Argentina's Defense minister Julio Martínez headed the Air Force's 34th baptism of fire anniversary which took place on May first 1982 during the South Atlantic conflict. The Sunday event at the V Air Brigade in Villa Reynolds, province of San Luis, was also attended by government and military officials, Malvinas veterans and Air Force Chief of Staff Brigadier Major Enrique Victor Amrein.
You can set sail peacefully, because there will be no repeat of the 2012 situation, president Mauricio Macri told officers, crew and cadets of the Navy's training tall ship Libertad that is ready to set off for the annual tour. Macri was referring to the incident in Ghana when the vessel was seized on an injunction request from one of the holdout funds litigating Argentina over defaulted bonds.
Argentina's Defense minister Julio Martínez has only been in office a few days but he already has a huge challenge on his desk: the four Russian sloops recently arrived in Buenos Aires and which according to the previous administration of Cristina Fernandez cost ten million dollars and are very appropriate for naval patrolling.
Argentina's president-elect Mauricio Macri has named US-educated bankers and big business executives to key posts in a cabinet he vows will revive the economy, officials and media reports said Wednesday. Budget and finance minister Alfonso Prat-Gay, 50, an economist trained at Pennsylvania University and former Wall Street banker, was announced by Macri's designated chief of staff Marcos Peña.
Foreign minister Hector Timerman is heading a multi-party delegation that on Thursday will make the presentation of Argentina's position on the Falklands/Malvinas Islands sovereignty dispute before the UN Decolonization Committee in New York.
The Argentine government is putting pressure on contractors so that the Navy's flagship icebreaker Almirante Irizar, partially destroyed by fire in 2007, can begin sea trials later this year. However over-costs and mismanagement of the funds invested, estimated at over 650 million dollars, could have purchased a new vessel of three second hand according to critics in Congress.
An Argentine lawmaker claims that the US oil corporation Chevron which is investing heavily in developing shale resources in Neuquen with YPF is a partner of Oil Spill Response Limited that is also involved with the oil companies operating in the South Atlantic in Argentine waters but licensed by the Falkland Islands government.