Frigate Libertad:
Clarin: “Cristina: ‘They could end up with the Frigate, but now with liberty”
El Cronista: ““They could end up with the Frigate, not with liberty””
La Nacion: “Argentina found no solution at the UN for the Frigate”
MercoPress: “ARA Libertad: Argentine president pledges to never yield to ‘vulture’ funds”
MercoPress: “UN Security Council says ARA Liberated incident does not endanger world peace”
The Raw Story: “Argentina calls for international help over seized ship”
The Power and the Money: “Argentina v. Ghana, Round 1½”
Buenos Aires Hearld: “Argentina won’t kneel down before ‘vulture funds,’ says Cabinet Chief’
The Wall Street Journal: “Crew of Argentina navy ship ‘free to leave’ Ghana”
Business Insider: “Argentina’s Throwing a Tantrum Over Ship Detained in Ghana”
Reuters: “UPDATE 1- Argentina in diplomatic offensive at UN over seized ship”
Reuters: “Seized Argentine tall ship’s crew to start leaving Ghana”
Legal Brief Today: “Bid to get Ghana to answer to UN over seized frigate”
Buenos Aires Herald: “They might retain the Frigate, but will not retain our country’s sovereignty”
FIN Alternatives: “Argentina Evacuates Ship, Blasts Elliott”
Prensa Latina: “Frigate Libertad Crew to Arrive Wednesday in Argentina”
IOL News: “Ghana-held frigate’s crew to be repatriated”
· Cristina’s comments over national broadcast about the Ghana situation came during an announcement from the Casa Rosada on a reform of the insurance regulatory system, which will now oblige insurance companies to invest part of their holdings in infrastructure projects. She also said she would be sending a bill to Congress to reform the capital markets in Argentina, putting much greater government control over the market while opening it up more to small and individual investors. Reaction was mixed to her announcements, with criticism that the local capital market is already one of the smallest in the region with little incentive to invest and the changes wouldn’t change that without broader reforms.
Argentine Economy/Business:
Buenos Aires Herald: “Buenos Aires Stocks Edge Down”
Bloomberg: “Argentina to Toughen Market Rules in Bid to Spark Investment”
Reuters: “Argentina to force insurers to invest to boost economy”
The Wall Street Journal: “Fitch: Argentina Rating Already Includes Risks Like Chaco Bond Payment”
Buenos Aires Herald: “CFK announces modifications in insurance companies’ regime”
· El Cronista reports that the electrical company Transener’s corporate bonds have hit a high of 31% yield, part of a wider trend in the debt market for Argentine risk as part of the “Chaco effect”, as companies are being hammered by the market’s risk perception after the Chaco provincial debt pesification.
Cristina Kirchner/Argentine Politics:
BBC: “Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez faces testing times”
Economist: “Argentine Politics: Young guns”
· Clarin reports that one year after her crushing 54.11% election victory, Cristina’s approval rating in a new Management & Fit poll is down to 33.2%, compared with 37% in a Poliarquia poll. In the past year she has also lost many key political allies: Hugo Moyano has joined the opposition with his labor faction, and governors Scioli and De la Sota are mounting their own plans for the future.
· Pagina/12 continues its almost daily crusade to drum Arturo Puricelli out of the cabinet, with another article by Horacio Verbitsky claiming to document how the Defense minister personally signed off on the change of itinerary from Nigeria to Ghana.
· AF reports that the dissident Peronist leadership (de Narvaez, Moyano, de la Sota, Rodriguez Saa) are aiming at bringing Macri back to the table after the November 8 cacerolazo protest, to again attempt to forge an opposition alliance for the 2013 elections, now that the FAP and UCR have already joined forces.
Global Relations:
Reuters: “CORRECTED-Mexico seeks WTO panel over trade dispute with Argentina”
· El Cronista reports that Mexico has advanced to the next stage of trade complaint against Argentina at the WTO, now requesting a review panel on their complaint. The US, the EU and Japan are following behind with their own complaints, the article notes.
JORGE ARGUELLO on Twitter and Blog:
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TRENDING TOPICS/ARGENTINA on Twitter:
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Clarin
Cristina: “They could end up with the Frigate, but not with liberty”
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
By Ana Baron
“While I am President, they could end up with the Frigate, but no ‘vulture fund’ nor anyone will end up with the liberty, sovereignty and the dignity of this country,” Cristina Kirchner said yesterday at an event in the Bicentennial Museum, which was transmitted over a national broadcast.
It was a new reference by the President to the crisis over the request for attachment from a U.S. investment fund against the Frigate Libertad, which remains detained in Ghana since October 2. Faced with a gloomy outlook for the Argentine complaint in the Ghana courts to release the teaching vessel, Cristina ordered the “immediate” evacuation of the crew of the ship on Saturday, and most of them will arrive tomorrow in Buenos Aires. Cristina had begun to refer to the issue by saying “these days” she’d seen “very few that defend the ‘vulture funds’ that are violating all of the rules of international law and attach our Frigate, believing that they’re going to pressure or extort the country.”
Yesterday, in New York, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who committed to exercise his good offices to find a solution to the detention of the Frigate in the port of Tema. But all indications are that the judicial route will continue to be more important than the diplomatic or political ones. At the end of the meeting, Timerman announced to the press that Argentina had appealed already to the ruling which Judge Richard Adjei-Frimpong established in the Superior Court of Ghana on October 11 that the detention of the Frigate in the Port of Tema was legal. The minister reiterated that Argentina will exhaust judicial options in Ghana, before eventually bringing the case to the International Court of Justice of the Hague and the G-20.
Timerman dismissed in the most emphatic terms a negotiation with the vulture funds, whom he called 21st century pirates. “Argentina will not negotiate with the vulture funds not now and not ever,” he said. “A vulture fund could never appropriate property of the Argentine government and we will not allow the vulture funds, which today are the pirates of the 21st century, trying to do what the pirates of the 17th or 18th century did, which is to demolish the sovereignty of a country or a city,” he added.
The foreign minister used an example of decisions established in favor of Argentina in the United States, France, Germany and Switzerland. He recalled the attempt by these funds to attach a satellite that Argentina launched with NASA. Also the case in Switzerland, where they tried to attach Argentine deposits in the Bank of Basel. Last week the Supreme Court was favorable to Argentina. “The Frigate will be released, sooner or later,” he promised, and reserved the harshest words for Paul Singer, owner of NML, the fund that asked for the attachment. Singer took advantage of the bankruptcy of a country to buy cheap debt and then always demand total value in the courts.
Report: Ana Barón. Washington.
El Cronista
“They could end up with the Frigate, not with liberty”
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
By Sebastian Inurrieta
The augury of a favorable resolution to the scandalous attachment of the Frigate Libertad in Ghana – after the express-run by Foreign Minister Hector Timerman through the United Nations (UN) – hours later they countered from the Casa Rosada itself with a more gloomy prediction. “While I am President they could end up with the Frigate put no vulture fund or no one will end up with the liberty, dignity and sovereignty of this country,” said Cristina Fernández de Kirchner by national broadcast. After three weeks since the attachment, it was the first explicit mention by the president on the detention of the teaching vessel in the port of Tema from a judicial complaint from a group of international creditors that didn’t enter the debt swap.
In line with what Timerman denounced earlier in the UN, a reiteration of the official complaints on the weekend, the head of State charged from the Bicentennial Museum against the vulture funds, accusing them of violating “all the international rules” and “extorting and pressuring the country” by attaching the historic frigate.
After a round of accusations crossing between the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry in the search for those to blame, Cristina Kirchner appealed to patriotic rhetoric to avoid mentioning the internal buck-passing within the government. “She took the problem generated from within and not only blamed the vulture funds but, also, turned it into a national fight,” they celebrated last night in an official office.
The presidential challenge came hours after Timerman’s turn in New York and a series of meetings that didn’t manage to reach expectations. At the end, the Foreign Minister let it be known that Argentina will take the complaint to the G-20. “They have to put an end to the actions of some pirates that are operating from tax shelters dedicated to assaulting sovereign countries,” he said. He also said that in Ghana “they were happy that the ship is there.”
The Argentine delegation started a round of demands with the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon. Without mentioning his “good offices” to intercede in the conflict with Ghana to which Timerman appealed after the meeting, a statement from the organization was limited to stating that the official “showed his hope that both governments address the issue in a bilateral manner.”
Before the Security Council it wasn’t better: its president, Gert Rosenthal, replied that he can’t take up the “incident” of the frigate because the case doesn’t “threaten world peace.”
For its part, the rescue operation for the crew, announced on the weekend, already has a date. As speculated, for fear of a new attachment, the government avoided sending a national airplane for the evacuation of the 281 crew members (the captain together with the 44 other sailors will stay on board for maintenance tasks). The Foreign Ministry reported yesterday that a special flight was contracted from Air France that will take off tomorrow at 8:00pm.
La Nacion
Argentina found no solution at the UN for the Frigate
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
By Rafael Mathus Ruiz
NEW YORK.- Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman had arrived in New York hard pressed for finding a UN solution for the scandal that tied the Frigate Libertad to the port of Tema, Ghana. He had success in getting a meeting in record time with the highest staff of the Secretary General, Security Council and Assembly of the organization. However, the result of the conversations was not very encouraging. He only got a diplomatic commitment, but not an underlying solution for the problem.
The foreign minister and the leaders of the organization said that it will be the courts, and not efforts from the organization, which will end up releasing the Frigate. An acknowledgement of the bet on a way out through pressuring the UN was not sufficient. The same idea seemed to be in the air when he said he’d take the complaint to the G-20 and the IMF.
In fact, last night, President Cristina Kirchner, by national broadcast, gave a pessimistic slant to the recovery of the ship detained in Ghana for the last 20 days. “While I am President, they could end up with the Frigate, but not with the liberty, dignity and sovereignty of the country,” said the head of State during an event at the Casa Rosada.
The President complained, without specifics, of “some who defend the vulture funds believing that they are going to extort us,” and said that she will not renounce her convictions.
"You have to put up with what you have to put up with to defend the interests of the Argentine people,” she added, in reference to her refusal to pay the bail bond imposed by a Ghana court after it sided with the complaint from a vulture fund that demands payment of the Argentine state’s debt.
In this way, the President confirmed her decision to not negotiate a way out via the economic route, like had been offered by the attorneys for the fund NML-Elliott Capital Management.
The intervention of the President came after the cold reception that the government’s complaint received at the UN. “We’ve appealed the decision of the judge, and we have said that while we we will exhaust all legal recourses in Ghana, we reserve the right to turn to the international courts,” said Timerman.
He said that just after ending his meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. He also met with the president of the Security Council, Gert Rosenthal of Guatemala, and the president of the General Assembly, Vuk Jeremic of Serbia.
Ban offered his “good offices” to intervene with Ghana, a habitual diplomatic effort. “The secretary general expressed the hope that both governments will find a way to address the matter in a bilateral manner, in conformity to international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which Argentina and Ghana have both signed,” a statement said.
Rosenthal was more elusive, putting forth in talking to the press that the problem between the two countries is not an issue that corresponds to Security Council treatment.
"This case doesn’t precisely threaten world peace,” he said, invoking the main concern of the most important body of the UN. “But, saying that, it does correspond to the respect for international law and that is an issue that concerns us greatly,” he said to moderate the impact of his words.
"Thank you for meeting with us at such short notice,” Timerman said to Jeremic, just as the meeting began where he was accompanied, as in the rest of the meetings, by Argentina’s ambassador in Washington, Jorge Arguello, and the new ambassador to the UN, María Cristina Perceval.
But the Serb only expressed his good will for “helping both parties reach a solution to the issue,” and “emphasized the need that all member states comply fully with their obligations in virtue of international law.”
The government have a high profile to Timerman’s visit. Before the Argentine and foreign media he charged against the vulture fund Elliott Management and its founder: “Ghana is not the problem for Argentina. The problem for Argentina is Mr. Paul Singer.”
With that phrase, Timerman took a little of the attention off the African country, who he’d earlier accused of violating international treaties – the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and another, from 1926, which protects the immunity of war ships – the key point in the legal dispute that keeps it stranded in the Frigate.
Elliott Management argues that Argentina renounced that right and that, as such, the Frigate is attachable. Timerman, who leaned on the favorable rulings that the country achieved in the United States, Germany, France and Switzerland, said that it never renounced that immunity.
Time and again, the foreign minister said that Argentina never will negotiate with the vulture funds, whom he called the “pirates of the 21st century” who operate from “tax shelters” like the Cayman Islands.
The nexus of Romney with the vulture fund
Paul Singer, the Wall Street man that brought his fight with Argentina to the courts of Ghana, is a person close to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Yesterday, LA NACION asked Foreign Minister Hector Timerman if the government was concerned about those ties, as Romney could become the next president of the United States. “If I were an American, it would concern me. It seems that to have an adviser like Paul Singer doesn’t indicate that he’s a person in favor of development,” he said.
MercoPress
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
“As long as I'm the President, they might retain the Frigate, but the freedom, dignity and sovereignty of this country will not be retained by any vulture fund” said Cristina Fernandez on Monday during the nationwide broadcast from Government House.
The Argentine president questioned the vulture funds that initiated the conflict in Ghana, and said they ”believed they were going to put pressure on the country“ by applying this measure.
”What we went through these past days brings a lot of pain, and I say it as an Argentine citizen,“ the President assured over the conflict.
MercoPress
Monday, October 22, 2012
“We had a very interesting discussion on the incident. I told the Foreign Minister that he and I know that the Security Council’s business is keeping world peace and security and this case does not precisely endanger world peace”, said Ambassador Rosenthal from Guatemala the rotating president of the Security Council.
However, “said this, if the incident involves complying with international law, it is an issue of great concern, not so much as for the Security council as for the country member of the UN. Clearly there is an international law problem which affects Argentina, but also the rest of the planet’s countries”
The Power and the Money
Monday, October 22, 2012
The Argentines are going to fly their sailors home ... on an Air France plane. The reason is obvious: they are nervous that Ghanaian courts would just seize any Argentine aircraft!
It looks like the Ghanaian port authorities are going to move the Libertad. It’s clogging up a needed berth, costing the port $3,667 per day. To be fair, that is a lot less than the $50,000 that the Libertad is currently paying in docking fees ... well, that Argentina is ratcheting up in fees. I suspect that Argentina isn’t actually paying them. After all, it has stated that it is going to claim those fees in damages in the suit it plans to file against Ghana at the U.N. Law of the Sea Tribunal in Hamburg.
Buenos Aires Herald
Monday, October 22, 2012
Cabinet Chief Juan Manuel Abal Medina came on stage today to warn that “vulture funds will never see Argentina kneeled down before their decisions”, in a straight message to US-based fund that issued a lawsuit in Ghana and achieved to detain Libertad navy training frigate.
During an international seminar held at the University of Buenos Aires’ Economics School, the official told reporters that “the President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was already very clear about it when she said that we are not going to accept any blackmailing from vulture funds.”
The Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
The crew of a Argentina naval frigate detained for three weeks near Accra over a bond dispute can leave Ghana, a Ghanaian official said Tuesday, after Buenos Aires announced plans to evacuate most of the sailors on board.
Argentina's foreign ministry said on Monday an Air France plane had been chartered to collect 281 crew members of the Libertad, while 44 others would stay on board.
Argentina said the sailors are expected to arrive in Buenos Aires at 2300 GMT on Wednesday, but it was not immediately clear when the chartered flight would leave Ghana.
Business Insider
Monday, October 22, 2012
By Afua Hirsch and Uki Goni
Crew members on the Argentinian naval ship ARA Libertad, which has been impounded in the port of Tema in Ghana, have been ordered to fly home as the diplomatic crisis over the vessel's future looks set to intensify.
The 281 crew members – from Brazil, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, Suriname, Venezuela, Uruguay and Chile, as well as Argentina – will return to Buenos Aires on a chartered Air France flight on Wednesday, while the most senior officers and a skeleton crew will remain aboard.
Meanwhile, the Argentinian and Ghanaian governments are holding talks to attempt to circumvent a court ruling that gives a US-based vulture fund, NML Capital, the right to sell the 50-year-old frigate unless Argentina settles a $370m (£231m) debt.
Legal Brief Today
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Argentina plans to haul Ghana before the UN over the seizure this month of one of its warships.
'The President (Cristina Kirchner) has instructed the Foreign Minister to travel immediately to UN headquarters,' said Foreign Minister Hector Timerman. Kirchner said all those aboard the ship should be evacuated immediately, 'leaving on board only the captain and a skeleton crew to take care of it while it remains held' in the Ghanaian port of Tema.
Reuters
Monday, October 22, 2012
By Louis Charbonneau and Kwasi Kpodo
UNITED NATIONS/ACCRA, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Argentina's foreign minister launched a diplomatic offensive in New York on Monday, urging top U.N. officials to pressure Ghana to release an Argentine naval training vessel seized after creditors won a court order to keep the ship in port.
Foreign Minister Hector Timerman's appearance at U.N. headquarters came as sailors from the detained ship prepared to leave Ghana after spending weeks in dockside limbo, a government official said in Accra.
The ARA Libertad, a tall sailing ship with a crew of more than 300, has been detained in Ghana's port of Tema since Oct. 2 on a court order obtained by NML Capital Ltd, which claims Argentina owes it $300 million from defaulted bonds.
Reuters
Monday, October 22, 2012
By Kwasi Kpodo
ACCRA, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Sailors on an Argentine naval training vessel detained in Ghana by creditors will begin leaving the country on Tuesday after spending weeks in dockside limbo, a government official said on Monday.
The ARA Libertad, a tall sailing ship with a crew of more than 300, has been detained in Ghana's port of Tema since Oct. 2 on a court order obtained by NML Capital Ltd, which claims Argentina owes it $300 million in defaulted bonds.
Buenos Aires Herald
Monday, October 22, 2012
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner referred to the conflict with Ghana over the detention of the Libertad frigate in the African country, during a nationwide broadcast speech.
"As long as I'm the President, they might retain the Frigate, but the freedom, dignity and sovereignty of this country will not be retained by any vulture fund," the Head of State assured.
She questioned the vulture funds that initiated the conflict in Ghana, she said they "believed they were going to put pressure on the country" by applying this measure.
FIN Alternatives
Monday, October 22, 2012
An Argentina naval vessel impounded at a hedge fund's behest still can't leave Ghana, but most of its crew can.
Most of the 326 people aboard the Argentine navy's flagship, the ARA Libertad, are to leave the ship and the West African country, where they have been stuck since the beginning of the month. Argentina has chartered an Air France flight to bring some 281 crew members, primarily navy cadets, back to Argentina, choosing the French carrier reportedly because it feared its own planes could be seized themselves upon arrival in Ghana.
The Libertad will remain in the hands of a skeleton crew and its captain and Argentina seeks to win its release while refusing to give in to Elliott Management, which won the seizure through an affiliate.
Prensa Latina
Monday, October 22, 2012
Buenos Aires, Oct 22 (Prensa Latina) The 281 crew of the Argentine School Frigate Libertad, illegally withheld in the port of Tema, Ghana, will arrive in Buenos Aires this Wednesday.
Argentinaâ�Ös Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Religion says the government chose to evacuate the vessel since the Ghanaian Justice verdict violates the international Laws and exposes the crewâ�Ös safety denying the necessary provisions to a docking ship, says the source.
The announcement underlines that just the shipâ�Ös Captain and 44 sailors will remain aboard to guarantee maintenance through the illegal detention.
IOL New
Monday, October 22, 2012
Buenos Aires - Most of the crew of an Argentine navy frigate being held in Ghana in a financial dispute will be repatriated Wednesday, the foreign ministry said Monday.
The government has chartered a flight to bring home 281 sailors. The captain of the ship called the Libertad and 44 crew members will remain on board, a ministry statement said.
Foreign sailors among the crew will be included in those flown home from Africa. They are from Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, Ecuador, South Africa and Venezuela.
Buenos Aires Herald
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Buenos Aires stocks were lower in today's trading. The Merval benchmark stock index edged down 2.61 percent to 2,392.84 points.
The abrupt fall comes a day after President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner unveiled the government’s National Strategic Insurance Plan yesterday in her 19th national broadcast of 2012.
The President described the project as the “turning of a page for the destination of insurance firms’ funds,” and claimed that “7 million pesos” would be gained from now until May 31 next year, serving as a cash “injection” for “production and infrastructure works.”
Bloomberg
Monday, October 22, 2012
By Camila Russo
Argentina’s government plans to toughen securities regulations including increasing the role of the state in rating credit risk and requiring insurers to invest more in productive and infrastructure projects.
Speaking in a televised national address today, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said her government will submit a bill to Congress that will force insurance companies to raise their investments in projects to 7 billion pesos ($1.48 billion) next year from the current 88 million pesos.
Reuters
Monday, October 22, 2012
BUENOS AIRES, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Argentine President Cristina Fernandez said on Monday insurers would have to invest some of their funds in production and infrastructure projects as she seeks to boost sluggish economic growth.
Latin America's No. 3 economy grew a sizzling 8.9 percent in 2011 but growth has slowed sharply this year due to sluggish global conditions, slackening demand from top trade partner Brazil, and the impact of surging costs at home.
The Argentina Independent
Monday, October 22, 2012
By Lottie Fisher
Foreign Affairs Minister Héctor Timerman is due today to begin talks with the United Nations in New York with aims to release the frigate Libertad which is currently being held in Ghana in disputes over Argentina’s debt defaults.
The foreign affairs minister has been sent by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to meet with the president of the UN Security Council, Gert Rosenthal, to discuss the Argentine navy training frigate which has been seized in the port of Tema in the west African country.
Rosenthal made a statement earlier today on the meeting: “We had a conversation about this incident. I spoke to the minister and he also knows that the Security Council is concerned with the maintenance of world peace and security and that this case is not exactly threatening world peace.” However, he continued, “this is an issue which concerns us very much, not only as the Security Council but as a UN member country; clearly there is a problem of international law affecting and threatening not only Argentina but every country in the world.”
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