
Argentina became the first Mercosur country to secure an initial legislative green light for the trade agreement with the European Union, after the Chamber of Deputies approved the text late on Thursday. The bloc also includes Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, which have launched their own domestic ratification processes.

A magnitude-6.1 earthquake struck northern Chile on Thursday morning, with the epicentre in the Coquimbo region. Chile’s National Seismological Center (CSN) said the event occurred at 10:34:30 local time, locating it 13 km west of Punitaqui at preliminary coordinates of latitude -30.781 and longitude -71.613, with an estimated depth of 54 km.

Argentina’s Senate gave initial approval to President Javier Milei’s labor reform bill after a marathon session that ran for more than 14 hours and unfolded amid street protests outside Congress. The draft cleared the upper chamber by 42 votes to 30 and will now move to the Lower House (Chamber of Deputies) for final consideration.

Argentina’s ruling coalition and centrist opposition blocs in the Senate reached a deal to vote on a labor reform bill on Wednesday, starting at 11 a.m., during an extraordinary session, according to the final draft circulated in the upper house and local reporting. The revisions steered by Senate ruling bloc leader Patricia Bullrich are key to advancing the labor reform and include dropping the corporate income tax cut—preserving revenues for provinces and the federal government—concessions to unions and business chambers on mandatory contributions, maintaining the allocation to union-run health funds, and moderating the original severance fund proposal.

Argentine President Javier Milei called Donald Trump “an example of courage and leadership” in a video message sent to the Hispanic Prosperity Gala hosted by Latino Wall Street at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, after receiving an Economic Freedom award, local outlets reported.

Argentina’s inflation came in at 2.9% in January, taking the 12-month rate to 32.4%, according to the national statistics agency INDEC. The reading marked an acceleration of 0.1 percentage points from December.

Argentina’s Economy Ministry published the instrument menu for the Feb. 11 debt auction, closely watched by markets given the size of maturities: nearly ARS 10 trillion (around USD 7 million), about ARS 9 trillion of which is held by private investors.

Argentina’s government has issued the implementing rules for its Inocencia Fiscal law, formally activating a voluntary Simplified Income Tax Regime (RSG) aimed at encouraging taxpayers to bring undeclared savings —popularly known as “mattress dollars”— into the formal economy, while shifting enforcement toward compliance “going forward.”

Argentina has tightened its enforcement framework against foreign vessels suspected of illegal fishing inside its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), giving greater evidentiary weight to satellite records and other remote sensors to open proceedings and impose fines, under a new regulation published in the Official Gazette.

An Argentine-led deep-sea expedition has recorded rare footage of Stygiomedusa gigantea—the so-called giant phantom jellyfish—in waters off Argentina, offering an unusual look at a species seldom observed alive in its natural environment. The animal was filmed at around 250 meters depth by the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian during the “Vida en los extremos” campaign aboard the research vessel R/V Falkor (too), involving scientists from CONICET and the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).