The stories that caught our attention: June 20 to 27

WHERE IS THE LOAN?

For the second week in a row, the whereabouts of missing five-year-old Loan Danilo Peña remained unknown, with federal forces poised to take control of the investigation.

LOADED BASES

At press time, the House of Representatives was still debating whether to accept the Senate’s amended version.Law of Bases‘ omnibus bill and the tax package or impose the original bill as approved by the lower house with the income tax as the key issue. The radical reform bill appeared to be on the verge of approval with peaceful protests outside Congress. Before the session, the left-wing caucus of the FIT (Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores) alternated its representation with last year’s mayoral candidate Vanina Biasi and Mónica Schlotthauer, replacing last year’s presidential candidate Myriam Bregman and Romina del Plá.

OAS BUSIER THAN EXPECTED

The summit of the Organization of American States (OAS), which opened Wednesday night in the Paraguayan capital Asuncion and ended after this newspaper went to press yesterday, was quickly overshadowed by the attempted coup in Bolivia. After considerable delay, the Argentine Foreign Ministry joined the rest of the hemisphere in issuing a statement “reaffirming the unconditional defense of democracy in the region.” Even before the summit began, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva demanded an apology from his Argentine colleague Javier Milei for the “absurdities” uttered against him, while the Argentine Foreign Ministry predicted the rejection of human rights resolutions that included gender and ethnic perspectives. But there was also an upside for Milei at the summit: Brian Nichols, a senior U.S. State Department official representing Washington, said he saw “a whole bunch of opportunities” for Argentina under Milei, hailing progress toward macroeconomic stability and the facilitation of foreign direct investment.

TRIAL STARTS FOR ATTEMPTED MAGNICIDE

The trial of the so-called “cotton candy gang” – Fernando Sabag Montiel, Brenda Uliarte and Nicolás Carrizo – for the attempted assassination of then-vice president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in September 2022 began last Wednesday and could extend into next year.

MILEI ABROAD (AGAIN)

President Javier Milei was on the move again just after celebrating Flag Day in Rosario (where he frustratedly postponed his May Pact until Independence Day on July 9 in Tucumán, also expanding the scope of signatories from provincial governors to former presidents and representatives of Congress, the Supreme Court, business and unions). Milei’s first stop abroad was Madrid, where he was decorated by the mayor of the Spanish capital, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, with a municipal decoration. Last weekend he spent in Germany, first Saturday in Hamburg, where he received the Hayek Medal (followed last Monday by his candidacy for the Nobel Prize in Economics, like the Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek), then to Berlin for a cordial meeting on Sunday with German Socialist Chancellor Olaf Scholz. His European tour ended Monday in Prague, where he received another award from the Liberal Institute and spoke with the two Petrs who govern the Czech Republic, President Pavel and Prime Minister Piala.

DEREGULATED TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Regulatory agency ENACOM has deregulated internet, mobile telephony and cable television prices starting next month following the publication of Resolution 13/2024 in Official Gazette Last Thursday, price caps prohibiting double-digit monthly increases were a thing of the past. Last April, an emergency decree had already repealed the 2020 law which declared telecommunications a public service, although it also recommended that prices be “fair and reasonable”. The deregulation comes as a survey by the sectoral chamber CABASE shows that around two thirds of Argentine households (67.5% for Internet and 65.3% for cable television) are reducing the costs of their connectivity.

JOURNALIST UNDER FIRE I

Journalist Silvia Mercado, 64, publicly blamed the loss of her accreditation at the Casa Rosada on a “discretionary and absolutely arbitrary decision” by the president’s chief of staff, Karina Milei. After covering the government palace for ten years, Mercado told Radio 10: “The only accreditation that has not been renewed is mine,” also highlighting the contradictions with the government’s libertarian philosophy. Although Mercado excluded the presidential spokesman, Manuel Adorni, from any responsibility for her ouster, two socialist deputies, Mónica Fein and Esteban Paulon, demanded explanations from the latter, stating that “this arbitrary decision implies a serious restriction of freedom of the press” and highlighting the “misogynistic character of the libertarian administration, since the vast majority of professionals attacked are women.” The Nation And The Chronicler The journalist is among those who have angered presidents in the past by questioning the exact number and location of Milei’s cloned Great Danes. The press associations FOPEA and Periodistas Argentinas have publicly rejected the exclusion. In a move perhaps parallel to Mercado’s disqualification, the government launched a campaign Thursday to make national registration certificates mandatory for journalists, recalling a 1946 law from the first Peronist regime.

JOURNALIST UNDER FIRE II

Veteran international journalist Pedro Brieger is facing accusations of sexual harassment from five different women that came to light over the weekend. The quintet – three colleagues including Télam journalist Agustina Kämpfer (ex-partner of former vice-president Amado Boudou), a student and a secretary – denounce episodes between 1994 and 2019 with accusations taken up by the Periodistas Argentinas group. Thus, Cecilia Guardati, former journalist for Télam, says that while she was covering the visit to Tunisia in 2008 of the president at the time, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Brieger asked her to bring to his hotel room the ‘recording of a meeting he had missed and that when she arrived she found Brieger “naked on his bed…and masturbating while he talked to me”, but he was afraid at the time to go further on, only she and Kämpfer from the quintet identified themselves, but on Tuesday a third journalist, Leticia Martínez, said openly: “We, the five girls, are just the tip of the iceberg.” that these and other accusations are completely unfounded.

WAS CALCATERRA A PRECEDENT?

The consequences of the acquittal of businessman Ángelo Calcaterra (cousin of former president Mauricio Macri) did not end with the controversial decision of the Federal Court of Cassation on June 19, according to which the money that he had paid to civil servants of the Federal Ministry of Planning during previous Kirchnerian presidencies was not bribery for public works contracts but “election campaign contributions”. The lawyers of no less than 11 businessmen in the same boat as Calcaterra are examining this judgment very closely with a view to filing a similar request, with the active encouragement of the Minister of Justice Mariano Cúneo Libarona, who successfully defended Hugo Eurnekian of Corporación América in the past for similar accusations. ‘cuadernos’ The trial of the Kirchner corruption “notebooks” (named after the detailed chronicle of bribe payments by former federal planning ministry driver Oscar Centeno) could be in jeopardy if its cases collapse by half with only 10 business days from the judgment to appeal to the Supreme Court.

ICEBERG IN BIG

The coast guard detected the presence of a huge iceberg off the coast of Tierra del Fuego’s capital, Ushuaia, last weekend and took measures to ensure navigation safety.

LATE BIRTHDAY GIFT

On Tuesday night, Argentina’s national soccer team finally broke Chile’s resistance with a late goal from Lautaro Martínez with two minutes left in a Copa América Group A match at Soldier Field in New Jersey, advancing to the quarterfinals. The night before, across the Hudson River, thousands of Argentine fans gathered in Times Square to celebrate their idol Lionel Messi’s 37th birthday that day, shouting soccer chants and singing the Qatar World Cup theme song “Muchachos.”

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