
Argentine Federal Judge María Servini de Cubría with competence over electoral affairs ruled that the Counsel of Magistrates reform law recently passed by Congress is unconstitutional. Her decision comes hours away from the deadline to apply for electoral alliances.

The Argentine government ratified that open and simultaneous primary elections, ahead of October’s mid term election, as established by law in the electoral calendar, will be held next August 11, despite the current wave of injunctions against a reform of the Magistrates Counsel (responsible for naming, sanctioning and firing judges) which contemplates the election of its members by universal suffrage on the same dates.

Argentina’s influenza death toll has risen to 11 across the country. Three people have been reported dead in the past hours in the province of Córdoba where the number of total H1NI virus casualties has now reached four.

Argentina ranks fourth, behind Russia, the United States and China with technically recoverable shale oil reserves of 27 billion barrels, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a landmark report that offers a preliminary glimpse of the hydrocarbons that remain untapped across the world.

China approved three genetically modified soybean types for consumption, including the RR2BT seed resistant to the imidazolinonas and the glufosinat-ammonium herbicides. The announcement was made following a meeting between Agriculture ministers from Argentina and China in Beijing.

Buenos Aires province health authorities confirmed on Monday that seven people have died in the last month from the influenza A virus and 40 people have been reported infected by the H1N1 strain. However the authorities do not consider it an epidemic behaviour similar to that of 2009.

Argentina reaffirmed on Monday its “inalienable right” over the Malvinas and other South Atlantic Islands, and its “strong will to promptly restart negotiations with the United Kingdom” over the what it considers to be an “unacceptable and anachronic colonial situation”. Argentina also complains about the March referendum held in the Falklands last March.

Latinamerican countries expressed on Thursday their full support for Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the Falklands/Malvinas, during the 43 annual assembly of the Organization of American States taking place in Guatemala. Only Canada was against the OAS final declaration while the United States did not take position on the matter.

To mark the anniversary of the liberation of the Falkland Islands from Argentine occupation in 1982, the elected government of the Islands has arranged the following program for Friday 14 June 2013.

Argentina's Supreme Court revoked a 19 billion dollar embargo on the assets and future income of Chevron Corp.'s Argentina subsidiary, giving the U.S. oil giant a victory in a decades-old battle with indigenous groups in Ecuador.