Back to our "Boring" Sunday Headline News - July 20th 2008

The Farmer/Government conflict is over ... or is it?

Clarin and La Nación, Argentina´s largest papers, are still covering the fallout of the conflict - which is, for Cristina Kirchner and the FPV (Frente para la Victoria) bunch, not over yet.

In La Nación, Province of Buenos Aires governor (and ex-VP alongside hard-line Néstor Kirchner) is asking for "self-criticism" amidst the official radio silence on the conflict's resolution last week. The Senate's vote and later derogation of Resolution 125 marked the long-awaited victory for the farmers but opened a "Now what?" phase which has been exacerbated by the President´s silence regarding this matter.

The second news-making event is a calculation of our National Savings if subsidies were cut. Ex-President Kirchner elaborated and intricate network of subsidies for basically all economic activities for which prices were "frozen" (electricity, gas, water, bus, trains, subways ...). Untangling it without setting free the seven-headed beat of inflation will be no easy task, especially when there is no real conviction of even believing that inflation is a problem to start with.

The third piece of news is a Tango show in La Boca ...

Clarín is also dealing with thje fallout of the conflict. Two Cobos followes, who had a job in the government, were apparently asked to resign. This has been one of many official measures taken from the government to ensure VP Cobos feals the heat of his decision. Last week, when he asked for the Tango 02 (the equivalent of the Air Force 1 for the VP) to head home to Mendoza (Argentinean province neiughboring Chile), his request was denied by Oscar Parilli, the President's secretary. He has gotten harrassed by FPV supported and told off by countless politicians. The crisis which he has set off in the government will only be properly measured in a few months.

Although he has denied resigning, I speculate he will run for a Senator post next year; this would give him an exit with some dignity and allow the President to save face after having her VP issue the decisive vote
against her export-tax bill.

Other news refer to Martín del Potro´s recent tennis victories.

(La Nación cover is not reproduced because the new brilliant online identity prevents me from copy-pasting the cover).

Sunday Headline News in Argentina: November 11th, 2007

And we're at the start of another interesting week in Argentina ... October was quite calm due to the elections, but November seems to be back with a vengeance! There are not only local problems (inflation, insecurity, protests), there is also conflict on the international front. As long as commodities keep high prices, the K Government will be happy and collecting billions of dollars more from export taxes ...

This weekend the top news spot was captured by International News this weekend - both showcasing Spain: while La Nación dealt with the sour exchange between Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Spain's Rey Juan Carlos. While Spain's PM Zapatero was giving his speech, he was rudely interrupted by Chavez who meant to attack Jose María Aznar, the former PM. The King defended Aznar by telling Chavez to shut up, and left the conference room after the shouting contest.

Clarín chooses to go back to the paper-mill dispute between Argentina and Uruguay, and states that Spain wants both countries to re-ignite settlement talks. Not only did they not do so, but Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez went as far as to shut down the frontier at Gualeguaychu to prevent any Argentine attack on Botnia's recently-turned-operational mill. This conflict, which was 2006's top news, seems to want to carry itself over into 2008. By the lack of progress around it, it most certainly will be around for New Years'.

Secondary news at both papers were just that: secondary. La Nación had as second important story Clarin's first, and Clarin had La Nacion's first as second, so that made an interesting role-switching exercise. At La Nación, other news were about panic rooms, the local rugby championship and the Colón Theater's restoration. Clarín has many small side stories: the main ones are about the actual Economy Minister, who will apparently not be part of Cristina's cabinet, and a local druglord's confession, as well as Seferino Namuncurá's beatification process and soccer violence.

The summary of today's papers would be: if the Spanish fight that much, ¿how can you expect the apple (us Argentineans) to fall far from the tree? And don't get me into our Italian heritage ...

Sunday Headline News in Argentina: November 4th, 2007 - One Week with Madame President

Madame President has been elected for exactly a week today, and already she has shown how intelligent and wily she can be: she held several interviews with a wide array of reporters - almost all one-on-ones - and even with reporters she very recently criticized for being "opinionated" and reporting with a bias (La Nación Joaquin Morales Solá). She held her ground with most of them, although once or twice she showed her claws: when being asked why she dressed up, she answered "Do you want me to dress as if I were poor?" (btw, her husbands wealth declaration says he has approx. U$S 2 million in the bank plus 28 pieces of real estate ... not bad for a president), and when Marcelo Bonelli asked her about her relationship with the press she "told him off" like a first grade teacher to her student. We have four very interesting years ahead of us.

As for the papers today, they shared the main news as political: La Nación highlighted some newly-elected faces from the Province of Buenos Aires, and Clarín showcased a potential conflict between Carrió and Macri over the leadership of the opposition to the newly-elected President.

The truth is that, although both share the strong opposition to the leading party, their approaches and ideas today are quite
different and show significant gaps - which some consider unsurmountable. Be as it may, Macri will be leading the destinies of the district where Carrió won in last Sunday's presidential election, so the people who elected Macri must see something in Carrió and vice versa. This should help bridge some of the gaps in the not too distant future.

As for the other news, both papers showed Boca Juniors' victory over Racing Club on saturday, and while La Nación mentioned also the growing consumption of drugs and an incipient corruption scandal involving the Secretary of Transport; while Clarín settles for the Boca Juniors' victory and with an optimisting comment from Spain's Zapatero saying how Argentina is reaching the end of its nightmare ... for this week, enough said!

Sunday Headline News in Argentina: Election Day (October 28th, 2007)

The day finally arrived, and the much anticipated (by approximately 9 political pollsters and by our own Observador de Medios media verdict @ http://observador-de-medios.blogspot.com ) victory of the First Lady has come true: we are minutes away from the announcement that Argentina has its first woman president, without second round.

The latest data says she obtained approximately 45% of votes, a 20pt gap against her closer adversary, multi-faceted Lilita Carrió or ex-Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna, well above Rodriguez Sáa, Sobisch and Lopez Murphy. The leading Frente Para la Victoria party apparently has also won the governor election for the Province of Buenos Aires (the largest in the country, with 10 million voters) with an outstanding victory from vice-president Daniel Scioli.

The papers today already clearly stated that the best hope for the opposition was to reach a second round: while La Nación drily said that today Kirchner's successor would be chosen, and Clarín openly stated that at best, the opposition could hope for a ballotage, apparently discounting the leading party's victory.

The other news are mainyl sports - as is typical in weekends: La Nación chose the local rugby tournament and Clarín chose Carlitos Tevez's excellent performance in the Manchester United victory yesterday in the Premier League.

The truth of the matter is that the opposition has let this opportunity slip through their fingers: their unwillingness to unite - maybe to avoid the 1999 to 2001 Alianza scandal, too fresh in people's minds - and to bridge the gap between their differing ideas strengthened Cristina Kirchner. Besides the good economic momentum - much like 2003 but with weaker growth perspectives and many more problems in the horizon - the Kirchner couple was consistent and worked around their weaknesses, while managing to avoid getting too burnt with the corruption scandals (Skanska, Antonini Wilson, Indec, etc.).

Argentina hails its new president. The oppostion has 4 more years to get their act together if we are ever to reach a system of "alternating" parties, like other developed countries. Until then, we will resemble more a monarchy than a republic; autocratic rather than democratic. Let's hope we are wrong, and let's hope our newly-elected president will begin solving the real issues for the people - now that, for the first time ever, she can't blame her predecessor.

Elections 2007: No Surprises Needed or Wanted

Elections are upon us once again. Last time around, we saw the unexpected happen: Carlos Menem, president for 2 terms, ran for office, won in the first round, and as polls called him a loser on the ballotage, for the first time in history, the front runner pulled out of the race. Néstor Kirchner became president with 22% of votes ...

This time around, it appears there is little room for the unexpected. Little room, I say, because Kirchner will most probably be handing over the reigns of the kingdom to his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. She is a senator but has lived the life of a president - or more - during her campaign, travelling all over the world, shying away from the real topics of interest and spreading much needed warmth towards the international community and investors. She has shown much disregard for the internal problems and has minimized critical issues (official statistics mishandling, recurring energu crises, lack of FDI, etc.)

Will it be enough for her to wind? No one cares. She and her husband have done far more than the opposing parties, who faced somewhat of a paradox. Alone, no one candidate can dispute a strong second position and pray for a second round; and together, they all ran the risk of repeating - at least in the voters' minds - past-alliances' mistakes and dilapitading all of their political capital in one swift move. So, the only chance to aim for a ballotage was doomed because the same rationale was applied in 1999 for De La Rúa and the Alianza, and it ended in the
2001/2002 implosion. And running alone assured failure.

Is there room for a grand gesture on behalf of a candidate to try to re-build bridges and consolidate a 30% + vote percentage to force a second round? It seems not. The enormous ethical/moral grandstand that some candidates have adopted definitely leaves little space for bridge-building. In fact, some candidates are so keen on getting their way that they do not realize they might jeopardize the greater good in so doing.

What now? The answer comes from the same place it has for he past 21 years for out soccer fanaticismo: we get to wait four more years - and pray we can save ourselves so we don't need a Maradona doing our dirty work and generating a false sense of supremacy.

Sunday Headline News in Argentina (September 23rd, 2007)

Politics is slowly creeping upon us all ... however, slowly is the key concept here. A month away from the general elections, Sunday papers - by far the most read of the week - still remain silent regarding the candidates and the elections overall. La Nación, as can be expected, makes some noise regarding campaign finance, but does not scream out foul or give out any names when you look at the big picture. Clarín looks the other way regarding local politics. Here it is, in more detail:

La Nación, as we mentioned some lines ago, has taken a mild swing at the leading Frente para la Victoria party by - in a very subtle manner - making accusations of using public spending money to finance campaigns. In fact, it should surpise noone by now that Cristina Kirchner, the president's wife and presidential candidate for October, has been travelling on our dime since the beginning of the year, and more than making concrete progress on any topic whatsoever, has looked for camera flashes to prove to everyone she (much more than her husband) can properly interact with international leaders.

So, more than anything, La Nación chose to highlight that particular issue, without putting any particular blame on anyone. On a sencond note, the typical sports news goes to the Argentinean Rugby Team, still advancing in the World Cup after beating Namibia 63 to 3. This paper's third piece of news details something which we started mentioning on August 22nd - the grueling task of carrying out any documentation request / change in a state dependency. It might take hours and you may not even do what you set out to do. There have been steps taken to solve this: to do certain requests in Buenos Aires' civil registration courts, you need to reserve a time-slot and date on the internet ... which I have done, just so we can have material for this blog :-)

Clarín went down another path. Instead of local politics, they decided to go for the big one: The Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands, for those of you who are Brits) and the English's pretense to enlarge the fishing exclusion zone around the much-controverted Islands (to those of you whose Argentinean history might be a bit loose, the last Argentinean military junta decided to go to war against England over ownership of the Malvinas ... and lost a humiliating and demeaning war 25 years ago). The way the world works nowadays, however, should see this particular dispute being settled behind the bureaucrats' desks instead of in the battlefield.

The second note is the same as La Nación: The much appraised Pumas. On a third and smaller note, President Kirchner is cited as having said that Iran must go to Justice over the AMIA bombing (during the 90's, hundreds of Jews were killed in a department city bombing using a van with large amounts of explosives - if memory serves me well). As Kirchner moves to and from Chavez and to and from the US, this type of issues gains extraordinary importance in determining Argentina's role in Latin America (as Chavez friend or international community ally) and the tone is set for the soon-to-be-elected government.

I will pray for more politics next week - until then, 'nuff said!

Sunday Headline News (September 16th, 2007)

Surprisingly enough, although general elections are 40 days away, there was barely any talk this Sunday of politics. Both La Nación and Clarín focused their attention on the one topic that can affect any President's well-being in Argentina: inflation. Price increases have in the past been the Achilles' heel of many presidents, and should not be overlooked as a potential make-or-break issue. This past week Martín Redrado, President of the Central Bank, mentioned in a meeting that he has "deeply worried" about inflation. This stirred quite a reaction on the President, who reprimanded him and asked him to clarify his comment. The obedient Redrado did as asked and he said "he meant he was as worried as any other CB President is about inflation" ...

La Nación chose to emphasize the interest rate increases that have taken place during the last few months (approx. +4/7%) and that makes mortgage lending an impossible activity - 10 year fixed rates jumped to approx. 17% per annum. The way the wording is built, it is meant to directly affect consumption also (adding to the inflation and making credit less available), which is the opposite of what society needs to continue stimulating private demand.

Side notes are related to sports and general news - the sports relates to the great Independiente, beating Colón de Santa Fé to reach the first standing in the Argentinean Apertura 2007 championship (until Boca also won and tied first standing). The piece of general news relates to how useful cell phones are to people (more than PCs, it appears according to a poll) and why teens go to see the doctor. Apparently, Sunday papers are running out of intersting things to say ... on to Clarín ...

Clarín decided to also showcase inflation, but on a very different note: how price increases also affect the Government's purchasing activities. If you ask me, it seems like somethig quite irrelevant to point out, since there's absolutely nothing people can do to avoid that - and taxes are not going down anytime soon, so the real question is: who cares and, even if we do, what can we do about it?

Clarín's typical sports news showcased Independiente's victory over Colón also; showing a picture of the championship's capo cannonieri, Germán Denis, with 11 goals in 9 games.

As for side notes, they were quite irrelevant also: a short policital note about politics in Argentina (oh, that reminds me and all teh readers that general elections are less than 45 days away!): all presidential candidates were elected without primaries - an astounding fact for US citizens, maybe, very used to primaries, but not for Argentineans.

The last note talks about the average argentinean: young and with a high school diploma. At the same time, as someone in the Media Observatory presentation last Thursday pointed out, they might have described their audience.

I promise I'll do next newscast sooner!

Sunday Headline News in Argentina (September 9th, 2007)

Unfortunately this was a busy, busy week where I was unable to post ... so here we are again with the Sunday newspaper report. Interesting weekend, this one, sort of showing society where the headlights will be pointed in the next weeks: the october presidential elections.

La Nación showcased the fact that there will be fourteen (14) presidential candidates for the people to choose from in October. This was known because during the week the official lists were closed and registered by the electoral authorities. Now, you might be asking yourself ... why fourteen candidates? True, most of them are minor candidates who won't reach even 1% of the votes. However, it comes to show just how disorganized the opposition is. There are at least three candidates who should be able to reach 10% of the votes: Lavagna (ex-Economy minister for Kirchner), Carrió (as always, going against the ruling party) and Lopez Murphy (timidly supported by Mauricio Macri, recently elected Mayor of Buenos Aires). All of these candidates together could stand a chance against Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the president's wife, first-lady, senator, and our official foreign representative (recently travelled on Argentina's dime to Brazil, France, Mexico, U.S.A., ...), who is supposed to reach any number above 30-35%.
Secondary news include the Argentinean rugby victory over France and the decrease in economic optimism, as well as the US workers' shorter holidays due to longer work weeks.

Clarín also started the week on a political note, although on a different tone: President Kirchner has decided to send out his troops (i.e., his current ministers) to present themselves as candidates to different official posts. It is a more personal perspective on the same political newstype, outlining Kirchner's authoritative figure and presenting him clearly as "the man behind the curtains", even if his wife becomes our next president.

The secondary news goes to Los Pumas, the same as the other paper we are analyzing. The victory over the French national team was a great boost to Argentine morale, specially at a time when Lofreda's team was undergoing much public scrutiny.

On a distant third level of importance come the investigation on a union officer (and his alleged bank accounts outside the country) and the recent increase of mortgage-rates (fixed rates are close to 15-17% per annum ...).

However it may be, the political tone has been set, and will most likely remain throughout the 8 weeks or so until the election. Who will be the media's candidate? We will see that during September ...

Sunday Headline News in Argentina (September 2nd 2007)

Nothing too wild going on this weekend in the top two newspapers: they shared (as is usual during weekends) the news that Argentina has classified to the Pekin Olympic games in basketball beating our (soccer) arch-rival and friendly neighbor Brazil. Then, each paper decided to focus on two very different news:

La Nación decided to look at a local political topic: the upcoming national elections (in less than two months). The comment stresses the large amount of positive economic announcements - all tending to increase disposable income - that the government has been making as the end of campaign grows near. On a more secondary note, the Papeleras conflict with (used-to-be-friendly) Uruguay is mentioned, as peaceful negotiations are about to be carried out. Lastly, there is also a column on the elections in two of the most relevant electoral districtrs after the Province and City of Buenos Aires: Santa Fé and Córdoba.


Clarín decides to stress the conflict with Uruguay over newly-constructed paper-mill Botnia as the number one item (as was during all of 2006, according to the news ranking published in the Observador de Medios http://observador-de-medios.blogspot.com ), and does so on a pessimistic tone, while also mentioning the elections in Santa Fé and Córdoba as relevant news as a prelude to the nationals in October.


Until next week, 'nuff said!

Sunday Headline News in Argentina

Nothing too interesting happened this weekend in the news. There was - as usual - at least one common denominator in the first-page news at Clarín and La Nación, the 2 most popular newspapers in the country. This was the imminent increase in ABL (property taxes - stands for lighting, sweeping and cleaning in Spanish) taxes everywhere around the city, looking to raise approx. U$S 50 million this year and U$S 200 extra million in 2008. The reason: property fiscal valuations have not been updated since 1993, and the new mayor needs some additional funding to cut the deficit that Telerman - actual mayor and 3rd place out of three in last election - promised to leave the city with breakeven finances.

Anyhow, the sad result of this untimely tax increase - amidst the President´s other set of economic measures all moving in the direction of increasing disposable income and thus prolonging the consumption boom that's fueling economic growth - is that we will all pay increases ranging from 50% tp 150%. Macri's PRO party will have to take some of the heat for the tax increase, even though the FpV (President's party) also approved it. There is a heated debate right now, that will spread over this last week of the month - whether this increase will be revoked or not.

Other headline news: La Nación mentions illegal aliens in the US, who left Argentina after the last crisis (totally irrelevant subject, if you ask me), and also shows evidence about how January's inflation was manipulated. This has been an ongoing topic and the national statistics organism (INdEC) has lost absolutely all credibility in the eyes of local and foreign - and may even generate important legal actions against the country since manipulating the inflation index directly lowers the yield on Gov't Bonds ties to inflation (CER adjusted) therefore newly affecting investors' rights. Seems we need to make our homework there, otherwise we'll just end uo selling all of our bonds to petrodollar-rich-neighborhood-friendly Chávez. At twice the rate the IMF used to lend to us, but hey, they bothered us with the talk about institutions that may actually force us to reconsider if our path to growth is something that can last over the long run or a short-lived fantasy. Heck, sometimes it seems like the 90's, except that it's a 3 to 1 convertibility instead of 1 to 1 and there are less trips to Miami!

Clarín talks about the most important and relevant news in the country: My beloved Independiente is leading the local champsionship. With a 3 point lead over the 2 challengers, we are playing historic rival Boca Juniors on Wednesday.

Fine, I was wrong, so what? (Speeding Ticket Part II)

Or at least I was semi-wrong. Yesterday morning the story started at 6.45am ... I had been told to be there at 7am, but a very kind family member helped me out and got there at 6.45 - and there were already 30 people waiting. She got the number 21, and as I arrived at 8.30am, she was already talking to the traffic controller secretary or whatever. She just printed out a page, gave us a new number which led us to wait in a large room full of people of every socio-economic level whose sole common denominator was having traffic tickets - everything from red lights to doing 200km/h or not having put on their seat-belts.

After another half hour, the noisy machine that showed what seemed like random undecypherable alphanumeric codes (beeping every time a new one was displayed), we were up (by the way, besides the beeping codes, traffic controllers also came about screaming people's names - I don't know who decided whether you got a beeping number or a screaming name-call, that's for newly-elected Mayor Macri to figure out). So, we get to the traffic-controller (for those expecting a fat gentleman in suit and tie, you are in for a disappointment): he was just a regular guy. One of forty-something traffic controllers. So we sit down, I explain to him why I had sped (I won't say why, I'll keep it a mistery) and he says I can either pay U$S 35 (minimum fine, he was being kind and lowering it from U$S 50) or wait to talk to the judge (who of course would get there in another half hour).

So, I went for the judge. And it took her an hour to get there and start imparting justice. Anyhow, we get called - this time by name (woo-hoo!) and go back to the same controller, who makes me sign some papers and explains the judge had bestowed upon me her divine benevolence because it was my first offense - and due to the by now very misterious situation I will not ever reveal. So, that was that: by 10am I was out and having won my small insignificant victory against the state. I felt U$S 50 richer, but I also felt there was something seriously wrong with the system.

And I had a great incentive to never speed again!

For those of you wanting to read more (albeit in Spanish): http://www.clarin.com/diario/2007/03/06/laciudad/h-04215.htm