Accord signed by Alberto Fernández and Xi Jinping at Winter Olympics also supports Chinese claim to Taiwan
Liz Truss has defended the Falklands as “part of the British family” after China backed Argentina’s claim over the South American islands.
The foreign secretary tweeted that “China must respect the Falklands’ sovereignty” after the Argentinian president, Alberto Fernández, met China’s President Xi on the fringes of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Continue reading...Officials fear death toll from adulterated cocaine could increase, with 84 people currently in intensive care
Authorities in Argentina are advising drug consumers to throw away any cocaine they may have purchased in the last two days after at least 23 people died after ingesting adulterated cocaine in the Greater Buenos Aires area.
Eighty-four others are are currently under intensive care, of which 20 have been intubated, but authorities fear the death toll could increase as further victims are found to have died alone at home.
Continue reading...Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay are reeling from a historic heatwave with temperatures as high as 113F
Cities and towns across southern South America have been setting record high temperatures as the region swelters during a historic heatwave.
“Practically all of Argentina and also neighboring countries such as Uruguay, southern Brazil and Paraguay are experiencing the hottest days in history,” said Cindy Fernández, meteorologist at the official National Meteorological Service.
Continue reading...Signs of an incipient return to normality have been dashed as case numbers soar but high vaccination rates offer reason for hope
As the pandemic’s second, gruelling year drew to a close and Covid rates in Rio de Janeiro plunged to levels unseen since it began, the Brazilian city’s health secretary, Daniel Soranz, celebrated a desperately needed respite.
“We’ve been through such painful, difficult months … this is now a moment of hope,” the 42-year-old doctor said last November as carioca life regained some semblance of normality, hospitals emptied and the city’s effervescent cultural scene was reborn.
Continue reading...The Royal Ballet’s phenomenal principal dancer was the fixed star at the heart of an extraordinary year for the company
It’s been an oddly fractured year for dance. Repeated lockdowns stifled talent, thwarted new ideas. Online and outdoor offerings provided some release but when theatres reopened in May, dancers emerged as if from hibernation, full of life, anxious to get on with their notoriously short careers.
None more so than Marianela Núñez. The Royal Ballet has excelled as a company this year, but she is the fixed star gleaming at its heart, never disappointing, always moving towards her aim of perfection. Her smile irradiates the stage, but it is the purity of her classical technique, the sense that you are watching someone at the absolute peak of their abilities.
Continue reading...Antonella Bordon’s hair was her family’s pride and joy. But as the pandemic kept her out of school for 18 months, the 12-year-old Argentinian vowed to lop it all off as soon as she could return to class
When she finally cut her hair, Antonella Bordon had trouble sleeping. At the age of 12, her first haircut meant more to her than a simple change of style.
For most of her childhood, Bordon’s silky hair ran all the way down her back to her calves, such a deep brown it looked like a black mane. Her mother and sister would comb it every day, rubbing the locks with rosemary oil, and helping her style it in a way to keep her cool during the hot Argentinian summer.
Continue reading...Ruling Peronist party lost majority as Javier Milei turned notoriety into votes and a Trotskyist party got third largest vote share
Argentina’s political system is braced for an earthquake after parties on the extreme left and right made big gains in weekend midterm congressional elections, putting an end to decades in which the country’s populists and conservatives wrestled for power.
Sunday’s vote saw the Peronist Front for Everyone coalition of President Alberto Fernández lose its majority in Congress for the first time in almost 40 years and lose its stronghold of Buenos Aires province to the center-right coalition Together for Change.
Continue reading...Andreas Fontana’s debut feature is an unnervingly subtle drama about a Swiss private banker visiting clients in Argentina during the period of the military junta and ‘disappearances’
Pure evil is all around in this unnervingly subtle, sophisticated movie; an eerie oppression in the air. Andreas Fontana is a Swiss director making his feature debut with this conspiracy drama-thriller, shot with a kind of desiccated blankness, about the occult world of super-wealth and things not to be talked about. The title is a Swiss banker’s code-word in conversation for “Be silent”.
It is set in 1980 in Argentina, at the time of the junta’s dirty war against leftists and dissidents, and you could set it alongside recent movies including Benjamín Naishtat’s Rojo (2018) and Francisco Márquez’s A Common Crime (2020), which intuited the almost supernatural fear among those left behind when people they knew had vanished and joined los desaparecidos, the disappeared ones. But Azor gives a queasy new perspective on the horror of those times, and there is even a nauseous echo of the Swiss banks’ attitude to their German neighbours in the second world war.
Continue reading...Rally to demand government action on climate crisis is first worldwide since start of pandemic
Hundreds of thousands of people in 99 countries have taken part in a coordinated global climate strike demanding urgent action to tackle the ecological crisis.
The strike on Friday, the first worldwide climate action since the coronavirus pandemic hit, is taking place weeks before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, UK.
Continue reading...Masks will no longer be required outdoors as government says country could be at ‘end of pandemic’
Masks will no longer be required outdoors in Argentina as the country’s government announced the lifting of almost all Covid restrictions following a dramatic fall in Covid cases and deaths in recent months.
“If the numbers of coronavirus infections continue like this, we could say we are experiencing the end of the pandemic,” said presidential cabinet chief Juan Manzur amid a flurry of measures including the return of football matches with stadiums at 50% capacity starting next month – just in time for the 3 October classic super-match between Argentina’s two longtime rivals Boca and River Plate teams.
“Today for us the Covid pandemic ends to a large extent,” government Covid adviser Luis Camera said in a radio interview. “The pandemic ends but the virus continues,” he said.
The announcements were met with cautious optimism by doctors on the frontline. “We’re at a very good place: at the hospital where I work we have not admitted a single Covid patient to intensive care for three weeks now – but I would not dare say the pandemic is over,” said intensive care doctor Arnaldo Dubin, a researcher and professor at La Plata University.
Related: ‘People die in less than a week’: Covid wave catches Argentina off-guard
Continue reading...Campaigners fear ban emboldens anti-choice governments as more aggressive opposition, better organised and funded, spreads from US
The new anti-abortion law in Texas is a “terrifying” reminder of the fragility of hard-won rights, pro-choice activists have said, as they warn of a “more aggressive, much better organised [and] better funded” global opposition movement.
Pro-choice campaigners have seen several victories in recent years, including in Ireland, Argentina and, most recently, Mexico, where the supreme court ruled last week that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. Another is hoped for later this month when the tiny enclave of San Marino, landlocked within Italy, holds a highly charged referendum.
Continue reading...Brazil’s World Cup qualifier with Argentina in São Paulo was suspended after just seven minutes as health authorities entered the field of play amid farcical scenes at Neo Química Arena. Three Premier League players - the Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez and Tottenham’s Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso - were on the pitch while a fourth, Aston Villa’s Emiliano Buendía, was in the stands. The quartet had apparently violated Brazilian regulations stating that travellers who have been in the UK, South Africa or India during the previous 14 days are forbidden from entering the country. The bizarre scenes saw officials, accompanied by police officers, march on to the pitch and bring proceedings to a halt.
A World Cup qualifier between Argentina and Brazil was abandoned amid farcical, confused scenes after four Premier League players apparently violated Brazilian regulations designed to contain a Covid outbreak that has killed more than 580,000 Brazilians.
The Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez and Tottenham’s Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso were all on the pitch at São Paulo’s Neo Química Arena on Sunday afternoon when federal police and officials from Brazil’s health agency, Anvisa, took to the field to halt play after just seven minutes.
Continue reading...A rare encounter was caught on video at Puerto Madryn, Argentina when a southern rIght whale seemingly plays with a woman on a paddleboard and pushes the board gently forward, observing its movement as it swims directly beneath it.
"They are rare moments, it is something that is prohibited," said Oscar Comes, a local water-sports tourism operator. "It isn't like you can go in a kayak, standup board, a boat, or whatever, to look for the animal."
Continue reading...Satellite images confirm snow decrease spurred by climate crisis as glaciers recede and communities reliant on mountain water face shortages
The Andes mountain range is facing historically low snowfall this year during a decade-long drought that scientists link to global heating.
Scant rain and snowfall are leaving many of the majestic mountains between Ecuador and Argentina with patchy snow cover or no snow at all as dry, brown earth lies exposed.
Continue reading...This is the moment a house fell into the sea in the resort town of Mar del Tuyú in Argentina. The footage, captured by a neighbour on 28 July, shows waves crashing against the property as part of it breaks away and falls into the water. The owners of the property were not at home when the incident occurred
Continue reading...Moscow owes 18.5m doses, leaving Argentina in a ‘very critical situation’ with only 12% fully vaccinated, leaked letter reveals
Argentina’s gamble on Sputnik V vaccine has left it in a “very critical situation” because of Russia’s failure to fulfill delivery commitments, according to an official letter to Moscow leaked on Thursday.
Russia owes Argentina 18.5m doses of its Sputnik V jab, over two-thirds of them vital second-component doses.
Only 12% of Argentinians are fully vaccinated so far, partly due to failed Sputnik deliveries of its second component. Another 37% have received only a single dose.
This compares disastrously with double-dose vaccination rates of over 60% in neighbouring Chile and Uruguay, countries that did not bet so heavily on the Russian vaccine.
Its low two-dose vaccination rate leaves Argentina particularly exposed to the arrival of the Delta variant. Neighbouring Uruguay, meanwhile, has already approved moving to a three-dose regimen.
A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Turkey to Colombia
Continue reading...The dance that depends on what Covid prevents – close physical intimacy – is not only a cultural passion but also now a threatened source of income for many workers. Photographer Anita Pouchard Serra, with support from the National Geographic Society, has been documenting how dancers are surviving the crisis
In a pretty little plaza next to a railway track, there is proof that not even a pandemic can keep us apart.
Five couples lean in, cheek to cheek, marking steps that mirror the circuitous route of life. If there is a map, it rises out of a portable speaker, and the melancholic poetry of a tango.
Continue reading...Clarisa Navas’s film is a confident, visually engaging romance conjuring a world of teenage waiting and wanting
This is an LGBT urban pastoral from film-maker Clarisa Navas, set in a tough barrio in Corrientes province, north-eastern Argentina. Sofia Cabrera plays Iris, a teenage girl who appears to have been excluded from school – although that doesn’t make her lifestyle any more obviously aimless than all the people she’s hanging out with. Iris is obsessed with basketball and spends most of her days loafing around, shooting hoops, talking with her brother and cousins, and chatting with the neighbourhood kids, gay and straight. Then she chances across a charismatic older woman called Renata (Ana Carolina García), who has an elegantly wasted image; Renata has mysteriously been abroad for a while and apparently dances at a local club called Traumatic, where she appears to be on the fringe of sex work. Some are saying that she has HIV – although this may simply be spite. Iris and Renata are drawn to each other and soon they are in love.
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