United States hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer is a big fan of Argentina’s new president. For one thing, Mauricio Macri doesn’t call him a “vulture lord” or a “bloodsucker,” as his predecessor Cristina Fernández did. More important, the newly elected Macri recently paid Singer’s firm US$2.28 billion in debt.
Supporters of former President Cristina Fernandez gave her a hero's welcome Monday night at a Buenos Aires metropolitan airport before she faces a court over her possible role in an alleged scheme to manipulate Argentina's currency.
Discouraging week for the Kirchner family and followers, despite the fact that he name of their main political enemy, Mauricio Macri, has cropped up in the Panama Papers. Not only Lazaro Baez, the dominant public works contractor in Santa Cruz province, and believed to be a straw man for the Kirchner family has been arrested and faces questioning on a money laundering investigation, but also former Transport Secretary Ricardo Jaime implicated the Kirchner couple and a former minister in a multimillion purchase of damaged railway materials.
An Argentine powerful public works contractor from the province of Santa Cruz and close associate of the Kirchner family, Lazaro Baez was arrested on Tuesday afternoon when he arrived in his private Lear Jet to a Buenos Aires airport. Considered one of the wealthiest men in the southern province, political turf of the Kirchner family, and with an 'unrivaled' talent for business, Baez is a main suspect of an investigation into alleged money laundering.
Argentine Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay is planning to meet with IMF's Christine Lagarde at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss resuming formal ties with the international lender, according to a report published by Bloomberg.
Tens of thousands of supporters packed Argentina's most famous square, Plaza de Mayo on Wednesday night to say goodbye to President Cristina Fernandez, who lauded her government's achievements while blasting the incoming administration in the same tones she aimed at opponents throughout her eight years in office.
By Dr Alasdair Pinkerton - For the first time in 12 years, the new occupant of the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, will no longer bear the surname Kirchner.
Addressing the UN General Assembly, President Cristina Fernandez accused the United States of 'protecting' a former Argentine intelligence agent, blasted the speculative or 'vulture funds', gave details of the Iran-US-Argentina dealings and to everybody's surprise did not mention a word about the Falkland Islands sovereignty claim.
Brazil's popular but scandal-weary former leader Lula da Silva endorsed Argentina's ruling party presidential candidate on Wednesday, identifying Daniel Scioli's credentials with the political left, and hoping the current project “that began in 2003 is re-elected”. The former president was also full of praise for president Cristina Fernandez.
By Jimmy Burns - The snapped moment of encounter projected fast and globally on the world wide web has become as much as a characteristic of the Francis papacy, as his twitter account @pontifex. This is a papacy with a charismatic personality and instinctive communicator at its helm. It is also a papacy advised by media specialists and diplomats that know something about the opportunity offered by the digital age to spread a message with an impact that would have inconceivable just a few years ago.