Argentina will take Falklands claim to the UN Cristina Kirchner warns of 'grave risks to international security' and states intention to prevent war over natural resources. (Argentina) has mobilised much of South America and the Caribbean in a diplomatic and commercial squeeze. Ships flying the Falklands flag are barred from the region's ports, depriving the islands of bananas and other fresh fruit. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu
on Feb 7, 2012 -
121 comments
AFP photographer Juan Mabromata recently visited the
ruins of Villa Epecuén in Argentina, a small touristic village that started slowly re-surfacing after the rising waters of the nearby lake left it completely underwater nearly 26 years ago.
[more inside]
posted by palbo
on Jul 26, 2011 -
18 comments
Copa América is streamed live on YouTube. Copa América is the oldest international football competition, having been held first in 1916. This is a contest between the 10 South American nations and two invitational teams, this time Costa Rica and Mexico, who both sent young squads (Japan was slated to take part but
withdrew due to the earthquake). The tournament started yesterday with Bolivia unexpectedly managing to
hold Argentina to a draw. Colombia are currently beating a 10-man Costa Rica 1-0. Brazil start their campaign tomorrow, against Venezuela. One of the world's premier football writers, Jonathan Wilson, wrote previews of the three groups,
A,
B and
C. The Independent has more light-hearted
team previews.
posted by Kattullus
on Jul 2, 2011 -
13 comments
Ernestina Herrera de Noble heads up The Clarin Group and the
Clarin newspaper (in Spanish), the largest in Argentina. She is the mother of two adopted children, Felipe and Marcela, heirs to the Clarin Group fortune.
She has been a controversial figure for much of her life. Currently, her paper stands in staunch opposition to the administration of President Cristina Kirchner, who in 2009 successfully pushed through legislation forcing the Clarin group to sell off some of its holdings. President Kirchner recently announced
she will be seeking a second term.
However, Mrs. Herrera de Noble's legacy will probably rest on the suit brought against her by the
Grandmothers of the Plaza del Mayo, forcing her children to
submit DNA samples to ascertain whether they are the children of detainees killed by the military during Argentina’s “
Dirty War”. The siblings and their mother have fought to avoid DNA testing, claiming it is a violation of their privacy, but there are families who claim that Felipe and Marcela are the natural born children of
women pregnant when they were detained and subsequently disappeared. Ernestina insists that the adoptions were “legal”, and her children stand by her side. If a genetic link is proven to former detainees, Mrs. Herrera de Noble may face a criminal investigation.
posted by msali
on Jun 22, 2011 -
30 comments
Current TV
previously & previously, the media company founded by Al Gore after the 2000 election, has picked up the kinds of in depth long form journalism being rapidly dropped by major networks, but has been tantalizingly unavailable for those without cable; until now. They have been putting their Vanguard episodes up on their website and on YouTube.
[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb
on Apr 30, 2011 -
24 comments
The Ateneo Grand Splendid Bookstore. "Argentinians are a famously literary people. In coffee shops, parks, on the bus and even while walking down city streets, their heads are often buried in a book. So it’s only fitting that Buenos Aires can lay claim to one of the world’s most incredible book stores: The Ateneo Grand Splendid."
posted by Fizz
on Mar 28, 2011 -
29 comments
Rare fossilised flower found, related to sunflowers. "A 45 million-year-old fossil flower found in northern Argentina has uncovered the evolutionary roots of Earth’s most populous plant family. Image can be viewed
here.
Called Asteraceae, the family includes dozens of domesticated species — from sunflowers, daisies and chrysanthemums to lettuce, artichoke and tarragon — and some 23,000 undomesticated plants. But despite its ubiquity, Asteraceae’s fossil legacy is sparse, containing little more than pollen grains. A few larger, detailed fossils exist, but they’re relatively young."
posted by Fizz
on Sep 24, 2010 -
7 comments
In those years I imitated him, to the point of transcription, to the point of devoted and impassioned plagiarism. I felt: Macedonio is metaphysics, is literature. Whoever preceded him might shine in history, but they were all rough drafts of Macedonio, imperfect previous versions. To not imitate this canon would have represented incredible negligence.
From Jorge Luis Borges' eulogy for Macedonio Fernández. Borges' relationship with Macedonio was complicated, as recounted in
The Man Who Invented Borges, a fine essay by Marcelo Ballvé. Macedonio's most famous work, the posthumous-by-design work (he believed literature should be aged like good whiskey) The Museum of Eterna's Novel has finally been translated and published in English translation,
here is an excerpt from the novel (one of the ninety or so prologues). The introduction to the novel, written by its translator Margaret Schwartz, has been put online by the publisher (parts
1,
2,
3,
4,
5). Schwartz also sat down for a
short interview. You can download an mp3 of a
great hour-long panel discussion on Macedonio and a
master's thesis on Macedonio by Peter Loggie [pdf]
posted by Kattullus
on Jul 21, 2010 -
7 comments
[Martha] Argerich brings to bear qualities that are seldom contained in one person: she is a pianist of brainteasing technical agility; she is a charismatic woman with an enigmatic reputation; she is an unaffected interpreter whose native language is music. This last may be the quality that sets her apart. A lot of pianists play huge double octaves; a lot of pianists photograph well. But few have the unerring naturalness of phrasing that allows them to embody the music rather than interpret it. - Alex Ross, "Madame X".
The New Yorker - November 12, 2001
posted by Joe Beese
on Jun 9, 2010 -
12 comments
Argentine folklore composer, pianist and director
Ariel Ramírez died last night after a long illness. Those who know of him abroad probably do so for his Misa Criolla. This is just the (deservedly famous) tip of a giant iceberg of Argentine music, as he was teacher to many, collaborator to a lot more, cataloguer and promoter of traditional folk music and dances, and defender of local composers rights since his early years of fame.
[more inside]
posted by Iosephus
on Feb 19, 2010 -
6 comments
Introducing Our New Ant Overlords. Argentine Ants (
Linepithema humile) have spread to every continent aside from Antarctica, forming Supercolonies such as stretching 3,700 miles (6,000km) of the Mediterranean. Once thought to be independent of one another, scientists now have cause to believe that the disparate Supercolonies in fact make up one global Mega-Colony. They are highly invasive, attack native animals, thrive in fast-growing, high-density colonies, and have an increased capability for cooperation. "The enormous extent of this population is paralleled only by human society," the researchers claim...
posted by Navelgazer
on Jul 6, 2009 -
61 comments
Another day in a regular city in Argentina, another thief looking to score a car in a city well fed-up with a high crime rate. Or it would have been, except for the enterprising
chicken-suit wearing guy that was promoting a nearby shop, who gave pursuit and captured the would-be car thief.
[more inside]
posted by Iosephus
on Jun 9, 2009 -
22 comments
A native of Barcelona, Spain,
Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu moved to New York in 2002 to pursue a career in photography. Adriana has been capturing the lives of young Puerto Rican women and their families in Spanish Harlem, NYC. There is a hardness that characterizes
Life on the Block.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Apr 11, 2009 -
6 comments
At 18 lanes and 110 metres wide, Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is not only a beautiful example of urban design but is also apparently the
widest major road on the planet.
[more inside]
posted by Cobalt
on Jan 2, 2009 -
60 comments
People with a keen strategic sense maintain a well-diversified hoard of coins and painstakingly build alliances with local shopkeepers or bank tellers, conspicuously proffering coins for one purchase or deposit in the hopes of being indulged when they're short of change at some point in the future. Argentina's coinage problem.
[more inside]
posted by cortex
on Dec 3, 2008 -
19 comments
Von Wernich signed the baptism certificate of a girl born in a clandestine prison, whose mother was murdered at his orders. He encouraged torture victims to "testify, for the sake of god and country," perverting the confession into an interrogation tactic. Under a Nazi flag, he witnessed the torture of Jewish journalist Jacobo Timerman [...] Von Wernich was convicted on nearly all counts "under the mark of genocide." The crowds inside and outside the courthouse broke into celebration, singing, lighting firecrackers, some burning effigies of the priest. After thirty years, the saga to bring Von Wernich to justice was over.
The Unending War — Argentina's quest for justice by Sam Ferguson is about how Argentine society is dealing with the legacy of the junta's Dirty War of 1976-83.
[more inside]
posted by Kattullus
on Jul 30, 2008 -
7 comments
The biggest tourist attraction in Buenos Aires is a cemetery.
El Cementerio de la Recoleta is the final resting place for some of Argentina's most illustrious and wealthy residents. (Yes, Evita is among them.)
AfterLife explores the architecture, motifs, and history of this cemetery, as well as the stories of its residents.
[more inside]
posted by veggieboy
on Jan 28, 2008 -
16 comments
The quicker you succeed the better. Declassified documents show Secretary of State Kissenger
gave a green light to the Argentine Junta, whilest Rev. Christián González
aka Christián von Wernich, also leant a hand, showing that The Catholic Church's involvement with fascism and the Dirty War was far from dead. The Vatican was instrumental in
witholding detail. The
Desaparecidos probably exceeded
12,000.
posted by adamvasco
on Oct 10, 2007 -
8 comments
Latin
America
Turning
Left?
From the top
:
Lula da Silva*,
Lopez Obrador,
Nestor Kirchner,
Hugo Chavez*,
Alvaro Uribe,
Michelle Bachelet*,
Ollanta Humala,
Alfredo Palacio,
Oscar Berger,
Leonel Fernandez,
Oscar Arias,
Tony Saca,
Tabare Vazquez,
Martín Torrijos,
Evo Morales*
Manuel Zelaya,
Nicanor Duarte,
Daniel Ortega,
Rene Preval*.
posted by airguitar
on Apr 13, 2006 -
30 comments
Argentina On Two Steaks A Day The classic beginner's mistake in Argentina is to neglect the first steak of the day. You will be tempted to just peck at it or even skip it altogether, rationalizing that you need to save yourself for the much larger steak later that night. But this is a false economy, like refusing to drink water in the early parts of a marathon.
posted by rxrfrx
on Apr 12, 2006 -
78 comments
Camouflage Comics [requires
Flash] - an exploration of the issues of censorship, dictatorship, human rights and the legacy of the Argentinian "
Dirty War", the 1976-1983 military junta's repression and extermination of dissidents (when 10,000 to 30,000 Argentinians were tortured and "disappeared"). Produced at the Jan van Eyck Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht, the project presents striking comics and illustrations made between 2002 and 2005 by contemporary Argentinian artists, as well as text essays on the production of comics and cartoons during the dictatorship era.
posted by funambulist
on Sep 26, 2005 -
2 comments
Argentina Didn't Fall on Its Own. (Single-page, printer-friendly version
here.) I don't normally read long articles on economic subjects, but this one is riveting, because it links Argentina's collapse to larger issues of how the world of money works today.
"The time has come to do our mea culpa," Hans-Joerg Rudloff, chairman of the executive committee at Barclays Capital, said at a conference of bank and brokerage executives in London a few months ago. "Argentina obviously stands as much as Enron" in showing that "things have been done and said by our industry which were realized at the time to be wrong, to be self-serving."
...It is like "a bizarre AA program in which you remove booze from the homes of people who are reducing the amount they drink and put it into the homes of people who are drinking more every day," Pettis said. "This is probably not the best way to reduce drunkenness."
posted by languagehat
on Aug 3, 2003 -
7 comments
Good Memory. From Argentina, a 1967 school photograph with a story.
From the
introduction :- 'decided to hold a 25th reunion of my classmates from the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires so that we could see each other again. I invited those I was able to find to my house, and proposed doing a portrait of each of them ... Later, a ceremony was organized, in memory of the students of the school who had disappeared or were murdered by state terrorism in the black years of the dictatorship. After twenty years, the school authorities accepted, for the flrst time, that the missing be officially recognized in the school's main hall. It was a historic occasion ... '
posted by plep
on Jan 17, 2003 -
8 comments
