
Trading of the ‘blue’ or parallel dollar in Argentina remained flat on Monday for a second day following last week’s events when the 10 Pesos barrier was broken and the government reacted with a tax amnesty or whitewashing draft bill promising all dollar assets holders a new clean record and no questions asked if they turn their greenbacks into government bonds or promissory notes.

The British Antarctic Survey scientist Joe Farman, who helped identify the hole in the ozone layer over the southern pole, has died. Dr Farman who was also a scientific officer at the Falkland Islands Dependency Survey, published the discovery with Brian Gardiner and Jon Shanklin in the Journal Nature in 1985.

Argentina is negotiating with China a new 10 billon dollars equivalent swap of international reserves support based on the experience of 2009 when the global financial crisis. The new accord should theoretically help Argentina strengthen its international position vis-à-vis the run on the dollar (or the flight from the Peso) and which has cost the Central bank 4 billion dollars so far this year.

A senior British member of Parliament blasted as ‘outrageous’ claims that the European Parliament does not recognize British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. The case first surfaced when MercoPress reported that a Spanish member of the European parliament on a recent visit to Argentina said that “British sovereignty over the Islands as such is not accepted”.

It’s not the first time it has happened mainly in Argentina where maps, stationery, climate and navigational charts and even school books related to the Islas Malvinas have been found referred and printed as the Falkland Islands to the fury of the Kirchner ‘Penguin’ governments.

The head of Argentina’s Lower House Budget and Finance Committee and former Finance minister Roberto Feletti said that the whitewashing bill should allow the entrance of “around 5 billion dollars” into Argentina’s market. For the MP, the government is “fighting a historic battle to block” what he called a “market coup.”

The so called ‘blue dollar’ traded in Argentina’s parallel market ended on Friday just above 10 Pesos after having reached record highs earlier in the week (10.55 Pesos) and following the Thursday announcement of a tax amnesty bill and other ‘whitewashing’ financial instruments.

Argentina’s Secretary of Domestic Commerce Guillermo Moreno wants to bring the foreign exchange black market ‘back in line’ using new dollar securities the government plans to issue locally as part of a major tax amnesty plan, according to Alfredo Piano, Chairman of Banco Piano SA.

Visiting Chinese Vice-president Li Yuanchao expressed on Friday “full support for Argentina’s sovereign claims over the Malvinas Islands” while his Argentine peer, Amado Boudou matched his words ratifying the ‘one China’ policy.

News this week that Argentina had decided to undertake fisheries research in the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI) is not connected in any way to the Falklands, Acting Governor Sandra Tyler-Haywood has assured.