MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

The English community in Argentina.

"The forgotten colony" was first published in London and in English, but now has a Spanish version and is quiet a success in Buenos Aires bookshops, according to the Argentine press. The book was written by a well known Anglo-Argentine journalist and researcher, Andrew Graham Yooll, who has lived both in London and Buenos Aires. During the last military regime he was forced to leave Argentina because of the constant death threats he received as Editor of the Buenos Aires Herald. According to the book the English speaking communities in Argentina were closely linked to the railways industry, but once they were nationalised, under Perón, "it was more than the end of a chapter, it was an epilogue, a disaster..." Graham Yool also points out that members of the English community in Argentina refused to be categorised as "immigrants" since this meant a descent in the social consideration and class system. The book according to Argentine press reviews is not absent of controversy, since it also includes the British invasion of the early XIX century when the English taking advantage of the fact Spain was under Napoleon's rule tried to take over the River Plate, actually occupying Montevideo for over a year, from where attacks on Buenos Aires were organised. Falklands has also been controversial for the English speaking community in Argentina, and Graham Yool's own school experience in Buenos Aires sums up the issue: when asked on what side he would be if there was ever a war over the Falklands/Malvinas, in the book he writes: "Anglo-Argentines prayed for an honourable solution to the dispute, something like an earthquake or a giant sea wave in the South Atlantic".

Massive financial aid for Argentina

The International Monetary Fund announced this week that Argentina will receive an aid package worth 39.7 billion US dollars, in an effort to rescue its economy from a two long years of recession and unemployment. The IMF finally agreed to release the funds after the Argentine Congress passed a much debated budget that included a series of severe austerity measures, following a political understanding between the ruling coalition of President De la Rúa and the Peronist opposition.