
By Rodolfo Arrate (*) - The Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges famously declared: “Democracy is an abuse of statistics”. Observing the evolution of the political regime in Argentina nowadays, the poet’s sentence may well have turned into a prophecy.

The Argentine government is preparing for a huge political demonstration next Saturday 25 May to be held in the Plaza de Mayo to celebrate 10 years since President Cristina Fernández late husband and predecessor Néstor Kirchner took office. It will also be a test ahead of the October mid-term election.

UK conditioned a possible re-launching of agreements on hydrocarbons and fisheries in the South Atlantic to Argentina accepting ‘there will be no sovereignty negotiations’ regarding the Malvinas Islands and called for the Argentine government to respect the wishes of the Falkland Islanders.

Argentines expect inflation to average 34.9% in the next twelve months according to a private report released on Monday by the Finance Research Centre, CIF, belonging to the Torcuato Di Tella University.

An Argentine delegation involved in human rights that in early May visited the Falkland Islands is optimistic about the possibility of advancing in the identification of the remains of Argentine soldiers buried as unknown in unmarked graves at the Darwin cemetery.

The UK military base in the Falkland Islands has the “minimum necessary force to prevent a repeat of the illegal invasion such as that of 1982” committed by Argentina said Foreign Office Minister of State for Latinamerican affairs Hugo Swire during an interview with the Argentine news agency, Diarios y Noticias. (*)

Argentine government trade restrictions on overseas sales of beef have turned Paraguay into Mercosur third largest exporter behind Brazil and Uruguay. The first place last year belonged to Brazil with exports of 1.3 million tons; Uruguay, 350.000 tons; Paraguay, 210.00 and finally Argentina.183.000 tons.

Argentina’ icebreaker Almirante Irizar, docked for repairs since 2007 is en route to becoming another major scandal involving the Ministry of Defence and the Argentine Navy’s fleet. In the last six years Argentina has invested the equivalent of 200 million dollars in the recovery of the vessel that caught fire in 2007 and another 75 million dollars in contracting vessels to supply the Antarctic bases and stations.

Brazil’s main financial newspaper Valor Economico revealed that the recent summit between Presidents Cristina Fernandez and Dilma Rousseff from Argentina and Brazil was far from polite and enlightening, rather the contrary with “strong disagreements in the fields of trade and investment” shaking the foundations of Mercosur.

The business representative of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires Alí Pakdaman announced on Monday that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad endorsed without Congress approval the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Argentina and Tehran in order to investigate the AMIA Jewish centre bombing which killed 85 people in 1994.