Armenians in Argentina commemorate genocide

Armenians march to the residence of the Turkish ambassador to demand justice 100 years after what has come to be known as the Armenian genocide.

 

 

Argentina: Undocumented immigrants not deported

While immigrant children in the US face deportation, Argentina is at the forefront in recognizing migration as an elemental human right. Its immigration policies show that the anti-immigration arguments advanced in other countries are groundless. 

 

 

 

 

Leo Poblete reports from Buenos Aires. TeleSur

Chinese investment flocks to Argentina

Argentina is one of China's new investment frontiers.

China's investments in Argentina are mostly in the oil and gas sector, but there are also six thousand Chinese-owned general stores.

Al Jazeera met one Chinese shopkeeper and asked why he now calls Buenos Aires home.

Argentina's sex slaves

Please, take a look at this sad and barbaric reality:

'It's not about land, it's about people'' say Falkand Islander

Jan Cheek and Dick Sawle from the Falkland Islands legislative body explains to Foreign Affairs Correspondent Damien McElroy that the islanders just want to be involved in a "sensible dialogue" with the Argentinian government.

Inside Story Americas - What underlies the Falklands dispute?

Tensions between Britain and Argentina over the Falklands-Malvinas is at a new high 30 years after the war that killed 900 soldiers on both sides. What is the underlying factor? Guests: Larry Birns, Fernando Petrella, Wilder Alejandro Sanchez.

CFK: 'If you want to protest, that's fine'

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said she finds it "okay" to protest against the government, however, asked "everyone to help" to make Argentina the better country.

"If you like to protest, that's fine, but it would be good, if all of us can help," the President said shortly before the new protest against her administration, known as “18A”. President Fernández also requested to maintain "the proactive spirit that has been enabled" among all Argentines after floods in La Plata and the city of Buenos Aires.

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Vatican denies Dirty War allegations against Pope

The Vatican has denied that Pope Francis failed to speak out against human rights abuses during military rule in his native Argentina.

"There has never been a credible, concrete accusation against him," said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, adding he had never been charged.

The spokesman blamed the accusations on "anti-clerical left-wing elements that are used to attack the Church".

Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, led Argentina's Jesuits under the junta.

Correspondents say that like other Latin American churchmen of the time, he had to contend, on the one hand, with a repressive right-wing regime and, on the other, a wing of his Church leaning towards political activism on the left.

One allegation concerns the abduction in 1976 of two Jesuits by Argentina's military government, suspicious of their work among slum-dwellers.

 As the priests' provincial superior at the time, Jorge Bergoglio was accused by some of having failed to shield them from arrest - a charge his office flatly denied.

Judges investigating the arrest and torture of the two men - who were freed after five months - questioned Cardinal Bergoglio as a witness in 2010.

The new Pope's official biographer, Sergio Rubin, argues that the Jesuit leader "took extraordinary, behind-the-scenes action to save them".

Another accusation levelled against him from the Dirty War era is that he failed to follow up a request to help find the baby of a woman kidnapped when five months' pregnant and killed in 1977. It is believed the baby was illegally adopted.

The cardinal testified in 2010 that he had not known about baby thefts until well after the junta fell - a claim relatives dispute.

 Turned in?

In his book The Silence, Argentine investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky says the Jesuit leader withdrew his order's protection from Francisco Jalics and Orlando Yorio after the two priests refused to stop visiting slums.

The journalist is close to Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who often clashed with Cardinal Bergoglio on social policy.

"He turned priests in during the dictatorship," Verbitsky was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. 

The man who is now Pope once talked about the two priests to his biographer.

"I warned them to be very careful," he told Rubin. "They were too exposed to the paranoia of the witch hunt. Because they stayed in the barrio, Yorio and Jalics were kidnapped.''

Both priests were held inside the feared Navy Mechanics School prison. Finally, drugged and blindfolded, they were left in a field by a helicopter.

Orlando Yorio, who reportedly accused Fr Bergoglio of effectively delivering them to the death squads by declining to publicly endorse their work, is now dead.

AP news agency quoted Francisco Jalics as saying on Friday: "It was only years later that we had the opportunity to talk with Fr Bergoglio... to discuss the events.

"Following that, we celebrated Mass publicly together and hugged solemnly. I am reconciled to the events and consider the matter to be closed."

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for defending human rights during the dictatorship, believes Fr Bergoglio "tried to... help where he could" under the junta.

"It's true that he didn't do what very few bishops did in terms of defending the human rights cause, but it's not right to accuse him of being an accomplice," he told Reuters.

"Bergoglio never turned anyone in, neither was he an accomplice of the dictatorship," Mr Esquivel said.

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New Pope Draws Excitement In Argentina

The naming of the first non-European Pope in a Millenium and the first from Latin America draws excitement from the region with the largest number of Catholics on the planet.

Argentine senate approves oil nationalisation.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's plan for takeover of country's largest oil company. YPF, receives wide support in early-morning senate vote.

Spain lobbies for US support against YPF expropriation

 Spain will discuss a joint response with the United States to Argentina‘s forced nationalization of the YPF oil company, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said today.Garcia-Margallo spoke ahead of a bilateral meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on the margins of ongoing NATO talks in Brussels.The meeting will serve to "study together what kind of actions we can take to restore a good climate for investment" in Argentina, the Spanish minister said.Garcia-Margallo claimed that the Argentine government‘s decision - which will strip Spain‘s Repsol of its controlling stake in YPF - "can help hide its shortcomings.""But very soon it will be shown that a policy of isolation from the world is the worst policy that you can have in the 21st century," he added. The US initially declined to take sides in the Argentinean-Spanish dispute, but overnight, after some prodding from Madrid, it said that it viewed the expropriation of YPF "as a negative development."The United States said yesterday Argentina's plan to nationalize leading energy company YPF was a "negative development" that could hurt the Latin American country's economy and investment climate.State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the United States was very concerned about Argentina's bid to seize the company, controlled by Spanish energy group Repsol, and had raised its concerns with the highest levels of the Argentine government."Frankly, the more we look at this we view it as a negative development," Toner told a news briefing."These kinds of actions against foreign investors can ultimately have an adverse effect on the Argentine economy and could further dampen the investment climate in Argentina," he pointed out.Spain is due to consider its next steps at a cabinet meeting on Friday.

 Taken from here.