The World Bank has warned that the pandemic is reinforcing gender inequality in many countries, with women on average having roughly three-quarters of the legal rights of men, a situation that risks undermining global development. Covid-19 has exacerbated women’s challenges in employment and education, the bank said in its annual report on Women, Business and … Read more
President Alberto Fernández held a long-trailed meeting with representatives from the Mesa de Enlace this week, as he sought to lower tensions with Argentina’s powerful agricultural sector. Both sides emerged from the meeting at the Casa Rosada seemingly content, with the 90-minute meeting serving to cool temperatures. Following a series of disagreements over export levies … Read more
Former president Carlos Menem, the Peronist leader who led the nation for a decade, died at a hospital in Buenos Aires on Sunday at the age of 90. The ex-leader’s death and sitting senator’s was confirmed by the Télam state news agency and a host of other media outlets. Menem had been hospitalised several times in recent … Read more
The income chasm between the rich and poor in Latin America, dramatically exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, has led to efforts to tax the wealthy – though the reception has been uneven across various countries. The Latin American Network for Economic and Social Justice describes the region as “the most unequal in the world in terms … Read more
One of Argentina’s largest creditor groups have slammed the government, criticising the “erratic” policies of the Alberto Fernández administration and accusing it of dragging its feet during debt talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The comments come just five months after the Ad Hoc Group of Argentina Exchange Bondholders agreed to sign up for … Read more
Latin America and the Caribbean, the region where the coronavirus caused the worst economic destruction and more than a quarter of the world’s deaths, is now falling victim to a slow inoculation campaign. Political fights and production bottlenecks are stymieing Brazil’s vaccination efforts. Mexico is struggling to source doses as its death toll surpasses India’s. … Read more
The G7 promised Friday to ramp up health funding for poorer nations amid accusations they are hoarding coronavirus vaccines, as France and the United Kingdom vowed to donate vaccines to those without them. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, this year’s chair of the G7, vowed to free up any surplus UK vaccines for poorer countries … Read more
Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, appointed an Army reserve general to lead state-owned energy giant Petrobras, after criticising several successive increases in the price of fuel. “The government decided to appoint Joaquim Silva e Luna to fulfill a new mission, as… president of Petrobras, after closing the cycle, exceeding two years, of the current president … Read more
Argentine banks took a beating last year, and the nation’s biggest lender says the industry is at risk of a repeat performance. While bad loans and government regulations were the main culprits in 2020, rising inflation will be added to the list this year, according to Fabián Kon, chief executive officer of Banco Galicia, Argentina’s … Read more
The Alberto Fernández administration has found itself locked once again in Argentina’s usual conundrum: how to tame inflation while winning elections. The contradiction gives rise to a series of readymade, but obscure, pieces of jargon including “el dólar como ancla inflacionaria” (“using the dollar as an anchor for inflation”), “atraso cambiario” (“exchange rate retardation”), “vivir … Read more