Category Archives: Argentina

Uruguayan woman given proper burial 47 years after abduction by dictatorship

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Amelia Sanjurjo, a member of Uruguay’s Communist party who disappeared in 1977, was identified and laid to rest

A Uruguayan woman who was abducted by security forces during the country’s military dictatorship has received a proper burial, nearly 50 years after she was forcibly disappeared.

Bone fragments of Amelia Sanjurjo were exhumed exactly a year ago from a military base in a small southern town in Uruguay. She was finally identified last week after investigators took DNA samples from her maternal aunt and nephews in Uruguay, Spain and Italy in hopes of finding a match.

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Argentina’s far-right president poised to shut down anti-gender violence agency

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‘Women at risk’ amid increasing number of femicides but assistance including emergency helpline will be cut

Javier Milei, Argentina’s far-right president, is poised to dissolve the government department responsible for tackling gender violence, prompting a furious backlash from human rights activists.

Claudia Barcia, the head of the undersecretariat for protection against gender violence, resigned on Thursday with a warning that the agency will soon be shuttered. “The Undersecretary of Protection against Gender Violence … will cease to exist,” Barcia wrote on Twitter, later confirming to the Guardian that she had received the news the previous day.

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Argentinian president to meet Silicon Valley CEOs in bid to court tech titans

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Javier Milei to hold private talks with Sundar Pichai and Sam Altman as Argentina faces worst economic crisis in decades

Javier Milei, Argentina’s president, is set to meet with the leaders of some of the world’s largest tech companies in Silicon Valley this week. The far-right libertarian leader will hold private talks with Sundar Pichai of Google, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Tim Cook of Apple.

Milei also met last month with Elon Musk, who has become one of the South American president’s most prominent cheerleaders and repeatedly shared his pro-deregulation, anti-social justice message on X (formerly Twitter). Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire, has also twice visited Milei, flying to Buenos Aires to speak with him in February and May of this year.

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Spain permanently recalls ambassador from Argentina amid feud with Milei

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Argentina’s far-right president Javier Milei sparks diplomatic row with remarks about Spanish prime minister’s wife

Spain has said it is permanently withdrawing its ambassador from Argentina as a result of a growing diplomatic feud with the South American country’s radical rightwing president, Javier Milei.

Milei – a notoriously pugnacious ally of the fellow populists Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro – sparked the row last weekend by insinuating that Begoña Gómez, the wife of Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, was “corrupt”.

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Diplomatic row deepens after Javier Milei calls wife of Spanish PM ‘corrupt’

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Spain recalls its Buenos Aires ambassador and demands apology from Argentina’s populist president

The Spanish government has recalled its ambassador from Buenos Aires and repeated its calls for Argentina’s populist president, Javier Milei, to apologise after he reopened a festering diplomatic row by suggesting that the wife of Spain’s prime minister was “corrupt”.

Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” and sworn enemy of socialism, infuriated Spain’s centre-left government when he used a speech at a summit of international far-right leaders in Madrid on Sunday to revive allegations that Pedro Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, had engaged in corruption and influence-peddling.

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Buenos Aires metro fare jumps 360% amid Argentina’s harsh austerity measures

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Libertarian president Javier Milei has slashed public spending as he wrestles to tame hyperinflation, now at 289% annually

Commuters in Buenos Aires have been hit by an overnight 360% increase in subway fares, in one of the most dramatic price hikes in a harsh budget austerity campaign launched by Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei.

After weeks of hearings, a judge on Thursday lifted an order that had temporarily blocked the scheduled increase in subway fares. That cleared the way for the change to take effect on Friday morning as office workers across Buenos Aires streamed through the turnstiles of South America’s oldest underground metro.

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Activists blame Argentina’s government after three gay women killed in arson attack

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Four women were set on fire in Buenos Aires in alleged hate crime as demonstrators accuse Milei of promoting intolerance

Activists in Argentina have accused the country’s far-right government of stoking homophobia after an alleged hate crime in which four gay women were set on fire, killing three and seriously injuring the fourth.

A man in his 60s is alleged to have thrown burning rags into the women’s shared bedroom of a boarding house in Buenos Aires early on 6 May.

The headline to this article was amended on 15 May 2024. A previous version incorrectly stated four women were killed.

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Spain rejects Argentinian claim its PM is causing ‘poverty and death’

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Diplomatic spat began when Spanish minister suggested Javier Milei had taken ‘substances’ while campaigning

Spain has denounced comments by Argentina’s presidency that accused the Spanish government of bringing “poverty and death” to its own people.

The office of the Argentinian president, Javier Milei, had published a statement on X, accusing the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, of damaging Spain’s economy and stability.

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Argentina court blames Iran for deadly 1994 bombing of Jewish center

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The attack, blamed on a suicide bomber, killed 85 people, wounded 300 and devastated Latin America’s biggest Jewish community

A new ruling by Argentina’s highest criminal court has blamed Iran for the fatal 1994 attack against a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, declaring it a “crime against humanity” in a decision that paves the way for victims to seek justice.

That huge blast at the Argentinian Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), was blamed on a suicide bomber driving a stolen van loaded with explosives. It killed 85 people, wounded 300 and devastated Latin America’s biggest Jewish community.

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Fox bones at ancient burial site suggest animal may have been kept as pet

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Clues at Argentina site raise possibility mammal was buried with human owners about 1,500 years ago

The remains of a fox unearthed at a human burial site in Argentina dating back 1,500 years has raised the possibility the animal may have been kept as a pet, research suggests.

Experts say the remains predate the arrival of domestic dogs in Patagonia, which occurred about 700–900 years ago, with a number of clues suggesting the fox was seen as valuable, and may even have been a companion to the hunter-gatherers it lived with.

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Argentina: trans women among victims of ex-officers guilty of dictatorship-era crimes

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Eleven found guilty of crimes against humanity after trial that heard testimony on torture, rape and forced disappearances

A court in Argentina has convicted 11 former military, police and government officials of crimes against humanity committed during the country’s last dictatorship in a sprawling trial that heard, for the first time, about atrocities suffered by trans women.

The three-year case focused on the forced disappearances, torture, rapes and homicides that occurred at or were connected to three clandestine detention and torture centres located in police investigative units on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. They were known as the Banfield pit, the Quilmes pit and “El Infierno” – or “hell” – by the officials who worked there.

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Argentina fights against vast swarms of mosquitoes blamed for dengue surge

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Tens of thousands of dengue cases recorded this year as high temperatures and rainy weather create ‘perfect formula’ for bugs

In his 20 years cleaning the Buenos Aires subway, Mauricio Ríos, 52, had never seen anything like it: a vast and noisy swarm of mosquitoes churning in dark clouds the length of the platform at Piedras station.

Ríos pulled out his phone and filmed the growing swarm for half a minute, before rushing to the break room, contacting his superior and shutting down the station.

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Argentina’s lower house votes for Javier Milei’s sweeping reform package

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Far-right president’s measures aimed at tackling the country’s severe economic problems passed easily despite public protests

Argentina’s lower chamber of deputies has given overall approval to libertarian president Javier Milei’s sweeping “omnibus” reform bill in a vote on Friday after days of debate, paving the way for a decisive vote in the Senate.

The controversial reform package was approved on a vote of 144 votes in favour and 109 against.

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Argentinians stage nationwide strike against Javier Milei’s far-right agenda

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Tens of thousands of marchers take to streets as schools and businesses close in protest at president’s extreme legislation

Argentine demonstrators have staged their biggest-yet show of opposition to Javier Milei’s radical attempt to reshape the South American country with a nationwide strike that shuttered schools and businesses, grounded hundreds of flights, and saw tens of thousands of marchers hit the streets.

Milei, a boisterous celebrity economist nicknamed “El Loco” (the Madman), became president in December vowing to free Argentina from decades of “decadence and decline” with his libertarian ideas. Since then, the far-right politician has moved speedily to implement what the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage recently called “Thatcherism on steroids” – first with a far-reaching emergency decree; then with a mega-reform bill known as the “omnibus law”.

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Italy refuses to extradite priest accused of murder and torture to Argentina

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Rev Franco Reverberi is accused of crimes against humanity during country’s military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s

Italy’s justice minister has refused Argentina’s request to extradite a priest accused of crimes against humanity during the country’s military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Rev Franco Reverberi, 86, who served as military chaplain during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military regime, faces charges related to the alleged murder in 1976 of the 20-year-old political activist José Guillermo Berón, and his alleged participation in torture.

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‘Many thought they’d get away with it’: Argentine colonel to stand trial in Italy

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Lt Col Carlos Luis Malatto fled Argentina in 2011 and will be tried in Rome for premeditated killing of eight people in last military dictatorship

A judge in Rome has ordered Lt Col Carlos Luis Malatto, a former Argentine army officer accused of murder and forced disappearances during Argentina’s 1976-83 military dictatorship, to stand trial in Italy for the premeditated killing of eight people.

The former military officer is accused of crimes against humanity in Argentina, but he fled the country in 2011 and had been living in a tourist village in the province of Messina, Sicily. In a letter to the court of appeal in the Argentine state of Mendoza, Argentine prosecutors alleged that Malatto “actively participated in various detention procedures and is one of the most infamous perpetrators” of the dictatorship “for his participation in interrogations under torture”.

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‘All feminists are under attack’: ultra-right threat in Milei’s Argentina forces writer into exile

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The new president’s rightwing supporters are targeting journalists and women’s rights activists – but the fight goes on

Female journalists who write about gender issues say they are having to deal with a toxic wave of threats against them in Argentina. Some are fighting back, others are lying low and one has gone into self-imposed exile for her safety.

“We are facing a witch-hunt from the ultra-right,” said the author, journalist and activist Luciana Peker, who recently left Argentina for an undisclosed location due to the weight of threats against her.

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‘El Jefe’: is Karina Milei the power behind Argentina’s presidential throne?

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Javier Milei swept aside an anti-nepotism law to appoint his sister to a high-ranking position – but who is she?

When Javier Milei first walked into Argentina’s presidential palace earlier this month, the radical libertarian leader was not accompanied by his vice-president, Victoria Villarruel, nor his partner, the actor Fátima Flórez.

Milei’s escort at this key political moment was a woman who many analysts describe as the true power behind his throne: his sister, Karina.

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Milei says Argentina will not be joining Brics bloc in policy reversal

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Far-right president says not ‘opportune’ for Argentina – which had been set to become a member on 1 January – to be part of alliance

Argentina has formally announced that it will not join the Brics bloc of developing economies, the latest in a dramatic shift in foreign and economic policy by Argentina’s new far-right populist president, Javier Milei.

In a letter addressed to the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – all members of the alliance – Milei said the moment was not “opportune” for Argentina to join as a full member. The letter was dated a week ago, 22 December, but released by the Argentinian government on Friday, the last working day of 2023.

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Weather tracker: rain batters Argentina and DRC as fog shrouds India and Pakistan

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Turkey also affected by fog, with 10 killed and 57 injured in serious road crash involving three buses

During the Christmas period, parts of South America experienced intense showers and thunderstorms, resulting in substantial rainfall in various regions. On Monday, more than 100mm of rain fell in the Catamarca province in Argentina, which led to flash floods. A sudden surge in river water levels then caused the collapse of a pedestrian bridge, which was the only link between the towns of Rincón and Pomán. While many other roads in the region were damaged and houses were flooded, no casualties were reported.

The unique topography of Catamarca aided the formation of a near-stationary convective shower over Pomán, unleashing several hours of torrential rain and causing catastrophic flooding.

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