
Argentina is preparing to extend the deadline to its debt offer to May 22. The government will publish an extension to its debt offer in the official Gazette this Monday, part of President Alberto Fernandez’s next steps in its debt restructuring after extending a deadline over the weekend for creditors to accept an initial offer to exchange $65 billion in overseas bonds.

After 50 days in mandatory lockdown, Argentina's President Alberto Fernández announced on Friday that the quarantine will be extended until May 24th.

Argentina will keep pushing for talks with creditors even as a deadline for its US$ 65 billion debt restructuring proposal passed on Friday with little sign it had the support needed from international bondholders to unlock a comprehensive deal. Apparently on averaged less than 20% of bondholders accepted Argentina's conditions

Argentina's Economy Minister Martin Guzman has given the country's biggest bondholders until this Friday to accept the offer he has put on the table to suspend payments until 2023 and reduce interest rates thereafter. One of the largest of those creditors, the investment management firm BlackRock, rejected Guzman's proposal and immediately presented a counteroffer.

Several hundred activists blocked this week one of Buenos Aires' main avenues for hours to demand food for soup kitchens that feed hundreds of thousands in poor neighborhoods during the mandatory lockdown aimed at preventing the spread of the new coronavirus.

By Joseph Stiglitz, Edmund S. Phelps, and Carmen Reinhart (*) – Argentina's creditors are being asked to accept a proposal that would reduce their revenue stream but make it sustainable. A responsible resolution will set a positive precedent, not only for Argentina but for the international financial system as a whole.

Argentina officially has 5.208 COVID 19 confirmed cases with a death toll of 273 since the pandemic broke out. However the country is suffering from even more acute disease infection, the mosquito-transmitted dengue, with some 25.000 confirmed cases, and of which 5.601 in the last three weeks.

The government of Argentina and its biggest bondholders are clashing over plans to restructure US$ 65 billion in foreign debt, with little sign of either side budging in last-ditch talks to strike a deal.

The Argentine Navy sighted and arrested early Monday a Chinese jigger which was illegally operating in the country's EEZ. The report says that the ocean patrol vessel ARA Bouchard detected the Hong Pu 16, fishing with its Automatic Identification System turned off, but full lights on to catch squid.

The Argentine Coast Guard arrested on Sunday a Portuguese trawler poaching in the country's EEZ, and will in the next few hours be escorted to the port of Bahía Blanca where it will face charges.