Argentina’s peso closed down 3.86% on Friday and the stock market ended 1.44%, pressured by emerging markets turmoil, particularly in Turkey, and a corruption scandal that has touched some of the country’s top business leaders, traders said.
Argentina confirmed on Friday the identification of three more soldiers fallen during the South Atlantic conflict in 1982, and whose remains rest in the Argentine military cemetery at Darwin in the Falkland Islands.
Major Latin American currencies fell against the dollar on Thursday as global trade tensions strengthened the greenback and political uncertainty in Brazil and Argentina. Latin America's largest economy heads into a presidential election in two months time and in Argentina a major corruption scandal is unfolding.
Brazil's auto exports tumbled 21% in July from a month ago, the country's automakers' association said on Tuesday, blaming a monetary crisis in neighboring Argentina for the shortfall and adding that it expects exports to be steady for the year, not higher as it had predicted before last month.
The Argentine Senate as was anticipated finally rejected a divisive bill that would have legalized elective abortion for pregnancies of up to 14 weeks. Thirty-eight senators voted against the legislation on Thursday following a debate that lasted more than 15 hours.
Large grain transport ships using Argentine’s port hub of Rosario have had to reduce their cargo by between 3,200 and 4,300 tons because of an unusually low water level in the Parana River, the Rosario grains exchange said this week.
Argentine farmers are finishing this year's wheat sowing, helped by moist soils and cold weather that is prolonging the vegetative stage of crops, raising hopes of high yields and a record harvest, growers and analysts said on Wednesday. Cold Southern Hemisphere winter weather allows seedlings to grow more sprigs per plant. Harvesting starts in November.
An Argentine ruling coalition Senator predicted that the decriminalization abortion bill that will be debated on Wednesday in the upper House, will be rejected since the so called negative position will triumph. Ernesto Martinez, who represents the province of Cordoba and supports the bill, said that the blue camp had already got enough votes to win a majority.
Amnesty International has taken out a provocative advert that will appear in 134 countries on the eve of the vote to decriminalize abortion in Argentina. An image of a coat-hanger, a stark symbol long-associated with unsafe and clandestine abortions, will highlight the deadly consequences of the current law, and remind Senators that they have the power to save many lives by voting to decriminalize abortion.
Argentina's former vice president, Amado Boudou, was sentenced to nearly six years in prison on Tuesday after being found guilty of corruption while serving under former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The charges related to Boudou's attempt to buy a company that printed currency through a front business while serving as Cristina Fernández economy minister.