Frigate Libertad:
Ambito Financiero: “Corbeta Espora: vulture fund already has lawyers”
Clarin: “The government is now betting it all on the judicial hearing”
La Nacion: “Bondholders of Italy on the charge”
Clarin: “Frigate Libertad: sovereignty is ceded and the debt is not reviewed”
La Nacion: “The legal and political paths to recovering the ship”
Ambito Financiero: “‘This will be long,’ the government acknowledges about the frigate”
La Nacion: “The investments by Romney’s wife”
Borderperiodismo: “‘Elliot [sic] means action.’ A vulture in Libertad”
Washington Post: “Crew of Argentina’s seized ship Libertad arrive home from Ghana on Air France charter”
MercoPress: “ARA Libertad-Romney family link makes Cristina criticize the Republican candidate”
MercoPress: “NML-Capital targeting second Argentine navy vessel docked in South Africa”
MercoPress: “Argentine seamen are back in Buenos Aires; small group remains in Ghana”
BBC News: “Seized ship crew back in Argentina from Ghana”
The Foundry: “Argentina’s Ship of State Hits Choppy Waters”
Prensa Latina: “Libertad Frigate Crew Members to arrive in Argentina”
Reuters: “Argentina seeks to bolster local stock, bond markets”
· The Air France charter landed at Ezeiza after midnight last night, far later than expected, where they were met by emotional family members.
Argentine Economy:
MercoPress: “Argentina reaches surplus target but exports in September plummeted 27%”
Detroit News: “GM investing $450M in Argentina facility”
The Wall Street Journal: “Argentina Markets Mixes as New Government Measures Weigh”
· Mariano Recalde, the head of Aerolineas Argentinas, said his company didn’t send a charter because of the “lack of availability” and not because of fear of attachment. “We fly to many cities abroad and there is no risk of attaching the planes of Aerolineas.”
· The draft proposal from the government to reform the local capital markets continues to cause concern and worry among the operators and trading companies. The draft indicates that the CNV (Argentina’s SEC) will have a monopoly on oversight for all the markets and will have the power to “declare irregularities and inefficiencies on administrative actions under its charge, without previous summary”, meaning power to apply penalties and sanctions on any company that trades on the market without initiating formal investigations.
Press Freedom:
Financial Times: “Argentina vows to break up media group”
The Washington Post: “Argentina’s new media regulator says he’s prepared to auction off Grupo Clarin’s licenses”
Global Relations:
MercoPress: “Argentine lawmakers press Falklands’ issue on IK peers at Parliamentary Union”
· Bolivia returned to the debt markets and issued a bond at 4.8%
Argentine Society:
PressTV: “Argentina workers hold massive rally to protest labor risk bill”
Cristina Kirchner:
Buenos Aires Herald: “CFK: 'Romney is like those who say social plans are for lazy people'”
MercoPress: “Cristina Fernandez triggers further uncertainty and fears to markets and investors”
JORGE ARGUELLO on Twitter and Blog:
· No tweets or posts yesterday
TRENDING TOPICS/ARGENTINA on Twitter:
· “Ezeiza” is topic #9 and “Fragata Libertad” is #10 this morning
Ambito Financiero
Corbeta Espora: vulture fund already has lawyers
Thursday, October 25, 2012
By Carlos Burgueño
The vulture fund NML Elliot last week hired a South African law firm to file in the courts of that country, perhaps with the same methods applied in Ghana, to also hold that ship, stranded Cape Town over a mechanical problem. The Argentine embassy in South Africa is already alerted to the situation, and preparing an immediate legal response should Paul Singer’s vulture fund block its movement.
From Buenos Aires the order was given to the representation led by Carlos Sersale di Cerisono who is ready, and the conditions about how to act rapidly on the first moves detected from the Elliot lawyers. In the Foreign Ministry they are optimistic, and say that with South Africa historically relations are more than good and there will be no surprises like there are now in Ghana with the Frigate Libertad, where Argentine only had a weak commercial representation. The embassy in South Africa would have an asset that was lacking in Accra: good contacts with the government of Jacob Zuma.
Different from what happened with the teaching vessel held in the port of Tema, the Esperoa was stranded in Cape Town for by a fortuitous situation. The corvette was part of a joint exercise with South Africa, Brazil and Uruguay in the Atlantic, where it broke down on October 10 and had to be towed to the port of Somonstown. Curiously, the exercise in which it had the accident is called Atlassur IX and is based on movements to combat piracy, in this case marine piracy. The repairs to the Espora will require no less than two months and for this they hired a German service company that is on its way to Cape Town.
Elliot already hired one of the most powerful law firms in South Africa and has begun to move on its presentation that will be revealed in a few days in the courts of Pretoria. There is equally with this vulture fund in South Africa a difference in favor of Argentina: it has already been buying bonds for years from South African companies in trouble then going to the courts of that country.
The information that is coming to Buenos Aires speaks also of various lost cases and others still open, but with likely similar outcomes, which would oblige Singer and his funds to join the lists of creditors of the troubled companies.
In Ghana the status of NML Capital was different by the pressures that it could exercise over Judge Richard Adjei Frimpong. The fund, headquartered in the Cayman Islands, got a ruling from a Ghana judge to detain the Libertad in a port close to Accra in demanding some US$370 million for unpaid Argentine debt declared in default in 2001 for some US$100 billion and which closed in 2010 with an acceptance of more than 94%.
According to the economist and president of Banco Ciudad of Buenos Aires, Federico Sturzenegger, the vulture funds only have some marginal ruling in their favor in all the world and rarely can get attachments of assets of countries and companies that they try to act on. Without mentioning Sturzenegger in his book, “Default of debt and lessons from a decade of crisis,” of some 35 cases known of this kind in the last 20 years, only 6 received a payment of 100%, 15 got nothing, 6 got less than a third of what was owed and the rest have no information about the agreement reached. For the economist, “the vulture funds have little capacity to harm a country that defaults.”
In fact, Argentina won against Elliot two weeks ago in an important case in Basel, Switzerland, where its Central Bank keeps almost all its reserves. A court in that city confirmed the diplomatic immunity of Argentina’s assets which definitively means that Elliot cannot get the liquid funds, as it is from Basel that Argentina makes its usual financial payments.
According to the latest data from Singer’s Elliot fund, last year its financial movements were more successful than the conservative numbers on Wall Street. Elliot Managment Corporation produced gains on an average of 14.6%, enormous compared to the percentages of yield on the developed markets. The New York Times in December of last year called him “one of the boldest hedge fund managers” of Wall Street, but said it is very difficult to get Singer to take on new clients. Someone that was lucky in that was the wife of Mitt Romney, Anne, that got Elliot to manage no less than US$1 million. The Argentine case is not the only one that Singer and his fund maintain in Africa. It’s at the point of knowing about a case in the courts of Congo-Brazzaville, on a default of US$32.6 million. The financier of the vulture fund bet on not entering an agreement for debt restructuring after a civil war. He sustains similar lawsuits open in Ivory Coast, Nicaragua and Turkmenistan.
Equally, Singer has a progressive side: he donated US$450,000 to a fund created by his son, Peter (a declared gay) in favor of marriage rights for homosexuals. He also gives money to the New York Food Bank for Poor Countries. Some of the countries to which the food goes are the same ones he is battling with to collect on all the debts bought by Elliot.
Clarin
The government is now betting it all on the judicial hearing
Thursday, October 25, 2012
In the midst of uncertainty over the future of the Frigate Libertad, the arrival last night of a charter plane with the crew members evacuated from it and while the government awaits the next judicial hearing in the African country, President Cristina Kirchner last night had an unplanned and even curious appearance in the conference hall of the Casa Rosada. Before a large representation of Cordoba local reporters, and in a climate of picture taking in which only autographs were missing, the President said that the reporters “should ask and not affirm” and criticized the big media. But when the national press wanted to ask about the Frigate Libertad, her expectations and the state of the negotiations, the President turned away and went quickly.
“There is only one class of journalism, the one that is done like you all, very crafty, communicating what you see, your own experience,” she idealized before the Cordobans that came with political candidates from the provincial south, to sign an agreement on construction of an agricultural gas pipeline that will benefit 7 localities. “And we have the other which is a business, journalistic companies with an economic objective,” Cristina said.
While the President avoided speaking of the Frigate, it was learned from diplomatic sources that the government is placing its expectations on the next hearing with Judge Richard Adjei-Frimpong. It’s that the political side was rapidly exhausted with the failed high level diplomatic mission sent by the government, which was not received by the Ghanaian president nor any high official.
The sources consulted by Clarin said that the government aimed “very high” in the UN Security Council, where the case was taken up as an incident and had offers of efforts from good offices. There was a positive reception from Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, but they think that doesn’t mean he can easily undo the issue, since it isn’t seen as an international conflict but an issue put forth in the judiciary of a sovereign country.
This absence of conflict is what explains the diplomatic conduct like no announcements from Mercosur, UNASUR or other countries, while various friends have been seeking to help by talking to Ghana about the situation.
La Nacion
Bondholders of Italy on the charge
Thursday, October 25, 2012
ACCRA, Ghana.- The group of Italian bondholders that Nicola Stock represents came out yesterday to throw darts against Argentina, accusing it of not paying the costs implicit in the dispute that it has maintained for years before the ICSID, the tribunal of the World Bank.
Clarin
Frigate Libertad: sovereignty is ceded and the debt is not reviewed
Thursday, October 25, 2012
By Fernando “Pino” Solanas
Many interpretations, blame and disclaimers are heard these days about the attachment of the Frigate Libertad and the clumsiness of officials, without it being said that the underlying cause that they don’t want to investigate for thirty years no is the foreign debt: all the bonds issued since 1976 include the clause of renouncing sovereign immunity, submitting our sovereignty to the courts of London or New York, which always have ruled against our rights.
The detention of the “Libertad” was ordered by American courts and the investment fund NML, one of the holders of bonds that fell outside the swap of 2005.
The kidnapping of our “Libertad” began withthe dictatorship of Videla and the modification of the first article of the Civil and Commercial Process Code, which extended natural Argentine jurisdiction in favor of foreign judges.
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea establishes immunity of war ships that are found on the high seas, but there is no explicit rule that protects them if the State itself doesn’t.
The betrayal of the “Libertad” was such that they tied Argentina to the US and British sovereign immunities laws, renouncing sovereign immunity when the contract was null or illegal.
Today there are more than US$11 billion in bonds in default and any holder can affect assets of Argentina abroad. Only the reserves of the Central Bank are excluded, assets of the country and assets that are abroad in public service without excluding commercial or war ships.
All the governments coming out of democracy don’t want to audit the debt and impugn the fraudulent credits to revoke the ceding of sovereignty. They limited themselves to undue defensive actions and continued paying with books closed.
Martínez de Hoz, father of the debt, couldn’t be condemned; the sentence from Judge Ballestero in the case of Alejandro Olmos showed that more than half of the debt that detained the “Libertad” is a swindle.
The government of Cristina Fernández, with a majority in the national Congress, has done nothing to recover sovereign immunity and has plugged up all of the bills – among them ours – to create an investigatory commission of legislators and national and international experts.
We will continue to have our “Libertad” attached, if the government doesn’t take up the investigation of fraudulent debt to denounce it before American courts. Far from contributing to the well-being of Argentines, it’s the biggest cause of impoverishment: from the dictatorship they’ve already paid US$270 billion.
Behind the capturing of our “Libertad” are the anglo-American interests. You don’t rescue anything with more renunciations because the vulture funds will continue to pursue us.
Argentina should reverse this defeat and begin to break the colonial spider web they’ve got us in: the ICSID, the agreements with Madrid on the Malvinas, the 53 treaties of reciprocity in investments, apply Law 26.659 and economic compensation.
The shameful decision of the President of the Nation to abandon “Libertad”, the insignia ship of the National Navy, harms the dignity of the Argentine people.
La Nacion
The legal and political paths to recovering the ship
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
By Juan Gabriel Tokatlian
Ace Anan Ankomah, attorney in Ghana, born in Tema and main partner of the firm Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa & Ankomah (located in Accra), set forth a judicial action invoking, among other things, the UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Assets of 2004 (still not in effect). He did it in the name of a company located in Cyprus, NML Capital. That is, a subsidiary of Elliott Capital Management, located in New York, founded by Paul Singer, and a member of the alliance of organizations gathered under the umbrella of American Task Force Argentina (ATFA), located in Arlington.
The judicial action taken by Ankomah was done to claim payment on bonds from the default and led to the detaining of the Frigate Libertad after a poorly planned and incomprehensibly approved crossing.
The legal action was brought forth in one of the most promising African democracies, in a country where Argentina has no embassy and is turning to weak judicial arguments. Ghana is not, as it has been said, “a fourth country”; it has been a friend of Argentina in the Malvinas cause and is a country where they can commit so many judicial mistakes like in any country with a division of powers. Argentina’s legal arguments are solid: the detention of the Frigate is arbitrary and illegal in light of international law and practices. However, the legal path to resolving the situation is finding, until now, some limits.
At the same time, NML and Elliott Capital Management are financial groups known as vulture funds, which invest in public debt of a weak or bankrupt country, refuse to negotiate when there are attempts to overcome the default and they plan to get huge profits through persistent attack derived, in part, from their unregulated economic power.
Elliott Capital Management won a case in New York against Banco Popular de Peru in 2000 and lost one against the Central Bank of Argentina in 2011. Paul Singer is a big contributor to the Republican Party and in 2011 he donated US$1 million to the campaign of Mitt Romney. For its part, ATFA has been distorting the presumed support of associations and people for its lobby, turning itself into, in fact, an instrument of pressure that favors unscrupulous interests. It’s worth pointing out that in 2009, California Rep. Maxine Waters, a Democrat, led – together with 34 other legislators – a bill called the Stop Vulture Funds Act, destined to halt the scandalous exploitation of the vulture funds. In short, these turbo-funds don’t always win their cases; it’s evident that some of their magnates actively support the Republicans, and it is then essential to comprehend the internal political game in the United States, as there are still important and powerful allies of Argentina.
Regarding the Frigate Libertad, there are two decisive questions. On one side, internal responsibility over what happened has situated on the Navy as part of the Defense Ministry: something that has not been questioned in civil society or the political parties, and it shows a minimum of agreement between official and opposition forces. On the other side, external measures have been taken like the evacuation of the Frigate and the holding of meetings in the UN by Foreign Minister Hector TImerman; decisions that merit more explanation.
The only objective that Argentina should have now is to recover the Frigate. It’s not advisable to contemplate as a tactical recourse the prolonging of the ship’s status in the port of Tema, as the greater erosion would be for Argentina. The only way out for this situation is political and that means not fighting against the government of Ghana, because its collaboration will be essential for a satisfactory end; to seek the more active support of other African countries and not just the Latin Americans; to have bridges to powerful actors, like the five permanent members of the Security Council, that, certainly, will not want what happened to the Argentine frigate to be a precedent for their war ships, and strengthen the national consensus around the Frigate Libertad, that is not just a ship from the Armed Forces or a ministry, but of the whole country.
Beyond this incident, Argentina will have to understand that to have an influential foreign policy it requires the three D’s: diplomacy, cash and defense constituting a basic tripod on which the foreign autonomy of a country always sits.
Ambito Financiero
“This will be long,” the government acknowledges about the Frigate
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
By Carlos Burgueño
A problem has emerged around Argentina’s strategy before the United Nations to resolve the conflict over the frigate Libertad: the first soundings of the Ghanaian government are not guaranteeing that the African country is agreeing to the case being resolved in international courts. The news arrived yesterday to the Argentine government as fruit of the first contacts with Accra on the part of UN officials.
Meanwhile, today it is expected that at 8:30pm part of the Libertad’s crew will arrive on an Air France charter flight. Another 45 sailors, including the captain, will remain in the port of Tema.
According to the view of men around Ban Ki-moon, who were promised on Monday to the national delegation that was led by Héctor Timerman, from Ghana it is still not considered that conditions are in place to discuss the release of the frigate before the UN. For this, it is first required that the judicial process end and that the third scale of Ghana’s courts end up resolving the situation of the Libertad. The case is today in the courtroom of Judge Richard Adjei Frimpong, who sided with the actions of the vulture fund MNL (sic) Elliot, according to Argentina’s view, in suspicious situations. Frimpong also was the one who acted against the survival of the crew of the frigate by ordering the cut-off part of the electrical and potable water supplies, which then brought Cristina de Kirchner’s decision to evacuate the ship.
The president ordered also to end efforts before the Ghanaian government of John Dramani Mahama by Vice Foreign Minister Eduardo Zuain and Vice Economy (sic) Minister Alfredo Forti, understanding from Buenos Aires that it was for questions of morality like how to speed up the processes of justice in the African country. It was also a way to also break the dialogue with Mahama’s leadership, which had agreed from the first moment to represent Argentina in the courtroom of Frimpong. This movement didn’t go down well in the African government, which in recent days closed ranks with the judge and began to diplomatically confront Argentina. Finally, yesterday the position became clearer, starting with the first responses that the permanent ambassador of Ghana to the UN gave, diplomat Ken Kanda. He warned, before the first moves of the good offices of Ki-moon’s colleagues, that Ghana has no instructions to accept an international case nor for its government to immediately resolve the release of the ship, until the judicial process is clarified and ended. It was specified that it’s not seen as a definitive position, but indeed a warning about the time that Argentina will have to accept if the resolution is to be made.
What Kanda made understood to the UN officials is that, at a minimum, the Mahama government should not be rushed. What that means for Argentina is that the wait for a resolution for the conflict over the release of the frigate wil be much longer than expected, and surely measured in years. Following the logic of the African country’s timing, first they have to await the resolution of the judicial process, something that Argentina will not be ready to be at the center of today, but then to agree to participation in the UN tribunals; specifically the commission of the Law of the Sea in Hamburg.
«It will be a long process», a veteran diplomat from the Foreign Ministry acknowledged yesterday to this newspaper, analyzing the seasonal possibilities of resolving the conflict at the diplomatic level. For this it will need to wait, and will be supported by the personal efforts of Ban Ki-moon, who has direct relations with the Mahama government. It must be considered that in this story, for the UN, Ghana plays a fundamental role in the stability of the continent, together with South Africa, the main actor in the African Union.
The chronological measuring over the evolution of the judicial conflict was what made Cristina de Kirchner to decide on Monday as a question of dignity, exclaiming that “while I am President, they could end up with the frigate.”
Meanwhile, from Argentina information is accumulating for supporting eventual judicial filings against Ghana to support the request for the ship’s release. Yesterday Hernan Lorenzino’s Economy Ministry was asked for rulings from American Judge Thomas Griesa about the battles with the Elliot fund of Peter (sic) Singer. It was considered that they could use two decisions from the New Yorker from recent times, where he rejected vulture fund requests to attach Argentine assets. The first is July 2010, where Griesa ruled out the chance of taking payments in the guaranteed loans from the Argentine government in an account in the U.S. in the Caja de Valores SA. Griessa (sic) said that these payments are not attachable, arguing that it would be a situation similar to “any asset” that has to do with the functioning of the Argentine government according to the application of the Law of Sovereign Immunities.
Closer in time, in February 2011, Griessa (sic) himself ruled in favor of Argentina rejecting a demand that sought to attach Enarsa funds. In this case, the rejection spoke of the impossibility to prove that those funds corresponded to Argentine state money. In the letter of the ruling it also said that private assets are not attachable, according to the sovereign immunity law. They are the same arguments in the original rulings by Griessa (sic), between 2006 and 2009) protecting the Argentine embassies, their belongings and assets, and any movable or immovable assets on which the country exercises its representational role abroad.
Argentina also has on the table the last ruling of Swiss justice, where funds of the Central Bank deposited in the Bank of Basel, destined to pay Argentine dividends and current spending, are not attachable.
With these judicial arguments, plus the articles of the declaration of the Law of the Sean and the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules concerning the Immunity of State-owned Vessels, Argentina believes that legally it has to win all of them to release the frigate. It only has to get the case from the Ghanaian courts, something that for now is reason for negotiation.
La Nacion
The investments by Romney’s wife
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
By Silvia Pisani
WASHINGTON.- The latest derivation of the sad case of the Frigate Libertad in this city is the new that Ann Romney, the wife of the Republican presidential aspirant, invested at least one million dollars in the speculative fund that managed to block the ship in Ghana.
"Ann Romney would be something like the lady of the Frigate,” said a Democratic strategist to LA NACION, revealing the content of an investigation that attributes that investment to the candidate’s wife.
The conjecture is that the investment of the eventual First Lady would be, in fact, an arm of Mitt Romney himself. All of this comes from a journalistic investigation done by the magazine, The Nation, one of the olders in this city. The article points to the financing of the Republican campaign and the ties between the world of finance and the candidate for Romney’s vice president, Paul Ryan.
On the list of donors appears Paul Singer, the millionaire of American origin, owner of Elliott Management, the fund that managed the judicial capture of the Frigate to pressure for the payment of US$1.6 billion in bonds in default. The article takes into account that the Republican campaign didn’t want to comment on the matter and never confirmed the amount of the operation.
Borderperiodismo
“Elliot means action,” A vulture in Libertad
Sunday, October 22, 2012
By Maria Julia Olivan
Elliot means action. With this – never more pertinent – description presented on the website of Elliot Management Corporation, which is the holding company of among others MNL (sic) Elliot, the vulture fund that got the attachment of the Frigate Libertad through the Ghana courts.
Elliot, also, means power. Imagine that its head, the American multimillionaire Paul Singer, managed to get the Ghanaian judge Richard Frimpong to rule in his favor, still when Argentina and Ghana are signatories of the Convention of the Law of the Sea of 1970.
What does one thing have to do with the other? That according to article 292 of the Convention, war ships and other state vessels that are destined to non-commercial ends are protected by sovereign immunityand, consequently, free of requisitions and attachment. And that is the main argument by which the government brought the case to the United Nations.
It is to say that Frimpong played ball for Singer.
Of course, there is a detail. The same Paul Singer is one of the wealthiest magnates in New York society with oily ties to the Republican Party and, in this year in particular, us one of the main donors to the campaign of candidate Mitt Romney. He’s also known as the top donor to the New York Police. And one of the main financiers of the campaign of mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Also of George W. Bush, in his presidential campaigns.
But for you to see that he also has his little heart, one must say that Singer has donated around US$10 million around the United States supporting campaigns in favor of equal marriage, which last year was approved in the State of New York. Ergo, Elliot also means money.
In 1977, Singer was 32 and had US$1.3 million from a “little cow” that he made among his friends and family. By then, he was a graduate of psychology at the University of Rochester and had a JD from Harvard.
Today, at 68, his holding company manages funds of more than US$16 billion. Meanwhile, he is presented as an investor and philanthropist, which has grown mostly from buying national debt bonds at rock bottom prices from almost-dead economies to then demand their nominal value of 100 cents before courts.
For that they are known as vulture funds.
They did it in Argentina, Peru, Vietnam and the Congo, to name a few cases. From Argentina US$650 million is demanded for bonds bought what the country entered into default in 2001. Singer remains very firm with Argentina even differentiating himself from the rest of the vulture funds that already renegotiated payment on bonds in default and make up the 93 percent of creditors.
One could write much more about Singer, Elliot and its particular manner of “investing” in the world when countries are on the verge of collapse.
Pero lo que me interesa aquí es resaltar que más allá de la falta de previsibilidad del gobierno argentino en definir la ruta de la fragata para evitar el embargo, el enemigo con el que se topó no es ningún bebé de pecho. Se mueve como pez en el agua en los tribunales de los Estados Unidos, inclusive en contra de su propio partido como cuando apoyó la ley de matronio igualitario.
But what interests me here is to highlight that, beyond the lack of predictability of the Argentine Government to determine the course of the frigate to avoid the attachment, the enemy it is up against is no suckling infant. He moves like a fish in waters of the courts of the United States, including against his own party by supporting the equal marriage law.
You’re going to say that in Ghana, Singer made a feast. For that suspicion, the Argentina has rejected paying US$20 million to release the frigate, which was imposed by Judge Frimpong , and is playing now in the United Nations.
The case has just begun.
The Washington Post
Thursday, October 25, 2012
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — They were supposed to sail the Argentine military’s signature tall ship into the port of Buenos Aires in full glory after a goodwill tour asserting the South American country’s place in the world.
Instead, hundreds of sailors had to abandon their frigate, evacuated on orders from President Cristina Fernandez, after the ARA Libertad was detained by a Ghanaian judge in a debt dispute.
MercoPress
Thursday, October 25, 2012
“We can see that the things a candidate says are like the ones that some say here about the social plans, that they are people who don't want to work,” Cristina Fernández said referring to Romney.
“Our way of thinking is similar to that of the current President” she continued, as she added: “Romney is more conservative, but obviously it’s up to the US people to decide”.
The Argentine president also complained that in the three debates between Romney and Obama, “Latinamerica had no relevant position in the discussions”.
MercoPress
Thursday, October 25, 2012
The vessel had to abandon the joint naval exercise Atlassur IX with South Africa, Brazil and Uruguay because of mechanical problems and was pulled to Simonstown where she is undergoing repairs that could demand two months.
According to Buenos Aires media, the Argentine embassy in Pretoria is aware of the situation and ready for an immediate legal reply if there is litigation with one of the funds under control of Paul Singer that successfully impounded the Argentine navy’s flagship ARA Libertad in Ghana where she remains retained.
MercoPress
Thursday, October 25, 2012
The specially chartered Air France Boeing 777 left Ghana mid afternoon with 279 seamen, of which “a fraction are crew members of the training vessel plus all cadets from the Navy and Army schools and all national and international guests”, said a brief release from the Argentine Navy.
Stranded for three weeks because the vessel was impounded by NML Capital, which demands payment of Argentine sovereign bonds, the seamen left the port of Tema for the airport of Kokota in nine buses heavily escorted while 44 crewmembers and the captain remain for the maintenance of the flagship of the Argentine navy.
BBC News
Thursday, October 25, 2012
The nearly 300 sailors flew back on board an Air France plane chartered by the Argentine government.
A skeleton crew is staying on board the three-masted Libertad to maintain it.
The ship was stopped from leaving Ghana after a local court ruled in favour of a US hedge fund that says it is still owed money by the Argentine government.
The Foundry
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
By James M. Roberts
It’s Spring Break in Argentina, and tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets to protest the policies of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Argentineans are angry—about rising crime, corruption, and the virtual ban her government has imposed on the purchase of foreign currencies as it attempts to stanch the increasing capital flight induced by out-of-control government spending and expropriation of private companies. Members of Argentina’s coast guard and military have joined the protests, while teachers have gone on strike demanding back wages.
Continuing her campaign of provocation and harassment of Great Britain over U.K. sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, Fernández de Kirchner’s government recently banned British ships from docking in Argentina.
Prensa Latina
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Buenos Aires, Oct 24 (Prensa Latina) After being held for three weeks at the Ghanaian Port of Tema, 281 crewmembers from the Argentine navy frigate Libertad, will arrive tonight here in a specially chartered evacuation flight.
The decision to evacuate all domestic and foreign crew in order to preserve their integrity and dignity was made last Saturday by President Cristina Fernandez, who also ordered that only the captain and 44 crew members be left on board to take care of the ship.
In a written statement, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman stressed that the court ruling in Ghana ordering the detention of the ship not only violated international treaties, but also put at risk the human rights of the 326 crew members aboard.
Reuters
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
By Guido Nejamkis
BUENOS AIRES, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Argentina aims to increase investment in local stocks and bonds by discarding a regulation that said financial instruments issued in the country must carry a rating, Finance Secretary Adrian Cosentino said on Wednesday.
The proposed reform, intended to steer investment toward Argentina's productive sector, comes as the government of the South American country stepped up its criticism of Wall Street ratings agencies that grade the soundness of investments.
Argentina, which a decade ago staged the biggest sovereign debt default in history, has sought this year to combat capital flight by barring people from buying the U.S. dollars that have long served as the investment of choice for local savers.
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