Stories that caught our eye: July 3 to 10

MESSI DOES IT AGAIN

The week’s biggest news occurred some 8,000 kilometres away in Atlanta, Georgia – Argentina reached the World Cup quarter-finals last Tuesday in dramatic fashion by edging Egypt 3-2 after trailing 2-0 with little more than 10 minutes to go – Lionel Messi scored a spectacular equaliser to take his record-smashing World Cup tally up to 21, sandwiched between two headers. The country duly went wild – at least 21 persons were arrested for incidents around the Obelisk, this city’s traditional focal point for football celebrations, when a group of fans (visibly the worse for drink) began tossing stones and bottles at City police officers posted for crowd control, three of whom were slightly injured as were nine among those celebrating. Pickpockets were also reported to be active. But the celebrations were also nationwide – there were 17 arrests in Patio Olmos, Córdoba’s main square, where the police were also bombarded by the most violent fans with at least one looting incident reported, while there were 13 other arrests elsewhere in the province. In the Atlantic resort of Mar del Plata tear gas and rubber bullets had to be deployed when some 30 of the hundreds of fans congregating around the San Martín Monument began breaking off paving-stones and hurling them at the police and police cars, breaking some windows.

INDEPENDENCE DAY

The traditional celebration of Independence Day in Tucumán last Thursday was preceded by a vigil bringing together President Javier Milei and Vice-President Victoria Villarruel, at loggerheads almost since taking office. Both Milei and Villarruel confirmed in advance that they had accepted the invitation of Tucumán Peronist Governor Osvaldo Jaldo, who had opted to invite all the national authorities without exception with the words: “Tucumán excludes nobody.” In the most recent public holiday, last month’s Flag Day in Rosario, President and Vice-President had visibly avoided each other. In 2024 the Tucumán festivities were also the scene for the Pact of Mayo signed by 18 governors but nothing beyond the usual protocol was scheduled for this year.

AFA BEYOND WORLD CUP

On the same day Argentina was ensuring World Cup survival with its last-gasp winners against Egypt, federal prosecutors in the United States and FBI agents began hearing testimony in their probe of the financial operations of the AFA Argentine Football Association headed by Claudio ‘Chiqui’ Tapia for suspected money-laundering and banking fraud. The US prosecutors Patrick Gushue, Christopher Ting and Michael Berger are especially interested in the role of the company TourProdEnter LLC headed by Javier Faroni and his wife Erica Gillette in moving some US$260 million linked to AFA’s international commercial contracts while collecting a commission of US$57 million and in the process committing possible crimes under US jurisdiction. The investigation began in September, 2024 in Argentina when the Security Ministry then headed by current Senator Patricia Bullrich alerted officials of the Donald Trump administration in Washington as to suspicious operations associated to the AFA.

CITY INFLATION BELOW 2%

Last month’s inflation in this city was 1.8 percent, totalling 16 percent for the first half of this year and an annual rate of 32.6 percent, City Hall statisticians reported on Wednesday. Since March City inflation has snapped a nine-month streak of rising inflation, falling from three percent to 2.5 percent in April and 2.1 percent in May with the latest figure thus consolidating a downward trend for the lowest figure since 1.6 percent last August. The key item of Food and beverages was below average at 1.6 percent, despite vegetables soaring 5.9 percent in winter while bread went up two percent, but core inflation (excluding regulated and seasonal prices) was slightly above average at 1.9 percent. Regulated prices like transport, utility billing and prepaid health schemes were up two percent. Hopes have been raised that INDEC statistics bureau’s national figure, due next Tuesday, will also break the two percent barrier.

COURT CUTTINGS

Summoned by a San Isidro court last Tuesday, ex-deputy José Luis Espert declined to answer questions, responding only in writing when he claimed legally inadmissible leaks were supporting the charges against him. Espert is accused of participating in money-laundering by accepting a donation of US$200,000 for his 2019 presidential campaign as a form of whitewashing the money of businessman Federico ‘Fred’ Machado, accused in Texas of drug- trafficking and financial fraud (the former charges were eventually dropped in exchange for pleading guilty to the latter). Espert sought to justify the money as consultancy fees for a Guatemalan mine which the court established to be bogus. The accusations ended up demolishing Espert’s 2025 midterm candidacy as the top name on La Libertad Avanza’s Buenos Aires Province list. Meanwhile, in the ‘Cuadernos’ (“notebooks”) corruption mega-trial, there was a judicial gaffe when the wrong Juan Carlos Santos was summoned – an accountant who had worked with the tax authorities like the intended witness but half a century ago, not in 2018. Santos was abroad when summoned and felt obliged to return home.

MILEI LOOKS ABROAD

President Javier Milei last weekend confirmed that he would be attending the inaugurations of his future colleagues, Peru’s Keiko Fujimori and Colombia’s Abelardo de la Espriella on July 28 and August 7 respectively. Both presidents-elect won narrow victories consolidating the advance of the right in Latin America, by a margin of 0.94 percent over leftist Iván Cepeda in Colombia and by 0.27 percent after a lengthy count over leftist Roberto Sánchez in Peru. Last Saturday Milei greeted the United States on the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, saying: ”You continue being a beacon of liberty in the north” and using his US colleague Donald Trump’s pet phrase: “Make America Great Again …” while adding: “… from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.” Milei further assured the superpower: “The prosperity of the United States is the envy of all oppressed peoples.” Looking slightly further ahead, Milei is contemplating visits to London and Paris (where there will be a new edition of Argentina Week between September 30 and October 2) before the year is out.

“WE DON’T NEED NO (SEX) EDUCATION”

City Deputy Mayor Clara Muzzio last weekend renewed her offensive against Integral Sex Education (ESI in its Spanish acronym), dubbing it a “deadly trap,” as well as against gender and identity politics, further claiming to be a victim of aggression due to the criticisms sparked by her comments. In an interview last Saturday Muzzio dismissed ESI as a "monstrous idea" and a "sinister ideology" in allowing children to think that they had been born into the wrong body, adding:"I’m convinced kids should have biological, not ideological information." Political reactions duly followed – seven opposition legislators demanded an explanation from City Cabinet Chief Gabriel Sánchez Zinny when making his report to the City Legislature while national deputy Esteban Paulón (Socialist-Santa Fe) sent a letter demanding rectification within 72 hours. When that deadline expired, Paulón anticipated that he would sue Muzzio for malfeasance and discrimination but the deputy mayor stuck to her guns, reiterating: "Much of ESI has little to do with sex education and plenty to do with ideological indoctrination " while acknowledging that it had made an important contribution against the sexual abuse of minors. ESI was created by Law 26.150, approved in 2006, establishing the right of all schoolchildren to sex education.

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