Free Republic

BUENOS AIRES–Argentina's senate passed a controversial bill Thursday that gives the government control over newsprint, boosting the power of President Cristina Kirchner's administration in its battle against the opposition media. The legislation gives the state control over Papel Prensa SA, the country's leading producer of paper used to produce newspapers.

BUENOS AIRES—As Cristina Kirchner heads for an expected landslide re-election in Sunday's presidential voting, few Argentines are resting more uneasily than 12 economic consultants who face sanctions from her government for contradicting its calculation of the inflation rate. In a bitter showdown, the 12 consultants are fending off government investigations, accompanied in most cases with fines of 500,000 pesos ($119,000) under an obscure consumer-protection statute called the "commercial loyalty law." Three of the most outspoken consultants have been singled out for additional criminal charges under a financial-speculation law. Their offense, in the eyes of the government, is insisting in press...

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina's president, is using her refusal to appoint an ambassador to Britain as demonstration of her hardline on the Falkland Islands, a key plank of her platform for election in October. Tensions over the sovereignty of the Falklands have increased since British companies began drilling for oil in the region just over a year ago. Argentina responded last August by abandoning plans to install a new ambassador in London and reports in Buenos Aires now indicate that none will be appointed this year. Political analysts said the decision suggested that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner could...

Argentina's relations with the U.S. worsened sharply Monday as the South American country continued to hold military equipment it confiscated last week from a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane sent as part of a training course for local police. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, called on Argentina to return the property without delay. "It's absolutely necessary that they immediately return that material. It makes no sense for it to have been confiscated this way. This material was intended for a joint exercise in training people to rescue hostages," Mr. Valenzuela Monday said on...

21st Century SocialismThe attempt to destroy democracy in Latin America.  The Obama administration started out on the wrong foot in world affairs. It used techniques better suited for domestic political campaigns — popularity contests — in its foreign policy. In our own hemisphere, the result was confusion for our allies and our enemies alike. The overriding objective of U.S. policy — in Latin America and elsewhere — should be to advance U.S. national interests, not to curry favor with foreign leaders. If we can be liked while advancing our interests, so much the better. But when we try to befriend...

Hundreds of Argentines waited in line on Thursday to pay tribute to Nestor Kirchner, the powerful former leader whose death robbed President Cristina Fernandez of her husband and most trusted ally. Kirchner, 60, was widely seen as the most influential figure in his wife's government, which has maintained the same statist economic measures that supporters say lifted the country out of the doldrums after a 2001-2002 crisis.

President Hugo Chavez delivered a bizarre attack on the Queen when the firebrand Venezuelan leader demanded Britain return the Falkland Islands to Argentina.The outspoken Mr Chavez used his weekly television and radio show Alo Presidente to rally Latin America behind the cause of his Argentine counterpart Cristina Kirchner by making a direct appeal to Buckingham Palace. "Look, England, how long are you going to be in Las Malvinas? Queen of England, I'm talking to you," said Mr Chavez. "The time for empires are over, haven't you noticed? Return the Malvinas to the Argentine people." Still addressing the Queen, he went...

Argentina on Thursday blasted the head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for saying the country, along with Ecuador and Venezuela, could be pushed into instability by the global economic crisis. Lumping Argentina together with Ecuador and Venezuela, both led by leftist anti-Washington firebrands, raises concern in this country, where center-left President Cristina Kirchner is trying to keep the economy from stagnating.

Ecuador aligns itself with Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba In speeches against imperialism and neoliberalism, the presidents of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and Bolivia, Evo Morales, and the Ecuadoran President-Elect Rafael Correa, who should assume the government of his country Monday, expressed common ideological and political agreement Sunday. Chavez, Morales, and Correa, who also exalt the figure of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, met together in Zumbahua, an indigenous [Ecuadoran] locality 90 kilometers south of Quito, for a symbolic inauguration of Correa before the indigenous peoples [of Ecuador]. In a speech before a multitude congregated in the central plaza, Correa emphasized that "[Latin]...

First official results in Argentina's mid-term legislative elections suggest President Cristina Fernandez's party has lost control of Congress. The results suggest the ruling Peronist party has lost its majority in both the lower house and the Senate. Ms Fernandez' husband Nestor Kirchner conceded a closely-watched battle to win the populous Buenos Aires province. The polls were seen as a referendum on the popularity of the presidential couple, our correspondent says. (snip) With most of the votes counted, Nestor Kirchner conceded defeat to a dissident Peronist, wealthy businessman Francisco de Narvaez. (snip) The elections took place against a backdrop of deep...

MIAMI (Reuters) - A lawyer for a defendant in the Argentine "suitcase scandal" said a U.S. government witness has sworn that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was personally involved in the affair, according to a U.S. court filing. The government witness, Carlos Kauffmann, pled guilty in March to U.S. charges arising from the seizure of $800,000 in a suitcase in Buenos Aires and agreed to testify against former associate Franklin Duran in exchange for lighter punishment. U.S. prosecutors have indicated that they had been told the $800,000 was intended for the election campaign of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the former first...

N.B. Apologies to Pink Floyd for my lyric thievery in the title… The old adage that history repeats itself gets too much airplay and too frequently obscures the dynamics at work in a particular era. However, some things do seem to happen with a depressing regularity. Even when Thome has homered in the first and again in the 3rd, every roster in Major League Baseball has at least one idiot who would gladly pitch to him again in the 5th or the 6th instead of issuing the intentional walk. Argentinean President Cristina Kirchner seems to be winding up and preparing...

It was Christmas week in the Colombian city of Villavicencio and the events, as they were set to unfold, had all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. If only the "heroes" hadn't been exposed as liars. A 3-year-old boy, his mother and another woman, all hostages of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), were about to be freed. Credit for their release was to go to Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela. Former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner had flown up from Buenos Aires to take part in the show. Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone was on hand too, eager to document...

Argentina's new President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner attacked U.S. foreign policy on Thursday and said American claims that Venezuela smuggled $800,000 into Argentina to fund her election campaign were "garbage." Three Venezuelans and a Uruguayan were arrested in Miami earlier this week on charges of covering up a scandal that began in August when a Venezuelan-American businessman tried to enter Argentina with a suitcase full of undeclared cash. U.S. prosecutors say the suspects represented the anti-U.S. government of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and the money was to help finance Fernandez's campaign for the October 28 presidential election. Fernandez, who easily...

Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires Rages Against Abortion "Death Sentence" Calls the related abuse of children "demographic terrorism" By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman BUENOS AIRES, October 5, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In the wake of a clandestine abortion performed on a retarded woman with the help of the nation's health minister, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio and other Catholic authorities have let loose a torrent of criticism against the promoters of the "death sentence" for unborn children in Argentina, as well as other anti-life policies and customs. In a speech given to a gathering of priests and laity on October 2nd, the cardinal pointed...

Argentine Legislators Seek to Establish Abortion as Protected "Right" Constitution prohibits all abortions but penal code does not punish abortions for rape, health or life of mother By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman ARGENTINA, September 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Hearings were conducted yesterday in the Argentine Congress on several measures that would protect the practice of abortion in a broad number of cases, including the "health" or life of the mother, fetal deformities, and pregnancies caused by rape. The Penal Legislation Commission of the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the Congress), heard testimony from four legal experts yesterday, two pro-abortion...

Argentina asks Iran to help in 1994 bombing probe Sep 22, 2007 BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine President Nestor Kirchner on Saturday asked Iran to answer petitions for arrests and information in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center, state news agency Telam reported. Argentina has accused former high-level Iranian officials in the bombing in Buenos Aires and last year asked for their arrest. Iran denies any involvement in the attack. In a speech set for Tuesday at the U.N. General Assembly, Kirchner is expected to criticize Iran for failing to collaborate in the investigation of the...

CARACAS, Venezuela – The Venezuelan government on Friday denied any link to a businessman who was stopped at an Argentine airport carrying a suitcase filled with nearly $800,000 in cash. The Venezuelan businessman, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, carried the money from Caracas to Buenos Aires on a flight chartered by the Argentine government, and the undeclared funds were seized by customs agents last weekend. “We don't have anything to do with that plane or with that trip ... nothing to do with that businessman,” Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas told reporters. The incident has shaken the Argentine government, prompted one...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Argentina's first lady and front-runner in the October presidential election rejected on Wednesday comparisons with U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton despite both women's hopes to follow their husbands into office. Sen. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Clinton, a Democratic senator from New York, also are lawyers who met their husbands at universities but Fernandez said the comparisons ended there. "Hillary was able to position herself nationally because her husband was president. She didn't have a political life beforehand and that isn't my case," Fernandez de Kirchner said in an interview with CNN en Espanol, referring to...

MEXICO CITY - A U.S. plan to expand fences along the Mexican border to stem illegal immigration is an insult to all Latin Americans, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner said Tuesday during a visit to Mexico. "It's not just an insult to our sister nation of Mexico, but to all the nations of Latin America and all the nations of the world," the leftist president said to the applause of Mexican lawmakers. President Bush and Congress have approved plans for a 700-mile fence along the border. The Department of Homeland Security is committed to completing 370 miles by the end of...