Holiday time

The crowded beaches of Mar del Plata

Today’s edition of Clarin includes an article that proclaims that Buenos Aires is becoming a tropical city. According to Osvaldo Canziani, a doctor of Argentine Meteorology, the average minimum temperature in the Metropolitan area of Buenos Aires has increased by 2.7°C in the last century and has been joined by more humidity and south-easterly winds.

But as porteños struggle to deal with the increasingly hot weather this summer, some days of which have seen temperatures reach 44°C, there are thousands and thousands of lucky ones who have escaped the city and made the typically porteño excursion to la costa.

Corruption in Argentina

The culprits of ten years of bribery on a grand scale in Argentina have finally been charged by prosecutors in the USA.

The accused, all former executives of Siemens AG who reside in Germany, Switzerland and Argentina, are reported to have paid over $US100 million in bribes to Argentine officials between 1996 and 2007 in an effort to win a one billion dollar contract to produce national identity cards in Argentina.

Argentina and Spain

After losing to Spain in the final of the 2008 Davis Cup in Mar del Plata, Argentina repeated the loss this last week when they were beaten by the Spaniards in Seville, an event which saw the home side win its fifth Davis Cup since 2000.

Rafa Nadal saw off Argentina’s Juan Martín Del Potro 1-6, 6-4, 6-1, 7-6 to give his country’s tennis fans something to sing and dance about in true Andalucian style.

Juan Martín del Potro and his team however, had not been without support during the competition and the Olympic stadium in Seville had its fair share of Argentines waving their blue and white flags and banging their drums.

Whenever Argentina participates in a sporting event in Spain, it can always count on a large presence of supporters, owing to the fact that Spain has a rather large Argentine population.

Post election

So Cristina Fernández de Kirchner walked off with rather a decisive victory in last month’s presidential election, obtaining 53.96% of all votes and avoiding a second round of voting (in Argentine presidential elections if one candidate achieves more that 45% of votes or more than 40% with a 10% advantage over their closest rival then there is no second round of voting). Cristina, and her Vice-president elect and Economy Minister Amado Boudou took 23 of the 24 provinces of the country, losing out only in San Luis to Rodriquez Saá, and turning their victory for the FPV into the biggest since the return of democracy in 1983.

There were, of course, the customary celebrations with thousands partying in the streets and plazas throughout the country and Cristina delivering an emotional speech to the thousands of Peronistas in Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires after her victory was official.

But a week or so later the time to party is over and CFK and Boudou are, some might say finally, considering the real issues which the country faces.

Los Pumas and Argentine rugby

A valiant effort from Argentina was not enough to prevent the All Blacks from progressing to the Semi-Finals of the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

After Los Pumas’ mesmerizing performance at the 2007 World Cup in France, it is fair to say that expectations for this year’s competition were not as high as might have been anticipated.

The national side has not made a great deal of progress during the last four years but after a closely fought opening 9-12 defeat to England, Argentina went on to win its next three group stage games against Romania, Scotland and Georgia to qualify for a quarter final match-up with the hosts, New Zealand.

Schoklender and The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo

Former financial manager Sergio Schoklender

The scandal that has rocked the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Foundation continues with Magistrate Norberto Oyarbide announcing last week that raids by Argentine Police have successfully uncovered several “financial caves” which the foundation’s former financial manager Sergio Schoklender used for money laundering.

Schoklender and the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have been a major feature in the Argentine press during the recent months since accusations were made at the end of May about irregularities in the foundation’s finances.

Schoklender, imprisoned in the 1980s with his brother for the massacre of their parents, is accused of mismanaging millions of dollars from the Kirchner government funded ‘Shared Dreams’ programme, whose mission was to build homes for the poor. He is alleged to have built himself a luxury lifestyle complete with a collection of sports cars, yachts and villas.