The global climate crisis has made the debate about the ways food is produced and consumed around the world ever more urgent, with agribusiness at its centre. In response, agroecology – a method that replaces chemical pesticides with bio-inputs and genetically-modified seeds with organic equivalents – has expanded in countries such as Argentina. In 2016, … Read more
Carlos Menem, the former president whose economic policies quashed hyperinflation during the 1990s but sowed the seeds for what became the largest debt default in history, has died. He was 90. Local newspaper La Nación reported Menem’s death. He had been in frail health for some time. Menem will lie in state in the Senate until … Read more
The coronavirus pandemic will set back the participation of Latin American women in the labour market by a decade, according to a United Nations report published on Wednesday. The rate of women in employment in the region dropped from 52 percent in 2019 to 46 percent in 2020, said the assessment by the UN Economic … Read more
Congress on Thursday passed almost unanimously a new law making parliamentary approval mandatory before signing any debt agreements, including with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with whom the government is currently renegotiating the payment of major loan. The bill, already approved by the Senate last November, was only opposed by the two FIT leftist deputies … Read more
Latin America’s economic recovery faces risks from failure to stop the spread of the coronavirus and the need for new lockdown measures, according to the International Monetary Fund. The region’s full recuperation is a long way off, IMF officials including Western Hemisphere Director Alejandro Werner wrote in a blog post published Monday. Output won’t return … Read more
Argentina’s inflation rate shows no sign of decreasing. The INDEC national statistics bureau reported Thursday that prices rose by four percent in January, equal to the rate registered in December. Telecommunications and food prices were among the products accelerating the quickest, the data watchdog said. The news will do little to dampen fears that Argentines … Read more
President Alberto Fernández is threatening farmers with a tax hike or quota for exports as he seeks relief for families grappling with inflation that’s forecast to reach 47 percent this year. If the farm industry continues to sell food at home for the same prices at which it exports, the government will take matters into … Read more
The International Monetary Fund risks having to renegotiate its second multi-billion dollar loan in Latin America in as many years following Ecuador’s presidential election. The candidates who likely advanced to a runoff vote in the Andean country, Andrés Arauz and Yaku Pérez, have both criticised the tax increases and spending cuts required as part of … Read more
Argentina’s goal to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund on a new programme by May 2021 is an ambitious timeline, according to the the Fund’s Western Hemisphere Director Alejandro Werner. “I don’t see it as unviable, but clearly it’s an ambitious date,” Werner said Monday during a virtual IMF press briefing. “The Argentine authorities … Read more
THE WEEK IN CORONAVIRUS There were 1,915,362 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 47,775 deaths at press time yesterday as against 1,853,830 cases and 46,575 deaths the previous Friday. Last weekend Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner received her Sputnik V jab in Avellaneda, not from any ordinary nurse or doctor but from no less than Buenos … Read more