little to sway organisers of the Global Eclipse –Patagonia Gathering, who are determined to charge ahead and refusing to refund ticket holders.

Despite Argentina nearing 1 million Covid-19 cases and authorities currently refusing to let international tourists into the country, the electronic dance music (EDM) trance festival is still scheduled for December 2020.

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‘Total destruction’: why fires are tearing across South America

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Wildfires, mostly caused by land clearing for cattle grazing and soya production, have set four nations ablaze

Primatologist Martin Kowalewski is measuring the scale of the fires raging across Latin America not in satellite images, but in the number of caraya monkeys (black-and-gold howlers) that have succumbed to the flames.

“Of the 20 family groups that we used to trace in the wild, each group consisting of seven or eight monkeys, at least five groups were burned alive,” he tells the Guardian. Other animals have also perished at San Cayetano, a nature reserve in Argentina’s northeastern province of Corrientes. “Carpinchos (giant South American rodents), otters, two species of fox, guazú deer, yacaré caimans, turtles, snakes. Birds are better at escaping the fire, but that was before all the deforestation. Now they have nowhere to go because there is nowhere else. The forest is so fragmented that they have nowhere to nest.”

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Argentina president under pressure to keep election promise on abortion

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Over 1,000 public figures call for Alberto Fernández to stay true to his election pledge despite distraction of coronavirus pandemic

Pro-choice campaigners are renewing pressure on president Alberto Fernández to make good on his electoral pledge to legalise abortion in Argentina.

More than 1,000 public figures, writers, journalists and artists added their names to an advert published in three Argentinian newspapers on Sunday, calling for the government to keep its commitment.

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‘We’re suddenly drowning in people’: Argentinians flock to Uruguay amid pandemic

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About 15,000 to 20,000 Argentinians are estimated to have moved to Uruguay since the pandemic began

Agustina Valls’ phone is ringing off the hook.

“It started as a trickle when the pandemic first hit Argentina, but now we’re getting over 20 calls a day,” she said from her office in Uruguay’s luxury beach resort of Punta Del Este.

Valls runs a thriving business guiding well-off Argentinians through the red tape of acquiring Uruguayan residence – a skill she learned arranging her own residency application after marrying a Uruguayan lawyer last October.

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China’s billion dollar pig plan met with loathing by Argentinians

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Chinese investment in Argentina’s hog industry would boost exports, but environmentalists fear risk of pandemic

A government-sponsored plan to turbocharge Argentina’s hog industry with Chinese capital is generating unprecedented resistance among its supposed beneficiaries – the Argentinian general public.

Nearly 400,000 people have signed petitions opposing the move. “We never had such a huge response before,” said environmental lawyer Enrique Viale, one of the group who banded together last month to challenge the government’s initiative. His petition currently has 200,000 signatures; another on change.org has almost 120,000 additional signatures, and three separate petitions on the same platform have clocked up another 55,000 between them.

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Again Once Again review – elegant meditation on the pains of motherhood

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This engaging, philosophical film unpicks the challenges faced by a young mother trying to reconnect with the life she had before her son’s birth

A woman leaves her boyfriend to visit her mum in Buenos Aires, taking their three-year-old son with her – not sure yet if it’s a holiday or a breakup. She hasn’t worked since her son was born and is having an emotional and intellectual crisis. She feels almost non-existent. “I don’t see myself. Who am I?”

This is an elegant, elusive debut from the Argentinian playwright Romina Paula, who picks away at the fantasy that motherhood leads to instant fulfilment. Her film is like an arthouse version of the sitcoms Motherland and Catastrophe, with fewer laughs and more philosophical introspection. It has the feel of a feminist essay that has been semi-dramatised for screen – with Paula starring as a fictional version of herself and her real-life mum and son Ramón playing themselves.

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Ex-officer accused of human rights crimes in Argentina found living in Berlin

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Luis Esteban Kyburg, who allegedly oversaw deaths of at least 150 during dictatorship, escaped to Germany in 2013

A former naval officer, charged with human rights crimes during Argentina’s bloody 1976-83 dictatorship, has been discovered living in Berlin – despite being the subject of an international arrest warrant.

Luis Esteban Kyburg, the alleged commander of an elite navy unit believed responsible for the deaths of at least 150 people, was filmed by the Bild tabloidwalking down the streets of Berlin’s trendy Friedrichshain district .

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Covid-19 restrictions are shattering Argentina’s short-lived political truce

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Deep-seated rivalries resurfacing amid months of lockdowns

Until recently, Argentina’s protracted coronavirus lockdown was marked by an unusual degree of harmony, as the country’s perennially squabbling political factions came together to contain the spread of Covid-19.

But after nearly four months of consecutive lockdowns, rifts have begun to appear in that uneasy truce amid growing demands for a relaxation of quarantine measures.

With new cases spiralling out of control, the old political rivalries between followers and detractors of the late three-time president Juan Perón, and his wife Evita, has returned to the fore.

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Andean condor can fly for 100 miles without flapping wings

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World’s largest soaring bird flaps wings only 1% of time in flight, study shows

A study sheds light on just how efficiently the world’s largest soaring bird rides air currents to stay aloft for hours without flapping its wings.

The Andean condor has a 3-metre (10ft) wingspan and weighs up to 15kg (33lbs), making it the world’s heaviest soaring bird.

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Argentina’s president enters voluntary isolation amid coronavirus surge

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The sudden spike in cases has also struck a number of current and former senior politicians

Argentina’s president Alberto Fernández has gone into voluntary isolation amid growing concerns over a surge of coronavirus infections, including several cases among the country’s political elite.

The decision to quarantine the president – whose popularity is riding high on his no-nonsense response to the pandemic – was taken due to the “significant increase in the circulation of the virus,” presidential doctor Federico Saavedra said in a statement on Wednesday.

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Global report: New Beijing cases spark second wave fear as India and Brazil struggle with first

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São Paulo to dig up cemeteries to clear spaces for coronavirus deaths; new rise of infections in Darfur, Sudan; New Zealand goes 22 days with a new case

A cluster of dozens of new coronavirus cases in Beijing has prompted authorities to lock down parts of the city again after nearly two months without any new local infections.

The outbreak has affected dozens of people, most of whom are asymptomatic, and raises concerns about how the virus might re-emerge, even in places where it appeared to be under control.

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Argentina pastor turns church into bar in protest at uneven coronavirus restrictions

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Pastor plans a drive-in worship event next in protest at limits on church services as bars and shops open

An evangelical church in Argentina has reopened as a bar in protest against the lockdown on religious services that remains in place despite the gradual opening up of other activities around the country.

Bar tables were placed inside the church and pastors dressed as waiters carrying bibles on their trays in a mock service as part of call for religious services to be allowed during Argentina’s coronavirus lockdown.

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Global report: WHO urges Pakistan to return to lockdown as hospitals struggle

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Brazil restores Covid-19 data online; Argentina passes 1,000 daily cases for first time; Fauci says ‘we’re still at the beginning’ of pandemic

The World Health Organization has taken the unusual step of urging Pakistan to return to lockdown, suggesting the country implement restrictions in a cycle of two weeks on, two weeks off.

While Pakistan has relatively low testing rates, one in four people who are tested return a positive result, the WHO said in a letter to Punjab’s provincial health minister, Yasmin Rashid. Prime Minister Imran Khan has resisted a national lockdown, arguing the country cannot afford it, and provinces have instead introduced patchwork lockdowns. Last week Khan said these would be lifted. 

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#NiUnaMenos five years on: Latin America as deadly as ever for women, say activists

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Campaigners say coronavirus is compounding problem of domestic and gender violence

It has been five years since pent-up fury over staggering levels of violence against women erupted in a wave of public protest across Argentina under the slogan Ni Una Menos (Not One Less).

What started as a hashtag quickly grew into a movement, pushing women’s rights to the top of the agenda in Argentina, before quickly spreading across South America as millions of women took a stand against gender violence. 

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